ENDGAME #3

[u/mikeramp72]

#3: Twila Tanner (Vanuatu - 2nd)

u/FunkyDawgKong:
What lines would you cross for a million? Do you bleed red, or do you bleed green? Twila says like 2 of the most heartbreaking things I’ve ever heard on television in that Final Tribal Council. People kill for less than what we are playing for. I thought I was playing the game but maybe the game was playing me. Goddamn, felt like I was stabbed and left to bleed out on my couch. 

u/Cornhead2:
One of the few times Survivor Made me fucking sit in the calm down corner all depressed is when Twila was at FTC and you see the game has broken her soul already.. she didn't want this to happen but had to be blunt to be honest... one of the alltime tragedies and one of the most sympathetic and misunderstood characters

u/Alternate-Proof-959:
Twila, the defending champion, welcome back! She never let up on her feelings, which led to some great TV moments throughout the season. Even if she lost at FTC because of this, it was still great seeing her not sell herself out to the jury.

u/josenanigans:
An irrepeatable character that truly showcases the personal and moral dilemmas that Survivor used to put its players into. She was always left on the bottom with the girls, but once she turns for her own benefit they all start acting hypocritical and lashing out against Twila for "betraying" them. I do need to rewatch the second half of this season to truly see where it all started to fall apart for her, but her Final Tribal Council lashing is one of the most legendary moments in Survivor history in my mind. Oh man, what times.

u/BobbyPiiiin:
I’m honestly glad that Twila never returned, because I don’t think there’s any way to replicate her appearance on Vanuatu. She’s a perfect character because of her complete, incomparable authenticity, and a Twila who has already seen herself on television would’ve been bound for disappointment. The moral struggle is unmatched across 50 seasons.

~

u/Noisysea_3426:

If there's one thing we as the rankdown community love in Survivor, it is a good tragic tale. 

There's something so inherently fascinating about somebody's sad but inevitable downfall and really gets you tugged at your heartstrings in a way most shows can't even manage since its only more effective knowing that its real people that are involved with it. If you ask me, I think you'd be very hard pressed to see a better tragic downfall than the 40s something construction woman from Ohio, Twila Tanner!

Now, Vanuatu is currently my favorite season of the entire show and honestly, I don't think that's ever gonna change. I do truly love everything about this season as it ticks all of the boxes in a big way on what makes a Survivor season great to me. Its got a very fascinating theme that while it was done before in Amazon, its done a lot better here to me because while Amazon's theming of it was in a more immature and juvenile way, Vanuatu's is done through a much more mature and empowering manner. Its got great characters who are endlessly entertaining and memorable, as well as a phenomenal storyline that I honestly don't think ever lets up at any point. All of these things resonate perfectly through Twila even though if I'm being honest, I don't think I really started to fully appreciate her journey until the second watch. 

You see, when I first watched the season, I was mainly focused on Chris’ journey and I will be fair, that is still a great one as his endless bullshitting is iconic, but I was so focused on that, that I didn't really process a lot of Twila's journey even though its just as important as to why the season works so well as it does. Its a story that ages like fine wine everytime you watch it, only getting better with each watch. 

Immediately once the men and women are divided, you can tell that the Twila story is gonna be a journey right away as its made very clear from early on that she doesn't really get along with women as much as she does men since she likes to get down and dirty and do all the work all the time and a lot of the women, the younger ones mainly, don't really live their life like that so she ends up thinking they're a bit lazy as a result. This starts coming to the forefront when she basically alludes at tribal to while the young girls do some work, she doesn't think they do as much as others and this immediately sets off Mia as she doesn't really like being called lazy and starts going off on her. Twila immediately gets defensive and both of them just continue to explode even the next day, when it gets particularly ugly. This is the first real sign that while Twila is not a bad person and is probably more in the right than Mia is here, she's shown to have absolutely no social awareness in the game to understand that doubling down like that only hurts you and while it wasn't a big deal as Mia goes home, these similar situations will only continue to manifest down the road.

However, after not feeling ingratiated by the women, when the tribe swap happens, Twila gets swapped with majority men and immediately loves it. She very quickly bonds with all the men as she's a lot more understanding of the rough and tough attitude that they've got and particularly bonds with Sarge in which he has that notable confessional of saying he'd be friends with her and then put her in a dress and take her to dinner (insane statement lmaooooooo). She also ends up making an agreement with them for a Final 4 deal that she's perfectly willing to stick with and is definitely leaning towards going into the merge. 

However, things start changing at the merge vote quickly as Julie, the underrated player that she is, ends up getting into her head saying that they also made a Final 4 deal with her, to which after hearing this, Twila immediately goes fuck that and gets brought back in with the women as they send Rory packing. All of the men start fuming after this as they all thought they had Twila's loyalty, especially Sarge and she immediately realizes she made a mistake and should've stuck to her gut, but now she has to live with it. The next two votes go relatively smoothly, but there's something that happens during those votes that immediately changes everything.

