S41.E13

S41.E13

And alas, another season of Survivor is written into the annals of history. “Drop the 4, Keep the 1”, as they say. Yet for those history annals to which I just referred, there will be no number alteration. Survivor 41, those two digits combined to form the number forty-in, is in the books.

Rather than reveal my oh-so-important opinion regarding the finale and season at the start of this email, I will just get right into it, with exciting revelations and insights naturally unveiled during the course of my verbose writing. Best of luck in making it to the end.

Ricard

So, in the end, it was just a tease. We were not blessed on our screens with the crowning of the first ever partially deaf Survivor champion. Ricard, who needed immunity at final five, lost out to Erika by what appeared to be just a handful of puzzle pieces – the size of that hand is unclear … could have been a me-sized hand or a Danny-sized hand.

The show did what it could to make it suspenseful, but the writing was on the wall the moment Ricard lost that challenge. Erika and Heather, despite their distrust of and annoyance with Deshawn, had no choice but to take out the biggest remaining threat in the game. And that is what they did.

So what is the Ricard legacy? Well, I’ll tell you what Ricard thinks his legacy is – “one of the Survivor legends” – self declared, to be sure. Now if you’ve been reading these emails, you know that I’ve come around on Ricard in a big way. His Scar and Jafar-like tendencies irked me earlier on in the season. I found him a bit unreasonable with Shan at times, back when Shan was still likeable in the earlier days of the season. I found him a bit cold, tough to warm up to. But with time, I came to appreciate him as a true Survivor strategist, dare I say a savant. He had his finger on the pulse of the game the whole way through, even including the tribal council at which he was voted out. He masterminded the most critical (and entertaining) blindside of the season when he voted out Shan. Not only did he turn on his closest ally before she could do so to him, but he flipped the whole momentum of the game in that one move – the Liana, Shan, Danny, Deshawn alliance was overthrown by Ricard, Erika, Heather and Xander, setting up the end game. Beyond that move, he simply played the game with extremely deft awareness of the social politics, demonstrated a profound ability in reading people, and through it all, was able to maintain an enviable level of calmness, reminiscent of Brian Heidik (minus being a psychopath) and Todd Herzog.

So yes – Ricard goes down as an excellent Survivor player. But here’s the problem. I was reminded in this episode, by his multiple comments about how great of a player he was, why I was disenchanted with him to begin with. He was arrogant last night … very arrogant. Don’t ever declare yourself (a lot of italicizations and bolding of words today) a Survivor legend. Let the Survivor community decide. In fact, let the show air first to see how it really played out, beyond your own perception. When he declared himself a Survivor legend, all it did was make me want to come up with reasons why he wasn’t a Survivor legend. And here are a few.

He came in fifth place, on a season where there were only eighteen contestants. He put himself in a position of being the biggest threat, forcing himself to rely on immunity, which is never a position you want to put yourself in. Yes, he won three immunity challenges, but if he is going to compare himself to the greats, then I’ll refer him to the truly challenge greats who have each won five immunity challenges in their respective seasons – Colby Donaldson (season 2), Tom Westman (season 10 – drop the 0, keep the 1), Terry Deitz (season 12), Ozzy Lusth (season 13), Mike Holloway (season 30), and Brad Culpepper (season 34).

Back to his strategy – yes, he was great. But what about contestants who’ve pulled multiple epic blindsides? Ricard orchestrated one, and while it was impressive and he still maintained control even in the votes that didn’t require blindsides, he didn’t do enough for me to be declared an all-time great.

One of the strengths of this season was the characters, by far. The likeability of the cast was enough to counter some of the twist excessiveness. I really do like Ricard, but he unfortunately became less likeable for me last night. And as you’ll see, I found that multiple characters I’d really been invested in ended on a somewhat sour note in the finale, which might ultimately affect the way I look back on this season.

