Psoted as I'm leaving the house, departing for the live Reunion Special in NYC's Central Park... enjoy the show folks!

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OK... it's finally here, Grand Finale time. This last prediction is always by far the most difficult to do, since it involves deteriming the winner of two immunity challenges, the bootee of two tribal councils, and predicting the voting habits of the resulting seven jurors.

If we knew with certainly that the winner of the final two immunity challenges would not be a factor in the voting and strategies of the final days, then a final prediction would seem to be much more clear cut. Under that scenario, regardless of whether either of them were to win the Final 4 immunity, both Vee and Kathy should realize that their best chances for getting to the Final 2 are if they team to break up the Paschal and Neleh duo and somehow winner tiebreaker. By doing so, even if either of them failed to win the Final 3 immunity, they would both have an honest shot of being selected by the winner to go to the Final 2 -- a scenario there is no chance of occurring should they either of them lose the Final 3 immunity challenge in a group where the other Final 3 members are Neleh and Pappy. Sure, we've heard the talk that for KAthy to do so would jeopardize a Final 3 "sure thing" with Neleh and Pappy and possibly the loser's jury vote, but come on, even if Kathy opted to go after Paschal or Neleh, in the tiebreaker vote round the voters must still target one of the folks from the original round who received votes -- and therefore unless Vee were to run to PAppy and Nelelh with news of her lan to align with Kathy, Kathy wwould not have to risk any chance of being ousted in a Final 4 re-vote. As far as KAthy losing votes by "turning" on Paay and Neleh (folks with whom we've never seen she has more than an alliance of convenience,) I'm also not buying it -- as long as one of them remains in the Final 2, Kathy is already losing the other's jury vote.

Were Kathy and Vee to align, based on what we've been shown, Neleh clearly seems to be more of the threat, both from a Final 3 immunity challenge standpoint and from a juror Final 2 vote perspective (assuming John has made note of Pappy's swear of allegiance to him and passed that thinking along to his fellow Rotu 4.) The other remaining players all also have voiced their concerns about Neleh and her "squeaky clean" image during any finl judgement. Therefore NELEH would be the logical choice to be the target of a Kathy/Vee alliance, and, assuming Vee could win their resulting tiebreaker, the first of the Final 4 to go. If Vee loses the Final 4 tiebreaker with Neleh, than once again, Vee has lost nothing -- she was going anyways, and Kathy has also lost nothing -- even before if she didn't win the following Final 3 immunity challenge, Neleh and Pappy would be booting her anyways.

From there KATHY would seem the clear favorite to win the test of endurance Final 3 immunity challenge. Not only did she already do it once before when the tribes merged, but as we've seen Pappy can barely stand and walk at this point, and Vee hasn't proven herself to be much of a physical threat (her one challenge victory was more of a result of the other players not considering her a threat and therefore not a target than a testiment to her competitive skills.)

If KATHY were to win the Final 2, then Pappy would see to be the safer choice for her -- while taking either Vee or Pappy is guarenteed to cost her one vote (Sean's or Neleh's respectively,) the taking of Vee just seems to be more of a risk that the Rotu 4 might choose to exact their revenge for their betrayal by one of their original own by voting for Vee, an original Samburu. Should the Rotu 4 choose not to hold Kathy's turning against, he could win a blowout, but should they do the opposite, she could LOSE in a blowout. Any vote with Pappy is likely to be much closer, although certainly still winnable. Katy has played taken the safer road numerous times in the last few days, she probably would do so again and take PAPPY to the final two. In that case I'd predict KATHY would win in a 4-3 or 5-2 vote.

Now, everything above assumes two things:

1) The winners of the final two immunity challenges would not be a factor in the voting and strategies of the final days
2) That we have no solid spoilers to work with and are left to pure speculation.

If there's anything we've learned from Survivor, it's that assuming Assumption #1 is always a risk (look to Survivor 1 and Survivor 3 for examples.) As far as #2, there does seem to be the matter of the apparent online spoiler leak of the Final 2 being Neleh and Vee.

For Neleh to make it that far and Pappy to be booted, immunity must be a factor. The most likely way I can see happening is Neleh winning the F4 immunity and then Vee and Kathy teaming up but having no choice but to take vote for their second choice of Pappy. Then somehow he's gone in whatever is the tiebreaker.

Then either Neleh wins immunity again and opts to count on the jury to vote based on Rotu tribal loyalty and therefore takes Vee to the F2, or Vee wins the final immunity is figures that Neleh is a risk to win, but she's less of a risk to win than Kathy (I statement with which I'd certainly agree.) I can maybe see Kathy losing the endurance immunity to Neleh, but Vee is a much tougher sell to me, she's shown nothing all game (although last seasn I don't think MamaKim did either.) Then, if there is a Vee/Neleh F2 I can't see Vee winning -- not only don't I see the 4 votes being there for her, but while the loser of the F2 can be edited with this little footage, I can't see a WINNER being edited this way (and AK I have to disagree with you -- yes, Tina was UTR, but not this far under.)

I could see Pappy going out third was if Vee were to win immunity and Pappy and Neleh were forced to boot Kathy. This would require Vee passing on taking a chance to avoid going to Final 3 with Neleh and Pappy, something that would make possible sense with regard to her chance to win the Final 3 immunity challenge, but would drastically reduce her odds of making the Final 2 if she loses the Final 3 immunity challenge. If Vee wants to hedge her bets, she'd save Kathy and take her chances at Kathy winning the tiebreaker and therefore opening up the Final 2 possiblities. Otherwise, Vee's victory scenario requires her to win both of the last two immunity challenges -- something that seems unlikely given her history.

Ok, with all that said, what am I finally, trult predicting will happen??? Well, as I said, all other things being equal, a Neleh, Vee, Pascal boot order with KATHY being the final winner would make sense. But the problem with that is that the F4 and F3 immunity winners quite often muck up the best laid endgame plans, and the does seem to be a credible spoiler for a Neleh/Vee Final 2. That said my predictions are for a Vee immunity win in the Final 4 AND a Vee/Kathy double teaming in an attempt to increase both their chances of still making the Final 2 even neither of them wins the Final 3 immunity challenge. Obviously since this is predicated on the Vee/Neleh spoiler being correct, PASCHAL would be their boot target and the 13th survivor voted out.

NELEH would then somehow win the Final 3 immunity challenge (sure, Kathy can endure, but there is something to be said for youth -- see Kelly in Survivor 1.) NELEH opts to take Vee to the Final 2 (perhaps still having strong feelings over Kathy's opting to boot Paschal.) VEE might also win the last immunity and opt to take Neleh (assuming the jury feels the same way about Nelelh as Vee does and fearing that they might respect KAthy) but NELEH's victory seems more likely.

NELEH and VEE face off in a Final 2 and Vee... LOSES. Not only don't I see the 4 votes being there for her, but while the loser of the F2 can be edited with this little footage, I can't see a WINNER being edited this way (and AK I have to disagree with you -- yes, Tina was UTR, but not this far under.) NELEH wins Survivor: Marquesas, girl power wins and completes the middle aged man, middle aged woman, younger man, younger woman circle of winners.

-SB