Survivor: Bermuda - Final Tribal Council + Reunion

[Nate]

Final Tribal Council
Alex vs. Brett

The final two walk into the tribal council area with their torches, and set them at the back, then sit down.

We will now bring in the members of the jury...

The seven jurors walk into the tribal council area and sit on their benches.

Kyle, Robby, Ricardo, Lizzie, Joey, Hanna and JR voted out at the last tribal council.

Welcome final two to the final tribal council. After thirty-nine days, you've made it as far as you could, but tonight is not about you. This is the time where the seven people that you had a hand in voting out will get to say their piece and ultimately decide who they want to win the million dollars and title of Sole Survivor. Before I hand it over to them, I will give both of you a chance to give a BREIF opening statement. Once the two of you have done that, each of the jurors can ask questions or make statements to help them decide who they will be voting for.

Jurors, remember that you are voting for who you want to win this time. Votes will be due 48 hours from now, or at 10 pm site time on Saturday. The votes will be read Sunday along with the reunion, awards and the reveal of special news about the next season of Survivor coming up Summer 2015.

Jacob skbrettbug @challenge2014 Hanna Joey lizzie ZeroRed @robbyjak herovvillain31 

[skbrettbug]

Hey guys, Brett here. I hope you are all having a fantastic night. I think I should win this game because I played it fairly, played it nicely. I didn't double-cross anyone, didn't need to rely on physical (aka challenge) strength. I had a great system of people, the Vireoans, which crumbled on itself when Ricardo and Lizzie were blindsided (FWIW I was left in the dark on both votes). I had a friendship created with Alex, and that helped get me here. That's all. Have a good time questioning. Go Blue.

[Jacob]

Heyy Jury

Coming into this game, my only goal was to win. There were times when I didn't think it was possible, but I was determined, and now here I am in the final 2. I hope you guys see me as more than the guy who won 5 immunities, and the guy who played lots of idols. There's much more to me than that. I played a good social game, creating friendships with each person in my Vireo alliance. I played a good strategic game, knowing when the right time to make moves or change the game was. I was able to adapt throughout a pretty crazy postmerge, and I'm proud of myself, hopefully you can respect my game. It's funny how I started this game by doing the first challenge with Brett, and now here we are. Good luck Brett

The floor is yours I guess jury

[Joey]

Well since I'm here, I'll get this underway. First off, I want to say congratulations for making the final 2 and thank you for such a fun game. I have a question for each of you plus a statement.

Alex, besides winning challenges and finding idols, what strategy did you employ and what would you say was YOUR biggest move of the game? Again, this is besides challenges and idols.

Brett, I'll have to be honest, I don't remember much of what you did in the game so I will ask you to refresh my memory of some of the moves that you made.

Finally, I just have to say that Nate chose the right photo to represent the final two because someone sealed themselves a victory. Who it was, that's up to you to guess.

[Jacob]

Alex, besides winning challenges and finding idols, what strategy did you employ and what would you say was YOUR biggest move of the game? Again, this is besides challenges and idols.

Originally my strategy premerge was to be active enough to get myself into a good alliance. That happened when the alliance of myself/Brett/Ricardo/Cole was formed. However, I wanted to make sure I had other options too, so I tried to stay on good terms with people like Lizzie and JR, who were more active than the other people not in my alliance. So that was how I got to the merge, and then my strategy was just to try to keep Vireo together. It worked for a few rounds, but after the Ricardo blindside I knew it was gonna be tricky. I had to veer from my plan once though, I voted Lizzie off even though she was a former Vireo. She was going against what I wanted long term though, and I think it showed good adaptability on my part that I was willing to vary from my plan to take out a threat to my personal game. So I guess TL;DR, my strategy was just to make sure that I had good relationships with everyone in all of my alliances, make sure that information always made it back to me (which for the most part it did, minus the Ricardo vote), and make sure that the people I wanted in the end with me always stayed around.

As for my biggest move minus winning challenges or finding idols, I'd say it was a few hours ago when I voted JR out. In my eyes, and hopefully other people's eyes too, he was a big jury threat. He played a solid game all around, had friends on both sides the whole game, made big moves all the way from taking Cole out til the very end, and would've probably won. I know it was a risky move because I probably (definitely?) lost his jury vote with that one, but I'm hoping that the rest of the jury can respect that I did what I had to do for myself.

