As we head into the final weeks of Survivor Season 41, no one really feels safe. After all, last week the Survivors voted out Shantel “Shan” Smith in one of the more stunning moves in the show’s recent history.
Shan’s vote out also means there’s only one idol left in the game that the players have found. In fact, unless we’re forgetting something, the only player with an advantage left is Xander Hastings. It’s shaping up to be a wild end to an exciting season.
Survivor Season 41 week 10 power rankings
Out) Shantel “Shan” Smith (Last: 4) – Shan has felt like she peaked too early for weeks now. The editors continued to show her trying to be the boss of her alliance, which was always going to end in people getting angry with her. That said, she played an incredible pre-merge game and had a realistic shot to win. It took one of the best moves in recent memory to get her out, which is saying quite a bit about how good of a player she is.
7) Liana Wallace (Last: 7) – What’s this? Heather isn’t in last place? Well, the thing is, Liana’s in a terrible spot if her alliance with Danny McCray and Deshawn Radden disintegrates like we think it will. And it’s not like we’ve seen her making bonds with Erika Casupanan, Xander Hastings, or Heather Aldret these last few weeks. Those moments have gone to Ricard Foye and Deshawn. She’s in an unenviable position at this point.
6) Heather Aldret (Last: 8) – Heather might not be in last place, but she still has almost no chance of winning this game. However, she still serves as a solid number for anyone looking to make a move. That makes her dangerous to power players while giving someone like Erika a puncher’s chance.
5) Xander Hastings (Last: 5) – As mentioned above, Xander has all of the advantage power left in the game. That gives him some real power but also makes him a massive target. If he can win an immunity or two, he’ll have a real shot to sit at the end. The only problem is that he doesn’t seem to be making too many friends on the jury, which will hurt his chances.
4) Danny McCray (Last: 3) – Danny drops ever so slightly because we’re starting to worry about his lack of real strategic moves. He’s been pretty lock-step with Deshawn all season, which has served him well. However, he needs to make a move on his own to give him a real chance at winning.
3) Erika Casupanan (Last: 6) – Erika vaults up the rankings this week because she’s starting to show some strategic chops. She’s still firmly in dark horse status, but the narrative around her is slowly starting to turn positive. If she can make a big move this week and drop someone like Danny, Deshawn, or Ricard, he might see her catapult herself into contender status.
2) Deshawn Radden (Last: 1) – Deshawn drops in our rankings because he split his majority alliance. It was a bombastic move that could serve him well in the long term. In the short term, he now has Liana mad at him, which could be used to secure a big move against Deshawn and Danny. That’s scary, but we think Deshawn has enough social capital with Erika and Heather to ride out the storm.
1) Ricard Foye (Last: 2) – Ricard has all the benefits Deshawn gets from taking out Shan without having to worry about Liana feeling betrayed by him. That puts him at the top of our list for now. That said, we can’t shake the fact that Danny and Deshawn were initially coming for him last week. If they come again, he might not be able to turn the target again.