We’re at another season finale, so it’s time to update some historical (hysterical?) data.

I’m writing this intro the day before the finale airs, so a lot of it may end up being meaningless, but here goes.

The Beast Factor

If Aubry or Rizo end up winning this season without winning an Individual Immunity Challenge, they’ll be the 13th winner to do so. If they only win one, or Jonathan wins the game without winning any more Immunity challenges, that will make them the 13th to win the game with only one Immunity win.

To be fair, I’ll look at the other side of that coin. We’ve also had 19 players who’ve won the most Immunity Challenges in their season go on to win the million. Joe or Tiffany could join that group this season. However, this group includes winners like Vecepia and Michele who won two Individual Immunity Challenges, which is a little less than “dominant.” There are seven players with four Immunity wins, and two players (Tom and Mike) with five wins who went on to win the game. But there are also six players with four wins and four (Colby, Terry, Ozzy, and Brad) who piled up five Immunity wins but didn’t get the votes for the million. My conclusion hasn’t changed. You don’t have to be good at challenges to win Survivor. 25 out of 49 winners haven’t been good at challenges. A very timely win can be a huge help. If you can pull out a win in one of the last three Immunity Challenges, your chances of winning the game greatly improve.

This next one is very subjective, but over the years, I’ve wondered if the player who was perceived as the best challenge performer has gone on to win the game. This season, you could argue that Ozzy, Jonathan and Joe entered the game as the “perceived” challenge beast but of course, this was an all-returning player season in which player reputations played a huge factor. Most players (Kyle Ostwald in S47, David in S48) get the “challenge beast” label in the tribal portion of the game. In my subjective opinion, the only “perceived beasts” who’ve gone on to win the game are Tom (S10: Palau), J.T. (S18: Tocantins), and Boston Rob (S22: Redemption Island), and of course, Rob was a known entity. A win for Joe or Jonathan could add them to this small list.

The “perceived beast” factor can be bigger in an all-returning player season than in other seasons. Entering this season the first thing a lot of players mentioned about Ozzy, Joe and Jonathan was their “beast factor.” The same was true in S40: Winners at War about Boston Rob, and Tyson. But the “beast factor” is almost an afterthought when people discuss their female competitors. Kim (four wins) and Sophie (three wins) were great at challenges in their first seasons, but in the WaW preseason interviews it just didn’t come up. It was almost an afterthought “…oh, and she can win challenges too.” Think about it. When this season’s players did their preseason interviews, how many of them talked about how Dee (three) and Chrissy (four) piled up Immunity wins? I think the only female player whose reputation as a challenge beast was discussed early on was Michaela in S34: Game Changers, and that’s only if Zeke volunteered that info to those who hadn’t seen her play yet. As Joe Jackson once sang “It’s different for girls.”

Idol Fever

Survivor has had Idols for 38 seasons. 176 people have held an Idol, and 19 winners out of a possible 38 have held one. If Aubry or Rizo pull out a win, they’ll increase that total to 20. That 50% mark hints that having an Idol is a huge factor in helping someone win the game.

However…

Only seven of those Idol holders (Mike, Jeremy, Chris U., Ben, Nick, Rachel, and Kyle) actually used their Idols to save themselves. Six winners (Yul, Tony - S28: Cagayan, Natalie A., Adam, Wendell, and Tony - WaW) played their Idols but didn’t need them at that moment. There’s a grey area here. Having an Idol definitely helps you stay in the game but doesn’t necessarily help you win the million. And I’ve always held the opinion that if you need to save yourself with an Idol it’s because you made a mistake that created the NEED for that Idol play. The better player doesn’t put themself in a position to need an Idol. Yeah, I know Kyle fell on the wrong side of a swap in S48, but there’s also a reason they decided to vote for him instead of Kamilla. That’s on Kyle.

