Survivor Guatemala: finale

So it's all over for another season, and the faithful get their Friday nights back. In the best possible way, the theme for the final episode was tradition and keeping strictly to the prayer book and the established rituals.

The final four of Danni, Stephanie, Rafe and particularly Latina Lydia were treated to a visit from a Mayan family, who charmingly waved some incense around, blessed the campsite and then ripped the head off a live chicken before throwing it into a sacrificial fire. Rafe chose not to eat the chicken, but got just as wet as the girls who did after the gods sought their revenge by sending a massive thunderstorm. Well, that’s what it sounded like Stephanie was fervently apologising to them for, anyway!

The immunity challenge was set in the biggest maze yet built for Survivor. This one was in the shape of a Mayan eagle motif, and the only question was whether it took the production crew longer to assemble it or clear the hectares of virgin jungle on which it stood. Survivors had to find eight puzzle pieces from different locations in the maze, then bring them back one-by-one across a pond full of marine-grade plywood pontoons and up a rope ladder to the assembly area. With Lydia at a natural disadvantage as the only one too short to see over the partitions, it came down to a race between Stephanie, Rafe and Danni. Rafe won, and it then became a race to see whether Danni or Steph could leverage the most out of their alliance with him using his natural goodness and decency as the pivot point.

At Tribal Council the talk was all about the chicken, except for the bits where Stephanie and Danni subtly undermined each other in front of the rest of the jury. Lydia's outfit, as usual, was far too clean and neatly pressed to be able to convince anyone that she'd been working hard at the challenges, and she was voted out unanimously in a surprising decision that left the three toughest to fight it out among themselves.

One of the worst parts of making it to the final three is having to do the walk down memory lane and pretend to remember anything about those voted out early or try to say something nice about those voted out mid-season. While some weird black and white sketches of each person were ritualistically put in a fire we got some archival footage of that person (so we could remember what they really looked like, because the sketches were very little help) and their thoughts on the game. Judd actually claimed that the jungle had calmed him down, which is slightly terrifying.

The final three immunity challenge is ALWAYS a test of sheer grit and determination. Having learnt from last year's utter debacle in Palau when they lasted over twelve hours, this challenge was designed to be unbeatable. Survivors had to stand on a wobble board with two ropes to hold onto for the first hour. For the next half hour they only had one rope to hold onto, and all ended up leaning against one of the poles behind them. After that it was "look Mom, no hands!", with Rafe pushing himself into a more comfortable position in a momentary mental blank, and instantly eliminating himself. Danni's longer legs made the difference, but Stephanie didn't give up until she'd slid all the way down the pole and was weeping with the pain in her back, which could have been either muscular or sever splinters.

Rafe's mental blank turned out to be not so momentary as he released Danni from a promise she'd made to take him to the final two. Interestingly it was a unilateral promise, and there had been no reciprocal obligation on Rafe to take Danni to the final two. She actually admitted that her afternoon would have been easier had he held her to the promise, but having to choose she took the competitor she was more likely to beat, and in the process guaranteed Stephanie at least $100,000. Of course first we had to go through a full tribal council, including Rafe relating the story of telling Danni to follow her heart, despite her promise. The jury members might not be allowed to speak verbally at this point, but their body language was screaming that they all thought Rafe was an idiot. He probably agreed after Jeff went through the usual ceremonial script – in its once-a-season singular form – and read out the vote against him.

Another end-of-season tradition is the arson attack on anything not nailed down at camp, which was still impressive despite everything being soaked and mouldy, including the remaining food. With their final interviews to camera, Steph and Danni revealed their jury interview strategies. Danni's was to be the All American Girl who is nice to everyone. Stephanie's was to point out to the jury that she deserves to win simply because she's in the final two, and they're not, so she's better than them. Hmmm.

Sure enough, Danni answered like the beauty pageant pro she is, and Stephanie got a little bit too defensive. The jury members stuck to previous form with their questions. Bobby Jon talked about pride; Gary demanded honesty; Cindy asked one of the best questions in Survivor jury history ("If you could eliminate one person from the jury, who would it be and why?"); Rafe talking about strategy, and Judd (who the producers saved for last) just rambled and "man'd" and called everyone else liars.

Judd seemed most upset at Stephanie for lying to his wife, and once again needs to consult his dictionary to understand that if Stephanie honestly believed she had a strong alliance with Judd during that conversation with Kristen, and only changed her mind after finding out the next day that Judd wanted to eliminate the strongest players, she wasn't lying. He'll get it one day. Maybe. It didn't seem that way when Jeff called him on it at the reunion.

It was missing last season, but this year we again got the cheesy footage of Jeff's allegedly direct flight by helicopter from Guatemala to Los Angeles, which took so long that everyone else beat him there and had time to regain most of the weight they'd lost. Since only one vote for Stephanie was read out we can probably assume safely that Rafe's was the only one she secured, so Danni won in a whitewash and collected a new car (sorry, a Pontiac Torrent) as well as the million dollars. I hope she spends part of it on nutritious food. If she doesn't she can always get a job in a high school biology lab as the skeleton.

As usual the reunion special was a collection of Survivor Guatemala's Most Embarrassing Home Videos to remind the idiots what idiots they made of themselves. We got to see the missing footage of Gary finding the individual immunity idol and some of his illustrious football career (which I'm sure he was more than happy to provide to the producers). The question was asked whether the vote would have been different had Cindy given everyone else the cars (sorry, Pontiac Torrents), and Blake was asked for his girlfriend's reaction to having her breast size boasted to the whole world.

We also got the preview for the next series, which will once again be set in Panama but with the twist of a solitary confinement "exile island" and some new tribe formation.

Once again it has been my absolute pleasure to inflict my obsession on you all, and I hope that you enjoyed the season as much as I did. Now grab your torches and head back to camp!