The Survivor Philippines finale is over and the winner has finally been revealed! Who won Survivor Philippines 2012? Which of the four castaways–Lisa Whelchel, Mike Stupin, Malcolm Freberg or Denise Stapely–were you rooting for to grab that huge million dollar prize? We have the final results for you here in our live recap from Sunday night’s special two-hour special finale show! So keep on reading to find out who won Survivor 2012 Philippines and if your favorite castaway just added a million bucks to their bank account!
SURVIVOR PHILIPPINES 2012 finale. CBS.
WARNING: SURVIVOR PHILIPPINES SPOILERS AHEAD!
This post contains Survivor 2012 Philippines spoilers from week 13. Please stop reading here if you do not want to know what happened or who was voted off Survivor Philippines this week!
RECAP: NFL football and a speech by President Barack Obama have delayed the show, but we’ll be here recapping live as soon as it begins! Just keep refreshing the page every few minutes or so for the latest!
After the Tribal Council, everyone seems to breathe a sigh of relief that Abi-Maria is finally gone. Mike says it is like having a tumor removed! Of course, not having a target like Abi around means more pressure for all the remaining castaways. Malcolm, especially, is feeling kind of freaked out after Abi just had to go and say how he was a lock to win the season. Meanwhile, Mike is reconsidering his secret alliance with Malcolm to go to the end together because he might be too tough to beat in the Jury vote.
The final four players receive a tree mail announcing a challenge, but it doesn’t say if it is a Reward Challenge or an Immunity Challenge. They meet up with Survivor host Jeff Probst and learn it is a special Reward Challenge with a big, fat prize and the winner will get an advantage in the final Immunity Challenge.
For the Reward Challenge, the castaways will have to race through an obstacle course collecting bags of puzzle pieces. Whoever reaches the end and gets their puzzle together first correctly will win.
Denise starts off the race strong and snags the first bag, while Lisa is way behind and in last place. Malcolm makes a big mistake and falls, which means he has to go back. Mike moves into the lead, grabbing his second bag, but Malcolm and Denise aren’t far behind now. Lisa is still struggling to catch up.
Finally Mike gets the third bag and starts on his puzzle. Denise and Malcolm quickly catch up, followed by Lisa. All the players are now assembling their puzzles. They are all working it hard, but Malcolm and Denise now appear to be in the lead and going neck and neck. Denise may have looked like she was going to win this one, but in the end it is Malcolm who finishes first and wins the Reward Challenge. This will also give him an advantage in the Immunity Challenge, which could be a very big deal!
After the Reward Challenge, Denise scrambles to make sure she is positioned as best she can to end up in the final three. She knows she is in trouble. She goes to Lisa to talk to her about getting Malcolm out as soon as possible and going to the final three with Lisa and Mike. Lisa acts like she’s good with this, but tells the camera while she hugged Denise, she didn’t shake on the deal.
Following her talk with Lisa, Denise goes after Mike. She tells him that Lisa agrees they should be the final three and Malcolm needs to go next. After their chat, Mike and Lisa get together to discuss the options. They both know Malcolm is a nasty threat to them because he seems almost unbeatable.
Mike and Lisa put their heads together and one thought is that Denise needs to win the Immunity Challenge. The jury might not like Denise because she relied too much on Malcolm throughout the competition. I personally think Denise has been a very strong competitor on her own and that’s not really a fair assessment. Mike weirdly seems stuck on this idea that taking Malcolm to the final three is a good idea. He’s obviously been sitting in the sun too long or something. His brain is fried!
The four castaways receive another tree mail deliver and the time has come for the Fallen Comrades Walk. Or, as I like to call it, another way to fill two hours of a Survivor finale television special. Wave at all the people voted off! Sorry y’all!
Now it is time for the final Immunity Challenge of Survivor season 25. The four remaining castaways will have to balance a ball on pieces of wood. They will have to add a new piece of wood to the mix every five minutes until they drop their ball. Whoever manages to keep their ball balanced the longest will win.
Malcolm won an advantage earlier that means he will get to restart the challenge one time if he drops his ball. This ends up being a huge deal for him because he is the first person to fail at balancing his ball. Everyone goes at it again when he rejoins the challenge, but he just obviously sucks at this game and it isn’t long before he drops his ball again for the second and final time. Malcolm will NOT be winning immunity.
Unfortunately, neither will Denise as apparently Lisa and Mike have decided not to let her just take the Immunity Challenge win. They both hang on and manage to outlast Denise as she is the next to drop her ball.
Mike and Lisa are the last ones in the challenge and they both keep holding on through another round. Finally, although it is a tough fight, Lisa wobbles too much and drops her ball at last. Mike Skupin wins the Immunity Challenge and will be in the final three. Now he just pretty much has to decide who is going to end up there with him because he holds all the cards. Skupin is particularly pleased because everyone was thinking Malcolm would take the win and he beat him hands down.