Let’s flip that Mr. Beast coin again. Twenty winners since S11: Guatemala have never held an Idol. I’m including Todd (S15: China) and Sandra (S20: HvsV) in this group because they either gave away their Idols or kept them completely secret. Their Idols didn’t deflect votes away from them. Natalie White (S19: Samoa) was saved by an Idol played for her by Russell. My point here is that it’s not vital to have an Idol to win Survivor. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look for one. It’s probably better to either know who has the Idol or have an Idol nobody knows about.

Aubry knowingly played her Idol as a strategic means of improving her chance to win. Aubry knew Dee was the primary target and Tiffany was the backup. Aubry absolutely knew she was safe. But when playing her Idol, she said “I also know an Idol that everybody knows about, is not an Idol at all, it’s a Scarlett Letter.” This was a Survivor first. Wasting an Idol to buy yourself safety can be called an Aubry innovation.

And I hate to say it, but Rizo’s strategy of constantly bluffing about playing an Idol has definitely produced two deep runs even if his bluffs ended up hurting his chances of winning more than helping them.

This season only had four Idols and is the sixth season to have four of them. This continues a trend of having fewer Idols available after having an all-time high of 12 in S39: Island of the Idols. The most in the New Era has been eight in S44. And while Aubry and Devens played their Idols, neither one of them returned to the game. Three men and one woman held an Idol, bringing the totals to 116 Idols held by men and 60 by women. And Rick Devens made the 36th phony Idol but then he borrowed Aubry’s move and admitted it was phony as a means of buying himself some safety.

I Sia lot of money for Cirie

If Cirie wins the Sia-sponsored Fan Favorite $100k, it will be the second time she’s benefited from her popularity. She won a car after S12: Panama. If Devens wins this season’s poll, it will be the second time for him too. He won the Sia $100k after S38: Edge of Extinction. Christian has a good shot at it, but since fans like the shiny object in front of them, the more recent exits for Cirie and Devens give them the edge here.

It hurts so bad

Kyle and Colby became the 35th and 36th players to leave the game after an injury, personal trauma or just being too damn creepy to the women. My list includes players like James (S20: HvsV) who wasn’t medevaced but got voted out primarily because his tribemates were concerned about his leg injury.

Age isn’t just a number in Survivor, but other numbers are just random

If Aubry, Tiffany or Jonathan win, they’ll be the 23rd winner between age 30-39. A win for Rizo makes him the 23rd between 20-29, and Joe would be the 4th between 40-49. But we all know Joe’s not winning.

Earlier this season during Episode 9, I gave a progress report for all the second-time players in my column. I’ll offer a short update here.

Jonathan finished fourth in S42 and will do no worse than fifth this season. Since he angered fewer players this time around and was better informed, I’d say he has improved on his game. But it’s also worth noting that I don’t think his improvements are the result of consulting with Boston Rob. Jonathan didn’t try to intimidate anyone, confront anyone who wouldn’t blindly obey him or forbid them from having private conversations. Those are three hallmarks of a typical Boston Rob game. Rizo finished fourth in S49. He played a better overall social and strategic game this time. I’m particularly impressed with his ability to earn trust quickly from so many experienced veterans, including Cirie. But he still comes off as a cocky kid. That hurts his respect level. He’d benefit from healthy dose of humility if he plays again.

I just don’t think Joe is capable of making the necessary adjustments to win Survivor. He’s had two casts that included a few like-minded “honesty and loyalty” players but still had no clue how to play with those who didn’t share that mentality. He’s too stuck in his ways and expects everyone to play the game according to his parameters. Joe is the New Era version of Ozzy. In Episode 9, there wasn’t much to evaluate about Tiffany because we hadn’t been shown much of her game. But since then, I’ve been very impressed with her adjustments. After losing her original alliance (Kamilla, Dee) early on, Tiffany didn’t miss a beat in earning trust and loyalty from Joe and Cirie. Tiffany had Joe going from writing her name down at one vote to asking her how to vote at the next. She definitely played better this time around.

I keep a list that compares where players finished as rookies vs as second-timers. But with 24 players this season, I don’t think it’s fair to do that with this season’s players because it was a lot more likely to finish lower this time than as rookies. For example, Christian played much better this time than as a rookie but saying he went from finishing seventh to 11th seems like an injustice.

