Follow your dreams.
It’s a piece of advice imprinted into us from childhood and usually encourages people to relentlessly pursue their passions. But in the case of five-time contestant Ozzy Lusth, he literally needed to listen to the product of his REM cycle in this spectacular episode of Survivor 50.
Joe’s Pity Party
Joe Hunter is either an unpleasant grump or unaware that he signed up to play Survivor. Or both.
Since his first appearance in Survivor 48 last year, Hunter has eschewed the strategy and deception that dominate Survivor gameplay. Personally, I welcome that—contestants who stubbornly play their own game their own way make for good obstacles for those who play a more conventional strategic game.
The problem with Hunter is that he seems to take offense not only when people tell lies, but also when they find joy in playing, describing Rick Devens’s “theatrics” at the previous Tribal Council as being in “extremely poor taste.” (The man just secured his safety, won an idol, and doubled the prize pot to $2 million; let him pump his fist in celebration!)
Whoops!
While I have my issues with Jeff Probst as a host and executive producer of Survivor—mostly due to his frustrating insistence on cutting the game short by having three finalists instead of two—I have to give him credit for how he runs and monitors challenges live in the moment. In addition to offering (sometimes excessive) commentary, he has to keep track of every contestant to make sure they are competing according to the rules.
In 49 seasons, there have only been two instances in which Probst called the wrong winner in a challenge, both early in the series’s run: in 2002’s Marquesas, the underdog Maraamu tribe correctly protested a premature reward challenge victory declaration, and a year later in Pearl Islands, Probst overlooked a spelling error and had to strip immunity from Burton Roberts. It happened again for the first time in 43 seasons last week, when Probst declared Tiffany Ervin the winner of a balance-based challenge.
As soon as Probst awarded her the immunity necklace, an off-screen judge corrected him: Ervin had delayed lifting her foot when the challenge shifted to standing on one leg. Thus, immunity and one of the most powerful advantages any player has ever received on Survivor went to Jonathan Young instead.
Let’s Twist Again
Since the players merged in the sixth episode, there’s been only one episode that didn’t involve a major, unprecedented twist. Needless to say, this episode featured the now-customary random division of players into smaller groups, with two groups of four each voting one person out. Young, who essentially received two rounds of immunity, would get to participate in strategizing and voting with both groups.
In the first group, Emily Flippen proposed an idea to blindside Devens by convincing him to use his idol to save her…but her real plan was to team up with Devens to blindside one of the game’s greatest masterminds, Cirie Fields. The plan was set in motion, but an uneasy Fields could sense something was up. Using the extra vote Lusth gifted her early in the season, she forced a tie between herself and Flippen. On the revote, Flippen was voted out.
Fields was separated from her two biggest allies, Lusth and Rizo Velovic, both of whom held idols that could secure their safety. The problem is that Lusth has all but admitted he’s hopeless without Fields’s guidance, and without her present to tip him off to play his idol, there was a danger that he would hang on to it and get blindsided. The potential blunder even came to him in a dream in which he envisioned fellow players telling him, “You should’ve played your idol.”
Lusth’s biggest mistake, however, was assuming that Aubry Bracco was a surefire target in his group. In an effort to win the respect of the person he expected to soon join the jury, he laid out his entire endgame strategy, including his intention to go to the end with Fields. “It’s like Ozzy is giving me his final Tribal Council speech about why he deserves $2 million before my ass is even out the door,” Bracco mused. “I don’t think so, buddy.” Rather than accept her fate, Bracco exposed Lusth’s plans, opening the door for Hunter, Velovic, and Young to take out a major threat.
It was deja vu for a devastated Lusth, who similarly went home while possessing an idol in 2008’s Survivor: Micronesia. (That time, Fields was actually responsible for his exit, proving how much can change in 18 years.) “Man, I really trusted you guys so much,” he told his apologetic fellow players. “Can’t explain how painful this is.”
When the Survivor 50 cast was initially announced, I was disappointed to see Lusth make the cut. He’d already played four times and was a nonentity on his last stint, 2017’s Game Changers. But I loved watching the older, wiser Lusth we saw this season.
Survivor 50 Snubs
I’ll conclude each week’s column by spotlighting one man and one woman who were left off Survivor 50 but would have made for excellent inclusions.
Perhaps no other contestant has embodied the ditzy blonde archetype as well as Heidi Strobel, yet she actually had the highest IQ of anyone in 2003’s Survivor: The Amazon cast (even over an actual rocket scientist). Along with swimsuit model and eventual victor Jenna Morasca, Strobel, who fellow contestant Rob Cesternino cringingly described as “so hot she could put Viagra out of business,” is best remembered for stripping in exchange for cookies and peanut butter. It earned the pair a Playboy spread, but Strobel was more than Cesternino’s crush; she was genuinely funny (albeit often unintentionally) and drove strategy throughout the game.
One of the most affable players of all time, Ian Rosenberger from 2005’s Survivor: Palau played hard for 38 days before deciding his integrity and friendship with soon-to-be champion Tom Westman was worth more than the million dollars, stepping down from the longest challenge in Survivor history under the condition that Westman not take him to the final two. Two decades later, Rosenberger has no regrets, but it’s certainly regrettable that he’s never been back to play again.
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