Survivor Season-Finale Recap: We Who Are About to Rock

Whilst I unquestionably adore everyone in the final three, I think something Jeff mentioned to Maria is making this game’s final stages frustrating for me. He stated that the hard thing about being also very good is that it would make you a target. What ends up occurring is there are 3 mediocre gamers at the finish for the reason that all the C learners maintain receiving alongside one another to assassinate the honor roll. What we’re left with is a considerably unsatisfying conclusion to a very bonkers time. That reported, it does come to feel superior to see that a pleasant person eventually finished very first, in spite of traditional wisdom.

As the episode starts off, it’s just immediately after Maria will get her hand caught in the cookie jar, the cookie jar being trying to vote out her key ally/America’s Major Taylor Swift Supporter. She attempts to notify Charlie that all people was telling her all working day they would vote for him, but she got bamboozled by Kenzie, Liz, and Ben. Charlie, of training course, is aware of this is bullshit due to the fact he’s been doing the job with them just as closely as Maria, which shows that his “close no door” principle of gameplay was a big asset.

Going into the obstacle, Maria is the a person to defeat, and she’s also competing to be the 1st female contestant to gain 4 specific immunities, a record that this 47-12 months-previous mom very rightly deserved. The problem is a bunch of hurdles adopted by a puzzle, but in a twist, the puzzle is not the conclusion it tells the gamers a series of clues so they can determine out the mix, and the moment they determine that out, they earn. Kenzie has to be reminded of this when she finishes her puzzle and throws her hands in the air like she has just landed a landing.

Kenzie and Maria are both working on the puzzle, and Kenzie is pulling ahead. We then see Liz do something that is practically unheard of in a Survivor finale. As Kenzie is making an attempt to figure out the combo, Liz reads her puzzle and figures out that Kenzie demands to rely the holes in a plank from a a lot before obstacle. Liz voluntarily goes back, gets the plank, counts the holes (incorrectly at initial, I might add), and basically assists Kenzie just edge out Maria. Kenzie usually wins the reward, and when Jeff asks who she would like to just take, she suggests, “I’m torn in between Liz and Ben.” She’s torn? Who does she feel she is? Natalie Imbruglia? She doesn’t get to be torn Liz literally won the obstacle for her! The good thing is for her, Liz tells Kenzie she’s allergic to pasta, so she need to just take Ben alternatively.

It is crystal clear that considering that Maria did not gain, she’s going property and, no make any difference how many times they convey to her it should be a compliment that it took two of them to conquer her, she nevertheless doesn’t really believe it. Maria is likely around camp telling everybody that Ben is a huge risk, that it looks like he has not been actively playing the sport because he’s been playing this tremendous stealthy match, and he’ll annihilate them all in the finale. Um, the purpose it seems like Ben was not taking part in a match is because he wasn’t. This guy wrote down his very best friend’s title because he was drunk on pizza, and Maria assumed she was going to convince men and women he was a secret mastermind? Please. I really feel like if she had carried out this to Kenzie and Ben about Liz, she may well have had a improved chance, but she was really doomed. The subsequent tribal council is more like a funeral due to the fact all people is aware of that Maria’s game is deader than the people today that little kid saw in The Sixth Feeling. (Spoiler notify!)

The last problem is exceptional — it need to be named Demise Plinko. The gamers have to throw a ball up a pinball-esque rig, and even though the ball is rolling down, they can remedy a puzzle, but they have to throw the ball again all over again right before it hits the bottom, or they get a penalty although their ball rolls down a very slow entice. They do a similar challenge each individual period on Major Brother, apart from the puzzle normally falls aside if you never hit a button in time. Anyway, this is a great ultimate obstacle because it assessments all types of great skills that are not strength or stamina, which I imagine are belongings that are wildly above-indexed in this match anyway.

