On Tuesday night, the final showdown between rivals Caleb Beeby and Jackson Goonrey came to a final fiery conclusion when the pair faced the jury they each had a hand in voting out of the game.
Presenting their cases to the jury, both Caleb and Jackson made strong cases for why they both deserved the title of Sole Survivor and the $500,000 cash prize.
But there could be only one winner, and in a 6-3 vote, Caleb was crowned the winner of Australian Survivor: Redemption.
With the votes being cast months ago, and only revealed in front of a live audience just days ago, Caleb told 10 the not knowing has been "gruelling".
"I thought I had crunched the numbers, but at the end of the day, the game is about deceit, so you never really know," he laughed. "I thought I made the last blindside, but there could have been a blindside within a blindside!"
In the lead-up to the finale, Caleb made one final chaotic move, blindsiding his closest ally, Loz, opting to take Jackson to the final tribal instead. The move divided fans, with some thinking Caleb had made a $500,000 mistake, but Caleb said it wasn't a decision he made in the moment.
"A lot of Survivor is off eye contact, just a simple look in the game can mean your fate and all morning, Loz had been acting really strange," he explained.
"Now we've spoken about this, and she said she was just going into her own wormhole, but I needed that look from her to solidify we were taking each other to the final two, and there was something wrong there. Something wasn't adding up."
The pair had also agreed that, during the final endurance challenge, if Jackson stepped off his pegs, then they'd make an agreement to step down as well.
"Once Jackson got off the pegs and neither of us were getting off, I was just like, nup, this is not it, mate! This is not right," Caleb added. "I think that really solidified my choice."
Heading into the final tribal, Caleb said he had thought about his pitch for days, with an impressive and varied resume to offer the jury. But he almost cost himself the shot at Sole Survivor.
"Man, I think I might have the worst pitch in Australian Survivor history," Caleb laughed, adding, "I MEAN... THE WORST!"
"This is what happened, I could not get my head out of being in a secretive game for 45 days," he continued. "To all of a sudden being so open, telling everyone my moves, I couldn't do it!
"I started seeing Jackson - WHO ONLY HAD ONE MOVE - start explaining this beautiful game, and I remember starting to implode... the jury literally had to carry me through my pitch," he laughed.
"They said, 'Caleb, if you don't start claiming the moves, you're not going to win'... At the end of the day, I was doing so many moves I was forgetting them! I was waking up in the middle of the night, scattering rice and beans through the jungle because I tried to make everybody weak so I'd win an immunity challenge," he said with a proud laugh.
"I was doing so much out there to try and get a win!"
While he was Chaos Caleb on the beach, his social game also meant that Caleb was rarely left out of the loop when it came to votes.
"That's what my stamp was about," he explained, referring to the "little angry snake, demon face" he would draw on votes.
"Every single time someone got the stamp, they would go home. If they didn't get it, it's because I knew my vote wasn't actually a proper shot," he explained. "That tells me I had a pretty fair idea for 80 percent of the game who was going where."
So it's pretty fitting that, in the finale, Mark voted for Caleb to win with his own interpretation of the stamp.
"As soon as I saw that, I wanted to tear up," Caleb said, adding, "he could brush up on his drawing skills, but I loved it."
It was a chaotic season, and the king of Chaos reigns supreme, but Caleb said he believed his respect for the superstitions of the game shouldn't be underestimated.
Every time he went to tribal council, Caleb said he would brush his hand through one of the torches lining the entry to tribal. "I'd put my hand through the flame and think, if I'd burn my hand a tiny little bit, then my personal flame would be spared."
At camp, Caleb said he watched two players put on the immunity necklace when they hadn't won it, and they'd be immediately voted out.
"You've got to respect the rules of the game, of the Survivor Gods, otherwise it's going to snuff you."
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