Dragon Dance Physical Race / Mental

The season begins with a very colorful, culture-filled challenge. The tribe colors this season are red and yellow, and for some reason, I just love the way those colors go together in challenges. It's absolutely perfect to represent China, no doubt, but it's also just aesthetically very pleasing. Each tribe has a giant dragon, which is quite long, and in order to carry it, each person in the tribe needs to hold onto a separate pole connected to the body. A couple of notes here: First, the dragons really look amazing. That's something we will be seeing a lot of this season— the art department truly excels here, with consistency perhaps unmatched by any other season of the show. It's not just in challenges; just about every aspect of this season looks beautiful in one way or another. I also really like this idea for the first challenge. Similar to last season's "Chariots of Mire," it demands that every person in the tribe pull their weight, or else it will cost the tribe heavily. The first part of the challenge is a maze-like obstacle that the tribes need to move their dragon through, and the aerial shots look great here. After the maze, there are some minor inclines that need to be walked, until the tribe reaches a drawbridge and locked gate. This is where the challenge allows one person to be the hero, so to speak, and scale up and over the wall, lowering it so the rest of the tribe can cross. It is incredibly satisfying to watch James, the apparent athlete of the season, go head to head with Frosti, the master of parkour, in this section of the challenge. After this, there is a similar obstacle. The same representatives who climbed the wall must now use a rope to climb an even taller wall, and pull a lever, which lowers a staircase for the rest of the tribe to climb up. The representatives then grab a key, race back to unlock the gate, and the entire tribe, carrying their dragon, race to the next obstacle, which is a swamp that needs to be sloshed through. This is another example of Survivor incorporating the location's actual geography into its challenge design, which is always nice to see. The final section is a puzzle, and it puts a nice bow on the whole challenge. The poles which were used to carry the dragon need to be placed into the correct holders, allowing the dragon to stand up on its own. The tribes are pretty even throughout the challenge, but Fei Long ends up winning the first match of the season.

4/5

Gatecrasher Physical Race / Mental

The second Immunity Challenge of the season is underappreciated in my opinion. I'm actually kind of shocked that they do in fact bring it back in Cagayan, given it so perfectly fits the location of China specifically; I guess production must like this challenge as much as I do. Each tribe begins holding a log, which they must use to smash through a series of walls. I'm not sure what the exact history is on using this method to break through doors, but I when I see this challenge, I just immediately imagine some crazy, abstract scene taking place hundreds of years ago in Ancient China; the dynasty is being overthrown, and their temple is being stormed by a small but powerful army. It fits the cultural and historic theme of the season so well. The challenge itself is also very inventive. Similar to the first challenge of the season, the large object, in this case, a log, being carried by the tribe throughout the challenge, will be used to solve a puzzle at the end of the challenge. The puzzle involves sliding, pushing, and pulling the log through a maze, kind of similar to a table maze. The final step is to have one person from the tribe hit a gong. Things start off pretty poorly for the Zhan Hu tribe, largely due to Dave becoming extremely worn out by the gate-smashing portion of the challenge. This is pretty humorous to watch as the viewer, because Dave had pretty much built himself up as the leader of the tribe, and so to see him stumble here feels like poetic justice. However, by the time the tribes reach the maze section, the tribes were even again, and Zhan Hu actually takes the lead for a brief period. Fei Long doesn't panic though, which allows them to reclaim their lead and ultimately win the challenge. I would once again like to commemorate the great work of the art department this season; everything looks so authentic and detailed. The puzzle logs are particularly impressive looking. There are a whole bunch of Chinese characters written on them. Super cool! So far, this season is off to an amazing start with its challenges!
4/5

