
Breaking down Survivor 48 with Survivor 47 runner-up Sam Phalen
Survivor 48 has come to an end, with castaway Kyle Fraser being named the Sole Survivor after yet another memorable run of the greatest game of all time.
As we look back on this latest season, we've asked Survivor 47 runner-up Sam Phalen to help us break down all the big questions from what we just watched.
Why Survivor 48's Joe Hunter still leaves the game as a huge winner
Sam, a sports journalist for FanSided, got close to being named Sole Survivor last fall but fell just short of that honor to Survivor 47 winner Rachel LaMont.
However, his tenacity, social game and strategy plays more than cemented his place in the season's second spot and got him close to winning outright.
Sam also one of the architects behind "Operation: Italy," one of the great strategy moves in the show's history. You may also remember his thrilling comeback in the fire-making competition to make the final three.
Sam's Survivor expertise gives us great perspective on Survivor 48 from somebody who played and succeeded at the game, so let's run through some of his big takeaways.
FTW: Kyle is our latest Survivor winner after a pretty terrific finale. What do you think set him apart by the time the jury's vote rolled around?
Sam: Kyle was the only person in the game playing both sides from start to finish. As he said himself, he rode the middle. Not only was a part of the dominant alliance that chose who went home every week, he also had a side relationship with Kamilla [Karthigesu] and was able to manipulate information to get his way.
A Survivor jury loves to be surprised. They want to hear something that wows them. Something they didn't know before sitting down at Final Tribal Council. Kyle being able to sit there and reveal the secrets he kept from everyone in the game not only impressed the jury, but made him look more credible than Joe [Hunter] and Eva [Erickson].
FTW: As one of the architects of all-time Survivor move 'Operation: Italy,' what was your favorite moment of strategy this season?
Sam: Probably the plan from Kyle and Kamilla to blindside Shauhin. It reminded me of "Operation: Italy" a little bit.
The best Survivor moves take detailed planning, acting and layers upon layers of details that further validate the scheme. People talk and fact-check information constantly, so you have to be thorough. Kyle referred to the move as a 'heist,' which is exactly how we described "Operation: Italy" in real time.
FTW: Joe's game was the perfect example of how Survivor used to be played, before the era of cutthroat strategy took over for modern players. How do you size up his game and the way he approached his time in Fiji?
Sam: Joe's social game was really, really impressive. It seemed like everyone on the island thought they were working with him and didn't want to cross him. He's a good person that was invested in building real relationships. That worked out for him and got him some longevity in the game.
I think Joe ultimately struggled with jury management and sent a lot of scorned people to the jury. He probably could have been more cutthroat, too. Because he was playing such an honest game, it seemed like he assumed everyone else in his alliance would be, too. But Kyle and Kamilla had other plans and pulled one over on him one too many times to have the jury give him the victory.
FTW: Is there a castaway for this season you feel deserves more credit for the game they played before their elimination?
Sam: I think Shauhin [Davari] was a really savvy player that wasn't highlighted in the edit very much. A lot of people seemed to feel good about Shauhin. He's an eloquent speaker with a strategic mind that absolutely could have won the game had he not gone out at the final six.
Because he worked so closely with Kyle and Joe, I think Shauhin's story takes a bit of a backseat to theirs throughout the season. Credit to Kyle for outplaying him at the end, but I think Shauhin was closer to winning the game than we see on T.V.
FTW: When it comes to famous duos, where do Joe and Eva and Kyle and Kamilla stack up in the history of Survivor?
Sam: Joe and Eva are certainly going to be one of the most memorable duos ever. Their relationship is always going to define Survivor 48. It's going to be the thing people remember when they reflect on this season five years from now.
Kyle and Kamilla may go down as the greatest duo in Survivor history? Or at least on the top three? That sounds like hyperbole, but we've never seen a duo go 25 days without being discovered by the other players in the game. Everyone wants to do it, but nobody can. They're the new gold standard for what an alliance should look like.
FTW: How do you feel about Survivor 48 as a whole? What do you think this season will be most remembered for?
Sam: I think this will be remembered as Joe and Eva's season. The 'strength and loyalty' season. It's not beloved by the fans, and it definitely wasn't one of my favorites, but I think Kyle's dominant win gives it a pretty strong conclusion.
