1 player unravels very publicly

Some people just shouldn’t go on Survivor. It’s not necessarily an indictment on the individual. Hell, as someone that has had multiple nightmares about being voted out first on Survivor — even though I have never even been on the show — I count myself as one of those of those folks that shouldn’t be out there. My main man Bhanu was clearly not built for the game, no matter how many hearts he planned on winning along the way. The point is, while some folks may be fans of the show, that doesn’t mean they are equipped to be on it.

Which brings us to Andy Rueda, who I would say came into the Survivor 47 premiere absolutely on fire, but the mention of fire would imply there was also some smoke, and evidently Andy is scared of smoking anything, even if he did pretend to be a Deadhead for some reason that I don’t quite completely understand.

But Andy’s world quickly unraveled. He couldn’t sleep. He entered a “difficult and negative head space” when Rachel wasn’t absolutely psyched that he pulled her away from the rest of the tribe in the middle of the night in a move that did not at all look suspicious! He complained that nobody noticed when he opened up a coconut and yet all cheered when his new island BFF Jon Lovett did.

And then came the challenge. The challenge itself was a hilarious disaster in so many ways. We had boats going way off course, we had vessels capsizing, and we had an edit that made the winning team appear to solve a massive logo puzzle in less time than it took me to write this sentence. “It is an absolute disaster, the first immunity challenge of Survivor 47,” Jeff Probst yelled. “Paddles everywhere! Chests everywhere! Players everywhere!”

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But all of that was nothing compared to what happened next. While his Gata teammates were falling apart in the puzzle, Andy was falling apart over on the sidelines. The player laid down on the ground, and when Probst asked if he needed medical attention, Andy replied with “I gave everything, Jeff”… which is not exactly a yes or no, so Probst called them over.

When host and player spoke next as the latter was attended to by the Survivor medical team, Andy sounded like a man that was done with the game. “I was gonna be voted out tonight,” he told the host. “They were gonna vote me out.” Probst had to tell him, “Dude, you’re in the game still. Stop.”

Look, I know how absolutely brutal Survivor challenges are. I have done around 25 of them over the years on location. After one particularly gnarly competition in the Philippines where I had to drag a waterlogged chest back to shore, I laid down on the ground while puzzle solvers did their thing. That’s not surprising. Just look at me. Charles Atlas, I ain’t. But there clearly was more to this than just physical exhaustion. I don’t know if it was a panic attack, or if Andy was hoping to get medically evacuated because of everything else he was going through, or if it was something else entirely, but it just didn’t seem like a dude that should be out there.

You all know how much I love watching people suffer out in the elements from the air-conditioned comfort of my cat-shredded couch, but not like this. And then things got super uncomfortable when Andy returned to his tribe after the challenge, telling Probst about nobody applauding his dope coconut-opening skills, and then adding on, “They don’t like me, I think” for good measure. Apparently deeming the situation not quite awkward enough, Andy continued to tell a story about how he was plotting to undermine his best friend in the game, Jon… right in front of his best friend in the game, Jon.

It was a disaster. The entire thing. As Andy himself told us later, “I was being very honest in a vulnerable moment at the exact wrong time.” But here’s the thing: Even after a truly disastrous first three days, Andy is still in the game! His tribe — not unlike those goofballs on Yanu who repeatedly kept Bhanu around last season — chose to keep Andy and jettison Jon instead. Why? I couldn’t tell you. But they did.

Whether they will rue the day they kept the man they themselves described as a “ticking time bomb” around remains to be seen, but Andy does now have a chance to rebound. We’ve seen disastrous starts rectified before. John Cochran had a super rough go his first three days on South Pacific, and David Wright was an abject disaster out of the gate on Millennials vs. Gen X. I’d say both of those gentlemen acquitted themselves quite nicely in their Survivor careers… outside of Cochran being forced to give Debbie advice on Game Changers, that is.

Here’s hoping Andy can at least find emotional stability, if not game stability, out there. And here’s hoping he can watch this week’s premiere and focus on the fact that he did enough to keep himself in the game a few more days, where absolutely anything can happen. Like, for instance…

We now interrupt this Survivor 47 recap for a BREAKING NEWS ALERT. Fijian authorities have announced that they have discovered a male adult stuck at the bottom of a well. The male adult has been identified as former battle rapper and current not-good Survivor player Jerome Cooney. Cooney claims he fell headfirst into said well while trying to retrieve a key for a Beware Advantage to an immunity idol that could be traded in for a more powerful immunity idol that could then be traded in for an even more powerful immunity idol.

