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Surviving Survivor Gabon: Bob Crowley Wins a Season Full of Surprises
by Reg Seeton
 Like previous seasons of Survivor, the 17th run of the still popular reality series was filled with twists, turns, deceit, and unexpected surprises in Gabon, Africa. But when the votes were counted at the live Tribal Council in Los Angeles on Sunday, December 14, Bob Crowley, the state of Maine's most famous high school physics teacher, took home the title of sole survivor and the million dollar prize and another one hundred thousand dollars as the fan favorite. However, the two-hour finale of Survivor Gabon was ripe with nail-biting intensity and edge-of-your-seat frustration, as Bob found himself in the final three showdown with Iowa hairdresser Susie Smith and Brooklyn pin-up model Sugar Kiper, two Nobag tribe mates that made it to the final three with drastically different strategies.
Although Bob dominated the last quarter of the season by hornswaggling his competitors with two fake immunity idols and winning five challenges in a row like a 57 year old Colby Donaldson in the Outback, Sugar became a master of manipulation early in the game with a real hidden immunity idol, influencing the expulsion of several players, while Susie flew under the radar for the entire season until she won the final immunity that guaranteed her spot in the final three. In the end, the final result after the two-hour finale was proof of why Survivor is still as entertaining as it was 17 seasons ago when it all began in Borneo.
So what's our take on Survivor Gabon?
The Season in Gabon:
The confrontational tone of Survivor Gabon was set from the very moment the Fang and Kota tribes were selected. In many ways, the selections followed Darwin's five laws of evolution. From the get-go, Kota - Paloma, Jacquie, Kelly, Ace, Marcus, Charlie, Corinne, Sugar, and Bob - was a physically capable all-star team that gelled quickly while Fang - Michelle, Gillian, G.C., Dan, Randy, Crystal, Kenny, Matty, and Susie - struggled to find their groove both physically and mentally, with several evolving personality clashes that were irreversible. Physically, mentally, and intellectually, the game was truly an example of the age-old Darwinian term, “survival of the fittest”. Also, it was the tension within Fang that created the spine of conflict for Survivor Gabon.
 However, an early Kota alliance was shattered when Sugar became a swing vote in the expulsion of Ace, the only person who trusted her in the game, which saw the solidarity of the dominant tribe begin to crack. It was a move that would eventually seal Sugar's fate with the final jury members when others knew they couldn't trust her. It was Kota's early domination of both the reward and immunity challenges that revealed the weaknesses of Fang, as various members of the tribe began to question the intelligence behind Fang's decision making process, namely Randy who knew he was fighting a losing battle of wits. And when the two tribes began to merge various players from one to another, a divide between the seemingly "smart" and "not so smart" emerged. In the end, Susie endured by simply trying to win, Sugar manipulated the game and her tribe mates to her own advantage with the help of her hidden immunity, and Bob kept his head under the radar until it was the perfect time to strike and prove himself as a formidable opponent en-route to outwitting and outplaying everyone.
The Strategies:
When you look at the season as a whole, sure, everyone played the game. The majority of the field tried to align and shift the game in their favor but there were only seven people who actually "played" Survivor to win - Bob, Sugar, Crystal, Kenny, Matty, Corinne, and Randy. That's when the season kicked into high gear. Sugar had hidden immunity and knew she was always the final swing vote. Crystal was tightly aligned with the power players and could go either way. Kenny was tightly aligned with the elite players but had the power of persuasion on his side. Matty was a friend to all who bounced around the alliances like a pinball. Corinne became a master strategist within her alliance with Randy and Bob. Randy became an essential swing vote but called his own vocal offensive Blitz on his tribe mates but ended up sacking himself. And while the others strategize with their backs turned, Bob seized the opportunity to become a power player by creating two fake immunity idols to take control of the game before winning five consecutive challenges. Although Susie made it to the final three, she didn't factor heavily in the entire season until the finale where she won "the" most important immunity of all, which still didn’t stack up to the moves made by Bob and Sugar, even Kenny.