Ultimately, seasons that are built on emotional connections are never going to translate as well through the TV screen as seasons that are built on strategic maneuvers. 48 didn't have much strategy, so it can be stagnant for a viewer tuning in for the shifting gameplay. It will play better on a binge rewatch than it did in real time.
FTW: Fill us in on what you're up to after finishing as the runner-up for Survivor 47.
Sam: I've been staying active in the Survivor/Reality TV community while going through some pretty significant life changes. I got married in March of this year, had a dream honeymoon and recently started a new job.
I'm currently covering the Chicago White Sox, my hometown team, as a writer and Site Expert at FanSided.com. I've been doing a lot of traveling around the U.S. and the world and hope to continue with more big adventures soon!

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Elle
an hour ago
- Elle
I Tried to Make Sense of the Convoluted Ending to ‘Untamed'
Spoilers below. As Untamed makes clear, as often as it can, the wildlife are far from the most violent creatures in Yosemite National Park. Humans are always the most dangerous beasts. The new Netflix limited series shares this thesis with any number of contemporary dramas, post-apocalyptic, crime-focused, or otherwise. (Yellowstone and The Last of Us—which, like Untamed, also concern the consequences of grief—spring immediately to mind.) Thus, there's a level to which Untamed is predictable by default. Despite the show's gorgeous visuals, solid performances, and compelling opening, we know the kind of lesson we're in for. Still, Untamed is ultimately less successful than its Hollywood brethren, in part because the threads of its various crimes fail to coalesce in a satisfying manner. The big twists don't land as pulse-pounding revelations. Instead, they manage to be rote, frustrating, and convoluted all at once. By the time National Park Service Investigative Services Branch agent Kyle Turner (Eric Bana) leaves Yosemite behind in the final episode, we're left wondering what, exactly, we're supposed to have learned from his experience. Untamed primarily addresses three main mysteries within the national park, each involving a death or disappearance: the death of Jane Doe/Lucy Cooke, the death of Caleb Turner, and the disappearance of Sean Sanderson. Over the course of the series' six episodes, Kyle digs deeper into the Cooke case, but it isn't until the finale that all the secrets are laid out for the audience. These details are revealed in such a whirlwind (and yet anticlimactic) manner that it's easy to confuse them. If you're left squinting at your screen by the time the credits roll, let's retrace our steps. Here's what we learn by the end of Untamed. At the beginning of the series, a woman tumbles to her death off the edge of El Capitan, an infamous vertical rock formation in Yosemite. (The New York Times accurately referred to this inciting incident as 'a deceptively high-adrenaline start' to the series. What comes next is, generally, much less thrilling.) Slowly, Kyle begins to work with ranger Naya Vasquez (Lily Santiago) to uncover Jane Doe's identity: She is a half-Indigenous woman named Lucy Cooke, formerly known as Grace McCray, and she went missing for the first time many years ago. Back then, Kyle assumed that her father, an abusive man named Rory Cooke, killed her. But when her adult body shows up off El Capitan, Kyle is forced to reexamine the facts of her case. A DNA test soon reveals that Rory Cooke was not, in fact, Lucy's biological father. And when a random boy shows up at the park ranger headquarters with a photograph of 'Grace McCray' (a.k.a. Lucy) as a child, Kyle begins to understand a much more convoluted story is at play. Still, he's initially convinced that wildlife management officer Shane Maguire (Wilson Bethel) had a role in her death. Kyle has good reason to despise (and suspect) Shane, as we later learn, and his theories are all but confirmed when he discovers video footage of Shane on Lucy's phone. The two of them were indeed involved in an illegal drug operation from within Yosemite, but, as it turns out, Shane didn't kill Lucy. Her father did. In the finale, Kyle finally travels to Nevada to locate the abandoned church seen in the boy's photograph of young 'Grace.' Next to the church, he finds a crumbling home occupied by a senile woman named Mrs. Gibbs. Further inspection confirms Kyle's worse suspicions: Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs kept a group of foster children locked in their basement, barely fed, in order to secure continued government funding. When Kyle finds Native American etchings carved into one of the walls, he understands that Grace was one of these children. Kyle then meets with a casino employee named Faith