Survivor. Is. Back. - Survivor 47 - Ep. 1

Ladies and gentlemen, the greatest show on the planet Earth has made its triumphant return with Survivor 47. Every time you turn on this show, you never know what to expect. No one season of this show will ever be the same! Whether it’s the competitions, the various unique players, differing game styles, the advantages, etc. It’s just one of those shows you start watching… then you look up and you’ve watched three seasons back to back. At least, that’s how it is for me. 

Jeff sort of mentioned it before the opening challenge, but this show truly is the greatest social experiment! You are tossed into a new community in an unknown territory. Then when you have no shelter or food, you are forced to rely on the people you just met. It’s a beautiful picture and scenario. Then add another layer on top of it all… you are playing this crazy game where you vote off those very same people. 

Let’s see how it plays out this time :)

Let’s get into the opening marooning challenge! As a fan, I love the grandeur of the challenge and it’s just so refreshing to be watching these competitions again. It seriously had a mixture of everything. You’ve got the mud that baptizes the players right into the game, the physical challenge of racing through the forest to collect/carry heavy puzzle pieces, and then a puzzle to challenge you mentally on top of all that. Then there is Jeff commenting over all of it and the pressure to perform right away. You can almost sense the players’ hearts pumping out of their chests.

I mean TK and Sue’s reaction to this challenge summarized it perfectly when they were mentioning how hard that was. Well… welcome to Survivor! It’s not going to get much easier at all haha.

Here are a few takeaways I had from this challenge (which I also mentioned in my TikTok post!!! Feel free to check it out @RealityTVWithAlec): 

1. The drone show following Kyle into the jungle/forest was SO SICK! I want more of that while the challenges are going down.

2. It was clever of Sam and his teammates to pull the buff over his face while going through the mud. With all the unique ways buffs have been used… I am shocked we haven’t seen that one more! It just goes to show you how iconic and versatile those things are.

3. It was a very up-and-down competition for the Gata tribe. They came out hot, lost their lead, and then whipped together a puzzle in no time to get the win. Which, Rachel deserves much credit for figuring it out very quickly. I don’t know how you all feel… It feels as if there aren’t puzzle gurus anymore! Maybe Rachel can prove me wrong.

4. That mud solidifies so quickly!

As we know, the losing tribe had to send one person on a journey to earn their supplies in another way. Aysha for Lavo and TK for Tuku. Following that decision, Rome’s comment was super interesting. He basically said that it was a big mistake to go on this journey because you lose out on precious initial time socializing. Which… I completely agree with that statement. However, Rome completely contradicts that with how he acts in the rest of the episode.

Although, I do see how this could be a great opportunity to boost your resume and earn favor with your tribe too. 

In my opinion, I loved this alternative version of earning your supplies! Rather than the sweat vs savvy way of doing things. Maybe I am just a sucker for a good competition, but I just feel like this was a very even way of settling who got supplies. It might be brutal of me to say, but I also like how there is a clear winner and loser to this. One tribe, no matter what will not end up with supplies. There should be a punishment for losing! Whereas, you still would get a chance to earn your supplies with sweat vs savvy.

I think we need to give props to TK for getting the win during this challenge too! To be real, Aysha probably should have won the challenge but lost all momentum looking for the path. I kept asking myself… is it a rule to follow down the path back to the beach?! Then I noticed TK literally sending himself down the hill/mountain to get back for the final clue. He made his own path and that’s what it takes on Survivor! 

It might be nothing but I did notice that Tiyana leaped up into TK’s arms with a big hug. Maybe something to watch?!

Aysha was honest with how the journey went, and it seemed like her tribe very easily brushed over it as no big deal. That was kind of fishy how they didn’t question it at all. 

Moving on, I love how the older the show gets, the more they find ways to get creative and have fun with it! For example, the editors writing out the math equation on the screen during Andy’s one-on-one was so cool. It reminds me of the Andy Griffith Alliance editing they did during season 46 with Hunter and Tevin. I am positive this won’t be the last time we see quirky editing like that!

I have concluded that early game Survivor is sort of like the honeymoon phase of a dating relationship. Everyone is just so happy-go-lucky.

For example, we are seeing early relationships form on the Tuku tribe! Sue kind of sees Caroline like a daughter and I think they will grow into a strong bond as time goes on. On the other hand, Gabe has made it very clear that he wants to work with someone older because it can complement his gameplay/strategies well. That supposedly someone older would play the game wisely and be level-headed (without emotions). 

Similarly, with the Lavo tribe, it seems like most players are jiving well with each other and starting to get ideas of who they want to work with. For example, Teeny wants to work with everyone. Then Genevieve likes Teeny and Rome. 

