Hey there! This has been an phenomenal season, but unfortunately it’s come to an end! This was one of my favorite Final 5s in a long time, and I loved this season so much! The finale was filled with heartbreak, hope, hilarity, heroes, healers, hustlers… Ok, I’m pushing alliteration too much here! Anyways, this week’s post is basically just me giving my thoughts on the season as a whole and the cast now that we’ve seen the outcome and how they played. This finale especially was… controversial to say the least. We’ll get into that and my thoughts on it later… but let’s celebrate the FANTASTIC cast first!

SPOILER WARNING: IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN EPISODE 13, “Million Dollar Night” AND THE REUNION EPISODE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? DON’T SCROLL DOWN PAST THE SOLEWA TRIBE FLAG SPOILER SHIELD!!! GO WATCH THE EPISODE, THEN COME BACK AND ENJOY! 🙂

18. KATRINA This season started slow, yes, but with a crazy viewer blindside no less. How many of us saw Katrina going home after she was practically invisible? Not me, that’s for sure. But, her ouster was the first of many smart game moves by Chrissy, and the ramifications and snowballing would prove dire down the road for the rest of the women. I wish we got to see more of Katrina. She seems like a funky person! Overall I’m not surprised she went out early, but I wish she would have gone a little further. 17. SIMONE Simone had a short but gratifying arc, facing her fears but unfortunately not being able to hold her own at camp. I think that Simone could have been a really crazy strategic player like Joe was this season.. but that didn’t happen. She seems like a very nice person and despite her early elimination I think she should be proud! 16. PATRICK Oh, Pat. Coming into the game I thought you were going to be quiet, calculating, and relaxed. How so horribly and fantastically wrong was I? We got so much entertainment (and frustration) from your three episodes. Unfortunately this marked the second time in a row my Winner Pick went home pre-merge. Hopefully that trend will NOT continue. Pat seems like a rad guy and I wish he could have gone further. 15. ALAN Alan ‘Crazy Eyes 2.0’ Ball. The legend. Stripped down JP for an Idol that wasn’t there, feuded with Joe… man, what a short but fantastic run for Alan. I’d love to see him play again and be a bit more reserved! Another fun and really cool dude that I would have loved to see more of. 14. ROARK Man, I was hoping for so much more from Roark… but she was criminally under-edited. Her lack of social game seemed to be her downfall, and she was another victim of Chrissy’s amazing game. Roark is yet another awesome person that I’d love to meet in real life and play again! 13. ALI I think coming into the season EVERYONE was thinking Ali would go super far. I was devastated when she went out. She wasn’t really able to use her outside relationship with Patrick to her advantage and once he was gone, she couldn’t recover. Though, it was very fun to watch her try! That kind of Hustle makes what some saw as a contrived theme really shine. 12. JESSICA Jessica… man, why did you have to fall into the same trap as Figgy? At least you both made the merge but you couldn’t shake the association with Cole.. 😦 That said, Jess seems like a fantastically kind and sweet person that I would love to meet. Ok, I would be lucky enough to meet ANY Survivor irl. I get enough of a rush when they like my tweets 🙂 I’d love to see Jessica play again someday! She definitely had strategic chops but was too tied down by Cole and his poor secret-keeping. 11. DESI Desi was a breakout star. Witty, intelligent, strategic, physically capable… the perfect just-after-the-merge boot. I would have loved to have seen MORE of her in the show and seen her go further, but alas it is what it is. Her pageant-queen-like articulation at FTC was great, and I think she was a great lead Juror.

