Survivor 48: Ranking the 5 remaining castaways in likelihood of winning the game
On Wednesday night, Survivor 48 will come to a close, with show host Jeff Probst overseeing who will be crowned the latest Sole Survivor in show history.
It's been a roller coaster of a season, one that has provided fans with a throwback to how Survivor used to be played as opposed to the more strategy-led approach that has dominate recent seasons.
While we can't tell with certainty who will be the last castaway standing after the Final Tribal Council, we've gone through the final five contestants and ranked them with their likelihood of winning the game.
Let's run through all five of these Survivor 48 castaways and discuss why they're favorites or underdogs at this stage in the game.
Mitch sticking around like he has throughout the season, often on an empty stomach, deserves a lot of commendation. He's got a great story, and his fellow competitors have consistently mentioned how his perseverance should be considered as a threat with the jury at final statements.
Mitch has played a good game, but he just lacks the Immunity Challenge showcases and moments of inspired game play his fellow remaining competitors have gathered this season. It won't shock us if Mitch makes it to the final three, but we're not sure he'll have as strong of a case as some of the other castaways this season. Even so, we're glad Mitch made it this far.
A wonderful castaway this season, Eva deserves so, so much credit for being the first openly autistic Survivor contestant. She has played an inspired game, winning an Immunity Challenge, building an incredible alliance with Joe that has dictated so much of this season and finding game advantages along the way she hasn't even needed. She's been a steady force in guiding where this season of Survivor has gone so far.
However, if the jurors have to choose between Joe and Eva at the end, it's likely to be the former for how much he dominated those Immunity Challenges and how much he's led the alliance they both had with Kyle and Shauhin. Being such a dedicated member of a Survivor alliance can have its downsides if your fellow competitors don't necessarily find you to be the top threat in that group, after all.
Eva more than has what it takes to make it to Final Tribal Council, but we're not sure she'll make it across the finish line as the Sole Survivor. Even so, she's been a remarkable castaway this season, and we'd love to see her back in a future Survivor competition.
Kamilla and Kyle's hidden alliance has been one of the most consequential movers and shakers in this game, and it's been arguably the best showing of strategy between two contestants this season so far. If the jury rewards the castaways in this game playing the most modern game of Survivor, Kamilla absolutely should be considered a threat to win it all with Kyle. She's won an Immunity Challenge, too, so that helps.
However, her chances of winning are solely based on how well her alliance with Kyle can withstand the Final Immunity Challenge. If Joe wins yet again, it will make it tougher and tougher for Kamilla and Kyle to remain in lockstep with each other in the final phases of the game just based on who is left.
Kyle still has a bond with Joe and Eva that Kamilla does not, and Kyle is the biggest threat to win outside of Joe. Kamilla will be a real factor to win if she makes it to Final Tribal Council, but Joe and Kyle have the overall edge right now going into the last final days. Still, Kamilla has played a strong game of modern Survivor.
Make no mistake about it; Kyle is the biggest non-Joe threat to win Survivor 48. If you're basing this off how the game has been played in recent years, Kyle has been the most impressive modern Survivor contestant this season. If Kyle and Joe both make it to Final Tribal Council, it's really a coin flip as to who the jury will select.
Kyle has taken an admirable approach to playing Survivor the old and new way, leaning on his relationships and his strength and building a modern alliance in secret for strategic purposes with Kamilla. Sure, he doesn't have the overwhelming success Joe has with Immunity Challenge victories, but he may win over the jurors who appreciate how he's been able to get the best of both worlds while in Fiji. If he wins, don't be shocked.
Outside of Joe, Kyle feels like the only "right" choice to win, given how well he's melded past and present approaches to playing Survivor. Honestly, you could make an argument he's the favorite in that view.
Ever since the beginning, Joe has felt consistently like the biggest threat in the Mamanuca Islands to be crowned Sole Survivor. He has masterfully built an alliance with Eva that has withstood almost the entirety with the game and showed his glowing character by helping her in a touching moment that brought Probst to tears.
Joe has been adamant throughout the show that he wants to win the game the old-fashioned way, without any deception and on the merits of his accomplishments through Immunity Challenges and honest social bonds. If he wins, it will hearken back to the original days of the show and prove that, even in the modern era, a contestant like Joe can absolutely steamroll through a season and win the game entirely. His fellow castaways had a golden moment to vote him out of the game during "Coconut Etiquette" but chose Mary instead. It was the real strategic folly of this entire game for the castaways, but it also showed why Joe's empathetic approach has its strategic advantages, too. How do you vote somebody out with whom you have a strong relationship?
