After all those twists, Survivor 41 delivers a historically lackluster finale
No amount of childhood photos can craft a meaningful narrative out of sheer chaos
TV Reviews Survivor
Early in Survivor’s 41st finale, Erika wins the first of two immunity challenges, and host Jeff Probst informs her that the steak reward she won is dinner for two. It’s a longstanding Survivor tradition in late-game rewards, with the producers putting contestants in a position to have to pick favorites and potentially make a strategic blunder. Will Erika pick Heather, her closest ally who isn’t speaking to her following Deshawn’s statements at the last tribal council, or will she look ahead to the next stage of things to try to build relationships with others?
If you’re a fan of Survivor, this is what was going on in your brain. But it was also going on in Fiji, as Probst outlines the stakes of Erika’s decision aloud lest we weren’t paying attention. It’s possible this isn’t the first time he has been this didactic in laying out the producers’ intentions in moments like these, but it stood out here because it is so representative of Season 41 as a whole. This year, Survivor doesn’t have a final five: it has a final six, and the sixth player is Jeff Probst constantly interjecting himself into the game whether we want him to or not.
It’s hard to write about this season of Survivor—which I’ve done twice previously—without sounding like a stuck-in-the-mud traditionalist, and I want to be clear that there are elements of this season’s endless string of twists and interventions that I’ve enjoyed. The finale starts with the remaining players turned back into castaways, sending them to an undeveloped island that forces them to return to a simpler stage of the game, and this is the kind of “twist” that feels like the producers creating a productive game environment as opposed to forcibly reordering the game. The conveniently-timed rainstorm adds a layer of killer fatigue to the last immunity challenge, and creates fewer spaces for the players to “settle” in the tense final days.
But it isn’t enough to revitalize a limp final five – and an even limper final four with Ricard predictably and rightfully removed as a threat when he loses immunity to Erika – that feels like a consequence of the way the game built to this moment. The show brings back its “childhood memories” montage for Xander to try to craft a glow-up narrative from scratch, and a close firemaking challenge between Deshawn and Heather offers some mild thrills, but everything about this finale feels untethered, floating in a cloud of the idea of Survivor rather than being rooted in the show’s potential.
This is clearest when Xander starts trying to handicap the state of the game as he holds immunity at final four and thus the power to decide who is joining him in the final three, and who is making fire. His decision to take Erika felt wrong to me as soon as he introduced it, but I realized I didn’t have a clear grasp on the jury’s sentiments about her, or how really any possible scenarios would play out. This could be productive for a thrilling conclusion if it was because the members of the jury are all conflicted. However, the lack of clarity comes from a lack of information, and so I wasn’t shocked when the jury raised their collective eyebrow at his summary of how they were allegedly feeling.
The inscrutability of the jury could be a byproduct of the shorter game time, where players had 13 fewer days to interact with each other, but my gut says it’s a byproduct of the amount of time producers had to spend setting up, executing, and exploring the fallout of twist after twist. Deshawn struggled early in the fire making challenge because he was smothering his flame, and the simple truth is that Survivor smothered its players. When Deshawn, Erika, and Xander sat in front of the jury as the final three, no amount of childhood photos or Erika’s pandering to my Canadianness could convince me any of them represent a meaningful or memorable Survivor narrative.
During that final tribal council, Danny tries to shape the conversation by suggesting Survivor is like a sport with different quarters. But while that might be true in a normal season of Survivor, this year wasn’t quarters like football or periods like hockey: it was the reality TV equivalent of Calvinball, where Probst was changing the rules so often that to expect any player to articulate a clear narrative of how they played within this game is unfair.
I’d be interested to know if any of you reading this felt like you were following the conversation during the final tribal council, because I realized as they were talking that I recalled almost none of it. When Ricard brought up Deshawn’s gameplay at the merge, I couldn’t tell you if Deshawn was right or wrong to claim Ricard was misrepresenting what happened. When Xander is pressed by Liana about a time when he acted based on social cues, and he sat there stammering trying to think of something, I honestly had no idea if it was because it never happened or because he just couldn’t think of something on the spot.