Gibbs, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs, who confirms that Grace is Lucy Cooke, and that Lucy ran away at some point after realizing her 'dad,' a cop, was never coming back to get her. So, who's the cop? And did he kill Lucy? Next—though I'll admit it's not clear to me exactly how—Kyle draws the investigation directly back to his own park rangers. Paul Souter (Sam Neill) is Yosemite's chief park ranger, and as such, he's Kyle's boss and close friend. (He was also, once, godfather to Kyle's now-deceased son, Caleb.) After reexamining Lucy's DNA test results, Kyle realizes that Paul's daughter, Kate, was scrubbed from the list (despite being in the park's system thanks to her prior arrest). He thus surmises that Paul is the 'cop' Lucy once claimed would rescue her. Perhaps Kyle puts the pieces together thanks, in part, to Paul's own suspicious behavior. After Naya kills Shane in the penultimate episode (after Shane himself almost kills Kyle), Kyle wants to continue to pursue Lucy Cooke's case. Paul discourages him from doing so, claiming Kyle should move on with his life. In refusing to do just that, Kyle finally turns on wheedles the full story out of him. Paul was indeed the father of Lucy Cooke. After having an affair with Lucy's mother, an Indigenous woman named Maggie who later died of cancer, Paul refused to acknowledge Lucy's existence. (He was afraid it would destroy his marriage and ruin his reputation.) Maggie raised Lucy with her abusive husband, Rory, until she died. Her last wish was for Paul to 'get Lucy away from Rory.' Paul did so by giving Lucy the name 'Grace McCray' and placing her under the Gibbs' foster care in Nevada. ('I thought Lucy would be safe there,' Paul tells Kyle in the finale. I have a hard time buying this coming from a cop, but it doesn't seem Paul is the most thorough investigator on the planet.) Kyle tells Paul he'll need to run ballistics on Paul's hunting rifles, and Paul panics. He initially tries to pretend he's lent his rifles to friends, and so one of them might have killed Lucy. But he can't lie to Kyle, and he soon admits that he chased Lucy throughout Yosemite after Lucy started extorting him for money. When that extortion turned into kidnapping—Lucy kidnapped Sadie, Paul's granddaughter, as a bargaining chip—Paul became desperate. He managed to get Sadie back home after she was abandoned on a ridge inside Yosemite, but he continued to pursue Lucy, wanting to 'make her listen somehow.' After firing a warning shot in her direction, Paul accidentally hit Lucy in the leg with a bullet. Believing she was being hunted, Lucy fled—but was soon attacked by coyotes. Tired, injured, and ready to stop her running, she decided to let herself fall off El Capitan. Upon learning this, a horrified Kyle demands that Paul 'make this right' by owning up to his crime. But Paul claims he can't, and when he realizes Kyle will try and 'make it right' for him, he pulls his pistol on his old friend. Kyle calls his bluff and continues walking away. At last, Paul instead turns the gun on himself, pulling the trigger and falling, dead, into the river below. But wait! Lucy and Paul's aren't the only awful, preventable deaths to have taken place in Untamed's Yosemite National Park. Five years before the series' events, Kyle suffered his own loss: the death of Caleb, the young son he shared with his now ex-wife, Jill Bodwin (Rosemarie DeWitt). We learn midway through the show that Kyle discovered Caleb dead in the park after he went missing from camp. But it isn't until the finale that we learn who killed Caleb: a missing person named Sean Sanderson, whose case Kyle never solved. Jill killed him! Or, rather, she had him killed. Alas, here's where Shane finally factors into the story, beyond the red-herring drug operation he ran with Lucy: In one of the finale's more shocking revelations, Jill reveals to her husband, Scott (John Randall), that she hired Shane to kill Sean Sanderson. Who is Sean, exactly? Apparently just some random, horrible man who sought to prey on children. Some important backstory: After Caleb's death, Shane surveyed footage from motion-capture cameras he had placed throughout the park in order to track wildlife migration. It was from one of these cameras that he first spotted Sean stalking Caleb. Shane then brought this footage to Kyle and Jill, telling them they should 'let him kill' Sean in retaliation for his crime. Kyle refused this offer, in part because he wanted 100-percent confirmation that Sean had killed Caleb—and he could only be certain after he'd arrested Sean and brought him to trial. But Jill couldn't live with the unpredictability of a courtroom. So she hired Shane to blackmail and kill Sean behind Kyle's back. Kyle only discovered Jill's secret after Sanderson was reported missing, Jill tells Scott. 