Sense has no role in this show. Reason has no role in this show. It won't benefit you to anticipate anything great, outrageous, or even particularly new in this show. As far as I can tell, this "special" clips DVD is the result of the work of a "special" editor. Or a team of third-graders on a gleeful cutting-and-pasting spree.
The show opens with Elisabeth telling the camera how hard it is out there. Saddling up her high horse, she challenges critics to "give it a go," and says she doesn't give them more than two days. Tina tells us that the thought of hardships "crossed her mind" while considering whether or not to do the show. She says it's "a joke" that people believe the competitors are given food. But they were given food. We all witnessed -- no matter how much we try to block it -- the Outback food auction. Tina tells us that Survivor was the hardest thing she has ever done, and that she would never do it again. That's easy to say with a million dollars in your back pocket. She's in her Survivor-wear during this confessional, so it's not clear whether this was shot during or after the competition. During these confessionals, we see shots of the military plane which deposited the cast into the Outback. Colby then tells us that "being a Survivor means being a jack of all trades, ace of none." He says you don't have to be the best, "just pretty damn good." Peachy drones on about the plane ride; this is taken directly from the first episode. If you don't know by now, the premise of the game is "42 days, 16 people, 1 Survivor." If you already know, and if you know it as well as I do, my sympathies to you. We proceed to rehash the first moments of the first episode. It looks good here for chronology, but then it all gets shot to hell. It is kind of neat to see the competitors at the very beginning before we knew anything about them, but if I wanted that, I could have just watched the summer reruns and not forked over $11.49. Elisabeth and Mitchell barf.
Peachy tells us that, in this show, we'll see highlights, audition tapes, and "never-before-seen" clips from the Outback. We learn that the rules dictated that the contestants could not talk until they were abandoned in Australia. This, obviously, was to prevent any of them from talking to Jerri and immediately bailing out. As each tribe plays Barney and proceeds to love each other and you and me, we learn about Kucha and Ogakor. Really, in an aggressive and deceitful game like this, who would want to be a kangaroo? Sure, those pouches are pretty funky, but still. We see an extended montage of Kucha struggling with their heavy stuff. We heard it all the first time, so I'll just sum it up: the dumb and the righteous got stuck hauling the gear. Then, in a completely original, provocative, and illuminating new clip, we see a thirsty Kimmi guzzle water running off the spout of the tribe's canteen. Michael says, "That was a beautiful sight." Yuck. Oh yeah, and yuck. Elisabeth guzzles too, but Rodger drinks directly from the spout, saying, "I'm from Kentucky. I put my mouth up on the jar." Hee. I miss my grandpa boyfriend. He tells us he's upset because he's carrying fifty to sixty pounds, and is "no spring chicken." He's my favorite chicken, though. It turns out that Kucha tried many different ways to carry their supplies to camp, and finally scientifically concluded a superior method: dragging. I could hear the collective ooh-ing and ahh-ing across America as I watched this. We don't see any bits of camp-bound Ogakor -- they probably rode the bus with Peachy because he was working it with Jerri. Kimmi tells us that arriving at their new home was a moment of ecstasy. Whoever edited this show was having a "moment" of ecstasy too.
Suddenly we're viewing Debb's audition tape. She says that she lives for competition, and that Survivor is everything she's ever wanted. Except for her stepson. It's really hard not to go there. Debb says that she works at a prison, and that all the prisoners are rooting for her. She then says that one of her better qualities is the ability to get along with anyone. Anyone, that is, except...well, everyone. Back at Kucha camp, there's a rumor in the air about Debb. I originally thought the others had somehow discovered her illicit love child of a different sort, but it's something far more scandalous than that: Debb farts. Not only does she fart, but she denies having done so. Debb is upset at being picked on, and doesn't want to say the word "fart." She wants to know why it's wrong to be modest, which is not a word I would have thought to use in relation to Debb. Jeff has some serious love handles here. Kucha discovers their first clue, and the thing you know, they're at Tribal Council. The who? The what? All the Kucha members vote off Debb. We already knew that. We also knew that she didn't gel with the "group dynamic." I think Burnett was using subliminal messages as the tribe slept, because they all use those words. Really, they voted her off because she wouldn't own up to a fart. In her exit interview, Debb says that she didn't like Kimmi because of "what she did to" Debb. If you're excited to learn the dirty dirt on what Kimmi did, you'll never know, so just let it go and move on with your life as best you can.