I emphasize this uncertainty because I feel confident that I disassociated from this season of Survivor to a historic degree, and it’s possible that this framed my perspective of the finale unfairly. But from chatting with other critics and fans of the show on Twitter, it doesn’t seem like I’m alone in this, and so it seems fair to say that there was an objective failure of narrative development.
The editors created some very memorable big moments—like the in-depth conversation about race in a historically diverse season or Xander and Liana’s advantage/immunity idol gambit at the merge—but they failed to make any of them actually matter. Both of those moments come up in the final tribal council, but they don’t actually connect to anything else, and the latter is a punchline as opposed to a conversation about strategy or gameplay. Survivor 41 wasn’t a game these people played: it was a game that played them, and us, and which feels destined to be one of the least memorable seasons and casts as a result.
Erika’s dominant win – Deshawn only managed a single vote, with Xander shut out entirely – made no impact, and the show’s bizarre choice to telegraph the on-island vote read and reunion for the audience at home meant we didn’t even get to share in their surprise. The vibes among the cast at the beginning of the “Survivor After Show” are actually very endearing, but I just wished that I could feel the way about this season as the players seemed to.
Quickly, the After Show devolved into the players recounting what we had already seen, with none of the insight that comes from seeing it play back on TV—the reunions are rarely thrilling television, but their complete ignorance to their edits makes it an utterly empty exercise, becoming the latest part of the season that felt like a fundamental miscalculation (even if this one was probably a contingency to guarantee a non-Zoom “reunion” with so much uncertainty around COVID).
So where does Survivor go from here? As with the—more concerning—fallout from the sexual misconduct in Season 39, the following season has already been filmed, meaning that any of the feedback Probst and the rest of Survivor’s producers have gotten from fans won’t have been taken into account. We’re forced to place our trust in the self-reflection of a man who has wholly embraced his increasingly Hunger Games-esque role in the series, and who seems very comfortable with what Survivor became this season.
There are bits and pieces of the “new Survivor” that were worth exploring, and which I’d like to see refined in future iterations of the game, but hearing Probst present Season 42 as a continuation of the experiment and seeing yet another dumb “Secret Phrase” situation doesn’t give me a whole lot of confidence that a judicious hand was taken in the short off-season. The only hope is that with another diverse cast, there’s a chance they can thrive in spite of what the game of Survivor is intent on being, but nothing about how Season 41 ended has left me optimistic about that possibility.
Stray observations
- Ricard’s swing into his emotional story—which the show largely ignored after introducing it early on—to try to save himself was at least a little calculated, so it was particularly annoying when the show’s music team played their new favorite “Look at how important and triumphant our storylines are” music cue that they debuted during the race conversation earlier in the season. It’s just trying way, way too hard, and is an unfortunate counterpoint to the great work orchestrating Shan’s inner song earlier in the season.
- In case you were wondering, Erika’s $1 million is roughly $1.22 million Canadian dollars at current exchange rates, although it will—unlike lottery/game show winnings in Canada—be heavily taxed. My condolences to Erika’s accountant.
- Even though I understand how it guarantees uncertainty and tension in a part of the game that often lacks it, I still can’t shake my distaste for the way the firemaking challenge was introduced to effectively rig the game in Ben’s favor, and in a season defined by production micro-managing the game that memory does not work in the show’s favor.
- I realize it might be a combination of budget and time and all of that, but I miss seeing a really large-scale immunity challenge in the final episodes that makes it seem like the end of a journey. The rope ladder/puzzle and block stacking/balance combo didn’t generate much interest.
- As I said, I really would love to hear from someone who was still fully engaged with this season for this finale, because I’m trying to understand the root of my disconnect. I’ve appreciated the dialogue we’ve been able to have in these check-ins, and as always I’m always up to discuss the show on Twitter.
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So Season 42 is gonna be more of the same? Ugh. Yeah, I’m out. Been down since Day 1 on the Island but its time to snuff my torch. I just can’t take all the twists and advantages any more. It’s all so forced and produced. They’re forcing reactions and situations to happen instead of the people and their game play letting moments happen organically. The only episode I actually liked this season was when they voted out Shan because it felt the closest to Survivor of the past; lots of plotting, relationships, shifting dynamics from those relationships, etc.
