Review: Survivor, "The Get To Know You Game" | Season 48, Episode 1

Welcome to Episodic Medium’s coverage of the 48th season of Survivor, which…just think about what someone would have said if you had told them this back in the summer of 2000, eh? Anyway, as always, these first reviews are free for all, but if you want to join the conversation and agree to conform to my will on all fan votes for Season 50, $5 a month gets you access to future reviews.

About mid-way through this premiere, the drama shifted back to the Civa tribe, and in the midst of the conversation someone asks the question on everyone’s mind: “What if we lose?”

My boyfriend is watching this season with me, and he hasn’t seen a season of the New Era, and he was struck by how much every tribe was focused on deciding who they’d vote out before there had even been an immunity challenge. This isn’t entirely new, but the two-hour premieres definitely give us more of it, and I do think the accelerated nature of the New Era makes this type of talk more prominent in addition to the editors having more space to sell us on possible narratives for the first vote.

I realize this is a very narrow way to view an episode of Survivor, but it’s a necessary one in an episode that otherwise faces a huge expositional burden. So much of “The Get To Know You Game” is, well, getting to know the castaways, but there needs to be that pivot point where that can turn the corner into being an actual story. And what struck me about that moment at Civa was that as I looked at my notes, I realized there had been nothing of substance happening at Civa. This was the tribe that lost the supplies challenge and the individual followup, but to that point the only thing we really knew about them was David’s smart decision to ditch the shirt and his questionable decision to read the whole tribe into the discovery of the symbols and letters around camp. It wasn’t surprising, then, to see the episode speedrun its way through some tension, with Charity telling Kamilla about some bad vibes from Kyle and immediately marking herself the outsider that everyone is willing to target first (even if the only other justification was how she took her steak).

I had this all front of mind when the immunity challenge was playing out and Civa seemed to be falling behind on the puzzle. They had been behind in the beginning too, but they had brute forced their way into the lead before the puzzle before something indistinguishable happened, and suddenly they were on the verge of elimination. And because it’s so early in the game, I wasn’t concerned about losing a particular player, but I have to admit that I found that result to be highly unlikely given how half-assed the storytelling was for Civa beforehand. When you compare that to the drama happening at Vula with Sai, or even the tried-and-true “Player searching for an idol conspicuously” with Star at an otherwise cohesive Lagi, the idea of Charity being voted out was just…it wasn’t tracking.

Which is all to say that I wasn’t shocked to see Civa suddenly surge from behind. I’m not sure how it happened, exactly, although Vula’s puzzle was so shoddily constructed that it looked like it could topple over at any second. But when it was clear that Vula was going to tribal council, “The Get To Know You Game” fell into place. We had exited the point where we were just meeting new players, and could shift into an interpersonal and philosophical struggle that we’ve certainly seen versions of before, but which was easily the episode’s most substantive arc.

As always, there were no doubt other stories at both Civa and Lagi that we didn’t see because the episode didn’t need us to see them, but it does seem like they lucked into a case where the most happened with the tribe who ended up losing the immunity challenge. Sai is the only player who found the Beware Advantage and managed to solve it in the same episode, and there’s a lot of story that comes with that. Some of this is meta-commentary for us, in terms of the design of the Beware Advantage. As with last season, we’re seeing variations on a theme: everyone presumably has the same locked puzzle box with the same “Listen” solution tied to the animal paintings, but we know that Civa’s has a different mode of including the letters, and Lagi has those wooden signs in the shots we see of Star searching. I like the effect, and I do think it’s important for the pace of the game that it’s obvious enough for someone to find it in week one.

Narratively, the right person absolutely found it. Sai was being set up for an arc we’ve seen before, as someone comes in so committed to playing the game that they ostracize themselves from the rest of the tribe. The way Sai says the episode’s title is full of disdain, and it’s not like Stephanie was refusing to play the game. I would ultimately argue that Sai is the one who is violating the accepted “norms” of Survivor by playing so hard so early, but those norms don’t matter if you succeed at shifting the game to your own pace. And this happens as soon as Sai decides that the men are willing to play at her pace, brings them in on her idol hunt, and then shares the clues with them to help solve it—all things Rome didn’t do last season in a similar situation. Without doing anything wrong, Stephanie was put behind the 8-ball, and any chance she had of surviving this vote died as soon as she accepted responsibility for the challenge loss and gave the men an “acceptable” reason to vote her out that wasn’t just “Sai is mad she wants to socialize when she wants to strategize.”

