23--O15--Kaôh Rōng

Rank: Original #15
Season # 32  
Title:  Survivor:  Kaôh Rōng

Location: Koh Rong, Cambodia
Broadcast: Spring, 2016
New Players:  18
Returning Players: 0

Days: 39
Winner:  Michelle Fitzgerald
Final Tribal Council:  3 Players 7 Jury
Initial Tribes: Gandol (Brawn), Chan Loh (Brains), To Tang (Beauty)

Swap at 13 Chan Loh, and To Tang
Merge: at 11 Dara
Jury: at 11 
Premise:  Tribes were separated initially by Brains, Brawn and Beauty, a theme that had been used in Season 28 Cagayan.  The introduction of a super idol that could be played after the votes were read, by combining two designated Hidden Immunity idols. 

Kaoh Rong is the only season of Survivor to be broadcast after another season was filmed and broadcast.  Filmed in March to May of 2015, the season was placed behind the 2nd Chance Season which was the 32nd Filmed but the 31st shown.  For this reason, the winner of Kaoh Rong was not shown till more than a year after it completed filming.  

The three tribes shared the same ship and were given 2 minutes to gather what they could and get it off the ship for their tribe.   

This season's celebrities were Scott Pollard a former NBA player and Caleb Reynolds a former "Big Brother" player. 

On the beauty tribe, nobody understood why Tai was on the Tribe, including Tai (Contributing to my theory that Survivor makes stuff up for their premises sometimes to fit whatever they want to do.)

On Brawn, Alecia was the outcast. And based on the edit rightly so, as she might have won a competition with Kat from One World as most clueless female in Survivor History.  She somehow survived the first two tribals as the Brawn tribe took out Darnell and then shiny object chaser Jennifer. 

On Brains, everyone paired off.  Joe and Debbie as the oldest bonded, while Neal and Aubry were together and Peter and Liz who thought they  were running the tribe.  

The Hidden Immunity Idols were more difficult this season. A clue with the idol, led to a tool that was needed to dislodge a key from a tree, which then unlocked the idol.  Once found they were revealed to have a superpower when combined with another idol.  

Tai found the first clue, and the tool, but when he went back to retrieve the tool, he couldn't find it.  Then made a makeshift tool to get the key and then the idol.  Alecia found the clue with Sydney,   Jason catches them looking.  Cydney finds the tool, reburies it and tells Jason and Scott where it is.   Jason and Scott made a makeshift tool to get the key.  Neal gathered in the 3rd Hidden Immunity Idol just before the switch. 

The Brains lost the 3rd immunity challenge as Cydney finished seconds ahead of Debbie.  Peter and Liz targeted Neal and planned to "dumb it down" to Debbie and Joe and and providing parental direction to Aubry and Neal.  Debbie wasn't buying it, and schemed with Aubry and Neal to vote out Liz, although Aubry wanted Peter taken out.  Peter's lack of self-awareness during tribal was hilarious, as the other 2 pairs were basically telling him that he was an idiot, but he just got more arrogant. Each pair split the vote, and Aubry, Liz and Pete each had two votes. On a revote Liz was voted out.   

The elements, especially the heat of Cambodia were a problem from the beginning.  On day 2 Aubry became dehydrated leading to an anxiety attack.   Jennifer got a bug in her ear on night 2 which became very painful for her. until Scott removed the bug.   At the infamous Day 10 reward challenge, Debbie, Caleb, and Cydney all went down with heat exhaustion.  Debbie and Cydney recovered enough to continue in the game, but Caleb's blood pressure continued to drop and had to be evacuated by helicopter.   All 3 went down after their part of the challenge was completed.   One of the most scariest outcomes in Survivor history rivaling Russell Swan's collapse in Samoa.  Watching the tribemates coming together to help each other was inspiring.   Michelle and Tai took Caleb's evacuation hardest.  Infections also were commonplace, as Joe's finger, and after the merge several people had pus-filled infections including Scot, Neal, Aubry and Tai.  

Brawn lost the next immunity and finally voted out Alecia.  The next day the tribes switched.  Chan Loh ended up with 2 players from each of the other tribes, while Gondol ended up with 3 Brains, 2 Beauties and Scott.   Julia drew red and went back to the Brawn tribe alone until the first Tribal. 

After Gondol lost the first immunity, the Brains realized they needed to vote a beauty out, because a beauty was going to replace the one voted out.  Tai was ready to play his idol and take out Peter, but Scott convinced him to save the idol knowing the powers of the super idol and where two idols were.  This would ultimately hurt both Scott and Tai later.  Anna left and Julia joined them. 

After the next reward challenge, Peter tried to scheme with newcomer Julia, which Aubry and Joe noticed.  Joe confronted Peter who would not admit he was gunning for Joe.   Later Julia and Tai, went to Aubry and told her Peter had changed it up and was gunning for her.  Aubry wrestled with that all the way into the voting booth as she wrote down Julia and then crossed it off and voted for Pete ending his game.  But Aubry's indecision made Scot unhappy.  

Next came the merge.   At this point in time, the edit had focused on four primary people Scot, Jason, Tai, and Debbie although Debbie was more comic relief.  It  appeared to be that one of the other three would win.   Meanwhile Michelle and Julia were the least visible.  

At the merge were 4 Beauty, 4 Brains and 3 Brawn, although Tai seemed tighter with Scot than the Beauties.   Scot and Jason tried to draw in Nick, while Debbie made a play for Tai, as well as Nick and Michelle, while drinking wine.  Jason thought the Brains and Beauty were all in together.    