Now, it's the B.J. incident. No, not that B.J. incident. It's jerky time! We rehash the Great Beef Jerky Débacle, and then segue into Kel's audition tape. Looking typically self-important, he says he wants to be on the show for the money, to see Australia, and because he loves challenges. He says he wants to pay off his sister's college loans, and can't figure out how she's so much more in debt than he is. He doesn't mention that his education was most likely paid for by the military, and that his sister's education perhaps was not, so there's far less likelihood of her being shipped off any day now to fight a war on foreign soil, so that's to her credit. Kel makes friends in hospitals across the nation when he says he wouldn't want to be in the Outback with someone with no training, "like a nurse." Maralyn says "beef jerky frenzy" again. Good? Yes. Worth sitting through this eternal show to see it? Not so much. I'll bet Kel will make his grandchildren call him "the Captain." Once again, there's no challenge footage; we go straight to Tribal Council. Jerri's vote against Kel is nicer than what they originally showed. Mad Dog tells him, "You're a fine man, but you won't be calling me 'Mother' any longer." Lamber says, "It's a trust thing." As in, she can't trust herself to make up her own mind and not blindly follow Jerri. Mitchell liked to call Kel "Kelly." We like to call Mitchell "Bitchell" or "Snitchell." Or even "Eat a Sandwichell." Tina doesn't think Kel tried very hard. Keith is bothered because Kel tried to establish alliances too early on in the game when he should have been thinking about the good of the team. I'm repeating these votes because I don't remember them from the actual episode. If I don't repeat them later, it's because I remember them, so if you're dying to know what was said, go back and check out the recap. I know the writer, and she's good. In his exit interview, Kel says he was a "military guy with a bunch of very articulate, entertaining types." He knows he didn't fit in, but they're still "good people" who were "special" to him. There's that "special" again.
In a new clip, Tina asks Mad Dog how she lost her teeth. Now there's a polite question. Whoever picked these new clips had some weird obsession with things of the body. I usually use "scatological" to refer to such types of obsessions, but I've only recently learned that this applies to excrement and excrement alone. Sadly, my life still yields plenty of opportunities to work the word into conversation. Maralyn credits her premature tooth loss to "pops, genes, and chromosomes." I'd say genes and chromosomes are the same thing, but she's Mad Dog and we don't care what she says -- it's all in the growly delivery. Maralyn then announces that she has "five good [teeth] left down there." She thanks Tina for asking. Hee. is the Mad Dog montage of weird gestures, faces, and noises. I'm sorry if you missed this, because I can't do it justice. In her audition tape, Mad Dog tells us from her ranch that she's, "51, single, 5'8½, 150 pounds." She tells us she was the first woman in her department and probably in the entire nation to be teamed with another female officer. Technically, she would have at the least tied in that honor. She then delivers a zinger by telling us the pairing worked out because she then had a partner who could loan her a tampon. Maralyn pops out of a dumpster holding a dog collar and pretending, I think, to have eaten the corresponding dog. I didn't get that the first time I saw it, and I haven't gotten it since. Maralyn offers to act as Security on the set of Survivor if she's not chosen for the cast. We see a later-round interview in which Maralyn says that her finger was "a casualty" of a rescue attempt on a pygmy goat. I'm going to pitch The Mad Dog and Rudy Show to UPN. It's now time to see a challenge! Wait -- what's a challenge? It's the one where Colby drags Maralyn through the finish line, and then she calls him "Kirby" in a confessional. I think he'd be a different person were his name Kirby. He'd want to be a dentist instead of an elf. Maralyn tells us that "being dragged around didn't make [her] feel good." Most people would agree; some "special" people wouldn't. And now it's time for the Ogakors to all say nice things and then vote her off anyway. Before she exits, Maralyn tells us that she laughed hysterically at the pukers on the plane; she does not say, "It was a complete and total barfarama." She then says she wants a cigarette. Don't we all?
