Survivor 41

[Disneylover99]

Ugh. Haven’t watched it yet. But knowing who the winner is, I don’t think I want to bother to watch. Lol.

 

[lovin'fl]

He should have taken Heather. Big mistake.

Also...did Heather have copper wire in her rope thingy? Fire was on her rope forever and yet it didn't burn through.

 

[starvenger]

Read the recaps. Surprised at the winner, but it's great, because in a way it's a giant middle finger to Probst and all of his twists that "improve" the game.

 

[EMom]

Hard to believe DeShawn got more votes than Xander…who got none.

 

[lovin'fl]

Ricard ponderosa...someone thinks very very highly of himself. And, dude, you voted out your BFF Shan. So you should be the one to approach her for mending fences.

 

[Disneylover99]

He should have taken Heather. Big mistake.

Yes! There might have been hope doing that.
But I think based on the jury, Heather may have won anyways.

 

[Disneylover99]

Read the recaps. Surprised at the winner, but it's great, because in a way it's a giant middle finger to Probst and all of his twists that "improve" the game.

I’d love to watch a twistless season. Just survive. Lol.

 

[jen7233]

Hard to believe DeShawn got more votes than Xander…who got none.

I think if it were Heather at the end which would be the one to take, DeShawn would have won. The jury was not going to give Xander the votes.

 

[QueenIsabella]

Xander seemed to think he could beat Erika. Someone mentioned it to him, and that's what he said. I also think that he thought the jury would give him the votes, because of the way he played. But, juries are funny--sometimes, they respect good game play, even if they got blindsided. Other times, it's "I don't like you, you're not getting my vote." He was in the latter category.

I also thought that Erika was faking it, when she was having trouble making fire. She looked like she'd never seen flint before, when we all know she did fine on Exile.

 

[footballmouse]

I also thought Erika was faking it when she was practicing her fire skills. It didn't even look like she was trying. I thought Xander should have taken Heather also, would have loved to hear her answers to those jury questions. But I understand his reasoning why he took Erika and it did make sense. I feel he should have won and he should have gotten some of the votes.

 

[RUDisney]

I think if it were Heather at the end which would be the one to take, DeShawn would have won. The jury was not going to give Xander the votes.

The jury said something about not wanting to give Xander the win because of his age. I don't disagree that falling into $1M at 20 years old might not be the best thing for a person, but Xander's head seemed to be in the right place to handle that. I know it would have cured a lot of my problems at 20.

How about Shan ghosting Ricard at Ponderosa!?! She is NOT the type of minister that I would want leading me in worship. Where is the kind, turn the other cheek minister-like personality.

 

[declansdad]

The jury said something about not wanting to give Xander the win because of his age. I don't disagree that falling into $1M at 20 years old might not be the best thing for a person, but Xander's head seemed to be in the right place to handle that. I know it would have cured a lot of my problems at 20.

How about Shan ghosting Ricard at Ponderosa!?! She is NOT the type of minister that I would want leading me in worship. Where is the kind, turn the other cheek minister-like personality.

I think Xander got robbed. Erika played well but he had to fight the entire time.

As for Shan, I think her church needs to send her packing.

 

[leeniewdw]

I think we're left with questions because of the shortened season. Less time to get to know everyone/relationships, and with the blue tribe never going to tribal, we didn't get much from them until the merge (and most of that was Danny/Deshawn). I feel like we missed a lot from Ericka and Xander that both under and over hyped them, respectively.

He mistook the reaction of the jury at Deshawn's "truth bomb" about Ericka as approval, but I always think the jury is just like viewers at that point, they are just loving anything that's chaotic/entertaining. And he repeated that he thought that TWICE in front of the jury. So if more of that went on at camp where he misread situations, perhaps that explains things. I love the kid and I'm sure he'll be back.

 

[Tinks]

My opinion: The jury would never have voted for Xander to win because he is a white male. They were a "woke" survivor so a person they consider born with advantages would never get their vote. I will not watch again if Survivor continues down this path.

 

[leeniewdw]

What path? They cast a more diverse cast, so what? They can't tell them how to vote. And the 4 black contestants didn't stay together very long anyway(just citing a situation that didn't pan out how they even planned) . Might be helpful to keep in mind when this was shot and its timeline that was closer to the George Floyd murder and thus the focus in editing on that plotline.

