Survivor 47 recap: The death of (Kyle's) innocence

If you’re an old and irrelevant person such as myself, you may remember this TV show that aired Saturday afternoons on ABC called Wide World of Sports. This was before the days of ubiquitous round-the-clock sports coverage on cable channels, and WWS (as only I called it) aired weird stuff you didn’t normally see on television in those days — like people jumping over barrels on ice skates, or rodeos, track relays, little league baseball, and, if you were really lucky, Evel Knievel.

But the show was most famous for its intro, where host Jim McKay would bellow about “the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat,” with the latter half of that comment being accompanied by video footage of the most epic ski collision ever, that appeared by all accounts to be a public maiming. Some poor schmo rotated 720 degrees sideways while losing both his skis and face planting onto the ice. Absolutely brutal.

I imagine that’s what the agony of Survivor defeat must feel like — emotionally, that is. And usually, the blindsided victim we sympathize with is the person who thought they were riding high only to have their torch snuffed just seconds later. As one poster child for this depressing befuddlement once memorably opined, “What the hell, guys?”

But what was so heart-wrenching about TK Foster’s untimely exit at the end of Survivor 47’s second episode was not his exit; it was the reaction of his only ally, Kyle. While TK tried to put a good face on his ouster, telling the people that just stabbed in him in the back, “Good stuff, brother,” and “Hold it down, y’all” — all I could do was look at Kyle’s face. The shock. The confusion. The melancholy. The speechlessness. All he could manage was a single word: “No.”

I know I’ve used this example before, but it is so apt and I am a hardcore early-era Simpsons nerd so sue me, but watching Kyle take this in on national television was like when Bart Simpson went into slow-motion freeze frame mode to pinpoint the exact moment when sister Lisa made Ralph Wiggum’s heart rip in half at the Krusty the Clown anniversary special. But this wasn’t just Kyle’s heart breaking; it was the end of innocence.

Poor Kyle. He came into the game the most earnest of all the Survivor 47 contestants. He wasn’t looking to dunk his head into a well searching for idols. He wasn’t trying to imitate Indiana Jones. He wasn’t sticking Beware Advantage keys in his socks. He just wanted to meet some nice people and have a nice adventure out in a tropical paradise. He even said it himself when he talked about how “the strategy part, that’s the hardest part for me.”

Kyle thought he had an alliance with Tiyana and that they were going to ride together and support each other and sing “Kumbaya” and braid each other’s hair and cook s’mores by the campfire (once they get their flint back, that is). So when he saw that both she and Gabe had deceived him, it’s almost like it did not even compute as a possibility. “They say nice people can’t win this game and I’m going to say f--- that right now,” he said earlier in the episode, yet that moment where TK got his torch snuffed also may have been the moment of realization for Kyle that there is a reason nice people don't win this game… unless, of course, they are willing to do not-nice things like lie and deceive.

Let’s hope this served as a wake-up call for the likable construction worker from Michigan. Otherwise, he will be the latest in a long line of nice people to get their torch snuffed. (And if you feel like you have not yet seen enough of Kyle on the show to gauge just how nice he is, check out this exclusive deleted scene and then tell me you don’t love the guy.) And with that, let’s dive into the other big moments and characters from episode 2 of Survivor 47.

Rome is where the heart (and misplaced confidence) is

Rome is a gift. He moonwalks around camp for no apparent reason. He brags about his fire-making skills… only to then not be able to make fire. He fancies himself some sort of modern-day Michael Winslow and does vocal impersonations of dial-up internet. He trusts someone one million percent only to then proclaim he cannot 100 percent trust them. (So, wait, he trusts them 999,900 percent?)

Jeff Probst talked to me before the season about self-awareness. Gee, I wonder to whom he could have been referring? Speaking of which, it seems Rome also nominated himself as a future cohost of the On Fire with Jeff Probst podcast, and I think that 999,900 percent needs to happen. In fact, why just cohost? Can we fire Probst and just have Rome host the podcast solo? Maybe bust out some battle raps he forgets the lyrics to on occasion? I am totally on board, even if technically someone should probably not be allowed to host a podcast called On Fire if they cannot, in fact, make fire. But I digress.

Unfortunately for Rome, he overestimated Teeny’s estimation of him, telling her about his Beware Advantage box… which she then conveyed the next morning to her true No. 1 ally, Kishan. The scene of Teeny and Kishan reading the instructions as Rome walked up behind them was one of the most wonderfully awkward things I have seen in my life — at least since Rome walked away without acknowledging his tribe mates while dripping wet from taking a plunge into a water well last week.

ROME! You are walking and talking entertainment, whether it is intentional or not. I will now start watching esports just to hear your e sports podcast, and I don’t even fully understand what esports even are! Is it one word? Is it two? Is there a hyphen? Was I supposed to capitalize the letter e… I mean E? I DON’T CARE! I am in as long as Rome is in.

Going cuckoo for coconuts

Andy wanted people to cheer for him while he opened coconuts? Well, he certainly got it this week with some of the most enthusiastic over-the-top coconut-opening cheering I have ever heard. The folks on Gata probably needed to dial it down about 28 percent (or 28 million percent on the Rome scale) to make it at least semi-believable, but I absolutely loved the commitment.

While Andy was feeling the love, he unfortunately had a bit of a whoopsie moment when he found the Beware Advantage and put it back to retrieve later. Because whether you are Sue Smey attempting to nap on a beach, or Andy Rueda waiting to go get a Beware Advantage — you snooze, you lose on Survivor. Naturally, when Andy went back to get it, it was already gone, because Sam — who apparently had it contractually mandated that all of his confessional interviews take place with him reclining on a tree — had already found the Beware Advantage himself. Of course, I blame all of this entire back-and-forth scenario on Sam peeing, but that is neither here nor there.