But don't fret that Mad Dog has gone, because like Buffy, she's been resurrected and appears in the seen as the unlikely star of Mitchell's even less likely musical, Chelsea Clinton's...I mean "Star's Lament. It's about being a diva. Kel's back for this one, too, though only in a supporting non-diva role. In Mitchell's audition tape, he says he lives and works in New York City, but wanted to show us his "past life." Here I waited in vain for the revelation that in the year 949 he was the eunuch Gongyles, an inept favorite of the Byzantine court. Instead, by "past life" he means his parents' home in North Dakota. He makes a joke to the effect that his bedroom is a chicken coop with poisonous monkeys. I'm sure the North Dakota Department of Tourism -- if indeed there is such a thing -- did not appreciate this non-plug. In his audition tape, Mitchell does not run around in circles, flapping his mutant arms and repeatedly shouting, "I'm a seven-foot-tall singing giant! I'm a seven-foot-tall singing giant!" which as far as I can tell is the only reason -- that's he's a seven-foot-tall singing giant, not that he spared them the flailing and running around -- they picked him. We then move onto what was the most suspenseful Tribal Council of both seasons -- the tie, tie, and tiebreaker between Mitchell and Keith. After losing, Mitchell says it's good he got voted off because, "I need it. Look at me. Cripes!"
up is the segment on Kimmi's cruddy black tongue. I'd forgotten Tina lost this challenge for Ogakor -- I think her team forgot it, too, when they were busy picking her over Colby in the last Tribal Council. Kimmi's audition tape shows her wearing too much makeup in a bar talking about being a free spirit. From my experience, people who need to tell you what "free spirits" they are usually aren't. In any case, we see her standing on the side of the road in a bikini with a sign that says "Australia or Bust." It looks like she's wearing a thong, but the sign she's wearing obscures the bulk of her posterior. We then see a shot of a naked Kimmi putting mud on her breasts -- so she actually went to Australia dirty. That might explain her extraordinary filth while there. Kimmi then calls herself a "fake vegetarian," which at least acknowledges some of the debate surrounding her fish-eating. And as an aside, Kimmi's vegetarian creed was not, as I originally wrote, about eating things "without a mommy," but instead wishing for some "edamame." I stand corrected. Kimmi tells us she's a "nature girl," but her concept of nature is different from mine, as she tells us how disgusting the water is because fish -- gasp! -- live in it. The other Kucha members all talk about how gross and dirty Kimmi is. Jeff says she has "shit" all over her. Twice. Nick calls her "nasty." Michael then gets offended because Kimmi wasn't happy he called her dirty. And now it's Tribal Council time; Nick says Kimmi doesn't have class. Mike says Kimmi "betrayed [his] trust." Want to know how? Want to know when? They're saving that information for the "Best of the Special Back-from- Obscurity-Clips-We've- Only-Referred- To-Before Episode." Rodger votes Kimmi off because he wants to seem like a team player. He may be a follower, but at least he's an honest one. Kimmi is worried that she let her family down by being voted out so soon. She's not concerned, however, about having exposed herself as dirty skank on one of the most popular television shows of our time.
Our "special" film editor had some peanut butter stuck on his hand which got caught on a piece of film which then attached itself to another piece of film resulting in the arbitrary segment: random footage of the travois challenge.
