Where do we start? As you can imagine by reading this here column all season, I’ve been pretty low on Michele.

 

With that said, let’s start everything off by congratulating her on winning the whole shebang. No matter how much I might disagree with how it all played out, I’m not on the island and the woman clearly did enough to win over five votes.

 

But … Michele?

 

As Jeff mentioned in his recap on this here site, Michele voted for only four of the people sent home. Seriously? I honestly thought we wouldn’t get a bitter jury, but I was so very clearly wrong about that. I should have known since, of course, we’d had a bitter season.

 

 

Look, Michele won some challenges, didn’t piss anyone off and clearly turned it on when she needed to, at the end. But these jurors also knew that Aubry ran the show most of the time.

 

While I don’t actually apply theory for the finale, usually, I will once again bring up confirmation bias, which is sort of a theory that says people interpret information in a way that makes their beliefs seem correct. This phenomenon is why you often hear people say something like, “You can make statistics say whatever you want.”

 

Think about it, I could argue that Star Wars: The Force Awakens was the best movie of 2015. Why? Because it made the most money. Or I could argue Spotlight was. Why? Because it won Best Picture. Or I could argue Mad Max: Fury Road was. Why? Because it won the most Oscars. You get the idea.

 

This jury was a bitter one, a jury, for the most part, that didn’t want to reward someone who outplayed them. So what did they do? They looked for reasons to vote for Michele. She came on strong at the end? Well, she was horrid at first so it was almost impossible not to. She argued with hated contestants such as Tai. Well, that means she fought hard. There are many reasons we can create to vote for Michele. And the jury did that.

 

 

So we’re left with a pretty good season with, in my opinion, a pretty bad winner. Again, congrats to Michele, but if we think back on all the winners of Survivor, I’m going to put Michele in the bottom three or four … right with Fabio, who I thought was a little worse with strategy, but better in terms of challenge wins. And let’s be honest, that’s why Michele won in the end, because she won challenges. Well, Fabio won more. They’re about the same, in my mind.

 

What do you guys think? Worst winners in Survivor history? Let’s talk about that in the comments.

 

And so that’s about it this for Kaoh Rong. Let’s do this again next season, when we can watch unflattering stereotypes of millennials and Generation X folk collide.

 

In the meantime, have a great summer and, again, thank you to everyone for reading and commenting this season. It’s been a lot of fun. But let’s talk worst winners now …

 

PS: It’s better if we just don’t mention that dumpster fire of a twist. It might make me fall into the fetal position and cry.