RECAP: “Survivor 47” FINALE
I had a whole long intro written, but the website had an error and it was wiped away. Fuck it! We’re gonna do bullet-point thoughts on the finale of one of the best seasons of the New “Survivor” Era.
Read on for my spoiler-filled thoughts on the finale of “Survivor 47”!
The final immunity challenge was notable solely for Rachel winning her fourth individual immunity, becoming only the fifth woman in “Survivor” history to do so (the most recent being Chrissy Hofbeck in Season 35). That’s especially impressive considering Kyle ALSO won four individual immunities this season. Kyle is universally regarded by the “Survivor” community as a challenge beast, but Rachel is not. Hm, I wonder what the difference could be?
Rachel putting Sam and Teeny in F4 firemaking made sense from an optics perspective — rewarding Sue for her loyalty would play well with the jury — but strategically was not her best move, IMO. Neither Teeny nor Sue were likely to win this game, and Sam had the best shot of getting final-tribal votes. Putting Sam against fire-tender Sue was the safer option.
That didn’t matter, because neither Sam nor Teeny apparently knew how to make fire. This is crazy to me. Going on “Survivor” and not knowing how to make a fire is like going on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and not knowing how to sew; it’s like going on “Amazing Race” and not knowing how to drive stick. It is such a stupid move, especially since that has been the F4 challenge since at least Season 35. You know you will need to do this. It is unbelievable that half the finalists just thought they could wing it.
That brings us to the firemaking challenge itself, which I think will go down in “Survivor” history as one of those legendary shockers. Teeny — using skills Rachel had imparted that afternoon — got out fast with a decent flame that was built into a sustained, solid fire. (Teeny was not focusing on building the fire vertically, which I do think is a factor here — but ultimately not the most important factor.) Sam, meanwhile, flailed about for what seemed like minutes, unable to get anything going. As he finally got a fire going, strong gusts of wind came in and started to blow Teeny’s fire AWAY from the rope. This continued, with Teeny building a significant flame — Jeff referred to it as “an inferno” — that was blown away from the rope, while Sam quickly built up his fire to, unbelievably, burn through his rope, winning him a spot at Final Tribal. Was this good TV? Amazing! Was this a bullshit way for someone to be taken out? You bet. Teeny never had a shot of winning — I think Teeny played one of the worst games of any “Survivor” finalist, at least in recent seasons — but to have the game ended by random meteorological effects? That’s fucked up.
The F4 firemaking challenge has been around for at least 10 seasons now. This isn’t even the first time that the weather has played a determining factor in its result. It’s time to find another F4 challenge that doesn’t allow such an uncontrollable element to make a potentially million-dollar decision. This game is built on strategy, relationships, and guile. The fact that WIND played such a big part here is unsatisfying as a player AND a viewer. It’s Outlast, Outwit, Outplay. Not “Outwind.”
I appreciated that the jury was respectful and overall positive with the finalists. A bitter jury can be entertaining, but honestly I need any more vitriol in my public discourse at this moment in history, thanks. I made the mistake of posting on the “Survivor” subreddit during this episode and immediately regretted my actions.
Sue’s Final Tribal pitch was exactly what we expected: she was relentlessly loyal to her allies, and she was “secretly” much older than she said she was. The fact that members of that jury (and Sam) genuinely seemed shocked when she told them she was 59 tells me we need to do a better job of educating people on what aging looks like. Because in no universe should Sue be fooling anyone by saying she is 45. Credit where it is due, I thought Sue did as well in this Final Tribal as she could have. I appreciated the argument that you don’t have to lie and backstab to make it to the end. In an early season, that pitch may have won her some votes. But the game has evolved past loyalty as a selling point, and it did so a while ago. This was a very old-school approach that was never going to land with a jury this focused on strategy and gameplay (which Sue did very little of, based on the edit). But props to Sue. She did a hell of a lot better than I could on that beach, especially in those challenges. And I am ACTUALLY 45. Ish.
