With “Survivor: South Pacific” headed into Sunday’s three-hour season finale, I had planned to use this space to lay odds on each remaining contestant’s chance of winning. But that seems rather dull at this point. Inexplicably, Coach’s allies – Albert, Sophie, Brandon and Cowboy Rick – have allowed him to sit on that immunity idol without ever even trying to make him play it. I honestly don’t get it. This show has been on the air for more than a decade. Presumably these people have watched it. And yet they let a veteran player hold onto a vitally important token – protection against being voted out- without ever once saying among themselves, “Maybe we should do something about that.” This is Survivor 101, folks. If you know someone has an immunity idol from an early stage in the game, adjust your strategies to take that into consideration.
But Sophie, Brandon and the Cowboy have been content to work as Coach’s operatives, and when Albert has attempted to strategize – never actually targeting Coach, but trying to step outside of Coach’s gameplan – the other players have attacked him as a traitor. So the truth is, coming into Sunday’s finale, it would be an upset if anyone other than Coach wins. In fact, it would be a major upset. The wild card is if Ozzy can win his Redemption challenge against Brandon (oh, please, let it happen) and then win two more immunity challenges. If Ozzy gets before the jury, he wins. If he doesn’t make it that far, then it is Coach’s game to lose. That’s saying a lot about how this season has developed, because in his two previous appearances on the show, Coach Benjamin Wade has shown himself to be an amiable goofball (if you like him) or an unhinged megalomaniac (if you don’t). He has never come off as a master strategist or a formidable competitor. And yet, from about a third of the way into this season, he has been the clear frontrunner, and not once has anyone attempted to challenge him. Go figure.
That’s one of the reasons that this has been, I think, one of the least interesting seasons of “Survivor.”