This season didn’t feature a traditional Loved Ones Challenge in which the winner had to decide which players would be denied visits or letters from their loved ones. This season’s winner will undoubtedly benefit from that break.

A win for Aubry would make her (in my eyes) only the second player to win the game without ever committing to an alliance. Vecepia was the first to accomplish this feat in S4: Marquesas. Vecepia and Aubry both let others believe they were loyal, committed members of an alliance but their confessionals, which were backed up by their actions during the game, confirmed the opposite was true. Vecepia read the room correctly and made great adjustments the entire season. She knew when to get off Boston Rob’s sinking ship and when to flip the game against John Carroll’s majority alliance. I’ll confirm on my season rewatch, but I think Aubry was intentionally non-committal from the start. If I’m right, that would explain why she rejected Genevieve’s pitch early on. Think about it. Nobody accused Aubry of betraying them because she never pledged her loyalty. She avoided any backlash even though she voted against Dee, Coach, Christian, and Devens, who all thought she was with them at various points.

And speaking of Black women, in Survivor 42, Drea arrived at Tribal Council, saw two Black players (Chanelle and Rocksroy) sitting on the Jury and said “And I was so proud because we had four Black contestants on Survivor. And it always happens at one point, where the Black contestants get booted out boom, boom, boom, and that’s exactly what this is right now.” I won’t offer any interpretation, I’ll just say that Maryanne won that season and Kyle won S48. Ryan (S43), Lauren (S44), Bruce & Katurah (S45), Soda, Tevin & Tiffany (S46), Sai, Star & Cedrek (S48), and Nate, MC, Jawan and Kristina all made deep runs since then. And of course, this season had only four Black players out of 24. One (Kyle) was medevaced, and two Black women (Cirie and Tiffany) were in the Final 6.

That’s what I’ve got (which was probably too much anyway). Let’s fast forward to the inevitable letdown that will be Survivor 51.

And away we go…

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The band is drowning out Probst as he talks about the celebrity twists…and I don’t mind.

There’s a dude who looks like Woo from S28: Cagayan and S31: Cambodia) in the front row.

Rizo: “Words can’t describe what I pulled off today (removing Cirie).” Doesn’t he remember it was Aubry who pitched it to him?

Tiffany is pissed off at Aubry. For Aubry’s sake, she should hope she has gotten better at damage control than she was with Debbie, Julia and Scot in S32: Kaoh Rong. But it looks like Aubry just lost Tiffany’s possible Jury vote.

Aubry: “It’s not my job to make this alright for her.” You’re right. It’s your job to make sure she doesn’t get pissed off at you in the first place. Aubry should be asking herself, “How did Cirie figure out it was my plan?” If she did that, she’d know her real problem was trusting Rizo.

Aubry in confessional: “This is what I have to do to win.”

Jonathan in confessional: This is what Aubry can say to win.”

Gee, I wonder who’s gonna win?

A standing ovation for Cirie. It’s new to have a live interview segment this early. I don’t think they’d do this if she didn’t win the Fan Favorite vote.

She even gets an award? I’m surprised it wasn’t called the “Got off the couch” Award.

Another massive obstacle course. I wonder if this is the same one that Liz helped Kenzie win in S46? The puzzles are a little different.

There’s no spelling involved in the puzzle. Does this mean Jonathan and Joe have a chance?

That fishing pole thingy is new. Imagine that? Something new in a challenge!

Probst “It’s like Jonathan built and designed this challenge himself.” Or maybe this challenge was built for an Alpha male challenge beast? This is like the NBA changing it’s rules in 1990 to help Michael Jordan.

Shocker! Jonathan and Joe have a lead after the physical parts of the challenge. Rizo falls way behind on the puzzle. Is he good at any challenges?

Jonathan must have thought he saw some letters on his puzzle.

Wow, Tiffany was ahead on the puzzle, but Jonathan is making a good comeback. And Rizo stops to watch them.

