Survivor Finale
 

Last night’s Survivor finale had one of the most shocking plot twists of its 14(?)-year run: Dreamz’ reneging on his agreement to give Yau-Man the Immunity Idol (II) if they got to the final four and he won the challenge.

My random thoughts:

Once Yau was eliminated, Earl was the winner. They could have skipped the final counsel. I figured it would be unanimous unless Yau decided to vote for Cassandra just to say F* Earl for bailing on him.

There is no way in hell Dreamz planned all along to betray Yau-Man. In his private statements to the camera he talked about how he was a man of his word, and he wanted his son to see him keep his word, etc… To say during the final grilling that it was a strategy move the entire time is crap. To hold to that story after he’s had months to think about it, and after everybody saw his ‘private’ thoughts is utter crap. There is no way he’s such a good actor that he could fake looking so distraught when it came time to make the actual decision—it looked like he was tearing up.

Keeping the II was also really dumb to begin with. He was almost positive he was going out 4th if he gave it up, but he should have known there was no way he’d win a vote at the end after everyone saw him betray Yau. He had to know he’d come in third in the voting (a count of the jury members should have told them the finals would be three, not two) and the difference between 4th and 3rd-place money is probably only a couple thousand dollars. That wasn’t worth giving up a $60K truck, when he had to expect Yau to take it back.

Yau was the man. At first he struck me as a huge nerd who would immediately be an outcast, but he played a great game. He won/did well in a few challenges where you could see him using his superior intellect to win. (He reminded me of one of the old Revenge Of The Nerds movies where the wimpy nerds beat superstar athletes with brainpower—beating the jocks in the javelin throw by calculating optimum angle and velocity, etc…)

I thought the truck deal was ill-conceived—and that gambit might have cost him $1MM—but I can’t fault him for trying. He said he was going to let Dreamz keep the truck anyway, in which case he’s back to being a nerdy fool.

After Yau, Earl was my favorite. He seemed to be playing the game as well as anybody else, and there was earlier speculation that he was a 2+2er. If so, congrats, man and… stake me?

Cassandra was a waste. Her ineptitude became comical after a while. Being a no-show in the physical challenges would have been excusable if she showed some skill in the thinking challenges or displayed some strategic ability beyond, “Who are we going to vote for tonight?”

WTF, in the blindfolded maze challenge, when everyone else was at least in the second of three sections, did she wander back OUT of the first section and run into the guide ropes? Without those ropes she would have ended up on Exile Island.

Alex is an ass. He had the nerve to lecture Dreamz about integrity, and say Dreamz wasn’t being the role model to kids “that you and I are trying to be.” WTF? This is the guy who went through Yau’s personal things looking for the II. And can anybody tell me what was up with the grilling he gave Cassandra? When did she ever do anything to him? She should have grabbed one of the logs out of the fire and clubbed his ass when he started yelling “Don’t talk! Stop talking!” at her. I guess he thought he was the second coming of Johnny Cochrane, going into courtroom mode.

It still amazes me that after almost 15 years of this show, people still go on there and get their panties in a bunch when someone actually lies to them. A few can come back to the final tribal counsel and congratulate the others for outplaying them. The emotionally immature ones hold onto that stuff and spew ridiculous crap at people who played the game better.

Something about Mookie was screaming arrogant slimeball the whole show.

Lisi is full-on nuts. At the final counsel she uses Cassandra’s water shoes as proof that she didn’t deserve to win?

It’s too bad Earl didn’t vote for Cassandra in the final vote, instead of Yau. Then it would have been a tie—Cassandra and Yau. Maybe Cassandra would have actually done something in the tie-breaker challenge.

Random question #1: If you were going to offer up the truck in the game, what would you want in return, and how do you enforce the agreement?

Random question #2: Was Dreamz’ reneging of the truck deal (and apparently also keeping the truck) a brilliant move completely within the premise of the game, or did it cross the line into not-a-good-person territory.

Re: Survivor Finale
 

#1 I don't think I would offer up the truck. It was a good deal in theory by Yau Man, but there is no way to enforce it in a game based on lying and betrayal. He could have possibly not made it known that Dreamz would be gone if he gave up the idol and struck a deal with Dreamz to vote Cassandra because Yau Man was winning no matter who he went up against. But I think this probably wouldn't have worked because Yau Man was the best player and the other 3 wanted him out of the game.

#2- It wasn't a brilliant move because he loses integrity and didn't win the million. He should have realized that none of the other 4 horsemen or Yau Man would have voted for him in the finals and thus had no chance to win. A better move would have been to give up the idol and try and lobby for voting out Cassandra. Dreamz is an idiot and I think that showed a lot in the final episodes, but I give him credit for sticking around as long as he did.

Once Yau Man was out of the game Earl definitely deserved to win. He played it low key, never won an immunity challenge, and never had a vote cast against him. Cassandra was a worthless tag along and Dreamz went against his word too many times to win.

Re: Survivor Finale
 

I admit it was the only episode I watched the entire season, but I was entertained.

You are 100% spot-on correct--there was no way Dreamz intended to reneg when he made the deal. Lying is bad enough, but lying about lying is pretty lame, especially after the Save The Children speech.

Plus, what was the point? No way he can win after that, obviously.

