Sometimes a Survivor episode is so well put together, a seamless synthesis of strategy and storytelling, that everyone loves it. "Operation: Italy," Episode 12 of Survivor 47, is exactly that. A taut, perilous heist film that actually pans out, despite ridiculous odds of somebody catching on and everything falling apart.

Just as Andy, Sam, and Genevieve collaborated on the scheme itself, the editors also collectively said, "You son of a bitch! I'm in" and lent an artful hand to the festivities, leaning in with visual nods to the heist genre (such as the triptych/split-screen of Andy, the fake idol, and Sam), a strong supporting score, and most of all, making very clear how close everything came to completely falling apart - Sue offering to protect Caroline with her idol, Rachel contemplating maybe playing her Vote Block advantage on Sam or Genevieve to ensure the vote-split plan didn't go awry. If either of those things had happened, Operation: Italy goes kablooey.

There was even some top-notch acting by Sam and Genevieve at Tribal, as Sam urged Genevieve to play her (fake) idol, and Genevieve projected confidence that she didn't need to. This served a dual purpose: (1) Obviously, they couldn't actually play a fake idol, and needed some excuse not to do so, but more importantly, (2) it lulled the competing Underdogs alliance, who were holding two idols, into not playing theirs. ("Ha ha! Those dummies think they're safe!" was what each person present was probably thinking.) Everyone did just enough for the plan to work, and it did.

As someone who writes about the show, the problem with a top-notch episode like this that everyone loves is (at least when you're a late-arriving recap every week) ... what else is there to say? Just about every reaction has been deservedly positive. The excitement generated by Andy's big move seems to have finally brought his previously outsized presence in the season-long edit back in line with his perceived position in the game. So I guess the only real topic of discussion still unresolved is the one you see at the top of this article, which we should finally get to.

Could Andy actually win now?

On paper, Andy being the architect of Operation: Italy should give his game prospects a massive boost. ("This is huge! I needed this.") In reality, there are almost as many possible ways the players and jury could view this move as the ways Operation: Italy could have gone wrong.

One possible outcome is: Nobody believes Andy did it. Sol and Gabe seemed a bit skeptical in the moment, chalking it up as "Andy flipped again." For the jury, Andy getting full credit probably depends on Andy reaching the finals, and one or both of Sam and Genevieve joining the jury to confirm Andy's role. Beyond that, how much ownership Sam and Genevieve claim for themselves also matters a lot. This last point is not a trivial one. Sure, it was Andy's idea, but the execution was absolutely a group effort. Not only that, the move really needs to affect the course of the game. If Sam and Genevieve are still the next two out, did it really amount to anything?

Another likely outcome is: The Big Move vaults Andy into Threat status. Just like so many formerly stealthy players who made a strategic splash mid- to late-jury in the new era (Omar, Jesse, Emily), the mere act of explaining the move to and receiving "credit" for it from his fellow players could immediately move Andy from afterthought to The New Biggest Threat. (Of these, probably the best comparison is Emily, who also had a mat chat gaffe in the first episode.) At Tribal, Andy promised to explain the move later to his fellow players still in the game, so it seems likely we'll get that next episode. If they *do* decide Andy is now a threat, there are still two more votes at which to pick him off easily, especially when two of the remaining people (one of whom actually is a threat) have idols. To be fair, as a superfan, Andy would probably prefer to be cut short as a threat than to be ignored as a zero-vote finalist, and in that sense, risking this outcome would totally be worth it. (Especially when we're deep into Survivor 50 casting at this point.)

It's most likely that we end up somewhere in the middle, though. Andy could get some credit, but he's still not viewed as a massive threat. Or he's still there at the end, and while he may have moderate success impressing the jury with his strategic game, they still hold his early-game collapse against him.

Take Andy's former Gata tribemates, for example. How favorably would Sierra really view one big move from Andy, especially if she has the option to vote for Sam instead? At the time Andy turned on Sierra, she was still locked into the "we have to cheer for Andy when he chops a coconut" mindset of early Gata. Will Sierra or Sam be impressed if Andy tries to pitch his acting role in the Anika blindside to the jury, misdirection which was only really necessary because Sam was worried about pissing off Andy with his original plan to just save Andy with the idol?

On Know-It-Alls, Stephen Fishbach made the Cochran in South Pacific comparison for Andy's game (big edit, nerdy, flips on his tribe). That's a really good comp, but Andy is also a little bit like Cochran's closest ally the next time out, Dawn Meehan. Dawn put in a lot of strategic work in Caramoan, and made the same moves as Cochran, but the jury held Dawn's frequent breakdowns against her. They couldn't bring themselves to celebrate being beaten by someone they had spent so much time propping up emotionally. Maybe that's less likely here simply because Andy is a man, and juries are much harsher on women in general, but especially women who express any emotion. Still, though, the edit has included a lot of scenes like the one where Andy had no cash in the pre-auction scramble, while Sierra had a lot, and Andy told Sierra, forlornly: "I'm having a really bad time."

