At long last, the finale of “Survivor” Season 42 is upon us, with the Final 5 castaways — Jonathan Young, Mike Turner, Romeo Escobar, Maryanne Oketch and Lindsay Dolashewich — competing for the $1 million check. So who won over the jury and came away with the all-important title of Sole Survivor? Let’s find out!
Below, read our minute-by-minute “Survivor 42” finale recap of “It Comes Down to This” to find out what happened Wednesday, May 25 at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT. Then be sure to sound off in the comments section about your favorite castaways on CBS’s reality TV show, who annoys you the most and what you think of this newest addition to the “Survivor” winners list. As always, Jeff Probst hosts the Emmy-winning program.
Keep refreshing/reloading this “Survivor 42” live blog for the most recent updates.
8:00 p.m. – “Previously on ‘Survivor’!” In the 12th episode, Maryanne hatched a plan to use her extra vote to oust Omar Zaheer from the game. It was the right move at the right time, as it sent home arguably the biggest strategist of the season. Prior to being booted, Omar won a dessert reward and took Romeo, Maryanne and Mike along with him. Then Lindsay won the individual immunity challenge, making her safe at tribal council. But enough about last week — it’s time to see who wins “Survivor 42.”
8:03 p.m. – The excitement of voting Omar out last only as long as it took the final five to arrive at their new beach — a skeleton camp with no tarp and no shelter and only the bare minimum to get them through the last days of the game. Immediately, Romeo and Lindsay opened up about wanting to know why they weren’t looped in to the ultimate plan. Lindsay was “so pissed” at Jonathan for going against their alliance and so the two of them argued about who turned on who first. Romeo took the opportunity to tell the others that he has an idol and he’ll have to use it at final five in the hopes that it convinces them not to even try voting for him. To be sure they buy it, Romeo fashioned a fake idol that he might show them if he has to “prove” himself.
8:07 p.m. – The next morning Jonathan and Mike, within earshot of Romeo, said that they have to get Lindsay out next. Meanwhile, Maryanne told Lindsay that she wants to go to final three with her and that Mike told her she’d give her his idol at final five. Maryanne seemed to think Mike would actually do this, but Lindsay said Mike has made promises like that to her, too. Later, Mike told Lindsay that he wants to keep her around and that if he wins immunity he might give her his idol to play. Lindsay still wasn’t buying it.
8:09 p.m. – Ahead of the upcoming immunity challenge, the players received a riddle from tree mail that offered them a chance to earn an advantage — all they’d have to do is solve a word scramble and then go find the advantage. The riddle was “Good fortune is tucked in the toes of the sleeping giant.” Lindsay was the first one to solve the riddle and so she scrambled out across the island much earlier than the rest of them. She believed the clue was directing her to a fallen tree to search at its roots, but it was in fact at the base of a dead tree on a rocky cliff on the edge of the beach. Back at camp, Mike was having the rest of them work together in order to beat Lindsay to the advantage, but Maryanne wanted Lindsay to find it so she “sandbagged” that attempt to solve it as a group so that Lindsay would have more time. After about 40 minutes of looking on her own, Lindsay came to the right area and found the advantage for the next challenge!
8:18 p.m. – For the immunity challenge, the final five had to navigate an obstacle course of five stations in order to retrieve puzzle pieces and then solving the puzzle. In addition to safety, they’d earn a pasta, salad, wine and cake reward to enjoy back at camp. Lindsay’s advantage in the challenge is to only have to untie one knot at each station compared to everyone else that has to untie six. Despite having more knots to untie, Jonathan kept pace with and then passed up Lindsay’s progress, finishing three stations by the time everyone else had only finished two. Eventually Lindsay reclaimed the lead, but her sixth station was the most time-consuming one and so Jonathan had space to take back the lead for himself.
8:24 p.m. – Jonathan was the first to start the puzzle, followed closely by Lindsay and then Mike, Romeo and Maryanne behind her. Once everyone was on the puzzle, Mike and Lindsay got into a lead with Maryanne and Jonathan behind them. Having already built the outer rim of the circular puzzle, Mike got stuck on one piece in the middle, but managed to get it in and keep his lead as Lindsay ran into the same problem. All the while Jonathan had stopped work on his own puzzle and was watching as Mike assembled his way to the win, only one piece ahead of Lindsay.
