I just watched this yesterday and was initially pretty pissed off like most of you and everyone else. I hated Russell in the beginning but turned pretty quickly when I saw he wasn't just completely cocky, but that he could actually back his words up with his actions and more.

A lot of the reunion show and even Jeff Probst's blog centered around the question, "Did Russell play a better game?" I think to answer this you really have to figure out what you mean by who played a better game. Did Russell outwit and outplay everybody? Pretty much. Did Natalie get lucky? Pretty much. But in the end this game is about the jury, and it's not a simple question of who outwitted and outlasted "better". If it was such a black and white question there would be no jury, there would just be a decision from someone about who played the best game. But that's not how it works, and someone that wants to win the game has to consider every single aspect of the jury, INCLUDING personal relationships and social dynamics. In my mind, Russell failed at a couple very important things:

1) The Social Game - I think it's fairly obvious Russell had very little actual "friends" on the show. Almost no one actually trusted him, even the people he took to the end, and he really made almost no effort to get to know people. In fact, the only people who you might consider his friends were Jaison, Shambo, Mick, and Natalie. Two of which he brought to the final 3, and 2 of which he burned to get there. Remember what he said when the tribes merged? He said how he sent his people out to mingle with the other tribe and find the cracks and all that. Well you know what that did? It helped them build relationships with this people too. On the other side of Russell is Natalie. Going into the vote, Natalie ALREADY had 2 votes in her pocket in Laura and Brett based on their religion and the relationships they developed off of these. Who knows how many other people she had made good friends with.

2) The Jury Night - Russell came in completely arrogant as always and failed to see that none of the jury members were really buying his story. It should have been obvious that none of the jury members were buying his story about how he is in real life. And usually the people that ride coattails usually get picked on FAR worse. Russell should have played down his arrogance a ton and acted a little bit apologetic and he could have drastically changed that vote.

In the end what happened is a great example of why Survivor is so great, and something I've been hoping to see argued in the past few seasons: It's great to see someone admit that they lied and manipulated to get to the top. Yeah, you played a great game, and you did what you had to do, and you masterminded everything. But in the end this is a game with a jury, and not everyone appreciates those efforts. If you don't recognize what kind of people you're dealing with, than you've only mastered getting to the finals, not winning it.

12/29/2009 3:07:47 PM

I'm over it. Still LOLing at Richard for not paying his taxes.

12/29/2009 5:01:38 PM

Russel was an awesome example of someone with no balance. You HAVE to have some "people" skills in this game, and he had absolutely none. We saw 12 hours of footage, that included maybe a total of 2 hours of "Russell" footage. These people had to live with this guy for 39 days, most of it which we didn't get to see. That is a long time to be confined with a guy like Russell. His antics seemed awesome to us (and obviously to the world who watched the show) but I am sure living with someone who is a callous jackass and who does nothing around camp would REALLY grind on people. Especially considering how he loved to rub things in and go on and on and on about things (I was amazed by the final show with him/Mick/Nat.)

So yes, he was incredible in some aspects, and Natalie was the weakest player I have ever seen win. But with all the shit Russell pulled the result isn't really that surprising.

12/30/2009 12:08:46 AM

i just watched the finale yesterday. i was shocked that natalie won...and even more shocked at the convincing margin of victory.

the most shocking thing to me was that shambo finished number 2 in the fan voting for player of the season. were those people watching the same season that i watched??? i thought everyone hated her. i brushed off shambo talking about everyone loving her as a biased point of view...but what the heck were the idiots who voted for her as player of the season thinking??? i'm glad russell won that at least...he definitely deserved "player of the season" since he didn't win sole survivor (i realize the two aren't related...but it seems like a fitting consolation prize for someone who played the game so well strategically).

12/30/2009 11:10:45 AM

well the player of the season usually goes to the person who gets a lot of camera time and is a popular personality with the viewers...so even though she didn't win, shambo got a lot of camera time and was kind of interesting to watch

12/30/2009 11:22:58 AM

^yeah...she did get a good bit of camera time. i'm just surprised that shambo was a popular personality with the viewers. from my admittedly limited sampling of my friends that are survivor fans and the people ITT it seemed like everyone hated her.

12/30/2009 12:34:49 PM

According to my mother, they just showed the entire cast of heroes vs. villains at the people's choice awards. she named a few of them, but couldn't remember all of them. So i'm guessing it will be up on cbs soon.

1/6/2010 9:40:22 PM