Survivor recap: Grilled cheese and betrayal on the menu

A new Survivor episode arrived on Wednesday night and it picked up following the dramatic turn of events that sent Sydney Segal packing.

It was on the last episode of Survivor that Erika Casupanan smashed her hourglass and reset the Merge Challenge.

Sydney went from being safe on the merged tribe to have to play for her safety again, but she fell short in the Individual Immunity Challenge and then got voted off of Survivor at Tribal Council.

In interviews that Sydney has given this past week, she called Survivor 41 “The Season of Advantages” and said that “I hate everyone” when talking about fans and cast members.

Survivor 41, Episode 8 recap

The new episode of Survivor picked up with the tribe arriving back at the beach. Xander Hastings referred to the shakeup at Tribal Council as “a splash” as several different castaways rehashed what had happened. A lot of people were scrambling and it certainly foreshadowed that there could be multiple targets at the next elimination vote.

Tiffany Seely and Evvie Jagoda were two of the people working their way around to every remaining member of the Survivor 41 cast to try to secure their spots in the game.

Survivor Reward Challenge and a new advantage

The final 11 castaways met up with host Jeff Probst for a new Reward Challenge and he told the audience that there would be an advantage hidden at the sit-out bench. Two teams of five would compete in an obstacle challenge on the water. The winning team would get a grilled cheese dinner back at camp.

They drew for teams and Erika drew the solo rock and had to sit out. Xander volunteered to sit out in her place, and Erika re-entered the challenge. They did not know the hidden advantage was there, so Xander was doing this in order to allow Erika a shot to win some food.

The Yellow Team was Shan, Liana, Heather, Tiffany, and Naseer. The Blue Team was Danny, Ricard, Deshawn, Erika, and Evvie. It was an intense first few obstacles with the teams almost even at the puzzle. Evvie had done a puzzle just like it before, though, and she was very quick to finish this one.

Danny, Ricard, Deshawn, Erika, and Evvie won the reward, and Xander did not find the advantage.

Back at camp, Naseer found some fruit that helped give the losing group some food.

Individual Immunity Challenge – balance a block on your head

On Day 16, Jeff welcomed the final 11 castaways to a new Individual Immunity Challenge. He then bribed people with rice if they agreed to sit out. Liana, Naseer, Xander, and Ricard volunteered to sit out in order to get rice for the entire group for the next three days. That left only seven people competing for the Immunity Idol.

Deshawn was out of the challenge within seconds, followed by Erika and Tiffany after just a few more seconds. Danny and Liana then fell before the challenge even hit three minutes total. Only Heather and Evvie were left competing. Heather dropped and Evvie won Individual Immunity in “barely four minutes” of time.

A tense Tribal Council for Survivor 41

Ahead of Tribal Council, Shan, Liana, Deshawn, and Danny constructed a plan to go after Xander and Heather as a backup. Xander started to figure out people were after him and he said his “betraydar” went up as he started to suspect people were lying to him. Heather was not happy when she heard her name had been put out there by people she was supposed to be working with.

It was another Tribal Council of chaos after Heather got up and whispered to some people that they should target Naseer. It led to some people wanting to get Heather out on the spot.

The votes were read off by Jeff Probst and after votes were given to Xander, Heather, and Naseer, Tiffany Seely was voted out.

Survivor 41 airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on CBS.

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