



Yeah, the boat on the way back to camp hit a wave, and it fell down and it did a number on his back, so they went back to where they had the challenge. That is what happened. It's really sad to see, because Pat was amazing in pretty much every way besides strategically, and his stock was improving with the tribe.









What is also curious is that if you look over in the top left corner, Carl is being carried in by medical. He hit his head too, but not as bad as Pat. Imagine if this ended with the first ever double medevac?









So Jeff comes running in, and Dr. Joe says Pat can't stay, and we get a heartfelt goodbye for the guy.









Who thought survivor could make you cry twice in one episode?





And then Jeff kills the mood by turning into a David thing









Is having even the boat back to camp against you a David thing?





And that's it for episode 1. Before I get to the overview, let's go over the NTOS pretty briefly









Natalie gets in a huge fight, likely with Natalia? The caption for the episode mentions a showmance, so Natalie vs Kara and Dan? Hmm









Meanwhile, Christian seems to have the power on the Davids as Lyrsa gets targeted. He also magically has a very noticeable beard.





Overall





As for the overall, this episode was very good. It gave us insight as to the inner workings of each tribe, their targets, who everyone is (first time everyone gets a conf in the premiere since KR!), cool challenges, a theme that isn't total shit (yet Jeff takes 5 minutes to try and explain it to casuals anyways...) and a really compelling ending. It makes me optimistic for what will happen in the future.





If the Davids lose the next challenge, they seemed pretty set on Nick going before Pat left, who was the only other potential target. And with his main target and the only person who Nick could really throw under to save himself gone, Nick needs to put in a ton of work to get his ass off the bottom, or else we could see him getting 19th in a solid 8-1 vote. Whoever, with Lyrsa being targeted, it seems up in the air, not only for as to who is targeting her, but as for how much traction it actually has. Elizabeth is currently in with both Lyrsa and Nick, and I think she could hopefully get them to not target each other, which would mean one of Christian/Gabby/Davie/Carl/Jessica/Bi target her. Either way, curious to find out. The other main clue is how Christian is in the middle, which will also pretty interesting to see unfold.





As far as I know, here are the current bonds on the Davids.









Green is a positive bond, red is a negative bond. The arrows signify that it is one way. Of course this does not show any alliances, since nothing was that set and any allegiances seem to be along the bonds as of now.





For the Goliaths, who knows?





Natalie seems to be in the most trouble next episode, with her huge target this episode and someone going specifically against her next episode. For Mike, it will seem like next episode should be a temporary blessing, but hopefully he can use this to save himself. John/Alison/Angelina/Jeremy/Alec seem to not be targeted as of right now, which is definitely a sigh of relief for their fans. As for who will win the "war" of Natalia/Kara/Dan vs Natalie? Seems pretty clear cut for right now. Hell, Natalie doesn't even have an idol to save herself. But hey, this is Survivor, anything can happen, we'll have to see.





As far as I know, here are the current bonds on the Goliaths









Orange indicates mixed feelings





Edgic



This is how I have it right now. As for the potentially controversial decisions, Bi is OTTP2 for having not as much screentime, but what she got was very very positive. Christian is OTTP5 due to his many confessionals and airtime throughout all of the David segments and his confessional about the slide puzzles. Davie is OTT2 for his general demeanor during the octopus segment instead of UTR2. Angelina is toneless because I generally do not feel like there was a tone to her, she did shit on the Davids at the very beginning, but I don't believe that is enough for a tone, especially with them winning the first immunity challenge. John is CP3 because truth be told, he wasn't that OTT this episode. He had the listing numerous names in the ring, but that was it. For someone who you think would be incredibly over the top all of the time, he wasn't. They gave him a lot of complexity, and narration when he didn't need it either.



For the contenders to win:



Gabby: had a very good episode, with lots of confessionals, screentime, content, etc. Which to me shows that she is going far and can win. It would not shock me to see her win here.



Jessica also got a ton of content. She got her confessional about her age, one about her mother, but also about how she wanted to get in alliances, leading to her and Carl getting together. I think she could be the best "really young person" archetype on survivor yet.



