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Rupert gets up and, well, we're conflicted. We mentioned this a couple of times in recent recaps. Rupert had made a big deal out of the fact that ELR is a bad human being. After doing so, he made an alliance with Evil Loser Russell in order to aid his own self-preservation. This is an understandable albeit hypocritical move. What he does next is great television and gives us a shiver of satisfaction when he addresses Russell. He berates Evil Loser Russell to the point that ELR looks at Probst as if begging for help. If Evil Loser Russell were an MMA fighter he'd be asking for the ref to stop the fight. We've seen Amanda Kimmel have a couple of the worst Tribal Councils ever, but what is happening to ELR throws under those instances. He's not even being given a chance to defend himself by several of these players. The entire jury has looked at him and said, "You suck. Go die." On a more positive note, Rupert tells Sandra how much he regrets not listening to her earlier in the game and thanks her on behalf of all the Heroes. Finally, he beats on Parvati for teaming with Russell, which bothers us since he was perfectly willing to do exactly the same thing when placed in a similar situation. He makes it better, though, by telling Parvati that she was a very worthy competitor and deserves to be in the final three.

We are of the opinion at this moment that Sandra is about to win the best and most competitive season of Survivor ever. We are also of the opinion that Parvati would have been just as deserving a champion, but is being punished for her choice of allies. We also believe that as hard as this is for us to wrap our heads around, we like ELR more than the jury does.

Probst reads the votes, and the final result is that all of the Heroes plus Courtney vote for Sandra, while Coach, Danielle and Jerri vote for Parvati. Sandra becomes the first two-time winner ever and stakes her claim as the best player in the history of the show. We do not see it as an irrefutable claim, as an argument could be made that Parvati was every bit as good and could have beaten her if she hadn't had the stink of Russell on her. Evil Loser Russell gets nothing. You lose! Good day, sir!

Well, that's not entirely true. ELR does get to keep the nickname we bestowed upon him.

After the first All-Stars, we had said it was a good experiment that shouldn't be repeated. And yet, this season of Survivor wasn't just great by Survivor standards. It wasn't just great by reality TV standards. It was just fabulous television. Thanks to this stellar season, we will be back to recap next season. Have a great summer, everyone!

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