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Mike the Dealer's Survivor Finale report
SURVIVOR: The Finale
Sandra Wins! YAY!!!
A quick comment about the orphan episode that
was the Rupert boot.
This episode showed Sandra’s game play at its
finest, which was skillfully lying to people to get the result she wanted.
Let’s think about this for a moment, Pavarti is
safe cause she won immunity, Sandra is safe cause she has a hidden idol.
So effectively Sandra is in total control of
the game, if she pulled out her idol and said
‘Hey everyone, tonight is the last night I
can use this thing, and I’m writing down Russell’s name,
if you all want him gone, go with me, if not,
no problem for me, cause you all can’t vote me out.’
She had the power to get Russell voted out
but she didn’t really want that to happen, she went to Rupert and told
him
that ‘the girls’ (Jerri/Pavarti) wanted to keep
Russell around for final 3 cause they could beat him, but that she still
wanted Russell gone, and would work to boot him.
No mention of the idol and the power she had, she walks up
to Rupert all upset “What are we gonna do now
Rupert?” she laments, and makes her pitch, she’s lying to Rupert
about a plan to save him, lying about a Russell
boot she doesn’t plan on following through on (if she really wanted
Russell gone, she’d tell Rupert about the idol),
and more importantly, now she gets to spin it all around and make
Rupert feel like he was the bad guy because in
the end he tries to vote her out and sides with Russell over her.
Everyone who bitches that “Sandra did nothing”
does not get Survivor at all and needs to stop watching,
this was brilliant manipulation and this
is why she won.
Now, on with the show (/Opera Event in Karazhan)
Show opens with Pavarti getting treemail and reading
that it’s ‘the challenge from China!’ which I didn’t see
so this will be new to me. Russell explains that
Colby must go home if he loses, because he’s too big a threat
to attract Hero votes (Really?! He’s done nothing,
your whole plan to win this game is to bring people who’ve
done nothing to the end, and you’re not keeping
Colby?! Are you kidding me?) Russell explains that his perfect
final 3 is him, Jerri, and Sandra, because Sandra’s
never done anything (HA!) and neither has Jerri (True) and so
he’ll have to win. So he’d like to rid himself
of Pavarti and Colby so he can cruise to another easy million dollars.
We’re at the challenge and it’s ‘stack plates
on top of a metal arm, have your stack fall off, you lose’ for a challenge.
We get dramatic plate stacking action for a while,
after we get to 9 plates Sandra falls out of the challenge.
At 14 plates Jerri has her plates topple over,
Russell bows out a plate later and we’re down to the two people who
need immunity, Colby and Pavarti fighting it
out. They get to 17 plates before finally Colby crashes and burns and Pavarti
wins another challenge that saves her. Jerri
does a promo that once again Pavarti has escaped her certain doom, and
that
while this is annoying, at the very least her
and Russell still have Colby they can get rid of, while preserving their
perfect
final three of Jerri/Sandra/Russell. Perfect
in that maybe Sandra wins that final three 9-0.
Back at camp Pavarti does a voice over that she
had to win this immunity or else things would have gone all screwy
and she ‘would have had to have made a decision’.
Exactly what that decision would be with her not exactly having
the votes to do anything, I don’t know.
The reality is her decision to take the lazy way
out here cost Pavarti the game. That she, like everyone else who wasn’t
Russell,
was seeing that this was going to be an anti-Russell
jury, but she couldn’t be the credible ‘anti-Russell canidate’ if Colby
or
Sandra were in the final 3 with her. Her chances
of winning are to either go to final 3 with Jerri and Russell and argue
that
she outplayed Jerri, and isn’t Russell, or to
vote out Russell and take credit for it. At this point in the game Sandra
is in a
final 3 alliance with Russell and Jerri, and
she has a two person alliance with Pavarti, so Pavarti’s only real play
is to get
the girls and Colby to vote out Russell here,
then take Colby out at the next challenge (Since he never wins anything
anyway.)
and then take credit for being the person that
voted out Russell. Yul won his season by listening to the cries of
the doomed
minority and voting out the loathed Jonathan
before booting them, and in the end, they rewarded him with their votes.
The same would have happened here.
Colby quits on Survivor again, this is
the 14th time this season he’s done so. He gives a weird as hell promo
with a long
“Please don’t search my house for a pile of bodies”
pause that he’s not really honestly going to quit, and he lobbies Russell
to save him. Russell debates Colby Vs Sandra
and tries to make us think for a second he’d vote out Sandra here,
but that will never happen given what he’s already
said about how he views the final 3.