Not since the days of Timmy O’Toole has so much global attention been focused on a person living in a well for no good reason whatsoever. International pop sensation Sting and noted celebrity degenerate Krusty the Clown have announced the recording of a charity single titled “We’re Sending Our Love (and Advice on How to Play a More Subtle Survivor Game) Down the Well” to raise money for the Fijian well-dweller.

The duo have assembled an all-star cast of singers including, but not limited to, Rainier Wolfcastle, Sideshow Mel, Tata the Bushman, Troy McClure, Russell Feathers, Mayor Quimby, Colby Donaldson’s brother Reid, and, of course, the Capital City Goofball. We’ll bring you more updates as they happen, but for now return you to your regularly scheduled Survivor 47 recap, already in progress…

…and that’s all the stuff you didn’t see in the premiere. Hope I don’t get in trouble for spilling all that behind-the-scenes tea. Anyhoodle, it was a two-hour premiere, so there’s other stuff to get to. Seeing as how I have been given a temporary 24-hour pass out of Jankie World, let’s get to it before I am forced to eat more unlimited pizza and ice cream.

Marooning madness

First off, you know I have much love for anyone named Teeny who looks like an aggressive scarecrow and proclaims, “I am actually a proud New Jerseyian.” As well she should be. Jerseyites have a very strong reality TV record. Look no further than the year 2020, when all five finalists from Survivor and Big Brother were from the Garden State. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON’T PUMP YOUR OWN GAS! YOU BECOME AWESOME AT SURVIVOR!

Truthfully, the only thing I don’t like about Teeny being on Survivor is the fact that they did not also cast someone named Tiny. Look, if they can cast a Tarzan and a Troyzan on the same season, they can definitely cast a Teeny and and a Tiny. Missed opportunity, is all I’m sayin. But even for a 20-year Jersey resident like myself, Teeny’s home state pride was not the coolest thing about the marooning. It was actually that badass drone shot following Kyle into the jungle to retrieve puzzle pieces. So freakin’ incredible.

As Survivor fans, we focus so much on the players and the twists, but I would gander to guess that one of the reasons we all fell in love with the show was the stunning visuals, and something as simple as a drone camera following a player into the woods rekindles that love all over again. Also, the shots in the immunity challenge later of the boats capsizing — taken from cameras placed inside the boats — was flat-out tremendous. We take this stuff for granted, but the camera work and production values are just so off the charts of this show, it makes me want to open up a coconut and celebrate… as long as people are watching and properly acknowledge it.

In any event, Gata (the yellow tribe) went from worst to first on the marooning challenge and won on the puzzle. I have no doubts they will absolutely dominate on every puzzle all season long. Just hand them the week one immunity already!

X marks the spot

Okay, we’ve had a bit of fun at Rome’s expense, because there definitely seemed to be a bit of an awareness issue for the former battle rapper in his first three days, but he was 100 percent right about one thing: You never volunteer to go off on a trip to try and win supplies straight from the marooning. That is time to build those all-important social (and strategic) bonds with your tribemates back at camp. By going off in a boat by yourself, you remove yourself from that key bonding time. You also put yourself at risk of disappointing your team when you return with nothing. And, worst of all, they very well may not trust what you tell them when you return — even when what you are telling them is the truth. It’s just not worth it.

But that did not stop Aysha and TK from volunteering to go take part in the much-ballyhooed replacement for the Sweat vs. Savvy task. And that replacement was basically just the two walking around a lot of big rocks to see who could find the keys the fastest. It wasn’t super engaging, although I did actually gasp near the end when TK walked right by the key buoy out in the water. Otherwise… meh.

I do think it was the right call to retire Sweat vs. Savvy and move on to something else. Not sure this was the most dynamic substitute — especially when there was so much other searching-for-things footage this week — but it’s a move in the right direction, which is most important.

I’m still wrestling (slight pun intended) with how I feel about Aysha trying to grab the key away from TK though. On one hand, I love the spunk, the can-do spirit, the moxie. As noted gridiron philosopher Herm Edwards once opined, “You play to win the game!” On the other hand, you may need to work with TK and his Tuku tribe mates at some point down the line, and a strong first impression may take you further in that regard than a pot and machete. Okay, let’s get some first impressions on the three tribes.

