Episode 23
Lava
Coming back to camp, Chrissy is beyond giddy. She’s top five, Mark needlessly played his idol, and she has three tight relationships, with Mark, Josh, and KJ. She’s been a great social player all game, but hasn’t done much, if anything, in the challenge or strategic areas. But a dominant social game could be enough to get her the win.
This is the first vote in forever that Mark doesn’t have an idol to fall back on. He’ll have to do some extra work that he maybe hasn’t had to do in recent votes. The other piece with the idol is that there didn’t seem to be any real backlash from the group. Mark and Sam kept denying its existence, but now that it was revealed, there’s nothing? There shouldn’t be anything, it’s part of the game. But that’s not always how Survivor goes, so it was surprising not to see it really come up after Tribal.
Immunity Challenge
For this challenge, the players drop a ball into the top of a maze, and run down to catch it at the bottom, bringing it back to the top to do it again. They add additional balls at regular intervals. When one ball drops, you’re out.
Shay wins after Mark drops one of his balls. Now Mark really has to go on the offense to keep his name out of the votes.
Pre-Tribal
Now that number one one target Shay is off the block, the tribe needs to find an alternative. Shay wants to target Josh, pegging him as the last person she’d want to sit next to at a Final Tribal. Josh is worried about the three women teaming up. But he knows that if Mark goes out now, he’ll be the target at the final vote. He goes straight to Mark to try to work the votes against KJ. His saving grace may be his relationship with Chrissy, believing he is tighter with her than anyone else is.
In talking about the KJ plan, Chrissy tells Josh she has to consider her possible resume, and that going along with Josh’s plan may not be what’s best for her.
Shay and KJ are working together on voting out Josh, but don’t think they can trust Chrissy to keep that plan a secret. So they instead approach Mark about voting against Josh with them. But Mark isn’t so keen to jump at that plan. If they vote out Josh and he loses the final immunity, he’s gone. But if Josh sticks around, Josh is most likely the one to go.
KJ realizes they may not have Mark, so she talks to Chrissy about changing the vote to Mark. Mark gets a sketchy feeling from Chrissy, forcing him into having to consider voting against Josh. Lots of moving parts here, and we go into Tribal Council without a clear consensus vote. I love it!
Tribal Council
We get a 2-2-1 vote between KJ and Josh (with Mark receiving the single vote from Chrissy). Chrissy flips on the re-vote, sending KJ to the jury. I think Chrissy made a bad call here. If you’re going to vote KJ, vote her from the start. A vote against Mark here might as well be a vote against Josh. Finish the job. We’ll see how Josh and especially Mark react back at camp, but Chrissy could be in a tight spot.
Episode 24
And here are, the season finale. Always an epic night of television. We open the episode with the usual overview of the entire season, before getting into a quick look into each player’s game. And this is really an interesting final four group. Mark and Josh seemingly have played pretty similar games, though we’ve seen more of Mark’s game than Josh’s. Chrissy has relied on her social skills, and she’s ridden that to this place. Shay has been a physical threat from day one, and, as she says, maybe nobody has fought harder than she’s had to.
Immunity Challenge
We waste no time getting down to brass tacks, and we go straight to the immunity challenge. It’s here that JLP reveals to the players that for the first time it will be final three, something we knew for a while. It also didn’t seem like it was much of a surprise to the players. And not that it should be, considering the game ends tomorrow. Not a big deal, just something to point out.
Before getting to the challenge, we have the usual family moment that’s become tradition at the final immunity challenge. But instead of having family out there on the island, the players get phone calls from home. Mark’s call with his mother-in-law and son seemed significantly more emotional the calls from the other three. Maybe it was just the nature of it, maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it certainly felt like a nod towards a Mark win. We’ll see.
For the challenge, the final four hold onto pegs perched over a waterfall. At regular intervals, they move further down the rack of handles. For the last time this season, the last one standing wins, securing their spot in the final three. This one certainly didn’t seem as physically intense as previous final challenges. Just look back at the Brains V Brawn final challenge!
