Season 50, Episode 2: Group Dynamics
Tribe Breakdown:
Cila: Christian, Cirie, Emily, Rick Devens, Joe, Savannah, Ozzy
Kalo: Charlie, Mikę White, Dee, Tiffany, Coach, Chrissy, Kamilla, Jonathan
Vatu: Angelina, Q, Colby, Stephenie, Aubry, Genevieve, Rizo
Who we lost last episode: Jenna to a vote and Kyle to an injury
I'm not going to continue with full episode recaps. I think there are enough of those out there, anyway. I'm not sure I'm adding much in the way of my descriptions of every event. But I do want to focus on a sort of overall take on each episode: themes, highlights, and insights. Episode vibes, if you will.
So, let's begin. Episode 2 of Season 50 where players are meant to give everything they have. Blood, sweat, tears, dignity, achilles tendons. Remember Jonathan shouting, "You've got it, Mr. Jeff!" But did Jonathan poop his pants like Christian? No. He, did, however, have to kind of rescue Coach from drowning in the ocean. I say kind of, because of course no one on production is going to let Coach drown. Coach might think Jonathan saved his life, but who knows how many people were out there in the water with them making sure they weren't lost to the ocean. And then there's the boats that arrived to fetch him. Anyway, we have had blood (I assume, looking at the scrapes and wounds on their legs), we have had a lot of sweat, and we are definitely seeing a lot of tears. And, yes, we have had pooped pants. Which, according to Joe, looks like Christian sat on a smashed banana.
This episode focuses a lot on the social dynamics of every tribe. On Vatu, castaways are still reeling from the loss of Kyle and, it seems, feeling a little untethered. Q and Genevieve especially feel hit by the loss. Not just because they miss him and it's a bummer, but because he was an ally and important to the game they wanted to play. So now Rizo is being brought into the fold and he's pretty darn proud of himself for being able to "course correct" from his "really hyper" start. Rizo has become one of the gang, winning over hearts and minds, I guess, with his eagerness (now toned down) and youthful energy. Who knows what conversations we miss, but I'm guessing he was able to recognize that he maybe shouldn't be giving game advice to anyone, much less 51-year-old Texan, Colby. I kind of assume none of the Vatu members see Rizo as the threat he believes (and, I guess we could say knows) himself to be. Even though they have to know that he wouldn't be there if he hadn't made a big impression on Season 49. Anyway, Rizo has chilled out. He hasn't done much around camp and Q is annoyed, but apparently not enough to choose Aubry over him in an alliance invite.
What's happening with Aubry? I wish we could see more of what happened to make her such an outsider on her tribe. One has to wonder if they determined her too much of a threat and made her an immediate target instead or did she do something to invite it? Perhaps just being suspicious and so clearly pained. She tells us in her confessional that she's in a tribe with a bunch of "lunatics" but other than a silly conversation about sour coconuts, we don't see anything to support this. Colby, Stephenie, and Q are hardworking. Angelina seems good-natured and easy-going (not much like she was back on 37). Genevieve is smart and fun. Q is fun. Colby appears to be a chill, fatherly-like presence. Rizo is the 25-year-old go getter. Aubry, what's going on with you? So, either the tribe is somehow making her feel like she's an outsider in ways we don't see OR Aubry is inviting this on herself through anxiety, paranoia, or just plain old bad attitude. It's hard to know. Although given that the rest of her tribe is so willing to go through her bag, it appears maybe she is an outsider. So when she gets the Billie Eilish Boomerang Idol gifted to her by Christian ("Godspeed, Aubry Bracco. Safe travels.") she's emotional in ways that make the viewers (or at least me) feel protective of her. She's been hurting.
Coach is still butt-hurt enough about Ozzy calling him out for stealing that key, that he has to bring it up at the reward challenge. Coach just can't help himself. He's gotta "set the record straight." Emily is tickled. Dee and Kamilla are tickled. Drama. Will this drama play out further on down the line? Will there be a Coach and Ozzy showdown? "Yesterday's adversary is tomorrow's enemy. Today's enemy is tomorrow's adversary."--Coach saying a string of words that do not make much sense. But we know enough to know he's going to struggle to let this go. His honor is everything to him and to have that be questioned is more than Coach can apparently handle. It's too personal for him.
Also feeling a little on the outside is Savannah at Cila. She's struggling because she's not "found her people." Savannah is a tough one. As we saw on 49, she's clearly competitive and confident. She's a fantastic game player, strategically. And on 49 she found solid alliances in Rizo and Sophi, which helped carry her to the end. She deserved her win. She does, however, appear to sometimes make some social missteps. I would say her dive for MC's idol key in 49 makes her appear ruthless and untrustworthy. Cornering Kristina like she did about her potential vote, also forces uncomfortable and unsafe feelings from other players. While there's nothing wrong with playing hard and even ruthlessly, you gotta hide some of that to lower your threat level (even Russel faked friendliness and care). We don't know what Savannah is looking for that she's not finding, but she's on a tribe with the nerds (which I'm using positively--love the nerds!), the honorable fireman, and super old schoolers in Ozzy and Cirie. The nerds are hyper strategic, but they might be too caught up in their own little bubble of giddy gameplay for her to feel included. She'd do well to bond with Cirie, whom she is correctly wary of and right on the money about her gameplay, but maybe those two minds of theirs just can't work together well. Their games aren't exactly alike--Cirie is much more of a social maneuverer--but they both have great game playing minds.
Christian stands out to me as an amazing social player. On the level of Cirie, I would even say. He knows exactly how to approach people to win them over to his side and he appears (and likely is) genuine as he does it. His "therapy caraousel" with Joe is incredible (and not just for the visuals). He's not really manipulating anyone in the way that we could argue Cirie does, but he knows how to make people feel heard and respected. Christian knows how to handle Joe, who he describes as "code oriented" while Devens lets his frustration show. Devens is right to be frustrated. Joe doesn't need to call out every whisper, nor should Joe expect there not be scheming and lying, but Devens could do better at giving Joe what he needs. Of course, this is what they talk about when they say "Joe management" and it's no wonder that they consider voting him off, because that can absolutely get exhausting.
On Kalo, we learn that Chrissy is being too much of a mom, at least according to Charlie and Dee; but I don't really really get it. You can mom me, Chrissy. Anytime.
In the end, Savannah goes home. Honestly, even if she had shared about her earned advantage instead of hiding it, I'm not sure she would have survived. She was an unknown but they also knew she won. A clearly savvy winner who never really appeared to make any super bonds, despite being liked and respected. So Ozzy lived. Cirie lived. And Joe will continue on having to be managed.
