It’s season finale time. By the time you read this, we’ll already know who the winner of Survivor 48 is. But I’m writing this intro on Sunday afternoon, three days before the finale, and I’m in pure speculation mode.

First off, a couple of notes from my rewatch of the last episode.

Shauhin won last week’s Loved Ones Reward Challenge, then was immediately voted out. He joined Kat (One World), Brenda (Caramoan), Ron (EoE) and Noelle (43) on that dubious list. Only six players have won both the Loved Ones Challenge and the game (Tina, Brian, Bob, Mike, Nick, & Tommy). Nick and Tommy won theirs with a partner, and didn’t exclusively have to deny others a visit. Tina and Brian didn’t have loved ones on site, and Bob eventually got to let everyone see their loved ones. Shauhin should have known better.

When Kyle and Kamilla were working out the details of their “Frame Shauhin” plan, Kyle said “We just have to do our acting, and we’re good. The same narrative that Mary and Star have been telling me is that ‘Joe’s in control this entire game.’” To me, this qualifies Joe as being labeled as a “leader” even though we don’t know specifically when it happened. Just the same, most players who’ve worn the “leader” label get booted much earlier in the game. Recent “leaders” include Bruce (45), Hunter, Q & Maria (46), Anika, Sierra, Sol and Sam (47). Kenzie is the only new era player to be labeled a “leader” to go on to win the game. She was labeled by Bhanu long before the merge. So, if Joe ends up winning, he’ll be the latest exception to this “rule.” Most “leaders” are doomed to a 10th place finish.

If Joe wins one Immunity Challenge, it will be his fifth win, and he’ll tie a record set by Colby and subsequently tied by Tom, Terry, Mike and Brad. Two Immunity wins for Joe would of course set a new record.

With five Immunity wins and the million, Joe would join Tom and Mike as those who’ve won five Immunity Challenges and gone on to win the million.

That being said, it just doesn’t feel like a win for Joe to me. It feels a lot more like he’ll be the “robbed God/Goddess” and come up short at the end. He’s perfectly set up to be the season 50 returning player from this season. There have been so many “Let’s make Joe look like a good dude” segments (like last week’s speech to his sister) for him to win. We also haven’t had any pay off from Joe’s confessional, “I’m not gonna let her down, even if that hurts my game, whatever. If I gotta go home early, I’m not gonna let her down,” in which he vowed to fall on his sword to protect Eva. How could this pay off? Could Joe refuse to use Eva’s Idol if they’re both vulnerable? Could Joe let Eva win if they’re both in the fire making contest? If the Immunity Challenge comes down to Joe vs Eva, could he ease up so she can win? As unlikely as those scenarios sound, I could see all of them happening.

We can be fairly sure that if one of the pair of Joe and Eva are in the finals and the other is on the Jury, they’ll vote for each other. We know they won’t vote each other out, and since Eva has her Idol, they’re pretty a much a lock to be in the final 4. Joe has been naming Mitch as the one to go next for a while, so unless Mitch wins Immunity at 5, he’s probably a goner.

That sets up the most interesting final 3 for me, which would have Joe, Eva and either Kyle or Kamilla with them. Kyle and Kamilla are both armed with information that can embarrass Joe’s strategic game. They can just explain how they fooled him at the Thomas and Shauhin votes. And they’ll have one jury member backing them up. So, the question is how will Joe react? Will he fold like Coach in South Pacific or Cassidy in 43 when their lack of insight was exposed? Joe has a few jurors already primed to call him on his “honesty and integrity” mantra. Cedrek, Chrissy, David, Mary and Shauhin can all cite examples of Joe not quite living up to the persona he has presented to them. If Joe talks himself out of votes (or fails to hold the votes that might have been leaning his way), where will those votes go? Could Eva be the beneficiary here? If Joe realizes his jurors aren’t on his side, could he ask them to vote for Eva over Kyle or Kamilla?

Of course, it all comes down to how well a read the finalists have on their jurors. There’s no guarantee Kyle, Kamilla, Mitch or Eva’s reads here are any better or worse than Joe’s. This is why I often say, “If Fabio can win Survivor, anybody can.” Juries are always hard to predict. The ultimate proof of this can be summed up in two words – Gabler won.

I’m just hoping for an intense verbal battle at the end like Sam and Rachel gave us last season. Will we get that? Let’s find out.

And away we go ...

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Hmm ... Joe opens the narration for the finale “previously on?” I’ll say it now. He’s a lock for 50 ... which probably means he’s this season’s “robbed God/Goddess.”

I just now realized the final 5 weren’t sent to a different island for the last two votes. And I just now realized I didn’t miss it at all.

Eva wants to look out for Joe and Kyle? Kyle and Kamilla’s plan worked better than I thought it would.

