Keys to Survivor Worlds Apart Finale

From Final 5 to Final 3 - Here's How It Happened:
Below is my quick recap of the major points in the Survivor Finale.  It's safe to say that pretty much everything I would have predicted would happen did NOT.  I guess that's part of why I enjoy watching so much.  When you think you know everything, the castaways keep surprising you.

Reward Challenge:
Loved ones are present.  Winner gets their loved one for a day and an advantage at the immunity challenge.  Untie knots to release bags of tiles.  Untie the bags of tiles and slide them across a table through a goal (sort of like air hockey).  Once all the tiles are through, take them to the final table by balancing them in groups of your choosing and crossing a few see-saws.  Once they are all there, match up symbols printed on the back of the tiles in pairs.  3 tiles don't have a match.  Flip those over and use them as the 3 numbers for a combination lock (could be in any order).  Will starts this challenge strong, but ends up falling behind as usual.  In the end it was a race between Sierra and Mike.  Both are trying combinations.  On the 3rd number combo, Mike wins.  Everyone who loves cheering for the underdog rejoices since Mike is now the huge underdog with everyone wanting to vote him out.

Reward:
Mike's mom gets to join them at camp for a day and night.  Everyone seems to like her.  She and Mike go off to talk alone.  They find out later that the advantage is that they will go to the immunity challenge early and practice.  The challenge is to navigate a maze blindfolded to find medallions in each corner (West, South, East, North).  Once you have them all, you can find the immunity necklace in another part of the maze.  Mike gets to try it out, still blindfolded, but with the guidance of his mom who can see it all.  They get to do this for 30 minutes, and they make some progress, but it isn't as easy as they were hoping - they don't complete it even with mom's help.  They worry this won't have helped.

Immunity Challenge #1:
See the previous section for a description of the challenge.  Will Mike's practice help him out?  He finds a medallion first, but others are finding one soon after.  When he finds the 2nd one, Rodney was nearby and on Rodney's way back, he tells everyone else how to get to that one.  Mike is being ganged up on - and for good reason.  He slowly pulls into a lead and is looking for the necklace while the others are still collecting their medallions.  Moments later, Mike wins immunity.

Tribal #1:
Mike has to try playing both sides.  Rodney and Will seem to be a team.  Carolyn and Sierra seem to be a team.  Mike tries convincing the girls that the guys are going to vote one of them out.  Rondey swears on his dead sister that he'll vote with Mike to get Sierra out.  Let's see how things went down.  Sierra is voted out 4-1 and becomes the 7th member of the jury.

Immunity Challenge #2:
This is a big one.  Untie 20 knots, race up about 4 flights of stairs, grab a key, go down a water slide, work through a multi-level obstacle course, use the key to unlock a back of puzzle pieces.  Repeat the stages of climbing, key, slide, unlock, for 2 more keys.  Once you have all the puzzle pieces, untie the bags and start constructing a vertical lighthouse puzzle where each piece is a cylinder with a pattern of pegs and hols in each side.  Mike and Carolyn are first up the tower.  Rodney is last, but makes up some time climbing the stairs.  Eventually Carolyn and Will slow down the most and it turns into a race between Mike and Rodney.  Rodney has trouble untying his bags of puzzle pieces, then has trouble making any sense of the puzzle.  Meanwhile Carolyn has made it to the puzzle stage and is trying to solve it faster than Mike.  Sadly for her alliance, she is unsuccessful.  Mike wins immunity again.  Again, fans of the underdog rejoice.

Tribal #2:
Leading up to this tribal council, Rodney and Will want to vote out Carolyn.  Carolyn wants to vote out Rodney.  Mike only has to decide if he wants to remove Carolyn or force a tie vote.  He claims he wants the tie because all of the Blue Collars turned their back on him.  He tells Carolyn this plan and advises her to go into the woods to practice making fire.  She does this, for 2 hours, but can't get one started.  Welcome to tribal council.  Mike follows through.  Rodney isn't happy.  We go to the fire making challenge.  Remember Cook Islands where Becky & Sundra had to make fire to be in the final 3 with Yul & Ozzy?  This was kinda like that.  We get some elapsed time a few times.  15 minutes.  30 minutes.  Each of them breaks their flint at least once and is given a replacement.  Finally about 55 minutes in, Carolyn gets a small flame.  Moments later Rodney does too.  Now it's a race to see who can burn through their string.  Rodney uses all of his coconut husk and tries tossing sticks in with no plan.  Carolyn immediately builds a pyramid structure to help the flames catch on and climb higher.  Carolyn's strategy works out - she wins and is going into the finals.

