Wait, do I have to start my recap talking all about quitting again? I just did a whole thing last week! I referenced Purple Kelly and everything. And now I have to do it all over again?!?

ROB! You’re killing me, bro! I mean, make no mistake, your hilarious attempt to quit Survivor 51 last week by voting yourself out at Tribal Council will go down as all-time absurdity. But when that plan failed — and after you professed how important it was for you to give Eric a second chance since you thought he was being voted out — why didn’t you just stop Jeff before he read the votes and quit right then and there?!?

Instead, you create a phantom injury immediately after returning back to camp, are told you are fine, ask poor Dr. Barry if it’s possible your paper-cut sized hole on your foot could get infected, which, yes, is possible because it’s possible anything could get infected, and then pull yourself from the game anyway even after the doctor told you that you were okay to continue.

“I didn’t want to just quit,” you told us. “I feel like just quitting is ruining the game. If you’re going out for a medical reason, that’s totally different.”

And on that we agree. Because you know what? THIS IS MUCH WORSE!!! Just own the quit, bro! That’s what it is, a quit. And those aren’t my words. Those are Rob’s tribemates’ words. Alexis, Ori, Kristin, Linnea, and pretty much any Savu tribe member they put on screen all came to the same conclusion — that Rob was faking it. Or at least faking the severity of his situation. And it’s clear the producers did not buy it either. I mean, they even played a comedic music cue over Rob crying to his tribe about leaving due to his “injury.”

Yes, I just used air quotes. Did you see him limp at all before Tribal Council? Did he complain about his foot prior to not being allowed to vote himself out? Did he ever mention needing to see a doctor until that was his only way to get out of the game? The doctor himself described it as — and these are real quotes and not air ones — a “tiny cut.”

Let me offer a little on-the-scene insight. I’ve been out on location for 21 different seasons. I have seen up close how this game terrorizes contestants’ bodies. Every single time I have been out there, I have seen multiple contestants with cuts and abrasions waaaay worse than Rob’s.  LOOK AT PATT’S SHOULDER, FOR CHRISSAKES! LOOK AT LEWIS’ POST-EXILE ISLAND HANDS! KRISTIN HAS A FREAKIN’ BROKEN FOOT AND IS STILL OUT THERE!

All that is pretty typical for Survivor. And look, I’m not busting out the all caps and exclamation points to take Rob to task for quitting. That is what it is. He thought he could hack it and he thought wrong. He couldn’t sleep at all, and it wasn’t worth it for him to stay, so he wanted to get out of there. Fine. But to pull a Colton and hide behind a fake injury is soooooo lame. Like I said, just own it! Your tribemates and viewers would be so much more forgiving if that was the case.

‘Survivor 51’ star Ana Sani had unaired ‘crashout’ after popcorn-gate

Jeff Probst says ‘Survivor 51’ player trying to vote himself out ‘makes no sense’

Can you imagine what the kinder, gentler Jeff Probst would have said to this guy had this been 20 years ago? He kept his cool on screen, but must have been fuming.

And it’s such a bummer because I really thought Rob was going to give us TV gold this season from what we saw in the premiere. I mean… I guess, technically, he did inadvertently with last week’s episode, but I thought we’d have a nice long villainous arc of him needlessly throwing people under the bus like he did to poor Eric, who was just trying to catch the tiniest fish imaginable so he could cry on camera. Instead, Rhode Island Rob wanted out on day 5.

I honestly can’t wait to chat with Rob for our Thursday exit interview. Will he now admit he did not need to leave for medical reasons, or will he stick to his story and insist it was his fear of infection that drove him from the game, and not the fact that he was simply miserable not being able to sleep out in the elements? If he’s smart, he will come clean and do the former. After all, Ori’s mom named him Ori, not stupid. And the rest of us could say the same. (Not that we’re all named Ori. That would be super weird, not to mention confusing. But you catch my drift.)

Okay, let’s dive into the rest of what went down on episode 3 of Survivor 51.

Mutineers must die!

Wow, that was sort of a harsh headline. But those are Ozzy’s words back from season 13, not mine. The death penalty seems a bit much for switching tribes in the middle of a reality TV competition, but I get why it provokes such strong reactions.

Producers decided to bring some of that old Cook Islands magic — minus the whole race war angle — back with an opportunity for one player from each tribe to switch sides. For some odd reason, the Savu tribe just decided to pull a Shot in the Dark out of the bag instead of voting for who should go visit the other tribe — the latter of which would have guaranteed the majority alliance could handle the twist as they wanted. So naturally, it ended up being the one they least wanted to go in Carter. (Whoops!)

Toka’s decision was even weirder, as Devin raised his hand to go and everyone was all, “Sure, whatever, go for it!” (If you’re worried about Devin having all the control and making all the decisions for the tribe, maybe offer up yourself as another option?) And naturally, Devin went over there, talked an epic amount of smack about Kilby, solidified all of his relationships on the other tribe, and procured himself a secret extra vote. (Again, whoops!)

As for Carter, who proclaimed himself “the worst Survivor player in the history of forever” — his words, not mine — before passing up an easy chance for his secret vote by literally walking right by the unattended oars, it was a more complicated trip. Not only did he waltz right by the easy-peasy opportunity to nab his advantage, but the dude then told the Toka tribe he preferred to leave his bag out in the rain (???) and followed that up by leaving it unattended with the clue sitting right on top of the bag.

