Even before Jeff Probst said “previously on Survivor,” Survivor 47 episode three opened with Sol saying, “Rome is off his rocker,” kicking off a very Rome-focused episode.
By the end of it, Rome would try to take down all of Asia—I mean, Aysha.
First, we rejoined the blue tribe in the aftermath of voting out TK and Gabe flushing his idol. Gabe told us, “I watched way too many people go home with an idol in their pocket”—and he meant during Survivor 46, and we saw a montage of those five dumb-dumb moves.
Caroline and Sue had a little dance in the dark, but Sue is not happy. She said, “I take it personally” that Kyle voted for her. “That’s a man who’s underestimating me.”
She told us she experienced a lot of sexism in the aviation industry. “I totally know how to handle guys like that,” she said, and I assume she means throw them into a propeller.
What she experienced sounds awful, and I’m all for throwing misogynists into jet engines, but unless we’re missing something, her irritation with Kyle seems like a bit of an overreaction. He voted with his ally? And everyone else left him out of the vote?
Gabe sidled up next to Kyle because, as he whispered to us, “I believe [Kyle] can be controlled,” and added, “that’s very attractive to me.” You do you, Gabe.
Gabe pitched Kyle on voting out Tiyana, but it turns out Kyle is a dom, too—or maybe he’s a sub and just wants Gabe to punish him? This metaphor is already out of control, so back to the actual show: Gabe said “there’s no way in hell” he’d vote for Tiyana “unless I absolutely have to,” i.e. daddy says so.
So Kyle went to Sue, Caroline, and Tiyana and told them that “Gabe’s been kind of shady. He thinks you [Sue] and Caroline are his goats.” Start up the propeller!
Over on the yellow tribe, the bamboo bed has been bothering Rachel’s back, and Anika tells us “this tribe has been focusing on vibes instead of camp life.” So her vibe shifts to Property Brothers mode: telling everyone what to do to fix the shelter while she stands around and looks fab.
Sam was annoyed, mocking them: “that bamboo dug into my side a little bit weird last night … it’s bamboo—it’s not the Ritz Carlton.” He told us “Anika really wants to have control over everything that happens in camp life.”
They then spent a considerable amount of time arguing about the clothesline, and when it was time to cut it, Anika held it taut and Sam started whacking it with a machete like Andy might do to a coconut if he needed a round of applause.
Seriously, it was scary, like full-on Jason Voorhees whacking away and me covering my eyes because I was afraid we were going to see some fingers chopped off. Anika finally said, “Wouldn’t sawing be more successful, Sam?” He stopped swinging at it, slid the blade across the line, and cut it. Phew.
Andy mentioned the others were hitting the “Survivor wall,” which he knows about very well because he arrived on the beach with the wall plastered to his face. But he has a plan: “I’m working it, I’m finagling,” he said, and he’s doing that to work with Sam and Sierra.
He offered Sierra his shot in the dark, which to me seemed like 1) overplaying, since this was before the immunity challenge, and 2) similar to a third-grader saying You can borrow my Skeletor. But I want it back. Okay? It’s mine. Don’t forget. Yet somehow it worked! “That absolutely built more trust with me,” Sierra said.
I really do love the 90-minute episodes for relationship development and character building, and we got a side-splitter of a scene in which we learned Sam, 24, is not well-acquainted with produce.
This started with Sam saying he has never eaten watermelon. Not that he doesn’t like it; he’s just never tried. “I don’t really care,” he said. “I’ve probably had a raspberry,” he added. Probably and a single raspberry! Can I mock all of Gen Z for this?
Also, Sam doesn’t like tomatoes, and has never had eggplant, zucchini, squash, or broccolini (he doesn’t know what it is). “He hasn’t tried the most basic-ass foods,” Rachel said. I assume this aversion to produce means he’s also never had a bowel movement.
Finally, we visited the red tribe, where Teeny artfully explained that “Rome is a large personality person.” That is an understatement.
