- Mon Dec 14, 2015 8:28:50 am
#8411
The Final 3.Mookie, Shane, Sophie - three incredibly different people with incredibly playing styles. Here are there stories from my perspective as a host, and not the likely filled with exaggeration and bullshit that the finalists write in their speech. You can consider this to be that little prelude they do before the finale on Survivor where they recap everyone's game, if those things lasted for 15 minutes and went on for much longer than people wanted.
Mookie was the lovable idiot who, through the beginning of the game, always seemed to bungle shit up even though he had the best of intentions. Beginning with the tribe divisions, he tried to set himself up with a bunch of his allies. But here's the thing about those tribe divisions - in retrospect, they were actually brilliant. I thought he was a buffoon when it happened - and it definitely was accidental - but they couldn't have worked out better for him!
Here's why: he set up the tribes up such that the Kaikusis were split up between two tribes (eg, easy targets) and he also set up the big bad Pirai alliance to be a thing that needed to be dealt with, that the rest of the players could rally around. Like an idiot savant, it worked out for him. His original tribemates and the tribe members that he had had allies on (Ozzy and Kimmi) could unite on one tribe to take out the easy boot Kaikusis (Sandra) and the big bad Pirais could also take out the easy boot Kaikusis (Diane, Sean). Then, the Meku + Waiwai could form together to become the new-Kaikusi at the merge against the new-Waiwai aka the Pirai alliance. There is no way he planned this out, obviously, but I don't think his tribe divisions could have worked out any better for him, except if maybe Sophie went home instead of Ozzy. But for giving him so much shit about it in my blogs, I take it back because it worked. If it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid. Anyway, back to Mookie's game:
He set his alliance up so that he could join his former tribemates, then Liliana fucks him over by choosing that tribe. He and Liliana find themselves at the bottom of their respective tribes, so they swap tribes and gather immunity and plan to continue to do that each round because Liliana was unlikely to survive on either tribe at that point. He goes along with it, and then Liliana refuses to swap back with him and leaves him back Waiwai, where he was previously in the minority, but amidst a tribe mutiny to try to overthrow Sophie from the Pirai alliance. He, Liliana and Gabe successfully got Flicka and Artis to be willing to flip to vote out Sophie but a Rupert removal and immunity win nullified the overthrow.
Mookie went into the merge in a great position. He had his former Meku allies, he had his new ally from Kaikusi in Kimmi, his partner Liliana and her close ally David and his partner in the crime of overthrowing Sophie in Gabe, with now working relationships with Flicka and Artis. Liliana proved to be a good shield for Mookie at first, as no one would ever target Mookie over Liliana. His entire alliance bungled the attempt to flush out Sophie's public immunity idol, which is yet another failed attempt at kicking the football for ol' Mookie Brown.
Liliana was booted and Mookie no longer had his shield and most of his allies flipped to vote out Liliana. From that point forward, Mookie voted for the person who ended up going home every time except one (Kelly's blindside) and played an integral part (usually along with varying others, however) in those plans. He also didn't get any votes until the F7 where he began a run of taking on every vote minority vote in the game. He would have been voted out at the F6 TC but a hidden immunity idol saved his ass and allowed him to make a push toward the end of the game, where, when his former allies Sugar and Flicka were no longer willing to work with him, and Shane was constantly working against him, he turned to Sophie for her vote and made it through.
Sophie came into this game with a reputation of being among the most competent players in this season of returning players - and throughout the season she showed why. She made quick work of her original Pirai tribe and found herself at the top pretty much immediately. She was the shot caller and had pretty much all of the power of that tribe. She quickly won over Rupert who would often seek her advice and suggestions for how to approach other players which pretty much confirmed that Rupert was firmly planted in Sophie's pocket.
It wasn't until the tribe swap where things started to unravel. During the 'one tribe' period, Sophie and Marissa began talking and they mapped out a cross-tribal alliance with members of the original Meku, Waiwai and Pirai tribe. Marissa brought in Jenna as a loyal soldier. Sophie brought in Kim due to her alliance with Kim in Pirai and Kim's prior relationship with Marissa in their previous season. They both then agreed to bring in Sophie's partner, Kimmi, to reach the Waiwai side of the game. Between Sophie, Marissa and Kimmi, the alliance would contain the - or one of the - power players from three of the four tribes. On paper, this alliance could have run this game from that point forward. The major downfall of this alliance and the reason that it ultimately failed is really quite silly - Marissa and Sophie forgot to alert Kimmi and Jenna that they were involved in it, or if they did, convince them that it was real.
Sophie found herself on the new Waiwai with all of her former Pirai tribemates. In this tribe, Shane also conveniently fell right onto her lap as he was chomping at the bit to get out of his former Kaikusi tribe and get rid of the people on it, which allowed Sophie and her allies convenient boots in Diane and Sean. When Kim and Marissa were swapped, the Pirai alliance lost a member (as she would be voted out on Kaikusi) but she gained her close ally from the 'cross-tribal alliance' who would work closely with her at her time in Waiwai, keeping an ear open on the streets while Sophie controlled the Pirai alliance. During this time, Sophie led on and frankly lied to the outsiders, telling them she was going to vote one way and then voting another. She did this several times, which annoyed them (Mookie, Liliana, Gabe) so much that the combination of this this and Sophie's general brash and sometimes rude demeanor, caused them to take a step back and realize that they needed to do something or they would be voted out next.
