Recap: What the Hell, Gays?

A 'Survivor' 45 Recap and Finale Predictions

Dec 14, 2023

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Spoilers for Season 45 of Survivor (currently airing).

Written by Meg Steinfeld-Heim

Friends of The Yearning likely know that I am a passionate, albeit late-in-life Survivorhead. Something about being raised in an extremely competitive family dynamic, my love of the beach, and my endless capacity to psychoanalyze has equipped me with a near-unquenchable thirst for this beloved game. Since beginning my crusade about a year ago, I have worked through nearly 12 seasons of the show and the ruthless, 2-seasons-a-year schedule adopted by CBS certainly suits my appetite. I am working through a list of both the quality and/or the gay seasons of Survivor, carefully curated by friend of TY, Andrew Stephenson. If you’d like us to share it, let us know in the comments!

As always, with reality TV, I care most about it if it is queer. So, when a new season of Survivor starts, I immediately begin doing my research. I need to suss out who is gay and therefore, who my options are for a potential winner. As you can see here, this strategy has not proven successful as far as this year’s Survivor 45 Fantasy League goes. My congrats to Rodrigo.

I was raised in a tough-it-out household. That ingrained in me an ability to tolerate discomfort. That, plus the fact that I only really root for the gay players to win1, means that I not only love watching the show—but have also set my heart on eventually playing the beautiful game. Hopefully, when I do, you all will bet on me in your fantasy brackets and do better in them than I am doing this season :)

What to say about Survivor 45…despite adoring many of the players who have graced our screens this season, the Reba alliance has always and continues to leave a bad taste in my mouth.

But before we get in too deep with the current status quo and finale predictions, I figured we should do a quick run of the homos that played or are currently playing this season! In order of elimination:

Sabiyah (16th Place):

Sabiyah. Beautiful, confident, profoundly chill, Sabiyah has that cool masc energy that puts one instantly at ease. With a voice like butter, I felt absolutely sure that she would sway everyone on the island as much as she did me in her pre-game interviews. Sabiyah was my winner pick! And for a while, she did run the show in the flailing, iconic Lulu tribe. But as Emily began to outgrow her cockroach edit, so too did Sabiyah’s time run short. After bringing a hidden immunity idol encased in wax to Tribal Council, and melting the wax away in the very flames that would later go on to ignite and extinguish her torch, her overconfidence in her tribemates would prove faulty. She went out in a blaze of glorious blindside, the idol still toasty warm in her pocket. But she was such a fun player to watch, and I hope that she comes back to play again. Should she ever want to give up truck driving, she definitely has an alternate career path in reading audiobooks or bedtime stories (to me).

Survivor Performance: ✰✰✰
Yearning: ✰✰✰✰ ½

Sean (15th Place):

Survivor loves their ex-Mormon gay men with excellent bone structure, and Sean is no exception. I’ll admit that as soon as I heard these credentials, I just assumed we had another Todd on our hands. That was hasty of me. Sean stuck it out for a bit before joining the ranks of the Lululosers (1 of 2 original Lulu members who quit and/or asked to be voted off). I spent a fair amount of time wondering about Sean’s trajectory, i.e. how he migrated from his hometown (Lawrence, New Jersey) to his current residence (Provo-Orem, Utah) and what it must be like to be both gay and ex-Mormon in Utah. I connected him with Brooks Marks though, so all should be fine.

Survivor Performance: ✰✰
Yearning: ✰✰

Kellie (10th Place):

Here is where I have to come clean to you all about something. I watched the pregame interviews extensively. I read all their little snippets and took in all their press. I perused a lot of the players’ Instagrams. (Remember, competitive family—I wanted to do well in the bracket!!) I could have sworn I had my finger on the pulse of all the queer players. But I’ll admit—I breezed over Kellie. In my defense, here’s what I took in:

Beautiful
Critical Care Nurse
Connecticut

I’m sorry, but my mind just immediately assumed…(straight) mean girl. Mean girls so often go on to become nurses!! I even thought she’d get the villain edit. Sigh. I completely missed when she said, “I can not believe that a lesbian has never won the show, and I absolutely intend to be the first”. I was mistaken, obviously—Kellie was an absolute delight of a player. Strategic, competitive, and level-headed, she navigated a cumbersome alliance with Bruce until her untimely blindside made her the second member of the jury. Jake, the target of the vote that flipped to eliminate Kellie, simply could not believe his luck.

Survivor Performance: ✰✰✰✰
Yearning: ✰✰✰✰½

Katurah (not yet eliminated!)

I love Katurah, even if I think she is getting a weird edit. Katurah entered this game with a lot of predetermined strategy—i.e. she lied about her age, lied about her job to disguise that she’s a lawyer—but then played, in my opinion, solidly in the middle of the pack for awhile. My favor for her started to grow as she began to drag Bruce (the returning player from last season, who sustained a head injury just a few days into Season 44) in her confessionals at every possible opportunity. I was totally on board with this, because I also found him incredibly annoying.

Katurah is bright and fun and charismatic, and I’ve really been surprised by all the vulnerability she’s shared in the last few episodes—her experiences being raised in a religious cult and going no contact with her mom sound so hard. I think the contrast between her vivaciousness in the day to day and the confessional content being included in the edit has been a little bit jarring, and I’m really curious to see what it looks like in the conclusion of the season when emotions are even more heightened. I also want to tip my hat to her, for convincing the Survivor Costume department to allow her to bring so many cute outfits.

Survivor Performance: ✰✰✰
Yearning: ✰✰✰½

Finale Predictions:

So, after last night’s episode, we’re down to a Final Five.

Austin, resident meathead and graduate student (Reba alliance)
Dee, friendly neighborhood mastermind (Reba alliance)
Jake, hanging-on-by-a-thread for the last four votes (no alliance)
Julie, also known as Mama J — tepid follower vibes (Reba alliance)
Katurah, similarly a bottom dweller in the Reba landscape

I’d love to say that I think Katurah will win. But I’d be shocked—I’m not sure she’s played a strong enough game to win over the Jury, even if she were to make it that far. Actually, of all of these contestants, I’d really love to see Jake win. I’ll say it—his Boston accent and goofy grin have completely won me over. And I go for a loveable underdog.

I predict that Dee will win, sadly, as she has been manipulating nearly every vote for the last five tribals. I am so bored by her. I think she will take Lover Boy (Austin) to the Final 3, which is a great call because despite the fact that he found two Immunity Idols, he has had zero strategic impact on the game and in fact, squandered 2 out of 2 idols. I predict Dee will (and would love for her to) turn on her beloved Mama J and bring Jake, who will hopefully squeak into that Final 3 position due to his newly found idol. Katurah would be a better option for her competition-wise, but hopefully Jake goes. <3

A girl can dream!

Next week on The Yearning, we will have a guest post by founder of The InQueery, Greg Kozatek!

With certain iconic exceptions of course…