Now back to Kucha camp, where Mike is picking up food off the ground and eating it. The one-and-a-half-year-old where I volunteer does that, and she's much cuter doing so. She's particularly fond of small rocks. I notice that all of the tribe members are there -- at Kucha camp, not where I volunteer -- including Debb. So that means this is, like, the second day, and Mike is voluntarily eating bugs because it's not like he's starving yet. I'd call that acting out for attention. If Tina were there, she'd send him to time-out. Special hero music plays for Mike. In his audition tape, he tells the camera that he knows he would be the ultimate Survivor. He says his family vacations are always "wilderness vacations." That so would not have gone over in my family. We do not see footage of him falling into the fire; we do see his odd, pain-inspired pool-hopping afterwards. As Mike is air-lifted to safety, Rodger tells him, "I'll keep 'em in line for you, buddy." This whole thing reminds me again that it would have been a different game if Mike hadn't pitched into the fire. Sigh. Now we see Mike sitting, of all places, in front of a fireplace as he tells us that the most positive thing he got out of the experience was an appreciation of the small things, like "your wife cooking, your wife doing the laundry." I'm not making that up. He says that he learned that he could survive if put in a survival situation. Unless there was a fire around.
Elisabeth tells Jeff that his shoes smell. Alert the media! In his audition tape, Jeff tells us that he loves being a "redneck in New York City." He likes people thinking he's "fucking stupid." You couldn't hear that in primetime. He says no one pays any attention to him, and then he "smacks them upside the head." Jeff insists that he wouldn't kick someone out because of "personal reasons." There's some major passive-aggression on the part of our "special editors" (here at Mighty Big TV we're far less passive in our aggressiveness) because we cut to a clip of Jeff getting personal with Mike, because Mike told him he was "due." I really thought he was saying "doo-doo," and cracked myself up over it. It would certainly go with the "booger hanging out of her nose" comment he made in the episode where Kimmi's filth was discussed. Mike explains that he meant to say Jeff is due to catch a fish, and not that he is doo-doo nor that he is due to go fishing. Then we're suddenly at a merged Tribal Council, where Ogakor votes strategically, and Kucha votes like booger-picking doo-doo. After a tie between Colby and Jeff, Jeff gets the boot because he received an earlier vote, which Kimmi had revealed to the others. Jeff's not bitter about that or anything. In his exit interview, he talks about Kimmi's very "large mouth." In the context, of course, of talking too much. He says that he knows Ogakor is going to take it through to the end, but we didn't hear that in the exit interview that aired, because the editors still wanted us to tune in believing there was a chance it wouldn't play out that way.
Mike has also been resurrected and is now saying that they all get along like a house -- or a pair of hands, I suppose, without the flaking skin -- on fire. It's Alicia's turn to exit, and they play semi-rap music for her. I'm guessing it's supposed to represent her strength, but I'm not sure. She's in her kitchen at home, which has exposed brick. And then she's in the park, killing the Princeton Tiger with a boomerang -- I've since learned it's a kangaroo -- which is hopping around carrying an umbrella. She ends the tape, "See you in the Outback." Alicia tells an audition interviewer that it takes too much work to get angry at people, and I know exactly what's coming up . I was amazed that we got through the Kimmi segment without this, but I counted my chickens before Kucha ate them. It's the finger-waving clip. When this first aired, I said I couldn't see it too much, but you know what? I can. We get a little more of the argument this time, but it's still just the same: Alicia's got something up her ass; Kimmi's got a finger in her face. Jeff then tells us that he instigated that argument; while watching a clip, he points out his own figure skulking off in the background. Hee.
Suddenly, the vote: according to Keith, it's "part of [Ogakor's] process" to kick out Alicia . That was what convinced me that Ogakor was really going to steamroll through. Lamber says Alicia's strength is the "main reason" that she's voting for Alicia; there are eight other reasons, and they all belong to other members of Barramundi. Jerri says nice things about Alicia -- of course, they're all in relation to herself. In her exit interview, Alicia tells us that it's not the last time we'll see her, so we should "get used to this finger." Actually, she says, "Get used to this face," but we've seen just as much of that crazy finger. She "peace out"s.
