Let me start off with my thoughts when I saw the theme… AHHHHHH. God, I was and am still hyped and the premiere did not dissapoint.

I am gonna gloss over the first 5 minutes since we saw it last week during the Survivor at 40 special. After everyone arrives to the beach Jeff begins his usual questioning. The highlight of this segment was Jeff naming every Apple product under the sun that Amber’s first season existed before. Then, the have a toast to Survivor which leads into Jeff saying with an accent, “The drink before war is always a good idea”. Now, up to this point they believed it was men vs women but Jeff then divided them into the actual tribes of Sele and Takal. On Sele is Danni, Adam, Denise, Rob, Parvati, Jeremy, Natalie, Michele, Ben and Ethan. On Takal is Sandra, Tony, Sarah, Yul, Sophie, Nick, Wendell, Kim, Amber and Tyson. Jeff then reveals to them that there is a new currency in the form of Fire Tokens. I am mixed on Fire Tokens. It could add to the show but I need to see how they handle it before I make a judgement. Although, I am gonna hate having to spell bequeath multiple times this season. I can however say that I am not excited for the Edge of Extinction to come back. It should rot on the edge and never come back. The last surprise is that the tribes are immediately having an Immunity challenge and the losing tribe with not only not have flint but they will also have no rice till tribal. They never saw it coming.

Immunity Challenge

Thi challenge was epic. I love a good old fashioned physical challenge. The challenge is to wrestle a ring away from your opponent and touch your tribe’s post. The first round is Tyson and Yul vs Jeremy and Ethan. Tyson and Yul win a point and it is revealed that they are going to three but they actually when to five because a couple of rounds got cut that we saw in the promos like Sandra and Michele both competing in this challenge. The best round was Kim and Sarah vs Natalie and Parvati. It seemed like it was gonna be a point for Sele but then Kim pulled an UNO reversed card and dragged the ring to her post at the last minute. Overall, Takal wins 3-1 on the show and they win flint. This means that Denise is going back to tribal yet again. It is revealed to Sele that tribal will be day 2 and we head to camp life.

Takal

Takal gets to camp and they discover a fire token menu including challenge advantages and other luxuries. Nick is a fan of the twists since he knows how to deal with them compared to the older players. Wendell gets put into the building role but he would rather build relationships. Wendell decides that he needs to hang back and build the shelter in order to maintain a low profile. We cut to Sarah and Amber talking about their kids and Tyson joins that conversation. Tyson tells us about how he is playing in a different place in life due to his kids and to the surprise of everyone, Tyson is the first person to cry this season. This bodes well for Tyson in terms of his longevity in this season. Wendell calls Sandra the queen and Sandra tries to downplay it. Sandra has relationships on this tribe with Tony and Sarah and she is aligning with them. Who saw that trio coming?!

Sele

Rob knows he has a target because of his reputation and there is a big statue of him. Parvati is playing the mom card this time since she is in a place in life where she is married and has a child rather than her usual tricks. Ethan gets a confessional about how important this time around is due to him having cancer in the past. Next, Adam and Denise talk about aligning with Adam going so far by saying that he will be her Malcolm. Denise mentions her curse with going to tribal and they make a bond. On the downside, they were gone too long causing them to be on the outs. This is a rookie mistake for winners to make and they should have known better.

Dakal

Back on Dakal, Tony feels like he is on probation since he wants to look for an idol but he is playing smart. Tony is making the correct move here by not being Tony. Amber starts looking for an idol and talking about how hard it is to root against her husband. The editors faked us out by Amber not finding the idol. After last season, I expected that Amber would find it based on her having a long monologue. Yul and Sophie go over connections including “The Poker Alliance” (Kim, Tyson and Amber) and the Game Changers trio (Sandra, Tony and Sarah). Sophie and Yul are now a pair and I am loving it. Sophie now has a nerd shield as long as Yul keeps talking about physics or whatever.

Sele

Ben found crabs for the tribe and Michele does not want to be near them. Parvati and Rob become a pair as they are the biggest threats on the tribe. Danni also knows this because she pitches Rob’s name to Adam, Ethan and Ben. Ben was not the person to tell because he gets played by Rob easily and Danni is ratted out but she makes a great recovery by telling the truth to Rob and they become an alliance. Danni showed that she can play and Ben showed that he can’t. As they get closer to the vote, The old schoolers (Danni, Rob, Parvati and Ethan) decide to split the vote between Adam and Denise but Ben once again spills info by going to Adam except this time Ben did it intentionally to save him. Adam is pissed and tries to turn the attention on the actual tight pair of Natalie and Jeremy. Adam gets Ben, Denise and the old schoolers on board but the old schoolers are still undecided. Rob and Parvati are confused on why they are not getting targeted and we head to tribal with four possible boots. Honestly, I did not know who was the target going into tribal.

