Saturday, 4 October 2025

Survivor 49 - The ORGers Week 2 Update

 

Welcome to the first update of the year!  For those of you who played last year or played our recently finished Big Brother season, you know how this works. 

I hop on my soapbox and write a long-winded screed about the show whose narrative swings between TMI and STFU.  In between bad jokes, I tell the story that leads to the points we all scored.  At the bottom, I include the current standings, our weekly point totals, and the point totals earned by the Survivors.

Why should you read this?

First, because reading is cool

Second, because it’s funny

Third, when it’s not funny you can mock me (and who doesn’t enjoy that?)

Fourth, I hide ways to earn bonus points in the text

Fifth, what, you got something better to do? Put down TikTok for 5 minutes and enjoy it

Ok, intro over! Let’s dive in with a look at this week’s rosters:

Scott

Jake

Savannah

Will

Savannah

Rizo

Slater

Sophi

Jake

Morgan

Rizo

MC

Nickole

N/A

N/A

Kat

Jeremiah

Sophi

Aly

Jake

Steven

Stephanie

Jason

Nate

Jo

Alex

Savannah

Tom

Jake

Rizo

Chris

Jake

Nate

Danny

Sophi

Savannah

Amy D.

Jawan

Savannah

Amy A.

Rizo

Steven

Angela

Jake

Savannah

Lia

Jake

Rizo

Melissa

Jake

Jeremiah

Kyle

Jake

Sophie

Blake

N/A

N/A

 

With 9 of us choosing him, shoe-stealing Jake was the most popular pick followed by Savannah with 6. No one has faith in Annie, Matt, MC or Shannon. Were these wise choices? Let’s see how it played out.

We kick off at Kele (Blue) following Nicole’s early elimination. Sophi thinks tribal council was a success but wishes Annie could have followed her. As they suffer, Jeremiah decides to dig out and eat worms, and somehow, it’s grosser than it sounds.

Annie wants to see Jake gone because come merge time, he’ll beat them all.  There are 17 people left, so that’s around 8 Tribal Councils from now. I get planning for the future but come on! She thinks she's the puppet master.

I'd bet against it

She tries to recruit Jeremiah and Sophi against Jake, and they yes-her to death, but they tell Jake everything and laugh at the idea of voting him out over Annie.

Over at Uli (Red) they are ecstatic when they find the biggest crab in Fiji to eat, but tribe-dad Nate knows he needs to adopt the language of the tribe youth if he wants to stick around.  I’ll try not to laugh when he starts whipping out Rizz, Vibe, Fire and calling things Cinema (5 points for “Say the title of the episode” [Nate] to Chris and Stephanie!). His attempts to adapt pay off when Rizo starts wanting to work with him (1 point for “Mention ‘in this game’” [Rizo] to Will, Morgan, Tom, Amy A. and Lia!). The two lock in Savannah and Shannon, and all seem genuinely into it. This foursome leaves Jawan on the outs, and he spends a good deal of time away from camp idol hunting but comes up empty.

Finally, at Hina, winning creates good vibes for Steven, but he sees the game moving and locks in with Kristina and Matt.  They bring in MC, who follows Rule #7: Always Say Yes, but doesn’t like the idea that she’s the fourth of three, and tells Sophie she could be the target. (1 point for “Mention ‘in this game’”[Sophie] to Kyle!)

Boats arrive at the camps and Matt, Jawan and Jake go on the Journey.  

(3 points for “Chosen to go on a journey” [Matt] to no one!)

(3 points for “Chosen to go on a journey” [Jawan] to Amy D.!)

(3 points for "Chosen to go on a journey” [Jake] to Scott, Slater, Aly, Tom, Chris, Angela, Lia, Melissa, and Kyle!)

In this competition, they have to sink coconut basketballs into each other’s nets until the basket falls. Last person standing wins a choice of advantages. Jawan was confident on the way over, but seeing the size of Matt and Jake has him worried, and Jake is playing for keeps (1 point for “Mention ‘in this game’” [Jake] to Scott, Slater, Aly, Tom, Chris, Angela, Lia, Melissa, and Kyle!)

