Spoilers for Survivor Season 47 are very much in play here. If you aren’t caught up, please bail out of this speedboat immediately. For info on Survivor 48 check out our 2025 TV schedule.
Survivor Season 47 has had some wild gameplay moments so far from myriad players, many of them who have already been ousted from the competition. Ahead of learning who will take home the Survivor prize money during next week’s giant double header finale, there are six players left: Sam, Genevieve, Andy, Teeny, Sue and Rachel and a lot of idols and advantages still in the mix. Despite this, “Operation Italy” – a combo of Sam, Genevieve and Andy – used nothing but rumor, bluster and some solid acting to get out Caroline this week, and I’m just obsessed with how dramatic of a turn Andy’s trajectory has been on the show this season. Turns out, that’s all the other fans want to talk about too.
When Survivor Season 47 kicked off, Andy Rueda really didn’t have his own game going. He almost got kicked off the show well before the merge thanks to a freakout in front of the entire cast. Then, for a while he road on the coattails of the Sierra and Sam alliance, before betraying everyone near and dear to him in several fell swoops. But up until this week’s episode none of that had really been his master plan, and he’d mostly ridden on the coattails of other peoples' ideas.
This time, however, Andy decided to go boldly where some great Survivor players have gone before him and he, along with Genevieve and Sam, utterly smashed it out of the park. Andy convinced people to split the vote, despite some concern from Rachel. Sam played dead in the water convincingly and Genevieve threw out a fake idol and story convincingly enough that Teeny bought it.
The end result was one of the best Survivor episodes I’d ever seen.
If I’m being frank, I did not have a whole lot of respect for Andy’s game up until this point, despite his repeated protestations that he was playing and no one was giving him due respect. Andy was playing, he just wasn’t always necessarily doing so in ways that would make him stand out as someone to be respected or reckoned with by his peers. Turns out, a lot of fans are seeing the changes he made to his strategy this week and applauding his bold move.
The fact that Genevieve/Sam/Andy pulled that vote off with no advantages is EXACTLY how you play Survivor!! They had nothing but a complex strategy and kept their wits. That's all. That will be a LEGENDARY Survior move. Well done trio. #Survivor #Survivor47 pic.twitter.com/g6kaOKwqBRDecember 5, 2024
Any player who gets their own Jeff Goldblum meme should be pretty happy about their Survivor actions, imo.
Everyone to Andy #Survivor #Survivor47 pic.twitter.com/8AzuNFu2X2December 5, 2024
Honestly my reaction was a little more one of awe and closer to what this fan said on Twitter (X):
Operation Italy. Wow. Andy’s arc on this season of Survivor: LEGEN-DARY. From wounded gazelle to king of the jungle.Teeny might be dumber than Rome. Sue’s got no game. Rachel just lost a clear path to victory. Best episode IN YEARS. #Survivor47 pic.twitter.com/2NKdrj0hlgDecember 5, 2024
I mean seriously, Rueda’s arc from clueless to actually getting the game to then being able to manipulate where it goes has been impressive to watch. I’ve seen players change this much across seasons but nothing quite as drastic as what we’ve seen from Andy, at least insofar as how his edit has portrayed him.
Andy went from dying on the beach week 1 to executing a blind side to make 6 #survivor47 #survivor pic.twitter.com/zx7YGJBQnLDecember 5, 2024
Even some that aren’t still totally sold on Andy as a player are at least giving credit where credit is due.
Andy I don’t know what to think of you but Operation Italy kinda going into history books #survivor47 pic.twitter.com/yqf2oipaqRDecember 5, 2024
And Caroline basically said Andy’s chaotic gameplay earlier on was what did her in this week. She told Parade they were basically trying to appease Andy because they knew he wanted to make a move and they wanted to keep him in the fold. Little did they know he wanted to make a mark in a bigger way than they anticipated, and used their lack of respect for him as a literal advantage.
We should have just really dictated what the split vote was going to be. But the whole reason we didn't do that was actually because of me. I was the one advocating against all of those things, and the reason being, I personally really viewed this vote as "Andy management." I could tell Andy was really in a position where he wanted to make his mark on the game, especially after we kind of shut him down hard for trying to go for Genevieve during the Kyle vote, harder than what was shown. I knew that Andy really wanted to feel respected and that he was making a big move.
Honestly, up until this point, I thought Survivor 47 was going to follow the same trajectory as a bunch of the past seasons. I thought the major players would get voted out after making big moves, and we'd end up with a not-so-amazing final 3. But given Andy is playing hard, Genevieve is sharp, Rachel is thriving and has advantages, and Sam’s a reasonably good challenge and strategy player, we could end up with some really interesting final 3 combinations, particularly given Teeny is an emotional player and Sue still has her idol.
You can watch next week's episode on Wednesday night on CBS or via other streaming options or you can check out the rest of the network TV schedule.