Finishing my Look Back

Here is the end of my thoughts on Survivor: Palau. Stay tuned for updates on the newest season: Survivor: Philippians.

Palau Episode 12- We'll Make You Pay

 

    With six members of Koror left alone, there was nowhere to hide in this episode. It was impossible for all of the tribe members to stick together anymore. The game was about to get even more interesting. Of course, you might already know everything that happens already, but it doesn't matter. I'm still blogging about it and it doesn't matter if no one is reading this or not. At the reward challenge, it was a classic trivia with three hits to each member where the surviving member at the end would win the challenge. Well, if you've seen the show, you've seen this type of challenge in the individual phase and know what I'm talking about. The divisions in the tribe became apparent as the challenge progressed and no one knew who was in control. The reward challenge was won by Gregg and chose Jenn and Katie to go with him. They both won a night on a yacht as well as nice meals and showers. It wasn't the biggest reward challenge ever, but it was nice for the contestants. They got reward of a massage and visits from friends from home. I don't know if this is what is considered the loved one challenge of the game, but by now it might be too late for an official one.

 

    It may be unfair that only those three loved one got to visit, but I don't know what the plans for this season were and if a loved one challenge was ever planned. The three tribe members that were left on the beach were talking about splitting the vote and picking purple rocks. (See Survivor: Marquesas controversy on www.wikipedia.org.) But that has yet to happen again on the show. Meanwhile, Gregg was the member who would end up getting voted out. He might have still been in a showmance with Jenn and it is unknown to me, at least, whether their relationship lasted after the game and before her death. The immunity challenge had each member slowly eliminated facing challenges from their past, that most of them had never gotten to play much before. Caryn was first out of the challenge at the first phase of the rope challenge. The sliding puzzle was the second phase where Katie was out. In the eating contestant, Gregg was the one out of the challenge. Little did he know, that would cost him the rest of the game. Jenn was out at the third round where Tom and Ian fought off again. Those two men were the only ones to win any immunity challenges this season.

 

    With Ian the winner of the challenge, the tribe members knew that someone was going home. There was still a three versus three split in the tribe with Ian, Tom, and Caryn on one side and Katie, Jenn, and Gregg on the other side. While Jenn and Gregg would vote for Caryn, everyone else would vote Gregg out of the game. It is hard to tell in the scrambling just who was voting for who before tribal council was to start. Will Gregg ever return to the game? I give it about a 60% chance. Jenn was surprised by the votes and didn't want him gone. But we'll find out more about what happened later in the game. Until then, stay tuned.

 

Palau Episode 13- It Could All Backfire

 

    With the game drawing to a close, the last few days would be the toughest for the five in the game. And for Caryn, it would be her last in the game. Tom and Ian wanted to take a woman with them on the challenge in case either of them won just to make sure that they wouldn't form an alliance against them. The challenge reward was for a car as well as a trip away from the camp. Ian ended up winning the reward challenge and was in a bind. He promised Katie in the past that he would take him on a reward challenge, but in the heat of the moment, he remembered that he promised Tom to take him along if the challenge had a car. While the men were away at the challenge, things did start to unravel back at camp. It was hard to tell who was on what person's side. Nobody knew who to trust or who would be in the final three or four for that matter. While the men tried to fix the relationships, nobody really knew what was happening. At the immunity challenge, the five remaining players had to solve a complicated memory puzzle after doing obstacles. After the hard challenge, Tom was the person who won. Caryn would vote for Ian, but everyone else would vote her out of the game. Would she ever return? I give it about a 30% chance. But she really didn't do much and hasn't really made much of an impact on the game. But she did better than most.

 

Palau Episode 14- The Ultimate Shock

 

At the first immunity challenge, a complicated first part eliminated both the women. At the second part, Tom ended up winning. Ian had thought of betraying him if he hadn't won. But that wouldn't end up happening. With Tom as the winner of the challenge, a vote at tribal couldn't eliminate him as the rest of the tribe would have done to him. Ian wanted the three of them to vote out Tom, but couldn't really recant it when he tried to say it was just "game talk." The vote would become a tie with two for Ian and two for Jenn. Jenn would lose a fire making tie-breaker challenge. They would not draw for rocks. Ian easily won the challenge before Jenn could really do anything. Unfortunately for Jenn, most of her major contributions to the game were never seen on camera. I do not know if more footage of her still exists or not as it is easy to lose footage since it was never used in the game. Jenn is dead now so there is a 0% chance of her returning to the game. She ended up getting cancer which she might have known about by the time this episode aired.

 

Tom and Ian had a falling out when they got back to camp. Ian was upset with everything that was happening. He wanted to blame playing the game on what has happening, but by now it was much more than a game. The final three then went through the memories of the fallen competitors who had played the game and got voted out or quit. The final immunity challenge lasted longer than any other challenge in Survivor history. Katie ended up stepping out of the challenge. Tom and Ian still stayed there and one of the stupidest decisions in Survivor history was made. Ian would give up the million dollars to keep their friendship. There was no tribal council as it happened right where the final challenge took place. The challenge was five minutes short of twelve hours. Tom voted out Ian in a verbal vote. It was much too late for a real tribal council so that is why it took place there. Will Ian ever return to the game? I give it about a 50% chance.

 

With the final two of Tom and Katie, one could wonder who would win the final vote. Nobody really liked Katie in the finals, but Tom didn't really do that well either. They were both grilled by the jury because it seemed like Katie was there by sheer dumb luck and Tom screwed too many people when he won all those challenges. Katie screwed Janu by basically saying that she didn't expect a vote from her.

 

Palau Reunion Show

 

    At the reunion show, Katie would be revealed to have gotten only one vote and she would be the runner up. I give it about a 25% chance that she would return to the game. Tom would win this season of Survivor: Palau. He would also return to Survivor: Heroes Versus Villains, but would be voted out before the merge. Would he play a third time? I give it about a 60% chance. The only other interesting part about the reunion was how Jeff had to tell everyone that he didn't make Janu quit, that she wanted to. I didn't know that there was a controversy there.

 

Stay tuned for the next season of Survivor and look here for blog posts on it. They will come as soon as possible.