[lizzie]

Alex: I think the only chance you had to win this game was not winning the final immunity and showing that you were a strong and strategic enough player to last despite what a threat you were. I don't believe that voting out JR was a huge move. He played the worst game of anybody. He was the only person you could've taken jury votes from. My main question was, do you honestly think as far as the game survivor goes... That winning everything creating a huge target on your back and collecting and hoarding immunity idols was the best move? Because had I not been so loud in my confessional. You likely have a big obstacle in the game that would hinder your plans.

Brett: I'd just like to speak on you for a second as far as your game goes. Brett was honestly fantastic player. You may think he didn't do much cause no big moves were made on his part, but, despite never winning anything( very difficult to win with Alex in the house), and people knowing where he "stood" in the game he was never once a target, and managed to allign himself with the biggest targets in the game. He stayed loyal and made nobody look to vote him out. A game I sometimes wish I played myself. So my question for Brett is, explain why your strategy should beat a guy who could not be voted out any round in the entire game.

[Joey]

Feb 12, 2015 23:36:08 GMT -5 Jacob said:

Alex, besides winning challenges and finding idols, what strategy did you employ and what would you say was YOUR biggest move of the game? Again, this is besides challenges and idols.

Originally my strategy premerge was to be active enough to get myself into a good alliance. That happened when the alliance of myself/Brett/Ricardo/Cole was formed. However, I wanted to make sure I had other options too, so I tried to stay on good terms with people like Lizzie and JR, who were more active than the other people not in my alliance. So that was how I got to the merge, and then my strategy was just to try to keep Vireo together. It worked for a few rounds, but after the Ricardo blindside I knew it was gonna be tricky. I had to veer from my plan once though, I voted Lizzie off even though she was a former Vireo. She was going against what I wanted long term though, and I think it showed good adaptability on my part that I was willing to vary from my plan to take out a threat to my personal game. So I guess TL;DR, my strategy was just to make sure that I had good relationships with everyone in all of my alliances, make sure that information always made it back to me (which for the most part it did, minus the Ricardo vote), and make sure that the people I wanted in the end with me always stayed around.

As for my biggest move minus winning challenges or finding idols, I'd say it was a few hours ago when I voted JR out. In my eyes, and hopefully other people's eyes too, he was a big jury threat. He played a solid game all around, had friends on both sides the whole game, made big moves all the way from taking Cole out til the very end, and would've probably won. I know it was a risky move because I probably (definitely?) lost his jury vote with that one, but I'm hoping that the rest of the jury can respect that I did what I had to do for myself.

Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait...I was the mastermind behind taking Cole out NOT JR, despite what he may say.

[ZeroRed]

Well first off congrats on final 2 guys, it is nice to see that 2 members of the axis powers alliance made the final  , though our alliance makes me think of the four horsemen on BB5 with 2 members going to the end and the other 2, Cole and I, getting voted out before then.

Thoughts:

Alex- You were my main man in the game, you won almost every individual immunity, and found the idols.
Brett- You played the game that I wanted to play better than I did and I have to give you credit for that.

Question:

My questions for both of you since all three of us voted the same way the entire game until I was voted off my question is:

Starting with, and including my voteoff-
1. Describe and explain what you did to influence the votes for each round. - who were you talking to in the game, what did you personally say to avoid being targeted, etc.
2. Tell me what you knew and were thinking going to each tribal. - what was the result, based off the info you had at that time, you were expecting during each tribal and why?

It might be best to format your answers to my questions like:
Ricardo
1.
2.
and so on.

[Jacob]

Alex: I think the only chance you had to win this game was not winning the final immunity and showing that you were a strong and strategic enough player to last despite what a threat you were. I don't believe that voting out JR was a huge move. He played the worst game of anybody. He was the only person you could've taken jury votes from. My main question was, do you honestly think as far as the game survivor goes... That winning everything creating a huge target on your back and collecting and hoarding immunity idols was the best move? Because had I not been so loud in my confessional. You likely have a big obstacle in the game that would hinder your plans.