Fire-Making

Xander wins immunity. I love Xander – not romantically, not that there’s anything wrong with that. But I love Xander like I love a great football player … I’m a Fander, a “fan” of Xander. I love his energy, he seems super genuine, and his story about being the fat kid who never thought he could be a Survivor was heartfelt. My point is – I was happy when he won the challenge.

But Xander … you over-complicated things here. First off, it seems like he really did misread the jury’s perception of Erika. But even so, it seemed as if he still viewed Erika as being the biggest threat to beat him. Now I understand what he was doing – he was almost trying to create his own narrative that he wasn’t afraid of Erika and didn’t view her as a threat, in order to hurt her chances with the jury. It was kind of like a pre-emptive, “Oh, I’m not afraid of Erika. I’ll take her to the end. And jury – that means you shouldn’t value her highly either”. The problem is they did value her highly, and he should have made things simple. Try and take out the person you view as the biggest threat. It’s that easy. He needed to put Erika in fire making, especially once he saw how bad she was at making it. Sure – it could have been a hero moment for her. But turns out his decision simply confused the jury and made them question his ability to accurately perceive the social dynamics.

Heather Goes Home

Heather grew on me over the course of the season. While she had a very quiet first half (aside from the attempted “Cirie-esque” challenge moment that didn’t land for me), she made efforts to be strategic and take control of her own fate later in the game. We often chastise players who seem to be on the bottom for not acknowledging their position and taking down the majority alliance. Heather, along with Erika, Ricard, and Xander did see the writing on the wall. She was a part of that move that changed the game, and as such deserves credit.

Fire making challenge was unreal. Really really looked like Heather was going to win … in fact, I’m not convinced her piece of rope wasn’t thicker than Deshawn’s (this is actually a joke … Survivor doesn’t do stuff like that … 100% legit).

The Final Three

This was actually one of the more solid final three’s I can recall. Each of them enjoyed some fandom (or Xandom) amongst the audience. They each had a legitimate case to make to the jury, which is very often not the case. Prior to tribal, it was certainly conceivable that either of them could have won.

Final Tribal

They pivoted a bit here from the newer town-hall format that was developed in season 34. For the past 7 seasons, Jeff has broken down final tribal into three portions – an outwit, outplay, and outlast portion. Here, he abandoned that framework and allowed the contestants to just ask questions without the artificiality of these three categories. I preferred this change. Tough to say whether or not I would go back to the original final tribal councils, where each contestant stands up and asks one question. The benefit of that approach was that no one juror could dominate the conversation. But the advantage of the town hall approach is that it allows for more conversation and debate.

Deshawn

A complicated character arc for him. To the audience, he seemed like a fan favorite for much of the season. Warm, friendly, appeared to have a very solid social game. He was strategically-minded and seemed to have friendly connections with most of the contestants. He didn’t have a game-defining move per se, but like Ricard, he had his finger on the pulse of what was going on. Also like Ricard, though, he oddly became a bit less likeable in the last couple of episodes. Don’t get me wrong – I really like Deshawn, and I didn’t find him off-putting in the same way I was turned off by Ricard’s arrogance in the finale. But still … the miscalculation when he exposed Erika to Heather was a bad strategic and social look for him. And in the final tribal, he kind of got skewered by Shan, who reiterated multiple times that he was whiny and moping throughout the game. Despite being a pastor, Shan’s word should not be taken for gospel, but her testimony, combined with only receiving one vote, called into question whether Deshawn was as good of a player as we thought he was, or whether he was just someone that the audience really enjoyed watching.

Xander

For much of the season, Xander was a fan favorite. And for much of the season, we were beyond impressed with how he held onto his immunity idol for so long. How did he have the cojones to not play it and leave himself exposed at so many tribals? This was an impressive feat, and an exciting narrative to watch. But when we found out, both through exit interviews and in the finale last night, that the reason he was never targeted was because people didn’t view him as a threat, that somewhat shattered the image we had of him. I am still very much a Xan Fan, and I found him endearing in the finale. But his legacy from the game took a hit last night. The jury clearly viewed him as socially unaware. There were clearly issues with his social game. His impressive “no idol” play wasn’t really all that impressive, given nobody was going after him.

