On Monday (Feb. 9), “Survivor” officially launched its “Road to 50” campaign, which will see CBS re-air 10 classic episodes from the longrunning reality competition series in the run up to the highly-anticipated premiere of its milestone 50th season on Wednesday, February 25.
Each episode of the two-week event will feature one or more of the iconic castaways returning to compete on the golden anniversary “all-star” installment, showcasing some of the show’s most memorable moments and characters along the way.
CBS kicked off the campaign by airing a re-run of the “Survivor: Micronesia” episode “If It Smells Like a Rat, Give It Cheese,” starring Season 50 returnee Cirie Fields.
The episode, which originally aired in the spring of 2008, featured one of the most pivotal and memorable eliminations in the show’s 26-year history as the infamous all-female “Black Widow Brigade” alliance – composed of legendary castaways like Cirie, Parvati Shallow, Amanda Kimmel and Natalie Bolton – used their flirtations to convince fellow castaway Erik Reichenbach to willingly surrender his Immunity necklace at Tribal Council, allowing the four women send the season’s last man standing home in fifth place.
Now, 18 years later and with just two weeks left until the premiere of “Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans,” Cirie is opening up about the strategic planning and teamwork that went into pulling off the now-legendary blindside.
Cirie Reflects on Legendary ‘Survivor: Micronesia’ Move
CBS“This is a very tough decision for me for a lot of reasons. As a competitor, I’ve always said, ‘Keep your fate in your own hands.’ But there’s so many things weighing on my mind. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in the past couple of days. And I know that actions do speak louder than words…I want to give individual immunity to Natalie.”
Those are the words Reichenbach uttered just moments before he became the most memorable victim of Cirie’s Black Widow alliance on Day 36 of the “Fans vs. Favorites” season.
Fields herself was instrumental in pulling off the move, telling Parade in a new interview that the plan to blindside Erik, despite the fact that he’d secured safety in the game by winning the Individual Immunity challenge earlier the same day, was like organizing a heist.
“It was so important and pivotal at this point in the game that everyone had to know their part, and had to play their part 1,000%. Because if there’s one iota of a decimal of anything off, Erik would not follow through with the plan, and we would have to vote out Natalie,” Fields told the publication in a Feb. 9 interview.
“It was like when you go into a corporate office and you’re planning on a merger,” she continued. “Like they’re going to take over this company, and you have to have all of these steps in place…That’s kind of what it felt like.”
While the alliance had previously used their wiles to eliminate players like Jason Siska and Ozzy Lusth, blindsiding Reichenbach was a game-changing move, allowing the remaining Black Widows to enter the final days of the game together before making history with the show’s first all-female finale.
Cirie Reveals How She Came Up with the Plan to Blindside Erik
According to Cirie, she started formulating the plan after Erik won the episode’s Reward Challenge, selecting Amanda to join him on the excursion instead of Natalie, who started the season as one of the “Fans” alongside Erik.
Fields reported that Natalie was “pretty perturbed” by Erik’s decision.
“He was telling us at that point that he wanted Amanda out,” Cirie revealed, adding that she manipulated Natalie’s frustration to plant the seed of doubt that would ultimately lead to one of the series’ most memorable Tribal Council ceremonies.
“Does he really want Amanda out?” Cirie asked Natalie. “Why would you feed the competition right before a challenge if you want them to lose? I would have thought he would take you. I thought y’all was cooler than that, right?”
As a late-comer to the Black Widow alliance, Natalie once more found herself on the chopping block after Erik won the episode’s Individual Immunity challenge. While Cirie reported having no problem whatsoever with voting for Bolton at Tribal Council, Reichenbach’s prowess in late game endurance challenges still posed a major threat to her alliance with Parvati and Amanda.
Fields revealed that the idea to get Erik to surrender his Immunity necklace came to her “like a light bulb.”
Cirie Played on Erik’s Guilty Conscience to Protect the Black Widow Alliance
“I knew Erik, one, felt bad for telling us all the same thing,” she said. “Two, he felt bad for not taking Natalie. I think Natalie kind of gave him the business for not taking her on the reward. So I don’t know, out of nowhere, just like, ‘You think he would give Natalie the necklace?’”
