• Ep.14 Final 4 IC: "Crystal Method" - It's not even close. With Erik out of the way, Amanda runs away with this one.
• Final 4 voted out: It's either Cirie or Natalie, obviously. In the end (not shown), Parvati and Amanda decide to go into the F3 Favorites Strong (a wise choice if it's a Final 3, which they all delude themselves into believing, especially Parvati).

 

 

• Ep.14 Final 3 IC: "Don't Drop the Marble" - It's the challenge that will later be named "The Ball Drop," and will be the bane of Malcolm. But here, as Cirie admits, it's the perfect challenge for a nurse with non-shaky hands ... she just falls short, on the longest-possible set of blocks. Sigh. Amanda wins, which means Cirie's obviously out.
• Final 3 voted out: Despite both Cirie and Parvati (!) pointing out to Amanda that Cirie has pissed off way more jurors than Parvati has, Amanda decides to stick with her bestie anyway, even if it means losing. (Narrator: "It did.")

 

 

• Final Tribal & jury vote: It's a pretty evenly matched battle, with good answers from both finalists ... until the very end, when Amanda bizarrely asserts that Parvati was running the game strategically, and Cirie was not (to Cirie!). Somehow, the jury interprets this (inaccurate) statement as good for Parvati, and Parvati wins, 5-3.

The jury vote: "Parvati ran the game" is just a bizarre last-second jury fumble by Amanda, and one that's completely unsupported by the edit! Of the four much-ballyhooed blindsides, Ozzy's was 100% Cirie's work, while Jason's was mostly Natalie's. Alexis getting idoled out by Amanda was 100% Amanda's own move! Parvati was literally the only other person who knew about it, and she played a minor role! Erik's blindside was a group effort, but it was Cirie's idea, she gave Natalie the script, and Natalie and Cirie did all the follow-up work. Of the five Black Widows, Parvati probably had the *least* strategic influence, except for Alexis.

 

Where Parvati won was 100% in her social game. Everyone liked her! (Despite her being the person "who never shuts up," according to the Touchy Subjects challenge.) She projected effortless cool, seemed comfortable the whole game, and that air of confidence is something jurors tend to see as a winning game. Parvati found herself perfectly set up by the swap (as James pointed out to her the day before the merge), never had to threaten that position because her post-swap tribe won every immunity (thanks to James, Jason, and Eliza), and thus had late-game options with either Natalie/Alexis or Amanda/Cirie. She came up with the "stir the pot!" thing (probably?), and was obviously the glue holding the women's alliance together. But she was a passenger in the actual day-to-day strategy. As such, her win is closest to Jenna Morasca's in The Amazon.

 

In contrast, as Alexis vocalized at Final Tribal, Amanda seemed aloof and did not engage as closely with the Fans (except Erik) as Parvati did. She also was clearly struggling from filming two seasons back-to-back, and her late-game emotional breakdown in deciding whether to boot Cirie and Parvati at F3, instead of humanizing her to the jury, came off as insincere - purely because she'd been so good at tricking people at Tribal during the Alexis and Erik blindsides. Unlike her opponent, Amanda seemed to struggle with the ethics of the game, which looked weak/indecisive (or inauthentic). Parvati didn't care about anyone's feelings and seemed to be having fun, which looked strong. That was enough to earn the deciding two votes.

• Natalie received 3 votes, from Amanda, Cirie, and Parvati (voted out, 3-1).
• Cirie received 1 vote, from Natalie.

• Cirie received 1 vote, from Amanda (voted out, 1-0).

• Parvati received 5 votes, from Eliza, Jason, Alexis, Natalie, and Cirie (winner, 5-3).
• Amanda received 3 votes, from Ozzy, James, and Erik.

• S16 score totals
• Scores glossary
• Episode 1
• Episode 2
• Episode 3
• Episode 4
• Episode 5
• Episode 6
• Episode 7
• Episode 8
• Episode 9
• Episode 10
• Episode 11
• Episode 12
• Episode 13
• Episode 14