I thought the editing was quite good this season, but in regards to Xander, I felt like we were let down a bit. Why did it feel so much to the audience like he was playing an impressive game, when in reality that wasn’t the perception on the island?

So, as you can tell, I guess I was feeling a bit let down in some respects last night. The calibre of the contestants – the strength of this season – was repeatedly called into question last night. Ricard not only got voted out, but his arrogance tarnished his legacy and made him less likeable. Deshawn and Xander, two fan favorites, were somewhat exposed as playing less impressive games than we’d been led to believe. And if you look back to mid season, it’s reminiscent of Shan – huge fan favorite for the first segment of the show, turned egomaniac (I’m mostly being sarcastic).

Let me be clear. I don’t really blame the show for this. It just is what it is. And for all the talk of perception by the jury, it’s quite ironic that perhaps the greatest misperception was the way the audience viewed the contestants. We perceived a lot of these contestants differently than how they were actually perceived by each other.

Erika

While both cochleas might be intact, she is still the first Canadian winner of Survivor, and as most of you who read these emails are Canadian, we can celebrate in that. I thought Erika had the best final tribal council – she was the most articulate and was best able to tell her story in the most compelling way. It didn’t hurt that she had multiple people on the jury going to bat for her.

So what is the Erika legacy? I think she played a really solid game, and there isn’t much to critique. She was on the bottom for a lot of the game, but showed both resilience and intelligence in how she worked her way up to the top. You could say she got lucky with the hourglass twist, but then again, there were so many twists in this season, that you could say pretty much anyone was lucky. And there’s no saying that without that twist, she wouldn’t have been able to find a way to stay alive in the game.

Her game was patient. After the hourglass twist, we were left wondering, “why aren’t Erika and Heather trying to make a move against the majority alliance?”. But they did make a move – they just bode their time and did it when it made sense. She did a fantastic job of managing her threat level; she was never viewed as the primary threat, like Ricard, so was not often voted for, yet she was also respected and feared. That is a very difficult but important balance for any Survivor player to find. Yes – Ricard was impressive. But he would have been more impressive if he had been able to lower the perception of his threat level. Erika was able to do just that, while winning two immunities and making some bold strategic decisions. She wasn’t too quiet, but she wasn’t too aggressive.

Is Erika the best winner of all time? No, of course not. She’s not in that conversation. That sounds more blunt than I meant it to. But sometimes the greatest players don’t always go down as the best winners. Sometimes the best path towards winning the game is the more subtle path, the less flashy performance. Erika did what she needed to do. She didn’t make any grave mistakes, she showed some strategic chops, and she won some challenges. So when I say she’s not an all time winner, that doesn’t mean I’m disrespecting her game. It just means we didn’t see enough from her to declare her a Survivor Star. But the same can be said of many first-time winners.

Sophie’s win in the South Pacific was considered pedestrian. She was viewed as a savvy strategist, but nobody would have put her in the list of top ten winners. Only when she came back in season 40, and lost, were we actually even more impressed with her, because she was thrust into a more challenging set of circumstances that she was able to impressively navigate. Parvati – my sweet Parvati – was basically a nobody on her first season in Cook Islands. Only with the adversities she overcame in Micronesia and Heroes vs. Villains did she become the Parvati we know and love (very much) today. Take a more recent example – Tommy in season 39. He’s considered an average winner. It’s not because he didn’t play the game well – he did. It’s because he just didn’t do anything that really stood out in the fans’ memories. But again, he did what he needed to do.

So, my overly wordy above paragraphs are all to say … Erika played a solid game! She should get credit for that. But like many winners, there was nothing extraordinarily impressive about her win. In fact, like many players, one game isn’t enough for us to truly assess how great they are at Survivor. The more times someone plays, the more adversity they face, and the more opportunity for them to shine. It is rare to have a Todd Herzog, Tom Westman or Kim Spradlin type winner on a player’s first go around.

