Survivor Season-Finale Recap: Gone With the Wind

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As a long-time Survivor enthusiast and someone who’s seen countless seasons unfold, I must say that this season has been nothing short of exceptional. The strategic depth displayed by the players was truly impressive, but it’s the final two contestants, Rachel and Sam, that have left me utterly captivated.

This, right here, is why I hate the way the endgame plays out in the new era of Survivor. I’ve been saying in these recaps all season that nothing should ever be left to chance; nothing should be left to luck. That everything should be about the decisions that the players make and the consequences of those actions. Then, we see Sam and Teeny sit down to make fire. Who wins? The wind. The wind won the challenge and should now be sitting next to Sue and Rachel in the final tribal council. Sol would pipe up, “Yes, my question is for Wind. Why did you blow Teeny’s fire away from her rope and Sam’s right onto it during the clutch moment?” The wind cannot answer because it is a force of nature with no voice, but it can blow through the tops of the trees, rattling the branches and leaves, dislodging the group of bats that have been guarding the cursed immunity necklace all season, and when it does, the wind will howl something that sounds like, “Please return to a final twwwwwwooooooooooooo.”

To reach this final two, we initially faced a competition. The remaining four contestants had to undergo several tasks, but the decisive factor was a brain-teaser known as the hanging bat puzzle. This challenge was far more straightforward compared to the intricate horror of the taxidermy necklace, which symbolized immunity.

When the contest commences, everyone must wiggle under a mesh barrier amidst the mud, with Sue being the one who emerges last. Jeff exclaims, “Come on, Sue! Let’s dig!” However, Sue isn’t in need of assistance; she’s merely moments behind Teeny, and Sue is nearly three times her age. Her struggle to keep up is a testament to her determination. Let’s give the older lady some breathing space. In the end, Rachel clinches victory in the immunity challenge, and upon returning to camp, she shares with the quartet that she intends to take Sue to the finale, while Sam and Teeny are focusing on making fire. At this stage of the final round, it appears as though Rachel is the one who might let the game slip away.

At the camp, Rachel, an ardent enthusiast, guides Teeny through a comprehensive YouTube tutorial on lighting a fire, and it appears that Teeny has the upper hand. However, Sam confesses his lack of knowledge in making a fire, which initially seems implausible to everyone else. But as events unfold, it becomes clear that Sam truly doesn’t know how, and his situation takes a turn for the worse. As the wind picks up, the competition intensifies, and we witness Sam reading a letter from his father. His father wrote that he believed Sam would give his all in this competition, and he wouldn’t bet against him. The thought of his father supporting him filled Sam with determination, implying that he is not one to back down easily. In other words, the motivational talks are beginning to resonate within the camp, which isn’t a promising sign for those competing against Sam.

Next, a scene depicting Sam creating a fire unfolds, as the wind whispers through his firewood pile at the knees. Sam utters, “Giving in to doubt is when you’ve already lost,” which resonates like instant-effect Viagra for Jeffrey Lee Probst. At that very moment, I became convinced that Sam would emerge victorious in the fire-making competition.

Following their friendly exchanges, Teeny and Sam settle at their respective workstations. Instantly, Teeny ignites a spark, creates a flame, and starts stacking more sticks onto it. The fire begins to burn steadily. However, inexperienced in the game’s tasks apart from voting incorrectly, Teeny queries Rachel, “What should I do next?” Rachel advises her to continue adding sticks. At this point, Sam is barely managing a flame, while Teeny has a roaring fire, but the wind, a pesky acquaintance of Sam’s, is blowing at an unfavorable angle for her. She struggles to maintain it, but the conditions aren’t in her favor. Simultaneously, Sam nurtures his flame, watching it grow larger and larger. Initially, it seemed like Teeny would easily win, but now it’s a battle of skills, and Jeff, filled with empty phrases and motivation, becomes animated. Just as Jeffrey remarks, the wind shifts direction, blowing Teeny’s fire away from her rope and directing Sam’s fire towards his.

In essence, the wind-decided fire-making challenge was designed as a last chance for those who hadn’t yet made an impact on the game. Primarily, it provided a route for the contentious winner, Ben Driebergen, to reach the final stage. I’ve long considered this move to be questionable. Essentially, this late-game phase was reduced to a single skill, which Sam didn’t even need to improve upon before the last day, a skill he wasn’t even better at than Teeny; he simply found himself in the fortunate position with the wind favoring him. In my opinion, he should have been universally voted out by the three women at that stage of the game and his presence was unwarranted.

