An "Insider" Look at Survivor: Vanuatu, Episode 14: The End

Sorry to be so late with this final Insider article, it's been a hellacious week at work, what with only having two three-day weeks to prepare for the end of a quarter, we've been using this week to be sure that everything is in order. Not sure if it even helped, but there you go.

Kind of a strange Insider this week, as they don't have the normal "Scout, the Day After" segment, nor do they have the voting booth comments from the jury vote, which I frankly find inexcusable. No replays of challenges, which is no big deal, but they have inserted a recap of the entire series, which I have ignored, and an entire episode of Survivor: Live, which I'm not even going to TRY and recap. It's not all bad, because they have "red carpet" interviews with the final four at the finale wrap party as well as snippets from a number of other interviews, including a special guest!

Since they don't have the jury voting booth, I'll discuss it now. Did the right person win? Hell, yes. Chris is one of the most deserving winners ever, right up there with Brian and Rich. Like those two, he lied to people and got them mad at him, but arranged it so that they voted for him with smiles on their faces. It's truly astounding that he could come back, not only from the balance beam fiasco, but surviving being the lone male in a female Pagonging of the males. He truly WAS the Survivor, and I tip my hat to him.

Unfortunately, with all they left out, they still have both of Eliza's interview segments. Sigh…

Eliza's Final Words: She's disappointed that Chris voted for her, she wanted to have a tie. Then they would do a challenge and she would have beaten Twila, then they would have gone to the final three. Everyone seems to have a different idea of what they would have done in the case of a tie. I'm not taking Eliza's word for it, that's for sure. She'd love to still be in the game, but he outwitted her, what can she say? I'll give her that, at least she's not bitter.

When she was voted out, she turned to Chris and gave him a glare because she WAS shocked, she put a lot of trust in him. He wrote her name down when he said he wasn't going to, he gave her his word. Yep, she was looking at him in disbelief.

She didn't have any allies. She thought that she would be friends with everybody and have alliances through the end of the game, and it turns out that she didn't have a single ally the whole time. Boy, that makes your "tons of friends" rant to Twila seem pretty suspect, doesn't it? She learned to be a little LESS trusting of people. Maybe she was too naïve. She tends to be an optimist, looking for the best in people. The fact that people let her down is definitely going to change her outlook. It hurts. Aww, why don't you run to Twila like you did last week when you hurt your finger?

Eliza, the Day After: Being on Survivor was definitely the best experience of her life. She couldn't have asked for anything more, well, except, you know, making the final two. Day 37 is nothing to be ashamed of. She loved every minute of it, even the fights. At home, she eats constantly, when she wants, what she wants, as much as she wants. It was a change to have a lack of food, and when they did eat it was the same bland things day after day. That was the biggest difference to her.

She came into the game too naïve. She trusted people, and thought that people are basically good. Every time she trusted someone in the game, she got burned again and again and again. I don't think that's because they're bad people, it's because THEY THOUGHT YOU WERE ANNOYING AS HELL. This might cause her to take a closer look at people in real life and maybe not be as trusting. She learned so many things about herself and being in the game, but that will be the biggest thing. Here she is, 21 years old, trusting that people would do what they said, and that just wasn't the case. Also, did you ever think maybe you trusted the wrong people?

She learned that despite the fact that she did not have a single ally, she still persevered and made it to the final four. She's proud of that, but maybe it means she's not as likeable as she thought she was. Ding Ding Ding! Tell her what she's won, Johnny! She expected to come into the game expecting to have everyone like her and want to be her friend, and it wasn't like that. It was kind of a blow to her ego.

When they were the all female tribe, it was exciting because the way the culture is, how they put down women so much and they ended up winning "challenge after challenge." But in terms of feeling a connection with women and having the women stick together to the end, she could have cared less. She just wanted to do what would get her the farthest in the game. She did feel an allegiance with her original tribe, so she voted with them at the merge, but if she would have been a tribe of women and men, she would have stuck with them as well.