#TeamTV baby! All is right in the Survivor world! After a completely dominant run, Tony Vlachos is your Survivor: Winners at War Sole Survivor! I was beyond stressed going into this finale. Winners at War had been a very good, often great season. But there was one little bugaboo hanging around, trying to mess everything up: the Edge of Extinction. Coming in to the finale, the one way to ruin the season would be to have the Edge returnee win the game.
One side note: With how happy I am right now, I will try not to rag on the Edge too much this time around. It will take some shots, maybe catch some strays, but I will hold back much more than I would have had Natalie or another returnee won the game.
One side note, part two: It should be noted that none of my complaints about the Edge have anything to do with Natalie. I like and respect her as a player, and by all accounts she is a wonderful person. All she can do is play the hand she is dealt. It’s just that this particular hand is terrible. And stupid. And bad. But that’s not her fault and it wouldn’t be fair to place any amount of blame on her.
Battle Back Challenge
Each contestant is attached to a rope and have to work through a fence obstacle and then a post obstacle. That’s followed by digging up a rope rung to build a bridge. They finish with a table maze, maneuvering two balls through it.
Natalie, Parvati, Yul, Wendell bought an advantage to skip the fence obstacle. Natalie also bought two more, allowing her to skip the digging portion, along with one third of her bridge being built. It’s been said time and time again, so I won’t go too much into it here. But this was terrible. Advantages and disadvantages have no place in Survivor. At least not in immunity or battle back challenges. You want to have them in a reward challenge? Don’t love it, but sure, go ahead. But not when the stakes are so high. And especially not when certain players massively benefited from being voted out earlier, thus having more chances to earn Fire Tokens to buy said advantages. Someone like Nick came in starting 10 steps behind. Big, important challenges like these should be played on an even playing field.
Even with her massive edge, Natalie struggles with some of the early parts. But in the end she wins, edging out Wendell, Tyson, and Rob. After her win, we get another really nice moment of the now-officially-eliminated players getting one last chance to talk about what Survivor has meant to them. For some of these players (Rob, Ethan, Parv, etc), it may have been a final goodbye. They deserved at least this moment.
And then there was Ethan. Man oh man did that hit hard. His battles with cancer is long known by the Survivor community, but he revealed some information tonight that I was unaware of – and I don’t know how well-known this point was in general. Portions of the money raised by the Survivor Stand Up to Cancer helped fund the drug that fought his disease and saved his life. Survivor literally saved Ethan Zohn’s life. Is it getting dusty in here or is it just me?
Final 6 Immunity Challenge
Each castaway races through an obstacle course and collects a bag of puzzle pieces. They then climb a tower, drop their bag, and go down water slide to collect the next bag. They have three bags to collect, using the pieces to solve a three tier puzzle.
This is what I’m talking about! These are the kinds of challenges I love to see in the endgame. A big, massive physical challenge. This is what it’s all about.
Michele, after being in last place the entire time, comes back in wins immunity. And saying “in last place” is putting it nicely. She was way behind. But as any Survivor fan knows, the puzzle is the only part that matters. That’s where Michele made up her ground and earned her safety through the next vote.
Pre-Tribal
With Natalie being the only olive branch being offered, Michele teams up with her. Natalie confides that she has an immunity idol. Meanwhile, Ben and Sarah are adamant that Natalie doesn’t have an idol or other advantage. But Tony tries to caution them against that idea, thinking it’s extremely likely that she came back into the game with an idol or something else.
Tony wants to split the vote between Natalie and Denise, so that he and Ben can save their idols to guarantee themselves a spot in the Final 4. Sarah and Ben are reluctant to go along with this plan…because reasons. I still can’t come up with a good reason why they wouldn’t go along with it. Split the vote 2-2 on Natalie and Denise, with Natalie and Michele’s votes going on Tony or Sarah, doesn’t matter. If Natalie plays her idol, They vote Denise out on the re-vote. If she doesn’t, Natalie’s out on the re-vote. But instead…
Final 6 Tribal Council
Natalie plays her idol, which triggers Tony and Ben to play theirs and vote out Denise anyway. And Tony gets to give out maybe the most unwanted set of “I told you sos” in the history of Survivor.
Koru
Natalie finds an idol. *Sigh* Moving on…
Final 5 Immunity Challenge
For this challenge, they race through a series of obstacles, collecting key along the way to unlock two sandbags, which are tossed to land on a target.