Teeny confides that this experience will continue to haunt her for years to come, and I’ll stand beside her in those shadows. In her closing speech at the final tribal council, she expresses how Sam was the ideal student everyone admired back in school – the one teachers adored, excelled in sports, and attracted numerous female admirers. Some might say his self-assuredness veered towards arrogance, but it often seemed like the world catered to him, ensuring a smooth path to success. Here we are, witnessing history repeat itself, as even nature appears to be saying “No, Teeny. Not today.” She may not have played the game flawlessly, but she deserved a world where she wasn’t always an afterthought compared to Sam.

His triumph is incredibly frustrating. He seems to be shouting “Find a solution!” as if Joe Rogan were standing beside him. I suppose he’s suggesting we learn to manipulate the weather, perhaps turning us all into weather-controlling mutants like Storm from X-Men. Now, one of the last three contestants is a man who had never tasted watermelon until he traveled around the world and was made to try it, and he didn’t even seem to enjoy it very much.

Once more, the spark of inspiration ignites. The panel deems Sam as an outcast with a rough-around-the-edges approach, miraculously managing to survive despite the odds. However, let me clarify, Sam’s performance was so dismal – failing at challenges, missing hidden idols, and struggling to forge connections – that he was more of a whisper than a roar among the contestants. In his Final Tribal Council, he’ll attempt to argue that he intentionally made Rachel appear as a greater threat, diverting attention from himself. Unfortunately for Sam, no one was paying him any mind due to his dismal performance history.

As a cinephile, I must say, when each jury member declared their favorite contender, it was Teeny, Kyle, and Sierra who backed Sam; Sol, Andy, and Genevieve voiced for Rachel; while Caroline and Gabe chose Sue. Now, I can’t help but suspect that the producers perhaps guided us all to these picks during a private discussion, but it appears they’re building up a thrilling face-off between Sam and Rachel – a battle that seems long overdue, given the quality of performances from both.

In a surprising turn of events, Sue leaves everyone astounded when she reveals her age to be 59 on that particular day and boasts about having outperformed them all. Kyle remains frustrated, believing she could have bested him in a one-on-one contest during the barrel challenge. Given their age difference, it’s astonishing that such a competition even took place between them!

The moment I began contemplating the type of games that typically win the jury’s favor, it was clear that Rachel had been the dominant force in the competition. She excelled in challenges, discovered idols and advantages, and despite being on the losing side of some votes, she managed to bring Andy, Teeny, Sue, and Caroline together, which propelled her forward. Admittedly, Andy turned against her, and Sam was part of Operation: Italy, but it wasn’t Sam who orchestrated the plan, and even after they carried it out, Rachel’s idol play at the final tribal council sent Andy packing, paving the way for her to overpower most of them until the wind intervened and said, “Perhaps not.” This is the kind of game we often see from male players and the kind that is usually appreciated by men, particularly Jeff. It’s aggressive, it’s proactive, it’s daring. However, those who voted for Sam are now displeased with Rachel, feeling they were outmaneuvered by a woman, and they don’t want to vote for her.

Sam doesn’t like Rachel’s game either, but I think it’s because a woman played it. He says that her getting an advantage from Sol, buying the right item at the auction, and solving a puzzle on a journey was just luck. Um, no. She got that from Sol because he liked and trusted her. That’s called a social game. She got the idol under everyone’s noses, which is skill. She had to solve a puzzle before it was yanked into the ocean. Rachel deserved all of those. The only other player with as many advantages as Rachel was Rome — look where he is, and look where Rachel is. Even if she got them by luck, she deployed them with skill to save herself and optimize them. As she says in her final speech, everyone thought she was going home and eulogized her to the jury, and then she got up at her own funeral, played an immunity idol, and not only saved herself but apparently pissed off the wind enough that it would take Sam’s side in the fire-making challenge.

Sam played similarly to Kenzie Petty, who won last year, but unlike her, he didn’t win anything. Kenzie was an underdog who made it to the finals and emerged victorious. However, while she gained friends and showed affection to everyone she competed with, Sam rubbed at least Teeny and possibly Rachel the wrong way by belittling Rachel’s game constantly. I’m not saying one performance is superior to the other, as we’ve had players of various genders who excelled. Yet, the general feeling among the jury seems to be that they don’t appreciate Rachel’s dominance, but rather admire Sam’s determination. (Here, “the goat” doesn’t refer to Sue because she deserved to be there just as much as the other two contestants, while Teeny would have been a traditional choice for the goat.)

Luckily, there was just no denying that Rachel played a dominant game post-merge. As she said, when she woke up to Sierra being voted out and realized she had no friends, she figured out how to play Survivor right quick. She did everything you’re supposed to do in the game: win challenges, find idols, make big moves, and create strong allies, including one she took to the final two. I don’t see how anyone who likes a muscular game of Survivor (and even some of those who don’t) could vote against her. I’m glad that while Sam got the edit of playing the underdog game, Rachel proved what it takes to really win this game, and she’s a great winner of what was possibly the best season yet of the New Era.

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2024-12-19 06:54