The day before the most recent episode of Survivor 50 aired, AV Club posted an article lamenting the season’s “Jeff Probst problem”: namely, the host’s unrelenting need to insert himself into the season. Whether he’s rapping, impersonating contestants, or unwarrantedly bragging about twists (while simultaneously blaming fans for them), it does feel as though he’s making himself more of a focus this time around.
It makes sense: this is a landmark season, and Probst is the only on-camera presence consistently featured across the run of the series. It’s only fair that he gets to participate in the celebration. But AV Club’s timing couldn’t have been better, as this week saw a Survivor first when Probst competed in a challenge to determine whether the remaining players would get a refresh of their rice supply. (Enough players outlasted Probst to ensure they met their goal.)
That twist came courtesy of Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon, a longtime Survivor fan whose thumbprint was planted firmly throughout this frustrating episode.
Another Fallon First
This season’s subtitle is In the Hands of the Fans, as audiences were able to vote on a number of elements (one of them being whether the players would have to earn their rice, hence Probst’s bargain). However, since the onset, it seems as though a select few celebrity fans have had more of an impact on the game than we commoner viewers. Billie Eilish is associated with the “boomerang idol,” country singer Zac Brown bogarted a third of an episode, and Fallon not only got Probst to participate in a challenge but is also responsible for the new “One in the Urn” twist.
After Joe Hunter outlasted everyone in the immunity challenge, he was tasked with sending one competitor on a journey. This usually means that player will potentially lose their vote or earn some sort of advantage. Four players volunteered, and, rather than make a strategic decision, Hunter had them compete in a rock-paper-scissors tournament. Christian Hubicki was the winner—or loser, as he’d soon find out.
Hubicki was dropped off at a platform in the middle of the ocean where he learned that he had a limited amount of time to complete a puzzle. If he finished in time, he would get to cast an early vote for that night’s Tribal Council. If he failed to complete it, he would have to read a sealed note back at camp in front of everyone.
The Chekhov’s gun factor leads me to believe that the producers fully intended for Hubicki not to succeed, and of course he did not. Upon returning to camp, he revealed the note: worse than simply losing his vote, for the first time in Survivor history, Hubicki would be required to go to the voting podium and write his own name on the parchment. Survivor: Tocantins runner-up Stephen Fishbach perfectly summed up why this twist was so ultimately unfair: if Hubicki won, he would have to cast a vote without consulting his alliance and accounting for any potential dynamic shifts in the hours before Tribal Council. By losing, he had to publicly declare his added level of vulnerability. I could potentially get behind this twist if it weren’t for that, because there would be something fascinating in watching Hubicki know he was at a disadvantage and try to counter it. Revealing it painted an even bigger target on his back, and he was unsurprisingly voted out in a 6-3-2 vote—one of those six votes, of course, being his own.
Hubicki didn’t end up leaving empty-handed, however. Taking only slightly tongue-in-cheek umbrage at Fallon at Tribal Council, Hubicki landed a Tonight Show invite, where the comedian apologized for his role in Hubicki’s exit.
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.
Survivor: Africa aired in 2001 and is remembered for producing the franchise’s first universally beloved winner, Ethan Zohn. Fans would have been just as delighted to see Teresa “T-Bird” Cooper take the crown. The only member of the unpopular Samburu tribe that audiences could truly get behind, Cooper shared more than motherly Southern charm with the previous season’s champion, Tina Wesson; she was an equally capable competitor with a strong strategic head on her shoulders. Cooper was one of the candidates for 2015’s Second Chance season, but sadly, fans did not vote her onto the season. At 66, she’s older than any previous female contestant and has likely aged out of consideration, but it’s a shame she never got another chance.
On the opposite end of the likability spectrum is Jon Dalton, who legally changed his name to match his Survivor and pro wrestling moniker Jonny Fairplay in 2012. Fairplay, who I interviewed for a Third Coast Review post last year, is the rare contestant who captured the zeitgeist beyond the Survivor community with his legendary “dead grandma” prank in 2003’s Pearl Islands. He returned in 2008’s Micronesia, where he asked to be voted out. From then, he seemed to be persona non grata to producers, but they’ve apparently sorted out their bad blood in recent years. Alas, it wasn’t enough to extend a Survivor 50 invite to one of the show’s funniest and most memorable villains.
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