Survivor season 35: Final 5 talk twists, watching the season back

It seemed like it could have been Ben or Chrissy who could have won Survivor season 35, listening to the Final 5 look back on the season at large.

One of the most interesting aspects of Survivor is that even the players get to see just a fraction of what goes on until the show airs. While you think you know how the game is being played up until Day 39, the advantage of cameras on multiple tribes wasn’t clear to the Survivor season 35 players until they got to watch things back.

Now more than a week after the season finale, US Magazine sat down with the Final 5 to reflect back on the season, talk about that Final 4 twist, how fair it was and what was most surprising watching the different perspectives from the island. As you could expect, everyone but Ben Driebergen and the always-relaxed Devon Pinto thought the Final 4 twist was unfair.

Ryan argued that Chrissy winning the challenge now meant she couldn’t put Ben on the jury, but Devon would as her fire-making champion (although he argued everyone benefited from idols and twists). Chrissy said, “Ultimately, I thought that the twist was cheap,” before feeling for Ben over his backlash and that things would have been different had they known ahead of time. Mike liked the twist but agrees with Chrissy that it should have been known ahead of time.

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Meanwhile, Devon and Ben defended the twist for different reasons. Devon liked it because “it brought back the roots of Survivor and what it’s really about,” implying the basics of camp life. Ben had a much weaker defense of the twist, arguing that the game changes and, despite being on fire duty throughout the season, Devon knew the twist ahead of time. “For Devon fans, I’m sure it’s probably unfair. But for Ben fans, I’m pretty sure it’s fair.”

What surprised me about the Survivor season 35 finale was that the votes actually changed at the Final Tribal Council. It took Joe to tell Ben that the jury needed a better final speech and that partially convinced them to give him the win over Chrissy. Furthermore, Chrissy and Ryan were surprised about just how much Devon was playing them in the end, with this reader just imagining what would have happened had Devon made it to the end.

Next: Survivor Winners: Ranking All 34 Sole Survivors By Season

The entire interview is a fascinating look back into the mindset of the Final 5, how they’ve dealt with the season’s end and their hopes to return once again. One thing’s for sure; we’re glad we only have to wait two months for Survivor Ghost Island to start up, as it means we won’t have to worry about how things ended for too much longer.