Todd walks away with the million dollars in a surprising finish.
Survivor: China Blog
13th Elimination: Denise
Please hold your applause until after the blog entry is finished! I don’t want my victory to take away from what the Final Four have accomplished…
Ok, ok, fine, you can applaud!
Five for Fourteen, baby! For those statistician out there, that’s a 35.7% level of accurracy! Pretty impressive, if I don’t say so myself! Don’t worry, there’s still more self-promotion to follow, but for now I’ll get on to the final entry of the Survivor: China blog…
1. A Tough Decision. For the first time in quite a while, a scenario popped up during Survivor where I couldn’t figure out what the right thing to do was. When Amanda won the reward challenge, she was given a pizza, brownies, and some drinks. Jeff Probst told her that she could keep the food and it’s all-important energy to herself or share it with one or two people. Now that’s a dilemma!
Obviously keeping it all to yourself is a stupid decision as the last thing you want to do is send the other three people back to camp to talk about how selfish you are and how you’re the one who doesn’t deserve to go to the final three. But picking one or even two people out of the three remaining is bound to cause some hurt feelings. Part of me was thinking that the best thing to do would be to “eenie meenie minie moe” it, but then you also risk looking like too much of a politician who can’t make a decision. Ultimately, I think Amanda made the right decision. She picked Todd, which allowed her to get in some much-needed strategy time, and it also prevented Courtney and Denise from feeling like they were the only outsider.
Ultimately, like I said in the last post, when you get down to the final four, there’s almost no use in campaigning. People are going to bring along those who they feel they have the best shot of beating. It’s next to impossible to weasel your way in or backstab somebody, and they’re not going to spoil their best shot at a million dollars over a slice of pizza. However, you always have to watch out for the dreaded situation where somebody feels that taking you or somebody else gives them an equal shot at the prize. In that case, you could be eating a million dollar plate of brownies. At any rate, Amanda did a top-rate job of handling the situation, as usual. Besides her temporary brain farts when she was considering voting off Todd, she’s played a near-perfect game.
2. Pants! On! Fire! When Jeff Probst said that the Survivors were about to participate in their final immunity challenge, I was extremely confused. Didn’t the previews say there would be THREE tribal councils? I assumed that this would mean one to knock it down to three, one to knock it down to two, and then the final council. Could there possibly another tribal council with no immunity once things got down to the final three? It would have been an interesting twist, but kind of unfair as two people could easily gang up on the remaining one with no way to protect himself.
I didn’t know what to think. Initially, I doubted what I had seen, but remembered that I had gone back and double-checked that the previews indeed said “3 Tribal Councils” before I wrote my last entry, as it was quite the surprise. Sure enough, my eyes weren’t seeing things as I have verification for you down below. Shameful.
So what happened? My personal theory is that the producers are trying to mess with my blog by showing falsehoods during the previews. They probably enjoy making me to go on long rants about things that aren’t even going to happen. This was the second time in three weeks that we’ve been fed blatant lies during the previews! First it was Amanda’s statement about voting off Todd which didn’t happen until two weeks later, and now this! It’s a conspiracy I tell you!
Of course the more likely explanation is that whoever edited the promo was trying to be cute with their “3 Tribal Councils, 2 Full Hours, 1 Ultimate Survivor” line and decided to stretch the truth to include the fan’s voting for the most popular Survivor (which occurred during the third hour, by the way) as the third tribal council. On a lameness scale of 1 to 10, this was definitely a 113.
3. The Final Immunity Challenge (Warning: Long Rant Ahead). I read an explanation from Jeff Probst that finally helped to shed some light on the reasoning behind the “three person” finals that have now gone down for the past three seasons. Apparently, they wanted to make the final tribal councils more interesting than the frequent 6-1 blowouts that occurred when you’d get a Tom vs. Katie final in Palau or a Sandra vs. Boy Scout Lill final in Pearl Islands. While a final two does often lend itself to those type of scenarios, going to a final three doesn’t necessarily prevent them. Once again, I’ll bring up the only unanimous final vote in Survivor history, which occurred last season when Earl took all nine over Dreamz and Cassandra. Was that outcome any more surprising with three participants?
My problem with a final three is that it makes it so much easier for the best player to win the game. That might not sound like a bad thing, but in reality, it does make things very, very predictable. Besides the 4-3 decision of Yul over Ozzy which nearly gave me a coronary in Cook Islands, the outcome of these past two three-person finals have been fairly easy to guess. You might look back and say that the thrill of that Ozzy/Yul showdown was worth it, but would you have rather watched them face off in a popularity contest like they did or in a head-to-head final immunity challenge for one of the final two spots? I’ll personally always feel a bit robbed that we never got to see how that would’ve played out. (Here’s hoping, Survivor: Micronesia) And let’s not forget that if Yul didn’t happen to be pocketing a hidden immunity idol during the final four, we would’ve been treated to yet another blowout as Ozzy would’ve crushed Sandra and Becky.
