‘Survivor 48’ premiere recap: Everything you didn’t see on TV

While on location for Survivor 48 last June, I had a feeling. And not unlike my good friends REO Speedwagon, I couldn’t fight that feeling any longer. The feeling was that the cast of season 48 was going to bring it. Now, bring what exactly, I was not entirely sure, but they were going to bring something. Because while interviewing the 18 new victims in Fiji, I was struck by the collection of big, bold personalities.

I thought the Survivor 46 cast set a land speed record when it came to a swift display of huge personalities, but here we were with an even bigger collective profile. And they just came one right after the next. Star is probably the most excitable person in the history of the show. Eva is a ball of undeniable energy. Shauhin is such a force that he made a massive impact as an alternate among the Survivor 46 cast, which should tell you something. Bianca can go a mile a minute. Kevin is practically jumping out of his own skin— shoulder included. Kamilla is one hilarious aside after another. And do I need to say anything about Sai?

Wallflowers, these people ain’t. And now they have jumped into the Thunderdome that is Survivor 48, so let’s jump in with them and hit on the big events of the premiere while also providing lots of intel on what happened that didn’t make it to air. Although, I will note we are a little heavy on Libras and Air signs at the moment, so who knows what might go down. But hey, don’t look at the stars… look at my damn recap! (Oh, and comments are back at the bottom, so if you want to skip all this nonsense and just go there to weigh in, feel free. Sure, I’ll be hurt, but we didn’t come to Survivor recaps to make friends, now did we?)

Marooning mat chat

The Survivor casting department has been capturing videos of players being told they made the show for a few seasons now, but have never employed them to this degree to open a season. Personally, I loved it. To see everyone freaking out at the news was not only fun, but also hints at everything a typical fan has to go through to get cast on the show. It’s a long and arduous process that lasts a lot longer than the potential 26-day stay on the island. And then next thing you know, they are speeding dramatically through Fijian waters for their big group date with Jeff Probst… who, sadly, does not hand out roses. (Wrong franchise.)

The show did a solid job of distilling what was a very long marooning mat chat between host and cast down to a few essential minutes, but there were a few fun moments that did not make the final edit. Moments like:

• Kamilla told Probst she applied after being angry Hannah quit Survivor 45 “because you need a vape???”
• When Probst informed the group, “Most of you aren’t going to win,” Sai pointed to everyone else and said, “He’s talking to you all.” Bold.
• Shauhin gave shout-outs to Shirin and Venus, but said he was excited to represent his family and community because he’s never seen a Persian male on the show before.
• Eva explained her unique introduction to the franchise: “Before I ever watched Survivor, I played a Survivor drinking game.” She then proceeded to explain some of the Survivor drinking game rules that would have killed me in no time flat.
• Thomas also explained how he got into the show after he was told, “You love pop culture, you’re gay, you should know this.” When Jeff expressed confusion at the gay Survivor connection, he was informed by Thomas that “Survivor is huge with the gays.” He wasn’t wrong.

Probst actually spoke to all 18 contestants before the marooning challenge, and the excitement level was off the charts, especially from the Lagi women (Star, Eva, Bianca). During a break to reset the cameras for the challenge, the host walked up to me with a big, stupid grin on his face and said, “Great energy. Holy s—!” He, too, was not wrong.

Separation anxiety

Sometimes looks can be deceiving. Other times, not so much. As someone who has often argued that size and strength are overrated and that real challenge dominance is often more closely aligned with things like puzzles, balance, and teamwork, even I was startled by the apparent athletic advantage of the Lagi tribe. You had a semi-pro basketball player in Star, a woman who played on a men’s club hockey team in Eva, a former UCLA track and football star in Joe, and then the very un-slouchy appearing Thomas, Shauhin, and Bianca.

