Survivor Palau: week 14

And so that's it. The race has been won, correct weight has been called and it's all over.

The double episode started out with Katie in fine form, completely overreacting to a breakfast hamper of fruit, bacon and (brandless) champagne that was obviously designed to liquor everyone up in the hope of some loose lips sinking ships. Unless Ian's had some kind of coconut still hidden out in the jungle (or found some not-so-native plants) he's been dropping clangers without the need for any chemical stimulants at all, and the champagne made little difference to his verbal control (or lack thereof).

The immunity challenge was a ludicrously complicated arrangement of knots, keys, flags, tyres, grappling hooks, more knots, a flying fox, a combination lock and more flags. In a predictable result Tom just beat out Ian, with Jenny (unlike Katie) a respectably close distance behind. Ian didn't win, but he really earned his 'loser' status back at camp. Tom publicly told Jen he had to stick by his alliance with Ian and Katie. Ian – and after the trouble his mouth got him into last week who knows what he was thinking: perhaps he wasn't – admitted he was relieved not to have had to make that choice because it would have been really tough. Given that Ian had no real alliance with Jen it was probably a throw-away line, but Tom grabbed it and – egged on by a delighted Jenny - didn't let go, hammering Ian into a stammering mess.

The grilling continued right through tribal council, with Jen looking more and more excited as the Tom / Katie / Ian trinity fell apart. It nearly worked for her: Tom and Jen voted for Ian, Katie and Ian voted for Jen, and two rounds of voting failed to break the deadlock. Once again the decision was made in an arson-off (much to Stephanie's amusement) that Ian won. You could just see enough through the hair to tell he was dreading the return to camp, and he was right to be afraid. Knowing that Tom had voted for Ian, Katie jumped on the bandwagon and joined the bullying session that reduced Ian to confused tears, wondering how it all went so horribly wrong. His best defence – "I was just playing the game" – was shredded with Tom's response of, "I thought we were all playing together." As scary as it was, ya gotta love someone who's that quick thinking!

Every season the tension of the final episode is destroyed by the cloying memorial trip that remembers each Survivor. Some of these people were in the game so briefly that nobody remembers much about them. In other cases the struggle for an appropriate response comes down to "if you can't say something nice…" In Kim's case they just all said "Kim!". My mother wouldn't have let me put it better!

Another tradition for the final episode is that the last immunity challenge is a grim test of sheer grit with vaguely Calvary overtones. In this one they had to cling to boo-ees (I'm going to miss that pronunciation) with the last person standing getting the luxurious choice of who to take to the final two. At the two hour mark the weather started getting rough, and the tiny buoys were tossed. At the three hour mark the wind died down and the rain started. At four hours the sun came out. By the fifth hour the sun had long set and Katie decided she'd had enough. At the eight hour mark Tom told Ian that he'd pick him if he'd quit, but not if he had to beat him. No deal.
At eleven hours and forty five minutes (and presumably with their bladders hurting as much as their legs) Ian did something unthinkable. He told Tom to take Katie to the final two, and quit. Just like that. His reason was that it was the only way he could win back their friendship and restore his own self-esteem. Jeff held an impromptu Tribal Council on the spot, Tom gave a verbal vote for Ian, and he and Katie paddled back to camp alone.

The final day ritual is to burn everything that's not nailed down. Since the production crew and not the Survivors had built the shelter it was safe, but the picnic table went up in flames in a major turnaround for a firefighter who in episode one refused to help light a fire for boiling water.

The next thing to go up in flames was Katie's chance of winning the million dollars. Her performance at the final Tribal Council was even more shocking than how much younger Ian looked without that sorry excuse of a "beard." The seven person jury each got to address Tom and Katie and either ask a question or make a statement, and the themes were far more consistent than we've seen in past series. The main gripe against Tom was that, contrary to his claims, he had told some lies to get where he was. Nobody really had much on him and he continued to think fast on his feet and say all the right things. Katie on the other hand copped a well-deserved hiding with several people pointing out that she hadn't bothered in the challenges, hadn't bothered to work around camp and hadn't bothered to be civil to anyone outside her alliance. If she'd stuck to her claim that her skill – and the reason she should win – was that she'd been smart enough to make a strong alliance early she might have done better. Instead, and proving that she's not that smart after all, she lied to Stephanie, refused to answer Janu's question on the incredibly arrogant grounds that it wouldn’t change anything, and was rude to Caryn.

The conclusion seemed certain even before Jeff walked off set with the vote box, and I was devastated that there was no cheesy sequence showing how he allegedly got from Palau to New York! The final tally was never revealed, but since they only read out one vote for Katie we can safely assume that the one we saw Coby cast was the only one (and even that was because he refused to vote for Tom).

The reunion show is always good for a laugh, and probably the funniest thing this time was the fact that Ian's post-Palau haircut is even worse than what evolved over the five weeks on the island! He really needs to find a hairdresser with a better selection of bowl templates to choose from. Coby is a hairdresser by trade, but won't be able to help because he's got his hands full with having adopted his cousin's baby girl, who he named – wait for it – Janu! Wanda is still singing, Gregg with two G's looks more like David Hasselhoff than ever, Jonathan is still shirty about not being picked for a team at all, Stephanie is still smiling, and Gregg/Jenny and Jeff/Kim are being coy about just how strong their "alliances" are off the island.

So, Tom won by six lengths and the sweep is over. Poor Nicole got knocked out of the money when Jenny's fire wouldn't light. Ian's bizarre moral stand cost him $100,000 and cost Simon at least $20 because he now picks up third place. Janet and Katie take second place, and Andrew picks up the first prize of $50. Congratulations to all the winners, and thanks to everyone for being in the sweep.

It has been my absolute pleasure writing this newsletter, and thank you to all the people who gave feedback on how much they've enjoyed it. The next series will be filmed in the Mayan ruins of Guatemala. Jeff Probst is apparently contracted for at least another two series, and I intend to be back too. For now though, collect your torches and head back to camp.