Survivor 50 Mystery Box: A ‘shocking incident’ is on the way this week Here are the details👇

I was perusing CBS’ official episode description for this week’s episode of Survivor 50, and it all sounded a little boilerplate at the beginning.

“Castaways find themselves on both a literal and figurative island after their return from what is regarded as one of the ‘craziest tribals of all time,’” it begins. I mean, pretty standard stuff. No real news there, and just kind of refers to what happened last week.

It then continues: “Castaways reflect on their letters from home and the family members that have impacted them.” Again, I don’t want to be a nitpicker, but doesn’t this seem to be referring to stuff that already went down on last week’s episode? Are we going truly old school Survivor, and is episode 11 of season 50 just a recap episode with weird Jeff Probst narration throughout? What is going on here?

And then I got to the next sentence. “Then, a shocking incident takes place at this week’s immunity challenge.”

WHOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAA! I feel like we just went from zero to 60 in like two seconds flat. A shocking incident? Aren’t we still recovering from last week’s shocking incident? Or incidents if you want to separate Rick Devens first blowing up Tribal Council and then the MrBeast coin flip that followed? (By the way, check out my exclusive interview with Rick about both of those things.)

Now we have another shocking incident? And this time at an immunity challenge? How shocking is it? Well, the title of the episode is “Everyone Will Be Shooketh!” So that sounds pretty shocking. Naturally, it is time to speculate on what it could all mean.

The first instinct is to assume that it must be some sort of medical evacuation. We’ve certainly had some terrifying moments in the past due to such incidents. (Russell Swan on Samoa, anyone?) But those were more scary than shocking, right? I’m not ruling that out, and maybe I’m overanalyzing the language, but it feels like it could be something else.

Could it mean someone does something shocking and nefarious at the challenge, like trying to sabotage another contestant on the course? That seems highly unlikely as well, judging by the photos of the challenge you see above. It’s the classic stand-on-a-triangle-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean-for-as-long-as-possible contest, which doesn’t seem like it would lend itself to any chicanery — like say throwing the sand you are digging out of your hole onto a neighboring player’s side to slow them down. Plus, these returning all-stars don’t seem likely to pull such pranks anyway.

The title of the episode might be a bit of a giveaway. The fact that the quote being used for the title is “Everyone WILL Be Shooketh!” shows us that whoever said it is not reacting to something that has already happened but rather predicting something to come. Perhaps Probst makes some sort of announcement about a twist at the challenge. And since the challenge appears pretty straightforward, could it have something to do with how this week’s elimination works?

After all, we still have nine players remaining, yet only three episodes. If they only do traditional single eliminations the next two weeks, that means we would be going into the finale with seven players left, two more than the traditional five. Of course, nothing is traditional on season 50, so maybe there is some super elimination twist in the finale. But if not, they have two extra people they need to get rid of in the next two weeks. Could we see another double or triple elimination this week?

Something to ponder as we wait to find out just how shooketh we will be on Wednesday night. In the meantime, let’s open up this week’s Survivor 50 Mystery Box below to see what exclusive goodies pop out.

“No, do it THIS way!”

One part that never makes it to TV is Probst walking all the players through a challenge before it is run. It’s a chance for the contestants to see all the stages up close and ask any questions along the way as Jeff explains what they can and can’t do.

In the tribe portion of the game, Jeff takes each team through the course one by one, with the other tribes on lockdown (no talking!) while they wait for their turn. Anyway, I always love snapping a few pics of this because it’s a very different dynamic than what you see once the cameras start rolling again. Here’s Probst and the Cila tribe just before running the first immunity challenge.

The last word(s)

An outtake that did not make it into my pre-game interview with Stephenie, on the key to staying in the game:

“You want to win the challenges. You don’t want to go to Tribal Council. I’ve been there. I held the record for that. As long as we can win challenges. I want to be on Jonathan. He’s a freakin’ beast. If you have Jonathan, you’re good. You’re going to have fish and you’re going to probably win the challenge.”

Screenshot of the week

I think this reaction from the Jury to Rick Devens’ coin flip pretty much says it all. I also love how stoic Coach remains amidst all the chaos.