Wow, Lauren just completely blew it, when the game was clearly hers to win. It was dumb to crash up the alliance in general, considering they barely outnumbered the non-alliance members and even if there was always a chance of a shake up.
But, as a result, a season that has been pretty slow has evolved post-merge into one of the more competitive ones - it genuinely seems like every single player could win in a final 3, and I’m not sure that’s ever happened at this stage. There is usually some deadwood that is a clear candidate to get dragged to the end.
This season will primarily be remembered as the season where a lot of very mediocre players thought they were good strategic players - most of them vastly overrate their abilities and underestimate how lucky they’ve been to get this far, particularly Joe, Ben, Devon, Mike and Ashley. Lauren played a decent game and should have won but she never really seemed to think things through effectively. The only good thing is that because none of them are great, nobody has really dominated and the game has always remained potentially dynamic as a result.
Ryan and (especially) Chrissy are probably the most strategic players, but they are still light-weights compared to some of the great players in the recent past.
Overall though, I am happy that this crew has managed to get more interesting as the season has continued.
I feel like there’s an idol under the shelter in a lot of seasons now. I am surprised that there hasn’t been a player that just looks under the shelter after each tribal.
Since no one has posted yet today, I can jump in without fear of being spoiled - I can’t believe those 4 made the same mistake twice.
Without having seen the conclusion, if anyone deserves to win it’s Ben. He’s playing this group like a violin.
I didn’t watch the final tribal last season. I forget why not but probably because I didn’t care who won. Was it the same format as this one? Because I really dislike it. I much prefer the one-on-three interrogations (and bitterness).
I enjoyed that finale a lot. I became even more of a Devon fan, and was really hoping for him to win it. But they had to throw in a new twist, and completely change how the game of Survivor ends. Now it’s possible for someone to not have any allies, not have access to a hidden immunity idol for the final vote, not win final immunity, and yet still get into the final 3.
Blah.
And then Jeff says it’s a permanent change to the game and they’re going to do the same next season. I hate this change.
More than likely, it won’t have as big an effect on the game as it did this season, since people don’t usually go into the end with absolutely no allies left.
Still, a lovely finale. Devon’s play was great, it’s too bad he wasn’t good at making fire.
I would be surprised if it is a permanent change. It wouldn’t shock me if they actually extended it to next season to make it seem less like it was a blatant producer manipulation to keep the most popular player in the game. (I don’t believe it was, and my understanding is that they have to run a lot of this stuff, like the challenges, through a third party to adjudicate fairness since it is technically a game show).
I do think that the show has evolved an end game issue where the finale is very anti-climactic because the game is actually decided in the last immunity challenge where either the strongest or second strongest player is sent home and the other one wins. It’s been a lot of seasons since who was actually going to win was at all in doubt. I actually generally end up doing the dishes or on my phone or something barely paying attention during the final tribal because it’s obvious who will win and they have to jump through ridiculous editing hoops (like spending 70% of the time this season cutting together phrases of Ryan saying “social connections”). I mean, it wasn’t just that the winner was so predictable, but before tribal I was able to even (almost) call the final vote. I did not anticipate that Devon would pick Ryan over Ben but otherwise it seemed pretty obvious.
I don’t know that this twist is going to be the thing that makes final tribal interesting, but I think that mixing up the end game could breath some new light into it.
I grew to like Devon more over the last few episodes, but in the end I felt the winner deserved it just for, well, surviving as long as he did. That said, I would have been fine with Chrissy winning it, too.