Jake sees Matt as old, and Jawan as uncoordinated, making him feel confident. Normally in competitions like this, two people would gang up on one but that doesn’t happen here. Five points if you text or message me the word overconfidence. Matt puts on a good performance, but he’s taken out first. Jawan and Jake look close, but in the end Jawan overcomes Jake’s confidence and sends him back to Kele empty-handed. (7 points for “Obtain secret advantage”[Jawan] to Amy D.!)

Jawan’s choice is between stealing a Jake or Matt’s vote, or disadvantaging Hina or Kele in the upcoming tribal council.  Being on the outs with his tribe, I absolutely would have stolen the vote to protect myself, but Jawan chooses to disadvantage one of the other tribes, a move that might have influenced Savannah. Shows what I know!

Me

5 points if you can name the character who coined this phrase
Message me directly
Tell no one else
No Google, Yahoo, ChatGPT, Grok or other technological assistance!
You know it or you don't

Back at Kele (Blue) Jake’s shoe stealing has its baffling effect on Annie and Alex.  Annie is domineering, telling Sophi to vote out Jake. Sophi yes’s Annie but Jake’s her #1 and would rather break up the bromance by voting out Alex.

Meanwhile, Alex and Jake’s hunt in the woods proves fruitful as Alex finds and opens a Beware advantage! (4 points (2 each) for “Find Beware Advantage” and “Open Beware Advantage” [Alex] to Jo!) but he can’t do anything with it until after his tribe loses an immunity challenge, and if he doesn’t open it the Idol becomes dead.

At the immunity challenge, the tribes have to race over an elevated cargo net, then cross a wide step log obstacle. Then they need to dig up a key and use it to unlock a rope gate. After they’re through the gate, they need to climb a ramp and solve a 2-person Survivor logo puzzle. First two tribes win immunity and reward. Hina and Uli choose Kristina and Sage to sit out

(2 points for “Volunteer to sit out a challenge”[Sage] to no one!)

Before they start,  Jeff asks Jawan to publicly disadvantage another tribe. I imagine he thought that would be secret.  Sucks for you, Jawan!  He doesn’t have the heart to disadvantage Kele and chooses Hina (Yellow) instead.

For their disadvantage, Hina will race wearing 20 pounds of coconuts (!) and will have 10 keys to try at the rope gate instead of just one.  That’s a pretty serious disadvantage, and Hina takes it as a personal affront.

The elevated rope crawl is new and looks really difficult until Rizo somersaults through it. The coconuts are unwieldy and continually smack Hina members in the head.

Someone check on Hina

Kele takes a big lead, their first of the season, and is through the rope gate and up the wall before anyone else has dug up their ladder. Sophi and Alex have several minutes to work on the puzzle as Uli and Hina finally get to the ramp, but they’ve made no progress at all! Disadvantaged Hina’s Jason takes over the puzzle and makes short work of it, earning Immunity and Reward for Hina!

(6 points (3 each) for “Win Tribe Immunity” and “Win Tribe Reward”[Matt] to no one!)

(6 points (3 each) for “Win Tribe Immunity” and “Win Tribe Reward”[MC] to Morgan!)

(6 points (3 each) for “Win Tribe Immunity” and “Win Tribe Reward”[Steven] to Aly and Amy A.!)

(6 points (3 each) for “Win Tribe Immunity” and “Win Tribe Reward”[Jason] to Stephanie!)

And Kele STILL hasn’t made any progress at all!

Uli completes a Comeback For The Ages, sending Kele back to tribal council

(6 points (3 each) for “Win Tribe Immunity” and “Win Tribe Reward”[Nate] to Chris and Stephanie!)

(6 points (3 each) for “Win Tribe Immunity” and “Win Tribe Reward”[Savannah] to Scott, Will, Jo, Danny, Amy D., and Angela!)

(6 points (3 each) for “Win Tribe Immunity” and “Win Tribe Reward”[Rizo] to Will, Morgan, Tom, Amy A. and Lia!)

(6 points (3 each) for “Win Tribe Immunity” and “Win Tribe Reward”[Sage] to no one!)

(6 points (3 each) for “Win Tribe Immunity” and “Win Tribe Reward”[Jawan] to Amy D.!)

