After a "merge" episode that instead further separated the players, going from three beaches to four, Episode 7 of Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans finally gave the audience what they hoped to see when everyone was wearing the same buffs: Lots of interactions between the remaining cast members. The clash of playing styles (new era vs old school) is kind of the whole point of having a cast that spans the show's entire run!

And then, because it's apparently illegal to have a day at the merge camp without a boat coming ashore to deliver a mysterious message (it's happened three out of four days so far!) those simmering conflicts were put on hold for what felt like a full hour, as we instead needed to listen to Stephenie complain about being picked to win an advantage. But eventually she returned, and we had more actual Survivor.

Dustin Rowles of Pajiba had a solid piece earlier this week diagnosing the critical flaw in S50 in one word: Overproduction. This is true of the new era in general, but this week at least had significantly less of that, although it was still there: An unnecessary journey, a warmed-over mergeatory challenge that was intended to exclude half the castways from the immunity challenge, and also the boomerang idols, which as we have belatedly realized, have training wheels on them that dramatically restrict their gameplay utility. (More on that at the bottom.)

The biggest headline of the episode, however, was Coach Overload, as we saw the graying goat spouting shitty haiku, yelling at people for lying (as he had done himself just a day earlier, making up a story from whole cloth about Emily having said she wanted Dee out next), and yelling at his allies for not wanting to be stuck voting for the backup half of the vote split. Then more haiku. Really, it was more Coachspreading - like manspreading on the subway, but here it was Coach just extending himself across the entire episode, leaving little room for anyone or anything else. On the one hand, it was fantastic that we got to see Emily pulling up a chair to observe and mock Coach in real time as it happened, while Rizo calling out Coach's alliance offer as bullshit (in confessional) and his gameplay as "embarrassing" was also welcome. On the other hand, a lot of Coach is just a LOT.

So while the episode did a lot of things just right (14 people able to vote at Tribal Council!), it kept going out if its way to irritate you (the various points of overproduction) - just like Coach. Coach taking out Dee was a good move for just about everyone else, which is why even Coach was able to whip up an 8-4 vote split. But we were very clearly told that a good chunk of the people who will soon be jurors think of Coach as a belligerent buffoon. Hopefully extracting him from the active game will take far less of a noble sacrifice than Malcolm's blowing through two idols at the Three Amigos Tribal in S26: Caramoan to remove Phillip Sheppard.

The Dee boot and the state of the game

Even though Dee had only a few tight allies, she was still an extremely dangerous player. She's a former winner! She played with Emily in the season she won, so she had a tight real-world ally. She also won an immunity necklace in her first individual challenge, and came pretty close (third place) to winning one her second time. Because she's universally seen as dangerous, there is some sense in keeping her around as a shield, but you have to worry about that challenge ability, so the wiser path is to snuff the threat while you can. It made sense. There wasn't really anything she could do, especially when Jonathan (despite the recent edit) had been gunning for her since the premiere.

Still, I'm increasingly starting to worry about the fact that the Honor & Integrity group seems like an extremely tight five (six, counting Stephenie's vote steal advantage, which is slightly less dangerous now that Cirie knows it's there). On the other side, it's less of an alliance of six than a trio ("Cirie's Rizard of Ozz"), a duo (Christian and Rizo), and a solo player loosely attached to both. A 3-2-1, if you will. What worries me most is they look divided, not united. Have we even seen Christian talk to Cirie once since the merge?

In contrast, we've seen every member of the trio working closely with at least one Integrity person: Last episode we saw Ozzy telling Jonathan he has his back, and also, the editors cut to a disturbing shot of him seated between Coach and Joe when Cirie talked about "old school" gameplay.

This episode, we saw Rizo pulled into (more or less) Coach's "four horsemen" (heh!) alliance and giving him advice, Tyson-style ("No dragon slaying in camp!"). We saw Cirie leverage her connections to Stephenie from three different shows (S20: Heroes vs. Villains, Snake in the Grass, The Traitors) to extract information about Stephenie's advantage, using just a well-placed chuckle.

This episode, we saw Rizo pulled into (more or less) Coach's "four horsemen" (heh!) alliance and giving him advice, Tyson-style ("No dragon slaying in camp!"). We saw Cirie leverage her connections to Stephenie from three different shows (S20: Heroes vs. Villains, Snake in the Grass, The Traitors) to extract information about Stephenie's advantage, using just a well-placed chuckle.

We've never seen a trio swing back and forth between alliances, but if next week's press release - which seems to be hinting at both the "Tied Destinies" twist AND the Rick/Christian tribal fake idol coming into play - is accurate, it may be just a one-time swing. (Yikes!) If both larger alliances survive the next episode, even then, the allegedly larger alliance of six feels very fragmented.

Arguing against that read, we did see *some* indications that the Integrity side might be tiring of Coach, or could at least be starting to develop cracks. Stephenie had a legitimate reason for not wanting to vote for Tiffany (they get along, and Tiffany was likely to come back to camp), but Coach didn't want to hear it. He also has a separate alliance, the "four horsemen," that does not include Chrissy or Stephenie, but just added Rizo. That doesn't seem very "honest." But hey, it's Coach, some random 25-year-old guy he's just met is obviously more reliable than women that have played three times or been with him since Day 1, right?

Ozzy approaches the (US) immunity record

As Jeff Probst noted after the challenge, Ozzy's win this week was his eighth career necklace, which puts him one win behind a guy named Boston Rob in the race for most career individual IC wins. I wrote about this when the cast was announced, but since that writing, the global crown has changed hands. Australian Survivor's Brooke Jowett and Simon Mee took turns wearing the necklace for a good chunk of AU12: Redemption, which vaulted them up the standings.

Brooke is now the English-speaking Survivor individual immunity leader, with 11 wins. Simon clocks it at #2 for Australia, and #3 internationally, with eight. Ozzy has now tied Simon. (You could argue Simon actually tied Ozzy, since S50 filmed first, but it aired second, so here we are.)

It's important to point out here that the overall number of appearances are pretty similar, so unlike, say, number of Tribal Councils attended, these totals are pretty comparable. Brooke won 11 of 23 ICs, right around 50%. Boston Rob has won 9 out 19, Simon 8 out of 18, and Ozzy (thanks mostly to the late merge in S13: Cook Islands and his early exit in S16: Micronesia) is 8-for-16. These are all elite challenge athletes.

So while the short-term question is indeed "Can Ozzy catch and/or pass Boston Rob?" the more important question is whether he can catch Brooke. Three more wins is a tall order. Let's see how that turns out.

The tempestuous teapot of tepid takes

- Self-owning - The boomerang idols made sense in the original context of tiny, randomly assigned tribes. They are clearly overly constrained and severely underpowered now, in the post-merge. The biggest problem: They can only be played for the person they were sent to. Aubry couldn't have saved Dee, if she'd wanted to. Neither could Ozzy or Rizo. Most alarmingly, what if someone targets Cirie? Ozzy and Rizo are again completely powerless to use their idols to stop that.

I get that production wanted to have the idols last long enough to "boomerang" back to the sender, but there were other options available. One possibility is just to have the idols expire at the merge. I can see why that was rejected: They'll never return to sender that way. But a much better version would have been either no restrictions at all on for whom they can be played, or just to lift those restrictions at the merge.

All hope is not lost, however. Aubry playing her boomerang idol means there should be an idol re-hidden on Manulevu beach. (Did we ever get an excuse for that name?) Let's hope it's a full, normal idol with no restrictions.