The “monumental battle, 25 years in the making” reached its “epic conclusion,” as outgoing host Jonathan LaPaglia said at the start of Australian Survivor: Australia v the World episode 10.

Australian Survivor: Australia v the World’s winner, Parvati Shallow, was revealed by host Jonathan LaPaglia

This season “tops any other season of Survivor I’ve ever played or seen,” Parvati Shallow said, and that was before she won the title and prize.

I agree: it’s been an incredible 10 episodes, the best season of Survivor I’ve watched in years. The finale had the predictable outcome based on the season’s relentless focus on Parvati, but the finale never seemed inevitable, right up until Parvati got every single vote except one.

Parvati Shallow now joins Sandra Diaz-Twine and Tony Vlachos as American two-time Survivor winners. (There are others around the world.)
Australian Survivor: Australia v the World’s final four: Parvati, Luke, Cirie, and Janine

That this season ended with two Australian Survivor players and two US Survivor players, two pairs of allies, was part of what made the final so great. Would there be a tie vote at the final Tribal Council? Or would someone split?

That someone was Janine, who’d previously formed a final-three pact with Parvati and Cirie. Would she stick with Luke in order to keep her word, knowing that “my chances are seriously diminished”? Or would she get herself a guaranteed seat at the end by voting with Parvati and Cirie?

“If Luke sits next to Christ himself, he’s gonna win,” Cirie told Janine.

First, though, they had to see who’d win immunity, and for that they faced a torture chamber challenge, which is regular thing on Australian Survivor, which we saw in a montage.

“Y’all are dark in Australia,” Parvati said. “Are you going to light that on fire while we’re standing under it?” Jonathan replied, “Yeah, you know it.”

The horn-like apparatuses were not ablaze, but based on the way Luke was screaming, I’d guess it set their muscles afire to stand on tiny wooden pegs while also holding up two heavy sandbags.

Cirie dropped first, in 30 minutes; Janine fell at 75 minutes, leaving Luke and Parvati. “She’s gonna be here ’til tomorrow,” Cirie told Janine as Luke screamed in agony.

“Luke has been a hot mess for quite a while but he’s still in it,” Jonathan said, and Luke said, “I’ve always been a hot mess.”

At one hour and 48 minutes, Luke tumbled forward, and Parvati won her first final immunity.

Now it was about convincing Janine to vote with them. Parvati knew that if Cirie had to make fire against Luke, “Cirie is gonna lose.”

We call that foreshadowing—though again, it was not obvious 1) which way Janine would vote and then 2) if Cirie would indeed fail again at fire-making. Even though she did.

When Jonathan went for the final vote, Cirie closed her eyes, waiting to see if she’d finally make the final three. JLP showed the vote: Cirie. Yep, Janine stuck with Luke, and forced the fire-making challenge.

Wow! And also: Wow! Now Cirie was back making fire again, a chance at redemption and that long-awaited seat in the finals, all in her hands.

As before, Cirie struggled, at least at first. Luke had a huge fireball, cradling and swaying it, and then lost it. Meanwhile, Cirie couldn’t even get a spark.

But then: Cirie had a flame! And Luke had smoking embers! Then Cirie was to smoking embers as Luke had a flame—until his kindling collapsed!

The back and forth was so nerve-wracking. They each had flames, sometimes lapping the rope above. Luke rebuilt his fire of kindling as Cirie nursed hers. Then Luke’s fire collapsed again!

“This is so close,” Shonee said, and that was a wild understatement. And then Luke’s fire set his rope on fire. He won; Cirie lost, again.

I’m sad for Cirie, who I love as a character, but I’m finally ready to admit Survivor just might not be her game. She’s terrific at the social part—I thought she had a legit chance to win between her jury management, the way she got votes all season but Parvati did not. But the challenges are not her strength. After five seasons, to not be able to start a fire? Eek.

I think we saw peak Cirie in The Traitors, playing a flawless social game.

