Survivor retro rewatch: Borneo finale, “The Final Four”

Survivor: Borneo brought everything to an end, setting plenty of gameplay precedents for the seasons to come in the process.

For Survivor, we now expect a full-blown recap of the entire season to kick the finale off. Even in this first season, Jeff Probst did no less. From “The Marooning” all the way to “Death of An Alliance,” he covered it all in under two minutes in a nice voiceover.

Day 37 dawned at Rattana, or, if you prefer, Tagi 2.0, since all four people left started out on that tribe. During the first camp life scene, we got to see Sue and Rudy using razors and just how the whole adventure has affected everyone physically.

But at the same time, the show offered perspectives on how necessary alliances were. Richard, ultimately, made the case for how the game shifted from the “ultimate human experiment” Probst mentioned in the voiceover to, as Richard noted had been on the logo from the word go, “outwit, outplay, and outlast.”

The final four immunity challenge was one that the show really should bring back more often: “Fallen Comrades.” In front of the jury at Tribal Council, the final four had to answer questions about the game (and the people) that had occurred up to that point.

Why should it come back? Well, it’s an easy way to make an argument about a social game without the final four ever speaking a word. For example, only Kelly knew the names of Jenna’s kids. It came down to a tie between Sue and Kelly: Sonja’s last name. Kelly got it right and won her fourth immunity challenge in a row.

Things went straight to Tribal, and it ended, of all things, in a tie between Rich and Sue. The two of them made their case to Kelly and Rudy. It all came down to Kelly, and she let Rich stay.

Probst woke everyone up at 4 a.m. the next day for the tradition we now call rites of passage, a phrase our illustrious host used, which included walking over coals (and wearing island mud). Then came the final challenge: stand on a log, and keep one hand on the immunity idol. Probst also brought out food to tempt them, and then, after a couple hours, Rich took his hand off and started explaining why as he ate his orange: he couldn’t win anyway, but he could bet that he had a 50% chance either way.

Probst basically sat down and had a conversation with everyone while they waited for the challenge to play out. Unfortunately, during a shift in position, Rudy accidentally took his hand off the idol, and Kelly won that final immunity.

So, once again, Kelly had a decision to make at Tribal. We all know how it ended up: Rudy became the last member of the jury, and Rich and Kelly became the final two … about halfway through the episode!

Prior to the final Tribal Council, Survivor had its last chance to define its last two players. Rich relaxed and plotted. Kelly relaxed and talked about her “moral low points.” As the two of them walked to the Final Tribal, Survivor actually gave the chance to let the jury speak in confessionals. Sue delivered a warning that she had “both guns loaded,” but we’ll get to that in a bit here.

Let’s talk about Kelly and Rich’s cases. She used the “it’s a game” defense, and asked for votes based on “the person that I am,” which kind of contradicts itself. Rich, however, openly said that he’d been playing strategically from the start. Then it came time for the jury’s statements.

Some things were obvious. Gervase asked what the two of them would change. Kelly openly said she would not have been part of the alliance. Jenna asked about who deserved to make it to the end. Rich chose Greg and Rudy for gameplay reasons, and Kelly picked Sonja and Gretchen for their “character.” Colleen asked what aspects of their personality got them through, and Kelly and Rich both had some interesting answers in terms of her saying faith (in herself) and Rich saying ethics.

Some questions seemed a bit strange, like Greg asking to pick a number.

Others spoke. Sean said something nice about both of them. Rudy just said he felt “dumb” after the final three immunity challenge.

And then came Sue. But she spoke a lot more. She took both Kelly and Rich down, but she took Kelly down a few more pegs than Rich, openly saying she’d vote for Rich.

We all remember the end of her speech, or at least the theme of it, but here it is:

"“This island is pretty much full of only two things: snakes and rats. And in the end of Mother Nature, we have Richard, the snake, who knowingly went after prey; and Kelly, who turned into the rat that ran around like the rats do on this island, trying to run from the snake. I feel we owe it to the island’s spirits that we have learned to come to know to let it be in the end the way Mother Nature intended it to be: for the snake to eat the rat.”"

The funny thing is that this speech sounds minimally rehearsed. Sue might have prepared the basics and then just went for it, but it feels a lot less practiced overall than all the many big jury speeches have since.

Kelly and Rich then had one last chance to speak. She apologized to Sue, but then said she could tell a lot of stories about Sue. He then said he “appreciated” the jury’s votes. Probst reminded everyone to vote for the winner, not for the person they wanted off.

The show presented the voting confessionals of Gervase (Kelly), Jenna (Kelly), Sean (Rich), Colleen (Kelly), Sue (Rich), and Rudy (Rich). However, the sentiment tended to be that the jury didn’t want to pick either of them, especially in Sean’s confessional.

It came down, as Sue said she wanted it to, to one vote. It just wasn’t hers. It was Greg’s. Probst read the votes right there, and, in a 4-3 vote, Richard Hatch became the first winner of this game that we’ve all come to know and love. The show also let us see Richard’s arrival back in the States as the credits rolled.

And now, some brief reunion notes:

• Probst didn’t host, with Bryant Gumbel taking duties instead … presumably because Probst was already in Australia.
• There wasn’t an island setting for the reunion stage.
• The usual questions came up (Greg and Colleen’s friendship, and so on).
• Probst presented the preview of The Australian Outback on location, and he promised 39 days instead of the 42 that ended up happening.

Next: Survivor 36 logo leaks out

So, that concludes our rewatch of Survivor: Borneo! My colleague, Daniel George, will be taking us to Africa with his look at Survivor: Gabon, and yours truly? Well, I’m going off to another island with Survivor: Cook Islands.