Survivor 49 — Episode 2 Power Rankings
Survivor is back again, and our annual dysfunctional tribe has emerged. Who stood out and who fell flat this week?
Episode Thoughts
Some enjoyable camp life scenes made the start of episode two fun, but I felt things fathered the further we went along. A Survivor meta has emerged with “majority four” alliances dominating the strategy, predictable given that the New Era has refused to insert any variance to the format. We are basically seeing tribes play through the same strategy, just at different speeds, and it’s a tad disappointing. A core four gives castaways a comfortable buffer of safety to make it to the merge, and it may kill the excitement of the pre-merge. Beyond that, the journey challenges continue to be boring, yet another tribe falls apart when they are the only one without food or fire, and our second tribal council was very predictable.
THE WEEK 2 POWER RANKINGS
OUT OF THE GAME
18. Nicole
17. Annie (Last Week: 17)
It was not shocking to see Annie go home. Nobody wanted to work with her on the tribe, and her position was only made worse because Annie was a very active strategist throughout the episode. You can’t fault her for not coming to play Survivor, but does it really matter if no one was actually on her side? Annie thought she was calling shots but she was being babysat by an alliance of four in a tribe of five. The show tried to make it interesting by showing Alex playing around with the idea of betraying the majority and revealing to Annie he had the idol, but I imagine it was a ploy to keep Annie from playing the shot in the dark.
Two unsurprising blindsides in a row to start the season… let us hope the game picks up soon and we start seeing some shocking moves.
BOTTOM OF THE TOTEM POLE
16. Jawan (Last Week: 16)
Jawan goes on a journey and wins a chance to gain an advantage for himself, but instead opts to use a tribe disadvantage at the challenge. A cute way to avoid being targeted for advantages… but a trick in his bag would be very nice right now. Especially one that could have been easily hidden, given that he was allowed to make his advantage decision privately. Jawan missed the boat on the majority alliance in Uli, and he’s been pegged as a chronic idol searcher. Unless he finds the idol, Jawan is very vulnerable.
IN AN UNCOMFORTABLE POSITION
15. Sage (Last Week: 15)
Shannon likes Sage as a person but stated she finds no value in an alliance with her. That bodes very poorly for Sage’s long term game. Other than that, we learned she was the Easter Bunny once.
14. Jeremiah (Last Week: 5)
Someone always has to be number four in a majority foursome. Jeremiah seems like a clear number four given that Sophi and Jake spent noticeable time affirming their close alliance this week. Jeremiah realizes this when he is the last of the four to know of the idol… but he makes no move to act on it this episode and it feels like an uphill battle to socially improve his standing. With Alex closely tied to Jake in their Bromance, this puts Jeremiah on the logical outs and it may be too late to change his fate. However, I would not be surprised if someone in Kele has a change of heart and tries make a #BIGMOVE.
TOO SOON TO SAY
Once again, Hina is fairly unbothered this week. Some new tidbits of information did sneak into this week’s episode, slightly shifting their rankings amongst each other.
13. Sophie (Last Week: 13)
12. Jason (Last Week: 11)
I can’t remember a single thing of worth that either of these castaways have said. I think Sophie got a chance to speak in reaction to Jawan putting the disadvantage on Hina. Jeff is also trying to turn Jason into a puzzle beast after two episodes. But strategically they’ve given us zero. They didn’t make the initial majority foursome in Hina either, which is a bad sign.
11. Matt (Last Week: 9)
If there’s some sort of blindside on Hina before the merge, I feel safe predicting Matt, because the most dynamically open castaway on this tribe has named him the target.
10. MC (Last Week: 12)
(⭐Episode 2 MVP ⭐)
Hey, shout out to MC for being open to not settling for the status quo… it wins her my MVP vote this week in a quiet strategic episode. She noticed that she is the fourth person in a foursome majority, which means she is the most expendable if the tribe goes south and the majority alliance has to cut one of their own. Therefore, she made sure to keep Sophie and Jason in the loop. That’s good gameplay… but will this actually pay off or not? Hard to tell right now.
9. Kristina (Last Week: 10)
A quiet episode for her, but nothing happened that made me worried for her safety.
8. Steven (Last Week: 14)
Steven has found himself in the majority alliance, and if I’m not mistaken, MC the possible alliance flipper has mentioned that she is still open to aligning with Steven. This means Steven could end up as a swing vote and that’s personally swung me more to the opinion that he will be a successful player in Survivor 49.
IN A GOOD POSITION
7. Sophi (Last Week: 8)
Brain fog was to blame for Sophi and Alex’s incredibly poor showing in the puzzle during the immunity challenge. They somehow did not get a single piece put together despite starting first.
While Sophi is safely in the majority in Kele and better connected compared to Jeremiah, she lost some steps to Alex, especially when he found the idol. But I don’t blame her for trying to hide the idol box instead of bringing it to the attention of Alex. It was a savvy risk to take, despite it not paying off.
6. Shannon (Last Week: 4)
5. Nate (Last Week: 6)
4. Rizo (Last Week: 7)
Yet another majority four… this one in Uli feels the most stable and likely to make the merge intact.
Shannon falls to the bottom of the group, mainly because the ego-spiritual mumbo jumbo she spouts turns me off. Though, I also think Shannon will be the most dependent on the tribe staying strong and sticking together. I’m really picking up a vibe that Shannon becomes an early blindside post-merge, and I predict she will be one of our first jury members.
Nate is trying to survive in a tribe of brainrotted internet kids and made good progress in a new connection with Rizo.
And Rizo just seems super safe in this group… would be very surprised if he got voted out so soon.
3. Alex (Last Week: 3)
2. Jake (Last Week: 2)
The Bromance has the most control in Kele. Jake is well connected with two number one allies right now with Alex and Sophi. Alex has an idol. In a struggling tribe, stronger challenge players will get to sit at the top of the group, and I don’t expect either to be blindsided.
IN THE DRIVERS SEAT
1. Savannah (Last Week: 1)
The hyper-strategic edit continues, with some spice. Savannah joins the majority four, and gains a new vendetta in Jawan because… he used her bag accidentally for firewood.
Are we in for yet another dysfunctional tribe decimation, or will Kele bounce back? Find out next week and see who rises and who falls in the Survivor 49 power rankings.