8:30 p.m. – With immunity around his neck, Mike decided to choose rewarding an ally instead of fueling his competition and offered his only invitation to the reward to Jonathan.
8:35 p.m. – At the reward meal, Mike and Jonathan celebrated their “brotherhood” while Lindsay complained to Maryanne and Romeo about Jonathan gloating at the challenge when Mike won. With the immunity, Mike had the option of offering his hidden idol to anyone he wants in order to secure their plan of getting Lindsay out of the game. Jonathan played up that the others will be coming after him and asked Mike if he’d play his hidden idol on behalf of him. Back at camp, the others suspected that Mike would give Jonathan the idol, but Maryanne and Lindsay both debated whether or not Mike would keep his word to them to play his idol for them. As such, Lindsay thought the best course of action was to make Mike feel guilty about his promises to play the idol for people.
8:38 p.m. – Upon his return, Lindsay talked to Mike about his sense of honor and loyalty in the game and appealed to that sensibility while asking for him to play his idol for her. He told Lindsay what she wanted to hear, but he told her about his promise to Maryanne because of the Omar vote. Later, Mike went to Maryanne and asked for permission to use his idol on Jonathan instead of giving it to her. But then Maryanne talked to Romeo so they could weigh the options of going to the end with Jonathan or Lindsay.
8:47 p.m. – At tribal council, Lindsay spoke to the rollercoaster of earning the advantage for the challenge and then losing to Mike by only a single piece. She also said it’s been tough being the one person that wasn’t clued in to the Omar vote and how that makes her feel vulnerable without immunity. Jonathan called Lindsay a big threat that everyone recognizes while Maryanne said the vote is emotional vs. strategic for her.
8:52 p.m. – When Jeff asked for idols or advantages, Mike stepped up first to “repay loyalty” by playing his hidden idol for Maryanne. Romeo stepped up next to announce that he made a fake idol and would not be playing it and the jury shrugged. Miraculously, Maryanne decided to not play her own hidden idol and let Jeff read the votes: Lindsay, Jonathan, Lindsay, Lindsay. She was voted out unanimously and became the second to last member of the jury.
9:02 p.m. – The next morning the final four arrived at their last immunity challenge and after telling Jeff briefly about where they get their personal drive from began their work to catch balls that fell from a ramp at differing intervals. Early on Mike became the first player ever to drop a ball when only one ball was spinning in the cage, eliminating himself from earning immunity. Next, with two balls in the cage, Maryanne played hers too closely together and dropped one. Both Romeo and Jonathan made it through the three ball stage, but then in the move to place his fourth ball Jonathan dropped a ball and so Romeo won the final immunity challenge and the right to choose one other player to go to the final three with him!
9:14 p.m. – When they returned to camp, the other three congratulated Romeo on earning his own safety when it really counted. Romeo was most proud of beating Jonathan because of how strong he’s been at challenges throughout the season and now he had his “vengeance” to be in a position where the other three can’t dismiss him or his opinion. Mike pulled Romeo to speak first, acknowledging that he knows Romeo is going to send him to make fire and so he tried to convince Romeo to have him make fire against Maryanne and have to go against the two of them in the final instead of bringing Jonathan to the end with him and forcing one of Mike or Maryanne out. Mike’s position in this thought was that he has a better chance of beating Maryanne.
9:17 p.m. – Maryanne thought that Romeo would bring her to the end and so she got to work helping Jonathan with tips on making fire. Jonathan practiced a lot, but Mike was more secretive about his abilities to start fire, choosing instead of rest on his confidence. Privately, Mike told Jonathan to take any out Romeo offers him to avoid making fire. Later, Mike went off on his own to practice building fire on his own and Maryanne also did, but chose to do it in front of Romeo in the middle of camp.
