Surviving Barstool Season 5 Finale (Episode 10): The Winner Is Crowned
TLDR: Rone won Surviving Barstool Season 5 and the $250,000 on a 6-2-1 jury vote, and he did it the hard way: Dana Beers won the last immunity, picked Marty Mush for the final three, and sent Rone to a duel with Glenny Balls that ran through 10 live worms and a slingshot each. Rone hit the third target first, took the worst of the jury's anger at the final tribal, and then five of the first eight cards read were his. Dana finished second with 2 votes, Marty third with 1, and Dana's own question afterwards was the night's: four immunities, what more could he have done?
The mission to end all missions. The Surviving Barstool finale is PREMIERING NOW
The episode opens on the final four saying what they would say to the jury, and on Rone in Dave Portnoy's office one more time, finding one more scroll (4:32). It promised an advantage in the final four if he could get a cast member to tell the story of getting a twerk job on camera. He carried it to the lounge and read it aloud, Glenny told the story he has told all season, and nothing came of it: no advantage was handed out and The Final Countdown started everybody from scratch. The season's missions ended the way the idols did, as a thing production built to see what the players would do with it.
The morning's real business was the arithmetic. Marty said out loud that he had made all of Dana's decisions for him; Dana and Glenny sat in a studio agreeing that the jury would read Marty and Rone as the alliance; Rone and Marty renewed the pact to take each other. Everybody knew immunity decided the final three, because the winner would pick one man and duel the other two.
Jeff's last challenge (15:21) was a balance board with a ball to tilt into a numbered hole, 8 down to 1, and after each one a sprint through the building to the flag hiding that number's wooden puzzle piece; then all ten pieces, with 0 and 9 already fixed, laid flat in a crate. Rone landed his 8 first, Dana seconds behind him, and the two of them ran the building together while Marty fought the board. Dana had his 1 first (22:08), and at the crate he watched how Rone was joining pieces, changed his own layout, and finished (27:35). "I'm a puzzle guy, what'd I tell you?" Four individual immunities, three of them in a row, and a seat in the final three without a vote.
Then the lounge. Rone, Glenny and Marty each made their pitch to Dana one at a time, and in the arena Jeff explained what the loser of the pick would face before Dana had to make it: a duel in which every shot cost a live hornworm. Rone said he was vegan. Jeff said the alternative was a forfeit. Rone ate the worms.
Dana picked Marty (38:05): "I'm playing this game with my heart, and in the end I'm bringing Marty." Part of the reasoning was said in the room, that Glenny could not eat the worms; Glenny stood with his arms crossed and smiled, and Rone said "I guess we're dueling." The duel was a giant slingshot and three targets set into an arch across the room. Eat a worm, show your tongue, take a shot; after ten worms each the remaining balls were a free-for-all.
Glenny ate his ten fast, with worm on his hat and in his teeth, and hit the first target (43:22). Rone tied it (44:26) and went ahead 2-1 (44:38); Glenny tied it 2-2 (44:50); Rone knocked the third down at 45:21 and screamed the sentence he would repeat to the jury: nobody wanted him here, everybody tried to stop him, and he was in the final three. Glenny's exit was the most gracious of the season and the most pointed: "at least I didn't get whacked, I went on my own accord"; to Dana, "congrats, Beers"; to Marty, "I don't like you. You should have done that challenge." Fifteenth out, ninth juror.
Dana Beers won The Final Countdown — a ball tilted into numbered holes, a sprint through the office for the matching puzzle piece, eight times, then the puzzle — for his fourth individual immunity, and with it the right to pick one man for the final three and send the other two to a duel. He picked Marty: "I'm playing this game with my heart." The duel was a giant slingshot and three targets, with a live hornworm to eat before every shot. Glenny ate his ten faster than Rone, who had announced he was vegan and then decided the $250,000 outranked it, and hit the first target; Rone tied it and went ahead, Glenny tied it at 2-2, and Rone knocked down the third first. Glenny went to the jury as its ninth member — "at least I didn't get whacked, I went on my own accord" — told Marty he did not like him, and turned up at the final tribal, in his words, with a belly full of worms.