Dan is one of the few Goliaths who could reasonably win. The thing is with the theme, is that the Davids are naturally going to be the underdogs, the fan favorites, etc. So seeing any Goliath get that edit is definitely a good sign



Speaking of good signs from the Goliaths, John is up there for me. As I said, they are making someone who should be very over the top, pretty complex, and I think that shows that he isn't just a character, and is going to be playing a major role in the game towards the end of it. Could be wrong, but I have hope. If he got a very OTT edit I would not see him winning, but here, he's got a chance for sure.





Anyways, that is all I have to write for this. This was a lot, and it took me hours to write this, but hopefully you guys all enjoyed. If I got something wrong or you have something you want to comment on, let me know! This is how I have it right now. As for the potentially controversial decisions, Bi is OTTP2 for having not as much screentime, but what she got was very very positive. Christian is OTTP5 due to his many confessionals and airtime throughout all of the David segments and his confessional about the slide puzzles. Davie is OTT2 for his general demeanor during the octopus segment instead of UTR2. Angelina is toneless because I generally do not feel like there was a tone to her, she did shit on the Davids at the very beginning, but I don't believe that is enough for a tone, especially with them winning the first immunity challenge. John is CP3 because truth be told, he wasn't that OTT this episode. He had the listing numerous names in the ring, but that was it. For someone who you think would be incredibly over the top all of the time, he wasn't. They gave him a lot of complexity, and narration when he didn't need it either.For the contenders to win:Gabby: had a very good episode, with lots of confessionals, screentime, content, etc. Which to me shows that she is going far and can win. It would not shock me to see her win here.Jessica also got a ton of content. She got her confessional about her age, one about her mother, but also about how she wanted to get in alliances, leading to her and Carl getting together. I think she could be the best "really young person" archetype on survivor yet.Dan is one of the few Goliaths who could reasonably win. The thing is with the theme, is that the Davids are naturally going to be the underdogs, the fan favorites, etc. So seeing any Goliath get that edit is definitely a good signSpeaking of good signs from the Goliaths, John is up there for me. As I said, they are making someone who should be very over the top, pretty complex, and I think that shows that he isn't just a character, and is going to be playing a major role in the game towards the end of it. Could be wrong, but I have hope. If he got a very OTT edit I would not see him winning, but here, he's got a chance for sure.Anyways, that is all I have to write for this. This was a lot, and it took me hours to write this, but hopefully you guys all enjoyed. If I got something wrong or you have something you want to comment on, let me know!

























