They came into the 23rd season confident they’d be dominating the game they loved so much and one of them would surely win.
But while Benjamin “Coach: Wade and Oscar “Ozzy” Lusth – players forever known by their nicknames both stayed in the game almost to the end, it was the last woman in Coach’s coalition that won the $1 million prize in Sunday’s finale.
Sophie Clarke, 22, a medical student from tiny Willsboro, N.Y., won the crucial final immunity challenge, allowing the surviving members of Coach’s circle to go on to the final three, and eliminating the seemingly unbeatable Ozzy, who had won eight straight duels on Redemption Island to allow him to rejoin the game twice (only to be voted out three times altogether).
Ozzy still managed to win the viewer-voted fan favorite award, pocketing $100,000.
Coach toyed with the idea of taking Ozzy to the final three, but in the end sided with his alliance, members of which he had to eliminate in the previous rounds (and who wouldn’t forgive him enough to vote for him to win).
Coach and to extent the third place winner Alber Destrade (who earned no votes) were playing a religion card throughout the competition, which manged to manipulate at least one other player, Brandon Hantz, the nephew of notorious player Russell Hantz, who said in the aftershow his nephew did everything wrong.
Brandon, for his part, forgave everybody.
The 24th edition of “Survivor,” subtitled “One World,” will start in February, it was announced, and feature the twist that two teams living on the same island will have to decide how to allocate their own goods among themselves.