'More than anything, more than losing Caleb, it was me betraying Kyle that ended us,' she says of their consequent divorce. Nevertheless, Kyle agreed to lie on Jill's why he never 'solved' Sanderson's missing-persons case. As he later tells the lawyer pursuing a wrongful death suit for the Sanderson family: 'Sometimes things happen that just don't make sense.' Finally, the series ends with Kyle escaping Yosemite National Park. After being placed on suspension thanks to his earlier fight with Shane, Kyle decides to give up his park ranger job together and leave Yosemite in the dust—at last moving on from the place of Caleb's death. In giving up his vigil, Kyle promises the apparition of his son that he'll always take a piece of Caleb wherever he goes. He turns over his horse (and, by extension, his trust) to Naya, who seems eager to take up Kyle's mantle. It's a touching moment, seeing Kyle take ownership of his grief and choose to move forward with his life. But it's unclear how exactly he plans to do so, nor how the destruction wrought within his inner circle—Caleb's death, Jill's betrayal, Paul's corruption, Shane's violence—has shaped him now. Has he decided that the best path forward is to leave it all behind? Or, like Lucy, will he realize that there's no escaping the past? Maybe he's simply driving out of the park to find a good therapist. That, dear reader, should be every viewer's earnest hope.


Elle
2 days ago
- Elle
You Know the 'Untamed' Cast From 'And Just Like That...,' 'Jurassic Park,' and More
Netflix is back with a new juicy murder mystery. Set in Yosemite National Park, Untamed follows a National Park Service agent named Kyle Turner (Eric Bana) who's tasked with investigating a suspicious death that takes place on park grounds. The six-episode limited series is brought to you by Mark L. Smith (Twisters, The Revenant) and his daughter Elle Smith (The Marsh King's Daughter). When Bana read the Untamed script back in 2019, he knew he had to be involved in the father-daughter helmed project. 'I just thought it was such a fantastic combination of the thriller genre, the suspense, the murder mystery, but most importantly, in the most incredible setting,' he told Variety. 'I think the idea of following someone who's trying to solve a crime, knocking on doors, and driving a car, I've seen that so many times. To see someone in a national park do it on a horse just seems so much more interesting and much more fun to do.' All six episodes of Untamed are now streaming on Netflix, and it's currently the #1 ranked show on the platform. Below, get to know the main cast. Eric Bana (Black Hawk Down, Hulk) plays Kyle Turner, a special agent for the National Park Service in the Investigative Services Branch. After a woman suspiciously falls off El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, he must investigate her death. Bana also serves as an executive producer for the series. Sam Neill (Jurassic Park, Peaky Blinders) plays Paul Souter, Kyle's boss and the chief park ranger at Yosemite National Park. He and Kyle are also very good friends. Rosemarie DeWitt (And Just Like That..., La La Land) plays Jill Bodwin, Kyle's ex-wife. She's a former teacher and park counselor. Though she is now remarried, she remains close with Kyle. Lily Santiago (La Brea) plays Naya Vasquez, a Los Angeles police officer who moves to Yosemite with her 4-year-old son, Gael. There, she joins the Yosemite National Park ranger crew and assists Kyle with his investigation. Wilson Bethel (Daredevil, How to Get Away with Murder) plays Shane Maguire, the Yosemite National Park's wildlife management officer. He's also a former army ranger. William Smillie (Chicago Fire, Empire) plays Bruce Milch, a Yosemite National Park ranger. He and Kyle often butt heads on the job. Raoul Trujillo (Blue Beetle, Sicario) plays Jay Stewart, a Yosemite National Park employee who works in land maintenance. He also assists Kyle with his investigation.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Meet the man planning to row from Massachusetts to Nova Scotia
James Tarantino has gotten used to people telling him he's crazy. This summer, the 63-year old is planning to row from Gloucester, Mass., to Lunenburg in a small wooden boat he's named the Heart o' Gloucester. When word of his plan started circulating in Gloucester, Tarantino said dozens of people reached out to say it couldn't be done. "[They say] the tide up there and the currents are too strong, you can't do it in a dory, you're going to die," he said. But Tarantino has a trick up his sleeve — a traditional Grand Banks dory built in Lunenburg. "It's a very, very safe boat," he said, adding that's what makes him confident about a trip that includes two nights in open water crossing the Bay of Fundy. "Semi-confident," he clarified. Lunenburg-Gloucester connection goes back centuries Tarantino will set out from