I’ve taken a few weeks to decompress since Survivor 50 ended. I’m having a hard time being objective. Hard to judge the season as a whole, and not tunnel vision on how disastrous the endgame was. But I don’t think this blog has ever been an “objective” platform, so I’ll just say what’s on my mind.

As always, I’ll start with the positive, because Survivor 50 had some of the best episodes in Survivor history. I waited over eight years to see Christian Hubicki grace my television screen again. And within two episodes he shits his pants and prat falls at tribal council. Absolute Cinema. The cast gathered for this season was electric. Personalities that leap out of the screen.

All the OGs that returned got amazing sendoffs. Colby had fun for the first time ever. Ozzy tried playing Survivor for the first time ever. Cirie proved the haters wrong yet again. Even Jenna flamed out in a hilarious and memorable way. Seeing the mix of old and new is what returnee seasons are all about. Tons of wish fulfillment. At times the season truly felt like the celebration they wanted it to be.

And at other times, Survivor 50 stooped to some of the show's lowest lows. Zac Brown is the third worst thing I’ve watched on Survivor. And the two other worst things were sex pests. I will never be able to wrap my head around the celebrity cameos. Survivor is escapism. It’s a weekly ritual that transcends beyond the real world. Do you know what reminds me of the real world? Celebrity cameos. Glad they got those ratings though.

The real stinker is that Survivor 50 has the worst final five of any returnee season ever. Maybe of any season ever. If you gathered 100 Survivor fans, and asked them to handpick the worst final five possible, this would be it. Nightmare blunt rotation. It’s an irredeemable trait of this season that makes it impossible to love.

But, of course, there’s little fault to assign. I’ve wracked my brain thinking about what the lessons are here. It’s not on the players. Aubry played a great game, and brought goats to the end with her. Good on her. The blame probably falls a little bit on casting, and a little bit on editing.

At the end of the day, when you’re making a 24 person cast, you can’t cast 20 legends and 4 wet blankets. The wet blankets in question being Joe, Jonathan, Rizo, and Tiffany. Their foreheads have a billboard that says “goat” in flashing neon colours. Some of them played good games, and were good TV, but they were always making it deep. Their threat levels were non-existent. Bring us more legends like Cesternino, Penner and Amanda Kimmel. Or even a shit stirrer like Venus! Venus would have left no crumbs.

Then the editing did nothing to help us root for this band of misfits. I’m so happy we got to see Christian, Coach and Cirie eat up so much screentime. We needed to hear from them. But Aubry got the most diabolical winner’s edit I’ve ever seen. Why are we making Aubry straight up unlikable? She clashed with Mothervieve, pouted for 20 days, then hit Jonathan with the steel chair. Rooting for her felt like a huge ask.

My criticisms come from a deep and immense love for this show. There are many more things to love that don't make an intriguing blog post. Fifty seasons is an incredible milestone, and I think it did rise to the occasion. But it frustrates me when the solution is to just do less. Just do less. Maybe don't try five new twists when you're bringing back these legends. Maybe dont dedicate half an episode to a Zach Brown concert. Good season though! I had a ton of fun with it, and I’m cautiously optimistic for the Open Era.