Survivor Recap: Three’s a Crowd

Survivor
That’s the Magic of Survivor
Season 51 Episode 4
Editor’s Rating ★★★
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I have absolutely been loving this season of Survivor. (And I was also loving the recaps by Jason P. Frank, who was filling in for me the past few weeks while I finished up another project.) I’ve loved two tribes, I’ve loved the absolute wackiness of the casting, I’ve loved that each week we went into Tribal Council without knowing what would happen, but the shock each time made absolute sense thanks to some deft editing. I even love all the whales, from the gorgeous immunity idol to the cetacean B-roll to Moby Dick’s bones that are hanging out at Tribal Council just to piss Captain Ahab off. Know what whale I do hate? That second immunity idol that is a whale, because that means that three tribes are back. Ugh. It’s like you have to eat Brussels sprouts every night for years and then finally someone gives you a sundae, and it’s so delicious, and you want to gobble it all up, but after four bites you put your spoon down into that cold, tall glass and pull out … more fucking Brussels sprouts.

Both tribes are told to get on a boat, and they go to a beach where Lewis, the Irish farmer and twink advocate, is so ill that he’s worried about pooping his pants right there in the sand. If anyone has ever been to Puerto Vallarta, it’s just like that but with more Speedos. Our fearless host jokes that it’s the Open Era and wouldn’t it be cool if it was just one 17-person tribe that has to figure out how to send a person home each week. He’s joking, but yes, that would be absolutely awesome. Give me that show. I would love to see it. But our chief Brussels sprout ambassador is there with another bait-and-switch and says that’s not going to happen. The only thing I hate more than three tribes is pranks. Jeff tells them, instead, they’re doing a tribe swap. Just to surprise them, he even hid the sack of new buffs where his head has been since season 40: buried in the sand. (ZING!) 

He says that they always planned a tribe swap with 18 players, but since Rob “left” “the game” “for” “medical” “reasons” last episode, they have 17 players, so one of the three new tribes will only have five people. I always say that nothing in Survivor should be based on chance, and the old trick of pulling buffs out of a sack (buried or otherwise) is just that. I also hate that tribe swaps this early in the season ruin all the dynamics that have been established and not given all that long to develop. So there are three new tribes: The new Savu is Jelly, Devin, Jenna, Ori, and Alexis (three yellow, two purples); the new Taku is Mike, Carter, Brady, Thien An, Maggie, and Kristin (five yellow, one purple); and the new Dina is Kilby, Lewis, Sharonda, Eric, Linnea, and Christian (two yellow, four purple).

This means what it always means at a tribe swap: that certain people are already at a disadvantage for no reason other than no one from their tribe pulled the same buff as them. Their games are reset, and they’re at the bottom. While we did get to see some new permutations of this age-old theme, it’s still a theme that has played on repeat at every tribe swap. I feel like Jeff thinks that the Open Era needs to be about addition, about keeping everyone off-kilter by adding more and more things. What if it was about subtraction? What if we just never swapped tribes at all? 

Kristin is the one who has it the hardest since she is an easy person to eliminate as the only non-yellow on her new tribe. She has a plan, though; she’s going to make herself indispensable, teach them how to find new food, and expose the cracks that happened at the last tribal council where all the nerds got together and turned on the five “popular” kids. It helps that Mike is running around asking for everyone to work with him now that Pantsless Patt got kicked out last episode. 

Savu seems like there isn’t much going on there considering that Jelly and Devin both hate Jenna, Ori doesn’t really want to do anything other than show off his abs, and Alexis is trying to bond with Jenna in the hope to get a majority going to save her skin. Most of the tribe story is about Devin trying to set up Jelly and Ori on a date and being her “wingman.” Oh, Devin, just leave the straights alone. They’ll figure it out. They always do. Instead, he goes hunting for a heart-shaped rock that Jelly can give to Ori. Watch, they’re going to end up married, and they’re going to give Devin back that rock on their wedding day. 

I was most interested in Dina, where the action seems to be. As soon as the tribe formed, Jeff asked Christian a question. Excuse me? Christian? Is he allowed to speak? Not only that, but he also got a confessional. Christian? Who has done nothing in the game so far? In a confessional? I was convinced that they were introducing him just to eliminate him. It seemed like the story was going to be that Dina was weak — particularly because Lewis is dying of Exile Island Fever and is cowering in the leaves as Eric is singing annoying, made-up songs about fried chicken — and that the old purples would pick off one of their own in Christian. 

This made sense because they spent so much time on the new bromance forming between Eric and Kilby, who seem to have found kindred spirits of annoyance in each other. Eric says that he does musical theater for fun and then Kilby says that he does improv in small clubs all across Canada. Guys, neither of you need to tell us this. We know. We can smell it wafting off of you on the Fijian breeze. It is cute that these weirdos band together (I hope against hope that the two of them take Brady out), but even the rest of their tribe notices how close they get so quickly and knows that something will need to be done about it post-haste. 

We get to the challenge, and it is not an obstacle course followed by a puzzle. Instead, it is bucket tossing followed by a ball maze. What is a ball maze if not a puzzle that looks like a roadmap? Turns out that Dina — despite its lack of muscle and putting Lewis, who is still wearing a pair of Depends, into the challenge and sitting out Eric instead — is excellent at throwing water and ends up winning the whole thing. New Taku is right behind them, sending Savu to Tribal Council. 

Damn it, the string of excellent Survivor episodes where the votes and strategies kept changing as people ran around and politicked is now over. As soon as they’re back at the beach, you could have fast-forwarded to the vote count because it is clear Jenna is going home. Devin irrationally hates her and has been trying to get her out since the beginning. He is Jelly’s future bridesman, so he has her vote, and Ori is in their “helicopter alliance,” which, shockingly, seems to have legs, so they have their majority three all sewn up. Jenna tries to talk to Jelly and Devin to save her, saying that their games haven’t aligned yet, but they could now. But, really? Is that going to happen? She and Alexis try to get something going — Alexis even tries to hold Jenna’s shoes for ransom — but they’re never going to convince either of those three to turn on each other, so instead they turn on one another and everyone gets to keep their stinky Birkenstocks.

The editing fools us into thinking that maybe it’s going to be Alexis because Devin and Jelly don’t know her and don’t trust her that much, but have you met a gay with a grudge? There is no way that Devin is backing off Jenna. He says of Jenna, “I’m tired of the toxicity. I have plenty of those relationships back home; I’m not looking for it here.” Devin, have you ever considered that the reason you have toxic relationships wherever you go has less to do with the other people and more to do with you? As Charlie from Survivor 50 will tell you, Taylor Swift sings, “Hey, it’s you. You’re the problem, it’s you,” or something like that.

This week there are no surprises at Tribal. Jenna gets four votes basically because Devin and Jelly don’t want to cross Ori, their helicopter mate, and he wants to keep Alexis around. It’s the utterly predictable result of once again having three tribes. I still have a lot of faith left in this season, since Jeff seems to be willing to try some new things and focus on what makes the game great, particularly casting large personalities that we’re rooting for (and many against), but I feel like some of the momentum has been crushed by going back to these familiar things. Gone is the scrambling, gone are the endless possibilities, gone are the complicated dynamics of large groups replaced, once again, by the predictability of the small group. If there’s one good thing to come out of this episode, may it be the nail in the coffin of three tribes forever.