Survivor: Kaoh Rong Finale

Well, here we are at the end of yet another Survivor season. Let’s have a moment of silence. Okay, enough of that. Survivor will be returning for one or two more seasons in the future. If possible, I should get my Survivor friend David Johnson to do a tournament ranking of the thirty-two seasons using a site called http://challonge.com/ which has people creating tournaments to do stuff of their own creation to see who comes out on top. There might be a podcast or just voting in their facebook group, if this happens at all at least. I should find a place to do it at if he won’t. SPOILER. There is talk of an all-star season for season 34. I might mention more of this later in this post, but I will probably mention more of this later. END SPOILER. Let’s look forward to the next seasons in the future. I wonder if the promo will reveal much about it or if it will be vague.

Joe’s evacuation puts him among the potential groups of people who were medically evacuated that I feel should play again. That list is basically all of them who haven’t already played again, including some that might not be considered medically evacuated for some people. This list will change, of course, as things change with returning players, evacuations, and deaths. Joe might work better with a group of older people like Gary and Mike Borassi, but I don’t think that I’ll do that. I still like when contestants were pulled from the game as the best indicator of when they should return in future seasons.

Joe del Campo (from this season) will now be put with Erik (from Caramoan) and Bruce (from Panama). This will now put Neal (from this season) with Joe Dowdle (from Tocantins) and Terry (from Cambodia). Caleb (from this season), is now with Shamar (from Caramoan) and Dana (from Philippines). That leaves the last group as Kourtney (from One World), Gary (from Fiji), and Mike Borassi (from Samoa). Those are my lists regarding medically evacuated players. During my posting during the summer hiatus, I will plan to do a post regarding why that twist should be done again. Maybe it will be. I hope that it is.

There is something that I feel needs to be mentioned before we get to the finale. The promo for the episode revealed that the idol is no longer able to be used. I’m not sure if that’s fair for Tai. I’m also not sure that it would be fair to have the idol for one last round either. Cook Islands proves that having an idol still in play at the final four isn’t a good idea. Of course, that season had a generally poorly designed idol in the first place, so of course it wouldn’t work. In Caramoan, Erik was evacuated at the final five and thus the final four couldn’t use an idol. The main difference between that season and this one is that nobody had an idol to use at that phrase of the game anyways. Is what they are doing now fair?

Apparently there will be some sort of twist going into the final episode this season. I’m not sure what it will be. Is it something that is new? Or is it something as simple as a final two? I find a final two to be a bit overrated. Maybe it’s not. You should read more about that this summer. More on summer plans later. There’s more to speculate about.

Remember how the first promo for the season revealed who six of the players were? I’m not sure if I can remember who all was in the promo. I know that Cydney and Tai were. I don’t think that Michele was. Aubry might have been, but I don’t remember for sure if she was or not. You do have to wonder what these players’ chances are based on that one thing from the previous season. Just the fact that they gave away two of the final four is revealing enough.

Going into the finale of the season, you might be wondering what I think of the remaining players’ chances this season. Aubry seems to be edited to have a lot not going her way. Will that end in this episode? Or is it all a set-up for why she doesn’t win? Tai is considered a flipper in a way. Did he piss off too many people? Did he actually turn on the right people? Can he still win the game now after all of his mistakes? Cydney could be the winner, but it just doesn’t seem like that would happen. She has some good parts to her edit, but not enough to be that clear of a winner choice. Of course, this could just be a misdirect at the audience. Michele seems to have the least wrong with her edit, but she also doesn’t have a whole lot to it. She might work as a winner, although enough people wouldn’t want her to win as they feel that she hasn’t done enough to earn it.

I don’t know what to think about going into the finale. There could be something unusual. They are talking about a twist of some sort. Is it a new one? Or is it just a final two as many people are saying? I guess we’ll find out more about it later. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, we start talking about chickens. Also, since when does Aubry side with Tai instead of Michele siding with Tai? I’m really confused here about what happened and when. It seems like everyone is getting a confessional to start out the episode. We then get to some type of challenge. It’s a type of complicated challenge that we’ve seen before. And it’s another fucking reward finale challenge. At least the reward is only food, it seems. But there is some sort of new twist planned. Aubry struggles at the matching part of the game and loses a good lead. But she’s still able to win the reward. She is able to choose whether or not to bring a person to her reward and she brings Cydney on the reward. Aubry wants Michele out. Can I just say something really quick? Don’t you hate it when they edit someone as a threat to win, they face the jury, and get no votes to win? That seems stupid. I’m not sure if that applies in this case, but I just wanted to say that.

In the second segment of the show, Aubry talks about why she brought Cydney to the reward. It turns out that Tai and Michele are still a thing after all. We then get to an immunity challenge again. Michele wins the challenge.