They looked dominant and were dominant — leading the muddy marooning challenge of retrieving chests and landing sand bags from wire to wire and earning their camp supplies. Since the contest was not particularly close, the real drama was what happened with Kevin’s shoulder. You saw the injury as he went under the very first net, but what you didn’t see — except in a snippet of the Survivor 48 teaser — was that Probst had to stop the challenge to call in medical because Kevin was in so much pain. It turned out Kevin went full LaGrossa! Which is to say, he separated his shoulder in the opening challenge. And like Stephanie then, he had to have it popped back into place. (Oh, here’s the unedited Stephanie footage I shot for Heroes vs. Villains below.)

Anyhoo, Probst checked with Kevin to see if he wanted them to pop it back in. “Do it now! Do it now!” repeated Kevin in agonizing pain. “I don’t care about the pain. Do it!”

But before they did, Dr. Will gave Kevin something known as the “green whistle,” which is basically an inhaled pain medication, which Kevin sucked in to help mask the extreme discomfort. “Can you feel that, Kevin?” Probst asked as the green whistle went to work.

“I feel like heaven,” a calmer Kevin responded. And with that, they popped the shoulder back in.

And what was the slightly loopy Kevin’s first question after having his shoulder fixed? “Did we win?” The challenge was not yet over at that point, but no… no they did not. (Check out my interview with Probst for more on why this did not make the episode.)

The loss meant Vula and Civa had to send someone to try and win their supplies. Kyle went for Civa so he could prove his worth to the tribe. Kevin went for Vula so he could… I don’t know… injure his other shoulder??? The two would compete against each other in a contest that tested both brains and brawn (sorry, beauty tribe). The best part was clearly when they were told to do whatever it took to get their pot down from its bamboo perch. Kevin tried all manner of methods, while Kyle just went Hulk Smash to take the lead.

Proving that Jankie has somehow managed to escape the computerized confines of the Big Brother house, the race finally ended with Kyle and Kevin having to fill a jug with ocean water to float a key to the top, BB style. Unfortunately for Kevin, he also kinda Hulk Smashed the jug, accidentally breaking it open and ending the competition.

But then Kevin did something very smart — and I’m not referring to his decision to sport an awesome Kid ‘n Play homage high top fade. Instead of sitting back and watching Kevin fill his mug, Kyle began helping his adversary. That could pay potential dividends down the line. Little moments like that can end up changing the entire course of the game. Or, you know, Kyle gets voted out next week and it makes no difference whatsoever. That’s Survivor, baby! Let’s go check in on each of the tribe camps.

Loving it on Lavi

Probst told me before the season that partnerships would play a big role on Survivor 48, and who doesn’t love a good partnership? Captain and Tennille! Peanut butter and jelly! Barbie and Oppenheimer! Each of them strong on their own, but unstoppable when paired together. (Although, truth be told, the captain wearing a captain’s hat was a little on the nose, if you ask me.) Well, we got a look at our first big partnership of the season, and it was between Eva and Joe.

Eva and Joe were two of my favorite pre-game interviews. Eva’s energy is absolutely infectious, and for someone who talks about missing out on obvious social cues due to her autism, her self-awareness is off the charts. And Joe is truly a gentle giant. He’s a mountain of a man with more than a passing resemblance to the Rock who has dealt with multiple pain points in his life. He’s also devoted dad, so when Eva told Joe about her autism and what he could do to help her when she gets overstimulated, the two were locked. “I have made a decision. She’s with me. I got her,” Joe told us. “If I got to go home early, I’m not gonna let her down.”

I was already rooting so hard for these two before the game started, so to now see them locked in an alliance has me so pumped I’m even going to give them a dumb alliance name of Joeva that both players should be immediately trademarking and printing on pillows and t-shirts and whatever merch contestants these days are selling. JOEVA 4 EVA! (Get it?)

