Spoiler alert for Survivor 41!
The Yase tribe had a pretty tough go in the early stages of Survivor 41. They quickly fell behind in challenges and were whittled down to a desolate group of four: Xander Hastings, Tiffany Seely, Liana Wallace and Evvie Jagoda. Post-merge, they had the opportunity to play the middle after building ties with other players along the way, but instead, the self-proclaimed “underdog sea turtles” alliance fell apart. So what really happened? Well, one of the recently fallen core four explains why they didn't stick together.
To start, at the bonkers first post-merge tribal council, Liana Wallace jumped ship to her Survivor “Cookout” alliance, forcing the remaining Yase to team up with Sydney Segal, who eventually became their first casualty (and has a lot of smack to say about it). Then it was Tiffany Seely next, with Evvie Jagoda following her onto the jury soon after. Jagoda believes that the true fracture was thanks to her wild strategy to confess to Deshawn Radden about Xander Hastings’ hidden immunity idol. (And I agree.) But she’s still surprised how it went down. She said to Entertainment Weekly:
Honestly, it was very surprising to me as well that Yase totally imploded after that. Because when we got back from [the post-merge] Tribal, it was all hugs. Tiffany gives Xander back the idol, and obviously Xander was upset that I shared the idol, but we talked about it and I was like, ‘Listen, that was day 4. We didn't know how close we were going to end up being.’ And honestly, Xander is a gamer. I don't think he took it personally, but I think he was a bit wary.
After that, Evvie Jagoda claims that Xander Hastings was the one to officially break Yase’s ranks. The ousted Survivor 41 player reveals that Hastings decided to “totally ditch” them. He refused to talk to Jagoda and Tiffany Seeley and, as a result, they could no longer show a united, strong front for others to work with.
But let's rewind back to Liana Wallace, who was the actual impetus for Yase’s problems. Evvie Jagoda shared that after the original Yase tribe didn't vote out Xander Hastings on Day 5, Wallace became “obsessed” and “really regretted” the decision. Apparently, Wallace saw Hastings as a “Joey Amazing”-type player that needed to go, hence her big move at the merge to turn on Yase and try to get Hastings’ idol.
Evidently, what wasn't shown on Survivor 41 was that Evvie Jagoda had more information on Liana Wallace’s Knowledge is Power advantage than anyone else, or so she says. And, even more surprising, Jagoda apparently also had un-aired discussions with Shan Smith about doing that all-girls alliance that started on Yase. Again, though, several factors made that strategy fall apart as well. Jagoda said,
But the merge was crazy. You have women and men, you've got the Black alliance forming, you've got Luvu versus Yase. There were so many things going on, and it was so fluid and jumbled up. And then when that hourglass twist came in, it just made a really stark division where it was just like oh, okay, it's Yase versus everyone else. Which was kind of unfortunate, but actually on the day I got voted out in the morning, they showed Deshawn coming to me, but also Liana and Shan had a conversation with me and they were like, ‘Let's do the women's thing again. We don't want to go to the end with Deshawn and Danny. Let's get this back together.’ And I was like, ‘Hell yeah!’ So it was definitely always floating around.
Now, that statement is very interesting. The teaser for next week's episode of Survivor 41 suggests that Deshawn Radden is planning to move against Shan Smith, with Smith seemingly having to retaliate. But Evvie Jagoda is implying here that Smith has been calculating her own move against Radden for some time. So call me crazy, but I'm betting more heavily that Smith will come out victorious in the war to come.
The only remaining Yase member left in the game, Xander Hastings, still has his hidden immunity idol. So he at least has one more week left – if he doesn't go on an immunity challenge run like Joey Amazing himself, just as Liana Wallace fears. To find out, tune into Survivor 41 on CBS on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. EST!