Blade Runner Physical Race / Mental

For this Immunity Challenge, each tribe designates four "choppers" and two "puzzle builders." One at a time, each chopper has to use a sword to cut through wooden beams, revealing ropes. Chopping the ropes releases a bundle of wooden discs. Once all of the bundles of discs have been released, the puzzle builders have to stack the discs on a puzzle pole, so that all of the discs stack on top of each other. I appreciate this next part, especially because it is somewhat rare for a challenge to go physical race, mental, and then back to physical race again— the puzzle pole is attached to a heavy stone base, and once the puzzle is completed, it has to be dragged with a rope across the finish line. At first glance, while a novel idea for a challenge, there is nothing here related to Chinese culture or history, but actually, I think it is present here, it just isn't explained. The wooden discs are almost certainly a reference to either "Dropa stones," or "bi," both being of Chinese origin, and both with pretty interesting stories. Bi are circular artifacts made from Chinese jade, and were produced by several ancient dynasties dating back to about 3000 BC. Even more fascinating are Dropa stones. They are said to have been 716 circular stone discs dating back to 12,000 years ago, on which tiny hieroglyphic markings could be found. They were supposedly discovered in 1938, by a Chinese professor in a cave, which also had rock art of the sun, moon, earth, and stars. After four years of studying, the professor allegedly deciphered the writing on the discs, one of which apparently detailed how the Dropa people came down from the clouds in their aircraft. In 1968, a Russian scientist is said to have conducted tests on the stones and determined they had very peculiar properties, which would have been very hard for humans at the time to carve into, adding credence to the idea that the Dropa were an alien race. By 1994, the Dropa discs were said to have been destroyed. Many people believe that the Dropa discs never existed in the first place, and were simply a hoax. Whether you believe the Dropa ever existed or not, you cannot deny that this would have been a great story to use for Survivor Folklore, a challenge that I am absolutely floored does not appear this season, given they are filming in China— the possibilities are absolutely endless. But enough with that little tangent, let's get into the challenge! The one part of this challenge that everybody remembers is Courtney's rope-chopping skills. Listen, chopping through rope with a sword is simply not Courtney's forte, don't judge! The Zhan Hu tribe completely finishes their chopping before Courtney is able to release even the first bundle of discs for Fei Long. There is an especially funny moment, where she gets down to one final rope to cut, and her tribe is like "alright Courtney, one more, do a big slash!" And she does this pitiful swing that doesn't cut through the rope at all. One thing I find interesting to track as I rewatch all of these challenges is the wildly varying degree of reinforcement Jeff uses when narrating these challenges. You never know whether it's going to be positive or negative. I think most people would have been totally destroyed by Jeff here. After all, Jeff loves to say things like "the biggest challenge blunder in survivor HISTORY!"  But he's actually quite nice to Courtney here, reminding her that there is still a puzzle and she still has a chance. It's like Jeff's tone during the challenges entirely hinges on what side of bed he woke up on that morning, and I love him for it. During this season, we are going to see a couple of instances of the editors playing around with different effects to use during challenges. To be honest, it's really funny. The editors are just having some fun, that's all, and it actually gives a couple of these challenges a unique sense of identity. During this challenge, every time someone chops through a rope, the camera zooms in to their face and time slows down, in an overly dramatic scene. You know what, I like it! The puzzle makers at Zhan Hu aren't very good, which amazingly allows Fei Long to pretty much catch all the way up, but Zhan Hu is still able to win the challenge, it's just a lot closer than you'd expect. Probably a 3/5 challenge most seasons, but Courney moves it up a point!

4/5

Warriors' Duel Skill

Jeff begins explaining the rules of this challenge by telling the contestants that they will be wearing traditional Chinese armor "for their own protection." Survivor: China, you've got to stop! I can't only take so many awesome challenges in one season! And this is only episode 4?!!! So yes, we can obviously check the culture box for this challenge, and it is a really cool implementation. The challenge takes place in a "gladiator arena" (is Survivor allowed to sound this grand?!), and each tribe has a number of porcelain vases perched up on narrow podiums. Of course, this is also a culture thing; porcelain is famously a Chinese material. Each tribe has three meteor hammers, which they swing and throw across the arena to try and knock down the other tribe's vases. Two things; first, this is, of course, another culture thing, as meteor hammers are ancient Chinese weapons. Second, and I cannot stress this enough, HOW?!!! Like really, how did this challenge actually happen? I mean, think of the journey this idea must have gone on. First, someone actually had to have the idea for this challenge, and even if you put the ambitiousness of the idea aside, it is a very creative concept, even more so by the amount of different elements of Chinese culture they are able to squeeze into it. Then, this idea actually had to be approved, which I feel like is a miracle in itself. Again, meteor hammers are weapons. The castaways are essentially playing a culture shock version of dodgeball. When a vase is shattered, paint spills out of it which matches its respective tribe color, which is a great detail. Each tribe has a designated defender that can try and block the meteor hammers being thrown at them with a bamboo pole, and I don't even have to say anything about that one; even a five year old would notice the fun incorporation of Chinese culture. There are three rounds to this challenge. One round has two men on a team, the second round has two women on a team, and the final round has one man and one woman. Whichever tribe cumulatively breaks the most vases of the other team wins the challenge. This challenge is another example of the editors having fun, trying out some new styles. Here, we get consistent, slowed down shots of the meteor hammers flying through the air, just before they smash into a vase. Again, I like it, it's fun. Ultimately, Fei Long wins this challenge which was nothing short of entertaining and exciting.

