Survivor: Winners at War Finale

Something that I will wonder about in the future is the future airdates of Survivor. In a normal year, they would have already filmed the next season. I don’t know yet if the normal fall season will happen like it normally would at some point. I’ll see what the announced schedule will be in the future and if they end up being able to stick with it in the long run. I’ll do an announcement more at the end of this blog post about what the future of this blog will hold in the near future.

Something else I wonder as we go into the finale is this: could the winner be on the edge of extinction? I wouldn’t think so, but I didn’t think that last time except for the part when Rick was on the edge. At one point, Rob and then Adam had the highest confessional count of those in the game. I would think that it is possible, but unlikely that a voted out player would win the game this time around. Maybe it could happen, but I don’t currently see it. As for who would return, Rob seems the most likely guess for me right now even if Adam and Jeremy have more confessionals. If it isn’t one of those three, then I doubt that they will make it to the end.

Last time they did the edge of extinction, they didn’t do it as well due to all the crazy ways that they did the advantages. I think that the fire tokens improved the edge of extinction, but I wouldn’t want to see them normally in a season without it. They get too close to making it like bribes which are against the very rules of Survivor itself.

Due to the strange way that the reunion show will be done this year, I will not be doing points at the reunion show that I have often done in previous seasons. It doesn’t make sense to do them this time around. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, Jeff talks to the audience introducing the show to us. I like how they got a nice set in his garage. Tribal council for dummies. That would make a good book. It should be required reading for every new player so they don’t make dumb mistakes that are often made. Jeff says that so much is going on, there won’t be room for a reunion show.

Going into the show, we see the challenge set up. The final five gets to watch the challenge. This will be the last time that these people will gather from the edge of extinction. They will then be sent to the jury. There is a lot of rope for this challenge. Some people have advantages with Natalie the only one having more than one. Despite not doing as well with her advantages, Natalie wins her way back into the game. And you thought that Chris Underwood getting back in was a problem. She was the first one out.

Kim talks after the challenge about how she screwed things up, but was still glad that she did it. Tyson thinks that his whole life has been Survivor. No one’s whole life has been Survivor. Not even Jeff’s or Mark Burnett’s. Amber says that she was here for her husband. She wasn’t sure that she deserved her win and felt that she only won since people hated Rob. Lex hated Rob most to give her the win, but she shouldn’t sell herself short. Parvati is asked why she left her “swishy” child behind to play. Is he going through all the contestants? He asks Ethan about his struggles with cancer and stand up to cancer. The money sent to it created the drug that saved his life. They leave and the final six is formed. Jeff talks to us one last time before the votes are read. We are shown footage of all the players talking to us about their journey thus far. I’m not going to count this in the confessional count.

In the second segment of the show, Natalie returns to camp. Is this the same one she was on? She has a huge feat in front of her. It could be so huge that it’s a yard long. Natalie wants to lie and says that it is Tony that everyone likes. Sarah thinks that Tony wouldn’t have gotten as far without her. She wants them to know that a man isn’t calling the shots here.

In the third segment of the show, we get to the next challenge. It is for immunity, of course. Michele struggles at the early part of the challenge, getting lapped by Natalie at one point. But she is the first of all of them to solve a layer of the puzzle despite being the last to start it. She won with this puzzle the first time that she played this game. And she wins the challenge again, destroying her success the moment it is done. Tony is worried that Natalie has an advantage or idol. He is right this time. But it is not the same as last time nor was she guaranteed it. And she won’t have to split it.

In the fourth segment of the show, Tony is worried that Natalie has an idol, but Ben is more worried that not too much is going on. He is more concerned about powering through too much and not learning from what he did wrong in the game before. Splitting the votes is brought up, with Natalie and Denise being brought up as the targets. Michele is told by Natalie about her idol. They want to work together to make sure that they control the game. Do both Tony and Ben have idols? Sarah isn’t worried about a potential idol by Natalie and refuses to believe that one would exist as she is convinced that Natalie would have told her and that she knows what is going on. This has to be ironic foreshadowing. The next act is tribal council.

In the fifth segment of the show, people talk about Natalie’s entrance back into the game and how it might affect everything else. Natalie admits that she told people that Tony was running the game. Sarah talks about gender biases and how she thinks that she won’t be defeated by it. How can one run seven marathons on seven continents in seven days? That doesn’t seem possible. Ben thinks that a woman can do everything that a man can do. They can do more. Men can’t have babies. And we wouldn’t have a human race anymore if men did. Jeff admits that he might form a better relationship with men. Jeff thinks that someone has to find a crack and take advantage of it. I think that is called sodomy. Tony also says that they are fighting the invisible person long before covid19 was known to the world.