Gloucester in late July with a dory mate, rowing the 1,100 kilometres to Lunenburg, rowing with his dory mate, Sarah LeWine, who's been Tarantino's dory racing partner for several years. It will take about three weeks, with Tarantino and LeWine stopping every four days to pick up additional food, as well as the eight gallons of water that they'll need for each four-day stretch. The dory will also be filled with a satellite radio, survival suits, life-jackets and other safety equipment they'll need on the journey. Gloucester and Lunenburg have a connection that goes back centuries. Gloucester was mapped by Samuel de Champlain in 1605, and incorporated as a town in 1642. In the 19th century, fishermen travelled from Atlantic Canada to work on the Grand Banks schooners that sailed from Gloucester. "All your best guys in the late 1800s wanted to come to Gloucester — they could make more money, they could feed their families better," said Tarantino. In the 20th century, that became a rivalry between Lunenburg and Gloucester over who could build a superior schooner. The Bluenose prevailed. Since then, dory racing has maintained the relationship between the two towns, including for Tarantino, who's been dory racing since he was 17, going to Lunenburg for competitions many times. "There's something about a fishing community, the character resonates, and there's a pride there as well. So it's fun to meet people from … another country that still share those same values." As he got older, Tarantino began dreaming of rowing between the two communities. He's not one to shy away from a challenge, or — as a former contestant on the television show Survivor - the limelight. "I always like attention," he said. "I'm a character, as you can tell." When it came time to have a dory built for his journey, he heard about a builder in Lunenburg, and made an appointment while attending a dory race in town. But when he saw the other dories that Andrew Rhodenizer was making, Tarantino was taken aback. "I said, 'Well, I want a dory — I don't want a [expletive] Viking warship." The dory, built in the traditional style, was bigger and heavier than the dories Tarantino was used to racing. Rhodenizer, who works with the Big Boat Shed on the Lunenburg waterfront, said the Grand Banks dory was traditionally used in the fishing industry, most often on Grand Banks schooners, where their design made them easy to stack, and able to carry an immense amount of weight for their size. Over time, that style has become less familiar, Rhodenizer said. "The kind of boat that we build here is a rarer thing these days … they're very traditional." Rhodenizer said they use traditional linseed oil paint and make their own pine tar. They also make the frame, otherwise known as the knees, from wood that is not bent, but cut from the roots and lower trunk of the hackmatack tree. "We try to practise really sustainable methods for going out and harvesting the materials that we use in the boats here, that's a big concern." Rhodenizer said the more Tarantino learned about their process, the more convinced he was that it met his need for a trustworthy vessel. "Using the construction methods that we do, you end up with a very rugged vessel," he said. "Truthfully, I wouldn't trust any other way." "We always say the dory is going to end up somewhere. It's just a matter of whether you can hang on." Journey raises awareness of tradition Wooden boats are hardly an anachronism, says Rhodenizer. Even as the community has changed, Rhodenizer said they remain an important part of Lunenburg's character "The maritime skills that are involved here are super important to us," he said "I don't know what the culture would be if it wasn't somewhat focused around maritime skills." Daniel Moreland, who runs The Dory Shop in Lunenburg — which has been making dories on the waterfront since 1917 — notes that at one point, every town on the Eastern Seaboard would have had dory shops. Lunenburg had three. The community doesn't need three any more, he said, though The Dory Shop still sells about 20 dories a year. Still, he's turned down offers to sell the shop for businesses like a tea house. "It's a pretty spot, a lot of people would like to have it for something other than building dories. But once you lose it, it's over." As for Tarantino, he said he intends the journey as a way of raising awareness of the importance of preserving those skills. Over time, Gloucester has changed. Groundfish have dwindled and employment in fisheries has declined. Tarantino said it's important for people to retain a connection with a sense of place. He said that in Gloucester and Lunenburg, that includes the skills that have characterized those places for centuries. "Whatever you can do to inspire other people to keep those traditions alive — once they're gone, they're gone." MORE TOP STORIES