I know you might be thinking to yourself how Season 40 has been the single most iconic and polarizing event in the history of the show. I know you might be thinking that Tony has 60 confessionals while Michele has 33. Surely this entire season has been the coronation of a king - the episode preview even foreshadowed that for Tony! Well strap in boys and girls because the season ain’t over yet, and I’m here to tell you EXACTLY why your winner is none other than Michele Fitzgerald.
Let’s rewind back all the way to the premiere, and then skip over it once you realize Michele was UTR1 in the premiere with a 0-2 punch in the first and second half. Tony may have had more confessionals than anyone else in the premiere, but hey, it’s Tony being Tony! Ignore it. She was shielded from the episode 1 edit because she was in a 7-3 minority. It was her first pre-merge tribal council. Everyone stumbles!
Ignore episode two because she also had 0 confessionals there when her tribe won the challenge.
Moving into Episode 3, Michele finds herself in majority with everyone voting out Danni due to her erratic gameplay. We get to see Michele form a solid alliance with Jeremy, as well as be in the good graces of Denise, Ben, and Adam. Boom. Immediate friends. Some of which are still in the game. None of this wound up having any impact except Jeremy, but that doesn’t matter. She’s a social butterfly.
Episode 4 she loses again. Her, Ben, Denise, and Jeremy save Adam from an untimely demise by voting out Ethan when Adam thinks the vote is Parvati. Why? To teach Adam a lesson!...or something. In any case, Michele got the credit for it that episode despite only having one confessional. This is important for later when we realize that the editors DEFINITELY know what they’re doing and we should put our absolute faith in them and this episode. Let’s not forget it was either this episode or the one before where Survivor God Boston Rob told her that she absolutely deserved her win the first time. This is important as it establishes her credibility from someone the casuals love. They want you to know despite her lowkey style of gameplay, her social abilities are what propel her to the end.
Episode 5, a tribe swap. We get content about Michele being Wendell’s ex. This is a major plot line right...RIGHT?!? It never winds up being anything despite Wendell getting out before her. Let’s celebrate the small things. Given her past with Wendell, mark that down as another assumed friend that she never had to vote out and got a fire token from. Cha-ching!
Episode 6, double boot episode. Parvati is the target but Michele smoothly casts her vote for Wendell with her knowing Wendell won’t ever target her anyways. This allows Michele to pocket Parvati’s token(s). I have to imagine that if you’re giving your tokens to someone on the way out, they are absolutely and undoubtedly the person you want to see win the game. Cha-Ching again!
Episode 7, Michele picks up another two confessionals and shows her social prowess. Despite being in a seemingly 3-1 minority, she votes out Yul with Nick and Wendell. Another example of her knowing exactly what the dynamics of her tribe was and voting exactly how she needed to both times. But Tony claims that she has no idea what is going on. Keep this in mind as we move forward.
Episode 8, it’s the merge! Some say that episode 1 and the merge are the most indicative of a winner. Please don’t be fooled by yet another 0 confessional episode from Michele, even if she is the only one in the episode not to get one. She was shielded from the edit for standing by her man. Her and Nick were left out of this vote, and Wendell was sent out of the game bequeathing his tokens to none other than his ex-lover. Why vote out someone you have that connection to? Amazing social awareness. You know who else had a 0 confessional merge episode? Natalie Anderson in San Juan Del Sur. Michele has a 2-0 episode one and merge, Natalie did in her win as well. Obviously embracing the meta of who she will be sitting next to in the finals...none other than Ms. Anderson herself.
Episode 9 was a breakthrough for Michele. She finds herself on the right side of the numbers to take out Adam who was no longer a loyal ally. Adam wanted to take out Sarah, an ally of Michele. If you read between the lines there was very clearly an all girls alliance that was a side alliance to the main story. This is important as it establishes yet another social web for Michele.
Episode 10 Michele got a much needed cooldown. She was shown to be in a group with Kim, Tyson, and Denise at Tribal Council, yet somehow voted correctly for Tyson. Not only had Michele integrated herself with the minority, but she also knew exactly who the majority was voting for. Once again, a strike against Tony’s confessional today saying she hasn’t known what was going on at any point. Clearly, she knew much more than what was being let on.