Tribal

Everyone gets fire and the conversation turns into how fast the game is going. Denise and Adam out themselves as being on the out but then Adam points out the actual relationships on the tribe that go outside the game like Rob and Amber. Everyone is moving quickly in this game and Michele’s head is spinning. Then we get the worst timed commercial break after everyone votes. on the plus side, there was an Applebee’s commercial so Karishma must have been happy. We come back to the vote and by a vote of 7-2-1…

Natalie is the first winner voted out of the game. This hurts so much. I love Natalie as a winner and honestly this season is gonna hurt with vote offs in general. Natalie did not do much wrong outside of being close to Jeremy. Natalie bequeaths her token to Jeremy and heads to the edge. This vote was a mistake since you have Rob and Parvati on this tribe and no one voted for them? The people who benefit from this vote is that pair plus Adam and Denise. Nat’s being gone hurts Jeremy and Michele since they were left out of the vote. On to episode 2

Edge of Extinction

Natalie arrives and gets the same message that Reem got but she also has an opportunity to earn tokens on the edge.

Dakal

Sandra is feeling betrayed by Rob not telling her that he would be on this season so she wants Amber out. Sarah and Sandra go to Yul so they can pick up the outsiders for the vote but little do they know Yul has organized them already as an alliance. The alliance consists of Yul, Sophie, Nick and Wendell. I love that Yul took advantage of the people with less connections and made himself into a power player.

Sele

Michele is bummed that she was left out of the vote because she feels that she has to prove herself as a winner due to how controversial her win was. The tribe dynamic is old school versus new school and Jeremy finds the token that Natalie gave to him and at this moment I notice the token count in the chyron.

Edge

Natalie finds a menu similar to the one at camp except she can buy advantages in the reentering challenge for 1 token or an idol for three tokens. Natalie gets a message that she can get a token if she solves a riddle leading her up the mountain that they used for rice last time. Natalie gets to the top and finds an idol for her to sell to a member of the losing tribe after the next immunity challenge for fire tokens. not a fan of idols from the edge even if it is like the idols from the island last season.

Immunity Challenge

The second challenge consists of the tribes growing to get numbers then going over three obstacles that leads to a combination. After solving it, ring toss onto oats. Sandra sits out and is living for it. At the beginning Sele was struggling hard and Takal had a huge lead but then Rob started launching people over this barrel obstacle and damn it was impressive. I didn’t have high expectations for Rob in challenges and he proved that he still has it in him after four kids. Sele catches up and Jeremy ultimately beats Wendell at ring toss giving the Sele the win. The most important part of this win is that DENISE IS NOT GOING TO TRIBAL FOR ONCE. Rob gets the post challenge confessional about being worried for Amber.

Takal

Rob should be worried because the Poker Alliance is being targeted by Yul’s alliance plus the Game Changers trio. Sandra is offered the idol sent by Natalie and she accepts giving Natalie her token. Tyson senses that he is the target so he sells out Kim and Amber to save himself. This was a good move since it is only day 3 so why stick your neck out for an alliance that is not that close. This puts Kim in a position she has never been before and it was entertaining seeing Kim scramble for the first time. Highlights include Yul dodging the question, Kim begging on the ground and finally Sandra laughing when she asks if she is the vote. We head to tribal with it being between Kim and Amber.

Tribal

We start with Jeff making Amber feel old again by mentioning that kids born when she played All Stars can drive. Amber also mentions how fast this game is. The discussion leads into the poker alliance that Kim keeps denying and it makes her look more guilty. Jeff acknowledges that pre game is a thing for the first time and how it affects the game. Now, it’s time to vote! By a vote of 5-3-1…

Amber is out second. The reason Amber went is obviously because of Rob but I think that they chose Amber also because Tyson and Kim tried to save themselves and Amber did not as far as we know. The game was too fast for her and she did not evolve with the game.

Amber bequeath her token to Rob and goes to the edge. I enjoyed the premiere even if it moved too quickly at times. This episode bodes well for the season. The most invisible winner is Michele who only got a short scene in the second half. Michele is my female winner pick so ouch.

Next time Rob vows revenge, Ben knows and Angelina’s 1000 mile ladder returns.

Grab your stuff and head back to camp!