The plot and gameplay continue to thicken on Season 41 of Survivor, as the latest episode provided viewers with much more strategizing and alliance building, as well as a double elimination. It’s even clearer now who the big players to watch out for are, as many of them may have cemented their spot in the final in this episode alone, depending on how their choices shake out in the future. The fun thing about Survivor is that even the smallest choices in the game can have big effects later on, and some things that seem like risky moves in the short run are helpful to a player’s game at the end.
Right off the bat, the narrative around Deshawn and Shan’s relationship is at the forefront: both have strong personalities and don’t like being told what to do, and they both view the other as someone who needs to have their way all of the time. Judging by the preview for Episode 10, this is further sowing the seeds for some kind of blow-up in the next episode, but is also a major part of the strategizing in the latter half of this one. Evvie, observing the tensions in these alliances, notes that chaos doesn’t help the people in power, but instead helps the people at the bottom, which is a really great observation for Survivor as a whole. Usually, chaos reveals the cracks in even the tightest alliances, which is exactly where the people on the bottom can slip in and save their own lives in the game. And the sentiment does ring true for the final result of this episode…partially.
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In keeping with this season’s attempts to continually humanize the players as the game goes on, Ricard gets a little bit of backstory time with his reveal that he is fully deaf in his right ear and has learned to read lips. Though being hard of hearing is a disadvantage in certain contexts, he notes that being attuned to body language in the way that he is is actually helpful in the game of Survivor, and gives him more to work with when trying to read people than just their words. It’s nice to see Ricard get a sympathetic, human moment when he has often been painted as sneaky and conniving with his edit in the season so far. It really seems like the editing around him is indicating that he’s going to go far in the game.
The issue of the power alliance (involving Shan, Deshawn, Liana, Danny, and Ricard) comes up again when Shan loudly announces that the group should go somewhere to talk right in front of Erika and Xander, who immediately decide to plot against them. This is an interesting alliance from two people who have continually been on the outs, and it would be great to see them go far in the game together, because it seems as though they work well together from these small moments the audience gets to see.
The Immunity Challenge presents an interesting twist: the players will be divided into two groups, and each group will go to Tribal Council separately (and one person from each group will win Immunity). In what feels like a fantastic payoff for the foreshadowing earlier in the episode, Erika and Xander both win Immunity in their respective groups, when both of them absolutely needed it most. This whole episode is really geared towards getting the viewer to root for the underdogs and be excited about their triumphs over the big bad alliance that has been after them the whole time.
All of this obviously throws a wrench into the majority alliance’s plans, and they begin trying to figure out who’s next on the chopping block. In the one group, Xander and Evvie want to vote for Liana, while Liana and Danny want Evvie out. This puts Deshawn in the position of swing vote between two alliances, and it’s never revealed which side he’s going to choose until Tribal, which keeps things interesting. On the other mini tribe, there’s another swing vote situation, as there’s more disagreement on where the votes should land. Shan is deadset on getting Heather out, and Naseer is game to go along with it. Heather and Erika obviously don’t love this plan, and want to vote out Naseer, who they believe to be a powerful player (mostly because of his idol).
Ricard, though he’s tight with Shan, doesn’t agree that voting Heather is the best move. After all, she’s not a challenge threat and also isn’t much of a problem in terms of strategic threat. He points out that voting Naseer may be the best move, and we’re given yet another scene of him and Shan arguing about what to do next. It’s wild that when talking about which big threats to vote out, very few people ever bring up Shan or Ricard, even though they’re clearly good players and always in a power position. It’s almost like everyone is ignoring them in favor of much easier votes simply because they’re afraid of what advantages the duo possesses.
In general, the editing in this section is really great. It cuts between the two camps a lot, which makes everything more dynamic as opposed to just showing one long, unbroken segment for each mini tribe. Splitting the main tribe into two smaller ones is also a great idea because it makes for a lot of interesting votes. The gameplay is tighter because there are fewer options to throw around, and there’s less of the chaos of players running around the camp throwing out names left, right, and center. The players are able to play more strategically and in more interesting ways when their options are more limited in this way (plus it also breaks up some alliances, which leads to a lot of choices that might not otherwise have been made).
Then it’s finally time for the first of two Tribals. Jeff, in a seemingly un-self-aware moment of irony, asks the tribe why it seems like everybody knows about everyone else’s advantages, when the answer is clearly because the idols were specifically designed in a way that calls attention to who owns one (by virtue of them being forced to say a silly phrase to activate it). It was one of the worse twists this season, because it makes it so that everyone’s business is too out in the open, which takes away from the fun sneakiness one would normally see on a Survivor season.
In the end, Shan uses her extra vote towards Heather, but it doesn’t work because Ricard switched his to Naseer. After a re-vote, Naseer is voted out and immediately takes his spot on the Jury bench next to Tiffany. The next tribe is ushered in, and it seems like they are shocked to see Naseer on the Jury. It was actually a great detail to send Naseer to the Jury immediately because it instantly affects the other tribe and causes them to rethink their own safety in the game, especially those members of the majority alliance. In the end, however, their confidence is warranted, as Evvie is voted out and becomes the third member of the Jury.
This was a great episode overall, and once again prioritized the gameplay and strategy over everything else, which is the simplest request you can ask from a game all about strategy and gameplay. There were no distracting moments where Jeff addresses the audience, and the viewer gets to learn even more about players that have been in the game for a long time. Episode 9 felt like classic Survivor, and managed to artfully toe the line between the usage of idols and advantages and good old-fashioned Survivor strategy.
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