10. COLE Cole… I had a bit of an up-and-down relationship with his game, but he seems like a rad dude and I’m happy he’s learned from his social mistakes at camp! As the only guy to win Immunity this season, especially on a season packed with awesome, strong women, bravo! Unfortunately he couldn’t recover from his pre-merge stumbles, but it was fun to watch. 9. JP JP was the enigmatic, quiet, sometimes unintelligible, question mark of the season. We didn’t see too much from him, but his vote was the real start of Ben’s rise and Chrissy’s dip. At the end of the day (to use his words, lol!) he was one of the few cast members who felt overshadowed this season. 8. JOE I know I’ve said that Joe was a Tony Clone. Joe, if you’re reading this… you are your own guy, you’re hilarious, and thanks for making me laugh so many times. Although it wasn’t enough to get him further in the game, Joe was absolutely crazy and actually had some great strategic insight. Perhaps not the greatest social game out there… but Joe was fantastically fun to watch nonetheless. 7. LAUREN Lauren was the big surprise of the season. I feel so bad for putting her as my first boot pick, but I am beyond happy with how much I grew to love her as the season went on. I felt a lot more personally connected to her and I was beyond pleasantly surprised with her strategic ability and Immunity win. I mean, she’ll even come back to haunt us next season as well for Ghost Island with her incredibly stupid move to give Mike half of her idol! 6. ASHLEY Ashley was another person I thought would either go deep or go out early, and I’m happy it’s the former. Although she was a bit more subtle, she was so much fun to get to know and watch. She was a strong force out there and I wish she had gone to the end, but I really enjoyed her this season! 5. MIKE Doctor Mike. How can you NOT love this impeccable guy? It’s unfortunate that he didn’t make it to the end but I had a blast watching his antics, strategic crazy plays, and witty confessionals. He even was pretty close to a couple Immunity wins as well, which is impressive! I’ve had a lot of fun following and rooting for Mike all season, and for him to be the last Healer standing is fantastic. Thank you, Mike, for making me laugh so much 🙂 4. DEVON DEVON, WHY!!!!!! NOOOOOOOO!!!!! Ok I’ve gotten it out of my system. Devon played a FANTASTIC, BRILLIANT, AMAZING game and should have won. Ok… not out of my system yet. Sure, the twist was unfortunate for Devon, but it happens. Sometimes there are things that just happen that no matter how much you prepare for it goes wrong. Devon didn’t seem to be bitter at all about it, so we shouldn’t be either. Although Devon winning was my personal preferred outcome (and come on, it would really have given HHH a case to usurp Kaoh Rong in my season rankings), he was oh-so-close. Only one person can win, and though I am bummed beyond words that it wasn’t Devon, we can still appreciate how much fun we had with Devon, from his zombie walking, lying-on-the-sand drone shot, awesome game faces at challenges, “that is NOT an advantage”, his stray vote for Mike saving him, his savage words for Ben… man. He was a blast. Thank you, Devon. ❤ 3. RYAN Ryan was THE polarizing figure this season… because of his freaking archetype. Man, after Cochran won and became Probst’s chew toy practically in the eyes of many Survivor Fans, the skinny nerd guys always take the heat. Ryan was no different and it was unfortunate that he made FTC because no matter how HARD he tried.. it was a disaster. At least he got Devon’s vote! Like I said last week, Ryan played well in the first few episodes, but he spiraled out of that very quickly. His alliance with Chrissy, I think, actually HURT him because she was just so much more of a dominant force than he was, and it overshadowed everything that he did. One more reason why this game is SO complex. You can play well for the most part and still come up just short. See Chrissy. 2. CHRISSY Chrissy, first off, if you’re reading this… I’m proud of you. We all are. I might not have been in your camp all season long and I may have been rooting against you… but you’re a fantastic human being (at least as far as I can tell from Twitter and Survivor). You might not have won but you played very well strategically and physically (although I think you could have been much more subtle with your game talk around other people!), and while I totally thought you were gonna win against Ben in the end… you didn’t. And I think part of it was your Immunity wins. Like (If I recall correctly) Ashley said, the Jury (unlike in Big Brother) doesn’t get to see the challenges, but they DO get to see Idols being played live at Tribal. So, it made Ben saving himself in the do-or-die situation more meaningful than your FOUR IMMUNITY WINS TYING THE RECORD FOR MOST IMMUNITY WINS IN A SEASON BY A WOMAN if Probst hadn’t said that enough! I never would have expected you’d win four Immunities, and that was pretty rad if you ask me, especially the Final Immunity. Overall, I think Chrissy is the definition of this season. Hero, Healer, AND Hustler. 1. BEN And now, we come to the Winner. Ben might be getting a LOT of hate right now for the ‘rigged twists and idols’ but I think that nothing was rigged at all. Anyone could have found the Idols and ended up in the F4 twist. Ben, on the outside, played a very loud and brash game. But on the INSIDE, his game was fantastic. Bonding with Chrissy and Alan at the start and using those relationships to his advantage, jumping ship when he had to, weathering the storm of Joe, his BRILLIANT OSCAR-WORTHY acting at the JP boot and his double-agentry, his insane Idol-finding skills, and finally saving himself from certain doom with the Fire-Making twist. If you ask me, his being a vet has nothing to do with it. Ben played a great game and you don’t need to win Immunities to win Survivor. The game isn’t (that) flawed, Ben’s win is great, and that’s all I have to say. Ben, thanks for being an inspiration, for being a great winner (unfortunately not as high on my list as Devon would have been, but still up there!), and for a great season!

Overall, Heroes vs Healers vs Hustlers was fantastic. It might not have gone nowhere near how I predicted it, but that’s totally fine! I had SO much fun watching it, and especially for my first season away from home at college it was a blast (but seriously, staying up an extra hour is annoying. Curse you Eastern Time!). I loved the cast, the theme, the music, cinematography, the final 5, the challenges… It was overall a phenomenal season. Hands down.

What I didn’t like, though… were two things: If you remember from last season I didn’t have many nice things to say about the new Final Tribal format. I still don’t really like it (and I know someday I will hopefully be a part of it…). I would personally tweak it so that the F3 gets an opening statement, each Juror asks one question, and the Jury can discuss after the answer to the question is given. Rinse and repeat for Outwit/Outplay/Outlast. I don’t like the yelly/argumentative muddled structure-less parts. Perhaps it’s just me?

I also think that the Final Four Fire-making Twist needs some tweaking as well. I think that Idols should now be void after the final 7 so that there are two Idol-less tribals. I think Idols make for great TV, but it would be nice to see some SOCIAL saves. I’m fine with the fire-making. It’s something that’s important to Survivor, but so is VOTING. I hope Production takes heed to some random guy on the internet and makes it so that Idols are only good until the final 7. I can be butthurt about Devon being on the losing end of the twist, sure, but at the end of the day it’s all out of my control!

And now.. onto the fun part. NEXT SEASON IS GOING TO BE SPOOKY!!! Survivor: Ghost Island is our 36th season. 20 all-new castaways will do battle once again in Fiji (seriously can’t they go to other places? Vietnam, Japan, India, Africa… new locations please!). Their weapons: Past advantages and twists that were the cause of previous players’ downfalls. Will they make the same mistakes, or wield the power of ghosts to scare their opponents speechless? The cast (leaked here on InsideSurvivor) looks promising. I have a couple way-too-early picks like usual, but I’m gonna wait on it. Here is the preview for the season. Although we don’t really get to meet anyone by name, it looks so exciting! The theming looks fantastic as well! As a Survivor fan and History nerd… this is the confluence of everything! Perhaps this would have been a better season for Ryan to be on!

With that, thanks for another great season of my Blog, and I can’t wait to be back in the Spring for Ghost Island! It’s only a few months, but it’ll feel like forever.

Thanks so much for reading, and if you have questions or want to just talk Survivor, hit me up on Twitter @nitasu987 !! Feel free to give me a follow! 🙂

-Austin