Survivor
Mates Going to Struggle
Season 46
Episode 13
Editor’s Ranking
Photograph: CBS
Whereas I completely adore everybody within the closing three, I believe one thing Jeff mentioned to Maria is making this sport’s closing phases irritating for me. He mentioned that the exhausting factor about being too good is that it makes you a goal. What finally ends up occurring is there are three mediocre gamers on the finish as a result of all of the C college students hold getting collectively to assassinate the consideration roll. What we’re left with is a considerably unsatisfying conclusion to a really bonkers season. That mentioned, it does really feel good to see {that a} good individual lastly completed first, regardless of typical knowledge.
Because the episode begins, it’s simply after Maria will get her hand caught within the cookie jar, the cookie jar being making an attempt to vote out her key ally/America’s Largest Taylor Swift Fan. She tries to inform Charlie that everybody was telling her all day they’d vote for him, however she obtained bamboozled by Kenzie, Liz, and Ben. Charlie, after all, is aware of that is bullshit as a result of he’s been working with them simply as carefully as Maria, which reveals that his “shut no door” principle of gameplay was an enormous asset.
Going into the problem, Maria is the one to beat, and he or she’s additionally competing to be the primary feminine contestant to win 4 particular person immunities, a report that this 47-year-old mother very rightly deserved. The problem is a bunch of obstacles adopted by a puzzle, however in a twist, the puzzle isn’t the tip; it tells the gamers a sequence of clues to allow them to determine the mix, and as soon as they determine that out, they win. Kenzie needs to be reminded of this when she finishes her puzzle and throws her arms within the air like she has simply landed a landing.
Kenzie and Maria are each engaged on the puzzle, and Kenzie is pulling forward. We then see Liz do one thing that’s virtually extraordinary in a Survivor finale. As Kenzie is making an attempt to determine the combo, Liz reads her puzzle and figures out that Kenzie must rely the holes in a plank from a a lot earlier impediment. Liz voluntarily goes again, will get the plank, counts the holes (incorrectly at first, I’d add), and primarily helps Kenzie simply edge out Maria. Kenzie all the time wins the reward, and when Jeff asks who she desires to take, she says, “I’m torn between Liz and Ben.” She’s torn? Who does she assume she is? Natalie Imbruglia? She doesn’t get to be torn; Liz actually gained the problem for her! Fortunately for her, Liz tells Kenzie she’s allergic to pasta, so she ought to take Ben as an alternative.
It’s clear that since Maria didn’t win, she’s going house and, regardless of how many occasions they inform her it must be a praise that it took two of them to beat her, she nonetheless doesn’t actually consider it. Maria goes round camp telling everybody that Ben is a big risk, that it looks as if he hasn’t been taking part in the sport as a result of he’s been taking part in this tremendous stealthy sport, and he’ll annihilate all of them within the finale. Um, the rationale it looks as if Ben wasn’t taking part in a sport is as a result of he wasn’t. This man wrote down his greatest buddy’s identify as a result of he was drunk on pizza, and Maria thought she was going to persuade folks he was a secret mastermind? Please. I really feel like if she had finished this to Kenzie and Ben about Liz, she may need had a greater probability, however she was actually doomed. The following tribal council is extra like a funeral as a result of everybody is aware of that Maria’s sport is deader than the folks that little child noticed in The Sixth Sense. (Spoiler alert!)
The ultimate problem is great — it must be known as Demise Plinko. The gamers must throw a ball up a pinball-esque rig, and whereas the ball is rolling down, they’ll remedy a puzzle, however they must throw the ball again once more earlier than it hits the underside, or they get a penalty whereas their ball rolls down a really gradual lure. They do an analogous problem each season on Huge Brother, besides the puzzle often falls aside if you happen to don’t hit a button in time. Anyway, this can be a nice closing problem as a result of it assessments all types of nice expertise that aren’t energy or endurance, which I believe are property which are wildly over-indexed on this sport anyway.
As a result of it’s one thing that’s exhausting for everybody, then anybody can win. Nonetheless, it’s a bit of stunning to everybody, together with Ben, that he’s the one who takes the necklace. However as quickly as he will get again to camp, he begins agonizing about who he’ll ask to make hearth within the closing 4. He is aware of he desires Liz gone as a result of he can’t beat her, however which means he has to resolve whether or not to place up his day one brother from one other mom and Dumb and Dumber alliance member or Kenzie, the girl who has helped him via night time terrors each time the solar goes down. He finally decides that Kenzie and Liz ought to make hearth.
