The ‘Survivor’ Season 44 Idol Birdcage Might Cause Mayhem at the Merge

In the “new era” of Survivor, producers have been throwing new twists and advantages at the castaways left and right. Some have been semi-successful, while others have been downright disasters (we’re looking at you, hourglass). And most recently, the Survivor Season 44 cast came face-to-face with the idol birdcage, which has the ability to be the show’s best new twist in a long time.

How does the idol birdcage work in ‘Survivor’ Season 44?

When the Survivor Season 44 castaways stumbled onto their tribe beaches for the first time, they noticed a mysterious birdcage with a bag dangling inside. The cage was locked, and the key was mysteriously missing, so, of course, some players set out to find it.

At Ratu’s camp, Brandon Cottom discovered the key, and since Maddy Pomilla was nearby, he disclosed his findings to her. While she wanted to keep it a secret, Brandon didn’t trust her, so he clued the rest of his tribemates in on his findings. He opened the cage in front of everyone and found a hidden immunity idol and a fake one.

The purpose of the birdcage is to find the hidden key, open the lock in secret, take the real idol, and replace it with the fake one so no one realizes the cage has been opened. Unfortunately, none of this happened at Ratu. So everyone knew about Brandon’s advantage and could not be fooled by a fake idol. Brandon would later have to use the idol during the first Tribal Council since his tribemates targeted him.

During Survivor Season 44 Episode 2, castaways from the other two tribes, Tika and Soka, would also open their respective birdcages. However, unlike Brandon, they didn’t share their discoveries.

Carolyn Wiger retrieved the Tika idol without anyone noticing, but she was too frantic when replacing the bag, so the others knew someone had opened the cage. Thankfully for Carolyn, no one suspected her. And over at Soka, Danny Massa was the most successful because he got the tribe’s birdcage idol and placed the bag back inside without his tribemates knowing someone had opened the cage.

It looks like Carolyn and Danny grabbed the fake idols and placed the bags back inside the cage. So it will be interesting to see what they do with them in the future.

Every tribe’s fake idol is another tribe’s real idol

After the Survivor Season 44 premiere, fans assumed every tribe’s birdcage immunity idol looked the same. But following episode 2, we realized that was not the case.

Survivor producers had one more twist up their sleeves regarding the cage. Every tribe’s birdcage contains real and fake idols, but they take on different shapes among the three groups. So, for Ratu, the real idol (which Brandon already played) is beads, while the fake idol is a medallion. On Soka, the medallion is real, and the coin is fake. And for Tika, the real idol is the coin, and the fake idol is the beads.

For those keeping track at home, every tribe has a different understanding of real and fake immunity idols. It’s unclear if and when Carolyn and Danny will use their advantages, but we’re sure that this element of the birdcage twist will cause chaos when the tribes merge.

Perhaps Carolyn can fool an original Ratu member into thinking that her fake beads are a real idol. Maybe Danny will convince someone from Tika that his coin has power. Or, finally, Brandon can use his medallion to trick a Soka castaway. Whatever the case, we expect maximum mayhem at the merge in Survivor Season 44.

When will the merge happen in ‘Survivor’ Season 44?

Survivor fans will likely have to wait a few more episodes before the season 44 idol birdcage twist gets extra messy.

The tribes in seasons 41 and 42 officially merged in episode 8 (after they earned it via the hourglass twist). And the season 43 castaways merged in episode 7. So the audience probably won’t see the fake birdcage idols come into play until episode 7 or 8 of season 44.

New episodes of Survivor Season 44 air Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.

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