After viewing the finale a second time, I think I’ve come to a scary conclusion. The average viewer will never get Survivor. The show has been on for eleven years now and the average viewer still thinks the winner should be the man who has won the most challenges, been the best provider, and got the most air time. Year after year that doesn’t happen and viewers are quick to judge the jury calling them bitter for not voting for their favorite contestant. What’s worse it that some viewers think the jury should wait to cast their vote until after they’ve seen the edited episodes. It blows my mind and it’s something I don’t quite understand.
Yea Survivor is about enduring the elements, immunity challenges, while trying to be entertaining enough to be on tv. But all of that means nothing if you can’t get the jury to vote for you. Survivor is about surviving until the end but it’s much more about jury management.
Sophie didn’t make any huge moves. Her strategy was to keep her alliance intact and lay low. Whenever Albert and Coach strayed to far from the initial plan she pulled them back in and made sure that everything worked out accordingly. It’s not the most entertaining strategy but it is a solid strategy. She knew she could beat Albert and took the chance that Coach had vexed enough people with his talk of honor and integrity. She won immunity when it counted so Ozzy would go and it paid off. I really enjoyed Sophie. She’s someone whose game I would hope to emulate if I ever got the chance to play Survivor. She adapted to the Christian framework and used it to her advantage. It wasn’t like Sophie didn’t do anything at all. She won a few immunity challenges and along with Coach and Albert decided the elimination order. I always think the winner deserves to win because they got the jury to vote for them. Even if they are the lesser evil, they set up their end game so that the jury didn’t really have a choice but to vote for them. Sophie’s game was solid.
Ozzy’s game on the other hand was not. Yes I understand why people like him. He is this island boy who won duel after duel. He can hold his breath for half an hour and is very impressive in challenges. He survived by himself the entire second half of the game and did exactly what he said he was going to do. I get it. But did he play the best game? Not at all. How can someone be considered a good player when they get voted out three times in one season? How can someone be considered a good player when nobody was rooting for them in any of the duels? Ozzy doesn’t get the social aspect of the game. He comes across as a selfish and arrogant person. He would’ve won without a doubt if he had beaten Sophie in the final immunity challenge but I think part of that has to do with the jury be almost solely composed of former Savaii Tribe members. I know I’m in the minority here. Ozzy is why viewers watch the show. It’s pretty clear that Survivor’s core audience loves the Russell’s and Rupert’s of Survivor. They want to see the star of the season like Stephenie Lagrossa win the show because they had a compelling story. Those big characters are usually pretty deluded which what makes them so entertaining to begin with. They have a hard time seeing their own flaws and shortcomings.
Let’s just say that Ozzy is better at Survivor than Brandon Hantz. While Brandon put up a good fight in the last duel, it was pretty obvious that Ozzy was going to come back into the game. (Side Note: How unfair was that final duel for Brandon? Ozzy not only played that challenge in Cook Islands…he won. I’m sure Brandon had a fair shot against him but Ozzy definitely had a huge advantage) For awhile the final episode led me to believe that Ozzy was going to win the whole thing. He had several cocky confessionals telling us that he’s been eating so well and that he is going to play Upolu against each other. When he won the first immunity challenge I thought it was a done deal. It looked like Ozzy was just going to waltz his way to the end. The first tribal council didn’t ease my fears either. I thought Sophie was slowly starting to lose it. Not that it’s a bad thing showing your emotion but Sophie displayed a more vulnerable side that we hadn’t seen before. At this point we didn’t know that she was going to win the last challenge and it seemed like a sign that Ozzy was going to win. After watching it a second time, I think Sophie’s breakdown won her the game. It showed a more emotional side to her, something Whitney clearly failed to notice before asking her question at the final tribal council. Even though it was a weak moment for her, I think it ultimately helped her in the end.
Sophie wasn’t without fault though. Jeff brought up a good point. Even though Ozzy called Sophie a whiny brat behind her back it wasn’t like Sophie had anything nice to say about Ozzy. But that doesn’t really matter. Rick was voted off and ended up being extremely bitter…which was pretty hilarious considering he was hardly on the show. It was hard to take him so seriously. I hope CBS’s casting department learned their lesson from Rick. Just because someone has a weird accent and has a huge mustache doesn’t make them a good character.
Back at camp Coach is still playing both sides. He assures Albert and Sophie that he is with them but continues to entertain the final three deal he made with Ozzy. In Coach’s eyes Ozzy is a warrior, someone who Coach has always wanted to go to the finals with. Coach is also trying to cover all of his bases…which I think killed his game. He tried to play the game like Rob Mariano in a sense. He made final three deals with everyone and covered all of his bases. But it didn’t come across that way to the jury this time. Rob might have made deals and friendships within Ometepe but he didn’t try to make them feel like a family. Grant, Ashley, and Andrea all felt like fools but Rob didn’t try to hug them when they walked out of tribal council. He didn’t spout out words like honor and integrity to keep his team together. I think that is why everyone felt like they were taken advantage of this season. It’s one thing to be backstabbed and betrayed by a fellow contestant, it’s another thing to be betrayed by someone you consider to be your brother in Christ.
