Worst twists in Survivor history

Worst Twists in Survivor History – Number 11: Joint Tribal Council

• First Appearance: Game Changers (Season 34, 2017)

Typically the tribe who loses the immunity challenge has the unfortunate task of attending tribal council and voting someone out of the game. Sure, sometimes we’ll see a double tribal council where both teams vote someone out, but maybe the winner gets to eat food during the losing team’s tribal council, but that’s about as extreme as it usually gets in a typical season.

In Survivor: Game Changers, however, a new twist was invented and it was a costly one.

For the first time in Survivor history, the two tribes who lost the challenge (there were three tribes at this point) had to attend tribal council together and agree to vote out ONE person. This is obviously intended for good television, but during Game Changers what it led to was constant whispering and it was hard to keep track of what was happening during the vote.

Ultimately, fan favorite Malcom Freberg was voted out due to a successful idol play by the tribe with lesser numbers.

On paper, joint tribal council might sound like a fun twist, but it backfired in Game Changers with Malcolm going home and it’s really just not a compelling enough twist to keep bringing back (though it did reappear in Edge of Extinction). Hopefully losing Malcolm so early in the season was punishment enough and Survivor won’t look to do the joint tribal council again.