-It’s Finale week on the Purple Rock Podcast! On December 14th, 2003, news of the capture of Saddam Hussein preempted the finale of Survivor: Pearl Islands. No such world news pushed back the finale of Survivor Maryland: Major Conflict on December 14th, 2020. With nearly six hours of content this week, there was a lot to digest. I was planning on ending the column with some spoiler-free season rankings but I’ll move those down to the comments section to save some bandwidth for future Ken McNickle GIFs. On to the Survivor MD: MC Finale, “Cry Me a River.”

-We open with a video package highlighting the remaining player’s games and all the snacks Dale Aram has eaten thus far. This season has been a burden at times but when it is all laid out like this it’s pretty impressive—4 of the Final Five (not Tim) have a legitimate shot at winning.

-Fall-out from the rock draw: Dale Aram is completely flabbergasted by Tim and Doug’s obedience, calling them idiots (I’m going to count the number of times she says that word in this episode). Doug/Santi psyched each other out into not playing idols and Santi/Tim bailed out Doug from making the dumbest move in the history of Survivor.

-With Doug having three idols, the  pieces are in place for the pre-established friend group of Santi, Tim, and Doug (or STD for short) to waltz into the finals. But Tim is furious at Doug for keeping him in the dark about those idols for so long, to the point where he was practically the only person who didn’t know.

-The Final 5 challenge is to gather plastic cups and construct a pyramid all while balancing a ball on a wooden disc. Dale Aram gets a pre-challenge confessional, which is normally a good sign. Her father owns a pizza restaurant and she’s just going to chill and let the boys sprint themselves out of the game.

-The challenge is actually a hilarious clusterfuck: it’s a little windy and the picnic table is much too small for five people to all be constructing pyramids at the same time, causing cups to fly all over the place. Santi wins his first immunity! Our two underdogs didn’t even make it to the pyramid table. Doug gives an idol to Tim.

-Dain says he currently has 16 votes against him (though my count is 17) and calls himself the Cockroach of Survivor. He asks what the record is: the record is Evan from All-Stars with 22, who survived back-to-back tie votes.

-The BFFs have to decide between Dain or Dale Aram and it isn’t an easy task: Dain has scratched and clawed his way through while Dale Aram is more well-liked then Dain, has friends on the jury, and doesn’t have blood on her hands.

Dale tells Doug she’s going to be voting from him from here on out and organizes a Final 3 over lunch with Tim and Santi (and a cameo from Abbie). All three concede they can’t defeat Doug but they just might have a chance against each other.

-Could Dale Aram win this? The season was filmed before Chris Underwood’s victory in Edge of Extinction—it was unheard of for a player to be UTR the entire game only to make a big splash at Final 6 and win. There even was an athletic, handsome guy named Chris voted out early this season. No seriously, there was!

-Santi talks about his friendship with Doug: they’ve actually known each other since freshman year of high school and were both in basketball. Survivor has made their bond stronger than ever. Doug starts to notice his roommate is acting a little off and might attempt to blow up any plan Santi and Tim have concocted behind his back.

-Dain makes one last plea for one of Doug’s many idols. There’s no doubt Tim/Santi would take Dale Aram over him, but Dain v Doug is more of a toss-up. Santi/Tim/Dale Aram plan to split the votes at Final 5–If Doug does give his idol to Dain, Tim would play his idol to save Dale Aram and there would be two votes for Doug…but then Doug would play his third idol and Cirie out Tim.

-At Tribal, Doug plays an idol for himself and tells Dain “if I had three I’d love to save you.” No other idols were used, so this season only saw one vote steal advantage and one idol played. Anders reads the votes: 2 for Doug (cancelled), 1 for Dale Aram, and 2 tickets for the Dain Train, which has reached its final stop.

-The only players to not vote for Dain that he was on a tribe with were Natalia, Eric, and Amanda. He received votes from twelve different people. I wasn’t the biggest Dain fan for most of the season—it feels like he cut the same monotone confessional about making a move eight weeks in a row—but it still was still entertaining watching him constantly get out of pickles.

-Anders reveals that it’s going to be a Final 3. Just like last Tribal, Doug and Tim have an altercation—this time about Tim’s vote split plan. It figures that Tim would forgo turning on Doug at Final 6 only to then concoct a plan against him that was 100% guaranteed to fail.

-The final challenge is “Memory Lane,” a greatest hits compilation of past challenges: Dizzy Bat, the Morgan Memorial Bolo Toss, the disc balancing from the last challenge, writing the boot order on a wet piece of paper, and constructing a chain of dominoes. This is a must-win for Doug.

-Dale Aram is terrible at tossing bolos. At the picnic bench in the pouring rain it all comes down to Doug vs. Santi. Roommate vs roommate! Brother vs brother! Whoever sets up this row of dominos first is going to win the game! tim wins.

