Survivor Gabon: The Final Tribal Council

The Episode

Survivor: Gabon wrapped up with a final five finale that gave us some twists, turns, and the most satisfactory winner in recent memory.

As usual, the two hours flew by, containing two immunity challenges, two tribal councils, and a final jury lambasting that speaks more to the bitterness of the jury than anything else.

We started off in the aftermath of Crystal's ouster, during which Ken was understandably nervous. One of my favorite moments of the episode came right off the bat, when Ken asked Bob whether he would give him the idol after the next challenge. "Win your own idol," said Bob shortly, and that pretty much shut Ken up. A less genuine and more polished contestant would have pretended to go through a lot of agonizing over keeping their word before ultimately finding some reason to hang onto the idol (or foolishly give it away). Bob essentially nipped that whole potential drama right in the bud with those four little words.

Sugar made what may have been a brilliant strategic move (or a lucky hit, depending on how you viewed her this season) by recognizing that the best way to keep things going her way was to convince Ken that he was still in the fold. She told him that they were set to vote Susie off, and that was all the comfort Ken needed to believe in. Had she not made that explicit commitment, Ken would have spent the next three days working every angle he could to shake things up. As it was, he was very passive for his short remaining tenure in the game, which benefited the four remaining players.

Ken vowed that he would prevent Bob from getting the immunity idol, which is pretty big talk when you're facing down a challenge superstar like Bob. The challenge people, who have really outdone themselves all season long, came up with another interesting one. Contestants had to navigate a balance beam maze-- if they fell off, they had to return to the beginning and start over. Then they had another, more traditional, maze that was populated by a bunch of huts. Three of the huts had puzzle pieces in them, and the survivors had to retrieve their color-coded puzzle pieces from each of the three huts. Then, they had to assemble their puzzle, which was a 3 dimensional reproduction of a hut.

It occurred to me that one possible strategy for Ken would have been to block the exit of the balance beam maze. He would have thereby forfeited his chance to win, but he could have kept Bob stuck behind him, killing Bob's chance to win. As it was, Bob did indeed win the challenge, his fifth in a row.

Ken thought this meant Susie was next to go, but instead, Ken was unanimously voted out. Before he left, he attempted to take Bob to task for not giving him immunity at the last tribal council, and Bob successfully defended himself by busting Ken for wanting to use the agreement to blindside Bob, which effectively shut Ken up, again, some more.

The final four went through the traditional "honoring of the fallen comrades" segment, in which they say nice things about the people who have been voted off. They were gracious, except for when Sugar gave Randy's torch a raspberry.

The final immunity challenge was much different from the traditional test of will. They've been moving more towards tests of concentration rather than endurance, and I guess this rounds out that trend. The idea was that you had to build a tower out of some book-sized tiles, ala a house of cards. The first person to get their tower to reach a height of 10 feet without toppling over won. However, if no one got to ten feet within 30 minutes, the person with the tallest tower at the 30 minute mark would be the winner.

I really like the idea of this challenge, but I hate the 30 minute time limit. It was clear that attaining the 10 foot height was really difficult, but someone would have gotten there eventually. By capping it at 30 minutes, the element of luck is increased, because the person with the tallest tower might have it fall down at the 25 minute mark, thereby eliminating that person from the challenge. I don't want to take anything away from Susie, the challenge winner, though, as her 8+ foot tower was probably the tallest we saw. She also made a correct judgment to stop building near the end of the challenge, correctly assessing that she couldn't be caught by her competitors.

This was a pretty shocking win, especially considering that the challenge seemed tailor-made to Bob's strengths.

Susie's win bummed out the other three contestants, because they were going to vote her out. It especially bummed out Bob, because it seemed like there was immediate consensus that he was going to be the next one voted out.

Rather than try to work an angle, Bob essentially went belly-up, accepting that he would be the next person to go home. Whether this was a shrewd judge of Sugar's character or an immutable facet of Bob's nature, I'll leave to you to decide. But at some point, Sugar's sympathies were aroused, possibly because she was seeing Bob as a father figure in the wake of her own father's recent death. Rather than choose between Matty and Bob, she told Bob that she might be willing to force a tie vote, leaving it to fate to decide.

Bob expressed his gratitude, seemed not to want to pressure her, and went off into the woods, supposedly to be alone. But once on his own, he was smart enough to practice starting a fire in case there was a tie vote and a fire-building challenge.

At tribal council, Sugar cried for about the 10th time on camera (that they've aired), and professed to have a really hard time choosing between her faux brother and her faux father. Needless to say, her faux brother looked pissed off when he realized that she had voted against him.

It looked like Bob was going to win the fire-building challenge in a walk, but a strong gust of wind provided some suspense when it snuffed out Bob's flame (no word on whether the Survivor production crew was just off screen with a big fan to keep it interesting). Despite this setback, he got his flame going again, and ousted Matty in fourth place.

The three finalists went before a very bitter jury. I don't think Bob answered the questions put to him very well, but at least he wasn't giving jury members the finger. The questions were, as usual either "My question is YOU SUCK!" or "My question is APOLOGIZE TO ME!"

Bob admitted to riding coattails the entire game, and Susie wanted everyone to vote for her because she tried so hard. Sugar, realizing that the tide was going to go against her early, decided to retain a shred of dignity by refusing to suck up to the jury members when they demanded it.

