Episode 1

As Jeff revealed the theme it began with the classic cheers and excitement from the cast as they began to embark on their 39 day adventure, well for 3 of them. The opening challenge consisted of a multi-facited obstacle course with a puzzle at the end. The Goliaths who were tasked with choosing the two Davids that would compete, chose Lyrsa Toress and Christian Hubicki, assuming them to be the weakest. The two Davids then decided which parts of the course both the Goliath tribe and their tribe would run. In an awesome opening challenge Lyrsa and Christian ultimately pulled it off taking the advantage at the puzzle portion, beating Alison and John, fulfilling productions dreams of the Davids kicking the, as John Hennagin would call it, "george bushy of tushy" of the Goliaths.

Goliath Tribe

The weather has not been very favorable at all this season. Similar to Survivor Millennials vs Gen-X which filmed 2 years earlier on the same islands, monster rain and cyclones laid loose upon this seasons cast. Fortunately for the Davids they had Mr. Construction and shelter maker, Pat, who also had the help of the shelter supplies Lyrsa and Christian won in the opening challenge. For the Goliaths, they weren't as lucky, yet they didn't fail to entertain. We're introduced to characters like Mike White, some of you may know him as Ned Schneebly from School of Rock which he wrote, and then there's John Hennigan, the pro wrestler, who goes by more titles then Debbie Wanner does job titles. Mike White starts off this game flawlessly, searching for idols right away and putting a huge target on his back! He later on tells in confessional, it's not that he "needs" the idol, he just "couldn't help but wanting it" as a fan. Well Mike, I don't need chocolate cake, and I want to lose weight, SO I DON'T EAT THE CAKE. If you want to win then "don't bite the apple!" as James Clement would be yelling in his ear. Not giving Probst any ideas to invite him back to the reunion and fill up 10 minutes of awkward air time again, though. Mean while Mike isn't the only one putting a target on his back, there's 57 year old Natalie Cole, the strong women of color, who if you didn't know, everything about her speaks power. I guess I can't really say "she put the target on her back" more, her tribe mate Natalia Azoqa did. Coincidence they have similar names? Is Natalia jealous? Who knows. But for Natalie any thing she did, was like Tom eating in front of Chane (South African Survivor joke), for Natalia. Natalie standing is not aloud, don't you know that's a crime! Overall we know Natalie is one confident woman, who likes to be in charge, and I sense a war brewing next episode between the two of them. (Hopefully Natalie wins)

Next thing you know, Mike White has triggered a mad idol hunt by the Goliath tribe. Yes women power! Feminism! Angelina and Alison are going to break the trend of women almost never finding immunity idols !!! and open up a new generation of Survi- and Dan has already found it. At first when they showed Dan in confessional with the idol before they showed the flashback of him finding it, I was like, come on now, we go from handing Ben idols in his sleeping space, to now just handing it to men and not even showing them find it. Thankfully I was proven wrong, and the hormonal Dan shared his idol find with the young and beautiful Kara Kay and Natalia.

David Tribe

I absolutely adored almost everyone on the David tribe. Of course this is what CBS wants, and their only giving us the good content on them, because "Davids rule, Goliaths suck!!!"" woooo. Yeah, no. The only person who really was given a some what negative edit on the David tribe was Nick Wilson. He was shown making multiple alliances, almost in a Russell Hantz "dumb-blonde girl" alliance type style, or dare I say Zane style. Fortunately for him he would've placed the same as Zane, if it weren't for- well you know what happened. We were shown a bit of strategy, with the unlikely alliance of the spicy Puerto Rican with hair the color of that spazzy Nickelodeon child on Lazy Town, and red-neck Elizabeth Olson, who I'm positive is a character from Little House on the Prairie. We were also given the nerd alliance of Gabby Pascuzzi and Christian, who most likely bonded over the fact that they both wear glasses. However the majority of the content from the David tribe was emotional. We saw Julia Sokolowsk- Jessica Peet and Bi Nguyen share their struggles with domestic abuse, and how they over came it which was honestly touching and an awesome moment in the show. Overall these heart warming moments in the shelter would be the last we see of the Davids in a while.

The Evacuation

After losing the immunity challenge the Davids got ready for a fun bumpy boat ride in the pretty Fijian waters during the heat of a menacing rain. The last we hear from them, a speech from Pat about how their tribe was a heart and they were about to lose an artery, with no Kellyn to explain that they are actually a gut and each one of them is an individual bacteria making up the healthy microbiome! Sorry don't mean to to try and crack too many jokes, I'll stop because Pat's back did the cracking for me. Or was this really just a hit at Sebastian and his crack, Mr. Stoney Baloney... Ok I'll stop. On a more serious matter this was a really tragic med-evac. The first scene we see is them rushing Pat out on a stretcher. At first I thought the wrong show had come on and I was suddenly watching a medical tv drama, but it was in fact Pat. "Not this way" said Pat countless times, as he fought to act strong, as if he could stay in the game. But we all know, and production knew, it was all over (well I knew because there was like 10 minutes left in the episode). I was heart broken for Pat, as a life-long fan I can't imagine my Survivor experience ending that way. Maybe they'll do Philippines 2.0 and bring back Mike Borassi vs Terry Deitz vs Pat.

Overall

This is the best premiere of Survivor I've seen since Survivor Cagayan, almost ten seasons ago. I think we were given the luxury of not having tribal, so they could show more characterization rather than game play, and we also had a 90 minute episode. Either way it was amazing that everybody got a confessional, and still set up at least a little background with everybody for the audience, no purple Chelsea this season.

Player of the Episode

Christian! Christian had a great start in the opening, finishing the slide puzzle almost faster then that challenge when Probst looked in awe at Spencer as he finished that 4 piece puzzle in Cambodia. He created a firm alliance with Gabby and seems to be in a good position in the tribe, there was no confessionals with his name being thrown out. And people seem to underestimate him as the eccentric-nerdy Cochran archetype.

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