Agreed. I watched the course description, then told my SO: “That’s it – Tom wins. Everything here is the stuff firemen train to do.” With the exception of the padlocks, of course, but Tom aced that, as usual.
Well, of course the descendants aren’t extinct. But the Mayan culture is long extinct, on the order of 500-700 years ago, no?
Which isn’t to mean we should bulldoze the ruins, but it seems to be of a different order of sensitivity for someone to film a TV show in some ruins, assuming they’re careful to not trash the place, versus spraypainting the Wailing Wall (or some equivalant actively-venerated cultural icon). No? If I’m misunderstanding the situation, apologies.
re: Ian’s sacrifice.
twelve hours! he gave it his best shot and hung on for twelve hours on the buoy. can anyone else before this top even half that? that was his shot at the million dollars, and nobody should call him a wimp.
i believe he could probably go on for a few more hours, but at that point, his exhausted self must have convinced himself what everyone else knew to be true - Tom is not going to fall off that perch/buoy. Ian’s best chance at winning was on the previous IC’s combination locks. (which was obviously included as a boon to the not so physical types)
so what to do?
[ul][li]make an obvious surrender and plead for that offer prompted by Probst and in jest six(?) hours ago?[/li][li]fall into the water and await for the judgement most likely to fall in Katie’s favour?[/li][li]offer to make it easier for everyone and take third place, in honour?[/li][/ul]
to those who claim that it’s just a game and that lying etc is ok then you’re arguing for Boston Rob’s tactics. and we all know how well his tactics are perceived. you can’t have it both ways.
ps Tom’s comment that he was about to fall off the water anyway was obviously in jest.
pps Stephenie’s hair looks funny.
ppps Jolanda’s obtuseness is funny.
no, but i noticed Gregg and Jenn wasn’t sitting together.
yes, i noticed it just in time.
the season may be over, but next time, please do not create threads with unboxed spoilers! this excludes non-US dopers (with itchy fingers) where survivor is shown a day or whatever later. if boxed spoilers for the first few ones aren’t preferred, may i suggest inserting this then:
=== The show’s over! Spoilers to follow!! ===
Tom won! Woohoo!! This is amazing! First Uchenna/Joyce from TAR and now Tom/Ian on Survivor. Integrity pays!
Thanks, consider my ignorance fought.
You’re right, Coby did raise his hand and I think he put it down right away when he saw nobody else raise theirs. I don’t think Jeff coerced Janu into quitting, be he definitely brought it out of her. He was right when he said if someone wants to quit, they’re gonna quit, but I think he recognized that Janu was too wishy-washy to just say “I quit,” so in the best interests of “The Game,” he eased her into the decision. I don’t have a problem with that because Janu had no chance in hell of winning or even of making it past the next tribal council and the show was a hell of a lot more entertaining with Steph sticking around another week than with Janu, plus it made for one hell of a TC that night. To me, that was one of the greatest moments in Survivor history and a great example of why Jeff Probst is far and away the best reality show host; not only does he make the show more fun by asking all the right questions at TC, stirring things up and calling people on their bullshit, but he is now even capable of influencing the game for the benefit of the show without actually tainting it.
You can buy a lot of things for a million bucks, but honor ain’t one of 'em.
Great season. Terrific TV; the behaviors and actions of the players never ceased to surprise me.
Point to be made re: Ian: he is not the dumbest Survivor ever (from the seasons I’ve watched, every contestant that allowed him/herself to be a pawn of Boston Rob during SAS was… and then next comes Caryn). I chalk up Ian’s somewhat strange thought process to something akin to when Jerry McGuire (Tom Cruise) wrote the “mission statement” in the movie “Jerry McGuire.” Jerry stayed up too late, ate some bad pizza and then overreacted to an emotional set of circumstances.
Remember, it’s a game to you and me because we’re watching it from the comfort of our living rooms (thank you, Rockle, for continually pointing that out during your posts). But when you spend nearly 40 days isolated from society and tested mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually, you stop thinking it’s a game and you think of it as LIFE. And hey, you have an epiphany, fuckin’ A. For all we know, the love of Tom and Katie to him was real, more than a game, more meaningful it turned out, than a million bucks. And so he acted accordingly and, based on his comment at the reunion, he has no regrets so kudos to him. I’d rather bond to someone like that than a guy like Hatch, who doesn’t see anything but The Game.
Not that I get why he waited 11 hours, 55 minutes to come to this conclusion, but hey, I wasn’t on that pole. It was strange, but pretty damn good TV if you ask me.
I think Tom was just flat-out shocked that Ian was not as loyal as he, himself was. He felt betrayed. Tom has a difficult time seeing viewpoints other than his own. But generally a good guy with a few foibles. I’m happy for him in winning the million. I grew to like him.
Lastly, talk about irony: The two most touching moments of the season came from Coby, the person I liked the least. (I cried when he talked about feeling left out in high school as well as baby Janu.)