up is a cackling Jerri montage, and right in time to get us in the Halloween spirit. In her audition tape, Jerri says she's been in the bartending business, which she loves, for ten years. At least she doesn't say she's been in the acting business. We see her concoct some evil brew in her kitchen, and pass it off as food. It's not rice. Jerri says she's good at manipulating. She doesn't qualify that with "three-year-olds, and little Lambers." She says she wants to find a skill in the Outback that makes her "irreplaceable," and I was sure this would segue to sex and Colby, but instead the editors -- for once -- go the least offensive route and pick herIron Chefbattle with Keith with the secret ingredient being cherry tomatoes. And then on to Tribal Council, where not one member of either tribe has a good word to say about her. Nick says that even "the rest of her tribe wants her gone." Tina says that Jerri has never asked her a single personal question. I don't know whether that's better or worse than asking too personal a question about someone's false teeth. Colby says Jerri "bugs the hell out of everybody," and Keith says he'll send her a recipe for rice. In her exit interview, Jerri says that the game has been a complete success. If success means being voted off by your own team, well, then, sure.
And now the tribes have suddenly de-merged, and Nick is building benches. He says his father taught him the art of bench-building during years of yard work. I got paid a penny for each cigarette butt I picked up from our gravel driveway, but I never got a bench-making lesson. Kimmi is upset that Nick is making benches. Alicia says that the benches are comfy and block the sun. In Nick's audition tape he's suave and sexy -- he's all Maxwell from that music video. He must have used up his last ounce of personality making this tape. He begs the producers for a second-round interview, and tells them it will be really sad for them if they don't pick him. They should have just played the tape over and over again and omitted any footage of Nick actually in the Outback; it's far more entertaining. We then get Nick's finest moment, talking about his "enlarged taste buds." I'm happy to say I've never suffered that particular ailment. The tribe members now gather at Tribal Council and say boring things about him. Incidentally, I was trying to name the Kuchas the other night and I kept coming up with seven. I couldn't remember Nick until I watched this. Nick says he tried to play the game "with class." Nick's all Harvard about having class. He doesn't pronounce it "closss." He says he learned all about his weaknesses, but he doesn't mention his most amazing strength: invisibility.
Chronology, schronology. We're back at Ogakor camp, with the whole tribe. They're playing a soccer-mom game at Tina's suggestion, wherein each recounts the high and low of his or her day. Lamber is impressed because the other members of her tribe are actually interesting. That's what she said! In her audition tape, which looks like an on-site interview (because Lamber could not possible have had the ingenuity to prepare an interesting tape), she says she hates her job, which seems to me like a bad way to keep that job. She then says the "host came to [her] in a dream" and told her she would win the game. So now I know why they picked Lamber -- they thought her psycho hallucinations would spice up the show. Obviously, they didn't know yet that she was only repeating her friend's psycho hallucinations. We get shots of the flood washing away the merged camp, and Lamber looking shocked. As much as a zombie can look shocked. We're now at Tribal Council 11. Lamber gets voted off, and that's all I have to say about that.
Another sticky peanut-butter-on- the-hands clip -- the great rice rescue. I have no idea why they included this, so I won't bother repeating it. Nor will I comment on the "Outback internet café, Survivor-style" except to say the "Colbster" had "a meltdown."
