I managed to do it! We left for a two week vacation the day before the "Survivor: Cook Islands" finale, which TiVo dutifully recorded for me; and I was able to avoid spoilers for the entire time. So after getting home, I fired up the TV and raced through the finale and live reunion. If you haven't watched it yet, be warned that there are spoilers ahead.
Notwithstanding all the controversy at the beginning over the racially segregated tribes, I thought this was one of the most satisfying seasons in a long time. Of course, maybe I'm just falling victim to what Mark Burnett and company were deviously suggesting with the racial tribes ploy, in that the winner (Yul) came from "my tribe." But here's what I liked about the season, and the finale:
1) The "final 3" instead of "final 2." Unlike past seasons, where the final 3 competed in an endurance and/or balance test, with the winner of that challenge selecting who would be the other finalist, this season had three finalists. This was a really good change in terms of creating suspense, because in past seasons, the winner of the final 3 challenge would invariably select the most obnoxious/least productive/most disliked person to go up against. (The one exception was season 2's Colby, who lost because he didn't do this.) Had the show played out like past seasons, it would have been Yul v. Becky or Ozzy v. Becky, and the winner would have been obvious. (This isn't so much a slight on Becky, as recognition of how well the two guys played.)
2) Good final Tribal Council answers. In too many previous seasons, the jury members have trashed the finalists as liars, backstabbers, etc., all the while overlooking their own lying, backstabbing, etc. In this season, Jonathan noted that Yul might make a good politician, and then asked Yul how he would justify his backstabbing to potential constituents. Yul explained that this was a game show, that they all knew what to expect, and obviously in real life he wouldn't backstab people the way he had to on the show.
In addition, I really liked Yul's explanation of why he deserved to win: he played the game not just for himself, but to get his entire alliance (Ozzy, Becky, and Sundra) into the final 4, which he did. True, season 1 winner Richard Hatch did this too, but Hatch had the advantage of blindsiding the silly Pagong tribe, who collectively didn't believe in alliances.
3) Lots of Asians and other minorities. Whatever CBS/producer Mark Burnett's motivations in creating the Asian, Latino, African-American, and Caucasian tribes, I thought it was good to have the diversity of players that the show had this season. I also appreciated the fact that there was even an interesting mix within the "Asians," from the analytical yet athletic Yul to the entertainingly weird Cao-Boi.
4) Best all time reaction shot from host Jeff Probst: This had to be when heavy metal guitar player Billy, knowing that he was going to get voted out by his Latino tribemates, declared during Tribal Council that he had won something better than $1 million -- he had found his true love, Candice (from another tribe). Probst's look of stunned disbelief was itself worth $1 million!
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