So far, the allegedly "bananas" postmerge of Survivor 49 has mostly been a series of peels on which various players have slipped, taking themselves out in the process. But Episode 9 at least had a plausible link to a contestant as the peel-placer, rather than the standard deus ex machina procedure of Jeff Probst's bag of rocks. While the MC boot in Episode 8 was something Rizo was advocating, it was also more a product of the twist creating an ostensible 4-2 Uli majority over old Hina, and the opportunity for the old Ulis to eliminate one of the two best challenge performers left in the game. Rizo himself seemed a bit incredulous that his persuasion worked in the post-Tribal segment that opened this week's episode.

This week, however, it was all Rizo, and as I noted last week, the audience also enjoyed a reprise of the Alex-vs-Rizo "Fight for Supplies" journey/challenge from the premiere. In a sense, that Ep1 segment was an accurate predictor of the rest of the season so far: Rizo's team "wins" (always in second place) while Alex's team loses. Not only that, but Rizo succeeds despite fumbling much of the stuff in the middle. In "Fight for Supplies," Rizo couldn't solve the puzzle map to save his life, and had to copy Alex's already-complete puzzle to finish. Similarly, Rizo's decision to share the Beware idol clue with the rest of his tribe *should* have backfired. Sage and Jawan were already on the outs, and Sage, as should be expected, told everyone post-swap about Rizo's clue. But so far, there have been no consequences for that misplaying, because just as Alex couldn't follow a simple map and dig a deep enough hole to find the shipwheel, nobody in the post-merge seems capable of following through on the very obvious move of voting against Rizo to force him to play his idol.

It's been baffling watching that across the last three episodes, just as it was inconceivable that Alex couldn't go back to his map, realize he'd been digging in the right spot, and just dig slightly deeper. But that's not what happened in the premiere, and here we are, three votes deep into the post-merge, and nobody can write "R-I-Z-O" (or even RIZGOD) on their ballots.

One possible explanation is that the other contestants don't really view Rizo as a threat to win - the Xander Hastings problem. Like Xander, Rizo is one of the youngest players on the season, and his relative beardlessness makes him seem younger than he actually is (he's 25). But I think this perception is unlikely to hold for much longer, because Rizo actually did drive the vote for Alex this episode, and by putting in that hard work of persuasion himself - with Jawan, with Sage, with Sophie - everyone will be aware of what he did, should he get to the finals and bring that vote up to the jury.

Still, in another "Rizo succeeds, partly because the other players misplay" moment, the point of no return for the Rizo-Savannah-Sophi alliance seizing the majority, despite being outnumbered 7-3 after the merge vote, is rapidly approaching. With yellow Sophie on board, they could have a 5-4 majority at the Final 8 vote in the next episode, thanks to Savannah's extra vote. Rizo *still* won't have to play his idol (unless Kristina plays hers first). But if they make it through the F8 vote intact, they'll be up 4-3, and from there, it's pretty much clear sailing. Oh well, at least Jawan got to eat while he was on top.

So anyway, there are still four episodes left. Let's hope the "bananas" ending is only just getting started, and we'll start to see some high-caliber gameplay the rest of the way.

Say goodbye to Kristina?

This week saw a huge spike in visibility for Kristina (eight confessionals, after having just two in the first three episodes, stats via Kosta the Survivor Fact Checker). That's normally a sign of impending doom, and indeed, the first shot of the preview for Ep10 is Kristina fretting "It's me next." But that can't happen, right? Because she has an idol? Not only that, but they just voted out one of the two guys for whom she had promised to play it, if necessary.

Even if she's not out in the very next episode, however, Kristina can't be long for the game (similarly, I doubt that yellow Sophie sticks around much longer). Kristina is the most under-edited player of the season, followed closely by Sophie. That kind of underediting is usually reserved for someone who otherwise would be sympathetic to the audience (Kristina's backstory about losing her mom was dumped when she was connecting with Shannon, who I don't think the editors expected the audience to like), and who goes out in a surprising way (twist, big blindside). And some of Kristina's content this episode was really weird: When Sophie talks about realizing she's actually on the bottom of the Hina alliance, she talks about "I'm questioning my relationship with Steven (headshot of Steven) and Kristina (headshot of Alex, that then re-focuses on Kristina in the background, as seen above)." A little visual clue that Kristina follows Alex to the jury, maybe?

