Aware of what everybody else has realized, Jeff Probst tried to interject some strategy into the group of dumb-dumbs in Survivor: Nicaragua Episode 14, telling them that they could vote to a tie, which apparently nobody realized or considered. By that time, Jane had already torpedoed her chances of survival, in an over the top strategy of going out with a bang. However, she attempted to run with it, saying they should all vote for Holly. Then she voted for Sash, while everybody voted her out. Sadly, Sash is the only person remaining who has anything resembling a strategic mind, but don’t tell him that because he mistakenly believes himself to be the king of Survivor.
Jeff Probst’s recap is about improbable journies. Translation: how did five idiots make it so far? Sash was a dead man walking, but he offered himself up as the swing vote, which made him worth keeping around. Chase has voted out anybody who was stupid enough to align with him. Dan hasn’t done anything, but because he has not done anything, he has no enemies. I would certainly hope that’s not enough reason to vote for him, however. Fabio was a goofball, and still is, perhaps by design, but he has shown himself to be a threat in challenges, both physical and mental. Holly wanted to quit on day 5 but has since managed to warm up to the tribe following her childish display of destroying Dan’s personal property.
Notice they have a fire going already. Jane’s actions may have made her felt better, but they were moot. There’s no way to prevent people with torches from having fire.
Fabio realizes his neck’s on the chopping block. He never would have seen it coming if the three people on the other side weren’t so blatant as to flaunt their alliance.
Sash would like to go to the end with Chase. Or Fabio. Or any other person left on the island. He doesn’t care how he gets there, just as long as he gets there.
The challenge is to answer questions about Nicaragua. If they’re right, the bag will contain puzzle pieces. If they are wrong, the pieces will be black. Once they have answered all three questions and collected all three bags of pieces, they will use the pieces to solve the puzzle. We may as well count Dan out now. Last time, Fabio proved he could do puzzles blindfolded. Everybody gets the first question right. Honduras is north of Nicaragua. Fabio is incorrect on the second question. This gives Chase, Holly, and Sash the lead. Dan’s irrelevant as always. Fabio is correct on the second and third questions, but he’s allowed the leaders to open up a huge gap on him. Fabio’s just about caught up to Sash. Chase, who dropped a puzzle piece early on, still hasn’t noticed it on the ground. Fabio wins immunity. Then Chase realizes he’s missing a piece.
With Fabio having won immunity, the alliance can only remain intact in one way: vote out Dan. Do they really want to take out a guy who will never come in above last place in any challenge and who hasn’t done anything around camp?
Fabio’s plan is to get rid of Holly. He asks Chase if Dan is a bigger threat than Holly. Chase says yes. Realizing that talking to Chase is pointless, Fabio approaches Sash instead, who may be a bit more open to listening. His pitch is that, aside from the fact that Dan’s not a threat, Chase and Holly are too tight and need to be broken up. Holly knows something is up, but she will just keep faith that her alliance will save her.
Chase says that he thinks Brenda called him paranoid before. She agrees. He’s paranoid as hell.
Fabio warns the others. A lot of people on the jury think of Holly as a mother figure. That alone could score her some votes, whether it should or should not.
Votes
Dan
Dan
Chase
Dan
With 3 votes (4 counting Fabio, who realized it was futile), Dan, the least threatening person ever, has been voted out. Dan wishes everybody but Fabio the worst, but he ultimately voted for Chase in an effort to let him know how much he dislikes him, in spite of the fact that Holly is a crook.
Fabio still doesn’t get it. His plan remains the same: target Holly. Because that worked so well last time. I’m not sure that he really has much choice, though.
Holly’s already talking to Chase about what to do if Fabio wins again. Their plan is to take out Sash, which is exactly what Fabio warned him about. They’re afraid that Sash will get a lot of votes, but then again, so will Fabio. In either scenario, they’re worried they have screwed themselves.
Now it’s time for the walk. First, there was Wendy Jo. Yeah, apparently there was somebody named Wendy Jo this season. Shannon’s still bitter about his defeat, saying he didn’t want to babysit these people anyway. Marty was always thinking, but like Sash and Brenda, he got on my nerves by getting way too cocky before he earned it. NaOnka says that she was always smiling, friendly, and strategical, and that she was the smartest player in the game. Welcome to opposite world. Benry’s convinced he could have gone on an immunity run, unless there were some puzzles. Jane says she can go back to North Carolina with her head held high. Well, except for her tantrum on the final day.
For the final time, immunity is back up for grabs. Each person will have a sword. With one hand, they will balance the sword on a shield. With their other hand, they will stack coins on the handle of the sword. Every coin is slightly uneven, making them not so easy to balance. Holly drops a single coin, which is enough to eliminate her first. Chase is the next one out as his stack falls. That brings us down to Sash and Fabio, and whoever fails first is probably going to get voted out. Sash’s coins drop. Fabio wins immunity, which I would argue is a million dollar win.
Now Fabio can just relax and watch the fun.
Holly and Chase immediately go off together, while Sash remains behind to try to weasel his way into Fabio’s good graces, telling him he’s his best friend in the game. I’d vote him out just on the basis of that ridiculous lie, although having a very bad liar with you in the finals is not a bad thing. Fabio tells this to Chase, who says Sash is a snake. Chase and Holly try a different approach, the truth: Fabio was the next to go.
Fabio has now decided that Sash and Chase are both liars, and Holly is the only decent person there, although she may be a threat as a result.