After the votes are cast, Natalie plays an idol. Tony then plays his. Ben plays his after that. Sarah and Denise are the only people that can be voted for after all the votes are nulled. A tie-breaker would be with fire if there is a tie. Denise has all the votes against her at a revote and she’s voted out. Did they really not air a confessional of hers this episode? Who in a finale gets voted out without any confessionals of them aired?

In the sixth segment of the show, Tony is upset over the vote as the idols are taken out. He then goes looking for a new idol. He’s doing a midnight special. Let the midnight special, shine a light on me. He comes up short looking for it. It is Natalie who finds it in the end. Ben is convinced that they are screwed if either Michele or Natalie found the idol and the other wins immunity.

In the seventh segment of the show, we get to the next immunity challenge. Michele struggles at it again, but does not pull a come from behind victory this time. Tony wins. Ben is unsure who should be targeted as he is worried (rightfully) that Natalie has an idol that could blow things up. Now he’s the one who is worried about Ben bombs going off at tribal council. More irony.

In the eighth segment of the show, Natalie wants to know who to target to break up the threesome. Tony tries to figure out what to do and hides in his spy nest again. Sarah lures Natalie to the spot. After talking for an hour, Natalie’s idol is revealed. Natalie wants to vote out Ben. Ben is okay with being voted out if it will help Sarah win and prove that she wasn’t dragged along to the end. Will she do it? Sarah has to make a big decision and she isn’t sure what to do.

In the ninth segment of the show, we got to the tribal council at hand. Jeff talks about how they might have gone through too much of a quick pace in this game. There is personal scrutiny going in their lives based on how they will be portrayed this season. The people at home only see the good and not the bad in the game. Thus, there are issues with how things are portrayed. Ben thinks that tonight is about being brave in the game. Michele talks about being against the alliance. Natalie plays the idol for herself. The votes cast are between Ben and Michele with Ben getting most of the votes and getting voted out of the game as a result.

In the tenth segment of the show, we go immediately to the next immunity challenge. So far, everyone who has won the challenge won the game, even if only one of the four competing right now won the final immunity challenge. Tony loses the challenge first, leaving the women left to duke it out. Sarah is then the next one out of the challenge. Michele loses next and Natalie wins as a result. Tony thinks that his fate will now come down to fire.

In the eleventh segment of the show, Tony teaches Sarah how to make fire. Michele works on doing it herself. Who will Natalie chose? She might risk it by sending her ally Michele into the fold to face Tony instead of having Sarah impress the jury by beating Tony. Tony doesn’t seem to be trying to face it as well as he could be. Natalie likes being in this position. We get to this tribal council at hand where we learn that Sophie isn’t feeling well and won’t be at this tribal council. That hasn’t happened since Paschal couldn’t attend a tribal council all the way back in the fourth season.

Natalie talks about how she made it to the end. Sarah wants them to shoot at each other than have one of them shot by someone else. Natalie brings Michele to the end as she wants to keep her ally safe in the game. Sarah has issues when drinking water. They get ready for the challenge and they go to commercial next.

In the twelfth segment of the show, we get to the fire making challenge. It seems at one point that Sarah has it locked, but her fire fizzles out at some point. Tony winds up winning it and an emotional Sarah talks about their bond after it is over.

In the thirteenth segment of the show, the final three gather together for their Survivor breakfast. Michele still can’t see how she was supposed to win the first time around. I don’t know what people saw in Aubry. She thinks that she is still a good player despite these hardships. Natalie thinks that although she had a hard time in the game, she can still win in the end. I don’t think that she has the advantage that Chris Underwood had. But she could surprise us. Tony is worried that he might be facing bitter people in the jury. He is hoping that he can be the king of Survivor. Just know that despite what the producers of Survivor or others on the show think, king is just a label you give yourself. We then see the people gather at tribal council. It is the first final tribal council in the rain.

Jeff talks about how they have had a great season thus far. They start with the outwit part of the game. Yul starts things out by wanting them to fill in the missing gaps and Denise wants them to admit any missteps or flaws in their social game. Natalie admits that she got voted out and had missteps as a result of not knowing what to expect. Michele thinks that she didn’t do things well with Wendell. Tony thinks that he had to play a vicious game. Ben thinks that he could test his loyalty. But Jeremy thinks that his game was weak. Adam thinks that Natalie crushed the edge of extinction part of the game. Rob thinks that many of the jury members were isolated by Natalie. She didn’t know if she wanted to tell those in the game about what was going on. She admits that she has a strong personality.

