Joe Mulder — Wed, 5/17/06 3:12pm

Here's what happened: the final three immunity challenge, which is almost always mostly about willpower, was not even a tiny bit about willpower. They had these four floating hexagonal (or maybe octagonal) plaforms out in the water, each smaller than the last, and you had to balance on them. They all made it to the third one, then Terry fell off right away and Aras, who was very close to falling off, got Danielle (through nodding) to "agree" that if he "jumped off" (i.e., fell in like he was about to anyway), she'd take him to the finals.

So, in almost any other season Terry would have won (the reunion show confirmed that he would have beaten Danielle) because he undoubedly would have stood or dangled or crouched or hung the longest. But there was absolutely no willpower involved in the Final Three Willpower Immunity Challenge.

I'm pretty sure they rigged it so Danielle would win, knowing she'd probably take Aras, just to keep the gay "car curse" alive. I mean, it was basically a "being super-light and having a low center of gravity" challenge; I guess an ovary-off would have been too obvious.

Then again, there was a strange dearth of anything but physical individual immunity challenges, which was pretty much why Terry got as far as he did anyway, so you can't really complain. One puzzle challenge right after the merge, and he's pretty much screwed.

And I'm not sure it was dislikability on Danielle's part, just the fact that she didn't really ever do anything (save for one minor strategic voting move in the middle of the game that I know happened but can't for the life of me remember), and Aras pretty much ran the game. He ran the game in a douchey manner, but he ran the game nonetheless.

So even though I don't like Aras (or, the Aras they showed us; I obviously don't know Aras), I'm relieved it wasn't one of those seasons where someone like Jenna M. or Sandra or Vecipia or even Chris end up winning just because it didn't really occur to anyone to vote them off. Having it not occur to people to vote you off isn't a real strategy, and I don't like that it can work. So I was relieved that Aras beat Danielle, personally. Although I think the best "Survivor" player in the bunch was Cirie, and three months ago I'd have bet any money I have or will ever have that I would never have written anything like that.