Survivor needed a shot in the arm. The “new era” has been lacking. I don’t need to get into all the details (again) as to why that is. And then Survivor 46 came along, and oh buddy. What a fun, funny, messy season this was. Strategy may not have been top-level, but with a cast like this, who cares? It started out *very* rough, with the Bhanu-heavy early episodes. But once we was (finally) voted out, the season took off. With Q and Venus and Q and Charlie and Kenzie, and Q, there was no shortage of outrageous moments, fun social gamesmanship. All that was left was to give us a satisfying finale. So let’s get to it!
Nuinui
After voting out Q, Maria has some serious damage control with Charlie, after her failed shot at taking him out. She claims she was forced into voting for Charlie, that the others pulled a bait-and-switch on her. Charlie doesn’t buy it, but of course plays along with her. And credit to Charlie, he doesn’t feel slighted or anything; he would have made the same move had Maria not been immune.
Final 5 Immunity Challenge
For the all-important Final 5 challenge, the castaways race through a series of obstacles to retrieve a rope to drop a bridge, which they cross to pick up a key. They climb a platform to unlock their puzzle pieces. When the puzzle is finished, it will reveal the solution to a combination lock. First player to unlock it wins immunity and a big feast reward.
In a fun new twist, the “solution” isn’t exactly that, but rather it tells you three parts of the challenge that you need to count. And in a weird moment, Liz decides to abandon her puzzle and help Kenzie. We’ll of course never know if this was the difference, Kenzie does end up winning the challenge with Liz’s help.
Kenzie takes Ben on the reward, at Liz’s urging after saying – shocker! – she’s allergic to pasta.
Nuinui/Reward/Pre-Tribal
At camp, Charlie and Maria go idol hunting. Charlie is actually sitting pretty good here. Maria may still need him to advance her game, and she doesn’t know he wants to vote her out.
Maria tries to pitch Ben as the next vote, using his “mistake” vote against Kenzie as the lead-in. Her argument is that it’s possible Ben could have some secret, stealth, big game that could propel him to the win. And this somehow makes some sense to Liz? She says, “What Maria said about Ben is true.” I mean, sure, it’s techincally true that Ben could have some secret moves nobody knows about. But here’s the thing: Maria HAS MOVES EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT! Her game is a known quantity. Vote her out, keep it simple.
Final 5 Tribal Council
This tribal is basically a eulogy for Maria. Everyone talks about how much they like and respect her. Maria accepts her fate with grace, no hard feelings against anyone else, and she’s voted out 4-1, putting her vote on Ben.
Final 4 Immunity Challenge
For the final immunity challenge, all they have to do is put together a puzzle. But obviously there’s a catch. They have a giant pinball table. They roll a ball up the table, and while it makes its way down the table, they can work on the puzzle. When it reaches the bottom, they have to catch it and roll it back up again. If they miss it and it hits a metal bar at the bottom, they have to stop working on the puzzle, and wait for it to slowly roll down a track.
And seemingly against all odds, Ben wins the challenge. I would have guessed he would have gotten brought along to the Final 3, but it makes it harder for both Kenzie and Charlie to make it. They are clearly the two best players left of the four, and it would be ideal for both of them to make it. But Ben should bring Liz and put those two into the fire challenge.
Pre-Tribal
Ben tells Liz he doesn’t think he can beat her, and that he’s leaning towards putting her into fire. This destroys Liz, as she has no confidence in her fire making ability. As we just learned this episode, she has issues with her wrists, making it hard to hold things for too long. She doesn’t think she can physically make fire. Ben doesn’t tip his hand for who he’s putting in between Kenzie and Charlie.
This turns into one of the most excruciating segments in a while. It’s just Ben crying about not knowing her to choose, Kenzie close to tears over struggles in her practicing, and Liz crying. But even without that, it would have been terrible. Just 5-10 minutes of watching players practicing making fire and talking about practicing making fire.
Final 4 Tribal Council/Fire Making
Ben puts Kenzie into fire against Liz. Charlie immediately starts playing to the jury, saying his relationship and friendship with Ben is what got him to the final 3. He very pointedly is saying he’s not being dragged there as a goat, but that specific work he did in the game is what got him to that result.
Liz never even comes close to getting a fire going. Kenzie struggles at first, but eventually gets it, winning in a runaway. More importantly though, we see the jury rooting for Kenzie. Maybe that speaks to how they view Kenzie as a favorite to win, or maybe just her compared to Liz. Either way, it seems like she has a great shot to win here.
Liz keeps crying about how she would have easily won, how “it was over” for everyone else? IN WHAT WORLD?! Thankfully we get some great jury reactions that instantly confirm Liz couldn’t be more wrong about her view of herself in this game.
Final Tribal Council
This is a rough jury. The jury should ask their questions, let the finalists answer, maybe ask for clarification if needed, then be done with it. But they are so involved in this one. So many of them are coming off as incredibly self-important. Soda even gives them a 30 second time limit to answer her question! Like, come on. You want answers, let them provide them. If it needs two minutes, so be it. If 30 seconds is enough, also great.
Surprisingly, Q asks maybe the worst question of anyone. He asks them what they would do with the money, and how it would change their lives. Who cares! Unless someone answers that they’re going to fund terrorism or something, this should have absolutely no bearing on who wins the game.
Before the vote, it felt like Kenzie gave the best performance here. I would personally prefer Charlie from what we’ve seen throughout the season, but would have no issue with Kenzie winning. She owned her game the best of the three, and deserves it based off that criteria.
And Kenzie wins on a 5-3-0 vote.
Things I Liked
- Kenzie won
- Ummm
- Hmmm
Yeah, not a great finale. Pleased with the result, but a pretty weak finish overall. Still, though, when you add everything together, it’s my favorite season of the new era. I can’t go so far as to call it a “great” season, though. The strategy was just too weak. I value cast and how much fun I have watching a given season more than strategy. But it has to have better strategy than 46 to creep into that “great” territory.
And that puts another season in the books, and we head onto Survivor 47.
