People are really reaching to discredit…
Aubry.
Come on. It’s not like Jonathan played an A game and Aubry an F game.
I’m seeing people ask where the strategy was on her end. Well, did she not drive the Ozzy vote? Joe said yes. Rizo said yes. Ozzy ran his mouth, and Aubry took advantage of it. A lot of players who are the obvious target can’t save themselves. Aubry did. If you want to make the argument it couldn’t have happened without Jonathan, that’s totally fine, but it didn’t happen without Aubry either, and again, per Joe and Rizo, Aubry got them on board.
She also forged good relationships/alliances with a diverse array of people. She worked the middle beautifully, and when they slowly started getting picked off, she didn’t. As Ozzy said, “Jonathan and Joe both said so many times ‘get out the middle get out the middle get out the middle’ and here you are on either side of the middle.” She briefly worked with tiff. She seemed to have a close relationship with joe that was under edited. When she won final immunity, she knew to take Joe, and knew that she needed Jonathon to beat Rizo. She had agency in who she sat next to, which is very important. She also clearly had a pulse on the game. She voted correctly every single vote; Jonathan did not.
She also had much better jury management skills. Tiffany and Dee were never going to vote for Jonathan because of how he treated them. Having multiple people ambush the first juror was not smart, nor was (allegedly) telling tiff he won’t take her to the end because she’s a girl. Fair or not, being likable is part of the game. Not to mention, let’s pretend that we were sitting in ponderosa debating who to vote for. On the one hand, Chrissy, coach, and Stephanie are campaigning hard for someone. On the other hand, cirie is campaigning hard for someone. 9/10 times, you’re going to be swayed by cirie.
“She didn’t win enough challenges.” Go on Hulu and watch “The Challenge” if that’s what you want. Also, Jonathan only won one more than her. Aubry won the most important challenge of the season, and in that moment, the three guys knew they were toast. If we’re using challenges as a metric, Joe deserved to win 48, and Cirie is terrible.
Aubry had a better FTC than Jonathan, and ironically his allies’ terrible campaigns might have been his nail in the coffin. Again, who you align yourself with matters. Aubry’s story that Christian asked for was much more articulate. Jonathan didn’t seem to understand Ozzy’s question. While I thought Jonathan didn’t fine, Aubry was better.
Finally, this is a highly edited show. Survivor is filmed for about 23/24 hours a day for 26 days. We get snippets of nearly a month of island life. This season, we got even less of the players and more weird celebrity cameos. I remember on this reddit, people really thought Sam had a chance to hear Rachel in S47, but the votes weren’t even close. Likewise, a lot of people thought Joe/eva were getting the winners edit only for Kyle to be the clear winner. The edit obviously wants us to think this is going to come down to the wire. This leads me to believe Jonathan got a favorable edit because everyone wanted to take him to the end. Joe, Rizo (who had an all girl alliance last season and tried this season til Dee blew it up), tiff, and Aubry all wanted to be by Jonathan because (rightly or wrongly) he was not perceived as a good player by those on the island. Cirie, who we regard as one of the best ever, said he’s easily manipulated. I didn’t get that impression based on the edit, but I trust her judgement.
Edit to add: enough with the “reverse sexism” and “ironic” comments because of all girl alliances. Aubry didn’t have have an all girl alliance, and worked closely with Devens, Christian, and Joe. Her biggest rival was Gen. that argument doesn’t even apply here. Plus, there have been 50 survivor seasons, 20 of which have been won by women. Yes, new era women have dominated, but it’s not reverse sexism. ironically, those calling out “reverse sexism” in the new era had no problem with the male dominant “old era.” Reverse sexism for guys on the show is an all girl alliance. sexism for women is unwanted groping (Dan Spilo) and being “mistaken” for someone’s wife (Ted Rodgers).