So the first episode of David vs Goliath has happened, and it was a pretty damn good premiere! Everyone got a confessional, the editing was balanced, it gave us a good look at what would happen if each tribe went to tribal, and above all the cast is damnWhat I'm going to be doing here, and hopefully for every episode, is just analyze most of it, and give whatever insight I can.Anyways, we get through the standard opening confessionals, and there isn't anything too much of note. Christian giving the standard nerdy opening, Natalie being intimidating af.Getting on the boat, and seeing her tribe, Angelina seems to be pretty excited about who her tribe has physicallyand looking at the bunch, her faith is pretty well placed.And in the theme of the season, she of course sees the Davids as the underdogs the second they get on the boat. At least for me, they seem to beeven, but I can definitely see why she thought the Goliaths are stronger. This isn't a case like in Ghost Island where one tribe (Naviti) was clearly stronger than the other. It does feel like either tribe could win. The Davids aren't the most physical on first glance, but none of them seem that bad. Especially in this episode (which I'll briefly cover later)When everyone gets on the boat, in his little opening statements, Jeff has a little speech I found a bit interesting."The question this season is about which one of you is the best at turning every situation into an advantage." Is the exact quote. He also mentions in the same speech about how it isn't necessarily who has the advantage, because well, everyone has something, but what it is. And to be honest, I think he's kind of right here. One of the key elements of Survivor is adaptability, and being able to see each situation and turn it around or spin it in your favor is key. In Survivor, it's adapt or die. You swap tribes? Adapt to it. You hear your target has an idol? Adapt. I could go on all day about this but I'll leave it at that.The first reward challenge begins right after. The setup, however, is not like normal challenges. The Goliaths get to choose the weakest man and woman to compete from the Davids. And who did they pick?"Purple hair and Big Bang Theory"Bazinga?The Goliaths then chose the two strongest from their tribe, who they decided were John and Alison. So what do the Davids get? The ability to choose who does what challenge. At first it seems a bit balanced, but the issue is none of the physical challenges take that long.Well, except this one. Which the Goliaths did have to do.The first section is "balance", which had the plank bridge as shown, the beam over water (which the Davids did) and the 2 tracks partially shown in the bottom right, which you would have to go through at the same time as your partner. The plank bridge would definitely take the longest to do, so good on the Davids for picking that for the Goliaths, but then the other two seemed to be quicker. Hell, I'd argue the one not done was the easiest, as it was just a normal balance beam instead of having to break your back like Christian and Lyrsa did.Seriously, this looks painful. At least they'd kill it at a limbo challenge.As for the second section, it was just their choice as to what rope section they wanted to go through. The tunnels, crawl under, or the tube. Either way, the Davids lost a lot of time here, since they aren't as physical, evening out the pacing to where at the third stage the two tribes were pretty even with Goliath slightly behind.The issue is the third stage was super imbalanced.We had a 15 piece cube puzzle, which looks fairly hard.Or at least, compared to the other two, this seems to take the longest (at least for the Goliaths)What were the other two options? Well you could transport 30 sandbags from one platform to another, which, when you're up against the two strongest people from Goliath, should probably not be used. What was the other one?This sliding puzzle. In which all you had to do was remove the wood block at the top. No, really, that's it. I'll admit, I'm pretty damn good at these, but all you have to do is just rotate the damn puzzle around until it gets to that part. At worst, it should take someone who knows slide puzzles 15 seconds. Christian solved it in 5 and won. He cited how he made algorithms to solve slide puzzles as the main reason why, but as long as you know how to do this it's simple. So the Davids win and get the shelter building kit.Also, while not really game related, Christian does have an excellent confessional where he talks about that slide puzzle for so long the editors start skipping ahead. Is that slide puzzle really that remarkable Christian? It's a 4x4 slide puzzle, you don't need to talk about it so much. And he went on about a maneuver with a certain piece like what the fuck are you going to do just rotate the damn pieces anyone who sucks at slide puzzles can do that.At the Goliath beach, Dan and Kara start hitting it off, like right away, even calling themselves a "showmance". Oh boy, this can only go well. At least Kara has some smarts not wanting to make it obvious.The weird part about this whole interaction is when they mention Superman. Apparently Supergirl's name is Kara. The funny part is, if they're going with the whole "Dan is Superman and Kara is Supergirl" thing, well, let's put it like this, Supergirl is Superman's cousin. Yeah.Dan has a funny confessional about this worth mentioning."Showmances screw you, so hard." Double entendre intentional or not, you decide. Anyways, this is a bit odd because he had the ability to recognize "hey, maybe this isn't a good idea" but did it anyways in the name of love. Other people on Survivor have found love, so why not him? Well let's see, Boston Rob and Amber, Erik Huffman and Jaime Dugan, Sea Bass and Jenna? Parvati and John Fincher never really played together. So, Dan's stock isn't looking too up at the moment. Showmances put a huge