‘Survivor: Philippines’ finale preview: Is it a final three … or final two?

Anyone who is a diehard “Survivor” fan is probably aware of one thing going into Sunday night’s finale for “Survivor: Philippines”: we are looking at a show that is structured more than a little bit differently than the typical finale. Ever since the show predominantly adopted its final 3 format several years ago, the final episode always starts with five contestants rather than four. With that in mind, it has led to a good many people (including us) speculating as to whether or not we could actually be looking at a final two scenario this time around.

So is this indeed possible? Don’t count on it, at least based on the new sneak peek from the finale below. In the introduction to what looks like it may actually be a reward challenge, Jeff Probst claims that the winner here will have a significant advantage in the final immunity challenge. Check the history books here in case we’re wrong, but we’re not sure that we have had a reward that is strictly all about assistance in the final immunity before.

What’s the reason for this? If we had to guess, we would say that the move may be necessitated by the double-elimination of Katie and Dana earlier this fall that was an unplanned exit. The producers thus made it to the final weeks a challenge earlier than they intended, so they thus adapted some of the challenges accordingly and made one into a reward. We’re going to have our full contestants rankings on Saturday, but based on we are seeing here it really does not look much like Lisa Whelchel has much of a chance to win this at all.

Given that Probst says the “final immunity challenge” following this, you may as well make it official: this is a final three this season, and the extra challenge also helps to justify the two-hour runtime. The only sad part of this is that this news could destroy the awesome theory that we actually had a tie vote at the final tribal council, which is something that we are hoping desperately to see someday.

If you want to go back and read our interview with Abi-Maria Gomes from this season, you can do so over at the link here.

Photo: CBS