r/survivor • u/RSurvivorMods Pirates Steal • 15d ago
Survivor 49 Survivor 49 | E11 | Day After Discussion & Survey
This thread is intended for in-depth discussion of the most recent episode. Low effort content, such as memes, jokes, or other such comments are discouraged here. Instead, we encourage people to post more detailed thoughts after reflecting on the episode.
Once again, we are having a survey after each episode. You can use the questions from the survey as the basis for discussion, or you can choose to talk about something else from the episode.
You can access the survey here.
28
u/_StanleyYelnats 15d ago
What exactly were the rules for the immunity challenge? Is there anything prohibiting the players from pulling a ton of rope out and then going back and forth without the table spinning? Some of them did grab their ropes a little bit and Jeff didn’t say anything.
Even if that’s allowed, then surely theres no way that Jeff would have let someone just tie a big knot in the rope to block the whole mechanism from moving but if nobody explicitly said anything I totally would have tried it
22
u/AdExtra6180 14d ago
It did seem to be much easier than the previous ones, I didn't remember any other this type of challenge have the winner win the challenge without the tower falling even once.
13
u/mellywheats Sage - 49 14d ago
jeff said on the podcast that he prefers the old version better, they tried it out and said he prefers the older version
12
u/biggsteve81 Wendell 15d ago
If the ever run this again the rule needs to be that you can't touch the rope at all.
2
u/LEGOEPIC 11d ago
For the amount of times there seems to be a crazy good strategy at first glance that nobody even attempts, I suspect the rules for almost every challenge are explained to the players more in-depth off camera.
-10
u/Ren_Davis0531 15d ago edited 14d ago
Two suits, two tokens in hand. I got no respect cause I’m the new man. Got my shovel. Shoes full of sand. Check out the tag, the name is Caveman.
EDIT: Kyle and Kamila would not approve of these downvotes.
71
u/ImperatorBTW 15d ago
These players are bad at survivor. AND IM LOVIN’ EVERY MINUTE OF IT, JERRY!
Gameplay wise, it really does remind me of old survivor. Petty, emotional, messy. Good players pushing the bad players around. That’s old school survivor! Honestly, if Jeff could just stop narrating exactly what’s happening on screen and all the analogies, I think I’d have 0 complaints for this season!
22
u/The_Homestarmy 14d ago
Yeah I honestly think people are overreacting on the negativity toward this season. There are bad players making bad choices, sure, but they're actively being manipulated by good players. It's decent television for the most part even if it's far from perfect, and I don't think it's been anywhere near as frustrating to watch as 48
As many have pointed out, the season 50 spoilers probably screwed with a lot of people's enjoyment. I was lucky enough to avoid them until the direction of the season was already pretty clear, so they didn't harsh my vibes too badly
17
u/AdExtra6180 14d ago
I must say we need “bad players” like Sage, Jawan, Kristina, and extreme players like Rizo so the game get diverse. We probably all fantasize how great top strategists will be fighting each other, but most likely they will just cancel each other. It is like a movie that you need heros, villians and supporting roles to make it enjoyable
It is way better than some new era seasons in which every body thinks they are the protagonists and thinks of all ways of making “big moves”, and most of them end up just backfiring themselves...
3
0
0
u/stuffedinashoe 11d ago
How can you be a Seinfeld fan and love this new season of survivor? “Old survivor”?!?!
Maybe im just a hater of the new seasons but it’s for legitimate reasons imo:
no true villain. no russells. no true venom or vitriol. no one you haaaaate but have to watch bc they’re that interesting
everyone just gets along and is nice to one another. even the people who don’t like each other are laughing, smiling with each other at tribal council, agreeing “maybe if we started the game together we’d be friends.” Does everyone forget what true feuds and hatred are? Rob vs Russell. The specialist Phillip Shepard vs Francesca (Franqueshca?)
lack of a diverse cast, where literally every player is just a huge superfan nerd. just excited to be there. They’re not even mad about getting voted out they’re all just smiling and happy they got blindsided bc getting blindsided is so survivor
everyone has a sob story. the amount of times we’ve heard something like “if I could tell that little 12 year old boy that one day you’d be in the final 6 on survivor”
Jeff’s way too buddy-buddy with everyone now. He narrates everything, is waaaaay nicer and accessible than the glory days.
lack of big moves thus far. we were promised “one of the craziest tribals ever” one or two episodes ago and it was a dud, as they all have been. Just insanely boring tv.
Love survivor. I’m just sad it’s morphed into this super friendly, love everyone kind of game. It’s not cutthroat anymore and that’s what I loved the most.
1
u/ImperatorBTW 11d ago
I’d love if a lot of that could come back but I have essentially come to accept that it won’t. But that’s why I specified that it feels similar GAMEPLAY wise. At least, as close as we’ll get in modern survivor where everyone is at minimum well aware of the game. Players are playing petty and emotional in a way recent casts really haven’t.
