He expertly masterminded his tribe, calculated who'd go home and when. And he got to the final three with two players nobody could possibly vote for.
So "Boston Rob" Mariano of course was the overwhelming winner on "Survivor: Redemption Island" Sunday.
For Mariano, it was his fourth time playing the game but first to win the $1 million prize. The
woman who became his wife, Amber Brkich, won "All-Stars.""I knew from the very beginning if I was able to get my foot in the door and get these people to at least play with me, I'd at least have a shot," Mariano said.
He agreed their devotion to him was i"cult like" to a degree. "But it was a lot of hard work too."
Marino's win came after winning a couple of crucial individual immunities, including the last one available, and having a hidden immunity idol the one time an alliance of women would even consider voting him out.
Host Jeff Probst said it was as close to a perfectly played game as he'd seen in 22 seasons.
But one Mariano teammate, Grant Mattos, took personally the blindside he got to eliminate him from the game.
The one player who gave hope to viewers all season, Matt Elrod, got blindsided twice but stayed alive on Redemption Island by winning 10 consecutive challenges. He lost the last one though, and did not return to the game in the finale, as viewers may have hoped.
Elrod was in the running with Mariano for the $100,000 fan favorite prize, but lost that one to him as well.
The one who went back to the game from Redemption Island was the most recently blindsided, Andrea Boehlke. She returned and tried to form a female trio alliance to upend Rob's rule, but she was voted out again.
The "Redemption Island" gambit will be repeated this fall when the action moves to the South Pacific, with two other former all-stars returning to try and win.
