Final Five:
Last week, Natalie had managed to get Missy and Baylor to agree to vote out Jon (or Jaclyn if Jon played his idol). This leaves us with a final five of Jaclyn, Missy, Baylor, Natalie, and Keith. Jaclyn wasn't too happy about this. A brief discussion when they returned from tribal council ended up with Jaclyn screaming at Natalie that she doesn't know Jon in real life. This was in the preview last week, but we'll have to see if this carries through the episode or was just an angry outburst.
Reward Challenge With 5 People:
Making their way into the reward challenge, we see that Missy has repurposed one of John Rocker's left-over sneakers into her own sneaker to place on her cast. She had to cut some of it away, but it works for better stability. Unfortunately, the challenge is too difficult for her to manage, so only 4 will compete.
Tied to a rope, you must untangle and unwind yourself in/around/through a wooden structure to release enough rope to complete the rest of the challenge. From there you must build a bridge by placing wooden rungs, ladder-style, up a small incline, then across a long bridge structure, and back down. Once that is done you have to take sandbags and knock over a pyramid of stout can shaped objects. First one to knock down all their cans wins an advantage in the next immunity challenge.
With Missy sitting, only 4 compete for this. The rope portion doesn't go too badly for everyone, but Natalie and Keith are out in the lead with Jaclyn close behind. Keith and Natalie are back and forth for who is in the lead. Both of them, and Jaclyn, are taking some rough falls and banging themselves into wooden beams. Keith manages to finish his bridge first and starts throwing sandbags. Natalie starts next, but Keith is too far ahead. Keith wins reward. It is a note that he is instructed to read alone back at camp. He also gets to send one person to Exile. He chooses Jaclyn. Whether this was strategic is questionable given that Keith decided. But it was a good call. Jaclyn may get another idol clue and if there is another one hidden then they could both be immune tonight.
Reward Is Important:
Keith reads his reward. Go out into the woods and find a challenge practice location. He heads out and finds a single version of a challenge with balls, a wooden table, and a series of metal structures including shallow metal paddles that you must use to transfer a ball from one end of the table to the other. He is allowed to practice with this, but can only use it until he leaves the table - once he leaves, he can't practice anymore. He figures He'll stay until dark. It looks like it is quite difficult. Keith is having trouble with it for quite some time, but is at least making his way through the initial learning curve if nothing else.
Immunity Challenge With 5 People:
This one Missy can compete in since it is mostly stationary. They never show the others hearing what Keith's advantage was, but maybe that just didn't make TV. All 5 of them are making lots of blunders and having the balls fall on back to the table. They need to transfer 3 balls so this may take a while. Finally Keith starts making progress, but Baylor is getting the hang of it too. Will she beat Keith even with his practice? Maybe not. She drops again and Keith starts to pick it up. Keith scores the first ball. I'll skip ahead since nothing much else happens. Keith scores all 3 balls and nobody else even comes close to finishing their first ball. That reward totally broke this game. Giving someone the advantage of only having to transfer 2 balls would have been less lopsided.
Fallout Before Tribal Council #1:
Keith is immune. Jaclyn's clue is the same one Jon had and points to the same place. She doesn't even check. Let's hope, for her sake, that they didn't hide another one there and she's ignoring it. Everyone assumes that Jaclyn will go home since she's the odd person out. Jaclyn's only hope is if Natalie and/or Keith want to work with her.
Tribal Council #1:
Looks like Jaclyn is toast. She votes for Baylor and hopes that something happens. Jeff gets the votes. Natalie is playing her idol - smart. Wait a minute. Natalie asks Jaclyn if she voted for who she was told to vote for. Jaclyn says yes. Natalie says it's fun to play an idol, but even more fun to play it on someone else. Jaclyn is now safe from the vote. Yikes. Bold move. If people had decided to target her without her knowing, she may have just lost the game in a dumb move. Or not. 3 votes for Jaclyn don't count. Natalie and Jaclyn voted for Baylor! The final couple has been broken up in a major blindside. Wow.
Immunity Challenge #2:
No time or need for another reward challenge. On to the final immunity challenge. They have to race down a 4-story structure (fire pole and slide get you down) and retrieve bags of puzzle pieces. When you collect 3 bags, you climb all the stairs to bring your bags to the top. Then race back down to collect the other 2 bags before going back up to solve the puzzle. The solved puzzle will have 3 holes in it. The holes will be 3 different shapes. You then race back down, go to a location with lots of shapes corresponding to different 2-digit numbers. Remember your shapes, convert them to their numbers, remember your numbers, climb back to the top, enter your numbers like a combination lock and see if you did it all correctly.
