Week 4 of SurvivorAU: Australia v The World had just one episode, but it was kind of a big deal: the finale. It also had only one challenge, one vote-out (you'll never guess who just barely missed the finals) ... but also a really satisfying Final Tribal Council and a clearly deserving winner. (The one with the halo, above.)

That winner is of course Parvati Shallow, who was the central character the entire way through. It was the end everyone saw coming, pretty much from the premiere on, but in that sense, it was the completion of an arc (just as Parvati said in confessional several times along the way). So the predictability is not a bad thing, it's the satisfying tying together of narrative threads.

And honestly, the jury had no other plausible choice here, when the other two finalists were Luke Toki and Janine Allis. Each did *something* this season, I guess. Janine drove the Kirby blindside (with Cirie), more or less against Parvati's instincts. Luke convinced Parvati to rip up her idol-steal advantage somehow, which allowed him to keep his idol, and he won three straight immunities.

But what's most damning about their games is that neither one voted anyone out until Episode 6, the second vote of the post-merge (well, Ep7 for Luke, the third jury-phase vote) ... which in both cases was when they joined up with Parvati and Cirie. After that, they voted correctly the rest of the way ... with Parvati and Cirie. Luke and Janine voted wrong on the David boot, the George boot, and the Sarah boot. They were so out of the loop that I wondered at the end of week two (Ep6! Two thirds of the way through the season!) if Luke would *ever* vote someone out this season.

In contrast, Parvati was 8-for-8 up until the final four vote, where she was only wrong because poor Cirie (barely) failed at fire-making again. And because Parvati "didn't see" that Janine might have been misleading the two Americans about being with them over Luke. (Scare quotes because I think Parvati was secretly okay with that outcome, and was prioritizing Parvati winning over Cirie making it to the finals - as she should! - more on that below.)

Not only that, but incredibly, not a single person ever voted against Parvati the entire season, which is kind of incredible, considering she was a returning winner, had a very obvious ride-or-die in Cirie, and was clearly *extremely* good at endurance challenges, which everyone should have known (except Parvati, apparently) would be the final IC.

So on paper, even before Final Tribal started, Parvati obviously should have won, but she didn't rest on that record. She gave compelling answers to every question at Final Tribal Council, and swatted down Luke's one otherwise impressive accomplishment (getting her to rip up her advantage) by simply saying that worked out for her, too. In contrast to Parvati's smooth Final Tribal delivery, Luke's statements felt a bit jumbled, and Janine's claims to have played the best game fell completely flat. And with JLP framing the vote as being for "the greatest Survivor player of all time"? That certainly didn't hurt Parvati's chances. Were people seriously picking Janine or Luke over Parvati in her fifth and most dominant season? (Okay Sarah did vote Luke, but going against the grain is what Sarah does.)

Australia v The World final verdict: A massive success

When SurvivorAU: Australia v The World was first announced, there were a lot of hesitant eyebrow raises. Yes, SurvivorAU has been on a massive hot streak ever since AU8: Heroes v Villains, with every season easily besting tepid new-era US Survivor in dramatic highs and lows, overall gameplay, and oversized, entertaining characters. (Survivor 45 was very good, but that's about it in that time period.) But 16 days? Only 14 contestants? Could that really work?

It did. Spectacularly! (Don't listen to Shonee's naysaying above, that's a joke.)

Sure, there were some small things that could be slightly tweaked. The pre-merge felt really short, and the merge falling mid-week in Week 2 just felt a bit off. Six pre-merge episodes (with maybe with a swap in Ep4?) would have worked a bit better. Also, starting with eight-person tribes rather than the gender-imbalanced seven would be optimal. Sixteen people - "Just like Borneo!" - does have a ring to it.

But apart from that (okay, and maybe please no back-to-back Tribals like the one that took out Tommi), no real complaints here. The one-day IC/Tribal cycles at the end worked out just fine. It's a sped-up game, people knew that, and adjusted. What this season did exceptionally well was the casting: To a person, all formidable players who all played their hearts out. If that component can be replicated, even if the format's exactly the same, please greenlight a sequel season, Channel 10?

Putting Parvati's win in context

Because a significant portion of the online Survivor fandom are heavily Parvati-leaning in the first place, her victory this season was all but universally hailed as a great accomplishment. Which is appropriate, Parvati played a nearly flawless game. But as we get further away from it, it's hard not to notice that she benefited pretty heavily from the format and casting. (But as I'll get to at the end, that's not necessarily a mark against her, as an in-game comparison shows.)

Parvati was put on a tribe (of seven) with two other US alumni, one of whom (Cirie, obviously) had been in a Final Three alliance with her almost two decades ago and was tight with her from Day 1 here. That's a massive help, although to be fair, the other one was less beneficial. Parvati was at best frenemies with Tony after Winners at War, and he was well aware she did not vote for him to win that season. But he was also a bigger perceived threat than she was, as a two-time winner, and was one of just three men on a seven-person tribe, making him a useful shield/target. And also the 4-3 female majority meant she and Cirie, who famously led the first successful women's alliance, had one already built-in, should they want that.

