Duel time! Tina, Laura, and Hayden have to balance a vase on a seesaw with their foot. When the vase breaks, they are out of the game for good. The winner will be back in the game. Fifteen minutes passes and Laura struggles…and recovers. Seconds later, Hayden gets a bug in his eye and his vase goes crash. Laura begs Tina to let her have it, but are you crazy, lady? “Hi person I barely know, please let me have your chance at a million dollars.” Thirty minutes, and Tina’s leg is all sorts of cramping up. She steadies herself while Laura starts hippity hopping around and crash! Laura’s vase breaks and Tina gets back in the game.

Ciera tries to lure Tina into an all-female alliance that she does not yet have locked up. Tina seems semi-receptive to the idea, and the two chat with Monica about their options. Ciera convinces Monica that this is her chance for a big move, which would show the jury that she did not ride Gervase and Tyson’s coattails to the end.

The immunity challenge is a tippy table and ten wooden blocks that all need to be placed and standing. Simple, if the blocks weren’t super far away and only controlled by one rope. If your block falls while you’re collecting one, you need to put your block back and return to reset them on the tippy table. Tyson is rocking the challenge, so to speak, with Gervase and Monica close behind. With one block left, Tyson carefully reels himself back to the table and wins the immunity challenge, guaranteeing himself a spot in the final four.

Tyson, Gervase, and Monica debate voting out Tina or Ciera. Monica wants to get rid of Tina because nobody on the jury is there by her hand, and Gervase wants Ciera to go home because she is a much more sympathetic and strategic player (the woman voted out her own mother!). This pisses off Monica, who is now more inclined to go with the girls.

At Tribal Council, Monica’s head gets rattled like a ping pong ball in a lottery. So which way did she go? But wait! Tyson passes Gervase his Hidden Immunity Idol, so any votes cast for Gervase will not count. Switcheroo! Gervase does not count. Gervase does not count. Ciera. And Ciera is voted out of the game. That right there was a brilliant move. Tyson just set himself apart as the most strategic player in the game, and the ladies go into scramble mode.

Come on in, guys! It’s the final Immunity Challenge, and it’s an exhausting doozey. There’s an obstacle course with a net and a water slide and climby things and six puzzle pieces that will help solve a combination lock. I’ve already sprained my ankle watching this, twice. Monica is in the lead, with Tyson on her tail and Tina way behind. Tyson, Gervase, and Monica get to the puzzle almost simultaneously. The puzzle reveals a clue to the numbers on the lock. Tyson solves the puzzle first, and dives down the slide to count the stairs on the way up. And with that, Tyson wins immunity and will compete for the million bucks at the final Tribal Council which he will almost definitely win.

Okay, so who does he take with him? He has to take Gervase to show loyalty, but is it Monica, who has played hard and won a boatload of challenges, or Tina, who has not pissed off even a single player on the jury? If it was me (which it totally would not be because the medics would’ve had to airlift me out on day two), I would take my original alliance of Gervase and Monica and explain to the jury how I masterminded the whole damned thing. But then there’s the Monica factor. What if she votes with Tina, for Gervase? Tina believes that she could beat Gervase in a fire building tiebreaker, and that would make a final three of Tyson, Monica, and Tina. Huh.

The vote goes Tina, Tina, Gervase, Tina. Wah wah. So was that Monica’s big move? If so, it was a bit of a fizzle.

The next morning, there’s a feast because they’re hungry. After a day of reflection, it’s off to Tribal Council where the final three players plead their case. Gervase says he played old school and new school, having taken a thirteen year break. He also claims to have orchestrated Aras’s removal. Then Monica says that she was not a puppet because it was her decision to stick with Tyson and Gervase, which, huh? Tyson cries over seeing his girlfriend at Redemption Island and says that’s the moment he snapped into the game.

So any interesting questions from the jury? Katie is pissed at Tyson because he made a snide comment to her when she drew the losing rock, and that could cost him a million dollars. Caleb tries to sort out what exactly Gervase did, other than go along with the group, and then he draws a great speech out of Monica. She says for the past nine years, it’s been about Brad and it’s always about Brad and it’s never about her and she’s proud of herself and it’s finally her day and tears! Maybe genuine! Laura makes it about herself, which is sort of weird, and then it makes Monica cry again about eating grubs and worms and being a little woman up against the big boys…and you can see second place slipping away from Gervase, it’s all over his face.

Jeff swoops off in his little helicopter with the ballot box and wanders onto a set of fake trees in Los Angeles, California. The players are all scrubbed and pretty, and of course Tyson is wearing a tuxedo t-shirt. Here’s the vote:

Monica, Tyson, Tyson, Tyson, Tyson, Tyson, and with that he wins a million dollars and the title of Sole Survivor. That’s good, I guess.