Survivor 51’s merge: ‘no one can keep their mouth shut’—yay and ew

When Jeff Probst declared that Survivor 51’s tribes were merged and would enjoy “a classic Survivor merge feast,” my heart grew three sizes—and then deflated to the size of the fly crawling on that grub when he told them, “you’re going to earn it.” Sigh.

But! Survivor’s format is so resilient, and large tribes work so well that the grub-eating was the episode’s low point. A classic challenge, sure; to exclude people from the merge feast, ugh. Add in those grotesque squishy sound effects that the editors turn up louder than the music, and I was ready to be done.

Jelly puked on the camera. Kristin tossed her grubs in the bushes: “be free!” People barfed and gagged and sprayed. That’s what birthing the open era looks like: lots of Probstian amniotic fluid squirting out of mouths.

Yet even that awful scene provided the most delightful metaphor: Brady twice eating grubs and opening his mouth wide, their guts coating his tongue, the perfect metaphor for how his mouth was about to fuck up Brody’s game.

The chaos that arrived at camp was exactly why we need big tribes: they introduce so many possibilities—and so many people to sit in the hammock and make it collapse! (Thien An, Lewis, and Devin were fine, thankfully.)

First, we had some groundwork: Jelly and Devin splitting apart with their trove of advantages. Grub challenge losers Kristin, Sharonda, and Cristian back at camp, where they waited for Cristian to leave to talk.

Kristin told Sharonda about what happens to the idol if Sharonda is voted out—and just as I was making notes about how this is a BAD BAD IDEA, Kristin proved she’s a trillion times smarter than I would be. She gave Sharonda the idol, telling her, “You are in charge of when I play it for you.” A brilliant move to earn trust and to keep them aligned.

Kilby wanted to reignite his brodymance with Brady and turn on Mike, who he said is “like talking to a wall. He gives you nothing.” That’s just like the edit of Mike, which has up until now been nothing. Brady wasn’t as convinced about his brody who’d turned against Brady, bro.

Off to the challenge the merged tribe went, and of course, Mike won immunity. Exactly as our community member Craig predicted, we got a “stand on and/or hold something for as long as you can” challenge.

I’m so bored with these balancing challenges I don’t even have any pole jokes left in me. HAHA POLE IN ME.

The aerial footage of a shark swimming through a dense school of fish was far more interesting than anything that happened during the challenge.

But the results affected the game, setting into motion a fantastic series of events. Those were mostly driven by the way “no one can keep their mouth shut,” as Maggie said.

Also, as Jelly told Maggie at Tribal Council, “We are dealing with man-children, and I didn’t sign up for that.” Sounds like American for the past two years! HAHA BYE FASCIST OLIGARCHS!

There was a lot of conversation that was relatively easy to follow, especially as we got to watch people go around and tell others what they’d just heard. I definitely got lost when they referred to original tribe names; I was unclear if they meant the first version, the second version, or the third version of that tribe.

Members of the original yellow tribe, I think (Devin, Kilby, Lewis, Jelly, Maggie, Mike, Thien An) wanted to target Eric for being annoying, but then another plan formed: Kristin.

But Maggie was worried about Kristin’s intelligence and preparation and the protector of the island on Lost; Brady called Kristin “a White Wale.” So the plan formed: eight people to vote against her, with Eric as decoy.

Mike called that “a disaster” for his game, so he barged into a conversation and told Kristin—by threatening her. “If you don’t do it, it’s the end of your game tonight,” he said, telling her to “chill” before running away. Kristin said, “I fucking hate that threat” and told us “fuck that guy and his bullying tactics.”

We’ve seen very little of why apparently everyone can’t stand Mike. At the very least, he hasn’t been loud and cocky and spraying his urine around camp like Brady. Yes, the guy who chopped off his thumb stood in camp peeing—which we saw on TV!!

Jelly said, “something about going further in this game than Brady speaks to me”—Were you nodding like I was?—and referred to his “level of toxicity.” That’s when the editors showed him standing next to a tree. OMG.

Anyway, Kristin took that information from annoying Mike directly to annoying Brady, who then confronted annoying Mike, which was incredible and included this:

Mike: “Talk to me. Talk to meeeee.”

Brady: “You broke my heart like I was the girl at the prom.”

His plan outed, Brady tried to turn the vote back to Eric and/or convince everyone that the “general consensus is Eric,” as he told Kristin and Kilby.

The general consensus next week will definitely be Mike, who stepped in it again at Tribal Council, telling Jeff Probst, “a plan was shared with me—a little bit late.” Maggie was pissed at that, saying, again, “no one can keep their mouth shut.”

During the whispering, there was a telling and clarifying moment. “I thought everyone was going Brady? Why is everyone talking so much?” Lewis asked Jelly, who explained, “Because Kilby wants Brady.” At another moment, Cristian told Eric, “Don’t panic. I’m trying really hard.” Did he help sway the vote? I’m unclear.

Eventually, everyone except Carter, Lewis, and Thien An voted for Brody Brady. He’s now our first juror, and can go find his thumb brody and sew it back on at Ponderosa and figure out ways to use the word “brody” in his final Tribal Council question/speech.

Can’t wait until next week to see how the fallout from this plays out when the remaining 12 Survivor 51 players split into six tiny tribes and balance some balls to decide which pair will go to Tribal Council, tie voting for each other, and then go to rocks.

For now, I’ll revel in Brady’s exit on this glorious Wednesday, and try to pretend I never heard all that horrific chewing.

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