I think the jurors were fairly astute in their observations
& comments – especially Michaela! If she’s not in law school, she certainly
should be. Ozzy & Debbie’s arguments proved to me that they were the
dumbest people left in the game. Also par for the course that crazy Debbie would
side with Ozzy, who she voted out, and Brad, who she felt like betrayed her.
Ozzy’s criticism of Sarah’s her "low" play especially rankled me. How
can he judge her & say that she didn’t have to “stoop so low” to win &
then claim his massive experience on the show as proof that he’s right? He’s
had more opportunities to win this game than anyone, but still couldn’t do it!
The finale started with an epic moment when Cirie went home without getting a single vote. Holy cow!! Sucks that Cirie had to go out like that, but I love that this moment happened. Do you think if EVERYONE had played an idol that they just would have sent them all back to camp? I feel like that’s the only fair thing to do. I was sorry to see Cirie go, though. She was a canny player who was extremely likable & I think the scheming for the rest of the episode would have been more epic had she still been around.
In a season full of twists and records, the finale did not
disappoint! I’m inclined to call this the greatest season of Survivor ever,
though I am aware some recency bias may be coming into play here. At the very
least it’s a Top 5 season.
Soon to follow is Aubry, and now the Final 4 is all Team Try
Harder. This truly was a dominant season for our team. We blew out the previous
record-setting score (228: Michal & Ben - 2nd Chance) by
66 points. That’s a nearly 30% increase. I don’t think we'll see a score this
high again ever.
As I’m watching the final 4 compete I realize that Brad is
now wearing a sack for a shirt. When did that happen? Was it around the same
time that he became a mega-douche again? He reverted back to his first season
self in an extremely off-putting way. I do think it had something to do with
starvation, but I also think his domination at challenges brought his arrogance
to the fore-front.
They kept talking about the “elite” group of castaways who
have won 5 immunity challenges. From my research, the only other person who has
done this within a single season is Ozzy. (Though before looking it up I’d
guessed that Kim & Mike were in that group…) There are others who have done
it over multiple seasons, but that seems like kind of a cheat.
I’m glad Sarah didn’t decide to split votes & do a fire
challenge. There was no upside there for her, but there was huge upside for her
to simply listen to Tai & take what he said seriously. The fact that
Troyzan didn’t even consider that a fire challenge might come up in that final
vote was just one more indication that he was NOT paying attention to how this
game really works. I’m glad he gave that very gracious exit speech at the end
of Final Tribal, that salvaged his dignity somewhat.
And speaking of Final Tribal, I really liked the new format!
I think it’s great to hear the jurors discuss & argue with each other. You knew
they were doing that at Ponderosa anyways, so it was nice to see that happen on
camera instead.
In the end Sierra, Debbie & Ozzy voted for Brad – the “bitter
Betty”s as Michaela called them. Everyone else voted correctly for Sarah, and
we now have another Survivor champion!!
As opposed to Adam from last season who I thought was a very
weak winner, I think Sarah may be one of the best. The caliber of player she
was up against was off the charts, and she played a very crafty, strategic, yet
subtle game. She also was super well-spoken at Final Tribal and argued her case
really well.
Then we were on to the reunion where we could see how
terrifying Brad could look with that molestache, and see Tai at his best in
that spiffy blue sweater. Nothing else very interesting happened throughout the
reunion, though I really liked hearing what would have happened in a tie. Do
you think Probst dropped that info in here because it might actually happen
next season!?
I’m going to hold out hope that this is the case, because I’m
none too impressed with the preview of next season. Anything after this season
is going to be a letdown of course, but seriously? Heroes, Healers &
Hustlers? In Fiji… again? The only way this gets interesting is if the “hustler”
tribe is actually full of hustlers a la Ocean’s 11 & Zootopia, and not bell hops &
administrative assistants like the preview indicates. And that surgeon!! Good
Lord, can they please stop bringing surgeons onto the show?
