Survivor: Island of the Idols, aka Survivor Season 39, is finally ending on December 18, 2019 on CBS. It's been a strange season, and certainly not one of the best, with most of the drama having nothing to do with gameplay. But as we approach the finale, it's looking to many fans like we have an obvious winner. Too obvious? The winner doesn't look obvious from their own gameplay -- it's not like this person dominated the season in challenges or strategy. It's partly from the actions of other players -- looking at you, Dean -- and partly because of spoilers, although Survivor spoilers are not always reliable.
Warning: Potential MAJOR SPOILERS ahead on the ending of Survivor: Island of the Idols.
Going into the December 11 episode, there are seven Survivor castaways left:
• Lauren Beck
• Janet Carbin
• Dean Kowalski
• Noura Salman
• Tommy Sheehan
• Dan Spilo
• Elaine Stott
Last week, Karishma Patel was voted out after Dean botched what looked like a solid plan to take out Tommy. The Survivor edit doesn't show everything, but it looked like Dean just handed Tommy the game. It was another piece of evidence in what looked to many fans like Tommy Sheehan as an obvious winner. He comes off as likable, he's athletic, he's in a solid alliance, and other than this one time he's pretty much slipped away from the chopping block. Not sure why they haven't targeted him, but he's walking around with a giant Potential Winner sign on his forehead.
Add to that the spoilers floating around Reddit. Survivor spoilers aren't like Bachelor spoilers. They're less reliable or consistent. They can come from Reddit users under different names or through Facebook fan posts. It's hard to even know where information originates. You never know what to think when you see various bootlist spoilers, and more often than not they are wrong.
However, Reddit's survivor-fan-1993 posted some things from earlier in Survivor: Island of the Idols that panned out -- including "Kellee goes with at least one idol unused" -- so Survivor fans are giving some credence to the user's final four spoilers, final three, and winner spoilers:
• Lauren. Dean. Noura. Tommy.• Lauren loses in fire. Tommy wins.• The final 3 is Dean, Tommy, And Noura.• Tommy wins. Neither Elaine nor Janet make Final 3.
The comments were made in different threads, and you could squint your eyes and wonder if that "Lauren loses in fire. Tommy wins" one was specific to the fire challenge or was it saying Tommy wins it all.
I don't know if that final three is true, but if so, it does make me wonder if Noura Salman could actually be the real winner. It could still be Tommy, but Noura -- crazy Noura -- is the underdog who has been winning immunity challenges and evolving across the season. She's learning and also surviving when her name comes up as a target.
There's been a lot of talk about a woman winning Survivor: Island of the Idols, and I don't know why they'd bring that up if it's just Tommy again. Maybe it will be Tommy anyway, but there's a part of me that wonders if it's really that obvious or if people are reading into the edit, reading into the spoilers, reading into Noura being nuts, and reading into Dean being the kind of "goat" he likes to call others.
Survivor 39's Tommy and Lauren have been tight all season, so it wouldn't shock me to see them make it to Final 4 together. I'm not a fan of the new final four set-up where the immunity winner picks someone as safe and sends two others to fire. If Lauren loses to fire, that would sting but I can imagine she'd still vote for Tommy to win unless she felt betrayed.
So far, Tommy hasn't really betrayed anyone, unlike Dean. Noura hasn't really backstabbed close allies either (does she have any?) and if she can get her thoughts in line, she could make some solid arguments to win at final tribal. Or she could ramble like she did when she tried to sell that ridiculous lie after coming back from Island of the Idols. Teacher Tommy tends to present himself well, and that would definitely help at final tribal.
Personally, I would love to see Elaine and Janet in the end, but I don't need spoilers to tell me how unlikely that is. I'm glad spoilers at least suggest Dan doesn't make it to the end, after everything, but I do hope he takes Kellee's experience to heart after seeing her reaction.
Survivor Host Jeff Probst Is Just As Angry As Fans About Spoilers In CBS Commercials
Survivor 39 finishes up with a two-hour season finale and reunion special on Wednesday, December 18 on CBS. Then we have the season fans are really waiting to see, Survivor Season 40, Survivor: Winners At War. Keep up with everything premiering in early 2020 with our handy TV schedule.
