Its over. Its done. We have a new sole Survivor and his name is Adam Klien. Adam and his touching story was really a good part about this season. This season had it all and when we look back on it, this will go down as one of the greatest seasons ever. This finale was also one of the best ones in awhile so let's take a look at it.
Fresh off the Sunday vote, Jay is disapointed that he played his Idol, which like I said last week, I can't blame the guy. He is very upset but he is going to keep hope alive and look for an Idol. David though is one step ahead of him though and makes a fake idol which Jay finds later on that day. This was really a brilliant move by David and the right person found it. David continued to amaze me when he won the next Immunity Challenge because Jay forgot to cover up his combo. I actually don't think this was everything, but it did set Jay back a little bit. Jay ends up stealing the reward though, but he picks David and Adam to share it with. This was the right way to use this in Jay's case. He needed to get an audience together and pitch his case to them.
Jay used the case of that he was going to be a shield for those two because he was always going to be the target before them. He also said he would take both of them to Final 2. He also suggests that Bret should be the one to go next because he has the most friends on the jury. This was exactly what Jay needed to do and for a few minutes it looked like it was going to work. He pled and pled with Adam especially to pull on his heart strings, but it ended up working to no avail. Jay played the "idol" and was informed that it was not an Idol and Jay was the newest member of the jury. Ken also used his legacy advantage was basically an Individual Immunity.
After this vote, the target now has shifted to David. There is no question that he is public enemy number one and that he is going to have to win Immunity to be safe. He trusts Ken fully, but he knows Adam and Bret will be wanting him out. At the Immunity Challenge, his closest ally Ken pulled off the victory and at this point I thought Ken was so loyal that he might give the necklace to David, but I was wrong. The person of controversy here was Hannah.
Right after the challenge, Adam goes on an Immunity Idol hunt and actually finds the last one on the last night it can be played. This is game changing becuase right in the next scene David tells Hannah and Ken that they need to go after Adam. Hannah being right in the middle goes to Adam and tells him that he is the target which in turn he shows her the Idol. Hannah then goes back to tell David and Ken that they need to switch their vote to Bret. Adam plays the Idol at Tribal, but David, Ken, and Adam stick together and vote out Bret, completely blindsiding Adam.
This was the moment that I was 95% that Hannah lost the game. The strategy of her flipping back and forth between sides while focusing heavily on her relationships so that no one gets mad at her is a good one, but it has an expiration date. Pretty soon people will get bitter about this and see that. Adam realized it at this point and when Bret was voted out he really played this up to the Jury to expose Hannah. This also wasn't the best move that could've been made. David had to go. At this point he was the clear front runner and you have to take him out. That speaks volumes though to David's game though because he had built that loyalty with Hannah.
Back at camp, Adam is just dumbfounded with Hannah and they have another one of their late night conversations about the vote. Hannah is already planning on flipping back to Adam for this vote to get David out setting them up for the Final 3 with Ken. In retrospect, for Hannah this still wasn't the ideal situation but she had a way better shot at beating Adam than she did David. When Ken wins Immunity, it is looking like we are either going to have Hannah go with David and Ken to get Adam out or we were going to see a tie and a fire making challenge between Adam and David, which I am not going to lie would've been very awesome. However, in a shocking turn of events, Ken flips on David and votes him out.
At this point, I thought Ken was going to be the winner of the season. He really played an old school game of being very loyal to his alliance and he was an absolute challenge beast. No one saw this though because everyone's mind was focused on Jay because he had more of a strategic game. Ken was able to slide under the radar and play his own game.
We also had Hannah coming into Final Tribal Council. Like David, she really blossomed as a person over the course of the season and she was able to put herself into positions where she was either the deciding vote or coming up with the idea to get someone out and her alliance went along with it. She led the charge in getting Bret and Sunday out as well as being pivotal in votes. She was going to have to do some talking up, but she still played a good game.
Finally we had Adam, Adam had some blunders early on with his social game but he put himself in a position where he could make strategic decisions and not get found out about it. He had Idols, he had a working relationship with a lot of people. He had a hand in getting Zeke and David out, and really got his social game together. Plus he had the Mom card he could pull out of his pocket.
At Final Tribal, no one really gave Ken any credit for his game, which was upsetting because I truly believe Ken played a pretty good game. Hannah though was on fire. She had a good answer to every question and she had responses to everything Adam said that was believeable and credible. Hannah was on the path of victory I think until Adam brought up his Mom and broke down. That had to come out at some point and I am really glad that Adam did. It proved to be very beneficial because he won on a 10-0 vote.
Adam's story is one of the most touching I think I have ever seen on Survivor. While he is not in the Upper Tier of winners, I think he deserved it.