Surviving the Palau Reunion: Domination and Revelation

Have you read about what happened in the two-hour finale yet? If not, Click here to do it now. I’ll wait.

As we lead in from Tom’s win, Probst notes that Ian’s move to give up a chance in the Final Two was one of the most unexpected ever (I’ll say!). It was a season of domination with one tribe creaming the other, revelation with several players getting life-changing experiences, and it exceeded expectations as one of the greatest seasons ever.

The full group of 20 is back together. Probst begins by congratulating Tom and pointing out that this is his hometown. He also notes that it was a season of domination as Koror won 11 of 14 challenges – a record – and he won five of seven individual challenges – another record. So he definitely deserves it. What was his plan going in? Tom says he owes it to a good friend of his and his wife because he was trying to concoct a persona to be and they told him to be himself. He thought he could hide under his gray hair but that didn’t happen. He says he played a lousy strategy game. Probst notes that is why he won – he said nothing but offended nobody.

In response to another question by Probst, Tom says he formed the alliance with Ian and Katie the first night. Probst notes it’s unusual to see an alliance last that long. He then says Katie took a lot of heat in final Tribal Council, but she made a good point in talking about her strategy of hooking up with two strong people. Why was there so much animosity?

Gregg says it’s unfortunate and when he was outside of the game he saw people as characters and discounted personal relationships. But for 33 days, Katie was entertaining and they are friends. But he feels horrible about having laid into her. Plus, the game wasn’t over and he felt he needed to put them in the hot seat so they could be held accountable for their actions. After he cast his vote, he gave both of them hugs and told them they played great games.

Probst says Katie seemed completely surprised by the animosity, which surprised Probst because he could tell it was there from previous Tribal Councils. Why was she so surprised? She says she wasn’t surprised by Janu, and she went in knowing she probably wouldn’t answer her question…

Before she can finish, Probst cuts her off and says that’s another thing – she went all that way and it take four votes to win, and she gave one up. Katie says she didn’t give it up, she knew she couldn’t beat Tom and had always said that. Janu admits that her mind was made up anyway. Chuckles all around. Unfortunately, he doesn’t follow up with the point I raised in the recap – that by not answering Janu’s question, Katie also may have influenced the others negatively.

They don’t go back to the question that Katie was supposed to be answering before Probst interrupted her, but instead jumps back to Tom and a discussion of how he and Gregg both came in approaching Survivor with a lot of game theory, trying to figure out the best move of each person, assuming each person would make that move, and then figuring out a counter. He figured his best plan was to get to five and then make his move. So how did Tom counter him?

Tom says that Gregg really believed that when you were on a plan, you stick with that plan (yeah, we noticed). He believed Gregg would hold to that and go to five, and he planned to also go to five until he got other information that made him change his mind.

Probst moves to Caryn and points out that if you make it to five without an alliance, you should be the swing vote and no matter what happens you should be guaranteed Final Three. So what happened? She says she’s not entirely sure but believes that when she wouldn’t give up info on Katie and Jenn to Ian and Tom on the beach, she ticked them off and she wasn’t useful to them anymore.

Quick cut to Ian and the final immunity challenge decision. Ian says he was thinking about it the whole time – there was nothing else to do. He came into the game planning to play with his values and he realized that he hadn’t been doing that. He has no regrets.

Before heading to a commercial, Probst brings up the fact that seven out of ten of the winners have been 30 or older and it brings up the topic of maturity. He says it seems like Ian grew up a bit out there. Ian agrees, and says it helped that he played with somebody almost three times his age, which earns some laughs.

As we return, Probst says that Coby proved some things to others and himself, as we hear his confessional again about how he was made fun of as a child and even quit school because of it. Back live, Coby says he came to get rid of some of his demons and “be the prom queen.” He wanted to be part of a team, and then the game started off in a nightmare from high school – the pick ‘em game. But then he was part of the most dominating team ever! Now he has put all of those old feelings to rest. Good for him!