For Sam to have a shot, he needed to play up his underdog arc, and come out swinging against Rachel’s dominant game. I get where he was coming from. That said, I did not appreciate the energy of his Final Tribal at all. I was generally ambivalent toward Sam, and I respected his scrappiness. I found him disrespectful numerous times in this Final Tribal; he was dismissive of just about every element of Rachel’s game, and had smug facial reactions several times. Gross. It also occurred to me that all the accusations Sam was throwing at Rachel’s game were also true of his own, they just switched positions. In the early game, Sam was in the majority alliance, had advantages, and was calling the shots, while Rachel was on the outs and scrambling to survive. Shortly after the merge, that flipped, and Rachel ended up running the Leftover Alliance that ran the back half of the game, as she quietly stacked up advantages. The comparisons to Mike from “Worlds Apart” or Ben from “Heroes, Healers & Hustlers” were bullshit; those two were social pariahs in their games, relying solely on advantages to escape elimination. Rachel had multiple allies, more than Sam did by the end. She was a target because she was a threat, and avoided elimination by playing smart. They are not the same.
That said, Rachel’s Final Tribal was not a slam dunk. I thought she made a few unforced errors, or failed to capitalize on a few major opportunities. Telling the jury that she didn’t care about her legacy or how her game is perceived may be the truth, but I never would have admitted that to a group of diehard “Survivor” fans. That’s not what they wanted to hear. When Sol asked Rachel to share an element of her game that he did not know about, Rachel reiterated things everyone already knew, when she had a perfect answer to drop there: that tribal where she used her Shot in the Dark to pressure test whether or not she should play her then-secret idol was brilliant gameplay, and NONE of them realized what she was doing. But on the whole, I thought she did a good job owning her game, and making an emotional argument for why she deserved the win after years of not giving herself credit for her skills and smarts.
So I was relieved and delighted when Jeff read the votes, and Rachel got all of them except one — Kyle’s vote for Sam. This does not surprise me. Several times during this season Kyle made comments that raised my eyebrow, and I suspect that Kyle is the type of guy who would not vote for a woman unless he had no other choice. In this way, the firemaking upset had a tangible repercussion. Had Teeny won that, and advanced to Final Tribal over Sam, I suspect Rachel would have been a unanimous-vote winner. I don’t see Kyle voting for Teeny or Sue over Rachel, and I don’t see Sam voting for Teeny or Sue either. Rachel’s win is already one of the more deserving — and impressive — victories in the New “Survivor” Era, but it would have been amazing to have her become the sixth-ever winner — and first-ever woman — to receive every vote at Final Tribal.
I have seen on social media that there is a tendency for some fans (or “fans”) of the show to discredit Rachel’s game, much the way Sam attempted to do at Final Tribal. I genuinely believe that if Rachel was a man, none of those objections would be raised. It is true that, since the New Era started with “Survivor 41,” women have tended to win the game (Erika, Maryanne, Gabler, Yam Yam, Dee, Kenzie, and now Rachel). But I have found it fairly de rigeur for many of those winning games to be dismissed by certain segments of the fandom; I think Dee may be the exception, because she was undeniably dominant in her season. Of those winners, I put Rachel right up there with Dee, and she was playing from the bottom for a good chunk of this game. That’s impressive. While Rachel certainly benefited from some luck (advantage in the auction fries), she played those advantages very strategically, and had a strong social and strategic game to boot. She’s the correct winner for this season, and one of the most impressive “Survivor” winners in years.
Overall I am thrilled with the way “Survivor 47” turned out. It’s remarkable, because I was ready to give up on this season halfway through. Rome nearly broke the show for me — I beg of you, show, resist the urge to bring him back — and Andy was consistently infuriating until he emerged as a surprisingly effective player with Operation: Italy. This season gave us some truly great gameplay, and I think we will see a few of these players back at some point. In addition to Andy, who Jeff has stated he would love to have back, Genevieve HAS to be high on the callback list, and I won’t be surprised if Gabe, Sam, and even Sol eventually return. I hope Sol is stocking up on vests without shirts now, just in case.
What do you think of Season 47? Are you happy with the finale? Drop your thoughts in the comments.