At this point, Kyle feels like the only realistic contestant to beat Joe in the Final Tribal Council if he makes it there, barring a surprise surge from Kamilla late in the contest. The other castaways have constantly talked about how Joe has been the biggest threat to win all along, and that may work against him in crunch time if Kyle, Kamilla and Mitch get a chance to vote him out before the final four is set. Joe is going to have to give it his all in the Final Immunity Challenge because he's got a huge target on his back if he doesn't win it.
However, we still like Joe's odds to win it all at the end despite his real challenges to even get in position to win. He's been the strongest player throughout the season (depending on how you like your Survivor played), and his honorable game play hasn't hindered his success. He should be considered the favorite for now.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Survivor 48: Ranking 5 remaining castaways in likelihood of winning
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
a day ago
- Boston Globe
Our weird reality is killing reality TV
Now, you might be asking yourself, who cares? And I get that. But I think the reason reality TV is dying is interesting. It reveals something deeper about how our society might be unconsciously metabolizing the seismic political shifts in the last year. Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up Reality TV originally thrived because it offered an escape from everyday life. We indulged in epic rollercoaster romances, shameless debauchery, petty entanglements, and the guilty pleasure of rooting for 'shade-throwing' self-obsessed villains who seemed hellbent on taking someone down each season. For roughly 43 blissfully chaotic minutes, we entered a world where the worst of human behavior could be enjoyed safely, from a distance, and, most important, turned off at will. In the end, it perversely left us feeling better, even relieved, about the predictable ordinariness of our own lives. Advertisement But our current political reality — starring its own egotistical villains running amok and creating havoc — has become so chaotic and theatrical that reality TV now feels dull by comparison. Sigmund Freud, in 'Civilization and Its Discontents,' argued that our primal instincts, driven by sex (pleasure/procreation) and aggression (power/survival), are in conflict with the external demands of civilization — the social order that keeps us functioning as a collective society. In short: Our rawest individualistic urges are always brushing up against the demands of civilized living. To manage this conflict, we rely on outlets like art, literature, film, and television — forms that allow us to sublimate (to unconsciously and symbolically indulge) our primitive urges without destabilizing society or our own psychological well-being. Reality TV — because it features 'real people' in dramatized settings — gives us permission to flirt with our more primitive impulses: envy, competition, cruelty. It lets us vicariously indulge in dysfunction and chaos from the safety of our couches, without breaking social rules or causing lasting harm. And then Donald Trump, a former reality TV personality himself, made every day a real-life spectacle. Trump entered both terms of his presidency by shattering the protective barrier of the screen and displaying all the hallmarks of reality TV's genre's most notorious villains: narcissism, manipulation, performative cruelty, engineered tribalism, and unchecked grievance. What was once safely held in the collective unconscious and expressed through art now plays out in the real world — unfiltered, uncontained, and unrelenting. The primal chaos we once safely indulged in during 43 minutes of petty drama and escapism now spills into our news feeds, our laws, and our wallets. There's no off switch. The conflicts on 'The Real Housewives' and the scheming on 'Survivor' now feel like the ones between Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd: cartoonish, low-stakes, and recycled. They're dull compared with our real 'reality.' Advertisement In lieu of reality TV, I've turned to British mystery series, like 'Midsomer Murders,' where the world may be grim, but order is restored and justice usually prevails. With each episode, the bad guys are caught and the community heals. It's the kind of resolution I no longer trust reality TV, or our real lives, to deliver.
Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Boston Globe
Brown student and ‘Survivor' contestant Eva Erickson says RFK Jr. is wrong about autism: ‘He can kick rocks'
Erickson said, 'He can kick rocks. That is absolutely wrong on so many fronts, and I think my life is just one of the many, many examples of how wrong he is about Advertisement Erickson also delivered that message in an Instagram post that showed her graduating from college, playing hockey, competing on 'Survivor,' and dating. Get Rhode Island News Alerts Sign up to get breaking news and interesting stories from Rhode Island in your inbox each weekday. Enter Email Sign Up 'The number one biggest thing that I can say about autism is: There's not something wrong with you,' Erickson said on the podcast. 'There's so many misconceptions being thrown around these days about what autism is, what it means for a person in their life, and I am very proud to have gotten to go on national television and show what my life looks like as someone who's on the autism spectrum.' At one point in 'Survivor' Season 48, which came out earlier this year, Erickson becomes frustrated while practicing for a fire-starting competition. She explained that she hadn't succeeded in some other competitions and she ended up having the kind of 'episode' that can come with autism. Advertisement 'My head was spiraling,' Erickson said. 