Marcus attempted to class it up by asking the finalists to give to charity, but Corinne more than balanced things out by accusing Sugar of crying crocodile tears over the death of her father.

Charlie unsuccessfully tried to out Bob as being gay, but that seemed to be all in good fun.

The votes were cast, and then we fast forward to the live reunion show, which kicked off with the reading of the votes. Amazingly, Susie got 3 of the 7 votes, and Sugar received none. It wasn't a surprise that Bob won, but it was a surprise that he didn't win by a larger margin.

During the reunion show, Bob seemed much too nervous and shy to talk, although he did reveal how he got the raw materials for his fake idols. Corinne wanted to be remembered as being a complete bitch, but only if we recognize that it's good to be a bitch, because kindness is a fault. Randy seemed to be playing up being curmudgeonly as some kind of a shtick, although he is apparently so friendless that he gave his free tickets to six random fans. Marcus validated Sugar's grief, but also agreed that she was very hard to live with in Gabon in a way that didn't necessarily come across on camera. There was a funny montage demonstrating how hapless Crystal was in the challenges, but no mention at all of the man-crush that Charlie had on Marcus.

Jeff also awarded a $100,000 "people's choice" prize to Bob for being the most popular survivor of the season, after faking Sugar out into believing she had won. That was just mean, Probst.

But I think we can all agree that it was nice to see Bob win. He may not be the most deserving Survivor contestant to win the game, but he is probably the most deserving human being to ever take home the prize. Good job, Bob!

Now who won the pool?


The Pool

Here's where we were going into the finale. As you can see, it's about as tight as humanly possible:

1st: Matt 511
2nd: Mike 508
3rd: Paul 505
4th: Mom 485
5th: Carl 484
6th: Jen 477
7th: Kim 473
8th: Dawn 437


Who made the right moves at the end of the season to improve in the pool? Let's see...

8th Place: Dawn
QUITTER (The Osten Taylor Award)

Final episode scoring: -82
Final Score: 355
Last Season Pool Finish: 2nd
Dawn entered the finale at a significant deficit compared to the rest of us. We were all grouped within just a few points of each other, but she was a full thirty points off of seventh place. So, we can consider it a small victory that she pulled her way up into a tie for last. You might suck, Dawn, but at least someone else sucks equally bad .

7th Place: Jen
FIRST OUT (The Chicken Morris Award)

Final episode scoring: -122
Final Score: 355
Last Season Pool Finish: na
Jen had a rough time in her Survivor Pool debut, spending most of the time in the bottom half of the pool. A rough finale, in which she dropped a hefty 122 points, drove her down into a tie for last. Better luck next season, Jen!

6th Place: Mike
EARLY OUSTER (The Ashley Massaro Award)

Final episode scoring: -152
Final Score: 356
Last Season Pool Finish: na
Mike played a strong game right up until the penultimate episode, when he finished in second place. But the finale was a complete disaster for him, costing him a pool-record 152 points. This was enough to drive him into the dirt, and he ends his debut Survivor game in an easy-to-improve 6th place.

5th Place: Carl
PRE-MERGE BOOT (The Ibrehem Rahman Award)

Final episode scoring: -116
Final Score: 368
Last Season Pool Finish: Fourth
Carl seemed poised to finish well above his poor showing from last season, but his final finale picks all caught air. Without any bonus points to buoy him, he was unable to capitalize, and wound up in a not-very-good fifth place.

4th Place: Paul
ALMOST MERGED (The Bobby Jon Drinkard Award)

Final episode scoring: -126
Final Score: 379
Last Season Pool Finish: 5th (which was last)
With a 126 point drop, Paul had the second-worst finale of anyone, but luckily for him, it only cost him a single drop in the rankings. After a last place finish last season, at least he can say he improved this time around.

3rd Place: Kim
JURY MEMBER (The Rob Cesternino Award)

Final episode scoring: -56
Final Score: 417
Last Season Pool Finish: First
Kim had a pretty great finale, which allowed her to at least be competitive with the top scorers in the pool. She wasn't able to repeat her win from last season, but she did manage to save herself the embarrassment that a seventh place finish would have garnered (which is where she stood before the finale began).

2nd Place: Matt
SURVIVOR FINALIST (The Colby Donaldson Award)

Final episode scoring: -56
Final Score: 418
Last Season Pool Finish: Third
I improved my standing over last season by climbing into second place, but a poor set of picks in the finale rendered me unable to take top honors. With my wife winning the first season, and my mother winning the second, I figure it's only a matter of time before I get the ultimate survivor pool title.

1st Place: Mom
SOLE SURVIVOR (The Richard Hatch Award)

Final episode scoring: -31
Final Score: 454
Last Season Pool Finish: na
The Summary: Mom posted a come-from-behind victory, vaulting into first place from fourth. She broke out almost entirely because of her finale predictions, picking up 75 big points after predicting the final finish of Matty, Susie, and Bob. Combine her win with the wins of Dawn and Carl in the other two pools, and it's been an all-upstate NY romp over the rest of us. East coast has certainly been representin', as the kids say. Congratulations, Mom, and I hope you enjoy the title of Sole Survivor!