** I am completely spoiler free for all placements and outcomes of Survivor 50
The time has finally come! Survivor 50 is here and CBS treated us to a hefty three hour premiere. Twenty-four players hit the beaches of Fiji to play in this landmark season. The episode opened with a pretty awesome montage of iconic moments throughout Survivor history, followed up by a scene reminiscent of the opening of Survivor Australia vs. The World with the players making the journey to Fiji.
So what central themes appeared in the premiere? In Jeff’s opening monologue he told the players that in exchange for their spot in the cast, they need to give everything to the game. Play your individual game, play free, play the game that needs to be played in the moment. In this season, the players who are playing hard, having fun, and adapting to the game will be the one to further cement their legacies in Survivor history. Someone who embodies these themes will ultimately take the title of Sole Survivor for this monumental season.
Let’s touchdown briefly on the first two boots of the season. First we have Jenna Lewis-Dougherty, Survivor 50’s only representative from the series very first season, Survivor Borneo. It’s a bit unfortunate. I would have liked to see her play for longer, but the episode paid great homage to her and the show’s beginnings. I’m glad that they honored her in that way. Thematically, she went out swinging. Jenna hit the beach ready to play hard. So hard that she was floating Survivor legend, Cirie’s, name before even the first immunity challenge. Unfortunately for her, she was not rewarded. I appreciated the bit of old school spiciness on her way out of Tribal Council and in her last words. As for Kyle, he may not have stayed long enough to give everything but he did give his Achilles. Seems close enough? It’s a shame that he had to be medically evacuated because it really seemed like he was in an excellent position on his tribe. I was really looking forward to seeing how he would do as one of the only winners on this cast. Fortunately, he is recovering from his injury and subsequent surgery well.
So what about the remaining players? Let’s get into it.
Contenders
Christian - Excellent premiere for Dr. Hubicki. He had strategy, he had character moments, he was talked about positively, and he had emotional stakes. Additionally, Christian seems to be at the center of his alliance, and it seemed like he was the one to drive the vote to stay on Jenna. Strong start for Christian.
Devens - Devens felt highly visible throughout the episode and was given a mat chat. He and Christian establish their Star Wars alliance. He discusses that he wants to make sure he has solid relationships in this game in case there aren’t idols or advantages. Devens gets a good mix of both strategic and fun personality content.
Genevieve - Despite being known to be one of the most cutthroat players of the New Era, Genevieve integrated well into her tribe and became part of a majority alliance and a key duo. Aside from an awkward interaction with Aubry, Genevieve was spoken about positively by her tribe mates. Even better for her, she reflected on her previous season’s game play and discussed how she wanted to approach things differently this time around and the edit showed her being successful so far.
Stephenie - The first cut away confessional goes to Stephenie. During it, she has a winner’s quote. Not too bad at all. On top of that, we know where she sits strategically within the tribe and also has a tight alliance with Colby. She felt highly visible in this episode as she moved around within her alliance.
Ozzy - After four Survivor season’s trying to play provider to strong arm his fellow castaways into voting his way, Ozzy, or should I say Oscar, is finally here to play a different game. Cutthroat, in fact. We get a lot of Ozzy this episode. Some of it is circumstantial since he went on the Supplies Challenge. However, we get a good look into his relationships, both positive and negative, and his approach to the game this time around. Being the one of his duo with Cirie to receive more agency in swaying the vote seems good for him. Seems like he may have done something to his back during the Supplies Challenge, but his portrayal in the premiere seems to suggest some sort of character arc and longevity.
Some Hope
Colby - Colby quickly establishes a tight duo with Stephenie within a bigger majority alliance, and seems to be a key figure in pulling together that majority. He mentions winning in his opening voiceover and receives a mat chat. Of his tight duo with Stephenie, he seems to maybe be being portrayed as the less serious one. They may be showing him to be a bit of a grandpa at times, but he’s making moves and has been quick to start playing the game.
Coach - Huge episode for Coach, a huge character. He seems to be the central player of his tribe, and we see him possibly aligning with Chrissy. We see a rekindling of the rivalry between him and Ozzy from Survivor South Pacific, which I hope continues for a while. Coach continues to be shown as somewhat hypocritical as he thumps the honor and integrity drum, as he always does. The Dragon Slayer appears to already be in the midst of a storm but he appears ready to take it on and fight.
Emily - Solid premiere for Emily. We get some self-reflection from her previous game and how this game is already different for her. She contributes strategic content to Cila’s voting process and also is shown to be in an alliance with Christian and Devens. Good place for her to start, but she’ll need to outpace Christian and Devens if she wants to be the winner of Survivor 50 because right now she feels a bit like their sidekick.
Rizo - Rizo wants to cement his place in Survivor history. We don’t see much from him strategically this episode, but along with his typical overuse of Gen Z slang, we also see his emotional side. Originally Colby sees Rizo as annoying, but eventually comes around on him and they have a nice bonding moment. Hopefully we’ll see a little bit more of Rizo the player instead of Rizo the superfan from here on out.
Jonathan - We don’t really see where Jonathan stands among his tribe besides towering overhead. However, we do hear about how he wants to approach the game differently compared to his first season, recognizing that he needs to be more fluid in his gameplay, which is aligned with the season’s themes. He promises Jonathan 2.0 and if we see that develop throughout the season, he could have a shot.
