The finale of "Survivor: Cagayan" season 28 featured four contestants - Spencer Bledsoe, Woo Hwang, Kass McQuillen and Tony Vlachos - who all had an equal opportunity to win $1 million, after fighting it out for 40 days in Cagayan, a province in the Philippines.
In the end, Vlachos - the police officer from Jersey City - won the season, though he had to take the heat from the jury members for lying constantly and being disloyal to his allies.
However, he had a friend in Bledsoe, who appealed to the jury to be open-minded while choosing the winner. Bledsoe, who was a fan favorite, supported Vlachos' tactics in the two-hour finale, saying he was perhaps the only one who played the game with the fervor that needed.
"Love him or hate him, Tony played his ass off out here," Bledsoe pleaded to the jury, according to Entertainment Weekly. "Woo tries to excuse his passive play on not having idols and Tony finding three idols. Why do you think Tony found three idols? It's because he looked more than everyone else combined! Tony was behind every great strategic decision. He blinded his alliance to what was going on around him in the game, like a puppet master."
Not everyone is happy with Vlachos' manoeuvres to win the show, if reactions on Twitter are any indication. But the police officer said in an earlier interview with The Jersey Journal that his work on the streets has been instrumental in his progress on the reality game show.
"I felt all the experience on the streets was my training for 'Survivor,'" he said. "I study human behavior, that's what we do out there... I deal with people on the streets that are constantly lying to me. It's a direct parallel to 'Survivor.' You have to outwit somebody on 'Survivor,' you have to outplay them ... to move ahead."
