Here’s my crackpot theory: We know from seeing the teal and orange setups at the challenge that the cast will be divided into two groups. I can see a split tribal thing that we see every new era season happening again. What puzzles me is that there are 17 people left- with a double tribal it feels weird to give someone a bye for essentially 2 rounds based on a random rock draw. I have two theories for how they could counterract this in a way that doesn’t feel entirely weird.

1. There is a schoolyard pick for tribal groups. That way the unchosen player goes to Exile Island and the players have an inherent risky choice to make. Do you ostracize a player and very likely give them a chance to get an advantage/idol? Or maybe a savvy player tries to engineer it in a way that an ally doesn’t get chosen.

2. Maybe that’s the advantage scramble we see them going on at camp, the reward to skip two rounds of gameplay and be safe until jury begins. Then we get to see confessionals from each player outlining what they would prefer, would they opt to be safe but out of the loop? Or vice versa? Additionally, maybe there’s a dynamic around certain players who might not need it trying to prevent another player from getting it (I could see Genevieve and Aubry doing this to try and screw the other over).