Survivor: Heroes versus Healers versus Hustlers Finale

I do wonder know that we are reaching the end just how much of this versus season actually remained in the end of it. I can’t even remember now who all started on what tribe. I think that Mike is the only healer still in the game. And I think that the heroes still might have a player in it. I know that the hustlers are still in this so it is kind of nice that they are all in the finale.

You might wonder what I will do with the time that I spend watching Survivor until it returns. I don’t know for sure what all I’ll do. I don’t think that this show will return until after the Olympics. The date that I have is February 28^th on next year. But you might wonder what is happening with the slot during the winter hiatus. The Amazing Race will start out in the slot before moving back an hour to air the rest of its season. I think that Celebrity Big Brother or Undercover Boss will be in its slot the rest of the time. I may be recording other stuff during Lent while I wait for this to start airing.

Something that I’ve randomly wondered some about is the tie-breaker method for the win that Jeff revealed in the last season’s finale. I don’t know if he should have told everyone that. Plus, it only works if there is a two way tie with a finalist either not getting votes or getting minority votes where they wouldn’t win a tie. Due to how they can make a jury, a three-way tie wouldn’t be possible unless it is a final three with nine people on the jury. But since the finalist who won’t win would know he is casting a tie-breaker vote, you’d have to wonder if that is right since they would know the winner as a result. But who knows? A tie might never happen anyways. It has been over ten seasons since the final vote was any close. Plus the final two never did anything to fix that problem.

I do hope that we go back to the normal way of doing the final tribal council. The open forum twist that they did last season just didn’t really seem like it did what it should have. They changed a lot of the show last season given its theme so that is why things are probably more back to normal now. I won’t know for sure until I see the whole episode. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, Jeff introduces the show and the finale. I still don’t know if I like these pre reunion show segments since it seems to serve Jeff to give himself more airtime. The final five each get what can best be described as a courtesy confessional at this point, but I’m not going to count it this time. They all talk about how they need to get rid of Ben.  He looks for an idol throughout the night. He is surprised that people aren’t looking with him, but it could go either way with whether or not there is an idol in the game again. Sure enough, he finds an idol.

In the second segment of the show, Chrissy wants to make up with Ben, which she is doing just for the game instead of because she means it. She then offers an idol to take him to the final three, but he sees right through it. But was her request sincere? We get to a challenge and the reward with immunity is food. That seems kind of dumb to offer that AFTER the challenge. It’s interesting the ball part of the challenge that appears at the end. But I guess the producers just wanted to see these contestants handle balls. Chrissy wins the challenge. She gets to pick people for the food reward and she picks Mike and Devon to join her with it and it seems that Ryan doesn't like this.

In the third segment of the show, the people look through the food for an idol clue. They find nothing, although I have the feeling that they would have if Ben didn’t find an idol. Chrissy wants to use her old superidol that has been dead since day four onward. Everyone talks about how brilliant this is or would be if he didn’t already have an idol. “You should waste your energy, I mean, save your energy.” That’s a bit of a fun Freudian slip.

He makes it seem like he bought it and now won’t spend time looking for an idol which he would be doing even though he found it. Ben wonders who to vote out, not thinking that Ryan would be a good person to vote out. He thinks either Devon or Mike should be voted out next. Jeff then talks some to the audience and talks to random people.

In the fourth segment of the show, we get to the tribal council at hand. Ryan thinks that no one has played an idol before the votes were cast. In Guatemala, that is when you had to and when Gary did. Under the current rules, that hasn’t happened. Chrissy reveals her “idol” to the jury and they actually look like they believe it can still be used. Ben goes along with the idea that he’s going home.

The votes are then cast. Ben plays his real idol while Chrissy tried to do something with her old idol. Devon would have gotten voted out if he hadn’t voted for Mike instead. Devon made a risky move, but it was a good thing to follow his gut this time. Mike gets voted out at the revote. I love how this season has been like a roller coaster with all its twists and turns. There is a twist coming up. Mike thinks that he could have won in the final three. I think that he only could have beaten Devon, which means that he would have lost against whoever the third person was.

Jeff then takes Mike out at the reunion show and talks about his vote out. Mike was going to vote for Devon and if he did, Mike would have stayed. Survivor is knowing when to do the right move and what it is. He knew it, but he didn’t make it because he played it safe and wound up sorry.

