Whereas the premiere of Survivor 47 forced the contestants through a specific set of twisty, pre-ordained guide rails, Episode 2 largely left the tribes to their own devices, and that decision paid off, with men from every tribe stumbling around in the jungle, shoeless, tripping over their own egos.

Seemingly everywhere you looked, someone was making an unforced error, all while preening in confessional, convinced that their position in the game made them untouchable. In the end, one player (TK) was in fact touched by votes, and left in a 4-2 blindside. It's as if production watched Survivor 46 and (not incorrectly) said to themselves, "We need a Q on every tribe."

It's starting to look like they succeeded in that quest.

The Tuku men: I'm gonna say bullshit right now

After most of the premiere was dedicated to Gabe's extensive idol-finding exploits, Episode 2 actually got down to alliances and power dynamics on Tuku. (Sort of by necessity, since they went to Tribal, but still, nice to see.)

The first grouping we saw come together was a three-person group of TK and Kyle with Gabe, but we learned TK didn't trust Gabe. This made perfect sense, since he caught Gabe retrieving the Beware idol key last episode, and was pretty sure Gabe had lied to him about how he had found it without a note. Instead, TK brought in Tiyana as the third, and kept Gabe dangling as a fourth, since in TK's estimation, Gabe didn't have any connection to Sue or Caroline (whoops). TK spent the episode irritating his tribemates, making the vote seem pretty obvious (especially when coupled with his confessionals about feeling in control of the tribe).

On the other side of this divide, Gabe was strutting around in confessional, crowing about how he scooped up "two wounded birds" in Caroline and Sue, who in his view were obviously on the bottom, and didn't have anywhere else to go. (Except that Tiyana had been talking to them sufficiently frequently that he trusted Caroline and Sue to pull her in at the end of the episode). Gabe somehow managed to take good strategy (empowering the people at the bottom of the power structure to flip tribe dynamics), and made it sound condescending. Tuku had never voted! How was anyone on the bottom?

Gabe also made the confusing decision to play his (good for three more Tribals) idol at this Tribal, despite (probably) knowing he was not being voted against. From TK's exit interviews, TK blamed Gabe's insistence on being the "one voice" on the snake maze at the RC/IC and refusal to take suggestions as the main reason they lost - and yelled at Gabe about that when they got back to camp, which might have caused Gabe's "feeling a little froggy." But it's also possible that Gabe was playing the idol to avoid having to draw rocks in the event of a 3-3 tie. If that's the case, while this is generally great strategy, it feels like a poor choice here, since he could simply have played his idol for Sue, who had asked him to do that. Maybe he wanted to look paranoid, or out of the loop on the vote? Who knows, hopefully we'll get some explanation next episode.

The one guy who came out of all this looking like a million bucks was poor Kyle, who indeed seems like a gentle, "genuine soul" (in Tiyana's words). He was the only person trying to patch things up between Tiyana and TK after the IC, and for all those noble efforts, he ended up being the one person still in the game who was left out of the vote. (We saw Tiyana fretting about this betrayal before the vote, so presumably those connections will be repaired in the future.)

Kyle did get a potential winner's quote in saying "They say nice people can't win this game, and I'm gonna say (bullshit) right now." But if Kyle really was/is a winner candidate, why edit out an even more explicitly rootable Kyle sequence than his struggling with the ethics of eating meat (crab) for the first time in eight years (relegated to a secret scene, which Dalton Ross turned into a standalone EW article)? One likely outcome is that Kyle and Tiyana will still work together, until eventually Tiyana has to betray him again, because otherwise he'll win. That will be very sad.

The Lavo men ... well, okay, just Rome

With Rome, it's less a problem of arrogance, and rather more one of overconfidence. You can't fault the guy's enthusiasm (he binged all of Survivor's back catalog in a matter of months, and was raring to go in the pre-game). Rome's biggest problem is he thinks he's a few steps ahead of everyone, when he's actually trailing behind.

For example, he made a move that ended up backfiring. He dug up the idol box in the dark, realized it was too dark to read the further instructions, and decided to loop in Teeny on his idol find. On the one hand, this was a smart decision, because the entire rest of the tribe was pretty sure he'd found *something* by the well in the premiere. Bringing in Teeny was a gesture of trust, and bridge-building. It makes the idol their collective problem, not just his. On the other hand, he didn't really have much of a connection with Teeny at the time, so Teeny told Kishan about it the next morning, and they were both rooting through the idol box when Rome got around to going back and seeing what he'd found. Rome wisely decided to cut his losses and take the 1-Tribal idol right then, since his secret was already out. He has to play it or it will expire next Tribal, so in theory, he has a free individual immunity for his efforts. Not a terrible outcome.

That could actually give Rome a chance to hit reset, and put him back on the path to recovery, status-wise ... except that rather than working to ingratiate himself back into the tribe, the edit shows him spending all his time annoying his tribemates with irrelevant and/or alarming (game-wise) boasts: He could have been a pro basketball player (but he stopped playing in high school), he coulda been a rapper, he memorized and can display Michael Jackson's dance moves, he should be on "On Fire with Jeff Probst" because he's done a bit of podcasting (knowing eyebrow raise from Aysha), he practiced making fire every morning before leaving to play, and his record is 16 seconds. (Record scratch, etc. Wait, you're bragging about how good you are at making fire?) His tribe lets him put all those alleged skills to good use in making their first fire (presumably on Day 3 after the IC, not on Day 4, as shown), and poor Rome absolutely whiffs on that chance. (After which Kishan meekly offers to give it a shot and starts the fire up on his first try.) To be fair, if Rome realized he'd said something he shouldn't, this was the perfect way to defuse that. There's no evidence he did, though, and as Lindsay Carmine brought up on "Why __ Lost" this week, it's more likely that Rome is simply the new era Debbie Wanner.

