A Fever Dream
Season 49
Episode 13
Editor’s Rating
2 stars
**
The finale flirts with making history but ends up just an underwhelming conclusion to a frustrating season.
Photo: CBS
Of all the underwhelming parts of this underwhelming finale of an underwhelming season, the final immunity challenge did not leave me whelmed. It was the traditional obstacle course where players dug under a pole, walked a balance beam, collected two paddles, assembled a puzzle that also served as a table game, and then used that table game to win. The one thing I liked about it: balls. Oh yes, I love when a challenge is full of balls because then we get Jeffrey Lee Probst saying stuff like “Rizo has both his balls,” “Soph is whipping through her ball track,” and, well, just “balls.” Balls, balls, balls. How they bring a smile to my face in so many ways.
In this finale, we had to enjoy the simple pleasures because there weren’t many complex pleasures or, really, much complex gameplay. It starts with the hunt for an advantage, and thank God they gave these players busy work because they surely weren’t busy strategizing. They had to run around camp, find five bags each, assemble a map puzzle, and then find the advantage, which was hiding way up in a tree. After a scramble, Soph is the one who figures it out and gets the advantage. When she arrives at the challenge, Jeff says, “Your advantage is you get to take two steps closer to the finish line. Okay. One. Two. That’s it, Soph. Hope it helps.” That’s about as much as this advantage ever gets you.
This challenge was a highly elaborate obstacle course that ends in a puzzle but starts with everyone crawling under a muddy net, ensuring they’ll be caked in filth the whole time. If I were Soph, I would have said, “Hey, Jeff. Can I trade my two-step advantage to avoid the net? I don’t want to be pulling mud out of my grundle for the next week.” I hate that they do that to the players and they didn’t even let the winner, Savannah (spoiler!), or her chosen friend, Sage, wash off after the challenge. They’re sitting in the Schmanctuary where schmood schmings schmappen eating steak with muddy faces. Because the dirt is so dark, all you can see are two pairs of teeth floating in the middle of the screen, like they’re both reenacting the opening scene of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Yes, Savannah won the immunity challenge, as she has so many times this season, putting her in rarefied company of the six women who have won four times. Savannah takes Sage along with her, telling her over steak that she wants to have her friends with her at the final four, setting up her lobbying for Kristina to go. Back at camp, Kristina is giving herself the goat edit, telling Rizo and Soph that no one on the jury will vote for her and that she wants to take them to the final three and get rid of Savannah, who has been winning everything and playing a great game.
Savannah returns from the Sanctuary, and Rizo and Soph tell her the plan to get rid of Sage, and Savannah just flat-out tells them no. Sage also works on Soph. They’re both just saying that Kristina lit the fire every day, and she will beat all of them at the fire-making challenge, and that is why she should go home. Ugh. I hate the final fire-making challenge so much. That someone should be a threat in the game because she’s good at chores is wild to me. “Sorry, but I’m voting out Rizo. Have you seen how he cleans his room and takes out the trash? We’ll never beat him.”
Sage and Kristina knew all day that one was going home, and they had a tense exchange at tribal, with Kristina once again giving herself the goat edit and talking so much about how great Sage is. Sage is talking herself down too, saying she always felt like the weird outcast and the expendable one. They’re trying to correct each other, each setting the record straight by talking about how horrible they are at the game. They are gunning at each other, and the only ammunition is self-owned. I was surprised that Sage’s pleas worked and that Kristina was eliminated. I liked Rizo and Soph’s logic, that they could all beat Kristina in a final three, over Savannah’s, which is that she would lose out on making the final three due to her superior fire-making.
Now it’s time for that final immunity challenge that was so full of balls it made a Mega Millions broadcast jealous. I’m glad they didn’t do Simmotion again, but the final challenge needs to feel complex, epic, and different. This was just like all the other challenges. There was a complicated obstacle course earlier in this episode. This felt like the real challenge got rained out and they had to go with a backup plan. What about an endurance challenge that lasts six hours? What about some new-fangled contraption? What about having to write a verse of a rap, learn choreography, dance in heels, and design their outfit? I mean, if they can do it on Drag Race…
While the challenge didn’t feel substantial, Jeff got to do his favorite thing: shout at a woman about how poorly she was performing. “Soph, yet again, dead last,” he screams. Well, balls to you, Jeff. After many a setback, Soph somehow whips through assembling her ball (hehe) track and then getting both of her balls (hehe) into the target when Rizo, who was first to the puzzle stage, struggles mightily. It was truly a great comeback and, as Soph points out, the first thing she’s won all season. It also keeps Savannah from being the only woman to join the Five Winner’s Club. Sorry, Savannah, better luck next time.
Back at camp, Soph tells everyone that she doesn’t want them politicking, she’s going to make her decision at tribal, and she would prefer that her day of easy breathing and yoga on the beach not be marred by these losers talking to her about her plans. Oh, and she’d like a spicy margarita on the rocks with no salt, please. Someone ring the Schmanctuary. Next, everyone is trying to build a fire with Sage and Savannah saying they’ve never done it, and Rizo feeling a bit safer but not that safe at all. Though all the chat was unsolicited, at one point Rizo tells Soph that if he’s going to make fire, he only wants to do it against Savannah because he knows he doesn’t stand a chance against her.
