The record books have spoken, as Survivor: Ghost Island crowned its Sole Survivor, Wendell Holland, but not before the finale gave us the first ever final tribal council tie in the show's 36 season history.
For loyal fans of the CBS reality competition show, after 35 previous seasons, it's easy to pick out some moments that can be defined as "jaw-dropping." These moments are ones that not only impacted one particular season, but also the future of the game of Survivor.
There was the first time a final three was implemented for the final tribal council back in season 13, Survivor: Cook Islands. Also, when notorious player Russell Hantz found a hidden immunity idol without the help of a clue during Survivor's 19th season in Samoa. There's also the all-new final tribal council format introduced two season's ago on Survivor: Game Changers.
However, many jaws must have hit the floor when during the finale of season 36, Survivor Ghost Island, there was a tie after all the jury votes had been read.
Yes ... a tie! Castaways Wendell Holland and Long Island's own Domenick Abbate each received five pieces of parchment with their name on it. The third castaway in this equation, Laurel Johnson, joined the likes of Survivor: Gabon's Sugar Kiper, Survivor: Redemption Island's Natalie Tenerelli, and Survivor: Caramoan's Sherri Biethman as a first-time player to receive the big goose egg.
Before going any further with the history-making tribal council, here's how the rest of the finale panned out, which aired on Wed., March 23, 2018 on CBS.
The episode began on day 36 with six castaways remaining in the game, Domenick, Wendell, Laurel, as well as Angela Perkins, Sebastian Noel and Donathan Hurley. Their first challenge was a Survivor classic that traces back to season two in the Australian Outback, a giant maze. This season's maze, which was described by Jeff Probst during the challenge as "the biggest maze ever done on Survivor," was constructed to look like the image of a skull, The skull was a constant symbol over the course of the season.
The winner of the challenge not only received the all-important immunity necklace but a reward of a steak dinner back at camp. The challenge itself seems simple, run through the maze collecting three bags of puzzle pieces, return back to your station and complete the puzzle. However, nothing is simple on Survivor, especially when you've basically been starving for 35 days at this point.
After a back and forth puzzle piece placement battle between allies Wendell and Domenick, Wendell screams out "Jeff Probst!" The scream was hinting at a previous immunity challenge where he had the correct puzzle solution first but didn't call Probst over to check it. This time, Wendell was able to get his glory as he won his first individual immunity challenge.
Despite winning the challenge, Wendell still had a decision to make. Probst allowed Wendell to select two other castaways to join him at the reward table. He chose Sebastian first and Angela second. Angela received an approval of "she deserves it" from Domenick because Angela had not been on a reward previously. However, she received a disapproval from Laurel, stating that it was a strategic move by Wendell to fuel up certain competitors and not others.
Whatever the case may be, Angela chowed down with Wendell and Sea-Bass, as he was commonly referred to on the island. However, the big letdown, yet again, is the absence of Ghost Island after a challenge. In fact, the main theme of this entire season has been the main letdown of the entire season.
Since the trailer for Survivor: Ghost Island dropped at the finale of last season, the theme has been pretty intriguing because, as Probst has mentioned in an interview for The Hollywood Reporter, this season was "definitely a tip of the hat to our fans," and, "Ghost Island as both a location and as a theme is nothing short of a love letter to the fans."
It's true, the nostalgia that Ghost Island oozes, especially to those who have watched every single episode and remember every single idol and advantage featured, is warming. What Survivor fan wouldn't want to see the actual relics used seasons ago and see the inserted clips that go along with them?
However, when a season is solely named after a theme, there is an expectation that the theme will be featured heavily throughout. As with the case of many of Survivor's themes over the years, that was not the case with Ghost Island.
There were a number of episodes where either Ghost Island wasn't even featured, or, if a player was sent to Ghost Island, there was no opportunity for them to "play a game" in hopes of gaining an advantage. So, if there is no trip to Ghost Island, or no game being played on Ghost Island, what's the point of naming a season Survivor: Ghost Island?
When Survivor featured Exile Island in the title's name back in season 12, or Redemption Island as a sole theme in season 22, both islands were main components in each episode and truly identified the season. It was really frustrating to watch a great season concept go to waste simply because it wasn't being utilized every week to it's fullest potential.
Thankfully, Ghost Island made one final appearance during the finale, despite it not really offering any sort of advantage to a player. However, before Ghost Island's last hurrah, there were still a few more pieces of business to take care of.