Hearing Kamilla patting herself on her back so much about what a good liar she is makes me think she’s going down. Could Kyle make the smart move and put her on the Jury so she can talk him up? I always figured Kamilla would take the shot at Kyle. But now I think she needs Immunity to do that.

Wardog’s log has gotten more action this season than when Wardog played in Edge of Extinction.

Joe is comparing the final 5 in Fiji with playing football in Green Bay in December? Joe is confused.

The puzzle locks are back. Kamilla and Eva are the only ones here who have solved one. Big edge for them.

Mitch “The Mitch who showed up on day 1 is nothing compared to the Mitch sitting here on day 24.” I like Mitch, but it feels like his entire game has been played in his confessionals. I don’t think any of these players think he’s done anything strategically.

Sure enough, Eva pulls it out. If she wins Immunity, Joe gets her Idol. Eva has had all the trinkets but hasn’t used any of them. And I don’t think it was her intention to use them to play defense.

Once again, this is a pretty massive Immunity Challenge ... that I’d rather see at final 4 instead of the fire challenge.

Eva doesn’t have to toss a ball to get her puzzle lock numbers. Kamilla could really have used that.

I remember this butthole net. Several women had trouble when their hair got caught up in the net.

Probst says “Ain’t nothin’ easy on Survivor,’ then seconds later Joe makes the ball toss look easy.

I don’t think Joe has a prayer of solving that puzzle. Kamilla was the puzzle master in the Tribal stage. This could be an epic comeback.

This is turning into a blowout for Kamilla.

Now is the big decision. Eva is gonna use her Idol. Do Kamilla and Kyle use Mitch to get rid of Joe, or does Kamilla take the shot at putting her advocate Kyle on the Jury to sell her game? If that’s her plan, where does she get that 3rd vote?

There’s not much for the guys to talk about, is there? We know Joe wants Mitch gone, and Kyle will just tell Joe what he wants to hear. And we know Kyle will want Joe gone.

Kyle: “I have to sit with this and think.” WHY? This one is a no-brainer dude! Boot Joe! The only downside is that he’s an automatic vote for Eva.

I still think it’s stupid to make the Reward winners eat with mud all over themselves.

Kamilla wants Mitch gone???? I’m so disappointed! And now she’s telling Mitch she’s voting him out??? I think Kamilla just lost Mitch’s Jury vote. Not only is it the wrong move, it makes Tribal Council pretty meaningless now. Can I fast forward to the next challenge? If this season was the movie “The Princess Bride,” I’d be the old woman booing Princess Buttercup for agreeing to marry Prince Humperdink instead of fighting for true love. I guess this is why we saw Mitch telling the pit bull story about his mail carrier days.

Mitch is even giving his exit comments before Tribal Council begins! I can’t help but hear Mitch saying over and over “As much as I want to make a move, I just can’t do it.”

Even the jurors look disappointed about them straight up telling Mitch he’s a goner.

Mitch: “Whenever your two people you’ve been playing with the whole time look you in the face and say, ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t take you any farther,’ it sucks ... but they have to do what’s best for them to have a shot at winning.” I don’t know if it’s intentional, but Mitch is endorsing Kyle and Kamilla for the jurors, especially if they’re buying into Joe and David’s “Honesty and integrity” mantra.

This vote makes it feel like this season is ending with a disappointing thud. Eva doesn’t even have to play her Idol. She can keep it as a souvenir now. But she plays it in the least impressive way possible – when everyone knows she’s gonna play it and doesn’t care.

Mitch is gone, and that’s one vote for either Kyle or Kamilla. I’m sure of it. Ok, so it’s either Kyle vs Kamilla or Joe vs Eva in the fire challenge, depending on who wins Immunity. Once again, I want to fast forward to the end of the Immunity Challenge. Nothing else matters.

Eva in confessional “If I win, I’m taking Joe.” Translation: If you win Immunity, you’re losing the million to Joe.

Kamilla tells Kyle “If I win tonight, you’re making fire.” Good job, Kamilla, you’ve just given Kyle a shitload of motivation. This was a totally bonehead move on her part. I’m already considering putting this on my list of Bonehead Moves.

Kyle in confessional: “But we (me and Kamilla) have played pretty much the exact same game, so I think going with Joe and Eva to the final 3 is exactly what I need to do.” See Kamilla? You just handed Kyle the winning strategy.

And then Joe tells Kyle, “I don’t want to make fire.” Good lord, everybody is firing Kyle up. With people making this many bad calls, I won’t be surprised if it’s Joe vs Kamilla at fire now.

Yeah, this is a Survivor classic challenge, but I’m tired of it. There goes another thud as the season ends. Give me that 5-story Pachinko machine thingy from 46. That one was a lot more fun to watch.

Kamilla: “Yeah, it’s a Survivor classic, but I wish I got to do the one they did in 46.” Kamilla and I are very like-minded.

