Who Won Survivor: Millennials Vs. Gen X?

Warning: You may cry.

By Lauren Piester Dec 15, 2016 3:41 AMTags
SurvivorCBS

That was exhausting and exhilarating, but what a beautiful ending. 

Since we went into tonight's Survivor finale with six people still remaining in the game, we had to spend two whole hours getting rid of three of them. It was basically challenge after tribal council after challenge after tribal council, and there were twists and turns every step of the way. 

Part of that was thanks to David, who crafted a fake immunity idol out of beads he collected throughout the season (which made us giggle, for some reason) and managed to fool Jay into thinking he was safe. Unfortunately for him, all he had collected was a craft project, and he was sent off to the jury. 

Brett and David then ended up being voted out next, and it was down to Adam, Hannah, and Ken. 

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There was almost no mystery as to who was leaving with a million dollars tonight by the time we cut to present day and Jeff started reading the votes. 

Adam Klein, the 25 year old millennial who was playing for his mother after she was diagnosed with lung cancer, took every single jury vote, and to no one's surprise, won Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X

He then completely and totally broke our hearts when he described his reunion with his mom after he got back to San Francisco. 

"I got home and I was able to tell her, I said mom, I love you so much, and she was there with me. She was," he told Jeff Probst during the reunion special. "And she said, I love you, I said I love you. She said, don't stop saying that. ... And she died an hour after I got home." 

So yeah, we were sobbing as he sobbed, and we continued sobbing throughout the reunion special as Jeff described the transformative journeys of so many contestants throughout the season. Who could have foreseen Millennials vs. Gen X being such a beautiful experience? We certainly didn't, but we should have. 

Survivor returns in the spring to CBS with Survivor: Game Changers, which returns to Fiji with some of the show's most competitive players ever. That includes this season's McKayla, Blood & Water's Sierra, among many others!