Survivor fans, meet your new champion: Nick Wilson, the public defender from Kentucky and sole surviving member of the David tribe, is the winner of Survivor: David vs. Goliath.
Nick earned the Sole Survivor title at the climax of the two-hour finale, in which he unexpectedly lost a key ally in Davie Rickenbacker, participated in the not-quite-a-blindside of Alison Raybould, and sent Kara Kay to her doom in the form of the final four fire-making challenge, a new Survivor staple since season 35. With those three opponents out of the way and three consecutive immunity challenge wins under his belt, Nick walked away from the season’s final Tribal Council with enough votes in his favor to win the title, defeating longtime allies Mike White and Angelina Keeley of the Goliath tribe.
“I went through tons of ups and downs in this game,” Nick said before the final vote, pleading his case to the jury. “It’s what I’ve always known: fighting my way out of struggles. I’ve done it my whole life.”
How did Nick fight his way through the Survivor struggle? The story begins with the opening moments of the season, shortly after the David vs. Goliath theme was revealed, when Nick openly informed host and executive producer Jeff Probst about the biblical David’s journey from underdog to king. True to that arc, Nick is now the proud owner of the David vs. Goliath crown, and the million dollar prize that goes along with it.
It wasn’t an easy road, certainly not at the start, with literal and strategic storms alike raging throughout the 39-day crusade. Indeed, based on several accounts, Nick almost walked away from the season premiere as the first player voted out of the season — a fate he may have suffered if not for Pat Cusack’s shocking medical evacuation, which spared the Davids from having to attend Tribal Council. For his part, in an in-game interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Nick claimed he would have survived that first vote: “I would have certainly gotten votes at the first Tribal Council, and I am glad we didn’t go, but I can’t count six votes against me.”
Nick’s luck swiftly changed when he linked up with robot scientist Christian Hubicki, the Dixon to his Mason. The two of them joined forces with others on the David tribe to eliminate Jessica Peet, the first person voted out of the season, albeit the second person eliminated due to Pat’s medical crisis. One vote later, the David and Goliath tribes dissolved, spreading the players into three new groups. After the swap, Nick found himself clad in old Goliath purple on the newly formed Jabeni tribe, alongside veritable force of nature Natalie “Napalm” Cole, the first person voted out of this group, jacket and all.
During the Jabeni days, Nick linked up with filmmaker Mike White and formed the two-person alliance known in most circles as “The Rockstars,” and in weirder corners of the Survivor fandom as “The Cats.” (Regarding the many nicknames Nick granted to his alliances, he told THR: “I started naming alliances just to have fun, then I noticed Elizabeth and Christian both felt a very close bond with me, and began to wonder if the naming of the alliance had anything to do with it. If not, then at the very least it was fun to call Christian ‘Dixon,’ or to strum an air guitar with Mike.”) The Rockstars, as well as Angelina, survived the Jabeni jungle together, taking out Lyrsa Torres in what they described as the most “pivotal” vote of the game — a questionable notion at the time, but less so now, seeing as Nick, Mike and Angelina ended up in the final three together.
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Hollywood Reporter