Woah, here she comes, watch out! She's a maneater! And the player the villains should fear.

Welcome to the first episode of “Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains,” or, for those of you raised in the 70s, “Survivor: The Scooby Doos versus the Really Rottens.”  (Look it up, kids! It’s totally applicable.)

A few minutes in, and I’m missing first winner/villain Richard Hatch, who was unavailable because he was, as my family says, working with the police on an involuntary basis. I caught his act on the “Surviving Survivor” special where he and Russell Hantz, last year’s bitter runner-up and power player, riffed on who was the better player. Hatch played with him for a little bit, letting Russell lay down his rap about how much more awesome he was, and then, because he’s awesome and doesn’t have to try, went in for the kill, reminding Russ that Hatch wins for this simple reason – he won.

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Jeff Probst on Russell Hantz: 'I think Russell was the victim of a jury of bitter people.' (CBS)

Clearly not everyone thought Natalie White should’ve won Survivor. Count among the doubters one Jeff Probst.

Probst, the host of the CBS reality juggernaut, wrote on Entertainment Weekly‘s PopWatch blog that he believed Russell Hantz should’ve received the $1 million first prize on Sunday night instead of Natalie.

Probst wrote: “Oftentimes on Survivor, the vote does come down to a choice where a determining factor is ‘how nice someone is’ but that’s usually when all other criteria being considered is equal. That doesn’t hold up this season. This season was so lopsided in terms of one person (Russell) completely dominating the game that to not give him the money and the title is a bit silly.”
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…and you know there are SPOILERS AHEAD! If you don’t want to know who won, stop reading RIGHT NOW!!!

OK. So since it’s just us kids who want to know what happened at the final Tribal Council and subsequent big bitter reunion finale, I can say that Russell “Puppet Master” Hantz and his maddening, arrogant, polarizing, and at times brilliant game play, did NOT win the million dollars. Natalie, the sweet nice girl did.

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(ALERT: HERE BE SPOILERS)

…when first we trust Russell.

It’s funny. For weeks, I waited for that little troll-like joker to prove himself to be the grand master champion that Jeff Probst and those meddling “Survivor” producers have insisted all along that he is. And then, suddenly, there he was, finding an 80th hidden immunity idol without a clue, and then subverting a would-be booting by producing one of them at the 11th hour. When he’s not being a horrible sexist creep, sometimes I always like him.

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