In the Survivor 49 finale, the Final Five—Sage Ahrens-Nichols, Sophi Balerdi, Savannah Louie, Kristina Mills, and Rizo Velovic—return from an intense Tribal Council in a mix of emotions. Rizo's celebrating making it through another Tribal Council without having to play his idol, which means he's already secured himself a place in the Final Four. Sage and Kristina are both annoyed that he was able to get away with that.
Sophi's so mad at herself for misplaying her knowledge is power advantage and is wishing she'd stolen Rizo's idol to guarantee herself a spot in the Final Four. Now she's seeing the game with new eyes, understanding she's the swing vote that could potentially shift things at the final elimination—working with Sage and Kristina instead of following Rizo and Savannah with the blind loyalty they believe she has for them.
A boat pulls up with some puzzle boards and a note informing our castaways they have a chance to earn an advantage at the next immunity challenge. They have to race through the jungle to collect bags of puzzle pieces, which they will assemble to create a map to discover the whereabouts of the advantage. Savannah is the first to collect all her pieces, followed by Rizo. After Savannah finishes her puzzle, she runs off to tree mail, leaving Rizo to copy her puzzle like he's been known to do.
She makes it to treemail and starts digging, but can't find it. Rizo and Sophi both join her and start digging, but none of them are finding anything. Sage shows up and starts looking around, thinking it's in the trees. Rizo runs back to camp to check the map while Sophi starts looking up as well. She finally spots a bag in a tree and manages to knock it down with a stick of bamboo, securing herself an advantage in the Final Five immunity challenge.
After arriving at an intense challenge field—including a muddy pit, a ladder, a crow's nest, a slide, a barrel, a platform, and a final puzzle—host Jeff Probst announces that they've playing for both immunity as well as a night at the sanctuary with a steak feast. We learn that Sophi's advantage is a slight assist towards the end of the obstacle course that will help her get to the puzzle faster.
Savannah and Rizo are frontrunners for the majority of the course with Sophi falling behind early on. But with her advantage, she manages to catch up and get to the puzzle third, followed shortly behind by Sage and Kristina. Everyone starts working on their puzzle, but it's too late, Savannah completes her puzzle first, tying the record for the most individual challenge wins by a woman.
Savannah wins Final Five immunity and ties a challenge record
She chooses to take Sage to the sanctuary with her since she's gone the longest without eating. This leaves Rizo, Sophi, and Kristina alone at camp to discuss the vote. Kristina pitches going to the Final Three with them, which they're amenable to. She says she'd happily go up against Savannah in fire at Final Four to make that happen.
Still covered in mud, Savannah and Sage enjoy steak and wine together at the sanctuary. Sage hypes up Savannah about how she could make history at the next immunity challenge. They discuss getting through this vote together and voting out Kristina.
When they return to camp, Rizo and Savannah argue about who should go—Kristina or Sage—leaving Sophi to make the final decision. Rizo worries that Sage will take his votes at the Final Three and Savannah worries that Kristina will be her at fire to prevent her from getting to the Final Three. Sage spends the afternoon pitching why she should stay to Sophi while Kristina seems to hold back, satisfied with their earlier conversation.
At Tribal Council, Kristina immediately pitches Sage as the person who should go home, which instigates an argument between the two as they make their case of why they should stay and why the other should be on the jury. Kristina explains that Sage played both socially and strategically, while Sage retorts that Kristina's the one who can clearly present an argument and has the power to sway a jury.
When Jeff asks if anyone has an idol, Rizo finally stands up and plays his idol for himself.
Kristina Mills is the 14th player voted out of Survivor 49
We dive right back in with the final immunity challenge, which is another obstacle course ending with a puzzle that makes up a familiar ball maze.
Savannah takes an early lead, followed closely by Rizo with Sage not too far behind. Sophi has a hard time getting into the challenge, but manages to mostly get back in the game by the third leg. Rizo jumps ahead, but Sage and Savannah are right behind him. Savannah is the first to finish her puzzle and start maneuvering her maze. Sophi, after a lot of difficulty on the third stage, puts together in record time and land both balls before anyone else.