BUSTED!!! #TommyWasRight #SurvivingBarstool
Three openings (51:02). Rone: everything he did was for a reason, from the idol he found in the first half hour, and "I don't deserve to win this game because I have kids, I deserve to win because of how I played." Marty: he had played the most truthful game, sat through nine councils without a name on him, and cut Tommy because he had to. Dana read from a page: the early idol that bought Tate's trust, Glenny kept as a shield, and "four individual immunity idols, four."
Then the jury. Dani asked Rone whether day one had been real. Dante read the room a speech about the rot in the American soul. Pat made each finalist say why the other two should lose, on pain of losing his vote, and got Rone calling Dana Patrick from SpongeBob, Marty calling Rone a liar to every one of them, and Dana calling Marty a pocket-watcher who went to Italy every weekend. Tate asked Marty how his back was after carrying Dana, then reversed it: Dana had carried Marty. Nicky Smokes put the episode 3 fake idol back on the table — comforted with one hand, handed an idol that only worked by sending him home with the other. Brandon made Chicago pride the charge against Dana and asked Rone straight whether he had ever lied to him; Rone said no. Glenny came "with a belly full of worms" to ask Dana why the smart move became friendship. And Tommy, during the closings, told Rone he was having a hard time giving him $250,000 on a personal level: "I feel like the wool was pulled over my eyes, and I feel like you genuinely might not be a good guy."
Congrats crodie, thanks for picking up the bill @rone 😉
Nine cards. Jeff read them in that order (1:22:31 on) and stopped at the eighth, Rone's fifth, the majority: "the fifth winner of Surviving Barstool — Rone. Congratulations, you have won $250,000." Marty asked to see the one left in the box; it was Rone's too, 6-2-1. Rone's speech thanked the cast, the crew, the two beside him, and Tommy "for reading me for absolute filth," and ended on "beers on me."
Dana chose Marty for the final three, so Rone had to get there through the duel: 10 live hornworms, one per shot from a giant slingshot, three targets to knock down. Glenny hit first, Rone tied it, went ahead, was tied again at 2-2, and hit the third target first. At the final tribal he told the jury not to vote for him because he has kids but because of how he played — "if you respect the game of Survivor, you respect the game that I played" — and took the harshest read of the night from Tommy Smokes ("I feel like the wool was pulled over my eyes"). Jeff read five Rone cards out of eight and stopped; the ninth was his too. Brandon, Dani, Tate, Dante and Pat each said afterwards they had voted for him: the lone wolf, against a pair.
Dana won the final immunity, The Final Countdown, his fourth individual necklace and third in a row, which put him straight into the final three with the pick of who joined him; he took Marty, "playing this game with my heart," and sent Rone and Glenny to the duel. The jury made him pay for the pair: Tate said he had carried Marty, Nicky brought up the fake idol Dana offered him in episode 3, Brandon called him a Chicago man who went back to his New York friends, and Glenny asked why the smart move he had been promised turned into friendship. His own line afterwards was the question of the night: "I won four individual immunity challenges. What more could I have done?"
Marty's case was that he never had his name written down at any council and picked off everyone who was good at the game; Pat's question drew out that his "most truthful game" had lied to Glenny and to Rone, and Dana's own answer to Pat accused him of pocket-watching. He called the jury morons in confessional, then took a call from his wife and cried. His one vote was Tommy Smokes', who was too angry at both Marty and Rone to want either to win and picked the one he loves.
Then the jury said who they had written, which is more than any council this season gave up. Brandon: Rone played the best game, and lone-wolfed it while Dana and Marty were a package. Dani: Rone played with his head, not his heart. Tate, Dante and Pat: Rone — Dante because Rone infiltrated his tribe and picked it off one by one, Pat because Rone was the man nearest the door most often. Tommy: Marty, because he was too angry at both of them to want either to win and picked the one he loves. Nicky and Glenny: Dana, as they had told him they would. Feitelberg kept his to himself, which makes his the sixth Rone by subtraction. Dana's answer to all of it, in tears, was the line the season ends on — "I won four individual immunity challenges, what more could I have done?" — and Marty, who called the jury morons on his way out, took a call from his wife and cried. Jeff thanked NOBULL, Lucy and Rumble Premium, said it is the coolest thing he does at the company, and that if Dave lets him he would do it again. Rone's last words: "you guys should have got me when you had the chance."