Kyle wins Immunity and the first thing he’s probably thinking is “Kamilla was gonna throw me into the fire challenge.” No-brainer decision now. If he doesn’t put Joe in against Kamilla, he doesn’t deserve to win. The only thing that could be worse would be if he puts himself in against Joe for the “honorable” win.

But Kyle says he’s taking Joe to the finals. Putting Eva in the fire challenge is pretty pointless. She’s the weakest competition for the win of the three. This is as bad as Xander putting Heather and DeShawn in the fire challenge and taking the frontrunner Erika to the finals.

Kamilla has to eat her words because she told Kyle what she was gonna do before she had to. Now, even if she beats Eva at fire, she can’t get Eva’s vote, and nobody on the Jury knows what she’s been doing. Kyle sure isn’t gonna tell them. He’s gonna take credit for all of their moves, and they’re gonna believe him because he’s had the better overall social game.

I wonder of Joe is gonna see Eva’s struggles and offer to take her place? That would pay off his promise to sacrifice his game for hers if he had to.

Kyle: “I’m not afraid to put myself into fire if that’s what needs to happen.” Wait, is Kyle actually considering putting himself in instead of Eva? What is he thinking?

These are very touching gestures, and they’re entirely sincere, but this is NOT Survivor. Survivor isn’t an “I’ll fall on my sword for you” kind of game. I’m glad Eva refused to let Joe take her place.

The “new Kamilla vs old Kamilla” story is sincere too, but again, seeing people telling each other their strategy just isn’t what I watch Survivor for.

Chrissy whispers “Yes” when Probst talks about Kyle’s second Immunity win. She’s voting for Kyle if she get the chance.

Shauhin is shocked Kyle is bringing Joe to the end. He knows how bad a decision that is, too.

Fire Challenge time, and all I’m thinking about is how David can save Final Tribal Council by going off on Joe ... followed by Star saying “Shut up, David! You lost. Get over it already.”

Kamilla gets Purple and Eva takes blue. My totals aren’t official, but I counted 2 wins and 2 losses for whoever took the blue station. Purple has 1 win and 2 losses. But after last season’s challenge, Rob C.’s fact checker said blue has 4 wins and 2 losses.

Entering tonight (according to RHAP) here are the totals:

Green 1-0

Yellow 4-1

Blue 4-2

Purple 2-2

Orange 2-4

Red 2-6

Eva’s flame is getting smaller, and now this is starting to feel like Becky vs Sundra in Cook Islands.

Eva wins the fairly meaningless fire challenge, and now Kyle has his jury advocate. Kyle has this win wrapped up now. The dumbest thing Kamilla could have done was tell Kyle she was gonna throw him in if she won Immunity.

Kamilla: “Me sitting in that position (making fire) meant someone thought I was a threat to their game.” That might be the biggest endorsement for Kyle yet.

Time for Final Tribal Council. Ok David, you’re up. Make this FTC interesting, even if Kamilla has already convinced you to vote for Kyle.

What’s funny about this final 3 is I think both Joe and Eva would have voted for Kyle if they were on the Jury.

Mary, Cedrek and Kamilla are all complimenting Eva in their pseudo “Jury Speaks” snippets, but none of them are saying she played the best game.

Eva comes clean to Joe and Kyle about her PhD background, and Kyle comes clean about being a lawyer. Why are these people telling each other what they’re gonna say to impress the jurors? Kyle could get an edge on Joe if the jury got to see how surprised he was to find that out. That moment is gone now. Again, this is NOT the Survivor I’ve come to know and love.

I always say Survivor lives and dies on the strength of the people playing it. This season’s post-merge players were a strategic letdown (except for Kamilla). I bet these finalists don’t have the guts to take shots at each other.

Cedrek asks a question (“What are your weaknesses?”) and everyone already knows Eva’s answer. Kyle’s answer is the only one I’m interested in. But I think he nailed it when he said his weakness was overconfidence. That showed some humility.

Mitch hands Kyle a softball question “How did you leverage your relationships.” That gives him a license to talk all about his partner Kamilla. Joe refuses to answer the question, which was a bad move.

Chrissy kept cracking me up when she kept saying “Only one of YOUSE can win.”

What? We don’t even get to see Kyle’s answer to that question?

Ok, now Star wants to know about undercover moves. Kyle gets another shot. Eva brags about how she kept her Safety Without Power Advantage a secret, then Shauhin and Joe blow her up by revealing they knew she snuck out of camp. That’s not a fatal blow, but it was embarrassing.

But Kyle talks about being incarcerated (which I think just locked up Chrissy’s vote).

David didn’t seem to be impressed by Eva’s revelation, but Star did.

I LOVED Mary’s “What do you think is the Jury’s perception of you?” question. So many games are won or lost by a finalists viewpoint in this area.