The Legacy of the Season

Heading into the finale, I had this as a top 17-20 season. That’s not based on me actually going through my rankings, but it felt like it would probably end up there. Typically, a strong finale will solidify a higher spot. But for me, I kind of lost my zest for the contestants in this finale. I found myself not really caring who won by the end, for some of the aforementioned reasons above. On Survivor nights, especially finale, I like to sit in the pitch dark with a pizza. There is zero talking permitted in my glorious presence. Last night, I found myself talking during some segments, not really caring to hold onto every single word that was being said. That indicated to me that I didn’t care as much as I usually do. I felt a bit uninspired.

So this season probably falls somewhere in the middle for me. Some great contestants, despite some of their declines towards the end of the season. A few incredible tribal councils, most notably when Shan and Sydney went home. I really enjoyed some of the editing changes, with flashbacks to the contestants’ lives back home. I appreciated the show swinging for new twists, and while there were too many of them, I’d prefer Survivor experimenting than staying stagnant. And hopefully they do dial the twists back a bit.

Some of the downsides. Too many twists purely involving luck. While I liked some of the editing changes, I didn’t enjoy the extra Jeff footage when he was speaking to the audience; I didn’t think it added much.

In regards to the abbreviated 26 day season, I have mixed feelings. The reality is that it didn’t affect my enjoyment of the show. It felt like a full season to me. In the back of my mind, though, I do believe that it is just so much more challenging when they are playing for 39 days, both physically, but perhaps more so mentally. Imagine on day 15, you’re struggling, and you’re thinking, “oh my god, I have to do this for another 24 days???”. Compare that with, “I’ve only get 11 days left”. It’s a huge change in one’s psyche when playing the game, that cannot be ignored. What might have annoyed me most, though, was how the contestants kept on talking about how this was the hardest season ever, wearing it as a badge of honour. I don’t doubt it was hard. I know they got less food and less rewards. But they played 13 days less than all previous Survivor contestants, so pretty hard for me to get behind that narrative. Also – these contestants are all newbies!! So how can they say it’s the hardest season ever, when they have nothing to compare it to? Ultimately, I’m fine with the 26 days, but it seemed like the show was overdoing it a bit in trying to convince us just how hard it is, by means of multiple confessionals in which the contestants declared themselves the most “Survivalist” Survivors of all time!

Having said all this, even though I consider this season “average”, a middling season of Survivor is still an absolutely incredible season of Survivor !! After 41 seasons, being somewhere in the middle is still pretty darn good! Even an “average” season of Survivor is still my favorite show on television. With all the season that have aired now, one could argue that Cook Islands and Tocantins, two legendary seasons, are middling seasons … and they are two outstanding seasons.

The Reunion

Even the reunion, which I’d been excited for given its different format in Fiji, had me feeling less emotional than usual. I like Erika – I do. But I wasn’t jumping out of my seat thrilled for her in the wake of her win. Ricard once again stroked his own ego. Shan reminded me why she’d annoyed me in the past.

In general, my view is that reunions have declined in quality in recent years. More time was spent on delving into the contestants’ growth and personal experiences during the show than dissecting some of the core strategy that the fans care about. Who would have won if Xander took out Erika in fire making? What would a Xander – Deshawn showdown have looked like? Why did the jury vote Erika the winner instead of Xander and Deshawn? That’s what I care about, more so than hearing the contestants talk about their life transformations, which we’d already gotten enough of.

The End

If you’ve stayed with me until now, I thank you. If you haven’t, I thank you nonetheless, though in such a case, this is a thanks that will never be read. I’ve enjoyed rambling to you once a week with my overly self-indulgent Survivor pontifications.

I’m not yet sure if I’ll be back for season 42, as I’ll be recovering from my leg lengthening surgery. But then again, my hands should be fine for typing.

Much love,

The Survivor Buff

5’3 and growing