It’s a shame this season had so many gimmicks because the cast seemed like a good group. If they were allowed to play a “normal” game, I could have really gotten invested in a few of them. But this is the trend the game has been going in for the last handful of seasons and it looks like its here to stay. I’m sure people like it, but its just no longer for me.
You would think a survival game would have bigger payouts for players who cooperated to survive instead of being a torture porn version of rob your neighbor. I liked the first season a bit, but only because it was escapist from the exact same sort of back-stabbing office politics I was exposed to at the time. But it continuously shifted from learning to deal with a natural environment that could be hostile to one that was manufactured to be hostile. It’s like the SAW movies missing only the gore and intended redemption arc.
“and the show’s bizarre choice to telegraph the on-island vote read and reunion for the audience at home meant we didn’t even get to share in their surprise.”This was not a choice the show made – they *had* to have the vote read and reunion on the island because when they filmed this they suspected (rightly so) that they would not be able to do a typical live reunion.Given that choice, there is no way they could have kept this hidden from the audience. We would have been saying “Hey, is there a reunion? Are people going to a reunion after the finale?” It would have been immediately known that they weren’t doing a live reunion. So what would be the point of trying to hide this from the viewers?And Jeff has said that he didn’t want to do another Zoom reunion like in S40.
Regarding Xander choosing to take Erika to the FTC, he clearly states that he doesn’t want to give her a flashy moment of making fire. Since they started this fire-making challenge, we’ve seen Ben, Wendell, Rick Devens, Chris Underwood, and Tony make fire and go on to win. And we saw in WaW that the jury (mostly Rob) lambasted Natalie for not giving up immunity to make fire against Tony to take him out, implying that if she had done that she might have won. It’s not 100%, but making fire at the final 4 is a good way to build your resume.Xander explains this to the jury during FTC and we see them nod in agreement. That could just be editing but it appears that the jury agrees with his reason for bringing Erika.
Xander also appeared to have drastically misread the jury’s opinion of Erika’s game. Shan even acknowledged it.Who knows, maybe Xander was somehow watching the TV edit of what was going on.
True, but he also gave a completely opposite reason in his explanation in the moment.
We see Xander in the finale literally say that he didn’t want to put Erika in the fire-making challenge and give her a flashy moment winning it.
True, but he also gave a completely opposite reason in his explanation in the moment.
“We see Xander in the finale literally say that he didn’t want to put Erika in the fire-making challenge and give her a flashy moment winning it.”We literally see Xander say this in a confessional, and to the jury at FTC, with some of the jury nodding when he says this.
Small correction: Devens lost the fire making challenge and didnt win, but I agree the point stands. For sure its almost now that the winner of the F4 immunity should but themselves in the firemaking challenge to take out their biggest competition, unless its someone like Ricard who is positioned to win anyway.
You’re right – I was thinking of Chris Underwood and wrote “Devens” by mistake, even though I also wrote “Chris Underwood” too.
Yeah, I have to say I thought he had a good point there. I didn’t know they leaned her way as much as they did, but I figured they’d at least be open to her and winning the fire challenge would be a big triumphant moment that could take some people on the fence all the way to her side.
For me, this was far from the most irritating season(any season with a Hantz or Tony Vlachos was far more irritating), but it was the most uninteresting for a long time, possibly ever. All the producer BS didn’t make it more interesting, although the “stupid phrase Idol” was kind of entertaining, but not so entertaining that it needs to be repeated.Part of the problem was a historically bad cast. There were some astoundingly stupid and uninteresting people on the cast. The ones that were interesting weren’t always interesting in a good way(Shan, I’m looking at you). I’ve never liked players who are in a position of trust IRL who not only lie(that’s fine, that’s the game) but revel in being deceitful. That’s why I always hated Tony Vlachos, the idea of a cop who LOVES to lie and constantly brags about it to the camera. I would drive a 100 extra miles to avoid his jurisdiction.In the end, the right person won, or at least one of the right people. Of that final five I would have been OK with Erika, Xander, or Ricard. Ricard screwed up by letting people realize that he was far too good to be allowed anywhere near the final 3, and everyone else in the game knew he had to go no later than final 5, and they knew that for a long time. Xander wanting to use him as a shield was the only thing that that allowed him to get that far. I’m mildly surprised Xander didn’t get any votes, but I misjudged (at first) how historically bad his jury performance was. His inability to answer that one question was cringeworthy, and his read on the jury was completely wrong. I’m glad the black players in the end didn’t line up behind DeShawn just because he was black, because he wasn’t actually a good player. It would have been a really bad look. It was about time a woman won.
