Survivor 51 premiere recap: old is new again!

Survivor 51 gave me chills as it opened with Jeff Probst saying the same words that he spoke 26 years ago at the start of Survivor Borneo. Then I got chills again watching players jump into the ocean, in slow motion, amid all the supplies floating around, and underwater shots scored to the violin strings of Ken Burns’ The Civil War.

But this is not Survivor Borneo, so Jeff Probst rolled up on a yacht and told the players:

“We spend all this time designing a game … Then, my favorite part-and the riskiest part—is we turn the entire game over to you. And from that point forward, we have no say in what happens—absolutely no control. You’re in total control. We’re merely there to witness it.”

Wait, who? Where am I? Sorry, I think I lost consciousness laughing so hard at that ridiculousness. And then again at this:

“This group of players is stepping into something entirely new,” said a man who just said the same words he used in 2000. “It’s the Open Era™ of Survivor.”

Yes, Survivor plays with my heart and mind, and I still love it.

Considering Survivor just delivered nine same-samey seasons that all blend together, I’m all for throwing that formula—three tribes, earn-the-merge, et cetera—off the boat and letting it sink to the ocean floor.

A lot of Survivor 51 was truly refreshing: no opening mud challenge; an actual hidden immunity idol, with no rules or phrases or resurrection of the dead required to activate it; the return of Exile Island; and an obstacle course challenge that had some new elements.

And there were a lot of the elements I love, from the gorgeous design of the whale idol to the cameras under the giant boxes in the challenge.

One returning twist is the MrBeast coin—presumably without the personality black hole himself. In a fun twist on that twist, the $1 million will roll over into next season if the coin doesn’t land on $1 million.

That means that Survivor 52 could have a $3 million prize—and Survivor 53 could have a $6 billion prize, if my math is right, and it rarely is. That’s a fun way to increase the prize money, and totally fuck over someone based on random chance!

A lot of Survivor 51 was annoyingly familiar, like so much time given to players talking about being on Survivor instead of just being on Survivor. (How many of them watched Survivor and were like, Damn, I want to go on that show so I can talk about that show!)

Also, a big man, Brady, got his widdle feewings hurt and a woman paid the price, because his allies decided to appease him. But it looks like former WWE star Brady cuts his hand off next episode so maybe we’ll be done with that soon.

Unlike Borneo, and like Survivor: One World, all 21 players landed on a beach together, and we got to know some people:

• Kilby “got a guy on Reddit to teach me how to swim,” and said “he only showed up drunk one time. For the most part, he was a really good teacher.” Drunk Reddit Swim Teacher for Survivor 53!
• Eric and Where’s Waldo realized they were both from Rhode Island. So is Aaliyah.

• Patt lost her pants, and, later, at Tribal Council, her mind.
• Jelly shared her love of lasagna with Ori, who was given a bizarre zoom-in on his forehead. But Jelly was crushed that they ended up on separate tribes: “We were going to bring showmances back to Survivor!”

But I related most to:

1. Devin screaming “TWO TRIBES!!!!”
2. Aaliyah telling us that, amid all this chaos, “I don’t remember any of it”

Eventually, someone noticed the sign that said “THIS IS YOUR GAME TO PLAY WE’RE NOT INTERFERING THIS IS JUST GOING TO FUCK ONE OF YOU OVER HAHAHA.”

That was Lewis. “They’re all happy as Larry to let me go on,” he said. Of course they are: you volunteered!

Later, a helicopter came and dropped Lewis into the ocean. (Wouldn’t that have been great? Or at least a dummy with his clothes on. Just as a gag.)

Actually, Lewis ended up on Exile Island, along with a giant skeleton of Rob Mariano’s giant head from Island of the Idols. (I think it’s a whale.)

Lewis compared himself to being in a penitentiary, and after 30 hours, got a conjugal visit from Jeff Probst, who came bearing gifts so Lewis could whack his pole.

He learned that, in a mysterious amount of time, he’d have to chop down what he described as both a “tick mast” and “a tick bit of wood,” in order to retrieve the idol atop it. Lewis gave us a throwback to season two by shredding his hands, and barfed up water for fun. But he didn’t make it, despite chopping away a considerable part of the wood.

Meanwhile, instead of a challenge, there was a negotiation for supplies. While Mike negotiates Yankee player contracts, he let Kilby handle it, so it was Kristin and Kilby, a lawyer versus a gamer. And they ended up in a thumb war, as all good negotiations do. The results:

• Kristin, for purple: pot/flint/machete and fishing gear
• Kilby, for yellow: screwed. I mean, building supplies and shelter things

Interestingly, the negotiation didn’t allow them to separate items, like machete to one tribe and pot to another. “They’re bundled items that must go together,” Kilby explained. WE HAVE NO SAY IN WHAT HAPPENS!

