Coach Wade Went Off About That Dumb Survivor 50 Twist During A Live Event

Survivor fans have mostly been loving the cast of old favorites the show brought back for its milestone fiftieth anniversary, but that doesn’t mean they’ve loved every production decision. The community has been up and arms over how the show has handled celebrity involvement, and many are still mad over the so-called Blood Moon Twist earlier in the season, which eliminated three players during a surprise triple tribal council. It turns out the actual players themselves weren't too happy about that big twist either.

Four time player Coach Wade, who is among the remaining thirteen players in Survivor 50, participated in a combination watch party and concert last week. He took some questions from fans during the Q&A portion and someone asked about the Blood Moon Twist. In what shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who has watched him play Survivor, the Dragonslayer did not hold back and breathed fire. He called the twist “horseshit” and said the players all knew it. Here’s a portion of his answer, which was recorded by the aptly named social account Coach Wade Updates…

The wanted it so badly to work is a reference to the number of players producers decided to include in Survivor 50. Rather than the traditional 18, the show brought back 24 fan favorites from prior seasons. Most have proven to be really fun choices, but unfortunately, the sheer number of them created a production problem. How do you eliminate 24 players in a 26 day window? Most fans thought it would mean starting with three tribes and sending two of them to tribal council during all the early episodes, but it didn’t play out that way.

Instead, producers mostly just eliminated one contestant during the early episodes and started ramping up the pace later. That culminated in the so-called Blood Moon Twist, in which the players were told they were merged into one tribe but then almost immediately were re-sorted randomly into three groups of five people. Each group then had to vote someone out, which felt extremely unfair considering the random drawings resulted in a few players being separated from most or all of their allies and having basically no chance to save themselves.

The Blood Moon Twist has become a hot topic of conversation in the Survivor community because it’s a fitting example of a philosophical divide between what the hardcore fans want and seemingly what host Jeff Probst and the producers want. The hardcore fans, at least those who post online and go on podcasts, want some twists and advantages, but in general, they want to reduce the randomness and let the players create the drama themselves. The producers, however, seem to think twists, journeys, advantages and idols are what makes the show interesting, and they want to insert them into the game to reduce stability.

I don’t mind the occasional twist, but it’s definitely been too much for me this season. We’ve gotten multiple players losing their votes, two players gaining advantages, three special Billie Eilish Boomerang Idols, a tribe swap and a Blood Moon Twist. Instead of being able to say this person went home because they put their foot in their mouth or made this mistake, it’s a lot of this person was in a great position but they went home because they fell victim to this twist.

Genevieve, who went home during the Blood Moon Twist and was my preseason winner pick, as an example, was in a majority alliance on her original beach that seemed like they were in a good position to run the game. Then she found two different hidden immunity idols, but producers forced her to give away both because of a rule change implemented specifically for this season. Her closest ally was medically evacuated and then she got swapped into a group featuring her primary adversary and two other people her adversary was working with, who obviously voted her out immediately.

Regardless, I’m trying to stay positive on Survivor 50. Yes, some infuriating things have happened, but there’s also been a ton of great character moments. It has been a joy to watch this cast of legends like Cirie, Ozzy, Colby, Stephenie and Coach Wade interact with more popular recent players like Christian, Rizo, Emily, Dee, Genevieve, Q and Rick Devens. The show has already announced it’s going to do more returning player seasons in the future. Hopefully, they’re listening to the fans this season and next time, we let the players play a little bit more and include one or two less random twists.