Tribal, Colby goes home 4-1, this tribal is a
blight upon humanity in that it is the only time in two seasons of Survivor
that Sandra had a vote cast against her that
counted. Just think about that, she won twice and had *1* friggin’ vote
that counted cast against her in both seasons!
Bye Colby, you will not be missed.
We come back from the boot with Pavarti telling
us that now she knows she’s seen as a huge threat to win the jury,
so she really really really has to win the final
immunity to save herself to get to the final 3 and have a crack at the
million dollars.
The next morning Jerri and Russell talk about
how they must beat Pavarti because if she gets to final three she’ll win
the game.
Jerri does a promo that Pavarti’s really impressed
her with all she’s done and that she really needs to beat her in this challenge.
We have the Walk of Dead Survivors which is just
a giant waste of time that I always hate.
If you need to know what they said when they
walked past Randy’s Torch, well sorry, you’ll die wanting.
Finally we get back to the game and the final
challenge is to run through a maze blindfolded and find four different
stations
that have necklaces and then find your way out
of the maze and grab the immunity necklace. This ends up being a
very closely
contested race with Pavarti, Jerri and Russell
all stumbling around right near the immunity necklace, and Russell gets
to it first,
winning the final challenge.
Someone pointed out that it was unfair to do a "luck" challenge for final immunity.
But I guess that's better than a "see who can
stand on a clothespin the longest"
because the 99 pound girls always win those "endurance"
challenges.
To point out how absurd that is, what if they
had a "run up the hill with a 50 pound sack of potatoes"
challenge - Russell would've won that walking
away.
Pavarti says she needs to talk to Russell to make
sure he doesn’t send her home, and that if he thinks she’s his
biggest threat for jury votes then he’ll be in
trouble, oh don’t worry Pavarti, Russell has no earthly clue how to read
a jury.
Back at camp Jerri does a promo saying that Russell’s
victory insures that Pavarti’s going home
and she’s very happy about that, final three
baby! Poor poor Jerri.
Russell and Sandra walk in the woods and Russell
tells her that she’s sitting pretty, since she will make final three.
Sandra poor mouths her chances of winning again,
and assures Russell that she is completely happy with the $100K second
prize,
“I knew I wasn’t gonna win again” she says. Russell
promos that at best Sandra will get Courtney’s vote, she is going
to be a cakewalk to beat at final tribal, A CAKEWALK
I SAY! France Vs Nazi Germany will be a tougher fight!
ha ha
Sandra promos that she has to do what Russell
wants, cause he’s got immunity, but that she’s OK cause he’s keeping her
around
for final three cause she won’t get a single
vote…She then says in a sing-songy voice “But I don’t know about that.”
Jerri just tittering with nervous energy is so
excited to finally make a final tribal. She just wants this vote over and
done with,
Russell then takes a walk with Pavarti where
he acts like he’s on Pavarti’s side, they debate Sandra’s votes with the
jury,
Russell now figures that Pavarti’s playing for
2nd, since he’ll clearly win, so Pavarti just wants Sandra gone so she
can
barely get more votes than Jerri and finish 2nd
behind the landslide of votes Russell will assuredly get. He debates if
he’ll
get Pavarti’s jury vote or not, where as he thinks
he’ll get Jerri’s vote for sure.
Russell does a promo that he’s suffered far too
much not to win.
Sadly for Russell he’s so blind to his impending
defeat that it’s not even funny.
Tribal, votes are cast then read, Jerri is blind-sided
3-1
Poor Jerri, always a bridesmaid, and our final
three is set.
We return to camp and everyone’s all "Wow, final
three."
Sandra promos that this is how she makes money
- she comes on Survivor and crushes this game,
cause that’s what she’s good at. “This is how
I hustle” should have been the title of this episode.
Russell promos that he’s made back-to-back day
39’s and that he’s awesome, last time he lost to people he shouldn’t have,
this time he’s brought unlikeable people to end,
like himself, so he’ll win. This promo had to be edited in later, since
Russell
did not know the result of his first season,
so to hell with the producers for messing with us.
I wondered about that.
Did Russell's wife tell him on "Family Day" that
he lost last year?
Pavarti does a promo that she’s played Survivor
for 114 days and that may make her insane, but it also
makes her one of the best in the game, and that
she’s put her heart and soul into this season, so she really has to win
it.
Sandra and Pavarti laugh at how clueless Russell
is about his prospects before the jury,
Sandra then throws Russell’s hat into the
fire, burning it, take that Russell!
She promos that Russell’s a scumbag and to hell
with him.
It’s funny that his first season began with him
burning somebody’s socks and his
second season ends with somebody burning his
hat, the circle of clothing arson.
Sandra gets our final promo, declaring she must win the title of sole survivor, just to keep it from Russell.