In the third segment of the show, it appears that people are preparing for the next vote out. But I know good and well that this is far too soon for the game to be almost over. Is everyone going to vote off Aubry? Or is something else going to happen? It turns out that the vote is a tie between Aubry and Cydney. How did that happen?

In the fourth segment of the show, we get to the fire making tie-breaker. Aubry starts off much better than Cydney. But things go badly for a while. Thankfully, she’s able to pull it off after all. Cydney goes to the jury and Jeff talks to her mom.

In the fifth segment of the show, Tai is suspicious of whether or not the game is actually over. It turns out that there is more game to be played. The official final three learn of a new twist: there will be one less member of the jury to whoever wins the challenge. They will get to vote off a probably very pissed member of the jury. I’m not sure I like this twist. That poor jury member. As much as I would have hated a challenge where the loser goes to the jury, it seems more fair an idea for a new twist. Michele wins the all important reward.

In the sixth segment of the show, Tai tries to convince Michele who to vote off of the jury. It seems like two of the choices are the two jurors who were medically evacuated. There are many different names being brought up by the players. We then get to the most unusual tribal council since the Outcasts. What will the way they are voted out are is anyways? (What?) I mean, they can’t snuff a torch again. She votes out poor Neal in the first time that he gets a vote against himself. He didn’t even decide who gets to be the winner nor did he even get to be voted out. He spent such a long time on the jury and now doesn’t even get to pick a winner. I might have to update my worst twists list.

In the seventh segment of the show, we get to the people back at camp. They talk about various things going into the final tribal council. The contestants get to see themselves in a mirror. They also get food before the final night.

Total confessional count: Michele- 44, Cydney- 29, Tai- 44, Aubry- 53. New confessionals this episode: Aubry- 11, Michele- 9, Cydney- 3, Tai- 3. Special confessional: Neal- 1.

Aubry has the most confessionals in this episode and total. Cydney has the least total. She and Tai tie for least confessionals in this episode. I guess that I’m not as hopeful for Tai’s chances as I used to be. This is unusually high based on my counting.

In the eighth segment of the show, we get to the jury questions and statements. Nick tells the three what they need in order to potentially win. Debbie grills Tai for his game and does the same for Aubry as well. Julia doesn’t think that Michele has done much in the game except vote herself out. She then talks to Tai about how he kind of fizzled out near the end of the game. Joe talks to Tai about what he has done over Aubry. He asks the same thing of Aubry. He decides to ignore Michele. Jason tells us that his vote if off for grabs and he has questions for both Michele and Tai. Cydney is up next. It’s hard to make sense of that. Scot tells off both Aubry and Tai telling Michele that she is his favorite now. Jeff decides to give the final three last words to the jury members. Things sure are emotional and crazy. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a final tribal council this crazy before. I think that Borneo might finally be beat for having the best final tribal council ever.

In the ninth segment of the show, we get to the votes. Aubry and Michele get votes, but it appears that Tai doesn’t get any. Tai lets go of Mark the chicken. What will happen to him? Will the previous season’s cast eat him and we’ll have no idea? I wonder if we’ll get an update at the reunion show or not. It appears that Michele has won the game. And I’m glad. I don’t hate her the way some people do. I actually predicted this in a past blog post. And Kodi Ross sure knows a lot about Survivor. He figured that Michele would win and he was right.

In the tenth segment of the show, we get to Michele’s winner montage. She talks about what she has done to win. There is a segment on Aubry as well. Tai then gets the next segment. And this is all just the first part of the reunion show too. I miss there being more to the reunion show. They seem to care less and less about it each season. Sia makes a surprise and unexpected appearance at the reunion show. She supports animals and wants to donate to Tai and his causes. Jeff doesn’t seem to know what to expect from it. This is the weirdest reunion show ever.

Drew Carrey talks about the upcoming Price is Right Survivor special. I might do a blog post on that. But I won’t do it next week. Since I will probably have to record it on VHS (since I watch both Reign and Gotham) and it will take a long time for me to get caught up on it. I’m still on tapes from February. With any luck, you’ll see the post sometime during the summer hiatus, if I do it at all. I hate missing shows. I’m missing Nashville and Modern Family tonight and had to record SVU for later.

In the eleventh segment of the show, we get an update on the medically evacuated players. Caleb is the first with the updates. Apparently his family knew about what happened. And we don’t actually get updates, for the moment at least, from Neal and Joe. At least talk to Neal! He didn’t get the jury vote that he was supposed to.