At tribal council, Sash continues to talk circles around himself, still unable to give a straight answer, except to acknowledge that he had an alliance with everybody.
Votes
Sash
Holly
Holly
Holly
That was an interesting turn of events. With 3 votes, Holly has been voted off the island, as the guys ended up sticking to their fake alliance.
Sash feels he’s played the best strategic game. Being the only person with a strategic game does not mean it was the best. Rather, it’s all blown up in his face. His inability to choose a side is not lost on the jury.
Chase’s plan is to tell Fabio he just won the money, in hopes of getting him overconfident.
Brenda feels that Sash was smart for making alliances. If only he didn’t break all of them. She is shocked that Chase so easily accepted her getting voted out. Chase says he tried, but NaOnka and Fabio backed out. With that said, Sash shakes his head. He thinks he could have stepped up more.
Marty would like Chase to give a dumber than a bag of hammers award to somebody other than Marty. Chase’s response: this is a BS question because I can’t pick you. Therefore, he will not answer. Marty thinks Sash has been a solid strategist, and he thinks Fabio has changed the most as a person and a player.
Holly asks Chase his best move he made on his own. In the beginning, he chose to go with the minority he did trust, and voted out Shannon. She asks Fabio whether winning the immunities was too little, too late. That was the only option he had. Whether it’s enough to warrant a vote is another story. Did Sash ever lie to her? Yes, he put her name down, although he told her he would not do that.
Next up is Jane. Here comes the bitterness. Sash is a New York City river rat, who can go crawl back into the black hole he came from. Chase made her time out here the funnest event in her life, even though she’s still pissed at him. What would he do with the money? His promise is that $100,000 will go to help cancer, and he will take care of his mom. Fabio interjects that he wants to take care of his mom and dad as well.
Benry has heard everything from Chase he needs to hear. Congrats to Fabio for his immunity wins. The target here is Sash, who he could see right through. Sash’s response is right on point, but perhaps not the smartest thing to say. If Benry could really see through him, he probably should have mounted a strike against him.
Dan hates everybody (can’t imagine why because, regardless of how they voted, he had no chance), so back to the bitterness we go. He thinks Sash is a liar, a phony, and spineless. Chase is the most paranoid player, who backstabbed everybody. Beauty fades; dumb is forever.
Purple Kelly (so that’s who that blonde sitting in the jury is) gives Sash 60 seconds to explain how he outwitted everybody. Sash thinks he should have been voted out at the merge, but he wasn’t, as a result of all the alliances he created with every single player.
Now we come to NaOnka the nutjob, who threw away a career as a reality star by quitting. Chase was her brother, Fabio was the hippy friend, and Sash was the strategic player. An emotional Fabio tells her that seeing his mom and dreaming what he could do for his family got him to the end. He’s got multiple members of the jury crying with this response.
Alina would rather give the money to a man than the ultimate surfer boy dude, so can Sash prove he deserves to win? Sash’s defense of himself is that Fabio was clueless a lot of the time (he was), while Chase was a bit wishy washy. Fabio says that, unlike Chase, who merely tried to get through the game without pissing anybody off, he actually did it. Nobody on the jury holds ill will toward him. Of course, Chase’s defense is that Fabio didn’t do this strategically. He just did this by not knowing what the hell was going on.
Pointing out that the young vs. old twist failed pretty miserably, Probst makes note of the final three all being from the young tribe.
Votes
Fabio
Chase
Fabio
Chase
Chase
Chase
Fabio
Fabio
Fabio
With 5 votes, the Survivor: Nicaragua winner is Jud Birza (aka Fabio), the youngest winner ever at age 21. In a normal season I would have been irritated with Fabio winning because he really didn’t do much. In this rather lackluster season in which nobody really did much, however, I will say this was the right decision, certainly better than what the 4 idiots who voted for Chase intended. To Chase’s credit, he did make strong bonds with some of the people he ended up screwing over, but I’ll stop short of saying he did anything more. Meanwhile, Sash got no votes. While I would argue this is unfair because he was the most strategic, he made a key error. He set himself up to get to the end… without actually making sure he secured the votes along the way.
Jeff’s surprised that Sash even made it this far. He predicted Sash would be voted out at the first tribal council.
Jimmy Johnson has a story of his efforts at getting on the show. 6 or 7 years ago, he was rejected. So a couple years later, he tried again, and was told they’d love to have him, but he had two blocked arteries. He thanks Survivor for saving his life. So this season he got on as the most famous person ever to be on the show, only to be eliminated very early on, certainly not what the producers planned when they spent so much time hyping him.
As a peace offering for destroying his shoes, Holly gives Dan ostrich boots.
From this point forward, following the actions of quitters NaOnka and purple Kelly, the producers will reserve the right to remove people from the jury if they quit the show for reasons other than medical or other extenuating circumstances (I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean… hopefully they’re not just trying to cover themselves with that wording to allow people like Jenna Morasca and Sue Hawk to be excused for being quitters).
The winner of the Sprint award and $100,000 richer is Jane, who won by the largest margin and with the most votes ever. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Overrated.
Jeff had hoped to give Shannon a chance to redeem himself. Shannon wants no such chance, saying that Sash walks like a duck, so he called him a duck.
Rob and Amber have now had a second baby, Carina Rose Mariano, born on December 10.
Survivor will be back for season 22 with a new twist. When somebody is voted out, they will be forced to live alone, on Redemption Island. The next person to join them will duel with them. Whoever survives long enough will reenter the game.