And it somehow did not even end there. After having his advantage swiped by the other tribe, Carter spent so much time looking for the dismantled oars that the boat left without him — meaning he had now mutinied to the other tribe… whether he wanted to or not.

And now, even though each tribe had lost the same number of immunity challenges, suddenly Soka was at an 11-7 numbers disadvantage… not that it really matters when you are on the precipice of dropping buffs and shaking up the tribes the next day anyway.

Anchors away!

Okay, what I said in the paragraph above about the numbers discrepancy not mattering is not entirely true. When you suddenly have four more tribe members than the competition, it gives you more options in terms of sitting out perceived weak links at the all-important immunity challenge.

Speaking of which, this week’s contest was another long obstacle course with some cool elements like using two hooks to hoist up a heavy bag of coconuts before eventually ending with — what else? — a puzzle. You longtime readers have heard me say a million times how all that matters is the puzzle, and Savu once again proved that thanks to the anchor puzzle-solving stylings of alternate-spelling heroes Cristian and Kristin.

That dynamic duo dominated on the anchor, giving their tribe a huge come-from-behind win and increasing the Survivor undefeated streak of immunity wins by a tribe after a member has mutinied to the other team. Aitutaki won every tribe immunity contest after Candice and Penner switched sides, and now Savu has done the same.

The only other thing I want to note about this challenge is all the jostling going on between teams as they were untying their first key bags. We saw Eric blocking Carter (Mutineers must die!) and then Alexis bashing Patt with two Ts. Lewis was in the mix there too, although I could not tell if he was dishing it out or getting his clock cleaned. I mean, it was no Robb with two Bs choking Clay in the Thailand Attack Zone, but it will have to do.

Men in the middle

There was so much going on at Toka after their challenge loss that one could almost be forgiven for glossing over the fact that Lewis actually asked Carter: “Do you have big balls, bro?” But rest assured I have never and would never gloss over such a thing.

The mass and volume of Carter’s balls appeared to be in question when he first told us how it was much better to play it safe and go with the majority alliance in his new tribe. But the Southern charmer later demanded an immediate remeasurement! That’s because he had a lucky leprechaun whispering in his ear. Was this leprechaun a murderous lunatic bragging about all the dumb people he murdered everywhere from outer space to “in the hood?” No, it was Lewis!

And while Lewis may not have realized that volunteering to go to Exile Island was an undeniably terrible decision, he did realize that he and Carter were the swing votes on Toka. On one side was Devin, Jelly, Brady, Pantless Patt, and Mike. On the other was alleged wedding photographer Jenna, Maggie, Thien An, and Kilby, who tried to convince anyone who would listen that he was, in fact, one of Brady’s Brodies. (Narrator: He wasn’t.)

He wasn’t because word had gotten back to Brady that Kilby compared him to a little brother who can’t even figure out his video game controller is unplugged. HEY! That is completely uncalled for! Does a player who just handed over an extra vote to someone who is not even an ally sound like the type of person who would not notice their controller was unplugged? (Don’t answer that.) Also, who plugs in controllers anymore?!? Do we not have changers? Are we going retro and playing Super Contra on the NES? Is that what is happening here? Because if that is what is happening… I am soooooo down.

But since Kilby was sure that Brady considered him his No. 1, he kept running to the professional wrestler and telling him all the plans as they were unfolding — first Mike as the target, and then Patt. Brady did not seem concerned, and why should he? He thought he had enough Brodies to control the numbers. Little did he know that Lewis had been wavering ever since the top o’ the mornin’.

That’s because Lewis saw something as clear as the unblemished skin on the bottom of Rob’s foot — that the Devin five was a lot tighter than the loose coalition of people outside the five. That gave him and Carter firmer footing — slight Rob pun intended — with a group moving forward, as opposed to the bottom two slots in a seven-person alliance. (Smart.) But could he convince the man with the apparently questionable ball size to jump with him? Off to Tribal Council we went to find out.

Split decision

The past two weeks broke the mold of modern-era Survivor Tribal Council basically being a bunch of nonsense before the vote. You had people directly calling others out and avoiding the safe, sanitized metaphor-heavy Tribal Council nothingness that we usually see from savvy casts that have successfully learned how to parry probing Jeff Probst questions with answers that say absolutely nothing.

Unfortunately, this week was back to business as usual. I don’t think a single thing of note or consequence was said before the voting. But at least we had some drama with the result to look forward to. Would Patt get blindsided right out of her nonexistent pants, or would Carter’s ball size once again be called into question?

After the votes went back and forth between Kilby and Patt — with Patt’s alliance all smiling under the belief they had the numbers under control — the last two votes both ended with two Ts, sending both Patt, as well as Jelly’s secret about the idol, out of the game. It also means that Devin has now been to two Tribal Councils, and been on the wrong side of both. As they say in Mad Men parlance: Not great, Bob.

Previews for next week clearly show a tribe swap of some sort happening. I’m not an anti-tribe swap guy, but I do wish we could have seen these original tribe dynamics play out a bit longer. I’m not convinced the numbers were completely stable on either beach and there would not have been some movement going on. But we’ll never know, it seems. I do think this was a solid enough episode though, continuing Survivor 51’s strong run so far.

And hopefully our strong run here on Entertainment Weekly will continue as well with not one, but two exit interviews this week. Make sure to check out our pants-optional chats with Rob and Patt, and I’ll be back next week with another scoop of the crispy!