Survivor: Caramoan

originally aired 2/13/13-5/12/13

The order in which players left the game, and the impact they left behind:

• Francesca (Bikal; Redemption Island) Fairly worthless Favorite who didn't bring anything more to this season than her previous one.  (Sometimes referenced under the term "wrong season," as in this was the wrong season for her to compete in, assuming there's a right one.)
• Allie (Gota) Her exit should have been the first sign for anyone that Reynold and Eddie were never going to come close to winning.
• Hope (Gota) Gone because Shamar managed to stick around.
• Shamar (Gota) I think Survivor itself loves the military, but that the people who play and watch it don't.  This dude got a raw deal all the way around, and deserves so much better.  Although maybe he helped do himself in, too.  I'd love to see him again, but it's probably unlikely.  At least he wasn't voted out.
• Laura (Gota) A victim of the foolish thinking that "physically strong" amounts to better than "mentally strong" in this game.
• Brandon (Bikal, South Pacific) Completed his transformation to a Hantz.  Hopefully Russell is happy now.
• Matt (Gota) Could have been interesting, but wasn't.
• Julia (Gota) She was proclaimed bland, but she was also cute.  Cute trumps bland, people.
• Corinne (Bikal; Gabon) The first to outsmart herself from the game.  Probably should have seen that coming.
• Michael (Gota) Like Matt, seemed like he could be interesting, but wasn't.
• Phillip (Bikal; Redemption Island) Laugh at me if you will, but for the time he was there, the Special Agent dominated.  Unfortunately no one takes him seriously.  Otherwise he could very easily have won.  Will always be a favorite.
• Malcolm (Bikal; Philippines) Seems to have all the tools, but he just doesn't have the instincts.  Engineered several memorable moments, and challenge rival Reynold became a surprising ally, but ultimately had no chance of winning.  Maybe if he comes back again he'll have learned from his mistakes.
• Reynold (Gota) A complete idiot strategically, although pretty good in the challenges.
• Andrea (Bikal; Redemption Island) Surprisingly good as a strategist, so good that she strategized herself right out of the game.  Maybe if she gets another shot she could do better, but I don't see that as likely.  
• Brenda (Bikal; Nicaragua) I fell in love with her the few times she was featured during the season, even before the spotlight episode that was her downfall.  I think if she played again it would be very interesting to see if she improved or worsened as a competitor.
• Erik (Bikal; Micronesia) From the original Fans vs. Favorites season, went down with about the same amount of dignity, medevaced with three days to go instead of giving away immunity.  There would be no value in seeing him play again.
• Eddie (Gota) Someone who was overwhelmed by this experience.  Perhaps Big Brother would have been a better match?
• Sherri (Gota) Never impressed with her.
• Dawn (Bikal; South Pacific) A genuinely good person who decided that making compromises was just part of the game, and ended up severely compromising herself as a result, because she made the worst compromise in the history of Survivor, voting out Brenda.
• Cochran (Bikal; South Pacific) The winner with good reason of this season, followed the developments like an expert, something he didn't allow himself to do last time.  Fans come in different flavors.  He was accepted into the game originally as a regular competitor, not during a season with fans literally drafted into it, and it shows.  The draftees never know what they're doing.  Cochran is always aware.  The first time he was overwhelmed.  This time he did everything right.  Having Dawn as an automatic ally was genius.  Neither of them ever even questioned it.  That's what you do with allies, Dawn.  When you're good to the people you're supposed to be good to, you have a shot at winning.  It also doesn't hurt to have a lot of pathetic players taking care of themselves.  Cochran is the Dragon Slayer!  Long live Cochran!

Survivor: Caramoan 1x14/1x15 "Last Push" and "Reunion"

I'm totally cheating again.  Go ahead and read Dalton Ross's thoughts, I'll wait.

I'm directing you to the Entertainment Weekly expert again because I didn't see the show last night live.  Usually I've gotten to see the finales as they air, even when I've missed huge swathes of some of the recent seasons, so that was kind of disappointing.  But reading Ross is like a different kind of entirely acceptable Survivor appreciation.

The winner was Cochran.  This was what the spoilers suggested at the start of the season (spoilers having made a big comeback recently in Survivorland), so I was only surprised that they were completely accurate.  The final vote is sealed before Probst reads it at the reunion, but sometimes it's just too obvious.  Cochran is the rare unanimous winner, joining Earl from Survivor: Fiji and J.T. from Survivor: Tocantins for the honor.  Interestingly, all three such winners have come from the Final Three era.

