The New Era strikes again, but that's fine, 63% of fans wanted this!
I think it would have been reasonable to assume that Jeff would not allow a 17 person vote to occur. He loves situations where players have “nowhere to hide,” and 17 is only one less player than what typically starts a New Era season.
This resulted in a person being eliminated from each of the three groups of five that drew a tribe where they were unluckily in the minority. One of those people did not have their vote. One of those people had found two idols earlier in the game that they had to give away to two people who ultimately were not involved in the vote at all. Just yeah… Kind of a bummer!
I'm not really 100% sure if this was considered The Merge Episode, if it'll be next week, or if the importance is split between the two. They all got a buff and a tribe with a new name, but they were immediately broken up and there was no merge feast. So I think that I'm still at a point of flux with hard and fast placement, but with the most recent eliminations, I do think that the true contenders have emerged. Where their stories go from here will be of the utmost importance.
Quickly on Kamilla, Genevieve, and Colby. I think the central themes at play here are “adaptability” and “relationships.” I don't really think that I pinged “relationships” as a theme from Jeff's opening monologue, but throughout the first six episodes it has been pretty clear that being flexible, but confident, in the relationships you make will get you further in this game.
Kamilla came into the season so anti-honor/integrity that she ended up blinded to Jonathan's true allegiances. She relied too much upon her relationship with Jonathan from being on the same starting tribe even though they never really were shown working together or having a genuine connection. Jonathan's relationships with Kamilla and Tiffany were out of trying to play a “different game,” but lacked real trust. Relying on a fickle ally resulted in her elimination.
Genevieve approached Survivor 50 with the intention to play a different game than the one she played in Survivor 47. For the most part, Genevieve was actually pretty successful. On Original Vatu she was well insulated in a majority alliance with a tight #1. On New Kalo she ended up with a lot of her allies. She was shown playing a little too hard, one of the criticisms she received from her original season, but they never went to Tribal Council so we cannot know how that would have played out. Genevieve is otherwise fairly consistently portrayed as complex, smart, strategic, and correct. All great things for a potential winner, but her draw in the Blood Moon was extremely unlucky. For me, Genevieve went out this season embodying the ethos of the season but ended up eliminated anyway. She gave it all though. Kitchen sink, Shot In The Dark and all, but alas…
Colby is another one who I think really embodied the ethos of the season and was doing a pretty good job. He was thinking strategically, but sticking by his people. He was acting less entitled, and seemed pretty universally loved by all the cast. I don't know if MORPP is a real rating but that felt most appropriate for me in terms of Colby. The entirety of the Tribal Council was basically dedicated to him. He had a great run, gave it everything he had, and seemed to have a great time doing it.
The following are my charts and rankings. As for my contenders, consider them as just in a pool with one another rather than ranked. Each player has strengths and weaknesses in their edit. I think I'll have a better idea of actual rankings after next week.
Contenders
Christian - I’m bracing myself to drop Christian significantly in the next week or two, but he still stands tall amongst most of the players’ edits. This felt like a cooldown episode for him, which is kind of funny because he was still very prominent. It feels like he could be heading toward a flame out, as his tone doesn’t feel so overtly positive any more. I would expect that during the merge things would take a positive turn after his more mixed past couple of episodes on the New Cila tribe. However, he remains a powerful strategic player, he’s got character moments, he has an emotional backstory with his (secret) son, and we know a lot about his relationships in the game. Genevieve said something though when she was trying to get Christian to flip on Devens. She said that his alliance are the rats that people want to take out, and he and Devens are seen as an obvious pair. Christian’s edit has been pretty strong so far, but perhaps on her way out Genevieve foreshadowed his downfall.
Dee - Pretty great episode for Dee, frankly. Her star has been rising steadily over the past couple of episodes, and she has entered the merge as one of the stronger contenders for the title of Sole Survivor. The confessional she gets going into the merge about playing harder was great. We see a lot more of her emotional side in this episode. There are a couple of challenges with her edit, though. She previously mentioned needing to get Cirie out, but now they are inexplicably aligned and Cirie actually influences her into voting for Colby when she initially wanted to take out Coach. Perhaps Dee is getting set up to be the dragon of this season, but we’ll see. She certainly has legs to stand on in terms of potentially getting a winner’s edit.
Cirie - I feel uncomfortable having Cirie this high, but her edit is pretty strong. It just seems to defy all logic that Cirie can win Survivor 50, and there’s always the question of whether this would be the edit she would receive if she took home the crown. I think many people feel no; but at the end of the day, while she is beloved by both production and the fanbase, she is still a Black woman and has cut her teeth as one of the most dominant social players out there. These are two identities that Survivor is known to be “bad at editing.” So I want to hold space for the possibility that they actually would edit Cirie this way if she wins. If this ends up becoming the case, I would need to see her talk about her Survivor story and gameplay more from her own perspective, and her control over the game to become even more obvious. However, let’s reflect on all the good in her edit:
She has received multiple instances of significant, tone-setting emotional content, including to open the season
She has pre-merge danger from the premiere when Jenna was targeting her
She is consistently regarded as a threat, but avoids danger and has a well-defined relationship network, the primary seeming to be her alliance with Ozzy and Rizo
She steered the vote onto Savannah, she gained multiple allies in voting out Charlie, she steered the vote onto Colby
She has been given multiple moments of correct reads on other players or social dynamics (how Joe wants to be treated in an alliance, Colby being more influential than Coach, how she needs to play differently than she might have in the past to survive in this game)
While we could easily just be seeing another deep run for Cirie with a potentially heart breaking end, I do think her edit has quite a bit of merit. It also helps her case that many of the other contenders have flaws in their edits, as well, and many other players have been dead in the water for a while with others very close to joining them soon.
