Flanked by a live studio audience, Julie welcomes us to the 81st and final day, whereupon the spectators give a standing ovation. Wow, easy crowd. Or else they're as happy as I am this is almost over. That segues into a supersized previouslies segment that covers the whole season to date. Which I've already done, so I'm not going through it all again. All you need to know is that we're down to Adam and Ryan, but you already know that. And the finale credits have returned everyone's names and faces, except of course for Neil's, who has been disappeared for good. It's like CBS shot him into orbit. Around Neptune.
After the credits, Julie reminds us that one of the final two will win half a million dollars, the other $50,000, and America gets to vote for its "favorite juror" to win $25,000. I know who I'm voting for: nobody. Speaking of the jury, let's visit their house.
The producers make the six existing jurors -- Sharon, James, Chelsia, Natalie, Matt, and Joshuah -- sit on an outdoor patio and have a totally staged conversation about who they think will be the final juror. Josh is in the middle of putting down Sheila when she walks up, and everyone realizes that Ryan and Adam are the final two. Wow, all this and they're math wizards, too. As Sheila sits down, the two-time final competition loser actually has the gall to tell everyone that Adam screwed her over by losing the HoH to Ryan. Sheila is so bitter that right now she wants to punish Adam and vote for Ryan. They all discuss reasons for voting for each one. The overall consensus seems to be that Ryan played a better game in general, whereas Adam was a big sneak. It goes on roughly forever until I lose track of which one of them everyone's talking about. But for now, they all pretty much agree that it's going to some down to "last impressions."
After the ads, a viewscreen has been set up on the jury house patio so the jurors can start grilling the final two via live video link. Matt's question comes first: what's Adam going to do with the money? Adam says $100,000 will go to after school programs. Ryan answers the same question by saying he'll help his mom, and spend some on himself and Jen (whom all the jurors hate, you'll recall), and "some charity." "That was the worst answer ever," Joshuah scoffs.
Sharon asks Ryan about his eye contact with Adam after her eviction, and why he lied to her about keeping her. Ryan stammers that he was fighting for Sharon all week, and just made a last-minute decision. Chelsia then screams at Ryan about why he wants to be with Jen, who called him out as, in Chelsia's colorful phrase, "a hatred person." Ryan says he still loves Jen. "Wrong answer," Chelsia snots. Wow, that is cold. Yes, Jen is an asshole, but Ryan wouldn't have won any points by shit-talking his girlfriend either. Win or lose, Jen's still the one he's going home with. Joshuah asks Adam why he should be rewarded for making other people do his dirty work. Adam insists that he did his best in the final stage of that last HoH competition, and didn't throw it, whatever they might think. Instead of remarking on the content of Adam's speech, Joshuah lectures Adam for screaming at the TV screen, as though he's the only one. Seriously, they're all talking to each other like they're using faulty cell phones on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. James asks Adam why he's a better competitor, and why he thinks he deserves to be in the final two over Sheila. Adam points out that he brought Sheila along too, which doesn't exactly impress his partner.
Natalie's turn: Why didn't Adam keep her? She whines. Adam claims that it was down to the HoH, and says he did what he could. So Natalie turns to Ryan to ask why he didn't keep his word to her. Ryan apologizes and says that it was one of the hardest decisions he had to make. "Thanks for the honesty," Natalie says.
Sheila demands of Adam why he lied and said he would take her to the final two. Instead of letting him answer, she keeps lecturing him about how she helped him too. When he finally gets a chance to talk, Adam again repeats that he did his best in the HoH competition, and wasn't trying to screw Sheila at all. Although he does stop short of claiming that he would have taken her along instead of Ryan in the event he had won, saying that you never know until the time comes. Sheila rather owlishly says that she played a smart game too, so he shouldn't take all the credit. "Smart" meaning "not winning a single competition that wasn't thrown" in this context, I take it. Adam says he really tried to win HoH, and he doesn't care what any of the jurors believe. "Oh, really?" Joshuah snots.
Ryan's closing argument: he tried to play a good game, and he's not going to put down Adam. And he basically thanks them for their time. Adam breaks it down, saying the jurors seem to be looking at three criteria: personal relationships, gameplay, and plans for the money. Adam says that he's bringing something from each of them, and he did what he needed to do to get to the end of the game. "It's over for you guys, it's not over for us," he concludes, which doesn't seem to have the effect he was hoping for.
Well, that'll do it. After the viewscreen is shut off, the jury sits there pissed, and not any closer to a decision. Chelsia points out something that Adam missed: the game's not over for them, because they decide who gets the money. So there!
In the house, Adam and Ryan decompress as Adam points to the memory wall, calling Sharon, Sheila, and Joshuah -- especially the latter two -- "psycho." They don't seem to know what's going to happen. Myself, I'm a little disappointed that in the absence of resident cleaning person Sheila, the house hasn't turned into a bear cave.
So now Julie welcomes the jurors to the studio, live. Here come Matt, Chelsia (dressed like Betty Boop), Joshuah, James, Natalie, Sharon, and Sheila, high-fiving the people in the aisle seats as they go. They take their seats in the jury box as Julie throws us to commercial. There's going to be a lot of commercials from here on out.
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