I love Survivor and this was a quality episode. Sami is a great character and should be a priority add for a future returnee season.

But I scratch my head at some of productions choices these last couple seasons.

First off going back to the previous 2 seasons, the hour glass was a complete debacle. Idk how or why production thought that was fun or fair. I hated every second of it and most fans and players hated it too, understandably.

Those seasons also struggled with forgettable/unlikable winners.

And then the pick a winner advantage for last nights episode. Not a bad idea, but then they reveal it AFTER THE VOTES?? Huh?? So Cody was safe no matter what because no one is stupid enough to waste their vote on someone who has a clean shot at immunity. Idiotic choice by production. Should’ve been revealed at start of tribal.

This season has pretty even characters. Not a lot of highs but basically no lows. Even Gabler who is an afterthought as a winner is an intriguing character as an oddball who isn’t totally strategically inept.

I’ve enjoyed that despite all the advantages, there have been few played, giving this an old school, social gameplay vibe. It’s almost like the advantages (or threat of them) has hit an inflection point to where there’s so many you basically have to play as you would even if there were none.

Of course advantage-gedon is on the horizon, but I’ve come to accept that’s part of survivor and can create some fun tv moments.

Also enjoyed how hard production tried to push the “knowledge is power” again this season and it fell flat and wasn’t even used even though it was held twice lol.