When Jeff Probst suggested during Sunday night’s postgame show show that “Fans vs. Favorites” was the best “Survivor” since Season 1, I had to agree. If it’s true, the reason is that game play — so much outwitting! — was front and center for the last half of the season, not just starvation and depression. Credit the relatively abundant food, and the returning favorites, who know how to play the game, but also, let’s hear it for the women. If I didn’t always embrace the “flirt” strategy that ultimately won Parvati $1 million, I certainly did appreciate the way the women’s alliance played (some of) the men like fiddles.

The ”final two” (not final three) twist was a surprise to me as well as the women. CBS is always cagey about what exactly will happen in the finale, but the progress of this season suggested a final three, and the women certainly played with that in mind. I wonder, if all three had gone before the jury, whether the outcome would have been different; I wish Probst had polled the jury on how they’d have voted if Cirie had been in it. And if Eliza — did she take like an hour to decide? — had swung the other way, it would have been tied, and I’m unclear what would have happened then.

If I’d been voting, I’d have picked Cirie, Amanda, Parvati, in that order. In any case, I don’t understand exactly why Parvati won over Amanda — maybe that baby-deer look Amanda has patented, gazing up through her eyelashes, was just too annoying. Well, at least she won Ozzy.

Oh, and is it just me or do the women always always look better on the island than they do in Hollywood, all tarted up with makeup and curls? Consider Amanda (left) and Parvati above vs. the versions seen Sunday night.