Survivor 50 eliminated two players in a single tribal council on Wednesday, marking the first time in the series’ history that contestants voted out a pair of players simultaneously. The double elimination of Benjamin “Coach” Wade and Chrissy Hofbeck serves as the latest escalation in a season titled “In The Hands of the Fans,” which has prioritized high-risk production twists over traditional gameplay.
This event follows a volatile stretch in Fiji that saw a triple-elimination twist the previous week and the largest tribal council in the show’s history. That 14-player vote resulted in the exit of Season 45 winner Dee Valladares, who became the first member of the jury after a fragmented 8-4-1 vote. The momentum of those early cuts set the stage for the pair-based mechanics introduced in Episode 8.
Production introduced a first-of-its-kind pair elimination
Host Jeff Probst divided the remaining 13 contestants into pairs, with the exception of Cirie Fields. Fields, a winner of “The Traitors,” volunteered to be the odd one out and was selected via random draw to spend the episode on Exile Island.
While Fields dealt with isolation, the other 12 players competed for shared immunity. The stakes shifted when Probst revealed that the tribal council wouldn’t target an individual, but rather a duo. This forced players to suddenly evaluate the liability of their partners, turning previously stable alliances into “sinking ships.”
Tiffany Ervin and Joe Hunter secured the shared immunity, avoiding the vote entirely. The pairing was an ironic twist of fate; Hunter had voted for Ervin in the preceding week, yet the two ended up as the only pair safe from elimination.
Why the dominant alliance lost two members
The majority of the vote targeted Coach and Chrissy, who became the second and third members of the jury. Chrissy had urged Coach to maintain a low profile to avoid becoming a target, a strategy he followed, but it didn’t stop the opposing faction from coordinating their strike.
Coach attempted to save the pair by playing his “Shot In The Dark” advantage. The gamble offered a one-in-six chance at safety, but the odds didn’t lean in his favor. The failure of the advantage left the duo defenseless against a concentrated effort to prune the season’s most dominant alliance.
From Exile Island, Cirie Fields reclaimed her voting power
Fields’ status as the odd one out didn’t guarantee her a voice in the game. While she held automatic immunity on Exile Island, she had to earn her right to vote by completing a high-pressure challenge.
She raced against an hourglass timer to find a single coconut marked with a phoenix symbol among a field of 2,000 coconuts. Failure would have left her stranded on the island without a vote. Fields found the coconut in time, returning to camp with enough leverage to sway the voting bloc away from Rick Devens and Aubry Bracco.
The remaining 11 players face a shifted power dynamic
Rick Devens avoided the chopping block through a calculated deception. He produced a fake idol that he and Christian Hubicki had previously planted at the tribal council, a move designed to scare opponents away from voting for him.
The bluff worked. The fear of a wasted vote ensured that Devens and Bracco remained in the game, while the alliance lost two veteran strategists in one blow. The remaining cast now includes a mix of legends and recent winners, including Ozzy Lusth, who recently secured individual immunity during a reward challenge for Chinese takeout and brownies.
The competition continues toward a live finale scheduled for May 20, with the current roster of 11 players now operating in a landscape where traditional individual safety is increasingly secondary to production-mandated pairings.
Who was the first person to join the jury?
Dee Valladares, the winner of Season 45, was the first jury member after being voted out 8-4-1 during a 14-player tribal council.
How did Coach and Chrissy get eliminated together?
The episode featured a twist where players were divided into pairs and voted out as duos. Coach and Chrissy were the pair that received the majority of the votes, and Coach’s “Shot In The Dark” advantage failed to save them.
What did Cirie Fields have to do to vote?
Cirie had to find a specific coconut with a phoenix symbol among 2,000 coconuts on Exile Island before an hourglass timer ran out.