And just like that, another season of Survivor has come to an end. And what an ending it was! I, for one, was very happy with how it turned out.
I’ve been pulling for Danni to win for a while now, and I’ve always liked Stephenie. To have them in the Final Two was the perfect ending for me. The only thing I wish was different was that Steph getting one or two more votes: other than that, the ending was absolutely perfect.
And, of course, there’s a lot to talk about. Time to wrap up discussion of SURVIVOR: GUATEMALA. Let’s start by talking about the Final Four Survivors and take a look at how they played the game overall. In order to help me do this, I’m going to start off each of their sections by copying and pasting the little paragraph I had for them in my preliminary analysis. Let’s see how close I was. Obviously, I won’t be able to do that for Stephenie, because her and Bobby Jon were not part of my preliminary analysis.
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DANNI
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“DANNI BOATWRIGHT— Well, ordinarily, I would immediately write Danni off as being completely incapable of winning. Almost the entire first paragraph of her bio talks about beauty pageants. However, as we learned with Jenna Morasca in the Amazon, don’t judge a book by its cover. She is also very into sports. She is beautiful and athletic. For some odd reason, I see her putting the moves over on Blake fairly easily. The only question in my mind right now is whether or not the other guys, besides Blake, will fall for her act if she does decide to use her beauty in the game. Should be interesting to find out. Probst says: “Danni is someone that I think people are probably going to get behind. She’s in great shape. She’s tall and she’s got a competition background.””
The irony here is I mentioned Jenna Morasca, another winner. She didn’t put any moves on Blake, and I’m glad I didn’t write her off as being completely incapable of winning. I told you my predictions suck.
So, the big question is how did Danni win? Danni won because she was smart the entire game. I may have missed it in my preliminary analysis of her, but once the show started, I caught on fairly quickly, especially once the switch hit. Even before that, she was the only one who knew about Gary’s past, and she played those cards perfectly. After the switch, she became the key swing vote in many votes, deciding who would stay and who would go. In Xhakum, when she was on the chopping block, she bought the Immunity advantage, played the challenge and the disruption of Judd’s world absolutely perfectly, and set herself up quite nicely for the endgame. She won the final Immunity Challenge, and made the absolute right decision to bring Stephenie to the Final Two with her instead of Rafe. People will argue either way, and we’ll never know for sure, but I think that even if Rafe hadn’t “released” her, she would have brought Stephenie anyway. She was smart enough to realize that she had almost no shot against Rafe. Obviously, we’ll never know, but I think the 6-1 vote speaks to the fact that she absolutely made the right decision.
Since Danni is the Sole Survivor, and, as I mentioned, I caught on fairly early that she was a smart cookie, I thought it would be fun at this point to dig up some things I’ve said about Danni over the course of this season. The following samples are some tidbits from some of my columns from this season:
“Another player I am keeping a close eye on right now is Danni. I like her. She’s definitely got some spunk, and I think she has the potential to become a major player. She had the big secret….Gary’s real former profession. One thing I was watching for was to see how she would use that information, and the revelation definitely came earlier than expected. However, after looking at her decision to reveal her knowledge early, I think she made a good move that may not work. By doing that, she definitely threw a monkey wrench into the opposing tribe’s dynamics, which can be a good thing. However, Gary seems to have dodged the bullet for now, but the seed has still been planted. At this point, I am truly hoping that they both make the merge, because I also want to see this storyline play itself out….at the very least, they need to make it on to switched tribes together.” (Right after episode 2)
“And what about Danni? She seemed so strategically savvy before when she revealed Gary’s secret, and she quickly became one of my favorite players. What was the value in turning on her tribe? None as far as I can see; she’s lucky she didn’t do it alone.” (Some doubts after she turned on Blake in episode 5)
“For her part, I think that Danni holds all the political cards at this point. She is very smart to align herself with Gary, rather than consistently push on the others to know his secret. She figured it out, and she did the perfect thing; she planted the seed, but no more than that. Now everyone knows, but if they know, they don’t care. Meanwhile, she has an alliance with the same guy that she tried to discredit. Beyond even that, she has been in a swing vote position for numerous Tribal Councils since the switch. Plus, I thought the birthday party was a clever, fun thing to do. Whether or not there was a strategic motive behind it remains to be seen, but I think she got a good rap with the other tribe nonetheless, which can never hurt. So, the first thing to watch with the merge is the alliance between Danni and Gary. I think that if they continue playing it right, they have a good shot at the Final Four, and possibly even further.” (Right after the merger)
“She [Stephenie] is in complete control at this point. I would love to see her win this; I’m also pulling for Danni, Rafe, and Lydia. These four seem to be in the best positions. Danni is in trouble because she’s in the minority, but Bobby Jon will go before her, and before too long, something will shake up, probably involving Rafe.” (Ironic….right before Jury formation)
“Danni has shown she has a strategic feel for this game, and she also has a lot of potential if a changing-of-power occurs within the next two weeks, otherwise she will be out after Bobby Jon, or maybe even out this week if Bobby Jon wins Immunity or finds the Idol and uses it. So she is in a precarious position right now, but if she can overcome it, and do it within the next couple weeks, she also has the potential of going far and quite possibly winning.” (Same week as previous comment)
“Danni has a lot of spunk, and she showed over on Yaxha that she is definitely a player. The only problem is that nasty numbers game, and while there’s always a chance of the alliance breaking, I don’t know if I see it happening. If something does happen, then I definitely can see Danni slipping through the cracks and making it quite a long way. Either way, I think she is at least safe for this week since Gary is still there and Jamie is really, really annoying people; however, she is the third runner-up for a possible boot choice this week.” (Right after episode 9 and Gary’s surprise discovery of the Idol)
“Poor Danni. I think she’s screwed. More than anyone else, I want to see her win. She’s a smart girl, but like Shii-Ann in All-Stars, I have a feeling that the numbers game is about to catch up to her. Not much else to say for her except that I’m pulling for her, and hope she makes it, but the realistic side of me says that, inevitably, she will be voted off this week.” (Right before her big turn-a-around episode. I should have known to have more faith!)