I don’t buy the Ian bit. I don’t think his capitulation had anything to do with honor or feelings or meaningful relationships. I think he capitulated because he was weak willed and neurotic, with severe self-esteem issues. His entire last few days was filled with irrational decisions and knee-jerk behavior. He’s the kind of guy who’ll say anything and do anything to please whoever happens to be in front of him at the moment. He doesn’t like controversy, and is reluctant to face confrontation. He got a car, and I guess 50 grand or so, which he’ll need to pay taxes and insurance on the car. Likely as not, someone will bilk him out of it before long.
From what I’ve read, 3rd place gets $85000. If that’s true, I think it may well be worth $15000 to not have to listen to seven people point out everything they don’t like about you. Ian couldn’t stand to have people not like him - I really think being in the final two would’ve been absolute torture for him. I imagine a lot of those almost twelve hours was spent thinking about that and how bad it would be to sit beside his friend and listen to him get pounded, too.
I’m listening to Howard Stern, and he revealed a funny thing: Probst and Julie stopped by the station to see Gary Delabate (sp?), the producer. Gary is also known as BabaBooey on the show. Probst came to give him a photo of the survivors on the last challenge and a cartton of Gary doing the challenge, because the name of the challenge was a shout-out to him - Bob On A Buoy! I wish Jeff and Julie had come by while the show was on the air. Howard had a lot to say about the show, and it would’ve been a great interview.
Or maybe he’ll become cynical from the experience, and never trust people again. Which would be more the shame, because he is a great kid. And that, fundamentally, is Ian’s biggest fault, and it’s nothing that he can do anything about: he is only 23 years old. Everyone is stupid at that age. I was, and it wasn’t so long ago that I don’t remember it. But I believe him when he says, as he did on the Reunion Show and on the Early Show yesterday, that he did what he did because he didn’t want to come back to his family and friends as a different person. Shoulda, woulda, coulda – but didn’t. In the end, he made the choice that mattered to him. Lots of people who are emotionally and intellectually immature at 23 years old go on to do spectacularly great things later in life. Or at least get elected President.
On preview: singular1 – it’s even more that that. According to the CBS website, the name of the final Immunity Challenge was actually “Bob-Bob-Buoy” (pronounced “BabaBooey”). Howard is a huge Survivor fan, IIRC. (Haven’t listened in a while because he’s been a bit of a bore while he waits to go to “satellite.”)
I thought a lot of the challenges were geared towards someone who had firefighter training, especially the one where they had to carry the 20-pound packs in the water, and take on the packs of the teammates who dropped out. Full turnout gear is heavy (about 60 pounds with an airtank), but for Tom, it should have been easy. In the one where they had to pull the boxes underwater, Tom was the only one who, at first, braced his feet on something else and pulled. Everyone else just pulled one the rope and had no traction.
There were other times where I thought, “Well, that should be easy for him; he’s a firefighter!”
(My husband’s a volunteer FF, so I know what a lot of the training is.)
They sit in the order they were voted off, so Jenn in “fourth place” and Greg was “sixth place.”
Huh. That’s something you’d think I would have noticed before the tenth season. :wally
Which, to me, is a big reason why you shouldn’t disturb the place. These ruins survived for hundreds of years and they are, IMO, priceless artifacts. There may be hundreds of such ruins and if the Guatemalan people want to film a t.v. series there, so be it. But for rich Americans, who already have an image problem in the international community for being insensitive louts, to come in and film a reality show amongst the ruins of the indigenous people…boy, that immediately struck me as a really bad idea.
Obviously they had no problem with it.
That’s what we’re here for… to fight ignorance! 
Slight hijack - when they showed the commercials for “Rob & Ambuh Get Married,” my husband just scoffed, and said, “Who would want to watch that?”
I agree. I’m not going to waste my time with it.
Anyone here just dying to see it?
Not on purpose, I won’t.
I was out of town last weekend, and just got to watch the finale last night. Holy shit, Ian is lousy at talking.
If so, then, with the Corvette added in, Ian came out ahead of Katie…
I don’t plan to watch it. But let’s face it–there’s not going to be anything else on that night. I don’t want to watch it. I really, really don’t. sigh But I probably will. Hopefully, I can limit it to reading a book and only looking up when Rob says something stupid and Amber gets that “I can’t believe I’m marrying this” face.
No doubt. But that’s not what the majority of us Ianophiles like him for. 
Point taken.
I dunno. I’ll withhold judgement until we see what actually happens among the ruins. The producers have been fairly culturally sensitive in the past. I’ll bet they sign up local experts or Mayan descendants to highlight Mayan and local history, and pointedly avoid the ruins except as a backdrop for the show. We’ll see.
OTOH, throwing trash in the ocean this season to honor the “fallen” survivors gave me pause.
Is anybody besides me hoping for a Poltergeist-ish “Get away from our burial grounds” backlash? 'Cause that would be a kickass season of Survivor.
“Today’s immunity challenge … jump into the muddy pool with the skeletons, beat off the strangling clown, and then pull your own face off while looking in the mirror…”