Well I'm sorry I didn't throw the most important immunity challenge in the game just to prove a point. And again, it's not like all I did was win challenges and find idols. There's so much more to me than that. And even with my idols (one of which I saved you with, you didn't seem to have a problem with them back then), I never got the most votes at any tribal. I never actually used an idol to successfully save myself. There were several rounds when I was vulnerable...every tribal we had premerge, and when Kyle was voted off, when you were voted off, when Joey was voted off. Playing a physical game is one of the three main aspects of survivor: strategic, social, and physical. While a physical game is obviously the most in your face of the three, I also had the other 2, they were just harder to see. Regardless of your confessional I knew you were a threat that would have to go sooner or later, we both recognized that about each other. So while I did have a target, it never hindered my game, and it wasn't solely due to my challenge skills. I hope you can see past all of that tonight to realize that I did play a multidimensional game regardless of how it appeared.

[Jacob]

Joey I didn't necessarily mean he was the mastermind, I'm not really sure who planned it or anything since I wasn't on that tribe, but from my understanding he was the vote who actually flipped regardless of who convinced him to. So he had a big hand in it just by being the executioner, not necessarily the mastermind. Guess that was just poor wording on my part, but again I wasn't there so I'm kinda unsure about how things actually went down that night

[lizzie]

Alex, I was in control of your game you didn't even know the ricardo blindside was happening. You didn't do anything other than win challenges. You may as well have been Nate ( sorry Nate!) you guys played the same strategic game.

[Jacob]

Starting with, and including my voteoff-
1. Describe and explain what you did to influence the votes for each round. - who were you talking to in the game, what did you personally say to avoid being targeted, etc.
2. Tell me what you knew and were thinking going to each tribal. - what was the result, based off the info you had at that time, you were expecting during each tribal and why?

Starting with your voteoff:
1. I had talked to the members of the Vireo alliance, and we settled on a plan to split the votes between the remaining Anole members Joey and Hanna. I had immunity that round, that's how I avoided being targeted.
2. Going into tribal I had a gut feeling something bad would happen, but I just let it play out and didn't play my idol on anyone. I was expecting Joey to be voted out that night, it was the one time I was mistaken.

Lizzie's voteoff:
1. This was the biggest mess of a round lol. Recovering from the Ricardo vote, I went back to my original idea of trying to keep Vireo together. I originally got all the Vireoans on board to vote Joey, but then the whole Lizzie debacle happened, and JR was my main man this round. He got Hanna's vote, and the 3 of us took Lizzie out. Brett and Lizzie still voted for Joey, and Joey voted for me. So that shows that people felt more comfortable with me in the game than Lizzie...that was their chance to take me out (nobody knew I was playing an idol that round though), and they still didn't do it.
2. I was thinking I was safe because there was so much drama that round, I had no choice but to play my idol. After that, I was expecting Lizzie to go home, which indeed happened.

Joey's voteoff:
1. After having to take out someone from Vireo, I knew this was the time that we all really had to stick together. There was no other option. I had to talk to Brett and JR individually, because JR said he didn't like Brett and didn't wanna talk in a message with him. Hanna had immunity, I had the idol, so Joey was the only viable option to go. Myself/Brett/JR voted for him, Hanna/Joey voted for me. Again my alliance stuck with me.
2. I was expecting Joey to get voted off, and it happened.

Hanna's voteoff:
1. I talked to both Brett and JR, and initially the plan was for all of us to vote Hanna. However then all of a sudden she's JR's bff, and he can't vote for her. So the vote tied, I stuck with Brett because I needed him in over Hanna, and Hanna lost the tiebreaker.
2. I was expecting the vote to tie, I just had to take my chances that Brett would win a challenge. If he had lost I would've been the odd man out, so that was a nerve-wracking tribal.

JR's voteoff:
1. I talked to nobody about this really because it was all my decision. I've already explained why I voted him off I feel like, but I considered him a threat.
2. Going into this tribal I knew 100% what was happening since I was the only vote. What I didn't expect was someone's reaction to it, but there was no predicting that.

Hopefully I did this right, I might've misunderstood the question???

[Jacob]

Lizzie I can't believe you feel that way, it's ridiculous to me.

