This week, we finally saw the finale of Survivor 38 and crowned the winner for this season. Here’s who won Survivor 38: Edge of Extinction 2019. Spoilers ahead!
Who Won Survivor 38: Edge of Extinction 2019
In a rather surprising turn of events, Chris Underwood won and was granted the title of Sole Survivor in Survivor 38: Edge of Extinction.
Edge of Extinction Returnee
So, as you might’ve guessed already, Chris won the Edge of Extinction challenge and found his way back into the game. This meant that he was joining Rick, Lauren, Victoria, Gavin, and Julie in the final six.
Back at camp, he made a short speech to the players and said that he was grateful to just be back in the game, and wouldn’t hold it against them if he was voted out next. But of course, his head was still in the game, and he immediately started making relationships with the people around him.
First up was Rick, and the two bonded quickly having been both voted out and spent time together on the Edge of Extinction. Chris promised that he wanted them both in the final four, and Rick revealed that the idol he showed off at the last tribal council was real.
Next up, he had a chat with Lauren. Because Wentworth revealed to everyone on the Edge of Extinction that Lauren had an idol from the old Manu camp, Chris told her that the jury was going to vote for whoever had made big moves in the game, and he specifically mentioned to her that Wentworth really wanted her to do well. This would mean playing her immunity idol correctly, either on herself or someone else.
First Immunity Challenge
At the first immunity challenge of the Survivor 38 finale, Julie won and was given the opportunity to go on a reward as well. Her first pick was Chris, who had not been on any rewards since the start of the season, and she also picked Lauren.
At the reward, the three of them planned to split the votes between Rick and Victoria, with Lauren not having any clue that Chris had already formed relations with Rick.
Back at camp, though, Rick was starting to feel insecure about his alliance with Chris and conspired with Gavin and Victoria to potentially vote Chris out.
When Chris got back to camp, he meets up with Rick again to re-establish their alliance. Chris builds trust with Rick by showing him the advantage he got as an Edge of Extinction returnee. He gives Rick his half of the powerless immunity idol, which shows Rick that Chris is genuine about their partnership.
Chris also knows that his name has been coming up, and he felt that the best way to ensure that he was safe was to get Lauren to play the idol on him. Before tribal council, he has a quick chat with Lauren about how insecure he feels with Rick potentially having an idol, and Lauren promises that if Rick plays it, she’ll play her idol for Chris.
At tribal council, three votes went on Rick, two on Victoria, and one on Chris. But because Rick played his idol, Victoria went home, and Lauren ended up wasting that idol.
Second Immunity Challenge
Before the next immunity challenge, Rick manages to find yet another idol at camp, and he returns the half-idol to Chris as well. However, Rick ended up not needing the idol as he won the upcoming challenge.
This time, he decides to make a deal with Gavin, asking him to promise that if Gavin wins the next challenge, he’d take Rick to the final three and let him avoid the fire-making challenge. Gavin obviously agrees, but it’s clear that he’s ready to go back on his word if he wins.
Between the three guys, they decide to vote out Lauren over Julie as she was seen as the more strategic player. At tribal council, things go off without a hitch as Rick plays the idol for Gavin, and Lauren ends up going home.
Final Immunity Challenge and Fire-Making
At the final immunity challenge, Chris manages to win, securing his spot at the final tribal council. When Rick approaches him to plead his case for going to the final three, Chris is quick to shut him down by saying that none of them have a shot of winning if Rick goes to the end. He then tells Rick to start practicing making fire.
At the same time, Chris spends the day coaching both Julie and Gavin in fire-making in the hopes that they’d be able to beat Rick at the challenge.
However, at the final tribal council, Chris realizes that he might be the one with the best shot of actually beating Rick. He then decides to give up his immunity necklace (a move which has only happened once in Survivor history, back in Micronesia in 2008) to Julie and opts into the fire-making challenge himself.
It ends up being a close challenge, but Chris beats out Rick, sending him to the jury.
Final Tribal Council
Finally, the last three survivors make it to the final tribal council where they get to plead their case to the jury.
For Julie, she makes the argument that her emotions were actually a key part of the way she played. Citing the exciting Julia vote-out from a few weeks back, she argues that no one thought Julia was going home that night, but because of her outburst and the way she sparked a new conversation, the entire group shifted from their original plans to vote her out.
For Gavin, he argues that he was the best social player in the game, clearly evident by the fact that no one voted for him a single time throughout the entire game.
And for Chris, his case is obvious as he argues that being an Edge of Extinction returnee was a disadvantage that worked against him. However, he did his best with the theme of Survivor 38, and played the best possible game he could have in the days he was given.
He argues that he managed to form good alliances for the first vote and even got Lauren to play her idol for him, managed to play his own idol correctly for the second vote, then won immunity for the final vote. Chris was also quick to remind the jury that he’d given up individual immunity to take out the final threat in the game, and felt that he’d done everything he possibly could to ‘earn’ his way back into the game.
With that argument, it was hard to win against Chris. In the end, only Wentworth, Rick, Aurora, and Lauren voted for Gavin to win, and everyone else picked Chris.
That’s all you need to know about who won Survivor 38: Edge of Extinction 2019. Be sure to search for Twinfinite for more Survivor-related content.