“I’m thinking in terms of redemption,” she continued. “He could think maybe he would have a shot at votes later. Because up until that point, once he crossed everybody, in his mind, he’s thinking, ‘Nobody will ever vote for me.’ So that’s where the idea came from. And it was just like a humbug! I didn’t even really believe it. You can hear how I said it.”
After formulating the basis of the plan, Cirie pulled in Parvati and Amanda, who were more than happy to play along.
Cirie Opens Up About Convincing Erik to Surrender His Immunity
Things started to take shape as Cirie approached Erik about giving his Immunity necklace to Natalie, convincing the sole remaining male castaway that, if he did, he’d have both herself and Bolton on his side, leaving Amanda and Parvati on the bottom.
Erik agreed to consider the plan, but only if Cirie would agree to voting out her closest ally, Parvati, that same night.
“I took the opportunity,” Cirie reported. “You know I’m sacrificing something by giving up Parv, who’s my number one. You’re sacrificing something, giving up the necklace. And we’re forming this new relationship of trust. If that’s how it has to go, that’s how it’ll go.”
Of course, Fields never actually had any intention of targeting Shallow, and as she entered the Final Five Tribal Council, she was still worried the plan would fall apart.
Cirie Reflects on Historic ‘Micronesia’ Tribal Council Ceremony
CBS“I wasn’t 100% sold that he would go through with it,” she reported. “I was hopeful, but I was still that little feeling you get in your stomach, like, ‘Damn, he could change his mind.’ Any wrong look, and then we have the live jury over there, so anything at all could tip him off. Jeff [Probst] could say something like, ‘Give away your immunity?’ That might tip him off. I was afraid that any little thing would tip him off and he would change his mind. I really didn’t think he would go through with it.”
That was, until Probst played right into the Black Widow Brigade’s hands by asking Cirie if she thought redemption was possible in the game of “Survivor.”
Fields, who’d spend the day trying to convince Erik that he could “redeem” himself with both the jury and his “Fans” tribe ally Natalie by sacrificing his necklace, ran with the opportunity.
“My part in it was to ensure everybody was listening, Erik, that redemption is possible. No matter what you do in these games, there’s a time that you can stand 10 toes down and redeem yourself and redeem your world, where people can trust you again. And that was pretty much the only part I played at Tribal Council, because I was too afraid. I was so locked in only on Jeff. I didn’t look in the periphery. I didn’t look to the left, right. I just wanted to focus on Jeff. Because I felt like if Erik saw me blink, he would change his mind.”
Thankfully for the women, Erik followed through with Cirie’s plan, surrendering his Immunity necklace to Natalie in what remains one of the most unbelievable moments the series had seen in the last 49 seasons.
Cirie Reveals How She Felt in the Moments After Erik’s Blindside
“It was full-on Mardi Gras as soon as he took that necklace off and put it on Natalie,” Cirie reported. “You didn’t hear the horns and the second line dances…But we still have to be tactful. And it wasn’t over yet. It’s not over until Jeff says it’s over. So although he did exactly what we wanted him to do, I didn’t want to just get up and start tap dancing or doing the Dougie or something. But I was doing it inside!”
During her voting confessional on the episode, Fields quoted her mother, who’d told her, “Use what you have. You have God-given talents. You may not be as strong physically as the man next door, but you’re strong up here. Utilize your brain. It will never let you down.”
“That’s what that moment meant to me,” she added. “I felt like there’s no way we could physically beat him, but we were able to mentally outthink him…It’s not all about who’s the strongest; it’s not always about who’s the fastest. It’s about who’s the most strategic. And I think that speaks volumes about ‘Survivor.’”
Looking back on the historic move, she concluded: “I think that’s almost like the David and Goliath story. You have this giant, Erik…and then you have these four little women…And we were able to come together with a plan, women working together to outsmart, outwit and outlast the giant. And I think that’s what you average person looks at [and thinks] … ‘If they could slay that giant, I could slay my giant as well.”
Be sure to catch Cirie Fields return for her fifth series appearance on “Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans” when the milestone season makes its historic three-hour CBS premiere on Wednesday, February 25 at 8:00pm ET.