Somewhere around here, the girls started taunting
the extra-clueless Russell right to his face.
It was hilariously perfect.
They were rubbing the bully's nose in the dogshit
and he was powerless to stop them.
Final Tribal, we get opening remarks
Sandra instantly establishes herself as the ‘anti-Russell
candidate’ for the title of sole survivor, saying that she tried
to get Russell voted out three different times,
but that things went wrong so she hustled and did what she needed to do
to stay in the game, and did it without any alliance.
Notice that the third attempt on Russell was the one when she could
have tossed him if she wanted to, but she really
didn’t. The first two times she did want to, but JT was a moron the
first time and Candice was dumb the second time.
That move might be what solidified Sandra's win
- by attacking the super-hated Russell.
She did it 3-4 times, twisting that knife every
chance she got - it was great fun to watch.
Russell declares he played the best game, and
if he’s horrible attitude offended anyone he’s sorry.
Now hurry up and give him his check, cause he
totally owned everyone! ha
ha
Mike is 100% correct.
You can't defecate on people for 39 days and
then say, "Sorry,"
when they become your jury.
Pavarti explains that she used Russell as a shield
since she was a huge target, and that she feels she played
the ‘ultimate social game, ultimate strategic
game, and the ultimate physical game’. She’s gunning for the
“I played the best game” vote.
But Pavarti has the super-hated Russell hanging around her neck like Bush had Katrina..
Question time, Colby is outraged that Russell
thinks no luck at all factored into his play. Russell, because he’s
an idiot
who doesn’t understand that jury votes are to
be groveled for, not dismissed, tells Colby that he did in fact not
have
any luck help him in the game (Of course when
Danielle found the clue to the idol in the popcorn and shared it with him,
and then he found it and used it to blackmail
Candice into siding with him to vote out Amanda, that was all skill.
Russell Hantz set that whole chain of events
into motion.)
Pavarti explains her actions to Colby by again
stating that she was seen as a huge threat and thusly had to play
a more aggressive game, and she gets to bring
up her awesome double idol play. Colby has no question for Sandra,
since he’s already voting for her anyhow.
Pavarti did have a point tho - she said on Day
One, seven of her teammates wanted her gone.
She had to make a deal with the Devil, but the
devil was so hated by all, it cost her.
Pavarti was out there for 39 days eating rats
and got nothing to show for it but bug bites.
Coach comes up and does the standard “Insult the
final three” bit, declares himself a “Christian man” I swear he’s
such a tool, I mean he was awesome at the ponderosa
and then he gets hit by the Douche-A-Tron 2000 for this crap, ha
ha
man, get shot Coach, he offers up nothing of
meaning, cause he sucks again.
He's right - if it wasn't for Russell, Coach would've
been Captain Douche.
Nobody hated Coach, he was just lying to himself
all day, every day, all the time.
When Coach cast his final vote, he mumbled to
himself, "So King Arthur's quest ends,"
and I'm like WTF?
This delusional loser now thinks he's King f-ing
Arthur?
Also, when Coach was bullying Russell (who is short) he said, "You're a little man." I loved it.
Amanda asks Sandra to explain why her game play
was better than Russell or Pavarti’s and she says that she wishes
it had been better cause if it had been Russell
would have been gone. She goes on a rant that if only the Heroes had
listened to her, Russell would have been voted
out, but they never did it. She’s not really answering the question,
she’s just telling the jury what she wants them
to hear “I hate Russell, you hate Russell, vote for me
and you can indulge in your hatred of Russell!”
Again, excellent gamesmanship from Sandra,
She was running on the I Hate Russell MoreThan
You ticket.
She won every vote from the Heroes for being
the anti-Russell.
Sidebar Flashback:
Towards the end, Sandra showed more courage than
any of the men there.
Russell came up to her, barking like a House
Impeachment Manager:
"Sandra, you're either with me or against
me."
Sandra said, "I'm
against you, Russell," which I'm sure
made America cheer - and she was free to
do that because idiot Russell felt Sandra wouldn't
get ANY votes but it turned out she got 6 of 9.
BTW, we should point out that Russell got the
the final two years in a row because
competing for votes with the King Scumbag
of all Time is how you win.
Courtney gets up and asks Sandra “Sandra, why
are you the bestest person ever?”
Allowing Sandra to talk about the things that
matter to Heroes. She talks about how she’s loyal, and honorable,
and fights for her alliances, and all the noble
crap that turns Rupert’s heart to mush. ha
ha
She is just playing this jury like a fiddle.
