We Have a Winner! A Recap of Survivor 50

Months ago, I told you basically everything you need to know about the landmark 50th season of Survivor. Now, the season has come to a close and we have a winner! There are were some ups and downs during the course of this season. We had some high highs and some pretty low lows, including the host, Jeff Probst, spoiling the winner of the final 4 fire making during the live finale. From fake idols to Mr. Beast, I will give you a quick recap of the season and my thoughts but warned...

Spoilers Ahead!

The Final 5 of Survivor 50 (Tiffany, Jonathan, Aubry, Rizzo, and Joe)

Still with me? Okay, lets go. Overall, I would say this is a good season of Survivor. It's not a top 10 season. I don't know if I could even say its is a top 25 season. However, it is still good. I did enjoy my time with this season and I couldn't wait to watch each week. I will get to what worked in this season and what didn't but first...

Aubry Bracco is the winner of Survivor 50 by a 8 to 3 vote.

Aubry Bracco (Winner of Survivor 50)

Aubry first played in season 32 Kaho Rong where she was the runner up. Many people including myself believe she should have won that season. She also played in Survivor Game Changers (season 34) where she finished 5th and Survivor Edge of Extinction (season 38) where she finished 16th.

After her loss in season 38, she took a step away from the Survivor community. She started a family and had a baby. She took time away but eventually after years went by and Survivor called again, she felt like she was ready. She took time and reflected on her previous games and felt like she was in a place in her life where can come back and make the changes necessary to win and her changes obviously worked.

She started out this season slow and under the radar. She wanted to make relationships with everyone else and just get by until it was time to start playing a more aggressive strategic game and that is exaclty what she did. She was able to position herself firmly in the middle and go to the final tribal counsel with Jonathan and Joe. One of which she knew would not get any votes because of his lack of willingness to actually play the strategic game, and the other who's game was very different and likely not as impressive as hers.

In the final tribal counsel, where the final 3 contestants get the chance to plead their case and explain their game to the jury, Jonathan had a solid performance but Aubry had a fantastic performance and that is what helped her secure the title of Sole Survivor, a $2 million check, and a car. It was nice to see her finally get her win and play a winning game.

The $2 millon prize is actually part of a twist and a celebrity cameo and that leads me into some of the things that worked and didn't work in this season. In my opinion the celebrity cameos and big twists mostly didn't work. How about we start with a couple of things that combined the two.

The extra $1 million added to the prize money came from a twist at the Survivor auction involving the most famous YouTuber in the world and big Survivor fan Mr. Beast. The auction is where players are given money to bid on items like food or comfort. This time, they were able to buy letters from loved ones which came with twist attached. That's where Mr. Beast came in. He had a brief case and that night at tribal counsel, he revealed a coin where someone had to flip it. If they did and it landed on what they called, Mr. Beast would add $1 million to the prize and they would be safe that night and get an idol. If they failed, they would be immediately eliminated. If no one flipped it, someone would go home at random. This is where fan favorite, Rick Devins, stepped up. He felt like he was going home anyway so he flipped it and it hit, doubling the prize money and keeping him safe for another day.

When it comes to twists, I try not to be results based but I can't help it with this one. It was so much fun that it hit. Devins is someone who takes risks. He even said he feels like he was born for this moment. This twist worked becasue it hit. If he didn't land the coin on what he called and he was instantly eliminated, I would have hated it becasue that is just not Survivor. It was fun but please, lets not see this again. However, Mr. Beast's appearance was actually well done. He didn't take away from the contestants which is something he was conscious of. He let them take the spot light and you can tell he actually is a huge fan. He was honestly the most charismatic in his cameo than I've ever seen him.

We had a Billie Eilish Boomerang Idol which had a decent idea. The person who found it had to send it to someone on another tribe and if they got voted out with it, it came back to the person who found it. It came with a note that was "written" by Billie Eilish. I put the quotes there because she didn't really write it and just had her name attached. She didn't even say a word about it until she trashed the idea and the show on a podcast a couple of weeks ago. The idea of the idol is solid but the actual execution failed. One player, Genevieve, found TWO and had to give both away and did not even make the merge. The other that was found was just wasted by Aubry to help her gain favor with her fellow castaways. So the whole idea of it boomeranging back never even happened. So not only was the execution a fail, the "cameo" was awful because she only went on to trash the show.

Another cameo was in the form of a reward from country music singer Zac Brown. He came and did a few songs and cooked food for the winners of the reward challenge. I didn't care too much for this. I feel like the edit spent too much time on the reward and to add on top fo that, Zac had more confessionals in this one episode than one of final five had in the first 3 or 4 episodes combined.

Last was another twist from Jimmy Fallon. You had to do a puzzle and if you did not do it in time, you had to "vote for yourself". While I don't hate that idea entirely, what I do hate is that the player who failed the challenge, Christian Hubicki, had to tell the whole tribe. I feel like that made him an easy vote that led to him being voted out later that night. He had no room to work with anything and you should always have room to try to maneuver on Survivor.

Speaking of not being able to maneuver, the Blood Moon twist. Ugh. No one really liked this one. It was right before the merge. It split the castaways into three groups of 5 and all three had to vote some one out. Getting swap screwed isn't a new thing in Survivor but with the groupings being so small and the swap being day of the vote out, there was nothing you could do. You couldn't try to work your way out of a bad spot. NEVER do this again please.

