Survivor 46

Episode 13 – The Edit Bay

Wrapping up the season’s narrative.

CBS

Hello all, welcome back to the Edit Bay! This weekly feature takes a dive into the edit of the latest Survivor episode, analyzing the key stories, main characters, and top winner contenders.

For those new to The Edit Bay, it is a condensed version of Edgic, highlighting some of the stand-out story beats from the most recent episode. It also includes my weekly Edgic ratings for each castaway at the end of the article.

OVERVIEW

Apologies for the delay in getting to the final Edit Bay of the season, but here we are! I’ll keep thing short in wrapping up the Survivor 46 narrative and then share the final Edgic ratings for the final five, along with their overall season ratings.

The finale played out pretty much as predicted, with Kenzie’s social game triumphing over Charlie and Ben. One thing that wasn’t expected was the way things ended for Charlie and Maria. While their eventual break-up was foreshadowed in previous episodes, I didn’t see that ultimately ending up with Maria not voting for Charlie at the FTC.

Outside of that, though, everything else fell into place. As I said in the Episode 12 write-up regarding Maria, “Her edit seems set up as the big threat to take down before the Final Tribal Council.” That’s precisely what happened as the other castaways teamed up to make sure she didn’t win immunity and subsequently sent her packing.

S46
CBS

For Liz, I wrote, “I could see her as the first boot of the finale or the fire-making loser (there have been a couple of foreshadowing moments in this regard),” and the latter proved to be true. Those moments of Liz struggling with fire were a strong hint of how her story would end.

Ben’s arc was a little less clear; I could have been him as the fire-making loser or a FTC loser. It turned out to be the latter, and he was essentially a seat filler while Kenzie and Charlie battled it out. All the early foreshadowing of Ben causing trouble for Charlie and Maria and potentially linking up with Kenzie didn’t amount to much. In fact, Ben stuck by Charlie over Kenzie after he won the final immunity challenge.

Looking back now, Ben’s edit felt like the journey arc. He never had a lot of strategic content; it was all personality-focused. And the final few episodes focused in on his battle with anxiety and night terrors. The way he handled those issues and didn’t let them stop him from succeeding in winning immunity and reaching FTC was his victory.

However, it all came down to Kenzie or Charlie, the two frontrunners for the majority of the post-merge. They had by far the best edits, with consistent strategy content, focus on relationships and alliances, strong premieres, and, by the end of the season, both had personal scenes. The fact it was a close vote between the pair made sense, given what we’d seen over the course of the season.

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CBS

Kenzie’s edit was actually kind of quiet in the finale, but the groundwork for why she would win had already been laid. We’d heard countless times how sociable and likable she was and how she’d be a threat in the end. On the flip side, while we’d also heard positives about Charlie, we’d also seen a backlash to his partnership with Maria and not taking a more assertive role.

Neither Kenzie nor Charlie had huge moves to their name, so it was always going to come down to sociability and likability. Both were shown to have strong social games, but Kenzie’s stood out a little more and probably felt more consistent from beginning to end.

EDGIC CHART

NewColours

Name EP 1 EP 2 EP 3 EP 4 EP 5 EP 6 EP 7 EP 8 EP 9 EP 10 EP 11 EP 12 EP 13 EP 14
KenzieKenzie CP4 CPM5 MORM4 MORM4 OTTP4 MOR3 CPP4 MOR2 CP4 MOR3 CP4 MORP3 MORP3  
CharlieCharlie CP3 CPP4 UTR2 MOR3 CP4 MOR3 CP4 CP4 MOR3 UTR2 CP5 CPP4 CP4  
BenBen OTTP3 OTTP3 MOR4 UTR2 MORP4 UTR1 OTTP3 UTRP1 MOR2 UTR2 UTR1 OTTP2 OTT4  
LizLiz UTRN2 OTTN2 MOR3 UTR2 UTR1 UTR1 UTR2 CP3 MORP2 OTTM5 OTT2 OTTP3 OTT3  
MariaMaria MORP3 MOR2 INV MORP3 MOR3 MOR2 MOR3 UTR2 MOR2 CP4 OTTN3 CPM4 MORP2  
QQ MOR3 CP4 CPM5 CP4 CPP3 CP5 OTTN4 OTTM5 OTTN4 CPM4 MORN2 MORN3    
VenusVenus MORN3 CPM4 MOR3 UTR1 MORN2 CPN4 CPN4 OTTN4 MORN3 UTR1 CPN4      
TiffanyTiffany MOR4 MORP5 MOR4 MOR4 MORP3 MOR3 MOR3 CPN3 OTTN4 MOR3        
HunterHunter CP2 UTR1 CPP2 UTR1 CP5 MOR4 MOR2 MOR2 CPM3          
TevinTevin CP4 MOR2 UTR1 CPP3 UTR1 MOR3 CP3 MORN3            
SodaSoda MOR3 MORN3 INV MORM3 UTR1 UTR2 MOR3              
TimTim MOR2 UTR1 INV UTR1 MOR3 CPN4 MORN2              
MoriahMoriah MORP2 UTR1 UTR1 OTT3 MOR3 CP4                
JemJem MOR2 UTR1 MOR3 CP4 CPN5                  
BhanuBhanu MORP4 OTTN4 OTTM5 OTTM5                    
RandenRanden UTRN1 CP3 OTTP3                      
JessJess OTTM4 OTTM4                        
JelinskyJelinsky OTTN5                          

Written by

Martin Holmes

Martin is a freelance writer from England. He’s represented by Berlin Associates for comedy writing and writes about TV and entertainment, currently for TV Insider and Vulture, previously Digital Spy, ET Canada, and Yahoo. A finalist for the Shortlist Sitcom Search in 2012 for “Siblings,” Martin received his BA in English with Creative Writing from The University of Hull. Martin is the owner and editor-in-chief of Insider Survivor.


One response to “Episode 13 – The Edit Bay”

  1. Kenzie’s story was loaded with emotionality and dripping with context. Most importantly her mistakes were always given depth and understanding to where we knew why she made moves even if they didn’t pan out. I was initially worried about Kenzie trying to blindside Tiffany. There were heavy vibes about that blindside making Kenzie a big threat. However, when that blindside fell through only to for Maria to take control, I knew it was ultimately about setting Maria up as the big threat.

    I had a feeling Kenzie would be the winner for a while, but initially hesitant because of getting burned by Emily. Kenzie had a lot in common with previous New Era winners namely Yam Yam (fitting since they are both hair stylists ), but so did Emily. I thought there could have been a possibility of another edgic blindside for me. Fortunately, for my edgic prediction, Charlie was getting subtly undermined. When he talked about whether he would be seen as a Maria puppet during the F7, I knew he was losing.

    Definitely going to be more aware during 47, I feel like the edit team on the odd seasons play more tricks to misdirect the audience.

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