Survivor: Samoa, week thirteen

With the finale looming tonight we are finally getting some insight on this Brett clown. Oh goodie; he’s a holy roller. This type of character always irritates me in Survivor for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is my personal (read: unfair) bias. Even putting that aside, though, hearing things like “we are prayer warriors” and “God is watching out for me in this game” smacks of the worst kind of conceit. While you were on your 39-day island getaway someone got stabbed in an ally somewhere. Or someone’s child died of poverty and disease. Or an earthquake wiped out a village.

No need to dwell on this sentiment, really. It just bugs the hell out of me.

Anyway it wasn’t even Brett who went on about all the “prayer warrior” nonsense; it was Natalie. The dumbass-blonde-chick turned tough-action-chick has either started warming up to Brett here at the door to the endgame, or has been the entire time and the editors are just now thinking to tell us about it. Either way I feel sort of like the plot of the season just sucker punched me. Brett won immunity again, solidifying his place in the final five, despite being a complete nonentity for 99% of the game.

The other things we learned about Brett are: 1) he considered Galu to be his family and views Foa Foa as the invited guests who forced them all out, and 2) his strategy is to keep winning challenges. So he’s not a very interesting character nor a very strategic player. Fine. They still should have pointed the cameras at him sooner.

I liked the reward challenge a lot. Hundreds of coconuts were suspended above a platform by a series of criss-crossed ropes, forming a net. The tribe split into teams of three and took turns removing rope, causing the coconuts to shift and eventually fall. First team to drop one hundred coconuts loses. At first glance it seems like a total crapshoot, and maybe it was, but it seemed that when people hunkered down and really looked at how the ropes were connected they dropped fewer coconuts. I’d like to see this idea built upon in future challenges.

Russell/Shambo/Jaison won the reward, which started raising questions about whether or not Natalie and Mick would use Brett to shuffle the game up. Natalie picked Brett first in the schoolyard pick at the reward challenge, which made some of her allies nervous. With Brett ultimately immune, though, the Foa Foa alliance was forced to eat one of their own.

Russell’s first move was to prod Natalie a bit to find out exactly where her loyalties were. For all the swooning she did over Brett’s Jesus-freakery earlier in the episode I think Natalie is rock solid. Russell must have gotten that impression too.

So the question was: vote out Mick or vote out Shambo? They tried to sell us on the idea that Mick was in danger, but I never bought it. Shambo was always an ally of convenience for the Foa Foa four, the foundation upon which they could build their Galu-sweeping strategy. Sixth place really is about as far as the math would allow Shambo to go in the game. I can’t say I’ll miss her much; she was a lousy player and a completely irritating character. I’m dreading her inevitable jury speech in which she makes an utter ass of herself.

This was Russell’s last chance to play his idol. He chose to hang on to it. From a gameplay perspective this was a crappy move; why not play the idol if it’s your last day to use it? On the other hand he wasn’t in any danger and he knew it. Still, it would almost have been worth losing my favorite player to see the one-in-a-million blindside take him out the moment he got too cocky for his own good.

Who’s gonna win? A lot of this comes down to a few variables we don’t know yet: who wins the next two immunities? And are they going for a final three, or final two this season? Let’s run through the various scenarios.

Five is a dangerous time for power players because it’s the very last time someone can be removed from the game without risk of a tie. If they’re going to take out Russell, they have to do it now. I don’t think that will happen, though; the Foa Foa four are really, really tight. It is, almost for a certainty, going to be Brett gone first in the finale. Then it’s just a matter of who is at the bottom of the Foa Foa alliance. At this point Russell is virtually a lock for the finals since all of the remaining three look better than him going up against the jury. He’s going to have to argue that he deserves to win because he played hard and dirty. Some players have won that way, but it’s always a gamble. Mick will want to flip against Russell but it will be too late by that point, so he’s out next unless he wins immunity. (If Brett wins the first immunity that order will just be reversed.)

So barring an immunity sweep by either Mick or Brett, I’m seeing Russell/Natalie/Jaison in the final three. If there’s another challenge at that point Natalie and Jaison will try to eliminate each other and go with Russell. I’m not sure who Russell would take. My gut tells me Jaison, but I can’t quantify why. He might be better off not being the one to make the decision. (Hatch made that play, in season one, and it worked brilliantly for him.)

So now we look at who is on the jury: Erik, blondegirl, Laura, Rocket John, Dave, Monica, Shambo, and (most likely) Brett and Mick. Erik and blondegirl have been having a lot of fun watching Foa Foa dismantle their old Galu tribe, who betrayed them. I think they would appreciate Russell as the schemer behind it all. Shambo will give a big speech about how terrible it feels to be stabbed in the back and vote for Natalie, who had no part in it. The rest could really go either way, I think. If the jury is able to put aside their personal grudges and vote for the best player the winner will be Russell. If not, Natalie. That’s my official final prediction of the season.

The only wrench in this figuring is if Brett wins the next two immunities, and lands in the finals. If this happens he will win, guaranteed; nobody on the jury has a reason to hate him and they’re all his former tribemates besides. I don’t think this will happen though; as much hell as I’ve been giving the editors this season, I still have faith that they wouldn’t have neglected one of the finalists the way they neglected Brett. (This kind of metagaming leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but there you have it.)

On a personal note: if Russell wins it will mark the second time in Survivor history that my favorite player from the first episode went on to win the game. The previous was Yul in Cook Islands, which is the main reason I remember that season so fondly.