In the fifth segment of the show, Devon talks about how he wasn’t expecting tribal council. But he did know and that’s why he didn’t vote for Ben. Everyone else wants to get rid of Ben by winning immunity. But what is this twist? We then get to the final immunity challenge. The challenge is a big bunch of wibbly wobbly, letters spelling stuff. The stuff is the word heroes, healers, and hustlers. I don’t really like the challenges where people can lose their progress easily. It seems really dumb for a final immunity challenge. What happened to the endurance challenge? Chrissy ends up winning due to mistakes by Ben that happen twice in a way. Will Ben get voted out? I know some spoilers, although I won’t tell them to you until they happen.

In the sixth segment of the show, Ben is bummed that he didn’t win immunity. He is probably more bummed that he can’t just find another idol to use. Chrissy says that she’s considering keeping him in the game, but she doesn’t know for sure if she really will. She learns that she is casting the only vote by choosing who to keep and the other two will face off and make fire.

This seems like possible production manipulation to ensure that the vote off isn’t obvious like it would have been otherwise. You shouldn’t be able to force a fire making tie. But at least it would happen even if Ben won. Devon practices some, but not too much due to the flint breaking. Bob won Gabon through practicing a challenge like this. I don’t think that saving your energy would work.

In the seventh segment of the show, we get to the tribal council. Not much is talked about before it gets to the reveal of the twist that only Ben and the jury didn’t know. She picks her buddy Ryan to go to the final three via a voice vote. How many people have cast a voice vote? It sure doesn’t happen much. The people that I know that did that were Tom in Palau, the favorites in Caramoan, the people who voted out Jeff Varner last season, and now Chrissy.

In the eighth segment of the show, we get to the fire making challenge. Devon struggles the whole time while Ben ends up winning. Why did people think that Devon would be good in a challenge? I just know that Chrissy sticking with Ryan makes the most sense. Jeff says that the twist will appear again next season. Quit changing the game all the time!

In the ninth segment of the show, Ryan is glad that he made it this far and thinks that he can convince the jury that he was in control of the game even though he really wasn’t. We get thoughts on the final three and I do believe that it is one of the best we’ve had in the game. They are all deserving in some way of the win. All can be villainous and yet seem likable. It looks like they are doing the twist that they did at the last tribal council. Why must good things change?

Total confessional count: Devon- 29, Ryan- 37, Mike- 24, Ben- 48, Chrissy- 37. New confessionals this episode: Ben- 7, Chrissy- 8, Devon- 4, Ryan- 2, Mike- 2.

In the tenth segment of the show, the go with the outwit portion of the game. Desi feels that Ryan does not really belong there because he didn’t do much to get there. That’s the problem with a quiet game like the one he has is that no one really knew what he was doing. Ryan thinks that Devon was a person that he used to his advantage. Joe talks about Ben’s horrible social game. Ben might be too much like Russell Hantz for his own good. Only I’d actually be okay with Ben winning. Chrissy feels that she stayed loyal to her alliances and not just make one huge move after another.

Cole talks about the whole peanut butter thing that I don’t even remember. When did this happen? Ryan thinks that he was nicer to Cole then Ben was. I can’t keep track of everything that is going on here in this which is why the format is bad.

Next is the outplay part of the game. He likes the fact that Chrissy won challenges and that Ben played idols, but can’t see what Ryan did. The show gets a bit like The McLaughlin Group in a way. People like that Chrissy won challenges, but that’s not all Survivor is. Ryan has to talk about his moves and that he made stuff with the idol. Why do people think that Ben’s idols are so good? People do think that it is a dumb decision to keep him in the game for so long. That’s a recurring theme throughout this season so it makes me wonder since I don’t know for sure who won just yet.

Last is the outlast portion of the game. Ryan doesn’t think that anyone dragged him here, although he did technically get an assist from Chrissy. Ben thinks that everyone on the jury was a hurtle to the win. He is told to tell us why he should win. Chrissy gives a speech on all she did to get to where she is now. Like I said before, I just cannot keep track of everything. Jeff gets a person in the audience to cast a random and probably meaningless vote for one of the three finalists. I guess the lesson that someone should learn here is that if you are in the audience at the finale, wear a buff.