It’s not the most satisfying conclusion to a Survivor premiere, but really the only way that happens is when someone particularly odious is shown the door. Given this, I just want a Survivor premiere to offer a meaningful exploration of what it means to be playing this game, and we get that here. I remain ambivalent about the focus on players’ personal journeys, heightened here by clips of finding out they were cast and selected discussions of their “call to Survivor” before the first challenge, and so I was glad that this vote came down to something that’s more about the game itself. The tribal council conversation isn’t lengthy, but it makes Sai’s tenuous control of the game’s tone strikingly clear: even the men who voted with her raise their eyebrows at how aggressively she rejects the idea that one can both be social and play the game, and there’s no doubt that is going to be an issue moving forward. But Sai isn’t the kind of toxic player I’d actively root against; she’s just someone who came in with a game plan, went slightly stir crazy in isolation, and was fortunate to find the idol that lets her dictate the pace of the game for the time being.

After Rome took up so much oxygen at the start of Season 47, I appreciate how much less obnoxious this particular brand of strategic player is in the grand scheme of things. I don’t know that I have strong favorites emerging in this premiere, but the vibes are generally good, and I can see some good dynamics emerging on tribes even if those narratives don’t click into place here. When even the men who look the most likely to embody toxic masculinity are the ones sharing their favorite romcoms and taking on a big brother role to an autistic tribemate, it’s a sign that we might be able to steer clear of some of the worst casting tropes for at least the time being. If I had to pick a nemesis, it’s Kyle, but mostly because I’m tired of attorneys lying about their jobs as though they’re some kind of alpha threat in the game by default. I don’t even care if their concerns are justified, it just makes me dislike them (and honestly makes me understand Charity’s bad vibes, even if she made a mistake voicing that to Kyle’s bestie Kamilla).

But it’s fine that there aren’t stronger opinions yet—it’s just a premiere, and we’re just getting started. And given that Jeff Probst has so kindly “gifted” us a modicum of control over Season 50, we can save our strong opinions for the “In the Hands of the Fans” season vote that started this evening. You can sign in to vote at the link, and for the record Episodic Medium’s official voting slate for this week is: I don’t care what colors they pick, I’m open to both options with rice, and you’re a cop if you vote for final four fire or Fiji Reunion. Happy to debate the first two in the comments, but I will be deleting all comments from anyone who dares challenge the latter two votes. We need to be united on this, people, democracy is already on its last legs as it is.

Stray observations

• They try to suggest that Justin and Kevin can reasonably function as a swing between the other twosomes, but both were so wildly wishy-washy that there was no way they’d ever side against the person most actively in their face about it.
• Did pizzeria manager Justin have a green shirt with the word Pizza on it, or did he find one for the occasion?
• From Bluesky, I saw a post from Friend of the Newsletter Joe Reid noting that knowing more about Joe the Fire Captain’s personal reasons for playing Survivor played into his response to Eva’s reach out regarding her autism. Having now read Mike Bloom’s pre-game interview with Joe, I see what he meant. A little surprised we didn’t get that story here, but I figure he’ll be around for a bit, since there’s no way it never comes up.
• Speaking of Eva, we got a lot of discussion of her autism here, and that kind of throughput of storytelling makes me question whether she can reasonably stay in the game long term. If we get a glimpse of an emotional narrative, that’s one thing, but it really felt like we got her whole life story.
• Speaking of Mike Bloom, he notes from his set visit that Kevin fully dislocated his shoulder and blacked out, and I…have to say they kind of burned him, because watching the edit it seems like he’s overreacting considerably? It was apparently cut for time, but it really makes him seem like a burnout after bragging about bulking up, and undersells how intense it was to then go on the journey afterward. Weird choice.
• “Cryptograms are one of my weaknesses”—how do we think Sai figured this out? Was it just the now-requisite puzzle training regimen?
• “What the fuck is this, Jeff”—honestly, I might have turned against Sai if it wasn’t for this outburst.
• On the subject of players changing their occupations, Thomas adjusting “Music Executive” to “Music Publisher” made me laugh. I’m down for the queer man anxious about being the weak link and bonding with the bros narrative.
• As a university professor who debated in college, Shauhin hits too close to home and I’m going to need him to keep his head on straight.
• I’m sure the producers must have been so annoyed that the back-and-forth contrast of strategies for Kyle and Kevin during the journey ended in a default with the glass breaking. Mind you, it fits the narrative (with Kyle’s more aggressive play costing him), but I would have liked to see the water be the decider.
• And thus begins another season of Survivor coverage here at Episodic Medium. As we hit our third-year anniversary, this means that it’s our seventh season of the show that we’ve come together to discuss, and I know that there’s some of you who have been here from the beginning. The nature of the show’s cycles means that those people have likely been among our most loyal subscribers, and I can’t thank you enough for being part of this project. Provided you don’t vote for Final Four Fire or a Fiji reunion, thank you so much for being here, and I’m excited to jump into the season with you in the weeks ahead.