Episode Report Card Miss Alli: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Reports Of Granny Fairplay's Death Are Greatly Exaggerated
By Miss Alli | Season 7 | Episode 11 | Aired on 11.26.2003
Once everyone returns to camp, Sandra starts in on one of her usual Bullying Lectures to the Annoyed and Ultimately Indifferent about how nobody can trust Jon, "that bitch." "He will backstab you in a fucking heartbeat just like he did everybody here," Sandra says angrily, forgetting that, of the people there, Jon really only backstabbed herself and Christa. While her worldview would indeed tend to suggest that that's "everybody here," it's actually not. Jon, in return, calls Sandra out for having done nothing but ride Rupert's coattails, and says, "Guess what? That coat just left." It takes me a moment to grieve for the fact that "that coat just left" is the best he could do with the "coattail" setup. Then again, his showing any trace of genuine wit at this point would have come as such a shock that I would have never had the hiccups again. "Every time a plan went down, you put it together," Sandra volleys back. Now, wait, just who is that supposed to piss off? Again, the only people who are unhappy about what just happened are Sandra and Christa. Everyone else was in on it, so what's the point of declaring him the mastermind? Isn't she essentially telling the rest of the players that Jon is responsible for getting them to where they are now? Aren't they likely to...you know, thank him? Sandra is very passionate and plain-spoken, both of which are qualities I appreciate, but her percentage in terms of sense-making is not so high.
Jon, looking even creepier and scragglier than usual under the punishing gaze of night vision, interviews that tribal council that night was "one of his proudest moments in this game." He says, in a way he thinks is magnificently perceptive, that "the one factor you can always count on is greed," and he goes on to cite Tijuana's and Darrah's "greed" for their decision to come aboard the new alliance with him and Burton. It's not greed, in fact, because greed has to do with wanting more than you need, not looking out for yourself when other people are legitimately out to get you. I mean, what would have been the non-greedy thing to do? Intentionally let yourself lose the game? ["That would have been the noble thing to do, I believe." -- Rupert] It's just another installment of Jon's usual self-aggrandizing yammerfest, and his efforts to cast the game in epic terms as if he's secretly taking advantage of other people's dark sides like some kind of cynical, Darth-Vader-ish savant are about as credible as everything else he has said and will say in this episode. Convincing people they can do better in an alliance with you isn't really leveraging any quality of theirs, after all, except the fact that everyone wants to win. I'm not even going to waste the breath involved in telling Jon to shut up, because his existence squanders enough of the earth's oxygen as it is.