Heat exhaustion, blindsides, snake bites, and tribe swaps; we've seen it all in Survivor 49 so far. And, in the next episode, players are going to be blindsided again with another epic twist that's sure to finally shake up this season.
With 12 players left in the game a little bit earlier than expected, Jeff Probst and the Survivor producers have another surprise in store for these players. No, it's not the merge just yet.
There's another tribe swap in Survivor 49 in episode 6
According to the synopsis for Survivor 49 episode 6, "The Devil's Shoes," there's another tribe swap on the way. Instead of sticking with two tribes, the remaining Survivor 49 players will be divided back into three tribes. This time, there will be four players each.
Here's the synopsis of Survivor 49 episode 6, via CBS:
"A major shakeup hits the game when two tribes turn to three. New tribe members size each other up, but with only four players on each tribe, there is not much room to hide. Then, heat and exhaustion take a major toll on one castaway, on SURVIVOR..."
In the Next Time on Survivor preview, we also see three tribes running in the immunity challenge, so this is very real.
It's going to be really interesting to see if the tribe swap actually resets the game. The first swap only made life harder for a few players, notably the former Hina players Matt Williams and Jason Treul, who were voted out in back to back Tribal Councils. Hopefully, we're see a more even split, which forces collaboration among the players who started the game on different tribes. The new Hina tribe is just the Uli tribe without Sage Ahrens-Nichols and Shannon Fairweather.
We also saw Sage share some incriminating information about Rizo Velovic and his immunity idol. Could that open up an opportunity for someone to take a chance to vote out Rizo? We'll find out in the new episode!
How long this tribe swap will last is another big question mark. We're getting dangerously close to mergatory and the merge. I thought we might be headed for mergatory this week after all the Uli players remain on the new tribe to force some of these players to head to Tribal Council for the first time. So far, Steven Ramm, Kristina Mills, MC Chukwujekwu, Sophie Segreti, Shannon, and Sage haven't even been to Tribal Council yet, and six players have been voted out so far.
It's hard to imagine this was always the plan in Survivor 49, but it's definitely possible. I would guess that after Jake Latimer was pulled from the game that really changed plans, and Survivor had to go to two tribes earlier than they wanted to do so. Then, when the numbers tilted back toward three tribes, Jeff and the gang made the call to make the change again.
With four players on each tribe, there's truly nowhere to hide, and someone in one of these majority alliances is going to end up in a very bad spot to work out of if the swap doesn't go their way.
We'll find out more when Survivor 49 episode 6, "The Devil's Shoes," airs on CBS and Paramount+ on Wednesday, Oct. 29.