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I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that on tonight’s finale of Survivor, the game had to take one last big turn. Everyone this season seems to have gotten ahead of themselves. Kenny admitted at the reunion this was the error in his game, and he is in fact right, but it really seems to have affected everyone. That’s why all the blindsides were so fun.

To Sugar, Bob, and Matty, the only question was in what order to vote out Kenny and Susie. For Sugar, it cost her some votes, or at least two in particular, so let’s put aside the order for now and concentrate on keeping “the good people.” Sugar wanted to talk about taking the good people, yet stabbed people in the back just as she was accusing Kenny and Crystal of. Had she made decisions based on who she could beat in a finale three, or kept her original alliance, she would have been viewed by the jury much differently. They’d see her playing the game instead of being fake. Had she kept her alliance of Matty and Kenny and went to final three with them, she’d probably still lose to Matty, but she wouldn’t have an embarrassing 0 votes. Had she kept Crystal on Thursday and taken out Susie, it would have changed the game for her as well.

Yet, Sugar fell the same way as Kenny, getting ahead of herself and thinking it was up to her how all the chips would fall. She decided to take out Kenny, deciding it should only be the good people left in the game, when here she was lying to Kenny to get him out, so voting him out for doing something that she was doing to get him out. She wanted to get the gamer out now instead of the following elimination, and left who she thought was weaker, Susie, in the game. It backfired on Sugar in a big way as the weaker player went on to win that final immunity challenge, forcing Sugar to have to take out one of her “chosen ones.”

Had Matty known that Sugar was going to go against her word to never write his name down, I’m guessing he wouldn’t have followed her into voting out Crystal. I’m assuming he didn’t have a problem writing Kenny’s name down, as Kenny had written his name down two tribal councils before. I would have loved for Jeff Probst to ask Matty which felt worse, Kenny writing his name down instead of Corinne’s, finding out from Crystal that he was a target of theirs, or Sugar taking him out at final four. I knew he’d be upset with Sugar, but I thought he’d still vote for her. I was shocked when he wrote down Susie. Apparently he didn’t feel this move of Sugar’s to leave it up to fate and a fire challenge was as magnanimous as she did.

Moving into the final jury questions, I felt the same as Sugar, that she’d pick up a few votes, but Bob would probably win. I figured Susie would get nothing, as she was basically a floater and road “coat tails” to get to where she was. I forgot that Sugar never won a thing, but Susie won two challenges. Susie may have been annoying, but Susie didn’t stab any friends in the back. Susie turned her back on her old tribe, but this was after they’d nearly gotten rid of her. It’s true that Sugar played a great social game, but the problem is, she only kept them around as long as she needed them. Sure, she cried when she got rid of them, but she befriended Ace, then didn’t take much prodding from Kenny to get rid of him. She then befriended Cheryl and Kenny, and got rid of them, once she had a solid replacement in Bob to go along with Matty, then got rid of Matty. Getting rid of friends tends to hurt your social game just a little bit.

I believe that Sugar did hurt Kenny. If you look at all the blindsides he had a part in, they’re all guys. He never blindsided a female player. He had a chance to do that to Sugar early on and get rid of the immunity idol, but declined. He was a strong player and knew she had the idol but never asked her for it, urging her to keep it for herself. She may have cried to Matty about Kenny lying to her to get Ace out, but his moves always kept her safe, both her and her idol. Even though Corrine was the last remaining part of the the alliance that Kenny systemically abolished, he declined to write down her name, wanting to write down Bob or Matty, then eventually wrote down Matty. He wrote Matty down again when everyone else was taking out Crystal.

Kenny eventually wrote down Susie’s name knowing the vote would be too tight, and being assured by Sugar that that was how everyone was voting. He made it up to Susie at the end of the game, giving her his vote. He saw at this point that Sugar had played him, befriending him only as long as she needed him around, yet making it seem to everyone else that she was just following him as he called the shots. Bob had control of the game at the beginning of the night, but for some reason gave it up and let Sugar call the shots. It could have ended up badly for him, as he had one foot out the door.

All in all, this became the best Survivor season ever, as well as the best finale ever. I think Mark Burnett should chalk it up to the expert casting. Instead of worrying about having pretty faces on, there was a larger concentration on people that wanted to be there. Look at all the times Gillian and Randy had tried out. I think they finally decided to let these people play. Either that, or they were the two that just missed out of getting cast as Fans the season before. I hope it means we’ll have more of the same in Brazil, because it’s not the pretty face and swimsuits that makes this show so entertaining, but all that strategy. Every season opens up new possibilities to future survivors, and the immunity idol wranglings and blindsides ought to change the game significantly next time.

Photos Courtesy of cbs.com

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