Survivor: Winners At War Finale Recap

It All Boils Down To This

After the finale last night, I couldn’t sleep for hours. My mind was racing from what we just saw. Tony Vlachos, the Survivor unicorn, whose win was deemed unrepeatable, has become the second two-time Survivor winner. It’s been 12 hours, and it still doesn’t feel totally real.

Since the merge, Tony has been running the game in an impressive display of Survivor skills. Before the finale, he was sitting pretty to cruise into final tribal council and pick up his 2-million-dollar check. That would have been fun, but it might have been a little unfulfilling. Nobody wants to read a story where everything goes the main character’s way.

In that case, the finale served as Tony finally facing some adversity. It came in the form of our edge returnee, Natalie, whose timing and advantages could not have been better in terms of being a thorn in Tony’s side. While I still don’t like the edge of extinction as a twist, I have to admit that it’s the reason we got such a thrilling finale instead of a paint-by-numbers march to victory for Tony.

But still, the top news at this hour is that Tony Vlachos is a two-time Survivor winner. You might have a different opinion, and there are a lot of other potential candidates, but this win puts Tony at the top of my Survivor rankings. The degree of difficulty this win had is insane. Tony was matched up against some of the best players in Survivor history, all his competition was former winners and he had to constantly battle against his own reputation to stay in the game.

Somehow, despite that reputation and the caliber of his competition, Tony went the entire season without receiving a single vote against him. These guys watched Tony win Cagayan, saw the insanity of his Game Changers premiere and still felt comfortable leaving him in the game. Vote by vote, Tony found better footing, built some solid bonds and took control of the game. I would put this victory up there with Kim in One World and Rob in Redemption Island. In fact, I would probably even place it above those two wins because of the stark difference in competition.

Even tonight, when things started to go sideways for Tony, it wasn’t his fault and he had the correct reads. At that final six, he was onto Natalie having an idol from the beginning. How could you not think Natalie was coming in with an advantage when they had just seen Chris come back from the edge with an idol and the fact that Tyson must have told them you could buy advantages on the edge? It was a horrible look for Sarah (and Ben, but I mean… it’s Ben) to dismiss Tony’s fears outright based solely on gut feeling.

Had they just done the clean 2–2–2 vote split Tony was suggesting, they could have saved two idols for the final five. Sure, you’re burning Denise but how does that impact your chances in the end? If the proposed final three is Tony, Sarah and Ben, you’re going to have to burn Denise at some point either way. Wouldn’t you rather keep your idols for the next round and better your chances to keep the trio into the final four?

In fact, had they followed Tony’s plans and production still decided to re-hide Natalie’s idol, there’s a very good chance we would have seen advantagedon 2.0. If we assume that everything else stays the same, Natalie finds the idol again and Tony wins immunity, that means that he likely plays his own idol on Sarah. Ben plays his idol for himself and suddenly, Michele becomes the only person without any form of immunity and gets Cirie’d out of the game.

But his allies didn’t go with Tony’s intuition and he had to burn his idol. I would have been way livider (which is apparently a word) if I were him because he was very vulnerable at final five without that idol. Instead of crumbling, Tony did the only thing he could do and protected himself with a fourth immunity win. We’ve seen some clutch wins in the last few episodes and this one was probably worth two million dollars.

At the final five, Ben made a selfless move that was also kind of stupid. If he wanted to help Sarah win the game, he’s much better off staying in there to potentially deal with Tony in fire making. If that happens, Sarah is sitting there with Ben and Natalie at final tribal council and we know Ben isn’t getting votes. That’s essentially a final two for Sarah against Natalie, where it might be close but it’s better odds for her than going against Tony.

Besides, Tony once again had the correct read that Natalie wasn’t going to play that idol on Michele. She’s put in too much work after being the first boot to incorrectly play her idol on someone else and get voted out. Ben, Tony and Sarah had a free shot at Michele that they didn’t take because Ben voted himself out.

That being said, I also respect Ben’s selflessness. Not everybody goes on Survivor for the money. Some people want the adventure. Others are looking for answers within themselves that the isolation and starvation may be able to provide. Ben came into this season looking to show that he wasn’t this rough dude who couldn’t make friends. I don’t think he was ever worried about going the distance. When the opportunity presented itself to help his friend, he saw it as the perfect end to his Survivor arc and took it. I don’t begrudge him for that. Ben was never a strategic person and it kind of fits that he would go out in a bad strategic decision.

Speaking of fitting endings, fire making was the best way to end Cops R Us. This way, they didn’t have to turn on each other and still, only one of them was going to make final tribal council. After everything they’ve been through: Tony’s lying and betrayal in Cagayan, both of them winning a season, their reconciliation and comeback in Winners at War, this was a poetic ending for the duo.

And look, I’m not the biggest fan of final four fire making. It feels contrived and a way to have more control over who survives that final vote. That said, it’s important to highlight when I’m being a big old hypocrite. Realistically, if there isn’t a final four fire making in this season, Sarah flips on Tony at this vote and sends him packing. We don’t get Tony in the final three without fire making and that needs to be said.

