It happened. It finally happened. After 8.3 seasons and five years, we *finally* had two tribes in new era Survivor. And they even had more than six people on them! (Until one of them had to vote someone out, at least ... but it was a good just-over 24 hours.) This improved a lot of things: There was one fewer camp, so it was easier to keep track of everyone; there were higher challenge stakes; and of course, more strategic combinations were possible! Sure, despite production making all the right choices, the swap itself was a bit unlucky, and gave us built-in majorities on both new tribes. But I will absolutely take those results over another episode of three tribes, any day.

As we're just setting out on a new Uli-vs-Hina mini-arc, it's important that each new tribe now has a majority from either Uli or Hina. This means we might get some tit-for-tat boots, and maybe even a thrown challenge (or even a doubly-thrown challenge!), once new Kele sees what happened on new Hina. (For one episode, at least ... then it's probably time for the merge-atory grind again, which would be unfortunate because we *already have two teams*. Dare we hope for a real merge? Is that tempting fate?)

The unlucky buff draw aside, just by having two slightly larger tribes, the season improved dramatically. There was actual tension in the reward/immunity challenge, because there was only one winner, there wasn't a depleted tribe that was almost certainly going to lose, and it was a close battle for the win. Plus even though it didn't play out that way, a 4-2-1 swap on both tribes meant that, at least in theory, if there were cracks in the majority four, the minority three might be able to team up and exploit that crack, as they would need to flip just one person. Big moves come at odd numbers, and both tribes had a population of seven.

In reality, of course, that didn't happen. While the minority pairs on both new tribes (appeared to, mostly) stuck together out of necessity, solo Sophi just did the easy thing and went with the numbers, shoving the two remaining original Hinas (Jason and Matt) into an inescapable 5-2 hole. The only thing that might have saved one of them was an idol, but from all appearances, MC and Stephen succeeded in keeping the Beware idol instructions secret from their tribemates, because Matt and Jason did not rush to their boat after the IC loss. (Meanwhile the four ex-Ulis collaborated on the clue and idol retrieval, using their instructions.) Functionally, that meant Matt and Jason were sitting ducks, and that's what played out, as the majority five split their votes between the two of them, just in case.

Matt and Jason each probably should have played their Shot in the Dark. Jason didn't really buy himself anything but an extra day or two by agreeing to vote for Matt, and as he pointed out, the Ulis didn't really need his vote. Savannah wrote this off as Jason being uninterested in playing with the Ulis, but it didn't really seem like anyone was offering either Matt or Jason an actual spot in their majority, just a temporary stay of execution. To be fair, the merge can't be that far away, and if there's a puzzle in the next challenge, Jason might be able to save himself. Plus his answers to the Ulis really did make it sound like he just wanted to continue having the time of his life with a bunch of his old friends from Hina, who are just out of frame, laughing too. Unfortunate circumstances, yes, but also less-than-optimally played by Jason.

Seven divided by three equals intrigue?

Despite the vote going in the obvious direction due to having a tight (-ish) group of four-plus on a tribe of seven, Matt at least *tried* to do something, and it hinted at the increased strategic possibilities of having a group of seven instead a group of six. Matt tried leaning on his journey connection to Jawan, who while on the journey had apparently told Jake and Matt that he was on the bottom of Uli (always a smart approach, although it's still not clear whether he actually thinks he is, as we've only really heard Sage, Savannah, and now Matt say it, not Jawan himself). Matt's pitch made decent sense: Take out Nate, giving Jawan the résumé bullet point of having saved Matt, Jason, and Sophi. The problem, of course, was that Sophi was not in on that plan (presumably she had been asked, it just wasn't shown, as Matt claimed in his exit interviews), and while flipping may have made some short-term sense for Jawan, staying loyal to and continuing to build trust with his original tribemates seemed like a much safer bet - it was their first vote together!

In contrast, things feel far more fractured over on new Kele, where Steven and MC are a tight pair (potentially with an idol), and Sage appears ready to gun for Shannon (which Steven also has been thinking). That's probably a red (tribe) herring, though, because Kristina already appears very close to Shannon. So it's more likely we'll see someone else out ... like maybe Sophie?