Side note, but also Kristina-related: It's a bit disappointing that the show edited out the entire MC-Kristina relationship. MC mentioned in her exit interviews that Kristina was someone she had hoped to go to the final three with. At the top of this episode, Kristina seemed deeply shocked by the outcome of the previous Tribal, and said (in confessional) she had also wanted to go to the finals with MC. This post-Tribal sequence would have had a lot more impact (and better represented these authentic emotions, which instead came across as bad gameplay) if we'd known about Kristina and MC's bond. Show, don't tell, as always. This follows the editors also pruning MC's three-person alliance with Steven and Jason down to just Steven. She and Jason bonded over being this season's alternates who were thrust into the game. She also showed Jason her Beware idol clue, just as she showed Steven.

We got a lot of Kele content to start the season, and then a lot of Uli. It feels like we barely scratched the surface of Hina. I'm guessing that's intentional, and it's probably because they don't end up impacting the endgame (except maybe Steven). But the show should still try to tell almost everyone's story. They have 90-minute episodes, it can't be *that* hard. Maybe cut out a few of the hundreds of rock draws to make room?

Boo to real-time self-back-patting

Before explaining the RC, Probst gauged how the previous night's Tribal played out in camp, and in doing so, put Kristina on the spot: "Kristina, did the last vote - given that there were five people who didn't have anything to do with it - did it change the game *because* of that dynamic?" Kristina dutifully agreed, because what is she gonna say? "Yes, but that was super unfair, Uncle J! We're in the individual phase of the game! Everyone should get to vote! I thought you said you liked us!" (There is no universe where a contestant, especially one who was just told days earlier that they're in the running for a spot on Survivor 50, would tell him that to his face.)

Kristina instead said something along the lines of "you might be in the majority for one vote" and think you know what's happening, but then something happens and you realize you don't know. (Note that Kristina was unable to vote last episode, and wasn't even able to attend Tribal Council. She's referring to a twist that completely excluded her from any strategic decision-making, not an organic shift in alliance structures.) To which Probst responded, "16 days in and the game is fluid! I LIKE it!"

The situation he's referring to is not "the game" being fluid! It's the opposite! This was production forcing a random outcome by restricting the vote to half the contestants. They're lucky it didn't end up with Jawan, Sage, Steven, and Kristina voting out someone like Sophi, because the audience would have absolutely rioted! The only reason it didn't create more of a stir was because - like Kristina and Sophie - MC was deeply under-edited (17% by Kosta's stats), even though she had an idol AND went on a journey. We barely knew MC.

For the love of everything, let the players play the game, and allow them to make things fluid (or not) without production interference. Please?

The land of tepid takes

Exclusion by choice: There were no tasks in the reward challenge that required all four people to participate. So for a challenge with nine people left, why do two teams, especially when three teams is what Probst sees as the ideal? Well, it's probably because we finally had a schoolyard pick. (Which was edited out, of course, but in good news, you can actually watch it as an EW secret scene!) Sophi being the person unpicked is interesting, but it's probably more that she's seen as the least helpful person in a team challenge (after Kristina, who was a captain but participated in no ways after that), than people not liking her. Which is weird, because she's been an above-average performer in individual challenges so far, but maybe they'll all realize that to their detriment soon.

Not quite a new challenge, but we'll take it: The RC also featured a fun new element, where one person had to toss sandbags at a paddle on top of a pole to release three rings, then someone else had to land the rings on the same pole. (The IC was stolen/adapted from Australian Survivor). Whether by borrowing or by invention, it's always nice to see new challenges. One of the most grating aspects of the "new" era is the homogeneity of the challenges, which are almost never novel.

Steven appreciation thread: There were a lot of fun moments with Steven this episode: His "space facts" monologue/ distractions during the IC; his wary relationship with the two surviving chickens in camp; and his semi-delirious post-necklacing speech, touching on sharks with human-teeth necklaces and some dubious shark facts. Since he (like Kristina) feels like he's not long for this game, I'm glad we got a little Fun Steven spotlight this episode. Who doesn't like fun? (I could personally use slightly fewer space metaphors, but I do appreciate the rest.)