Survivor 46 is officially over. A winner’s been crowned, people are processing this wild ride of a season, and Survivor: Forty-Several is coming soon with some potentially familiar podcasting faces. But in true Survivor 46 fashion, the finale is a mess. For better or worse, there’s a lot to discuss and debate here. As much as the show wanted to frame this ending as a heartwarming, feel-good finale, it comes with some bitter pills to swallow.
To kick things off, the final five return to their camp (finally, that stupid “new beach, who dis?” twist is dead!), and Maria immediately leaps into damage control mode. She got clocked, Charlie’s turned on her, and she’s got to reel him back in. She blames the plan on the others, swearing she was led astray and told Charlie would beat her at the end, but she now realizes she was duped. Though he’s once again keeping options open, Charlie’s not buying her lie, and so Maria’s backed into a corner with nowhere to go but for that necklace.
And it doesn’t get any better for Maria when she expresses her surprise that the others are actually playing harder than she thought. Liz is pissed about being underestimated yet again, and so the stage is set: beat Maria at all costs and then fight it out from there.
For the final five challenge, it’s an obstacle course and puzzle combo. Same old, same old. But this one has a new twist: the puzzle isn’t the last step. It only tells you what you need to solve the final combination lock to cement your win. Kenzie and Maria are neck and neck on the puzzle, but Kenzie finishes first, only to be blindsided by the final stage. Liz, who’s fallen out of the race, opts to help Kenzie solve the counting puzzle. If it means beating Maria, they’ll pull out all the stops, and it gets Kenzie her second immunity win as Maria can only watch in dismay as she’s teamed up on.
So… this is a grey area. There’s apparently no rule saying you can’t help other players, so nothing Liz and Kenzie did is illegal. But it’s also incredibly cheap and breaks the challenge entirely. I’d honestly blame production here because while the challenge twist itself is cool, there’s a reason the puzzle is usually the final part of these things. If you have a counting task at the end, it’s so easy to share information. It’s harder to do that with a puzzle, as I’m sure there’s a ban on actually helping someone assemble it. A questionable rule oversight, perhaps? Maybe fix it next time so the twist can’t be gamed? Yeah, let’s go with that.
Kenzie also wins a trip for two to an Italian feast at the Sanctuary, and while she would love to repay Liz for helping her win, Liz is allergic to pasta, so Ben gets the spot instead. At the feast, Kenzie and Ben are both on the same page: Maria’s out unless she finds an idol or really causes a mess back at camp to change her fate.
Unfortunately for Maria, her arguments aren’t super solid. Her last ditch effort is convincing everyone that Ben lied about his mistaken vote for Kenzie and that he’s playing a great game from the shadows that could steal the win from the others at the end. Liz considers it, but by the time we get to Tribal, it’s obvious what’s going down: a 4-1 Maria vote-out with no real suspense, featuring all the sad music and blatant jury pandering from the others you could ever ask for.
With their dragon finally slayed, the jesters return to camp and celebrate making it to the final four. But as storms roll in, Ben’s panic attacks return with a vengeance, and we learn he’s running on basically zero sleep as his mind unravels. But with the help of his island friends, he’s learned that it’s okay to not be in control of everything. He might not have conquered all his demons out in Fiji, but he can still appreciate the support he has at his side and not let the lows ruin the highs.
On Day 25, the final four walk into a new final immunity challenge, which thankfully isn’t Simmotion or some variant of stacking things on a wobbly platform. It’s the return of the pinball puzzle, which forces players to build the season’s logo as they track a ball traveling down a slope. Let the ball reach the bottom, and it’s a looooooong wait until they can reset and get back to building.
Liz struggles the entire time, Charlie loses track of his timing, and Kenzie just slings her ball across the beach. But in the end, despite all the mental struggles he’s gone through to get here, Ben has the rhythm down and wins his first immunity without making a single mistake. It’s a big win for the rocker, but he soon realizes as the hype wears off… he’s got a brutal decision to make. Immunity at four is the ultimate burden, and it won’t be so shred-alicious after all.
He does know Liz is going to be making fire, though. Partially because he considers her a jury threat in the event all of Nami votes for their last member standing and partially because if she goes home, she doesn’t need the money anyway, so he wouldn’t feel bad about robbing anyone of a better life. Liz takes the news terribly. Fire-making was the one thing she was terrified of, the one hole in her so-called game-winning plan that she couldn’t find a way out of it. Her ligaments are too big for her wrists, so she can’t grip the fire-making tools as well as the others without her joints popping in and out. As Ben would say, that certainly does not rock for Liz.
But what doesn’t rock for Ben himself is choosing between his two best friends to face her. Charlie seems better at making fire than Kenzie, but he also wants to be taken to the end just in case the fire gets flukey. Kenzie doesn’t mind going into fire, but she’s nervous about the pressure getting to her and costing her when it counts the most.
Ultimately, Charlie’s arguments win out, and he joins Ben in the final three as the women nervously take their stations. Both struggle to get flame, but Kenzie’s able to overcome her nerves and eliminate Liz just shy of what Liz claims would’ve been a resounding jury vote sweep. The jury obviously disagrees with everything she says as they try not to laugh at her boasts, and Liz leaves frustrated and bitter about her exit. A far cry from the usual celebratory hero moment these fire-making losers get nowadays, but undoubtedly an amusing way to send home one of the season’s funniest players.
But there you have it! A Swiftie, a rockstar, and a mermaid-dragon walk into the final three. It sounds like the set up for a bad dad joke, fitting for such a weird meme of a season, but those are your winner options.
