Review: Survivor, "Therapy Carousel" | Season 50, Episode 2

Hey free subscribers—if you're onboard for the ultimate celebration of outwitting, outplaying, and outlasting, a reminder that our coverage of Survivor season 50 is heading behind the paywall. As a twice-yearly show, your best deal is definitely the yearly subscription, which remains on sale for $44 below.

If there is a defining characteristic of the new era, it’s the idea that Survivor is a game for heroes. Whereas early seasons actively tried to shape and create villains (there's a whole season for it!), it’s clear that Jeff Probst wants this game to be aspirational, where the conflict comes less from good and evil and more from the “social experiment” among honorable sorts.

The consequence of this mindset is that Probst has created villains: the people who have bought into their heroism and chosen to privilege that honor above all else. Joe was the villain of Season 48, and he’s the villain in “Therapy Carousel,” because he’s standing in the way of Survivor as a game. This is a season of game players, many of whom have sat on the sidelines for years waiting for their next chance to outwit, outplay, and outlast. To arrive in Fiji and discover you’re on the tribe with the guy who believes that the only acceptable form of “play” is physical challenges, and who thinks a single whisper is a violation of the rules of engagement? That person is evil.

There’s another way villains are created, of course, and that’s with how they engage outside of the game. If you haven’t been following, Eliza Orlins went scorched earth before the premiere regarding her interactions with Stephenie, who went on an antisemitic rant on Instagram after being called out by Orlins for her politics last summer. This is a narrative that Survivor itself would never tell, even before recent changes in the political climate surrounding Paramount. Especially in returnee seasons, these players are defined by their place within the game of Survivor, not by their politics. If we choose to read Stephenie as a villain, it’s in opposition to how Survivor is going to position her.

Is the same true for Joe? In general, I would argue that the episode comes down on the side of Rick Devens in that particular battle, even if we don’t get resolution based on how the tribal council vote goes down. The editors have full control of what we see, and what we see is an entire tribe agreeing that it is impossible to play Survivor with Joe. Do they have other priorities that end up taking precedence? Yes. But the next time Joe is heading to tribal council, there’s four other players in this game who have determined that there’s no path forward in working with him once the shit hits the fan, and who could possibly be rooting for that? There’s no accounting for taste, but I would argue that Survivor’s editors at the very least understand that Joe’s whole deal is a threat to what an average viewer wants this season to be.