In the eleventh segment of the show, we get to the votes that are cast. There’s at least one for Ben and another for Ryan. There’s one for Chrissy as well. But how many votes besides these ones will each person get? I honestly don’t know who could win and wonder if it might be a tie. Surely that random person wouldn’t have cast a tie-breaker, right? There won’t be a three way tie so it could be someone who won’t be part of the tie, if there is one. Ben is the winner. We get to a recap of Ben’s time on the game, which seems like a really weird thing to do, but whatevs.

In the twelfth segment of the show, we finally get to the real reunion show, which I think is late. Chrissy talks about the first challenge and losing her job to play Survivor. I’d have to not have a job to pick this show over it. Ryan talks about how he did the game. We get more about PTSD here. Jeff has marine buddies of Ben show up at the reunion show. They talk about what he has done.

In the thirteenth segment of the show, Jeff wanted this to be the season of secrets but no one could keep a secret. The fourth season of NCIS was the season of secrets. It is good to keep secrets in this game. Lauren regrets her move with the shell. But this is a hint about next season.

In the fourteenth segment of the show, they will come up with something for the next season that speaks to the past seasons. They show a montage of bad decisions made by players. It will be called Ghost Island and have new players. How are they doing this? Why not use returning players? I guess that I don’t understand all this. The season premiere is February 28th.

In the fifteenth segment of the show, Jeff reminds people to go to casting. If I knew that there weren’t people still recruited as new players, then I’d know that casting is the best thing. There isn’t much to this segment except the end of the episode.

Points at reunion show: Katrina- 0, Simone- 0, Patrick- 0, Alan- 0, Roark- 0, Ali- 0, Jessica- 0, Desi- 0, Cole- 0, JP- 0, Joe- 0, Lauren- 1, Ashley- 0, Mike- 0, Devon- 0, Ryan- 1, Chrissy- 1, Ben- 1.

Ladies and gentlemen, this had to have been the shortest reunion show ever. Why can’t they be an hour long like they used to be? Did we really need segments after Mike and Devon’s eliminations when they could have just been talked to at the reunion show as normal? We got more out of the players from Caramoan’s fucking reunion show than this one. Get rid of these stupid pre reunion show segments that always cut into what should be the reunion show because there is no reason why random people in the audience should get to speak instead of fourteen of the players. Maybe I should count Mike and Devon for getting to talk, but I think that Jeff is changing too much to give himself more airtime. I’d rather see a different host than one who keeps wrecking the reunion show like this.

What are my thoughts on next season? Well, it is hard to tell without seeing it for sure just how much it would work out. Why do this sort of thing with all new players? Or are there some returning players? SPOILER. I heard that they might be using some like Jeremiah from Cagayan in some season filmed in Belize. I don’t know if that is what Survivor 37 will be or what could happen regarding that. It could just be a rumor because you wouldn’t think they’d start filming a new season until sometime into the airing of the fall season. That’s how they typically do it nowadays, I believe. I heard of other returning players besides him, but I can’t remember who they are. END SPOILER. I guess that I won’t know for sure what will happen until it happens, you know?

Now it is time for the end of the season awards. Let’s start with the three dumbest moves of the season. The bronze will go to Joe for his overall craziness that got him voted out. The silver will go to Lauren for giving half of her idol to Mike. And the gold will go to the people who kept Ben around and let him get every idol that he could.

When it comes time for the breakout character of the season, I think that the person who should get it will be Ryan for being pretty much a joy to watch this season. It’s a shame that we got more out of him than the other players did.

As for the most memorable moment of the season, it hands down has to be the tribal council at the final seven where different crazy moves went down. If I ever do updated versions of random posts that I’ve done in the past, you can bet that that tribal council will be on my top ten.

You may have noticed some confusion personally when I have ranked tribe swaps in the past. I have four less swaps ranked now than there were. But I do plan on changing them as time goes on by adding what I don’t have. Out of the 25 swaps that I have mentioned right now, I’ll list this season’s as 4^th best. As for the ranking of this season versus the other 35, I’d put it as 17^th best.

Well, there’s not much else to add to this post other than when this blog will be updated. If I do random posts, for as long as I do them, they will be on Wednesdays. That’s how things will start with them in the first place, should something change. They will stay there until the next season starts at which point this blog will be moved back to Thursdays. If I wind up with a past season on DVD for Christmas, then I will blog about it on Sundays. If I do that before the next season starts, you will see those posts instead of random posts. I might also get a second old season posted on Fridays. We’ll see what all happens with that. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.