Survivor 47 Premiere "One Glorious and Perfect Episode" Gameplay Analysis

 I'm a wolf in wolf's clothing."

-Sam Phalen

Survivor is back, baby!  Season 47 got off to a solid start, even if I am disappointed in the first elimination of the season.  I was really looking forward to see Jon get to play.  It's a bummer to see him out first and I also think it was a bad move.  Speaking of bad moves, let's get into who played well and who sucked.

Who Played Well:

Let's start over on the Lavo tribe.  Genevieve, Kishan, Sol, and Teeny all did well bonding with people and playing the social game.  We saw all of them bond with various people.  Some were over first impressions and general vibes, others were part of the potential anti-Rome alliance.  As of now, I think all of them have some sort of social safety net going into episode 2.

Moving over to the Tuku tribe, TK ended up going on the journey for his tribe, which I don't love, but at least it was a game of rock, paper, scissors that sent him.  He missed out on some valuable bonding time with his tribe, but if you're going to do that, make sure to come back with camp supplies, which he did.  He also saw through Gabe's B.S. as he tried to claim he found the key before the Beware Advantage.

I also like the bond Caroline and Sue formed.  Sue also formed an alliance with Gabe, which allowed her to learn that Gabe found the Beware Advantage.

Who Sucked:

We'll start off with the Gata tribe.  Obviously we have Andy over here.  I feel bad for the guy.  The spiral of negative thoughts is something I found very relatable.  He went off and talked with Jon for too long, which allowed the other four members of their tribe to form an alliance.  He got overly paranoid and made others not want to work with him and his breakdown after the Immunity Challenge where he revealed he was planning to throw Jon under the bus was not good.  He did survive the episode thanks to the effort he put into the Immunity Challenge, but for the most part, he didn't survive because of anything else he did.

Anika, Rachel, Sam, and Sierra did get into a majority alliance and controlled the vote.  Anika and Rachel also had a pretty awesome comeback at the Reward Challenge, but they and Sam fell apart on the Immunity puzzle and Anika took the leadership role, which may be why Andy threw out her name.  Their biggest blunder was voting out Jon instead of Andy.  Andy's wildcard behavior is just too dangerous.  Even if you want him around for challenge strength, he's still in the game and who knows what he could reveal.  There may have been more about Jon that we weren't shown, but at the very least this should have been a split between Andy and Jon.  But seriously, Andy should have gone home.

Over on Lavo, I don't like that Aysha volunteered to go on the journey, and to make things worse, she came back empty handed.  She's very lucky that someone on her tribe was behaving as sketchy as Rome was.  She did some decent damage control by turning people against Rome, but this was still a self-inflicted situation.

As for Rome, he was going too hard and too fast to get an Idol.  There's a whole alliance being formed because he is being so suspicious.  The social game is more important than Idol hunting this early.

Finally, let's head back to Tuku.  The only person I have here is Gabe.  He got caught looking for a key by TK, who no longer trusts him.  And he was just generally slopping in doing the Idol challenges.  I do like the bond he formed with Sue though.

We didn't get enough from Kyle or Tiyana for me to say either way.

As for Jon, I understand why he got scared.  Rachel told him that he was going to be the name they told Andy.  That's never a good feeling.  I like that he went to Andy who threw out Anika's name.  I think if Jon had stopped there, he would have been alright.  Andy probably would have gone home and if he had an Idol, it would have been Anika.  However, pushing Sam and Sierra to go after Anika was too much.  I understand wanting to play as hard as you can while you are out there, but sometimes that simply isn't the best move.

Verdict:

Best Player of the Episode goes to Teeny Chirichillo for her social game.  I think we saw her bond with literally everybody on her tribe and everyone seems to really like her.  I'm making her my winner pick.

Worst Player of the Episode goes to Andy Rueda for being left out of the majority alliance, being unable to control his paranoia and negative spiral, and his breakdown after the Immunity Challenge.

I'm very excited to see what the fallout is going to be on Gata with Andy still in the game.  Hopefully the guy can get out of his head and away from the negative thoughts.  Either way, I'm sure it will be interesting!