[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Survivor Season 47 Episode 12, “Operation Italy.”]
Survivor paid homage to Ocean’s Eleven and the heist movie genre in its latest episode, made possible by a great plan called “Operation Italy” hatched by Andy. In the On Fire aftershow podcast, Jeff Probst confirmed that the editors made deliberate references to Ocean’s Eleven montages for the episode and shared how the idea came to life in post-production. (Listen to the full episode of On Fire for free without ads below.) According to Probst, a perfectly executed plan like “Operation Italy” deserved nothing less.
Andy has been voting with an underdog alliance for several episodes now, but with only a few days left in the game, he knew he had to make a splash if he has any chance of winning the $1 million in the two-part season finale. He brought Sam and Genevieve — who have been at the bottom for a while — into the fold during a reward at the sanctuary, gaining their trust by revealing Rachel’s Block a Vote advantage that everyone but them knew about. (Rachel was the right person to target; she’s the strongest player of the season so far.)
They called the plan “Operation Italy” because their sanctuary meal featured Italian food. Here’s what Andy pitched: together they build suspicion that Genevieve or Sam had an idol, which would make the underdog alliance want to split the votes, and then Andy would flip by betraying the underdog alliance and voting with Genevieve and Sam. Their goal was to take out Rachel, but then Rachel won individual immunity. They set their sights on Caroline instead.
Before the immunity challenge came an Ocean’s Eleven-inspired montage that showed Andy, Genevieve, and Sam laying the groundwork for their big scheme. Probst said in On Fire that the idea for the montage and its Ocean’s Eleven-inspired transitions and music came from co-executive producer Ryan Balthazor. Probst compared Balthazor’s work in this episode to that the successful music producer Rick Rubin.
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“On a show like Survivor, to be a good storyteller, you got to have a little bit of Rick Rubin in you,” Probst told cohosts Jay Wolff and Charlie Davis. “Rick Rubin is a very famous Malibu, California music producer with the long beard. He’s the Zen master in the corner … He says the band brings you a song, and then you offer ideas on how to shape it.” That’s what Balthazor was doing with “Operation Italy,” according to Probst.
“What Ryan is doing in the field is similar to what somebody like Rick Rubin would do in the studio. Ryan is listening to the song that Andy is bringing,” the host explains. “And now ideas are starting to form in Ryan’s head. But the song, ‘Operation Italy,’ it’s still unfolding. The band’s still in the studio, they’re still exploring. So Ryan’s focus continues to be the same thing: just listen. And he starts to ask questions. Andy, walk me through it. So how would this ‘Operation Italy’ work? And Andy starts saying, well, step one is this, step two is that. Then Andy has to go and try to pull it off. Ryan’s still just listening, observing to the song that’s still coming to life. And in this case, ‘Operation Italy’ turned out to be a hit. It was a great idea by Andy, executed perfectly by those involved. And the result is they flipped the game.”
This is when Balthazor could really get to work. “Now his job becomes, what can I bring to it as a storyteller in the edit bays?” Probst says. Balthazor and his colleagues decided that an Ocean’s Eleven reference was the perfect way to package this plan. “It’s got all the ingredients,” the host raves. “There are several steps that have to be achieved. We have a fun team of players that we want to watch try to achieve it, and we’re going to have rooting interest from the fans who are going to want it to work because it’s such a fun idea and such a great name.”
Editor Plowden Schumacher watched all of the Ocean films to prepare for this episode’s post-production, Probst reveals. “If you go back and compare, they recreated every transition from the movie and they captured that same sense of heist and fun and personality,” Probst shares. “We talked about it last week in the podcast. The key to all of this is, [Andy, Genevieve, and Sam] executed it. You can have the idea, but they were able to pull it off.”
Andy Rueda, Genevieve Mushaluk and Caroline Vidmar in ‘Survivor’ Season 47 Episode 11 tribal council (CBS)
Probst says this sequence “is one of my favorite sequences of the entire season, maybe of our entire run,” he admits. “And in case you’re wondering, yeah, it’s special to Ryan and Bill [Bowden, supervising producer who also worked on this scene] and Plowden. They celebrate that. They know it’s very special to work on this show. They know it’s very special to be given the freedom to just say, we got to take on this. It’s Oceans Eleven. And then when it works and you create something so fun, you celebrate. And just to nod to future players: You want to star in your own version of a Survivor heist movie? That’s how you do it.”
Andy’s plan paid off big time in tribal council. The trio’s efforts to dupe the other players worked, resulting in a three-way split of votes between Genevieve, Sam, and Caroline. Andy’s flipped vote was the deciding factor in Caroline’s elimination, and he took ownership right away by telling the shocked other players, “I’ll explain.” The jury made note of Andy’s big move, and the players who were tricked bore looks of impressed shock. On Fire cohost and Season 46 alum Davis said it’s rare for any elaborate Survivor plan to go off without a major hitch.
“You could fill a graveyard of dead Survivor plans that fail somewhere along the way,” Davis says. “So many variables, and even just the existence of so many variables makes people a little bit antsy to get on board with that plan … It’s very hard to get something like this off the ground. But I’ll say just like in Ocean’s Eleven, if you want that huge payout, the big money grab at the casino, you need a bold plan … Sometimes you need a big swing like this.”
It was a big swing, and it was far from a miss. Andy may have just taken the lead with just two episodes left in the season. Find out more behind-the-scenes details about Survivor‘s latest episode in the On Fire embed below.
Survivor, Season 47 Finale Part 1, Wednesday, December 11, 8/7c, CBS
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