Part of the problem was a historically bad cast. There were some
astoundingly stupid and uninteresting people on the cast. The ones that
were interesting weren’t always interesting in a good way(Shan, I’m
looking at you). I’ve never liked players who are in a position of trust
IRL who not only lie(that’s fine, that’s the game) but revel in being
deceitful. That’s why I always hated Tony Vlachos, the idea of a cop who
LOVES to lie and constantly brags about it to the camera. I would drive
a 100 extra miles to avoid his jurisdiction.
It does give me a little pause on Shan being a pastor and just how easily she can flip back and forth between lying and such. Yeah, some of it is in the game, but lines where she said stuff like “when I need to lie to someone or do something deceitful, I just hum a little song in my head” are more telling than she realizes. It’s like “damn, its that easy for you, huh?” If I knew her in person, I can’t lie, I’d be looking at her with some side eye every now and then.
Yeah, some people see that behavior as great and entertaining game play, but I see it as “I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could throw you, and I would avoid you like the plague if we met IRL”.
– I was certain Ricard was going to win, because the edit played him up so, so much. It’s very rare when someone who gets the clear “winner edit” makes the finale, but doesn’t win the game. The biggest example that sticks out in my mind is Terry Dietz/Cirie Fields in Panama, and that was a failure on the Story Department, because we got the most underwhelming finalists in the show’s history with that one, and there was almost no indication that it would play out that disappointingly.- I had Xander’s edit pegged early on as a Stephen Fishbach/Aubry Bracco edit, in which he gets to the end, having clearly played a winner’s game, but the jury gives him absolutely no credit for everything he’s accomplished, so the editors show it to us as evidence that the jury probably got it wrong.- And I will say this is a case where the jury messed up. This is nothing against Erika. In many Final Three scenarios she would have gotten my vote, but resume to resume, she doesn’t stack up against Xander. The bullet point montage had her bragging about two immunity wins, one of which was a split double immunity that Xander won overall, showing that he was the stronger competitor in that instance; and the other was the one that started this finale, one where the advantage she won was the literal difference in winning and losing. She earned the advantage, sure, but given how close everyone but Heather was on that puzzle, a fully equal challenge would almost certainly not have gone her way.- Along those lines, she also bragged about the hourglass, which will go down as one of the worst twists in the show’s history, if not THE worst. To use that as a selling point for yourself is to betray the entire game. It should have also served as a reminder to the jury that were it not for the production’s duplicity and her blind luck, she would have been gone right then and there, so all this “lion disguised as a lamb” bullshit is just that, bullshit. Gifting someone a consequence-free reset button when they’re in the most dangerous position is not supposed to be spun as a game move for them.- Finally, in an objective comparison of the two, Xander simply played the better game because he was the one who actually had to make moves to maintain his position and eventually advance it. He had his votes stolen by bullshit early on, which lasted until the merge. He had to keep saying that stupid butterfly line, letting everyone know something was up and putting a target on his back even if the others didn’t necessarily deduce that it was an idol. He had to play from the bottom for most of the post-merge phase. He had to USE his idol without ever actually PLAYING his idol to keep his dwindling allies around and give himself a chance. In one of the super duper rare instances where the “meat shield” argument might have been justified, he used it properly to keep Ricard around as a threat until it was time to get rid of him, which even the show tried to obfuscate with Erika and Heather’s anger at Deshawn until literally seconds before the vote where Jeff said, “I don’t think we’re getting a blindside here.” Using Ricard as shield actually helped Xander make the end, which almost never happens. Given the season’s idiotic theme of “Risk vs. Reward,” why wouldn’t the player who succeeded in taking the most risks not at least be acknowledged?- Contrast that with Erika, who had a keen mind, but never really faced any adversity in the game. There were moments where people like Naseer and Sidney thought she was sneaky – and she was, and that’s a good thing – but the tribe kept winning challenges, so she was never in danger. The one time she was truly vulnerable, at the quasi-merge, the show manipulated the entire affair to give her not only a “Get Out of Jail Free” card, but also power to undo results and make the winners into losers. The rest of the way she might have been “underestimated” from a physical standpoint, as there were bigger threats and a more powerful alliance for half the post-merge phase, but again, she was never in jeopardy apart from the emotional whims of lesser players. As such, when assessing her game, Xander’s read was proper estimation. It’s like Michelle’s win over Aubry. Just because you’re on the right side of every vote doesn’t mean you orchestrated that. Most of it was happenstance and the presence of bigger threats. There wasn’t one single move that she made that was wholly her own, without the aid of the producers (in Michelle’s case it was removing Neil from the jury, another horrible twist that I hope never gets repeated). She was good, but Xander was demonstrably better.