Survivor 20: Finale!

Mwahahahahaha, my evil plan worked! I've sucked you so deep into the world of Survivor that you had to follow me into my new blog so that you could see how the story ends. :)

Honestly, my old blog was a pain because I'd changed my email address and had to constantly switch between accounts to access the blog. But this was also a good time to switch blogs, because I learned some things this last season... things that meant that my blog needed to change. First and foremost, my #1 New Blog Rule is that this is a Spoiler-Free Blog. That means that I, as primary blogger, won't be doing any stupid Survivor Google searches in the middle of a season. It also means that I will approve any comments that are posted. That means no more Japanese spammers, and no more born-again Christians set on spoilering the end of the season. For you loyal fans out there, I will approve everything you comment as quickly as I can! (On a side note, how would our born-again Christian friend have liked it if someone had spoilered Jesus' resurrection? He's up there on the cross, everyone's sobbing, and then some slob eating Cheetos walks up and is like "Hey, it's no big deal. He'll be back in three days anyways. Pretty neat trick, huh?")

But on the more exciting news, and the reason you're all reading this in the first place: Survivor Season 20 Pool Results!!

FINAL Standings:

"Beauty & 2 Beasts" Doug/Bri: 152 points
1. JT (40 pts)

2. Tom (27 pts)

3. Parvati (85 pts)

"New Rookie" Courtney: 123 points
1. Evil Russell (65 pts)
2. Stephenie (2 pts)
3. Sandra (56 pts)

"Gorbag" Bag: 82 points
1. Rupert (28 pts)
2. Randy (6 pts)
3. Jerri (48 pts)

"Always the Bridesmaid, never the bride" Me: 82 points
1. Colby (30 pts)
2. Amanda (32 pts)
3. Courtney (20 pts)

"Douchey" Dachui: 74 points
1. Tyson (18 pts)

2. Boston Rob (26 pts)
3. Coach (30 pts)

"Moonwalkers" Moon: 56points
1. James (7 pts)
2. Cirie (7 pts)
3. Danielle (34 pts)
4. Candice (8 pts)

This marks the second season in a row where the poolist who won the season didn't have the winning player. This comes after a pretty big change in our point-ranking system 2 seasons ago - a system, I have a feeling, we'll revamp again in the fall. I think that the way we choose our players has proven to be pretty fair as well. Doug/Bri were the last to pick in the first round this season. In past seasons our winners have picked first (Bag w/ Russell), 2nd (Doug w/ Earl, me with JT), and sometimes the players who win us the most points even come from the 2nd and 3rd rounds (Parvati was a 2nd rounder, I think Todd from China was a 2nd or 3rd rounder, Natalie & Sandra were both 3rd rounders that won, although their poolists didn't). So it's good to know that one spot isn't better than any other.

Despite a valiant effort by our newest poolist, Courtney's team was held back by receiving the most negative points anyone has ever received before (this statement is based on 2 season's worth of data and an educated guess). She lost 31 points from her players sitting out challenges or "misplaying" immunity idols. And while at least 2 of those idol plays really weren't misplays, the penalties were still taken. On the other hand, Doug's team only lost 6 points for sitting out challenges. Dachui, a team that was jaded by lost points last season, only lost 2 this season. Bag's team lost 8 points, I lost 14 (thanks a lot Courtney), and Moon lost 21 points (but 15 of that was from buying Candice). Last season the average number of points lost throughout the season was 9.


Thoughts on the Season:

This was definitely my favorite season, and I think it's the best season in Survivor history - but that will always be something that can be debated. One of the reasons it's my favorite seasons is because it had the best and craftiest players in the game, all thrown into one big pot of chaos. Which brings us to the question I'm most interested in - who is the best player in Survivor history?

I think it's safe to say that Parvati and Sandra are the front-runners of this argument. Although there are many other fantastic players (Yul and Earl to name a few) it's hard to argue this when they haven't been on multiple seasons. So this really limits us to a select few players. People like Amanda and Russell obviously can't be included since they've never won even though they've made deep runs. And while people like JT and Tom have won before, they didn't do so well their second time around, so they aren't really being included either. If you think someone else's name should be thrown into the mix, though, please comment!

Parvati and Sandra both stated their cases pretty well during the reunion show. Sandra is 2 for 2 - she's won 100% of the time she's participated, and is the only player to win more than once. Parvati's argument about being more of a mastermind and puppeteer is more persuasive to me. I think she was right in that her association with Russell negatively impacted her chances with the jury. Despite what Crazy Candice says, Parvati was not the abused wife in the Russell/Parv marriage - but Russell was so pushy and annoying that no one could see all the subtle maneuvers Parvati was making. In the end, despite Sandra's better record, my opinion is that Parvati is the best player. She's made it to the finals twice in very different ways - once with a woman's alliance where she ran the show, and once in a volatile underdog alliance that she had to work hard to keep reined in.