5/5

Plunge, Pull, Pop Physical Race / Mental

We're headed back to the water for a pretty interesting Immunity Challenge! Each tribe selects two members to swim out to a pontoon which they must climb, and then dive into the water to pull bamboo poles out of a cage (A nod to the season's location, yay!). Releasing these poles allows a bunch of light puzzle discs to rise to the surface of the cage, where they can be collected and brought back to the beach. Each puzzle disc represents one of the Chinese zodiac symbols (a nod to the season's location's culture, awesome!). I quite like this idea of removing blockades from a cage so that the objects inside the cage can float to the top. It's pretty creative and is also challenging. Both tribes were able to find success at this portion, and there is a fun Courtney moment where she yells "Go Jean-Robert!" and then turns to Amanda and says "it broke a little bit of my heart to say that." The real story to track during this challenge though is Zhan Hu's plan to throw the challenge. In case you forgot, earlier in this episode there was a tribe switch where each tribe got to choose two members from the opposite tribe to switch over, and Zhan Hu chose James and Aaron. Peih-Gee and Jaime realized that they could even out their tribe's numbers going into the Merge if they threw the next two challenges to eliminate James and Aaron. Peih-Gee and Jaime don't tell the rest of their tribe they were doing this, and James becomes increasingly frustrated with their attitude throughout the challenge. First, while Erik and Aaron, the tribe's divers, are out at their pontoon, Jaime yells over to them, telling them to slow down for a bit and get their breath back. "Wait a minute... wait a long minute," Jaime says, and then she starts giggling, which really peeves James, who calls the girls children and tells them to focus. Once the divers get all of their discs, they have to place them in a boat and drag the boat back to shore. Zhan Hu gets to this point with a slight lead over Fei Long, and Jean-Robert almost knocks all of the discs into the water, but it was just a close call. When Zhan Hu's pieces arrive at shore, Jaime, with no one looking, picks up one of the pieces and throws it off to the side, and let me tell you, this was a memorable moment. Never before in Survivor had we seen such a blatant self-sabotage in a Survivor challenge. The puzzle itself is pretty simple, it's sort of like a jigsaw puzzle but inverted, where the spaces the pieces fit into are sticking out of the board. Each disc can only fit into a specific place, so the tribe just needs to figure out where all of the pieces go. Fei Long is able to get their puzzle going without much struggle, but over at the Fei Long table, Jaime and Peih-Gee are working very slowly, and Jeff actually calls them out on it. "You'd never know there was anything on the line," Jeff muses. James continues to get frustrated, and at one point, Jeff asks Peih-Gee if she's good at puzzles, and Peih-Gee replies cheeringly, "I'm good at sudoku!" This prompts a comical reaction from James, "oh f*** sudoku, pay attention!" Suffice it to say, Fei Long wins this challenge. I'm very high on this one; it has a very memorable design, as well as a very memorable moment, regardless of how you felt about that moment when originally watching this season.