 But is Joeva even Joe’s main alliance? Because Joe, Thomas, and Shauhin also have— and I swear I am not making this up — the California Girls alliance. And… ugh I can’t believe I am going to have keep calling them this…… the California Girls already have their first dilemma. Thomas was bonding hardcore with Jersey girl Bianca, but the other fellas were Team Eva. Will this tear the — takes deep breath — California Girls apart? Or will there be some drama between the women (or the Non-California Girls, as it were) as next week’s preview teases? Either way, Star better either double down and find that Beware Advantage or call off her search completely if she wants to avoid an early exit.

I see you on Civa

A funny note about David. Since the players don’t know each other’s names until the game begins, they’ll often refer to others by nicknames. Multiple players referred to David as Captain America, having no idea that he literally played Captain America in a Marvel live stunt show. David is a bit of an outlier this season in that he was not a super-fan and was not too familiar with the show when he applied. Which perhaps explains why he told his tribe mates about all the painted symbols and letters he and Mitch found around the camp instead of keeping that intel to himself.

But David is counting on his social game, not strategy, to carry him to the end. I’ll admit it: This worried me deeply, no more so than when he busted out his hilariously dude-centric “Three Things That Tell You Everything About a Person.” Favorite movie? What car you drive? How you like your steak cooked? That’s basically saying to get out of here, nerdy book readers! Take a hike, car-eschewing Manhattanites! Get bent, tree-hugging vegetarians! You all have no place in David’s super society of chocolate-milk chugging DUUUUUUUUUUUDES!

However, David appears to be in no trouble at all. Because David is not the one throwing out names. Charity made the mistake of floating Kyle’s name to Kamilla, perhaps not realizing that the two may, in fact, have been separated at birth judging by their shared affinity for early aughts Shia LaBeouf films. When I asked the players before the season began about who they were getting good or bad vibes from, Charity’s name came up the most. Sometimes it was good. Sometimes it was bad. Either way, it was clear she was eliciting strong reactions before the game even began, so I was not surprised to see folks aligning against her. Kamilla essentially used that moment to form a fearsome foursome of herself, Kyle, Chrissy, and David. Smart.

Kamilla was easily the funniest person I spoke to before filming (witness her answer as to why she would win the game). What I did not know is if she would be in the mix as a major player, or just make hilarious catty remarks off to the side. Honestly, I was cool with either, but she really impressed me with this move. In fact, I’ll end the suspense right here and name Kamilla as my episode 1 pick to win it all. I’ve been doing this lately in terms of picking big, funny personalities as my winner picks. Sometimes it works (Maryanne). Other times, not so much (Claire Rafson). But hey, that’s showbiz, baby! I’m going to take another shot on Kamilla, especially since I can’t vote for two people in the form of Joeva. After all, according to Kamilla, she already won Survivor: Redemption Island!

Sai what you will about Vula

Well, Sai warned me she was going to be calling everyone a “hoochie mama” and she wasted no time in bestowing that honorific on both Mary and Stephanie after the two other women would not engage in the strategy talk Sai was desperately seeking. But Cedrek the “butt doctor” would! As would Justin and Kevin. While Sai mas moving at lightspeed, Justin and Kevin actually emerged as the players with the most power, right in the middle of the tribe — Charlie and Maria-style.

Of course, most of the action over at Vula centered around the Beware Advantage that Sai located, which led to a cryptogram puzzle involving animals, colors, letters, and the butt doctor’s unscrambling skills. It was actually a pretty cool little game Sai had to solve, and because we had a two-hour premiere, it did not overwhelm the rest of the episode with how much time it ate up. (Imagine if they tried to fit that entire thing into a 42-minute episode. Impossible.)

What’s fun is that the other tribes have variations on this Beware Advantage, so we don’t have to watch the exact same thing play out over and over again. Regardless, it will be fascinating to see if Sai’s idol and gameplay aggressiveness work against her moving forward. It would not surprise me in the least to watch Justin and Kevin switch back to Mary next week — unless they are too worried about getting hit by an idol bounce back vote. But how long will they be content to let Sai run the show and operate in the shadow of her very forceful gameplay? Something to keep an eye on.

