I’m a huge Survivor fan. I’ve watched every episode of every season, and I’ve written more articles than I can count about the casting, the evolving gameplay and the weird little moments. As such, I like to think I’m pretty plugged into what’s going on, but apparently, I completely missed a Survivor 49 contest accomplishing something for the first time in the history of the US version of the show.
Michelle “MC” Chukwujekwu apparently became the first contestant ever to win first place in every single pre-merge challenge. Now, to be clear, we have had more than several (shoutout Jelinsky) players make it to the merge without ever going to Tribal Council, but those castaways, at some point, either lost a reward or finished second in a three team Immunity challenge. MC is the first to just straight up clean sweep every single competition. It’s especially impressive in her case too because it’s not like she’s just been on a dominant tribe. Survivor 49 has already had multiple tribe swaps, and she’s continued to win with every change.
Now, obviously, she’s great at challenges. We need to acknowledge that. More often than not, she’s been put in key spots in the challenges, and she has performed well every single time. But it’s also worth noting that, despite playing a key role in so many victories, she’s not been showy about it… to the point where I didn’t even notice. I recognized she was good at challenges and a part of many wins, but I had no idea it was all literally firsts.
That could be really important in the post-merge. The history of Survivor is filled with players who were really good at challenges (Ozzy, James, Joe Anglim etc), but more often than not, those players have been targeted because of their challenge dominance. She hasn’t become this larger than life topic of conversation like so many others. Maybe that’ll be the topic of a feature episode, which is why Survivor has largely kept those comments from other players out of the edit. Or maybe other people just really aren’t noticing.
Regardless, MC’s strong challenge play has been one of the bright spots of a lackluster season so far. Host Jeff Probst was very open while talking to the press that he feels the action really picks up after the merge. Hopefully that’s the case because while we’ve gotten a shocking snake bite and few moments of conflict, most fans are calling Survivor 49 one of the slowest in the show’s history, as it has fallen into many of the same patterns we've seen recently.
Fortunately, that shouldn’t be the case for the upcoming Survivor 50. The early buzz has been really strong about the returning players, and Cirie said she thinks it’s the best season in the show’s history. I don’t know if it’ll live up to those standards, but if it gives us some great new moments from legends like Coach, Colby, Angelina and, of course, Cirie, we’ll all be in for a treat.
Until then, Survivor 49 will return on Wednesdays, where we’ll get to see if MC’s epic winning streak continues. Episodes can also be streamed with a YouTube TV subscription.
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