Ross goes on at length about how Sherri and Dawn didn't have realistic chances to win, and they really didn't.  He also waxes poetic on the irony of Brenda's behavior at the final Tribal Council that stood in stark contrast to what motivated it, being Dawn's decision to betray her, the move that cost her any shot of winning.  We should all know that Dawn probably owed her continued performance in this game to Brenda retrieving her false teeth, and to any observer it seemed Dawn owed her an eternal debt of gratitude.  Instead she chose to be that player who convinces themselves they have to sacrifice everything in order to have a shot at winning (except, apparently, anecdotal alliances with Cochran).  Brenda felt humiliated.  She was the rare person voted out who still couldn't compose themselves by the time they recorded their exit video.

So she was still going to be emotional in the final Tribal Council.  As fans, we yearn for Big Dramatic Moments in this final act of the game, ever since Sue Hawk's rats and snakes speech that helped make Survivor a thing in the first place.  It might have been vindictive to make Dawn remove those teeth she claimed would have forced herself to quit if she couldn't find them (but as Ross indicated throughout the season, she could cry and have a meltdown at the drop of a hat), but it also served her right.  Maybe it makes Brenda a bad person to have gone there, and maybe it makes me a bad person for agreeing, but in a very real sense, Dawn all but acknowledged that the teeth weren't that important to her, nor the person who helped her reclaim her dignity.  That wasn't a strategic move on Brenda's part, either time.  Dawn couldn't win.

Sherri also couldn't win, and she should have known it.  Too often people assume success in the business world actually means something.  Russell thought the same thing.  It takes a different kind of personality.  It's not the many who love that kind of success, it's the few.  The many don't enviously applaud that success.  They only want the same stability that success engenders.  In a game like Survivor, success becomes something else.  It's the ability to be rewarded by the many, not the few.  And Sherri couldn't even get the few to like her.  Ross complains that the jury members always lay into the floaters.  They deserve it.  It sucks to play the game and be voted out for it, while the people who aren't playing the game, or who aren't playing it well, technically have a shot at winning.  Except they don't.  They never do, and they never have a clue as to why that is.  So that's why jury members should be able to tell them.

You can always tell what the producers or Probst thought of someone by how much they're featured in the reunion show.  Ross says Sherri was a nonentity.  That's all you need to know.  She wasn't even acknowledged.  I long for the seasons where true competitiveness reaches all the way to the finals, where sitting besides each other in front of the jury is a matter of honor rather than strategy.  This happens so rarely.  I applaud Cochran for winning.  He absolutely deserves it.  He's the version of Todd from Survivor: China that I can actually respect.  He's the self-aware version, even if this season has been giving him an infusion of ego (or just making it more obvious, because the dude always loved to talk, and that's the reason he's so fun to watch and why his interview segments have made him immortal in Survivor with or without this win).  Todd was very much a snake, but unlike Rich Hatch before him he swallowed the rat because he was so pathetic no one realized what a jerk he was.  Cochran owned up to everything.  That's what makes him so great.  And he didn't even have much to own up to.  He was a classic opportunist.  He let his worthy foes eliminate themselves.  This was a season of attrition, but the difference between a win from Cochran and two from Sandra is that he knew what he was doing the whole time.  He did whatever he could to help, but really it was just a matter of seeing it all play out.

Was this a memorable season?  Insofar as a worthy winner like Cochran emerged, yes, but it was also kind of pathetic, in the very way that Dawn proved her ultimate character in that Brenda debacle, and people like Ross are now going to make Brenda seem like the villain, or how Shamar is still being perceived, or that Brandon's complete reversal remains intact, or that Malcolm didn't redeem himself.  A good season for fans, but I wonder if it made anyone into converts.  That's how you gage a memorable season.

Survivor: Caramoan 1x13 "Don't Say Anything About My Mom"

Loved ones episode!

Probst cried thanks to Brenda.  It figures!  She's the ninja assassin.  I'd be perfectly happy to see her win.  She was happy to see her father, telling him how much of an inspiration he is to her.  Good stuff.  Probst only cried a little, though, for the record.