You could be right about Xander being disadvantaged by his ethnicity (or age+ethnicity), but I don't think there's been a ton of black winners. So perhaps there was bias in casting and voting in the past but everyone was fine with that. Implicit bias is a thing, but it works both ways.

I loved Xander, but you have to admit he performed very poorly at the last 2 tribals. He mis-read the jury more than once and couldn't even answer one of the questions that should have been a softball. Ericka was profoundly better in discussing her strategy and how it was successful. Once Xander had the idol, his path was much easier than Erickas. The entire season people talked about how she was a smart strategic player. It's kind of harsh to discount her play because you think people were "woke". She was a very good player.

Maybe the "woke" cast voted for a woman since one hadn't won in 7 seasons (something like that). I mean, we can just make up things.

 

[lovin'fl]

I also thought Erika was faking the trouble with fire making. I think that's why Xander took her. He wanted Deshawn out thinking he was the toughest to beat, He truly didn't seem to think Erika much of a threat. I mean Deshawn's whole alliance was on the jury (4 people if count Ricard...plus also Naseer) so it could look like Deshawn was the tough one to beat. Xander didn't count on bitter jury (his alliance being bitter for their ousters that were partly due to Deshawn). And he didn't see the game Erika was playing. Nor did he realize the whole 'young white male cannot win again' theme going on. They made it seem like he told Erika she was safe before watching her try to make fire. But I suspect he watched her first and then decided not to risk her losing against Deshawn and then told her he was taking her (but said for her to practice just in case). At least we didn't have goat Heather in final 3. All 3 in the final had worthiness to certain degrees.

 

[leeniewdw]

That's a good point about the order of seeing her make fire vs him announcing who he would take. I didn't fall for that for a second(him participating) as we'd already been duped by him saying he might use his idol on Ricard. And actually, he floated the idea of using his idol for Evvie way back and he didn't do that either. For sure his peak was sniffing out Liana's plan and tricking her. After that there's wasn't as much.

Ericka not only worked with Danny/Deshawn to vote out Shan, she got them to split votes onto Liana -- which created the gigantic rift.

I really think that the shortened season made the editing less helpful. Either that or they made some different editing decisions. Which is possible since the whole season had some weird stuff.

 

[EMom]

IMHO, Shan is a minister who gives ministers a bad name. She delights in being able to manipulate people and bend them to her will. She may have left gang life behind, but she still has the mindset. Sadly, I believe the ministry is a respectable way to make a living, stay out of jail, and make decent money while playing puppeteer to her congregation. Loathe her.

 

[starvenger]

The "young white male" winner is an interesting narrative... and I'm not certain that it works. Did we have three "YWM" winners in a row? Yes. Does the trend extend past that? No.

The larger picture is that non-returning player seasons have seen a F3 of one Big Move player (generally speaking, a guy) and at least one Goat.

There are of course variations, such as when there were TWO Big Move players in the F3 and it was made clear throughout the season that the other 18 contestants didn't matter.

But this is the problem - the EP has steered the game to where most players aren't really thinking strategy beyond a couple of votes. So Big Moves are the play. A Sandra has no shot of winning because her moves are subtle and she'd be dismissed as a Goat, instead of being the GOAT.

So why didn't the guy with more Big Moves win? I think it's because of the Biggest Move, which was a) an unnecessary, bs twist, and b) was a complete no-brainer for Erika. That Twist probably stuck in the heads of the jurors, causing them to look beyond Big Moves and go back to "classic" elements, like the social game and appreciating the strategy of UTR players. The jury adjusted their viewpoint and Xander really had no way to adapt to that.

 

[leeniewdw]

Are you saying Xander was the guy with Big Moves? I mean, he found an idol clue that wasn't hidden well at all and had to wait for days until everyone else had their clue and literally everyone knew who had the idols. The Liana fake out was great, but that's it. And Liana played that portion of her game poorly, immediately turning on her allies for her new ones, etc.

If Xander had USED his idol to actually blindside someone and then won a few more immunities, he might have had a better shot.

I would have been fine for any of the F3 to win. Different games and strategies, but as much as anyone can "deserve" to win, they met the criteria. I will say I enjoyed Ricard calling Deshawn out on his "get along with everyone, be positive on the beach" claim since he tried and did backstab almost everyone. I heard his game described as "messy", which I think was Shan's point in her questions. The number of times he had to smoke a peace pipe with someone the next morning after tribal was not a sign of a strong game in his control.