Yes I was left out of one vote, but Brett was left out of 2 in a row? Clearly I had a decent enough social game, people stuck with me over you when you were after me. Even without idols and challenges, I NEVER got the most votes at a tribal...no I didn't make the move of taking Ricardo out, because Ricardo was someone I wanted to go to the end with. That was the lowest point of the game for me, but I rebounded, took out the people responsible for it, and now I'm up against someone who can't take credit for it either. I may not have made that ONE move that you made, but I sure as hell made other ones. That first merge tribal? Those were my idols that saved you and all of Vireo. Final 6? My vote was the swing vote between voting you out or Joey out. Final 4? I could've turned my back on Brett but I didn't. Final 3? I was the sole person making the decisions and moves at that tribal. Clearly I had some strategy going on.

[ZeroRed]

Alex you answered the question the correct way.

[lizzie]

Alex you're neglecting the point. Your game was idols. That was your game and you've made that clear. Your one big move was using the idols. I see that. That's when I thought you were a threat. Brett had a road to get there and actually made it tough. You only didn't have immunity twice. You had the idol both times and people assumed it because you always had them. You found 5 or 6 idols that game. How many rounds did you want Joey out when it didn't happen? I made sure he was safe every time because I needed to use him for my game. I got you guys to keep switching your votes. Brett was my main man behind all these swayings.

Do I think it's impressive you guys made it there? Absolutely. There were 20 people playing this game and 2 are sitting there with a chance to win so good on you. However, I just don't think doing a puzzle faster than everybody and finding more hidden immunity idols than the other person is a good game.

I just don't think you saying you ran the game is accurate and it's actually making you look worse than Brett.

[Jacob]

I've never said I ran the game. There were many points in this game where I wasn't in control, I'll be the first to admit that. I didn't have immunity 3 times, and I found 4 idols. Obviously winning immunity and finding idols helped me, but I still stand by my statement that there's more to my game than that. The only time I thought Joey was leaving and he didn't was the Ricardo blindside, which I already admitted I was not a part of. After that I chose to take you out over Joey, and then Joey left the 2nd time I voted for him. I just don't even think Brett and I have comparable games...I was very visible and in your face, while he was very invisible, almost to the point that seemed like he did absolutely nothing. I like Brett a lot and I'm glad I'm sitting here with him, I just don't really get your point.

Idols were not my game though, they were one aspect of my game. Just like challenges. Just like personal relationships. Just like strategy. Just like everything else that makes up a game of Survivor.

[Deleted]

Well congratulations Brett.

My question for you is simple, had you won the last immunity challenge who would you have taken to the end and why? Also, had Alex taken me like he promised, would you have voted for me?


As for you Alex....

I apologize for getting a little ratchet earlier. I'm a competitor and I don't like NOT making it the final in things. I came so far and to not win sucks. However, it makes me feel nice knowing had you taken me you would have lost. I was that b*tch this season and I'm okay with that.

My question to you is, what is loyalty to you? You go on about how friends should be okay with voting friends even if one gets screwed over in the end, but I don't understand this concept. So maybe you can help me understand? How did I impact your game? Because I feel like if it wasn't for me, you would have been gone weeks ago instead of Lizzie. I helped you get here!

[Jacob]

My question to you is, what is loyalty to you? You go on about how friends should be okay with voting friends even if one gets screwed over in the end, but I don't understand this concept. So maybe you can help me understand? How did I impact your game? Because I feel like if it wasn't for me, you would have been gone weeks ago instead of Lizzie. I helped you get here!

First off, apology accepted. Stuff got heated with both of us earlier, and it wasn't how I wanted things to go down.

Now for the answer to your question. Loyalty to me is when you give someone your word that you'll go as far as possible together before considering turning on each other. In this particular case, I was loyal to both you and Brett. Neither of you had voted me out ever, neither of you had given me a reason to want you out. So no matter what, the loyalty to one of you would have to be broken. That's where it becomes an individual game for me...I had to vote the person I felt was a bigger threat. Coming into this, I was here to win, not to make friends. Making friends is always a nice bonus, but friendships can be enjoyed after the game, while winning is one chance in this moment. That's why I feel that friends should be ok with voting friends out..everyone SHOULD have come here with the intention to win, so they should understand when a friend has to make a decision for themselves. I feel like this is a hard concept to explain because it's very internalized and something that you just feel rather than think about. You were a huge part of my game though, there's no denying that. You gave me information, helped me with votes, did much more dirty work than Brett. And I consider all of those qualities impressive, I would vote for someone like you over someone like Brett if I was on the jury in a game. I wasn't sure how this jury would think, so I had no choice but to assume they would think like me. Was I correct? I guess we'll find out. But don't think that I voted you out for lack of loyalty or lack of friendship, it just got to the point where I was between a rock and a hard place...either way I was gonna have to be the b*tch to someone, and unfortunately it was you I know your vote is probably the hardest for me to have a shot at getting, and I understand your decision no matter what, but hopefully once this is all over and we've cooled down, we can just go back to where we were. I wouldn't be here without you Jeffrey, everyone knows that.

