The most recent episode of Survivor 50 brought us the results of a 17-person merge and it was pure chaos—and not necessarily in a good way. Because while ultimately the vote was united, camp was not and some of our players are beginning to show the cracks in their games.
Let’s talk about the major moments that made headlines at the Manulevu tribe in episode 7.
The “honor and integrity” alliance hasn’t seen Survivor 49 and is acting like it
Joe Hunter changed the game in Survivor 48 by creating the “honor and integrity” alliance—a group who planned to make it to the end by playing a game without lies and without manipulation. They wanted to keep all the strong players and vote out all the strategic players, so in the end, it was a literal fight to the finish: a game purely based on challenge wins.
Of course that didn’t happen because one of the main leaders of the alliance was strategizing behind-the-scenes the entire time, which gained the respect of the jury and led to Kyle Fraser getting the majority of the votes at Final Tribal Council and Joe getting none…
And now our Survivor 50 players have entered the game with this having been the last season they watched before returning. So old-school players who originally were seen as “heroes”—like Colby Donaldson—for playing as straightforward a game as possible want to team up with Joe to try and weaponize their brand of gameplay and really make it work this time around. And then players like Coach Wade, who are so good at lying that they’ve convinced themselves they are the most honest people on the island, also want in on that alliance.
But it didn’t work in Survivor 48 and it wasn’t even attempted in Survivor 49. In fact, Survivor 49 was the first new era season to bring back the “villain” style gameplay of true strategic deception. Sandra Diaz-Twine’s philosophies of “I’m not here to make friends” and “I’ll vote for anyone who’s not me,” that helped her become the first two-time winner were very prominent for the first time ever in the new era.
And a key part of that was Rizo Velovic. In fact, his social manipulation was the reason he was such a strong player and was asked to be on Survivor 50 in the first place. And somehow, Coach has now invited him to be in the “honor and integrity” alliance. Not only that, but now Rizo is having to talk Coach down from being too deep in battle mode at camp. Literally telling him, “We slay dragons at Tribal, not at camp.”
Part of Coach’s tirade was going off about how Survivor 50 is about honor and anyone playing without it will lose. But him looping Rizo into his alliance is just proof that we’re going to see history repeat itself once again. Players who consider themselves “honorable” will get far because they’re not truly the ones playing the game and therefore are not threats to be up against in the end. So it’s really no surprise the tribe voted out Dee Valladares over Coach.
Aubry Bracco was targeted for not playing her idol
After merging, everyone in the game knows that Ozzy Lusth, Rizo Velovic, and Aubry Bracco have hidden immunity idols. But it’s not 100% clear if everyone knows exactly how this season’s idols work. Everyone knows they’re called “Billie Eilish Boomerang Idols,” but do they know what that means—that the idols will boomerang back to the person who gave it to them once they’re voted out—or do they think it’s just the fun name for a celebrity gimmick idol?
Christian Hubicki who found and gifted Aubry’s idol does. Rick Devens who he shared the information with does. Genevieve Mushaluk who found two idols informed her allies—the only two remaining being Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick and Rizo—of this info before being voted out of the game. And now Rizo has shared that info with his allies—those remaining being Cirie Fields and Ozzy Lusth.
While it’s too late for Ozzy considering Genevieve’s gone and his idol won’t boomerang back to anyone if he’s voted out, and Rizo still hasn’t confirmed who his idol is from—I thought it was also from Genevieve, and it won’t go to anyone if he’s voted out—it wouldn’t have been in Christian’s best interest to let Aubry know that if she goes home, he gets her idol. So he and Devens would not have wanted her to know this information; therefore, they wouldn’t be spreading it themselves. And Rizo has been a fairly tight ship about who he’s given exactly what info to.
So when Aubry didn’t play her idol in episode 6, like she said she was going to, this was frustrating for Christian and Devens because they would have voted her out in order to get an idol, if she was planning on keeping it. It would have changed their whole strategy. This led to Christian putting a target on Aubry’s back by spreading a rumor about how she didn’t play it at their Tribal Council, which ultimately led to her flushing it so she could fall back to the shadows.
Cirie Fields is the MVP of episode 7
After Stephenie went on the journey and came back claiming she played the game long enough to keep her vote, but not long enough to earn an advantage, Cirie Fields immediately just started laughing in her face. She knew Stephenie walked away with an advantage and went with her to the water well to do nothing other than be Cirie and let Stephenie reveal exactly what her advantage is.
This makes Cirie the only person in the game to know of (and what) all the (real) advantages currently in play are. But of course, she went and shared this knowledge with her trusty new era sidekick Rizo. This led to Rizo sharing the information about Dee sharing the knowledge of his idol with Emily Flippen, who then approached him about it. That moment on the hammock was the official drop in the bucket of what would eventually be Dee’s near-unanimous elimination.
Because while Coach and Jonathan Young believe they orchestrated that entire vote, it would not have happened if Cirie and Rizo didn’t decide they couldn’t trust Dee anymore. Just as Rizo did in Survivor 49 and as Cirie has in basically every season she’s ever played, they are currently the all-knowing puppet masters of Survivor 50, putting every single puzzle piece into place to create the picture they want to make while the rest of the tribe is still trying to figure out what half the pieces look like.
But next up is episode 8, “Double the Fun, Double the Demise,” on April 15 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and Paramount+ so we’ll see if Cirie and Rizo stay on top or if a mighty fall comes soon.