Even Caroline, in her exit interview with Mike Bloom, explained that she was pushing for the Underdogs to follow Andy's plan as "Andy management." Caroline encouraged Sue *not* to play her idol for Caroline. Caroline advised Rachel to hold onto her Vote Block advantage. She made all of those efforts purely because "I was worried, because there's some things that we could do to just guarantee this vote works in our way, but Andy's going to be pissed after. He's going to feel disrespected, like we weren't listening to him, and things are just going to be chaotic and way more unpredictable moving forward." Part of the reason for this is that in the last round, Andy had pushed hard to switch the target from Kyle to Genevieve (Rachel had liked this idea at the time), but people like Teeny and Sue had pushed hard back against that idea. Caroline felt like Andy needed to feel some agency in a move, in order to keep him on their side. (Ironically, she was totally right about that ... and paid the price for it.)

So is Andy going to be hailed by his castmates as a Big Move maker? A lot depends on how Andy's "I will explain" goes over with his Beka tribemates, so at this point, we don't really have enough data to project that, although with a "two-part finale," we can easily revisit this discussion next week if Andy's still around. Tall poppy syndrome is a real thing in the new era, so there's a decent chance he won't be, but maybe he has more tricks up his sleeve. Either way, for now let's just appreciate Andy's coming up with and executing an elaborate scheme and the show's fun editing of that heist for what it was: Highly enjoyable entertainment.

Instead of "can Andy win?" let's go back instead to Mike White's famous question: "Is it fun?"

Yes. Yes, it was.

I am once again asking...

One takeaway from Operation: Italy is that the two key components that facilitated its planning and execution were time and food. Andy, Sam, and Genevieve had a good meal's worth of feasting on their Sanctuary reward, and had enough time there afterwards to fully plot, rehearse, and prepare to execute their plan. What are the two things missing from almost all new era Survivor? Time and food.

Shortening the episode filming cycle from three days to two in the new era does subtly compress the time to plot, and the time to recover from the previous round's moves. But overnight rewards with multiple attendees have always been a part the show, and have always provided this opportunity for people to plot far away from the prying ears of their castmates. So nothing really needs changing there - it's working like it always has. But I will keep harping on other half that does need changing, because it's so obvious, yet never get fixed: Just give the contestants food again.

Sam and Genevieve were able to plan thoughtfully and carefully with Andy because they had food in their bellies, which got their brains functioning semi-normally again, if just for an evening or so. (They also attributed this to the letters from home, that's fine, but it was mostly the glucose from the food. Neurons require energy to work properly!) Just imagine if they'd been slightly less cognitively impaired the whole season.

I know the show is highly sensitive about this topic, and has stopped giving the contestants rice at the start of the game to make the experience "harder" and "more survival-y" or whatever, all to compensate for going down from 39 days to 26. But here's the thing: The average audience member has no idea you're even doing this! I have seen multiple people on Bluesky complain, "They give the contestants too much food these days." Or grouse that, because every post-merge episode has a food reward (in part to make up for zero rice!) that a select few players (mostly Sam) get to eat, the contestants aren't really starving. Arggghh! This isn't even on facebook (the most casual of casuals) or twitter (bots and people being assholes purely for sweet, sweet engagement pennies). It's Bluesky! The good place!

So if the contestants don't like not having rice, and it degrades the ability of players to plan out complex maneuvers like this, and the average viewer has no idea it's even happening ... WHY take the rice away? Just let the contestants have basic rations, like before. You don't have to go back to San Juan del Sur-level excess. The amount given in Ghost Island and beyond was fine. Just get off your high horses and do it. You have so many smart, superfan contestants now, like Andy. Think about how much more fun content they could be producing with slightly more fuel in the tank.

Shorter takes

This should NOT be a surprise: It's hard to believe we're seven seasons deep into the new era, and people are STILL getting duped by the letters from home as a reward that's announced AFTER an individual RC has been won. You can sort of understand it when you see someone like Genevieve repeating "Italian" to herself as she crosses the course - her self-motivating mantra distracts her from the bigger picture. But come on, future players! There are at max TWO individual reward challenges per season. The dirty trick of announcing the letters is almost certainly coming after the one you're currently competing in. And if it doesn't, it's definitely the next one. Plan accordingly! (Read: always be throwing.)

Side note: Production could easily thwart this by giving the letters during a team reward. But they won't, because then there's no drama in the tagalong decision. (As always, a schoolyard pick instead of a rock draw gets you 90% of the way there, but I know we can't do anything that might endanger Jeff Probst's all-important bag of rocks.)

Umm, we've already seen that? One minor quibble with the editing of the Operation: Italy heist: I think we're about saturated with flashbacks to Episode 1 Andy. When we got another one this episode, I audibly groaned. We're not that dumb, you guys! We remember that Andy collapsed in the Ep1 IC, and struggled to find a footing in Gata before that! Especially since you keep reminding us!

One final finale tea-leaf reading: It's still not clear how the show is going to squeeze two hours out of the F4 IC, firemaking, Final Tribal, and the Aftershow. That's not quite as plodding as the The Australian Outback finale, where we spent what felt like 16 hours on an arts-and-crafts project that Tina, Colby, and Keith immediately tossed into a river (?!), but it's getting there. An hourlong live reunion would have worked great here, but it doesn't look like we're getting one. And that might be the biggest tell that Andy does not win. Because you know Probst would not pass up the chance to bring Jon Lovett back on just to roast him: "So ... you could have skated through the first Tribal if you'd just let Andy get booted, but you insisted on trying to save him, and now you're the first boot, and he won a million dollars. How does that feel?"