Not only that, but there were a plethora of endurance challenges for individual immunity - three out of eight, nearly half! - and Parvati does famously well at these. The final challenge in particular was perfect for someone like Parvati - small but extremely fit, with a good strength-to-body-weight ratio, and strong pain tolerance. (They at least refrained from using "Get a Grip.") There was not a single challenge the entire season that ended in a puzzle (sorry, Cirie and Lisa). Parvati had the numbers in the pre-merge, and the challenges in the post-merge. And more ....

Parvati also found the key to the mysterious box Rob won in the opening challenge, which led her to the Palesa Tau/Adam Klein podium idol ... which she never even needed! And she also found the idol-steal advantage, which appeared completely useless (since the two other idols were secret), but Parvati found a way to use it effectively against not one, but two other players. So while she was extraordinarily advantage-laden in this season, she actually got more mileage out of not playing them than she would have from deploying them as intended. Pretty impressive.

But wait, there's even more, and similarly, this final advantage paradoxically demonstrates what Parvati did best this season. As the audience and World tribe players learned in the premiere, she also entered the game with a secret alliance with David Genat on the Aussie tribe, which they had formed while working together on Deal or No Deal Island, which had filmed just before this season did, but nobody else playing had been able to watch.

While that may seem like one advantage too many, it aptly illustrates how well Parvati played all of this. Compare and contrast: On the one hand, we have David, a competent, aggressive player who's extremely good in challenges, has already won a SurvivorAU all-star season, and who had not one, but *two* of his closest allies from his first season (Luke and Janine) AND a close friend from their modeling days (Sarah) on his starting tribe. How did David fare? He was the first boot from that starting tribe. Parvati, in contrast, survived not just Rob Bentele's mid-Tribal reveal of her David connection during the World tribe's first Tribal, she survived every Tribal after that, and never received a single vote against her. Incredible!

Yes, Parvati clearly had a very advantageous starting position. But the important thing is: She saw that opportunity and maximized it, while somehow convincing everyone else not to pick her off as an obvious threat. Everyone *should* have been writing her name down! She won the first individual immunity! Everyone knew she and Cirie were a tight duo! It made no sense *not* to target her, especially when the other big targets were being taken out. But nobody did (well, Tommi and Kass thought about doing it, but quickly backtracked, and paid the price for it). Parvati's social skills got her all the way to the end, and she delivered a convincing case for the win. Luck plays a part in every season of Survivor. Parvati made sure the luck stayed with her and her numbers.

Cirie and Parvati 4ever! (As long as Parvati wins)

As I said before, the ending felt like it had been heavily foreshadowed, with Parvati's frequent references to traveling to Samoa to right what she saw as an incorrect jury verdict in S20: Heroes vs. Villains. But there was one other story arc that was still possible to pay off as we entered the finale, and that was Cirie's quest to finally reach the point where she could state her case to the jury. So that lent a bittersweet note to Episode 10, as Cirie fell just short once again. But for all the focus on Cirie and Parvati's long-standing friendship in the finale, and especially at Final Tribal, you have to wonder if this was the move (or non-move, sort of) that won Parvati the game.

Make no mistake, I think Parvati was being 100% genuine when she called Cirie "my Survivor soulmate." Cirie, in casting her vote for Parvati, called her "The greatest player of all time." And the evidence shows that Parvati did stick with Cirie throughout the game, and at least forced the 2-2 tie at Final Four, giving Cirie a shot at the finals, however remote that seemed at the time. All of these can be true at the same time. And yet I think Parvati realized (as she told Mike Bloom after the fact, in her exit interview), her chances of winning were much better if Cirie was a juror than if Cirie was sitting next to her in the Final Three. Parvati was playing to win. As she should!

In Episode 8, we had just lost Kass (in part thanks to Parvati's brilliant advantage bluff) and Tommi. Lisa, as the sole remaining (non-US) international player, knew she was probably next. There were only six people left, and Parvati and Cirie are tight with Luke and Janine now (for the last 12 hours, at least). Luke talks Parvati into destroying her idol-steal advantage, "for trust." The same advantage that would allow Parvati to steal Luke's idol while playing her own at Final Five, guaranteeing Parvati and Cirie *both* make it to the Final Four. (As we now know, that wasn't necessary, because Luke - of all people to trust! - decided to stop making crazy moves once he had torpedoed that advantage. Go figure.)

Lisa, meanwhile, pointed out to Cirie that Luke and Janine are really tight. They are about as close a pair as Parvati and Cirie are. And how do you get to a final three with four people? So if they boot Lisa - who really likes Cirie! - as expected, that will leave Luke and Janine's original tribemate Shonee as the swing vote. Is Shonee *really* not going to stay Aussie strong with Luke? Do they really believe that?

Here, the theoretical risk to Parvati was minimal. She has an idol, it's still good for two more votes. She has a good chance of winning the next (F5) challenge anyway, and maybe she can protect Cirie with the idol then. But Cirie is definitely at risk if Lisa's not there, because Cirie is not going to win the F5 IC, unless it's mostly a puzzle - in a season with zero puzzles. So why not target Janine, as Lisa suggests? To be fair, Cirie really did seem to like Janine, who co-led the Kirby blindside with Cirie. But it's hard to believe Cirie thought Janine was more in her corner than was Lisa.

