Written by Mike Mueller
AN ALLIANCE NO MORE
The last episode of Survivor ended with one of the most tumultuous tribal councils in recent history. The Yase tribe (minus Liana, who had jumped ship) stuck together and did a brilliant acting job to strip away Liana’s Knowledge is Power advantage and keep Xander’s immunity idol in play. However, during the council, Deshawn revealed to everybody that Evvie had revealed Xander’s power to him when they went on their Prisoner’s Dilemma journey together.
We said in the last episode that it might cause distrust between the Yase three, and, as it turns out, it did just that. Trust has been broken seemingly beyond repair as Evvie, Xander, and Tiff all go around to different castaways and individually pitch why they would be beneficial to work with. Evvie in particular is aware of how much on the outs she is and knows she played too hard too early, and now she is desperate to repair relationships.
While some people are open to the idea, others are diametrically opposed. Deshawn isn’t buying any of it, and wants the Yase 3 gone in quick order.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcSJeFRhezc
SITTING ON AN ADVANTAGE
Before the tribe comes in for the reward challenge, Jeff informs the audience at home that one person will not be participating in the challenge and will instead have to sit out. However, he places an advantage under sit-out bench. If the Survivor knows what to look for, sitting out of this challenge might just be the best thing for them.
After a “deja vu” like rock draw, the teams are split very similarly to how they were in the last rock draw challenge: Liana, Shan, Heather, Tiff, and Naseer are on the yellow team. Ricard, Evvie, Danny, Deshawn, and Xander are on the blue team. This means that Erika has chosen the sit-out rock once again! However, before they start, Xander offers to sit out of the challenge instead, allowing Erika to compete for food. While it’s better than a single fish, the reward challenge is once again pretty lacking, as the winning team will get one grilled cheese sandwich a piece and a bowl full of potato chips.
For the challenge, tribes must swim out, release puzzle pieces in the water, get them to their boat, and then complete a 3D pyramid puzzle on a platform. The tribes are even through the water and boat portion of the challenge, and, as usual, this all comes down to the puzzle. Fortunately for the blue team, Evvie knows this puzzle from Edge of Extinction and has practiced it at home. Her superfandom comes in handy and she whips the puzzle together very quickly. In the short term, this was great for Evvie as the extra food will allow her to have more energy for the immunity challenge. While that is very important right now, it also paints an even bigger target on her back.
As for Xander, while he looked as coyly as he could, he didn’t notice the advantage tucked away under the bench and missed a huge opportunity. We don’t know what it would have been, but as someone who is squarely on the outs with the rest of the tribe, he needs all the help he can get.
HUNGRY AND BITTER
While the blue tribe is off enjoying their reward, the yellow team is bemoaning their Survivor experience. Shan, Tiffany, and Liana are not handling the lack of food well, and Shan in particular seems very bitter about the fact that she’s on the losing team a lot. Naseer seems just fine and actually goes out and knocks down a few papayas for the yellow team to share.
Around this time, the blue team comes back from their reward and Ricard takes a slice of papaya to eat. This infuriates Shan, and while she still considers Ricard her number one ally, these frequent examples of selfishness on his part are rubbing her the wrong way and she’s wondering if he’ll be true to her.
As pre-challenge strategies start to form, Shan tries to get the target on Evvie. Everybody seems open to this idea, including Xander, who is still insistent that the Yase 3 are no more. Xander continues to show a level of intelligence many (including yours truly) didn’t give him credit for. He says he “loves being with the losers” of a challenge because they are emotional and vulnerable. Very true! Now if only you had grabbed that advantage…
BARTERING WITH BLOCKHEADS
At the Immunity Challenge, which is an endurance challenge of keeping a block of wood wedged between your head and the top of a platform while standing on your toes, Jeff offers the contestants a deal: If five people forgo the challenge, the tribe will receive three day’s worth of rice. Shan and Naseer offer to sit out right away. Nobody else steps up until Xander says he’ll sit out if Jeff drops the number to four people, and Jeff agrees. One more person needs to step up, and Ricard takes one for the team (perhaps he was feeling guilty about that papaya after all).
As the challenge gets underway, Deshawn, Erika, and Tiffany are out almost immediately. Danny drops quickly after that, and Liana isn’t too far behind him. The last two remaining are Heather and Evvie, which is surprising for a challenge like this. Ultimately, that grilled cheese sandwich may have been the difference as Evvie wins and keeps herself safe for the evening. Now everybody needs to come up with a new plan A.
THE NEXT BEST THING
Shan, Deshawn, Danny, and Liana struggle to reach a consensus with the rest of the group but finally land on splitting the votes between Tiffany and Naseer. They tell Naseer to vote for Heather, and, of course, Heather quickly finds out and is understandably very concerned. She and Deshawn are getting very fed up with Shan’s controlling ways. Ultimately, another tribal council is ready to go live, and Heather shakes things up, saying everybody should switch their votes to Naseer. Throughout all of the chaos, not much changes. None of the three idol holders use their power, and the votes fall down 2 for Xander, 2 for Heather, 1 for Naseer, and 5 for Tiffany. Since they couldn’t get out Evvie, the tribe did what they thought was “the next best thing” and still found a way to finally eliminate one of the Yase 3.
OVERALL THOUGHTS ON SURVIVOR 41 EPISODE 8
– Evvie absolutely saved herself by winning that immunity challenge. With 10 people still in the game, it’s going to be very difficult for her to get any sort of numbers to make a comeback. However, this is Survivor and anything is possible.
– Shan, who had to take an active lead on the old Ua tribe, needs to learn to lay back and let someone else spearhead an elimination for once. Her alliance is already getting tired of her antics, and with all of the power still in her hands, she is in a prime spot for a potential blindside next episode. Ricard would be very smart to help blindside her because if they do end up in the finals together, he’s not going to get any credit for the moves they made as a duo early on.
Survivor 41 Episode 8 is now on demand and streaming on Paramount+
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJCtWzdJDBE
