Survivor Ghost Island: Should Chelsea Townsend return?

Photo: Screen Grab/CBS Entertainment ©2018 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Photo: Screen Grab/CBS Entertainment ©2018 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Chelsea Townsend got further into their first season of Survivor than anybody else who had just four confessionals. Should she get another shot?

One of the reasons I don’t like 20-player Survivor seasons is that there are way too many players to fit into 42-minute episodes (or Tribal Council cycles). A few players will inevitably get cast to the wayside, rarely highlighted (if at all) for episodes at a time. Chelsea Townsend’s screentime was not only dramatically reduced for a two-time Immunity winner, but it was historically low.

To say she didn’t leave a mark on television is an understatement. One of our writers talked about her staggering silence early on in Survivor Ghost Island, and most comments about the article asked who the hell that player actually is. Chelsea was invisible until the fourth episode of the season, offering her input on whether Brendan, Michael or Stephanie should be voted out first.

It took close to three and a half hours of the show until she gave her first confessional and only popped up once more during the pre-merge portion to talk about voting out Bradley Kleihege. Her first real move of the game is to team up with Desiree and seek out the Malolo minority to take out Dom, Wendell and Kellyn. Of course, that plan fell through once Laurel blabbed.

It was that episode that Chelsea won the first of her two back-to-back Immunity Necklaces earned competing in a disc-suspending endurance challenge and a pull-up endurance challenge. This makes her one of the most decorated challenge performers of the season, which makes her lack of reflection after winning them quite a remarkable decision by the editors.

Next: Vote here for whether Chelsea Townsend should return

Unfortunately, Chelsea Townsend acted mostly as a big proponent of “Naviti Strong,” and needed to be taken out due to Dom and Wendell’s alliance making their presence known. The first chance they had to vote her out, they did. Vote here if you believe the r.obbed challenge g.oddess of Survivor Ghost Island deserves another shot in a future season.