Survivor 46’s hot mess ends in a swirl of filler and delusion (2024)

“It’s been a fun and unpredictable season of Survivor,” Jeff Probst said at the start of the Survivor 46 season finale. Those are accurate descriptions, though I never would have imagined using the word “fun” to describe those insufferable early episodes.

By the time Liz melted down, though, I was fully into this season as farce, like some kind of extended satirical version of Survivor.

I don’t even know if it can be compared to other new-era seasons or old seasons, just because the game play has been so haphazard and pathetically bad. Five people in a season not playing idols—after watching player after player be blindsided?

Despite the copious number of idols, this season actually backed away from advantages and twists, including none being successfully played at Tribal Council. Imagine a season like this with better players!

At the start of the episode, I was hoping for the most chaotic possible final three, which for me would include Ben and Liz. And I got at least part of what I’d hoped for.

While there were moments of wacky entertainment, the Survivor 46 finale was most definitely a 42-minute episode stretched over three hours.

After her attempt to blindside Charlie in the penultimate episode, Maria asked him to talk. “I messed up,” Maria told us. “My big move didn’t pan out.” She attempted “damage control.” But since Charlie was going to do the same thing, he was nonplussed, just convinced “I’m a big threat.”

The first immunity/reward challenge was—and you will never guess—an obstacle course and puzzle. Did the players this season also design the challenges with all the extra time they had while not playing the game?

Oh! You will also not guess what the reward was: sh*tty food at the Sanctuary, with a bonus of eating while covered in mud and flies buzzing around.

“Going back to day one, nobody would have predicted this five,” Probst said, and again, I agreed with him. What is happening.

There were some fun components, like a bucket full of water to rinse mud off their faces and/or slam themselves in the face, like Charlie did.

The only twist was that the puzzle wasn’t the end: the puzzle revealed a way to find a combination, and unlocking that.

“Another complicated Survivor puzzle,” Narrator McExposition said, pronouncing “boring” in a way I’ve never heard it pronounced before.

Maria and Charlie were in the lead for the early part, but at the puzzle, Kenzie pulled ahead, but then got confused about the fact that they had to count holes in the plank from earlier in the challenge.

Mid-puzzle, Liz abandoned her puzzle, went back through the obstacle course despite being allergic to both obstacles and helping, and grabbed Kenzie’s plank for her. She then counted the holes.

I guess we can just team up for individual immunity now? Looking at another player’s puzzle is one thing; this is a whole new beast that the producers just let happen.

As a result, Kenzie won. “We had to team up to beat you,” Kenzie told Maria.

Kenzie got to select someone to join her, and decided between Liz and Ben. Liz told her, “I’d go with Ben. I’m allergic to pasta.”

Probst told Maria, “The better you are, the bigger the target you are.” In other words, bye bye Maria. She said, “It’s not over until you snuff my torch,” but it was already over.

Maria’s pitch to the others was that Ben lied to Kenzie about voting for her. “I just don’t think I can beat you,” Kenzie told her. “I think I can beat Ben.” Yep.

At the first Tribal Council, Jeff Probst told Maria that some viewers “feel like it’s a younger person’s game, but then somebody like you shows up.”

No, you nitwit, it’s a younger person’s game because you’ve stopped casting older people! Maria is 47—that’s young! That’s a quarter-century younger than Rudy was on Survivor: Borneo.

The Tribal Council was just Maria’s wake, which the music made clear; everyone said nice things, including while they voted her out unanimously. Then the show spent approximately several minutes on everyone hugging and saying goodbye.

Next, we were treated to more of Ben’s nighttime anxiety, and flashbacks to all the previous times he woke up mid-panic attack. “I just want it to be over,” he said.

At this point, that’s how I was feeling about the finale. Again, I don’t mind learning this about Ben, but we already know it, we’ve already seen it, there’s nothing new here, move along.

With fire-making looming, Liz shared another one of her maladies. “The ligaments on my wrist are too big for my body and so my joints are constantly popping in and out of place, so I haven’t been practicing fire very much because my hands starts cramping up, and I don’t want to look like a complete dumb-dumb,” she said.

Don’t worry; it’s not from that, it’s from saying things like, “I’m getting the feeling that everyone thinks Liz is the number-one threat.”

After Liz said that, I had to take a small break to change my pants because I laughed so hard I peed.

Liz showed up at the immunity challenge with a fake cane, pretending she was “Mee-Maw.” Whoever cast her gets a raise, I say.

The final immunity challenge looked like Plinko, but was actually a Survivor logo puzzle.

Plinko was used as a distraction: they had to roll a ball up it and could work on the puzzle while it bounced around. Once the ball got to the bottom, they had to send it back up—but if it hit a bar at the end, they had a time penalty, basically, as the ball rolled down several ramps.

I’m curious how long it took a ball to actually roll down the board. The Plinko part obviously introduces some randomness, but at the top of the board, the ball rolled through a few ramps, adding a consistent amount of time at the start.

This was a decent challenge, despite the simplicity of the puzzle itself, because it really did require focus, especially since they had to assemble the puzzles with their backs to the Plinko board.

Narrator McExposition used his final challenge opportunity to audition for the role of Captain Obvious with his commentary: “Kenzie with another roll.” “Ben has his ball.” “Ben’s good.” “That’ll work.” “You know this logo.” “The puzzle is the easy part.” “Liz with a piece.” “Every single second is going to matter.”

