Survivor Season-Premiere Recap: Raggedy Andy

Remember back when Survivor had stupid themes like “white collar, blue collar, no collar,” as if no collar is a thing? It’s also best that we all forget about (gulp) “race wars.” Now, each season just has a number, which is a good change, but it seems like the still-employed Jeff Probst has decided on a theme for this season and it’s “community.” As the three tribes roll onto the beach, Jeff tells them that they are all there to build a whole new community and that the game means that they are then adversaries with the same people that they’re building a community with.

We hear so much about community. They must have used the word at least 20 times. It comes up at the challenges, it comes up in the confessionals, it comes up at tribal. Community, community, community. We hear it so many times I expected Joel McHale to jump out from behind a bush shouting, “Six seasons and a movie!”

The irony is that Jeff’s central premise about this show — at least in the new era — is flawed. It’s not about building a community and then competing against that community; it’s about building a community and competing against the game. It’s about building a community and trying to find a way through the overly-produced twists and turns to make it to the end. This played out in this episode because we sure don’t see a lot of community building. In fact, we don’t even see most of the players. What we see is challenges, side quests, and people looking for and finding hidden immunity idols. They sure skimped out on the bonding for a show that is supposedly about community.

After watching Jeff do his Chevy Chase impersonation, the three teams go for their first challenge. They have to crawl through a muddy net, run down a path, collect giant puzzle pieces, and put them together. The one tribe that finishes first gets their pot and machete. Luckily for Andy, our failed stoner, it’s an actual pot, not a euphemism for weed. Also luckily for Andy, his team Gata (in yellow) wins.

Jeff tells the two remaining teams that they each have to send a player on a journey. (Cue “Don’t Stop Believin’”!) Aysha for Lavo (in red) volunteers, and TK for Tuku (in blue) wins or maybe loses the world’s weirdest game of rock, paper, scissors. They go off on a boat and arrive at a beach with a huge, locked chest. They’re told that inside are the camp supplies for one other team. They each have to find three keys hidden in the jungle using only pictures of their surroundings. There is only one final key and whoever gets to it first wins the supplies.

I’m not sure this is an improvement over the “sweat or savvy” challenges we’ve seen in the new era. At least those groups can work together and form bonds. It gives us something that might come into play later at tribal council. While I think a head-to-head competition is a good idea, what about letting each tribe pick two members from the other side, and those four go to another competition? I’m not a producer on this show; I’m just a commentator, which puts me on an equal playing field with Aysha, who hosts a Survivor podcast as part of the Rob Has a Podcast network, the biggest name in Survivor podcasts. After a tricky showdown, Aysha just loses out to TK, who takes his pot back to Tuku, where he does not have to smoke it with Andy, who is on another tribe.

Back at the tribes, there is a bit of talking about who wants to work with whom, and Sierra, a former beauty pageant contestant, is the first to make fire. “It’s what my community needs,” she says. Groan.

Just as we start to find out that Gabe wants to work with Sue because he thinks focusing on an older player is a good idea, Gabe goes out and finds the first clue to a hidden immunity idol. To his credit he wasn’t even looking for it. He was trying to turn a big dead log into firewood and the little packet was chillin’ right there like it just smoked all of Andy’s pot and didn’t want to get off the couch.

Like last year, these beware advantages make players do a bunch of tasks. First, he has to dig up a box with a huge lock on it. There’s a scroll telling him to go to a rock face and find the key. He does this and the key is at the top of a bunch of vines that he has to pull down. Too excited, Gabe gets to this task in the middle of the day with everyone walking around. TK sees him do it and finds the key. Gabe is like, “Bro, I think I found this key, dude, but like, man, I haven’t found an advantage, homie.” In this scenario, Gabe has smoked the pot. TK does not buy this story for a second.

Gabe takes the key and opens the box. Inside it, he finds another box that is also locked and an idol. So many boxes and so many locks. Does someone have a chastity belt fetish? The new box says this idol is good for only one tribal council, but if he wants an idol good for three tribals, then he can put that idol back in the box and complete another task. I imagine that there is another box inside that box and another and another. Just smaller and smaller boxes until there is a hidden immunity idol that is only one atom, and when you present it to Jeff you get to take his job and be the king of Survivor.

Gabe decides he wants the next task, which is to find some driftwood on the beach with the key inside. Now, if Gabe just ripping out vines in the middle of the day wasn’t bad enough, he then drops the box down a bunch of boulders, possibly breaking open the whole thing. (If he did, could he just keep the idols?) It doesn’t break, but it does alert the whole tribe that something’s up. The next morning Gabe goes to the driftwood and starts slamming it, probably waking up the whole tribe in the process. Does this guy have no chill? Is the pot all gone? Anyway, he finds the key and decides to keep the three-tribal idol instead of going for the next one, which will last the whole game. Why, dude? You already alerted everyone to what you were up to. The tasks didn’t seem to be that hard. Go for broke and get the one that will last you. I already kinda hate Gabe.