It's always awkward for loved ones to compete in a challenge.  Unless you're Amanda and you and your friend have a weird chirping language you share.    This time it's physical.  One time they made the loved ones do the Disgusting Food Challenge.  That was awful.  For everyone.

It only figures that even when his mom is there Cochran is still the one talking.  He never stops!  Even during the challenge he's talking with his mom!

Brenda and her dad win!  It only figures.  And she chooses Dawn to share the reward with.  That figures, too!

Another surprise!  A second set of loved ones!  And then Probst spoils everything by offering an impossible deal, and then we cut to commercial...

And Brenda is once again awesome.  Where this could seem calculated if it were just about anyone else, Brenda seems absolutely genuine.  It doesn't hurt that we've seen the bare minimum from her, so either she's just not that type of player, who will draw as much attention to themselves for (sometimes) all the wrong reasons (I'm looking at people with the last name "Hantz").

Anyway, of course it's Cochran with the comments about getting all this loved ones love.  And then he goes on about how his dad is exactly him in forty years.  And apparently not realizing how cocky he's becoming.  But not necessarily in a bad way.

Dawn is a little more upset about Brenda's decision, by the way.  But Brenda's there for her.  Again.

Another endurance challenge for immunity.  Cochran was the first one out.  Eddie didn't last too long.  Brenda and Dawn are still in it.  Dawn is being chatty.  And Dawn wins.  It's her first time winning immunity.

Now, hopefully they'll just get rid of Eddie already.  Did Brenda admit to letting Dawn win?  Is she becoming strategic?  Or is this the point where the edit reveals that she's the one going home tonight?

There's just a ton of Brenda in this episode.  Loving it.

Then Cochran mentions that it would be great to get rid of Brenda.  So you see what I mean?

Well, my powers of interpreting fairly obvious editing seem to be working.  She's not happy about leaving, especially after what she sees as their assuming she did what she did during this episode to manipulate them.  Some of the edit obviously attempted to cast doubt in the viewer's mind, which is interesting.  But one way or another, if you love Brenda, you had to love this episode (except the ending).

She really took that hard!

Survivor: Caramoan 1x12 "The Beginning of the End"

Apparently a memorable episode to watch, but like Dalton Ross last week I missed it.  Alas!

The big development of last night was double elimination, two sets of immunity challenges and tribal councils.  The first to go was Reynold, the second Andrea, and it only figures.  At this point we can all acknowledge that this is a season of attrition, where no one's really in charge and the ones outlasting are the ones who manage to capitalize on the players outwitting themselves.  Happens all the time.  Definitely happened last season, for instance.

I'm told the first challenge was especially fun because Andrea and Brenda made up their own wrinkle when it came down to them, because the balancing act was so easy for them (as opposed to everyone else) that they decided to one-foot it after three hours.  I forget what my spoilers said about her, but Brenda is looking more and more like someone worth rooting for as a winner.  She's not the biggest personality, but she knows what she's doing.

Andrea on the other foot hand got far too confident.  She apparently really didn't hear her name being tossed around at that tribal council.  She was looking forward to a blindside, of either Brenda or Dawn.  She talked about Dawn around Cochran.  She ought to know as well as anyone that Cochran and Dawn are about as strong an alliance as anyone, and were well before this season, and this is no Boston Rob/Lex situation we're talking about here.  (Although again, Lex was the one who got that ball rolling when he got rid of Ethan.  Just saying.)

Anyway, Reynold was obvious as the first to go.  There was just nothing else keeping that mustache hidden. And then Andrea went.  That leaves people like Erik still around.  Seriously, how is Erik still there?  Hasn't he voted himself out yet?  (I don't even know if there's a rule against that.  I guess there should be.  I'm not talking about quitting.  I'm talking about literally writing your own name down.  I'm sure this would never cross anyone else's mind as a legitimate strategy.  But Erik...?")

And that's why, folks, that Cochran has stumbled into the perfect scenario to win, the guy whose first notable move of the season was acquiring...a sun burn.  This is the episode that will explain for posterity why that happened, if indeed that's how the season ends.

Apparently next week is the loved ones episode, and someone is so good at manipulating this occasion that Probst cries.  Not in a Johnny-Fairplay-went-there sort of way (although perhaps this will be the real version of that) or Jenna-didn't-get-to-see-her-babies moment redux.  Anyway, we'll see.  Probst cries.  The dude is committed to this reality show.