Survivor 50 Didn’t Tell Us The Whole Story About That Jimmy Fallon Advantage

If you care about Survivor, I’m sure you have a lot of thoughts about Jimmy Fallon’s so-called One In The Urn twist. The whole community is currently screaming at each other about it on social media, as the reaction has been very mixed, but it turns out we didn’t actually get a full explanation of what the twist even was. There was a lot more to that note Christian got on the barge that we didn’t get any narrational content addressing. Let’s talk about it.

Obviously we’re going to get into very direct spoilers. So, if you haven’t watched episode 9 of Survivor 50 (“I Deserve All Of This”), then continue reading at your own risk.

Let’s walk through the basic sequence of what happened. After the immunity challenge, Christian and several other players volunteered to go on a journey. Christian won a series of rock, paper, scissors matches to beat the other castaways and took a boat to a barge. Once there, he was told if he completed a puzzle before the time ran out, he’d get a big advantage, and if he didn’t complete it in time, he’d get a big disadvantage.

Watching the episode for the first time, my understanding of the advantage was that if Christian won, he would get to put a vote in the urn for any player, essentially casting a secret extra vote against someone. If he lost, he would have to read a note at camp, which turned out to be a scarlet letter saying he had to vote for himself at the next tribal council. All of that is accurate, but it’s actually not the whole story.

Survivor gave us a brief camera shot during the episode that revealed most of the note, and there was more to the advantage if Christian won. After dropping a vote into the urn for whoever he wanted on the barge, he would then be given a secret choice of whether to vote at that night’s tribal council. If he elected not to vote, he would bank the extra vote to use at a future tribal council of his choosing. Check out a picture of the note below…

Now, obviously, none of this had any effect on what happened. Christian didn’t complete the puzzle in time and lost his voice. He had to read his note of shame back at camp, and since his name was already out there, everyone decided it was the perfect time to get rid of him. It’s likely that even if he didn’t have to vote for himself, he would have gone home because the players would have just rearranged their votes to give him an extra one since they split between him and Rick Devens.

From an analyzing whether it was a good twist or not standpoint, however, this extra wrinkle is very important. One of the biggest complaints from fans on social media was that the positive and negative outcomes seemed very imbalanced. One vote in the urn that you can’t even consult with your allies on isn’t that powerful, but having to tell everyone you are voting for yourself is a massive disadvantage. The choice to bank an extra vote that no one knows about to use at a later tribal council makes the positives a little more positive and at least shrinks the difference somewhat. It doesn’t balance the sides, but it comes a little closer.

Even Knowing The Nuances Now, I Still Have One Big Issue

My biggest issue with the twist is the whole having to tell everyone about it part. I want to see Survivor players have some room to maneuver. Would he have told people he was hit with a disadvantage to lower his threat level or would he have pretended that he won an advantage to try and keep people from voting for him out of fear? Would he have told his closest allies? Would Emily have spilled his secrets at camp? I would have loved to see Christian’s mind work. Instead, he just had to walk to his fate.

Fans have been mostly enjoying Survivor 50, but almost everyone would agree there has been an overreliance on twists. The show gave fans the ability to vote for whether they wanted advantages and twists prior to the season, but the vague wording essentially allowed the show to do whatever it wanted. Host Jeff Probst and the producers have jumped into the deep end and dropped something wild on a near weekly basis. Some have worked. Some have not.

You can catch new episodes of Survivor 50. The show is already teasing a huge beware advantage next week that involves Mr. Beast; so, expect for the entire fanbase to once again be arguing about whether a big surprise worked or not. Maybe it will. Maybe it won't. Either way, I'd rather be talking about all the returning players and watching them actually play Survivor. We know these people can and will create great television, whether they're being filmed or not. The show should trust them to do that.