Survivor: Game Changers Episode 1 Recap: It’s Going Down

Didn’t Aggressiveness Result in the First Boot?

As Day 4 dawned for Mana, Tony went to talk to Aubry, and both acknowledged their threat status in the game. They suggested Malcolm, Caleb, and Sandra to form their majority alliance, and Tony started talking to Sandra first. She was open to it, because she had a good point: there’s no way a winner will win again unless there’s three winners sitting at the end.

Back over on Nuku, Tai made friends with the chickens. J.T., though, wasn’t sure about how he felt about that.

Night 4 on Mana gave Tony time to build his bunker, but he had to go and hide, since Sandra and Troyzan came down to start plotting. She did not do well with Tony’s paranoia when he emerged to ask questions.

Nuku’s Day 5 saw Cirie noticing that J.T. and Ozzy seemed tight. That did not sit well with her, so she started talking to Sarah, Debbie, and Zeke. With Debbie, Cirie started floating the idea of voting a guy. However, not everyone seemed super solid.

Day 5 saw Sandra working counterintelligence on Tony in an alliance of five: Hali, Varner, Troyzan, and Michaela … in about 15 minutes, per Varner.

"Varner: “It gets ugly fast, and I love it.”"

Then, on Day 6, Tony talked to Aubry and Malcolm, making sure they heard about Sandra. Malcolm had a good point in saying he needed strong players to shield himself, which made working with Tony attractive.

Immunity Challenge, With 400 Pounds of (Fake) Snake

The second Immunity Challenge saw six players head into the ocean. After crossing a balance beam, they had to climb into a cage. Inside, they had to untie and push a large snake out, then bring it back to the beach. The other three players then had to untie numbered tiles, and use them as a combination to unlock rings to toss to spell Immunity. Cirie sat out for Nuku.

Heading to the cage, everyone was pretty even. However, Nuku untied the snake first. (Per Probst, it weighed 400 pounds … and he didn’t specify if that was what it weighed when wet.) Mana didn’t even have the snake untied until after Nuku had reached the balance beam. Nuku then made it to the beach just as Mana got the snake back into the water. As Debbie worked on the combination lock, Mana dropped their snake. Sierra and J.T. had lots of time to toss those rings. Malcolm basically brought Mana back from the brink and got it to a tie with J.T.

However, J.T. brought it home, and  Nuku won its second Immunity — and its second Reward in the form of a fishing kit that included a raft.

Battle Royale

A defeated Mana had their post-challenge breakdown, and then things went quiet. Sandra reiterated her desire to vote Tony off, but pointed out to her alliance that Idols are in play. That meant they more numbers, and they went for Caleb and Malcolm. Tony, meanwhile, wanted Sandra off, and that meant trying to flip Michaela. Caleb went to make the case to her, appealing to her dislike of losing.

Mana sat down for its second session with Probst, and Tony immediately started beating the drum of strength. Malcolm then picked it up. Michaela, meanwhile, said she wanted to play physically as well. Sandra pointed out that they’ve still lost with all this strength. Troyzan brought up paranoia, and Sandra then had something in her hair for a brief moment of levity.

Varner, Malcolm, and Caleb all supported Tony’s claim that he wasn’t scheming, or at least said they did, and then Varner brought up square pegs and round holes right before everyone made a trip to the lighthouse.

Tony didn’t survive Sandra, though, and with 7 votes, he became the second person voted out of Survivor: Game Changers. He and Sandra both voted for Aubry.

Next: Ranking the Game Changers Cast on How They Changed the Game

See you next Wednesday for another round of Game Changers — and keep checking here on Surviving Tribal for all the latest analysis, photos, and more.

And, to quote Sandra: “Say hi to Ciera for me!”