Everything you didn’t see on TV

Welcome, everybody, to another exciting season of recapping everyone’s favorite show, and by everybody’s favorite show, I am referring, of course to… Sydney Hotshots! That’s right, we’ll be serving up all of Australia’s — and, apparently, Canada’s? — premium grade A beef to a soundtrack provided by our very own Sydney Hotshots house band, Buns & Roses.

But before we can dive into that (or dive into anything, including the ocean) let’s take a minute to bless our surroundings with our resident guru, shaman, and yogi Shannon, who will now purify the assless chaps about to be worn on the Sydney Hotshots stage with a silent prayer.

Amazing. Thank you, Shannon, and please extend those thanks to your AI guru for whatever the hell just happened. But before we can turn these half-naked hunks loose for what we can only assume is a maximum amount of air-thrusting and faux-grinding, what say we turn our attention to another program featuring barely clothed individuals risking their dignity for engrossed audiences? Survivor 49! Yes, it’s back with a new cast of willing lab rats all pursuing the same $1 million block of cheddar, so let’s enter the maze ourselves and break it all down.

And as a bonus, I’ll also be able to provide some intel on things you did not see on TV. I was on location for this season through the first Tribal Council, so I can relay some stuff that did not make the final cut. YOU’VE GOT EYES ON THE GROUND, PEOPLE! Okay, let’s get to the marooning… right after I remind you that we have a new Survivor newsletter! Yes, you can have all the Survivor news, interviews, and exclusives sent right to your inbox, and coolest of all, you can decide when it’s sent to remain spoiler-free. Sign up for our free Survivor newsletter right here! Okay, let’s recap this SOB.

Hell’s bells

Am I the only person who misses watching people get thrown off a boat? I’m not even talking about in Survivor, I’m talking about in life. I could watch dumb TikTok videos of people falling off boats all damn day. But I do also miss it on my favorite TV show. In the nine new-era seasons, only twice (seasons 41 and 45) have they involved players jumping off a boat in the ocean. Boooooooooo!

Starting on land is fine, but when it always happens, it starts to feel a bit samey-samey. And there’s something that just hits harder watching people go airborne. Anyhoo, there were a few interesting things of note at the pre-challenge mat chat. First, you had Jason openly talking about being the male alternate for the season and not knowing until 10 hours beforehand that he would actually be on the season. I’m sure most of you know by now that MC was the female alternate, and also made the cast last minute. All the other players knew this, by the way, because Jason and MC were not part of the original cast photo (that will now never see the light of day). It will be interesting to see if MC’s status as an alternate ever makes it as a talking point during the show.

I also took note of Jake opening up at the marooning about his dad losing his eyesight due to Glaucoma and this being the last chance for him to watch his son play. It’s an incredibly moving story and one which I am sure producers were eager for him to share, but I’m not so sure it was a great game move to put that out there.

Nor did it seem prudent for Jake to tell his two first day alliance members Alex and Sophi that he was going to be a dad while he was out there. Maybe sharing that information cements that bond, I get it. But let me ask you something: If you are a Survivor 49 player who gets past the merge and starts thinking endgame, do you want to be sitting at final Tribal Council next to the guy who can talk about his dad going blind and his two-week-old baby at home? Hard pass.

Of course, my favorite part of the marooning mat chat was Sage talking about how “I peed three times trying to get here off the back of the boat so I apologize to anyone who saw a full moon today.” I’ve already written about how Sage is my Survivor soulmate in the urination anxiety department, so to hear someone so clearly verbalize the rigors of island pee etiquette on the biggest of stages caused a single tear to roll down my cheek as I watched a few feet away in Fiji. Of course, even then the other half of my brain was simultaneously also wondering how long it would take for the marooning to end while calculating current Fijian currents for the boat ride back to base camp to ascertain whether a second full moon sighting would be happening later that morning courtesy of yours truly.

Yes, there was obviously more mat chat talk that did not make the final edit, but nothing super interesting, unless you really want to know the Fijian meaning behind the tribe names, and I don’t even know how much to trust those because Probst told Kele their tribe name meant “courage,” but apparently it also means to relax, so I’m not sure what that’s all about. Having the courage to relax, maybe?

Anyway, the tribes obviously had to compete for supplies and would do so in pairs, with each twosome taking on a different stage. The Kele (blue) tribe made a tactical error by putting Annie on stage 1. Yes, it involved running and Annie is a runner, but it also required lugging back a massive heavy block. They should have swapped her and Alex and had Annie in the water instead.

