Oh baby, oh baby, Survivor premiere night! Coming on the heels of the best new era season yet, expectations are high for season 46. Well, high relatively speaking I guess. Survivor has definitely changed and evolved in the 40s. And not necessarily for the better. Not the time to get into all that (again), but there are several creative decisions that I just don’t vibe with. All that to say that it feels like the show’s ceiling is capped right now. But still, there’s a certain, special buzz surrounding premiere night. No matter how great or terrible the preceding season was, it’s a blank slate. Anything can happen!
Marooning
As always, let’s check out the tribe breakdowns before getting into the action.
Nami (Orange)
Hunter McKnight, 27, science teacher
Liz Wilcox, 35, marketing strategist
Randen Montalvo, 40, aerospace tech
Soda Thompson, 27, special ed teacher
Tevin Davis, 24, actor
Venus Vafa, 24, data analyst
Siga (Green)
Ben Katzman, 31, musician
Charlie Davis, 25, law student
Jem Hussain-Adams, 31, international brand mentor
Maria Shrime Gonzalez, 47, parent coach
Moriah Gaynor, 28, program coordinator
Tim Spicer, 30, college coach
Yanu (Purple)
Bhanu Gopal, 41, IT quality analysst
David Jelinsky, 21, slot machine salesman
Jess Chong, 37, software engineer
Kenzie Petty, 28, salon owner
Q Burdette, 29, real estate agent
Tiffany Nicole Ervin, 32, artist
Is sassy Jeff back?! Straight off the bat, he tells the 18 new castaways, “There’s at least one of you that cannot win, no matter who you go to the end with.” Hopefully a preview of what’s to come, as he’s teased in preseason interviews that he brought back a little more that snarky energy this season. Time will tell, but let’s hope he’s right.
For the first challenge, two members race down the beach, under a net, and retrieve two heavy puzzle pieces. Three groups go, collecting a total of six pieces. Once they have all pieces, three tribe members build a podium, and then one climbs to the top to retrieve their flint.
The first tribe to finish earns their flint and meager starting supplies. The second tribe gets the choice between the Sweat and Savvy tasks, with the last place tribe getting stuck with whatever is left.
Nami wins the challenge, fairly handily, and Siga takes second. Siga chooses the Savvy task. This is so dumb, they had to choose without knowing what the specific challenges are. Finishing second was supposed to be an advantage over the last place team. And sure, it’s still advantageous to be the tribe making the choice, but it’s kind of just a blind guess.
Yanu (Purple)
Yanu gets to their beach to start their Sweat challenge. Two tribe members must gather enough water to fill two large urns. And of course, the two buckets leak water as they go. Q and Jelinsky team up for the task. They’re struggling through it, to the point that Jelinsky wants to quit. Even if Q wants to keep going, it doesn’t matter, as Jelinsky throws the timer, breaking it. Jelinsky says in a confessional, that even if they don’t get their supplies, at least he’ll have an ally. But as our Queen Sandra would say, “But I don’t know about that.” Q says this shows him all he needs to know about Jelinsky, namely, when the going gets tough, he’s going to quit.
Kenzie is making the social rounds, trying to make connections everywhere. Not a bad plan, but could easily be seen as “playing too hard too fast.” She feels strong with a foursome with Q, Jelinsky, and Tiffany.
Siga (Green)
Two tribe members work together to decipher a puzzle. Charlie and Ben volunteer. They don’t even come close. The rest of the tribe doesn’t seem upset, at least giving them credit for stepping up.
Jem, Maria, and Moriah have a womens alliance but need to bring in one more to secure their majority. They hone in on Charlie, seeing him as more swayable than Ben or Tim.
Nami (Orange)
Nami has energy to spare, spearheaded by Soda and Tevin. They have the tribe singing and dancing, feeling good. Tevin also hits it off with Hunter, starting off with their shared love of The Andy Griffith Show. Hunter is 27, Tevin 24, and they’re bonding of The Andy Griffith Show! I watched my share of Andy Griffith reruns growing up, but I’m 33 and even I’m “too young” to be a fan. So the fact that these have a shared fandom is just next level incredible.
Venus gets the idol hunt going. Randen catches her, which in his eyes confirms her as a major threat. He calls her “Parvati-lite” which immediately makes me think he’s completely wrong. Seemingly every player who gets marked as “a Parvati” never even comes close to living up to Parvati (she’s a legend among legends, so it’s next to impossible anyway, but still).
Journey
One person from each tribe goes on a quick journey, to return later in the afternoon. Jelinsky speaks up right away for Yanu, asking to go. The tribe agrees, but everyone’s antenna’s are now up, if they weren’t before. Tevin and Maria go from Nami and Siga.
The three will play a game, testing their ability to read each other. They have a table with three cards: a torch card, vote card, and skull card. The person who has the torch card must announce it. The other two must convince that player they have the the vote card.
Maria pulls the torch card, with Tevin coming up with the vote card. Maria thinks Jelinsky is lying, so she tells him that if she loses her vote, she’ll have to go back to her tribe and tell them about his deceit. Who cares! That’s literally the game they were tasked with playing! It’s “deceitful” in name only. But Jelinsky relents and admits that he has the skull card, losing his vote and earning both Maria and Tevin an extra vote.
Yanu (Purple)
Jelinsky tells his tribe the truth, and everyone gets after him for making such a terrible choice.
Tiffany finds the Beware Advantage, telling her to dig directly below where she found it. With Kenzie, they find a box. It holds an idol, but needs a key. The location of the key is hidden until they lose an immunity challenge. Once they lose, she returns to the same spot, and further instructions will be waiting. Until she has the idol, she can’t vote. She also tells Q.
Siga (Green)
Everyone here also completely questions Jelinsky’s decision-making.
Immunity Challenge
The tribes race to the top of a ramp, where they will find a huge, heavy gecko. They untie the gecko, get it over a wall, through a tunnel, and up to the top of the deck. Once they get up the deck, two players solve a puzzle.
Nami dominates again, with Soda and Venus cruising through the puzzle. Just like in the opening challenge, Siga comes in second, sending Yanu to the first Tribal Council of the season.
Pre-Tribal
Jelinsky tells Jess he’s just going to chill at the shelter. And she, incredulous, asks him, “Do you really think that’s better for your game to stay here instead of going where the others are?” Which is a great point, made incredibly funny by the fact that she’s doing the exact same thing.
With Yanu losing, Tiffany and Kenzie rush to the Beware Advtange to pick up the next clue, a word puzzle. She solves it, finds the key, goes back to the box, and secures her idol along with getting her vote back.
Q is adamant about voting Jelinsky first, while Tiffany and Kenzie want to target Jess.
Tribal Council
And Jelinsky is voted out first. This honestly might have been the worst premiere showing in the history of Survivor. I don’t say that to pile on or make fun of him. It was just an impressively bad performance. Even seemingly inconsequential moments like saying “Several means seven, it’s in the name” add to the pile of unforced errors.
Overall a solid premiere. The cast definitely has potential. I’m staying optimistic.
Winner Pick
Yanu seems like a fun but dysfunctional tribe. I just can’t pick a winner from that group. I don’t get winner vibes from anyone on Siga either, leaving us with the six from Nami. Honestly, you could make an argument for any of them. So my tiebreaker is going to be super scientific. Mountain Dew is my favorite drink, so I’m picking Soda as my winner.