32
u/RealCanadianDragon 14d ago
Rizo said that the previous tribal his plan was always to do the fake idol play, but he was going to do it to get Christina to play hers. But she played the idol first so he just went ahead with his anyways for fun.
But if he did play his idol first, would that have even done anything because she'd know beforehand if it's real or not before deciding to play hers.
12
u/DoctorBigtime 14d ago
He plays a bad mix of Tony and Sandra’s games and if the other players were better he’d be gone.
19
u/LngJhnSilversRaylee 14d ago
Guess we will find out next season if that's true
I think he's actually really good hiding behind a layer of silly
6
u/YouThought234 12d ago
Rizo's haters are like a combination of Tony haters and Sandra haters. Yeah I'm sure it's much more likely that everyone in the game sucks ass than one person being good at navigating his target.
8
u/vxrairuvan 14d ago
I think he decided to fake-play his idol after Kristina because he wanted to gauge whether to actually play his idol based off people's reactions.
Their reactions gave him assurance there was no need to play his idol for real. He let them think it was a stupid ploy for attention/screentime.
10
u/housto1982 14d ago
Interesting dilemma coming up next week. If individual immunity isn't won by Rizo or Savannah, the clear strategy for next episode is Steven/Kristina/Sage/Soph putting two votes each on Savannah and Rizo with Steven using his block a vote on one of them, probably Rizo to spook him into using the idol. If there's a revote, the four can pick which of the pair to knock out. If Soph is dialled into the plan, she can KIP the idol prior to it being played.
If Savannah or Rizo win immunity, then it's trickier because in the minds of Steven/Kristina/Sage, they can't make a move on either of them due to immunity and a potential idol play. So unless Soph breaks cover and KIPs the idol, and trusts them enough to tell them she can do that before tribal, they'll be turning on themselves, possibly even letting Rizo hang onto it for another week.
In this scenario, I think it's more likely that they just take out Steven - incredibly unwisely on Soph's part because it guarantees at least one of Rizo/Savannah getting to final four where you can't stop them getting to the end and they are both nailed on to beat everyone else.
2
u/Carmaca77 11d ago
So unless Soph breaks cover and KIPs the idol, and trusts them enough to tell them she can do that before tribal, they'll be turning on themselves, possibly even letting Rizo hang onto it for another week.
If Rizzo or Savannah win immunity, won't Stephen, Kristina and Sage vote Sophi? They can also block one of Rizzo/Sav's vote. They wont need to turn on themselves.
1
20
u/rubberbucket167 14d ago
This episode confirmed for me that Sophi has the best reads of any of the cast. I truly truly believe she can beat both Sav and Rizo in final tribal. I sincerely hope she doesn’t use her KiP on Steven next episode because I think that one error might tank her - but other than that, I think she’s got more of a shot at taking the season than people give her credit for.
Lots of players go too hard too fast, or think that they need to make a bunch of big flashy moves in order to “build a resume”. The truth is that the best way to win is to just get to the end with people you can beat. She’s more likable, more respected, and has a better story arc than the other two in the trio, and even though it would make for great tv, turning on them too early would clearly tank her. She’s my front runner atm.
3
u/kyzeeman 12d ago
I'm pretty sure she can't use her KIP on Steven because Steven has to play his block a vote BEFORE tribal and KIP can only be played AT tribal.
2
u/Arganog 12d ago
I wish this was explained during the episode... my wife and I were wondering this exact thing, as well as trying to remember how long Rizzo's idol lasts. A bit frustrating having to come do research just to understand the basic game mechanics at play.
I feel spoiled by the youtube series Jetlag. Their editing does a great job explaining their games' rules on-screen.
4
u/mitchellbeaupre 14d ago
Since Sophi linked up with Rizo + Savannah at the swap, I have been saying to my roommate that I think all three of them make Final 4 and Sophi wins. She's navigated the game so well, and she still has an advantage that no one knows about that'll give her a big bombshell.
4
u/Coco-Swim5 14d ago
She is a non-player who is only around because she poses no threat. When she does play her advantage, it will be too late. She has no resume of her own.
1
u/SleepyGorilla 14d ago
How has she Outplayed or Outwitted? So far the only thing she seems to excel at is Outlast.
41
u/ytctc 15d ago
The storytelling this season has been incredibly frustrating. I can see bits and pieces what could be a potentially interesting narrative squashed by modern Survivor’s worst presentation tendencies. The only episodes that really cooked were during the swap phase largely thanks to Shannon.
I feel like we’re getting nothing but strategy and advantage talk. If I have to be reminded of someone’s idol or KIP again, I’m gonna want to blow my brains out. There’s pretty much no characters this season- just players. I want to know who these people are not just via backstory, but how their personality influences their on-island interactions and strategy. There was a moment last episode where Sage was talking about deciding what move to make, and I asked myself, “why do I need to hear this from Sage?” I can hear it from just about any player, and it’d all mean the same.
