Despite losing Aaliyah at the first tribal council, Devin has been able to recover and find himself in a new alliance. The ‘vibe five,’ consisting of Brady, Devin, Jelly, Mike, and Patt, makes up half of the yellow Toka tribe. However, after a crazy sequence of events that involves an accidental mutiny, horrible puzzle performance, and weaponized honesty from Devin, another one of his allies is voted out and he finds himself on the bottom… yet again.
A Failed Med Evac
After Rob tried and failed to invent a new Survivor strategy, using your own idol to save your enemy and get yourself voted out, he comes back to the purple Savu tribe on the bottom. While Eric now feels much more comfortable in the tribe and Ori, also on the wrong side on the vote, was told by his close ally Sharonda that Ana was going home, Rob was completely in the dark. The only other person in the same boat is Carter.
Alongside being in emotional pain from homesickness, Rob is apparently also now in physical pain, feeling sharp pangs in his foot. He claims to have had these pains since day 3, but now it is at a point where he can’t take it anymore. Doctor Joe arrives to the Savu camp the next morning, along with Jeff Probst. He examines Rob’s foot, but only finds a small cut and tells Rob that he is clear to continue. However, Rob is still worried about infection, which Doctor Joe tells him there’s always a risk of. Rob makes the possibly difficult decision of quitting the game for his injury. When he tells his tribe the unfortunate news, none of them really buy it, with Kristin saying that she’s playing this game with a broken foot while he’s leaving because of a tiny cut. Nobody is too bothered by Rob’s exit, and his only ally, Carter, is even happy, as Rob gave him his idol before he left. I guess production must have changed their minds about not letting people give their idols to someone else before leaving!
Rob Antonson: Funniest Quitter of All Time
Plenty of people have crapped on Rob already, so I’m not going to add onto that. Instead, I’m going to be positive and praise Rob for giving us one of the funniest 3-episode arcs in Survivor history. He comes out strong and successfully puts a target on Eric. He is so adamant on voting Eric out for those first two episodes, up until the last hours before tribal, when he has a change of heart. He decides he’s going to try to save Eric and make a huge bang by sacrificing himself for him. Eric thinks he’s full of crap when he tells him this, and at tribal council, his plan falls apart and amounts to nothing. After failing, he finally reveals he’s actually been injured this whole time and quits the game, with nobody on his tribe caring. In exit press, he doubles down and says he really was injured and that his exit should be classified as a med evac. Many will be frustrated that he quit the game, but I don’t have a problem with it, as he gave us plenty of entertainment and then quit in hilarious fashion.
An Accidental Mutiny
Anything is on the table in the open era! The mutiny, most known for its impact on Cook Islands, is back, but instead of giving everyone the opportunity to mutiny, each tribe must send one person to the other camp. Only the two people sent away will know they have the opportunity to mutiny AND find a hidden advantage. It’s an interesting twist on the mutiny and just like in Cook Islands, this mutiny could have major ramifications for the rest of Survivor 51…
Carter is Savu’s representative, chosen by random draw, while Devin is Toka’s representative, a volunteer. When Devin and Carter find out about their chance to mutiny, Devin doesn’t even consider it for a second while Carter considers it, knowing he’s on the bottom of his tribe. While at Savu beach, Devin decides that he’s going to paint a target on Kilby. Why Kilby? Because Kilby had talked about Brady being dumb and a pawn to Patt, who told the vibe five about it. Although he’s still wary of Jenna, Devin now has his suspicions about Kilby as a chaos-maker. Now is the golden opportunity to drive his name into the dirt to the other tribe. After doing that, he gets to looking for the advantage, which is hidden in the water ladle. He goes to “refill” his water bottle with Sharonda, and once at the water well, tells her there’s an advantage inside the ladle. She is able to help him find the advantage, which turns out to be an extra vote. This is perhaps the only good play Devin makes this episode, as it resolidifies his alliance with Sharonda. Devin decides to keep this completely secret from everyone besides Sharonda, even hiding it from his allies.
