Last night "good ol' Kentucky Nick" Wilson won Survivor 37 - David vs Goliath, on a 7-3-0 vote over Mike White and Angelina Keeley, respectively. There is no doubt that Nick played a wonderful game, and if I were on the jury I do believe I would've voted for him. That said, this, IMO, is one of the best Final 3s we've ever seen as Mike and Angelina also played great games. Therefore some fans have been surprised by the relatively large margin of Nick's win, especially with Angelina being shut out of votes completely. So, was the vote margin deserved, and why didn't Angelina get a single vote?
The elephant in the room -- the theme itself: In a season with a theme such as David vs Goliath, it's human nature to root for the "David". Nick, the only david of the F5 was up against two goliaths, so if anyone was on the fence, the underdog story could have helped sway them.
Nick's story: Although he didn't pull the full on "fall for my story" card like Jeremy, Adam, and Ben before him, his true "David" story of growing up in a trailer park and now being a public defender, certainly tugged on the heartstrings of the jury. It could have also pulled an on-the-fence juror or two over to his side.
Mike's slow game until Day 30: Yes, Mike played an excellent game and I believe he and Angelina both slightly "out-strategized" Nick (with Nick's social and physical games being much stronger). In FTC, Nick brought up the importance of timing Survivor moves, and Mike's timing wasn't so strong. He didn't really kick it into high gear until after Day 30 when he realized he needed some moves for the resume. He orchestrated three votes in a row: Gabby, Christian, and Davie, and he also beat Kara in the fire making challenge and won F7 immunity, so it's no surprise that all three of his jury votes came from three of the four last jury members -- the people that were in the game to see his flashy moves. If all game long he had played as well as he did in the last ten days, he could have easily gotten the respect of more of the jury, but the fact is that it was too little, and more importantly, too late, for the majority of the jurors.
Angelina's blunders: Angelina falls into one of my favorite archetypes in Survivor -- the aggressive style female gameplayer that wants to leave it all on the island. She's definitely the best player of this archetype since Sarah Lacina, and I believe is one of the legends of this archetype -- alongside the likes of Parvati, Ciera Eastin, Natalie Anderson, and Sarah. Despite all the BIG moves, you can't deny the fact that Angelina did overplay, especially in the end game, which left the jury with a bitter taste in their mouth. Angelina was on the track of a winning game until a little ways after the rice deal, which at the time seemed like a fantastic move. But she brought it up so much, that it clearly was no longer, a selfless move, which is why it was such a good move to begin with. But I don't believe she fully sealed her fate until the finale when she A. exaggerated about the "HARD" idol find, B. created one of the worst looking, and definitely most pointless, fake idols in Survivor history, and C. wanted to put on "theatrics" for the jury so blatantly, and asked Mike to help her pull that off. It would be interesting to see how this final vote would have gone down had she not "lost her marbles" during the end game. With this F3, I still believe Nick would have won, but it probably would have been something along the lines of a 5-3-2, or 4-3-3 vote.
Sexism: I wanted to bring this up because Angelina, several jurors, and Jeff himself, all did. Do I think that sexism was part of the reason that Angelina got no votes? Maybe. I could see someone along the lines of John or maybe Dan voting for a game like Angelina's, if it had been played by a male. That said, even if Angelina was a guy, I don't see the vote looking closer than 6-3-1 given Angelina's blunders at the end, and sexism is DEFINITELY not the reason that Angelina didn't win the game.
TO RECAP: All three finalists played great games, with timing being one big factor in the vote breakdown. Nick was the clear best player, but the other two would have been even closer competitors if Mike had started playing a bit sooner and Angelina hadn't fumbled at the end.
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