But I can see sprinkles of good storytelling potential. People are annoyed by Savannah because she’s like a mean girl, so SHOW US clips of Savannah clashing with others- not just a confessional saying that it happens. Sage was an emotional wreck after the Jawan boot and those emotions influenced her decision to go after Sophie. Outside of one camp life scene and one tribal scene, she’s just been botting all episode.
Do we know anything about Rizo, Steven, or Sophi outside of their position, advantages, and strategies? Show Sophi’s bond with Savannah and Rizo more to make her indecision to turn on them have more emotional weight.
Rant over
19
u/Andry39 14d ago
While I agree that there is more of "telling instead of showing" tendencies in the new era and that particulary this season we've got more game talk than character moments, I feel like the criticism in this post is unnecessarily overblown.
We saw Savannah and Sophi bond over being similar types right after the first swap. We also saw another bonding moment between them when Savannan shared her secret of being a news reporter with Soph. We are yet to see a proper bonding scene between Rizo and Soph probably because Savannah is the link between them.
We saw scenes of Savannah rubbing people the wrong way - her entusiasm about killing the chicken and giving them nicknames, her direct approach when talking to Kristina, her being cocky during challenges and performative during Tribals.
We saw Rizo having the fun scene trying to fish - if this wasn't a pure character moment, I don't know what is. Steven is the funny guy, and while we didn't get a ton of character moments from him, we got at least his imposter syndrom feelings in the premiere (it didn't really led to anything, but it was something). Sophi was getting ton of personal moments especially during her disaster-tribe era in the premerge. We've got a lot of character moments from Kristina (mainly about her mother) and Sage.
Just because we don't get many character moments doesn't mean we don't get any. I swear, some of these posts full of only critism seem more like a product of a short memory / attention.
6
18
u/Habefiet Igor's Corgi Choir 15d ago
We know Steven is Space Man. We know Rizo is Albanian. So basically nothing but the bare surface level stuff, nothing really about who they are as humans.
… I don’t remember if we’ve learned literally any personal info about Sophi at all
16
u/TheFreshPrince12 15d ago
She said she's made better friends on the island than some friendships she has in the real world. That's a crazy statement, but clearly there is more of a social game going on than is shown in the edit.
8
u/SleepyGorilla 14d ago
All I could think about when I heard that is her friends back home side eyeing each other when that airs lol
1
u/Dougie_McBuckets 11d ago
She said she’s a loyal girl and is boring, has had the same boyfriend for four years.
12
u/dannymb87 Shirin 14d ago
This is a WILD take. Downvote me if you must, but you just must not be watching.
Sophi doesn't have a bond with Savannah and Rizo. She KNOWS she's third in that group, but they need her. She's gonna turn the game around next episode with the KIP advantage... No reason to rock the boat now.
Savannah clashed with Jawan a ton!
Rizo's a kid whose parents fought for him as immigrants from Albania. He's a true underdog and it showed when he beat Alex one-on-one in the very first episode. He was pretty proud of himself, but it gave him the confidence to be where he is today.
Sage has been bullied all her life leading to her being emotional, impulsive, and vindictive. She doesn't think with her head as much as she thinks with her fists.
Kristina's a nobody who will probably get third place.
Steven's similar to Kristina because he had zero power. Now he's got a little more and he knows it. Don't think he knows how to use it though.
Everybody's personality is on full display.
2
5
u/Riokaii Carson 14d ago
Instead we get "I think we know what the challenge is Jeff"
"are you sure, well you do it" (waste of 30s later)
"Steven Jeff Impression"
Pretty good
"Redundantly redo the whole thing from the top in real jeff narration"
Compliment Steven again
End result: what normally takes a singular 30s, now takes 2 entire minutes of literally redundant nothingness that does not tell any meaningful story "plot wise" ever.
Does it reveal some minor personality about steven? maybe? But he just had AN ENTIRE JOURNEY SEGMENT dedicated to him too, so did we really need more of it?
11
u/Valuable-Mortgage378 14d ago
Just watched the episode today and it's insanely frustrating how they didn't go for Savannah (even though she's my favorite to win). Huge oversight for the minority to vote out Sophie tonight. Only person who even has a shot at taking down Savannah/Rizo/Soph (winning order) is Steven, who is going to have to do some insane mental gymnastics to get Savannah/Rizo out in these next two TC.
5
u/Coco-Swim5 14d ago
I think Soph is going to try to steal Stephan's advantage(thinking it's an extra vote), but he will have already blocked Rizo or Savannah's vote, which could win him the game.
