Whoa, it’s the season finale of Survivor. Part of me knew that, but part of me thought there’d be another week left. There’s six contestants left at this point — Sebastian, Laurel, Donathan, Wendell, Domenick, and Angela. I honestly keep forgetting Angela is still in the game, and even Jeff Probst announces how she’s always on the outside of every vote. “I’m not here to make friends,” Angela states. Well, at least everyone’s on the same page here. But now it’s time for the episode.
“At tribal, Donathan went bananas,” Dom says. Dom thinks it’s weird since he was working with Donathan for so long, and now he’s jumping ship. Probably because he knows he’s in the bottom of the alliance. “They’re probably not going to work with me no more,” Donathan admits.
Sebastian is also tired of Wendell and Dom calling the game, and reminds everyone (as in, the audience at home) that he has an extra vote advantage. So now might be the best time to play it. Wendell and Dom talk about voting “Sea Bass” out, since he’s played a clean, fair game and can win challenges. Sebastian has been laying low these past few episodes.
The First Immunity Challenge
CBS
Now it’s time for Immunity. And they’re doing a maze! A maze shaped like a big skull! For today’s challenge, the contestants will be navigating through a maze, looking for bags of puzzle pieces. They’ll also be playing for reward. The winner will get a steak dinner, with a baked potato and bread. Also, a dessert! Probst is secretive about what kind, so it’s probably something stupid like Jello.
Donathan is the last one to find his third bag of puzzle pieces. Probst says the puzzle is difficult in the beginning, but gets easier as time goes on. After Donathan finds his third bag, he triumphantly tells Probst he found it. Probst says he’s still in it! “No I’m not,” Donathan silently says with a smile. Listen, I love Donathan. I don’t think he’s going to win this, but after he was kind of a jerk last week, I’m glad his charm returned.
Anyway. Wendell wins it, his first individual immunity. And he makes sure to announce it to Jeff Probst, unlike last time when he stayed silent. Wendell is allowed to invite people to join him, and he brings Sebastian and Angela. Angela is totally surprised. Laurel is livid, since Wendell brought along the two people Laurel would see as being “enemies.” She can’t take it anymore, and is super done with her alliance.
CBS
Wendell feels bad eating steak before possibly blindsiding him, but thinks that when he’s on the jury, he might win a vote due to the steak dinner. While talking about it with Laurel, Dom says it was just fair to take Angela, since she hasn’t had anything special in a really long time. Dom starts to get a little fearful that Laurel may shake things up.
Building A Strategy
Donathan and Sebastian think it might be good to blindside Dom. That means, they don’t even have to tell Laurel. Angela mostly seems game, especially since she’s been in the dark for so long as far as votes have been concerned. She’s feeling powerful.
Angela tells Dom that one of them has an advantage. She immediately tells Dom that Sebastian has an extra vote, and they’re running for him. Well done, Angela. You just destroyed the game. I like Dom, but does she really think she has any chance to win this thing?
Donathan also tells Laurel about Sebastian’s extra vote.
Tribal Council
At Tribal Council, Probst summons the members of the jury, most of whom you probably forgot about already. Dom tries to screw everyone else’s plans, and mentions Sebastian’s extra vote, and says how he’s not going anywhere tonight. “My pockets are loaded, and I’m prepared to just break out my pockets,” Dom says. He has merchandise! He then shows both idols, even though one is secretly powerless.
Wendell thinks it’s a complicated night, and even he has no clue who he’s voting for tonight.
Dom tells the truth and reveals his one idol is a fake, and every vote he gets tonight will count. Donathan and Sebastian also get votes. And Sebastian is out. So, this really was the perfect time to blindside Dom, and they failed. Sebastian says he had a ton of fun with everyone, and it was truly a pleasure. He’s so bummed he didn’t use his extra vote. (I think I missed why, but it’s a really bbad decision.)
Live, Probst brings out James and Erik for being dumb on previous seasons. Probst promises to apologize. Hopefully it’ll be good. Meanwhile, I tweeted about it and it gained very little traction
I love how on #Survivor, if a contestant makes a bad move while starving, tired, and riddled with bug bites, Jeff Probst will make sure nobody *will ever* forget how dumb they were. Even a decade later.
— Karen Belz (@KarenEBelz) May 24, 2018
(P.S. Follow me! I’ve had to type this up on Internet Explorer tonight, so I need a pick-me-up.)
