After 19 long months, U.S. Survivor finally has a new champion!
Erika Casupanan has broken the streak of six male winners, also becoming the show’s first Canadian winner. And she did so in a dominating fashion, winning by way of a 7-1-0 vote over Deshawn and Xander, respectively. She may not jump off the screen as an obvious winner, but thinking back on it, there were some clues. She was often discussed at Luvu of being a threat. We saw Shan obsessed with getting Erika out. We also heard a couple comments from Erika noting how long it’s been since the show had a female winner.
But even still, it felt a little underwhelming, but I’m blaming the edit on that. It’s one thing to hear players talk up another player’s threat level, but it doesn’t do much if we don’t see it for ourselves. But I don’t put any of that on Erika, or the jury for voting for her. She played a good game.
Erika played an effective “I’m just gonna chill in the middle of the pack for a while” game. She won some challenges, she was well-liked, very obviously smart. And she was on the right side of the vote every time after the merge. If that doesn’t indicate she had her finger on the pulse of the game, I don’t know what does. Erika deserved this win, and I hope production under-editing her doesn’t affect how fans see it.
But how did she get there? For that, we’ll have to pull an Erika and turn back to the beginning of the finale.
We open, as we do with most finales, with host Jeff Probst addressing the audience. Only this time it wasn’t live from Los Angeles. And while I definitely prefer the live reunion over the new After Show they trotted out this year, I didn’t miss the dumb, forced audience interaction bits one ounce. So at least there’s that.
Then Jeff makes the first mistake of the night. He reveals to the audience that, for the first time since season 1, they’re going to read the final votes right there on the island. Come on, man! Let that be a surprise! Sure, it was already revealed in interviews that came out before the finale (something else I wish the hadn’t done), but not everybody reads/listens to that stuff. Imagine how much fans’ minds could have been blown had that been a surprise to them! We see the players have that kind of reaction. Give it to the fans too.
But back to the actual game, the final five of Ricard, Deshawn, Erika, Xander, and Heather arrive at their new beach. And I could do without this twist. It didn’t really add anything. There was no shelter, but we didn’t see any conversation about that or see them building a new one. There was no food and minimal supplies. Cool, that’s been the entire season. It was just a contrived way to introduce one last (unnecessary) advantage.
They have to unscramble a phrase, which is a clue to where the advantage is hidden. Even though she’s last to solve it, Erika ultimately finds it. It’s an advantage at the next immunity challenge. Booooooo.
I hate immunity challenge advantages. Let them compete on a level playing field. I don’t care about fair or unfair. Survivor isn’t a fair game. But it’s so much more interesting to see people competing on equal footing. If the show wants to include these earlier in the merge, sure, fine, go for it. I won’t like it, but I won’t complain (as much). But this late in the season just makes it so much worse.
Immunity Challenge
The players run through a simple course, collecting rope rungs to build ladders, then move a bag of puzzle pieces up a ladder, before solving 75 piece Survivor puzzle. Erika’s advantage gives her four rungs already completed on each ladder.
Jeff got one last comment in about how good Heather is at trying.
“Heather in last, a familiar spot, but what’s also familiar is she never stops trying.”
Big time 21 Jump Street vibes with that one.
Anyway, Erika wins because she had the advantage. Okay, I can’t say that with 100% certainty, but considering how close Ricard was, it sure seemed that way. Again, nothing against Erika. She beat the other four the advantage, and she still had to run the challenge. But still. An even competition is just more fun and interesting.
Pre-Tribal
With Ricard losing, he should be the obvious vote here. We do see, however, Erika and Heather discuss voting Deshawn out instead. Looking back, I’m sure it was part of the regular process, might as well discuss all options, and there wasn’t much chance of this actually happening.
After Ricard tells Xander that he has a baby on the way, Xander contemplates saving Ricard with his idol. Xander and Ricard had grown very close (also another relationship we didn’t really get a chance to see), and Xander was maybe letting his emotions get the best of him.
Final 5 Tribal Council
Once we get to Tribal, though, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that Erika and Heather would be voting Ricard. Xander’s idol was the only possibility left. But in the end, he plays it for himself, sending Ricard to the jury.
