I didn’t even bother writing something for the penultimate episode. It was looking very clear and obvious at that point that Aubry would win.

It’s been a while since the finale, which I honestly found pretty boring after the Tiffany boot, so I don’t think I’m going to really do much episode specific content but more of just an overall vibe check since this was my first time experiencing and doing Edgic ratings for a returning player season live. Here’s my final chart and ranking list.

First of all, congratulations to Aubry Bracco! The winner of Survivor 50 and the recipient of the $2 million prize. Not a bad way to tie a bow on your Survivor career, assuming this really is it for her. I’m glad that in exit press she seems happy and does not seem to care about outside perception because I think she genuinely has legs to stand on if she wanted to be pissed about her edit this season.

I know that once Aubry’s “phoenix rising from the ashes” arc was full steam ahead in the last few episodes of the season, many people online were going back and picking up pieces that actually “made her edit make sense” or “not that bad.” Of course, overall, in hindsight, sure. As a viewer watching and episodic television show. I thought it was bad.

Tracking her name through my rankings across the entire season is kind of hilarious. Is this the worst premiere ever for a winner? At least for a New Era winner? I don’t know because I haven’t watched every season of the New Era but it feels like it could be. Maybe all you need to do to win in the New Era is be checked in with every episode.

I understand there were a lot of big names on this season that production and editing probably wanted to give a lot of air time to: Coach, Cirie, Colby, Christian, Devens, Ozzy. I understand wanting to make sure the audience sees these players before they are eliminated. However, I just don’t understand why you make your winner look so strange in her rivalry with another player. Why you don’t give her more agency for taking her rival out. Why would you portray her as kind of emotionally unstable and aloof? Maybe this is the way she was in the game, it kind of sounds like it is, but confessionals exist for a reason!

Aubry did have a very nice coronation arc at the end of the season though, which made it extremely clear that she would win. It feels as though Tiffany received such low visibility in the pre-merge and became the voice of “the wrong vote” so many times in the post-merge to perhaps encourage viewers to not root for Tiffany over Aubry at the end. I don’t know if that really worked out. However, Aubry is a deserving winner, especially compared to Joe and Jonathan.

I don’t think I really have anything to say that hasn’t already been said about this finale. I do expect to see Jonathan, Tiffany, and Rizo back playing again some day for sure. Their Survivor narratives are not done and they seem like production favorites.

The “Open Era” is coming up in the fall. We’ll see what that has in store for us. Supposedly anything from a past season could possibly show up. It looks like there will be a real marooning in the premiere. Perhaps after the success of the show over the past couple years and the hype from Survivor 50 caused CBS to increase their budget a bit? I don’t really know how I feel about Jeff Probst naming this next phase of the show for us before we’ve even seen it but here we are. I’ll still be watching.