The 'Kaput' alliance clearly had their backs up against the wall (again), but with half of an idol and a whole lot of hope, Keeley tried every angle to get her remaining tribemates to save her.

Initially believing Caleb had the other half, Keeley later found out that Sally actually held the missing half. In a last-ditch effort to save her spot in the game, Keeley surrendered her half in the promise that Sally would play the idol on her behalf.

"In my mind I thought wow, this is incredible, two halves are actually coming together to create the most powerful tool in the game," Keeley told 10.

"I had an idol, I played an idol for someone else, and it's huge," she continued. "I thought Sally was actually going to do this for me, and that was such an incredible feeling... Only to have sand kicked in my face."

But after seeing Keeley's strategic prowess coupled with her back-to-back individual immunity wins, Sally had other plans. Standing up, she revealed to the other players, and the jury watching, that she wouldn't be playing the idol at all. Instead, she returned Keeley's half, giving her a piece of decorative memorabilia.

"It was devastating to have such a high of, 'Wow! This is going to happen to me!' to that idol being broken in half and becoming something of sentiment, a friendship necklace... It's a bit of a flop move."

During the season, Keeley learned the power of advantages, and with it being the final tribal that idols could be played, she would have respected the move more had Sally played it for herself, for Loz, or even Caleb.

"Try to create a debt with someone, or doubt that helps you in the next part of the game! That's what I would have wanted. I didn't love the spectacle of it all."

It was a tough road to the final tribal for Keeley, who somehow found herself grouped in with the returnees, even though she had never played the game before and had only watched a few episodes here and there. Keeley joked that, with just a few episodes of Redemption left, she'll finally have seen a whole season.

Having cast the deciding vote against Brooke just days prior, Keeley had hoped that helping to vote out her close ally would have "cracked the game open", giving the remaining players more agency to make some big swings.

"They had achieved their mission; all returnees had been eliminated. Let's see something else, let's see something different," Keeley said.

"Unfortunately, it wasn't the case. It was the honorary returnee taken out of the game, but it was more in that moment that I thought, here we go! I'm seeing people start to think differently, and I could see a path to the end."

With a smashing debut season under her belt, Keeley said that her background working as an anti-financial crime specialist across Australia and the Pacific gave her the tools to feel right at home in a Survivor scramble.

"I have spent the last decade working in really high-risk countries and high-risk situations, and you’re always planning a little bit ahead, but not too far. Not only that, you’re working with what you’ve got available to you within arm's reach," she explained.

"I think Survivor is very, very similar. You’re working with what you’ve got; it’s pretty high risk, you get it wrong, and you go home. It didn’t feel unfamiliar to me, the challenges and the amount of sun I was getting, because I am so pale, was really the hardest part for me."

While tribal councils can be tough, Keeley said she's faced life-or-death situations. "At least in Survivor, it really is just your torch getting snuffed at the end of the day."

Her game may be done, but Keeley is still looking forward to casting her vote to crown the next Sole Survivor. But she's also optimistic that this isn't the end of her Survivor career.

"It's really hard out there to be something you are not. Without the food, coffee, and all the things that make me really great out here [in the real world], you go back to your factory settings...

"I would play again because there are a few things I'd like to tick off my list of things to do. I did a lot this season, but there are a couple more things I'd love to do before I call it on Survivor."

Australian Survivor: Redemption finale week begins Sunday at 7 and continues Monday and Tuesday at 7.30. Watch + Stream Free on 10.