Why Sophie Deserved it

Until the final seven, Survivor South Pacific was one of the most predictable seasons ever. Luckily, one of the best finales in recent memory was able to salvage the season. Sophie, who many critics have said did not deserve the million dollar check, absolutely played the best game, and I will tell you exactly how she pulled it off.

Sohpie's first smart move was aligning with Coach. It is definitely dangerous aligning with a returning player, given the fact that they are an automatic threat, but she knew that Coach wanted to play with honesty and integrity, and, if you're not playing by those values, aligning with someone who is, is genius. Although she was lucky to be sitting out on the beach that second night with Coach, Albert, Rick, and Brandon, her and Albert were the only ones not blindly committed to following everything Coach says. She even said in an interview, that she aligned with these people because they were, "religious nut cases" that wouldn't lie.



Arguably the thing that helped Sophie win more than anything was Cochran's bonehead move. Each tribe entered the merge with six people, and both seemed fully committed to drawing rocks to decide who was going home. That was, except Cochran. Cochran chose to flip over to Upolu, even though Savaii had much better odds of surviving the rock draw and having the numbers advantage becasue they played the hidden immunity idol and had possession of the immunity necklace. I will admit, at the time I didn't have a problem with Cochran's move, because, as he said, you don't want to leave your fate in Survivor up to drawing rocks. That being said, Cochran's fatal error was not realizing how tight the Upolu group was. He needed to understand that there was no chance that Coach, Brandon, or Rick were flipping, and Sophie and Albert were in too good standing to flip. From an entertainment standpoint, this move also killed the season, I think that the Savaii tribe would have been much more willing to play the game than Upolou was. Regardless, without Cochran's move, Sophie's road would have been much tougher.

Sohpie should consider giving Cochran part of the pot

Post-merge, the smartest thing Sophie did was not listen to Albert. Even though, once again, his moves would have made the season more entertaining, Sophie understood she had a solid final three plan in place, and there was no reason to get in bed with Albert and his plans (although she was the only girl left for a while out there, so who knows what happened in the post-tribal love haze.)

Brandon and Rick, the ones Coach let get away....

As we entered the final seven, it was still clearly Coach's game to lose. He put it best in a confessional, "It's like I'm playing a basketball game and I'm up 14 with four minutes to go." Coach made two crucial errors that cost him the game. One of them was the ridiculous idea that Rick or Brandon would be more of a final three threat than Sophie. If Rick or Brandon had beaten coach in the final three, it would have been a bigger upset than the Little Giants over the Cowboys. I have never seen anyone play a less meaningful game than Rick, and I have never seen anyone with less of a chance to win in a final tribal council than Brandon. Together, they may be the least threatening duo of all time. His second, and more critical mistake, were all the blatant lies he told towards the end of the game. I have no problem with lying on survivor, in fact, I encourage it. It makes the game more interesting, and it is almost impossible to win the game without lying. This was a special case though. Coach had based his whole gameplay on the fact that he played with honesty and integrity. He promised Brandon and Rick he wouldn't vote for them the day he voted them off. For most people this wouldn't be an issue, but to do this to two of the most honest people to ever play the game, it was a big deal. Especially for Brandon, who was Coach's biggest ally in the game and refused to lie to anyone. Brandon ended up voting for Sophie in the final tribal council because of it. Coach also lied to Ozzy, and in the process, also lied in his confessional. He told Ozzy that he had his word as a Christian man he would take him to the final three. Coach then said in his interview that his word as a Christian man is as good as gold. He proceeded to vote Ozzy out in the final four. Without Coach's idiotic moves towards the end of the game, he runs away with the jury vote.

The three biggest things Sophie did to win the game were crying, winning the final immunity challenge, and having by far the best tribal council argument. Granted, crying was not a move per say, but it did let the jury know that there was more to Sophie than the hard exterior she let on. This may just be my own thought, but I do think crying may have won her the vote of Dawn, the mother of six. Her most clutch performance however, was beating the challenge master at his own game. She had already proved she was a challenge threat after winning two individual immunities already, but neither of those were nearly as important as knocking off Ozzy in the final four. Had Ozzy won that challenge, he would have easily won the game as every single former Savaii member would have voted for him, as well as Brandon. Ozzy had a giant lead in the challenge, but Sophie kept her head in it, and came up with one of the biggest challenge wins in the history of the game. Sophie finished it off  by having far and away the best arguments at tribal council as she spilled the beans on many of coach's lies, including him staging a search for the immunity idol they had already found. Albert had no chance going in, so she didn't really need to waste her time there. For all of these reasons, Sophie absolutely deserved the title of Sole Survivor.

The straw that stirs Survivor...

Final Thoughts: Overall, this season was was still a let down despite a great ending. At the end of the day, the thing that hurt this season was the amount of players playing with honor and integrity. Regardless of what you think about Russell, his moves made Samoa and Heroes vs. Villains two of the most entertaining seasons ever. This makes more excited for the "One World" twist next season because the tribes will hopefully be less cult like because they will be living together. Going forward for an all-star season, the only players I would consider bringing back are Cochran, Sohpie, and Jim. Even though Jim was ousted fairly early, he had a lot of potential as an entertaining survivor player.

Moments of the season:

3. The immediate aftermath of Cochran's move: I love Cochran turning around right when the votes are read saying, "I swapped, I'll explain later." Jim then stares at him for a second, until looking him directly in the eye and saying, "coward"

2. Rick calling out Albert: After going an entire season without seeing more than five total confessionals from Rick, I started to believe he was simply born without a personality. This is until out of nowhere he calls out Albert's lies, looks him right in the face and yells, "That's bull**** and you know it, that's bull****."

I mean, I still meant it

1. Ozzy's confessional after making Sophie Cry: I would like to preface this by saying, after watching interviews, it seems that Sophie is actually a pretty nice person and a cool girl. Still, I don't think I laughed harder than the scene after Sophie cries in tribal. Ozzy basically tells Sophie she is a pretentious brat and everybody else agrees with him. This leads Sophie to an emotional breakdown that brings her to tears and was one of the realest moments of the season. The very next scene cuts to a confessional with Ozzy saying, "I mean I didn't mean to make her cry, but it's still true." Maybe I'm a horrible person, but I found it hilarious.