Rizo - There is a fair chance that Rizo could win this game. I still think his edit is still a little too focused on being a “super fan” and forging his legacy as one of the Survivor greats; it feels a little too corny for a winner, but his great position in the game cannot be denied. He was credited with Charlie’s elimination, and has found himself in a tight trio with Cirie and Ozzy. Overall people seem to like him, he manages to get people over on to his side in the end. Obviously, he is being shown to be strategically adept, socially flexible, and he has an ongoing character bit via the RizGod persona. His edit overall isn’t bad at all, so he’s found himself with a decent shot.
Ozzy - It feels like Ozzy might be in for more of a growth arc, but between everyone else’s strengths and weaknesses, he still has a shot at winning this thing. Ozzy is one of the players who is back to prove that he can play differently than in the past. He’s had various levels of success so far throughout the season, but I think he’s overall doing better than Coach. Ozzy aligns with Cirie, a polar opposite type player to him. He has been dipping his toes into strategy. He had a very “Classic Ozzy” moment on Mike’s boot episode. Entitled, disengaged provider. However, Oscar has shown himself as well. He makes up with Christian and the two of them restore their trust in each other. He takes it on the chin when he realizes everyone already knows about his idol. He takes the advice of his strategic partner in Cirie, to get in good with Rizo on Exile Island, which solidifies their tight three moving forward. Thematically Ozzy is doing pretty well even if he trips and falls along the path at times.
Jonathan - I think that Jonathan may have an uphill battle, but he has clawed his way back toward the top of the heap. We get a lot of insight into Jonathan’s strategic though process and where his networks are. He explicitly talks about winning in this episode. He has been one of the players that has discussed having an adaptable game, and he has shown himself to be thinking about the game differently compared to his past season. He started the episode by talking about how important it would be for him to get back in good with Dee and Kamilla, how he needs to play the game differently, and how it can’t just be honor and integrity. I want to be clear. I do not think that him voting out Kamilla was unjustified or even an objectively bad or wrong move for the game. However, it felt like Jonathan undermined most of what he had been saying throughout the episode. The fallout is immediate. Kamilla proclaims that he should be dragged through the mud, and Tiffany seems to promise to get revenge. This is in the NTOS, but I don’t know if it gets any more negative in the New Era than being called a “nasty skank.” Despite all that, I think he has an overall strong edit, particularly in comparison to a lot of the competition, but again. Uphill battle, probably. But hey, he’s really strong so maybe he’ll muscle his way through the rest of this game!
Other Episode Winners
I want to hold a little bit of space for Chrissy and Stephenie to have outside chances to win. These are two players who I eliminated early due to getting zero confessional episodes early in the season. Chrissy also came with a big of negativity, and Stephenie just seemed like a background character in her alliances. However, in a similar vein to Cirie, these two have strengths to their edits. Despite the early negativity, Chrissy has emotional content and a defined story arc. This most recent episode was strategically masterful. Of all of the honor and integrity people, Colby and Stephenie have been portrayed the most positively. I still can’t shake that Stephenie got the opening confessional. I don’t know if she’s really giving winner, but there’s room for her story to evolve from here without Colby.
Episode Losers
Aubry - There’s room for this to be Aubry’s turning point in the game, and hey, perhaps it is, but this was a tough episode for her. The rivalry between her and Genevieve is one of the most consistent through lines we’ve had this season so far. I just didn’t leave the episode feeling like “Aubry got Genevieve out.” Aubry felt like a side character in getting her arch nemesis out. It felt a lot more about Christian and Devens keeping their alliance together in the most risk-free way possible. I may backtrack on this if she seems to take hold of her own destiny next week, but she’s just been portrayed as an emotional wreck.
Devens - I found it odd that this group’s vote out was not really portrayed as a showdown between Genevieve and Aubry, but more about making sure Devens survived the night and did not become collateral damage. They used him as the face of the “safe vote,” which isn’t really in line with the themes of the season of “giving it everything.” While it felt like he got more screen time than Christian in this episode, he still felt second fiddle to Christian. His content just seems to have dropped off in strategic complexity as the season has gone on. Devens has great, entertaining confessionals but it feels like his story is just going to end at some point with this hidden fake idol down the line.
Coach - He’s on the wrong side of the vote and he gets immediately clocked for poor gameplay, which he even admits to. Coach has often talked about how he’s Coach 4.0 this, Coach 4.0 that, but he’s always shown falling back into old habits. I know there’s many Coach truthers out there, but to me, he’s reading as the same old Coach. Over the top. Delusional. Entertaining of course, but winner feels like a stretch by now.
Got Nothing For Ya
Emily and Joe officially became nothings in this episode. Once reunited with the greater cast, they resumed their roles as supporting characters in this story. They’re officially done for.