Taking big swings: An analysis of the themes of the Survivor 48 Premiere

The premiere often introduces us to the themes and season 48's was no different

For most good stories, the themes are instrumental in how the story plays out. Most Survivor seasons make for good stories and because of that, paying close attention to the themes will pay dividends in terms of predicting the winner. There’s a lot of ways to win Survivor, but you can be sure that for most seasons, the edit in any given season will tell us that playing the way the winner happened to play is especially important.

The premiere will tend to introduce us to these themes, so we want to pay very close attention to the first episode. At the same time though, as each episode airs, what the important themes really are becomes clearer. They tend to evolve over the season. So we have to stay flexible and not get locked into what we think they are right off the bat.

With that said, let’s discuss the themes I picked up on in the premiere. But first, we’ll analyze the part of the premiere that is perhaps most important to telling us what the themes are.

Jeff’s opening monologue

As the well regarded The Winner’s Edit podcast has previously put it: Jeff is the Dumbledore of Survivor. In many stories, there tends to be a character that you can trust to be right whenever they say something. Jeff is the host and an executive producer, so he’s able to play that role quite adeptly. When they show him saying something, it’s generally right and it usually means it’ll be important at some point.

Jeff’s opening monologue on the beach is a great example of this. Jeff talks to the cast for way longer than is shown on TV. He basically just waxes poetic at the cast about Survivor strategy for an hour and then after the competition is over and they know the winner, they use the bits that end up being most relevant to the story. Those often become our themes. So let’s have a listen at what Jeff had to say. Here’s the first part of it:

Jeff talks about how different everyone is. We’ll talk about this theme in more detail below.

There is one thing these players have in common though, Jeff explains. They answered the call to be on Survivor, away from the comfort of their couches. Again, more on that below. Jeff talks to a few castaways, then gives us a second monologue:

Jeff talks about how every move they make will define their journey. It’s where fear will arise. He asks if they will “commit to attack this game” or “hesitate and risk getting left behind”. Jeff tells us that “failure in the pursuit of something amazing” is admirable and worthy, whereas “failure due to fear” isn’t worth making the trip. Dramatic music played over these words. Jeff is laying out a theme where those taking action will be more successful in this game. More on that below.

With that out of the way, let’s discuss the themes individually that I’ve picked up on. I’m sure I haven’t spotted them all, but here’s what caught my attention in the premiere:

Machismo and physical strength

There certainly is a more bro-ish tone to this season, more than we typically see in the New Era. Women have after all won 5 of the last 7 seasons, and for all their superlatives, Yam Yam and Gabler can’t really be described as ‘macho’. In this premiere though, we saw a lot of machismo on display:

• In the opening confessional of the season, Joe shares how he, as a firefighter, uses his adrenaline to his advantage.

• Shortly after, Eva describes in her first confessional how much she’s thrived in male-dominated spaces

• Cedrek tells us he needs to “ball out”. He did it in the most old man way possible, but he tried.

• We see slow mo cuts of Kyle and Joe smashing things to bits in challenges.

• David tells us in his first confessional how much other players will need to worry about him.

• Shauhin refers to himself and his fellow castaways as a “pack of wild dogs” that are “sizing each other up” and gives a guttural roar to describe how they’re all feeling.

• In his mat chat, Kyle calls attention to the “Behemoths” on the cast, joking that he thought it was a new season of David vs Goliath.

• Thomas describes his tribe mates in terms of their physical gifts and athleticism, and compares himself and Bianca to the others unfavorably.

• David does pull-ups to entertain his tribe. In confessional he talks about how people see him as a superhero. He claims he can make flint without fire. We also see his tribe very impressed with him for these actions, particularly Chrissy.

• Eva is highlighted as being a “beast” while collecting bamboo

What does this all mean for predicting the winner - and other outcomes - of Survivor 48? We’ll certainly need to keep watching to gain more insight, but from where we stand now, it seems likely that the winner will either be (1) someone that typifies this machismo, like one of the many buff dudes on this season, or (2) someone who succeeds in a male-dominated environment without being a “macho” person themselves. So far, I am way more on board with (2). Eva makes a great candidate for that given her backstory, which was explained to us in her opening confessional. Thomas and Sai would be good choices as well. I haven’t quite settled on winner rankings post-episode 1, but at the moment they do represent my top 3.

Taking action vs failing from fear or taking action vs sitting on your hands

We already know Jeff’s opinion on taking action for this season. Where else did the virtue of taking action come up? One major place was Vulu’s story in this episode, specifically the battle between Stephanie and Sai. Stephanie tells us she can’t wait to play, but decides to sit on her hands rather than be seen as taking action. Sai on the other hand is all about taking action. Stephanie and Mary’s reluctance to talk strategy frustrates her, and prompts her to form an alliance with the men.