Evil Russell may have been obnoxious at the reunion show - actually both reunion shows - but he was also very revealing about why he keeps making it to the finals and then failing. Both times to women he considered weak coattail-riders, I might add. (My early prediction was that this would happen, but that it would be Danielle who "stole" victory from him.) Both times he played the game more vindictively than anyone else who's ever been on the show. And both times he expected all the people he backstabbed to not take it personally and let him win based on their impartial judgement of his strategy. Which makes it perfectly clear that Evil Russell doesn't understand the game at all. What Boston Rob said about him was great - that he doesn't play to win. Because really, I think he plays just to crush souls and manipulate people for the hell of it. Or, as Jeff put it, he's playing to win, but he's playing a game with different rules. I hope they do make a spin-off show "Russell Hantz Chooses Who Wins Survivor." It would be like Phil Hellmuth hosting the WSOP events. "Man, I can't believe that even dumber blonde girl (idiot from northern Europe) is trying to make that move... these players are so terrible." Every episode would end the same. Russell (Phil) would sigh and say, "None of these guys would have a chance to win if I was playing right now." It could be like their slogan, like Trump's "You're Fired."


Early Season Predictions:

I just looked back on my draft blog post to check out some of my predictions and power rankings for the season. Some things I predicted well, like that B2B had the best team. Some things I predicted not-so-well, like that the All Blacks a.k.a. Moonwalkers were the 2nd best team. One of the things I'm most proud of though was this comment: "It's my opinion that the women this season are going to crush, and Sandra is definitely a threat when it comes to strategy." Which leads right into my next point...

It's awesome that the "who is the best survivor" question comes down to two women. In the reunion, Probst mentioned that 11 men and 9 women have won over these 20 seasons, but what he didn't mention is that in the three all-stars seasons, the winners were all women. And it's not like the men even really had a chance - out of those 3 all-star finales, only 2 men even made it to the final tribal council. Amber, Boston Rob, Amanda, Parvati, Parvati, Russell, and Sandra made those finals. But out of 24 votes, only 3 went to men. Go ladies!

Final "Power Rankings":

1. B2B - Doug & Bri went after players who'd proven that they knew how to win, and it paid off big time. Their "worst" player Tom still earned 27 points, while the overall average for a player earning points was 30 points. (569 points were earned this season, divided by 19 players.) They had a few scary moments, since Parvati's name kept being brought up since everyone knew how dangerous she was. However, even before the finale episode B2B had it all but locked up to win. If Bag or I had a chance, Parv would've had to finish out of the top 3 and Colby/Jerri would've had to win both immunity challenges and be sole survivor. Courtney would've had to have either Russell or Sandra win both immunity challenges and finish 1 & 2 to win.

2. New Rook - Courtney also picked people who knew how to win. I think ultimately, the reason she didn't win, was because she had 2 great players, but 1 bust. Sometimes we can get away with that in this pool, but when B2B has a loaded team, everyone else needs to come in with as much firepower as possible. Stephanie getting voted out early really hurt. Had she picked a more solid 2nd rounder she may have won in her rookie season. Had she chosen to buy Candice as soon as Stephenie was gone her score would have been 142, still shy of B2B, but pretty close!

3. Gorbag - Bag and I had the same problem this season - we picked solid players, but none of them had enough determination to go all the way. Bag also picked Randy in the 2nd round, which is unforgivable. Jerri and Rupert both seemed to have good instincts, but they never really acted on them until it was too late.

4. Bridesmaids - Choosing 3 people who'd made it to the finals but hadn't won seemed like a good idea at first. But there was a reason that these players didn't win - none of them are closers. Amanda freely admitted it during the reunion, but her actions told us this long before her mouth did. If Parvati was in her spot when she and Danielle were wrestling for the hidden immunity idol clue, no way would Parv have let go until she'd read the clue. And Colby, another non-closer, just lay on that bed and basically told Amanda to give it up. That moment in the season really summarized my team this season. They knew what they had to do to win, but for some reason, they just didn't.

5. Dachui - I really liked Dachui's strategy this season. They put all their eggs in one basket, and started off on a tear, leading the scoreboard until Tyson's unfortunate mistake. If Tyson had just stuck to Boston Rob's plan and voted the way he'd been told, I think Dachui would have won this season and not B2B. That, and Candice proving her cowardice again by caving to Evil Russell's pressure, were the two major swings in this game.

6. Moonwalkers - Moon's team wins the Most Disappointing award. Not because his picks were bad, but because they ended up all being huge underachievers. Okay, I didn't expect much out of Danielle, so that was a pleasant surprise, but James and Cirie I really thought were going to go far. I think the problem was that they came in planning on doing the same things they'd done in past seasons, and that just wasn't good enough this time around. And Candice... while she ended up being a good buy points-wise, is definitely my most-hated Survivor contestant ever. She's a physical threat, but she's a paranoid coward who would rather switch alliances than work on the one she's in. (Other most-hateds include Sue Hawk, Ghandia, Brian the used-car salesman, Jonny Fairplay, Sugar, Jonathan Penner, Twila the truck driver, and Denise the cafeteria lady.)


Next Season & Miscellaneous:

As announced at the reunion show, next season will be airing in the fall. They'll be filming in Nicaragua, which I really don't know much about. They mentioned something about a new rule, or change in the game, but didn't get into details. I also didn't hear them mention how many contestants will be on the show - something that is vital to this pool! If you did (I easily could have missed it) let me know. In any case, I think this season will be very hard-pressed to live up to this past season.

Just read on Wikipedia that Yau-Man was asked to return for the Heroes v. Villains season, but he turned it down. So sad! Corinne Kaplan from Gabon was also invited back but declined - but I don't remember who she was, so I don't really care.

Honestly, I have more to say, but I've gone on so long already that I think I'll have to leave it for now!