Photo: Robert Voets/CBS
What a riveting, exciting, truly revolutionary episode of Survivor. This is what I wanted all of season 50 to be like… and it came from, of all places, YouTube scourge Mr. Beast. So much happened in this one super-sized episode: the Survivor auction, an immediate immunity challenge, some of the most confusing politicking I’ve ever seen, a monumental twist from Mr. Beast, a live Tribal that was truly live, and then a surprising yet entirely satisfying ending. I’m still a little high from all the dopamine of it, but for two solid hours I was riveted to my couch, just like Cirie before she decided to play Survivor. (Did you catch when, during the live Tribal, Jeff said, “Even Cirie is up.” Rude!)
It starts in the morning when Rick Devins arranges everyone for a little Survivor story time, where he comes clean that he made up a fake idol, which he should have done the moment he got back to camp with it. Now everyone knows that he’s a liar and up to all sorts of shenanigans, antics, and tomfoolery.
After this, they show up at the Survivor auction, which is an all-time classic. For me, the auction is a bit like inviting my bratty cousin to my wedding: I never liked him, I don’t really want him there, but it just wouldn’t feel right if he weren’t there for a monumental occasion like this. Just like Cousin Tim, I will tolerate the auction just this once. What I hated about the auction in olden times was that it became nothing like an auction. People either knew an advantage or letters from home were coming, and would hold onto their cash until the very end. Either that or they knew they could only buy one thing and would wait for the first thing they wanted and just blurt out, “$500!” It became a victim of its own ubiquity, a fate I also wish every day on Taylor Swift. (Sorry, Charlie.)
The auction didn’t befall those curses. Jeff said that the auction was different and that there would be items of “comfort” and items of “chaos.” First up, Devens spends $160 for fries and onion rings. No chaos. Secondly, Emily spends $100 on a milkshake. Jeff says no chaos. I think as soon as she gets back to camp and has to poop, there is sure going to be a lot of chaos — right on cue, Emily is like, “Oh yeah, I feel the chaos starting in my GI tract.” There are a whole lot of prizes that seem like just comfort: a blanket, some mouthwash, lots of foodstuffs. Where is all the chaos? Cirie got up, barfed in the bushes, and then came back and finished her charcuterie board. Is that the chaos Jeff is talking about?
There are only two lots that seem to have chaos, and they have more rules than a polyamorous relationship. One is a two-person sharer, and the winner has to choose who they want to share it with. Aubry buys it for $280 and shares it with TMTMTLRIZGODRG. Jeff says they get to share chocolate chip cookies, but only if they eat two grubs in under two minutes. Aubry houses them both like, well, like she’s been out on a desert island, starving for 19 days, and there is an available protein source.
The next is a shared lot that Jonathan buys for $320, and he decides to share it with Ozzy. There are two cloches. Jeff says that one is pure comfort and one is pure chaos, and that the person with the chaos has to do it so that the person with the comfort can have the comfort. I don’t know. This string of rules flew at me like the list of side effects at the end of a Cymbalta commercial. Jonahtan chooses the cloche that is maroon with gold stitching, which looks like a bedspread at the Taj hotel in Mumbai, leaving Ozzy with one with neon floral print that looks like a shirt you would wear to do cocaine in Miami in the ‘80s. Of course, it’s the cocaine shirt one that is the comfort and not the bedspread. Come on, Jonathan. This is simple reverse psychology. He has to eat a sea cucumber so that Ozzy can have fried chicken. To big Jonathan’s credit, he gets it down so Ozzy can eat and then goes and pukes it all up in the bushes, but not even where Cirie just barfed. Can we keep all the hurled cookies in one place, people?
Then Jeff says that the next lot is the biggest yet, and it’s either pure comfort or pure chaos. Everyone yells, “What is the difference?!?!?” And Jeff just shrugs his shoulders and has no idea either. He says all 10 have to chip in $20 to get it, and I immediately know that it’s letters from home. I am, as always, correct. But that unleashes chaos in the game in the form of Mr. Beast, who shows up with a briefcase that is the “Mr. Beast Ultimate Beware Advantage Brought To You By Charmin, Ford, and The Sanctuary Where Good Things Happen.” Jeff says they won’t know what it is until Tribal Council, and then adds, “Oh, by the way, I know that one fifth of you have just booted in the bushes, but it is now time for an immunity challenge. Anyone want a mint? That will cost you $100.”
It’s the classic challenge where they balance on a beam holding a ball over a bow, and you have to stay on the beam and keep the ball on the bow. Tiffany wins. She’s excited (especially since she broke her curse of going home on day 19), and everyone else has no idea what the hell to do with themselves because there is the Mr. Beast advantage. And they still have to weep for a solid hour as they all hole up in different parts of camp and read their letters from home. Based on the editing so far in the episode, it seems like something big is going to happen for either Devens or Aubry, or both. They’re just getting more attention, more screentime. Something.
Back at camp, it’s like watching stoned kittens play dodgeball. No one knows what is happening, and everyone is skittering about without any plan or tactic or anything. There’s a contingent that wants Devens to go home as an easy vote, but Jonathan and Stephenie come up with a plan that it should be Ozzy so that they can flush some idols. Joe makes the mistake of telling Cirie, who says that they should switch it to Stephenie, and she’ll even use her extra vote to save her husband, Ozzy. When Stephenie finds out it’s her, she switches it to Rizo because she’s afraid that Ozzy will use his idol and she’ll catch the ricochet. Then it’s Emily, then it’s Joe, then they ask a producer if they can just vote out Mr. Beast. Then Angelina comes back, borrows someone’s jacket, and volunteers to be voted out again. It’s just absolute insanity and makes no sense.