Earlier in the episode, Cirie said, “I could maybe lay down my Survivor hat,” but we know she did not, as she’s on Survivor 50.

“Obviously I’m devastated that I got this close,” Cirie said. “I’m proud that I was at least in it this time. … Look at this, it’s a beautiful fire!” At that second, her rope caught fire. Amazing!

“I’m so proud of this little fire,” she said. “It’s like everything in my life: I have to challenge myself, because I know that it’s in there. It just struggles to come out sometimes.”

And that’s when I got a little teary—also when Cirie asked Parvati why it was important for them to be at the end together, and Parvati said, “It’s so miraculous to have a Survivor soulmate.” Their friendship and strategic partnership really does make them one of the all-time great Survivor pairs.
Australina Survivor: Australia v the World’s jury: (front row) Cirie, Lisa, Kass, Sarah (back row) Shonee, Tommi, and Kirby
Our final three of Janine, Luke, and Parvati had breakfast and then faced the jury.

Both Janine and Luke’s opening statements were painful—just surprisingly awkward and ill-formed. Maybe that’s the editing; maybe I was expecting a lot from Janine based on how much both she and Shonee played up her speaking abilities.

Janine ended by saying, “my Survivor game was actually flawless,” without making that case. Luke said he was Australian Survivor’s finest and “I’d be an even better representation for world Survivor.”

Parvati locked up her perfect game with a very strong final Tribal Council.

She first pointed out she’d been “one of the biggest targets,” and then she called out Luke’s blunder of sending her back to camp at the auction, pointed out how she bluffed her advantage (shocking Kass), and said she managed to use her advantage to “giving me complete power over his game.”

I remain curious why she never went after Luke, but I guess her instincts were right in that he didn’t only got one vote.

Tommi asked Parvati why she wasn’t as close to him, and said it was “world strong, women strong, and never Tommy strong.” Parvati said, “It’s just not going to be our love story”—and she earned his vote.

Kass asked Parvati perhaps the toughest question: which four votes she thought she had. Parvati’s answers praised the jury while talking herself up: a masterful answer.

Meanwhile, Luke alienated the jury, saying that, during the spa day, “youse left us out to dry for 24 hours and then expected us to vote with you.” That may be true! But how is that going to get you a vote?

When Sarah asked a question of Janine, Luke decided that was a perfect time to point out how little he knew. “It was Janine that broke up the Aussies?! Goddamm it!” he declared, just reminding everyone how outside of the votes he was.

Parvati Shallow smiles as the she realizes the remaining votes are for her to win Australian Survivor

“I have been the biggest threat in this game, and no one ever wrote my name down,” Parvati said. “It’s shocking to me.” Indeed! (Also shocking: both Sandra and Tony each had a zero-vote game, Sandra in Panama and Tony in Winners at War.)

We saw few votes, including Luke’s one, from Sarah, who called him “indisputably the greatest of all time.” I have a dispute!

When Cirie voted for Parvati, she said, “Now don’t think this vote is because I love you. This vote is because I truly believe that you are the best Survivor player in the world.” 🥹

Janine ended with zero votes, Luke with one, and Parvati with six, giving her the win, $250,000, and pyro in the jungle repeatedly shooting columns of fire among the trees.

“This is my final time playing Survivor,” Parvati said, and it was a pretty spectacular conclusion to a great Survivor career.

Why Australia v the World was such an amazing season

Australian Survivor: Australia v The World’s World tribe: Rob, Parvati, Tony, Cirie, and Lisa
As I wrote in my first recap of this season, it’s my first Australian Survivor, so I will not pretend to be an expert on it. As a season of Survivor that follows the 48 previous seasons I’ve watched over the past 25 years, I couldn’t help but compare it to CBS’s version, and wonder why it was working so well for me when so many (recent, especially) seasons of US Survivor have not.

Here are some of my theories—I’d love to hear yours in the comments, especially if you’ve watched more of Australian Survivor, and can compare those seasons to this one.