Speaking of water, massive props to Shannon and Savannah, who dominated that stage of the contest, overtaking Steven and Sophie for Hina (yellow), and giving Uli (red) a lead going into the final portion, which was the puzzle portion, and you know what I always say… IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PUZZLE!

Sure enough, Jason and Kristina solved their block puzzle first for Hina, and MC got to take the leap of glory to ring the bell and give her tribe the victory. Would Hina have won had they had their two original players instead of brainiac Jason and super athletic MC? We’ll never have a definitive answer, but having spent time with both the people who made it onto the season and those who didn’t, I’m going to go ahead and say… no. No, they would not have.

Wheel he ever find it?

Oh, wheel pun! Nailed it! But poor Alex. I can’t tell you how hard I was rooting for him to win this fight for supplies battle. Was most of that because I was just kind of obsessed with the fact that he did not even bother to bring a shirt with him to the contest? Maybe. And perhaps he decided that since he had the disadvantage of having to do two entire challenges with long pants on (as opposed to the RizGod rocking much more breathable and loose-fitting shorts), that he would try to even the playing field by going naked up top. Or maybe that had nothing to do with it and this was just his audition tape for Sydney Hotshots. One can never know.

So how did a guy who loves jigsaw puzzles end losing to a dude who proudly proclaims himself a negative 100 on the puzzle-solving scale? Well, one could point to Alex’s inability to properly read a puzzle and sure, that’s fair. But I would point to something else: Alex’s refusal to undo his puzzle before taking off to find his buried wheel. That would have bought him a lot of extra time since Rizo then could not have copied his completed puzzle… time that he could have then used to continue digging in the completely wrong place.

Okay, let’s hit the tribe camps and get into what we saw there, and a few things that we didn’t.

Hina (yellow) tribe camp

First off, if Steven does not change his Survivor nickname to “Discount Ryan Reynolds” immediately, then he is doing it wrong. Just imagine the comedy if he then played an immunity idol and Probst had to just keep repeating “Discount Ryan Reynolds, does not count… Discount Ryan Reynolds, does not count… Discount Ryan Reynolds, does not count….”

Steven is a lot. The dude has the energy turned up to 11 and is a total chatterbox. You saw that play out here as he told anybody and everybody that they were the person he really wanted to play with, which is smart in terms of early protection, but also a bit dangerous in terms of long-term strategy.

But I will say that what you saw on your screen matches what I saw while visiting the tribe camp. Folks were vibing. I watched Jason, Kristina, MC, and Sophie all enjoying each other’s company as they weaved palm fronds and discussed their favorite music from back in the day. (Sophie loved Green Day and Paramore while Jason was a big ska fan, and name-checked Reel Big Fish and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, which is actually kind of awesome. Can we get some Mustard Plug and Less Than Jake up in here while we’re at it?)

And what you saw on screen of Matt definitely being a bit out of the loop socially due to his age difference could be felt on the tribe beach as well. Perhaps that is why I also stumbled upon him on an extended (and ultimately unsuccessful) idol hunt. I had to run back to camera camp at one point, and when I was returning back to the tribe beach, I saw Matt (and, naturally, a camera crew following his every move) out in the jungle.

I couldn’t really get back to the main tribe camp at this point because I may have ended up in someone’s shot, so I didn’t really have a choice but to stay and hover behind the crew as they followed Matt on his search. Plus, I had never witnessed someone ever actually finding an idol or advantage, so THIS WAS MY TIME! I was so stoked. And let me tell you, Matt was getting after it, sticking his head into giant tree holes, throwing his hand into every nook and crevice imaginable. This went on for probably around 20 minutes. But he found nothing.

To be clear, this does not mean that Matt is in trouble on his tribe. Lots of people in lots of different positions go idol hunting. But sensing that maybe he was not bonding on a social level as strongly as some of his other tribe mates, he may have gone looking for some extra protection. And we all know that extra protection is something that is always endorsed when it comes to Sydney Hotshots!

I guess it’s also worth noting that Kristina has an “intense phobia of birds” and if the editors are not as we speak cutting a Hitchcock-inspired segment for a future episode, then something has gone truly amiss in Survivor-land.

Uli (red) tribe camp

I’ll just rip the Band-aid off and get my inevitably incorrect episode 1 winner pick out of the way right now. It’s Nate. My apologies, Nate, for the retroactive jinx, although technically you became my pick after our preseason interview, so I guess I actually jinxed you before you ever set foot on the island. My bad.