That's because we had a lot of mentions this episode that the original Keles and Ulis were quite unhappy with the old Hina tribe chanting "Hi-na! Hi-na!" before and after challenges (the Ulis' "cringe" comments on the mat before the swap, Sophi's voting confessional). Sophie appears to have been the leader of that (at least in this episode), AND was lit up in the edit (and by the host in real time) for objecting to the fruit basket reward. We know she was also on the bottom of old Hina (with Jason). As soon as new Kele sees that a Hina was voted out by the ex-Uli majority alliance, there will be added incentive for their ally Shannon to maintain that numbers momentum by taking out another Hina. If Shannon's driving that, Sophie seems like the obvious choice, since Kristina is with her, and she brings in MC and Steven. Alex, like Sophi, just has to go with the numbers, but it's also possible he could be a target (especially if he's told everyone about his cardio fitness), as someone who could do well in the individual challenges. Hopefully this tribe gets to vote in Episode 5, there appear to be much less clear-cut divisions there.

Side note: It's a bit sad that both the original tribe dynamics and the swap have created uphill battles for all four ex-alternates (Jason, MC, Sage, Sophie) to get much further in the game. Three are basically sitting ducks, who could be out as soon as their tribe goes to Tribal, and MC currently has no vote. (Then again, Rizo's idol was exceptionally simple to retrieve, so maybe that's not a concern.) On the plus side, since we're one boot away from the merge, three of them will likely get there, and that often resets3 who's in the most danger.

The land of tepid takes

So long, "You have to earn it!" By far the dumbest aspect of the swap was sending half the cast back to Kele beach. Someone was just bitten by a sea krait there, less than 24 hours ago! Savannah and Rizo giggling about enjoying the hammocks that Hina had worked so hard for the day before was cute, but it was a low blow to not send either new tribe to Uli's perfectly functional camp. The Hina tribe was in first place in *every* pre-swap challenge, and for those efforts, four of them were sent to a camp with no supplies, no shelter, and no flint. That's not "earning" anything. Uli failed to win every single pre-swap challenge, just like Kele, and their majority went from comfort to ... even more comfort. So good for the new Kele tribe for thwarting an obvious attempt by production to create another suffering tribe, by winning the IC anyway (as all those ex-Hinas have a track record of doing), and finally getting their flint and some food. Dear Survivor: More fun, fewer arbitrary punishments, please.

Yay, random swaps: Despite the swap not producing the ideal outcome (a 3-3-1 split on both tribes), I'm still happy that production didn't try to pull off some hokey manipulation to guarantee it - separate trays of buffs for each original tribe would have done that, but as we saw, Probst clearly had a single tray of them, so it was totally random. That's the way it should be. Let the buffs fall where they may. But you know what *might* have guaranteed a more interesting swap? Having two tribes to start with. Then everyone probably would have voted already, and you wouldn't have people like Jason under the mistaken impression that they were in their original tribe's majority, and someone like him (or Jawan) would be more motivated to make a post-swap power move. It's painful that we made it all the way to Episode 4 - a third of the way through the season - and 12 of the 14 remaining players hadn't even voted yet. They're there to play Survivor, not go camping! (Matt may have been there to go camping.)

A stroll in the shallows: It's a little amazing that Matt didn't stumble across Rizo's treasure chest while he was out fishing. (It seemed like maybe he did that after the IC loss?) Theoretically, he could have taken the chest, smashed it open Mark Warnock-style (SurvivorAU), and taken the idol for himself, with no clue. Which would have been a more fair thing than we actually saw, because in reality, Jason and Matt had no access whatsoever to idols. Production probably likes this system because even with an obvious boot like we had this episode, they're guaranteed at least one idol hunt with which to fill the 90 minutes, and this spreads them out over multiple episodes. The problem that was revealed here is: People who weren't aware of the pre-swap Beware clues are completely at the mercy of the (random) swap, with just their Shot in the Dark and its crappy odds as a lifeline. What was so bad about just hiding idols?