I think Dee deserved it across the board, ticked all the boxes. I think Austin deserved to get some votes, because even though he made some major errors, he also did a lot more right than most of the others. In his interview, he said that most of his moves were early in the game, or in the middle, and the jury had forgotten a lot of that - which is something any player should anticipate, especially when so much happened in the final days.
I loved Jake's story, his scrappyness, and I'm so glad he got that fire moment. Seems like a good honest guy who had a lot of moves in him, just didn't know how to use them. One thing that really impressed me when they were doing the advantage is when he said he can't outrun any of them, so he's got to get it right the first time, taking his time to get the counts right, and he did it. I hope he's proud of that too, even if he then squandered the advantage in the challenge itself.
I think they did Katurah a disservice though. The first half of the season was entirely about how much Bruce bugged her, when in fact she is a very intelligent woman who not only saw what other players (read, the ones comfy in their alliances) didn't, but had a long view of the path to the end. Also interesting is that both Dee and Julie think she switched her vote because Dee cried during TC (wasn't shown) but Katurah tells it differently - that even though she was the one who convinced Jake to vote out Dee - took hours apparently - she also knew Jake was desperate to make some big moves, and she was worried he was keeping something from her, which he was. Second is that given her background, she trusts her body to tell her when something's off, and again, she was right. I admire her.
Aside from the ones who quit at the beginning, Julie is my most disliked player of the season. All along we heard the other players say that they didn't want to be next to her at the end, but IIRC, we never actually got more than that - reasons why they all liked her and why that made her a threat. All we saw is her taking everything personally, and wanting to go after those who said or wrote her name, and otherwise relying on Drew, Austin and especially Dee to do all the brainwork and take all the strategic chances. In her post interview, she's even upset that Dee took credit for the Emily vote. And she is certain if she had made it to the end, she would have won. In fairness, Jeff said so too, but then he would have seen a lot we didn't.
Anyway, I went into the final thinking anyone but Julie, hopefully Austin but IMO Dee won it fair and square.
I wonder if any of them hung around to film season 46? If it's anyone, my bet is Kaleb.
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at the end. Well done
