None of my friends have ever questioned my love forSurvivor, and it’s pretty much because I do things like slow the sneak peek ofSurvivor 51we got at theSurvivor 50finale down to .25x speed and analyze it frame-by-frame to see if I can catch any clues for how the season will play out.
Of course, I’m pretty sure the clips themselves are only from the 2-hour premiere episode, but—fun fact!—shows love to put in nods to season elements, whether they take place in the footage they’re using or not.
And while we’re already deduced amajor theoryabout how the tribes will be divided based on the trailer alone, I wanted to look through one more time and see if there were any other moments I might have missed.
BEWARE:Potential spoilers ahead if any of my theories turn out to be right!
When will the players earn a buff?
If you look carefully at the opening sequence, none of our players are wearing a buff on the marooning ship. But then later, we do see players divided into two groups: yellow and purple. But our players do appear to be wearing shades of red, yellow, and blue at the start. And about halfway through the video, we see two players in blue—An “Thien An” Nguyen and Alexis Levine—both standing on a beach together gathering coconuts when a helicopter arrives. But neither of them are wearing a buff.
And if you knowSurvivor, once players get their buffs, they HAVE their buffs. So it leaves me to wonder, will our players all be on one beach together before the tribe selection officially happens? Will the open era be channeling a little bit ofSurvivor: One Worldas we kick things off? And if that’s the case, and production wants everyone to bond before getting assigned tribes, that further solidifies my theory that we’ll be seeing a schoolyard pick for starting tribes.
Then, how will the boat marooning work?
As far as I can tell from the clips of the marooning, there appears to only be one raft. So despite the clear division of clothing color, our castaways will be working together at the start. We also see a moment where each a red, yellow, and blue-clothed castaway are on the raft in the water, which possibly confirms that idea as well as the one-beach beginning theory.
And based on maroonings ofSurvivorpast, there’s usually an advantage hidden somewhere on board. I think this time around we might see two advantages in plain sight amongst the supplies, guaranteeing that players grab them. The castaways who get these advantages will earn the right to be a “team captain” for the schoolyard pick, getting the advantage of choosing their tribe mates.
And we do in fact see two different moments with two different players interacting with production-style packaging. The first appears to be Rob Antonson—based on the color of the shirt and the slight peek of a tattoo sleeve on his right arm—opening an envelope while the second appears to be Mike Pinsky—based on the shirt style and bracelets—opening a small package that looks very similar to a tribe swap wrapped buff.
At first I thought it was ahidden immunity idolMike was unwrapping, but with this new theory, I would guess Mike and Rob both grab the envelopes on the boat that instruct them they will have the advantage of choosing players to be on their tribe. And then before the first challenge, host Jeff Probst will reveal the twist to the rest of the players, having Mike and Rob step forward to randomly select which color buff their tribe will have. We also later see Mike in a yellow buff and Rob in a purple buff, which confirms they are on opposite tribes.
So how many twists will we get in the first episode?
Based on the story the sneak peek seems to be telling, players will all be starting on one camp before a schoolyard pick led by Mike and Rob determines who is on which starting tribe. But right after we see Mike opening a buff, we see Ana Sani in a purple buff looking shocked. With 21 players and only two tribes, it’s clear that one player is going to be left out of the schoolyard pick. My guess is that when we get down to one remaining player who isn’t assigned to a tribe, Ana is hinting that another shocking twist is already coming into play.
We’ve seen in past seasons that have featured a schoolyard pick that it’s not off the table for the last player(s) standing to be immediately eliminated from the game. But based on the fact that we see 10 players wearing purple buffs and 12 players wearing yellow buffs, I’d venture to guess that instead, that player will be sent toExile Islandwhere they must wait for the first immunity-losing tribe to vote out a member and they will go and join them. Based on the color distribution, it seems that yellow will lose the first challenge and earn back a member after their first Tribal Council.
And every close up image we see of Patt Cannaday—where it’s clearly her face—they are reluctant to show her with a buff on. Though later we get a shot of what appears to be her back during a water-based challenge where she is interacting with a yellow element alongside Angelica “Jelly” Loblack, who is also wearing a yellow buff. So I can’t help but wonder if maybe she gets sent to Exile Island before joining the game on the yellow tribe for the second immunity challenge.
Is someone getting medevac’d in the first episode?
We do get a wide-shot moment of a helicopter coming onto the beach followed by what appears to be a shocked Thien An pointing at something saying, “I think it’s landing here,” with Alexis next to her saying, “I can’t even tell…”
But that happens right after Jeff’s voiceover teases “dangerous new elements,” so I feel like they’re trying to make the helicopter sound threatening without it actually being so. Though we have seen players removed from the game on the first episode before—most recentlyKyle FraserinSurvivor 50after he took a nasty spill in a challenge.
But if the timing matches up, it looks like the helicopter comes in at the very beginning of the game, before players are divided into tribes. So while it’s completely possible someone gets injured during the marooning, based on the fact we see everyone in a buff at one point or another in the video, we aren’t likely going to have someone removed so early in the game, otherwise there would only be 10 yellow buff sightings and not the 11 that we have.
Who’s in danger in the first episode?
If the 2-hour premiere features two back-to-back “episodes”—to fulfill the initial Exile Island plot within the first episode—that means we might be losing to players. And while I don’t want to jinx anyone, there were two players that weren’t featured in the sneak peek other than a “blink and you’ll miss them” moment during a bird’s-eye-view of a challenge. And that would be Aaliyah Puglia and Ori Jean-Charles.
Aaliyah appears to be on the yellow tribe while Ori is on the purple tribe. So it’s very possible that Aaliyah is the first to go, opening up that extra spot on the yellow tribe, followed by Ori at the next Tribal Council.
If that is the case, the positive of it is that fans will be happy to see that having two larger tribes instead of three smaller ones, there’s no single dominant challenge winner—and subsequently, no single losing-streak tribe. Because that hints at a purple win followed by a yellow win, which will keep things pretty equal at the start of the game.
But all this to say, I’m just an overly observant fan with an active imagination and love of logic puzzles. So there’s absolutely no guarantee thatanyof this will happen as we kick off the seasons and we’ll all just have to wait until theSurvivor 51premiere on Wednesday, September 23 to find out how things go for our castaways this season.
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