Again, Missy can't compete, so we have 3 people fighting for a spot in the finals. Natalie and Keith start out tied after 3 bags. Natalie pulls slightly ahead and makes it to the top first. Keith comes up not far behind her. Jaclyn is a little further behind and is having trouble climbing the stairs and untying her bags. The puzzle making begins. Natalie tries to utilize her head-start. Keith isn't making much progress. Jaclyn starts making up ground and manages to finish her puzzle first. The symbols are diamond, star, and one of those map-marker shapes - kind of balloon like. She heads back down, but takes a bad fall going down the fire pole. Jeff goes down some stairs to check on her to see if she's hurt. It looks like she is, but she keeps on going. As she gets to the bottom, Natalie finishes and starts going down. Jaclyn looks at the symbols and starts memorizing numbers. Natalie is untying the flap that covers this chart. Jaclyn starts going back up, but again isn't very fast. Natalie could still catch her, especially if Jaclyn got it wrong. Jaclyn gets to the top first, puts in her numbers, and BINGO. Jaclyn wins immunity.
Realization By The Author:
Keeping Jaclyn to vote out Baylor seemed like a bad move originally. Now it seems wise. If Baylor were still here, she would have voted with Missy to remove Natalie since they can't vote for Jaclyn. Instead, there is no guaranteed voting block of two people, so there will be a choice between Missy, Natalie, and Keith. I have to give Natalie credit for the previous tribal council. In her shoes, I would have played it safer, removed Keith so he couldn't make it to the final tribal council, and hoped I could beat Jaclyn in the last challenge. It appears that my safe-playing would have backfired. Maybe I've learned something for when they finally cast me for a season. It'll surely factor into my decision making if nothing else.
Final Scrambling:
Jaclyn asks if Missy is willing to vote for Natalie. Missy is fine with that plan because Natalie voted out her daughter.
Keith tells Jaclyn that Missy is too much of a threat because she'll get jury votes out of sympathy for her injured leg.
Natalie tells Jaclyn that Keith is the biggest threat since there are so many guys on the jury.
Who does she believe? What does she think for herself? What is the best move? Can she beat any of these people? Time will tell.
Tribal Council #2:
Keith hopes he'll get to stick around. Jaclyn replays talking to everyone. Jeff asks Natalie if she thinks she can win. Natalie says yes, and starts explaining why. What is she doing!? Natalie! Save that for next tribal council. Gosh, did she just accidentally convince the others to vote her out?
Now for the votes: Keith votes for Missy. Missy votes for Keith. Natalie votes for Keith. Jaclyn votes for Keith. There you have it. Your final three are all women in a season that started with 8 women and 10 men. Jaclyn ultimately decided to get rid of Keith for being more of a threat than Natalie.
Final Tribal Council:
No need to discuss anything that happened in between tribals. They went back, basked in the glory of being in the finals, enjoyed some final time there. Maybe there was even food - I can't remember if it was then or earlier when they hit final 5.
Missy addresses the jury. Her strategy is to say she played an honest loyal game. Many, other than Jon, might believe that. Not her best play, in my opinion, but we'll see if it gets her anywhere.
Jaclyn decides to say that this game has been like life for her. She has persevered and made it to the end through all sorts of unlikely scenarios. In life, she has a condition that prevents her from having children. She is glad to be here in the finals and showing to all the other women with this condition that you can still do things in life. Again, not sure that was her best play, but we'll see.
Natalie plays the right cards. She has done better at outplaying, outwitting, and outlasting everyone. She made key moves to better her chances and played hard from day 1 in order to make up for her sister being voted out 1st. Not the best she could have said, but not bad, as long as the jury is one that rewards game-play instead of being bitter.
Now, in no particular order (other than NOT the order they were shown to us on TV) my general impressions of the jury asking their questions.
Keith wanted to know why Natalie had lied to him. Odd question. They were never in an alliance. Natalie correctly told him that it was either him or her so she had to save herself and play him up as the bigger threat. I guess maybe she had told him she was voting for Missy? Who knows. I figure he isn't going to vote for Natalie.