Casting the best of the best

This season would not have been outstanding without outstanding players, and the casting department did an amazing job assembling this group.

These aren’t necessarily the 14 best players in the world, but they are 14 players who make great television and/or know how to make great television—David, George, Kirby, Shonee, Tony, Parvati, all of them!

A relentless focus on game play

Luke and Lisa have a good laugh about how they’ll never take the other to the end of Survivor Australia v the World
Survivor Australia v the World’s editing was not perfect: Some players disappeared from episodes, while others got disproportionate attention (Parvati).

But the major difference was how much game there was in 90-minute episodes—most of the minutes! Except for challenges and Tribal Council, it was pretty much all-game, all the time, whether that was discussion about a vote or relationships evolving into alliances.

When we saw people interacting and getting to know each other, that was almost always through the lens of the game.

A quick game

I’ve been one of those people who lamented the loss of the 39-day Survivor US game; the 26-day game replaced it because it, too, can produce 13 episodes, and there’s no reason to spend money on 13 more days of production if you don’t need to.

This season proved Survivor doesn’t need 39 days to be good. Sure, things like hunger and homesickness didn’t play in (How miraculous there was no homesickness talk! Or much talk about their lives outside the game at all!), and from the start, these players seemed pretty well-fed, with their coffee and produce.

Knowing they had less time to play, however, they played hard, with alliances and strategies changing every day.

Would brand-new players approach the game with this intensity over 16 days? Eh, I’m not convinced. So it’s probably a combo of a shorter game and these players.

Survivor, not Calvinball

CBS’s Survivor has turned into Calvinball—the game played by Calvin and Hobbes in which the players make up the rules as they go along, and never return to a rule, so it’s just chaos. Fun for a kid; less fun for a game for $1 million.

Though such twists have given us some entertaining and wild moments, but I maintain that, overall, the number of twists and advantages and idols has actually made the game play worse on Survivor US. Players have seemed frozen, not wanting to act; last season even gave us an entire episode about why the entire episode was so boring.

Did I love every twist on Australian Survivor: Australia v the World? Nope! I hate Knowledge is Power, for starters! I also didn’t love that Parvati was allowed to lie about the advantage at Tribal Council, or the way producers resolved the interrupted immunity challenge.

But on the whole, there were very few idols in the game, and just one advantage, not counting the clue to the idol at Tribal. And the idols were just, well, idols, again not counting the clue to the idol at Tribal, not ridiculous tasks like standing on your head while massaging Jeff Probst’s calves and reciting lines from One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, which I’m pretty sure is on Survivor 49.

Fewer idols/advantages meant more time just strategizing about alliances, not about using external mechanisms, and that’s the kind of Survivor I fell in love with during season one.

Less talking, more observing

Jonathan LaPaglia, Australian Survivor’s host, snuffing out a torch during season 12, before his torch was snuffed by Network 10

As a host, Jonathan LaPaglia really sat back and let the game unfold, and boy, was that refreshing.

Unlike Jeff Probst, he’s not also the TV show’s showrunner, in charge of all aspects of production, which is what I think damaged Probst’s hosting—he’s producing the show while hosting it, and while I don’t doubt his intentions are good, that combo doesn’t work well.

LaPaglia and his showrunner had conflict (David Forster said they had “epic fights” because LaPaglia wanted a “hands-off approach”), but they were separate people, doing separate jobs.

LaPaglia is far less vocal during the challenges—though he had his moments—and during Tribal Council, but also slips in zingers and retorts, and asked some probing, some boring questions.

Most notable, though, were the moments he didn’t intervene, which I’d argue is just as much of a strength as asking good questions.

Consider the end of the final immunity challenge. We just saw Parvati and Cirie hugging, Parvati crying; Luke on the ground, on his back. Then Luke and Janine and Parvati hugging; Luke asking Parvati how close she was to falling.

No narration, no questions about how they feel—we know how they feel because we’re seeing it! And what we saw was outstanding Survivor, from start to finish.