Survivor S44E13: Absolute Banger Season

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Survivor ends season 44 with a different sort of winner than we’ve seen in a while.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The 44th season finale of Survivor is called “Absolute Banger Season” and although I don't really agree with that sort of high placement, I do think the season ended in a decent way. I’d said earlier that I thought any of the Tika Trio winning would be a satisfying ending to the season, and that there was no reasonable way anyone else had a real chance of winning playing against any combination of those three.

The penultimate vote-out was a bit of an obvious situation -- Carson solidifies his reputation in the game with a final five immunity, leaving Lauren and Heidi as the only non-Tika people left. Yam Yam considers the possibility of voting out Carson or Carolyn, and the other two have their own “maybe” moments, but their loyalty is simply too strong still, an unusual characterization this far into the game.

So Lauren, the one on the jury with the most friends and the more engaging “story” (of the proud single mom kicking butt), gets sent home, and I never really felt we got much out of her other than a few bits and pieces. Her top ally Jaime was more of the season’s delightful punching bag, but having someone like that on the jury could only help sway votes Lauren’s direction.

The final challenge was one we’ve seen many times before, so it wasn’t quite as exciting as it could’ve been -- but the ultimate winner was Heidi, the sole non-Tika left, giving her the power in the game. Heidi has never been the most engaging player, partially due to the way the show has shown her to us, and partially due to the fact that she’s not really a showy player or big personality.

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But she was aware that her chances to win weren’t great and wanted to prove herself in the fire challenge. At that point, it’s an easy choice, because both Yam Yam and Carolyn were known to be great at making fire and Carson was struggling with it -- and at that point, Carson was the biggest threat to win the game.

Later on at the final tribal council, Yam Yam and Carolyn had to both clarify that it wasn’t simply Carson making all of the strategic decisions that kept the Tika Trio strong until the end of the game, but that perception made Carson an obvious threat to vote out. And given that Heidi clearly knew she could make a fire quickly (which she did at a new record-breaking speed) it wasn’t much of a choice at all.

The big moment going up to the challenge wasn’t Heidi’s consideration at all but Yam Yam kindly helping out Carson, even though he knew he might be going against him in a firemaking challenge if Heidi didn’t participate herself. It’s hard to ignore such a “winner” moment mainly because the selfless nature of it made it so easy to root for Yam Yam to win, even if I also was rooting for Carolyn after her sometimes quixotic, secretly capable journey to the end.

Although Carolyn received no votes, I don’t consider her a “goat”, an unwinnable player at all -- I think the real issue was that Carolyn and Yam Yam were too close of a strategic team, and Yam Yam was simply a far better speaker and explainer of his game than she was. I think people might’ve appreciated Carolyn’s game more if she’d been better able to explain it, but since we didn’t get a Probst “what if” it’s impossible to really say.

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It was an overall fairly kind, pleasant final tribal council, partially because two out of the three final players were (and still are) such good friends in the game, despite some arguments and temporary betrayals. Heidi had no real chance to win -- she even tried at one point to argue that her alliance had carried Tika along to survive, but Yam Yam corrected her and Heidi immediately backed down.

Although I appreciated Heidi’s intensity in the game, she only really had a strong social relationship with Danny, who she voted out but still was the only one to give her a vote to win the game. Otherwise Yam Yam was so charming that people could overlook all of his moves to vote people out, a very difficult game to play -- it really only works if you’re really like it like Yam Yam.

I do wonder how things might’ve gone with Carson in the final three instead of Heidi, because although he was beloved by the jury, would he have been able to articulate and argue his game as well as Yam Yam? We’d seen him struggle at times with social things here and there, despite his overall strong connections with people. So again, a mystery that can’t be solved, but I was quite impressed by Carson’s game, especially as a very young Survivor superfan (which rarely goes well)

The season was a bit of a mixed bag for me -- the overabundance of advantages and twists early on overwhelmed what was legitimately an interesting cast, and it didn’t really get fun to watch until the Merge was over and the game settled down a bit more. The journey of the great characters of the Tika Trio is like lightning in a bottle though, because they had such a unique set of characters

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But I hope the endgame placement of Carolyn and Yam Yam leads to more people like them willing to play the game, because now they know it’s actually possible to win a game where you don’t simply hide your intelligence until the end. The next season looks to have an interesting set of players again, along with the returning Bruce, who was medi-vaced this season.

Nice for him, although I can’t say I have any real idea about his gameplay, but I’m willing to give it a chance. In the end, I’m just glad this season gave us a winner I could root for and feel satisfied that their win wasn’t a “best of the worst” situation. We’ll see if the show can learn from the good and bad moments to make their next season a better one.