That is just what Soph does when she makes a decision, but before that, Jeff has to give us a history of the worst part (except maybe three tribes of six) of Survivor as a format. He reminds us that the challenge beast who picked Ben Driebergen in the first-ever fire challenge then went on to lose to him, which was the plan all along because Jeff would rather the guy who found a bunch of idols that everyone hated win the game rather than just some girl. This fire-making challenge has always sucked, and I’m sorry, I’m going to rage about it every year.
I’m especially going to rage about it this year because Rizo, the player who deserved to win, got sent home because he couldn’t do his chores. Yes, I picked on him all season, and he did the most at every single turn. Still, Rizo did sway more votes than anyone else, was a strategic mastermind, found a way to keep his trio safe when the odds were stacked against them, and held onto a beware idol longer than any other player in the game. Now, Rizo is sent packing because there is one skill that isn’t even in the Survivor logo that he couldn’t master. Then, on the way out, he asks Probst not to call him by his name, but by his nickname. “Rizgod,” Probst says, “The tribe has spoken.” I take it all back. Every kind word I ever said about him, scratch it off the record. Never let this man on my television again.
Rizo had a grand, emotional exit, talking about how he made so many people proud and how happy he was to finally realize his dream, even if he didn’t win. I was disappointed that at the final tribal he didn’t even ask a question; he just gave all the ladies their flowers and then faded into the background. That is not the Rizo we have grown to … begrudgingly acknowledge.
The final three are Sage, Soph, and Savannah, three women whose first names start with S. Often, on Survivor, I root for the ladies, at least after all of the gays are voted off. (If there is a gay lady, then I really go hard.) I’m very happy for an all-female finale, especially since it hasn’t happened since season 29 in 2014. It’s harder for women in this world in general and, yes, harder on Survivor. But I do have to point out that there have now been three finales with all-female contenders, and only one with three men. It was in 2010, so even further back than the ladies. I love a lady winner, I love an all-female final three, but the fact that almost all of them have been mixed-gender is the one thing I like about having a final three as opposed to a final two. It’s like the Oscars now having 10 Best Picture nominees; it just allows for a lot more diversity, and we love diversity.
The final tribal is a bit of a snooze, though two great moments show that the jury was hesitant to give the final prize to Savannah or Sage. Kristina says Savannah only really wanted to be friends with her tight alliance, and she asks Savannah to name each jury member’s partner or family member. She says she can’t do that, which was wonderfully honest, but Kristina asks her to sputter through it, which she does, blanking for nearly everyone. Meanwhile, Soph is mouthing the name of every child, cousin, classmate, and favorite barista as Savannah stumbles. This is how you lose $1 million. Otherwise, Savannah was very eloquent, as you would expect from a news anchor, with the case that she won when she needed to; everyone was always against her; she built a tight-knit group, and it got her to the end. But she did nothing to betray her mean-girl image, including when Jawan asked them all why they should be given the money, and Savannah’s was basically all about herself and how great she is. I appreciate honesty, but maybe not the move?
For me, Sage’s tough moment started with her first response, when she finally told everyone she had served 10 years in active combat in Afghanistan and then became an intelligence analyst. I hate when players do this. You mean they sat with you with nothing to talk about for weeks, they’ve spoken to you about your literal poops, but you couldn’t be honest about what you did for a living? Sage then tries to spin it like she was a strategic mastermind the whole time, but also played with her emotions. Sorry, it’s too late in the game to switch it up now. And the jury didn’t seem to be on her side at all. She didn’t have an adequate answer when Steven asked how she had a seven-person majority at the merge and then managed to vote them all out, leaving a smaller trio to dominate the later stages of the game.
Soph, on the other hand, saw no resistance. She spun the story of an underdog who endured more tribal councils than anyone else. She was a social player who was at the bottom (because her tribe was decimated, as it always is with three tribes), and had to adapt and use her social game to appeal to everyone. She says she worked with Rizo and Savannah, but knew they were at the bottom, and had to keep her options open, which is what got her there. She talked about skipping college to take care of her dying grandmother, her immigrant parents, and her love of the show. She hit all the notes Jeff wants new era players to hit. And then, when talking about her strategy, she got everyone laughing with her story about wowing Alex with the information about him she overheard in a tree.
But Soph’s laughs and underdog story weren’t enough to convince them that Savannah didn’t deserve to win the most. She was a dominant physical player that people wanted out from nearly the very first week, and she always found a way, with Rizo’s help, out of the hot seat. As she pointed out, she needed all of those wins because there were always bullets headed in her direction. Yes, she might have been a mean girl, she might not have liked everyone, and everyone might not have liked her, but the name of the show is literally Survivor, and Savannah used her strength and her wits, but not her social game, to do just that.
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