Episode 11 was a crowning moment for Jeremy and Michele. Despite Tony getting a whopping 18 confessionals, they still combined for 9 despite not finding powers, winning immunity, or being extorted. Not only that, they managed to get Tony to betray his closest ally by voting out her closest ally, Sophie. Michele and Jeremy buy themselves yet another round by taking out someone ahead of them in the pecking order through their good social graces. We also got a confessional from Sarah in this episode about how Sarah is playing a good social game while Tony is not. We all know by now what Michele’s strength is. Tony’s ‘lack of social game’ won out the episode, but the storyline has always been about winning the war and not the battle, and I know that social game will win out.
Episode 12, we see Michele once again play her power to her social advantage. She gives Jeremy a power WHILE voting him out. She is able to please both him and Kim in this regard. Kim gets voted out and despite Michele clearly trying to save Jeremy, she gives her a token on the way out. Amazing. Truly astounding playing befriending everyone on their way out.
Episode 13 is the penultimate episode of the season and Michele’s most important episode overall. She broke the double digit confessional threshold for one episode. She is the rootable underdog that we see time and time again in Survivor. Surely, if men like Nick and Ben can win their way to the end with powers and immunities and win the respect of the jury, Michele will have the exact same fate! Voting in minority two times tonight she gained favor with Jeremy AND Nick on the way out. Jeremy told people they messed up with their votes, and we then see Nick immediately pay for it like an idiot. All of these people are leaving the game mad at Tony and seeing that Michele was right. We saw Tony say that Michele was completely unaware of what was going on and followed up with an immediate Michele confessional showing she had an exact read on the game and it was her allies that were constantly messing it up. Jeremy also gave Michele his fire tokens tonight, bringing her total up to four people to give her tokens.
We go into the finale with an underdog story for Michele. I expect her to team up with Natalie returning from EOE. Natalie will have an idol for them. I expect Ben to play his idol at 6, Natalie plays her idol on Michele or herself, the other is immune, Tony plays his idol, and Denise goes as opposed to Sarah. Michele and Natalie find another idol, and idol out Ben for 5th. Natalie or Michele also win the final immunity taking the other to the final, leaving Tony and Sarah to battle in fire. Sarah becomes the final member of the jury and Tony makes it to the end, where social game will win the war being waged all season.
MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IN MICHELE’S FAVOR:
• Rob highlighting how she deserved her first win, establishing credibility for her despite Tony’s flashy gameplay that isn’t easily ignored in editing. This may explain away him and Amber casting jury votes for Michele to win.
• Michele receiving fire tokens from four players, and befriending many more on the way out. If tokens equate to votes, she’d have votes from Kim, Jeremy, Wendell, and Parvati. She’s been shown to have connections to Nick, Denise and Adam as well. This brings her total up to the necessary nine votes to win.
• Sarah’s confessional about social game amounting to nothing thus far, but in this season the theme of the battle vs. the war being everything. When Tony costs Sarah the game, she won’t be happy about it.
• The underdog story arc. They easily could have edited Michele to BE clueless when she’s voted in minority every time. They’ve done it to people before. Instead, they are making her a rootable underdog while making Tony overplay his hand and irritate jurors one by one.
• We haven’t been shown her mistakes in the same way we’ve been shown Tony’s. The edit has to explain away all of Tony’s mistakes to justify a runner-up - without it, the casuals would riot. (they will anyway)
Michele Fitzgerald wins 9-6-1 and is the new queen of Survivor.
[Although, no matter what happens, she will be the only player in the game to have never been voted out. And to that I say, LEGEND.]
So well written. She deserves this. She has sandras edit from HvV going into the finale... wanted out the big threat (Russell) but no one was woke enough to do it
Love Michele. I don't *think* this will happen. But they've set up the possibility in the edit to make it happen. It's her or Tony. This last episode was certainly her best edit-wise. My fingers are crossed. I think Colby also had like the record for most confessionals in an episode... and then he lost to Tina. The Survivor editors always favor men over women with screentime lol this is no secret. And I think how you speculated the rest of the game will work out in terms of f6, f5, and f4 will be fairly accurate.
I swear to god that I hope this happens! I think it would speak so strongly to the kind of game that true, actual legit, deserving winners of Survivor play! Michelle deserves the win here!
It's so annoying how the remaining winners view Michele's social game as nothing. Michele reminds me of Paras from BBCan6. Her social game was amazing and she didn't even have to win challenges until it mattered the most. Then there's people like Nick that are viewed "more worthy" of staying in the game. Nick has done nothing in this game other than win 1 immunity, and then was booted right after. Michele has used her advantages, won the most important immunity when it mattered the most, + her relationship with the jury.
