Such a decisive win by Erica shows a clear problem with the edit, not that jury's votes.

Some playing styles just don't make great TV.

Yeah 100% this. Strange they would under-edit her, but lots of commentators have pointed out that this has happened to women winners before.

We back.

What?

Survivor’s back, baby!

After the first episode of this episode new season, I am hopeful that the advantages and twists have been tweaked in a way that makes the game cleaner—it was a downer last year when everyone knew who had the idols, so there were few surprises on that front.

This cast seems ok. No super strong personalities yet.

I feel bad for the guy that had to leave because of the medication issue

Yeah, that was rough. They threw in that bit where his tribemate said "Hey, drink water today if you're getting dizzy" to try and convince us he was already feeling the effects, and whether that was connected or not, it sure sounds like it had to happen.

Yeah. He said he’d already been dizzy for 12 hours. That sucked.

They let you take meds with you so I wonder why he didn’t take it with him.

Just watched this week's episode and sheeeeeeeeeeeet

Yeah that whole episode was frustrating

I thought the end was good, although my wife and I both called it early: Daniel was going to flip like a fucking pancake. The whole challenge was a wreck, though, and I feel like the solution was not fair to the team that won—they should’ve gotten all of the rewards, and both of the other tribes should’ve gone to tribal council.

What other choice did Daniel have if the other guy wasn't going to change his vote? Align with Mike who can't vote and Channel that just lied to everyone? Draw rocks? No way. Way too much game left.

That was nuts. If Daniel keeps his paranoia on 11 he’s not going to last very long


Also crazy was Jonathan basically winning immunity challenge on his own

Tribal had a whole "3rd page" of the game manual vibe to it.

We agree with this. Muscle guy should’ve gotten all the food, his tribe the fishing gear and everything else the 2nd place tribe got. Fuck those other two tribes that couldn’t even do the challenge.

I would say Daniel will be the next one gone from his tribe. He got caught playing both sides and tried to throw Chanel under the bus. Yeah she was lying too, but she was staying quiet. His paranoia won’t let him be calm about anything.

maybe it's just me or how they edit the show, but it seems like this season has more people that are below average in regards to the physical portion of the game

I heard a former player discuss that on a podcast this week--he opined that most tribes in past seasons, no matter the makeup, could've completed that challenge.

I don't know. Those were some pretty big swells.

There is something to having fewer physical players this season. I'd argue it has been trending this way for awhile. Seems like there is much more of an emphasis on casting "super fans" and people looking to big strategic moves.

Yeah, I didn't necessarily agree with him (it was Devens), but there really seems to be a dearth or physical threats this season, with one big Lex-Luger-shaped exception.

There's also a heavier emphasis on casting people with intriguing personal stories, or they are just highlighting them more.

And for a bunch of superfans, these people sure do tell every fucking person on the island when they find some sort of advantage. I heard one theory that this is a post-COVID syndrome--that people have been starved for personal connections (this was recorded during the spring/summer of 2021, I think), so they are much more open to trying to forge connections, and it's making the gameplay suffer.