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
Well, the Survivor 46 finale is upon us, and so it’s time to take one last look at the final five and where their narratives stand heading into the last episode of the season.
LIZ
After a quiet pre-merge, Liz blossomed into an OTT force in the post-merge, providing some of the season’s most memorable moments. Unfortunately, she has never had the complexity or strategic content for me to ever consider her a contender. She is very much a “character” edit.
Liz’s key narrative across the season has been her food allergies and lack of food. This is what led to her now infamous reward breakdown when Q chose not to take her on the reward. And you could say last week’s episode was the perfect conclusion for Liz’s story. She finally pooped (clear OTT content) and finally got to go on a reward where she ate.
As for where Liz ends up placing, I’m still not quite decided, other than knowing she won’t be winning or probably not the runner-up either. 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).
BEN
Ben is similar to Liz in that he’s another “character” edit with elements of OTT. This past episode, in particular, was heavy on the OTT with all the stuff about how he “forgot” to vote for Venus and mistakenly wrote Kenzie’s name. Then, we had all the night terror content, which seemed to be more about supporting Kenzie’s social game than anything else.
Despite that OTT-ness, Ben has never been portrayed as a negative character. In fact, if anything, he’s been shown too positively, which is part of the reason I don’t see him as a contender. Modern winners tend to have more edge to them. But it’s clear the audience is meant to like and root for Ben, which means he could end up at the FTC and receive a couple of votes.
He could also be the fire-making loser; he fits that mold as a rootable player but not too visible and, therefore, won’t be too upsetting for viewers should he lose at fire.
There is also still the early foreshadowing of Ben causing problems for Maria and Charlie down the line. Since Maria and Charlie have already started targeting each other, I’m not sure how relevant this is anymore. But with the focus on the Ben and Kenzie friendship in recent episodes, it could suggest Ben siding with her other his old Siga tribemates or even voting for Kenzie to win over them in the end.
MARIA
Maria’s edit has been up and down over the season. It started strong out of the gates, complex and positive, and made her an early contender. Then it dipped in the late pre-merge and early post-merge, where she sort of slotted behind Charlie as a number two. Now, over the past couple of weeks, she’s shot back into the limelight as a big threat.
So, could Maria still win? I wouldn’t say it’s impossible, but I’d be surprised at this stage. Her edit seems set up as the big threat to take down before the Final Tribal Council. We’ve heard all the talk about her challenge prowess and how scary she’d be to sit next to at the end. This seems primed for whoever takes her out to reap the rewards.
With Maria missing her shot at Charlie last week, it does seem logical that Charlie would go after her next. However, this season has seen plenty of instances where the obvious is put aside in favor of an alternative path. Could Maria and Charlie patch things up and make it to the end together? I don’t think that’s too wild a theory, and it could lead to the third person next to them reaping the benefits of a split jury.
CHARLIE
As I’ve said for the past few weeks, the winner seems likely to be Charlie or Kenzie. Charlie appeared to hurt his chances with the Venus vote, especially with how he talked about how he could have tainted his image with the jury for keeping Q around. Did he redeem himself by taking Q out last week? Or was the damage already done?
That will be the big question for Charlie heading into the finale. And I think a major part of it will be how he approaches his relationship with Maria. If he leads the charge in taking her out, I think he could put himself back in contention and gain huge favor from the jury. This would make him a favorite heading into the FTC.
However, if he makes up with Maria and goes to the end with her, or if someone else gets credit for the Maria vote, Charlie will likely face an uphill battle when making his case. This final episode will be about how Charlie separates his game from Maria and sells himself as a deserving winner.
Taking Charlie’s edit as a whole, I do think the likelihood of him making it to the FTC is high. He’s had a significant presence throughout the season, tons of complexity (especially in recent episodes), clear alliances, strategic insights, solid premiere, and he got his personal flashback scene in the last episode. Whether he can win it all really comes back to that Venus vote and whether he waited too long to make a move.
KENZIE
Kenzie is the other contender and, if I was calling it right now, I’d give her the slight edge over Charlie heading into the finale. She didn’t quite have the complexity I was looking for in the last episode, with a lot of her content being basic narration. But it was still a solid episode that tied up a long-term arc and cemented a more recent development.