Ricard was the best player this season. He was a strategic beast, was great in challenges, and played a dominant social game. He also had an insane ability to stay calm under pressure in any scenario, challenges, Tribal, anything.
Final Immunity Challenge
We have a classic challenge with a bit of a twist. The players transport and stack blocks on a wobbly platform, with the curved walkway also being wobbly. I like this challenge just fine, but for a final challenge, give me a classic sheer will-power or massive scope challenge for the end.
Anyway, Xander wins and it would seem obvious that he’ll take Heather, putting Deshawn and Erika in the fire challenge.
Pre-Tribal
Except…
Xander tells Erika almost immediately that he’s taking her to the end. He doesn’t want her to have a flashy moment in the fire making challenge. I think I disagree with this thought process in general. Yes it’s a big moment, but, is it? You’re making a fire, on Survivor. You’re supposed to be able to do that.
But it puts Xander in a bad spot, and he won the challenge! It’s one of the inherent flaws wit the final four fire.
But then he sees Erika struggle to make fire as she practices. He starts to rethink his decision. He thinks he might need to step down and take out Erika himself in the fire challenge.
Tribal Council/Fire Challenge
When it comes down to it, Xander sticks with his original plan, and brings Erika to the end, pitting Deshawn and Heather against each other in fire.
Heather’s fire gets going first, but can’t break the rope, before dying down a bit, giving Deshawn the chance to get back into it. Even with a strong flame from Heather (it seemed to maybe not be quite lined up with the rope), Deshawn pulls it out. Yay.
Everyone was calling this the best fire challenge ever, but so what? It’s a super low bar to clear. Sure, they might give us some emotional moments. Think back to Winners at War, with Tony and Sarah. But I’d argue that moment would have been very emotional either way.
Calling a fire making challenge the best on ever is like calling the 2003 Timberwolves the best team in franchise history. I mean, yeah, but how good were they, really? Like I said, a low bar to clear.
Also, WHAT ABOUT BECKY AND SUNDRA?!
Final Tribal Council
So we already know Erika wiped the floor with Deshawn and Xander at Final Tribal, but let’s go over a few things.
First, they got rid of the “Outwit, Outplay, Outlast” sections, which is a great choice. That was always so awkward, and the questions and following discussion couldn’t flow as naturally when they’re trying to be forced into these arbitrary headings.
I also thought it was kind of weirdly edited. Xander’s responses received most of the air time, which you typically think would indicate a Xander win. But none of his answers were all that good? It felt like an odd choice. And Erika didn’t dominate with her responses. She gave mostly solid answers, but once again came away under-edited. Before casting the votes, I still felt like Erika was going to win, but given how Final Tribal went, I couldn’t be sure.
Survivor After Show
After Erika’s win, Probst immediately shifts into the newly minted Survivor After Show, bringing out pizza and champagne for the players. They took time to go over various aspects of the game, kind of like what the traditional reunion show would have been.
And it was….fine. I guess? Similar to reading the votes on the island, they had to make a decision in the moment. Obviously they had no idea where things would be with regards to Covid by the time the finale would air. They clearly didn’t want another Zoom reunion like they did with Winners at War. I think they made the right call, though I hope we get back to the live reunion sooner rather than later (though I wouldn’t bank on it for season 42).
Final Thoughts
This was an up and down season. Great cast for the most part, some flashes of truly inspired strategy. The few episodes that were void of dumb twists and advantages were the best of the season. But there were just so many dumb twists and advantages. The season became about those and how players reacted to them, rather than the players and their games. But hey, Survivor is back, and mediocre Survivor is better than no Survivor.
If you’re interested in some in-depth final thoughts, we have an upcoming season wrap-up episode on our Talking Llama Podcast. Likely won’t be next week, probably will be out either December 30 or January 6.
And that will do it for Survivor 41 coverage here at News From The Couch. Once again, a huge thank you to any and all readers who stuck around all season (and to the end of this recap). It’s great to be back, and I can’t wait for Survivor 42.
