Survivor 41 Premiere Discussion

Survivor 41 started off strong with a fast-paced, character driven premiere episode. Over the two hours we go to know all of the 18 castaways, said goodbye to two of them, and gained some insight into their tribe dynamics. I have some brief thoughts that I want to put into this post. Just some predictions I want to update now that I have more information. I don't plan on doing this for every episode but I'll try to keep it relatively frequent.

First I want to talk about my winner pick, Evvie. Evvie had a great first episode. They were arguably the figurehead of the Yase tribe and they seemed to have strong connections with everyone. I love Evvie's decision to keep Tiffany, with her rationale being that if they start prioritizing strength, she easily could have been the next to go. With Tiffany still around, Evvie, Tiffany and Liana can form a strong trio and get one of the guys out at the next elimination.

This would be a good time to talk about Tiffany's first episode. Tiffany was discussed as a target but I don't think she was in any real danger. And even though she was portrayed as a liability, I think there is still a lot of time for her to come back. She got a lot of sympathetic content, talking about her history with breast cancer. And I think she is now in a decent position in her tribe. I could see Tiffany having a redemption arc of sorts, rallying towards the end and still pulling out the victory.

And I just want to apologize to Xander for underestimating him. I really like how he came off in the first episode. His approach to the prisoners dilemma was by far the best, and he is honestly a really cool guy. I'm still unsure if he can win, but his chances are much higher than 0%.

Over on the green Ua tribe, Shan has taken clear control. She pulled off the "playing all sides" approach that we saw JD attempt. She controlled the vote, taking the heat off JD and putting it on Sara. And now Shan has a tight bond with JD, JD has a tight bond with Brad, which gives them a tight threesome to work with. Shan is a frontrunner, anyone that gets their own soundtrack is obviously gonna make it far.

In contrast, I am much more sour on Ricard now. I'm not a fan of the way he speaks about people. And I don't want to read into it too much but he comes off as very condescending and entitled. He's playing like a snake, which isn't a bad thing, villains are always fun. But I don't see him lasting much longer in the game. He's on the outside of the Shan and JD duo. There will be a power struggle between Ricard and Shan and Shan will win.

It's hard to say much about the blue Luvu tribe. They didn't go to tribal at all, and so they didn't get much screen time. I'm not confident in Deshawn anymore, he wasn't given much meaningful content. If anyone is gonna win from the blue tribe it will be Sydney or Erika. We are gonna need another episode to see the real Luvu dynamics though.

Overall, I'm still confident in Evvie as my winner pick, but Shan is gonna be a real contender. I'm excited to see how the season plays out. So far I am very impressed.