Survivor 46 Premiere Recap: Pour One Out for the Villains
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Raise of hands if you miss Survivor’s villainous castings of yesteryear. Sure, Venus may have been compared to Parvati in Wednesday’s two-hour Season 46 premiere, but when you pan out to take in this hungry batch of newbies, it’s giving Heroes vs. Heroes… vs. Heroes.
No shade to the new era. Change is necessary if a show wants to remain successful and on the air for 24 years (!). But given Jeff Probst’s recent interview with Rob Has a Podcast — the host said he’s “just not interested” in villains, negativity and “more yelling at each other” — I couldn’t help but think that people on Survivor 46 (and 45, 44, 43…) are just too darn nice! (What do you mean nobody is stealing someone’s clothes and throwing them into the fire?!) But I guess everyone is the hero of his or her own narrative, right?
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I’m not raining on the Survivor parade! There’s a lot to like about this new cast and there are plenty of big personalities to root for. The Nami tribe’s Soda and Tevin are fun and feisty; Siga’s tribe parents Tim and Maria have plenty to fight for and Yanu’s Jelinsky… well, he quit the Sweat challenge just 90 minutes in. Oh, and he folded quickly during the journey after Maria outsmarted and intimidated him. What was I getting at again? BRING BACK VILLAINS! Even without the Richards, Russells and Parvatis of seasons past, there’s still a lot to be thankful for in this Season 46 premiere. Let’s recap the highlights!
FAST FRIENDS | When the episode kicks off, Nami wins the first challenge and their Survivor starter kit, while Siga and Yanu fail to secure theirs. While things are pretty kumbaya at all three camps, everyone hits the ground running and connections form fast. The Siga women (Maria, Jem and Moriah) quickly bond, hoping to pull Charlie in for a “Charlie’s Angels” alliance. At Yanu, Tiffany, Kenzie, Jelinsky and Q link up, leaving Bhanu and Jess on the outs. The only modicum of conflict is on the Nami tribe, where Randen tries to paint Venus as Parvati 2.0. He warns Soda to watch out for her, only Soda runs directly to Venus to squeal, hopefully scoring us a spicy Tribal Council once that tribe loses its first immunity.
But tonight is not that night. In a challenge that involves carrying a 500-pound gecko through an obstacle course and finishing (what else?) a puzzle, Nami and Siga win the immunity statues, sending Yanu to Jeff’s late night lair.
FIRST ADVANTAGE | Yanu’s Tiffany wasn’t the only one searching the jungle trails, but she is the first to find her camp’s Beware Advantage. When she sneaks off to read the parchment (and tell Kenzie), she’s told to go back and dig in the spot she found it. What she finds is a box with a lock on it. She’s told to return there once her tribe loses its first immunity. (It probably goes without saying that until she finds the key, she’s lost her vote.) After the tribe loses, she finds the next parchment clue, only she has to decipher the “alien language” in order to know where to look. She whips through that, scans the shallows for a rock with a rope tied around it and successfully finds the key. That’s a lot of work to find one hidden immunity idol, but her tenacity certainly pays off.
JOURNEY | Maria, Jelinsky and Tevin are the lucky three selected to play an odd little card game. There is one skull card, one vote card and one torch card. The person with the torch (Maria) must immediately reveal herself. The other two then must then convince the torch holder that he’s the one holding the vote card. I’ve already mentioned that Jelinsky takes the L on this one, but I found this whole set-up to be fairly boring television. Three strangers meet and two of them say the same thing (“I have the vote card!”) with absolutely nothing else to really go on? At that point, it’s merely a 50/50 guess. Are they actually going to repeat this same game all season long? Pass.
Survivor: All 45 Seasons, Ranked
TRIBAL COUNCIL | Yanu visits Jeff, where they must decide between a mentally struggling Jess and the enigma that is Jelinsky. Despite the fact that he told us he was a “legend” 40 minutes prior, Jelinsky just can’t reverse the terrible optics of half-assing everything he’s done since the second he arrived. Fortunately for Jess, his delusions of grandeur earn her a couple more nights on Fiji’s beautiful beaches.
So what did you think about Survivor 46′s premiere? Do you miss the show’s villains? Who are you liking so far? Grade the premiere below, then go full tilt boogie in the comments section!
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