Survivor 41: Takeaways from Survivor season 41 episode 4

If blindsides were an Olympic event, this season of Survivor would win the gold. Now before you think I’m all in on this week’s episode think again, because if it weren’t for the epic blindsides I’d have very few positive things to say about last night’s “everyone gets a trophy” version of the new and politically improved Survivor.

My takeaways from each episode of Survivor 41 thus far have been hard to find. It’s a stretch to find any kind of takeaways that are meaningful, but each weak I manage to pull a few out of my, well let’s just say “my back pocket”,  that’s close enough!

Survivor 41 episode 4 reactions

As the show begins, we see the UA Tribe returning from Tribal Council with Genie fuming over the fact that she was blindsided as well as Brad. Shan couldn’t help but let Genie in on the little fact that she was not so high on the totem pole as she wasn’t privy to all the secrets that left the game along with Brad.

This insight let Genie know her torch was in jeopardy even though she apparently was the one feeding her tribe, a little secret we fans were not privy to as I don’t think I’ve seen the players hunt, fish, gather food, or really even eat much of anything from day one.

Moments into the episode we had a food challenge and this is where I shook my head and had an urge to check to see if I was indeed watching Survivor or if I had been transported to a Little League game where everyone’s a winner and everyone gets a trophy. I soon realized I was still watching Survivor as Heather continued sobbing uncontrollably after completing botching her part in the food challenge.

As never before seen on Survivor, all of her tribe-mates gathered around her and in unison told her it’s okay, don’t worry all that matters is that you tried and didn’t give up, uhmmmmm what!!  This is a game where every win matters and in past seasons the first thing that would be on everyone’s mind would be that she has to go!

Maybe Heather should have signed up for another game, you know something like “bawling for dollars,” now that’s a game where she could take home the trophy! I guess what you could take away from this is that if you fail let the tears flow after all this is the “toughest, most grueling” season to date, who could fault you. Maybe we will find out next week that all those comforting pats of compassion were nothing more than the positioning of a big old target on Heather’s back. Now that would be some great game playing.

Another takeaway from last night’s episode is that if you plan to throw an immunity challenge you might want to tell the strongest tribe-mate. LUVU tribe-mates, Deshawn and Danny decided to throw the challenge so they could vote off Erika because they realized she was more of a hardcore player than she had been letting on. Well,  it’s not easy to lose a challenge when you have other teams playing their hardest and STILL playing worse than the team trying to blow the win.

In the end, UA, the team that jelled so well to win the food challenge, reverted to the pathetic game players that they’ve been and lost the immunity challenge due to the “athlete,” “wink,”  JD playing like a third-string rookie. Quite frankly he’s played the game so far like a rookie all while professing he grew up on Survivor and watched every episode all his life.

Maybe he should have taken some notes from the past greats because he made some fatal missteps this season and even let a fellow teammate talk him out of his extra vote not once, but twice! In a well-executed layup, Ricard, Shan and Genie performed a slam dunk blindside and JD was benched…Swoosh!

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I’m hoping to see the few remaining UA Tribe members, at some point in the game, put to use the awesome skills Nathan, the Teacher, taught. After all isn’t that the point of winning the rewards of the challenges, to use them to help you extend your game time. Hopefully, Outwit, outplay, outlast doesn’t become outdated as the ever-evolving game of Survivor tries to survive a new age of viewers.

I always say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! Until next week, The scribe has spoken!