The penultimate episode of Survivor 50 is behind us, and it was a double-elimination doozy. I’ll dive in below, but beware spoilers.
First things first, though, here are the winner odds on prediction markets. Use our Kalshi promo code RATE and get $10 to trade on the season finale.
What Happened and Who Went Home?
The Survivor 50 swan song nears, and two of the game’s most entertaining players had their torches snuffed just ahead of the finale.
Our episode’s first half focused on two potential targets: Rizo and Devens. Rizo has been hanging onto his idol for basically the whole season, mirroring his “will he won’t he” arc from season 49. Tiff seemed ready to take the shot, but other eyes were on Devens. He’s scrambled from the bottom more times than I can count, including a chaotic tribal with a fake idol and a coin flip that saved him, gave him a real idol, and doubled the prize pot to $2,000,000.
The first tribal hinged on the mystery of which idol-happy player would go home. As Jeff carried on the discussion, Devens’ elimination was set in stone, thanks in large part to the editing team’s brilliant cut of his “seeing the stars” speech. Devens went home in a blaze of glory after proving to be one of Survivor’s most entertaining players ever. He’ll go down in history as a legend, deservedly so.
Speaking of legends…wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. The lead-up to the episode’s second tribal saw a pretty unanimous decision to take out Tiff. She’s been dominant in challenges and has a lot of friends on the jury. Her moves have been less flashy, so she could sway the voters in final tribal. Easy peasy, right!
But then, the episode showed us Cirire saying something along the lines of “We’d better hope Tiff doesn’t win immunity.”
Uh oh.
Tiff won immunity after a bonkers challenge in which the remaining players teamed up and still couldn’t get it done. The target then shifted to two strategic masterminds: Aubry and Cirie.
In the end, it was basically a foregone conclusion. There was a consensus that nobody could beat Cirie if she sat in front of a jury. I’d wager all she would have to do is smile at the jury—no speech required. Everyone’s right to assume this, of course, but it’s still no fun to see one of the greatest players of all time go home. Fun fact: Jeff Probst has only ever let one player snuff their own torch: Cirie. Twice.
Going into the finale, five players remain. Let’s unpack the odds and I’ll make my prediction.
Finale Watch: Who’s In The Best Position?
Five players are in the race for the title of Sole Survivor and legend status as the winner of this milestone season. Here’s the most likely candidates based on the probability at Kalshi.
- Aubry Bracco: 94% to win, was 83% prior to last night’s episode.
- Jonathan Young: 4% to win
- Joe Hunter: 2% to win
- Rizo Velovic: <1% to win
- Tiffany Nicole Ervin: <1% to win
Based on who’s left and how the game could shake out, this feels right. Rizo has his idol, guaranteeing him one more day should he play it. Tiff feels like the easy boot if she doesn’t win the next immunity challenge. Both have odds of less than 1% and zero markets on “No.”
If that all comes to pass, then we have a Jonathan, Aubry, and Joe final three. My guesses as to their final tribal performance are below.
Jonathan will make a decent case for himself. He has broken out of the “physical beast” shell to become a deft social player, if a bit chaotic. But he’s made too many enemies to earn a winning plurality. You think Dee’s gonna vote for Jonathan in the end? He may pull one or two votes.
Joe will be the season’s goat (for non Survivor fans, that means a sacrificial lamb taken to the final three due to being easily beatable, not the greatest of all time). His whole “honor over everything” schtick is tiresome and antithetical to the spirit of Survivor, especially in the fiftieth season. Nice guy, not worth voting for to win 2 mil.
Aubry will make the best case by far, having made deep runs in many of her past seasons. She operated from the bottom. She galvanized the troops to remove Ozzy from the game after his verbal diarrhea to her. He took out Genevieve early and minimized discussions of her threat level, but still had to contend with constant pressure as the “easy vote.” And, of course, she killed the queen.
The boys and Tiff had to pick their poison: keep Aubry or Cirie? At the end of the day, it was moot in my opinion. Either could beat the remaining pliers if given a seat at the final tribal council.