At Toka beach, Carter spends a lot of his time chatting with the Savu members at their shelter. He briefly leaves and Lewis takes this opportunity to search through his bag, telling his tribemates, who agree. They find the note that has both information about the mutiny and the advantage information. With Carter still gone, everyone scrambles to find the advantage, which is hidden somewhere on the water oars. Brady smashes the oars open, hoping to find it, but to no avail. Maggie has a similar idea, and they smash the oars together. Maggie then figures out where it is and tells Brady, who smashes the oar and gets the advantage. She instantly regrets telling him and persists in telling Brady to give her the advantage. Eventually, he gives in, but tells her that she has to vote the way he wants to. Funnily enough, she breaks that promise by the end of the episode.
As for Carter, he is completely clueless about what just happened, continuing to have conversations as if nothing happened. While talking with Jenna, he hears the boat bell, signifying that he must get in the boat if he wants to go back to Savu. He tells Jenna he has to go and tries to catch the boat, but hastily tries searching for the stolen advantage as the boat waits. It leaves, and Carter realizes he is now a member of Toka, the first 11-person tribe in Survivor history.
An Irish and an American Farmboy + Thien An’s Genevieve Moment
Due to his late entry, Lewis has been worried about being on the bottom of his tribe. However, Carter becoming the newest addition to the Toka tribe completely changes everything. So, after Toka blows a huge lead at the immunity challenge, he decides it’s time to take action.
Meanwhile, Devin is not doing a great job at maintaining his relationships with anyone outside of the vibe five. Kilby knows that Devin is not a fan of him and when he tries having a conversation about it, Devin does a horrible job at reassuring him. Despite their rivalry, the two of them feel completely safe. Devin thinks that the vibe five will control the vote no matter what, despite there now being 11 people on the tribe. Kilby thinks that he has way better relationships than he actually does, assuming that he has Brady wrapped around his finger for some reason. The two want to be in control of this game, but, by the end of this episode, neither of them will be.
Lewis is able to establish a strong connection with Carter, despite him initiating the bag search earlier. Carter is completely oblivious to that, so the two are now thick as thieves. Lewis tells Carter about the tribe split that he’s noticed. The vibe five are an obvious alliance, but then, there’s Jenna, Kilby, Maggie, and Thien An trying to make something happen. Lewis and Carter are in the middle of those two, so they have the power to decide which side will be in control.
Kilby wants to target Mike from the vibe five, as he has not made much connection to anyone outside of that alliance. He tries to put in the work to make that happen, including telling Lewis and Carter about the plan. For a while, it does seem like Mike is the primary target. Then, Thien An shifts the target onto Patt. Her logic is that Mike can be voted out whenever. He is not that well connected in the game and is frankly boring. Patt, on the other hand, is a much stronger player who could be a much bigger thorn down the road. Therefore, they should take the shot at Patt while they have the chance. You may be asking, why not target Devin or Brady instead. Well, it seems they are either more well-connected than we think or no one is taking them seriously as players. Brady might be well-connected, since Kilby and Thien An do tell him about the Patt vote. He doesn’t buy it though, still assuming that the vibe five is in complete control and setting himself up for a massive blindside. That is indeed what he gets, when Patt is voted out in a 6-5 vote (the first 6-5 since Game Changers!).
Patt Cannaday: Pantsless Patt
It sucks to lose Patt so early because it did seem she had a lot of potential. After our first impression of her was her losing her pants in the ocean, she turned out to be a really strategic player, being instrumental to getting the target off Jenna in the first episode and then had a strong enough bond with Jelly for her to tell her about the idol. She is then in the, at the time, majority alliance and seems to be in a great spot to run the game. Unfortunately, for her, being aligned with Devin seems to be poison for anyone on the Toka beach, and she pays the price for his poor play. Maybe she can be the next Kelley Wentworth? #PattforSurvivor54
Conclusion: Is He?
Is Devin really that bad of an ally? Am I being too harsh? Maybe weaponized honesty needs some more time to settle in. We’ll have to see how the rest of the season plays out before we make a conclusion. Either way, Devin is shaping up to be a highly entertaining presence, which is really all you can ask for. Beyond Devin, this was another strong episode. So much happened that the 90 minutes flew by, and I am only feeling more optimistic for the rest of the season.
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