Coach’s decision is made for him. Sophie wins the final immunity challenge and Ozzy’s entire game falls apart. It’s pretty entertaining and extremely satisfying watching Ozzy finally leave the game and makes me hope we never have to endure Redemption Island ever again.
The final tribal council pretty much sums up the game and I thought it was pretty entertaining. One of the better final tribal council’s we’ve had in a while. Albert seems insincere and desperate from the start. He uses the same religious card with Brandon that he has been using all season. Brandon doesn’t really buy it and the whole jury is kind of against him the entire time. Sophie seems pretty secure and tells it like it is. She exaggerates quite a bit and boasts more than she should. I think Sophie saw herself as this mastermind when it really wasn’t like that. She just set her alliance up and things fell into place (like Cochran betraying his tribe). Sophie does try to come clean about a few things. She makes sure to tell the jury about how the hidden immunity idol was found and does her best to get Rick and Whitney to like her. Coach tells the jury that he tried to play with compassion. That he tried to open himself up to others. He was trying to be a people pleaser. But it’s pretty clear the jury expects something more. They wanted Coach to admit he manipulated and played a dirty game…that just wasn’t really there. To be honest I loved Coach’s earnest plea after Cochran’s question. He just seems so upset and spent. That he tried to play the game differently this time but it just ended up as a convoluted mess. Basically Coach says he is sorry for how he played the game and that he didn’t want everyone to hate him. You kind of feel bad for the guy.
Sophie ends up beating Coach 6 to 3 with Albert getting no votes at all. Then we spend the better part of the reunion listening to Ozzy babble on about how kids need to go outside and nonsense like that. Of course Russell Hantz is there to further humiliate Brandon. While I have my issues with Brandon I felt really sorry for him. This is probably the most exciting thing to ever happen in his life and nobody from his family showed up at the reunion. It’s really sad. Yea I’m sure some people couldn’t afford to go but to have no one at all? Brandon said some of his family members were supportive of his game but most were not.
This season was so much better than last season. I was really worried going in. I hadn’t been that disappointed by a season since Survivor: Cook Islands. When I heard that this season was going back to Samoa for the third time I thought the worst. When I learned that it was going to follow the exact same format as Survivor: Redemption Island and that Ozzy and Coach were the returning players I feared for the franchise in general. Luckily this season had an amazing cast. What could’ve been a terrible and predictable season was saved by this group. It is definitely my favorite new cast since Survivor: Gabon. There are a lot of potential All Stars here and I have some new favorite players. I am definitely going to miss this group. But at the same time I am extremely intrigued for Survivor: One World. I love that both tribes are on one beach. The show teased this idea back during Survivor: Palau and I was so disappointed when Koror left for their own beach at the end of the first episode. I also hope that reward challenges return. There are so many interesting dynamics involved with reward challenges that have been lost these last two seasons. It forces contestants to make political choices when deciding who gets to go on the reward with them and causes friction in camp. Survivor: Redemption Island could’ve been completely different. If someone from Zapatera had won a reward and shared some private time with Andrea or Ashley they could’ve swayed them to jump ship . Anyway I’m excited for a format change, this show needs to be shaken up at this point especially after these two seasons.
Here are just some stray observations from this episode.
-I really liked the opening recap, it was exciting with all of the different voices, the editing was great. Since the show no longer gives us a linear recap of the season this is definitely the best they can do.
-I kind of loved Sophie berating Albert to drop his stack so that she can win. I want to see more moments like this. It is too bad that it is against the rules and that Jeff had to intervene because that could really change how individual challenges work
-Underneath all of that muscle…Albert is looking kind of like a big dork
-I loved the return of the obstacle course challenge! I think it was introduced in Survivor: Amazon. Always fun to watching. Coach rolling down backward was hilarious. At the same time I also loved the weird gospel chanting when they were all trying to figure out that puzzle. It was extremely epic (ie: Star Wars and Lord of the Rings)
-Ozzy has given us a few really entertaing confessionals, I loved his reaction when everyone was cheering after he lost the immunity challenge.
-At the same time I found his near-standing ovation at tribal council to be ridiculous. Why would you clap for someone whose been voted out three times?
-Sophie was playing the game all the way until the end, great idea telling Albert to team up against Coach if it looked like he was going to win at the final tribal council.
-I’m sorry Coach isn’t even going all the way through with his Coach-chi moves, he looks like an idiot. But he has come full circle Survivor wise. I like Coach a lot more now than I did during Tocantins. While I don’t really like how much Survivor depends on returning contestants, you have to admit it gives them a great story to work with.
-Dawn, I think my library teacher wore that dress way back in 1996. I love Dawn but that dress at the final tribal council looked really silly.
-Ozzy looks stupid with pig tails.
-I loved the Jonathan Penner and Yul cameos when Russell was talking at the reunion. I wish Jeff had talked with them instead of Russell.
-NO JEFF! No Brandon VS. Russell ever!
Discussion
No comments yet.