As Jeff Probst likes to keep reminding us, 63% of the fans voted for twists, and Survivor 50 has certainly delivered.
And as long-time viewers of the show know, the best twists don’t just shake up the game in the moment, they leave results that permanently change the trajectory of everyone’s game. And while the previous double and triple eliminations were exciting, nothing so far this season has affected the total game the way Chrissy Hofbeck and Coach Wade’s eliminations surely will.
As the beginning of episode 8, “Double the Fun, Double the Demise,” the merged tribe was divided into a few different factions:
The “Honor & Integrity” Alliance: Coach Wade, Chrissy Hofbeck, Jonathan Young, Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick, Joe Hunter, Ozzy Lusth, Cirie Fields
The Four Horsemen Alliance: Coach Wade, Jonathan Young, Joe Hunter, Rizo Velovic
The “Middle People” Alliance: Christian Hubicki, Rick Devens, Emily Flippen, Aubry Bracco
“Cirie’s Rizard of Oz” Alliance: Cirie Fields, Rizo Velovic, Ozzy Lusth
The Original Cila Tribe Alliance: Christian Hubicki, Rick Devens, Emily Flippen, Ozzy Lusth, Cirie Fields
The Fake Idol Alliance: Rick Devens, Christian Hubicki
So while the “honor and integrity” alliance feel like they have the majority—especially after Dee Valladare’s was eliminated the week prior, which Coach and Jonathan were both pushing so heavily for—if you look at the distribution of players and trust, they actually have some of the least amount of tribe connections outside of Dee’s ally Tiffany Ervin who starts the episode on the outside of all the known alliances as a swing vote.
But after winning immunity together, Joe and Tiffany tightened their bond and connected deeper within the game. Joe was also brought into the Coach vote by Cirie and Rizo in order to not be blindsided by the group. Which means that now, with Coach and Chrissy gone, Jonathan and Stephenie will enter episode 8 the same way Tiffany entered episode 9—sort of floating around as both outsiders and free agents.
Stephenie feels connected to Cirie, who is the only other player who knows about her advantage, and will try and latch onto her while Jonathan will hold onto Joe, the person who best portrays the “honor and integrity” ideal he’s claiming to be playing with this season.
But will either of those relationships hold or be useful as the game shifts and new power players take the lead? Likely yes for one or two votes. Now that the big threats of that alliance are gone, Stephenie, Jonathan, and Joe will continue to be used as numbers to take out the threats of the new emerging majority alliance. Though Aubry and Devens seemed to be the largest concern of the “middle people” last week, I have a feeling Emily is actually the one going to be in the most danger coming up.
And as I’ve mentioned before, there will soon come a time when Rizo and Ozzy must call to action the armies they’ve built in order to battle against each other because even though Final Tribal Council ends with three people sitting there, we all know it can’t end with three tight-locked allies sitting there. And Rizo and Ozzy are going to be the ones to fight for Cirie’s allyship because in the end, she can only have one no. 1.
And this is Survivor 50, so we know the big moves are going to be saved for the very end. Which means we likely won’t see that for at least another episode or two. First up is episode 9, “I Deserve All of This,” on April 22 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and Paramount+.
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