Survivor: Winners at War Episode 13 Recap

The Penultimate Step of the War

All season, it’s felt like if production had juuuust a little bit more time, they could have made every episode extraordinary. Some episodes felt like they ran out of time to really show us the strategy. Others had to cut out some great character moments to spend more time telling the story of somebody’s boot. It’s been a great season but we’ve been left feeling like it could have been even better.

Last night, we finally get the two-hour time slot we’ve been craving for this season. Only to find out, if any episode this season didn’t need an extended time slot, it was this one. This episode felt like when you have to hand in an essay with a specific page count, but you’re just short, so you go and make the font size on the punctuation slightly bigger. If this episode of Survivor were an anime, it would have featured the characters attempting to get their driver’s license.

That’s not to say that this was a bad episode. It just felt like production was really stretching to cover the time CBS had given to them. They don’t get to choose when these extended episodes will occur and unfortunately for us, this time we got one in two of the more straightforward votes of the season.

Also, the premiere better not start with another season recap. My assumption is that they ended this one with the recap because they had time left and needed to get it out of the way. The finale is going to have a lot of things to get through and hopefully this was a production decision to allow us to start right at the returning challenge. If they show another season recap to begin the finale, I’m going to lose my shit.

I would say that if this episode had a theme, it would be clutch victories. Both Jeremy and Nick were voted out because the person who was supposed to get voted out won the immunity challenge. Those moments can be very excited on Survivor. Who can forget Jonathan Penner’s clutch immunity win in Survivor: Philippines? Or Shii Ann’s huge victory in Survivor: All-Stars?

(Both moments happen to be back-to-back in this video if you care to see them.)

The reason those clutch immunity wins resonate with us is because they were beautifully set-up. We knew going into those challenges that without a victory, Penner and Shii Ann were goners. The editors made sure that we knew so that if we were invested in them as characters, we would be excited when they pulled out the win.

Last night, I would say they were one for two on making us care about the immunity wins. I don’t think we were meant to be rooting for Nick to pull off what he did in the first half of the episode. I think the edit wants us to be on Jeremy’s side and wants us to feel saddened that because Nick won, it’s going to cost Jeremy his life in the game.

But Michele? Oh, we were meant to care about Michele winning that challenge. The edit before the challenge was like a pitcher tipping to the batter that he was about to throw a fast ball right down the middle (or the Houston Astros were involved.) If Michele wasn’t about to win this challenge, it was made clear that she was 100% going home. Then she pulled it off and I can’t lie, it was exciting even when I knew it was coming.

That’s the thing about Michele. She’s tenacious as hell. Last night, she had a confessional about performing best when under pressure and I believe that to be true. She really turned it up in the Kaoh Rong end game. Now, we’re approaching the Winners at War end game and what does Michele do? She’s starting to turn it up again.

After a couple of weeks of Tony stealing the show, I would say without a doubt that Michele was the star of this double episode. She got emotional content after she struggled in the first immunity challenge. She got to play her coin flip idol and land on safety. She got to reem Nick out for voting out Jeremy. She got content about proving herself and starting to make moves so that she can get to final tribal council with a chance to win. She got great confessionals like the Parvati-esque celebration of her immunity win. This was a fantastic night to be Michele Fitzgerald on Survivor.

I still think that it was also a fantastic night to be Tony Vlachos on Survivor. Realize this: we are heading into the finale next week. Tony has never voted incorrectly and has not received a single vote against him. There is very much a possibility that Tony could play a perfect game against this all-winners cast. Messy-ass Tony Vlachos heading into the finale with a perfect game in the mix? Nobody would have bet on that scenario in the pre-season.

Tony might not have wanted to see Jeremy go but when Nick won that immunity, he knew what needed to be done. That vote was Nick’s fatal mistake this season. Michele was accurate in her assessment post-vote that Nick screwed up. He thought that he was in with Tony, Sarah and Ben as the 4th member. Clearly, that trio only saw him as an expendable number and preferred to keep Denise around as the extra member, probably because they see her as less of a challenge threat.

Had Nick voted Ben out instead, Jeremy would have been with them, since Tony and Sarah would have just voted against him. At the very least, that’s a 3 to 3 split with Tony, Sarah and Denise. At that point, is Denise willing to stay aligned with the two biggest threats left in the game? That’s not a winning combination for her, there’s no way she goes to rocks for either of them.

Nick just thought he was more with Tony than he really was. That speaks to Tony’s ability to make people feel at ease with him. Which is still mind blowing to me since we know Nick has seen Survivor: Cagayan, probably multiple times. I would be nervous if Tony pulled me over on the highway, let alone being allied with him on Survivor.

Both sides of Cops R Us showed their game skills last night. Maybe it isn’t fair when Ben is the subject, but Sarah really did make it seem to Ben like targeting Nick came from his own mind. That quick cut of Sarah suggesting Nick to Ben, straight to Ben telling Tony they might have to go for Nick was pure gold. That’s the kind of editing that keeps me invested into Survivor 20 years later.

