Review: Survivor, “The Devil’s Shoes” | Season 49, Episode 6
When a tribe swap gets boring ... swap them again!
When Jeff introduced a tribe swap two weeks ago, it was a first for the New Era—not because we don’t get swaps anymore, but because the players got into two tribes instead of the traditional three. I didn’t acknowledge this in my last two reviews, but it’s notable: The three-tribe format has been partially responsible for the repetitive patterns of gameplay we’ve seen in the past nine seasons, including the “dud tribe” problem plaguing this one, and condensing to two can allow for more efficiency in getting everyone the screen time they need.
Of course, introducing two tribes at this point in the game isn’t the same as starting off the season with them, which is why I haven’t mentioned it. With the Kele tribe decimated just like the Yanu tribe in Season 46 or the Vula tribe last season, the damage is already done. And while “Go Kick Rocks, Bro” was a clear step up for the season, the energy died down drastically in “I’m a Wolf, Baby,” suggesting the issues with this season’s watchability primarily come down to casting and edit, not game structure.
“The Devil’s Shoes” bears out that theory, though it’s not quite the predictable mess of last week. Part of that comes down to the fact that we get a second tribe swap, which reads as another vaguely desperate attempt to liven things up and rejigger the season dynamics (though in all likelihood this was the plan from the outset). This is another first for the New Era—Ghost Island was the last season to switch up the tribes twice pre-merge, though it has only happened seven times now in total—and it allows for just enough new cross-tribal relationships to keep the story moving, even if it also creates an obvious “odd one out” on each tribe: Nate as the sole original Uli on new Uli, MC as the sole original Hina on new Hina, and Steven as the sole original Hina on new Kele. Sophi and Alex are also the sole Keles on their respective tribes, though they’re easily forgotten and thus currently irrelevant in the larger Uli-versus-Hina war.
