Survivor Samoa Finale

The game is called Survivor and the slogan is Outwit, Outplay, Outlast.

So how does someone who skates on someone's curtails win? I am a woman who started out hating Russell but ended up rooting for him because he's Survivor genius. if you are someone who watched this season regularly, I would hope that you could agree at least that he is the best survivor player ever. I wouldn't want to be friends (or enemies) with him. But, he was amazing... He found immunity idols, over and over again, without knowing that they even existed and without clues. and even when it truly mattered he won immunity. It kills me to say it but he was a master at this game. He was ruthless and a liar but it's a game, not real life - it's a competition for money and thats the idea. Get people to trust you, do what you have to do to survive and win. But he didn't win, the girl, Natalie, who rode his curtails the entire time won. Some would say she deserved to win because she was nice to everyone and didn't stab anyone in the back.. but the truth is, she had no problems letting Russell do the dirty work and crossing people at the vote, so she is not so angelic as we let her seem.

Now, she did win and that's the point of the game, so you have to give her a hand for that and she did try hard on all the challenges, I just don't like that she claims to have played the game so innocently and kind and all the while scheming to stab people in the back and having someone else do the heavy lifting. She certainly latched on to the right person to get herself to the finals. Russell deserved to win, the problem is all the people on the jury were too personally involved, as he was the puppet master that led to them to being eliminated. If they looked back and really voted for who was the best player, they would change their vote... but it's a popularity contest and they were jaded.. so Natalie won. The problem is no one who is crossed by someone else, in a game or in real life, is going to put their name down for a million dollars. The truth is they didn't so much as vote for her but against Russell.

While writing this review it occurred to me that the winner of Survivor is really whoever can get to the top without hurting everyones feelings, and that kind of ruins the point of the game for me. People don't watch the show to see people being nice to other people, the ratings are in the people like Russell... They are the money makers for the network. I think people signing up for this have to change their strategies if they want to win the money. I have been thinking for some time now that Survivor needs to have the audience vote for the winner once it gets the final 2 or 3. I think then the true best player of the game would win. I realize this would have it's challenges as we see edited version of what happens, but I would like to see it anyway.

Did any of you watch the finale? What did you think? Any scenes from this season you absolutely loved?