target on your back. The obvious duo who will do anything for each other. Never that good of a thing unless you manage to keep it secret, which I doubt they will. At least in this episode, no one has spoken about it yet.Meanwhile at the Davids, Pat was taking charge of the campHis leadership style was pretty hands-on, directing the tribe, but at the same time putting in a ton of hard work to get the shelter built. However, his issue is that generally, his humor is not as suited for 9 other random strangers, but rather close friends, which is a bit off putting.While these are (generally) funny examples, there are some other jokes that missed the mark. "Youuuuuu dirty bitch!" "Once you see the crack you never go back" are the main examples the show gave us. The thing is with these jokes, yes Pat is joking, but with these types of jokes, this is not something that you can simply say to the whole tribe. Dirty or dark jokes can make people not like you as much, and in the early days of Survivor, that can be a killer. So for anyone out there that does go on, just know this: if you got a dark sense of humor, make sure you say it to the right people.However, Pat is definitely a better leader than the outspoken one at the Goliaths.Natalie Cole, while a powerful CEO outside of the game, is generally not the best leader here. Compared to Pat who will give orders but will put in a load of work to help out the tribe, she just kinda stands there and gives orders without helping out. Which, yet again, first impressions matter. As we'll see later in the premiere with Nick, laziness or not helping with something as crucial as building the shelter can be killer to your game. In the early days, you have to be as agreeable as possible. Make the others like you, if you want to stand out do it later. Doing it too early can cripple your game, as shown here.This has already making Natalia pissed off^ is an industrial engineer being told how to build a shelterBack at the David camp, Pat continues to show how great of a leader he is.Here's Pat, being awesome. This is what I meant earlier, with him going out and doing things while directing people. He's using his experience and what he knows to help his tribe out a lot, he genuinely cares about them and he's making it show.Also right before this happened a funny little exchange took place:"He's gonna die..." - Elizabeth"I'm from New York!" - PatAlso pictured are the two people who got destroyed by the boat later in the episode...At this point is when the main duos start forming on the David tribe.The first one formed is Carl and Jessica, Jess reminds Carl of his daughter, which kind of cements their bond. The parent/kid relationship is one seen a lot in Survivor, with people like Dawn and Cochran, and it's definitely one of the duos that don't get mentioned as much, but are still interesting. Do players get a benefit from trying to fill in the gaps left while away from family? I think so, obviously I've never been out there but at the same time I would think that being away from your family for so long, having anyone able to plug the holes and fill the void really does help and make you want to keep them around.Next up is another one with Carl: Davie and Carl. Davie almost immediately mentions how they need to make sure no one recognizes them as a duo, which is smart. They then briefly talk about how Pat is the easy boot at this point due to his abrasiveness, so if they lose no one would really care.Right after this we got a pretty good confessional from Carl about how he was planning to start this all laid back, but when it started he knew everyone else was going off, so he needed to start doing it too. This does give me a lot of hope for him. As said earlier, Survivor is very much an "adapt or die" game. We have people like Pat who cannot adapt his humor (and just general abrasiveness at times) and is getting targeted because of it, and then we have Carl over here, who is seeing other people playing hard and is adapting very well.The third duo is Lyrsa and Elizabeth. Who, for whatever reason, really vibe with each other. They mention a lot how different they are from each other, which might be a factor? The one thing about that that is the only potential pothole is how obvious they'd be. The thing is Lyrsa said they were so obvious no one could possibly suspect them. The issue is, so many people are like that, the "we're so different no one would suspect we're together! Haha!" and when you have 39 days to think about everything, people are gonna think about it, put the pieces together, and figure it out. If you can think of something in seconds (saying how they would be hidden because no one would suspect it) then it is very likely other people will think of it too. I think the duo could go far together, but people would see it at one point or another.Speaking of the obvious...Christian and Gabby. The two nerds. Sounds like Sheldon found his Amy. Well, in a platonic way. Anyways I don't have much else to say about these two. It would seem obvious they would pair up, and no one seems to dislike them or want any of them out.And now we get to talk about my winner pick, Johnny Nitro!John has his only moment of true bonding this episode, with him and Mike talking about his job. He mentions how he's currently doing the whole "American gimmick" down in Mexico right now, and the two seem to share a good moment.But then, we get probably my favorite confessional in the episode, for various reasons. John casually listing the over a dozen names he's used in the ring, but then we get to the other really good part."But, none of those characters I play in the wrestling ring are gonna win the game of Survivor. I'm playing as John. I'm playing as me" which, is pretty damn shocking (had you not seen his pregame material where he was like this). For someone who would sound so over the top, John seems incredibly aware of what is