Well, as far as Survivor goes, that’s a wrap!
The season ended tonight and, in the post below, I’m going to be revealing who was in the final three and who won. It should go without saying that, if you haven’t watched the finale yet, this post is a huge spoiler so don’t read any further unless you’re okay with finding out who won.
As you may remember, I predicted that our final three would be Aubry, Tai, and Troyzan. I thought there was no way that Brad would be able to win enough immunity challenges to avoid being voted out. I was sure Cirie would be targeted and voted out. I thought there was no way that anyone would be stupid enough to take Sarah to the end. I figured that Troyzan, being the most likable of my projected final three, would win by default.
Well, I was right that Troyzan would make it to the final three but otherwise, I was totally wrong. Brad won all three of tonight’s immunity challenges, guaranteeing himself a place in the final three.
At the first tribal on the night, Tai used one immunity idol on himself and the other on Aubry. Sarah revealed that she had a legacy advantage, which meant she had immunity. Troyzan played his idol. Culpepper already had immunity from winning the challenge. That meant that Cirie was the only person who didn’t have immunity and, as a result, she was voted out of the tribe despite the fact that no one had voted her.
The vote, by the way, was three for Sarah, two for Tai, and one for Aubry. If Tai had not used his other idol on Aubry, she would have been voted out by one vote. Instead, Ciririe was voted out despite getting no votes.
(Incidentally, that seems amazingly unfair and I imagine the rules will change in the future.)
That was pretty much the most exciting part of the finale. The rest, other than Culpepper’s challenge streak, was predictable. Aubry was voted out at the next tribal. After that, Tai was voted out because Culpepper wanted revenge for all the times that he felt Tai had betrayed him.
(Culpepper appeared to be obsessed with not only voting out Tai but humiliating him as well. It was not pleasant to listen to.)
The final tribal council was different for what I’m used to and I’m not sure I cared much for the new format. Now, instead of the jurors asking questions, the jurors discussed who had best lived up to the Survivor motto of “Outwit, Outplay, Outlast.” The final three get to take part in the discussion and each got to make a final statement. It felt a little silly, to be honest but then again, the juror questions were rarely that interesting either.
Anyway, the jurors agreed that Brad had played a good physical game but that Sarah played an all-around better social and strategic game. I thought that Troyzan might win some votes based on his being more likable than either Brad or Sarah but it didn’t happen that way. (Troyzan, it must be said, figured out early that he wasn’t going to get any votes and he handled it far better than most third place finishers.) Sarah won by a 7-3 vote.
During the reunion, it was revealed that, if Brad had brought Tai into the final three, he would have actually won. The jury would have voted 5-5, at which point Troyzan — having the least number of votes — would have become a juror and he would have cast his vote for Brad.
As for the rest of the reunion, it was okay. Sarah is not exactly the most likable person to ever win Survivor so it was hard to get too excited over her victory. I do prefer her winning over Brad, if just because Brad had a tendency to be a bully and that really got on my nerves. Jeff Probst perhaps realized this because he spent most of the reunion talking to Cirie and Zeke. He also talked to Jeff Varner, who came across as being just as smarmy as ever.
And so, another season of Survivor comes to a close! What did everyone think of the finale? Who would you have preferred to have won?
Lisa Marie