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.