Tony wins, his fourth Immunity victory on the season.
Pre-Tribal
Spy Nest time! Tony hides out in the trees while Lacina talks to Natalie. Sarah feigns interest in a plan to vote out Ben. Okay, whatever, that’s expected. But then this happens. Lacina notices a bulge under Natalie’s buff which is tied around her wrist. And that bulge? Oh just a little something called an immunity idol.
Natalie wants to try to bring over Sarah to vote out Ben. Tony hides out in his Spy Nest while Sarah brings Natalie to the well for a talk. Sarah notices a bulge in Natalie’s buff tied around her wrist – the idol.
In talking with Sarah, Ben drops a huge Ben Bomb in offering himself up to Sarah as a sacrificial lamb at Tribal Council. He tells Lacina she can use it on her game résumé. Um, okay?
From a gameplay standpoint, I hate this. Ben could have squeaked by this time, leaving open his chances to make it to the Final Four. And everyone knows what a threat he would be in the Fire Challenge. Again, from a gameplay standpoint, I don’t support it, it makes no sense.
But it goes deeper than that. At this point Ben knows he has 0% chance of winning the game. Zilch, nada. And the the other players know it, and the jury knows it. And Ben knows that they know it. So yes, he could have scraped together a few more days and some more money along with it. So why make this move?
Because at this point it’s about more than Survivor. I’ve always been of the mindset that Survivor is just a game until it’s not. And this scene epitomizes that perfectly. In this moment, real life took over, with Ben stating, “I know that no matter what happens, I’m going to walk away form Survivor with my head held high and actually have actual friends. Because having friends is worth more than money.”
Coming on the heels of last week’s discussion about the emotional toll Survivor takes on players, this was a perfect follow-up. It was putting action to those thoughts and comments from just a few days prior. As has been touched on a few times this season, fans often forget that these are real people playing a silly (though awesome) game. They have real feelings and emotions and family and friends to consider. They’re not just characters on a screen, play acting for our amusement. To see Ben take full control of his experience, to make a decision that was better for Ben the man than Ben the Survivor player was a great moment. More power to ya, Ben. Man, this dust just won’t go away. Geez.
Final 5 Tribal Council
And Ben is voted out at Tribal Council. There’s nothing else really to cover here, save for one quote from our man Tony, regarding how difficult it can be to vote out competitors who have become your friends over the course of the season:
“The closer I get to them, the harder it is to vote them out.”
If you want to boil down the problems with the Edge of Extinction to one single sentence, this wouldn’t be a bad one to go with. Natalie didn’t have to deal with this. There was no fallout from a blindside or betrayal. Even in her two Tribal Councils after coming back, she didn’t have any real agency in them. There is a difficult and fundamental social aspect she was able to completely skip over by being the first player voted out.
Final 4 Immunity Challenge
Man do I love this challenge, the ball chute. The players drop a ball in a…chute and catch it as it comes out the bottom. Every so often they add more balls, all while having one hand tied to their side.
Tony’s balls drop first (insert puberty joke here), seemingly cementing his seat in the upcoming Fire Challenge. Sarah drops next, eventually followed by Michele, giving Natalie the win and a (maybe?) guaranteed spot at Final Tribal.
Final 4 Tribal/Fire Challenge
Heading into the finale, I thought for sure that if Natalie found herself in this position she would pull a Chris Underwood and put herself in the Fire Challenge against Tony. However, she chose safety over the power play, instead pitting Lacina and Tony against each other. A very fitting way for the Cops ‘R Us alliance to come to an end.
Much like the Edge, the Final Four fire twist was a controversial addition to Survivor. I’m not a fan, for a multitude of reasons that we don’t need to get into (again, we’re all happy here, let’s roll with the positives).
That being said, this was actually an intense, entertaining challenge. For a moment there, it really looked like Lacina was going to pull it out. But her flame died and Tony’s rose, edging out his partner and friend.
Then there’s there goodbye. They each say they love the other. Tony apologizes. Sarah tells him to enjoy the moment, he’s got this. There’s tears and blubbering. It was so touching to witness this. These two have had quite the relationship, starting all the way back in season 28 in Cagayan. And now here they are, two of the best to ever do it. This is that friendship thing Ben was talking about. And holy heck, will someone get this dust out of my apartment!