Mike thinks somehow it would be all manly and macho to take Malcolm to the final three and then beat him at the Jury vote. Of course, there is no way in hell that would actually happen because he’d lose to Malcolm in the Jury vote by a landslide. Lisa knows taking Malcolm to the final three is just a bad, bad idea and she is not going to let that happen.
When time comes for the vote, host Jeff Probst bluntly asks Lisa if she thinks taking Malcolm to the final three is the right move. She says no with a vengeance. Finally, the votes are cast and they are:
One vote for Malcolm.
One vote for Denise.
One vote for Malcolm.
One vote for Malcolm.
With that, Malcolm has been voted off Survivor 2012 Philippines. Too bad for Malcolm, he was a fierce competitor. Sometimes though, that can be your downfall on this show. He becomes the final member of the voting Jury. He nicely congratulates Denise on making it through to the final three.
Malcolm’s congrats to Denise is taken as a nod to her winning the whole thing and Mike Skupin is not pleased about that. She hasn’t won it yet and he’s still determined that million dollar prize is going to be his.
The day of the Jury vote, the final three enjoy a beautiful view in the morning and then are gifted with a delicious feast of champagne, orange juice, sausage and other goodies. Then it is time for the final Tribal Council where they will each have to try to convince the Jury members why they should be the winner of Survivor Philippines.
Denise says she has worked her tail off to get to the final three and she has proven she deserves to be there. She isn’t going to apologize for anything she did to get to where she is. She survived every Tribal Council and she was a strong contributor to every tribe she was on. She believes she deserves to win.
Lisa says she has played her own game throughout the season. She says her brother taught her to trust her gut and remember to play the game. She says it wasn’t always pretty, but she learned how to work the game and grew as a player.
Mike says he was so fired up about playing because he knew he was a huge target and his back was against the wall. As the only veteran left, he knows no one wanted him to get this far. He played his guts out and he deserves to take home that million dollars.
In the questioning round of the final Tribal Council, the Jury members are not shy in sharing their feelings about the final three players, or their bitterness about not being one of them. You can’t help but notice Artis is not a happy camper when he calls Denise, Mike and Lisa ‘holier than thou’.
Carter is somewhat less nasty, actuall complimenting Mike and Lisa on making it this far when many thought they would be easy targets for elimination. Pete, on the other hand, gets snarky with Lisa and demands Denise tell him why she thinks she should win. She says she played a great social game, which I think is stretching it a bit. A strong competitor yes, a great social game player, I’m not sure about that.
RC says she is not surprised Lisa made it to the final three and she is proud of her, even though she wanted her to get voted off from the beginning. RC asks Mike if he knew she was going to go home on day 19. He tells her he did not know.
Malcolm compliments Lisa on her opening speech. He asks Denise not to lie when she tells him why she should win. Denise says she was smart and used her skills as a therapist to listen and learn how to play the game with the other castaways.
Jeff asks what kind of guy Mike is and you can tell he is really not pleased to be on the Jury with Mike sitting there in the final three. Mike replies that he is a ‘make things happen’ guy because he has constantly had his head on the chopping block but made it to the end.
Abi is heartbroken and upset. She doesn’t know who she wants to vote for. She wants to know why the three final players think they should win. Lisa talks about how she was always true to her alliance. Mike crows about how he was smarter and outplayed everyone else. Denise, knowing she’s screwed with Abi, tries to apologize for demoralizing her. She says she didn’t mean to, but I don’t feel Abi is buying it.
The last Jury member to question the final three is Penner, who offers his congrats to them all. He’s not going to take it easy on them though. Penner tells Denise she said once she didn’t want to be known as a b*tch but that is how she ended up anyway. He tells Mike that his name was written down more even than his, so he should stop complaining so much. Penner is nicer to Lisa… sort of at first. He says she was his friend and they were close. Then he pulls a fast one and suddenly reveals to everyone that Lisa was a former child star on The Facts of Life. That move could very well cause her to lose. People generally don’t want to give a million dollars to someone ‘famous’ who doesn’t need more good fortune.
After the questions are done, the time has come for host Jeff Probst to count the votes and the live show to begin. We switch over to the live show now for the official announcement of who won Survivor Philippines 2012!
Before the Survivor Philippines winner is announced, Jeff Probst calls for a moment of silence in tribute to the victims of the horrific Newtown, CT Sandy Hook school shooting.
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Finally it is time for the votes to be announced and the Survivor 2012 winner revealed. And the votes are…
Vote for Lisa
Vote for Denise
Vote for Mike
Vote for Denise
Vote for Denise
Vote for Denise
With all the votes counted, the person who won Survivor 2012 Philippines is…
Denise Marie Stapely!
That’s a wrap for our Survivor 2012 Philippines finale recap. Bookmark us or friend us on Facebook or Twitter for all the latest celebrity gossip, entertainment news, TV recaps and more!