Wes loved playing with his dad. He asks what the best thing about playing with a loved one was for them. They answer and he seems happy with their answers, but I can't tell who he's leaning for. Wildcard.
Jon is voting for Jaclyn, obviously. He gives her a chance to tell the jury something she did in the game that was solely her decision that affected the final 3. She says it was voting out Josh. She figures she would have been the bottom of that alliance.
Alec has no question for Jaclyn. What was Natalie's biggest move. She says it was voting Alec out. He says he knew she would say that. She has played perfectly to his ego, and it was true. He asks Missy what was so motherly about her playing the game. She says she directed who was voted out. He seems likely to be voting for Natalie.
Baylor is obviously voting for Missy. She just gives a speech saying how much she loves her mom. Nothing more.
Josh asks Jaclyn if she's here based on her own merit or by choices made by stronger players. Jaclyn says that she and Jon made all sorts of decisions together. Jon didn't make the choices alone. Josh asks what was just her move and idea. She reiterates that voting him out was her idea.
Jeremy is "a student of this game". He says the best player is going to win. He makes the huge case for Natalie. No questions, just tells everyone they have to vote for Natalie since she played the best.
Reed loves Natalie's game play. He likes Jaclyn too and wishes he could have made some moves with her. Then he gives the drama speech of the season. It's worse than Sue in season 1. He calls Missy the wicked step-mother of the season. It's a long, drawn-out analogy. She abused "the help" - the minority alliances. She didn't invite them to "the ball" - the final tribal council. He loves fairy tales. They always have a happy ending and the wicked step-mother never wins. Baylor cries after that - it hurt her way more than it hurt Missy.
For the vote, we see the following shown to us.
Jon votes for Jaclyn. No surprise.
Jeremy votes for Natalie. No surprise based on his tribal speech.
Reed votes for Jaclyn. That was a toss-up from before.
Baylor votes for Missy. No surprise there.
Live Votes, Live Reunion Show and Discussion:
The votes are read in this order. Jaclyn. Nat. Jacklyn. Missy. Nat. Nat. Nat. She is the winner of Survivor San Juan del Sur. #SOLESURVIVOR No need to read the final vote since it won't make a difference. Natalie wins 5-2-1.
Natalie thinks she won because her mindset changed when her sister was voted out. She knew she had to convince Jaclyn that Keith was the bigger threat. She told Missy to vote Keith and Keith to vote Missy.
Jaclyn says if she knew it would happen that way, she would have kept Keith instead. Jeff does what he always does and asks the would-be jury in that scenario who they would have voted for. It wasn't as definitive as he had thought, but it appears that Keith might have won 4-3-1 if he had been in the finals. So Jaclyn may not have had any good move to make. But who knows what would have happened for sure.
Jeremy discusses the fact that playing with Keith was tougher than playing against strategists. Keith didn't really know the game so he didn't behave predictably. It was difficult for the people playing with strategy. Keith says the guys at the firehouse pick on him for that. He'll say he's going out to mow the yard and they'll yell to him "Stick to the plan!"
John Rocker admits that facing Barry Bonds is easier than playing Survivor because you have a strategy to attempt that you just need to execute.
Josh and Reed are apparently now role models as they are a gay christian couple. They didn't expect this, but they are glad they are a positive influence for people.
Jon and Jaclyn admit their argument on the show was funny to watch and were amazed at the simple thing they were arguing about. They announced that they had become engaged earlier this year.
Missy and Reed haven't spoken since his final tribal speech. It was an awkward moment when Jeff asked if they had made up. A long stare and no words spoken to Reed by Missy. Reed says it wasn't personal, it was just his opinion of her within the confines of the game and he isn't going to apologize for it.
Next Season Reveal:
The preview for next season goes something like this.
White Collar - They make the rules.
Blue Collar - They follow the rules.
No Collar - They break the rules.
We see at least 1 person from each tribe - a man in each case. A guy in a suit, a bald guy with a big beard and a different guy wearing a Boston shirt with a tattoo, and a guy with white feathers in his hair. We also get voice-overs from several different people, more than the few that they showed.
It is called Survivor: Worlds Apart, and it debuts Wednesday February 25th in a 90 minute premier, followed by the spring premier of The Amazing Race. Jeff has gone on record saying he thinks we'll like the 30th season as it's even better than the one we just finished.
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