Survivor 50 episode 2, "Therapy Carousel," had a little bit of everything that shows why it's one of the most successful shows of all time.
There were two challenges that required participation from every tribe member. There was plenty of confrontation between tribe members, and even across tribe lines, thanks to the honorable Coach Wade. There were advantages found and given to alliance members. Basically, everything that makes Survivor great was found in this episode.
And, there were several players who made a good impression during this episode. I shared the five best players of Survivor 50 episode 2, plus one honorable mention selection.
Honorable Mention: Q Burdette
Q has taken on much more of a leadership role so far in his second run on Survivor. He has been the driving force for what is, so far, the biggest numbers advantage on any tribe. While Colby and Stephenie appear to have the best connection in the alliance, Q seems to be the most vocal of the group.
This week, that included bringing in Rizo to replace Kyle in the alliance. Not only did that keep the numbers in their favor, but Rizo appears to be a willing addition to the group. Rizo wasn't the most cunning or strategic player during his first season, and having an alliance member who you don't fear turning on you is one of the best things to have in Survivor.
5. Colby Donaldson
Colby was a pivotal part of Vatu's immunity challenge win. After Rizo and Genevieve struggled to get the first snake back to its base, Colby and Stephenie had a lot of work to do. Mostly due to Colby's dominance, the duo not only made up time but even passed another tribe.
Vatu would end up being the only tribe to not drop their ball on the final portion of the challenge and go home with immunity. If not for Colby's heroic effort, they may have been more rushed on the ball maze. That could have led to a very different outcome.
At camp, Colby spoke up when multiple tribe members failed to carry their weight with daily tasks. Doing so often leads to rubbing people the wrong way and being labeled as demanding. However, as far as I can tell, that didn't appear to be the case. Everyone seemed to take to the request without even considering Colby to be a target. That is a fine line to walk, and Colby did so wonderfully, managing to get more production out of his tribe without them turning on him.
4. Aubry Bracco
Aubry had an interesting episode, to say the very least. Genevieve started to sense that she had something to hide. To be fair, I saw where she's coming from. Aubry appeared to be carrying her bag around everywhere she went, which can only mean suspicious things. Genevieve convinces her entire alliance to help search her bag, sending Q, Colby, and Stephenie on distraction and lookout duty. They ended up finding nothing, which is very interesting considering what happens later in the episode.
Aubry ends up being the target of Christian's Boomerang Idol, meaning she did have something in her bag. Whether or not it was there when they did their search wasn't revealed, so it was either a huge miss by Genevieve or one of the luckiest timing coincidences in Survivor history. Regardless, Aubry now has an idol and a potential future alliance member.
3. Christian Hubicki
As I just mentioned, Christian found the Billie Eilish Boomerang Idol at his camp. Funny enough, he didn't even appear to be looking for anything when he stumbled upon it. He sent it off to Aubry before telling anyone about it. He revealed the situation to his clear number one ally, Rick Devens.
That got Devens to reveal his mastermind plan, which is to plant a fake idol at the tribal council area. His thinking is that they can pull it out whenever they want, acting as if they just found it and making everyone else panic and flip their votes. It's diabolical, but it could save one of them down the line.
Christian also did a good job mediating the clear tension between Devens and Joe. He played both sides well, calming Joe down and getting him to come down from his apparent frustration with the way Devens has approached him.
2. Rick Devens
The most memorable Devens moment during this week's episode was probably him planting the idol at tribal council while Christian "tripped" and took everyone's attention away from the sleight of hand. That could very well end up being his biggest move of the game. However, he had a couple other solid plays throughout the episode that landed him this high on the list.
While it didn't come to fruition, at least not yet, he was the main catalyst for the push to vote Joe out. He is adamant that Joe is too honorable to work with in a game full of big-name players. With Cirie taking a bit more control at their camp, it could come down to which of those two has more pull prior to their next tribal council.
He was also a huge factor in Cila's reward challenge win. In a showdown with Coach, Devens was able to land his three rings quickest, securing the first-place finish for his tribe. While I'm sure it took longer than they showed, it appeared as if he hardly missed a toss. Devens proved that he is a true dual-threat in this game.
1. Cirie Fields
This may be the quickest turnaround for any player in Survivor history. The only reason she wasn't voted out last week was because Ozzy did everything in his power to keep her around. This week, even though she was a virtual non-factor in both challenges, her name wasn't brought up once for who is on the chopping block. In fact, she went as far as to defend Ozzy this time around and get the vote off of him.
On top of that, Ozzy gave her the Extra Vote he got from Exile Island even though she ended up not needing it. So in just a couple of days of game time, she went from the obvious vote to one of the people in control of her tribe. Chris Daugherty cost his tribe the very first immunity on Vanuatu. He would go on to win that season. If Cirie goes on to win this season, it would be even more impressive than Chris's run, given how stacked this season is.
Survivor 50 continues on Wednesday, March 11. We're getting a tribe swap in the third episode!