“My favorite to win it all. She played it absolutely perfectly last week. She won the advantage (which I can’t believe the others let her get so easily), played the challenge flawlessly and won Immunity, and said exactly the right things to the right people: Rafe and Stephenie. She not only saved her butt for another week, but also secured a potential Final Four alliance with Rafe, Steph, and Cindy. I knew she was smart from all the swing vote decisions she had to make back on the new Yaxha, and her game play last week was further proof of her intelligence. If she wins, I’ll be thrilled. Regardless, she gets MVP for last week’s episode for sure.” (Right AFTER her big episode. Funny how fast things change in Survivor, and in this case, they definitely changed for the better)
CONGRATULATIONS TO DANNI BOATWRIGHT FOR BEING THE WINNER AND SOLE SURVIVOR OF SURVIVOR: GUATEMALA, THE MAYA EMPIRE! She definitely is a very deserving winner and I’m thrilled she got the check and the title.
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STEPHENIE
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Stephenie came into this game with one of the biggest targets on her back. She was America’s sweetheart, fresh from Palau. She appears on the top of the pyramid on day one, not thinking she could get through the first Tribal Council, and yet she made it to the last.
Instantly, there were differences in the reactions people had towards Bobby Jon and Stephenie, but especially Stephenie. Some people were starstruck, and others saw them for what they were: two more obstacles on their own quests for the million dollars.
As I’ve said a million times, I loved the twist because of the nature of the choice it presented the new crop of castaways with. Use them or ditch them. They decided to use them, and they both did very well for themselves. Stephenie played this game very hard, and she did it very well. Right from the beginning, on the hike, she was in a leadership position with Gary. That fell apart at the switch, but then she fell into a leadership position with Judd and Jamie that lasted for a while, but she was also smart enough to be on top of every switch that happened with the vote. She always knew what was going on and was smart enough to always be in the majority. It made her some enemies on the Jury, but it got her where she needed to be. She had a special case in that I don’t think she would have won no matter how many friends she had on the Jury. She may have gotten a few extra votes, but I still think she ultimately would have lost just because it was her second chance.
I loved seeing Stephenie play again. I’m glad she got the opportunity, and I was glad to see her take complete advantage of it. She truly did take it and run with it, and she did very well for herself. Kudos to her.
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RAFE
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“RAFE JUDKINS— If ever another Rob Cesternino will emerge on the playing field, that person is Rafe. He is an Ivy League student and yet another self-proclaimed student of the game. He is a true Survivor nerd: he was chosen by his graduating high school class as the Most Likely to be on Survivor, and for those of who are familiar with online game history, he is the one who ran Survivor: Tonga online, so when I saw his name on the list, it actually jumped out at me because I know who he is from the online Survivor community. To me, he just sounds like Rob Cesternino. If the physical aspect of this new, brutal type of game spares him, he will go far, almost guaranteed. I doubt he will win, because the strongest strategic players (look at Cesternino, Kathy, etc.) never do. Here is what Jeff Probst had to say about Rafe: “Rafe is one of my favorites. Love this guy. Loved him when he walked in the room. Great guy, funny, got a lot of levels to him. From talking to him you can tell that he’s a pretty good judge of character. He can sense out who somebody is like, who might be somebody wise to hook up with.” He’s got the humor, he’s got the Survivor knowledge about him….as long as he holds up physically, and the others don’t catch on to him, he’s golden for a Final Four spot. An early favorite of mine.”
I’d have to say that this was one of my more accurate preliminary paragraphs on a player. Still, though, I missed the mark in one way.
He was definitely a different kind of player than Rob Cesternino. If I had to describe Cesternino in one word, it would be “ruthless.”