- This has been the season of Minority Rule, where the show went out of its way to disrupt even the most basic tenets of game strategy and subvert the democratic process of voting people out. The producers probably think it made the show more dramatic – hell, they probably take Erika’s win as justification for the whole hourglass thing in the first place – but it really just makes the show more annoying. Shan’s ouster was by far the best episode of the season because it was the one episode where the game felt pure again. I get the feeling we’ll be seeing less and less of that going forward.- I still love this show, and this game, but this was the first season where it wasn’t appointment TV for me. I often waited several days, sometimes a week or two, to watch each episode on my DVR, because I just couldn’t get into it like I did with earlier seasons, even the really bad, incredibly frustrating ones.- This was the rare season where a finalist got punished for having a good social game. Throughout the jury questioning, people noted great human moments Xander shared with them (Ricard and Naseer, the only time the latter got to talk), as well as clarifying good and bad emotional moments that Deshawn had, only to give a near-unanimous win to Erika, whom they noted did not have good relationships with at least half the jury. Go figure.- Xander’s misread of the “Truth Bomb” reaction from the jury is a textbook example of why the jury needs to either be able to fully interact at Tribal Council, or be sequestered in such a way that they can see the proceedings without the players seeing them (maybe a secret shack like Rob and Sandra had a couple seasons back). They made a reaction, Xander interpreted it a certain way, then they penalized him for getting it wrong when there was no apparatus in place to ensure he got it right. This can easily lead to future seasons where the jury colludes to send nonverbal signals to players still in the game in an attempt to sabotage, and I don’t like it.- I played the “Game Within the Game” bit on the website, and it was fun to an extent, even though it was meant for kids. I just wish the final payoff would have been better than the “Survivor” equivalent of “Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.”- There were exactly TWO good twists this season. The first was the condensed timeframe, as 26 days creates a faster-paced game than 39 days, and it’s worth experimenting to see if that has a more long-term effect on the stress levels of the players. The second was putting the final five on a new beach to start over for the final stretch. They should have gone all the way with it by making sure they didn’t have fire-making materials (win it in the challenge and see if the winner is willing to share with their potential fire-making opponents next round) or ensure there are no more advantages going forward. It completely undoes the dramatic intent of the move to say that everyone’s back at Square One for the last three days, then turn around and say, “Oh by the way, solve a riddle and one of you gets the next immunity basically handed to you.” You can’t emphasize an equalizer and then immediately make it unequal again.
– Along those lines, she also bragged about the hourglass, which will go
down as one of the worst twists in the show’s history, if not THE
worst. To use that as a selling point for yourself is to betray the
entire game. It should have also served as a reminder to the jury that
were it not for the production’s duplicity and her blind luck, she would
have been gone right then and there, so all this “lion disguised as a
lamb” bullshit is just that, bullshit. Gifting someone a
consequence-free reset button when they’re in the most dangerous
position is not supposed to be spun as a game move for them.
To add to this, she presented it (wisely on her part) as a big choice as part of her game. But its not really a choice. The ramifications are stacked so heavily to one side (breaking the glass), that you’d have to be a fool not to do it. And production did that by design. It’s yet another example of them interfering in the game to get a desired outcome. I can’t reward someone for good gameplay when its something 99% all players would do. Erika did the best with what she was given so I don’t want to totally shit on her game, but she got a big leg up from outside influences. And outside influences ended up chopping the legs out from under Xander a few times too (many of which you mentioned). It just goes to show how unfair it is to the cast with Production just can’t leave things alone and trust their players.