Final Tribal Council
What. A. Tribal. Simply incredible. Tony had the jury eating out of the palm of his hand. And Natalie and Michele did a fine job too, to their credit. It seemed like Michele knew she didn’t stand a chance, but nevertheless she remained strong and proud and had some really nice moments. In a season that has been a celebration of Survivor’s 20 year run almost as much as it was its own season itself, a happy, mostly upbeat Final Tribal Council felt like an extremely fitting way to close out the most epic season of the show’s history.
And after it was all said and done, the jury awarded Tony the victory, by way of a 12-4-0 vote. During Tribal, I honestly thought a clean 16-0-0 sweep wasn’t off the table, but earning 12/16 votes ain’t too shabby.
Final Thoughts on the Season
Tony’s Dominance
Tony Vlachos is now arguably the Survivor GOAT (I wish we could change it to LLAMA, but I’m not sure how that acronym would go. Maybe I’ll workshop it over the off-season). At the very least, I think it’s safe to say he’s the most entertaining player we’ve eve seen. Heck, he might be the most entertaining reality TV personality from across the entire genre.
In addition to being the best player, you could also argue this was the best game we’ve ever seen. I’m not quite ready to say that yet myself, but I don’t know how I could argue against it. Kim’s win still stands out, as does Rob’s, even though it was largely against the JV squad.
But beyond the idols and challenge wins and Spy Nest, consider this: the only votes Tony received were the 12 that won him the game. He was never the target to vote out. Not once. Not only that, but he didn’t receive one single vote, not from someone who was out of the loop, not as a back up plan, nothing. For someone who came into the game with a huge target already on his back, that might low-key be the most impressive thing about his game.
The Edge Is Still Terrible
Yep, the Edge sucks. I don’t want to get into it. If you’ve read my stuff, or that of most any person in the (real) Survivor press, you know the myriad of issues. That being said, the Edge was responsible for some great moments this season. We had Ethan’s moment with the log challenge, Ethan’s moment about Survivor literally saving his life. It gave us more time with Survivor icons, players we’ve come to know and love over the course of 20 years and 40 seasons.
So even though the Edge is awful and needs to be kicked to the curb, permanently (it will be set aside for the near future, at least), it still provided some incredible emotional moments. As my man Jake Peralta would say:
Fire Tokens
While definitely flawed (though fair to point out that’s partially due to being directly tied to the Edge) the Fire Tokens showed some real promise. I welcome them back and am excited to see how they play out in a season without the Edge.
Where Does Winners at War Rank?
This is the question, isn’t it? Where does Survivor: Winners at War rank in the pantheon of great Survivor seasons? With so many great seasons, where does it slot in? At first blush, I’d have to say top 10 for sure, at the very least. It didn’t have the elite gameplay like Heroes vs Villains or Micronesia. It of course had a phenomenal cast, but does it beat out the novelty of great newbie seasons like David vs. Goliath or Cagayan? It’s tough to say, but it’s in the discussion. But the other aspect to take into account is how it makes you feel.
The joy I felt when Tony was officially crowned the winner was unlike anything I’ve felt before watching Survivor. Watching these 20 legends step out onto the beach on Day 1 was an experience that will not and cannot be replicated. Because of the nostalgia and history this season represents, it makes it a little more difficult to assign its place in the Survivor lore. But that doesn’t matter right now. For now, let’s just enjoy the fact that we as fans were treated to such a fantastic season and fun experience.
Season 41?
Obviously things are thrown out of wack, what with the COVID-19 pandemic and all. Normally at the reunion show, Probst will offer a preview of the upcoming season, including a brief video clip. But season 41 has been delayed. So, as Probst would say, he’s got nothing for us. He did confirm CBS’s desire to have a season ready to go in the fall, but was unable to offer any concrete details. So only time will tell.
If there is no fall season, I want to come up with some other way to offer some kind of Survivor coverage. Whether it’s looking on/recapping older seasons, different themed op-ed pieces, I’ll figure something out.
A sincere thank you to any and all of you stuck with me through another Survivor season. This show was the reason I started this website in the first place, and writing about Survivor remains my favorite topic to cover. Whether a post gets one view or a million, I do it out of a love for the show, and I truly hope I am able to add to your enjoyment as well. Again, I thank you, I appreciate you, and we’ll see you next time.
