Do Moral Victories Mean More Than Actual Victories in Survivor’s New Era?

In the end, the right player won Survivor 45. After using her rock-solid social bonds to get past the Tribal Council tribal council at final 5, Dee Valladares won the most crucial immunity challenge of the season and then convinced the final jury that she had controlled the outcome of this season more than anyone else.

The jury agreed, making Dee the fifth winner of Survivor's "New Era." But while Dee's win was certainly satisfying if you'd paid any attention at all to the game she played, it's hard to say that Season 45 was Dee's season from a production angle. In terms of story editing, her game was overshadowed by players like Emily Flippen, Katurah Topps, and Jake O'Kane. Even in the finale, at Dee's hour(s) of triumph, the edit was leaning hard on Jake and his story of frustrated futility. Up until the moment before the votes were cast, it seemed like there was going to be some shocking swerve, an act of extreme jury nonsense where Jake was going to win, simply because that's the direction that the story editing was leaning in.

Jake's story throughout Season 45 was incredibly compelling. We learned in the early episodes that he lives with his grandparents and has lost a significant amount of weight after dealing with disordered eating. Inside the game, he was even more magnetic, constantly trying to make a big move that might vault him from the bottom rungs of the tribal ladder to the top. None of his schemes worked out, to his increasing frustration, but he kept plugging away, and his efforts were always front and center in every episode.

In Wednesday night's finale, Jake lost both immunity challenges in excruciating fashion, shooting himself in the foot at nearly every turn. His attempt to play an immunity idol to make a flashy move to eliminate Dee was sabotaged by Katurah's cold feet. All of that was prelude to the fire-making challenge, where Jake's struggles at practice turned into a thrilling victory. It was emotional watching Jake finally score a victory after taking so many losses. And yet that victory got him all the way to zero votes from the jury and third place. Jake's victory in the fire-making challenge was a moral one, a way for the show to pay off a dynamic season-long arc. Similarly, Katurah's loss at fire-making was followed by her big reveal to the tribe that she is in fact a lawyer (after fellow lawyers Julie and Jake both whispered to her on separate occasions that she should go to law school), a long-awaited revelation that showcased how much everyone on the tribe loved and admired her, and which allowed her to leave on a high note of applause.

Both Jake's and Katurah's storylines were told in full throughout the season. The twists and turns of the post-merge game were shown mainly through their eyes — as well as Emily's (7th place) and Julie's (5th place). Dee's game was far from invisible; we watched her make moves, leverage her social bonds, and win immunities.

But in terms of a narrative, this season never seemed to belong to Dee's story like it did for a lot of the other players. To be clear: those stories and more are what made Survivor 45 such a great season, with a deep bench of likable characters, including pompous Bruce, energetic people-pleaser Kaleb, spacey Kendra, mercurial strategist Drew. Dee's biggest storyline was her island romance with Austin, which drew comparisons (archival footage included!) to Rob and Amber. But by definition, that wasn't Dee's story, it was their story.

At final Tribal, Dee articulated perfectly why her gameplay transcended her relationship with Austin (including the mic drop that she'd told Julie about his plan to oust her two weeks ago). It makes you wish Survivor had made that more of a storyline.

Editing decisions shouldn't and don't take away from Dee's win, but they do point to a trend in Survivor's New Era, where the moral victories of players who don't end up winning overshadow the players who do come out on top. Five seasons into the New Era, this feels like a feature of Jeff Probst's vision, rather than a bug.

When it returned from its COVID hiatus, there was an increased emphasis on the game of Survivor as a kind of holy pilgrimage for the players lucky enough to live out their 20-year-long dream of being on their favorite TV show. Probst has revisited this theme constantly, framing Survivor as the crucible through which these players test themselves and learn their worth. In this way, the experience of playing Survivor is a victory in and of itself. Every milestone the game hits — a tribe swap, the merge, the food auction, a reward trip to the Sanctuary, winning an immunity challenge — is another dream come true for these players. But ultimately, upping the value of the Survivor experience has devalued (at least from a production perspective) a Survivor win.

New Era Survivor isn't exactly summer camp, but it's a far cry from the zero-sum game that had Boston Rob and Lex ending their friendship over a betrayal in Survivor All-Stars. It's certainly healthier this new way. But the emphasis on Survivor as a life experience is placing a bit less value on winning the actual game. This goes back at least as far as Survivor: Game Changers and that moment Jeff Probst still talks about in interviews today, where Cirie Fields was encouraged to complete a challenge that she'd already lost in order to "prove something" to herself. She did, and the music swelled, and everyone cheered. It was a stirring moment (if a little condescending!), and Probst has been chasing the high of that moral victory ever since.

In the New Era, moral victories like Cirie's are presented with the same narrative fanfare as winning the actual game. As are some of the crushing losses, like Jesse losing the fire-making challenge to Gabler in Season 43. Jesse's storyline had been the most dynamic of anyone's that season, and it seemed unfathomable that he'd be eliminated before the final Tribal. When he lost at fire, Gabler's triumph was secondary to Jesse's emotional reaction to his loss. And given how much investment the viewers of the show had in Jesse by this point, that made perfect sense. Gabler was an afterthought in that moment, just as he was when he was voted the eventual winner of that season.

Dee's victory is certainly not the underwhelming conclusion that Gabler's was. But it's still puzzling that she wasn't edited to be a bigger character throughout this season. She's magnetic, she made shrewd game moves, she certainly seemed to have a compelling backstory in wanting to win the money to help her parents retire. It's great that we got such interesting narratives from Jake and Emily and Katurah (among others) this season. But Dee's win wasn't a moral victory; it was an actual victory. It should feel weightier than Jake building fire or Katurah's lawyer reveal or Emily winning an immunity challenge. Those moments populated a great season, but a satisfying winner's edit pulls it all together. And the latter has been harder to come by in the New Era, even when the victor is truly deserving.

Survivor 45 is available to stream on Paramount+. Join the discussion about the show in our forums.

Joe Reid is the senior writer at Primetimer and co-host of the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast. His work has appeared in Decider, NPR, HuffPost, The Atlantic, Slate, Polygon, Vanity Fair, Vulture, The A.V. Club and more.