'I got overstimulated and I was out of control, and it was much worse than what they showed on the show.' She said she was 'screaming and scratching myself, stimming (repetitive behaviors) on the ground.' And she did not calm down right away when another contestant, Joe Hunter, came to help her. But Erickson said, 'I kind of wished that more had been shown so other people who have autism could see that that was my lowest point in the game and it was the hardest.' She said she had to 'battle through' that mindset, and she ended up beating Kamilla Karthigesu in the fire-starting challenge, propelling her into the final three. 'I'm very proud that I was able to get through that and then ultimately build the fire,' Erickson said. She said she views autism as her 'biggest strength and my greatest weakness.' One on hand, she can become overwhelmed at times. But, she said, 'It gives me so many great things in my life, like the aptitude for math.' Erickson is now pursuing a PhD in engineering and fluid and thermal science at Brown. She said her engineering background helped her compete in puzzle challenges on 'Survivor.' But she said she tried to hide a 'more intellectual side' during the competition, and would sometimes add numbers incorrectly on purpose. 'I wanted people to underestimate me because I do come in being a very physical threat,' Erickson said. 'I can't hide that. I can't hide my muscles.' A Minnesota native, she became the first and only woman to play on the men's ice hockey club team as an undergraduate at Georgia Tech, and she is now the captain of the men's club team at Brown. Advertisement Eva Erickson is captain of the men's club hockey team at Brown University. Handout Erickson only revealed her academic credentials at the final 'tribal council.' In a compelling final speech, she said, 'We've been saying this season that 48 is an unprecedented season,' and 'You have never seen a player like me.' The 'Survivor' competition took place on an island in Fiji, and Erickson said the hardest part of being on the island was the crabs. 'The crabs were attacking me in my sleep,' she said. 'Only me. Nobody else had problems with the crabs. Other people were freaked out by the bugs and stuff. But I'm fine with bugs. I worked with centipedes as an undergrad, but I would get these crabs biting me in my sleep and it was kind of spooky.' On the podcast, she said there are similarities between competing on 'Survivor' and pursuing a PhD — aside from a lack of sleep. Eva Erickson is pursuing a doctoral degree in engineering and fluid and thermal science at Brown University. Handout 'Every day on 'Survivor,' it's about you go do a challenge and there's the actual competitive challenges as well as the challenge of not sleeping, of not eating,' she said. 'With my PhD, it's the same thing. It's constantly challenges. I do an experiment, it doesn't work, something breaks — OK, what am I going to change?' Perseverance is the key in both situations, she said. Erickson has two years to go before she gets her PhD. She said she would like to work in the sports equipment industry after graduation. She has a passion for hockey and has been studying vibrations and physics. So, she said, 'It'd be really cool to work on vibration suppression in sports equipment.' Advertisement Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at
USA Today
2 days ago
- USA Today
The Challenge cast list: Vets and New Threats who will contend on MTV
The Challenge cast list: Vets and New Threats who will contend on MTV MTV's wildly popular reality show The Challenge is returning for its 41st season, and it is bringing some new talent into the fold. The new season will feature 16 returning veterans against 16 newcomers, or "New Threats." The Challenge: Vets and New Threats will premiere on Wednesday, July 30 at 8 p.m. ET and air every Wednesday night. The veteran team features 22 Challengers and welcomes back iconic competitors like Johnny Bananas, Derrick, Cara Maria, CT, Aneesa and Leroy. The New Threats include contestants from reality shows like Love Island, Big Brother, The Amazing Race, Survivor and more. The Vets: Michaela Bradshaw (2 Challenges) Theo Campbell (4 Challenges) Derek Chavez (6 Challenges) Johnny "Bananas" Devenanzio (24 Challenges, 7 Wins) Aneesa Ferreira (19 Challenges) Leroy Garrett (15 Challenges) Nany González (13 Challenges) Olivia Kaiser (3 Challenges) Derrick Kosinski (14 Challenges, 3 Wins) Aviv Melmed (2 Challenges, 1 Win) Ashley Mitchell (10 Challenges, 2 wins) Nia Moore (5 Challenges) Rogan O'Connor (3 Challenges, 1 Win) Cara Maria Sorbello (16 Challenges, 2 Wins) CT Tamburello (20 Challenges, 5 Wins) Turbo (4 Challenges, 1 Win) The New Threats: Jake Cornish (Love Island: All Stars) Ben Davis (Boxer) Leonardo Dionicio (Love Island USA) Izzy Fairthorne (Too Hot Too Handle) Will Gagnon (Are You The One) Justin Hinsley (Cheer) Cedric Hodges (Big Brother 26) Yeremi Hykel (The Amazing Race 35) Blue Kim (Big Brother 25) America Lopez (Big Brother 25) Adrienne Naylor (Married at First Sight UK) Sydney Segal (Survivor 41) Leka Sodade (Canada's Ultimate Challenge) Dee Valladares (Survivor 45) Gabe Wai (Former WWE) Tay Wilcoxson (Big Brother Australia 15) When will the new season of The Challenge premiere? Again, that'll be on Wednesday, July 30 at 8 p.m. ET.