In some absolutely savage editing, we saw a montage of Rome not just talking 24/7, but doing so in a way that drove me to the brink of insanity, and I just watched clips of his behavior from my couch.
For a while, Rome stood on shore talking about fishing, which is a great way to catch fish. Eventually, he went in the ocean. The rest of the tribe was hanging out in water, and at one point, Rome popped up to say he’d seen a shark, sounding like a child who sticks their head out of the bathroom to say “I went poop!”
Rome eventually caught four fish so impressive they were “the kind you would have as a pet,” Genevieve said, and by that I think she meant in a plastic bag on the way home from the county fair. They had about as much substance as Rome’s social game.
I say that because Rome wasn’t interested in being his tribe’s provider. Perched in a reclined position during an interview, he ranted: “How appreciative are you and why should I even give you some? … you did absolutely nothing to deserve this—absolutely nothing.”
His ire was directed toward one person: “You aren’t even in my alliance, Aysha. Why should I give you a big chunk of meat? So guess what I did? The last two fish, I ate right them right next to Aysha, right next to her, and I made sure I was smacking a little bit, so she could hear it.”
That’s gross; even grosser was what actually happened:
Rome: gnaws on fish the size of a gummy bear, turns his head and spits
Aysha: “You just spit that on my back”
Rome: “My bad”
This was a bit of foreshadowing for how Rome acts when confronted, which is quite different than he acts in private interviews.
After one glorious episode without producer meddling, bored producers sent boats to each camp. “A journey means you’re going to have opportunities,” Kyle said—yes, an opportunity for me to complain about Survivor devolving into a game that its producers play. Oh wait, that’s not what he meant.
On blue, Kyle volunteered, and on yellow, Anika volunteered. Sam was upset by this. Aside: A+ to the crew who interviewed Sam and positioned him so that a majority of the screen picture is thigh.
On red, Rome and Sol rock-paper-scissored and ended up with “absolutely the worst case scenario for all of us,” Aysha said. So why would they not, uh, choose someone else? More on that later.
When they arrived on the beach together, Anika, Kyle, and Rome had a long chat. Rome was thrilled to learn TK was voted out.
“Yes! hallelujah. Oh my gosh, I just couldn’t stand his ego,” Rome said, and then in an interview, told us, “I was not a fan of TK at all. He was being way too cocky, way too arrogant.”
So—wha—do you…Seriously?! LOL! I’m guessing Rome is also not a fan of self-awareness or irony.
The others asked Anika about Sam and Sierra, who they think are a couple, and she told them they’re both in relationships.
Rome volunteered to sell out his tribemates: “Sol and Aysha, they are running the show.” They are? That would be more plausible had we seen Sol the last two episodes.
“I want them to feel like I’m on the bottom,” Rome told us. “Is that true? May or may not be the case … I need targets on Sol and Aysha’s backs.” Of all his “strategy” (in “air quotes”) this episode, that may have been the best, at least in the way it set him up for a possible merge or swap.
The players finally stopped divulging everyone’s secrets and took separate paths, and arrived at a bag with three packages. No challenge this time, just a random draw.
Inside the bag: one advantage, two lose-your-votes. If the player drew a lose-your-vote, they could draw again—but if they chose the second lose-your-vote, then they lost it for two tribal councils.
“I have no choice,” Kyle said, and that was true, because the camera caught a glimpse of Jeff Probst standing there with a machete. The results:
- Kyle lost his vote and stopped
- Anika lost her vote and stopped
- Rome won a steal-a-vote advantage
“I don’t know if I was expecting this much power in the game this early.” Then he said “that’s how you do it on Survivor,” and that sound effect you heard was Jeff Probst orgasming.
I’d rather we dispense with the journeys entirely, but I don’t mind this little game so much as I mind the overwhelming power a steal-a-vote gives someone. On a tribe with six or fewer players, that means one person is one-third of the votes—possibly more if another player has lost their vote.