A twist I didn't mind was the Double Duo twist. The players were told they needed to pair up and it was very important. Then it was revealed that you would be voted out in pairs. Because they were warned before that it was important and they had time to develop relationships, I liked it. There was some things you could work with.

The Power Broker advantage was a lot of fun. The group was split once again but it was later in the game so they had time to build relationship. The player who won immunity (Jonathan) got to go to and cast a vote at both tribal councils. It was fun to watch Jonathan go back and forth between the two groups and try to make things happen his way.

The editing and story telling left a little to be desired. I feel like the overall story of the final five and the winner could have and should have been told better. We shoud have had a better idea of what was going on with Aubry and Tiffany from the beginning. We got to hear from a lot of the players we wanted. We had plenty of Cirie, Ozzy, Devins, and Christian but the edit could have been spread out a bit more to make the story telling more even. I feel like we didn't get much from a player like Angelina. So many people were clamoring for her to come back only for her to kind of be invisable. Maybe she wasn't the goofy, non-self-aware player she was before but there are situations like that with other players here in 50. Maybe, just maybe 24 people is too many for a 26 day season of Survivor.

One more thing with the edit. I think they need to rework how they edit the winner. Since season 42, every single winner has had a confessional in every episode. So by the time the Survivor finale rolled around, we knew if they followed that trend, either Rizo or Aubry would win and it seemed like Aubry was definitely the front runner. I get the change to the edit. It came off the heels of season 41 where the winner basically seemed invisible so they wanted to change that. My suggestion would be to make sure no one gets a confessional in every single episode. The winner can get one in most episodes because it really is their story but not in every single episode.

Even though there are some lows, we have instantly iconic moments. One of course is just Cirie Fields being Cirie Fields. In no way shape or form should she go as far as she did, landing in 6th place. She showed why she is the best to never win. She somehow just manipulated the votes to going her way almost every single time. So it is no suprise when she won the fan favorite vote and the $100,000 prize to come with it. Jeff even gave her a trophy that represents the spirit of Survivor.

We also got Devins and Christian planting and hiding a fake idol at tribal which was used later in the season by Devins to help deter the others from voting for him. Then of course the Devins coin flip and his monologue about how this game helps him connect to his family and his surroundings which was a beautiful moment.

Ozzy got so close to tying the career record of Boston Rob for most individual immunity wins. Ozzy gave us a different side of him than we've seen before. He actually tried to make relationships and play more strategically instead of just focusing on winning challenges and brute forcing his way to the end. We instantly got a revival of the Ozzy and Coach beef picking right up from Survivor South Pacific (season 23). But then, old Ozzy struck again when he had a dream where he needed to play his idol and then the very next day, he got voted out with an idol in his pocket for the second time in his Survivor career.

R-i-z-g-o-d, Rizgod baby! Rizzo had only 9 days between playing season 49 and season 50. Very few people have played back to back and Rizo is one of them. Not only did he play, he played well even with the cards stacked against him since no one had even seen him play yet. Rizo went out in 4th place after losing in the final four fire making challenge in season 49 and history repeated himself here in 50. He became the second person ever to lose final four firemaking twice. He honestly played one of the better games this season and if he had won fire, he would have had a shot at winning in my opinion.

The final four firemaking challenge was anticlimactic though. Not because of the outcome, but becasue Jeff Probst, yes the host of the show, accidently spoiled the result during the live finale. The live show played the episode and cut to live studio segments, hosted by Probst, in between. The show left off with the players getting ready to head to the final fire making but then in the live segment, Jeff called out Rizo. He asked him a couple of questions which Rizo answered vaguely and then Jeff reffered to him as the final juror and told him to sit with the rest of jury. Jeff was visibly confused and then they threw to commercial. When they came back, this is what Jeff said:

I love doing live television. In case you're confused, this is what happened. We were going to show you fire making and then hav the loser of fire making, Rizo, come out and talk about how charming he is and if he had practiced fire making, maybe he would have won. Instead, we did a Survivor twist. It's the last twist of the season. We called it a 'peek into the future.' So now, we're gonna watch Rizo lose in fire to Jonathan.

That was maybe the biggest blunder in live reality tv history. I was on my couch and looked over at my wife and said "Did Jeff just spoil fire making?" Yes. Yes he did. It was a good recovery but man, that was definitely unexpected.

Overall, I had a good time with this season. It is always special getting a full all-star season of Survivor. It had been too long since we had a retruning player season. I'm hoping we get another all-star season sooner rather than later. As I mentioned, there definitely are some issues with this season. I feel like production needs to get out of the way and let the players play more. But still when they got to play and use stretch their strategic legs, it was enjoyable. We got to see some players we haven't seen in 20 year. We got to see players try to reinvent themselves. And we got to see players play for a second time that we've been dying to see again. Even though the ending and the winner might not have been a complete surprise by the time of the finale, it was still satisfying to see Aubry finally get her win, especially since it is a game closer to Michelle's, who she lost to in her first season. Although its not a top tier season, its a solid enough season with players to enjoy that fans can get enough out of it. If season 50 was your first time joining in on the fun, I hope this got you hooked enough to go back and check out some of the past seasons and see how we got here.