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I can't believe it worked!
Todd didn’t only win over Jean-Robert with his answer at the final Tribal Council on Survivor: China. He won me over, too. Until that point, I wasn’t sure which of the final three I wanted to win, or if I even cared. And to be honest, all three of them were great when answering the jury’s questions. I could have understood anyone on the jury voting for any of the final three, but I’m glad Todd won, because he was the one with the strategy that lasted 39 days, and the guts to follow through on it, and the integrity to admit that he had played people and lied to them.

Denise was quite bitter with both Amanda and Todd about being voted out fourth in the game, but the fact that she voted for Courtney because she thought she played an honest game is kind of ingenuous. Courtney had her own game to play, and she did it very well. She never came across as a physical threat, and she never tried to hide the nasty side of her personality. (She would say “honest” instead of “nasty,” but she also knows how she comes across. And doesn’t care.) Courtney played up her physical weakness as often as possible. It got her to the final three, but it didn’t get her the million dollars.

After Denise was voted out, the final three came back to camp and Amanda was in a pissy mood because she thought Todd had betrayed her at Tribal Council. To those of us watching, that obviously wasn’t the case. Todd rolled his eyes at something Denise said, Jeff called him on it, and Todd answered as honestly as he could. I don’t think he ever had any intention of doing anything but what he did, which was go to the jury with Amanda. The fact that she only got one vote surprised me, even more than the fact that Courtney got two. But after the final Tribal Council, Todd’s win didn’t surprise me at all.

Finally: best reunion show ever. I think I might say that every season, but this one was priceless, from Courtney joking about herself, to Jean-Robert’s admission that he learned more about reading people on the show, to James’s gravedigging story to Denise’s demotion from lunch lady to janitor (not fair!). But I had to love Todd’s narration of everything he planned to do, and how he pulled it off, and his last word: “I can’t believe it worked!” It could be a blueprint for winning Survivor, or it could just be that there can never be another Todd.

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