The best recap comes from Devens himself at Tribal when he tells Jeff what went down. He said it was going to be him, and then Stephenie and Jonthan came to him and Aubry and said it should be Ozzy. Then he talked to Cirie, who said to flip it on Stephenie. Then Stephenie got mad and said to flip it back on Cirie. Then he went to Jonathan and Stephenie and said, “How about Rizo (sorry, Rizo),” and adds that they’re so excited about the plan that Stephenie was going to use her Steal a Vote to make sure that Rizo gets out. He then appeals to Cirie, Ozzy, Tiff, Rizo, and Emily, saying three people are trying to get them out or leave them out — meaning the Captain America alliance of Stephenie, Jonathan, and Joe — and that they should just pick which one of them should go home.
Jonathan and Stephenie say that isn’t true at all. Remember what Devens did with the fake idol? He can’t be trusted. This is the danger of playing the game that Devens played. When you’re the boy who cried fake idol, no one is going to believe you when you opt for radical transparency.
This is when Jeff decides it’s time to bring back Mr. Beast to tell everyone what is in the briefcase. It’s an offer from the banker for $10,000, like this is Deal or No Deal. Just kidding, it’s a coin. The artist formerly known as Jimmy Donaldson says that someone is going to flip that coin. If they call the coin toss correctly, they will be safe from the vote, get an immunity idol, and the prize pot will double to $2,000,000, which, let’s be honest, it should have been all along. However, if they are wrong, there is no vote, and that person is going home. Jeff says that they have to decide who is going to flip the coin because if they don’t, they will all have to pull rocks.
I absolutely love this twist. It hasn’t been done before, unless you watch Beast Games, and it forces a single player into a difficult situation with a huge reward or an even worse outcome. What’s great about it, though, is that it is all in the hands of the players. Just like when they were all placed on an island and said, “Each episode you’ll vote someone out,” how and why they vote has always been up to the players. This is a more extreme version of that same scenario. The production is forcing them to make a choice, but isn’t telling them how to choose or why to choose, just to choose. They could have used any rationale: there could have been a vote, they could have gone with luck, or they could have tried to talk a person into doing it for one reason or another. I would have been fascinated by the politics at work.
My only problem with it is that Devens volunteers too quickly. Of course he does. Not only is he a man of chaos, but he is at the bottom. As he points out, this is the ultimate Shot in the Dark, and he has way better odds than one in six. It also allows him to have a bit of agency in his ouster. If he flips it wrong, he could always say that he and Cirie are the only two people eliminated without being voted for. He got to choose whether or not he stayed rather than just letting everyone vote for him. This is absolutely a no-brainer for the person at the bottom of the tribe. In a less chaotic week or earlier in the season, when the decision is harder, I could see the decision-making process being riveting television. Maybe next time.
Devens gets up to flip, and it is tenser than Rizo when his mother is checking his browser history. No one knows what is going to happen. Based on how much is left in the episode, we know that it’s going to be correct because if he were going home, the episode would be getting ready to end. He is correct; he gets safety, an idol, and the $1 million that always should have been there. Good job, Devens.
After the flip, Jeff says to Mr. Beast, “We’ve been around a long time, but what you did for our show is just fantastic.” He’s right. It had a huge impact on the episode and a huge impact on the game. This is why it’s so different from the disastrous Zac Brown visit earlier in the season. That was just a gratuitous celebrity show-off. It ultimately had no impact on the players, the game, or the audience at home. It was just a boring time suck. Mr. Beast is here and impacted the whole episode in a positive way. Jimmy Fallon and Billie Eilish’s twists have been busts, but Mr. Beast understands this show and didn’t want to just show up to explore his hobby of spear fishing; he wanted to show up and change the way we see Survivor.
My problem with this twist, if you can even call it a problem, is that it had to come from Mr. Beast. Survivor has always innovated and tried new things: the first hidden immunity idols; Exile Island, which allowed ousted players back in the game; Blood Vs. Water, which turned families against each other. Survivor was leading the pack. Now it’s ceded that to people like Mr. Beast who are pushing the vanguard with bigger prizes, keener social experiments, and different ways of looking at the format. These are the kind of changes that we need on Survivor, which, honestly, has gotten a bit stale. It’s run by someone who has been with the game so long (and no doubt given us plenty of great television) that it seems like he’s lost his nerve and is resting on his laurels? Where are the new, shocking ideas? It’s not SITD, it’s not Fire-Making challenge, it’s not three tribes of six, it’s not Beware advantages. It’s something as simple as a freaking coin toss. I’m not saying we should fire Jeff for Mr. Beast (though it’s not the worst idea), but I hope it shocks the show out of its complacency and shows that great ideas, even simple ones, are going to make great television.
Anyway. After the coin flip, the live Tribal starts, and we hear Aubry’s name a whole lot. While I like the excitement, what I always hate about these is that we’re not sure why the person goes home. Stephenie decides to use her Steal a Vote and votes twice for “Aubrey.” The irony of someone with the name “Stephenie” adding an extra and erroneous E into someone else’s name is not lost on me. But it’s a unanimous vote for Stephenie to go home, including from the two other Captain Americas, and I’m wondering what made them switch. Was it that she was lying about her Steal a Vote? Was it that she took the heat for the Ozzy plan? Did they just join up for tribe unity? Was it that Cirie, like the Godfather, is in charge of absolutely everything? We’ll have to find out next episode. For now, I’m thrilled that a great episode ended with Stephenie LaGrossa’s torch getting snuffed.
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