But I think you saw on the episode why Nate is my pick. The dude is steady, even-keeled, doesn’t appear to get rattled. He’s a super fan but doesn’t come off that way with all that excess nervous energy that superfans often bring onto the island. If I were playing this game (and there are a million reasons why I would not, the first being — I am not insane), Nate is exactly the kind of person I’d want to align with. And it looks as if Savannah may feel the same way.

Savannah is someone that wasn’t necessarily on my radar as a potential winner pick during our pre-game interview, but that all changed on day 2 of the game. I was privy to a very personal conversation between Sage and Savannah that I won’t reveal here in case a form of it makes it onto a future episode, but rest assured Sage was really opening up about some things, and the way Savannah handled that conversation made me realize: Oh, she’s good. She’s really good.

I don’t know whether Savannah was genuinely as interested and sympathetic as she seemed during that conversation or if she was faking it in the interest of social gameplay, but it doesn’t really matter. The result was the same, and a connection had been made. However, the one thing I never saw coming was such a strong, early connection between Savannah and Shannon, whom I had pegged as polar opposites. Savannah is direct, cut to the chase, no BS, while Shannon is hippy-dippy, wavy-gravy, all-over-the-map.

Shannon spoke for 20 minutes in our interview before I even asked her a single question! It was epic. I loved it (even If I didn’t fully understand a fair amount of what she was saying), but I never saw her and Savannah as being allies. We’ll see if that holds and they end up making the big tribe alliance decisions together, but before we wrap on the Ulis, a note about the RizGod. Obviously, the guy talked a big game in preseason interviews and in his confessional interviews, but on the beach, it is a totally different story.

I watched tribe mates literally ask him if he had any “rizz”-inspired nicknames and he completely downplayed everything and said he did not. Not only that, but he was completely fitting in within the tribe — working hard around camp, cutting bamboo, seemingly getting along with everyone. He just seemed like a normal dude — which is exactly how you want to appear to a bunch of strangers looking any reason to target someone else if need be. Rizo did not appear to give them that reason. We’ll see if he can continue this Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde act, but so far, so good from the R-I-Z-G-O-D.

Kele (blue) tribe camp

Watching Jake proclaim “We get along so good, in a non-sexual way” about Alex while making a clear sex gesture with his hands has to be the highlight of the entire episode… other than maybe Nicole falling down for absolutely no reason. But I really, really don’t get the whole Shoe Bandit thing. I know how boring things can get on the island, but this just seems so random, and, if I’m being honest, half-hearted. Like, either take the shoe and toss into the ocean, or leave it alone. Putting it 10 feet away under a tree just feels like a prankster’s no-man’s-land, as it were. COMMIT TO THE BIT, JAKE! This is not digging deep when it comes to true island hijinks. Do better, my man.

And while Matt’s idol hunt over on Hina did not make it to air, we did see Annie needlessly ostracize herself by refusing a water well walk with the group to instead do some idol hunting… or at least perceived idol hunting. Annie was clear before the game that she is not a super-fan of the show, and that certainly showed here. Anytime a group invites you to go on a walk and talk with them, you go. Period.

More on Kele later after they get smoked at yet another competition.

Getting hissed off

So here’s a thing that happened. Before the immunity challenge began, Jeff Probst walked up to me and Mike Bloom from Parade and asked us to each come up with a word for him to work into his challenge play-by-play. Mike come up with “behemoth.” No idea why he picked that. My word was “stupendous,” which, to be fair, is not my best work, but I was hopped up on multiple medications at the time and it seemed like it would be a funny word to make Probst say. He nodded, shook his head a bit as if to indicate “Hmm… this won’t be easy” and then walked away. Honestly, I didn’t think any more of it. (Again, I was a bit addled at the time.)

But damn if the Hostmaster General did not then go and do it. And it even made the episode. You can hear him work both words in together right as Nate and Savannah were hauling their 200-pound snake back to the rack. “A stupendous effort with a behemoth serpent,” Probst bellowed. I didn’t even catch it in real time, but Bloom did. Just another example of how awesome Probst is at his job. The dude can work in Van Halen song titles or stupid words from drugged-out journalists on demand and on command. Impressive.

Of course, the most notable thing about the entire challenge was Nicole responding to Jeremiah’s query of “How’d you get the mud out of your eyes?” by proceeding to spit water all over his face. Hilarious and effective!

I’ll also note that while Nicole and Jeremiah did, in fact, take forever to get back with their snake, and they also came in last place with Nicole as the point person on the winding snake track, that there was a point — albeit a very quick one — where it looked like Kele might actually win the damn thing. The snake track section took a really loooooooooooong time. Hina was obviously there first and looked to be on their way to inevitable victory as they slowly, methodically worked their way down the track, but there was a point where their ball dropped and Kele very early worked theirs way down towards the end of their track. It looked like those magnificent bastards were actually going to go win! And then they didn’t.

