‘Survivor: Philippines’ finale prediction: Do Mike Skupin, Lisa Whelchel have hope?

The finale for “Survivor: Philippines” is now mere hours away, and as promised, now is the time that we are finally going to take a look at not only who will win this season (arguably one of the best in years), but who ultimately will based on everything that we have seen thus far. It has been a fun year full of twists and turns for sure, but trying to determine the winner in our mind really comes down to just one key issue: who of Malcolm Freberg and Denise Stapley will make it in to the final three?

Let’s put the issue in this way: Lisa Whelchel and Mike Skupun cannot have many friends on the jury. In the case of Skupin, his decision to vote out Artis sent Tandang’s axis of evil down a dark path. So he has probably lost the votes of him, Pete, and possibly Abi-Maria as well. Add to that the fact that Jeff Kent does not want a returning player to win and he screwed over Jonathan Penner, his odds are pretty low even if RC and Carter vote for him. As for Lisa, it’s hard to imagine anyone on the jury being big fans of the way she has played this game by flip-flopping.

Who will win – Malcolm. In our mind, it’s really just an issue of who among his alliance wins the final immunity challenge, and he is more likely to do so than Denise. Also, it’s possible that Denise could have resistance from a few jurors (namely Abi and Penner); meanwhile, Malcolm has really played a pretty clean game, not angered anyone, and he’s a nice guy who has won challenges. If he makes it to the end (which is the only issue), he wins in a landslide.

Who should win – If you look at who actually did more in this game to make it to the end, it’s actually Denise. She had to work far harder on Kalabaw to stay alive than Malcolm did at Tandang, and she has actually been to every tribal council this season. (Even Stephenie in Palau got to miss out on one of them.) Also, she is the one to make the move to team back up with Malcolm and against Kalabaw after the merge. Has she made more enemies? Sure, but her hard work around camp, physical prowess, and social smarts have to be rewarded at some point.

Who do you think will (and should) win this season? If you want to read our full “Survivor: Philippines” finale rankings, you can do so over here.