The Evolution of the Beware Advantage on 'Survivor' Has Made Some Rules Confusing

Spoiler alert: This article contains minor spoilers for Survivor 46 Episode 3.

Although Survivor is among the longest-running reality shows in the history of television, no season is the same. In the New Era, hidden immunity idols were replaced with Beware Advantages, which give players both a risk and a reward if they find it and decide to open it. It's not just about finding the idol — it's now about finding the "advantage" and deciding if the risk is worth it.

Since Season 41, players have juggled whether or not it's worth losing their vote for a Tribal Council or two while they wait for the power of an immunity idol. Each season, producers find new ways to add risk to the reward, but in Survivor 46, the Beware Advantage is pretty straightforward. However, when a medevac forces a player out of the game, fans are left wondering if players are allowed to hand off Beware Advantages.

When the Beware Advantage was first introduced in Season 41, players had no idea what to expect. However, if they choose to open it (and they are given a choice), they learn that they could lose their vote for their next Tribal Council. If they successfully make it through Tribal, however, they'd gain a hidden immunity idol. Now six seasons into the New Era, the rules have shifted slightly each season, but with the same base of the risk of losing a vote pit against the reward of immunity.

Every season has had slightly different rules for how players could earn their immunity idol:

• Seasons 41 and 42: Players had to repeat a silly phrase on the mat before a challenge and only when all three tribes had a member who said the phrase would they get their vote back.
• Season 43: Players had to ask other members of their tribe for a specific bead to make the idol.
• Season 44: There wasn't a Beware Advantage.
• Season 45: Players had to complete a scavenger hunt.

In Season 46, however, the Beware Advantage is on a timer, unlike previous seasons. By Episode 3, members of all three tribes had found the Beware Advantage locked in a lockbox. However, they wouldn't be given a clue to find the key until their tribe lost an immunity challenge, which gives them a short amount of time to earn their vote back, get the immunity idol, and strategize before Tribal Council. Tiffany completed this on Yanu but no other tribe has lost an immunity challenge yet.

In Season 46, Randen Montalvo became the first Survivor player ever to get medevaced with a half-completed Beware Advantage. Basically, his tribe never lost immunity so he was never given the next clue to finding the key for the lockbox. His exit puts a wrench in producers' plans since it's not yet a full idol and technically players shouldn't be able to give up the Beware Advantage since that's part of the risk.

However, in Randen's exit interview on Rob Has a Podcast, they talk at length about Randen's plan to transfer the Beware Advantage to Venus before getting pulled from the game. Randen had supposedly asked producers if he could give the advantage to Venus, and they allegedly said he could but that he would have to do it physically.

According to Randen, however, when he grabbed the advantage from his bag, Jeff and Dr. Will walked onto the beach, which interrupted his plan. By then, everyone on Nami wanted to see what was going on and Randen couldn't just openly hand it to Venus. Jeff explained on the On Fire podcast that once Dr. Will officially says, "We are pulling you from the game," Randen can no longer hand off his advantage.

Even still, now that we know that Venus knows where Randen initially found the advantage and he showed her the note when they formed their alliance, we're curious if she'll attempt to dig up the clue to the key anyway.

And we want to know if producers will plant the clue if Nami loses a challenge (which seems unlikely), or if they'll re-hide a new Beware Advantage. Either way, Venus is the only one who knows that Randen left the game with it, which gives her a little bit of extra power.

You can watch new episodes of Survivor every Wednesday at 8 p.m. EST on CBS.