Damn, that was a close one! But Jonathan’s excessive celebration probably means he just lost Tiffany’s jury vote. Yeah, it’s pretty easy to see Tiffany is a goner.

Now it’s Devens and Christian’s turn for an interview segment. I’m scanning the crowd because I heard all the previous winners were invited to the finale. But then I saw a post from Richard Hatch that said he didn’t get invited. So far, I haven’t seen anyone. Rizo pulls an Ozzy and tries to kiss Tiffany’s ass to get her Jury vote.

Tiffany thinks she can swing Joe into voting for Aubry, but I think she’s selling it too hard. I don’t think she’s got a prayer of swinging two votes to Aubry. Like Mike White said, “Survivor is really about being able to persuade other people to do what you want.” Tiffany isn’t good at that. I gave her half credit for removing Moriah from S46 but that’s it.

Probst interviews Mike White. I bet he won’t ask if he’s still angry at Christian. Yep, I was right, but I’d be shocked if he did. But you KNOW it would have come up if the reunion was held on day 26.

Tribal Council, and Tiffany looks like she already knows it’s over. Cirie was right when she told Tiffany, “If I go now, you gon’ be next.”

Tiffany goes off on Rizo’s brownnosing, and Jonathan defends what Rizo said. Yeah, Tiffany’s not voting for Jonathan. And I think Rizo realizes he lost her vote too. Rizo plays his Idol and nobody cares…again.

Tiffany is gonna vote for Aubry to prove herself right. She told the guys Aubry will beat them. Voting for any of the guys makes Tiffany look like fool.

Tiffany is epitomizing the bitter juror ... and I love it.

Tiffany is gone, and I’ve never wanted a final 4 vote more than I want it right now.

Right after Tiffany’s segment at the reunion, I saw Austin from S45 in the crowd, and I think I saw Drea from S42. After her behavior on the Ponderosa that season, I’m surprised she was invited back.

Watching them reading treemail feels like a waste of time. All I care about now is can Aubry pull off that timely win?

Aubry’s confessional is green screened and badly. How long after the game was this recorded? There are no scars on her legs and no dirt under her fingernails.

Simmotion is the Final 4 Immunity Challenge. I know the fans voted for it, but I’m tired of this one. I voted for the 50-foot Pachinko machine.

Probst: “You’ve got one thing to focus on now ... balls.”

Whoa! While Ozzy and Stephenie were being interviewed by Probst, I thought that was my man Earl in the yellow jacket behind them ... but sadly I was wrong.

Talking to a bunch of players while the game is in progress was a good idea. This way they don’t have to rush through their answers at the end.

Watching Simmotion only becomes interesting to me after the third ball.

Jonathan drops out just before Rizo.

Joe drops out and Aubry wins the $2 million, err, I mean Immunity. Joe finished second to Kyle in this challenge in Survivor 48 too.

Dammit, there’s a fire challenge. This is a no-brainer. Put Jonathan and Rizo in. Joe is the easiest to beat. It doesn’t matter who wins the fire challenge. They’re pretty easy to beat too.

This is so anti-climactic. I’m so certain Joe and Rizo will get zero votes now, the only question is whether or not Coach, Chrissy and Stephenie will blindly vote for Jonathan as an “Honor and integrity” alliance member.

How appropriate would it be if super-cocky Rizo calls his shot and becomes the first one to lose two Fire challenges? Sorry Rizo, but I have to say it. Ozzy wanted you in the finals with him and Cirie. If you’d warned him to play his Idol, you might not be in this position.

Joe coaches Rizo at making fire. He did the same with Eva in S48, then she blew his mind by telling him how smart she really is. Joe doesn’t learn his lesson, but I did like his “Give them both a sword” analogy.

Even though Rizo is getting better at making fire, I don’t care who wins the Fire Challenge. They’re not beating Aubry.

Most of the jurors are smiling when Aubry says she’s taking Joe to the finals.

We’ve had 21 fire making challenges. The player sitting on screen left has won 13 of them.

