Survivor 50 is off to an impressive start. After worrying for months that the first season with returning players since Winners at War would be a flop, I've been surprised by just how good this season is shaping up to be.
One thing that hasn't been surprising, at least to me, is the incredible partnership between Rick Devens and Christian Hubicki. The duo has been in lockstep since their first moments in the game together. The self-proclaimed Captain Kirk and Spock aren't just here to win Survivor 50; they're here to have a good time doing it, gastrointestinal issues be damned.
Through two episodes on the Cila beach together, Devens and Hubicki have formed a tight partnership that could last a long time in the game. Unfortunately, that's all about to change.
Survivor 50 episode 3's tribe swap will split up Christian and Devens
The game is about to change in episode 3, which airs on Wednesday, March 11, at 8 p.m. ET. In "Did You Vote for a Swap?," Jeff Probst will announce that there's going to be a tribe swap and tell the players to drop their buffs.
Thanks to some early images from episode 3 released by CBS, Devens and Hubicki will, in fact, end up on different tribes. Devens stays on the Cila tribe with Cirie Fields, while Christian moves to the Vatu tribe, where he'll reunite with his David vs. Goliath co-stars Mike White and Angelina Keeley.
This is an unfortunate turn of events after Devens and Hubicki pulled off an incredible misdirection at Tribal Council to plant a fake immunity idol to trick the rest of the players. Christian even fell down to create a diversion for Devens to hide the idol. It was perfect and brilliant.
Quite frankly, Survivor needs more of this. These two have played enough and spent enough time away for the game to let it all hang loose and have a good time. It's very Pogue of them, honestly, from the two dorkiest dudes in Survivor 50. (Yes, that's an Outer Banks reference.)
For me, I'm just bummed that Devens and Hubicki, which would be a great name for a Survivor spinoff prank series, won't be able to play together for a while. Of course, there could be another tribe swap in the coming weeks, but the merge is so far away. I'm less worried about Hubicki because he seems to be surrounded by allies. It also seems like people generally seem to get along with him.
For Devens, that's just not true! He is very polarizing, and he does weird things. Like, he totally stepped in it by getting into that weird argument with Joe Hunter in episode 2. While Devens came out on the right side of the argument, he got caught in a lie in a rather innocent situation. Sure, Joe was being paranoid, but you have to do a better job navigating the game than that.
Survivor is a game of partnerships and alliances. A good duo can honestly make or break a season of the series. There are so many examples of good duos making seasons so much more entertaining and elevating the gameplay. You can look at Boston Rob and Amber, JT and Stephen Fishbach, Parvati and Cirie, Malcolm and Denise, and so many more. Survivor is just better with a killer duo. Will we get that in Survivor 50? I mean, we already have it, but are we about to lose it?
I hope that we'll see Devens and Hubicki get to work together in upcoming episodes, but it's going to be a huge test for their partnership. If one of those does get voted out before the merge, I think we're all going to look back at this tribe swap as a defining moment of the season, not just in terms of gameplay but also in terms of robbing the fans of more entertaining moments like we saw in episode 2.
Now, we just have to wait and see if that fake idol play pays off!