4/5

Survivor Smorgasbord Miscellaneous Challenge

Food eating challenge! By now you know I love these, and unsurprisingly enough, China's version is very good. It is the same format as Fiji's version we saw last season– timed trials in a team format. The challenge begins with Jeff telling the players they are about to eat some traditional Chinese dishes, that are "anything but pleasant." I've gotta be honest, I do find this somewhat off-putting. Usually, Jeff is a lot more respectful about the food they are eating. Most of the time he says something like "these are all actual foods that the people here have been eating for centuries, it's entirely normal." I don't think it's right to call another culture's traditional cuisine outright "unpleasant." I have seen some people criticize the food eating challenge before because they see it as the show ogling over how gross other culture's foods are, but I typically give the challenge the benefit of the doubt. Usually I see it less as the show mocking other culture's cuisine, and more so the show mocking us childish little Americans for being so squeamish over foods that are entirely normal in other parts of the world. That case doesn't really hold up though when Jeff just comes right out and describes the food as objectively disgusting. It isn't a big deal to me, just something I felt compelled to point out. Anyway, because we are in such a unique location as China, we end up with some of the most unique foods this challenge has ever seen, so let's break down each round one at a time. The first item is entirely new to the challenge, chicken hearts. To quote Jeff himself, they certainly do look unpleasant to me. Frosti wins this round, and he even licks his plate afterwards. The second round is eel, which is probably the easiest item of this challenge. I always feel like the sea creatures, as long as they don't sound too exotic, would be the least intimidating to eat, because there is a degree of normalcy surrounding them. There are plenty seafood lovers in the West! Jaime wins this round, and we see Courtney slowly spit all of her eel out, which, there is a part of me that wishes the editors neglected including this visual in the episode, but alrighty! For me, the third round would be by far the most challenging. Baby turtles! Turtles are so cute, how could you eat one? It's made a lot worse by the fact that the baby turtles look exactly like baby turtles, as if they could just wake up from a nap at any moment; it's not like the chicken heart, for example, which doesn't really resemble anything as you are eating it. Erik wins this round! The next round, James vs Denise, is the most interesting though, because once again, strategy is colliding with Survivor challenges. You see, Fei Long has this plan where they gave James a hidden Immunity Idol while he was kidnapped, and now they want Zhan Hu to go to tribal council where James would play his idol, blindsiding his new tribemates. It's a pretty great strategy, but it doesn't quite pan out. As James is in on the plan, he knows that he needs to throw the challenge and let Denise score a point to ensure his tribe goes to tribal council. The problem is, this round is balut, and Denise absolutely cannot get hers down. Those guys in Survivor: Palau made it look so easy, didn't they, Denise?! James waits as long as he can without looking extremely suspicious, but at a certain point, he just has to finish his balut, spoiling Fei Long's plans as Zhan Hu takes the lead 3-1. The next round is also the last round, as Frosti wins and scores Zhan Hu's winning point. This item is a "thousand-year-old egg," and if you're anything like me, your first reaction to this was something like "wait, what?! Doesn't this egg belong in a museum?!" But it turns out that, and what the show never actually tells us for some reason, is that the name of this food is a bit of a misnomer. These eggs actually take about a few weeks to a few months, depending on the method, to make, and are not, in fact, relics from an ancient time during which dynasties ruled and the iPhone didn't even exist yet.

4/5

Feast Memory Mental

We are kicking off the Merge with a purely mental challenge, now that's a change of pace! In addition to their Merge feast, the Survivors are rewarded with an awesome Chinese performance rich with talent and culture. It's a great, impactful scene, and is the type of treat you could only expect to see in one of these older, culture-focused seasons like Survivor: China. We get some fun confessionals from Courtney at the start of the feast, as she "boos" traditional challenges and excites over alcoholic beverages. This entire ceremony is preceded by an ominous note from Jeff though— this game never stops. No one is quite sure what to make of this, but it all makes sense later that day when Jeff shows up to Hae Da Fung to host the Immunity challenge right there at camp. I'm immediately reminded of the scene in Survivor: Island of the Idols when Jeff shows up to the Lumuwaku camp to announce Dan had been ejected, and Lauren gives a confessional saying that this is strange, Jeff never just shows up to camp. Well hold on there Lauren, are you forgetting about the first Immunity Challenge after the Merge in Survivor: China? And you call yourself a fan?!!! But okay, let's see here. Jeff is going to ask some trivia questions about the performance they just saw. The entire thing is very Big Brother-esque; the players watch a little performance or video, and then they are quizzed about it. The format is even similar, where one incorrect answer means you are out of the challenge. The questions themselves are pretty tricky from the audience's perspective, which I'm not a big fan of. If you were actually there, then sure, you may subconsciously remember what the centerpiece was on the table, but I only saw two minutes of the ceremony and I wasn't looking at the table, I was watching the performance. I think it would have helped if the show had more explicitly clued the audience in about the fact that there would be a quiz afterwards. With that all being said, I'm a bit conflicted about how to score this challenge. If they were planning on doing a ceremony all along and then just tacked this Immunity Challenge on at the end, I don't really find it all that impressive. However, if they did this whole ceremony specifically because they had this challenge idea, then huge respect from me, that is an amazing amount of effort for one little challenge. There's really no way of knowing, but I'm thinking I'll settle on a middle-of-the-road score for this challenge.

