[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Survivor Season 49 Episode 2, “Cinema.”]
Survivor 49‘s first two episodes revealed who Jeff Probst was talking about when he said a couple of players “absolutely, capital letters, Cannot Read the Room.” Both of them came from the Kele tribe, which failed to avoid returning to Tribal Council in the October 1 episode on CBS.
Kele began the episode in good spirits after their unanimous elimination of Nicole Mazullo in the premiere. Annie Davis felt confident that being part of the unanimous vote meant that her secret alliance with Alex Moore put her in a dominant position, but she was on the outs. Annie’s misplaced confidence catapulted her into strategy mode, and she tried to plan a big move to take out the team’s strongest player, Jake Latimer. Annie wasn’t afraid to face Tribal Council; she saw it as an opportunity. Annie directed her teammates instead of communicating with them as she tried to make this plan succeed. She also told people how many coconuts to collect, but seemingly didn’t help with the work herself, which rubbed an already annoyed Sophi Balerdi and Jeremiah Ing the wrong way.
Robert Voets / CBS
Jake lost a challenge on a solo journey that also involved Jawan Pitts from Uli and Matt Williams from Hina. Jawan won the chance to give himself an individual advantage or impose a disadvantage on an entire team in the immunity challenge. He chose the latter, buying himself some goodwill from Savannah Louie, who was ready to vote him out over a bag snafu if they went to Tribal. Jawan gave the disadvantage to the Hina tribe, which forced each of their six players to compete with a 20-pound bag of coconuts on their backs. Hina still won, and Uli came in second.
After starving for longer than expected, Annie decided that getting food was a more pressing need than voting out Jake. She campaigned for the “weaker” Sophi’s removal and was confident that everyone agreed with her plan. When everyone else on the team was out looking for the next piece of Alex’s beware advantage, Annie was left alone at camp. She found this suspicious, but trusted that Alex was still on her side when he revealed his advantage.
Alex considered using his advantage to protect Annie, who’s been his secret ally since day one, but he decided against it. Annie talked a big game about trust not really existing in Survivor, and she may have started to catch on to her team’s dislike of her when Sophi pushed back against her trust argument.
If she didn’t catch wind of what was coming in that moment, the unanimous vote against her told her everything she needed to know. In her interview at the end of the episode, Annie said she never saw her elimination coming. Tune in to TV Insider tomorrow for an in-depth exit interview with Annie.
Survivor, Wednesdays, 8/7c, CBS