Maybe we could come up with more creative advantages and disadvantages than taking away votes, i.e. one of the core elements of the game that really should not be tinkered with? Call me a crackpot.
Speaking of: Rome was now on top of his empire of advantages. “I feel like I’m running this game right now. I feel like Survivor 47 is mine. We might as well rename it to Survivor: Rome,” he said.
Back at camp, Anika told them that others about Sierra and Sam’s perceived showmance, prompting Sam and his thigh to tell the camera: “Anna, babe, if you’re watching this, I am not in a relationship with Sierra on Survivor. It is a strict strategic relationship. I promise you that I’m thinking about you the whole time, and I’m thinking about you every day.”
I don’t know if “I am not in a relationship” followed by Well, it is a relationship but strictly strategic! is the best argument, but I won’t mock Sam more because he’s never eaten a vegetable and that may be affecting his thought processes.
Meanwhile, Sierra was horrified by the suggestion because of their massive age gap (27, 24), and also said, “I better be engaged when I get home.” I don’t understand how that’d happen before Sierra got there, but I assume that’s some straight person thing.
Here’s how the players shared their journey:
- Kyle told the truth about losing his vote
- Anika lied saying she chose not to play the game, but told Sierra and Rachel the truth
- Rome lied, saying he lost his vote, but told Genevieve, Kishan, and Teeny
“Right now I feel like I’m playing it perfectly,” Rome said, and then told Teeny “guaranteed first Tribal goes the way I want.”
Teeny said, “those are things I can’t really fight against.” Really? Or are you just rolling over and declining to play the game?
The immunity challenge was the water challenge we’ve seen before: jump, jump, key, balance beam, puzzle. Reward was for hammocks and a tarp.
“Before I send you out for this challenge,” Jeff Probst said, “let’s just take a moment…” ….and waste a bunch of time? Okay, why not! After all, we all tune in to Survivor to watch people talk about Survivor. 😑
Probst prattled on about being at home and watching and now they’re in the ocean and seeing the sun and the moon and the purple mountain’s majesty. I fell asleep and woke up when he asked, “Anyone willing to say, That’s a little more intimidating than I thought it would be?”
Some people said yes and he said “really!?!” as if they weren’t all his trained seals doing what he’d taught them to do.
“The ocean is definitely not a swimming pool,” Narrator McExposition said, and then also shared that the ocean is not:
- drinkable
- a mirage
- still home to Megalodon sharks, despite Shark Week
- full of vodka
- full of pee, yet
- the tears of viewers bored by this and the ensuing incessant repetition of description of everything that was happening
Andy insisted he was good at “every stage of this thing” but it turned out he was not good at, like, going underwater to get the key or walking across the balance beam. So, it turned out he was good at jumping off of things.
During this, there were some pretty amazing (drone? crane?) sweeping camera shots of the pairs jumping off the towers. Survivor’s technical work remains top-notch.
Eventually, yellow caught up despite Andy’s screw-ups, and thanks to Anika and Rachel’s puzzle work, they actually won.
Red was behind, and I was really hoping for them to lose and Rome to go home.
“Tribal Council is inevitable,” Probst said, before the second puzzle was finished. I mean, probably? But what if someone knocked the puzzle over? Maybe just wait for a thing to happen before narrating it?
Red did lose. One fun part of Survivor 47 so far has been that there hasn’t been one shitty tribe. Yellow looked like it might be going that direction, but now all three tribes have lost once in three episodes, and they’ve each had their moments of strength and weakness.
Yellow got a tarp and two hammocks, and blue got a tarp and their flint. “Swim out, enjoy the night off, celebrate,” Probst said, as if he was Below Deck’s Captain Lee and they were all going to go into town and get hammered.
Because we hadn’t suffered enough, Probst had to host another talk show segment before sending the red tribe away only to talk to them again that night.
Sol told us that he didn’t believe Rome’s story about the journey: “I think that guy’s lying,” he said. “We just need to be prepared.”
