Back in August, the new cast of Survivor: South Pacific was announced and at the time it was revealed that two former Survivor contestants would be also competing in the new season of the show. In September, we learned that those two alum contestants would be Oscar Ozzy Lusth and Benjamin Coach Wade. Last night, the finale ep of Survivor aired on CBS and the new “ultimate Survivor” was chosen by the jury of runner-up contestants (which included one of the returning alums, the other alum made it to the final 3). If you’ve yet to watch last night’s ep and want to remain unspoiled, you prolly need to stay off the Internet today. Click below to find out who won.

Sophie Clarke won six of the Survivor South Pacific jury members’ votes and thus the $1 million prize, beating Benjamin “Coach” Wade and Albert Destrade, with Ozzy Lusth taking the $100,000 fan favorite prize in the largest margin in the show’s history … Sophie played a strong, strategic game, aligning with the right people and also playing slightly under the radar, though the typically bitter jury viewed that as her being standoffish rather than Rick. Though she did not appear to be responsible for any major strategic moves—she certainly didn’t Cochran, whose name I’m making into a verb for a game-changing move—she was usually in conversations with Coach, who the editing seemed to credit all season for having the game in his control. Besides the fact that she won individual immunity three times, with the last victory mattering the most, she did not make empty promises to people, and she also responded well to what was happening around her: “they created this religious framework,” she explained during the reunion, adding that she “worked within that.” The jury rewarded her for that, even though they clearly didn’t love her, ripping her during the Q&A, which followed an emotional breakdown in the previous Tribal Council (“I’m just this big, awful, selfish spoiled bitch, and it “makes me regret coming,” she cried). She explained during the reunion, “I’ve been told my whole life to have self-esteem and so to have that thrown back in my face as a weakness was hard.” If anything, Sophie deserved to win for overcoming Jeff Probst’s overreaching, ridiculous response to that breakdown, which was to basically tell everyone to vote her off for showing so much weakness. Sophie wasn’t just a strategist, though; as she pointed out during her opening statement, she managed to outwit, outplay, and outlast. She beat Ozzy in the final immunity challenge, and despite his final-two deal with Coach, Ozzy was voted out yet again, this time for good. He knew it made no sense to keep him and took it extremely well: “Sayonara, Survivor. Man, I had a good time,” he said. That he ended up on the jury was another one of Coach’s “irrevocable” promises made in the name of religion that was broken and ultimately cost him the game, I think. It’s smart strategy to get rid of Ozzy, who’d win in a landslide against any of the final three, but bad strategy to consistently align with people using powerful arguments about loyalty and honor, and then bail on that when you realize it doesn’t make any sense to stick with that person … Ozzy, along with Sophie, seemed to be one of the few people who didn’t see the game as being played by Jesus alone (although the jury accused Albert of just using God to get himself further in the game; Albert played a comically bad game, concluding with his desperate, sad, pathetic attempts at the final Tribal to lie to Brandon and make himself seem like he was strategizing with Sophie instead of always trying to undermine her plans). Ozzy described Brandon’s strategy as a “blind faith game. He’s playing the game like he’s playing with God, and he’s not. He’s playing with human beings that are greedy and want that money.” And that brings us to Coach, who played really well all season but had no real endgame. At one point, he said, “I’m sick of people coming out here and try to look like they’re holier than thou,” and he might as well have been talking about himself. This wasn’t the arrogant and delusional Coach of Survivor Tocantins nor the diminished Coach of Survivor Heroes vs. Villains, but an evolved version who did a lot of things well, even if his genuine religiosity made him frequently seem like a hypocrite and made his lies look much worse than they actually were. To his credit, Coach acknowledged during the final Tribal Council that he lied and broke his word occasionally, and called himself a “terrible strategist.” The jury, including a freshly pigtailed Ozzy, was mostly bitter about the way the final three played the game, though Edna and Cochran made impassioned pleas for Coach’s game and being backstabbed, respectively. But Coach’s journey from destruction to absolute victory” ended with partial, runner-up victory.

I’m a pretty loyal Survivor fan and I watched this season, er, religiously ;) I am THRILLED that Sophie ended up the winner. As the report above mentions, she really played an excellent game — winning immunity when it was absolutely necessary, keeping her promises to others (by not making promises to others) and not succumbing to the “Jesus/God” game that so many other people played. Sophie won my respect early on and I saw her as a threat many episodes ago. The guys thought they had this game wrapped up, as they tend to do, and totally underestimated Sophie … to their detriment. I absolutely agree that Ozzy would’ve won the whole thing if he had made it to the finals … he deffo played the best winning game of Survivor this season (challenge-wise). Unfortch, he came up short and lost the final immunity challenge to Sophie … ensuring her win. Albert never stood a chance … he was this year’s liar/schemer who never had a chance at winning. Coach almost pulled off the win in the end, but his religious game paired with his numerous backstabs meant he didn’t deserve the $1 million in the jury’s eyes.

Much congrats goes out to Sophie on her win. I just wish that CBS and Survivor host Jeff Probst treated Sophie like the champion she is. The reunion special, where Sophie was crowned the winner, was completely focused on EVERYONE other than Sophie. All of the male players got more attention … the villainous Russell Hantz even got screen time … so did Jesus. Sophie, the winner, was almost completely ignored. Survivor/Probst did the same thing the last time a woman won Suvivor … the attention was placed on everyone else. It’s painfully annoying and insulting.

BUT, in the end, Sophie is $1 million dollars richer today so she has the last, well deserved, laugh. Congrats again Sophie!

[Photo credit: Wireimage; Source]