Rafe was not. He was smart, he was the nice guy, he was the surprise challenge threat, and he did place the same as Cesternino. However, there were a few things Rafe did that annoyed me, and they are both big enough to make me glad he didn’t become the Sole Survivor in the end:
1) I was not thrilled with his reaction to Cindy’s car choice. Danni had a similar reaction, but she was kind of just laughing along. The brunt of the reaction was Rafe’s. It made me give him the nickname “Saint Rafe” because he was so self-righteous about the darn thing. I think Cindy absolutely made the right choice, and it is the choice I probably would have made in that situation. She earned it; why give it up to people who have just blindsided you, and there’s no guarantees they’ll keep you around until the Final Four? I can see why it might make people happy with you, as Rafe suggested, but I think more of his surprise towards Cindy was more because he didn’t get a car. I know that sounds mean-spirited, but it seemed like a very unnecessarily strong reaction: it made him more convinced to vote her off, which didn’t make much sense to me. If you want to vote her off, vote her off, but don’t make it because she didn’t give you a car.
2) He told Danni she was free of any obligation towards him in regards to her final decision in the Final Three. As I said above, I think Danni still would have taken Steph, but the other part of me says, “Rafe, you had it in the bag!” It was ludicrous. It reminded me a little bit of Ian sacrificing his shot at the million in order to salvage Tom’s friendship in Palau. In both cases, it could have essentially been throwing away the money. After playing such a smart game for so long, Rafe totally blew it. To make matters worse, he got mad at Danni when she voted him off! I can deal with many things in Survivor, except two: Judd, and hypocrisy. The first one was a joke. Sort of. But the second one is a big deal to me. My jaw was literally dropping to the floor when Rafe was saying how he was surprised Danni voted him off and he’d definitely be voting for Steph. I would have voted Rafe off, too! There was no way anyone with a brain was going to take him to the Final Two, they’d get creamed!
So, overall, Rafe did not surprise me that he became such a player. He did not surprise me by making it to the Final Three. He did surprise me, however, in that I expected him to be a more ruthless type of player. I did not at all expect him to throw away the million, especially when he may have had it all locked up. We’ll never know for sure, but that’s certainly the way it looked.
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LYDIA
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“LYDIA MORALES— Lydia seems like a genuinely nice woman. She lists her favorite previous contestant as Rupert because he was so giving to the tribe, and for the same reasons, she lists Oprah as her favorite person. However, when I look at her, and I look at the people she is on a tribe with, I can’t help but get the feeling she will be an earlier boot. She is the oldest one on her tribe, and while we have learned that age is hardly always a factor in the outcome of this game, it seems to me the poor woman may just be outmatched, and a lot of it may not even be her fault, but my prediction is that under the pressures of the stressful jungle environment, she will crumble.”
Lydia was most definitely one of my farthest predictions off the mark. It reminds me, in a way, of my Pearl Islands folly: I made a list of the order in which I expected the sixteen to be eliminated, and Lill and Sandra were the first two on the list.
Lydia really surprised me. I never thought in a million years she would make it this far, and I truthfully never thought she had much of a strategy. However, her strategy was to be the provider and to be the extra vote, and even though it doesn’t make for the most entertaining TV, I really can’t fault her for that. It worked, and it got her to the Final Four, which is a remarkable achievement. In addition, everyone has testified to the fact that Lydia was always smiling and always in a good mood, and that is commendable. That is not an easy thing to do, especially in such a physically demanding environment. To still be smiling on day 37 after enduring one of the toughest Survivors ever….that is definitely noteworthy. So, I congratulate Lydia. She may not have been the most entertaining character, but she played the game her way, she kept a positive spirit, and she made the Final Four. Kudos!
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And, just like that, another season of Survivor has come to a close. I enjoyed this season. It had some great twists (bringing back the old players, the hidden Immunity Idol), had another awesome location in Guatemala, had a cast of some very entertaining characters (I love Amy!), and had a great finale with a very deserving Final Two and Sole Survivor.
Survivor 12 returns to the Pearl Islands, and when I heard this a few weeks ago, I was a little disappointed because I wasn’t sure if it would be as good without a new location to bounce a concept off of. After all, this is Survivor’s third trip to Panama. However, after we saw the preview in the finale, I’m glad they’re using an old location to try this new concept of “Exile Island.” They tried it in Palau, and instead of being a curse for Janu, it turned into a blessing for her. I’m very intrigued by this idea and can’t wait to see how it is implemented, and truly, the Pearl Islands is the perfect setting for this concept. Only about two months to go until SURVIVOR: PANAMA, EXILE ISLAND premieres! I have no doubt it will be another great season!
That’s it! My analysis and commentary of SURVIVOR: GUATEMALA, THE MAYA EMPIRE is over! Hope you enjoyed it! I know I sure did!
“See” you around!