But despite Lisa's pitch making sense to Cirie, and to Shonee, who's just happy to be part of something ... Parvati and Cirie vote with Luke and Janine, and Lisa is gone. Again, "this all works out fine, why are you questioning this?" I'm questioning because the person it works out least well for in that quartet is Cirie. It's great for Luke, he still has his idol! He's guaranteed a spot in Final Four! It's great for Janine, she's still here, and if Luke wins the IC (as he does), she probably gets his idol (which he hasn't told her about) or the necklace (she does). Cirie is now one of two Americans vs. three Aussies, and she's the one who doesn't have an idol.

That brings us to the Final Five vote. Shonee pitches, "I'd like to work with you guys" to both pairs, and points out Janine is a professional public speaker, and convinces people to do things as her job. Don't want to face that at the end! And that Luke and Janine are rock-solid, whereas Shonee will go wherever. She could help Cirie and Parvati break up Luke and Janine. (As could have Parvati's advantage, which is now kaput). Cirie likes the idea! Shonee, Cirie, Parvati vs Luke at Final 4 is much more likely to be a simple 3-1 vote, with no fire-making. But nope, it's trust-trust-trust all the way! So long, Shonee! ("Lisa needs braces... Dental plan...") Pairs to the end!

Keep in mind that at both of these votes, Luke had immunity. Parvati knew about his idol at both of them, too. Even if he didn't use his idol, he's a big immunity threat, so it made sense for Parvati's game to keep him around, because it made her own profile lower. He's a meat shield. That's good, solid gameplay on her part. The question was: Why keep Janine? Why keep Luke happy? If he's isolated, he's one vote. He can win every last necklace, but Parvati will be choosing who goes. But with Janine around, Luke can shift the direction of the game. Crucially, if Luke continues his IC run at F4, and Janine is still in the game, Parvati and Cirie are in huge trouble.

If Luke wins F4 IC, Janine can *only* vote for Parvati or Cirie. Luke will never vote for Janine. In that scenario, unless they can pull out a fire-making win, one of Parvati or Cirie is 100% the final juror, and given that the Aussies all saw Cirie lose at fire-making once this season, there's one guess as to whom they would choose. They would probably have faced the same dilemma if Shonee had been there instead of Janine, but at least there it's not as clear-cut. And if they'd just kept Lisa around, Luke is out 3-1 at Final Four if he doesn't win immunity (which, as Cirie probably knew, since she'd watched every AU season, is always endurance, which Parvati is likely to win, given Luke's two previous endurance appearances this season).

To reiterate: All of these scenarios where Janine stays at F6 and F5 end up with fairly good odds for Parvati, and grim ones for Cirie. But you can't fault Parvati for - even if it was subconsciously - choosing outcomes that favored her over Cirie. Luke and Janine were more committed to Parvati than to Cirie, and Kass and Lisa were closer to Cirie than to Parvati. That's not a hard decision to make, if you're Parvati. Her primary goal *should* be doing things that help Parvati win. Which is what happened. It was, if anything, a very subtle series of decisions that added up to effectively allowing Cirie to leave the game and head to the jury, while appearing to be working for the opposite outcome. Probably the nicest way to vote out your closest ally, while keeping your hands clean. (Far more elegant than Jesse vs. Cody, for example.) And maybe that's the best way possible to do it all.

So where does this leave us? Well, Parvati assures us she is now retired from Survivor, whereas Cirie has already completed her participation in Survivor 50, which we'll see in 2026. I'm still hoping Cirie might finally get her crown (or at least a finalist tiara) on that one, but for all the same reasons AU v World was the optimal set-up for Parvati, it was also the best situation Cirie is ever likely to find - short season, on the same starting tribe as someone she can trust implicitly (and with Lisa there too, as a bonus!). Unlike Parvati, Cirie didn't see a single challenge that favored her skillset (puzzles) the entire season. But in no sense does Cirie's draw in Survivor 50 look remotely as favorable as this. She's on what looks like the designated disaster tribe. With 24 players, she'll need a lot of luck just to reach the merge. All the same: It's Cirie. If anyone can find a way to get through to the end again, I have confidence she can do it.

And one final note: As we see above, the last torch Jonathan LaPaglia snuffed as host of Australian Survivor was Cirie's. It's still unbelievable JLP was fired as host, simply for what sounds like budgetary reasons. If this show could simply sign a licensing agreement to stream in the US, could that have helped bump up the bottom line enough to keep him? What about an AU merch store, with buffs and t-shirts, and such?

It's painful to watch all these elite international Survivor franchises, especially Australia and South Africa, face cancellation in their prime, while US Survivor keeps stumbling along, ignoring any and all fan feedback, rigidly sticking to the same tired format, and getting renewal after renewal with no changes, like a distinguished but clearly fading tenured professor plodding along in place, as energetic, high-performing younger faculty members fail to find an opening and are cut loose. Oh well, on to S50: In the Hands of the Fans and AU 12: Redemption (and more immediately, S49), I guess.