Here's the thing I don’t understand about Sam eventually settling for a one Tribal Council idol instead of extending it to a three or five TC idol: Everyone on the tribe except Andy already knew he had it, so Sam could pretty much search freely out in the open as long as someone distracted Andy. Since that was the case, why not keep searching and get a more powerful idol? There was no tight deadline. This was on day four, so he had over 24 hours to keep hunting before the next Tribal Council, when he would lose his vote. The only reason I can think of is Sam didn’t want to scare the women by obtaining too powerful an idol. Otherwise, not unlike Kyle at Tribal Council, I’m flummoxed.

A challenge so nice she tried to steal the rice

This week’s immunity challenge basically involved transporting a big bag of rice on land and on sea until the end, where three tribe mates would have to move a ball through a winding snake trap. Gata won. Whatever.

What I want to focus on are the renegade actions of notorious international rice thief Rachel LaMont. Realizing there was an absurd amount of rice just sorta sitting there after the ball had been removed from the bag, Rachel decided to engage in a little five-finger discount action. She started trying to subtly take fistfuls of rice and stuff them into her pockets so she could bring some food back to camp.

I am going to go out on the shortest limb imaginable and assume that Probst did not actually notice this thievery — since he is keeping track of hundreds of more important things and was very likely not studying non-snake participant Rachel as three tribes were fighting for immunity. But what Probst does not notice, the other producers and cameras do, and they would have filled the host in. Also, what exactly was Rachel’s plan even if she had somehow gotten the rice back to camp? There are producers and cameras there too. You can’t not have rice, and then all of a sudden have rice. Suspicious.

But make no mistake, I love what Rachel did here. This is exactly what you are supposed to do on Survivor — push the boundaries until they tell you stop. What’s the worst that can happen? They tell you to pour the rice out, which is precisely what transpired. So what! Was there a penalty? No. Punishment? No. Trademark Probst tongue lashing? No. In fact, he probably respected the effort.

Honestly, if I was Rachel, I would just start trying to steal everything at challenges. The balls, the bags, the entire snake trap rigging. Walk right over and take Probst’s dope-ass Survivor hat off his head while you’re at it and bring it back to camp for all I care! Or tell Andy to do it and promise you will cheer like no human has ever been cheered before. When there’s nothing to lose — except, perhaps, your dignity on national television — it’s always worth a shot.

Anyway, Gata didn’t win the rice, but they did win the challenge, while Tuku came in last, meaning they had a date at Tribal Council with the Hostmaster General.

Does anyone on this tribe want to work with each other?

All the tribe dynamics on Tuku are so weird. Tiyana was not feeling the dudes, but then made an alliance with them. Caroline did not believe Gabe when he said he wanted to work with her because — and I am not making this up — she just graduated from business school (????). And TK sat right down next to two women trying to take a nap and proceeded to break the land speed record for fastest person to say the word “bro” 1,000 times in a minute.

The big question was whether Tiyana would defect from TK and Kyle after the former fancied himself as some sort of bizarro-world Ricardo Montalban and told everyone to stop smiling. But TK’s comments to Pobst after the challenge (which caused some truly awesome facial reactions from Tiyana) were not the ones that struck me. I was far more worried for his place in the game after what he said at the camp.

Upset that his tribe mates did not seem to be taking the loss as seriously as the former athlete was, TK told us, “If you’re going to be on my tribe, everybody needs to have the same mindset that I have.” NO! A million times no! That may work on the football field and more traditional sports settings, but it is fundamentally terrible way to play Survivor. The best players do not force others into their mindset. Rather, they adapt and accommodate their own mindsets to match others.

“I’m going to start telling people what we’re doing,” TK promised. Again, no! That is a one-way path to social ostracization, and Survivor is ultimately a social game. I get it, it’s hard for someone who has trained his whole life as a competitive athlete to sit there and accept losing, but guess what TK just lost as a result? The entire game. Eyes on the prize, my man.

While TK’s fate was sealed once Tiyana flipped, there was still an interesting twist to the proceedings when Gabe decided to play his thee-Tribal idol at the first Tribal Council after all. But instead of playing it on Sue — where the votes were going — he played it on himself. I kinda get it. That way, Gabe would be safe from pulling rocks on a tied revote. Fine. But with every indication that the vote was going on TK and Sue, why not just play the idol on Sue (winning more devotion from her and guaranteeing TK goes home), and then not risk other ally Caroline going home due to rocks?

The answer, of course, is that nothing is ever guaranteed on Survivor, and if Gabe thought there was any indication whatsoever that it could be him, better to be safe than sorry. So I can live with that decision, especially seeing as how filming on Survivor 47 commenced near the tail end of Survivor 46’s airing — a season filled with folks that did not play their immunity idols on themselves, to disastrous results. Also, props to Gabe for his vote out line of “Wanna see a magic trick? In one fell swoop, I’m making your Survivor dream disappear.” And that he did.

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I don’t know if TK was a good Survivor player, but he was a good personality for the show. He came in strong, which may have been his undoing, but that’s what you want as a viewer. However, as a player, all you want is someone to stop saying “bro” while you’re trying to stack some Zzzzzzzzzzs on the beach. So I get it.

Okay, we’ve got some other Survivor goodies for you. Probst, as always, is weighing in on the latest episode, so go see what that guy has to say. You may also be interested in his recommendations for what Survivor seasons newbies should watch first. Did I mention we have a great exclusive deleted scene with Kyle? I did? Well, I’m mentioning it again! So check that out, as well as my exit interview with TK. Thanks for playing along, and I’ll be back next with another scoop of the crispy.