What a difference a decade makes.
Ten years ago, heading into the finale of her first season, Aubry Bracco was the fan favorite, beginning Survivor: Kaoh Rong as an unstable basket case before morphing into a scrappy underdog, and finally, the game’s strategic kingpin. But her orchestrating of blindsides made her less popular among certain jurors, who awarded the quieter (and underrated) Michele Fitzgerald the title.
“In Survivor: Kaoh Rong, I went to the very end of this game and I lost because I was sitting next to the wrong people,” Bracco recounted in the penultimate episode of Survivor 50. “But I’ve learned my lesson. This time, I’m ruthlessly focused on one thing: getting rid of every threat in this game.”
As we approach the Survivor 50 finale, Bracco is once again the favored front-runner…but this time, fans are less than psyched about that, as evidenced by Vulture’s latest recap, titled “Oh My God, It’s Her?” and describing her “impending victory” as “a bit of a disappointment.”
Luckily for Bracco, $2 million is a more than adequate consolation prize for the shoe now being on the other foot.
Double the Disappointment
This week’s episode essentially functioned as two abbreviated episodes, with two immunity challenges, two Tribal Councils, and two beloved players eliminated just before the finale.
Rick Devens, perhaps the most consistently joyful presence in Survivor 50, was the universal target in the first half. Much like his first time playing Survivor, in 2019’s Edge of Extinction, Devens was constantly frustrating to players in the game, but his bold Tribal Council theatrics delighted those watching on the jury.
After Joe Hunter won a methodical block-stacking immunity challenge, it seemed like a sure bet that Devens would be voted out, but Tiffany Ervin proposed an alternative. Rizo “Rizgod” Velovic has held onto an idol since nearly the beginning of the season, and with the numbers dwindling, it becomes more powerful every round he holds onto it. Ervin pitched eliminating Velovic to Jonathan Young, who seemed intrigued by the idea. But ultimately, Devens was unanimously voted out.
A Not-So-Individual Challenge
A few weeks ago, a twist forced the players into pairs who competed as a duo in the immunity challenge. Viewers would be forgiven for thinking something similar was happening in this episode, as nearly every single player teamed up to keep Ervin from victory. This followed Bracco's out-of-nowhere declaration that Ervin was a major threat to win the game. This is a trend in recent seasons, where a contestant who has received little airtime throughout the season is suddenly mentioned as a seemingly unbeatable player if they make it to the end. It’s lazy storytelling that makes it frustratingly obvious that they won’t get there, as they’d have had a stronger presence on the show if that were the case.
Despite the efforts to prevent her from winning the challenge, Ervin kept her composure and emerged victorious. With that, people turned their sights toward the legendary Cirie Fields, a mastermind social player who has competed five times on the U.S. version of Survivor (as well as one season of the Australian adaptation). Had Fields made it to the end, her reputation alone would have guaranteed her the win, so it only made sense to target her, though she led a valiant effort to take out Bracco instead. It wasn’t enough, and the legendary Fields experienced a celebratory send-off.
Survivor 50 Snubs
I’ll conclude each week’s column by spotlighting one man and one woman who were left off Survivor 50 but would have made for excellent inclusions.
Earl Cole has apparently been in the running to return multiple times since winning 2007’s Survivor: Fiji, but the timing has never worked out. That’s especially ironic because timing was key to his original appearance, having been recruited to play just two days before leaving for Fiji. In a perfect world, the charming Cole—the game’s first-ever unanimous victor—would have landed on 2020’s milestone Winners at War, but Survivor 50 would have been a great opportunity to finally get him back on our screens.
Had there been a returning players season two or three years ago, Shan Smith would have been an almost certain inclusion. The Survivor 41 villain was the first star of the “new era” in 2021, and even had her own theme music. Her post-game social media persona has likely sullied her reputation, as she has gotten into multiple spats with other contestants and notoriously declared that she was leaving her role as a pastor because God told her to become an influencer. On the show itself, however, she was a rare bright spot in an otherwise dull installment.
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