Idol in a box with another idol in another box with another idol in another box

I’m not going to lay out all the twists and turns of this season’s Beware Advantages, because we will be here all day (even more so than we already are). But I do like the concept of players thinking they have scored something, only to be presented with an option to push their luck even further. And I also like it when someone is so bad at hiding the evidence that it rolls very noisily down a hill and literally smacks the camera right in the lens. That’s Gabe! I’m talking about Gabe!

The guy kept finding things (Clues! Keys! Boxes!) and eventually ended up with an immunity idol for his first three Tribal Councils. But as my boy Sméagol from the Gladden Fields will tell you, there are risks when you become that obsessed with a trinket. In this case, it seemed pretty obvious to the others what Gabe was doing. For one thing, TK watched him find the key. For another, Gabe seemingly woke the entire island up with his accidental box roll down the mountain.

Ninety percent of our Tuku footage revolved around Gabe and his procurement of various things, so I don’t really know what to make of this tribe yet. I do know Caroline is worried about a brodown throwdown, and I wonder if Sue will regret her alliance to Gabe if he painted a big target on himself with all his idol hunting. Speaking of which….

Rome was not built in a day (and neither are immunity idols)

Was there too much Beware Advantage hunting footage on the Survivor 47 premiere? Absolutely. Was it all worth it just to get a shot of Rome almost falling head-first down a well? Quite possibly. And his move to just walk away from everyone without saying a word as he was caught DRIPPING WET at the water well was positively Basileian.

“I feel just absolutely incredible at how I’m playing the game to start things off,” Rome told us, which brings to mind what Probst told me before the season about self-awareness among the cast. But the big takeaway from the Lavo tribe footage is that Teeny and Kishan (who I may just have to start calling Tiny) seemed to be forming a yin and yang alliance, with Sol and Aysha joining in for a new fearsome foursome. That leaves idol-obsessed Rome and Genevieve on the outs. At least for now.

Gata get a win

It’s hard to write much about the Gata tribe without getting into Andy’s gradual unraveling, which we’ve already tackled. It certainly was interesting how nobody seemed to know who the hell Jon Lovett was. Sam, at least, claimed he had “heard about” one of his podcasts, which felt more like a sympathetic lie than the actual truth. So Jon’s early ouster cannot be blamed on folks wanting to get the famous rich guy out of there.

I also was struck by Rachel’s early comment that solving the marooning puzzle was the greatest moment of her life. Not because her husband, whom Rachel married on her wedding day, might be like, “Uhhhhh…” And not because that impressive puzzle triumph would be followed by a brutal puzzle showing in the immunity challenge.

I was struck because of how cool it must be to spend all that time and all that effort getting onto Survivor — and Rachel, like Tiyana, was an alternate on a previous season, so came all the way out to Fiji a year earlier without getting a chance to play — and then to get out there and just minutes into the season pull off an epic come-from-behind victory. In essence, she pulled a reverse Brandon Donlon. Put a ladder in front of her and who knows what would have happened.

Man (and woman) overboard!

I’m just going to repeat myself right now, which I have no doubt is something Survivor recap editor Ashley Boucher is all too used to at this point, but whenever Probst is yelling “This is one of the worst starts to any challenge in 47 seasons of Survivor!” you know we are hitting peak entertainment value. It wasn’t just the Tuku and Gata boats capsizing and throwing contestants into the drink; it was the paddles just sort of slowly floating away into the abyss. So good. And again, the camera placement in the boats capturing all the chaos just added to an incredible display of competition dysfunction.

As the Hostmaster General would say later, “You want something soft? Pick another show.” Regardless, Gata were the losers, and then had insult added to injury when Andy talked openly about his perceptions on how they were treating him and the fact that he was thinking about blindsiding his biggest ally… which he would later do.

Lovett or leave it?

I never even considered that Jon could be the first person voted out of the game. Never crossed my mind as a possibility. For one thing, famous faces (or, in this case, voices) are never voted out early — unless, like Jimmy Johnson in Nicaragua, they ask everyone to vote them out. For another, in a classic Survivor misdirect I honestly should have seen coming, Probst promoted Jon as “one of the greatest storytellers that we will ever have on Survivor.” Would the greatest Survivor storyteller ever get booted on day 3 of the game? Apparently so!

This was especially shocking after seeing Jon’s first interaction in the game, when he had everyone smiling and laughing within seconds after introducing himself as someone who cares what people think of him.

