Above anything else, the biggest takeaway from the early days of Survivor marketing was that it was billed as the world’s greatest social experiment. Looking at the core concept, it’s easy to see why they would say that. Leaving a bunch of strangers stranded onto a beach without anything other than the bare essentials and watch them systematically thin each other out? Yeah, I would say that it’s wildly different to everyday life.

If the show wants to keep billing itself in that way, no season represents their claim better than Survivor: Palau. It’s a season I have always said plays out dramatically different than any other iteration of Survivor. Between one tribe pounding another into irrelevance and the season’s end-game, Palau really sticks out when compared to the seasons around it. Its end really does focus entirely on the social experiment aspects that the powers that be loved to describe.

Starring this guy.

Have you ever heard of the prisoner’s dilemma? I’m sure many have, but allow me a minute to describe this before we move on. It’s a game that is often used when analyzing game theory and how rational individuals (a key component in any game theory exercise) don’t always act as such. This is basically how it works:

Two members of a criminal gang are arrested and imprisoned. Each prisoner is in solitary confinement with no means of communicating with the other. The prosecutors lack sufficient evidence to convict the pair on the principal charge. They hope to get both sentenced to a year in prison on a lesser charge. Simultaneously, the prosecutors offer each prisoner a bargain. Each prisoner is given the opportunity either to: betray the other by testifying that the other committed the crime, or to cooperate with the other by remaining silent. The offer is:

If A and B each betray the other, each of them serves 2 years in prison

If A betrays B but B remains silent, A will be set free and B will serve 3 years in prison (and vice versa)

If A and B both remain silent, both of them will only serve 1 year in prison (on the lesser charge).

At first glance, it would seem like being the one to betray the other is the best cast scenario. You get off free and your sentence goes over to the other prisoner. The thing is, in a situation where both players are thinking rationally, both sides will think this. That means that in actuality, both prisoners would betray each other, giving both two years in prison. Because of this, both are better off remaining silent and taking the lesser charge.

Flash-forward back to the final three immunity challenge in Survivor: Palau and Ian Rosenberger is essentially playing two games simultaneously. Obviously, he is standing on the pole in the middle of the water, playing Survivor. Unlike the other two players, Tom Westman and Katie Gallagher, Ian is also playing a game of prisoner’s dilemma with himself.

Because Koror went on an unprecedented run of immunity wins, they kept all but one of their players into the merge, poor Willard Smith had to die for the rest of Koror’s sins. This meant, in a season with no tribe swaps, the final three had spent 38 days together uninterrupted. From day one, when the tribes were bunched together to later pick tribes through a schoolyard pick, Ian, Tom, and Katie have had an alliance. Going even further, Ian and Tom have made an agreement to battle it out against each other once the rest have been pushed aside.

Koror spends so much time together that they grow very close. Especially Ian and Tom who do almost everything together. They are the tribe’s hunters. They fish together. Wherever Tom may be, you can usually spot Ian not too far behind. These two form a bond that definitely goes very deep and their mutual friendship is important to both of them.

The thing is, Ian realizes that he’s in a game for a million dollars. The close he gets to the end, the more he sees that Tom is a dominant player and would be hard to go up against both in the final immunity challenge and against the jury. For a while, he starts to seriously consider flipping on Tom if given the chance.

Because Tom is so dominant in the challenges, Ian is never given that chance. Tom wins the final four immunity challenge, a spot Ian could have made his move. In classic Rosenberger fashion, Ian admits openly to Tom that Ian is happy he didn’t win immunity because it would have been a tough decision for him.

Of course, Tom realizes that the “tough decision” would be whether Ian wanted to stay loyal to Tom or not. This does not sit well with him and Ian is only saved because Katie decides to stick with the final three pact, giving Ian a chance to beat Jenn Lyon in a fire-making challenge. Ian survives the vote but not Tom’s evisceration.

So that’s where Ian is at as he is floating on a pole in the middle of Palau. Tom has made it clear to Ian that their friendship is over because of Ian’s potential betrayal (and Katie also sides with Tom on this, she takes a role in Ian’s decision making too). He has loudly and repeatedly ripped into him for even considering making a move against him. This has taken a toll on Ian’s mental state. As he stands on the pole in the middle of the water, Ian is faced with a classic prisoner’s dilemma situation:

· Win this immunity challenge, take out Tom and bring Katie to the final two. Maybe Tom is angry at him but Katie has no respect with the jury, you will win a million dollars if you just beat Tom in this challenge.

· Win this immunity challenge, take out Katie and possibly lose the million dollars to time. You might possibly win his friendship back by taking Tom but he might also see it as further betrayal of Katie, or simply as a move to try and restore some favor with him, and your hole may be dug even further.

· Step down and let Tom take Katie to the final two. This will restore Tom’s goodwill towards you and could very well repair the broken friendship.

Ian is a rational person under normal circumstances. He’s certainly smart enough to make it to the final three on Survivor. He understands that he’s probably got Tom beaten in this competition if he just waits him out. The thing is, this competition is going to go on forever, almost 12 hours in fact, and devoid of anything else to do, Ian plays out the season ending in his head. The longer it goes on, the less he can accept losing Tom’s friendship over winning a million dollars.

The best rational outcome for Ian is winning a million dollars. The worst outcome is that he loses a million dollars without repairing his bonds with Tom. Faced with the decision to decide between the two, Ian essentially makes the “lesser charge” decision of losing a million dollars, but gaining that friendship he had lost.

There aren’t many other Survivor moments that can compare to this kind of emotional gameplay. There is J.T. completely burying Stephen Fishbach at Survivor: Tocantins’ final tribal council after Stephen admits to potentially voting out J.T. at final three if given the chance. The way J.T. absolutely mentally destroys Stephen with this nugget is some deep emotional manipulation that shows J.T.’s future trickery and penchant for doing shady things.

We can also think back to Dreamz Herd having to juggle between honoring his deal with Yau-Man Chan or breaking it in Survivor: Fiji. That one definitely gets a lot of press, deservedly for being so compelling, but it doesn’t have the same emotional weight as this one does, at least to me.

Above anything else, Ian’s decision at Palau’s final three will always stick out to me. He was in over his head, exhausted from the game and emotionally screwed up from his best friend’s anger towards him. Does Ian make the same decision if anybody but Tom is yelling at him for treachery? Who knows but it played out perfectly in terms of explaining the things these players need to consider that we can’t even see.

In the end, Ian chose his social bonds over a million dollars. If that doesn’t make the case for Survivor as the world’s greatest social experiment, I don’t know what will.