Survivor 45: This Lulu Player Burned Herself In The Funniest Way Possible

Contains spoilers for "Survivor" Season 45, Episode 3 — "No Man Left Behind"

We're only three episodes into the 45th season of "Survivor," and we've already gotten a major blindside after a player burned herself ... in a manner of speaking.

Sabiyah Broderick, a member of the constantly suffering Lulu tribe, starts the episode struggling with an ongoing immunity idol issue. See, because the Lulu tribe has lost pretty much every challenge of the season thus far, it still doesn't have flint, meaning tribe members can't start a fire at their camp — and Broderick happened to find an idol scroll encased in hard wax. (Let's add to this that Broderick was already in possession of a "beware advantage," so she's been without a vote for a while.) Unable to melt it and read the scroll, Broderick comes up with a pretty genius idea.

When Lulu inevitably ends up at this episode's Tribal Council — no other tribe has lit its torches or had any snuffed out so far this season — Broderick rolls her wax statue into the fire during the obligatory pre-vote conversation, genuinely surprising host and consummate professional Jeff Probst. Unfortunately for Broderick, the idol is valid only for a single Tribal Council unless she forfeits her vote yet again. She does just that and gets blindsided by her fellow Lulu tribe member and apparent ally Emily Flippen, and just like that, Broderick becomes the third person voted out of this season of "Survivor."

During the show's official recap podcast, "On Fire," Jeff Probst revealed that, as Sabiyah Broderick started casually barbecuing her idol and checking on it like she was grilling a burger, he wasn't even sure that was fully allowed. "When she puts it in the fire, yes, there is a part of me going, 'This is fair, right?'" Probst said. "Because all the note says is, 'You've got to burn the wax.'" 

More than anything, Probst was just pretty impressed that Broderick even thought to utilize the (mostly decorative) Tribal Council fire as a tool. He explained, "I gave Sabiyah a lot of credit for saying, 'Yeah, the only fire I have in my life right now, Jeff, is at Tribal when I'm going to vote somebody out.' I thought it was really cool."

"Survivor" is, above all, a game that encourages ingenuity, to be sure — and considering that Probst is the show's executive producer alongside Mark Burnett, he knows better than anyone that players need to get creative whenever possible. There's no question that Broderick's move is bold, clever, and genuinely funny ... but in the end, it doesn't save her from getting the boot before all the tribes have even merged.

Even Jeff Probst was impressed with Sabiyah Broderick's move — even though it completely backfired in the end. "I thought it was really interesting that you then get to see Sabiyah. She's just accomplished this amazing goal. ... She's got her vote back," Probst mused during the "On Fire" podcast. "Now she goes up in the booth, and you watch her in real time read the note and realize, 'Oh my God, this is only good for one Tribal unless I give my vote up again.' But because she had gotten the idol, she had gotten her vote back. So it was this great rising tension in the drama, and she decides to make a big-time move and risk it."

Here's what went down: Broderick decides to sacrifice her vote once again, feeling certain that Emily Flippen is working with her to vote out the uber-popular Lulu player Kaleb Gebrewold. That isn't the case, though, as Flippen went behind Broderick's back and told Gebrewold that the other Lulu tribe member was plotting against him, and Flippen and Gebrewold work together to vote Broderick out.

"Survivor" has been on the air for several decades at this point, but with only three episodes under its belt, Season 45 is shaping up to be a top-tier return to form for the reality series. Upon arrival, the players were split into three tribes — Belo, Reba, and Lulu — but thanks to Lulu's outright losing streak, Belo and Reba haven't gotten a ton of screen time just yet. They've made the most of what they've been given, though, especially due to the fact that Bruce Perreault, who was medically evacuated from the previous season, is back as a member of the Belo tribe and has been hamming it up for the cameras.

Lulu, though, has already cemented its place in "Survivor" history for ... being one of the worst-performing tribes in recent memory. As we previously mentioned, Lulu has managed to lose every single immunity challenge so far, leaving the tribe without flint and at a constant disadvantage. Perhaps the bleakest part of "No Man Left Behind" is when Lulu ekes out a win in the reward challenge, giving the tribe fruit and the chance to raid a competitor's camp — only to brutally lose the immunity challenge for the third time in a row.

The 45th season of "Survivor" is only just getting started, and the new super-sized, 90-minute episodes air every Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.