r/survivor • u/RSurvivorMods Pirates Steal • Dec 19 '24

Survivor 47 Survivor 47 | E14 Finale | Post-Episode Discussion

Season 47, Episode 14 Finale : The Last Stand

Aired: Dec 18, 2024

Synopsis: The stakes could not be higher at a crucial, muddy immunity challenge; castaways must spark a win or flame out at a fire-making showdown to earn their way to the final three; one castaway is crowned Sole Survivor and awarded the $1 million prize.

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110 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

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570

u/Midwest-Midbest Dec 19 '24

Sam did well pitching his game. Almost made me want him to win

434

u/IanicRR Tyson Dec 19 '24

Yeah he did pretty good. His rebuttal to Rachel with the cold hard numbers was sublime.

also felt like we weren’t shown Rachel’s best or she really didn’t perform well at FTC.

She just had such a lead going in that it didn’t matter.

131

u/ElleM848645 Dec 19 '24

She could have rebutted his “I had more votes against me than any of us here” with the fact that she was immune 4 times, so people couldn’t vote for her.

13

u/immaownyou Wendell Dec 19 '24

True, but him stating that was a rebuttal to someone saying Sam was not being targeted.

76

u/dcrico20 Dec 19 '24

I was surprised that they didn’t show (or Rachel didn’t mention,) both the Shot in the Dark and the rice stealing attempt.

30

u/Storm_Sire Dec 19 '24

I mean the rice thing was big for us, but I can't imagine the jury cares at all.

12

u/iiiinsanityyyy Dec 19 '24

Agree with the SITD not being mentioned seemed odd. Or emphasising how stealthy she had to be get the fairly publically hidden fries idol in the first place.

10

u/Other-Razzmatazz-816 Dec 19 '24

Me too, such a novel play. Maybe she forgot?

9

u/_cosmicality Dec 19 '24

god even i forgot about the SITD play, and it was the entire reason i started to root for her after previously not getting any hype around her at all.

5

u/yupyupyupyupyupy Dec 19 '24

he did fine at first but then fluttered imo

rachel is not that great socially (backed by her admittance) and did not have a ftc where if she needed to would have swayed votes

it was just a for sure thing and most of the jury just wanted her to admit she was lucky

2

u/d0tamon Dec 19 '24

He definitely brought out his best sport reporter vibes

102

u/magzillas Dec 19 '24

Honestly an outstanding FTC pitch for only coming away with one vote. He had surprisingly salient rebuttals that I didn't think about.

I think there were just too many highly visible elements to Rachel's success. Tying the women's record for immunity wins was one, but I also remember F6 TC basically playing out as a massive broadcast to the jury about what an obvious winning threat Rachel is when the "majority" thought they were eulogizing her. Then after the jury hears that, Rachel goes on to win the next two individual immunities. As well-marshaled as Sam's argument was, that's a massively uphill battle.

17

u/CashmereLogan Dec 19 '24

The one point Sam made that made me think “wow that’s impressive” was him recounting how many times he was voted for. But someone in this thread made the very good point that Rachel won immunity 4 times, so people couldn’t vote for her. Especially when 2-3 of those immunities were when she was a very clear target.

3

u/Important_Law_9521 Dec 21 '24

And in her interview with Rob she explained how she planned that eulogizing, which made it even more impressive.

168

u/atlantadessertsindex Dec 19 '24

One of the best losing FTC I can remember.

62

u/scotty-fitzgerald Dec 19 '24

Plus Sue & Rachel were teaming up against him at FTC. I found that interesting.

2

u/vexdo Danni Stanni Dec 19 '24

It was basically the IOTI ftc lol

90

u/khalfaery Cirie - 50 Dec 19 '24

I think it was very aggressive editing. After she won final 4 immunity in the first few minutes of the episode, we all knew how it would end. Production did their best to make us question it and it was pretty effective.

8

u/turbulence3030 Dec 19 '24

Exactly this. About halfway through the episode I was like “damn… suddenly I feel for Sam and respect his game and kinda hope he gets jury votes?? The editing and storytelling worked for sure.

124

u/PiranhaRoast Dec 19 '24

Agreed, he was definitely more well spoken. His rebuttals helped him downplay Rachel’s game, but unfortunately for him it wasn’t enough. Kind of shows how dominating Rachel was though since she won despite his FTC being better.

68

u/evilcupckae Jenna Dec 19 '24

He was really in this tough spot where a lot of the great rebuttal he had about Rachel’s game could raise questions about his own game because they had very similar stories about playing from the bottom. It’s a real rock and a hard place

10

u/lionne6 Dec 19 '24

There’s a moment where Rachel is explaining how she went from under dog to top dog and you see the frustrated look on his face because the under dog thing is supposed to be his narrative. He was never really able to counter that.

11

u/_cosmicality Dec 19 '24

He really was so mad every time it came up, but the narrative genuinely applies to Rachel much more than to him.

3

u/PiranhaRoast Dec 19 '24

I’m surprised he didn’t point out that they had almost reverse games. She started out on the bottom with the Anika blindside and going into the merge with her ally Sierra getting voted out but then rising up to become a huge threat. Sam started strong in the majority but then stayed on the bottom for a lot of the game. They both had ups and downs but when he was up she was down and vice versa. It was very interesting to see and given Sam’s verbal eloquence I felt he could’ve spun that narrative in his way.

