After another stretch of episodes, Survivor 48 came to an official end on May 21 with a super-sized season finale event!
Heading into the finale, we knew we’d be in store for quite an eventful episode, knowing we’d see two more eliminations before the time came for the jury to vote on the season’s winner. As the promos teased, the win could really go to anyone, as each of the final five competitors had a path to the Final 3…some of those paths just happened to be smoother than others. Following the shocking blindside of Shauhin, we knew the game would move fast, and our inclination was correct.
Following Shauhin’s elimination, Kyle and Kamilla were riding high after their plan worked out, with their path to the Final 4 becoming a lot easier. The time for celebration was short-lived. The morning after the Tribal Council, the group came across a group of five podiums with a puzzle lock. The first person to unlock the puzzle and earn the key hidden within it would receive an advantage in the immunity challenge.
Advantages such as this can be make or break this late in the game, so every player immediately raced off to try to crack the code and unlock the puzzle box in order to secure the advantage. It was a tight race, but in the end it was Eva who landed the immunity for the Final 5 challenge advantage.
From there, we went right into the immunity challenge! For this challenge, the players would first go up and over a steep ramp, then pass through a muddy net, throw a ball at a target, and maneuver it through a cage. From there, they’d then toss it into a basket, revealing numbers to be used to unlock a key. After, they’d race up a ramp and use the key to unlock the pieces for a survivor fire puzzle. As for the advantage Eva won? At the halfway point, she gets to skip throwing the ball through the target and place it right into the basket to receive her numbers, thus saving her some time in the challenge.
While Joe managed to get to his pieces first, he struggled to put his puzzle together, with Eva and Kamilla taking a commanding lead. Despite making it to the puzzle stage of the competition last, Kamilla dominated the challenge and won immunity, guaranteeing her place in the Final 4 with her second immunity victory! She also won a trip to the sanctuary for some final fuel, and she invited Eva to join her for the afternoon at the sanctuary.
Mitch was voted out first, finishing in fifth place
Things quickly begin to move fast from there, with Mitch immediately pitching to Kyle that they take a shot at Joe; however, Kyle has to figure out whether it’s Joe or Mitch who is a bigger threat. Kamilla, meanwhile, has a tough decision in determining whether to go for Mitch, Joe, or her long-time ally, Kyle. When Kamilla and Kyle meet, they both seem to come to the conclusion that getting Mitch out might be best, and we have a feeling that’s the way the vote will indeed go.
Shockingly, Kamilla clues Mitch in on her plan, and Eva, Joe, and Kyle end up also making it clear to Mitch they’ll be voting him out as well, which hits him hard, understandably so.
Heading into Tribal Council, the writing was on the wall. The tribe had decided before night had even fallen and was planning on voting out Mitch. They stuck to that plan with Mitch becoming the seventh member of the Survivor 48 jury, something that was spoiled in the finale promo when we saw Mitch entering behind Shauhin.
Following Mitch’s elimination, that left us with two powerful duos: Kyle and Kamillia, and Joe and Eva. As Kyle said best, any one of the group could win the game with the final immunity challenge being a major step in determining who could be making it into the Final 3. Winning that final immunity challenge not only ensures their place in the Final 3, but also allows them to select one player to sit alongside them, with the third and final spot being determined by the fire challenge.
Kyle won the final immunity challenge, securing a place in the Final 3
Interestingly, after Eva made a pact to take Joe to the final with her, Kamilla tells Kyle that she feels her best chance at winning is getting Kyle out of the game. She tells him that if she wins, she’ll be sending Kyle and Joe to the fire challenge. He’s understanding and realizes his best shot is to send her to jury as well, so there is a good chance that we won’t be seeing that pair making it to the Final 3.
The final immunity challenge is a classic Survivor competition: Simmotion. Here’s a breakdown of the rules per Survivor Wiki:
”Each castaway, with one hand tied behind their back, must drop a ball into a metal chute. The ball will travel down a spiraling metal track and exit out of one of two points (a turnstile gate in the middle of the track causes the balls to come out at alternate exits). The castaway must catch the ball and drop it back into the chute at the top. At designated intervals, an additional ball is added to the track until the maximum amount of balls are simultaneously in play. If a ball exits the track and is not caught at any time, the castaway is eliminated from the challenge. The last person standing wins.”
First to be eliminated from the competition was Eva, followed by Kamilla. This left Kyle and Joe in a heated battle for the final immunity, but in the end, it was Kyle who managed to get the win. This secured his place in the Final 3 and allowed him to decide who would be facing off in the fire challenge.
Kamilla becomes the final member of the jury
With power in Kyle’s hands, Kyle decides to fulfill his promise to Joe to take him to the Final 3. This means Eva and Kamilla will face off in the fire challenge to secure their place in the Final 3. Eva begins to spiral as she struggles to make fire, but Joe comes through for her and helps ground her and walk her through how to make fire.
At Tribal Council, Kyle confirms his plan to take Joe with him to the Final 3 and that he’ll be sending Eva and Kamilla to the fire challenge. With a minute to settle in and get focused, Jeff calls for the start of the fire-making competition, and there’s no telling how this will play out.
During the challenge, Eva takes a commanding lead as Kamilla struggles to get a spark to ignite her flame. Eva’s fire begins to slowly fade and panic, but Joe manages to calm her down giving her the chance to recover and inch closer to winning.
Eva ended up winning the fire competition, securing her place in the Final 3 before Kamilla could even manage to get a flame sparked. This made Kamilla the final member of the jury, and secured Eva’s place in the Final 3.
Kyle Fraser is the winner of Survivor 48
After Eva won the fire challenge, it all came down to the jury vote! As is always the case, the jury got the chance to ask the final players about their game and, to be honest, there wasn’t any one player who really outshone the others by a large margin.
Eva, Joe, and Kyle each managed to give pretty compelling answers to the jury's questions with the trio managing to surprise them in many ways. Of the trio, Joe seemed to give the weakest pitch as he didn’t have quite as many secrets to point out, unlike Kyle and Eva; however, he did stand on his own making it hard to know where the jury would land.
Following passionate last words, the time for talk was over and it was time for the jury to vote.
Ahead of the vote reveal, we knew for certain that each player would get one vote with Cedrek voting for Joe, Mary voting for Eva, and Kamilla voting for Kyle. This means no player in the Final 3 would go voteless!
The first vote went for Joe, the second vote to Eva, third to Kyle. This tied us up 1-1-1. The fourth vote went to Eva, the fifth to Kyle. Kyle then got the sixth vote, making it 3-2-1. The seventh vote went to Kyle as well, making him the winner of Survivor 48! So, how did the final votes fall? Cedrek was Joe’s sole vote. Star and Mary voted for Eva. That means the rest of the jury all voted for Kyle that including Chrissy, David, Mitch, Shauhin, and Kamilla.