“It’s very rare when someone who gets the clear ‘winner edit’ makes the finale, but doesn’t win the game.”Like Domenick, Rick Devens, Brad Culpepper, David Wright,(the person whose boot inspired production to create the final 4 fire-making challenge), Spencer, Aubrey, Kelley Wentworth, Malcolm, Coach, Cire and Rob Cesternino? This is not rare at all – it happens a lot.
Half the people you mentioned didn’t have winner edits. As I previously mentioned, Aubry is in the same class with Stephen Fishbach (and now Xander), in that we see all the reasons they should have won because they were the better player, but the edit itself is less significant than the eventual winner (Michelle and J.T.). It’s a case where there are hints throughout that the other players, for one reason or another, prefer one person over the other. J.T. was the good ol’ boy, while Stephen was the nerd. Michelle was the pretty one that everyone gave a pass for “trying,” and ignored Aubry’s actual gameplay. Liana was obsessed with getting Xander out from the beginning, and clearly held it against him when he outsmarted her, one of many instances where jurors bent over backwards to find a reason to like Erika better. When you see those scenes, it doesn’t matter who the best player is, the edit is telling us who the winner is.Dominic shared the edit with Wendell because they were setting up the tie, and the two always had equal billing. We all knew one of them would win, we just didn’t know who. This wasn’t a case of Dom getting a clear winning arc that Wendell then usurped. They were a pair, and the edit set up that pair going all the way, until someone else had to act to separate the two in the final vote.Devens had a lot of post-merge footage, but there was an ungodly amount of screen time for Chris on EOE, to the point that it was shocking that he didn’t make it back into the game the first time, and it only got larger after that. The edit was showing us how resilient he was, and how determined he was to come back and win, whereas Devens was just a fun character who did flashy stuff for the cameras.Same goes for Coach. He got the most screen time because he’s a huge personality, but that doesn’t mean it’s a winner’s edit. Sophie got the true winner’s edit because it was highlighting how essential it was that she was placating Coach’s ego and all the hyper-religious stuff he was doing because she knew he was beatable. His edit in South Pacific wasn’t significantly different from Tocantins or Heroes vs. Villains, both cases where he didn’t make it all that far, so that was the clue that it wasn’t a winning arc. He was essentially the same player all three times, which meant the same losing result all three times.Spencer was again the more dominant strategist, meaning he likely had the best case to win, but Jeremy’s Second Chance edit showed pretty much from minute one that he was going to win because he most leaned into the redemption theme of the season. Being a good, likable guy was way more important than strategy that season, so while we can all acknowledge that Spencer was the better player, the edit made it clear he had no chance. Same goes for Wentworth, from the exact same season. The winner edit was on Jeremy the whole time, and the vast majority of Wentworth’s successes were framed as blind luck and convenient timing. I’m not saying that’s what they actually were, but that’s what the edit was showing us.There was never any universe where Brad Culpepper was going to win anything. The moment Sarah Lacina demanded the “respect” of being referred to by her last name, the edit was 100% behind her winning, because asserting that “honor” for a woman was her way of being a “Game Changer,” which again, the show loves giving obvious winner edits to those victors who lean into the theme for the season.
“Half the people you mentioned didn’t have winner edits.”LOLYou’re saying that Domenick, Rick Devens, Brad Culpepper, David Wright, Spencer, Aubrey, Kelley Wentworth, Malcolm, Coach, Cire and Rob Cesternino didn’t have winner’s edits? What show have you been watching? All of these people were heavily discussed as being the winner (or a potential winner) during their seasons by the viewers.Thanks for letting me know I didn’t have to read the rest of your comment. 🙂
I think you have a deep misunderstanding of the entire point of the game of Survivor. Xander actually played an extremely flawed game and I wouldn’t put him anywhere near in the same league as Aubry and Fishbach. And even so, I would never say that Aubry or Fishbach deserved to win over their winners. Especially Aubry. The entire point of Survivor is getting the people you voted out to vote for you in the end. It’s all about social bonds and perception and it always has been. It’s not about “big moves” (and even if it was Xander’s only “move” was not solely his to claim, it was Tiffany and Evvie’s just as much.) Xander was a goat who had no social awareness, and was seen as a passive player. He was never on the right side of the vote until the final 8, and that was due to Erika and Heather bringing him in. Despite her extremely small edit, if you read exit interviews with the players you’d see that even Heather would’ve beaten Xander in the end. She and Erika were seen as a strategically powerful couple and people tried to take them out numerous times. Erika especially was seen as a huge threat the entire game, it was told to us multiple times by huge players such as Deshawn, Danny, and Shan. Xander however was never said to be a threat by anyone except Liana. In fact Erika even described him as having “no social capital” which is clearly why she wanted to go to the end with him. It’s hard sometimes to see past the show’s edit, but Xander failed at the core component of the game whereas Erika displayed a masterful understanding of it.
