The following contains spoilers for the finale of Survivor Season 42.After 26 days,Survivor42 has finally reached its end, and it ended up being a satisfying conclusion to the season’s arc.Survivorfinales are always more fun when the winner isn’t obvious and when there are multiple members of the Final 3 that could potentially snatch the crown, and this finale certainly delivered on that front. Many fans probably had predictions as to who would win going into the episode, and likely so many of those expectations were subverted by the end. However, the ending wasn’t a blindside; it’s not like the conclusion came out of absolutely nowhere. If anything, this episode tied threads together that had been weaving their way through the season from the start.
The episode starts with one of those threads, namely, the growing animosity between Jonathan and Lindsay. Lindsay feels that Jonathan is acting too righteous and condescending, and she’s starting to worry that if she doesn’t winthe next Immunity Challenge, they’ll send her home, and she’s not ready to go out like that yet. Romeo is evidently also not ready to go home, as he makes a fake Immunity idol and tells the group that he’ll be playing it at the next Tribal as a way to get the target off of him for one more vote. It’s a smart move, and it works out for him, despite the fact that his “idol” is a bit shoddily constructed.
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Before the challenge, the players are given a riddle that if solved will give them an advantage in the challenge. Lindsay unscrambles the clue quickly and sets off to look for the advantage, looking for a full 40 minutes while the rest of the tribe struggles to solve the full riddle (partially due to Maryanne intentionally not being helpful as a strategy to give Lindsay more time tofind the advantage). Lindsay does eventually find the advantage, and her relief is so evident as she needs all the help she can get to stay in the game.
Unfortunately, the advantage wasn’t quite enough, as Mike ended up winning the challenge by a tiny margin. He wins both Immunity and a reward, and he takes Jonathan with him. He is faced with the dilemma of deciding whether he wants to play the idol he still has in his pocket for Jonathan, Maryanne, or Lindsay, because he gave his word to so many people that he would save them. Maryanne, however,has an idol as well, and is also wondering if she should give it to someone to protect them. Saving Lindsay and blindsiding Jonathan would be a big move, but she’s also very aware of the fact that beating Lindsay at final Tribal would be a nearly impossible task.
In the end, that argument seems to win out in Maryanne’s brain, because she doesn’t play her idol for anyone. Mike, however, does play his idol for Maryanne, meaning that she was saved by an idol while still havingher own idol in her pocketand she was never in enough trouble that she needed to play that idol for herself, which is a testament to her social game. Lindsay is voted out by the tribe, but at least she left proud of the fact that she was voted out for being too big of a threat, which is a consolation to her.
Thefinal Immunity Challengeis a shock all around, and perhaps the biggest indication of how roughly this season has treated the players. During the final challenge game, Mike drops out almost immediately with only one ball in the course, to everyone’s surprise, including his own. Maryanne drops out not long after, and Jonathan and Romeo are able to go at it for a while before Jonathan makes a mistake and misses a ball, meaning that Romeo, perhaps the most unlikely choice of all, is the winner of the final Immunity Challenge.
He now has to choose who to take with him to the end and who is going to compete in the fire-making competition. Romeo sees this as a sort of retribution for being on the bottom the whole game, as he now finally gets to call the shots rather than just be the person whose name always gets thrown around as a backup vote. He chooses to take Maryanne and makes Mike and Jonathan compete for the final spot, where Mike wins handily after creating a strong fire andmakes it to Final 3. The show then takes the time to give confessionals to the jury members where they outline what they personally think the strengths and weaknesses in the games of the finalists are, which is a fun little touch and a good way to wrap up this season that has been full of so many good characters.
The Final Tribal, as Jeff Probst later calls attention to, is a really solid one, where the Jury manages to grill the finalists while also giving them room to explain themselves further. Mike seems to get himself into a bit of trouble with them by not admitting to the lies he told and sticking to his story of playing the game as honorably as possible. Obviously,lying is a necessityin this game, but it’s also important to cop to it when asked in the end, especially if it was all part of the strategy. Mike may have made a fatal mistake by not doing so.
Maryanne, on the other hand, had a fantastic showing at Tribal and was fully able to sway people who were undecided on their votes to her side. She made it clear that her low-key game in the beginning was intentional, as it kept the target off of her (as a lot of other young people with good strategic games were getting voted off at that point). She made big moves when it counted at the end, and revealed her hidden idol in such a dramatic way that it must have helped to win the Jury over even more. She even outlines how the move to take out Omar andkeeping her idolinstead of giving it to Lindsay was what got her to the end, as every choice she made was an intentional move to make it as far in the game as she could. There were times when she played emotionally, but all it did was win people to her side with her social game in the end.
The Jury is left to vote, and just like Season 41, Jeff reads the final votes at that Tribal Council instead of waiting for the live reunion. Fans seem divided on this choice, with many pointing out that it’s hard for the cast to have a full view oftheir Survivor gameand experience while they’re still in the moment, and it’s a lot harder to dissect the game without that distance. Regardless, the votes are read and Maryanne is crowned the Sole Survivor of Season 42, making her the second Black woman to ever claim that title in the history of the show.
It’s a well-deserved victory, and her winner’s edit is a fascinating one. Usually, the boisterous characters of a season don’t get to make it to the end, let alone win. The winners usually get a more serious,strategy-focused edit, while the funny, quirky players are left to be the supporting cast. Maryanne successfully moved from a goofy young girl to a strategic planner throughout her edit on the show, and her evolution in the game was so entertaining to watch.
Overall, the season itself was a success, perhaps even more than 41, despite the fact that the producers had no way of knowing how fans would react to certain new elements. This season in particular had agreat cast of charactersthat all seem like genuinely nice people. Villains can be fun to watch, but it’s also refreshing to see a group that actually seems to like each other. It was also an incredibly diverse cast, with people of all different races, ages, sexualities, and backgrounds all coming together to find common ground and work as a tribe. That’s whatSurvivoris about at the end of the day: seeing how people react to the most extreme situations, and how they can push themselves to grow even in an environment as unfamiliar as this game.
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