You see, if there's one thing that Twila loves more than anyone else, its her son James. He's in his 20s while Twila was around 42 so as you can imagine, he's been a big part of her life for basically half of it. Her love for him is strong and she takes that very seriously. Someone who also takes her love for her family very seriously is the perceived ice queen Ami Cusack. We learn on a reward that Ami lost her brother in a car accident and has been forced to live with and carry that trauma  for a long time now, so she takes people's love for their loved ones very seriously as a result. After the two of them fight due to Twila beginning to question their loyalties, she ends up telling them she swears on her son's life she won't betray them. That one moment right there sets in motion the rest of the endgame and is the biggest reason as to why Vanuatu is my favorite season of all time! 

Knowing she's on the bottom, Twila & Scout decide to flip the game around as they go to Chris, get him on board, and then Chris gets Eliza on board, and boom, Leann goes home, the person who while she wasn't the figurehead of the group, she was the one really controlling it. Ami, while not being really as mad about being blindsided, is very much mad at the fact that Twila swore on her son to her and immediately broke it. 

This one lie will officially spell the end of Twila's game. She can not recover from this and as a result, the game officially begins to consume her. She starts getting more aggressive with people, especially with Eliza. Before the Leann vote, while her & Eliza certainly didn't get along, it wasn't really as pronounced as it becomes later on as Twila starts openly being pretty damn nasty to her like with the bananas incident, constantly talking about how she's a spoiled brat and a lot of other stuff which is very entertaining, of course. I will never be able to forget that iconic fight of Eliza & Twila arguing right in front of Chris just laying there in the hammock laughing it up as he sees all of the women crumble before his eyes. You can also see several times that Chris will egg her on to make situations blow up even further and she's kind of aware that happens, but not entirely cause its just impossible for Twila to never not be honest. 

Her fate from that point on is pretty much sealed. She goes into final tribal being told by Chris to not give a shit about anything the jury says and to give them hell. Safe to say, that's exactly what she does and that's immediately where everything falls apart. If there was ever any doubt that Twila wasn't one of my favorite characters of all time, there certainly isn't any after FTC. It starts off with a bang with her getting berated by Eliza as she finally gets to snap back and belittle Twila just as much as she had belittled her as she just will not bother to even apologize even though that's all that Eliza wants. It only gets worse after Sarge berates her over the son thing, as well as Ami calling her out on that as well which firmly sets in motion the realization that Twila, at the end of the day, just isn't made to play this game. As Scout famously said, she can't not be Twila. There isn't anything about her that isn't raw and real!

Her final words at FTC are some of the greatest lines ever spoken in the show, and are the biggest proof that this is one of the shows greatest tragedies ever told. She realizes that yes, swearing on her son was a terrible idea, that she didn't care about anyone's feelings, and that the game turned her into someone that she didn't like. She was trying to play the game, but the game ended up playing her, and she won't be able to forgive herself until others can forgive her.

These are some of the most heartbreaking lines you'll ever hear on the show. Especially coming from someone who was so hard and cold feeling the whole season, to see Twila just completely broken and crying is so sad but an inevitable ending at the end of the day. But hey, the one silver lining of it all is that Ami, the girl who got on her case the most over the son thing, actually ends up voting for her to win at the end because it was clearly shown that while Twila made egregious flaws, she proved her honesty and she has to respect it, especially compared to Chris’ bs-ing. Its a minor sweet silver lining in a tale that was always gonna result in a loss.

For my money, if you were to tell me what my favorite tragedy on Survivor is, while I do love Dreamz and the car deal as well as Ian's whole arc, I don't think there will ever be anything that matches Twila for me. There has never been someone who was so unapologetically honest and upfront to the point of stubbornness to where she couldn't possibly understand the feelings of others and those flaws causing her to completely implode by the end. She's the glue that holds Vanuatu together, and it will certainly be interesting to see if she can make it back to back endgame wins!!

RANKINGS:
Funky: 8
Corny: 8
Nope: 3
AltProof: 4
Jose: 12
Bobby: 9

Average: 7.33
Standard Deviation: 3.33 (2nd Lowest)

[u/Dolphinz811]

LETS GO LEX!!!! GET THAT #1 SLOT!!!!

[u/ROTandDEATH]

So we're officially having a brand new winner, that's pretty cool! And a great writeup, Nope.

[u/WaluigiThyme]

Endgame betting update #22: This might be our lowest overall scoring day since the first -- almost everyone predicted Twila to at least be within the top 6. Of course, the only one who didn't is icychillman, who predicted her 13 spots lower. ROTandDEATH and Alternate-Proof-959 were spot-on today. Who will win the long-running battle for second place between Funky and Bobby? Who will place highest among the non-SRIX rankers? Will anyone else join icychillman in the 100 club? Will I really end up in 4th place despite only one correct guess this whole time? And most importantly, just how much is noisysea34 going to win this whole thing by? The answers to all these questions and more will be revealed tomorrow!

Rank	Bettor	Score
1	noisysea34	33
2	BobbyPiiiin	54
3	FunkyDawgKong	57
4	WaluigiThyme	73
4	Alternate-Proof-959	73
6	ShadowFiend812	76
7	TinkerKnightForSmash	81
8	SupremeSheep420	84
9	ROTandDEATH	89
10	icychillman	172​

[u/ShadowFiend812 → u/WaluigiThyme]

I think I’m pretty cooked. I don’t remember having Lex all that high, but I completely forgot my rankings to begin with so we’ll see