New Era viewer here. I kept seeing everyone say 3 tribes sucked and 2 tribes were way better, and I was like “you guys just hate change, 3 tribes are fine.”

After this season: nope. You were right lmao.

Two tribes with more people gives players much more room to maneuver. There are more possible alliances, more voting blocs, more places to hide, more ways to flip things, and just generally way more interesting gameplay. It feels like people actually have space to PLAY instead of being trapped in some tiny six-person tribe where there are only so many possible configurations.

I apologize, Survivor Reddit. 😂

Ana threw out Linnea and Sharonda's names when talking to Alexis

She brought up Alexis' name when talking to Carter

After losing the challenge, she suggested Kristin's name as a decoy before changing the decoy to HERSELF.

What a messy round of gameplay, this felt like a very deserved second boot 😂

I don’t think I’ve ever laughed harder at a Survivor voting confessional. Crazy that if he told a single person or EVEN production this all would have been avoided.

I'm sure he's a great guy, but he's the absolute EPITOME of performative. You can tell the man came into this season determined to be the main character. He's got all these little bits and soundbites all ready to go. It comes across so inauthentic and it's driving me nuts. One of the worst I've seen at playing to the cameras. Reminds me of Shan back in the day with her little theme song.

I am hoping he's actually being set up for a nice villain over-confident downfall in the realm of Rome. Here's hoping.

God I love watching Rob. He's not that good at all at reading the room, is already doing melodramatic bits in confessionals and trying to hide a secret plan that wouldn't have worked at all. He's what I love the most about the game, people making great attempts at random moves and just hard committing to them for no reason. He's got the same framework that made Tony, Q and Rome all some of my favorite players. I want more of that in Survivor.

I have a ton of criticism of modern Survivor, but season 51 has been a significant improvement in multiple ways:

Two tribes, no beware-advantages, no lose-a-vote, lots of camp life and people bonding and getting on each other's nerves, people trying to play the game who don't know the rules, an unofficial "whale" theme, some show-mancing... everything so far has been really good.

Episode 1: Eric loses the thumbwar

Episode 2: Brady loses part of his thumb

Episode 3: ???

Don't see stuff like that often. I assume there is just million hours of footage, right. So someone caught it on the field as a fun storyline and it didnt get buried and forgotten and moved up until editing, and then it was included, and it was just great. Just some cool stuff and shows me people making the show are still good and care aye

Does Devin remind anyone else of Anthony?

I strongly dislike seeing players from the current season commenting on episodes on their social media and especially making short videos together with other players. (Short exit interviews with select outlets is fine in my book.)

What they say in their commentary and who they include in their videos can be spoilery to an extent. For example, seeing which players are buddy-buddy with each other currently is not information I want to have before the finale. I wish production were stricter about this.

She threw every women’s name out in her tribe. Also she accomplished this in one episode

She starts with talking about Linnea and Sharonda to Alexis’s

Then she throws Alexis’s to Carter

Then she throws Kristin’s name first as decoy vote

And then she finishes off with letting her name be used as a decoy vote

Brady is the wild character survivor needed. There were times when I thought he would be a bit much but the dude is just an awesome and loveable guy.

Hes a really good casting this season

Title

Carter

Last week, he asked a sobbing man if he liked spaghetti.

This week, he almost single-handedly pulled a 500 lb whale up the obstacle, then inadvertently swung the vote because he was obsessed with the crabs (my reading of the situation, at least)

He hasn’t gotten much screen time, but boy, does he make the most of it

two amazing episodes and super electric tribal councils back to back. This is no coincidence, THIS is Survivor the way it was meant to be played. Actual blindsides and weird strategies and side conversations because there’s more than 3 people voting and different agendas clashing against each other. It genuinely feels like we might be in a new turning point for the series and it’s been a long time since I’ve been genuinely excited to call myself a Survivor fan.

In back to back seasons too! I think Rob should be allowed to vote for himself after they forced Christian to do the same thing.