Survivor Finale

[DeuceKicker]

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.