This continues throughout the episode. Sai tells us she’s “taking big swings” and delivers on it by finding the Beware advantage. Mary throws some shade Sai’s way by saying that she is acting distrustful, but we see that’s not true: Sai let her alliance in on the beware advantage, and leaned on all of them for help in securing the idol. Her aggressive play has put her in a powerful position.

Of course, in the end Sai won the battle. In Stephanie’s last confessional, she realizes her situation:

There’s more to this theme, but I’ll talk about it more later in my individual player analysis pieces. At the moment though, it certainly seems like the edit is telling us that this is a season where aggressively taking action will win out. Sai certainly meets that description, but there are others as well.

Slow and methodical vs erratic and reckless

I feel like this theme is likely to play into the above theme. Taking action is important, but not just any action. As Jeff said: “Just because you attack the game doesn’t mean you’ll be successful”. In this episode at least, the edit told us that slow and methodical action wins over erratic and reckless action. Nowhere was that clearer than the Fight for supplies challenge that Kyle and Kevin faced off in. At the beginning, Kyle tells himself to “be slow and methodical. Use your brain. You have a brain, you’re smart. I can’t be going buck wild”. By contrast, Kyle says “my method is erratic. I could not figure out where the rope was going. I’m running around like a madman, and everything sort of starts to fall apart for me.”

This continues. Kevin tells us “This is not a race about physical strength. It’s about who can be smartest in figuring out how to solve these obstacles the fastest.” By contrast, Kyle says “At this point, I just have to muscle my way through”. Of course, we know how it ends: Kyle breaks his jug, losing him and his tribe the camp supplies. Kevin instead was rewarded for keeping his wits about him in a stressful spot.

Here’s another example: When Civa gets distracted by the symbols and numbers around camp, Mitch expresses his disapproval:

What the freak is happening right now? Our tribe is all over the place. We have zero supplies, no shelter built, no fire, and we’re just going on this goose hunt. If we don’t get it together I think we’re going to be screwed.

The tribe’s erratic behavior is threatening to screw their ability to survive in Mitch’s eyes.

There’s more as well but again, I will expand on these when I go over each player later in the week. Kevin and Mitch certainly look good according to this theme, but you can make a case that Sai was on the right side of this theme as well in this episode. Kyle, Star, and Charity on the other hand were portrayed as playing erratically in one way or the other, hurting their chances of being the winner.

Different people stuck on an island together

This theme played a smaller role in the premiere. Besides Jeff introducing us to it at the start of the episode, it was mostly embodied by Thomas: right away at camp, Thomas tells us that he needs to “filter [his] story” to “fit the tribe” appropriately. He tells us that while he may not be strong, he can bond with anyone.

He manages to bond with Shauhin and Joe - two people that are very different from himself - in a way that he never expected. Sooner or later he’ll likely need to decide between his “California girls” alliance and his alliance with Bianca - someone he’s much more used to bonding with.

We also see this briefly with Chrissy, who tells us she “knows how to deal with different personalities”.

Excitement and/or feistiness?

As the question mark indicates, this one I’m still not so sure about. It’s possible this should be subsumed within either the machismo or taking action themes, but I don’t think they quite fit. This will probably evolve into something more coherent later on, time will tell.

Jeff calls the cast’s cheers of excitement on the beach “the best initial reaction [he’s] ever heard”. Later at the beginning of the Immunity Challenge, Civa and Lagi are again enthusiastic as they enter the challenge, whereas when Vulu enters Jeff remarks “Okay, a little tepid”. Vulu ends up losing the challenge, sending them to Tribal Council.

There’s also Kamilla’s confessional where she talks about how she gets to “run around”, “cause chaos”, and “have fun doing it”. Perhaps Shauhin’s comment about wild dogs fits better in this theme as well.

Answering the call

They hit us with this theme hard right off the bat, but we didn’t see it play out much in the game yet. We literally start the season with the contestants answering the call from Survivor. Joe tells us in the first confessional of the season that he wants to be the one to answer the call. And Jeff tells us that answering the call to play Survivor is the one thing these contestants have in common.

Wrapping things up

This is longer than I wanted it to be, but perhaps that’s appropriate for covering a two hour premiere that introduces these themes to us. I expect this to be shorter going forward. For now though, we have a few themes to keep in mind as the season progresses: will this season have a bit of a male-dominated environment and if so, who will succeed in that environment? Which players will take action and who will sit on their hands or succumb to fear? For those that do take action, who will be slow and methodical and who will be erratic and reckless? Who will do best at making bonds with those different from themselves? If we knew the answers to those questions, I think it would tell us a lot about who wins Survivor 48.