Kele never got close again. It’s like they put everything into that first time down, and when the ball sank, so did all their hopes and dreams. Eventually, Hina pulled out the W, followed by Uli, as Kele lost their third straight competition. Ooof.

Personal business

With a fearsome foursome of Jake, Alex, Sophi, and Jeremiah together on Kele, it seemed pretty clear either Nicole or Annie was soon to be dunzo. Who was the bigger threat worth taking out? Well, on one hand, Annie was already plotting against Jake and Alex. On the other, Nicole was developing quite the habit of ejecting various fluids out of her mouth. There was the challenge spit take, and then back at camp she unfortunately got caught on camera blowing up chunks.

What made the situation even more unfortunate was Nicole’s ill-timed attempt to cover her mouth right before the vomit was expelled. That meant she also puked all over her poor hand, which was just an innocent bystander in this whole situation. Brutal. What I don’t know is why Nicole all of sudden was vomiting all over the place. Was it anxiety? Was it challenge aftershocks? Was she sick? I look forward to asking her that when we chat Thursday morning.

Sometimes first Tribals can be kind of bonkers if tribe lines are still being drawn, or if two people are really not getting along, or if someone is really loony tunes, or someone else is really fighting hard to stay. This was not one of those Tribals. Totally fine, but no fireworks, which is why it thankfully only took up a few minutes of screen time. Obviously, there is a ton that did not make the final edit, but truthfully, there was not a lot of drama to be found even on the cutting room floor. Which is why it was only 30 minutes of actual running time from the time the contestants walked in until they paused so Probst could explain how the voting works — pretty short for a Tribal.

There was one big theme of the Tribal Council that got cut for time. After that moment where Probst brought up that everyone was laughing even as they were about to vote somebody out, Sophi explained the tribe’s voting criteria, saying “I think we all kind of agreed that for this vote, nobody should really take it personal because at the beginning, there really isn’t a solid reason why to get rid of someone. We’re kind of just grasping at straws.” (Lies.)

Want to be kept up with all things Survivor? Dig deep and sign up for Entertainment Weekly’s free Survivor Weekly newsletter to have all the latest news, interviews, and commentary sent right to your inbox. 

That theme of the vote not being “personal” dominated the discussion. At one point, Jeff asked each of the contestants how being voted out could not be a little personal. This is what they all said…

• SOPHI: “I guess it’s really easy for the people on the majority to say it’s not personal, but I know I would take it super personal. So I don’t know. It’s really easy to say that and I’m just, I guess, hoping that I’m on the majority and that’s why I’m saying it’s not personal. But yeah, I guess we’ll see how the vote goes tonight. If it’s towards me, it’s personal. If it’s not, it’s all business.”

• NICOLE: “Yeah, I mean personally I would take it personal, but it’s also the decision we’ve come to is not that of ‘We’re voting this person out because we don’t like their personality or their personhood or what they’re bringing to the table as an individual.’ It’s when we think about the longevity of this game, when we think about getting to the merge, when we think about dominating as a tribe and as a unit, what person is not going to contribute in that way that we’re looking for specifically? And that doesn’t speak to their character or their individuality or anything like that. It speaks to maybe just where they fit in this niche of a group. And that could change with any one person not being here. That could be a different person that we pick. So it speaks not to them, it speaks to the nature of our group right now.”

• ALEX: “I would definitely take it personally, but I know that I love everyone here and so I hope that everyone can just realize that basically whatever happens, we’re still going to be friends beyond the game.”

• JAKE: “I would take it personally, Jeff. A hundred percent. I was going to say the exact same thing Alex said. At the end of the day, we are all going to be friends, but right now we are a tribe, but we’re fighting for one chance. We’re fighting for one of 18 to win that million bucks and be the Sole Survivor. So we got to get past this point and start winning to get to the merge, then a whole different game starts.”

• JEREMIAH: “I would take it personal, and I would literally call my dad as soon as I get voted out and just like, ‘Hey dad, I lived my dream. I lived my fantasy and at least I tried.’ I want to talk to my dad because I feel like I’m playing with my dad, even though my dad isn’t here. Actually, before coming out to Survivor, he’s like, ‘Don’t talk strategy to anybody. Talk to a tree. Don’t give any of your secrets away to anybody.’ And so I just feel such a strong connection with my dad out here playing.”

