Survivor 49 has already been a historic season for a few reasons. It's one of the hottest seasons ever, and for the first time, a player was medically evacuated for a snake bite. Now, Survivor 49 is about to make new era history for gameplay reasons.
In episode 6, "The Devil's Shoes," Jeff Probst has a new shocking twist for players: another tribe swap. After swapping tribes in episode 4 because of Kele's depleted numbers, Survivor 49 will feature a second tribe swap. It's the first time that the double swap will happen in the new era.
For the first time in the new era, we'll see two tribe swaps before the merge in Survivor 49
In the Next Time on Survivor preview for episode 6, we learned a tribe swap is officially going to happen, but we didn't understand the ramifications until CBS dropped the synopsis for the episode. That revealed we're going back to three tribes for Survivor 49 after dropping to two tribes just two weeks earlier.
When the second tribe swap happens in Survivor 49, we're going to be witnessing Survivor history in the new era. We've never seen two tribe swaps during one season before the merge since Jeff Probst and the gang changed the game following Survivor: Winners at War (season 40).
Honestly, I can't picture a better time for another tribe swap! We've had an exciting start to the season so far, but we're also watching some really savvy players who have watched all the new era seasons and know just how crucial it can be in the shortened game to build a strong Day 1 alliance and ride that alliance into the merge.
We saw it happen in Survivor 47 with the Tuku alliance of Gabe Ortis, Sue Smey, and Caroline Vidmar. While they didn't make it all the way to the end as a trio, they all made it very, very far in the game. In Survivor 48, though, we witnessed a very strong early alliance of Joe Hunter, Eva Erickson, Kyle Fraser, and Shauhin Davari basically control the gameplay during that season until Kyle and Kamila Karthigesu turn Joe against Shauhin and win the game.
Well, in Survivor 49, we have not one but two strong alliances with the original Uli players taking on the original Hina players. Unfortunately, the first tribe swap put a few players like Matt Williams, Jason Treul, Sage Ahrens-Nichols, and Shannon Fairweather in really tough spots, but only the original Hina tribe has said goodbye to two alliance members after the Uli players teamed up to vote out Matt and Jason.
With just a short time before merge, the former Uli players look to be in the strongest position, if they stick together, to roll through the competition, but it's all going to depend on how the tribe swap turns out. Going from two tribes to three tribes of four players is going to be a very interesting.
Overall, I'm just excited that these players will get a chance to really play. It's smart strategy to stick with a majority alliance when there's no other option. Finally, there will be other options. These players will be forced to work together, and we'll see how it all plays out.
Watch Survivor 49 episode 6 on Wednesday, Oct. 28, on CBS and Paramount+.