Smash and grab

Something super cool happened at the immunity challenge that did not make it to air. It was never intended to. Cameras may not have even been rolling when it went down. But it’s also something I wish everyone had a chance to see. Right before the challenge began, as all the players were on the starting line, Probst went down the line fist-bumping every single player and saying, “Thanks for being here.”

It was a simple gesture. The whole thing only took about 10 seconds. But it was a cool acknowledgment that the 18 players took a big leap of faith in being there. There would be highs and lows to come in their Survivor journey. Maybe it would all fall apart for them in the days (or hours) to come. Perhaps Probst would have to yell at them at a future Tribal Council for not giving him a usable answer. But right here, right now, they were all on somewhat equal footing, the possibilities were still limitless, and Probst was thanking them for taking the journey and wishing them all luck.

I’m going to break format here for a bit with a little actual reporting, because I asked Probst specifically about this moment when we chatted after the first Tribal Council (you can see check out the rest of that conversation right here). So why did he do that?

“You know me better than most people in terms of my Survivor experience,” Probst said. “I’m enormously enthusiastic about Survivor. I love the new era so much. I love the type of people we’re putting on the show. I’m grateful to be a part of Survivor. And when I look at these 18 people, I see 18 people who are hopeful and optimistic and they left their families behind, and somebody’s watching their kids or taking care of their dogs, or their boss let them leave. I just want you to know we’re in this together. My role, at times, will feel adversarial or that I’m some wizard behind the scenes concocting some challenge or a twist. That might be true, but in my heart, I’m rooting for all 18 of you and I want you to know that so that when it comes time for me to snuff your torch — just doing my job.”

Anyway, I thought that was a cool little aside and insight into the vibes during filming you all might dig. Now back to the challenge! If there was any doubt that Lagi would be absolute challenge beasts, the first immunity contest put those to bed with a double shot of Nyquil. The course had tribes racing over a ramp and through a net tunnel before smashing a mask with a war club — yes, a freakin’ war club! — then moving a sled through the course and up a platform. It finally ended with a classic Survivor logo puzzle… possibly 3D printed by Carson Garrett.

What was so impressive is that Lagi was predictably leading on the physical portion of the course… until the very end, when Civa got their crate to the top of the platform first. Finally, we would see if Lagi was just a bunch of physical beasts with no expertise in other elements of competition. Finally, we would see if they were all brawn and no brains. Finally, we would see if they could handle a puzzle the same way they could handle a giant chest. Finally, we would see if… oh, never mind. They already solved it. Damn, that was quick.

Props to Thomas and Bianca, who dominated the puzzle and gave Lagi their second gold medal in two tries. Luckily for Charity and Kamilla, who were on the final stage for Civa, they had just enough of a lead going into it that they barely escaped with second place over Vula and their puzzle solving team of Steph and Kevin.

Steph would take a lot of heat for the loss later, but in a post-challenge mat chat comment cut from the show, she correctly pointed out to Probst that they don’t have super strong men or women on their team, and had they been better at the crate, they would have gotten second. She’s right! It wasn’t the puzzle solver’s fault! But also, what hurt Vula on the crate was their strategy. They made a huge mistake in only using two people to try to pull the crate up to the platform. They eventually shifted to three, but that still wasn’t enough. You needed four people pulling that crate, and Vula lost a lot of time because of it. That right there could be where they lost the challenge.

Time to start snuffin’

It seemed pretty obvious heading to Tribal Council that it would be Sai or Steph to be the latest recipient of the Sonja Christopher Golden Ukelele Award as the first person voted off the season. What was so odd is that Sai told us all about how you have to be careful not making it obvious whom you are voting for or else they will use their Shot in the Dark… and then proceeded to make it blatantly obvious whom she was voting for!

There was arguing between Sai and Steph about air signs, and chewing gum, and how long someone should be allowed to spend looking at the stars. It was all a little bizarre. And there was even more that did not make the final edit. At one point, Probst looked over and asked, “Cedrek, is the tension normal between these two?” To which the always understated butt doctor replied, “There’s a current.”