In the twelfth segment of the show, we learn about the move regarding the super idol. Jason talks about why he didn’t keep the idol when Scot was voted out. They then talk to Debbie some. She thinks that she is eccentric and not odd. Hold on a moment while I look up synonyms to eccentric on my computer. The very first synonym is odd. We then hear from both Joe and Julia, the oldest and youngest of the seasons. There is talk about Mark the chicken. But they don’t mention what happened to him. He’s probably dead, isn’t he? A preview of the next season is, next.

In the thirteenth segment of the show, we finally get to the twist for the next season. The millennials face against generation x. Whatever happened to generation y? And what actually is a millennial? I hear about it, but I’m not entirely sure what it is. Am I one? I can drink, but I can’t run for Congress. And are they never ever going to start with all new players, only two tribes, and no major starting twists? The last time that freaking happened was Samoa. I’m not sure that they’ll ever do it again and they could really use one of those seasons again. My mom finds it interesting that the baby boomers weren’t a generation choice. “I guess they are too old,” she said.

In the fourteenth segment of the show, we get to only one last random bit of things before closing out the show for the night. We’ll be back sometime next season with whatever the name of the season is. I missed it if there was one.

Points at reunion show: Darnell- 0, Jennifer- 0, Liz- 0, Caleb- 1, Alecia- 0, Anna- 0, Peter- 0, Neal- 0, Nick- 0, Debbie- 1, Scot- 0, Julia- 1, Jason- 1, Joe- 1, Cydney- 0, Tai- 2, Aubry- 1, Michele- 1.

Like I hope I said before, they seem to care less and less about the reunion show. Like Worlds Apart, they made some time to talk to more of the controversial players of the season. Unlike Worlds Apart, the reunion show, while bad, wasn’t nearly as bad as that season’s monstrosity was. They need to get back to a full hour for the reunion show or add even more time. There shouldn’t be just forty-five minutes. I’m glad that they went out of their way to talk to some people who haven’t had the chance to talk before. But they could have done more with it than they did. I do have to wonder about Debbie’s jobs though. How can she have so many jobs?

Well, it’s time that I get to the annual awards for my blog. Let’s get to the three dumbest moves of the season. What all qualifies as dumb moves this season? Here are the candidates: Jennifer digging her grave at tribal council, men’s paranoia creating a woman’s alliance, Tai’s various insecurities, Scot and Jason’s various bad moves, Julia playing both sides, and the twist regarding voting out a jury member. I give the bronze to the voting out a jury member twist. Whoever it was getting voted out would be an unfair situation and it’s appalling that production would allow that. The silver would have to go to Julia playing both sides of the game. The gold would be given to both Jason and Scot for their bad game play. I’m not putting Tai with them just because I fell his dumb moves were separate enough.

Now we get to the breakout character of the season, which is a new player that I feel left their mark on the game of Survivor. I’m not going to bother with the potential candidates of the season. I’ll just say that I feel that Debbie was the breakout character of the season.

Now what was the most memorable moment of the season? There’s a lot of stuff that could work. Is it voting out a jury member? I may not like it, but it sure is memorable. The challenge where three people went down was very memorable, although I’d rather not pick something like that. While Tai turning on his old alliance was memorable, it was also too quick of a moment to stand out a lot. So I’ll have to go with the whole entire final tribal council of the season as the most memorable moment of the season. That sure was crazy, wasn’t it?

Of course, there’s the moment you probably most want to know about: the ranking of this season against the other thirty-two. But first, I’m going to rank the tribe swap of this season versus the other twenty-one. I decided that the tribe swap is 9^th out of all of them. It was pretty interesting, but not as good as it could have been. As for the ranking of the season against the others, I’ll put this as 11^th out of the 32 seasons. I like it pretty good as a season, although not as much as ten other seasons.

You know that I will be posting updates on this blog through various Wednesdays from now until the next season starts throughout the summer. This will probably start at the next Wednesday. There may be various Wednesdays that I miss during the summer. That basically all depends on what I roll. If I roll a Survivor episode on DVD to watch on any Wednesday, then I won’t actually be updating that blog on that day. But I will update it every Wednesday that doesn’t happen. I will not make up for any missed posts by doubling posting on Sundays. But I might move the posts to Sundays entirely if I ever get Blood versus Water to watch again.

What kind of posts can you expect during the summer? Well, if I can ever finish watching Survivor: Palau again, I will do a recap of Stephenie LaGrossa’s time on that season. And I will record the Price is Right Survivor special and do a post about it sometime, hopefully this summer. Either of those that I’m not able to post will be posted during the winter instead. I doubt I can be THAT far behind. But maybe I can. I will tell you more about my procrastination ways later. Meanwhile, I have to write enough posts for the hiatus. You’ll find out what they are as I post them. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.