[skbrettbug]

Feb 12, 2015 23:21:20 GMT -5 Joey said:

Well since I'm here, I'll get this underway. First off, I want to say congratulations for making the final 2 and thank you for such a fun game. I have a question for each of you plus a statement.

Alex, besides winning challenges and finding idols, what strategy did you employ and what would you say was YOUR biggest move of the game? Again, this is besides challenges and idols.

Brett, I'll have to be honest, I don't remember much of what you did in the game so I will ask you to refresh my memory of some of the moves that you made.

Finally, I just have to say that Nate chose the right photo to represent the final two because someone sealed themselves a victory. Who it was, that's up to you to guess.

Moves I made? I'll be openly honest with you, I tried to make as few moves as possible. If you make moves, you hurt somebody, and are regarded as a target. In hindsight, it might not have been the *best* strategy, but hey, I'm here

Probably the first (and, "best" at the time, but essentially inconsequential to the future) move I made was to send Kyle to Exile Island. After the challenge ended, we talked on the Chatzy for a few minutes, and sending him to Exile was a way for me (well, both of us) to have someone we could potentially work with once the merge came. Unfortunately, this never happened. I had two major alliances at the time, an alliance with Lizzie, who wanted to go to the F2 with me, and a 5-person alliance with the Vireo dudes. Cole was blindsided at the tribe switch, and I was unable to perform two of the first 3 immunity challenges due to timing, and narrowly lost out on a winnable second Immunity because I was watching football and missed my time. Maybe it's a good thing I didn't win that one, who knows. Ricardo was blindsided, Lizzie was blindsided, but I stayed loyal. I was kept out of the loop, but I likely wouldn't have gone along with the plan. Yes, they are two fantastic players, the Dukes of this game that, as a player who wants to win, would love to see Mercer pounce on them, but I felt like the network we had was good enough to keep us going strong.

I hope I answered your question right. Go Blue.

[skbrettbug]

Feb 12, 2015 23:45:33 GMT -5 lizzie said:

Alex: I think the only chance you had to win this game was not winning the final immunity and showing that you were a strong and strategic enough player to last despite what a threat you were. I don't believe that voting out JR was a huge move. He played the worst game of anybody. He was the only person you could've taken jury votes from. My main question was, do you honestly think as far as the game survivor goes... That winning everything creating a huge target on your back and collecting and hoarding immunity idols was the best move? Because had I not been so loud in my confessional. You likely have a big obstacle in the game that would hinder your plans.

Brett: I'd just like to speak on you for a second as far as your game goes. Brett was honestly fantastic player. You may think he didn't do much cause no big moves were made on his part, but, despite never winning anything( very difficult to win with Alex in the house), and people knowing where he "stood" in the game he was never once a target, and managed to allign himself with the biggest targets in the game. He stayed loyal and made nobody look to vote him out. A game I sometimes wish I played myself. So my question for Brett is, explain why your strategy should beat a guy who could not be voted out any round in the entire game.

Thanks for those wonderful words. Why is Alex here? Because he COULDN'T be voted out. Why am I here? Because I WASN'T voted out. I wasn't a threat, and had a great core alliance. It crumbled due to the inner workings of people that took out you and Ricardo, but I stayed loyal. I tried not to cause any fights, or any animosity at all. I'll admit, I could have tried harder on the challenges. By not making any big moves or winning anything after the tribal stage, I received just two (I think two) votes against me, and those didn't even come until the final four. And I didn't really need to win any challenges, but as soon as I did (the tiebreaker), I won that challenge. I was probably at the bottom of everyone's list to vote off since there wasn't no reason to do so. i didn't look ahead to the final two, didn't make too many of those deals, I just looked to survive today. So, I think JR, put it, I think I could be Mr. Nice Guy. A role with which I'm happy to own.