That one was absolute nonsense, and that’s what I’ve come to expect and love from this part of the game. Granted, this waterfall had to be difficult, no doubt about it. I just guess after last season’s torture device challenge, I was hoping for something similar. Oh well, a minor complaint.
Chrissy drops first, which was probably expected here, but she lasted a long time and gave a great effort. And it probably means the least for her game, for a couple reasons. Her game has never been a physical one. It would have been a great feather in her cap, but a loss here doesn’t really hurt her. She’s probably safely into the final three.
Josh goes out next, and that puts him in a much more precarious position. If Shay wins, it’s between him and Mark, with Josh probably the #1 target. If Mark wins, the tight three of Mark, Chrissy, and Josh could be enough to make the simple vote of Shay.
But Shay win pulls this one out, and it’s not too surprising. She was likely the odds on favorite for whatever this final challenge was. But she earned her way to the final, and that leaves the other three with a tough decision to make.
Pre-Tribal
Josh pitches Mark with voting Chrissy, while hoping Chrissy and Shay “get their signals crossed.” That’s a wild thing to bank on at any point in Survivor, but especially at this junction.
But Mark might still have a couple tricks up his sleeve. He talks to Chrissy about voting Josh. Mark’s been pushing Josh as the strategic leader and number one threat in the game for weeks. And now it’s time to reap the benefits of that plan.
Tribal Council
Whether or not it was due to Mark, it is a unanimous 3-1 vote to eliminate Josh. I have to think Mark is the heavy favorite going into Final Tribal. Chrissy is probably the most well-liked on the jury, but I just don’t think that will be enough to put her over the top. Shay’s fought like hell to get here, and she’ll have to really lean into that. But Mark easily has the most well-rounded game of the three. As long as he doesn’t completely blow it at the end, he should win. But, as we often say, this is Survivor. You just never know; nothing is a sure thing.
Final Tribal Council
Mark opens up FTC laying out his entire game, move by move. It’s really quite impressive when he gives it all, one right after the other. Shay talks about how hard she had to fight, that she embodies the term “survivor.” Chrissy focuses her opening speech on her social game. She doesn’t have a ton of strategic plays to lean on, but she does have the big one of going against Croc just before the merge. Based on these opening statements, I think Mark clearly has to have it. The questions are still to come, of course, but I think it’s Mark by a mile early on.
And once we get to the question portion, it becomes even clearer that it has to be Mark. He gets the longer answers, and every chance he has to speak, it’s about lifting up his game. He’s not on the defensive. Shay and Chrissy both have good moments too, but it’s nothing compared to what we saw from Mark.
And that’s how the jury saw it as well, with Mark winning in a 10-0-0 sweep.
Wrap-Up
I really enjoyed this season. I think it was the best use of the Blood V Water theme we’ve seen from the three iterations. And that’s not in large part due to how Sam and Mark gamed the theme from a strategic standpoint. They had an extra advantage by being the only married couple out there, and they used it to perfection. Once again, Australian Survivor gave us lots of big characters, as we’ve come to expect.
I know many were frustrated with the edit this season, and it’s hard to argue against that. But I really liked the players who benefitted from the skewed edit. It’s still not ideal, but it worked for me. But I think the biggest takeaway from this season is how much production learned from Brains V Brawn. There were way too many twists and advantages and just all around nonsense last season. So what did they do? They completely dialed it back. And incredible turnaround from just one season prior.
As of this writing, I haven’t seen any teases for next season, nor an official confirmation. I’m assuming we’ll see a ninth season, and you know I’ll be back whenever that is. Once again, thank you to any and all who read my recaps throughout the season; I can’t wait to do it again next time!
And if you want more Survivor AU, our Talking Llama finale week episode will be out Wednesday morning, April 5!