9:20 p.m. – At tribal the jurors were surprised to see immunity around Romeo’s neck so Jeff wanted to know how Romeo felt about defying the expectations of everyone in the game. Romeo said that the work he does back home with young women is about empowering people to never give up and so that’s what he draws upon for his own drive. Mike made a big public show of “knowing” that he’s the biggest target and that he thinks Romeo will put him against Jonathan because Jonathan is the best at building fire and can beat Mike. Romeo said that his decision comes down to his gut, but it wasn’t an easy decision. Ultimately, Romeo decided that the person he’s bringing to the final three with him is Maryanne, fulfilling Mike’s assumption.
9:30 p.m. – In the fire making challenge, Mike was the first to get a flame in his coconut husk and as he was building it up Jonathan got his flame. Mike continued to add husk and sticks in order to raise the flame of the fire while Jonathan remained organized in his structure-building. Eventually Mike’s flame was centered on the rope, snapping through it to win way ahead of Jonathan whose flame was still very tiny.
9:41 p.m. – Prior to the final tribal council we heard Hai Giang and Rocksroy Bailey both speak to how disarming Mike’s strategy of integrity was, but Omar wanted him to admit he was a snake. Romeo was ready to call himself the “ultimate underdog,” and Chanelle Howell thought there’s an opportunity for Romeo to own that he wanted to be a goat. Hai and Tori Meehan would be looking for Maryanne to articulate exactly how much work she’s done to get to the end and Drea Wheeler was hoping that Maryanne could convince her that she’s deserving of the win.
9:50 p.m. – Omar opened the final tribal council by saying that there are many possibilities to selecting a winner and told the finalists that the jury is looking for the best argument about the survival of the fittest. Tori asked the finalists to speak about the perception of others and whether or not it’s accurate. Mike said that she played as honorably as he could in a game that is about dishonesty, Maryanne said that the perception that she doesn’t take the game seriously was strategy because young people who were playing hard were taken out really early, and Romeo owned up to being jealous of Hai for how close he got to Drea at the merge. Next, Omar came for Mike’s belief in his integrity, calling out the times he lied to Drea and Chanelle told Mike that he’s not owning up to how many times he gave his word and went back on it. Lindsay pointed out that Mike’s inconsistency was that he allowed himself to speak to everyone in the game strategically, but would call other people’s loyalty into question when they would have private conversations that didn’t involve him. Drea defended Mike, saying that it’s impressive how close he got to everyone despite being twice the age of most of them. When Maryanne tried to own the Omar vote, Jonathan said that it was actually his and Mike’s plan that they brought to her.
9:56 p.m. – After discussing their social games, the conversation turned to the ways they survived physically. Maryanne said that her strength at camp was to help around camp as much as possible, including preparing the fish that other people caught. Mike said that he worked really hard physically and took the lead, a point that everyone agreed because of how good of a shelter he built for his tribes. Romeo said that he’s not an outdoors person, but he pushed himself in physical ways that he’s never had to in life. In terms of strategy, Drea said that her vote is going to be based on how each of them played the game. Romeo said that his game shifted to one of “self preservation” because of being put at the bottom of every vote. Mike claimed that a move he made on his own was to take Hai out by working with Lindsay and Omar, but Hai wanted to know if he thinks his game was emotionally charged. At that point Mike acknowledged that maybe he didn’t play with as much integrity as he thought he was and so he owned exactly what a lot of them wanted him to own. When Maryanne finally got to speak, she opened up about the secret idol that no one knew about since the merge and jaws dropped among the jury and everyone bought into how well she positioned herself to make it to the final seats by ensuring that Omar went home when he did.
10:02 p.m. – At the end, Romeo got emotional because he never wanted to play the game he played but it was what was dealt to him and so he did what he had to do in the position he was put in by other people and that his story is about not giving up. Mike wanted to prove that the older generation can play as competitively as the younger players and still get along with them as well. Maryanne’s final point was about her struggle with emotional bonds with people and her own drive to win the game, explaining that she wanted to save Lindsay with her idol but didn’t because her growth is choosing herself over the fear of losing a friend.
10:13 p.m. – At the voting booth, we saw Chanelle write an ‘M,’ but no clue as to who any of the others voted for. Surprising the players just as he did in Survivor 41, Jeff read the votes in the jungle: Mike, Maryanne, Maryanne, Maryanne, Maryanne, Maryanne. That means it was a near-sweep for Maryanne to become the second Black female to win since Vecepia Towery in season 4!
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