Survivor S04E14

When we left off at the close of theSurvivorfinale, Vecepia was celebrating a victory for Bible-bangers everywhere. Non-Bible-bangers, meanwhile, were celebrating a victory of their own: the extinguishing of Neleh's torch. There's something for everyone on this show!

We move from Peachy's squelching of Neleh's "life on the island" directly into the reunion special. While the entire cast gathers and pretends to be happy for Vecepia, a motorcycle rolls into the set bearing a big, orange-clad Rosie O'Donnell. A quick shot of Rob Mariano reveals that the last several months have not treated him well, and I mistake him for Bryant Gumbel in a quick flash of the celebrating S16. Rosie is very excited to reveal that Colby is the driver of her motorcycle; she even lets him get a few words in! She asks how everything is with him, hugs him, and starts screeching about how happy she is to see him. Incidentally, she continues screeching about something or other until the show's close. Somewhere -- New York City, her house in the Hamptons, the gynecologist's office -- she screeches still. Colby forces Rosie off the bike by pointing out that she has a show to do. She grubs for more audience applause in his honor as he roars off.

A very unhappy-looking old redheaded woman clutches a water bottle in the front row of the audience. Her presence must be important since they make a point of including the shot. Except it's not important at all, because this show is extraordinarily half-assed -- even more so than usual. Maybe they're plugging for a contract with a bottled-water company season. Who knows?

Rosie trots onto the stage and enfolds Just Peachy in a hug; she then begins hugging the S16. She is perfectly cast to host this show, because she enjoys hugging just as much as Survivor cast members do. Try to picture Bryant Gumbel hugging anyone. Except himself, that is.

In the first of many random and disordered -- if genuine -- moments of the episode, Rosie asks what Neleh thought when her name wasn't called. They both agree that her response was the obvious "Oh my heck!" Rosie then brags that the upcoming special will be the greatest hour of television ever, because she thinks Survivor is the best show on TV. I guess she can admit this now that her own crap-ass show is over. She insists that they need to kick off the special with a "production number." She tells "Ricardo" to "hit it," and some imported Marquesans or actors dressed up like Marquesans chant and play bongos while the theme song to Gilligan's Island begins. And then Rosie starts singing. And it's bad. Really bad. In fact, it's a stretch just calling it "singing," because it may be something else entirely. It's like singing's backwards cousin from Utah who says "Oh my heck" all the time. I become more and more obsessed with the fact that this caterwauling, untalented woman -- one who is not an obvious candidate for having gotten there on looks alone, or by sleeping her way up the ladder -- has actually had a musical career on Broadway. There's hope for us all! Not only is the song poorly sung, it's horribly written, too. Rosie totally phones this one in; it's like one of those "Can you hear me now?" commercials, except the answer is, "Yes! Yes, I can hear you. Now for the love of God, please try something else!" And now, the song:

Just sit right back
We've got a show
These people were confined
"Outwit, outlast, outplay" the goal
They're out of their minds
They're out of their minds

There's John, who grabbed a sea urchin
He really was in need
Then Kathy came to help him
She squatted and did the deed
You know she went and pee-peed

There's Peter, he got booted first
And Sean who was a klutz
He tried to get up on a mule
He bruised his coconuts
Bruised his coconuts!

We finally know who took the prize
The ultimate success
And we're gonna talk all about it tonight
Only on CBS!
Only on CBS!

Rosie says that the fun has just begun, and I wonder how I missed that. She doesn't want us to go anywhere because she'll be here the whole hour. Which sounds like a perfect reason to me to go somewhere -- anywhere -- else. So we head off to commercial as the S16 -- including a skulking, awkward Peter Pandit -- chant and try to avoid looking completely horrified, both by the results of the game and by Rosie's singing.

Rosie welcomes us back to New York City, and the S16 wave and ham it up, clutching desperately to the last vestiges of fame and fortune they'll ever know. Until they show up in a Snickers commercial season, doing something really gross or stupid. Ah, fame. Rosie asks Vecepia how it feels to win, and Vecepia says it's "the bomb!" in a way that cannot be conveyed in writing. She also exclaims "Heck, yeah!" and "Holy heck!" because she's trying to out-pious Neleh. And out-annoy her, as well.

Rosie asks whether Neleh and Vecepia have been nervous, anticipating this moment, and Neleh says that she hasn't eaten in two days, causing Rosie to abruptly cut her off: "Right." Because members of the Chub Club don't like to hear about the non-eating habits of skinny girls. Neleh looks pretty, if primped, and not at all like Olive Oyl or Sweetpea or Alice the Goon or some other random goon or whatever Popeye character she resembles that I can't quite place. There's a surprising dearth of Popeye information available on the web. ["I'm telling you, put a cloth crown on her and she's Jughead Jones." -- Wing Chun] In any case, Vecepia rambles on that she woke up that morning and told Leander to go away because he was driving her crazy wanting to do things with her. Those pesky spouses with the always wanting to do things. Vecepia was glad they went to breakfast, because it calmed her down, and it sounds like she had breakfast with Neleh, because they exchange a look. But that would mean Neleh did eat in the past two days. Liar. Vecepia continues complaining about her husband and says that when she got back home, "Leander was there again," wanting more from her and making her nervous. Poor Leander. I hope he doesn't hug her for at least a week. Vecepia finally had to say, "Just go somewhere! Please!" so that she would have the chance in his absence to pray, meditate (which I originally typo-ed as "medicate," and which would be an equally viable option for a woman who sees visions and writes on tablets), and calm herself down. Rosie steals the words right from my recap as she concludes, "The moral for the people at home: when times are stressed, get ridda your spouse!"