The Teams:
Michal & Ben "Try Harder" - 294 points
- Tai (84 pts)
- Caleb (-3 pts)
- Sarah (79 pts)
- Troyzan (43 pts)
- Brad (91 pts)
- Michaela (28 pts)
- Cirie (36 pts)
- Andrea (52 pts)
- Ciera ( -5 pts)
- Hali (18 pts)
- Malcolm (5 pts)
- Zeke (34 pts)
- Aubry (42 pts)
- Jeff (9 pts)
- Sierra (33 pts)
- JT (11 pts)
- Tony (-4 pts)
- Ozzy (31 pts)
- Sandra (6 pts)
- Debbie (27 pts)
Prop Bets:
| People involved | Castaways Involved | Method of measurement | Stakes | And the winner is... |
| Bag v. Ben | JT + Ozzy v. Tai + Sarah | Longevity (bonus if 1 whole team elimated before the other loses a player) | 1 drink | Ben + bonus |
| Michal v. Melissa | Sierra v. Ciera | Longevity | 1 drink | Michal |
| Moon v. Doug | Michaela v. 3 of Doug's team | The bet is that any 3 of Doug's team end up doing better than Michaela | ??? | I don't remember how this bet was supposed to play out - I will let commenters determine that! |
| Moon v. Ben | Varner wins the whole she-bang | 100:1 odds | 2 bits | Ben |
8 comments:
Yay! A deserving winner after several disappointing champions. I have nothing against Adam but was he worthy of a unanimous sweep? I don't think so. I'm still bitter that Aubry lost out to Michelle. Shame on that jury.
Either way, I would have been content with the winner on this season between Brad and Sarah. My personal preference was for Sarah because I value the outwit side of things over winning challenges but it was an impressive performance (not just in challenges) from Brad before his hunger/testosterone/arrogance created giants cracks in his ability to act like a decent human being down the home stretch.
Brad blew it. How do you take Sarah over Tai? Oh, you think you can beat anyone so might as well 'punish' the person who did you wrong? It seems to me that it was a million dollar mistake. I haven't watch the reunion. Did that get brought up? Do we know that Brad would have won if he took Tai over Sarah?
I think Sarah could have made a game ending mistake not to tie the vote and force a fire challenge. She was the biggest threat left. I guess Brad made it an easy decision for her by being so obvious about who he was voting for, yelling at Tai during that TC. I dunno though, it seems like from a game theory perspective there was no downside and if she was going to get blindsided at least she still would have a chance?
Tai man, my goodness. Amazing competitor, really nice guy, idol bloodhound, but just bungled it down the stretch. How do you not play 1 idol at 6 left and then the next at 5 left and guarantee you are final 4. He admits to Sarah he was going to vote her off and then plays an idol to save Aubry and votes her off the next day? What the Baggins? I think he has proven over his two seasons that his strategic social games is not on par with the rest of his skill set.
Man, I did not realize Cirie had never won an immunity challenge or found an idol in four seasons of play. Wow. Amazing that she always gets deep without those extra advantages. Good game, Cirie.
Also, good game Aubry. You were pretty card dead this season and you still made it 37 or however many days. Well played.
Troyzan, sup.
Michal already called out Ozzy and Deb but I wanted to add my own personal 'shut the F up'. Deb is crazy so I shouldn't be surprised at her insane reasoning. And Ozzy? Dude. You have no Survivor social game, you might be the greatest physical player to ever play the game and you've lost 4 times. Your endorsement of Brad as a worthy champion is a harbinger of his defeat.
It was an entertaining season, in part because Try Harder had such an absurdly dominant performance but I feel like the audience was misled more than usual and I didn't like that. So often I felt like I was in the dark as far as what was transpiring at the TCs. Why did Tai not play his idols earlier? Who were actually close allies? I never got much sense of where the bonds truly were. Was that because there were too many gimmicks this season? Maybe. Did I like the gimmicks? Mostly, yes. Did I like them more because a lot of them broke our way? Probably.
Probst did the "what if" at the reunion show. If Brad had taken Tai it would have been a 5/5 split in the votes between him & Tai. In this tiebreaker scenario, the finalist with the least number of votes would suddenly become a jury member & they would essentially choose the winner. In this case, Troyzan said he would have voted for Brad. So yes, this was a million dollar mistake & after walking through the whole "what if" scenario, Brad looked miserable for the rest of the reunion show.
First off, congrats to the Greenbergs on an incredibly dominant record-breaking season. We may play the rest of our lives and never see a team possess the entire final four again. That was amazing.
As Brad tried so hard to point out on the reunion show, it's not fair to ask people after the fact in a parallel universe that isn't even parallel who they would have voted for. But, as he also quickly pointed out, he clearly made a mistake in bringing Sarah over Tai. I also imagine Brad had organized a case to present to the jury at Final Tribal and was thrown off by the unexpected change in format. That may have cost him a vote or two. That horrendous moustache was also rather costly. Where's the quality control from his friends & wife?
Several times (including last season with Hannah) we've seen a female mastermind underestimated by the jury at Final Tribal, so it was neat to see a male contestant underestimate a female opponent's resumé and lose a million bucks because of it. Early in the season I wondered if Brad could maintain his Humble Brad state for the duration. He almost made it. Almost.