But prepared seemed to equal “scared.” Aysha said they cannot target Rome because of his perceived idol. (With his characteristic subtlety, Rome had a “hard stop” of searching for idols, Aysha said, which convinced them all that he’d found something.)
Rome said the plan is Aysha, but wanted to trick Sol into playing his shot in the dark. Lying “comes natural,” he added. “I can lie on Survivor all day long.”
But can he? In my favorite scene from this episode—and perhaps this season so far—Rome sat with Sol, and Sol, in the most unbothered way possible, called out Rome’s plan to his face. Was he was just telling Sol to vote Aysha to make Sol comfortable?
Rome basically popped a few springs, and as smoke came out of his ears, kept lying, “I don’t have a vote.” Sol didn’t ask about his vote, of course.
Earlier, Rome said, “Boston Rob was the godfather; there’s got to be a godson somewhere.” And it’s not you, friend!
Aysha thought they should vote for Genevieve, Rome’s ally, to weaken him. But Teeny and Kishan said they didn’t want to vote for Genevieve because they’re scared Rome will play his idol for her. There are other options, though! One would be forcing a tied vote.
Kishan said, “if Aysha keeps discounting any other potential options, that’s really hard to work with going forward.” Teeny said, “Is it worth keeping her in this game?” and “I have to make a decision that’s going to guarantee me to go further in this game.”
And that was the moment I realized we had an episode-one situation again, with yet another podcaster being on the outs. Why was Aysha perceived to be a threat and/or outside of the core alliance? I wish we knew more. Did the others think her experience commenting on Survivor on RHAP meant she knew too much about strategy?
Tribal Council started with Jeff Probst saying, “Rome, every first…” and Rome started laughing because he didn’t want to answer first, and added, “I’ve got a superstition about sitting in the front and middle.” But not a superstition about being the center of attention?
During Tribal, Kishan said, “I’m strong to the core four, and you know, I want to go ahead and move forward with whatever we believe in.” Jeff Probst asked who that was, and Kishan said, “I’m not going to say.” Clearly, though, it’s Genevieve, Kishan, Rome, and Teeny versus Aysha and Sol.
“This is Survivor right here,” Narrator McNoshitsherlock said at some point.
Before the vote, Aysha said, “I don’t want to call anybody out, but I hope the person that agreed to vote with me sticks to that—otherwise I know that I could be at risk of going home, or an ally could be at risk of going home.”
We saw no votes; Rome appeared to cast just one. Rome played his idol and pretended it came from the journey.
Votes were split: Rome 1, Genevieve 1, Sol 1, Aysha 3. The votes for Aysha are instant classics for their misspellings and misrepresentations of geography:
- aasia — Kishan
- Asia — Genevieve
- Asia — Rome, who drew a bubble around it I think was supposed to look like the continent of Asia but instead resembled an amoeba
Now Aysha and Jon can talk podcasting at Ponderosa, and everyone else can continue to play a scared game with the player who annoys the shit out of them, just like on the yellow tribe.
“That really hurts,” Aysha said as she left. “I’m not going to lie.” (Aysha did ask Sol if he voted against her, and he said no.)
As much as I appreciate those who exit on good terms, I appreciate the honest emotion, too: it sucks to be voted out, and by an alliance that trusts the guy who annoys the beejezus out of everyone more than you!
In her final words, Aysha also said, “to go from the podcast mic to just having put my feet in the Fijian sand, it means everything.”
In the preview for next week, there’s drama: “There’s blood everywhere!” someone says, and then we see the jungle floor covered in red chalk or Kool-Aid powder, like the stuff Jono sprinkled onto plates on Below Deck Med.
So I guess either the editing is faking us out, or no one on the tribe has ever seen actual blood before.
About the writer
Andy Dehnart
Andy Dehnart is a writer and TV critic who created reality blurred in 2000. His writing and reporting here has won an Excellence in Journalism award from NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists and an L.A. Press Club National A&E Journalism Award.
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