I’m not sure how anyone can think Xander played a better game? He never had any power and was left out of the loop for the majority of the game until Erika brought him into her alliance that took control in the final 8. He was clearly unaware of the fact that he was being taken to the end as a number for people, whereas Erika was a target from the entire post merge. She was a more active player than Xander and the jury respected her for that. I don’t think the jury makes mistakes. The entire point of Survivor is to manage your perception with the jury, and to get the people who voted you out to vote for you in the end. A player who receives zero votes in the end has failed the key component of the game. We as viewers do not know better than the people who actually there in the game. It’s sad that the show propped up Xander’s poor gameplay in the edit, and ignored Erika for the first half of the game (her tribe not going to tribals is no excuse, they still showed ALOT of Deshawn and Sydney when they should’ve been highlighting Erika and Heather, the most succesful partnership in the game). The edit was irresponsible for their first female winner in years, and set her up to have viewers that think they know more than the players, saying that she didn’t deserve her win against a much weaker player who had a much larger edit.
Also – Xander did not have a winners edit by any stretch. He had a BIG edit. But the show clearly highlighted all his mistakes. His pre merge edit was abysmal. He was shown to be unaware of his status on the tribe (he would’ve been voted out if they went to one more tribal) and he was outplayed incredibly by Tiffany when she caught him in a lie. After merge he disappeared for several episodes and was shown to be taking credit for the Shan move after being invisible for the actual Shan boot episode (where all the credit was given to Erika and Ricard) we also heard Erika described as a “threat” numerous times by numerous players and Xander described as having no social bonds. Although I definitely think Erikas edit should have been MUCH bigger, and Xander’s MUCH smaller. The show clearly did show Xander’s mistakes (although I do think they also tried to make him look better than he was at times, like giving him all the credit for the fake idol move with Evvie and Tiffany) and showed Erika as always being on the right side of the vote, working her way into a power position and seemingly making no big mistakes in the game. There might be a bit of a personal bias clouding your judgment cause if you rewatch the season, there were definitely a lot of hints that Xander was making many mistakes and Erika was a strategic force. At the end of the day the jury is never wrong, they played the game, and we watched 45 mins of edited footage once a week.
“Xander did not have a winners edit by any stretch. He had a BIG edit. But the show clearly highlighted all his mistakes.”When the show has you saying you believe X and it shows the jury saying “That’s a bad read”, this is not a winner’s edit. That’s the edit of a 0-vote finalist.
This isn’t the first time Probst has inserted himself in the game; it was just a lot more noticeable this season. He’s been slowly turning Survivor into the Jeff Probst Show for years. Last summer, I watched the first season again, and it was so refreshing to watch challenges with no narration whatsoever!While they can’t take fan reactions into account for next season, I have read that Danny had a very strong and negative reaction to the idiotic turn back time twist/advantage, so I’d be a little surprised if they don’t at least tweak, if not do away with, that particular twist.
I wasn’t a fan of the occasional editing where information was withheld from us, only to have it shown later in flashback (big example: Naseer finding the beware advantage).
It’s so funny you mentioned Calvinball because I was thinking the exact same thing earlier in the season when all the advantages were making their appearances. The hourglass/time travel advantage clearly led to Erica winning. It was just way too powerful. I was hoping somebody would get super angry about it (Danny complained a bit but not enough) like the coup d’etat on Big Brother. I forget the lady’s name but when she threw that multi-thousand dollar microphone into the pool in protest? Chef’s kiss!