All in all, a fair representation about the way people act in Everyday Life. It was wrong that Yau didn't win. He was clearly the best player, and, honestly, the most impressive individual.

Lastly, Probst is a douche.

Nuff said.

Re: Survivor Finale
 

On last week's Survivor Live, Stacey said that the deal actually included everyone - everyone had to agree to vote Yau's way at final 4, in order for Dreamz to get the truck. Like wtf, what do they stand to gain from that? He painted a huge target on his back with that move. IMO this wasn't shown, in order to preserve Yau's "best strategist" edit, because this was a huge tactical blunder (and I say that as a total Yauman fanboy from the 1st episode).

I think the thing that makes this plan even worse is that he seemed to be quite openly telling Dreamz that he will get booted if he follows through with his end of the deal and gives up immunity at final 4. Although it wouldn't make sense to discuss this in front of the others, I think Yau should have privately tried to reassure Dreamz that he would take him to final 3 with him, and that the move was to protect himself and not just a way to get rid of Dreamz.

I was glad that Yau won final 5 immunity, I had a feeling Earl was already about to backstab him and keep the hidden immunity idol for himself.

LOL @ the jury, that was pretty cool, the bitter jury is always the best thing about a Survivor finale.

One more thing: Yauman has more class than any other Survivor contestant I can think of. There have been so many final tribal councils with people literally crying their eyes out over the way they were lied to or backstabbed etc (allstars, Vanuatu, Palau spring to mind). Yau just took the biggest backstabbing in the history of the show (not just from Dreamz, but also from Earl) - and he sucked it up, told Dreamz not to feel guilty at final TC, and acknowledged his own tactical mistake. ZOMG!

Re: Survivor Finale
 

WTF was Alex's beef with Cassandra?

Re: Survivor Finale
 

[ QUOTE ]
WTF was Alex's beef with Cassandra?

[/ QUOTE ]

Probably nothing, but he realized that this would be his last time on TV so he should make it count. These people are in every season and that Lissy girl did the same thing bringing up water shoes of all things. I wish they would just give it a rest and act with class like Yau Man did.

Re: Survivor Finale
 

I only saw the challenge leading up to Dreams winning the II, and then him keeping it and Yau getting kicked off. Thats all I watched the whole season, even I know Dreams is an idiot.

I dont know the results btw.

1. Dreams has no chance to win jury over after screwing over Yau.

2. Dreams keeps the idol then Dreams says hey Yau who we voting for? Well then there is a tie-breaker between Dreams and w/e him and Yau vote for. Dont know how tie-breakers are solved but he has a 50-50 chance of staying on board, then prob winning cuz lots of ppl r gonna see how he was so noble and kept his word w/ the truck deal.

3. The 2 ppl in the final 3 that werent dreams are smart. They told Dreams he is gone unless he keeps the idol. Because of this they r eliminating 2 people (Yau obviously, and now Dreams has no chance).

Conclusion:
Dreams is an idiot.

Re: Survivor Finale
 

The show really bogged down when Rocky got voted off. He was awesome.

Lisi and Stacy were easily the most unlikeable people this season and I prayed to God that they would get voted off every week or possibly injured and MediVac'ed out. I wanted to punch that uppity bitch Stacy for refusing to show Dreamz how to work a coffee maker. That was seriously lame. I was also very happy that Sylvia only lasted a few shows.

I feel real bad for Yau Man although I didn't like him as much as other Survivor superstars. He was easily the best player of this season but I agree with what others said that he put his position in the game in Dreamz' hands and Dreamz already sold out other players a million times in the game and this was nothing new. I can't fault Dreamz for not giving up the idol. Of course, as others have said, there's zero chance Dreamz thought at the time that he'd not give it up. I don't think Dreamz even thought about it at all. It looked like he thought it was something he was guaranteed to get (the truck) while him even being in the game at the final four was not guaranteed much less getting the idol.

Earl played a real strong game as well. I don't think he won a single immunity challenge yet he never had a vote cast against him. He controlled the game from pretty much beginning to end without having to stab anybody in the back or go back on his word except for the one vote against Yau, and Yau had been so dicked by Dreamz that it barely mattered.

Re: Survivor Finale
 

Two things: First, Dreamz is slime. There's a big difference between making/breaking alliances or back-stabbling players in the game (which I'm all in favor of) with taking something of great value and then not following through. He can claim it's all part of the game, but he's nothing more than a thief. A stupid thief as well, becuase he was dead money in the finals regardless of whether it was against Yau-man or Earl.

Second, I think that Yau-man's strategy was great but he made one blunder of absolutely staggering proportions, without question the worst I've ever seen in Survivor. Yau-man saw the immunity idol as defensive - sure, it keeps you from getting voted off - but *completely* missed the equally potent offensive weapon inherent in the idol. If he assumed that the Earl/Dreamz/Cassandra alliance was going to vote for him (and why use the idol otherwise?), since the idol nullifed their votes then with just one other person he could have voted any one of them off and reduced their alliance to a minority of two. Why he (and Boo) voted for Stacy instead of Earl or Dreamz, I cannot imagine but given his stratgic play up to this point how he did not see this use of the immunity idol is beyond me. This one mistake cost him $1M, almost guaranteed.

Re: Survivor Finale
 

I really think Yau shoulda asked Dreams to drop during that last immunity challenge. I think Dreams would have and really did have plans to give the II up.