Parvati is glad that Natalie isn’t apologetic. Others are wondering how Tony avoided being a target when he played the game. Wendell wants Michele to speak to the outwit in her game. She found cracks and wants to move within the cracks. She is sitting here despite not seeming that bad and Ben respects that she did a good game since he understands being controversial.

Moving on to the outplay portion of the game, Natalie explains that she sent a lot of advantages to the game and did a lot of things. People talk about how they won challenges to stay in the game. All of them had won an immunity challenge in the game. Natalie talks about why she didn’t want to face Tony in the fire making part of the game. Michele talks about her advantage from the edge.

Jeff gives them final words in the outlast portion of the game. Natalie talks about how she did what she did and was able to do what she did after coming back from the edge. Michele talks about how she had changed from the previous season to this one. She thinks that she played with as good a hand as she could have when she was dealt with it. Tony talks about how he changed who he was during the game and how he make sure that people didn’t vote for him. No one voted against him, right? That’s what he thinks, although I haven’t done a running tally of what’s going on thus far in terms of who got votes. People on the jury talk about how they like what the others did in the game. The only thing that is left is declaring who wins the war in the end. Who will the jury vote for?

Total confessional count: Tony- 44, Ben- 32, Michele- 25, Sarah- 26, Denise- 15; Natalie- 23, Amber- 16, Danni- 13, Ethan- 13, Rob- 24, Parvati- 17, Yul- 14, Wendell- 12, Adam- 26, Tyson- 21, Sophie- 17, Kim- 13, Jeremy- 25, Nick- 16. New confessionals this episode: Ben- 4, Michele- 4, Sarah- 3, Denise- 0, Tony- 9; Natalie- 7, Amber- 0, Danni- 0, Ethan- 0, Rob- 0, Parvati- 0, Yul- 0, Wendell- 0, Adam- 0, Tyson- 0, Sophie- 0, Kim- 0, Jeremy- 0, Nick- 0.

In the fourteenth segment of the show, we get to people casting their votes on the jury. Votes are seen for both Natalie and Tony, but not Michele. Michele thinks that this was the longest season ever. But it wasn’t. Australia was. Everyone knows that. Jeff talks to the final three and family is invited in. Tony is now the king of Survivor by getting the second two time win in Survivor history, improving on his second game quite a lot. Jeff talks about the upcoming season and how it hasn’t been filmed yet. We’ll see what happens with that and if something happens. The show ends here with no other gatherings of those who were in the game.

There wasn’t really a reunion show this time around. I hope that this is the only time that they don’t have a real reunion show. They could have done more with it even with the limited amount that they could do. If things go back to normal, we can only hope that they won’t put so much finale in the last episode and we’ll see the actual reunion part again. I think that they used covid19 to get rid of the reunion show since they don’t like it or don’t care about it as much as they should.

Let’s get to the three dumbest moves of the season. The bronze will go to production for adding too many advantages to the game, making the season harder to track. The silver will go to Sophie for not playing her idol and getting voted out of the game as a result. The gold will go to Sandra for trusting Denise and getting blindsided with her own idol.

Now we will get to the most memorable moment of the season. I think that Sandra’s blindside might be the best part of the season as it should out more than anything else throughout all of the craziness in the game. Thus, it is the most memorable part of the season as a result.

Let’s get to ranking the tribe swap of this season versus others. I will put it as 9^th out of the 31 that I have mentioned thus far this season. It was done better than a lot of them, but not as well as some of the others were. Still, I liked this switch a lot more than others.

Now it is time to rank this season against all the others. I know that a lot of people like this season, or that’s what they’d have us believe. I wouldn’t rank this as the best. But I would rank it as 15^th best of all 40 seasons of the show thus far. It was pretty good, if not top ten.

I have no idea yet when the next season will be or even if it will be during the fall as usual or even later than that. I also don’t know yet when I’ll be back with more Survivor: Gabon episodes. I do have to catch up with some posts in the future to replace what was deleted. You will know that I am caught up when you see posts on Survivor: Gabon again. Until then, expect updates on both Sundays and Wednesdays until things go back to normal again. I should hopefully have another old season to blog about in the future if all goes well. I will have to check the status on that. I will see you in the future with more posts of this blog and old seasons before the new one starts. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.