Joe - Fair start for Joe. He seems to really be processing his zero vote finalist finish on Survivor 48 during this season. He seems to have a bit of PTSD in clocking Ozzy and Cirie’s relationship. We don’t really see who he’s aligned with, but we know a bit about what he’s thinking at least from a personal perspective. Probably not amazing that his first confessional is about other players, but there’s some room for him to grow from here.
Dee - You thought I was cutthroat last time? You haven’t seen nothing yet! Dee is back and ready to play hard. We didn’t get a ton of Dee on paper, but she still felt very present in the episode. Her one confessional was strong and we see her forming an alliance with Tiffany and Kamilla. However, she’s already being seen as a threat by Chrissy and may be this tribe’s early target if they go to Tribal Council. Dee has come to play though, and that’s what she’ll need to do if she wants to join the two-time winner’s club.
Cirie - Oh Cirie. The next couple of episodes are going to be key in determining if this was just a case of the pre-merge dangers or if she’s in for another season of a deep run without the trophy. The first contestant's voice we hear is her’s. A voiceover describing what seems to be the ethos of the season. We get an emotional mat chat, which had everyone in tears. She cools down quite a bit after that, as she ends up in the hot seat with Jenna targeting her and failing pretty epically at the challenge. She says that she has to trust in her relationships and alliance to keep her around, which is what ends up happening, but we don’t see the actual moving of the vote from herself to Jenna from her perspective at all. There’s a path for things to turn around for Cirie, but it may be an uphill battle.
Unlikely
Tiffany - Not a ton of content from Tiffany, which isn’t great, but there wasn’t a ton of content from the Kalo Tribe in general. She was the one who seemed to pull together the New Era girl alliance, though, which is good so we know a bit more about what’s going on with her compared to some of the other people on her tribe. Tiffany could rise up the ranks but she’s got a long way to go.
Kamilla - Similar to Tiffany but with perhaps a little less agency. We do hear that she’s sick of the “honor and integrity” schtick, though. Again, she’s got a long way to go.
Q - Big episode for Q, but despite his visibility and Q-isms it didn’t really feel like a great episode for him in terms of being the winner of Survivor 50. We get a bit from him strategically when he connects with Kyle and confesses that he lost his vote on Exile Island. However, him being pulled into the majority alliance felt more from Kyle’s perspective. For the most part, though, it was a lot of narration from Q. Again, I was enjoying it but it doesn’t necessarily scream winner.
Mike - Mike feels like he is primed to be a fun narrator for the season. We hear from him early via the mat chat but he also gets the second confessional. Strategically he was shown trying to make some sort of in road with Charlie, but it wasn’t expanded upon much. Overall, Mike says he’s on vacation and I believe him. We hear a lot from Mike this episode, but we don’t really know much about his position in the tribe. We get some emotional content, funny commentary, and pot stirring. It feels like he truly is here just to have fun, and I appreciate that. Not that I don’t think he’ll play hard in the process, I’m just not really thinking he’ll win.
Savannah - There was a lot of Savannah in this premiere, but she was correctly clocked by Devens when she returned from the journey. We know about how she is working overtime to reduce her threat level, but she may not be doing such a great job. Additionally, despite the 7-1 vote, Savannah explicitly stated that she wanted Cirie to go home during the pre-Tribal Council scramble and that was not the direction things went. Despite the content we did get from her about how she’s starting off the game, it just doesn’t really feel like she’s going to make it too far, and she definitely isn’t going to win.
Chrissy - We know Chrissy wants to play a diabolical game and she has Dee in her sights. She seems to have some sort of alliance with Coach, but she did seem a little desperate in that scene and it didn’t feel super clear if Coach was just going along to get along, or if he really meant it. We see her brushing her teeth with a stick and it did seem like it was meant as a little dopey, but maybe it was just to be funny. I did love that she told Mike White that she hadn’t wanted the most recent season of White Lotus because she no longer has HBO Max. That was pretty awesome.
Got Nothing For Ya
Charlie - I waffled on whether I wanted to put Charlie up a tier, but I don’t think I can in good conscience. Sadly, we don’t hear anything from Charlie about how he’s going to approach his second go around. Instead we get some funny commentary. Every time we hear from Charlie in this episode, and we don’t hear from him much, he’s talking about other players. Kalo was probably the least represented tribe during the premiere, but we still know of a couple of strategic relationships.
Aubry - Pretty much the only thing we saw from Aubry this episode was her awkward interaction with Genevieve where she definitely comes out looking cagey, and frankly, weird. I think that the viewer was meant to feel bad for Genevieve for having to go through such an uncomfortable conversation, so that’s not great. The next time we hear from Aubry is during the medical evacuation, something she is quite familiar with from her time on Survivor Kaoh Rong. Yeah, just not a great premiere for her and feels like there’s no way for her to win.
Angelina - Sadly, we get hardly anything from Angelina. Most of the episode was spent with Cila and Vatu. We know a lot about the dynamics of her tribe, but not where she stands other than she is outside of the majority alliance. She says she’s Angelina 2.0, but does not elaborate on what that’s supposed to mean. Unfortunately, Angelina will not be winning Survivor 50.