This is the 5th time Kele has lost, Jeff! (1 point for “Mention ‘in this game’” [Sophi] to Slater, Kat and Danny!). In the post-game interview, Jeff notes that Sophi looks down.

They were just eating worms!

Back at Kele (Blue), they are operating on starvation and fatigue which has Annie shifting her target from Jake, who’s great in the competitions, to Sophi who failed on the puzzle.  Jake fakes agreeing with her, but he’s voting Annie, along with Alex and Sophie.

Alex heads to the location shown on the map and runs into Sophi on the way.  Trapped, he shows her the Beware Advantage and along with Jake, they dig until they find a chain with a cannonball on one end and a key on the other. (2 points for “Complete Stage 1 of a Beware Advantage”[Alex] to Jo!). On their way to find the lockbox, Alex says he doesn’t want anyone else to know about the idol.

Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead

These arcane words act as a summoning spell, and Jeremiah appears in their path. With no choice but to share, Alex enlists Jeremiah in the search.  Sophi finds the box but quickly hides it so she can come back and open it herself later. Did she not hear the part about it becoming dead if Alex doesn’t open it? Unfortunately for Sophi, her plan fails as Alex finally finds and opens the box! (5 points for “Find a hidden immunity idol”[Alex] to Jo!)

Sensing he could be in trouble, Jeremiah pitches voting for Sophi to Alex. As both he and Sophi are competing for Jake, Alex considers it. He tells Annie about his idol and considers using his idol to protect Annie while voting out Sophi. It’s game talk but I can’t see him actually doing this.

 At tribal council, Sophi feels like she’s about to get expelled from school, while Jake looks to shift things to the positive. Jeff notes that Survivors who make it out of struggling tribes tend to do well later in the game. Sophi thinks this is because losing forces you to play earlier.

At the vote, Sophi is chosen to go first (2 points for “First person chosen to vote”[Sophi] to Slater, Kat and Danny!). As the votes come in, Alex chooses not to play his idol and his under-the-radar pairing with Annie comes to an end, as she’s voted out 4-1

(1 point for “Received vote against” [Sophi] to Slater, Kat and Danny!)

(4 points for “Received vote against” [Annie] to no one!)

(-1 point for “The Tribe Has Spoken” [Annie] to no one!)

Annie thinks the blindside was unbelievable, and I believe she believes that.

Cutting the puppet masters strings

So, how does this affect our scores?

Journey winner Jawan was the week’s high scorer with 16 points, followed by idol-finder Alex and lingo-learner Nate at 11.  Jeremiah put up a big, fat zero and is the low scorer for the week, barely beating his Kele tribemates Jake and Annie who put up 4 each.

Newcomer Amy D. opens with a 5-point lead, as she was the only player to choose Journey winner Jawan. Stephanie and Jo open tied for 2nd and they are 2 points ahead of 4th place Chris. 5th place Morgan trails him by a point, with Will and Amy A. tied for 6th just another point behind Morgan. Tom, Danny and Lia start the season tied for 7th, and I join Aly, Angela and Kyle in a 4-person tie for 10th. In 14th place, Slater is just a point behind the group. With Jake and Jeremiah, Melissa managed to pick the two lowest scoring players of the week!  That’s worth 3 points, and it lands her in 15th.  Kat stuck with Kele and Kele stuck it to Kat, leaving her with just 5 points to show for it. Blake and Nickole didn’t send in picks and didn’t earn points this week.

 

 

Overall scores

Name

Scores

Amy D.

22

Stephanie

17

Jo

17

Chris

15

Morgan

14

Will

13

Amy A.

13

Tom

11

Danny

11

Lia

11

Scott

10

Aly

10

Angela

10

Kyle

10

Slater

9

Melissa

7

Kat

5

Nickole

0

Blake

0

 

Weekly Survivor scores

Name

Scores

Jawan

16

Alex

11

Nate

11

Matt

9

Kristina

8

Sage

8

MC

7

Rizo

7

Jason

6

Steven

6

Sophie

6

Savannah

6

Shannon

6

Sophi

5

Annie

4

Jake

4

Jeremiah

0

Nicole

0

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