Last week we saw three castaways sent home and with the jury now in play, it feels like this is the beginning of the end. While we still have a few weeks until the live finale, lines were drawn in the sand in episode 6, so tonight we will definitely see how the rest of the season will play out. Will the betrayers be betrayed? Will those on the bottom find a path to the top?
It’s going to be an epic night of chaos, that’s for sure!
Aftermath and new equations
Upon returning from Tribal Council, the game is immediately in motion again. Tiffany Ervin is mad. She officially cannot trust Jonathan Young and is ready to take him and his new alliance down. Rick Devens is upset that Aubry Bracco “forgot” to play the idol. He would have sent her home if she hadn’t said she was for sure going to play it so that he and Christian Hubicki could get it back. So now Christian is going around making sure everyone knows Aubry didn’t play the idol in order to put a target on her back
Jonathan and Coach Wade are upset Colby Donaldson went home. They’re throwing Dee Valladares’s name out there and then immediately turn around and attack her, her character, and her game. Emily Flippen, Aubry, and Devens just sit and watch the show go down as Jonathan and Coach are telling Dee they don’t trust her and Jonathan plays it up to try and get everyone else at camp against her too.
Coach gathers everyone around and says that people who aren’t telling the truth and aren’t are playing the game wrong. He says Survivor 50 is about honor and anyone who plays without it will lose. Emily then goes off with Devens because she’s so annoyed at Coach for yelling at everyone about lying when he’s being a total hypocrite as the biggest liar on the beach.
Ozzy Lusth and Rizo Velovic return from the safety of Exile Island and learn that three people went home the night before and learn they’ve officially made the journey. Coach immediately grabs Rizo to become a member of the “Four Horsemen” to replace Colby. He says Rizo needs to join him in vengeance against Dee. Of course, Rizo isn’t falling for it, but plays along anyway.
Rizo then connects with Cirie Fields, telling her that he and Ozzy are down to go Final Three with him in an alliance called, “Cirie’s Rizard of Oz.” Then Emily approaches Rizo telling him that Dee told her he has an idol. When he asks Dee about it, she says she didn’t when in actuality she told her and her original allies, Tiffany and Jonathan.
A new journey for one
A boat arrives announcing one person is to get on the boat to return in the afternoon. Chrissy Hofbeck suggests they put everyone’s shot in the darks in a bag and do a random draw. Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick’s die gets pulled and she reluctantly goes.
Stephenie arrives at Journey island to discover a device that’s been built to act as an endurance challenge—which she’d just won a version of. She has to balance on a stool with her arm in the air, chained to a water bucket. She sets off a timer that will empty the water over time and all she has to do is outlast the water, keeping her hand above her head until there’s no water left above her.
She remembers the last time she played—on Heroes vs. Villains—when she dislocated her shoulder, causing enough damage that she had to have reconstructive surgery on it so she can’t use her right arm and instead has to chain her non-dominant hand. She has to survive an hour in order to gain an advantage.
She outlasts the water and earns the advantage: a steal-a-vote. She returns to camp and tells everyone she didn’t make it an hour and didn’t get an advantage. Cirie is cracking up, not believing her at all, so she joins Stephenie, telling her she knows when she’s lying. So Stephenie tells Cirie about her advantage and Cirie immediately turns around and tells Rizo. Rizo in turn tells Cirie about Dee potentially spilling the secret of his idol and what they need to do now because of her betrayal.
Another challenge…another twist
Players arrive at the challenge arena where the three previous winners give back their necklaces before host Jeff Probst explains the challenge. Everyone is divided into two teams of 7 for an obstacle course ending in a puzzle where the first group to finish wins reward: Chinese takeout at camp.
The winning group also wins a chance to participate in an individual immunity challenge. In a schoolyard pick where Jonathan and Christian acted as captains.
Purple team: Jonathan Young, Cirie Fields, Chrissy Hofbeck, Rizo Velovic, Tiffany Ervin, Coach Wade, and Aubry Bracco
Blue team: Christian Hubicki, Ozzy Lusth, Rick Devens, Emily Flippen, Dee Valladares, Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick, and Joe Hunter
Blue takes the initial lead getting to the second obstacle before purple is even past the first. Purple moves past them quickly after getting lucky with the keys section. But blue forces through the maze and is nearly caught up to purple. By the time the teams arrive at the puzzle, they’re nearly neck-in-neck with Blue just slightly ahead.
Emily and Christian work on the blue puzzle while Chrissy and Coach put together the purple puzzle. Just a few pieces ahead, Blue finishes the puzzle and wins reward and a chance to compete for immunity. Jeff takes the winning team to a new area where a new endurance challenge is set up for the 7 winning castaways.
For immunity, they have to balance on a beam while holding a pole over their head, balancing a ball. The last person standing wins. Devens is first to drop only a few seconds into the challenge. Enough time passes to move on to the next section, moving forward to a narrower part of the beam. Emily falls out next. During the next transition, Christian drops. Stephenie is next to go. The final transition comes and Dee falls out just before the time is up. The final matchup—Joe vs. Ozzy—results in Ozzy winning immunity.
Jeff declares that this is Ozzy’s 8th individual immunity win across his Survivor career and the current record is 9 wins by Boston Rob Mariano. So Ozzy has a chance to pass the record this season.
Talking game without takeout
Back at camp, the losers discuss who is next to go and Chrissy, Coach, and Jonathan tell Tiffany and Rizo that Dee needs to go. Tiffany doesn’t understand the reasoning behind Dee going home because she’s the only winner left and is the biggest shield in the game.
Aubry declares that she’s actually playing the idol this time, so Chrissy, Coach, and Jonathan agree the best plan is to vote for majority Dee with Tiffany as a backup in case she plays her shot in the dark. Coach is walking around camp telling everyone exactly who to vote for in order to get a 7-4 vote.
But while doing this, Coach throws Christian under the bus as the “most dangerous person in the game besides Dee,” so of course Devens tells Christian about the plan. And when Christian comes to Coach asking what the plan is, Coach absolutely loses it, yelling at everyone for ruining the plan.
Devens hates that he’s acting like that and decides he doesn’t want to be a part of that plan. Rizo has to talk Coach down, telling him “we slay dragons at Tribal, not at camp.” So Devens connects with Emily and Joe about potentially getting Coach out instead. Ozzy says he’s in and Tiffany does as well.
Even his own allies are worried about how he’s acting and if they need to vote him out instead. Dee tells Tiffany that she’s going to cause chaos at Tribal Council in order to stir Coach up and hopefully convince everyone that he’s not someone they can play the game with.
Who was voted out of Survivor 50 episode 7?
Jeff calls for the vote and one-by-one the 14 remaining players go write down a name. We see Tiffany write down Coach angrily while Coach writes down Tiffany. Aubry plays the hidden immunity idol on herself in order to flush it as everyone knows it. Dee plays her shot in the dark and Jeff reveals that she is not safe.
In a 8-4-1 vote, Dee Valladares—the last remaining winner—is eliminated and becomes the first member of the jury.
Next Time on Survivor…
With the Dee vote going through, there’s no doubt that Coach is about to be even more insufferable and controlling. He’ll surely be riding cloud 9, being cocky as ever and while in the early seasons of Survivor this would call for him to be eliminated, it’s actually probably going to protect him for a while. No one will vote for him in the end, so he’s an easy vote to keep around. But Survivor 50 is as unpredictable as ever, so we’ll see what happens next on Wednesday, April 8 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and Paramount+.