going on, and what he has to do. I have faith in him to be a real threat to win.Back to less hopeful people, we have a brief check-in with Natalie and Natalia, who seems to not like how Natalie is just standing there not doing anything. Not much to add.She's just standing there, menacingly!And in the even worse section we have Mike.Swiggity swoogity coming for that immunityYeah here's a pro-tip for anyone: unless everyone else is, don't look for the idol day 1. Or 2, or early on in general. At least not in broad daylight like he is. Because in this situation, what does his tribe immediately ask?Yeah, people will know if you go looking for and idol. If you want to look day one, check the obvious spots, like right by treemail or the well. Don't run off into the forest expecting to find a magic necklace because then the only thing you'll find is your name being written down 9 times.So Natalie goes off to look for Mike, and then the tribe gets together and starts to try and figure out if they go again, who is next?The TL;DR of the conversation is that while Natalie would be more aggravating around camp, Mike is more slick, but they can't decide yet. So if you're not on good terms with your tribe, might be best to not leave em all behind.In the Natalie and Mike convo, not much of note happens, just "hey Mike we all know what you did" "I was finding my shoes" "Well it's a running joke now so you better go back." At least we got a good quote from Mike about how his excitement to play the game got in his way.On the David tribe, the next scene starts off pretty simple."It's inbred into a David to care about the other Davids." You know, standard stuff.And then there's Nick"It's very easy to avoid doing work" - oh boy let's see how this goes on a tribe full of people who have been putting in hard work their whole life. It's not like being lazy around camp would be a major turn off or anything. No....So what is the second red flag? He doesn't want to waste energy building the shelter day 1. I'm sorry what else are you going to spend it on? Overplaying and making alliances? That's dumb Nick wouldn't do that he knows orgs he shouldn't -"The only thing on my mind is scheming and plotting. And I gotta find my flock of sheep." NO NICK NO. BAD. WHY. This is red flag number 3 on the list. First is lazy, then doesn't want to do the most important thing on day 1 (let the bonds come naturally and make the duos as you go along, let it flow, do not go out of your way to scheme and plot, see what happens naturally and go from there), and is now potentially overplaying."It's very easy to get people to trust you on Survivor, it's almost too easy". Oh no. At the very least, Christian (the first person he went to) didn't have anything too negative to say about him, and he does seem to really hit it off with Elizabeth, even naming their alliance (like an org player). Wait, it's almost as if he's playing it like an org or assuming it is one.1. Names alliances2. Assumes it is easy to get people to trust you. No, that isn't easy, it is easy, on the other hand, to get people to align with you when you're active.3. No interest in survival, just strategy.Ok maybe the third one isn't as strong but still.One positive for Nick, his allies do seem to trust him, and he does have some good names.And what do we get immediately after Nick's section?Carl, calling Nick lazy.And then we get to the Goliath tribe idol hunting portion of the episode.First duo, Alison and Angelina. Who want to help boost the numbers for how many women get idols. Angelina said she read online (Adam Klein actually told her but she can't just namedrop him) that 15% of idols were found by women. Which is mostly accurate, by my count it's 17.7% but my math could be a bit off.The only noteworthy part about the idol sequence besides that is a little moment between Alec and Jeremy where Alec asks Jeremy what to doThis at least shows they have some sort of a bond, otherwise Alec wouldn't trust the guy as much.Anyways, we get some narration from Jeremy and John, and then we get to Dan. Who has a shocking revelation. The idol has been in his pants the whole time.And here it is!Now, with this idol, the main thing with it is the purple string. Which, seems pretty trivial at first, but then you realize, you can't really fake an idol if this is how they are going to look. The rest of it is pretty simple, a few pebbles/shells, whatever they are, and then the little black string. But with the purple string, it does 2 things:1. shows which camp it is from2. shows you that any idol without colored string is a fake.So far, the only 3 people who know about this are Dan Kara and Natalia, as they found the idol together, but as this spreads, it could be what fake idols revolve around.And then Davie catches an Octopus.We get a short intro from him after, where apparently Survivor tries to boost his credibility as a nerd by showing Christian asking if he plays Mario Kart. Yeah.After that, we get to the first part of the episode where people cried.Jessica shares a very heartfelt story about her motherBi comforts her and shares her story about her abusive boyfriendand even Nick seems to be able to finally let his guard down and talk about his childhood.All very touching stories, and not something I expected to happen like that all in the premiere episode, but it was really nice to see. Maybe this could help Nick out too, but who knows, he was firmly on the bottom.And then we get to the challenge, which is your standard obstacle course > puzzle as seen before.This puzzle was cool thoughAnyways, David loses, and we get a nice answer to Jeff from Pat, about how their heart will lose an artery, but will still go onThe main event here came from right after, and with no warning, what do we come back to?Storms. What?Oh no what happened there's no time left for tribal what the fuck shit shit shitPat? What? He was totally fine!What happened?