Survivor season 49 episode 5 recap: War brews over both tribes while Savannah lives the dream

Survivor Season 49, Episode 5, was titled "I'm a Wolf, Baby," which aired on Wednesday, October 22, exclusively on CBS.

As MCs made her return and learned that Matt was voted out by Hina, Sage soon waited for Shannon to leave her "alone with the tribe to make her big move along with the alliance."

Jeff Probst has again divided the two tribes back into three, featuring Kristina, Alex, Nate, and Sage will now be wearing Hina red, while Jawan and Steven will be wearing Kele blue.

Show host Jeff Probst also introduced players to something unexpected called a survivor fakeout, which initially shocked the players, but they soon realised that it was a prank and called it exciting. 

Host Jeff Probst initially shocked the contestants as he announced,

"Grab your stuff and head out."

What was the challenge in Survivor season 49, week 5?

As the players faced the next challenge, the two tribes had to race to carry heavy bamboo cages from the water to the shore, where five of the players shot baskets into nets from inside the cage.

The first player to finish the challenge earned immunity and three egg-laying hens and a rooster as a reward.

Neither tribe had an easy time carrying the cages in what show host Jeff Probst described as "one of the hottest times [he] can remember ever" in his time on the show, but Kele soon found momentum in the final stretch on the shore and then, with Alex managing to shoot baskets better than Rizo, as he managed to secure their safety with a cutthroat win.

As these players are facing the lack of food by day 10. Kele soon made the easy decision to want to eat one of their "newly won chickens", but the act of killing one was a tough pill to swallow for the women of the tribe, so they left Steven and Alex to complete the task.

Alex described the whole thing as shocking and called it probably the hardest thing he had ever done in his life, but wore it as a "badge of honour that he could finally prove to people back home who had called him "too soft" that he is actually tough enough to do the hard things."

Host Jeff Probst gets candid about the idea of Golden Survivor

Survivor show host Jeff Probst teased an idea on the recent episode of his podcast, On Fire with Jeff Probst. The television personality addressed the idea of a golden season.

While the idea sounds tempting, the host admitted that it might not work out logistically. Probst pointed out that the first flaw is the demand in terms of needing enough older contestants to would actually want to be involved.

“I think if you just limit it to 50-and-over casting, it would be difficult to do two times per year. You’re looking at 40 people. I just don’t think it would work, personally. In the same way that I would miss it if one gender weren’t on the show and we just did all women or all men. I think it’s that clash and collaboration, the unexpected partnerships and learning about each other, that’s a big part of our format.”

The reality television star pointed out that narrowing the cast to a specific niche takes away from the diversity for which the long-running CBS show is known for years. 

Stay tuned for more updates.