-What a whirlwind run by Doug: he mixed some otherworldly social and strategic gameplay with some inexplicably horrendous moves. Like Rick Devens before, err, after him, he played a highly dominate game before being bested by a surprising challenger at the 11th hour. His arrogance and childish behavior may have been a little much at times but I can’t question his love of the game.

-Huh that’s weird. It’s 6:47 PM and Anders said this would be a 2 hour finale…

-Oh what the fuck is this now? Doug’s crying on his bed and telling Santi that if he votes him out it will permanently affect their friendship. It’s straight-up emotional manipulation and puts Santi in the no-win situation of either having the burden of hurting a friend or being called weak for bringing the obvious winner to the end. Obviously not the same thing, but it’s the Survivor equivalent of telling a partner “I’m going to kill myself if you break up with me.” Not cool, Doug. Santi came off very mature in this interaction despite how far it went—he didn’t invalidate someone who is emotionally distressed but also didn’t lose his own agency in the situation. He took time to deliberate and the conclusion he arrived at was his own.

-Doug does the same thing to Tim. Santi’s dilemma is somewhat understandable because his friendship with Doug feels very genuine and battle-tested (plus they still have to live together for another semester at least). Tim/Doug feels much more one-sided. Why can’t Tim just force a fire-making challenge (or whatever), giving himself sway to the jury over Santi and at least give Dale Aram a fighting chance?

-Dale Aram is, rightfully, pissed. It’s often said no situation in Survivor is completely hopeless, there’s always something you can do; but there isn’t really anything she can do here. The additional fact that it’s a woman powerless to do anything against three men is extra cringe.

-It’s raining again, Mother Nature must know it’s the season finale. Dale Aram and Doug sit in front, Dale in a bright purple raincoat and Doug in a black raincoat with his eyes hidden by the jacket’s hood. Santi is wearing white and hovering over Doug’s right shoulder. Dale Aram has a whole list of grievances towards Santi/Tim on her phone and reads them out loud. On the recap, Anders said that this rant from Dale Aram was incomprehensible and had to be edited down severely.

-Dale becomes the eighth and final member of the jury. Dale Aram took a backseat for most of the game but brought a lot of character to challenges and Tribal. You don’t see too many Iranian-Canadians playing Survivor and I’m glad she signed up for this experience.

-Feeling good about being in the Final 3, Santi and Tim look back fondly on their games thus far. However, upon voting Dale Aram out they both receive a text from Sadie: she’s been talking with Doug (breach of contract!) and includes screenshots of their conversations. Doug admits he’s been manipulating his friends to advance further in the game, thinks Tim is playing better than Santi, and that Santi has basically done nothing. Obviously this is a terrible look for Doug, but as a jury member Sadie shouldn’t be able to influence the game like this.

-So, while Santi kept Doug at Final 4 to spare his friend’s feelings, he’s the one that ended up getting hurt. Doug typed up a long letter to his friend (Doug doesn’t like to write, he’s studying to become a doctor), and Santi forgives him. I can’t say I was enthralled by all of this—I like the story more than the characters—but the story is pretty interesting. Just like in the CBS version there’s a constant struggle between being a good person and being a good competitor; but since the prize is only one hundred dollars, is it even worth it to do whatever it takes to win? This is still such a raw time in a person’s life—a college sophomore is not a fully-realized adult—and I know I wouldn’t want something shitty I did when was 20 get dissected by strangers four years in the future.

-After a very light-hearted Final Tribal in New Beginnings, this one looks like it could be pretty savage. Could we see our first unanimous winner? I’ll go through the juror’s questions one by one.

-Morgan asks Santi why he seemed to disappear after the merge—he said it was necessary to downplay his threat level because in Chikasha he gained a reputation as a strategic challenge beast.

-Amanda asks the boys what their ideal Final 3 would be, because to the jury it sure seems like none of them ever factored into their endgame plans. Tim says Dale Aram and Santi—not Amanda, the only juror who likes him. Santi had always thought it would be a Final 2 and would’ve brought Ange, but she was never completely honest with him. Doug’s plans changed a lot but he had never envisioned both of his friends with him at the end.

-Josh tells Tim and Santi that they had Mike Tyson on the ropes but didn’t do anything about it. Josh asks Santi to describe his merge in one word and he responds with “quiet.” Santi also says he wishes he could’ve won more challenges to prove he was still the lion from the pre-merge and his non-play at Final 6 was a reaction to feeling blindsided by Ange and Dale Aram.

-Sadie says she’s voting for Doug and chastises Tim and Santi, saying they stole the opportunity to play the game from the jury and that their two seats are wasted. That is a fair point but Sadie isn’t the person to be making it. If I recall, her ideal Final 4 was herself/Abbie/Dale Aram/Doug and I think Doug would’ve done pretty well against those three in “Memory Lane.”

