Survivor: David vs. Goliath episode 10: Challenges

A double feature of Survivor: David vs. Goliath brought us a plethora of challenges, and it revealed a telling fact going forward.

Out of the four challenges in this past episode, the battle between Christian and Alec proved to be one of the best Immunity Challenges in Survivor history. That grueling challenge had so much packed into it that I published an article yesterday just about that one alone. This article will focus on the other three challenges.

We’ll start with the first Reward Challenge. The castaways were split into even teams of five. One by one they had to cross a very difficult rope bridge that Jeff mentioned was the first time it has been used in a challenge. It was an interesting addition to an otherwise bland Reward Challenge.

The orange team started off strong as Alec flew across the bridge, but Alison, Gabby and Mike struggled. Christian was able to buy back some time in the end as he aggressively made his way across the bridge. The purple team built up a lead, as Nick, Kara and Angelina move fairly quick, while Davie and Carl took it to another level.

That gave the purple team extra time to work on the final part of the challenge which involved landing three rungs horizontally on a ladder. Nick hooked one rung before the orange team got to this stage, but Alec was ready to go! He landed one rung fairly quick, causing Davie to come in for Nick. Right after Davie nailed his first attempt, Alec landed the last two in a row to win it for the orange team!

The reward was a picnic away from camp with wraps, salad, and wine. It’s interesting that out of all the rewards so far like burgers and pizza, it was the wraps that caused most of the castaways to toss their cookies.

Reward Challenge Rankings:

Creativity: 3.5/5

Difficulty: 2.5/5

Entertainment Value: 2/5

Since the Immunity challenge is covered in a previous article, we’ll skip ahead to the next Reward Challenge. The castaways were split into two teams of four by a schoolyard pick, with Christian not chosen and forced to sit out. Kara was a captain for the orange team, selecting Carl, Davie and Mike, while Angelina was the captain for the purple team and chose Nick, Gabby and Alison.

The first part was kind of pointless, as each person would climb up a fairly high ladder and jump from it into the water. Everyone had no problem diving into the water, there weren’t any painful, Monika-like landings. Then each tribe had to go underwater to release two sets of buoys.

Kara had a great effort grabbing the first set, and then Davie for the second set, which gave the orange team a slight lead. The combination of Angelina, Alison and Nick struggled a little to release their buoys, but they weren’t too far behind entering the last stage.

It basically came down to shooting hoops, as the final part of this challenge required the castaways to jump off a platform in order to land five buoys in five tight baskets. Nick was the first person to drain a basket for the purple team, but seconds later Davie responded with a slam dunk.

After that, Carl and Davie ran away with the challenge, nailing lay-ups, one after the other, giving the orange team the win. The reward was just what Carl needed. Fried chicken, potato salad, corn, cheesecake and BEER! Similar to the first Reward Challenge, there wasn’t anything too special here.

Reward Challenge Rankings:

Creativity: 2/5

Difficulty: 2/5

Entertainment Value: 2/5

That brings us to the final Immunity Challenge of the night that you can revisit in the video below. It consisted of the castaways making their way through an obstacle course grabbing three groups of blocks along the way. Those 13 blocks will be used to form an 11 letter word. The first to make the correct word wins immunity.

The first obstacle was insignificant as it was just a rungless ladder that each castaway had to climb and descend. Then the castaways had to spin around a post, getting them all dizzy before they faced the final obstacle; the balance beam. Davie crossed the beam first, followed by Carl, Kara, Alison and the rest not too long after.

Carl was the first one who seemingly had success as he formed a word: perceptions. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the word Jeff was looking for, although Carl formulating a different 11 letter word is impressive!

Davie then was onto something, and when Alison peaked she figured it out too. It was a race to the finish and Davie left Alison two blocks short from correctly spelling the word: perspective. Overall it was a decent obstacle and puzzle duo that didn’t really bring any new elements compared to previous Survivor challenges.

Immunity Challenge Rankings:

Creativity: 2/5

Difficulty: 1.5/5

Entertainment Value: 3/5

Challenge Takeaways

The biggest story of this challenge was the negotiations between Angelina and Jeff. With the castaways running low on rice, Angelina applied the knowledge she learned from her negotiation classes and delivered the most organized Survivor offer that even stunned Jeff! Probst countered by saying he would give them enough rice if one person sat out of the challenge.

Angelina took one for the team… and I’m sure she had only genuine intentions in mind! Angelina’s decision did have an immediate effect on her game. It felt like people might even be willing to put trust in her going forward because of this action.

The Immunity Challenge also revealed something else: really anybody can win the necklace now! With three big physical threats in John, Dan and Alec now out of the game, there isn’t really a major challenge threat left. This added element of a balanced playing field has the potential to make the immunities even more entertaining in the final three episodes.