And now, the day the music died. Rodger is drying out his socks. For some reason, in my notes I have written that Rodger is "baking" his socks. That sort of thing happens to me sometimes after watching this crap for hours and hours without stop. The Joannaster is having a meltdown of her own. Rodger tells us that everyone where he comes from "talks[s] pretty well the same." I want to go there! He says that Alicia nicknamed him Kentucky Joe, and he likes it. We see a clip of Rodger giving Elisabeth -- and not me, mind you; I'm still waiting for my heart-shaped rock to arrive in the mail c/o MightyBigTV.com, thank you very much -- the heart-shaped rock. It's all about Elisabeth and Rodger until Tina tries to get in on the action. She massages him and jokes to Rodger's wife that she's "taking care" of her husband. Rodger is tense and Keith tells him, "Relax, she's not taking your clothes off." And now we see Rodger's audition tape. Rodger is totally Everyman. He stops Wal-Mart. When I lived in Ithaca, we stopped Wal-Mart, too. I didn't care so much about stopping Wal-Mart, but I did like the signs. I wonder whether they include this segment because it seems anti- Wal-Mart even though it's meant to be pro-Mom- and-Pop, and they're hoping Target will see it as more free publicity and take out some more ads with people bouncing and getting together. I'm personally a fan of the Gap commercial with Carole King and her daughter. It's sweet. Rodger is too cute as he bumbles around Crittenden and shows us where he "'tend[s] church," amongst other things. He points out the town's first blinking caution light, and mentions that the county just got its very first stoplight. In a follow-up interview in which the female interviewer is clearly charmed by Rodger, he does jumping jacks with his audition number (go #41!) in his mouth. We then see the traumatizing clip of Rodger jumping off the cliff and barely swimming to safety. By now, we all know that Mark Burnett re-filmed this sequence with body doubles, but that doesn't lessen the cringe factor. Rodger has a swimming pool in his back yard, but can't swim? That doesn't seem like the smartest thing. But you didn't hear that from me. Anyway, onto the Tribal Council, where Tina calls Rodger "one of the best Christian men [she's] ever met." I know what she means, but the statement could really imply that the other Christian men she's met are not so good. Because he's not just a good man, he's good...for a Christian. Both Tina and Colby think Rodger should be proud of himself for getting as far as he did; that seems like veiled ageism to me. Rodger makes a graceful exit. Sob!
In a completely new highlight, we witness Colby, Tina, and Elisabeth counting gullies. You heard me. Counting. Gullies. We discover that they're in the process of designating boundaries for a game of hide and seek. Both Colby and Elisabeth hide behind trees. Tina, of course, goes for Elisabeth because of her alliance with Colby. The game turns into tag, and Tina chases Elisabeth while Elisabeth runs and squeals -- she's quite the squealer. During Elisabeth's audition tape, she looks cute while driving her car. She looks cute while giggling over a pothole. She looks cute while eating peanut butter. Blah, and blah. In the Tribal Council, Tina and Colby both say they know they can't win against her. Tina calls Elisabeth "America's sweetheart" and says she's "loved and adored by all." Not all, technically. Elisabeth looks cute while saying goodbye. I'm sure she'll look cute on the Style channel, as well.
Mad Dog came back just so Keith could try on her granny bra. He makes some seventh-grade joke about having "something to tell the group." The Italian bistro music flares up for Keith's segment. He's not even an Italian chef, is he? We see shots of Keith in his audition tape being ten kinds of active, and then we see him falling out of a tree, which we'll see Tina do later on, as well. We're used to seeing Keith fall from, bump into, run over, and break things. In an audition interview, Keith tells the judges he plans to cook in a pit overnight so when his tribemates wake up in the morning, there's food. He then whips out a package covered in tin foil, which contains a log, which holds in it a bunch of different food. He bribed the judges, but it sounds delicious! There's all sorts of weird crap stuffed in there. He tells them he wants to make "elegant-type meals," as opposed to actually elegant meals. We see the tribes bitching about Keith's rice-making skills. Then a bird shits, complete with sound effects. We actually see the bird lifting up its tail, and then a white stream of fluid shoots out. I half-expect to hear Bob Saget making some lame joke and insist we watch it again. Tina then offers to share her "secret place" with the others. Keith calls her "secret little spot" gorgeous and beautiful. There are lots of kangaroos in Tina's "secret little spot." They walked for an hour to reach Tina's refuge. The other Survivors are amazed that Tina actually left the confines of their Truman Show-esque set. Keith tells the camera that the scenery was so beautiful, it possessed him to write on his hat some kind of ode which concludes, "It just might be God talking." Keith tells us that winning a million dollars is second to his newfound spirituality. After he gets voted off, he says he can now look at his life from the "past, present, and future." Well, seeing the future should be worth at least a million.
