You know what? I missed this. I missed Survivor. I missed over-extrapolating and interpreting every minute detail of a flawed, fallible show produced by flawed, fallible people. It’s only fitting the episode was named after a moon mural. Yup, that’s right, we’re talking about Livin.

Survivor 43, Episode 1 OVERREACTIONS

The episode starts on a beach where for the next 10 minutes, we get each cast member exalting the heavens in hopes the Survivor gods may hear them. They don’t. And if they did, they wouldn’t care. Seriously, sometimes Jeff feels like a proud kindergartner telling his parents about a game he invented on the playground. “Yes, that’s very nice dear. Now come inside for dinner.”

Right after the Season 43 island-themed red carpet was rolled up, Vesi won the first reward challenge for flint. I’d say they are the greatest physical team of all time, except I wouldn’t because they’re not. At least they’ll be the first tribe to make fire! Except they won’t be. In fact, they’ll be dead last, and it’s not close. Seriously, how do six people get cast and put on the same tribe without ONE who can use flint. After forty-two point one seasons of Survivor, I should have higher odds of being attacked by a shark than ending up on a tribe who can’t make fire with flint. I live in Minnesota. Unbelievable.

Meanwhile, Sweat or Savvy is back at it again. Can we all agree savvy is the right choice 100% of the time? Don’t get me wrong, if Sami and some other player with zero regard for social equity wants to give me alone time with a four-person majority, I’ll absolutely take it. Again, we’re 43 seasons in and somehow Ryan and Geo still end up digging. At least Owen played sane man for me. I thought I might be the crazy one. Regardless, everyone earns their crap. WooHoo.

Back on Vesi, Noelle and Justine make a day-one alliance! Awesome! Maybe keep that under wraps so it can’t be used against you! Oh wait. Nneka, Cody, and Jesse have eyes. *Sigh* Obvious duos are bad optically. We’ve known for 35 seasons and we STILL HAVEN’T FIGURED IT OUT. Now, Cody does not seem like a nuanced Survivor player. He seems like the type of guy who, whenever he has a problem, would throw a Molotov Cocktail at that problem and BOOM! Now he has a different problem. Cody is who I would expect if Heath Ledger was cast to play Fabio in a Christopher Nolan adaptation of Survivor Nicaragua. His last name translates literally to “Eat Maker”. That has nothing to do with anything, but I wanted to include it. Booty tat man himself. This guy. Yes, this guy is trying to keep a low profile by hiding that he’s a sales associate for an elevator company. Bro, that does you no good if you are the joker in Vesi’s deck of Bicycles. And BTW, there are like two elevator companies in the world. He probably runs into one other guy named Carl in Hawaii who works for the competition and they just split the demand 50/50. This guy is on a whole different level.

Meanwhile, over on Baka, Sir Owen von Liechtenstein is trying to change his stars. Yes. That is a A Knight’s Tale reference. No, I won’t apologize. Heath Ledger would also play Owen in this scenario. Ostensibly, I would now like a medieval Christopher Nolan adaptation of Season 43 where the entire cast is portrayed by various Heath Ledgers. Can you imagine Ennis Del Mar in an alliance with Patrick Verona? Anyway, so sorry, this was way more interesting than one guy trying desperately to play Survivor in a group of six who aren’t seemingly interested in anything but blue skies and niceties. Sir Owen von Liechtenstein, you shall change your stars! I believe in you!

This isn’t to say there is no talk of strategy. Every second woman on this season stated in their pregame interview they wanted to play like Kim Spradlin. Yeah? Fancy that! Me too! I also want flat-earthers to explain why we still have water and why the clouds don’t just float off into the Great Beyond, but something tells me none of us are going to get what we want. We do get teased with TWO women’s alliances. Sheeeeeeesh. At least wait until just before the merge before you strip me of all hope that I might’ve had a shot this season had I played. It’s too late, though. Nothing will stop them now. Just resign. FF. GG.

Dwight volunteers to lose his vote twice, while Gabler gabble gabbles himself right into a two-tribal idol. Karla, a person who understands math (looking at you Chanelle!), chose to preserve her vote.

Hooray. Punitive immunity challenges. Thanks for listening, production! Can’t wait to watch Baka get dehydrated right out of the premerge. Anyway, Vesi and Coco win.

Remember how Owen strategized early, but no one cared because they weren’t going to lose? Well, funny thing about cosmic poetry -- it’s time to go to tribal. Since Gabler gabble gabbled himself into a soon-to-be one-tribal idol, it came down to Owen or Morriah which makes sense because there was a women’s alliance. Morriah gets voted out unanimously despite us getting no discussion of Sami being in on it and somewhere Jonas smiles knowing that Kim’s reign is yet inimitable. Despite the 2-hour premiere, I forgot Morriah existed. Did she get, what, one confessional? Two, tops. Good, balanced edit right thurr.

Predictions

Who’s Next: Sami, Justine, or Ryan.

Who Can’t Win? Chaotic Fabio.

Who is Winning? Almost definitely a woman. Maybe the Kim Spradlin game comes off the shelf in this new era.