If you could choose for a Survivor season to have a dynamite cast but no (or at least limited) twists or an average-at-best cast but lots of twists, what would you choose? If, like me, you prefer the former, you likely join me in your disappointment with Survivor 41 through two weeks. This cast feels like it burst open at any minute and give us golden moment after golden moment. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened yet. This season seems to be more focused on contrived, complicated, bad twists. If this week is an indication of how the rest of the season will go, I’m not too optimistic.
Ua
We receive no clarification on Genie’s “Ricard” vote at the previous Tribal Council. This felt like something that would have caused a little bit of drama back at camp. Ricard doesn’t come off as someone who would just shake that off without at least trying to discuss it. And when we see what the show chooses to spend air time on throughout the episode instead (looking at you, Jeff, breaking the fourth wall to tell us “Someone will be going home tonight” before starting Tribal Council), I’d think there would have been time to squeeze this in.
Brad does his best Tony Vlachos impression – which is admittedly not a very good one – as he hustles down to the water well to spy on JD and Ricard. A good idea on its own, sure. But not as good of an idea? Telling Genie and Shan exactly what he was going to do. And another not very good, arguably bad, idea? Telling Shan everything he overheard at the well. This maybe wasn’t so bad…except that Shan is closely aligned with Ricard and immediately reports this back to him.
We saw this last week with Brad telling Shan and Sara that the vote was between Shan and Sara. He seems like a nice enough guy, but I’m just not sure how good of a grasp he has on the actual gameplay. But on the bright side, while he may not have much chance to win the game, Brad could be one of the breakout characters on the season.
But keep in mind Shan’s position in all this. Brad tells her everything, and she’s then right there telling it all back to Ricard. She’s in tight with potentially everyone on her tribe. That can be a tricky position to maneuver, but the early read is that she can handle it. I think through two episodes, I’m confident saying Shan is the strongest player on the beach. Now, the best player doesn’t always win the season – rarely, I’d say – but it’s still worth noting.
Luvu
Luvu is actually functioning as a real tribe, so there’s not much to report here. We see some comments about Naseer and how valuable his set of skills has been. In the first couple days, it maybe painted a target on his back. But now that the players are seeing how tough this season might actually turn out to be, that could swing things back into his favor. If nothing else, something to keep an eye on if or when Luvu ever goes to Tribal.
Yase
Oh boy. Here’s where things get messy. And not the fun kind of messy. The confusing, stupid kind. Xander finds the Beware Advantage that we saw Probst hiding before the premiere. The small parcel has a note written on the outside, “If you take it, it’s yours and you must do what it says. Otherwise leave it.”
Based just on that, I don’t think I would take it. The name and the wording are just too ominous and foreboding. But, I can’t really begrudge anyone who would decide to take it. You have to take some risks along the way to win Survivor. But the vibes I got from this just came off as too much. But onto the “advantage” itself.
It’s billed as a three way shared immunity. Each tribe beach has one, and in order for any one to have power, all three must be found. NOT ONLY THAT BUT a secret phrase must be said at a challenge in front of other players. NOT ONLY THAT BUT all three players must say their phrase at the same challenge. Then and only then will the idols activate. AND NOT ONLY THAT BUT until that happens, you cannot vote. The three phrases are:
“I truly believe that butterflies are dead relatives saying hi.” “I’m as confused as a goat on AstroTurf.” “I didn’t realize this until now, broccoli is just a bunch of small trees.”
I don’t like to swear in these recaps, and I’m still going to censor it, but f***ing yikes, bro. What is this nonsense. I hate this so much.
I’ve said it before, your vote at Tribal Council is one of the few sacred things in Survivor that I believe should be untouched and unthreatened. The exception there is if the player knowingly decides to risk it. But to just have it stripped away like this? And for an undetermined amount of time that is mostly out of your control? Absolutely not.
As the phrase gets repeated at continuing challenges, it’s going to be *extremely* obvious who has an idol or advantage. Part of the appeal of the hiddenimmunity idol is that it’s, well, hidden. It’s then up to the player to decide whether or not to reveal they have it. And with how ridiculous these phrases are, there’s no way to work these naturally into conversation. Xander actually did alright this time, but if anyone didn’t catch on on this first go, that’s gone the immediate second he repeats it. It all feels so forced by production. Manufactured humor and awkwardness rarely works.
It’s also another example of a poorly explained game mechanism. Now that Xander has it, what happens if he gets voted out? Does he will it to someone? Do they have the choice to accept or reject it? Does it simply get re-hidden?