The host also went to Justin a lot more than what we saw on screen, with the player making at least three different pizza shop metaphors throughout Tribal Council. (Dude, pace yourself! You have a whole season to go! Don’t use up all your best pizza material in a single serving… if you will.)

Then, the host himself started getting into the act and making some analogy between Survivor and pineapple pizza and how some people might not think pineapple on a pizza is a good thing. Yeah, and you know why they think that, Jeff? BECAUSE IT’S NOT! IT’S A CRIME AGAINST PIZZA! And this is coming from a guy who loves pineapple so much he eats it every single morning. (I would also eat pizza every single night, but then I would be dead. And then who would waste all your time every week blabbing on and on about a reality TV show that once forced players to bang a gong as they entered Tribal Council?)

Two interesting notes during the voting that also did not make it to air. “I don’t feel great tonight,” Steph said in the voting both while reaching for her SITD scroll. I was also intrigued by Mary’s comment while voting for Sai: “I am so sorry, By the time I trusted you, it was too late to change.”

That’s interesting to me, because if there was some at least perceived trust forming late in the game between Sai and Mary, it is now dead, buried, and gaining new magical powers over on Ghost Island. Sai was shooting DAGGERS at Mary after her vote for Sai was revealed and muttering something to her that I could not pick up but would have sold my entire 8-track collection to hear.

And so we bid au revoir to Stephanie. The beach was simply not big enough for both her and Sai. Apparently, neither was the sky, judging by the argument of how much time was spent looking up. Oh well. Here are a few excerpts of her final interview that did not make it to the approximately 10 seconds of airtime they devote to such things:

On the Vula tribe:
“I think my whole tribe might need to do better in challenges, but also needs to become better actors. And I feel sad you come all this way and it’s obviously not the outcome that I was looking for, but you play the hand that you’re dealt and you play it as best you can. And this is how it went for me.”

On not realizing Mary voted for Sai:
“I am so keen though to find out who threw the hinky vote on Sai. I think that is going to be chaos when they get back to camp. And everybody knows that it wasn’t me because they know that I couldn’t vote. So I’m very curious how that’s going to go down.”

On challenge woes:
“That is a group of people who do not like to lose physical challenges, and there is no brute strength on that tribe. And we do a lot of challenges that require brute strength. Literally, our one sort of brute strength person had his whole shoulder dislocated on the first day. People were anxious about our performance and challenges, and I think that that was a huge portion of tonight’s vote, along with people moving really fast in the game because of that anxiety. So could I have moved faster given the temperature? Perhaps. But I think tonight’s vote was always going to go in a direction that was about strength, which unfortunately was never going to be an asset that I was going to bring to this game.”

On playing Survivor:
“Oh, this is magic. I just got to be in a TV show that I absolutely love. We’ll see if I still love it in a year when all of this airs. But I had a great experience.”

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Anyway, I hope you found some of these behind-the-scenes tidbits informative, or at least vaguely interesting. And apologies to Kamilla for retroactively jinxing her by making the pint-sized video game enthusiast my winner pick. You can now blame it all on me, Kamilla!

But what did you all think of the two-hour premiere? Who are your favorites? Whom are you not feeling so far? Make your voice heard in the comments below. And why should I be the only one to suffer public humiliation pretty much each and every season? Make your own episode 1 winner pick in the comments section now so you can look super smart by the time May rolls around.

Also, just a heads up that we have tons more Survivor 48 premiere coverage for you. I spoke with Probst right after Tribal Council finished to get his take on the first three days, and you can check that out right here. We also have an exclusive deleted scene you can watch because TWO HOURS OF SURVIVOR IS SIMPLY NOT ENOUGH! Plus, I’ll be chatting with Stephanie and trying to count how many times she snorts throughout. So check all that stuff out and I will be back next week with another scoop of the crispy!