3/5

Dragon Rider Endurance

I absolutely love this challenge. I nominate this challenge for "Best Culturally-Inspired Endurance Challenge," "Coolest-Looking Endurance Challenge," and "Most Creative Endurance Challenge." Whether this challenge definitively wins any of those titles is entirely up for debate, but the fact that I can nominate it for all three speaks for itself. It is a beautiful design; a colorful, twisty dragon on which this challenge entirely takes place. I really love how everyone shares the same set piece. Like, in most endurance challenges, everyone has their own little station, but I think it's really cool how in this one, everyone shares one giant station, each with their own little section. The fact that the "giant station" is a huge, cool-looking dragon is just bonus points. The way it works is, each person has to balance on a designated segment of the dragon, which are actually camouflaged barrels. At the start of the challenge, the barrels are full of water, so it isn't difficult to keep your balance; any subtle movements from your body wouldn't actually have much effect on the barrel with so much added weight from the water. However, there is a hole in the barrel through which water slowly drips out (kind of like Fiji's Final Immunity Challenge), which causes the challenge to naturally become a lot more difficult over time. I love how creative this is, and I also love the uniqueness of the challenge constantly getting more difficult, rather than only after predetermined intervals of elapsed time. I also love that Courtney wins! In the words of Sandra Diaz-Twine, you go girl! Obviously this challenge is easier for lighter contestants, but that's completely fine, other challenges are better for other body types. As long as it's not the Final Immunity Challenge, I really don't care at all. There is also a great moment here which I'm sure is in one of those "Jeff Probst Sass Compilation" videos, where Jean-Robert declares that his barrel isn't balanced properly, and Jeff responds "Glad you're still around Jean-Robert. Always need a complainer." Courtney thought she was the complainer!

5/5

Chinese Zodiac Symbols Mental

Here we go, we finally have a Survivor: China challenge that will go on to become a sort-of Survivor classic! That's something I've noticed about this season; there are a lot of awesome new challenges, but most of them do not return more than once, or at all. It's a shame, but let's appreciate what we've got, and what we've got here is a great memory challenge! One of my favorites! A while ago, I commented that the generic memory match challenge was kind of meh, nothing special, and that later on, Survivor would introduce a much better memory challenge. This is the challenge I was talking about. Basically, a Survivor version of Simon. Jeff gives you a series of symbols or colors, and you have to repeat them back to him. The exact presentation can differ from season to season, but the format stays the same. The presentation in this challenge's debut season is probably the best, because it's Survivor: China, of course this version is going to go above and beyond. We are once again paying homage to the Chinese zodiac symbols (the literal name of this challenge), in that the symbols Jeff reads out are different animals from the Chinese zodiac. What's really good though is how you repeat the sequence back to Jeff. Each person has a table in front of them with different tiles representing different animals, and you have to use a knife to stab the tiles in the correct order. To see if you are right, Jeff simply slides the tiles off the knife and determines whether they are correct. It's such a novel way of approaching this game, and a little bit of unnecessary flashiness, which is always a good thing. What I really love about this challenge is that you can participate from home. This is the quintessential audience-can-play-too challenge. We've seen other challenges where the audience can play along, like Survivor Quiz Show, but let's be real, we are guessing most of the time. This is great though, not only can you play along, but it is so satisfying when you know someone else answered incorrectly before Jeff tells them. Overall, a wonderful challenge, perhaps the best memory challenge to appear on the show? I think so, at least, until Survivor: One World... To Be Continued.

4/5

Star Struck Skill

Here's an interesting precision-based challenge. Each person gets three metal stars which they throw at a target, trying to score as many points as they can. The top three finishers move on to a "sudden death round," where each person only gets one metal star, and whoever scores highest with that wins the challenge. It's quite enjoyable to watch, and there is some obvious culture here, as "shurikens" do invoke a Chinese image, although they are actually much more prominent in Japanese culture. I do find the targets to be an interesting choice; they aren't traditional, circular-shaped target boards. Instead, they are sort of abstract, silhouettes of people in various poses holding a sword. You know what, I like weird, so I'm a fan. The challenge plays out in a somewhat interesting way; instead of a top three, there ends up being a four-way tie between James, Courtney, Amanda, and Erik. In the final round, Erik wins the challenge.