Jonathan takes the yellow station on the right, Rizo takes red on the left. Yellow is 4-3 in fire challenges, Red is 4-5, but it should be noted that in S38 both Devens and Chris Underwood had a red station. I know, I proudly admit, I’m hopelessly obsessed with Survivor.

WOW, Probst really screwed up! He put Rizo in the final Jury seat before the fire challenge aired. This season is even more anti-climactic than I thought. How is it possible nobody caught this?

Ok, make that Yellow is 5-3 and red is 4-6. Left side has 13 wins, Right side has 9. Let’s watch the fire challenge now.

There doesn’t seem to be much wind this season. Jonathan’s fire is burning pretty vertical.

Rizo, this is unforgivable, especially after losing the fire challenge last time.

Well, at least Rizo got his wish. He’s a legend now. His name will always be the first one that comes up when the fire challenge is mentioned.

Aubry doesn’t have to worry about another finalist claiming the Cirie boot was their move now.

I take it back. Joe might get a vote from Coach, who always votes for whoever wins the most challenges. Joe won 3, Jonathan won 2. I think Aubry wins 8-2-1.

Whoa, the final 3 get to see their loved ones? Ok, I like this twist. But it would suck if they’re at Final Tribal Council. I’ve only seen a couple of seasons of Australian Survivor, but in one of them, the guy who lost had his kids standing there to see it. That was just brutal.

Final Tribal Council I wonder how badly Jonathan will be embarrassed when his jurors tell him “No, that wasn’t your move, I did that?”

I wonder if anybody will bother to ask Joe a question?

Wait, did Joe just admit he had to lie to get to the end? Did he actually learn from his mistake? I’m proud of you Joe, but you should have owned it sooner.

Oh wait, Coach just said Joe tried to play with honor and integrity, then threw that out the window at the merge. Coach isn’t voting for Joe.

She’s got this in the bag, but I hope Aubry isn’t afraid to take shots at Joe and Jonathan. She let Michele off the hook way too much in Kaoh Rong. Go for the jugular girl! Be like Sophie Clark when she compared Coach to a young girl. Be like Dee when she told the jury how badly she fooled Austin for so long. Make the jurors feel too embarrassed to vote for one of the guys.

Aubry: ‘I wasn’t gonna let that fear of hurting people prevent me from playing the game I needed to play.” Way to go, Aubry!

Jonathan tries to own the Ozzy boot, and Aubry takes it away. Then Joe’s dedication to honesty buries Jonathan.

Stephenie babbles on about why she’s voting for Jonathan, and Tiffany asks “Is this a question?” I loved the way Tiffany called out Stephenie’s BS. Stephenie actually inspired Tiffany, Dee and Cirie to defend Aubry. Nobody listens to Stephenie, which is probably a good thing.

Cirie to Joe “Every player here had to babysit you through a vote.” Damn, that was cold-blooded ... and I loved it.

How ironic is it that Emily is asking them about being self-aware? Emily had no idea how much her mouth hurt her allies and of course, herself too.

Jonathan tries to own the Dee vote. I’m surprised Cirie didn’t shut him down on that one. Maybe it was edited out.

Yeah, I’m seeing 8 votes for Aubry. Chrissy and Stephenie greatly overestimated their ability to persuade people to vote for Jonathan. I think they actually pushed a couple of jurors who were considering Jonathan to go back to Aubry. FWAP!!!

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Recap

That was about as anti-climactic as you can get. Aubry wins 8-3-0.

Aubry closed it out well. She had a much better Final Tribal Council than she had in Kaoh Rong. Jonathan put up a good fight, but it was over before it began. I think fighting with Dee and Devens, and celebrating so hard in Tiffany’s face cost him votes from those jurors and their allies Cirie, Rizo, Emily and even Christian. Ozzy knew it was Aubry’s actions (and not Jonathan’s) that sunk his ship too. Joe was too much of a follower.

I bet Aubry isn’t upset that Emily spelled her name wrong.

