*Spoilers ahead for the premiere of Survivor 47, “One Glorious and Perfect Episode”*
We’re only one episode into the newest season of Survivor and already the LGBTQ+ contestants are stirring up some drama, which just confirms what we’ve been saying for years now: Nobody does reality TV like the queers!
The long-running competition returned to CBS/Paramount+ for its 47th season of outwitting, outplaying, and outlasting, and from the jump eyes were on one castaway in particular: Jon Lovett.
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Not since Mike White have we had a contestant who was this well known before the island: Lovett, famously, is a former speechwriter for Barack Obama‘s first term in the White House, a veteran TV writer and producer, and one of the co-founders of Crooked Media, which produces a number of podcasts including his own, Lovett Or Leave It, where he talks politics and pop culture with celebrity guests.
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But you probably knew all of that… unless, of course, you happened to be in Lovett’s Survivor tribe.
In one of the most comical moments of the premiere, Lovett introduces himself to the rest of his yellow-bandana’d Gata tribe, only to discover none of them have the slightest clue who he is.
They did, however, rather quickly assume he lived in West Hollywood:
As the tribe awkwardly gets to know one another, it did also give us the delightful moment where 31-year-old AI research assistant Andy Rueda comes out to Lovett in the most refreshingly matter-of-fact way possible:
“I’m bi,” Rueda says. “I’m gay,” Lovett says in return.
And it really is that simple! Rueda came out on national TV just like that—and during Bisexual Awareness Week no less!
With luscious locks and a winning smile, Rueda certainly showed promise as the heartthrob of the season, at the very least.
Now, before you get your hopes up for some sort of rainbow alliance on the island, things took a turn rather quickly.
Rueda, for one, might have learned the hard way he wasn’t quite cut out for this game. He had trouble sleeping, he felt upset when none of his tribe mates praised him for opening a coconut, and he completely lost it during the Immunity Challenge, even prompting host Jeff Probst to call over the medical team.
“I gave everything, Jeff,” he said, sensing his poor performance would send his team to Tribal Council, where he’d surely be their #1 target. “I was gonna be voted out tonight. They were gonna vote me out.”
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Well, they didn’t. Rueda made his intentions to scheme against Lovett, his closest ally in the competition, quite clear—so much for queer solidarity, right? And somehow, despite his meltdown and his poor challenge performance, it worked! He was able to sway the others to vote out Lovett, whose propensity for strategic gameplay made him a threat.
And, just like that, Jon Lovett was the first voted off the island in Survivor 47. It was unanimous.
Considering how prominent Lovett’s been in CBS’s promo for the season, his departure is quite the shock, and it’s one that’s been met with a mess of emotions from the show’s vocal LGBTQ+ fan base who feel amused, bemused, and betrayed. Here are just a few of the funniest reactions we’ve seen on X:
Even Lovett himself weighed in with the perfect response:
So, with Lovett gone, does that mean Rueda’s next on the chopping block if and when Gata has to head to Tribal again? Well, conventional logic says yes, especially if he continues to flop in challenges and drag his team down.
Though, in his post-mortem interview with EW, Lovett does wisely point to the fact that Rueda “isn’t really a threat anymore,” so others might view it as a savvy move to keep him around for numbers-sake until the last possible moment. Man, Lovett really does have a good strategy brain for this—a shame he doesn’t get to stick around!
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Which leaves us with one more question: Though we certainly don’t mind seeing Rueda on our TV screens, let’s assume he’s not too long for this season—are there any other queer castaways to root for?
Look no further that Teeny Chirichillo, the 24-year-old freelance writer from New Jersey. Though it hasn’t yet come up on the show, Chirichillo identifies as nonbinary, which they see as an advantage for their time on the island:
“Growing up closeted, I had to learn to socially maneuver and keep attention off myself, which is a skill important for Survivor,” they told the student news publication at Rutgers University, of which they are an alum. “My secret weapon is having masculine and feminine attributes, which help me to blend and get along with everyone.”
A noted superfan of the show, Chirichillo seems well-positioned to thrive, and we love to hear they view their queerness as a super power.
Will Teeny Chirichillo show’em all how its done and become Survivor‘s first nonbinary winner? Can Andy Rueda possibly bounce back and regain his tribe-mates’ trust? Is Jon Lovett going to “storm the Tribal Council with a group of insurrectionists” and demand a recount? To paraphrase the great Mama Ru: We can’t wait to see how this turns out.
New episodes of Survivor air every Wednesday night on CBS, and streaming simultaneously on Paramount+.
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