I think the need to go back to two was fairly evident with the way things played out last night. When Todd was the first one out of the last challenge, I really wasn’t very worried. Obviously Denise winning may have caused Amanda and Courtney to turn on him, but there was only a one in three chance of that happening. With a two-person final, that last challenge is do or die. Having a final three takes almost all the pressure off it. When it finally got down to Denise and Amanda, Denise tried to swing a deal. Amanda didn’t even think about biting for a second because she didn’t want to face Denise and felt pretty confident that Todd was going home in the event she didn’t win. Remove Todd from the picture and suddenly Amanda is thinking long and hard about that deal. If she loses to Denise, she’s gone. Is it worth it to her to risk a better chance at the million to guarantee herself at least 100K by making it to the final two?
These are the small, intricate beauties that have been stripped from the game by going to a final three. Let’s look at the past three seasons I’ve blogged. If it’s a final three, Terry easily walks away with a million dollars during Exile Island because he wouldn’t have needed to win that last challenge, which he lost. If it’s a final two in Cook Islands, Yul or Ozzy get to earn their million by defeating the best competitor in the last challenge. If it’s a final two in Fiji, you may end up with a completely unpredictable Dreamz vs. Cassandra final vs. the 9-0 massacre Earl gave us. And if you go to a final two in China, Todd, who can’t win a challenge to save his life, is on the jury, and just maybe, Courtney, of all people, wins the game! Do you see why a final three would’ve made Exile Island lame and a final two would’ve potentially made each of the last three seasons shocking? I just don’t get it.
4. Blurred Spot Over Your Lower Backside! On! Fire! Going into the finale, I had the over/under on the number of times Amanda would need to have a body part blurred out at five. Unfortunately, I was so wrapped up in figuring out how they were going to fit in a third tribal council that I completely lost count. I think it’s pretty safe to say the over won, though.
At any rate, how shocked were you when Amanda went all Anthony Smith and pulled out the “I will guarantee you I won’t vote for you tonight” card with Denise? Whoa! Either Amanda is really stupid, or Amanda is really stupid! There’s no other option. By not voting for Denise, Amanda would be pitting herself against the person who would wipe the floor with everyone in the final vote. By guaranteeing Denise that she will not vote for her and then voting for her anyway, Amanda is guaranteeing that she won’t be receiving Denise’s vote for the million dollars. What was the point of saying that?
In my opinion, this is the moment where it all started to unravel for Amanda. She really had played a spectacular game up until this point. She was able to win challenges. She was as strategic. She set Todd up as the fall guy for all the backstabs. It was the best game that anyone in China had played.
As you know, I did an in-depth breakdown of Amanda’s shot to win the game a few weeks back. In the Amanda/Todd/Courtney scenario, I had the votes going down like this:
Amanda gets Erik, Peih-Gee, Jaime, Jean-Robert.
Todd gets James and Denise.
Frosti’s a wild-card.
Result: Amanda definitely wins.
Truth be told, with the way things had panned out over the past two and a half episodes since then, I would’ve thought Amanda was even more of a lock in this situation. Denise had definitely soured on Todd, and Amanda had formed a fairly strong bond with Peih-Gee. She could’ve easily pocketed five or more votes! But then she got soft. She started feeling sorry for Denise and said illogical things that likely ended up costing her that vote. Then when it came time to face the jury, she completely shrunk.
5. The Final Council. Off the top of my head, there’s three scenarios that you almost always see when things get down to the final:
One person has been an all-out superstar and won their way through the game. At that point everyone votes for that person out of respect and there’s very little the other person can do.
One person manages to sneak their way through against the odds when a powerful alliance lets them hang around. Usually this person hasn’t backstabbed everyone and is smelling like a rose while the other person has lied and schemed their way to the end. These usually end up going to the underdog who snuck through. In any case, the other person has serious ammends to make if they hope to swing the vote back to them.
Two or three people manage to take out the other tribe and make it to the final. Invariably they’ve both had to turn on members of their alliance and are nearly equally disliked. In this case, you have to play the “What did you expect me to do, this is Survivor!” card, not start apologizing and acting like you feel bad, because this will come off as extremely disingenuous.
