Review: Survivor, "Living the Survivor Dream" | Season 45, Episode 13
The stakes are never higher than a Survivor finale where the season's narrative hangs in the balance
On the Substack backend, they’ve created a new feature that encourages writers to repost articles they published on that day in previous years, which means today I was prompted to share my review of Survivor 43’s finale. And given the rage I felt when I personally reread the article, I declined their offer, having no desire to subject the rest of you to a reminder of that nonsensical finale (without knowing that Jake’s otherwise incredibly endearing method for memorizing numbers would force all of us to reflect on it).
Rage aside, though, it was a good reminder of the high stakes of the end of a season of Survivor. On a basic level, reality shows are designed to create investment in a particular ending, pushing us to choose rooting interests and shaping our sense of right and wrong when it comes to the results of a finale. But over the last 23 years, long-time fans have developed incredibly strong feelings about what a “just” Survivor winner looks like, and more importantly we’ve also made finales a test of the show and its editors as much as the castaways themselves. The castaways might be the ones who make the final choice, but the editors are the ones who have to make that choice into a satisfying season-long narrative, and situations like Survivor 43 where both sides fail is just a deeply regrettable scenario.
As such, I don’t think I go into a Survivor finale believing that a certain contestant has to win in order for it to be satisfying, at least not in a case where the season has done enough narrative groundwork for multiple winners to feel fulfilling. For instance, I may have headed into this finale with the belief that Dee’s winner narrative would be the cleanest, but the idea of an underdog story for Jake or Julie triumphing over her seniority isn’t without its own merits. And while I don’t know that Katurah’s edit has really done the work necessary in order for it to function as a season-long narrative, she’s probably the castaway that I’d personally like to see win the most, so I could live with that.
But could I live with Austin?