I seem to remember a young Christian man who won something like five or more duel-style challenges to get back into the game, only to get sent back and then eliminated by Boston Rob during his masterful championship season. I don't know if those count as challenge wins or what, but that kid's resolve was impressive (just not as impressive as Boston Rob's ownage).
Agree with you guys on Debbie & Ozzy. That will likely be the last we see of those two. I think Cirie could return, perhaps in a Blood vs Water with her son. Her bustout was epic. Michaela & Zeke have a chance at returning as well.
Good season, but certainly not the GOAT. The first All-Stars, among others harder to remember offhand, was superior. Too many shifts and shakeups early to develop long-lasting compelling storylines. But it was a very satisfying conclusion with a deserving champion.
Seriously, who IS Brad's stylist?!?? Does he sell used cars for a living? Is he trying to camouflage himself with that burlap sack??
I agree with Ben about the irritation of a lot of stuff not being shown to the audience. What I really wanted to see was the "schoolyard picks", when they had to choose teams for the competitions. Why were we not shown that? That's a huge insight into the social strategy of these competitors, and they just fast forward over that to the actual competiton. I'd rather watch them make their picks, fast forward the obstacle courses, and then just see the outcome. In fact, I would prefer Survivor without any of those repetitive obstacle courses. It'd be way cooler if they made challenges that don't require building jungle gyms on a sandbar. Maybe a scavenger hunt, or a trek across an island, or I dunno, anything more authentic to their geography than dozens of colorful obstacle courses!
What's the deal with everyone loving that red head, Cochran is his name perhaps?
Also, on the Ozzy front....I noticed he said he would have voted for Tai if it had been a Tai/Brad finale. How does that make sense? It seems he wasn't really voting FOR brad, but AGAINST Sarah. And I hope we NEVER have to see Debbie ever again. Good grief!
Thank god for Michaela speaking up and saying exactly what I think every single Survivor finale I've ever watched. I don't understand how every season these people who are playing a game always become so sensitive about getting voted out...it's a GAME people!! I would love to see Michaela again! I was bummed people kept sitting her out at competitions and keeping her out of the loop on everything. And given that, I'm kind of surprised she made it as far as she did.
Michal, I am 100% in agreement with you about next season. If they're hustlers, they should be pimps and prostitutes and drug dealers and what not....now THAT would be interesting!! But that turtleneck doesn't scream pimp or drug dealer to me.... 😔
I just binged three weeks of episodes. GG, GG Greenbergs. That was a beat down. I agree with Moon that it was a good season, not the best. I don't have anything to add that wasn't mentioned above. DoW Brad's mustache.
Great comments Courtney! I hope you make some more in the future. I tend to agree on the challenges, and think it's a better show when they have just one challenge. Two challenges in a 38 minute package leaves little time to show what's going on socially. I think Ozzy had a lot of respect for Brad's physical acumen, but had more respect for the organic qi of Tai.
Finally adding my comments.
Nice crushing Greenbergs. Impressive.
A very fun season to watch overall. Lots of high quality players (with a few duds). I ultimately liked Zeke's reasoning that Sarah should win best because she was on the "correct" side of every vote. That is a telling statistic.
For the Michaela vs Doug's team prop bet, that should tally in my favor. *Only damn thing I won this season* 3 of my players had a better overall score than Michaela. Zack and Tom are both on the hook for this. I'll let Ben decide if he is or isn't. See the comments from Episode two for the full recap:
Text and comment summary:
I won't hold Ben to the prob bet since I was only texting with Snaders.
Here are the applicable texts for reference:
Doug: I have a bet for moon too. i bet 3 of my team members score equal to, or more than michaela, - 1 drink
Snaders: Will you go your bet vs tom 3x? Ben And I want action too
Doug: Everyone likes the michaela pick huh?
Snaders: Apparently. Tom will take it if you only want 1x
Doug: Is Tom in regardless? Nm
Snaders: Yeah
Doug: I'll take 3x
Snaders: K
Who is Snaders?
I have to say that both of daughters are hilarious! And that I agree with everything they said, as I always do! Maybe some of the hustlers will be professional card players!
It's been fun and I look forward to next season, as unpromising as it looks.
(And, btw, I looked up who has won immunity 5 times in one season:
Colby Donaldson, 5, Survivor: The Australian Outback(consecutive)
Tom Westman, 5, Survivor: Palau
Terry Dietz, 5, Survivor: Panama(consecutive)
Ozzy Lusth, 5, Survivor: Cook Islands
Mike Holloway, 5, Survivor: Worlds Apart
Brad Culpepper, 5, Survivor: Game Changers(consecutive)
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