As a substitute of recapping that excruciating hearth face-off, and whereas I’ve Daddy Moneybags Vulture III’s soapbox, I wish to submit why I hate the finale format of Survivor typically. To start with, the fire-making problem sucks. Liz isn’t good at it, not as a result of she hasn’t practiced or finished all of it seasons, however as a result of her wrist ligaments are too huge, so she has clompy wrists. (How does Liz, on a fundamental human stage, operate day-after-day?) That Liz ought to go house due to nothing apart from that and never the results of one thing she mentioned or did is bullshit. I’ve mentioned it earlier than, and I’ll say it once more: it’s “Outwit, Outplay, Outlast,” not Outkindle. To boil somebody’s total sport down to 1 ability — one ability that’s important for survival, sure, however not important for the sport — misses the entire level of what we’re doing right here. The sport must be about technique, relationship-building, and, sure, bodily challenges. Fireplace highlights none of those. You may as properly ask two folks to lip sync for his or her lives prefer it’s RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Additionally, the selection of sending two folks to fireside may nonetheless spoil a winner’s sport. What if Liz gained after which beat all of them? Ben’s victory at Demise Plinko would imply nothing. That’s why I hate that the largest choice is at closing 4 reasonably than closing three. The final word alternative is successful an immunity problem at three and bringing one different individual to the tip. I miss the drama of that; I miss there being a alternative between two very totally different video games reasonably than, as we’ve seen the previous couple of seasons, a alternative between one totally different sport and two video games which are mainly the identical. I don’t assume that Survivor wants to return to what it was once, however I believe producers ought to examine the present endgame. What sort of winners is that this iteration producing? Is it attainable to do higher?
So, sure, Kenzie beats Liz, who offers us a whole lot of hilarious sass on her manner out. (“Booooo. Tomato, Tomato.”) The ultimate three is Charlie, Kenzie, and Ben, who’re all glorious folks, however I wouldn’t say they’e glorious gamers. I believe each Liz and Maria had been higher and deserved to be there, however their targets obtained too huge for the brand new period. Oh, and whereas we’re speaking about format modifications: I really like how closing tribal is structured to be extra of a dialogue, the place folks can simply chime in and make factors. That’s why I’m going commando; I prefer it free-flowing. That mentioned, it looks as if this season, apart from Q misremembering his personal sport and the whole lot that occurred on the seashores, we’ve reverted again to the “one jury member, one query” format of earlier seasons. (Kenzie’s spotlight is when Q is misremembering issues, and he or she says, “Guys, this is what I needed to work with. I deserve this win!”)
Not one of the closing three do an excellent job promoting their video games or their overarching methods. Charlie is the one one who has a philosophy: by no means to shut a door, hold himself secure, and all the time hold a bit of little bit of energy. Ben cops to not actually having a lot of a sport and being “a little bit of a goat for just a few votes” however highlights how he made mates with everybody and stayed underneath the radar, listening to everybody and realizing the place the facility was mendacity so he may facet with it. Kenzie is mainly simply like, “I used to be good to all of you. Don’t vote me out.” I child Kenzie, who I really like. She has an amazing reply for Tiff about how she satisfied Tiff and Q to maintain her buddy Ben as an alternative of Tim as a transfer she actually owned. She additionally owns that her social sport was her strategic sport, one thing that many within the “new period” don’t need to hear.
Ultimately, Kenzie will get probably the most votes, which is unsurprising as a result of she has mates on that jury, particularly Tiff, who appears to be rooting for her as quickly as these three sit down. Although she won’t have had the flashiest sport or made any loopy blindsides, Kenzie is a very deserving winner. Tender expertise are sometimes ignored on this sport, as is getting back from a deficit on the merge. Kenzie has mentioned expertise and managed to stage a comeback when she was down — that’s pretty much as good of a sport of Survivor as anybody has performed. And I hope she doesn’t shut down the salon now that she’s wealthy as a result of I’d positively are available in for a bang trim.