After the first individual immunity challenge, medical came to look at all the infections.  Although several people had nasty infections. Neal became the 2nd medical evacuation of the season and eventually wound up on the Jury.  

Brawn and Beauty conspired to take the Brains out prior to Neal's evacuation, targeting Aubry.  At the immunity challenge Nick mouthed off about wanting to make sure a Brain didn't win.  After Tai outlasted Cydney, he stated that they were going to split votes for Debbie and Aubry.  Nick went to Aubry and told her the plan. Cydney meanwhile didn't like Nick's arrogance at the challenge and formed an alliance to take out Nick bringing in all the women and Joe.  Julia and Michelle were concerned about Jason's revenge if they did that.  

At Michelle and Nick's first Tribal on Day 22, Tai mentioned the Super Idol, which only people who had seen the idol would know about. Nick was blindsided in the vote after only Scot, Nick and Jason stuck to the plan of the split vote.

Jason's revenge was psychological warfare.  Conspiring with Scot and Tai they first hid the Ax and Machete. After the women used a saw to open coconuts.  Scot then doused the fire.  At the reward, the teams split into 2 groups of four with the Sabotagers getting Julia and the rest of the women forming the other team.  Joe sat out.  The Sabotagers won.  Julia's defection to the men, caused the other women to target her until she won immunity.  

Debbie then came up with a plan to vote for Scot and Tai, Julia told Scot the plan.Scot told her to vote for Cydney which would give her 4 votes.  Cydney and Aubry decided to vote for Debbie. At tribal, Tai and Jason brought out their idols and said they were going to play them Rock, Paper Scissors style.  After the vote, Jason gave Tai his idol, but Debbie went home.  

Tai gave the idol back to Jason, and the Sabotage Three thought they had affected the vote.  Scot then approached Aubry about getting rid of Cydney.  At the reward challenge he won an Extra Vote Advantage

Tai started to work with Aubry for an alliance.  Tai related this to Scot and Jason, and Scot announced they would vote out Aubry.  After Jason beat Aubry for Immunity, they still worked this angle because they could play the Super Idol after the votes were read for Scott or Tai if need be.  Aubry went back to Tai and told him the girls wanted to vote for him to flush out the idol.  Tai went back and forth because he felt he was in a good position in the end if he went with Jason and Scot, but was bothered by their dictatorial way.   

At Tribal, Jason continued his arrogance and stated several times that not only he was safe, but Tai and Scott weren't going home either.  Julia tried to get Tai to play his idol, but scot told him not to.  The vote went 4-2-2 for Scot, Aubry, and Tai.  Not knowing Tai had voted for him, Scot tried to get the other idol from Tai to form the Super Idol, but he refused, and Scot went home with Jason's idol in his pocket. 

Jason was understandably upset, but held his anger back.  Julia was more outwardly upset feeling she had been betrayed by Aubry and Cydney.  At the next reward, Michelle and Cydney won and took Aubry with them.  Aubry and Cydney were willing to bring Michelle in to the fold, while Jason and Julia plottted to take Tai out with Michelle and Cydney.  

Michele won immunity, and voted with the other four to take out Julia.  

Jason was next to go,  and then Joe was the 3rd player evacuated from the game after eating too much meat in a reward challenge, leaving 4 players.   Tai ultimately wasted his  extra vote and never played his idol.  

But yet there was another twist.  Final Immunity was held on day 37, which probably had nothing to do with Joe leaving early.  Since Jason left on day 32 it was likely the final 4 would be decided on day 35 had Joe not left.  Joe's evacuation may have led to a reward challenge instead of an immunity challenge on day 36.  Michelle won Immunity on Day 37, which made the players think there was only a final 2.  Aubry worked with Tai to force a tie and the fire challenge by voting for Cydney.  Cydney and Michelle  meanwhile conspired to vote for Aubry and pull in Tai.  Michelle also discouraged Cydney from practice firemaking.  Aubry won the Firemaking challenge. 

With two days left Tai started wondering if it was going to be a final two.   

On day 38, one final challenge cryptically said that the winner would decide who would stay and who would go.  The actual challenge led to Michelle getting an advantage to remove one person from the Jury.  She chose Neal at Tribal Council over Scot or Jason who could persuade and Joe who was a clear choice for Aubry.   Neal had some parting words, showing that he was clearly voting for Michelle.   

At Final Tribal Council, Tai was criticized for being erratic, and not playing a good game with his advantages.  Michelle was credited with having a strong finish (winning four individual challenges) after having a weak start.  But Nick summed it up, at the beginning when he told Michelle to show her intelligence, Aubry to show confidence, and Tai to display awareness.  

This season had a few ugly moments, but had some genuinely spontaneous caring moments, from the Triple Medical Reward Challenge, Aubry standing up to Jason in an immunity challenge spitting at the ground after he spit, to Joe's come from behind win in a reward challenge, to the personal stories told, the Wildlife Alliance outing, and ultimately the adoption of Mark the chicken as a mascot, and Tai bringing him to FTC, the first Chicken Survivor of Survivor.  

Michelle won 5-2, over Aubry and there is debate about whether she deserved it, but her winning should make others think about presuming who goats are.  Tai ended up being the goat after having the tools to be a terrific player.    

Michelle is probably the player who "played" the fewest days other than Chris in "Edge of Extinction, " but she played 39 days and had one of the strongest finishes after a fair start.   And maybe she did convince two people to vote for her because she didn't piss them off. 

After rewatching, I  upgraded this season a couple notches, because of the compassion and true twists in the season.    

And as an aside, this was the start of the "Sia Money" as at the reunion, Sia gave Tai $50,000 for his care of animals and $50,000 to a charity of his choice.