 Although Sugar was able to influence many votes throughout the season and orchestrate the ouster of Randy by convincing Bob to give him a fake immunity idol, Bob's ingenuity and resourcefulness became his biggest asset within the entire game. By formulating a new strategy on the fly to save himself from what would have been certain expulsion, Bob was able to dupe the tribe not once, but twice with the fake idols, which altered the course of the game and tipped the scales of power in his favor. It was one of the best, most clever moves in Survivor history. By doing so, he knew he needed to win the real immunity idols to advance his position in the game. And despite the gargantuan odds, his strategy worked.
However, as great as Bob's strategy was, the most significant turning point in the game came from Sugar, who maneuvered with Bob in the finale after Susie's immunity victory on the only way he'd be able to remain in the game - if she broke her alliance with Matty and forced a tie at tribal council. And when Sugar’s vote cast a deadlock, forcing Bob and Matty to square off in a tiebreaking fire challenge, Bob's longevity in the game was due to Sugar who cut him a break when he was all but guaranteed to be the next person to leave. Although Bob had the better strategy to advance himself in the game, it was the strategizing by his toughest opponent that paved the road to victory.
The Surprises:
I'm going to save the best for last, so let me get the others out of the way first. Aside from seeing an unexpected, momentary glimpse of Marcus' dangling "fang" prior to his eviction, the surprises on Survivor Gabon started early with Sugar's discovery of the hidden immunity at Exile Island. Until that point, everyone underestimated her as a blonde and bubbly airhead. Her discovery of the hidden idol was the first event that spun the game in a completely different direction. The second surprise was Marcus' move to convince everyone that after a second hidden immunity idol was discovered, they should throw it away. Although high ideals sound great when you're sitting around a table with food and beer, the idealism of ethical play and Kumbaya bonding sessions won't win anyone a million dollars... that is unless you can convince everyone it wasn't thrown away after all, not once but twice. If anything, the "cause and effect" of Bob’s fake immunity idols proves that you really can sell ice cream at the North Pole and make a few bucks. Who knew it was that easy?
The third surprise had two layers two it, as Randy sensed his head was on the chopping block and tried to turn the tables by acting like an A-hole to everyone at camp in the hope it would guarantee they’d all write his name down at Tribal Council while Bob saved his skin with the hidden immunity idol. The only problem was that Randy didn't know Bob's idol was fake, which set the stage for arguably the biggest inside shocker of the season when Bob gave Randy the fake idol and he was swiftly voted out in an OMG blindside that you rarely ever see on Survivor. Although it was shocking that the dupe on Randy actually worked, it would have been even better if his own outspoken Hail Mary worked, too.
 The next surprise was Bob's play with the two fake immunity idols, which no one questioned whatsoever, and his sweep of the five challenges that he needed to win to stay alive. In fact, the second fake immunity idol was even more of a surprise since no one seemed to have heard the old familiar saying, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...” And since no one thought of Bob as a threat, the fact that he duped everyone both mentally and physically is arguably the biggest surprise of the season (possibly the biggest of any previous seasons), which leads to the fifth surprise in Susie's win at the final immunity challenge to guarantee a spot in the final three - her first significant move of the entire season - and the sixth surprise in Sugar's vote to force a tie-breaker between Bob and Matty at the final Tribal Council.
However, the biggest surprise of the entire season, with the most unexpected entertainment value, came when the two tribes merged and the new collective tribe was renamed... "Nobag". Priceless!
The Survivor:
So when all the votes were counted, Bob Crowley, an unassuming 57 year old high school teacher among a tribe filled with people half his age, went from certain cast-off to sole surviving millionaire through the efforts very few, if any former player in Survivor history has had the guts, or the cleverness to execute. While many elder survivors simply awaited their fate in previous seasons, Bob took the game into his own hands to prove how an older player can buck the superficial knee-jerk herd response of younger players to vote out the old just because they're... well, not young. Although Bob did get a bit of help from Sugar in the end to throw the game into the hands of fate, at 57, Bob was not only one of the smartest survivors to play the game but he was also one of the toughest competitors, having equaled Colby Donaldson's string of five consecutive challenge victories in Survivor Outback in the show's second season. And Survivor Gabon, one of the most entertaining seasons of all, proved one very important thing that transcends the game: That nice guys don't always finish last.
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