Survivor 48 is finale bound!
The Final Five has been set for next week’s “epic showdown,” but before we get there let’s give Shauhin his due. He certainly left his impact on the season. He was a narrator, a strategist, a good listener, a goofball, and a big Survivor fan. There were a few instances throughout the season where I thought that Shauhin would win this season, but there were a few things that his game, and his edit, was missing. First of all, in a season Jeff proclaimed was a season of duos, he never had a fleshed out partnership. He talked about having important relationships with Joe, Thomas, and Kamilla but we never saw him have much meaningful interaction with any of them besides Joe, but we all know that Joe’s #1 is Eva. Second of all he did not have all the information. He had a lot of information as he was clearly an empathetic, likeable, smart guy but his blindspot was Kyle and Kamilla, the “most undercover duo ever.” Shauhin overestimated his relationship with both Kyle and Kamilla, meanwhile they are working together and to get rid of him on multiple occasions. This scenario with just enough hubris is what led to Shauhin’s elimination. His edit lacked reliability and he was often undermined. Thematically he falls in the category of players who hesitated, players who were afraid to make a move. Shauhin was playing a patient game, planting seeds from the shadows but he never felt ready to pull the trigger. To the jury he goes.
So what are we looking at going into finale night?
Contenders
Kyle - I don’t feel 100% confident but I think Kyle is the Sole Survivor of Survivor 48. Since the merge, Kyle has been consistently complex and has been on a streak of positivity for the past few weeks. Kyle is probably the only player left in this game who has successfully attacked the game and not been eliminated yet. He and Kamilla survived the vote on New Vula, he moved the target off of Kamilla when she was in danger, and he came up with the plan to blindside Shauhin. He’s not perfect, none of these players are, but we’ve been told to expect our winner to have some sort of “humble trait,” and whether it’s his wart or his occasionally erratic behavior, Kyle definitely has some. However, his partnership with Kamilla has helped balance out his impulsivity to avoid crashout. Of course this is still a possible path for Kyle. Maybe he won’t get the jury votes, he has mentioned burning everyone on the jury even though we haven’t really seen that. However, I think if he can make it to the end and adequately explain his game he is in the best position to win against most of the remaining players with his biggest competition being Joe. It could go either way for me, but I’m leaning toward Kyle.
Joe - The finale is probably going to be a showdown between two big strong dudes and one of them is Joe. Although his favorability with me has waxed and waned throughout the season, Joe has (almost) always felt like a frontrunner to be the possible winner. Last week was the only week Joe was not in my top four contenders. My biggest hang up with him has been his aversion to talking about winning the game and his willingness to be voted out rather than betray Eva or play a dishonorable game. It felt like these comments would have been paid off by now. However, he finds himself as Kyle’s main competition going into the finale due to the other shoe having not dropped regarding his hinted sacrifice. He’s also here by virtue of it not really feeling like there are any other realistic contenders, and if he does end up winning, I would not be that surprised. Save for a couple of episodes, he’s been pretty consistently showered with positivity throughout the entire season. Heroic music has played underneath many a Joe scene, including in this most recent episode. Multiple challenge wins. Perceived by all to be the biggest threat to win the game. However, when it comes to the season’s themes he’s not exactly been attacking the game. He always wants to opt for the safest, easiest vote. The only more aggressive move he’s really made was voting out David and that seemed to be credited to Eva. I have long thought that if Joe is sitting at the end, he wins, but didn’t feel like he would make it due to some sort of sacrifice for Eva. However, this week presented a scenario in which Joe could sit next to Kyle at the end of the game and lose. That’s because although Joe claims to be playing with honesty and integrity, he has voted out two of his allies who may feel differently about that from the jury bench. There have already been multiple hints that Joe may be at the mercy of a bitter jury. I expect he may have trouble explaining voting out David and Shauhin at Final Tribal Council. Especially if Kyle and Kamilla remain undercover. If Joe makes it to Final Tribal Council, he has multiple scenarios in which he wins, however, I now feel that if he sits next to Kyle, he may lose out.
Unlikely (Eva)
I felt for most of this season that Eva could win this game, and I think she still could but it’s unlikely. For me, her win would be predicated on Joe sacrificing himself for her and her taking an aggressive turn in terms of gameplay. This could of course still happen at the final hour but the window is just barely open. I also feel like Eva would be getting a little bit more meaningful content the past few episodes if we were meant to be paying serious attention to her in the finale, but she’s been in a pretty MOR stretch as of late. Funny enough, I actually enjoyed Eva this episode. I thought she was entertaining and funny but in terms of the story she definitely felt like a supporting or background character. It also feels like the loose end of “I can’t tell when people are lying to me” might have actually been tied up in this episode because yeah, she didn’t know that Kyle and Kamilla were lying to her and she ended up voting out one of her day one allies. There may still be a little more runway for her to turn it around on that front, but again it just feels a bit unlikely at this point.
Got Nothing For Ya (Kamilla, Mitch)
Another good episode for Kamilla but I’m still counting her out, unfortunately. She’d probably only be able to sit next to Mitch and Eva to win the game and that’s probably not happening. However, it’s nice to see her more present in the past couple of episodes. I just think it’s a pretty steep uphill battle for her to not necessarily make it to Final Tribal Council, but to win against the remaining competition. Mitch? Who’s that?
This has been my first season doing edgic and I’ve learned a lot. It was fun for the most part, although it was a bit of a post-merge slog. All of the players have somewhat messy edits so I’m looking forward to seeing how it all gets wrapped up in the end. I’ve got my money on Kyle but wouldn’t be entirely surprised if Joe pulls out a win. I would be surprised if anyone besides those two took home the title of Sole Survivor but we’ll just have to see.