Another Jacket takes on the best reality TV show ever made
That’s right, Survivor recaps are back at From the Rumble Seat!
If you missed the news earlier this winter, Georgia Tech alum Eva Erickson (class of 2022) competed on season 48 of Survivor, premiering yesterday on CBS. She follows Carson Garrett as recent Georgia Tech students/grads to compete on the show. Carson finished 4th in Season 44 and spent multiple interview sessions with us, which included a deep dive on his gameplay and a cameo appearance from Sia the day after the finale.
For those that don’t know about Eva, she was the lone female on the men’s club hockey team during her time at Tech and continues to play in Rhode Island while she pursues postgraduate education at Brown. Friends of ours from that team regard her as an absolute beast on and off the ice.
Notably, she enters season 48 as the first ever contestant who is on the autism spectrum (more on this later).
Like we did for Carson a couple years ago, we’ll be doing episode by episode recaps of Eva’s gameplay, as Survivor is about as intense of a sporting experience we’ll ever see, so it more than deserves attention here…plus I’m a super big Survivor fan and will take literally any excuse to talk about the game!
Let’s dig in.
SPOILERS FOR SURVIVOR 48 EPISODE 1 AHEAD
From the start, Eva is standing out. Her tribe, Lagi, clearly is the physically strongest of the three, Eva herself being of the strongest on Lavi. In the marooning challenge, Eva is a critical piece of the final part of the challenge where her and two other Lavi members soaked in slippery mud have to climb a short wall, giving them the leg up they needed to easily win the challenge, earning flint, a pot, and a machete.
In the modern era of Survivor where supplies and food are incredibly limited, even a relatively smaller win like this at the beginning can go a long way towards tribe stability because they can move forward in establishing camp life. Machetes allow for food to be chopped and a shelter to be built. Pots give them a chance to cook whatever food they can find (they are not given any at the beginning of the game), and of course their flint means they have fire.
Eva takes quick advantage of the buildout of the Lagi camp by bringing many bamboo logs, getting an early nickname of “Bamboo Queen” because she brought so much more bamboo in than anyone else and just kept getting more and more. It’s a great combo of first impressions for Eva between the challenge and showing her value in camp life.
The most important part for early game comes soon after. As noted, she’s the first player with autism to play Survivor, which she says comes with a couple weaknesses in a Survivor context such as being overly direct to people or not being able to read social cues.
Wisely, she seeks out only one person to reveal this to, which ends up being Joe, a fire captain from California and a father of two children. The conversation ends up being the best part of the episode, as it shows impressive early vulnerability in a game about finding trustworthy allies amidst lies and deceit, but for Eva it’s also a means to literally survive on the island. She teaches Joe how to look out for signs if she’s having an episode and what she needs in those moments to ensure she stays okay. Her willingness to reveal that so early nearly had Joe choked up.
I love this moment for a bunch of reasons. For one, revealing personal information is a fantastic way to connect with people. There’s nothing more important in the first 24-48 hours of Survivor than to make real connections, as those very likely are the ones that will carry one in the game. Eva knocks that out of the park with Joe and others on the tribe (a deleted scene shows her running a conversation where they realize most of the Lagi tribe are former/current athletes). She also has a conversation that very few if any have ever had on the show, one where she has to explain a pre-existing condition that will require care from outside people. Episode one usually is us getting the lay of the land and watching people go through icebreaker conversations, this is on another level.
And to her benefit, Joe’s reaction shows just how meaningful that conversation was to him. Who would’ve guessed that on day 1 of Survivor someone would give you a clear, defined role that is entrusted to you and only you for something that holds importance far beyond the game itself? It’s moments like these that make Survivor great. You never know what combination of people will provide completely new dynamics to the game, even 48 seasons in. How Eva and Joe carry though this early game will be a focal point and likely a big determinant in how both of their games evolve. Knowing Lagi is easily wins the tribe strength battle right now, hopefully this translates into a stable group that Eva can work with later in the game.
Random side note: they showed pictures of the Georgia Tech Club Hockey team during the episode, except the logos were washed out from their uniforms 🙁
Let me know in the comments if you’ll be watching along this season!