Survivor: Survivor 43 · Season 43

Episode Guide

How Survivor: Survivor 43 unfolded, week by week.

1“LIVIN”Sep 21, 2022The new era kicks off with three tribes hitting the beach and an opening immunity that turns into a bruising log challenge, where Jeanine takes a spill and scrapes up her chin. Vesi comes up short and trudges to the first Tribal of the season with nobody quite settled. Morriah Young, who'd struggled to find her footing those first three days, becomes the very first one voted out, 5-1.
2“Lovable Curmudgeon”Sep 28, 2022Down a member already, Vesi tries to regroup, but Justine Brennan is everywhere at once, running so hard at the strategy that her own tribe starts to feel steamrolled. Off to the side, Cody and Jesse strike up the kind of easy rapport that turns into the season's tightest bond. Vesi loses again, and with the vote splattering across a couple of names, Justine is voted out 3-1-1.
3“I'll Sign The Divorce Papers”Oct 5, 2022Vesi simply cannot win, and a third straight trip to Tribal hangs over a tribe running on fumes. Nneka Ejere, a pastor who'd kept the group's spirits up through the losing streak, lands on the wrong side of the numbers. She's voted out 4-1, and somehow Jesse, Cody, and Noelle have all survived the bleed to keep Vesi breathing at three.
4“Show No Mercy”Oct 12, 2022Baka has been the happy tribe all season, but their first loss drags them to Tribal and the warm fuzzies evaporate in a hurry. Gabler is already running hot and cold, leaving the others guessing whether he's a goofball or something craftier. When the dust settles on Baka's first vote, Lindsay Carmine is the one sent home, 4-1-1.
5“Stop With All the Niceness”Oct 19, 2022Coco has cruised untouched all game, so finally landing at Tribal is a jolt to the system, made stranger by a deliberate play to control who ends up exposed. Geo Bustamante feels safe enough to sit on an advantage rather than use it. That comfort costs him everything: Geo is voted out 3-2 with the advantage still in his bag.
6“Mergatory”Oct 26, 2022The merge arrives with a catch. Thirteen players are split into teams and have to earn their seat at the feast and the safety that comes with it, with Noelle drawing the odd rock and choosing a side. The team that storms back on the puzzle locks in immunity, leaving the rest out in the cold. Then Gabler drops a bomb at camp, telling everyone that Elie Scott had gone digging through his bag, and that's all it takes. Elie is voted out as the last boot before the real merge.
7“Bull in a China Shop”Nov 2, 2022The merged tribe takes the name Gaia, and camp tips straight into paranoia when word spreads that James is holding a 'Knowledge is Power' advantage that can pluck an idol right out of someone's hands at Tribal. Suddenly everyone's playing hot potato: Cody hands his idol to Jesse for safekeeping, and Jeanine passes hers to Dwight. Gabler grabs the first individual immunity. But the target settles on Dwight, who's blindsided 7-3-2 and walks out the door with Jeanine's idol still in his pocket, never played.
8“Proposterous”Nov 9, 2022Owen wins immunity and feels untouchable, while Jeanine settles in convinced she's sitting pretty inside the majority. The plan she thinks she's running and the plan that's actually running turn out to be two very different things. At Tribal she's writing down someone else's name while nearly the whole tribe writes hers, and Jeanine is blindsided 9-2 as the first member of the jury.
9“What About the Big Girls”Nov 16, 2022Double elimination night splits the tribe into two groups of five, each sending someone to the jury at its own Tribal. On one side, Noelle pulls out a steal-a-vote and swipes Owen's vote as a smokescreen, and the misdirection helps bury James Jones, whose own ally Karla turns on him too; he's voted out 4-1. On the other, Ryan Medrano's plan to take a shot at Cassidy falls apart in his hands, and he's blindsided 4-1 right behind James. Two torches snuffed, two fresh jurors in one night.
10“Get That Money, Baby”Nov 23, 2022Cassidy wins immunity, and Noelle takes the reward, bringing Sami, Jesse, and Owen along. Noelle, a Paralympic sprinter who'd charmed the whole camp, has a plan of her own cooking, but Jesse quietly tips Karla off to it. Deciding the beloved Noelle is far too dangerous to drag any further, the group moves first. She's blindsided in eighth and becomes the fourth juror.
11“Hiding in Plain Sight”Nov 30, 2022The immunity challenge is a grueling 'last gasp' endurance test out in the water, and Karla and Owen flat refuse to quit, hanging on for almost three hours until Probst finally relents and hands them both immunity, a first in the show's history. Back at camp an idol sits hidden practically in the open and almost nobody clocks it. With the two of them safe, the vote drifts to Sami Layadi, the youngest out there, who's voted out 5-2-1 as the fifth juror.
12“Telenovela”Dec 7, 2022Cassidy wins immunity, and the night belongs to Jesse. Sitting on Cody's idol from way back, he tells Cody they're voting Karla and tells Karla the target is Owen, then plays Cody's own idol on Owen at Tribal. Spooked, Karla burns her idol on herself, and in one stroke every vote against the two of them is wiped clean. The only name left standing is Cody's, three times over. Jesse uses his closest ally's idol to send Cody home in sixth, the move that comes to define the whole season.
13“Snap Some Necks and Cash Some Checks”FinaleDec 14, 2022Finale night opens with the final five, and Karla is the first to go, voted out 4-0. Cassidy wins the last immunity and chooses to take Owen to the end, leaving Gabler and Jesse to make fire for the final seat. Gabler, the 51-year-old nobody had taken seriously all game, builds a roaring flame in record time and beats Jesse, sending the season's biggest strategist to the jury in fourth. At Final Tribal the jury barely hesitates, handing it to Gabler 7-1 over Cassidy with Owen shut out. Then comes the kicker: Gabler announces he's giving the entire million dollars to veterans' charities, the most unexpected Sole Survivor the new era had crowned.