Season is already about a million times better than the previous two or three. I also was periodically just grinning over seeing all the cast back in it.

Rob is very good.

I've come around on Sandra, I think she is pretty good but just too headstrong.

Rooting for Yul, Wendell, maybe Sarah too.

Why did Tyson dress like an extra from Semi-Pro?

Such a strong premiere.

Was expecting them all to be sweating the first tribal council hard as a sort of mini bubble and it didn't disappoint. Was fascinating to watch all the normally very confident agro players have to play so nitty and on the back foot.

Personal highlights

-Not even a Parvati fan but the Boston Rob beach was a thing of beauty

-Kim Spradlin finding herself playing from the bottom?!

-Rob squeezing out information about Danni throwing his name out and then immediately locking in an alliance with her - what a social move

-Sandra & Tony doing what they should have done in game changers - forming a power duo

Lol at this limitation. Sure it's a limitation, but the current idol is still far weaker than what he had. Do you think anyone wouldn't trade an idol with the current rules (i.e., without that limitation) for the one he had. Of course not. Because being able to play after the vote is read is so much more powerful (which even he realizes).


OK, so he was playing against bunch of idiots? If anything, that weakens the case for YulGOAT.

Wow! He convinced someone to join his alliance. Never seen that before.

Look, I like Yul. In fact, I am rooting for him to win. I also think he is probably a very good player. It's just that he got an easy win from a super idol, so it's hard to be sure of how good he really is. The fact that the producers dramatically weakened the idol after that season should be fairly telling.

Probst: We can invite Parv-art-i and Boston Rob!

would love a gif of parvati and rob on the beach chuckling away

usually runner ups are goats. would be boring af. lots of goats and russell.

am i the only one in thread who disagrees with this? i think people are going to irrationally use their tokens and it will end up costing them.

there was a clip when the tokens were revealed, i think it was Adam, he said something along the lines of fire tokens are going to determine the outcome of this game.

this is likely true and that specific part was included in the edit for that very reason.

also, does 3 tribals = the next 3 tribals you go to, or is it the next 3 tribals overall? the latter is of significantly less value. also, i assume it is transferable, which gives it some added value.

He's like every other winner. Some things broke his way and he took advantage of them. All we can really evaluate him on is: when he was put in a scenario, did he do the best thing? My recollection is that he did. The fact that he showed someone the god idol and somehow convinced him that "the fact that I'm all powerful is the reason you should flip" is amazing social play. He was a strong challenge player, strong social player, and leveraged his idol perfectly without ever actually having to play it.

It's pretty shocking that even in 2020 this show is still hosted by a privileged white male, especially when you consider the atrocities of last season. Is Sherri Shepherd available? Would be criminal if she is and they didn't make the switch.

Get your woke ass out of here. Assume you're trolling.

I’m often accused of being the woke guy but this is a really dumb take.

If you're going to claim that he something like an average winner, then I'm not going to fight you on that.

The problem is that people see that Yul dominated his season and because he won it with such ease, they propose that he is not merely good, but instead great -- among the best ever. That conclusion is flawed, imo. He dominated mostly because of the superidol.

Yeah, I've got to assume he put that out as Clovis bait and Clovis didn't take it.

This is just very incorrect

Runners-up who have played multiple times

Kelly Wiglesworth
Colby Donaldson
Rob Mariano
Stephanie LaGrossa
Danielle DiLorenzo
Ozzy Lusth
Courtney Yates
Amanda Kimmel (2x)
Sugar Kiper
Stephen Fishbach
Russell Hantz
Parvati Shallow
Coach Wade
Phillip Sheppard
Monica Culpepper
Gervase Peterson
Dawn Meehan
Woo Hwang
Aubry Bracco
Tai Trang
Tasha Fox
Spencer Bledsoe
Brad Culpepper
Troyzan Robertson


People We'd love to see
Chelsea Meissner
Lisa Whelchel
Carolyn Rivera
Missy Payne
Hannah Shapiro
Ken McNickle
Chrissy Hofbeck
Ryan Ulrich
Domenick Abbate
Laurel Johnson
Mike White
Angelina Keeley


Invited for Second Chance:
Natalie Tenerelli
Sabrina Thompson

Interesting-ish
Neleh Dennis
Katie Gallagher
Mick Trimming
Albert Destrade
Sash Lenahan

Funny for LOL reasons
Clay Jordan
Matthew von Ertfelda
Lillian Morris
Twila Tanner
Dreamz

Would never play
Chase Rice

Would never be asked back
Michael Skupin
Will Sims

Nick Wilson

The Newlywed Game came to their senses a decade ago when they decided to go with Carnie Wilson and then Sherri Shepherd rather than privileged white male Bob Eubanks despite his popularity and immense power in the industry. I firmly believe that if you choose to do what is right. things will work out even if it is unpopular among the privileged.

This may have been woke in 2009, but doing the right thing is normal today. Survivor is still stuck back in 2000 when this appalling behavior was considered ok. Survivor has gotten away with this because not enough people have called them out on their hypocrisy. Keep in mind this is the same CBS network where sexual harassment ran rampant for decades under Les Moonves and it was always just swept under the rug. Survivor needs to be more inclusive. Last season every vote to win went to two privileged white males which is pretty typical in survivor. The current white male host does not talk about this. He is there for damage control to sway the conversations other directions and away from the show's own negligence in these areas.

I'm on Team Clovis.


If Dream Crusher continues he should be banned.

last season was the only season i haven't watched. i heard it was bad but what happened?

Nobody here sees the game theory of Natalie later getting back in the game thru an EOE challenge win, and then being able to ally with Sandra because she gave her the idol?

Also her accent is so weird. She grew up in the Northeast but her parents are Sri Lankan, maybe there's a bit of that leaking in.

100% agreed. team Clovis ftw!!

I think Yul is super solid, honestly barely remember that season so had no clue.

Please be trolling

Survivor without Probst is like Survivor without tribes. It makes no sense.

Probst is fine and all, but lets not get carried away.

His value over replacement host on a season like this is low. If they auditioned past survivor players they could probably get someone perfectly fine.

Finally watched the episode, and here are my thoughts:

- Everyone is 100% taking the idol for one fire token. Like someone else said the other options were help in a challenge or food/survival related. Even if the idol is only good for two tribals it's a snap call

- A second reason it's a snap call for me is because this game appears to extremely chaotic. There was one semi-firm alliance shown - the Nick/Wendell/Yul group - with a couple others straggling on the edge of that like Sophie. This season reminds of Second Chances and EOE so it should be unpredictable and fun to watch

- What is production trying to do with these fire tokens? After 40 seasons it's easy to see what the producers are trying to do but I can't fathom what they're thinking with this

- I think Survivor has now surpassed Big Brother when it comes to lack of game integrity. I wouldn't have thought this was impossible back in 2017 but we're there.

With all these twists plus challenges plus tribal we barely get to see any depth of the relationships between the players. Unless you've played with all the twists before - like Nick - or extremely charismatic - like Tyson - I can't see anyone else having better odds than the 1/20 to win.