JT comes out and tells Russell he’s an idiot,
and this leads to Sandra getting in more ant-Russell shots,
but JT’s like “Oh come on woman, I’m fine with
how I got voted out, it was my own fault!”
JT, the lone Russell vote? Nah, but maybe
he votes Pavarti based on game play.
JT, for reasons that were never explained (or
aired) hates Sandra, and possibly all women in general.
When Russell stabbed JT in the back, JT's reply
was "Never trust a woman,"
which is what killed him because he trusted a
slimeball of a man, instead.
Danielle tells Russell he’s an idiot, because that can not be re-stated enough, and she’s voting for Pavarti.
Jerri asks how did she get voted out, Russell
says he thinks she’d have beaten him at final three because she had
no blood on her hands. He says this while at
the same time thinking Sandra’s ‘done nothing’ and thusly can’t win?
Man, Jerri did less than Sandra did, and you’re
afraid of her? The mind reels, Pavarti rats out Russell saying he’d
get Jerri’s vote at the end, and this makes the
two women giggle.
And it made Jerri mad as hell at Russell, which
is why Sandra said it.
Sandra has a future in politics.
Candice gets up and says Russell’s an idiot (Notice
a theme?) and that Pavarti
was too close to him for her to win, so she’s
voting for Sandra.
It was either Danielle or Candace who plunged
the knife into Russell's heart.
"Russell, everybody hates you - everybody.
You're not getting ANY votes, do you
understand that, Russell?"
That's pretty cold, but nobody deserved it more
than Russell the Rethug oil man..
Rupert gets up and weeps at the feet of Sandra,
how she talked about her game play makes him
wish he’d have had the chance to play with her,
but he and the stupid Heroes kept screwing it up.
Sandra has crushed this game.
We get to votes. Jerri says she’s debating, but
in the end she votes Pavarti.
Candice votes Sandra, declaring Sandra a “True
Hero”
JT votes without it being shown, Danielle votes
for Pavarti saying that she knows
the hell Pavarti had to suffer dealing with Russell,
and that she deserves this.
Colby votes without it being shown, Courtney votes
Sandra and says “Fist bump, girl!”
Coach votes Pavarti and gives a stupid, rambling
speech declaring himself King Arthur.
ha ha
Ugh.
Rupert votes Sandra and declares it an honor.
Amanda votes and goes unseen.
And we’re back to New York, where we alternate
the votes we already saw till it’s 3-3,
and Sandra gets the rest of them, Sandra wins
Heroes Vs Villains, Yay Sandra!
THOUGHTS
I’m a huge fan of Sandra, so I’m very happy she
won. I accept the Pavarti fans who feel she got robbed,
but the fact was she and everyone but Russell
knew how doomed Russell was going to be in front of the jury,
she just didn’t count on his stink being stuck
on her also.
She was screwed at final four because Russell
was convinced Sandra was harmless, when she was clearly the one
who would beat him easiest of all. And with Russell
immune, Pavarti couldn’t kick him out and get credit for doing so.
From Final 6 on, everyone was riding the Russell
train to a million dollars, even Rupert and Colby, but in the end,
only Sandra was able to cash in, and she did
it by pretending to be the only one who was trying to stop it.
I’ve read and heard a lot of people complaining
about Sandra not winning challenges and what have you, but really,
Survivor is all politics and social, the immunity
challenges are a wrinkle thrown in to upset the status quo, same with
hidden idols - these are all gimmicks designed
to cause conflict and chaos when without them the vote would be boring
and straight-forward, they make for good television
and they add an element of strategy to the game, but in the end,
it always comes down to interpersonal relationships
and the politics of the group. The person that plays that best
usually wins, and Sandra did that.
This was an awesome season, next season we’re
stuck with all new people we’ll have to learn about,
while waiting for “Survivor: Boston Rob Vs Russell”
or whatever gimmick they use to get us old favorites back on TV.
That was funny.
While everyone was taunting Russell at
the Reunion, Rob mentioned that Russell played great UNTIL
he got in front of the jury of people he lied
to and back-stabbed, then he was dead meat.
Russsell tries to save face,
"How many Seasons did YOU win, Rob?"
The answer is zero, but Rob manipulated a $1M
win for his wife, so that should count.
But Rob had a better comeback. "I'd
like to go back and kick your sorry ass all over that island,"
which got hoots of Rob love from the audience.
For anyone that read all this, thanks for doing
so.
E-mail me if you ever want to talk survivor at
mikethedealer@hotmail.com
Mike, you did a great job all season.
I looked forward to each of your recaps and I'm
sad that the season's over.
Want to do Big Brother when it starts?
Big Brother is kinda like Survivor,
without the blood, the broken bones and the need
for the medical team every show :)