Final Tribal Council:
We don't see the finalists give opening statements.  Not sure if it happened and that part was cut for time, or if they're doing it differently now.  Not too many bitter jury members this year.  Most of them seem to be counting Will out, except Rodney.  Shirin is glad that Mike came to her rescue a few weeks ago, but still needs him to fight for the win.  Jenn tells everyone to not be stupid and just vote for the person who obviously deserves it the most - Mike in her opinion.  Dan is still mad at Mike for what he did at the auction.  Ultimately Mike apologizes, and Dan sees it as sincere.  We're left with just enough doubt about who will get the most votes.  We are shown a single vote for each of the finalists (Rodney for Will, Jenn for Mike, and Sierra for Carolyn), then we skip ahead to the live reunion portion of the show to read the votes.

Here's the order they were read:  Mike. Will. Carolyn. Mike. Mike. Mike.  No need to read any more.  Your winner of Survivor Worlds Apart is Mike (6-1-1).

Best Moves:
1)  Mike wins all 3 challenges this episode.  He needed each of these wins more than anyone else did, and that motivation worked for him.

2)  Carolyn practices making fire.  Sure she was told to do it, but she actually did go practice and that may have been the difference.

3)  The jury members give a good performance and let themselves be open to a change of heart based on how things go down at the final tribal council.

Worst Moves:
1)  Sierra is targeted first, instead of Rodney or Will.  She may have been a bigger threat to win immunity, but Rodney and Will sure seemed to be a voting block.  Plus, she was probably the best bet to beat Mike in the next immunity challenge.

2)  Sierra makes the case that she should be kept because she is a good competitor.  Always should ask yourself if everyone else really thinks that the best should be at the end, or if they'll go for the more obvious choice of someone who can be easily beaten.  Her argument only works if she specifically points out that she is their hope to beat Mike at immunity.

3)  Mike forces a tie to potentially bring Carolyn to the finals instead of Rodney.  This was dumb.  It worked out in the end, but you just brought a better competitor and gave her a chance to shine in the fire making challenge.

4)  Speaking of making fire.  Carolyn and Rodney both stink for apparently having never worked at making fire.  You'd think being out there for 39 days would be enough time to learn.  Heck, I haven't ever been called back about my auditions, but I have flint and I've learned how to make a fire - in less than 55 minutes at that.

5)  Carolyn makes for yet another poor performance in the final tribal council.  We have these more than I would like.  Maybe she did better but the editing made her look worse than she was.  She had a really good story for why she should win.  I can't help but think if I were to be lucky enough to be selected and made it to the finals, I would have a killer argument for why I should win.  Survivor is a game that should only be won by players who play through to the bitter end.  The game isn't over until Jeff says "I'll go get the votes."

6)  Will flat out says he is glad to have made the final 3 because now the game is over and he can relax.  Man, that was your problem throughout this season.  You were always too busy relaxing and not busy enough trying to win this game.  The game is not over until the final vote has been cast.

Top player:
Last week, the top 2 were Will and Sierra, figuring that they would both make the finals.  This week the top place is obvious.  It has to go to the winner.

1)  Mike.  He won.  Enough said.

Bottom player:
Last week, my bottom 2 were Mike and Rodney, figuring that Mike would get voted out and Rodney would get blindsided in a twist.  Well I was half right.  Rodney did get the axe in a surprising way.

5)  Will.  That's right.  He made the finals, but not because he was better than Sierra or Rodney.  Specifically because he was worse than them actually.  I hate to have to hand out a bottom spot, but there usually is one person deserving of it and this time it's Will.

Any final comments for this season?
What do you think.  Did you enjoy Survivor Worlds Apart, or are you glad it's over?  Enjoy my blog posts?  Think I should write more, or less, or take a completely different approach next time?  (In the past I have done recap poems, and detailed recaps with answers to potential questions people might have had while watching.)  Maybe next season you'll be stuck with whatever I decide on anyway, but this is your chance to provide input.  Speaking of next season, we'll have a cast of returning players that fans were allowed to vote on (picking 20 out of 32 nominees).  I'll have a post about this sometime before the season premier in September, so don't forget at me.  Until then, this is Denny Keyes signing off.  Oh, and plotting my next audition video.  Season 33 or 34, here I come!