The Next Immunity Challenge
CBS
It’s time for the next Immunity Challenge. Guess what? A puzzle is involved. A PYRAMID puzzle. As expected, Wendell is dominating this thing. Angela is currently behind. Probst reveals that at this point, everyone’s won individual immunity but Donathan. But, it won’t be Donathan, since once again, Wendell wins, and has a one in four shot of winning,
Wendell feels quite secure. Now he has to think about who he wants next to him.
For Dom, he thinks Angela isn’t much of a threat. All she’s good at is eating weird food, Donathan is probably the best choice. Donathan tries to get on his good side by saying he’d take Dom to the final three with him, since he wants to play with the best. Dom isn’t really buying it, but does like the fact that he’s weak in challenges. Thus, not much of a threat.
Laurel, who’s a big challenge threat, is a little paranoid. She knows she’s at the mercy of Dom and Wendell tonight. She says her only chance is if Wendell and Dom’s votes cancel each other out. Dom thinks Laurel is full of shit, and Wendell agrees that she might be the only person who’d beat them, and said that even though he hates saying it, he would be okay cutting her loose.
A Very Loyal Tribal Council
Time for Tribal. The jury comes in. While the last person out always looks drastically different, Sebastian looks exactly the same.
Really, it’s kind of between Donathan, Laurel, and Angela. Laurel says she hopes loyalty overrules all, and Donathan is like, LOL, no. But it’s time to vote, so let’s see what happens. We see early on that Donathan writes Laurel’s name down.
Tonight’s the last day to play idols, so Dom plays his. Wendell plays his extra immunity for Laurel, and the two hug. So, Don’s going home. H wishes goodnight to Malolo, and tells Jeff that he’s had the most wonderful experience of his life.
Tomorrow is the last immunity council, and winning it will guarantee a spot in the final Tribal.
On the live show, Probst talks to Donathan about fining courage through the game. He said, nervously, that he was bullied a lot growing up, especially after coming out at age 13. But Survivor helped him find his voice. Probst says that Sia, a Survivor fan, wants to give him $10,000 to help his family. Just imagining Sia watching the show every week makes me crack up a bit. (P.S. I love Sia.)
Give it up for @Sia for her generous gift to Donathan and his family at the #Survivor finale! pic.twitter.com/lTlzbFrBJ6
— SURVIVOR (@survivorcbs) May 24, 2018
The Final Immunity Challenge
It’s day 38, and it all comes down to this. This challenge involves balancing on a beam while stacking six balls on a pedestal. If the stack falls, they have to start all over again. The winner gets to choose who sits next to them, and let the remaining two fight it out in a fire-building competition.
Probst says that you need to have “surgeon-like” hands to win this one. Wendell is already on ball 2. Domenick’s stack falls first. Wendell, meanwhile, is almost done with the challenge. Laurel’s stack drops, so right now it’s between Wendell and Angela, who has four balls. Wendell loses his stack last minute, at the worst time ever. Angela also drops her stack. “This is why you never give up!” Prost says.
Now Dom is in the lead, and he takes his time. He wins individual immunity, and gives himself a round of applause. Before Dom chooses who’ll sit with him, they’ll all take a trip to Ghost Island. Wendell knows that while they’re tight, Dom isn’t going to choose him. So, he needs to make fire like never before.
Dom admits Wendell is his biggest concern, and thinks he knows he can’t invite him openly to the final three. Laurel admits she’s really bad at fire, and tells Dom that straightforward. “I don’t know if Laurel is a viable option at this point,” Dom says. He thinks she’s kind of given up on the game, and that it’s ridiculous that she didn’t brush up on her skills beforehand.
Angela tells Dom that everyone likes Laurel, and nobody even bothered talking to her this whole time. Dom thinks, since Wendell needs to get out of there, Angela is his best bet. He takes her aside and teaches her how to build a fire. Really, he should have done that with Laurel.
Dom also got a secret message after winning the game, and he choses to read it while at Ghost Island. The message was about choosing the wrong person to bring, and three iconic voting urns are in front of him. The first, being Colby and Tina back in season 2. Then, when Woo chose Tony and Tony won. Then in the 34th season, Culpepper chose Sarah, who won.
Then Dom suggests the WORST THING EVER. Giving up his immunity to someone else, so he can go against Wendell with fire. Come on, dude. That’s just dumb. He goes with Tony’s urn.
Pleading To The Jury
But now it’s time for FINAL TRIBAL. Dom says he wants to know he made all the right decisions, and is terrified right now. Wendell admits he didn’t even try to suggest himself to Dom, and said if the roles were reversed, he’d act the same way. Dom reveals that he’s going to bring Laurel to him with final three, and said that no matter what, both Angela and Wendell have been great. Thank the heavens he didn’t give up immunity.