Charlie played a logical, strategic game about options as he played the middle but didn’t have a crowning move to his name because he played in the shadows of bigger threats like Maria. Ben played an emotional game about friendship and good vibes but didn’t seem to have his footing strategically. Kenzie played a solid social game about connections and adapting as the underdog, but she wasn’t driving moves and failed to build a tangible resume.
It’s anyone’s game, and Final Tribal kicks off with hard-hitting questions. Tiffany warns Charlie and Ben to avoid any Taylor Swift lyrics or rock music references, which tells you who she’s championing. But for the sake of fairness, she asks the men what their best solo moves were that changed the game. Ben takes credit for socially connecting the jesters to take out Q at the final six, and Charlie takes credit for the Hunter blindside, believing he was the determining factor in that vote as Kenzie was trying to throw Tiff’s name out. But Hunter raises a hand and denies Charlie the glory, giving Kenzie the credit for convincing him not to use his idol that night.
As for Kenzie’s solo move, she takes credit for getting Tim out when Q and Tiffany were leaning towards voting Ben out that round. And in typical Yanu fashion, the trio all start arguing about how that vote went down, with Q pushing back and claiming he never waffled from voting Tim, and Tiffany clapping back in Kenzie’s defense. Good ol’ Yanu.
But enough about great moves. Let’s talk about bad ones. The BIG mistakes and how the finalists adapted to survive them.
Charlie picks the rogue vote for Venus and subsequent lecture from Q, framing it as a positive for his game that allowed him to weasel his way into the Journey Six. Well, two issues with that. First, the Six sucked and all ended up on the jury. Second, Maria brought Charlie into the Six, not Charlie himself. Kenzie recalls the Tiff blindside, explaining how she felt cocky and got humbled. But it was being humbled that allowed her to reflect on her position and get back in the groove. And Ben picks the mistaken Kenzie vote, saying it resulted from his poor mental state rather than some serious strategic error, which the jury lets slide.
How did the final three use a juror to advance their game? Ben was a third wheel to Maria and Q, and he used the info they provided to make his own game decisions to vote them out. Kenzie wanted Q gone after the Tiff blindside but got back into his good graces so she could have an easier time stabbing him in the back when he got comfortable. And Charlie used Tevin by gathering info from him and Soda to assess Tevin’s true threat level, which led to his blindside.
What about the final four round? What would Kenzie and Charlie do if they had immunity? Well, Kenzie would’ve given up immunity to take out Liz because the men wouldn’t be able to differentiate their stories against hers, and Liz could’ve been a threat. Charlie would’ve taken Liz as a goat because he knew he could beat her and didn’t need a big fire-making moment to get respect from the jury.
Then, we get some big questions to wrap it up. Soda asks them to defend their biggest weak points. Kenzie admits she was never driving votes and just asked to be a number, but she was always playing strategically and looking for opportunities to survive. Charlie admits he was overshadowed by Maria, but he eventually had the pieces in place to take her out before the end. Ben admits he was emotional, but his emotions let him make strong bonds to get him through a tough season.
Q wraps things up with an old-school question: what would the finalists do with the money? Ben wants to pay back his parents and fund a non-profit for kids like him who feel like outcasts in society but find hope in music. Charlie would use the money to go to law school, set his family up for life, and donate to immigration charities. Kenzie would use the million to start a family and invest in herself so she isn’t cutting hair for the rest of her life, a job she’s had since she was 15 years old.
With everyone’s arguments laid out, it’s up to the jury. And with minds changing and emotions swaying people, by a vote of 5-3-0… Kenzie is our Sole Survivor! A predictable win, sure, but a deserved one nonetheless. She played a killer social game that made up for her lack of strategic agency, and the Yanu underdog story didn’t hurt her narrative either.
She never needed idols, advantages, or necklaces to survive because her bonds with people were just that good. Everyone but Bhanu got misted by her social skills, and nobody listened to the season’s biggest mess when he saw her victory on the horizon. It’s definitely a Michele-style win, complete with a victory against the biggest strategist of the season, but a win’s a win, and Kenzie earned hers.
But you have to feel bad for Charlie, who played a well-rounded game and didn’t make any big mistakes along the way. His pitch at the end wasn’t perfect, though, as taking credit for moves he didn’t really make came across as aloof compared to Kenzie’s honest ownership of a less flashy game. But he still played impressively and had his ducks in a row every round. He just couldn’t sell the jury on his less compelling narrative and overlooked Kenzie’s threat level. And not even getting Maria’s vote that could’ve forced a tie and given him a chance to win Ben’s tiebreaker vote? That’s rough, and forcing him to sit there in visible pain at the Aftershow was a bit uncomfortable to watch too.
I’m sure this ending and the debate it’s sparked will rage on for years to come, but at least the editors finally figured out how to show a social victory, even if it meant making it comically obvious at points. Thank you, ninety-minute episodes and a competent editing team that didn’t totally purple anyone for not making big moves! And shout out to casting for assembling one of the wackiest groups to ever play. The season had fun drama, thrilling blindsides, terrible gameplay galore, and some all-time great moments that stand toe-to-toe with the classics. It’s all because of a cast built for conflict instead of kumbaya.
Heartwarming New Era tropes aside, this season was deliciously messy, and I hope casting took notes on why it worked so well compared to other New Era seasons. It didn’t need idol plays, a million advantages, mastermind players, eighteen sob story packages, or broken twists to succeed. It just needed people who brought good TV on their own, a commitment to showing and relishing the drama instead of hiding it to avoid controversy, and a great boot order that kept the biggest stars around to make every episode a fun chapter in the stellar story of the similarly stellar Survivor 46.
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Your summation at the end was perfect. I hope that the production team and editors take note!