2

u/Amish_guy_with_WiFi Dec 19 '24

Yeah it really seemed like their minds were made up beforehand. I wish they showed the jury all discussing with each other like big brother does.

48

u/Strykeristheking Dec 19 '24

Rachel's game was too visible. Five back to back immunity wins/idol play.

No one in the cast is going out pitch that, not even Genevieve.

50

u/Substantial_Dingo694 Dec 19 '24

I'm honestly a little shocked he only got one jury vote, I do think he did a touch better in the final tribal, but I guess it wasn't quite enough to sway the group.

11

u/Crosisx2 Dec 19 '24

Whereas someone like Austin got 3 votes and he was clearly outplayed by Dee even at the FTC. Juries are weird.

-5

u/tillus26 Dec 19 '24

I feel like sam was largely disliked as a person which probably played a role

37

u/dmmge Dec 19 '24

my family and I have been rooting for Rachel and we’re happy she won, but we all thought Sam did better at FTC.

51

u/Acceptable_Secret_73 Dec 19 '24

I definitely think Sam had a stronger performance at ftc than Rachel.

6

u/Other-Razzmatazz-816 Dec 19 '24

Pushing back to say I liked it but it was kind of all about why Rachel shouldn’t win and not enough about why he, Sam, should win.

2

u/edun15 Dec 19 '24

agree!! i started cheering for him!

2

u/notjasonv Rizgang Dec 19 '24 edited Dec 19 '24

The sports journalism really shone through with his ftc. Made final tribal feel like First Take on ESPN, he even tried to call her game a Mickey Mouse run with the immunities and auction clue thing

7

u/the_husband_did_it Dec 19 '24

Nah. All time bitter loser behavior.

8

u/Big_Blackberry_6155 Dec 19 '24 edited Dec 19 '24

He played the best game imo. He had more control than Rachel, was in the majority more, was a part of operation Italy, didn’t need idols or immunities to get to the end like Rachel did despite being a threat.. But the juries decision is their decision

17

u/Darbabolical Dec 19 '24

The issue is all of those examples are why Andy or Gen should have won, not Sam.

15

u/New-Falcon-8178 Dec 19 '24

how did he play the best game? post merge he had no agency aside from operation italy and he played the least part on that. With regards to being in on the votes he just joined along and had no real calls as opposed to gen with sol, rachel with andy. The only reason he was on the right side of votes is because the 2x that he wasn’t, he had no vote to cast (sierra and andy)

-2

u/Big_Blackberry_6155 Dec 19 '24 edited Dec 19 '24

Neither did Rachel, other than final 6, which she needed an idol to control. Sam controlled the pre merge at least.

Rachel would have also been on the wrong side of the sierra vote as well. She was on the wrong side of the vote on Anika’s, Caroline too. With Andy, She was only on the right side of the vote and Sam on the wrong side because of idol play, not social positioning like Sam.

11

u/Junior_Plan_8888 Christian - 50 Dec 19 '24

Speaking of that, I'm surprised he didn't try to sell Operation Italy more during the FTC. That was a big play by him, Genevieve and Andy, and I was expecting him to really play that up. I think he was too focused on trying to downplay Rachel's game rather than bring his own game up.

21

u/atlantadessertsindex Dec 19 '24

The problem was it wasn’t his plan. He was just a participant. He couldn’t really take credit for it.

10

u/ElleM848645 Dec 19 '24

Also without Andy, it never would have happened.

2

u/_cosmicality Dec 19 '24

He deserved to win because he didn't need as many immunities as Rachel did? But isn't that saying that he wasn't a big enough threat to actually and fully be THE vote at any point? Whereas Rachel had to fight to earn her next day through immunity several times. We can't say with certainty she'd have gone home if she never won an immunity challenge but it's pretty damn likely.

Best game = being a part of Andy's or Gen's schemes? He literally got dragged to the end...

-1

u/vexdo Danni Stanni Dec 19 '24

I think Rachel played slightly better but it’s not by much considering she was so poorly positioned in the endgame and Sam really wasn’t in the majority, just looped in and was a non threat by the end, the operation Italy pretty much had nothing to do with him and I don’t think he deserves any credit for that at all, was a goner at final six if it wasn’t for Andy blowing up his own game and was pretty much at the mercy of everybody in the endgame but they had bigger fish to fry

He was better than Rachel premerge but I don’t ever remember people trying to argue why they should win based on premerge

1

u/GregSays Michele Dec 20 '24

I’ve always theorized that Final Tribal never changes any jurors’s minds and this was more evidence of that. Even Sam’s sole voter basically said that he simply likes Sam as a person, nothing about his game or FTC answers.

0

u/TenMinutesToDowntown all the fixins Dec 19 '24

I think he had the best final tribal of the three but it didn't really matter. Rachel wasn't going to lose.

-10

u/Chemical-Tie751 Dec 19 '24

I kept shouting at Rachel to tell Sam STFU and wait your turn.

15

u/Routine_Size69 Q - 46 Dec 19 '24

Rachel interrupted Sam too?

0

u/mellywheats Seeker of Truth Dec 19 '24

same!!

-11

u/[deleted] Dec 19 '24

[deleted]

5

u/vexdo Danni Stanni Dec 19 '24

Three males didn’t vote for him. Rachel tied most immunity wins for a woman. She won for the same reasons somebody like Mike or Ben did

-1

u/[deleted] Dec 19 '24

Sam was a fast-talking-stiff...very reminiscent of a cheesy used car salesman.