And we’re back!
Survivor: Winners at War has begun, and it didn’t waste a single second before getting the game started. In the first 10 minutes, we were reminded of the journeys all these winners had gone on before (and how much Survivor has changed over the years), we met the two new tribes (Sele and Dakal), and the first challenge was beginning. It was both for reward and immunity, meaning one tribe was heading to tribal council pretty immediately.
Married castaways Rob and Amber were put on separate tribes, and Rob’s tribe Sele was sent to tribal first. They also got no flint or rice, and the knowledge that they had a whole day to play the game before that tribal council.
Over on Dakal, everyone bonded over their kids. Amber said she got her four kids a calendar they could use to cross off the days until she’d be back, and Tyson said he made his kids a daisy chain, with one chain link for each day. It was cute.
Meanwhile, Sele was freaking the hell out. The first vote is always just nonsense because there’s so little to base it off of, and it was almost more nonsense this time. Adam and Denise almost got voted out because they dared to walk away when they first got to camp, but after literally every name was thrown out at some point and Sandra then told every person that their name was thrown out, Rob and Parvati helped convince some people to actually vote with some strategy, which makes sense.
Natalie and Jeremy had an existing friendship—as she said, “it’s not blood, but it’s pretty close with Jeremy,”—so Natalie ended up getting a surprising number of votes, and she was sent to the Edge of Extinction.
This season includes a new thing called fire tokens, which players can use to buy things like food and blankets, and each person started with one. Natalie then had to will her fire token to someone else still in the game, so she obviously chose Jeremy.
Then, when she got to her new home, she learned that she could earn fire tokens while she was there and then use them to affect the game. For example, she found an immunity idol and was able to sell it to a player on the next losing tribe for one fire token. Dakal then lost the second challenge, and Sandra was offered the chance to buy Natalie’s idol. She obviously gave up her one token for the idol, which was helpful since she was one of the names being tossed around, but she didn’t end up playing it.
She also didn’t need to, because with some maneuvering from Yul and his unexpectedly powerful alliance of all the “unconnected” players, the votes came down to Amber and Kim, with Amber getting the boot and heading off to Edge of Extinction.
She willed her fire token to her husband and headed off to join Natalie.
As much as Amber deserved a chance to continue (and still does if she can survive Extinction), she and Rob were doomed from the start for literally being married. No one was going to let them stick around together for very long, especially if something as tenuous as a poker game can be seen as a dangerous alliance…which is just another reason we’re personally glad Edge of Extinction is back.
We’ll see how it goes next week.
Survivor airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on CBS.