Now Jerri's back, and she's cackling again -- something about Ogakor kicking Kucha's ass. A crocodile and a kangaroo -- fair fight? We see a montage of footage from different challenges, and I can't figure out what this has to do with anything until I figure out -- with Peachy's help -- that all of these clips reveal Colby as winner. In his audition tape, Colby does lots of outdoorsy activities, quite like Keith's tape. We see him riding a bull and falling off. Then, in a second-round interview, he looks cute in a button-down shirt and tie. He says that he doesn't really believe the game is about surviving -- because they're given food and shelter -- but that it is about surviving each other. From there we switch to a time when Colby was not surviving his tribemates, particularly Keith. We get to see Colby call Keith a "bozo" again.
Now we move to the segment where Peachy instructs Colby, Tina, and Keith to paint three crude replicas of themselves, and to offer them up the ratings gods. Colby talks about how he appreciates all the things from home more now. Tina would appreciate some sunscreen and some moisturizer; she looks incredibly haggard -- as in, "like a hag" -- in these pre-facelift confessionals. It's another Halloween-inspiring moment. She cries because it's time to go home. In her audition tape, Tina stands in front of various places in Knoxville and then falls out of a tree. I wonder how many Survivor coaches advise applicants to fall off something in order to maximize their chances of being selected.
As we approach the final vote, my heart is racing with anticipation....for the end of this blasted show. We all know who voted for whom; we all know Peachy self-importantly got on a helicopter clutching his toupee and the urn. Five months for all of us, five facelifts for Tina, and fifty pounds for Colby later, we have a decision. We know, we know. Tina wins. No one cares anymore.
There's a special preview for Africa. It's not so special anymore considering it already debuted.
As the credits roll, we get clips from the Survivor Finale Party. I don't know why they just wouldn't air this from start to finish. The drunken ramblings of the cast -- Jeff Varner in particular -- would have been far more entertaining than this verging-on-offensive rehashing of material that was barely interesting the first time we saw it. Instead of anything fun at all, we just see shots of various Survivors having their pictures taken with fans. Most outrageous!
And then, just when I think I'm getting a break and this damn thing is finally over, it's time for the special presentation: "Retrospective Interviews with the Final 10." Don't go thinking you're getting fresh material here, because "Retrospective" really means "the morning after the show aired when they were kicked off." If you watched The Early Show appearances throughout the season, this is nothing new for you. But since I never recapped them -- or even saw most of them -- I'll muddle through.
Jeff Varner is very defensive about getting kicked off. He thinks he might have gone all the way if Kimmi hadn't opened her mouth or if he hadn't gotten that vote in the first place. Jane points out that he could have also stood on his peg and won immunity. Go Jane! Jeff thinks there was a traitor at Kucha who encouraged the Ogakors to vote against him. In fact, he knows who that Benedict Arnold was, but he won't tell Jane or Bryant. He's already told all of the world in his various Kimmi-bashings. Jeff says that he and Alicia always watch the show together; they find it very suspenseful. At times he wanted to crawl under the coffee table with embarrassment because he "put on a happy face" with the others, but "purged" in his interviews. Jeff then says he was a quiet leader and would have won if it was not for the downfall of Mike Skupin.
Alicia looks very beautiful in her interview -- less personal-trainer and more professional-newscaster. She's happy that the men were intimidated by her, and leaving with respect of the others was, she thinks, the best possible finish. Alicia thinks the DOTS immunity challenge was stupid, and Bryant agrees. So do I. Alicia then reveals that Kucha had decided prior to the merge to vote off Colby and Jerri first because they seemed like the two strongest Ogakor members. Bryant brings up the finger-waving and head-bobbing, and Alicia says that the "finger doesn't work without the head." Hee. Alicia says she lied to everyone about being out of town the night of her eviction so that she could be alone while she watched. That's sad. I like Alicia.
Jerri says that it's been a huge adjustment for her to "become hated by all of America" overnight. As opposed to being hated by only all of her friends, family members, and acquaintances. A clip of Alicia says that Survivor brought out the worst in Jerri. Jerri thinks the editors pieced together her worst moments...which would be all of them. I know the editors aren't above artificially making people look bad, but this is Jerri we're talking about. Jerri says that Kel's being voted off had nothing to do with the beef jerky and everything to do with his bossy behavior when they first arrived in the Outback. Jerri doesn't think Colby stirred up any animosity towards her, and she doesn't blame him. Nor does she blame a particularly critical writer at Mighty Big TV. She blames Keith. Bryant wants to know whether people say "evil" things to her when she passes them on the street.
