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This is the first moment in the game when Reed’s Broadway training was on full display. By the end of it, Baylor is sobbing, which is admittedly tough to watch.

And now it’s time to vote. We see Jeremy’s vote for Natalie, Jon’s vote for Jaclyn, Reed’s vote for Jaclyn (perhaps that Josh vote is in doubt), and Baylor’s vote for Missy. We still think it’s Natalie’s win, but Reed’s vote for Jaclyn does muddy the waters a bit.

Probst walks out on stage with the urn containing the votes, and when he reads them out the order is: Jaclyn, Natalie, Jaclyn, Missy, Natalie, Natalie, Natalie. One of the twins from The Amazing Race has won Survivor. What fresh hell is this?

Ultimately the final voting breakdown was five to Natalie, two to Jaclyn and one to Missy. And looking at Reed’s Twitter feed after the fact, he says that the only reason that he voted for Jaclyn was because it was clear Natalie was winning and he wanted to be sure that Missy finished in third. Since there’s supposedly some monetary impact to his decision to do that (second place earns more than third), it’s proof that in Survivor, you have to try to be decent to the people you’re voting out even if you are dominating them. Even so, we bet future players won’t have learned that lesson.

The doomsday scenario we envisioned at the start of the season was that John Rocker, the future ex-Mrs. John Rocker or one of the twins would win Survivor. Despite the fact that exactly this eventuality has occurred, we largely enjoyed this season. There was a tremendous amount of unusual game strategy, some treachery and some extremely savvy players. In the end, Natalie outplayed all of them. As much as we are annoyed to admit it, she deserved the win. Oddly, she benefited from the early elimination of her twin and the unexpected elimination of her primary ally Jeremy by people in her alliance other than herself.

We do find it interesting that everyone is dismissing Missy’s performance in this game, because as little as we like her on a personal level, she meticulously followed the Rob Mariano/Brian Heidik playbook by largely determining the elimination after the merge and winding up with weak players in the end. The problem is that she was also Russell Hantz-like in that none of the people on the jury liked her except for the one she brought into this world.

Season 30 of Survivor will be themed “Worlds Apart,” featuring a white collar tribe, a blue collar tribe and a “no collar” tribe. So basically it’s the one percent versus the people they convince to work for them and the Occupy Wall Street movement. Join BOP as we recap this hot mess when Survivor returns in February.

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