We're now seven seasons into this new era of Survivor, and with each finale, fans have found themselves very heatedly debating the reasoning behind jury members' final decisions.
One of the most fascinating sides of Survivor has always been the fact that the winner is chosen by the very people they had a hand in eliminating all season. And, the most memorable finales are the ones where the juries celebrate the players for taking them down on their path to the end.
However, it's been a rough few years with Final Tribal Councils that felt more like bickering kids on the playground versus brave warriors during their last battle. With so many new era jury members, there seems to be a change-of-heart between "the tribe has spoken" and their questions during the Final Tribal Council.
Most recently, we were shocked during the finale of Survivor 46 to see Kenzie Petty win over Charlie Davis with the jury essentially reasoning they liked how she planned to use the money better. Not to mention the added drama of fans (and players) feeling betrayed by Maria Shrime Gonzalez ultimately giving her jury vote to Kenzie over her long-time ally Charlie, for the same reason. This was especially surprising since Maria told Charlie that he had her vote should it come to that.
After a long season of exciting gameplay, the rug was swiftly swept out from underneath us to reveal that it didn't matter who made it to the end, only who "deserved" a million dollars. While social gameplay will always be a large part of Survivor, fans agree that the winning vote should still be decided more objectively than the criteria they used at the end.
And of course we can't discuss disruption in the new era juries without mentioning the complete chaos of season 43's finale, which I still can't fully comprehend, if I'm honest.
Survivor 43 gave us some epic castaways that had us wondering if we were finally back on par with the pre-Winners at War level of Survivor gameplay. People like Jesse Lopez—who some have compared to the likes of Boston Rob—and Karla Cruz Godoy, both demonstrated their knowledge of the game and rising as strategic threats. Not to mention Cassidy Clark who clearly played the best game of the final three.
So everyone was stunned when she lost the million dollars to Mike Gabler in a 7-1-0 vote (with no votes going to finalist Owen Knight). The jury's reasoning? She won the final immunity and chose to match Gabler against Jesse in the fire-making challenge, securing Gabler his spot in the final three and allowing him to prove himself as a winner over her.
So basically the Survivor 43 jury decided that the fire-making challenge would choose the winner of the game. In the jury's eyes, Cassidy should have given up her immunity necklace and gone up against Jesse herself to earn her place in the final three, as if winning immunity to secure her place at final tribal meant nothing. *insert face palm emoji because I can't...*
This isn't the first time the jury has fallen on the final four fire-making challenge to determine who "deserves" to win. Many feel it's time to retire the challenge for exactly this reason, but Jeff Probst assures fans it's there for a reason.
Now with Rachel LaMont's near sweep of the jury's votes in the season 47 finale, fans are crossing their fingers that we might actually be getting back to the golden age of "may the best player win."
Survivor 48 is just around the corner, so we'll find out soon enough!