• ANNIE: “I’m going to have to go against the group a little bit on this one because I think taking things personally, it’s kind of a nebulous term because anytime somebody is negative to you, it hurts. And when somebody writes down your name, that feels like something negative and it’s going to hurt. But it’s the same to me. It’s not the same, but I guess sort of analogous on social media, people will crap on you all the time, and if you take every single one of those little cuts, you’re going to die from a thousand cuts.

“So at some point you have to learn that people have to make decisions because everybody is just trying to get themselves to the next level and figure out how to play the best game for themselves. And because somebody votes and puts my name down on a piece of paper, I don’t take that as something against me as a human. I just know that that person is trying to do the best they can in this life and this game to get themselves to whatever the next lily pad is. So no, I really wouldn’t take it personally, and it wouldn’t make me not want to call that person after the game is done and go have a beer and hang out. I don’t look at it that way. But it would hurt.”

What was interesting is that Probst then compared those answers to a former two-time winner: “In a sense, it’s a little like the great Sandra Diaz, who said, ‘As long as it ain’t me.’ That’s kind of what she was saying. ‘It’s not personal. It’s only personal if it’s me. As long as it’s not me, then I’m okay with that.”

I put this whole exchange in because not only was it a big theme at Tribal that did not make the final edit, but Nicole clearly did take the vote personal when her name kept coming up. Her final words as she muttered off the Tribal Council set into the darkness was “What the f—?” And for all the talk from the tribe about how much everybody loved each other, there were no hugs or goodbyes when Nicole’s torch was snuffed, just awkward silence — from both her and everybody else.

As for the actual voting. While everything was still on a break and before everyone walked up to the turn to cast their votes, Jeff had a really nice message for the first victim, whomever it might be. “For the person who is voted out, and I’m sorry for whoever it’s going to be, we spent a long time trying to find you all,” Probst told the tribe. “We know how much you want to play. We also know without the stakes of the vote and this game, there’s no point. That’s what makes Survivor, Survivor. So just know that I’m sorry you’re going, but it’s the way the game goes.”

Really nice, comforting words. But still, there was no escape from the vote. Here are everyone’s comments while voting.

• NICOLE (voting for Annie): “This is the sickest Tribal Council ever made in the history of the game — not to be like that. You said my name, and you thought I was going to be the first one to go. No. Thanks for the shelter.”

• ALEX (voting for Nicole): “Please know that our connection was real. I hope I get invited to sauce Sunday. You’re the best person, and this is not personal at all. We just need to have a strong tribe.”

• SOPHI (voting for Nicole): “I am sorry, girl. If you’re not with me, you’re against me. It’s not even about strength for me. You just weren’t loyal.”

• JAKE (voting for Nicole): “Sorry, Nicole. I got to stick to my top three. You’re just the weakest link today. Love you to death, man. We’ll see you soon.”

• JEREMIAH (voting for Nicole): “I really don’t want to have to vote you out tonight, but it’s just what the majority is asking for, but this isn’t my decision. It was so nice getting to know you over the past two days.”

• ANNIE (voting for Nicole): “I wish we didn’t have to vote anybody off. You’re so awesome and I can’t wait to hang out with you after this is all over. This really sucks.”

Well, it sucked for Nicole even more. But even though she appeared absolutely crushed upon getting her torch snuffed, she said later in her final words that did not make it to air that she took it as strictly game move: “I don’t take it personal. I really don’t. And I meant that when I said it in Tribal that it is like a business decision. I’m curious the rationale, but what are you going to do at the end of the day?”

As for why she did not play her Shot in the Dark, Nicole addressed that as well: “Honestly, I was feeling in my gut when we literally sat down at Tribal Council, I was like, something’s fishy. Because Jake was smiling too much at me and Sophi didn’t make one point of eye contact with me, so I contemplated playing my Shot in the Dark and I just didn’t, which was stupid.”

Not stupid. I get it. A calculated risk that did not pay off. And hopefully reading this stupendous behemoth of a recap has paid off for you, dear reader, thanks to all the behind-the-scenes intel I just spewed like Nicole’s vomit all over the place.

Just a reminder that we have lots of other goodies for you. You can go check out my premiere Q&A with Jeff Probst I did in Fiji just moments after the Tribal Council ended. We’ll also have an exclusive deleted scene as well as my Nicole exit interview coming your way on Thursday. I’ve also been posting lots of photos from location on my Instagram page, and make sure to sign up for our free Survivor newsletter to have all the goodies sent right to your digital doorstep. Now go get out of here while I start cooking up next week’s scoop of the crispy!