On the purple tribe:

• Kristin started a fire immediately;
• Rob found an idol, and it was just an idol;
• Ori revealed he doesn’t know Survivor at all;
• and Ani, an actor who’s voiced Strawberry Shortcake, turned her tribemates into characters, and I demand that she dub the rest of the season because that was hilarious.

Where’s Waldo, aka Eric, declared he’s a vampire, and he did drain the life out of everyone by annoying the shit out of everyone. The editing, however, was perfect, cutting from his grating comments to people’s reactions.

Later, Eric swam around for two hours, made a sound a player thought was a mating call and I thought was a dying whale, and showed up with a goldfish stuck to the spear. And after crying about missing his wife or something, he gave us a moment I’d like as a GIF, please: bawling “I caught a fish with a spear.”

On yellow, Devin—also an actor, who had recurring roles on Grey’s Anatomy and the reboot of Queer as Folk—thought he could tell that Jenna was acting and lying about her wedding photographer job. She wasn’t! She was just depressed about her recent divorce.

Devin aligned himself with Brady, because “I love a big dumb boy with a heart of gold, and that is Brady through and through.”

So going into the challenge, Jenna and Eric seemed screwed—and it’s definitely a new era for two white people to be up for elimination first!

At the challenge, Jeff Probst told the players about how the predictability of the game season-to-season is over: “Those days are gone.” I was with him until he said, “You are birthing a new game.” Now spread your legs; I have a speculum and a barrel of KY!

He reiterated this by saying, “predictability is gone”—well, except you can predict he’ll say “permanent uncertainty” 1.2 million more times this episode. (If you want to be as drunk as Drunk Reddit Swim Teacher, take a drink every time someone says that phrase.)

“In the Hands of the Fans” returned for a vote about Jeff’s favorite way of saving bros: the fire-making at final four. Only five players voted to axe it, and that means it stays. The players had just been in silent sequester for a week, and would probably have agreed that Survivor should keep the hand-chewing-off twist.

Probst also asked his subordinates to validate his ideas, doing half-assed polls about idols and twists. Having had his preferences confirmed, he developed new confidence in his bad ideas, just like other rich dudes who have no one around to challenge them. And yet he still complained: “If you knew the grief I take on the streets, in restaurants, on social media—Get rid of fire making, you’re ruining the game!”

By the way, Kristin was the only person who raised her hand—tentatively, but I saw it!—so she is now my favorite player in the history of Survivor.

Despite the yellow tribe practicing getting up on shoulders, and despite purple screwing up by building their puzzle vertically first, purple still won. Their win was announced with a yellow banner that said “SORRY FOR YOU.” I’d love to know who decided upon that phrase, when there were so many other options, like “BET YOU’RE PISSED.”

So would Jenna go for the easy out? Or Aaliyah be targeted for screwing up the balls balls balls part of the challenge?

Aaliyah was confident because she aligned with Jelly and Dev—”all of us have a lot of hands in every jar” and “we’re running ship.” But Jelly didn’t want “a lot of men overpromising and underselling,” saying Brady “he only pushed one box.” But along with Patt, they decided it was too early to get rid of the big hunk of meat.

When Jenna learned that she was being targeted, she told Brady what Aaliyah said about him. Brady responded about being accused of being intense and aggressive by tearing a tree out of the ground and throwing it so far it knocked the idol out of Lewis’ tree and he barfed again.

“I can get her tonight, and I probably will with that information,” Brady told Devin, who freaked out with jazz hands as he said “now I gotta do all this work!”

Meanwhile, Brady worked to charm everyone: “If my mom came to football practice, I’d lay her ass out too.”

At Tribal Council, which appears to be partially made of the wreckage of Watchmen’s Archimedes/Owl Ship, there was a surprising amount of conversation, or as my dad used to call it, diarrhea of the mouth.

Patt, at one point, just blurted out that Aaliyah was up for consideration, shocking her. Jenna tried to defend herself, and Kilby gave her what sounded like an empathetic send-off: “sometimes being a human being, it’s hard to open up.”

And that’s when Devin, for some reason, interrupted. “I don’t know about that,” Devin said. “I’m an honest-to-god guy. I’m coming in here, I’m telling you exactly how I feel.” Then he added: “I am writing down Jenna 100 percent.”

Then Tribal Council turned into a whisper-fest, or as Devin’s honesty put it, the “poo-poo hits the fan.” I wonder if anything actually changed during that time besides the channel in my head.

I was very concerned the tribe was going to switch from voting out the invisible straight white woman and to the gay Black man who didn’t immediately support his aggrieved muscle man. Patt told Devin, “You’re blowing this up.”

But on Survivor, being a man outweighs all else, and Devin received no votes. Jenna and Aaliyah both played their shot in the dark—PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY—and neither received immunity. Devin and Jelly voted for Jenna, but everyone else voted out Aaliyah.

That we didn’t have a unanimous vote and a charade of a Tribal Council was a refreshing change, even if it was catering to the whims of a big baby. And despite the silly rhetoric, I am PERMANENTLY CERTAIN that this season just had a great start.

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