Survivor Season 49 - 2025

Good on the New Era for finally delivering a dud of a season. Too many tribe swaps early on muddied the waters of who was working with whom, and not a lot of personalities stood out. It’s always fun to see a tribe obliterated by challenges, as the blue tribe did this time around, and things started to pick up post-merge.

It was very fun watching Sage, a military analyst who likes to talk about poop and farts (?) have to deal with Shannon, a hippy dippy Spiritual Bypasser. Shannon blessedly didn’t make the merge, and Sage blessedly made it to the final, along with winner Savannah and blue tribe refugee Soph. Also among the highlight was a genuine medical drama when an early contestant was bitten by a highly venomous sea snake, and we got to go behind the scenes to the medical tent at base camp to see how that all shook out.

This year the Rat Boy shared his name with the famous Muppet. Rizo reminded me a lot of Rome early on, with his swagger dial set to 11, and I was sure that his big mouth would get him ejected quickly. But I underestimated him; a 9-tribal idol bluff is a true achievement. Rizo and Savannah are headed to the upcoming Avengers season as the only two people who haven’t had their game studied by the other players, so they have an opportunity to make some moves.