Survivor 49

originally aired September 24, 2025 to December 17, 2025

The order players were eliminated and the impact they left behind:

• Nicole (Kele) What a great tribe...Ha! The beginning of this season was an Ulong experience, and Nicole would certainly have fit right in with Ulong back in Palau.
• Annie (Kele) Ditto.  Not only were these two annoying, but they were as hapless as anyone from that long ago tribe.
• Jake (Kele) The biggest and worst loss of Kele, and the season in general, thoroughly dominated every aspect of the game until some jerk of a snake took him out...The kind of personality that seems increasingly impossible for the casting crew to find, would've been at home at literally any other point in the show's history, right from the very start, when quirky was the order of the day, to the present, where ruthless strategizing has become such a burden that, well, you end up with a season like this.  Wasn't brought back for Season 50, and I'm sure there was a good reason.  Maybe this time he really did prioritize his young family.
• Jeremiah (Kele) Too often the show casts players like this.  Thankfully this one didn't last very long.  The one gift of Kele!  The exotic gay man.  Not so much because he's gay, but that they thought, yet again, they were killing two birds with one stone.  I never really wanted to see a Yam Yam again.  So, so long, Jeremiah.
• Matt (Hina) Kind of the prototype of the whole season, vastly overthinking his backstory and its significance to his gameplay, but otherwise a fun guy to have around, and a shame he was voted out so soon.  But that's what kept most of the people who went deep in.  Not because they were good.  But because they got rid of the good ones...
• Jason (Hina) Case in point!  Very easy to like, one of two alternates who got to play this season because two players started playing (this deep into the run and they don't know better???), and so of course he hadda go...
• Shannon (Uli) One of the big eliminations that actually meant something, probably the first and only time Sage used her wicked powers to effect.  Every other time she got what she wanted, it only hurt her. I just realized Shannon was the yoga lunatic.
• Nate (Uli) The film producer who kept his secret identity hidden, for no reason (I miss when they cast openly famous people), whose presence kept people playing who shouldn't.  That's his legacy.  
• MC (Hina) A challenge threat but also very unfortunately someone who had no idea how to navigate the needlessly cutthroat, convoluted gameplay this season. 
• Alex (Kele) One of two remaining original Kele, very likable, and unfortunately very much another victim of how this season played out.  Deserved so much better.
• Jawan (Uli) One of two victim complex players who very unfortunately got to have most of their own way this season, and his elimination led directly to Savannah's victory.  Very, very creepy guy, clearly obsessed with her.  If he'd been smart enough to get past that and actually work with her, she still probably would've won.  But he would come off so creepy.
• Sophie (Hina) For a brief shining moment her gameplay flared brilliantly...and then she needed to go, and she just didn't have the necessary strategic sense to stay in this particular season.
• Steven (Hina) After Jake, very, very clearly the most viewer-friendly player this season, and a pretty decent player...Just not for this kind of season.
• Kristina (Hina) Reading her thoughts after elimination, even the edit can't possibly salvage such a ridiculous ego.  A complete afterthought the whole season, kept around because she wasn't a threat...Too often this kind of player ends up in the finals.  Thankfully, not this time...
• Rizo (Uli) Beyond obnoxious, and they decided to bring him back for Survivor 50...Clearly cast to represent the doofus influencer generation, periodically trying to sell his backstory to feel sympathetic, but spent the majority of his time lost in his own ego.  Kept that hidden idol even while constantly reminding everyone he had it, rubbed it in their faces at tribal council, never figured out he didn't need to play it because he'd just be eliminated, one way or another, because he was being used the whole time...Failed at the classic fire-making challenge, because of course he never cared about actually playing Survivor at any level...
• Sage (Uli) Late in the game, after Shannon's boot, I became confused, as I tend to in recent years, remembering what happened previously.  I honestly convinced myself it was Sage running all those yoga sessions, but it was Shannon.  So I actually have Sage to thank for rescuing me from my single least favorite element of the season.  But then Sage just, in the edit, came off as too petty (along with Jawan, leaving a bad taste in my mouth about the kind of gameplay that worked for so long in the game).  I guess, having realized that, and reading how she viewed her edit, I might have a bit more sympathy.  It doesn't change how her gameplay played out, however, or how desperately she tried to rationalize it (I'll never appreciate Phillip more, not even for influencing Boston Rob to actually write his rulebook).  Hopefully letting this sit a little might help her see her life with a little more clarity.
• Sophi (Kele) Willing to do anything to stay in the game, and inexplicably it worked, because after the Kele implosion and all the twists and turns of resulting tribe swaps, she stuck around, and she no doubt at some point convinced herself it was because of brilliant gameplay.  There was none of that this season.  Except by:
• Savannah (Hina) Her ego is certainly one thing, but her backstory helps explain it, and hopefully she can get over that, now.  Very successfully navigated the chaotic waters of the season, with a psychotic stalker (Jawan) doing everything possible to undermine her, and working, ultimately, against Sage's brainwashed masses, and pulling out immunity victory after immunity victory, and ultimately a very classic model of Outwit, Outplay, Outlast.  A very worthy winner.  Always happy to be able to say that.

