Survivor Fans Are Really Mad At The Cast Of Season 48, But Hold On, I Think We Could Be In For Something Special

I can’t remember the last time Survivor fans were this down on a season. They’re mad about the stronger athletes banding together. They’re mad the majority alliance hasn’t turned on each other apart from one notable exception. They’re mad players clearly on the bottom haven’t made a move to try and flip the game. They’re mad mad mad, and I get it. There have been several times I’ve shouted at my television too, but the more I think about it, the more I actually have a lot of hope that all this is going to lead to an epic finale, specifically because it’s such a departure from recent seasons.

Let me explain. There is a clearly defined strategy most Survivor fans and players have decided is the right approach: build up your resume with loud moves and then get to the finale with the weakest possible players sitting next to you. The way that works in specific terms is typically get to the merge however you can, build a post-merge alliance with a few other strong players, be the first to turn on them and form a new alliance with the weakest players you’re in a majority with and get yourself to the finale surrounded by at least one but preferably two goats that can’t win.

That’s not wrong. That is a really good strategy to win the game, but if you look at a lot of seasons, it’s a lot more likely to get you sent home before the finale. Let’s say you have an alliance that’s dominating the game. Maybe there are five strong players left in a majority alliance and three players outside the alliance. Typically what happens is a few of the strong players decide if they don’t get out the strongest player, they’re going to lose at the finale.

So, they work with those outside the alliance and get rid of them. Then the next week, they get rid of the next strongest player and so on and so forth. Then, instead of 3 of the 5 players in that original majority alliance making the finale, only one of them ends up making the finale alongside the two weakest players no one is scared of and doesn’t want to vote out for strategy reasons.

That works out well for the player who gets to the finale with the goats, but it works out terribly for the other four players in the majority alliance. Instead of having a 60% chance of getting to the finale and getting to plead their case, being so proactive reduced their chances to 20%. So, for most people, being too aggressive too early ends up being exactly what sinks their game. Just ask Cody, Jesse and Karla who had to watch Gabler, Owen and Cassidy at Final Tribal or Ricard and Shan who had to watch Erika, DeShawn and Xander at the end.

So, let’s talk about how all of this relates to this season. The so-called Strong 5 alliance of Joe, Eva, David, Kyle and Shauhin has been dominating the entire post-merge game. They’ve essentially engineered every single vote and have been joined by Mitch and Kamilla who are quite obviously not in the core alliance but still loosely connected. The only time there’s been any serious friction that has shown up in the voting booth was when they turned on David after he advocated voting out Kamilla and accused other alliance members of going back on their word.

Other than that blindside, it has been smooth sailing, to the point where you could easily compare it to an early season of Survivor. In Borneo as an example, Richard Hatch and his alliance of Sue, Rudy and Kelly controlled every single post-merge vote until it was only the four of them left, at which point they started working against each other. Season 48 is now down to 4 of the original Strong 5 alliance members, plus Mitch and Kamilla on the outskirts. They’ve essentially done the same thing as Season 1. Now, the question is whether they’re going to turn on each other now since Mitch and Kamilla are kinda sorta part of their alliance, or if they’re going to follow all the way through and do 4 of the original Strong 5.

Many viewers have hated watching this play out. They’ve been jumping out of their skin every week, angry and confused at why Kyle, Joe, Eva and Shauhin have chosen to stick together. They’ve been absolutely irate at Kamilla and Mitch for not more proactively trying to turn on the others when they’re so clearly at the bottom of the alliance. I get it, but I see things a different way.

From my perspective, instead of getting the blindsides and the personal betrayals that make Survivor so great earlier in the season (with the exception of David who is still angry and standing up somewhere), we’ve now saved all of that intrigue for the final six. There have been so many recent seasons with a really obvious winner going into the finale, but with the exception of Mitch, who seems like a great person but is probably DOA for being too out of the loop, I think there’s a clear path for five of them to be possible winners. When is the last time we could say that?

Kyle and Kamilla have been secretly working together the entire game and pulled out some wild pre-merge strategizing to even make the merge when they got randomly sorted into a horrible position. They’ve each got a strong and unique story to tell at final tribal, particularly if it’s paired with one big blindside they pull off this coming week. Shauhin is an extremely persuasive speaker and a likeable person who has been in the loop and an active decision-maker in every post merge vote. He’s one big move away from having a really good story to tell at Final Tribal too.

Then there’s Eva, who has controlled a bunch of advantages but hasn’t needed to use them and has a gripping story of personal perseverance that has been talked about very publicly this season. She’s also been very straightforward in all of her interactions with the other players and could easily get votes from jury members who may be sympathetic to the story she has to tell. And if you listen to the players actually on the season, they all seem to think Joe is the frontrunner. He’s a likeable firefighter who has been a challenge beast all season and is perceived to be in control of the majority alliance. He likely has the best chance of winning, but he’s also the most likely to be blindsided next episode.

I get all the complaints about Season 48. I do. With the exception of the shocking David vote, the person you’d expect to go home has mostly gone home. That’s greatly reduced the number of WTF moments, but because there haven’t been many WTF moments so far, that means there’s a lot of strength left. That means there’s a high likelihood we’re going to get those huge moments during the biggest episodes of the entire season.

Mary, Star, Chrissy, Cedrek and Sai, the last of whom is fantastic television, made the merge but were never going to win the game. They’ve all gone home. Yes, it would have been temporarily more exciting to see them stay because there was an unexpected blindside, but would the final six really be more exciting if Chrissy was still around instead of Joe? Would we be more amped for what’s going to happen if Cedrek was here instead of Kamilla? I don’t think so.

The point of Survivor is to put yourself in a position to win near the end of the game. No one, with the exception of Joe, is in a particularly great position to win the game, but every person other than Mitch has put themselves in a pretty good position. Given how smart and capable everyone is, I have a very hard time thinking they’re going to keep Joe around, and if they do get rid of him before Tribal Council, they almost all have a real shot at winning a million dollars including Kamilla who has been on the outskirts all season. So, from that perspective, was sticking together really such a bad move?

Many fans think it's a certainty the Strong 5 alliance will send home Mitch or Kamilla next and the other one after that. If that’s the case, then all of the complaints from fans are valid. I will agree this season has been boring. There’s also a chance, however, that the knives come out, and we have a ton of great players all frantically maneuvering and turning on each other. If that happens, we could be in for something special and a fantastic Final Tribal Council. Fingers crossed.