What about when one of these Beware Advantage idols gets played? Does it get hidden again as a regular idol? Does the Advantage start over? And is this the only way idols are found/activated this season? I wouldn’t hate only three idols being in play; it would be a nice change of pace. But I just hate how they’re being found and used.
Immunity Challenge
One player swims and dives down to retrieve a key. Once they have the key, two others race across a series of obstacles. When all three make it to the end, the remaining players unlock puzzle pieces. We’re back to two tribes winning immunity, along with rewards at stake. First tribe to finish wins full fishing gear, while the second tribe wins a smaller set of gear. The losing tribe, along with going to Tribal Council, once again lose their flint.
Tiffany struggles mightily on the obstacles, allowing Ua and Luvu to get a huge head start on the puzzle. Luvu finishes first rather handily, with Ua comfortably finishing second.
Before sending the tribes back to camp, Jeff announces another “journey” is at hand. Luvu picks Evvie from Yase, while Deshawn volunteers from Luvu.
I’m torn on these journeys. I like that we’re getting to see some mingling between tribes. It’s a fun way to create some cross-relationships without having to actually go through a full swap. But on the other hand, if it’s just going to be the exact same thing each time, it’s going to get real old real fast already run its course.
Journey
Evvie completely spills the beans to Deshawn on everything going on back at the Yase camp, including the Beware Advantage and how that works, and Xander’s extra vote, going so far as to tell us in a confessional,
“I’ll reveal some things, but mostly other people’s secrets.”
Like the journeys, I’m a bit torn on Evvie’s decisions here. From a TV standpoint, I loved it. Every second of it. But I’m not as bullish on it from a gameplay perspective. Sure, she was trying to lay the foundation for a potential partnership down the road. And at this point she probably thought Xander was effectively already at Ponderosa. This could be harmless information she was passing on. But as anyone who knows Survivor knows, anything and everything in the game can change each time the breeze shifts. Maybe lay some breadcrumbs, but keep something to yourself.
She continues the trend, though, by telling Deshawn that she simply can’t risk her vote so she’ll be protecting it, so he should just go ahead and risk it, since it wouldn’t actually be a risk. Again, a way to perhaps create some goodwill. But also perhaps an opportunity to give Deshawn an extra vote that could potentially be used against her or her alliance later on.
Not only are these journeys already repetitive and dull, there are simply too many votes at risk. If things had gone differently here, 2/5 players on Yase could have been without a vote. I can easily see a scenario where a minority of players even have a vote at a Tribal Council. That would be, what’s the word, a disaster.
Pre-Tribal
Tiffany knows she messed up during the challenge, and even apologizes for it. But then is inexplicably furious and surprised when she hears Voce wants to vote her out? If you know enough to know the challenge loss can be pinned squarely on you, then you should know enough to know your name is a likely target.
While Liana (correctly) wants to target Xander, Tiffany now wants to switch the vote to Voce. She’s also paranoid about Xander using his idol…the idol he 100% does not have. It takes Evvie and Liana telling her multiple times that Xander definitely for sure without a doubt has no idol to play, before she finally gets it. But even still, she pushes for Voce over Xander.
Tribal Council
Tiffany’s persistence pays off (for her, at least) and the Yase women send Voce on his way to Ponderosa. I think it’s clear this was the wrong choice. Sure, at present, Xander doesn’t have an idol or a vote, but who knows how quickly that can change. If things go Xander’s way he’ll have an idol, his vote back, and an extra vote. All he needs is that idol and one of the three Yase women – likely Tiffany – goes next. If they keep Voce instead, they eliminate that threat. It will be interesting to see how much social capital Tiffany used to get her way.
So this episode was definitely a letdown. I do not like how twist-heavy it’s already leaning. We just saw on the recently-completed sixth season of Australian Survivor how much bad twists can derail a season. That season was able to mostly right the ship, but it also had nearly twice the number of episodes – not to mention longer episodes too – to work through it all. But with the shorter U.S. season, it seems like there could be a twist in play in every single episode. That’s way too frequent. You need to let the players play the game. They made the cast for a reason. Trust the casting decisions and give the players room to play.
The other issue is the quality of the twists. I don’t mean to beat up on Australian Survivor, but the sixth season had maybe the worst collection of twists I’ve ever seen. Not only were there way too many, there were all bad. And granted, we’re only two episodes into this season, but it’s feeling dangerously similar to that. There’s still time to right the ship, but it needs to start next week. And if we can get more Shan and Sydney content, that certainly wouldn’t hurt either.