-Abbie roasts Doug, Tim, and Santi while Dale Aram roasts just Tim and Santi. Neither of these were particularly skillful and seemed like roasting for roasting’s sake but I did like Abbie’s suggestion to Doug of using his $100 prize for a date with Jasmine. That ship came as a complete surprise. Dale Aram called Santi and Tim idiots 14 times in this Finale.

-Ange asks Doug to explain why Tim and Santi deserve to win, and he honestly makes a better case than either guy has made for themselves—or Doug has made for himself. Ange says she’s probably voting for Doug.

-Both Santi and Tim say that the jury came in with their minds already made up and are doing the game a disservice by not hearing them out.

-Dain brings us home. He hands Tim and Santi “You tried” stars; Tim tears his up while Santi wears his proudly on his chest. Dain then compliments Santi for correctly calibrating his game and Tim for the legitimate strategic move of backstabbing him. He says that no matter how well Doug played, he can’t respect him for breaking the integrity of the game and wants the jury to approach everything with an open mind.

-Santi got in some good words at the end, but overall that was a pretty lifeless Tribal in the rain by all three players and most of the jurors didn’t ask good questions. Nothing really changed my mind into believing this is anything other than an 8-0-0, potentially asterisked, win for Doug.

-Well—and this has happened numerous times—as soon as I’m ready to write this season off it legitimately surprises me. It’s not unanimous, it’s literally as far from unanimous as it can possible be. Three votes Doug, three votes Santi, two votes Tim. Anders mentions a tie has never happened on the CBS version (this was filmed prior to Ghost Island), but Season 1 La Plata Island also featured a 3-3-2 vote between 3 boys. All eight jurors will re-vote.

-Anders knocks over the urn again! Imagine if Probst ever knocked over the urn before the final vote on live television. Anyway, with 5 votes, the winner of Survivor Maryland: Major Conflict is….Santi! The episode didn’t reveal who voted for who, but Abbie/Dale Aram/Sadie voted for Doug, JAM (Josh/Ange/Morgan) voted for Santi, Dain/Amanda voted for Tim and then Santi on the re-vote.

-I’ll rank the winners in the comments but Santi’s victory was well-deserved. The editing on this season was excellent, our winner received a cohesive, thought-provoking story throughout and his game, despite going quiet, was well-explained. It would’ve been cathartic if Santi won this Final Tribal but it much more felt it was Doug’s to lose. And boy did he lose.

-As world-devouring as his game was early on, Doug actually played pretty crappy from the Final 8 onward. Everyone received votes from their own little cluster and the Tim cluster of Dain and Amanda was turned off by Doug’s actions after the Final 4 challenge. A lot of Doug’s behavior in the last few episodes seemed like he thought he was above the game.

-Anders made a good analogy in the recap: if Terrapin Trials was about the game tearing a friendship apart and it being super dark, this is almost the opposite—the game made a friendship stronger than ever, but that still might be super dark because it’s a friendship that seems pretty unhealthy on the surface. Doug said immediately after the season ended he spent a few weeks in Australia. He and Santi definitely needed a break from each other.

-After the finale, Anders’ interviewed the Final 5, here are some of the highlights from that: Santi attends grad school in California, but he and Doug are still close—Doug recently visited him for two weeks. In the event of a 4-4 tie on the revote, Tim would’ve voted for Santi.

-And finally, here are some highlights from Tuesday’s recap show: Austin went to Spain last year and by strange coincidence the only Americans he encountered while over there were Tim, Doug, and Santi. This was the shortest Final Tribal yet, running at a little over an hour.

-Anders goes into more detail about Textgate: there was legitimate consideration into booting Doug and Sadie. Have eliminated players texted people still in the game before? Of course. But there was no reason for Sadie to text Tim and Santi other than to make them feel like shit. Anders chose not to disqualify Sadie because she had been an active contributor throughout the season and other than this moment was a responsible jury member. Anders chose not to disqualify Doug because he felt Doug deserved to go on trial for what he did in this game and he felt removing Doug would de-legitimize the other two, again putting them in a no-win situation (“Oh, you only won because Doug wasn’t there.”) Anders explained the situation to all the players and had both Sadie and Doug apologize before Final Tribal began. It really did decide the outcome of the game; had it not been for this moment Doug probably would’ve won 5-3.

-The finale ends with a sneak peak of Season 8 and my God, this roster of returning players is absolutely insane: Doug, Morgan, Mike, Eric, Faith, Dylan, Katie (!), SHERRY (!!) In the comments I’ll get in on that Season 8 hype and evaluate that returnee list in greater depth. In the recap show Anders said he was frustrated by S7 as well and wanted to craft the most competitive season ever.

-Thanks for reading everyone! Thank you to Kemper for both starting Maryland coverage at PRP and contacting me to finish up these recaps. This probably marks the end of Maryland coverage at PRP but who knows—S8 is a long ways away and looks very promising. I didn’t start watching Survivor Maryland until April 2020 and it’s provided a lot of free entertainment and fun in this weird time of ours.