‘Survivor Caramoan: Fans vs. Favorites’ finale review: Did John Cochran or Dawn Meehan win?

We’ve said really for the past few weeks that if John Cochran makes it to the end of “Survivor Carmaoan: Fans vs. Favorites,” he has the same shot of winning as we do of falling asleep every night. It’s almost surely going to happen unless something is wrong in the universe. Not only did he actually win challenges (which we and Cochran both probably never thought would happen), but he also managed to balance the lying and cheating with out making anyone else in the tribe feel horrible about him doing so.

Did Cochran and everyone else get a massive stroke of luck from Erik Reichanbach leaving? Definitely. The guy was a challenge beast, and we figure his exit due to injury shook up the game at its core. We almost think that this exit is so heartbreaking that we’d love to see him back again, but given that CBS wants people who play harder strategically than a guy who was so aloof, his journey on the show is probably over.

To Cochran’s credit specifically, he won a pair of challenges that basically forced him to make it to the end, which is good since no one probably wanted him there. Getting rid of Eddie Fox? Also a smart move as he probably would not have won, but it was not a risk worth taking. So when it came to Cochran vs Dawn how was the jury thinking?

Malcolm Freberg – Basically, Malcolm was awesome as usual in trying to get Cochran to stroke his ego, and tell Dawn that he would stick up for her.

Eddie – Next to his hilarious dream of a bar / dog care center, this question to Cochran about hanging out with him with the amigos was something that is basically just … well, Eddie.

Phillip Sheppard – Phillip rescinded Sherri’s invitation into Stealth R Us, which was awesome. Then, he just kissed up to Cochran.

Reynold Toepfer – Reynold’s pep talk to Dawn was great, and it did serve as a nice reminder that he may actually be one of the amigos that we would actually want to hang out with in the real world.

Michael Snow – We love Michael, but did not really get much out of his speech at all other than that he wanted the jury to see the players eye-to-eye.

Andrea Boehlke – Getting Cochran to compare himself to an animal? Great TV.

Brenda Lowe – Best jury moment of the night. Brenda, desperate to prove that Dawn was fronting her with her threats that she would quit the game over some missing teeth, wanted her to take the teeth out in front of everyone. It took her a few minutes, but she did. Thus, Brenda now feels like she has gone through something emotionally comparable.

At the end of the jury speeches, our personal prediction here was something in the direction of a 6-2 win for Cochran. Dawn did a pretty good job at selling her game, and the jury was not too angry at her. However, Cochran was really the guy that kept everything together, and he was the challenge warrior through thick and thin.

The votes were in, and the crazy thing is that no one thought that anyone other than Cochran was going to win the game. They were right! Cochran became the third unanimous winner ever, and the second in a final three following Earl Cole’s win in Fiji.

Do you think that Cochran was the right winner? Personally, we thought Dawn at least earned a vote, but there was no better winner for this season than a guy who really laid all of his cards on the table and respected the jury in the end.

If you want to compare the results to what we predicted pre-game, we have our official rankings over here.

Photo: CBS