Yuku free message boards

At the risk of making this a politically-motivated flamefest, I think that Outback's endgame was largely influenced by Richard Hatch winning. What I am euphemistically going to refer as "Red State" Survivor fans-turned-Outback contestants probably found Hatch, well, kind of gross on many levels. Not saying it's homophobia, but I am saying that self-righteousness and wanting a "good" person to win was influencing a lot of the castmates, much like the ethos that Coach seems to claim to believe in. I think that you ended up with a core group that wanted to see a "good" person (nevermind that Tina and Colby were in actuality far more treacherous and deceptive than Hatch). Add to this that you had an endgame cast that consisted of several Southern Christians and a woman who acts as the token conservative on a talk show... It all added up to a group that Tina (and, to be fair, her first mate Colby) could manipulate right through no problem. The desire to not see a "bad" person such as Keith, Jeff, Jerri, or even Amber winning or making the endgame overrode logic and maximizing one's own chance of winning.

Tina, on the other hand, ended up with an almost perfect storm endgame situation. She had:

Colby willing to take her to the end and potentially lose.
Keith willing to take her to the end and certainly lose.
Elisabeth, had she won out immunity, I am guessing would have taken her to the end as well, with a 4-3 vote mostly based on tribal lines with a strong chance of Amber voting for Lis instead.
Keith unwilling to team up with Amber who was the only one he had a chance of beating.
She got them to all vote out Amber, which benefitted only Tina (Rodger and Lis needed her as a swing vote, Keith needed her as a final opponent that he had a chance in hell of beating, and she probably would have stuck with Colby to the end and lost to him 6-1...)

Now, had Kucha gone in 6-4, if we make the assumption that Amber goes pre-merge, and the boot order is probably Colby, Keith, Jerri, Tina. (Perhaps Colby could win immunity to lengthen his stay, perhaps Keith or Jerri could get moved up on the target list out of orneriness.) The split seemed to be Jeff-Alicia-Nick vs. Mike-Rodger-Lis. Tina (or whomever else is the last Ogakor standing) would have an opportunity. On the one hand, I think she would more naturally gravitate towards Rodger, Lis, and Mike. On the other hand, Alicia and Jeff would be MUCH easier to talk into turning on the other Kucha tribemembers, and probably would have tried to arrange outgoing Ogakor sandbagging Mike with votes on their way out if they had to win a previous votes tiebreaker....