What Was Up with All the Whispering on 'Survivor's' Tribal Council?

As Jeff Probst promised, things are finally getting interesting in the second half of Survivor. Moreover, knowing what we do know about Season 50 may slightly spoil a few upcoming episodes of this season, but it’s also fascinating to see how something that otherwise seems impossible can come to fruition. It also makes one wonder how much producers are placing their fingers on the scale - not to rig the game for anyone - but to ensure the series doesn’t fall into the same predictable, boring pattern that characterized the first half of the season.

To wit: The episode began with 10 players. Seven were in a solid alliance. Three were on the outside: Rizo, Savanah, and Sophi. But we can also guess, based on the alleged Season 50 casting, that two of those players are likely to make it at least a few more episodes. So, how does Survivor engineer Rizo, Savannah, and Sophi’s escape?

Perfectly, it turns out: The immunity challenge split the remaining tribe into two teams of five for an endurance challenge. The player who won the challenge would make all five players on that team safe. The other five players would all be up for elimination.

I’d hoped that Sophi, Rizo, and Savannah would end up on one team and have a 3-2 advantage, even if they lost. That didn’t happen. But the next best thing did: Savannah and Sophi ended up on the same team, and the one guy from that minority alliance with an idol, Rizo, landed on the other team. If Sophi and Savannah’s team won, it would save both of them, and Rizo would be saved from the 4-1 disadvantage by his idol.

And that’s mostly how it worked out — with a twist. Savannah won the challenge, thereby saving both her and Sophi from Tribal. Rizo’s team lost, but he had an idol. My expectation was that he would play it and basically get to choose who to send home. The smart play probably would’ve been Sage, because she seems to be running the alliance.

What was wild, however, is that Jawan managed to convince Rizo that they were all going to vote out the other Sophie (“Yellow Sophie”) so he wouldn’t use his idol. Rizo bought it. And if things had gone according to plan, they’d have placed four votes on Rizo, he wouldn’t have used his idol, and he’d have gone home.

But Savannah’s advantage for winning the challenge was being able to join the losing team with immunity and the ability to vote at Tribal, or bank the extra vote for a later challenge. But no one besides Rizo knew her advantage, and it shook the rest of the team.

Here’s when things began to fall apart: Sophie told MC that while the other three would be placing their votes on Rizo, she was going to put her vote on Jawan just in case. This didn’t sit well with M.C. because — as she explained in her exit interview with EW — she didn’t want to see two Black cast members eliminated two weeks in a row (the show has a history of eliminating Black players before the merge, although this season saw all five Black players make it to merge, though Nate was immediately eliminated).

Sophie clearly does not yet understand that there are zero secrets in Survivor. M.C. immediately told Jawan, and Jawan decided maybe it would be a good idea to stick with Rizo and vote out Sophie. But that’s not what happened. Sophie’s decision to tell MC about voting out Jawan got to Sage, too, and Sage took it back to Sophie, who was able to salvage her relationship with Jawan.

But for some reason, the entire tribe decided to vote out MC, which made little sense to me. I understood Rizo’s reasoning — he wanted to keep Sophie around because she’s a target — but I didn’t really understand why Jawan and Sage decided to vote out MC instead of Sophie.

In either respect, according to her exit interview, MC knew what was coming. They told her she was going to be voted out, and Jawan even advised her to play her shot-in-the-dark. She thought she’d have a better chance of avoiding elimination by stirring up some chaos. That’s what the whispering was about. She took Jawan aside and said, “I need to talk to you privately,” which set off whispers among everyone at Tribal, except initially for Sophie, who was left out of the conversation. I thought she was definitely on the outs, but Jawan eventually brought her in. In the end, MC became the second member of the jury (and the second straight Black player to be eliminated).

I would also note that, usually, when players start whispering during Tribal Council, the mics still pick up some of that conversation. I suspect they picked up some of these conversations, too, but they didn’t make it to air because it would’ve removed all the suspense from the vote.