So we have reached the end of the 25th season of "Survivor", and Denise Stapley, a 41-year-old sex therapist from Iowa has won the million dollar prize. She is the only castaway to go to every single Tribal Council in an entire season and leave with her torch still lit.  She never won tribal immunity. She was a part of three different tribes. But thanks to her day one alliance with Malcolm, her hard work ethic, and her negotiation skills, she was able to reach the end and make a solid case as to why she should win the money.  

Last night, we got three hours of "Survivor", including the reunion, so instead of recapping it all like I usually do, I'm going to look at some of the most notable moments.

Malcolm Falls to the Day 38 Curse

On the very first season of "Survivor", retired Navy SEAL Rudy Boesch was on his way to becoming Sole Survivor. Of the five members of the Tagi alliance that dominated the game, he was the most respected. The jury would have given him the million easily. But at the final immunity challenge, which involved holding on to the Immunity Idol for as long as possible, Rudy accidentally let his hand drop off the idol, costing him immunity. He was voted out one day short of the final Tribal Council, and in a very Rudy-esque moment, used his jury speech just to say how he was kicking himself for letting go of the idol.  

Since then, "Survivor" has seen many instances of the "Day 38 Curse," and Malcolm has now joined Rudy on

that list of victims. Malcolm played an excellent game from start to finish, and had he won the final immunity, Denise would have been voted out in his place and he would have been the one getting the million dollar check from Probst. During the final Tribal Council, the camera kept cutting over to Malcolm on the jury bench, and he did nothing to mask his frustration. I think he spent more time looking down on the floor than he did looking at the Final Three.  

Malcolm is rumored to return next season as part of the Fans vs. Favorites twist, and since seasons of "Survivor" are filmed close to each other, he might get to play next season without everyone else knowing what an ace he was this season. Still, he's going to kick himself for not being able to balance a ball on a cylinder of wood.

Skupin Played An Incredible Game…Until Day 39

I'm really glad they brought Michael Skupin back this season. Unlike a lot of returning players, I was really curious to see how he would handle a second chance at this game, because he didn't make it to the merge and didn't play the game in full. This time he did, and he did a great job of it. He avoided conflict, formed a strong friendship with Lisa that turned into a strategic alliance at the merge, won challenges, managed swing votes, goofed off, and made it to the end with cuts, bruises, and a lot to be proud of.

That said, he let his description of his game to the jury turn into a bit of a tall tale. He claimed that his name was being thrown around until Penner was voted out, and this was true. Jeff Kent was pushing hard to get rid of Skupin as part of his plan to eliminate returning players. But the truth is that talks to go after Skupin never really evolved into actual plans to get rid of him. The plans to get rid of him before the merge never materialized because Tandang kept winning immunity, and after the merge bigger targets allowed Skupin to fade into the background.  

When Penner called out Skupin on his exaggerations as part of his jury speech, Skupin was done. He rightfully pointed out that Skupin was never in as much danger as he was, and in doing so took out a major talking point Skupin was using and made his game look less impressive. When all was said and done, Skupin only got a vote from Carter, whom Skupin told was a strong player. At the reunion, Skupin said he had the utmost confidence that he had won the game, which of course is something you should have if you are a hard competitor. A competitor always has the confidence that they are going to win.  But that confidence also proved another part of Penner's speech to be true: all three of the finalists believed they were winning the million, but two of them were just oxen pulling the winner's chariot across the finish line. Skupin was one of those oxen.

Man, the more I think about it, Penner's speech was on the mark. Maybe the term "Snakes and Rats" speech should be replaced with the term "Oxen Speech."

Everybody Loves An Underdog

The biggest lesson that "Survivor: Philippines" will offer to future players is this: Don't let an underdog get to the end.

One of the most distinctive traits of American culture is that we all love underdogs, and Denise was a very scrappy underdog. Though she won few challenges, she showed tenacity and determination in every single challenge, even though she was going up against alpha males like Kent and Pete and Carter. She was on a tribe that never won immunity, got sent to another tribe that remained intact, and then went to a merged tribe where she was outnumbered. Before the merge, she used her work ethic and determination as reason for why she should stay in the game, and after the merge she used her persuasion skills to convince the others to go after other players that were seen as bigger threats. 

Then, when it was time to close the deal, Denise summed up all the above in an excellent opening statement to the jury. She said from the get-go that she was not going to apologize for her gameplay and owned every action she made, while Skupin and Lisa got a bit too defensive.  The only apology Denise made was to Abi-Maria, and that apology was important. She didn't apologize for calling out Abi on her bratty behavior, because her feelings about Abi were genuine. She did, however, apologize for how she communicated those feelings.  By communicating her regrets for laying on the truth too hard on Abi, she won Abi's vote and made herself look a little bit better in the eyes of the jury. Except for Penner, that is, who said that Denise came off as a bitch but voted for her anyway because while he may think she is a bitch, he can't deny she is brilliant as well.

Boy, This Show Needed This Season

The last four seasons of "Survivor" have been rubbish. They have had quitters, too many weak players and unlikeable people, dumb twists, and an over reliance on returning players. "Survivor: Philippines" had none of these problems.

Instead of hogging the spotlight, the returning players found the balance between interesting and overbearing. For Skupin and Swan, this truly was a second chance, since med-evacs took them out of the game before the merge; and though this was Penner's third time playing "Survivor", he's so entertaining and willing to change his gameplay that it is easily forgiven.

The two celebrity players, Kent and Lisa, also took up a lot of the spotlight, but they didn't need their past lives to be interesting. I was born four years after "The Facts Of LIfe" went off the air, and it was still incredibly interesting -- and mildly annoying -- to see her struggle to embrace the game. Kent, on the other hand, dove right in. I knew Kent as a hyper-competitive firebrand on the Giants and Dodgers, so seeing him be equally hyper-competitive in "Survivor" was no surprise. Still, he combined that competitiveness with some smarts. He knew how to play the game and the Tribal Council in which he was voted out will go down as one of the all time great moments in 'Survivor' history. It truly was a blindside that no one except the Tandang members saw coming.

Actually, "hyper-competitive" is a word that can best describe many of the contestants this season, which is the main reason why "Survivor: Philippines" was so brilliant. These castaways all came to WIN, and they fought very hard. They were willing to work with the returning players to get ahead in the game, but they refused to hand a veteran a million dollar check like the players on "Survivor: Redemption Island" did to Rob Mariano. Even Abi-Maria was incredibly competitive, which made her a tenacious player as well as a love-to-hate villain.  

I hope that the producers cast more people like this cast in the next season, "Survivor: Caramoan", which will see a group of hard-core fans take on a tribe of returning players. We don't want pushovers that are just excited to be on the show and to hang out with these people that they saw on TV. We want more gamers. "Survivor: Philippines" easily ranks in the top 10 seasons ever made, and should go down as one of the best seasons of Reality TV ever made.

And now, let's close this out with a picture of Dawson kissing Jeff Probst.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah, that's nice.

Reach Staff Reporter Jeremy Fuster here. Follow him on Twitter here.