Over at Lavo (red, like lava), Rome, who was not built in a day, finds the clue because he actively went looking for it. When he read he had to dig up the box in the middle of their path at least he was smart enough to wait to come back at night when there would be no one around. He then squandered all the smarts with what comes next. He had to wet some driftwood on the path to find out where the key is. This was actually kinda cool and when he got the log wet it was like one of those TikToks where someone puts milk in black coffee and you see on the mug it says, “I farted,” or some shit.

As Rome is doing this, Aysha sees him and goes back to tell the group how suspicious he is. They decide to go look for him to make sure he hasn’t found anything. The problem is the log told him that the key is at the bottom of the well. He then goes to the well, the one landmark that everyone is always going to, and dives in. Dude, how are you gonna play this off? Even if no one sees you, you’re going to go back to camp from the jungle soaking wet. What are you gonna say? There was a single-man-sized hurricane in the jungle and he got stuck in it? Rome had the right idea and went and ruined it. He got the key but hasn’t opened all the boxes, so stay tuned for the next episode of Idol Hunters of Fiji because that’s what the show is now.

Over at the yellow camp, Andy is paranoid and he didn’t even smoke the pot. He wakes up in the middle of the night and pulls his new bestie, Rachel, to try to help him get over his anxiety, and it backfires because she very rightfully doesn’t want to be seen chatting with him in the middle of the night. In the morning he cracks open his coconut and no one cheers, which makes him think that he is going to be voted out of the game. This tells us that Gata will lose at the immunity competition.

At the competition, each team is in a boat; they have to get three chests into it, lug it up the beach, and then make a puzzle. As Tuku and Gata (blue and yellow) are trying to get their chests into the box they both repeatedly capsize their vessels. Jeff tells them this is the worst start to a challenge in Survivor history as if it’s the teams’ faults that this whole thing is a mess. Didn’t they test this challenge? If they did and those boats tipped over, is it the teams’ fault or the challenge’s fault? Hmmmm? Jeff? That question is non-rhetorical and I am expecting an answer.

Lavo is the only team not to tip over and they coast to victory, and Tuku just edges out Gata to send the yellow team to tribal council. The drama is not the competition though, it’s Andy. As Gata is solidifying its loss, he lies down on the sidelines. Jeff asks him if he’s just chillin’ or if he needs medical attention. “I gave it everything I had, Jeff,” Andy says, which is not answering the question. Medical is called and they are trying to cool Andy down. He is overheated and muttering to Jeff about how he’s going to be sent home. Jeff tells him that no one has voted yet and not to give up, but Andy just moans in disbelief, convinced he’ll be the first one out.

When he’s finally up and walking and all the contestants are assembled, Jeff asks him how he’s doing. “I’m on the bottom,” he says. “I saw it when I cracked a coconut and they didn’t cheer for me. They cheered for Jon, and they don’t like me, I don’t think.” He sounds like a crazy person, but to make it even worse, he says Jon is his best friend out there, and he was going to throw him under the bus to save himself. He also says, “I’m a strategist.” Are we sure about this? What is the strategy? To slay everyone else with second-hand embarrassment so that he is the only person left? What is up with this guy? Is he Bhanu two point oh no you didn’t?

The Jon we’re talking about is Jon Lovett, the gay speechwriter turned host of Pod Save America. He’s the most famous person on the show since Mike White and also the most famous person to get voted out first. Back at camp after the challenge, everyone is like, “Uhhhhh, we gotta vote Andy, right? He’s insane.” But then they decide that they need to keep some strength in the challenges and that Jon isn’t bringing that.

When Sandra Diaz-Twine was on Australian Survivor she said that the immunity challenges at the group stage of the game don’t matter and she is the queen for a reason. Whether or not one tribe wins over another is often down to dumb luck so you should always keep the players that are good for your game not those good for the challenges. Kenzie was on a losing team all of last year and she went on to win the whole damn thing. This was a stupid move because Jon, while not strong, could have been a good ally. He seemed smart, good with people, and possibly able to convince others to do what he wants. Instead, they kept Andy, who can’t be trusted to put on a pair of elastic-waisted pants correctly. They can’t play with this guy who would give them up as soon as there’s a tribe swap, might give all their secrets away on a journey, or otherwise blow up their game with his erratic behavior. If this game is about building a community, as Jeff repeatedly told us, it looks like Gata is going to be a community of morons.