Two tribes was nice while it lasted. After starting the season in old-school style with two big tribes, making for tribal councils that were much harder to dominate, Survivor 51 Episode 4 featured a tribe swab that split the players into three teams. Two of them had six contestants, while one had five because of Rob Antonson’s voluntary exit in Episode 3. The tribe of five ended up at tribal council, and the player sent home is someone Jeff Probst says had a lot of winner predictions surrounding them.Warning:Survivor 51spoilers ahead!
The Episode 4 tribe swap was always on the books for the first season ofSurvivor‘s Open Era. Probst said in his Field Notes for the episode (his reactions to what happened, including filming anecdotes from set and casting) that Rob changed the outcome of their plan, but he didn’t change the plan itself.
“The decision to switch from two tribes to three has to be made months in advance of actually shooting,” Probst said, “because our challenge builds take several weeks of construction and the construction teams need to know if they’re building two lanes or three.”
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“Tribe switches provoke their own measure of anxiety within the producer ranks because we have no idea where the game will be when a switch is scheduled nor how the game will turn as a result,” he added. “It’s our own exhilarating ‘uncertainty’ and we live for it!”
During the tribe swap, Probst and his team left a sign that Rob’s exit didn’t change their game structure.
“When we put this switch on the schedule we anticipated even numbers on all tribes, but when Rob left, he reduced the numbers by one,” Probst said. “The reason it was important to show that last purple buff still in the bag was to show the players it was a completely random draw. It may seem like a tiny moment but it reminds players nothing is being manipulated.”
The tribe of five consisted of Jenna Doore, Devin Way, Angelica “Jelly” Loblack, Ori Jean-Charles, and Alexis Levine. Jenna and Alexis were out of luck from the start because Devin, Jelly, and Ori were already in a secret cross-tribe trio called the Helicopter Alliance.
Jenna was also the first person Devin voted to get out of the game; he tried to orchestrate a vote against her in Episode 1, and he did so very publicly. Jelly voted for Jenna in that first tribal council as well.
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Devin found Jenna untrustworthy and didn’t believe that she was a wedding photographer, making her an easy target in the beginning. While Patt Cannaday and Brady Booker helped turn the vote off of Jenna and onto Aaliyah Puglia in the premiere, she never recovered from this blow to her reputation.
Jenna and Alexis tried to form new bonds in the pre-tribal scramble (Alexis even tried to get Jenna to hand over her shoes as collateral), but the Helicopters, plus Alexis, still came for Jenna and voted her out. Probst said that fans believed Jenna would win the game.
“Jenna got off to a tough start and I don’t think she ever regained her footing,” Probst said in his Field Notes. “So much sacrificed to get on the show and then the undeniable devastation with being voted out so early. A lot of fans told me they had Jenna as a pick to win. And that’s why we play, to separate dreams and possibility from action and result.”
“Another woman voted out this episode,” Probst shared. “This season, we started with 11 women and 10 men. Then Lewis was sent to Exile so we technically started the tribes with 11 women and 9 men. And yet, the first four vote outs at tribal were all women. This is an example that tribe dynamics dictate everything. More women at the start of the game doesn’t necessarily mean more women at the end of the game. Nothing is ever that easy or that clean.”
Jenna was blindsided and heartbroken by her early elimination. She’s one of the players this season who had been applying to Survivor for years.
Survivor, Wednesdays, 8/7c, CBS