Sarah is a social assassin. Production has always had a hard time showing social players in the best light, but I think moments like those are how you do it. It lets us see how Sarah is able to talk to people and get them to do what she wants them to do (much like when she got Sierra to confide in her about the legacy advantage and then voted her out to get her hands on it.) She came into this season talking a big game but then she proceeded to go out and prove it to everyone. Sarah is a top tier Survivor player, whether you like her or not.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s Ben. He came into this season saying he was going to show everyone he wasn’t just the idol guy. He wanted to show his social game to the masses. So far, Ben has:

· Pissed off Adam;

· Pissed off Jeremy and then gotten so angry with him to the point of not even wanting to talk to him in the game;

· Made Nick skittish about wanting to play with him;

· Has been called paranoid by Parvati, Ethan and Boston Rob;

· Mentioned last night, without any irony, that he went the whole game without being given any fire tokens by voted out contestants.

You really showed us your social grace there, Ben. And look, it’s probably tough for the guy. We know that he feels like fans have discounted him as a winner because of how he did it. That stigma is always going to be there. Ben just took advantages of what was in front of him. I don’t begrudge him whatsoever for doing so. Ben is a Survivor winner, and no one can take that away from him. It just so happens that he’s also a unique Survivor winner and that his winning skills don’t make him a great player overall. It takes a lot of luck to be a Survivor winner and with 40 seasons in the books, we’re going to have more than a few winners who aren’t good players. That’s just how randomness works.

Speaking of Ben and how the fans view his win, I thought that the first tribal council discussion was great. It served as a reminder that these characters are people too. They have real, long-lasting effects from playing this game. I wrote a piece about this a few years ago that still feels accurate today. It’s about the effect Survivor has on the psyche of players after they’ve finished the show and from what these winners were describing at tribal council, it hits the nail right on the head.

Recently, a few of the winners have taken to deleting their social media because of fan engagement. I’m not here to say that players should be above correction. Their in-game moves should be fair to criticize in a constructive manner. I just criticized Ben’s game this season mere paragraphs from this one. As well, their actions outside of the game, like every other human being in the world, will also be commented on. Since they are somewhat public figures, their actions will get a lot more focus than yours and mine. I’m sure they understand that and knew what they were signing up for, being returning players.

That said, just because you disagree with a player, doesn’t mean you should be nasty to them. Twitter, reddit, Instagram, Facebook. These platforms give everybody a voice but can we please try to use that voice nicely? Let’s remember that we watch this show for entertainment and at a certain point, if you’re not being entertained, maybe you should consider not watching.

My favorite part of the second half of the episode (outside of Michele’s clutch win) was Denise’s full-circle moment. If you go back to Survivor: Philippines’ premiere, you’ll see the legendary Zane Knight using a unique strategy to attempt to save himself. After failing in the immunity challenge, he announced to his Matsing tribe (which included Denise) that he wasn’t cut out for this Survivor experience and that they should vote him out. Only, Zane thought that this was a next-level strategy that would keep him around because everyone else would like him too much and be too confused to vote him out.

Last night, we saw Denise tell her tribe that she wasn’t going to fight her boot (which is a lie, she was strategizing for final four at the well with Sarah and Ben during the spy nest scene). It was like the spirit of Zane Knight suddenly inhibited Denise’s body so that he could get a second chance at using his possum strategy. Only this time, it worked. Maybe because Denise had a month’s worth of time to build social bonds with allies who weren’t willing to vote her out whereas Zane only had three days where he spent the entire time making alliances with every single player. Maybe that’s why but then again, I’m not the Survivor expert that Zane Knight is.

We’re likely to start the finale with the edge of extinction challenge. My guess is that Natalie, Parvati, Tyson and Rob are our only logical returnees. I don’t think we would be focusing on the idols that were bought on the edge if they weren’t going to play a factor in the finale. Given the sheer advantage of having a ridiculous 14 fire tokens, I think Natalie is my odds-on favorite to return. Speaking of which, how did Parvati only have two tokens? Didn’t she sell the extortion to Tony for 6 tokens, get two from the coconut challenge last week and get some from the search she did with Natalie? We need a better way to track these things.

It was cool to see Natalie buy an idol for Tyson. That speaks a lot to his ability to make bonds with people. Jeremy has just gotten to the edge of extinction, Natalie’s best Survivor buddy. Even so, Natalie thought it right to spend her tokens for an idol for Tyson. We didn’t get to see too much of their friendship on the show but in secret scenes, you can see that Tyson is being very congenial with his edge buddies (like how he consoled Sophie when she broke down over being voted out.)

At the edge, it was cool to see Amber get a final moment. She never got a chance to play in this game. She was doomed from the moment the rest of this cast saw her. That has to be difficult to swallow. So I’m happy that she got something out of her experience out on the edge and got some time for self-reflection. Knowing that we’ll likely never see her on Survivor again (or Ethan, or Danni, or many other winners on this season), I was moved by her emotions.

Going into the finale, I still think it’s Tony’s game to win overall. I don’t think the jury is going to be willing to give the returning player the win after seeing how Chris Underwood’s victory was perceived. Doubly so because this is the all-winners season and they know the fans are going to expect more. Outside of the edge players, I think Michele and Sarah represent the only true threat to Tony’s win and neither of them will beat him in a vote.

If Tony doesn’t win, it’s because he didn’t make final tribal council. Plain and simple. We saw last night that Sarah dismissed Michele’s comment that nobody can beat him head to head but Michele is correct. It’ll be interesting to see if Sarah has a change of opinion on that matter during the finale, with the prize money so tantalizingly close. Whatever happens, I’m expecting some fireworks for a season that has mostly delivered on its expectations, even if we feel like we could have gotten a little more in some places (and maybe a little less last night.)