This season was proof that Sarah’s belief in her own game wasn’t arrogance. It was her knowing her worth. She didn’t win this season, but damn, she showed off her skills. Going into the game, she had the biggest target out of anyone on this cast. Thanks to her social game, she was able to take that target and make it vanish. If you need any proof that Sarah can make legitimate bonds on Survivor, look no further than the Ben boot where he gave her permission to vote him off. That doesn’t happen for just anyone.

It was also great seeing her get some closure for her Game Changers win. I’m not one who is going to pretend like I enjoyed that season, but I was also never going to pretend like Sarah didn’t play an all-time great game. She is right, there is a gender bias on Survivor. Women are expected to play a certain way and when they go against that mold, they are almost always disliked by the community at large.

In Game Changers, Sarah played a game that was modeled after Tony’s Cagayan game. Only it was cleaner and a lot less neurotic. Instead of being praised as a unicorn like Tony was, Sarah was castigated. She was mean and heartless for cutting her allies so brutally. The same things people loved Tony for were being used against Sarah’s standing as a person. That’s entirely biased on their gender.

There’s also the fact that Sarah was a fire making challenge away from potentially being the first female winner since… Sarah in Game Changers. I don’t care what you say. It’s not just pure coincidence that men have won the last 6 seasons. There are biases at play that make the game more advantageous to men. And let’s just make it clear that gender bias isn’t the only bias we’ve seen on the show in the last 20 years. I don’t know how to fix this problem, but I do know it needs to be addressed. I’m glad that Probst spoke about this at tribal council because it means that maybe their eyes are also starting to open on the issue.

Seeing Tony so broken up over having to end Sarah’s game was touching. That was the first time we ever saw Tony have emotions for something that happened in the game. It always seemed like Tony reveled in that chaotic element of his gameplay but with Sarah, we got to see that he cared about these people too. Even in the Ben vote, we got to see some of that Tony. At tribal council he said something like, “the closer I get to these people, the harder it gets to vote them out”.

That single sentence is enough to show that Tony understands that Survivor is a social game. It’s why he’s a winner and someone like Russell Hantz, who Tony is most often compared to, will never win. Both players might be flashy and pull off some cutthroat moves with idols and advantages, but Russell has a dark edge to him. He’s never really made any friends when playing Survivor. Through 3 US seasons and a quick stint in Australia, Russell has never valued the social game.

Tony isn’t like that. He’s not making moves out of malice. Everything he does is purely based on what he thinks will further his game. But that doesn’t mean he’s not capable of making friends while playing his crazy game. Tony’s social game is what got him this victory and it’s by far the most underrated skill in his bag of tricks.

We got to see more of that social game at play during final tribal council. I don’t think Tony answered a single actual question the jury asked him. Instead, he basically pivoted every answer to some kind of story he had crafted for final tribal. He made sure to talk about getting extorted and his spy nest. He was like a stand-up comedian going through his set and sure enough, the jury was eating it up. They were all laughing with him and Michele and Natalie were too. If the jury had been bitter against him, that kind of performance would not have been well received. But Tony can read a room and he could see there wasn’t any hate in that jury’s heart for him. And that gave him a clear lane to do his Tony “Seinfeld” Vlachos act and collect his two million dollars.

Tony’s nemesis in this finale was definitely Natalie. She came back from the edge with a vengeance. She was smart enough to pull Michele aside, and thanks to a timely immunity win from the latter, had enough ammunition to take a shot at the power alliance. Then, she was gritty enough to find the idol that she played the previous round. Although, I will say that everyone should have been looking at night like Tony. It’s well documented that this man sleeps like 45 minutes per day on Survivor. Leaving him alone at night to search for hours could have been a fatal mistake and in this moment, Natalie and Michele got lucky.

After her second idol play, Natalie booked her spot in the final three by winning the last immunity of the season. I think this is where she made her big mistake. As she said herself at tribal council, by winning the last immunity, Natalie felt like she had done enough to win the game (which she shouldn’t have said out loud… in front of the jury, but I digress). She was content to allow Sarah to make fire against Tony.

The jury just saw Chris Underwood put himself in the line of fire (pun intended) against Rick Devens after coming back from the edge. Devens was a big threat on that season and the presumed favorite to win it all. With Tony, he’s like Devens but a thousand times more threatening because he was never voted off and he has the Tony reputation. Natalie had a clear shot to end the biggest threat on the island and instead of seizing that chance, she passed it off to someone else.

Maybe Natalie wasn’t feeling great about her chances with fire. Maybe she’s not great at that portion of the game. Okay, fair. But allow me to ask: if you’re there for the win above anything else, isn’t there no difference between 2nd and 4th? In either case, you didn’t win but if you finish 4th, you can at least know you did everything you could to get there without Tony in tow. Unless Natalie really believed like she had already done enough to win (which in that case, is just a bad read), not making fire was a decision to make sure she finished a few spots higher and getting a better payout at the end.