Survivor 49: Quick Thoughts

 So Savannah was declared winner. Couldn’t be happier! I would’ve been very pleased with Jake, if he’d been able to stay in the game, or Steven (with no apologies whatsoever to Rizo, if there was indeed a legend playing this season it was Steven), but Savannah was the one who embodied the classic Outwit Outplay Outlast trifecta, and I was rooting for her all season. Alex, more than Sophi. Risked more, played more. MC, if she knew had to strategize. Sophie, if she knew how to strategize. But a lot of the season was playing with bad options no matter how often the tribes were shuffled. And Savannah navigated it brilliantly. The edit made it look like she was basically completely isolated all season, and in some ways she was, but she also had allies, she worked to keep herself in the game. There were a lot of foolish players this season, and they sometimes worked in perfect tandem, and one of them made it to the finals, and got her one vote from another…Listen, you can certainly implode alliances for no other reason than your gameplay really is that strong (Kim in One World being the prime example), but…if it isn’t, you shouldn’t and hopefully can’t win. 

So congratulations, Savannah!

Survivor 48

 originally aired February 26, 2025 to May 21, 2025

The order players were eliminated and the impact they left behind:

• Stephanie (Vula) The first victim of a terrible tribe and/or Sai.
• Kevin (Vula) The first victim of Sai and Cedrek's strange alliance, and the second victim of Mary's inability to counteract Sai's influence on the tribe.
• Justin (Vula) I loved this guy mostly because he works at a pizzeria and wore a shirt that said "Pizza." But he didn't get much by way of an edit, and he was literally the bargaining chip Cedrek offered to try and make peace between Sai and Mary.  That is not a good way to go.  This was a truly idiotic tribe.
• Thomas (Lagi) This right here is where everything went wrong this season, the fact that Thomas had any impact at all.  He shouldn't.  His elimination emboldened, probably, Shauhin, and influenced how poorly that played out the rest of the season.  But more on that later.
• Bianca (Lagi) Another victim of Cedrek's bizarre gameplay.
• Charity (Civa) Another enabler of Sai.
• Saiounia (Vula) The one truly awful aspect of this season was Sai, and not just Sai herself but how much the edit loved her (please don't chime in if you were somehow a fan), and how much influence she inexplicably had on the proceedings.  Her exit before the jury was the best thing that could've happened.  She was lunatic enough to suggest she'd've actively sabotaged its proceedings if she'd made it.  So long, good riddance.  
• Cedrek (Vula) The bizarre flipside of the fruitful two-person alliances that were Joe/Eva and Kyle/Kamilla was Cedrek's inability to see how little value there was in humoring Sai.  His only role was trying desperately to believe she had value.  She did not.  And so he did not.
• Chrissy (Civa) The latest player I really didn't see much value in, second member of the jury.
• David (Civa) Such a rollar coaster ride for this guy!  A member of what I dubbed the Good People Alliance, as he was actually worth rooting for, and so were the other members (so long as they were actually true to the alliance), with a sympathetic story (the Good People Alliance was packed with those; the only player this season who had one who wasn't in was Mitch, which not even Mitch ever realized).  But he couldn't manage his alliance very well, couldn't sell Joe on the obvious reality of Kyle and Kamilla working together, Kyle actively working against his own alliance's interests...Then he gets voted out, joins the jury, and forgets everything that made him great.  Votes for Kyle to win.  For some reason.
• Star (Lagi) I loved Star.  She just didn't have any play this season.  She was the outsider looking in, just in abject amusement at everything happening around her.  I'd absolutely love to see her play again.
• Mary (Vula) The best player, the flipside of Star, to have no play deep into the game, and like Star, awesome to have around just to be able to watch.  
• Shauhin (Lagi) As hopelessly delusional as he happened to be, when Shauhin wasn't deep in his own head he was a good hand to have in the Good People Alliance.  He never realized his only play was to stay loyal.  He couldn't manage that.  He also couldn't admit that he couldn't manage that.  So he voted for Kyle instead of Joe to win.
• Mitch (Civa) Such an annoying player!  Constantly complaining that he was on the outside looking in, talking about making moves...Then never doing anything.  Just wanted to be handed the victory, really.  Didn't seem aware that he was playing Survivor.
• Kamilla (Civa) The secret hand behind Kyle, right up to the end.  Clearly a big game player, but also had no clue how to actually play.  This only worked because Kyle was a member of the Good People Alliance.  I would be much more willing to see her play again, though, than Kyle.  At least she was honest about her gameplay.
• Joe (Lagi) Thoroughly dominated this season.  I guess a lot of fans got tired of his Good People vibe, and I guess even he got a little carried away at times (he was the reality of the perception some players tried to make out of Tom in Palau).  More in a moment.
• Eva (Lagi) One of the most sympathetic players ever (though of course fans got tired of her, too), leaning, eventually, on her shortcomings but also knowing how to use them, not exploit them, mostly because Joe so readily opened himself to not only being a human being to her, but an ally without reservation.  And she and Joe worked the numbers, found allies, and if everyone had remained loyal, as they claimed they would, one of them would be the winner this season.  
• Kyle (Civa) Brilliant gameplay insofar as working two separate alliances, one the group that kept him in control of his fate, and the other that he used as an insurance policy even though it never really knew how to do anything right.  It was only the fact of the Good People not being as Good as they seemed that allowed him to reach the end, and win.  I see the clever maneuvering.  I do.  But I cannot condone it.  I can't call it deliberate.  It fell into victory.  It required David to become embittered (no matter how he tried to play it), Shauhin to reveal how thin his allegiances were, and even Kamilla's apparent schoolgirl crush on a guy who was literally about to (and did) get married.  That's how I see it, anyway.  A memorable season.  Didn't end on the note it deserved.  Casting is just too determined to find conniving players.  This season was a flash on the spirit of earlier days, when it was okay to be good and still have a shot at winning.