Nick who? Nick says his team did the right thing by voting him off. If they didn't, he would have used his invisible lasso to tie them together during the remaining immunity challenges to win every time. Nick insists that he wasn't lazy, and that the segments were just "construed badly." He admits that he didn't fish, but he thinks he did a lot of other good things. Even The Early Show finds him too boring to talk to; the few moments are filled with boring clips from the show. Nick says he lost twenty pounds, and that he had a good six pack. He talks about the "Colbster." He explains that he and the other Kucha members knew Nick was the target (the other team was afraid he'd bore them to death), so they agreed just to vote their consciences. So it wasn't that they weren't allied, they just knew it was a losing battle.
Now it's Lamber's turn, and she talks about how relieved she was to finally be voted off. She says she was 115 pounds when she went there and 100 pounds when she left. Like most of the other women, she looked better in the Outback than she does here slathered in Cover Girl products. It's like all the women decide to spackle on forty days' worth of missed makeup-wearing opportunities at once. Bryant says she was "not exactly a chubette" before beginning the show. Bryant wants to know why Lamber didn't try to form an alliance with Rodger and Elisabeth. She responds that she trusted Jerri but didn't trust the others. Lamber says that she had a hard time with the lying and the backstabbing. No problems whatsoever with the spinelessness.
It's Rodger's turn; he was "well-pleased" with his performance and happy with "fifth place." He says it was never about the money for him, but that if he didn't really believe he could win, he wouldn't have gone in the first place. Rodger thinks he was one of the better Survivors at actually surviving. He says jumping off of the cliff was one of the biggest moments he's experienced in his life. Rodger then reveals that he tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate Colby's and Tina's alliance, hoping they would vote for Keith with him and Elisabeth. Rodger has no regrets; he just thought he'd be able to play the game better.
Elisabeth says she had "the butterflies" before each Tribal Council. She doesn't say they were in her stomach; they were probably fluttering around her -- along with bluebirds singing -- as she walked down the street. They probably placed all those cute little flowers in her hair, and perfectly tied her little bandeau top. Elisabeth loves the way the show was edited; well, of course she did! Who -- except perhaps little people -- doesn't love looking cute? Elisabeth tells a cute story about Rodger calling her in New York to tell her where to eat breakfast every morning. Bryant tells her she whines a lot and she says she's "an emotional person." She says she'd rather be "a sap than a stone."
Keith knows he was the swing vote at the end. He says he tried to play without getting into altercations with people, but that it happened anyway, and he thinks that turned "public opinion" against him. Bryant wants to know why he "rub[bed] so many people the wrong way." Keith says he doesn't think it was that many people, but Bryant makes him name all the people who hate him. Keith should have added "Bryant" to the list. That would have been funny.
Colby goes through the same spiel we've heard over and over and over again about not caring about winning once he and Tina made the final two together. Maybe if I heard that one more time -- and louder -- I'd believe it. Or maybe not. Colby says that Tina would have done the same for him, but I don't believe that, either. I do believe that Colby believes it. He has to if he doesn't want to go through every day of his life feeling like the world's biggest moron.
And, finally, Tina. Bryant doesn't ask how she's enjoying her brand-new face. She's wearing an ugly shirt; I think it has spiders and fireworks on it. Tina allows that Kucha would have most likely won if Mike hadn't gotten eliminated. She says that she and Colby recognized a certain competitiveness in each other, and it drew them together. Tina doesn't like being called "ruthless"; she prefers "strategic." Well, for the record, I prefer "conservational" to "lazy," but no one's ever called me that. Tina says she would have picked Colby, too. Of course she'd say that. Tina talks about all of the things her family wants from her newfound wealth. She jokes that she'll have to go on Survivor III to pay for everything they want. That's sad.
But I don't care how sad it is. I'm happy to be through, and ready for Africa. Bring 'em on!