Simply because it’s something that is hard for everyone, then everyone can win. However, it is a minor surprising to everyone, such as Ben, that he’s the just one who can take the necklace. But as quickly as he gets back to camp, he begins agonizing about who he will check with to make hearth in the remaining 4. He appreciates he would like Liz long gone because he can’t conquer her, but that implies he has to make a decision whether to put up his working day 1 brother from a different mother and Dumb and Dumber alliance member or Kenzie, the female who has served him through night terrors just about every time the sunlight goes down. He in the end decides that Kenzie and Liz need to make hearth.

Rather of recapping that excruciating fire face-off, and whilst I have Daddy Moneybags Vulture III’s soapbox, I would like to publish why I hate the finale structure of Survivor in standard. 1st of all, the hearth-creating problem sucks. Liz is not excellent at it, not for the reason that she hasn’t practiced or accomplished it all seasons, but since her wrist ligaments are also massive, so she has clompy wrists. (How does Liz, on a primary human amount, function every working day?) That Liz should really go dwelling since of nothing other than that and not the penalties of anything she said or did is bullshit. I’ve explained it before, and I’ll say it again: it is “Outwit, Outplay, Outlast,” not Outkindle. To boil someone’s overall activity down to one particular ability — one skill that is essential for survival, indeed, but not crucial for the recreation — misses the total point of what we’re undertaking below. The game ought to be about method, romantic relationship-constructing, and, yes, physical troubles. Hearth highlights none of these. You could possibly as properly request two folks to lip sync for their lives like it’s RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Also, the choice of sending two people today to fire could still damage a winner’s recreation. What if Liz received and then beat them all? Ben’s victory at Loss of life Plinko would indicate absolutely nothing. That’s why I hate that the biggest decision is at final four relatively than final three. The ultimate choice is successful an immunity obstacle at three and bringing one particular other particular person to the finish. I pass up the drama of that I miss there being a option between two incredibly unique video games instead than, as we have noticed the past pair of seasons, a alternative among one different game and two online games that are basically the same. I never think that Survivor needs to go back to what it applied to be, but I think producers ought to investigate the current endgame. What type of winners is this iteration developing? Is it attainable to do superior?

So, indeed, Kenzie beats Liz, who presents us a great deal of hilarious sass on her way out (“Booooo. Tomato, Tomato.”) The closing a few is Charlie, Kenzie, and Ben, who are all outstanding individuals, but I would not say they’e excellent players. I feel both equally Liz and Maria were greater and deserved to be there, but their targets bought way too massive for the new era. Oh, and although we’re chatting about format alterations: I really like how last tribal is structured to be extra of a dialogue, where people can just chime in and make points. That’s why I go commando I like it free-flowing. That reported, it would seem like this time, other than Q misremembering his personal video game and every little thing that transpired on the beaches, we have reverted back to the “one jury member, a single question” format of ealier seasons. (Kenzie’s spotlight is when Q is misremembering issues, and she claims, “Guys, this is what I experienced to operate with. I have earned this win!”)

None of the closing a few do a very good occupation marketing their games or their overarching approaches. Charlie is the only one who has a philosophy: by no means to shut a door, retain himself safe, and always hold a little bit of power. Ben cops to not really having substantially of a sport and staying “a bit of a goat for a few votes” but highlights how he built good friends with everybody and stayed below the radar, listening to everybody and understanding where the energy was lying so he could side with it. Kenzie is basically just like, “I was wonderful to all of you. Really do not vote me out.” I kid Kenzie, who I really like. She has a great answer for Tiff about how she certain Tiff and Q to keep her close friend Ben alternatively of Tim as a go she really owned. She also owns that her social match was her strategic match, anything that several in the “new era” really don’t want to listen to.

Inevitably, Kenzie gets the most votes, which is unsurprising since she has friends on that jury, particularly Tiff, who would seem to be rooting for her as before long as these 3 sit down. Though she may not have experienced the flashiest video game or created any mad blindsides, Kenzie is a very deserving winner. Comfortable skills are frequently overlooked in this video game, as is coming back from a deficit at the merge. Kenzie has said expertise and managed to phase a comeback when she was down — that is as great of a match of Survivor as anybody has performed. And I hope she does not near down the salon now that she’s loaded mainly because I’d definitely come in for a bang trim.