In this advantage-heavy age of Survivor, it's only fitting that the final six tribal councils centered around Sebastian having Sarah Lacina's extra vote from Survivor: Game Changers and Domenick having David Wright's fake idol from Survivor: Millennials vs Gen X.
After another riveting tribal council, Domenick played his fake idol and revealed that David's fake idol is once again a fake idol. The player in possession of it can use it however they wanted to trick other players into believing it was real.
This was the second fake idol inserted into the game. Ozzy Lusth's fake idol he made on Survivor: Micronesia - Fans vs. Favorites, A.K.A. the "effing stick," was the first. The main difference between the two is that Ozzy's had morphed into a real hidden immunity idol.
Despite him having a real idol in position as well, Domenick took a risk by hearing the votes without protection. Sebastian, on the other hand, chose not to use his extra vote. In the end, it was Sea-Bass who floundered and became the eighth member of the jury.
Despite in Sebastian's post-elimination confessional saying that he was dumb not playing his extra vote, it wouldn't have mattered. He received four votes, while Domenick only received one vote from Donathan, who Sea-Bass ended up voting for.
We are now down to the final five and day 37. The next immunity challenge is strictly for immunity, and once again, no Ghost Island. The finale of Survivor: Ghost Island is now an hour in and still no use of Ghost Island. What a pity.
Although there was nothing spectacular about the design of this challenge, since it was basically just a swim, a sand crawl and a puzzle, the stakes were very high. In the end, Wendell won his second individual immunity challenge in a row.
Wendell winning individual immunity actually sets up an interesting situation because he also has a hidden immunity idol. Wendell is in possession of the Survivor: Micronesia - Fans vs. Favorites individual immunity necklace, the same one that Erik Reichenbach famously gave up during the final five tribal councils of season 16. This is an iconic move that many consider to be the dumbest move in Survivor history.
Erik's immunity necklace has morphed into a hidden immunity idol. In addition, Domenick still has Andrea Boehlke's hidden immunity idol from Survivor: Caramoan - Fans vs. Favorites. With the final five being the last time you can play a hidden immunity idol, a lot could go down at tribal ... and it did.
Domenick played his idol for himself, and not wanting a good immunity idol to go to waste, Wendell played his idol for Laurel because of his loyalty to her. In the end, Laurel's extra protection wasn't even needed as, with three votes, the tribe had spoken and Donathan became the ninth member of the jury.
And then there were four. It's now day 38, and only one immunity challenge remains. All that stands between Domenick, Wendell, Laurel or Angela and a spot at the final tribal council is six balls. The challenge involves each castaway attempting to build a tower of six balls and six stands while balancing on a wobbly beam. The first to do so wins not only immunity but the choice of who to take with them to the final tribal council.
Last season, Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, a new twist was added to the game. The winner of the final four immunity challenge gets to chose one of the remaining three castaways to join them in the final three. The other two will go on to compete in a fire-making challenge. The winner joins the final three, the loser becomes the final member of the jury.
After an intense competition, Domenick won and snagged the final individual immunity win. Then, after waiting for almost three-quarters of the finale episode, Jeff informed the final four that they would be taking one last trip to Ghost Island. There, Wendell, Laurel and Angela had a chance to plead their case as to why Domenick should pick them as his chosen final three members. In addition, Domenick was given one final task to complete in private.
Wendell automatically knew that he was going to be competing in the fire making challenge because he is Domenick's biggest threat. So for Domenick's sake, the decision comes down to who he thinks can beat Wendell.
As for the final Ghost Island task, Domenick was instructed to climb to a secluded location where he found three authentic vote urns from previous seasons. Each urn is from a season where the castaway who had the power to choose who sits with them at the final tribal council mistakenly chose the person who ultimately was crowned the Sole Survivor.
There was the season two urn from Survivor: The Australia Outback, the season 28 urn from Survivor: Cagayan, and the season 34 urn from Survivor: Game Changers.
Domenick was to choose one of the urns and bring it with him to tribal council. This is the urn the jury will cast their votes in to determine the winner at the final tribal council. The ultimate goal with this decision is to see if Domenick can reverse the curse on one of these urns. Can Domenick choose the correct person to sit next to them at the final tribal council so that he wins the million dollars?