“This guy is going to have everyone eating out his hand!” I told myself.

“He’s a professional writer and a professional public speaker. We should just cut him the million-dollar check right now!” I replied to myself.

“Oh, can it be one of those oversized novelty checks they used to make winners awkwardly pose with on the CBS morning news show the day after their televised victory?” I asked self No. 2.

“I mean, I suppose they could just buy their own oversized novelty check with all the money they won,” I responded, kind of getting annoyed by self No. 1’s obsession with oversized novelty checks.

I am actually by most accounts not an insane person, so don’t have imaginary conversations with myself about Jon and abnormally large fake checks. At least not out loud. But I did think the guy was poised for a long run. So what happened? Why did the Gata tribe walk into one of the coolest Tribal Council sets I have ever seen and decide to keep someone they described as very unstable, and instead kick Jon to the curb?

Was it really all about keeping the stronger physical specimen in Andy for the challenges? Was Jon considered too big a threat? I could not help but notice that the only person on the Gata tribe that expressed any connection whatsoever with Jon was Andy. Sure, we heard a lot about people cheering with Jon opened a coconut, but we also only head that… from Andy.  For whatever reason, it seems Jon did not make the social connections you need to forge in those first few days of the game to avoid elimination. And now one of the (alleged) greatest Survivor storytellers ever is gone. GONE, I SAY! Gone like my main man Zane Knight! Gone Debb Eton style! Gone like Wanda Shirk, but without the singing!

I guess what I’m getting at is that Jon will not be my Survivor 47 winner pick. So who will be on the receiving end of that dubious honor and be retroactively jinxed from winning a game that they already played four months ago? This is a hard one, because while it was a two-hour premiere that should have given me a lot of material to base my terrible prediction on, the vast majority of those two-hours were taken up by Beware Advantage hunting, three challenges or supply tasks, and commercials. Not a ton of strategy shown yet. I’m flying a bit blind here, is what I’m saying.

I like Anika, but she set herself up as a Tribe leader, which is very dangerous. I also like Sam, but you know who else really likes Sam? Sam! Sam really likes Sam! I tend to be wary of people that show up on my TV screen and tell me how awesome they are. Rachel really popped this episode, but Rachel is also intense. Will that intensity scare people?

You may have noticed I’m mentioning all Gata people. Perhaps that is because we saw the most of them by virtue of Gata losing the immunity challenge and not spending half their time looking for keys at the bottom of water wells. There are just so many people on the other tribes I feel like I don’t have a great read on yet. Like, at the risk of sounding vaguely Seinfeld-esque, what’s Sol’s deal? I would love to make Tiyana my episode 1 pick to win the season, but judging by screen time so far, I’m not even entirely sure she’s on the season. And isn’t there someone named Sierra Mist or something, or am I making that up?

Ugh! Okay, my episode 1 pick to win it all is… You know what? F it, I’m picking Teeny. WHAT? I’m allowed to pick Teeny! Is this my Jersey pride kicking in? Perhaps, but we’ve seen super enthusiastic self-professed oddballs do well in the new era. Maryanne (my Survivor 42 winner pick, incidentally) won the whole thing. And Carolyn (very much not my Survivor 44 winer pick, incidentally) made it all the way to the end.

Plus, there was a moment where Teeny may have flashed some keen game sense that impressed me. Rome and Genevieve were bonding, and then tried to bring Teeny into their budding alliance. She could have committed to that right then and there, but instead waited to see what Aysha was all about. Now, is that because Teeny is a Survivor super-fan and was stoked to work with someone she heard talk about the game on podcasts? Sure, very possibly. But it proved to be an astute move, and put her (for now) in the majority alliance on the tribe. It’s not a ton to go on, but it’s all I have, so Teeny it is.

Now that I have ensured there is no possible way Teeny will ever win Survivor, a few quick programming notes before we make like Jon and get out of here. We will have an exit interview with the dearly departed, so make sure to check that out when it’s up. We’ll also have an exclusive deleted scene for you, so keep your eyes peeled for that. Plus, Probst will be weighing in on the premiere, and we’ll have you covered there as well.

This is the 47th season of Survivor, and also happens to mark my 47th season of writing about Survivor. Whether you’ve been along for the ride the entire time or just read a Survivor recap for the first time, thanks for being part of our collective journey. If you missed any of our preseason interviews with the cast or Probst, you can check that all out right here. And, as always, I’ll be back next week with another scoop of the crispy.