I’m happy for Aubry. She didn’t play an elite game, but she did play the type of game I usually endorse in that she kept herself right in the middle of the pack for most of the game. That’s impressive considering she started off on the bottom and had a tough time pulling herself up. She had a couple of embarrassing moment, like that first conversation with Genevieve, her horrible “I forgot to play my Idol” lie, but she adjusted very well.

I keep a list of the best moves a winner makes during the game. I’m not sure what Aubry’s was. Maybe it was the Ozzy blindside, but Ozzy really shot himself in the foot on that one. And the Cirie boot was more of an obvious group decision. It just didn’t make sense to vote anyone else out. Nobody was ever gonna let Cirie get to the end.

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Live reunion recap intro:

Live Reunion recap: I know I’m in the minority, but I prefer seeing the votes read at Final Tribal Council when we get immediate feedback from the players. There’s a lot more sincerity on day 26 because players aren’t influenced by audience feedback or social media.

The motivation to save face is always greater at a live reunion. Filming on this season ended on July 1 last year. Players are forbidden to share any information publicly, so they talk to each other for 10 months. They find out why ___ did ___, or who really controlled the vote to remove ___. They get new information from watching the broadcast. At a live reunion, many players will take something they learned after the game was over and claim they knew what was up while they were playing the game. I won’t be at all surprised if someone like Coach or Stephenie says, “I knew that Idol at Tribal Council was a phony all along.” After watching the entire season, reunion players are known to say “They didn’t show it, but I was really the one who did____. Players who were angry at each other during the game (like maybe Kamilla and Jonathan) may have made up over the last 10 months, and will be less willing to share embarrassing information about each other at a reunion.

And if Probst asks “If (Cirie, Devens) made it to the final 3, who would have voted for them?” would anyone dare not to raise their hand with the audience screaming their heads off? Or suppose Aubry and Jonathan are in the finals together and Aubry wins. On day 26, Jonathan may have been overconfident and arrogant. But 10 months later, after talking to everyone and realizing he didn’t win, he can be a much more gracious loser.

It will be interesting to see how the audience reacts to some of the players. Will Stephenie get booed for her inflammatory remarks made public by Eliza? What will Ozzy say if he’s asked how he reacted to Cirie calling him an “idiot” in confessional?

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Live reunion recap:

Damn! Dee looks fine!

Since they interspersed so many player interviews into the program, there’s only 12 minutes left for post-winner reveal comments, some of which will be used to hype Season 51, and to announce the Fan Favorite winner. There won’t be time for Zac Brown, Billie Eilish, Jimmy Fallon or Mr. Beast. I wonder if a celebrity asked to take their name off of the Power Broker Advantage?

I thought it was funny how Aubry was very specific about what she learned from winners Sandra, Sarah, and Chris Underwood, but came up empty from what she learned from Michele. To this day, Michele still doesn’t know how she won. I’ve asked a lot of Michele supporters to tell me how she won, and they’re still coming up empty. My opinion hasn’t changed. Michele won because the jurors were pissed off at Aubry and Tai. Nothing Michele did intentionally got her that win.

I’m glad the “honor and integrity” players fell on their faces. Survivor is no place for complete honesty. It is instead a license to lie.

Hey, there’s Tina and Ethan in the crowd. I guess some winners WERE invited.

Aubry gets a car too? That’s a great way to break the car curse.

Cirie wins the Sia money. That was also anti-climactic.

And they follow up that audience screaming moment with a “Who are these players?” Survivor 51 preview. And they make it worse by saying there’s gonna be more twists. And it looks like there isn’t a player over 30 in the cast.

I liked this season overall, even with the annoying twists. Survivor is only as good as the people playing it, and an all-returning player season probably can’t fail in that department.

What do you think? Did you like the season? What do you think of Aubry as a winner? What was her best move? What was her biggest mistake and how did she recover from it? Did Tiffany have a shot of beating her? Would Jonathan or Joe had a better chance if they’d put their partner on the Jury? Do you think anyone besides Cirie should have won the Sia money? Let me know in the comments. If Jeff will have me, I’ll be back next season for sure.