This third scenario is the one that played out in Survivor: China with Todd, Amanda, and Courtney. Todd and Courtney made no apologies for their game plan, while Amanda started looking for forgiveness. As a result, this is how the final votes were cast…
3rd Place: Amanda (1 Vote)
2nd Place: Courtney (2 Votes)
And finally your winner, and sole Survivor – my pick…
TODD!!!!! (4 Votes)
I honestly can’t believe that Todd pulled out the win against Amanda! (And I really can’t believe that Courtney got not one, but TWO votes!) I thought he had schemed himself right out of the running a few weeks ago. Part of the reason that I was so pumped when I thought they were going back to a final two was that it would allow for a potential Todd/Courtney final – a scenerio I believed to be his only shot. Looking at the final six, Erik or Peih-Gee would have had enough votes from their old tribe to pull it off, Denise hadn’t backstabbed anyone and was well-liked, and I figured Amanda would come off as the lesser of two evils. But man, did things change during that final tribal council…
Had Amanda not made that dumb guarantee to Denise and went into the final with the same confidence that Todd displayed, here’s how it might’ve turned out:
Peih-Gee: Amanda – because they became friends at the end
Erik: Amanda – they were friends for a while
Jaime: Amanda – if you have Erik, you probably have Jaime
Jean-Robert: Amanda – he hates Courtney and Amanda’s the lesser of two evils
Denise: Amanda – not slimy and the most honest
James: Todd – they were tight
Frosti: Courtney – he has a thing for skeletons with blonde hair
However, as I’ve beaten to death by now, Amanda threw away Denise’s vote. Then Todd worked over Jean-Robert perfectly. You just know that Jean-Robert was walking around whatever resort they got put up in and driving everyone crazy complaining about how it made no sense for him to get taken out. And he was 100% right! Todd can say what he wants, but James was absolutely the bigger threat at that moment in time. They let him hang around way to long and it was only James’ own stupidity that ultimately did him in, not great strategy by Amanda and Todd. They completely lucked out on that one, cause it was a major mistake getting rid of Jean-Robert instead. However, Todd managed to sell that gaffe as a move that stroked Jean-Robert’s ego, just enough to give him the vote. You could just tell that Jean-Robert was so relieved to finally have an answer that made sense to him, even if it was a half-truth.
Even still, Amanda’s got this game 3-2-2. I really believe that Todd’s blatant honesty about his game play and Amanda’s weak and insincere apologies were what ultimately turned Peih-Gee and Jaime. I personally walked away from that final tribal council feeling like at least Todd and Courtney were able to own up to what they did, while Amanda was trying to shirk the responsibility.
And that was the game!
6. Final Stats
I’ve got nothing more for you in the way of analysis, but seeing as my pick finally did win, I’ve got to post my all-time Survivor stats. Ever since I started doing the blog, I’ve been throwing myself into this show more than ever. Honestly, probably more than I should do. To finally have one of my picks come through on a season I’ve blogged is extremely satisfying. As I’ve mentioned a couple of times before, after Tom pulled out the victory in Palau, I was 4 for 9 in picking the winner after the first episode. Then disaster struck as I went 0 for 4 with two second place finishes. I was beginning to feel like the Yankees without steroids! Thankfully, Todd helped me break out of my funk.
It may seem weird to you that I keep this stats. But I assure you, that’s because it is. I feel Survivor should fill the void that the NHL has left as the 4th major sport. Obviously you can’t follow the same team year after year in Survivor like you do in baseball, basketball, or football. So what I do is to pick a person after the first episode and root for them like they’re my team. What’s nice about it is that you get a fresh start every season and aren’t saddled with bad contracts and a salary cap for years like you do in pro sports. Again, strange? Absolutely. But it’s actually a lot of fun! You should try it for Micronesia. If this trend catches on, we really may start seeing Survivor highlights on ESPN, and my dream – the Survivor pre-game show from 7:30 to 8pm on Thursdays. I’d be the host of that, obviously. But, uh, yeah, it’s not like I sit around and think about these things…
Anyway, here are the stats. You can do me a favor and act like you care for the next 90 seconds. I promise, we’re almost done.
My Picks:
Australia: Elisabeth – Final Four
Africa: Ethan – Winner
Marquesas: Boston Rob – Merge
Thailand: Brian – Winner
Amazon: Dave – Jury
Pearl Islands: Sandra – Winner
All-Stars: Boston Rob – Final Two
Vanuatu: Ami – Jury
Palau: Tom – Winner
Guatemala: Stephenie – Final Two
Exile Island: Sally – Jury
Cook Islands: Ozzy – Second Place in a Final Three
Fiji: Edgardo – Jury
China: Todd – Winner
My picks who have…
Made the Merge: 14/14 – 100%
Made the Jury: 13/14 – 93%
Made the Final Four: 9/14 – 64%
Made the Final Two: 8/14 – 57%
Won the Game: 5/14 – 36%
Pretty good. Pretty, pretty good! You know, I just might be more proud of that 57% of picking the final two than I am the 36% on picking the winner. Over half the time? That’s crazy!
So that wraps up Survivor: China. I hope you enjoyed reading the blog as much as I enjoyed writing it. Before I take my hiatus until Micronesia on February 7th, I’ll leave you and myself with one question to ponder:
If I actually worked up the guts and somehow fixed my impossible schedule to get on Survivor, and then proceeded to make myself my pick, would I have over a one in three chance of walking away with the million dollars? Do you think it works that way? Cause if it does, I’ve got a three minute video to start taping…
