"Survivor" Season 51, Episodes 3 & 4 Quiz

Answer: He claimed a foot injury and wanted to be medivacced out of the game

After the previous night's Tribal Council, where Rob's plan to vote himself off backfired in more ways than one, afterwards, Rob did not join the rest of the tribe in the shelter but spent the night on the beach alone. He complained of pain in his leg and foot and thought his leg could be infected, but he hadn't seen Medical yet.

Eric found him in the morning and offered Rob some comfort (that only Eric could do), but Rob was in a poor place, and his head was not in the game. His tribe mates didn't buy the infection story, and neither did Medical when they examined him. They found no reason to pull him from the game, but Rob wanted to go regardless. However, Rob found that after he left, he had to wait eight more days because he could fly home.

In Jeff's field notes, he wrote that contestants traditionally struggle at the same time Rob's issues were happening, '"Survivor" humbles you very quickly and can get you in a variety of ways. Days four, five, and six are often VERY tough for players. This is a threshold point that you have to get past. If you can find a way through the desire to give up, you almost always find that second wind...My hope for Rob is that he can look back on this without regret. My concern is that, once he's home and the pressure is off, he'll wish he would have dug a little deeper.'

One good thing that did happen is that he managed to give his immunity idol to Carter. Carter showed it at his next confessional, but the handing over was not shown, nor did Carter explain when it was given to him, but he had it, and it was 'active'.

Answer: He found the advantage, but did not mutiny

The mutiny option was back! There had not been a successful mutiny since "Survivor: Cook Islands" (Season 13), and the last time it was offered was "Survivor: Tocantins" (Season 18).

On Toku, Devin volunteered to go and was duly dispatched on a boat. On the journey over to the other tribe, he was given an envelope which stated that there was an advantage hidden in Savu's well ladle, plus if he wanted to stay with the new tribe, he could. Devin used his time wisely; Sharonda pulled him aside to the well so she could confirm his loyalty to the helicopter alliance, which he did; and, as they were the only ones at the well, they found the advantage hidden in the ladle. Devin had won an extra vote at a future Tribal Council. He then used his time to tell the other tribemates his opinions on Kilby and Jenna, which were generally unfavourable. He also commented on the inferiority of Savu's shelter, which was a factor in him not wanting to stay.

Devin believed his journey was time well spent. He reconnected with Sharonda privately from his Helicopter Alliance, and he believed he set the groundwork for the future post-merge relationships, as well as having an extra vote advantage in his back pocket.

Answer: Did not find the advantage, and was accidentally left behind

Carter's journey was not as successful as Devin's. Firstly, Devin was on the bottom of a 6-4 vote at the previous night's Tribal Council. Of the four who lost the vote, Carter being one, Ana was voted off, Rob quit, and Ori had told Sharonda he was voting for Eric anyway, as Sharonda, who controlled the vote, had the numbers. So when Carter was selected by random draw, the rest of Savu instantly regretted the decision to let Carter go, as he was an easy next vote.

During the boat journey, Carter's note told him an advantage was hidden in Savu's boat oars. However, when he landed on Toku's island, despite seeing the boat and that the Savu camp was some way from the boat, he ignored finding the advantage at this point and went to meet the Savu tribe.

When Mike dragged off Carter for a private chat, Lewis noted that Carter's bag was left behind and suggested that they go through it to see what they can find. They immediately found the advantage on top of his belongings and raced off to find the oars of the boat. (Interestingly, they did not dig deeper - if they did, they might have foundCarter's idol was there as well). At the boat, Brady smashed oars, but it was Maggie who spotted the advantage. Brady extracted it, but Maggie asked for it as she had spotted it first. Brady relented, believing it could be used to both their advantage in the future. Maggie, in a subsequent confessional, said it was hers, and she had no intention of sharing it.

When Carter returned, Brady tried to recruit Carter as he believed they were of similar ilk. Carter thought about staying, but there was a signal the boat had returned for him. Carter said his goodbyes and went to find the oars to the boat. However, they were gone. (The broken oars were thrown into the bushes nearby.) Carter spent so much time looking for them that the boat left without him. So Carter returned to Toka as an accidental mutineer. However, a mutiny is still a mutiny.

Answer: True

In episode one, Toku eliminated Aaliyah but gained Lewis to keep the tribe at ten members, which they retained in episode two. The addition of Carter made it eleven, making Toku the largest pre-merge tribe in "Survivor" history. By contrast, Savu had gone from ten to over overnight (One sent home, one quit, one defected). Kristen talked about it being a Blood Moon moment. This was a reference to Season 50 when three contestants were eliminated in a single episode.

This meant a massive four members had to sit out the reward and immunity.

Despite being able to pick seven good players from eleven, Toku blew a lead they had on the physical obstacle part of the challenge before surrendering it on the puzzle as the final component of the challenge.

Answer: Patt

Eleven contenders to eliminate one at Tribal Council meant there were a lot of votes to collate. The core alliance of Devin, Brady, Jelly, Pat, and Mike was confident. On a tribe of ten, that should have been enough. They were confident of attracting one of the newbies, either Carter or Lewis. Brady dismissed the rest of Toku (Thien An, Maggie, Kilby, and Jenna) as 'misfits' and not capable of being able to oust any of the core alliance. Lewis and Carter conferred that they were the swing votes. They could either vote for the core alliance or vote with the misfits to oust a core alliance member.

The core alliance was confident. During the TC, Mike claimed the core alliance had Carter, but this was not witnessed on camera. The core alliance voted for Kilby - 5 votes - and were confident that Kilby was going home, but Thien An (we found this out later) had marshalled the misfits and the two swing votes to put six votes on Patt, a fan favourite. Pat was blindsided and sent home. For the second time in a row, Devin was on the wrong side of the vote. The core alliance was shattered.