Wendell and Angela choose seats, and end up switching up since Wendell is petrified of what the orange color on the fire-making stones represent.
They both have a similar approach going in. Wendell tries getting a spark going, and gets a flame pretty quickly. It goes out due to the wind, which Probst thinks will be a big obstacle tonight. Wendell gets another flame going and starts feeding his fire. Even though Angela is obviously out, she’s not giving up until the end. Wendell makes fire and joins the final three. Dude has to win this.
The three celebrate by painting trees and hugging a lot. Laurel admits she feels she’s the underdog, and vows to tell the jury how she played and the moves she made. It wasn’t as flashy, but she played a hard game. She’s also the last Malolo standing, which means she might get some jury votes.
They don’t do the time-waste of “let’s remember everyone voted out,” which I’m thankful for. It’s always my least fave part when included.
It all comes down to this. The council is a bit different instead of individuals straight up coming forward to ask questions one by oe, Probst splits the council into segments, like “social.” Kellyn starts out by giving her congrats. She wants to hear about their plans going in to the game. Laurel said she came in as an athlete, and wanted to play a physically aggressive game. Unfortunately, she was on Malolo, who lost everything. Michael is up next and states that Laurel stayed glued to Dom and Wendell until the end. Laurel speaks up and says she helped lead the way. Michael thinks that she shouldn’t be bragging, especially since she didn’t make the biggest move… separating Dom and Wendell.
Michael says he thinks Dom played the best social game. Wendell was social, but spent a lot of time plotting his next move. Wendell says Dom’s just a New York talker. Wendell goes and down the line and recalls specific conversations he’s had with everyone. But, Desiree won’t vote for him solely because they had a conversation about music. Wendell brings up the Chris and Dom fight, and says how he tried to keep them together.
Dom keeps interrupting Wendell while talking, and tension starts to build. Dom tries to convince everyone that they didn’t want to be at the finals together, and the jury agrees they’re probably going to end up splitting votes.
Michael asks about idol dynamics. Wendell says idol management was a key component of the game. “I was able to protect Laurel with my idol. That’s the kind of move I made,” he says. Michael openly says that the loyalty pitch doesn’t work for him. Dom, interrupted again, brings up the Sebastian vote. Dom thinks his two idol play was maybe the best of the game. “The way you did it Dom,” Sebastian said. “It was ridiculous.” Dom continues to interrupt.
This jury is TOUGH. #Survivor pic.twitter.com/TshQpXkktK
— SURVIVOR (@survivorcbs) May 24, 2018
Sebastian says he didn’t even have a strategy. He was just a lover. And in his eyes, the whole thing was a big act, as was most of Dom’s game. “I am not an evil, malicious person!” Dom says. “I have two daughters at home.”
Chris says that even though he’s hated Dom since day one, he still respects his gameplay. It’s kind of nice that feud has some good closure. Laurel tries to explain her gameplay a little more, and everyone just seems super bored. Dom says he likes his game, and still defends his fake idol play. He wants people to vote with their hearts tonight. Wendell’s final words are about how he wanted to build things and mesh all parts of his true self out there.
Now it’s time to vote. This time, they’ll be voting for the person they want to win. But before, Probst finds a young girl in the audience to predict who wins. Her name is Samantha, and hey — no pressure, girl.
Okay. NOW It’s time to vote. Michael chooses Dom, and Sebastian votes for Wendell, meaning that steak dinner really made a difference. Chris also votes for Dom, which is a huge surprise. Kellyn goes with Wendell. I have a sinking suspicion Laurel’s getting zero votes. “Oh my god, it’s oveerrrr!” Donathan whispers.
Probst reads the votes right then and there. Not in New York. Whoa. That’s the first time that’s happened since like, season one. Domenick and Wendell both start with two votes. Then three votes. Then four votes. Then five. They’re tied, guys. That means Laurel becomes the 11th member of the jury, and will cast the final vote. This is the first time this HAS EVER HAPPENED.
Laurel tells them that she loves them both, and goes to vote. And surely that vote will be read in the studio… right? Yep. Probst totally knew about the tie, and tried to keep things spicy.
Probst brings the voting urn out to read the final vote, and everyone’s cheering. Because they’re on television!
And The Winner Is…
“First time!” Probst says. He states it was a great season and a very competitive battle. The winner of Survivor is…Wendell.
“And that’s how it goes!” Probst says, inviting his family on stage to hug. Good season, guys. (P.S. Samantha voted for Wendell too.)
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