She finally got rid of Q, which, as she reminded us of in confessional, she’s been trying to do for a while now. This goes all the way back to the early pre-merge when Q foreshadowed that Kenzie would be dangerous down the line for him and others. It put a nice bow on that story, and given that Kenzie has been against Q for a while, she’ll probably receive more credit for that move than Charlie.
Her other key story point is the focus on her relationship with Ben. They had a post-tribal chat about Ben’s mistaken vote and quickly made it up. And then, we received another scene of Ben’s night terrors and how Kenzie helps him through them. Given this was almost identical to the scene from a couple of weeks ago, I feel like there is a larger purpose to showing us this again.
Logic would suggest that Kenzie and Ben make a big move together in the finale, perhaps setting the stage for them to sit together in the FTC. Or, it’s leading to Ben being on the jury and voting for Kenzie to win over one (or more) of his old Siga tribemates.
Like Charlie, Kenzie has been consistent throughout the season, with a lot of strategy content, clear alliances, rivalries, and a focus on social relationships. She also got her personal flashback in the most recent episode. It’s the edit that most closely resembles that of other new era winners, especially that pre-merge mixed tone and early foreshadowing.
Throughout this season, I’ve talked a lot about Probst’s opening remarks at the marooning about how at least one person on this cast has no shot at winning simply due to their personality not meshing with the group. But what about the opposite of that?
What about the person who can win over everybody because their personality clicks so well with the group? Time and time again, we’ve been shown the strength of Kenzie’s social game, how she managed her relationships, even with rivals like Bhanu and Q. We’ve seen her make fast bonds with members of other tribes, with people like Ben and Hunter calling her their number one.
Kenzie could be the person who wins over the jury on force of personality alone, especially if those she’s sitting next to have caused more damage to the jurors.
EDGIC CHART
| 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 |
 Ben |
OTTP3 | OTTP3 | MOR4 | UTR2 | MORP4 | UTR1 | OTTP3 | UTRP1 | MOR2 | UTR2 | UTR1 | OTTP2 | ||
 Charlie |
CP3 | CPP4 | UTR2 | MOR3 | CP4 | MOR3 | CP4 | CP4 | MOR3 | UTR2 | CP5 | CPP4 | ||
 Kenzie |
CP4 | CPM5 | MORM4 | MORM4 | OTTP4 | MOR3 | CPP4 | MOR2 | CP4 | MOR3 | CP4 | MORP3 | ||
 Liz |
UTRN2 | OTTN2 | MOR3 | UTR2 | UTR1 | UTR1 | UTR2 | CP3 | MORP2 | OTTM5 | OTT2 | OTTP3 | ||
 Maria |
MORP3 | MOR2 | INV | MORP3 | MOR3 | MOR2 | MOR3 | UTR2 | MOR2 | CP4 | OTTN3 | CPM4 | ||
 Q |
MOR3 | CP4 | CPM5 | CP4 | CPP3 | CP5 | OTTN4 | OTTM5 | OTTN4 | CPM4 | MORN2 | MORN3 | ||
 Venus |
MORN3 | CPM4 | MOR3 | UTR1 | MORN2 | CPN4 | CPN4 | OTTN4 | MORN3 | UTR1 | CPN4 | |||
 Tiffany |
MOR4 | MORP5 | MOR4 | MOR4 | MORP3 | MOR3 | MOR3 | CPN3 | OTTN4 | MOR3 | ||||
 Hunter |
CP2 | UTR1 | CPP2 | UTR1 | CP5 | MOR4 | MOR2 | MOR2 | CPM3 | |||||
 Tevin |
CP4 | MOR2 | UTR1 | CPP3 | UTR1 | MOR3 | CP3 | MORN3 | ||||||
 Soda |
MOR3 | MORN3 | INV | MORM3 | UTR1 | UTR2 | MOR3 | |||||||
 Tim |
MOR2 | UTR1 | INV | UTR1 | MOR3 | CPN4 | MORN2 | |||||||
 Moriah |
MORP2 | UTR1 | UTR1 | OTT3 | MOR3 | CP4 | ||||||||
 Jem |
MOR2 | UTR1 | MOR3 | CP4 | CPN5 | |||||||||
 Bhanu |
MORP4 | OTTN4 | OTTM5 | OTTM5 | ||||||||||
 Randen |
UTRN1 | CP3 | OTTP3 | |||||||||||
 Jess |
OTTM4 | OTTM4 | ||||||||||||
 Jelinsky |
OTTN5 |
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