Survivor: Brawn vs. Brains vs. Beauty

Excellent season, one of the best in recent memory. Probably a top 5 season overall. You could tell Probst legitimately thinks it's one of the best ever.

 

I had forgotten last night was the finale. I had heard it was the 21st, but I was so used to the Sunday finales that I was surprised when I saw it on last night.

I haven't watched all of it. I skipped around. I don't usually care for the reunion shows.

This is the most excited Probst has been about a season since the one that Boston Rob won, but that might have been more because the ratings that season were through the roof, after a few quiet seasons.

Ratings are no longer an issue. It's consistently in the top 10 and it's hard to imagine the show going away anytime soon and I am very happy about that.

 

Good season, not a great season.

Terrible decision by Woo, but I'm not surprised. He just wasn't a very good player, so the bad decision was par for him.

I thought Taj was a good player. Spencer was a good player although he was an annoying spaz.

Tony seemed liked mostly an idiot most of the time. I think his best move was getting LJ out without the alliance blowing up. Had he let LJ stick around, he might have been trouble.

 

Thirty-nine days in those conditions would cause a lot of people to be a spaz. Tony didn't sleep much and I'll be surprised that he doesn't have long term health issues based on what he described Wednesday night.

 

Dalton Ross in his excellent Entertainment Weekly round up mentioned that Woo lost the million dollars by winning the final challenge.

Had Kass won, she would have brought Woo to the final and he would have been voted the winner.

Survivor has caught its second wind and run out a bunch of entertaining seasons in a row.

http://tvrecaps.ew.com/recap/survivor-cagayan-season-finale-recap/

 

I don't discount the physical and mental stress of the game. It's easy for me as a fan to assess from the comfort of my living room.

I am pretty laid back, but if I was playing the game I might turn into a spaz or play impulsively like Tony did.
I don't know.

I would really like to be a contestant.

 

My son auditioned but didn't make it past the first round. One of those deals where they show up in your hometown.

 

I thought it was a fantastic season. The tribal councils were bananas, there some really surprising knockouts and lots of strategy to discuss/dissect.

I also thought Tasha was a very good player. Sadly, I think we may see Kass again before we see Tasha, even though I thought Tasha was a far superior player.

If I may spend more time bashing Kass, she is so impressed with herself, she failed to see how many of her big moves were actually terrible decisions and that she's just not a nice a person. I practically snorted out loud when she said Tony was stupid for voting out Trish because "no one on the jury likes her." She really had a warped view of how the jury was going to react to her.

That's a good point. As Ross notes, a Kass vs. Woo final would have been excruciating because neither deserved to be there. However, I wouldn't have minded seeing Kass take a verbal beating from the jury and the look on her face when she didn't win would have been priceless. It's too bad they couldn't have done a final three, because then we would have gotten to see Spencer or Tony win, and still see Kass get her comeuppance.

 

Richard Hatch showed that during the first season. During the final challenge, he threw it because he knew if he betrayed Rudy, he would lose his jury vote, but he knew that if Kelly beat him (a safe bet given the age difference) that she would vote Rudy off and give him a better chance to win in jury, and he won by one vote.

I've never liked the Final 3. I don't think there's ever been one where all three get a similar number of votes. I'd be surprised if there's ever been one where the third-place finisher even got two jury votes.

 

Woo was 100 percent correct ... about being the dumbest survivor in history. Screw integrity and honor and his martial arts scrap. $1million can change your life forever as well as his parent's lives. Moe. Ron.

 

I think Kass would have taken Tony to the end, because she thought everybody hated him. She was sometimes very good at manipulation, probably from her work as a lawyer, but she wasn't great socially. She said as much at least once. I also think she might have beaten Woo, again because of her work experience arguing her case in front of people.

 

The guy who handed the immunity idol to someone seconds before being voted off might beg to differ.