Answer: 17 is a prime number

The tribe swap consisted of two tribes merging into three*. Such a change must be predetermined, as the production crew needs to know if they have to produce or manufacture two or three 'lanes' for all challenges. The tribe swap was meant to be when there were 18 contestants, yielding three six-member tribes, but Rob's quitting threw a spanner in the works. Seventeen contestants meant there was one new tribe that would have only five members, not ideal for forming dynamics within the new tribe as there are reduced numbers of possible combinations of communication channels.

Jeff went to some trouble to explain this, and to ameliorate a poor situation, placed 18 buffs, three of each colour, in one bag, so after all 17 players had picked their new buffs blindly, there was one purple buff left in the bag. The new Savu tribe consisted of three original Toku members: Devin, Jelly and Jenna; and two former Savu members: Ori and Alexis.

*This "Survivor" aficionado welcomed the initial return to a two-tribe game as the number of personal dynamics increases markedly. Reverting to a three tribe system so early in the game was disappointing.

Answer: The third immunity idol was hidden under the tribe name banner

The new tribe was called Dina, and they had pink buffs. There were four former Savu members: Sharonda, Eric, Linnea, and Christian, and two former Toku members: Lewis and Eric. They were only given a new beach and a flint, machete, and pot. They were given no access to building materials, so they had to build a shelter this late into the game. On top of that, Lewis was sick with some sort of debilitating illness. He took himself to the boat and tried to sleep it off.

Kilby took the opportunity to distance himself from his old Toku tribe by saying he wasn't one of the popular kids and he was on the outside. His new tribe seemed to believe this and had some sympathy for him. Eric, especially, took a shine to him. They connected over shared pastimes, including theatre, Disney movies, and pro-wrestling. They called themselves the Lover Boys. The drawback was that this was highly visible to tribe mates, and they were wary that a new alliance had formed.

Nevertheless, Dina won the combined reward/immunity challenge, which featured an array of hot and iced coffee as the prize as well as tribal immunity. The challenge consisted of throwing buckets of ocean water to other tribe mates a good distance apart. What little water made it to shore was placed in a container, which, when full, released a ball that needed to work its way through a huge vertical circular maze. This puzzle required two people to use finesse and massive fine motor control to have a successful outcome. A variation of this challenge has been used five times previously in "Vanuatu", "Cook Islands", "Heroes vs. Villains", "Cagayan", and "Edge of Extinction".

The new Toka tribe won second place, which offered a jug of iced coffee but, importantly, immunity from the following Tribal Council.

Answer: Kristin

Kristen was the only player from the former Savu tribe. The other five were all former Toku: Brady, Carter, Maggie, Mike, and Thien An. Kristen was a savvy player and made quick work of endearing herself to her new tribe mates by showing them native fruits that could be found on the nearby flora. With her knowledge of which plants could have natural anti-inflammatory properties to help heal her broken foot, it appeared that Kristen had done her homework in the 26 years she had waited to join the show. She tried to make it up with Carter, who was on the wrong side of the old Savu's first elimination, but Carter was immune to her 'buttering-up ', as he called it.

Instead, Carter and Thien An, the mastermind of the Misfits' elimination of Patt, bonded in what could be a big factor in alliances moving forward. Mike did himself no favours by appealing to all four former Savu members separately that he was keen to work with then, but each ot them rejected that idea. This left Brady, still reeling from being on the wrong side of the vote last Tribal Council. He only had Mike from Toku, and unusually for him, had a very quiet time on the first day with his new tribe mates.

Answer: Christian

In the four episodes to date, only episode two had a separate reward and immunity challenge. Neither of these contained a puzzle. The other three episodes contained combined reward/immunity challenges. Each comprised a highly physical initial component(s), followed by a puzzle at the end, which acts as an equaliser, allowing teams that perform poorly in the physical part to catch up, hopefully to the show's producers' satisfaction, for a close finish.

In each of these three challenges, it was Christian who represented his team every time. And, on every occasion, he participated with a different tribe mate and won the challenge. The value of such a player cannot be underestimated in a "Survivor" history that has so many puzzle-dominated challenges.

External forums about the show seem to place a lot of stock in how much airtime each player receives in confessionals as a predictor of success in the game. In the first four episodes, Christian has had the lowest number of confessionals: two. Compare this with Devin, who has had 26 in the same period. Could this be a case of the show's producers deliberately keeping his airtime small so he becomes a 'surprise' contender late in the game, or is his lack of airtime a portent for an elimination very soon in the game? It is this level of suspense that keeps viewers coming back to see what happens in the next episode.

Answer: Jenna

The tribe with only five members was Savu, consisting of three old Toka (Devin, Jelly, and Jenna) and two old Savu (Ori and Alexis). However, three of the four Helicopter Alliance members were together (Devi, Jelly, and Ori) and the other two did not know of this alliance, so they were on the outside at the beginning of the tribe swap. Having only five meant no weaker member could sit out the Immunity challenge, which they lost. Jenna appealed to Devin and Jelly to keep the three of them together, but it fell on deaf ears. Jenna and Alexis thought they could possibly try to get three votes but knew the chances were remote. When Ori met with Jelly and Devin, all he said was that Alexis was his girl. Dead man walking from the moment she set foot in Toku on Day 1. It was a 4-1 vote. Jenna was gone. The damage had been done in episode 1.

This was the seventh "Survivor" season where the first four players to be voted out were women. In each such case, a male won the season.

Interestingly, we have two idols in play (Carter and Jelly), neither of which are known to any other player.