Still, you have to think Rome can't actually be *that* unaware of how his tribemates are receiving him, right? Sol shakes his head in confessional, about how Rome is "a lot." Aysha charitably talks about how some people can be a bit much when you're stuck with them 24 hours a day. The thing is, with Rome now having an idol that expires at the next Tribal, someone else on Lavo is going to have to be the first boot, so it'll be interesting to see if Rome takes this opportunity to reset his social game and maybe listen a bit. Of course, the very next day, Rome took on two key spotlight positions (gate maze, and center on the snake maze) in the IC, while Teeny had none, so we're still waiting for that reset to start.

The other two men of Lavo (Sol and Kishan) seem to be doing just fine in the limited glimpses we've seen of them. Despite 90-minute episodes, it looks like it will take Lavo going to Tribal Council before we get a proper sense of how everyone's playing over there. Until then, Lavo is everyone's Roman Empire.

The Gata men: Hide and seek

Finally, we have the remaining male duo on Gata: Alleged dead man walking Andy, and Sam. Sam had a whopping 16 confessionals this episode, a record for Episodes 1-10. As you might have guessed from the premiere, they were all about finding the Beware idol. (An idol that Andy almost found first, but put the package back to return to later.)

Sam's idol hunt is presented positively, and he does a lot of things that show a keen awareness of social/strategic gameplay. Sam's far more grounded and humble than the peacocks on the other tribes. It's just the overarching plan that seems to have flaws.

Sam finds the initial Beware package when he's out getting water with Anika. He and Anika are given a map to a key, Anika finds it, and they start untying "300 knots" before worrying they've been gone too long, and leaving the rest for later. Sam makes clear in confessional this was not an optimal situation for him, Anika is not a close ally. Instead (as Jon made clear in his exit interviews), Sam's closest ally is Sierra. Sam tells Sierra, but as Sam fears, at the same time, Anika is busy telling Rachel. Sam then (wisely) includes Rachel in the follow-up visit to grab the key, then somehow is allowed to bring Sierra along for the actual unlocking/ idol grab.

Thus far, Sam has included every single member of Gata in his idol quest ... except poor Andy, who again initially found the Beware package. Sam puts on a big show of pretending to be shocked when Andy tells him someone must have taken the idol, and Andy is sure it's one of the women, because he trusts Sam. This is the biggest flaw in Sam's idol scheming, because in "thinking two moves ahead" after taking the idol, he immediately asks Sierra "is it crazy" to use the idol to save Andy? Sierra clearly doesn't love the idea, but reluctantly agrees, since it's Sam's idol, and she's allied with Sam.

The big problem here is: Andy trusts Sam. Sam's acting skills have Andy convinced that a Gata woman has found the idol. So how is Andy going to feel when Sam proves that was all a big lie by playing an idol for him? The optics of the one person who doesn't know about the idol being its beneficiary are not that great, and the move hardly inspires anyone else to trust Sam. (Especially when it's a completely unnecessary move, because Sam and Sierra would have a 3-2 majority simply by voting with Andy.) Sam could still save this all by telling Andy ahead of time what his plan is, but otherwise, this plan feels a bit like a car crash in slow motion.

Shorter takes

The intro is here: Still not sure why they can't fit the intro into a two-hour premiere episode, but here we are with an intro in Ep2, at least. Of note, Caroline's action shot is pretty cool, because usually we just get challenge or camp-building footage. But is it also a longevity spoiler? As spoilers go, it's no Rudy-with-a-beard, but it looks like Caroline is crab hunting with a Hawaiian sling. Tuku came up short in the RC/IC this episode, their first chance to win one. So Caroline lasts until a swap/merge? Alternatively, it's possible Tuku wins a reward soon, and chooses fishing gear? (That could happen next episode, in which case it would not be much of a spoiler.)

Stats update for the host: During the IC, Probst bellowed something about Gata not being familiar with leading in a challenge. Admittedly, it was a come-from-behind victory, but Gata won the first challenge! After this episode, they have the best overall record, with two wins in three challenges (67% win percentage). Lavo is second, with a win and a second-place finish (50%). Meanwhile, Tuku is a distant last, with one piddling second-place and two losses (17%). Please let's absorb the hapless spider tribe (Tuku) next episode, so we can have Rats vs. Snakes! You could also avoid having to re-hide an idol!

Challenge update for the fans: Someone on twitter brought up Anika's "Let's hope they suck at puzzles" quote about Tuku from the opening challenge as foreshadowing for Tuku's collapse in this episode, but ... there was no puzzle! Just two mazes, and mazes are not puzzles. (Really liked the conversion of the old solo vertical snake maze to a three-person horizontal dexterity test, though - nice to see the challenge department trying different things.)

That doesn't seem very sanitary: Both Sam and Gabe (who have idols) seem to wander the paths around camp in socks, but no shoes. By the end of the episode, Sam's socks, which started out yellow and white, were a deep, muddy brown. You put your idol in those things? Ew.