Survivor: Winners At War has potentially reached it's peak so far with an episode almost entirely focused on a series of heists led by Tony Vlachos. After keeping his energy under control for several weeks, he finally let it loose at final nine, and it resulted in one of the best episodes of the season. As an episode-long story, it was the most well told of the post-merge. However, it does also create some worries for future episodes due to the past examples of seasons reaching a similar point only to then fail tremendously on the follow-up.
Having an episode so clearly focused on one specific character is totally fine, especially in this case where it was well earned by Tony due to his idol find, the way he rebounded from the extortion advantage being used on him, and his engineering of the move to take out Sophie. There was no way around Tony being a huge part of the episode. Obviously Tony is one of the most entertaining players Survivor has ever had and him dominating an episode is appointment television. The worry is if that if his dominion over the airtime continues for the rest of the season - he had a record-breaking 18 confessionals in episode 11 - other narratives may fall by the wayside.
The clear example would be Rick Devens in season 38. Around this time, he became far and away the main character. It irked many casual viewers of the show and created a rift between those who were sick of Devens and those who couldn't get enough. He too is a character who fills every corner of the television screen with his personality, but it got to the point where barely anybody else's story was being told. Russell Hantz in Samoa is another example. Even in Australian Survivor's most recent season, it reached that point with David Genat. The show often forgets that it's at its best with an ensemble cast. Someone like Tony is great to watch, but it isn't only his story. As great as his original season was, this was even occasionally an issue there, but hopefully it doesn't become one in Winners At War.
The fact that this is still an all winners season does lessen the worry a bit. It'd be difficult to imagine a cast of this caliber being ignored in favor of Tony the same way the endgame cast of season 38 was ignored in favor of Rick. Sarah especially could stay a large part of the story, since her history in the game is so inextricably linked to Tony's. Jeremy scraping by has been fun. Kim is popping up slightly as someone who will work against Tony. Michele and Ben have been excellent to watch; these characters ideally won't all fade away in the coming weeks.
Modern Survivor storytelling, especially in the post-merge, has not been promising. The few episodes before this week have felt a lot like merely one player saying in confessional that the tribe is in chaos. Then there's a montage of random conversations, and then someone gets voted out at tribal. It's lacked a detailed view of the dynamics of the game and legitimate story. This final nine episode, on the other hand, contained all the necessary ingredients for a blindside the audience could follow while maintaining the requisite level of viewer suspense. It also brought along the possibility of the season becoming too focused on one specific person, but hopefully Survivor can do what it has failed to do in recent years and keep itself in check. Tony will always be excellent television, but there's still seven other people in the game. The show shouldn't forget to tell their stories too, or just finally give the viewers the two-hour long episodes they've been asking for this season.
Survivor airs Wednesdays at 8pm EST on CBS.
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