Sophi wins the final immunity challenge of Survivor 49 and earns a place in the Final Three
Sophi lets everyone know that she really isn't sure how she's going to pick, but that she doesn't want to hear pitches and just wants to reflect on her own. She recommends everyone go practice fire because she's probably not going to share her decision until game time.
Savannah is upset that Sophi doesn't seem 100% sure of the plan for them to go to the Final Three together. She's never once made fire and knows that she'll lose if she gets sent out there. But when she starts practicing, she doesn't seem to be too terrible at it. Both Rizo and Sage spend the afternoon testing out their fire-making skills as well, but ultimatley Rizo whispers to Sophi that he should go up against Savannah.
At Tribal Council, Rizo declares that he's ready to go to fire, and he doesn't want to be taken to the end, he wants to earn it. Savannah, on the other hand, says she'd be happy to sit it out and go straight to the end, but that she respects Sophi's decision. Jeff emphasizes the pressure of the decision and when he asks Sophi who she'll take, she says she's taking Sage to the finals and putting her closest allies against each other at fire.
Savannah gets a flame fairly quickly, but it goes out. Rizo then lights his before accidentally blowing it out while trying to fuel it. Savannah gets her fire going and starts growing up when Rizo finally gets a little flame going, but it's not getting higher, while Savannah's is already hitting the rope. Rizo's fire burns out just before Savannah's flag rises.
Savannah wins the fire-making challenge
Savannah hugs her day 1 ally, as he whispers for her to go win it. When Jeff asks, Rizo shares that he's so proud he was able to make it as far as he did and when Jeff snuffs his torch, he even does so by calling him Rizgod.
As he leaves Tribal Council, we see the last three players standing: three women which hasn't been done since Survivor: San Juan del Sur.
Rizo Velovic is the final member of the jury
The next morning on the beach, our Final Three celebrate their final day on the beach, celebrating a finale with three strong women. They enjoy their finale feast while talking through each jury member.
Nate Moore shares that Savannah has been a fierce competitor. MC Chukwujekwu says she's excited for an all female Final Three. Alex Moore backs Sophi as the underdog of the season, saying she deserves to win. And Jawan Pitts knows that Sage was a more strategic player than people realize. Sophie Segreti is impressed by Savannah's four immunity wins. Steven Ramm pitches that Sophi has been a strong player from the beginning.
And of our finalists who are now on the jury, Kristina wants Sage to keep a strong head while pitching her case and Rizo wants all three of them to give it their all.
Sage is prepared to come out as the stealth player of the season. She wanted people to see her as an emotional player when it reality she was being strategic with her emotions the entire season. Savannah isn't going to attack her fellow finalists, but she's going to hold her own and make sure her game is known. Sophi is ready to discuss her game with the jury, knowing she's fought to get here.
Sophi, Savannah, and Sage take on the jury at Final Tribal Council
Sophi spends her time emphasizing her social game, saying that's a huge strategy and she didn't need immunities or advantages to hide behind to keep herself in the game. She states that a lot of the moves that happened for the core trio of herself, Savannah, and Rizo were because of her social flexibility and ability to gain information from others to help influence their votes.
Savannah gets called out for not being the most emotionally connected social player, but she fights back that she made the social relationships that were important to her game and kept her in power as she needed it alongside all the times she won immunity in order to ensure her safety as well as the safety of her allies. She also made every vote with intention, anticipating the next step of her game and who she needed both in and out of the game to get herself to the end.
Sage finally shares her background in the military with everyone and lets them know that while they all thought she was an emotional player, that was actually her strategy to make sure no one saw her as a threat to help her get to the end. And while the jury calls out her flip-flopping, she rebrands it as her adapting to the game she needed to play to keep herself in a power position.
Savannah Louie is the winner of Survivor 49
The jury votes, revealing at least one vote for each player and when Jeff reads the final tally, it's a resounding majority 5 votes for Savannah with 2 going to Sophi and 1 going to Sage.
Savannah is the winner of Survivor 49!
Production rolls out the pizza and the champagne as everyone celebrates the newest Sole Survivor!