Survivor Game Changers: A Deeper Look at “A Line Drawn in Concrete”
We’ve had the chance to re-watch and digest the latest episode of Survivor. Let’s look back at some of the minutia — underrated strategy, notable production choices, and responses on social media — from Episode 10, “A Line Drawn in Concrete.”
Cirie’s Special Moment
Very little that makes the final cut of an episode of Survivor is accidental. That means that the extended post-Reward Challenge scene centered on Cirie served a purpose.
The only question is: what exactly did the inclusion that scene accomplish? Let’s channel Sarah’s powers of observation and examine several possibilities.
It starts the hero’s march to victory
Cirie had been on a roll coming out of last week’s double-episode. She ostensibly helped save Michaela from being booted. Then, she’d used her social diplomacy to try to keep her alliance with Zeke and Andrea from crumbling. Based on edgic alone, she has to be considered a threat to win it all.
But a telegraphed winner’s edit with 11 people still on the island doesn’t make for an exciting post-merge narrative. Hence, the show presented an edit that humbled Cirie.
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As Jeff Probst declares “Cirie, you were the woman who over a decade ago got up off the couch to come try this game Survivor. These are the moments you were looking for.” I’m sure Jeff says something to that effect for each person that makes it to the merge. Without knowing who the winner will be ahead of time, the show needs to keep its options open.
By magnifying the cracks in Cirie’s physical game, there is now an obstacle for her to overcome. In the event that she does win, the editors will have something to build their story arc around. The fact that this scene wasn’t left on the cutting room floor could mean that Cirie could be in for a full 39-day stay.
It bridges the gap to Sarah’s Arc
This could very well be the start of another player’s triumphant hero narrative: Sarah’s.
Maybe this scene wasn’t about Cirie at all. Maybe it was solely a way to link Cirie, the MVP of the previous episode, with Sarah. The latter essentially takes over as the episode’s narrator and the second half of “A Line Drawn in Concrete” hinges entirely on which voting block she sides with.
There is a clear transfer of momentum between the two women. The viewer is told to feel sympathetic toward Cirie. By being the first person in the water to help her teammate, Sarah is able to appropriate some of that sentiment for herself.
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It helps to redeem some of the other players
Troyzan received a less flattering edit in Survivor: One World. He’s had more of a neutral-to-positive edit this time around, and this scene further helps his cause. If there’s a Troyzan villain edit around the corner, there’s absolutely nothing foreshadowing it.
Similarly, Zeke’s approval rating took a nosedive after his emotional story arc in “What Happened on Exile, Stays on Exile.” Immediately turning against your alliance will do that. Again, helping Cirie at that moment softens his edit a bit while making it more plausible that the Cirie-Zeke-Andrea-Sarah alliance could reconnect.
They just needed to kill time
In the time allotted for social gameplay, we got a whole lot of Sarah talking the audience through her thought process. Frankly, it didn’t really seem like a tough decision to switch her vote from Michaela to Debbie.
Though Sarah had aligned with the (ironically-named and short-lived) “Power Six” block to vote out Ozzy, she’d shown clear emotional ties to both Zeke and Cirie in previous episodes. And after all this time, why would you trust Sierra and Debbie to take you all the way?
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From what saw, Debbie or Sierra seemed like the obvious vote. It was a decision that needed a little bit of editing magic to make it look decidedly less clear.
Rather than stretch out the episode’s third-act drama longer than it already was, the producers were able to kill some time with the Cirie scene. Ultimately, Cirie emotional moment was a self-contained story. Beginning, middle, fin. Devoting several minutes of screen-time to the fallout of an inconsequential reward challenge is akin to running the clock in a blowout basketball game.
It also allowed Probst to drop some commercial-ready sound bytes: “That’s what happens when you believe in yourself. Anything is possible.” And of course, “One of the most powerful moments on Survivor.” You know… as if the whole Zeke/Varner thing didn’t happen two episodes ago.
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At the cost of a slightly out-of-place emotional arc, Probst at least got some over-the-top-sappy one-liners off. In any case, they were good lines to have in the episode, if only so they could be used to hype up the “Next time on Survivor” preview reel.