I was not impressed at all with Erika and was shocked that Xander got completely shut out. I thought it was between Deshawn and Xander.I didn’t see Erika’s game being much different than Heather’s, other than the fact she’s kinda cute and therefore got a lot of screen time. I feel that Survivor, like the US as a whole, has turned into a troll farm with an “own the libs” mentality where the vote is decided based who’ll get more pissed off. Xander said he thought he understood what the jury was thinking and they basically said “you don’t know us – you get nothing” as opposed to actually looking at who was the better player.I think your “C” vote is accurate and would apply to the entire season.
I quite enjoyed this season. I don’t know if it was because it was finally back or if it was shorter or what. I mostly didn’t like all the big twists, but it didn’t make me as angry because I actually really liked most of the cast. I’ve mostly forgotten the ones I found irritating because they didn’t even make it to the jury, and I was pleasantly surprised by the winner (despite my favored one getting eliminated first in the episode). But I also wouldn’t have been angry about any of them winning. Something about this season hit the right spot for me. It seemed nicer somehow and I think I needed that right now.
I’ve never posted a comment on here before, and I’m not sure why they’re not going through but I just had to try one last time. This is mainly a response to “AmericaTheGuy” ‘s comments. I think this person has a deep misunderstanding of the game of Survivor, and an extreme misread of the edit this season. Xander did not have the “winners edit” by any stretch and the show certainly was not trying to tell us that he played a more deserving game than Erika. Although he certainly had a much BIGGER edit, the show clearly highlighted all the flaws in his gameplay (of which there were many). Xander’s pre merge edit was abysmal, he was very much portrayed as being out of the loop in regards to his position on his tribe, and the edit specifically included a scene where he is caught in a lie by Tiffany. Although there were certainly a few moments when the show propped up his weak gameplay to make him seem better (the fake idol play at merge which according to exit interviews was more Evvie and Tiffany’s move than Xander’s). Xander was invisible for the entire Shan boot episode, and the majority of the credit was given to Ricard and Erika. The next episode we get confessional’s of Xander claiming to be a huge part of that move, which clearly was meant to highlight how he is a delusional player unaware of how he is perceived by others. Perception is everything in Survivor and Erika displayed a true understanding of this. We were also told numerous times from several big players such as Shan, Danny, and Deshawn, that Erika was a massive threat. Whereas we never heard this about Xander. We did however, hear that Xander had “no social capital”.While Xander was left out of the loop for the majority of the game, Erika was on the right side of every vote and was able to position herself into a middle spot, then rising into a power position after the final 8 where she dictated the rest of the votes. Xander was a number for her. The edit clearly showed us Xander’s many mistakes and unawareness in the finale episode, as he put on a masterclass in terrible endgames, compared to Erika’s arguably perfect endgame. Although Xander had a much bigger edit, and Erika deserved much more screentime in the pre merge (her tribe not going to tribal is no excuse, they showed a ton of Deshawn and Sydney when they should have been showing us Heather and Erika, the most successful couple in the game) the edit clearly showed us that she was a strategically threatening player who outplayed a socially unaware player in Xander. The edit was definitely not telling us Xander was the “more deserving” winner and to claim so is a huge misread on the edit. Lastly, at the end of the day the entire point of the game is to vote people out and get them to still vote for you in the end. A player who receives zero votes has failed at the key component of the game, and there is no way you can ever say a zero vote finalist is more deserving. That’s like saying Russell, the worst social player in the history of Survivor, deserved ti win either of his seasons. We as viewers do not know more than the players who played the game. We are seeing 45 min edited episodes once a week. And even if those edits don’t give the female winner as much screen time as she deserves, we should at the very least be able to recognize Erika’s superior gameplay. She understood that the most important part of Survivor is social bonds, awareness and perception. Xander did not understand this, and while he was floating around out of the loop for the majority of the game, Erika was an active player who was on the right side of every vote. Xander very much played a losing finalist game and Erika played a winning game. As someone who wants to go on this show someday I feel like this season perfectly laid out for me the difference between a bad survivor player (Xander) and a good one (Erika).