Survivor S44E07: Let's Not Be Cute About It

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Survivor delivers a forced twist episode that pushes a little too hard on the twists.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The modern era of Survivor embraces experimentation in a lot of ways -- it’s a necessity due to the simple fact that most (if not all) of these players are fans or even superfans of the game. They are aware of measures and countermeasures and counter-countermeasures, all simply because each season is a product of the seasons before it (give or take the one that films that they don’t get to see due to timing).

One of the good parts of this experimentation is a more focused consideration of diversity of contestant types, in all that might imply. But there’s also a “let’s throw a bunch of stuff at the wall” mentality too, which sometimes seems interesting (like the cage idol idea) even if the actual outcome isn’t quite so exciting due to players like Brandon sharing too much info. At this point I don’t think we’ll see anyone be tricked by the fake idols.

The episode keeps throwing out a lot of confessions from people, but it can’t suddenly make everyone interesting. The ultimate vote out this episode was Matt, but his loss was a combination of bad luck and bad timing and a little bit of bad gameplay. His obviousness as a duo with Frannie was noticed enough by others that he was a significant target -- and him playing up his confidence was a warning sign, although we saw that from Carson too (and not for the first time from him either).

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But ultimately it was mainly that Frannie successfully won for her mini-tribe without really thinking it through clearly -- she could’ve protected her partner by throwing the challenge at the very end. But I’m not sure she thought of that in the moment of competition. Otherwise because of the simple numbers, you had Matt and Yam Yam in the minority so unless either had an idol (which they didn’t) they were the easy vote out targets.

Ultimately it’s as simple as that -- Yam Yam was not quite as high a priority as someone who was without many allies but was still a solid social player. Matt has been playing a little fast and loose until now, with his partner Frannie really seeming to be playing a closer, more careful game. At least now she’s better situated.

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Of course the other big reason is the nature of the twist itself -- suddenly Matt was alone and without allies, all with this new challenge that hurt him. Fair or unfair, it’s a lot of stuff, and Heidi’s vote control thing didn’t really change anything much one way or another because of the double vote already in play. Thus: Too many advantages made things too complicated and it was obscuring how Matt lost.

I’m a little meh on the season so far -- despite liking a lot of the player personalities, the nature of the game has made strategy less interesting and more reactive to the latest twist, which isn’t really why I like watching the show. I’m not really sure how well the rest of the season will hold up, but fingers crossed it’s going up from here.

Otherwise it’ll be the latest in a series of disappointments from this show, with even the legendary all winners season having issues of its own despite a strong, sadly pandemic hit finish.

Next time on Survivor, Frannie feels alone, and things are getting twisty.