I always think about what type of person I would want to align with in Survivor. I go back and forth every day. Would it be someone who is the opposite of me so that we balance each other out? Maybe someone who acts and plays similarly to me so that we can bounce ideas off of each other? Would I go with the strong person to use them as a shield or lurk in the shadows with someone who is a master manipulator?

What type of person/player would you align with?!

Now let’s get into these beware advantages. I talked about this on my TikTok as well… the ways Rome and Gabe found/began to find their advantages were incredibly sloppy. To the point where I would say their advantages became disadvantages! People now have an eye on them and the advantages aren’t a secret anymore. 

Here were a few of their mistakes:

1. TK catches Gabe trying to get the key down and then Gabe proceeds to play dumb. TK read that like a book and isn’t sure he wants to work with him now.

2. The Lavo tribe notices that Rome is away from the camp/tribe a good bit. Picking up on the fact that he is clearly looking for the idol. He needs to start coming back to the tribe. This goes back to his contradicting statement where he called out Aysha for losing time socially with the tribe.

3. Rome started to dig up the path in the middle of the daylight before checking if anyone was coming. Granted he then later decided to do it at night.

4. When Gabe then goes to find the box… he drops it down a mountain clumsily. Which causes a ruckus that the other players notice.

5. Lastly, you had Rome searching for the clue with his legs sticking out of the well with the rest of the tribe just around the corner. Aysha even caught him at one point looking around and he just awkwardly scattered away when the rest of the tribe came around. I give Rome an awareness rating of 1 out of 10. 

On the other hand, I wanted to point out how I like this new beware advantage! The option of being able to choose the length of its lifespan (one tribal, 3 tribals, or until the final five) is such a cool twist. Obviously, it gets riskier the further you go. There are so many different avenues to how an advantage like this can be played out. It’s pretty unpredictable which is why I think it’s so fun. One player might go for it all, whereas another might settle for just one tribal council. I am really curious as to what the third and final clue would have been. Like how difficult was it!?

Finally, we made it to the first immunity challenge! Here are my takeaways:

1. Those chests were clearly way too big for the boat and it made it so easy for the boats to flip haha! It was TV gold but I know it was probably dreadful for the players. 

   1. “You want Survivor, you got Survivor!” - Jeff Probst lol

2. On another note, the Lavo tribe somehow made it look easy and got to the beach with a humongous lead. Then once they got to the puzzle it was finished in seconds. They had literally just started it… then it cut back to them and they were finished. This tells me that they must have had a humongous lead

3. Sol is kind of jacked

4. Unlike the first challenge, the Gata tribe wasn’t even close with this puzzle and they were heading to the first tribal council.

   1. Wait what…Andy passes out!?!?!?

Well, let’s get into it… I think Andy is a really good dude who just struggles a good bit with anxiety. In this case, it was social anxiety. Andy even admitted he had a serious history dealing with that. His paranoia started at camp the day/night before and carried into the challenge today. I think we have to put ourselves in his shoes and take in all the factors. He has a history of anxiety, It’s his dream to play this game, he’s just been thrown into a community, and he just gave his everything in a physically exhausting challenge. I think all of these factors led to a perfect storm for Andy and his panic attack at the end of the challenge.

This should no doubt be a concern for others in his tribe. They might be asking themselves, how can you trust him considering he was so willing to throw his closest ally under the bus?! The other way they might look at it is that Andy can be the pawn thrown up as the speculated target for weeks to come to get others out of the game. I lean more towards the second option.

While his actions/words were probably pretty damaging for his game, I don’t think his hopes in winning the million dollar is a lost cause! Maybe I am biased because I picked him as my winner or because I see too much of the good in people haha. 

He has two options:

1. He can continue to spiral and he will eventually get himself voted out of the game. I think of players from the last season (Bhanu or Jess) who did just that and it led to their early demise in the game.

2. The other side is he can pick himself off the ground and get some confidence! Give your all in these challenges, find a strong ally, find an idol, make some big moves, etc. This is the route I am hoping he takes. Just think about if he is sitting at tribal council on day 26 saying… look what I overcame!

Ultimately, I was sad to see Jon go. I know his very large fanbase wasn’t happy at all too. He was such an intriguing character who gave us some amazing one-liners in the first episode! I get the logic of the tribe to say goodbye to him too. Yes, he would be a threat in the long run of the game and he is the weaker link compared to Andy. Remember that in this phase of the game, the best way to stay in it is to avoid tribal council at all costs!

That’s all for this week! The promo for next week left us with a lot of juicy cliffhangers. More advantages and some rivalries brewing? Stay tuned when we talk about it soon, see you then!