Did You Vote for a Swap
Season 50
Episode 3
Editor’s Rating
2 stars
**
The tribes swap before the alliances can fully form, and players are reverting back to old strategies that didn’t work last time.
Photo: Robert Voets/CBS
It is the year of our lord two thousand twenty-six, and we’ve already had to endure so much, including Catherine O’Hara’s death, Ilia Malinin’s bombing at the Olympics, and a never-ending discourse loop about Timotheé Chalamet and opera. Now there’s one more thing to add to our heap of disgrace: Jeffrey Lee Probst rapping. This season is supposed to be about the fans voting on things, and if you asked all Survivor fans everywhere if they thought that 50 seasons in, Jeff should give spitting some bars a try, I have a feeling that it would be a resounding no. Still, that is what we get: the whitest man outside of Duke University’s Best Boat Shoe Competition.
The rapping comes at the tribe swap, which is odd because they bring the three tribes into what appears to be a challenge, complete with those ball puzzle tables in the background, but they don’t do anything except find new tribes and snap for Jeff (he forces them to snap the beat; he did not earn snaps of applause). Jeff says that the fans voted for a tribe swap. Even Charlie, who hates this swap like sane people hate The Tortured Poets Department, admits that he voted for a tribe swap. But voting for a tribe swap in the abstract and voting for a tribe swap in the third episode are two different things.
I don’t think this is the best time to switch tribes up. With so many players, I can’t even tell you who was on which tribe to start with. Now you want me to remember the old tribes, the new tribes, who were on the same tribe before and will be on the same tribe after? Oh, honey. No. Also, many players have played with each other in different seasons, and it seems like they went to pains to make sure that they were all separated. Now that they’re breaking up these original tribes after only a few days, it means that those new tribal bonds haven’t really formed yet, and that when the players end up on the same beach as their old friends, those bonds that predate this season are going to snap back into place.
Look no further than the David and Goliath trio: Angelina, Christian, and Mike White. They’re all back on the same tribe again. What do you know, they all end up working together within minutes. Also on the new Vatu are Emily, Ozzy, Q, and Stephenie. After the swap, we get check-ins with all the tribes to peek at the new dynamics. On Vatu, it’s about how Emily is sort of in the center of everything. She wants to work with the D&G Three thanks to her bonds with Christian from their previous tribe (Which one? Don’t remember!) and she has a bonding sesh with Angelina when she tells her that her old tribe was totally going to vote her off. Emily also wants to work with Ozzy, and it’s unclear where this is going, but it’s clear that Emily, who no one wanted to work with on her initial season, is now all up in everyone’s business.
This seems to be the theme of the season: Whether players can overcome their previous season’s baggage and play a different game. Jeff even asks Mike White if it’s possible to play a new game or if people just can’t help who they are. Has Jeff watched The White Lotus? Does he not realize that it is essentially a show about how everyone is fundamentally flawed and doesn’t really change their behaviors unless there is a cataclysmic event that forces them and even still we’re mostly doomed to tragedy? I would say Mike thinks everyone is going to play the same exact game for the rest of eternity.
We really see this dynamic at play when we check in on the new Kalo, which now features Aubry, Joe, Genevieve, Coach, Chrissy, Colby, and Tiff. Coach tells Chrissy that their old tribe (Which one? Don’t remember!) was going to vote her off because she was too annoying and talked too much. She goes for a cry on the beach with Genevieve and talks about how she wasn’t liked in her first season, and that’s happening again, whereas in her real life she is beloved. She then tells us that she has the BRCA gene, so she had a double mastectomy and her ovaries removed to prevent cancer. I have a sneaky feeling that Chrissy is getting the winner’s edit, and this scene confirms my suspicions. But will she win by changing her game?
Genevieve is definitely switching it up. She is going to everyone in her new tribe, being the one who makes them feel safe first, and hoping that will make everyone want to keep her. Last time she played as a lone wolf, but she’s trying to form bonds so fast and furious I wonder how long they’ll last. She even says, “New and improved social game, here we go.” This is counterbalanced by Coach, Colby, and Joe linking up to form the Super Tough, Very Muscular, All Integrity, No Lying Man Squad, No Girlz Allowed. I am already so bored with this alliance, especially because Coach always talks about how much integrity he has and then will do just about everything to break it.
Our final check-in is at the new Cila, featuring Charlie, Rizo, Dee, Kamilla, Jonathan, Cirie, and Devens. Cirie is a victim of her reputation as a great player that everyone wants to get rid of, particularly Dee and Jonathan. Devens is the only person who wants to play with her. But Devens is concerned that Cirie is the only person from his previous tribe (Which one? Don’t remember!), and they seem on the outs because Charlie, Dee, Kamilla, and Jonathan were all linked up before.
The deepest convo, however, is between Charlie and The Man, The Myth, The Legend, R-I-Z-G-O-D, Rizgod Baby, when Rizo decides that his best hope in the game is an alliance with Charlie, who he tells all about the Billy Eilish Boomerang Idol (BEBI). Charlie says it’s a game-changing conversation. But, because of his old game, he can’t get over that Rizo said the previous night that his No. 1 in the game, Sophi, made it to the final three, and he didn’t vote for her, he voted for Savannah to win. That reminds Charlie too much of when he and Maria got each other to the end, Charlie needed to cut her, and she ended up voting for someone else, essentially costing him the win. He says now he will work with Rizo for a bit, but doesn’t want him anywhere near the jury. No one can get over anything; everyone is just running in the same pattern, no matter how many tribes they swap, buffs they wear, or BEBIs they are gifted.
At the challenge — the classic with a single caller controlling a bunch of blindfolded subordinates, the most S&M challenge Survivor has — Vatu loses and is going back to Tribal Council. The focus, yet again, is on Emily. Mike White says he’s going to tell everyone that he, Angelina, and Christian are voting for Stephenie, but they’re really going to vote for Q. However, when Mike and Q talk on the beach, Q feels that Stephenie is threatened, so Q tells Mike to vote for him. What? What is this plan? He just wants to make sure that he knows where the votes are going so he points them squarely at himself? This makes no sense. This is why Q has always played the game like a hamster trying to climb out of a toilet bowl.
Q tells Mike that he has an extra vote, which he thinks makes Mike scramble, but why would anyone think that? Ozzy knows that Q has no vote because he was there with him on Exile Island and they agreed that Q would give his vote to Ozzy. Sure, he might not have shared this with anyone, but maybe he told Emily as a way to get her trust, at least that Q lost his vote, not that he has the extra one. I have a feeling it came out but was left out in the editing to build suspense.
The edit is doing a lot to make us think that Emily is deciding between voting off Angelina with Ozzy and Stephenie, solidifying her alliance with Ozzy, or going with the D&G Three. But was it ever really that up in the air? We see Emily convince Ozzy that Q is too erratic and they should take him out and get Angelina the next Tribal. Ozzy already knows that, even with Emily, he doesn’t have enough votes to get rid of Angelina. I feel like he was easily swayed. When Jeff reads the vote, it’s another near unanimous call with Ozzy and Emily all joining the triumvirate, sending Q home. (Between him and Kyle, why is this game trying to get rid of all the hotties?) It seems like Q was a victim of the same old game: chaotic, shambolic, but absolutely fascinating to watch. Does this answer Jeff’s question once and for all?
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