The other foot finally drops, and one of the biggest questions of this season is finally answered… No. You cannot shit your pants and still win Survivor.

Another one of Survivor 50’s big stars burns out. For a good half of the season, Christian felt like the main character of the season and perhaps our winner. He was playing hard and having fun. In hindsight, it seems like his huge amounts of content in the pre-merge was just a coincidental opportunity to give one of 50’s most anticipated returnees their time in the limelight.

So where exactly did Christian go wrong? Thematically, perhaps, it’s that he wasn’t quite adaptable enough. Perhaps he couldn’t strike that perfect balance between taking the pros and nixing the cons of his prior game. In Survivor David vs. Goliath, Christian played deftly from the middle establishing strong relationships with the “Brochacos” from the Goliath tribe and the underdogs of his original David tribe. My feeling that Genevieve had foreshadowed Christian’s downfall ended up being correct. Since the merge, Christian, Devens, Emily, and Aubry have been identified as “middle people” who need to be taken out before they amass enough power to take over the game. Christian fights tooth and nail to protect Devens during a round that ends in a split vote between the two of them, which ultimately sent Christian home courtesy of Jimmy Fallon whose ridiculous twist stacked the deck against the robotics professor. Strategically… Why on Earth would you float Ozzy’s name to Cirie?

Anyway, it looks like the remainder of “the middle people” are in trouble going into the next episode. Here’s where everyone stands right now:

Contenders

Cirie - This felt like a good episode for Cirie after her post-merge breakout episode last week. After her return from Exile Island, Cirie took complete control of the vote to take out her preferred targets. This week, she ducked back into the shadows to set the gears in motion against Christian, essentially allowing Jonathan to do all of her dirty work for her. Cirie established at the beginning of the season that her strategy is based on trust in her alliances and feeding people ideas that suddenly become their own to execute. She’s been keen to how in the New Era, you need to be flexible; find people you really trust, but if you have to vote with your enemy next round, so be it. This is exactly what Cirie’s been pulling off pretty much every round that she has cast a vote, including this one. She’s able to do this because of her network of relationships, which she outlines for the audience at the beginning of the episode. After Christian floats Ozzy’s name as a target over Rick, she works her magic and demonstrates all of these principles across two scenes where she essentially has the exact same conversation with Ozzy, one of her #1 allies, followed by Jonathan, a person who is part of the alliance that she had a hand in dismantling the previous round. Afterward, the two scuttle off to mount numbers against Christian. It’s masterful work, really. We are also now getting more mention of the end game from Cirie, which is exactly what she needs. The mark against her edit continues to be the zero confessional episode during the Zac Brown episode.

Ozzy - The “good job, Ozzy! You did it, Ozzy!” vibes felt like they were laid on a little bit thick, but I really enjoyed it. Ozzy’s relationship with Cirie is really kind of just the stuff dreams are made of considering their shared history throughout Survivor. We see a lot more of Oscar this episode. He’s seemingly developed quite the social game, and his ability to read people appears to be improving! I think Ozzy has shown the type of in-game adaptability and growth that Survivor 50 might be looking for in its winner. I’m just not sure if it’s too growth-oriented. If Ozzy surpasses Boston Rob in the immunity challenge win record, perhaps its just the right balance. Whether he wins or loses, I have to say that I’m enjoying Ozzy a lot more this season than I thought I would when he was announced as part of the cast. For me, this is easily the best version of Ozzy since Cook Islands, but I suppose we wouldn’t have gotten here without the Ozzy’s of Micronesia and South Pacific. Regardless, Ozzy on 50 has been a joy.

Rizo - Quiet episode for Rizo this week. Aside from being seen sleeping in the hammock while others are strategizing, and guzzling down rice, he’s pretty much only otherwise shown in strategic contexts. He looked pretty unwell. Won’t be surprised if we hear that he was sick or feeling horrible around this time in the game during exit press down the line. I was actually wondering if he would get a zero confessional episode, but he’s saved from that by getting one at the end of the episode to make sure that Christian is the vote. Again, he was shown sleeping during the day, which is typically a pretty bad sign, but if we are putting some considerations on hold for 50 this will be one of them. Just something to flag.

Big Episode Losers

Emily - I can’t think of anything worse than Cirie wanting to strangle you. That’s where Emily is at as her primary alliance implodes. She also essentially admits that Cirie’s rice revived her at Tribal Council. The nerd alliance, or “middle people,” seem to be on its way out.

Notable Edits

Jonathan - I think this episode was pretty good evidence that Jonathan may very well be Survivor 50’s zero-vote finalist. We get a lot of Jonathan this episode. I didn’t watch Survivor 42 so I can’t really speak to whether Jonathan is playing differently on Survivor 50. My guess is that he seems to be thinking more strategically this season, but at the end of the day is still maybe playing as expected. Again, I can’t say for sure. However, he’s actually starting to remind me, to some extent, of players like Charlie, Andy, Sam, and Shauhin. Players that got varying degrees of “good” edits, made it close to the end if not to the end, and had big presences and a lot of solid strategic content. None of those guys are winners. What really set alarm bells off in my head, though, was the confessional of Jonathan listing of the “notches in his belt.” Many of the names could be traced to someone else, primarily Cirie. Whether she is sitting next to him at Final Tribal Council or is questioning him from the Jury, my guess is that she’ll be revealing the deeper level of strategy that was going on below the surface to discredit him at some point.

Aubry - Aubry did what Christian couldn’t, or more perhaps wouldn’t, do in this episode. She separated herself from “the middle people.” She got a great confessional about her game and resolve after connecting with Jonathan. Aubry says she’s heating up. However, aside from shaking hands with Jonathan, she didn’t actually really do anything afterward and kind of disappears from the episode. Aubry has gotten content like this on and off throughout the season, and more prominently in the last couple of episodes. Again, though, she never really actually executes on anything she says she wants to do in confessional. It reminds me a little bit of Mitch’s edit in Survivor 48. The audience is just waiting and waiting and waiting for them to do something because they keep talking about it in confessional. At the end of the day, they never do but get voted out as a “threat,” seemingly propped up by their internal thought process more than anything else they were actually doing in the game. That’s how she’s reading to me at this point. Someone who makes a deep run but ultimately doesn’t impact the overall trajectory of the game or story much.

Got Nothing For Ya

Stephenie - I think I pulled Stephenie out of this category at some point, but I just wanted to fully clarify, she’s back. She gets this whole post-Tribal Council confessional about how pissed she is and how she’s going to slit everyone’s throats only to be pretty much a non-entity for the rest of the episode. She’s back where she belongs. Got nothing for ya, Stephenie!

Devens - The nerd alliance has taken it's first hit and it seems like they are public enemy #1, that includes Devens. He was majorly dunked on this episode by pretty much every other player on the beach besides Christian, and for some reason, Tiffany. Even Emily, a person in his alliance, was talking about how angry she was with him over his move at the previous Tribal Council. Meanwhile, he’s talking about how he loved his fake idol play. Hey, at least he’s having fun! By the end of the episode he decides that it was actually a double edged sword, but in reality, he probably initiated the downfall of his alliance. Devens’ #1 ally and fake idol are gone, and his story is probably over.

The moment we’ve been waiting for all season is coming up next episode… Mr. Beast will finally be making his appearance on Survivor 50. It looks like the auction will be back, and the host of Beast Games will introduce some sort of Beware Advantage. I haven’t been too impressed with any of the celebrity-fueled twists thus far, and I am frankly scared of what next episode will bring but I’m hoping this will be the last one..? We’ll see…