With a few outsiders now actively targeting her and besmirching her name to the members of the other tribe, Sophie became public enemy #1. Even her own tribemates Flicka and Artis were willing (and actually pre-voted such) to vote her out. Her cross-tribal ally and confidant, Marissa, was also getting tired of her shit and was haphazardly in on the plan to get rid of her. Their tribe lost immunity and Sophie had a foot and a half out the door, until Rupert suddenly had to be removed from the game for personal reasons, allowing Sophie to live to fight another day. And on that day, her tribemates were beyond ready to vote her out, except they ended up winning the challenge.
Merge hits and Sophie is still public enemy #1 with people like Liliana, Kelly and Sugar actively targeting her. During the first immunity challenge, she grabbed the public immunity idol. Sophie very likely would have been booted in this round, except the counter alliance split their votes between Sophie and Kimmi to flush out the idol -- which Sophie didn't end up using. They didn't end up having as many votes as they expected and the split vote plan cost that alliance a member. Liliana's outburst at tribal calling out Flicka and Artis, when Flicka actually voted with Liliana, pushed Flicka back toward Sophie's alliance.
In the next tribal council, Sophie won the first of what would become very many immunity challenges. In this tribal council, Sophie was able to get out one of her "arch-enemies" in Liliana. After Liliana went, the target went right back to Sophie. The remaining players concocted a plan that would split the votes to flush out Sophie's idol. With Marissa's former allies becoming suspicious of her relationship with Sophie, they split the votes between Sophie and Marissa. Artis was supposed to vote for Sophie but he ended up not voting which left the majority on Marissa, saving Sophie since she once again didn't use her public idol. They split the votes in the next tribal, intending to do the same thing except replacing Marissa with Artis. Sophie used her public immunity idol and saved herself for that round.
The next tribal councils provided a string in which Sophie's allies (Kimmi and Gabe) were voted out because they couldn't vote Sophie out (immunity from challenges and a hidden immunity idol). During the entire merge, Sophie was only truly vulnerable to go home in two tribal councils. She won immunity, played a hidden immunity idol or played a played a public immunity idol in all of the rest. During any of those tribal councils that she was immune, if she was not immune just once, at any point from F10 to F4, she goes home. Despite being immune pretty much every round, she was rarely in the loop and was only used for a vote in a few of these tribal councils, including the Kelly blindside and when she and Mookie paired up in the final three tribal councils to keep Mookie in the game.
Shane played a completely different game from the other two. He showed up a few days late in Kaikusi and would've likely been their first boot. When he did show up, he posted in the camp saying something along the lines of "I'm late. If anyone needs my vote, hit me up" which caused a stir among the Kaikusis. They ended up winning out until the tribe swap, allowing Shane to survive.
Shane ended up on the Waiwai tribe with the Pirai alliance and former Kaikusi tribemates Diane and Sean. Shane approached Sophie and the other Pirais and offered himself as a vote to their alliance, which they obviously accepted, and used his vote to vote out Diane and Sean. Shane remained loyal to this alliance despite many attempts from Gabe and Mookie to try and crack the alliance. During this time, Shane planned to use this alliance to bring him to the merge and then flip on Sophie, as she is a big power player.
Merge comes and Shane re-unites with former ally in a previous season 8 years ago in Kelly who keeps him in the loop of the Sophie/Kimmi split. After this tribal council and the tantrum from Liliana, it becomes obvious to everyone (if it wasn't obvious already) that there were two figureheads of two opposing sides of the post-merge tribe. Shane decided to make a call-out thread where he encouraged his tribemates to take out these two threats so they could move forward in the game. It initially worked, as Liliana was voted out (and probably would have been anyway). He then turned his sights on Sophie and made another call out thread, calling out Sophie. Because Sophie kept winning immunity, Shane was able to keep calling her out and not needing to call anyone else out. Shane also created a shit bitch list where once again he called people out.
At that point, Shane was on the wrong side of the votes almost every tribal council, only voting Kimmi and Jenna out from the F10 to F4. He spent most of his time being so anti-Sophie. That, in addition to most people already being anti-Sophie made Shane have a non-zero chance of winning in the finale, though his odds probably aren't great. Outside of the Liliana call out which happened on the same day that Liliana went home, Shane didn't call any shots. In a glimmer of strategy, Shane formed an alliance with Jenna (called "Darkness") where they planned to go to the end together as goats at around F10. Seeing Flicka as the next likely to be a goat, the three of them formed a F3 pact and all three were together in the final 5, but were unable to make the end together. He also could not post images from his iPad which made him effectively useless in challenges which made him a self-admitted goat who stood almost no chance of winning any immunity. And yet, he is not completely out of it just yet.
If I was privy to all of this knowledge as a juror, I would likely vote for Mookie to win. I don't think Mookie was the best player of the season (that was Kelly imo) but he had a much larger impact on the season, I think, than either of the other two. Sophie had a pretty big impact in that she prevented the counter-alliance from ever needing to turn on each other because she was always winning immunity and a last minute plan B sent most of them (all of them) home. I don't really value immunity wins, especially when - as I said before - the immunity win is just delaying the inevitable vote off instead of changing the direction of the game. Sophie deserves a load of props for being able to win clutch immunities and playing clutch idols but I don't believe she played a better winning game than Mookie did.
