LogFAQs > #969950967

#64: The Final Four
https://i.imgur.com/eBIqkQf.png

Show: Survivor: Borneo
Original airdate: August 23, 2000

"I plead to the jury tonight to think a little bit of the island we have been on. This island is full of pretty much 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 rats do on this island, trying to run from the snake. I believe we owe it to the island spirits we have come to know to let it end in the way that Mother Nature intended: for the snake to eat the rat."

I look back at this episode, and man, Survivor used to be a lot different, huh? Barely any focus on strategy, just these four people after 36 days looking thin and pale and exhausted and just barely making it to the finish, and yet there's still more of a climactic, event feel to this than there was to almost any other finale in the series. It was the most watched Survivor episode ever, and for good reason: by this point, the show had become a bonafide phenomenon, and everyone was desperate to know which of these four would win. And boy, did the fireworks fly. Kelly and Susan's alliance had a complete meltdown, and nothing exemplified that more than in the final tribal council, when Kelly had a chance to win the million against the original strategic player, Richard Hatch. Susan's speech was so nasty, so full of vitriol, that my mom got worried that the two would get into a physical fight at the reunion! Meanwhile, poor Rudy, who probably should've ended up winning the million dollars, fell short at the final Immunity Challenge when his hand slipped, leaving it to a close 4-3 vote between Richard and Kelly, with Susan's Richard vote being the difference. Damn if that first season of Survivor doesn't hit so differently today, like the difference between Gen 1 and Gen 9 of Pokemon. The game has evolved, but sometimes there really is nothing like that first season.