3/5

Swamp Donkeys Physical Race / Mental

So next we have what is probably my least favorite challenge of the season. It isn't a bad challenge, I just don't think it has much going for it, memorability-wise or design-wise. The design is very strange. That isn't to say that strange ideas are inherently bad, sometimes they work out amazingly, but I just don't think this challenge's set-up clicks. It's sort of like a combination of Around the Bend and that challenge from The Amazon that involved paddling out to read a trivia question about the location. Each player races out, attached to a rope, which is looped around a few logs, so you need to untangle yourself from those. Once you get to the end, you open a box, revealing a true or false question about Chinese inventions. Sort of like in Folklore, you have to grab a key from the option that represents what you think the correct answer is, and bring it back to the start, hoping you are correct. I guess it's a decent set-up, I don't know exactly what it is... I just don't find the challenge to be super engaging. One thing I really like about this challenge though, is the ending. Peih-Gee really needs to win immunity, and she is right behind Todd with her last key. Todd gets back first, but he is wrong, allowing Peih-Gee to come in and win. It's a very satisfying ending to an overall, alright challenge.

2/5

Chinese Leftovers Skill / Miscellaneous Challenge / Physical Race / Mental

After a bit of a break between Survivor: Cook Islands and Survivor: Fiji, the Survivor Pentathlon is back! A second chance at challenge elements from earlier in the season, and as per usual, I love this trip down memory lane. I also love that they called this version "Chinese Leftovers," it's such a silly name. The first round is a fairly recent throwback, it's the return of the shuriken-throwing challenge. The second round is eating balut, and once again, I really like it when they incorporate the food eating challenge into the Survivor Pentathlon. And of course, this is bad news for Denise, who essentially quits at this part of the challenge. The third round is really fun, it's the return of the "Drum Roll" challenge, but this time, it's everyone for themselves, no teams. I like seeing this spin on the challenge, it's a blast from the past that still manages to be something new. The final round goes all the way back to the "Blade Runner" challenge with chopping the rope and solving the disc puzzle, and sadly, Courtney does not make it to this round, but she does give a funny little reaction to this part as Jeff is explaining the rules of the challenge. Also sadly, the editors do not bring back the dramatic slow motion shots when someone breaks through a rope, but it's still enjoyable to watch, I guess. Amanda ends up winning this challenge.

4/5

Broken China Endurance

And finally, the last Immunity Challenge of the season: Broken China. This is the challenge where everyone has to balance porcelain dishes on a wobbly balancing arm, and the last person to not let their dishes fall and shatter wins the challenge. Throughout the challenge, Jeff will continuously tell the players which type of dish they have to add to their stack next. I'll just go out and say it, I love this endurance challenge too. It's not as good as "Dragon Rider," but I can safely say that both of this season's endurances challenges are well above average. I like this challenge for a few reasons. First, I think it's one of the most balanced Final Immunity Challenges we've had in a long time. It's less about strength and more about focus, sort of harkening back to the Hands on a Hard Idol days, only a lot more difficult. It's also very unique, I think it's interesting having Jeff constantly being involved in the challenge, telling them which dish is next. The challenge is also delightfully nerve-racking, especially once the stack of dishes becomes very high. The fact that in this season, it comes down to Denise vs Amanda is especially good, because we all know that Denise needs to win this or she is probably going to be voted out, so it's great that she makes it to the end of the challenge and isn't first out or something. When someone loses their balance, all of their dishes fall to the ground and make that quintessential "whoops." sound, of shattering dishware, and it is excruciatingly satisfying. There is also culture here, because, as established earlier, porcelain was invented in China. I mean, they call it "china" for a reason! Eventually, Denise tries to make a deal with Amanda, but Amanda refuses to consider one. I really like how she tries to spin it around on Denise, like "Come on, Denise, you're not a quitter!" Even though it is very obvious she is actually refusing the deal because she wants to vote Denise out. Then, as we get near the end of the challenge, Amanda begins to try out a very interesting strategy. Instead of conventionally stacking her dishes face-up, she realizes that it may be easier to stack them upside-down. I love this move so much. It is very risky on her part; it's not like she's practiced and knows for sure this will work. For all she knows, this could somehow cause everything to fall apart. But she goes for it, and it pays off! Denise ultimately loses her stack, and Amanda wins the Final Immunity Challenge of the season. Also, the location for this challenge is genuinely awesome. Look at the picture, need I elaborate?

4/5