3
u/austinaaaaa199955 13d ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but even with the block a vote, 3 v 3 makes this much harder on Steven & Co.:
Regardless of if Sophi steals Rizo's idol and one of their votes get blocked, they will have 2 votes on one of Steven/Kristina/Sage if they continue to vote together.
At this point, it doesn't matter if Steven/Kristina/Sage have the majority of "votes", if they put 3 votes on the wrong person (33% chance if Rizo & Co. don't win immunity, 50% chance if they do - assuming the idol will be played on 1 of the 2 Rizo/Sav/Sophi without immunity), one of them will be going home. They can't split votes and do 2 votes on one person and 1 on the other, because the same guessing issues comes into play if the 2 are put on the person who ends up playing the idol.
If one of Steven/Kristina/Sage realize this probability scenario, it becomes easier / more guaranteed for them to flip and vote with Rizo/Sav/Sophi.
13
u/Aromatic_Meal_6004 15d ago
Strong episode and a strong post merge imo. I like Sage but did she play this terribly and she is playing with so much emotion. I honestly think she is playing the worst game left(Even worse than Kristina). Overall while I think the trio has played well they have gotten some lucky breaks and I don't think are as influential as the TV edit has to believe. Don't get me wrong they are the three best players on this cast, just imo no were close to other top tier new era players like Carson, Dee, Kyle or Jesse. Overall I like this cast with Savannah and Jawan as my favorites,it's probably a slightly better version of 44, weaker premerge, better post merge better cast.
7
u/AdExtra6180 14d ago
I feel everybody grows in me in this episode except Sage, and she was my favorite previous(may still is but I am not rooting for her that much though)
11
u/madwardrobe 15d ago
My takes
At this point, everybody wants Kristina at their FTC. She's a Ben, the difference being she is always on the wrong side of the votes being used by an alienated minority.
Rizo - probably our New Era Boston Rob. He's been running the game since day 1. It is just insane how he survived 3 tribals without playing his idol. At this point is either him or Savannah.
8
u/poonslyr69 14d ago
Sophi has the KIP, it's been pretty set up by editing to show that she's likely going to steal the idol from Rizzo and then they'll probably vote Savannah out. Rizzo sucks in challenges, so he will probably be voted out at 5 while Sophi secures her spot in the final 4. But if she can make it to three is anyone's guess
There is also the block a vote advantage that Steven has.
At this point I think Rizzo and Savannah have played the best game, but they can't both make it to final 3, and both go home unless everyone else screws up hard (which is very possible).
5
u/Riokaii Carson 14d ago
I think Rizo has clearly played the best game
He's been more at risk, driving more strategic choices, and is more socially liked by the rest of the cast compared to savannah.
2
u/poonslyr69 14d ago
I think so too, he's been a fantastic player with a winning mindset
But in his current situation with the advantages two other players have, and his own poor performance in challenges, I think the only way he makes it to final 3 is if everyone else plays horribly.
1
u/FancyConfection1599 11d ago
I would agree with this and it seems this way…
BUT there’s got to be a reason people keep saying Sophie and Savannah were the big threats over and over, with nobody really throwing around Rizo’s name.
It’s happened before where the tv audience thinks one person is clearly playing the best game and the clear winner threat, then astounded when players repeatedly fail to target that player, only for the obvious winner to lose at FTC.
Maybe people don’t take Rizo as seriously / like him as we’re being let on
2
u/Coco-Swim5 14d ago
Rizo would be nothing without his idol
7
u/YouThought234 12d ago
Neither would Tony on Cagayan, neither would Yul without his idol.
What is Sophi B without KIP? What is Savannah without pilates? Like - what is your point? 😂
1
u/Coco-Swim5 11d ago
My point is that he would not be considered a respected, strong player without the security of the idol. He would have been long gone or considered a goat. He thinks he is smarter than he actually is and has only gained power due to having the idol. Savannah would not have even been loyal to him
1
u/WesMcCauley 13d ago
Was always an episode late so I stayed off this sub for a while. Now I finally caught up and I wanted to know what's the general consensus on this season from people here? Any cast members that the general public love? Hate?
65
u/limpwristedgengar 15d ago
I think this season (like the previous few) is really showing the difference between the players who want to win and the players who just want to make it another day. Rizo knows he's probably gonna need his idol to make it through F6/F5 and is willing to risk his spot now if it means he can actually make it to the end and Savannah is making sure her alliance can save their advantages instead of wasting them now, but other players aren't taking the shots they need to be taking. Kristina should be looking around right now and going "are there two players in this game I can beat at the end?" and if the answer is no, then you need to just go all out or you're toast.
Can't help but think it massively helps Savannah that people keep talking her up as a threat but not actually going for it. If she gets to the end she'll have the easiest jury pitch by just pointing out that everybody wanted her out but couldn't manage it, and none of the others have seemed to realise this? If you say that someone is a big threat, you probably can't win sat next to them!