There’s also the fact that Natalie never had the chance to show she could survive a vote where she was vulnerable. When Chris Underwood came back at final six, he had an idol that could only be used at final five. He needed to find a way to survive that final six vote without any kind of protection. At that vote, he managed to talk Lauren into playing her idol for him. That was an impressive display that garnered him some points from the jury.

In Natalie’s case, she had an idol she purchased from the edge at final six. Then she found the idol again when it was re-hidden at final five. Then she won immunity at final four and booked her way into the final tribal council. Idols are a legitimate way to survive on Survivor, but it’s also not showing the jury you can make it out of a tribal council without them. The only time Natalie wasn’t immune this season was for the first vote, in which she was voted out.

Then, I felt like her final tribal council was inconsistent. Her biggest argument was that when she came back into the game, she managed to get to the end by placing a target on Tony. She told everyone that the edge felt like he was the biggest threat in the game and he needed to be taken out. But who was sitting next to her at final tribal council? Tony Vlachos. If you’re talking about who the biggest threat is and you didn’t take him out before the end, aren’t you just giving more credit to the other guy?

Natalie killed the edge of extinction. She got so many advantages and fire tokens. Her physical game was never in doubt and she fought like hell after being the first boot to come back into the game. I just feel like at the end, she left some potential moves on the table out of fear of losing before final tribal council, and I think part of that jury felt the same way. In the end, that cost her more than anything else. Chris laid the blueprint for winning from the edge of extinction and in not following it to the letter, Natalie’s game suffered.

As the third member of the final tribal council, I feel like Michele didn’t get as much recognition as she deserved. She never found her footing in the game. As she said herself at final tribal, Michele had a lot of great one on one relationships, but she was never able to parlay that into a bigger alliance. That hurt her chances to really impact the vote until the end-game, where smaller numbers have a chance to do more damage.

Despite being on the back foot for 90% of the season, Michele never let up. We saw in Kaoh Rong that Michele tends to play better when the pressure is at its highest. Last week, she won a key immunity to survive a sure-fire boot. This week, she crushed a puzzle she had seen in the past to ensure Natalie and her’s safety at final six. Michele doesn’t crumble under pressure.

I felt like she did all she could do at final tribal council given her game and the competition she was up against. She didn’t try to pretend like she was more of a mastermind than she was (*cough*Ryan Ulrich*cough*) and she tried to highlight her social game as the key to her success. I would have liked to see a few votes for Michele because I think she doesn’t deserve to be a 0 vote finalist. Still, she may not have won but she can still claim to be the only person of this cast to have never been voted out.

In a way, it feels like a full circle moment for Michele. There was so much controversy over her defeat of Aubry in Kaoh Rong. For so long, she was looked as an underserving winner by a loud portion of the Survivor fanbase. Coming back and getting to the end for a second time shows everyone that Michele knew what she was doing. She was always a good player and now, people kind of feel like she didn’t get enough credit for her game this season.

All things considered, this finale was Tony’s coronation. Sandra gets to remain the queen of Survivor, but she now has a king alongside her. It was such a thrill to watch Tony get to do his thing on Survivor once again. When we saw Boston Rob’s vote for Tony, it felt like an obvious symbolic move from production. Boston Rob was handing Tony the Survivor torch.

In a sense, that’s funny to say because Tony is actually older than Rob by two years, but it feels true too. I think Rob closed the chapter on his Survivor experience this season. I don’t think we can say the same for Tony. I think he has become the new face of the franchise and I fully expect to see him return eventually (and be a very early boot, but we’ll still love seeing him).

For production, it’s hard to ask for a better result. They have arguably their flashiest and most memorable winner take home the all-winners season. Tony’s ascended into the Survivor Mt. Rushmore and in my opinion, he’s at the very top of any Survivor list. Best player? Best character? Best llama speaker? Check all of the above.

Maybe the season wasn’t as perfect as we hoped. The boot order was a little rough at times. The edge of extinction still isn’t an ideal twist. The editing was sometimes hard to follow and we’re going to need some post-season deep dives to understand the entire story. Still, Tony Vlachos just won a second Survivor season. And it was one that featured only previous winners! The ending itself moves this season at least 5 spots in my personal rankings.

Now, we face some uncertainty about the show. If the anti-climactic Zoom reading of the votes wasn’t a sobering reminder, we still don’t know when production will be able to film their next season. Not since the very beginning of the franchise has there been so much uncertainty over the future. We will simply have to wait and see.

In the meantime, we have plenty of food for thought. Maybe it’s best to sit on this season for a while and really understand what went on. I know that I have a ton of questions left unanswered and I will have more content about this season in the coming weeks. Not to mention other things I have been working on in the past couple if months.

Survivor isn’t going anywhere, it’s just taking a little nap. I’m not going anywhere either. So, until next time, thanks for a great season. Congratulations to the final three, and especially our winner… the great Tony Vlachos (this still doesn’t feel real)!

P.S: Can someone check on Sophie to make sure she’s still still alive? It felt like we were seeing some “Weekend at Sophie’s” action during final tribal council.