This was a nice finishing wrinkle to a season about "reversing the curse." However, technically speaking, Domenick wouldn't be able to reverse the curse of any of these urns. Season two and season 28 featured a final two, not a final three, and season 34 did not feature the final four fire-making challenge. So, the gameplay is different in either case.
For this aspect of Ghost Island to work, there should've been a final two situation in place, and have the Game Changers urn be replaced with the Survivor: Micronesia urn, as that season featured the same outcome as seasons two and 28, the castaway with immunity chose the final two players who ultimately one.
The season two, 16 and 28 line-up of urns and a final two situation this season would've been the perfect way to implement this last Ghost Island decision and would've been a much better "reverse the curse" connection.
Domenick chose the Cagayan urn, and at tribal council, chose Laurel to sit next to him at in the final three. This left Wendell and Angela to battle it out making fire. Domenick's reasoning for picking Angela to face-off against Wendell is because he thought she had a better chance of winning over Laurel.
After a station swap between Wendell and Angela because of Wendell's superstition that the orange station would be cursed, the challenge was on. The reason for the superstition is because Malolo, the tribe that wore orange during the first half of the game, constantly kept losing challenge after challenge, so Wendell didn't want to risk anything to chance.
In the end, Wendell was correct not to trust the orange station, as he ended up winning the fire-making challenge. Angela, who originally sat at the purple station but let Wendell have it because she didn't care where she sat, became the tenth and final member of the jury.
So, the stage was set. Domenick, Wendell and Laurel made up the Survivor: Ghost Island final three. It was now day 39, the final day being marooned on the Mamanuca Islands of Fiji. There was only one thing left to do, go to tribal council and face the jury.
Beginning in Survivor: Game Changers, after 33 seasons of the same final tribal format, the game evolved once again. Now, instead of every jury member asking one question to the finalists, there is an open-forum discussion that centers around the three foundations of the game, Outwit, Outplay and Outlast.
The new open-forum discussion allows for the finalists to speak about the game more freely and essentially have back and forth conversations. In addition, the jury can more easily side with a finalist and persuade other jury members to vote for the person they think should win.
After a long open-forum between the finalists and jurors, it was finally time to cast the final votes of season 36 ... or so we thought.
It was clear that Domenick and Wendell were the two castaways that were splitting the jury member's decisions. They were the most powerful duo in the game, as both were aligned from the beginning and had a major say in how each of the jury members was voted out. In addition, both won immunity challenges and found hidden immunity idols. Both knew that the vote was going to be close, but nobody expected it to be deadlocked.
As he usually does, after all the jury members have voted, Jeff takes the urn and tells the cast "thank you for a great season" and "I'll see you back in the United States for the reading of the votes." This is when the show goes from taped to live as Jeff comes out to a live studio audience and reads the votes to the final three and the jury on stage.
However, after Jeff grabbed the votes at the final tribal council, he said a phrase nobody saw coming.
Jeff said that he was going to read the votes, and as expected, all the cast members present were in total disbelief. Some had their mouths open, some just had a confused look on their face, and one jury member, Chris Noble, verbally said "I thought he was joking."
This was the first time since season one, Survivor: Borneo, that votes were read at the final tribal council. Survivor: Borneo winner Richard Hatch was crowned the Sole Survivor in the Malaysian jungle.
It was a flip-flop effect, with a vote for Domenick followed by a vote for Wendell. This pattern occurred five times until all ten votes were read and it was determined that there was a hung jury. For the first time in 36 seasons, a tie has taken place at the final tribal council. Domenick received five votes, and Wendell received five votes, a history-making tie.
Luckily for Survivor super fans, Jeff Probst gave everyone some surprise information at the Survivor: Game Changers finale. He explained what would happen in the case of a tie at the final tribal council. If two players have an equal number of votes, the third finalist who wasn't tied would now be the official final member of the jury and they would cast the deciding vote.
In the case of Survivor: Ghost Island, Laurel, who received no votes from the jury, voted one last time to break the tie. In front of an eager and excited Los Angeles crowd and millions watching at home, Laurel's vote was revealed and Wendell Holland was the winner of the million dollar check and the title of Sole Survivor.
Interestingly enough, Domenick is the fourth player in a row to win the final immunity challenge but not win the game. In addition, Wendell is the second player in a row to win the final four fire-making challenges and then be crowned the Sole Survivor.
After a season full of curses, most of which didn't get reversed, is it a coincidence that two recent Survivor curses have struck once more, or are the spirits of Ghost Island taunting the castaways yet again?
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