Here we are on another finale night and with a new Survivor winner. Was there really any surprise in who this person was after Cirie was voted out? Based on how much I have talked about her in my blog and how much she was shown on the show, it is great to call Sarah Lacina the winner of Survivor: Game Changers. She was so crafty and had a hand in every single vote as well as played an amazing social game. She truly is a very deserving winner, but the outcome of her fate wouldn't be known until the very end of the episode. There was a lot more action leading up to this, including a new Final Tribal Council format that I have a few "hot takes" on.

Coming out of the episode last week, everyone was wondering how in heck did Cirie survive that Tribal Council. We got to witness the immediate fall out from that tribal and got an insight to Sarah's thoughts. She was going off on Cirie and all Cirie was trying to do was save her from being voted out. The Final Six huddled around the fire and it was outed by Cirie that Tai was the one that threw Sarah's name out so this showed Cirie was telling the truth. Tai even admitted to this. Tai is such an enigma. He can have ice water in his veins when it comes to playing idols, but in all other Survivor related aspects, he can't do anything. Why would you announce that you were the one that did throw that name out? He could've lied to Sarah earlier about all of this and Cirie would have been numero uno on the hit list. Now he is pretty much the person with a blown up game. I just don't see the logic in this. The next day Mr. Culpepper got to work though. He tries to rope in Tai and Tai says that he will vote with him and Troyzan because he has nowhere else to go. He even tells Brad about his two idols. Brad immediately sees dollar signs in his eyes and he knows that Tai won't be bad to work with, that is until after he wins Immunity.

The next series of moves of Brad Culpepper were very fascinating to me. He has Troyzan and Sarah on his reward and he forms a Final 3 with them and they decide to go after Aubry before Tai. Brad then goes to Tai and says that Tai has to give him one of his idols tonight so there is no funny business with the other one when they vote Aubry. He says that if Tai doesn't give him the Idol then he will be the one to go. Brad conveyed this message in a very aggresive way though and that proved to be ineffective. This move however would have been so great if he pulled it off. All Brad had to do was be a little bit more charming and be a little bit nicer to Tai. We saw this Kaoh Rong with Scot and Jason. They tried to control Tai and Tai did not end up going along with them. Same situation here. This causes all hell to be broken loose at Tribal where Tai plays an idol on himself and Aubry, Troyzan plays his idol, Sarah plays her legacy advantage, and Brad is immune. So that leaves one odd duck and that is Cirie. This means Cirie is automatically voted out of the game.

This was rough, but beautiful at the same time. Cirie did not get a single vote this whole game. Not once. This has to be the first time a player has not made it to Final Tribal and not had a vote cast against them all season. We all hate that Cirie was the victim of all of these advantages, but that is why the game is so good. It was great to see Cirie back this season and I think the whole Survivor community thanks her for what she has done for the game.

Back into the game and no surprise, but Brad Culpepper wins Immunity once again. This time though Aubry feels very vulnerable. Her pitch to the Sarah and Tai is that Brad and Troy are going to the Final 3 together so that leaves one spot. If they take out Troyzan tonight, then there are two spots that need to be filled. I think this is a good pitch by Aubry however this kind of game play came too little too late. No one was going to lose to Troyzan in Final Tribal Council. I am sure all of them were very aware of this too. This is why they could not go along with the plan. Even Tai told Sarah that he would be voting Aubry. Aubry had a huge target on her back coming into this season and that is why she laid so low. Everyone knew what kind of player Aubry was beceause they had just seen Kaoh Rong wrap up. No one was going to let her near Final Tribal Council. There was some debate with Tai again when Brad basically was trying to bully him again. but in the end Aubry was the next to go. I would like to see Aubry play again, but she needs to go back to cuthroat Aubry with elements of her social game from this season present. I have a feeling it is not a matter of if with Aubry, it is a matter of when.