David calls BS on Eva’s “We’re a collaboration. We make decisions as one” response.

Eva “We’re (me and Joe) are the strongest duo in this game.” The smirks on Kyle and Kamilla’s faces are great, but I want the payoff already.

Eva tries to take ownership of the Shauhin boot, and now she and Joe are setup for a Cassidy-esque correction from Kyle and/or Kamilla.

Kyle hands me the payoff, and it looks like it’s working. He just humiliated Joe and Eva. The “What the fuck? Expressions on Eva and Joe’s faces sealed it. If Phillip had done that to Boston Rob in Redemption Island by claiming to have put on an act all season, he very well could have won.

Shauhin actually gives a golf clap while Kyle explains the real story. Yeah, Kyle just locked up Shauhin’s vote too.

Kyle: “I needed to show the Jury that their perception was not the reality. The perception was that Joe was the muscle, Eva was the heart, and Shauhin was the brains. I took out the brains.” Joe and Eva’s reactions confirm they were totally fooled. Kyle just slammed the door by explaining how he outwitted them both. Great move by Kyle.

David’s “Knock, knock” line sucked. David really thinks Survivor is all about winning challenges. Does he remember who Jeff Probst is yet? He had no clue when he was chosen for the cast.

Kyle is making them laugh. “The only thing people commented about my physically was that I have a bubble butt. I’ll have to call one of Cedrek’s friends to fix it.” That’s huge.

And Eva slips up by calling Chrissy an “old woman.”

Kyle gave the best performance this time around, but Eva did better than Joe. Eva closing with “I was loyal” probably wasn’t the best tactic. David wanted to see Joe saying breaking his word was part of his strategy, but Joe didn’t do that. Did that lose David’s vote?

I thought Eva would be the zero-vote finalist, but now I’m thinking it might be Joe.

Cedrek votes for Joe, and Mary votes for Eva. If we don’t see anyone else’s votes, I think Kyle’s got it.

But now we see Kamilla’s vote for Kyle. That’s not a surprise at all.

At least we won’t have a zero-vote finalist this season.

Kyle gets the win, and he deserved it. He played the best game between the three of them by far, even though he put several (yes, maybe 7 of them) speed bumps in his own path along the way.

Ok, time for a couple of stats.

Kyle won the million after winning two Immunity Challenges. He becomes the 8th to do so, joining Vecepia, Danni, Tyson, Michele, Wendell, Erika, and Kenzie. 24 players have won the game with one or no Immunity Challenge wins.

Kyle is the 20th player to win the Final Immunity Challenge and go on to win the Million.

This reinforces my opinion that you don’t have to be good at Immunity Challenges to win Survivor. But it helps a lot if you can win near the end.

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Post-Finale reunion

Star: “If Kamilla is in the finals, she wins the game easily.” That’s one more reason she never should have told Kyle she’d put him in the fire challenge before the Immunity Challenge. Now we can say it cost her the win. She provided the most compelling reason for Kyle to put her on the Jury.

David was a disappointment. He was supposed to be a bitter juror. And seeing him giving his “proper milk drinking” lesson didn’t help.

I still think Joe is a lock for season 50, but with Kamilla’s newfound confidence, I’m much more interested in seeing how she’d play a second time. Joe isn’t gonna change a thing. Kamilla could change her entire approach.

I’m glad Kyle won. I’m sticking to my initial thought about this season having a mid-level winner. I don’t think he played as well as Rachel did last season. He simply had too many indecisive moments. And even though he kept the biggest secret of the season, he gave away too much strategic information during the season for me to consider his win much higher. He had a great Final Tribal Council performance. Much like Sophie, he had plenty of ammunition at the end, even though he was leaving guns behind at camp.

Seeing this woman from the 49 cast made me think Taj from Tocantins has finally agreed to play again.

And this guy talking about horror movies looks like Jordan Peele, the director of “Get out.”

Even though this season almost ground to a strategic halt after the merge, I did enjoy the people playing it. Mary, Star and Kamilla were easily the most entertaining players for me. This season had a lot of heart too, mostly provided by Eva, Joe and Mitch. I won’t let my initial reaction form my lasting impression though. As always, I’ll wait about a month to form my lasting impressions.

But I’d love to know what you think now. Did Joe come from ahead to lose, or was he never really in it because of what Kyle and Kamilla kept under wraps. Were you as surprised as I was that Eva outperformed Joe? Do you think Kamilla killed her game by telling Kyle she’d put him in the fire challenge? I’m thinking that might be as bad as Rafe releasing Danni from their Final 2 deal in Guatemala, and Ian letting it slip that he’d cut Tom in Palau. Let me know in the comments.

I’ll be back for seasons 49 and 50 for sure. I’m contemplating some off-season columns too, so check back here regularly. I love to talk Survivor.