Episode Report Card Sara M: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Real Douche is Probst
By Sara M | Season 18 | Episode 15 | Aired on 05.17.2009
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.The reunion is the typical rushed affair where we hear way too much from some contestants and not nearly enough from others. J.T. wins another $100,000 from the viewers at home, with Taj and Sierra as the runners-up. Probst runs into the audience to hear from J.T.'s mother, Douche's "Lady Friend," and Football Star Eddie George. Then he can't tell Taj apart from her black bandmates, which is pretty embarrassing for him. J.T. admits that he exaggerated his feelings of betrayal at the Final Tribal Council in an effort to win sympathy votes and is pretty much perfect. Douche insists that he really did have an encounter with Amazonian natives and has the lie detector results to prove it, although the test wasn't administered by a reputable person chosen by CBS and just because Douche honestly thinks that stuff happened doesn't mean it actually did. But if they're going to let Douche take over the reunion show then you can't blame him for doing it. Sandy still thinks that she was voted out after Carolina because she managed to change her tribe's first impression of her, even after all the evidence to the contrary, and Joe is still boring. Spencer never gets a chance to say anything about his secret homosexuality and J.T. never gets a chance to say if he would have had a problem with it or not. Next season, we go to Samoa and hopefully fill the cast with some people who know how to play this game.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!We open the Reunion portion of the evening with a montage of J.T. being awesome. Let's all laugh at the beginning of the show when he said his only challenge would be to get along with his fellow contestants, and then cut to everyone involved with this show talking about how they love J.T. more than themselves. Never before has one man been so freaking likable. Even Jesus had haters! We go to the Reunion set, where J.T. is still basking in the glow of his win. Probst sounds slightly less drunk than before as he welcomes us back. All the contestants are on stage now, not like any of them will get a chance to speak with Douche and Football Star Eddie George in the house. Probst points out that J.T. is crying so the audience can laugh at him. Whatever! It just makes him more likable. And unlike the rest of us mere mortals, his eyes don't get all puffy and red when he cries so he still looks fine. J.T.'s name is revealed to be James Thomas, Jr., and he says he's really happy and Stephen is one of the best friends he'll ever have and this is the happiest he's ever been in his life. Until our wedding day, of course. What? I'm not allowed to fall in love with this guy? It took me all season, but still.
Probst says that J.T. is one of the most popular players this show has ever had, and all he's heard from the peeps on the streets is that J.T. = love and Douche = HATE. My faith in the taste of the American public increases somewhat. And there's our first close-up of Douche. He fake scolds the audience, and you can almost see the charisma he must possess in order to be able to sucker people into his bizarre fantasy world. Probst says it's okay, because people love to hate Richard Hatch so Douche is "in good company." "Oh, no," Douche chuckles. The hell? He's so normal now! What happened?
Probst asks J.T. if the people in his hometown have reacted the same way as the viewing public. J.T. says the people of Samson love and support him and are very surprised right now since he didn't tell anyone how far he got in the game, not even his parents, who he told he came in "fourth at best." Probst asks J.T. if the game was ever hard for him, and he says it was, so much so that on Day 12 he really wondered why he was doing this. "It's way tougher than it looks," he says. And he probably had the easiest time out there out of anyone, never going to Exile and getting almost every food reward. Probst asks J.T. what drew him to Stephen. J.T. says at first he thought Stephen was the last person he'd ally with, but after Stephen carried three melons to camp on that first hike while J.T. only carried one, he was really impressed (as am I, actually). And then as the days went by, Stephen proved to be a hard worker with "the best heart of anybody I know." Better than J.T.'s, in the end, since part of the reason why Stephen lost so badly was because he couldn't bring himself to say anything against J.T.
Probst asks Stephen why his and J.T.'s alliance worked so well. Stephen says their intellects really clicked, and they worked hard at camp and to win. Probst asks Stephen about the "inside mole" Stephen apparently told him about earlier when Probst was between Tequila Sunrises. Stephen says that Douche's relationship with J.T. really helped them, since he told J.T. everything he knew about his and Tyson's plans, which J.T. would then take back to Stephen so they could plot against them. "I'm the gift that keeps on giving!" Douche says. Tyson mutters something about not being given a million dollars. "Sorry, man!" Douche says, all smiles. If he keeps this normalness up, I'm going to have to call him by his preferred name for the first time this season. He hasn't mentioned Samurais or warriors once yet! Probst asks Stephen about the Final Tribal Council and how he lied to J.T. by saying he'd bring him to the Final Two, only to reveal to Debbie that he wouldn't. That's not quite how it went down, but Probst is drunk, so I'll cut him some slack. Stephen says that Debbie was clearly looking for a specific answer at Tribal from him and he basically gave it to her. Meanwhile, he points out, Debbie's question for J.T. was basically "J.T., isn't it true that you're the greatest person that's ever existed?" Debbie cackles loudly at her bitchy one-sidedness. Stephen says he felt horrible, and Probst says it obviously didn't hurt their friendship in the end. J.T. says that's because he was totally exaggerating his hurt feelings at the Final Tribal in order to gain jury votes. He says he knew all along that Stephen taking him to the Final Tribal was very different than J.T. taking Stephen. J.T. was pretty sure he'd win no matter who he took, while Stephen had to know that he'd lose if he took J.T. And I hope you enjoyed hearing from Stephen, because that's all you're going to get!