Everybody reading this recap already knows the winner of Survivor 50, and let’s be honest, we knew the winner the minute Cirie was taken out at Final Six. That’s why I titled last week’s recap, “Aubry May Have Put The Nail In The Coffin on Survivor 50” because she really did. The edit starting with Ozzy’s elimination was all framed as Aubry’s big moves. The only doubt I had that Aubry may not win the game was at the Final Five immunity challenge, and you can make the case that if Tiffany is immune and gets that puzzle piece in a second before Jonathan, the Survivor 46 player is walking away with $2 million.

The episode went almost as expected, outside of Jeff Probst literally spoiling Rizo losing to fire to Jonathan before it aired. Aubry came through in the clutch, winning the fan-voted challenge of Simmotion to solidify her spot in the Final Three, and she made the right decision game-wise to take Joe with her to the end.

In terms of the Final Tribal Council, I thought it was an interesting Tribal Council. Clearly, Coach, Chrissy, and Stephenie had their favorite in Jonathan, who did play a good game, but his game wasn’t respected by the jury. Aubry’s story is an underdog story, even among the cast. If you ranked everybody’s favorite cast members from the season, the Final Three are probably the bottom three on the list, which that’s Survivor. You have to eliminate the favorites because there’s a reason they’re the favorites.

To win Survivor, you have to have a little luck, and there were multiple times Aubry was saved in the game because of somebody else’s BIG MISTAKE (Shoutout Q). In terms of winners since the New Era, I say she’s right in the middle, behind Dee, Kenzie, Rachel, Kyle, and Savannah, but ahead of Erika, Maryanne, Gabler and Yam Yam.

In terms of the live finale, I actually think it was a complete bust. There was barely any mention of any of the pre-jury members outside of a quick Corona sponsor pop, and there’s so much drama that happened on this season during the airing of the episodes. How is Kyle’s achilles feeling? How does Charlie feel that Rizo lied to him about Savannah being his number one in Survivor 49? How does Genevieve feel that she literally warned everybody on the island about Aubry from day one? How is Christian and Mike White’s relationship? How does the cast really feel about all the twists with celebrities this season? None of that was answered. The only answer we got was Ozzy still has nightmares about not playing the idol, so much so that Probst even gifted him a t-shirt!

I was looking forward to all the drama, and instead, all we got was Aubry winning the $2 million officially and a haiku from Coach to send us into the Open Era and Survivor 41. We didn’t even see all the previous winners that were in the crowd. From that perspective, I think the After Show would have better if it was done in Fuji as opposed to Los Angeles.

But I will let not let some of the disappointments of the finale impact my thought process that this was the best Survivor season I’ve seen to date. On day one at the marooning challenge, Probst asked all 24 players to give everything they had, and that they did, and as a fan, that’s all I can ask for. 

Grade: B