Balls were missed; balls were caught and dropped. At the end, Kenzie had three pieces, but Ben had just two, and he finished his puzzle first. He’d won his first challenge, made it to the final three, and actually did something.

Ben told Liz that she “kind of unintentionally played the hardest game out here,” and said, “I don’t think I could beat you.” To be fair, do we think Ben could beat anyone?

(Ben also said that, “because people didn’t think she was a threat, now she’s here,” and he has apparently never watched any of the myriad seasons of Survivor when people who can’t win get kept around for precisely that reason.)

“Everyone on that jury already knows: I’m a millionaire. I don’t need the money,” Liz told Ben, and I wet myself again.

Ben said he was choosing her to make fire—a gift, really, since it gave her time to prep and practice—and so the millionaire sat down on a boat and cried.

Then Ben cried to Kenzie and Charlie about picking between Kenzie and Charlie for the other fire-maker.

They all three practiced; Liz was the one who had the most success, which is hilarious, though it would have been even more hilarious if she also burned down the jungle because it looked like she was practicing while sitting in a pile of dry leaves.

For entertainment, this was the best possible outcome. Oh my god, an Emmy for the way Venus turned her head to glance at other jurors when Liz declared, “Liz, you are the biggest threat.”

Ben picked Kenzie to join Liz, ensuring Ben would lose at least to Charlie. (I know we all know this, but holy cannoli this final three format is broken and boring.)

I was wrong about Narrator McExposition concluding his narration. He had more in him, and this time he was channeling Mr. Wizard. “It takes three things to make fire,” he said, and those are gasoline, a match, and all the plans for new-era seasons of Survivor.

While Liz kept catching a bundle of rope on fire, Kenzie struggled. Tevin, speaking for America, whispered, “Come on, Kenzie, come on.” Q whispered, “Why is she choking so bad? Pressure will bust a pipe or make a diamond.”

As Kenzie finally got a fire going, Tiff whispered, “Do not blow this.” She did not, making it to the final three.

I had mixed feelings: Because Kenzie is an actual player, I was glad, but then I was sad because we would be deprived of more of Liz’s spectacular delusion, and the reaction on her face when she got zero votes.

Thankfully, she had a little more to give before exiting. “I am very proud of my game. It was really over for you guys—it really was,” she said to the final three. The editing cut over to the jury, which, in their attempt not to laugh and scream and point at her, were all straining harder than Liz trying to poop. “I would have beat all of you,” Liz declared, LOL LOL LOL.

The final Tribal Council questions were fine—perhaps even better than recent seasons. Tiffany, speaking on behalf of the jury, started by saying “we have very specific questions” and wanted “serious and thought-provoking” answers. Tiff also became a 30-second clock at one point and cut people off mid-sentence, because that’s how serious the jury was about hearing answers.

The jury Q&A had more folly. At one point, Q started arguing with Tiffany about what happened between voting for Tim or Ben, taking the focus off of the actual finalists.

Ben answered a question by basically sh*tting on Q and Maria, two votes he’d need to win, saying “I was stuck with Q and Maria for like three days straight” and said “nobody asked me what my input was.”

So, in other words, they didn’t respect you as a player? Go figure! They both immediately pointed out that Ben didn’t bother to offer his own perspective.

While Kenzie and Ben answered questions, Charlie’s head appeared to be turning red and starting to smoke with frustration.

Kenzie seemed to have the clearest answers and the most even-keeled approach. At one point, she mentioned that Ben and Charlie’s game was similar, which is curious considering we actually saw Charlie play, and we only saw Ben during his night terrors.

Soda described Charlie’s game as hiding behind Maria and not differentiating himself, which is probably why he’d lose.

Votes we saw went to Charlie (Hunter, Soda) and Kenzie (Q, Tiff). None went to Ben. “The vote could go either way,” Tevin said, and Soda replied, “It might even end up being a tie.”

Indeed there would have been, had Maria voted for her buddy Charlie. One more vote for Charlie came from Liz, but the rest went to Kenzie, making it Charlie 3, Kenzie 5. Kenzie won the $1 million and Survivor 46.

During the immediate aftershow—which, again, should at least be filmed the next day, after the finalists have showered, eaten, and slept—Maria justified not voting for her biggest ally by saying Kenzie “owned her game and her story just really moved me.” That’s the only answer you have for betraying your BFF?

Meanwhile, Q said he voted for Kenzie solely because of the way she answered the money question. You spent the whole game with her and that’s the reason?!

Survivor 46 players are going to Survivor 46.

The smartest thing anyone said in the final hour was Charlie saying that “the jury picks the right winner, and Kenzie deserves this prize, she deserves this title, because the jury gave her the votes.” I agree with that, even when the answer is f*cking Gabler.

But then Charlie also claimed that this season had great gameplay and “the blindsides this season had to be better than ever.” They’re just trying to get me to pee myself!

Ben winning would have been the winner this season deserved, but for me, either Kenzie or Charlie would have been satisfying, deserving winners. That Kenzie navigated from the lows of Yanu and Bhanu to the high of winning $1 million is impressive. As she pointed out, she competed in every single challenge, and was also selected for every single Sanctuary reward.

Finally, we got a quick preview of Survivor 47. Its logo has bats and skulls, and the preview was a weird combo of players previewing their delusion and some kind of iron worker p*rn.

This show is spiraling out into outer space, but if it’s going to do that, at least give us more characters like Q and Liz and Venus and Tevin and more Liz so we can have some laughs on the trip to nowhere before our bodies freeze and shatter because we’re so far away from the fire that used to keep Survivor burning.