The next thing that happens is that Brad wins Immunity for the 3rd time in one night and joins the 5 time Immunity winner in a single season club to cement his place in Survivor history. That history though is not what Brad wants to be remembered for though. He wants to be remembered as the winner of Survivor: Game Changers. He is dead set on voting out Tai though. Tai and Sarah know that they are in trouble though so Tai, actually has a good idea of trying to tie the vote and go to a firemaking challenge with Troyzan. Sarah does not take the bait though and they end up voting Tai giving us a Brad, Sarah, and Troyzan Final 3. Why Brad wanted to vote out Tai, baffles me. They polled the cast during the show and Troyzan would have had to break the tie, but Brad would have won. Bringing Sarah was not a wise move. Sarah not going to fie was a wise move though. Why risk her game by going to a fire making challenge when you can just vote someone out with the people you trust. It is not a flashy move, but the smartest move to make in this case.

At Final Tribal Council, we get this new format that serves as more of an open forum for the Survivors. Instead of having Jury questions, there is a open discussion with the Final 3 and the Jury. Some people were arguing for Sarah and some were arguing for Brad. One of Sarah's best answers though was that she had to change how she played from last time. This I believe is what ultimately locked up the win for her. This gave her a great story that really helped her game play. This new format was really fun as a viewer to watch, but as a person that loves the strategic aspect of the show I feel like this was sort of a cop out. One of the most fascinating things about Survivor is that the people that make it to the end have to face each jury member one by one and try to deal with the fact that they voted that person out. They have to make themselves look good. It is very much still a game and you need to show the very best version of your Survivor self in this moment. By having the Jury make these arguements for you, it takes the skillfullness and your persuasion skills a little bit more out of the equation because now you have people helping you out. I just think that the finalists should be responsible for their own fate and not have to rely so much on the jury. During FTC as well, Troyzan graciously sees that he is not going to win and thanks the jury and everyone else for being a part of his experience.

Why yes Sarah did win, but lets talk about why Brad lost. Sarah did play the better game than Brad, but I think Brad could have done two things differently and the votes would've been closer or Brad might have won. The main one is that he really didn't have much of a social game towards the end. He was brilliant pre-merge, but he went on too much of the defensive when the merge hit. This caused Blood vs Water Culpepper to come out and that is not the Culpepper he wanted. This was very evident in how he talked to Tai. The next thing he should've done was really taken the reigns after Sierra was voted out. He needed to not settle for just winning Immunity. He needed to weasel his way into the majority alliance and form those relationships and make promise. You have to do that in Survivor. Brad seems like a nice enough guy that he could have easily accomplished this. A combo of this and his Immunity runs would have presented a much better case to beat Sarah.

An under reported story I think that is going to be the topic of discussion for the coming days is that Sarah Lacina is actually one of the games greatest winners. In fact, she is currently sitting a number 10 on my list and would be higher on my list if it wasn't for the new Final Tribal format. Sarah controlled every single vote this season. She was the deciding vote and always knew how to vote. She played very similar to Tony, but with a way better social game. It seemed that week after week I would write about how I wondered if the Jury was going to be forgiving towards and how people continued to trust her when she just betrayed their alliance a few days ago, yet she continued to thrive with these people and build strong personal relationships, relationships that would still award her one million dollars even though she back stabbed everyone. She even pandered to the Jury as well. She looked as shocked as can be after she voted Sierra off to get her advantage. It was revealed that she wore Zeke's jacket to every single Tribal and she still voted him out. Sarah did direct some votes and even the votes that she didn't come up with herself, she still directed them because she was the swing vote. This pendulum strategy usually catches up to people, but her stellar social game did not allow that this time.

This season was truly very entertaining, but it still feels like there was something missing. We missed out on seeing what would have happened if Tony, Malcolm, Sandra, and J.T. would have made it to the The Merge and we had the ugliness between Varner and Zeke, but even then we still got some very complicated strategy and gameplay and I think that is what ultimately is going to be remembered about Survivor: Game Changers.