Rosie then reveals that "Oh my heck!" is her favorite expression to emerge from all four seasons of Survivor, and I can't believe she prefers that to "I will always wave my finger in your face," or anything ever said by Talking Rudy Doll. Neleh explains that she didn't realize how much she said it, and Rosie says she's never heard anyone else say it. Most likely because the rest of the world knows better. Neleh says the expression is "a Utah thing," and that since the show ended, she's been picking up on the expression from her fellow Utahns. She enthusiastically concludes, "Everyone in Utah says, 'Oh my heck!'" which is as good a reason as any I've heard to avoid going to Utah. Rosie then outs Neleh as a poser by pointing out how "funny" it is that Neleh was so good and righteous for the thirteen straight weeks when the show aired, but ruined it all when she said, "Oh, that sucks" in response to John's question at the final Tribal Council. Rosie reveals that she got Neleh two hats as a gift: one that reads "Oh my heck," and one for when she's in a very bad mood, which says, "This sucks." Neleh proves she may have a better sense of humor than I thought she did by donning the "This sucks" hat. Or else she just can't read.

Rosie suddenly asks what Neleh and Paschal found about each other that was "appealing." That's had me stumped, too. Neleh responds that from the first day it was clear that they weren't the strongest castaways, and the other members of Rotu forced them to the back of the raft to hang onto the end and kick. She then randomly launches into her concerns that there were "sharks in [there] that [were] gonna eat [them]." Miraculously, she returns to the point, which is that she and Paschal bonded instantly; she exclaims, "I love that guy!" Now Rosie asks of Paschal, "What was it about [Neleh]? Did you think of her, like, as a daughter? You thought of her...." and Paschal cuts her off before she can complete the sentence with "underage, half-wit love goon?" He claims that Neleh was an "extension of home" for him because he's "such a family person," which just seems to me like such a self-serving, obnoxious thing to say. He reveals that he and Neleh met before they were even selected as finalists, and he told his wife that if that "little girl" was selected, then there was something "really special" about her. So she was only really special if she was selected? That's a total non sequitur, and I thought judges were at least supposed to have some basic grasp of logic. And by now, most of you know how I feel about "special" as a descriptive word, anyway. Paschal calls Neleh "as pristine a young woman as [he's] ever known," which is a really strange way of describing someone -- she's clean? And that's the best attribute he can come up with to describe her? Paschal then realizes that he has two pristine daughters at home, and that he should throw a compliment or two their way so that he doesn't have to foot the therapy bills three years from now. Still, he insists that Neleh reminds him of home.

Rosie pats Neleh on the back for being the youngest person out there, and for handling the resulting notoriety, fame, and "maneuvering" so skillfully. Rosie insists that it's hard enough for a forty-year-old to adapt in such a challenging situation, but for a twenty-one-year-old "kid," Neleh did "all right." They high-five. Because Neleh has FIVE fingers!

Rosie turns to Kathy, but before she can say anything, Kathy laments, "Babe, I tried!" Rosie freaks, "I thought it would be you!" and the whole crowd goes wild because somehow, inexplicably, Kathy managed to win us all over; it totally should have been Kathy who won. Kathy's hair is all razor-cut and shaggy -- she looks great and svelte and not so crazy-eyed at all. Peter Pandit's taken up the slack on that front, though. Rosie insists that Kathy was the hometown favorite, and that everyone thought she would win. Rosie screams, "And you lost 'cause you didn't want to show your boob!" Rosie lays into Neleh for acting so nice and offering a helpful warning. She then starts yelling, "You psyched her out! You psyched her out!" She's kind of joking, but she's kind of not. Kathy handles the situation gracefully and absolves Neleh of blame. She says that Rosie knows what it's like to be sitting on the beach or in a bar wearing a strapless dress when someone says, "Honey, check it out, I think it's exposed." Apparently, only gay men notice and point out errant breasts, because Kathy affects a fey accent during this discussion. Also, I don't really think Rosie knows what it's like to be wearing a strapless dress anywhere. Kathy explains that looking down was her first instinct, and Rosie screeches that Kathy wasn't just sitting in a bar; she was holding on for a million dollars. Kathy responds that all of the Central Park crowd was watching her (and on a big screen, no less), and then Rosie returns to busting on Neleh, saying she might as well have said, "Look out! There's a snake!" to make Kathy lose her balance. Rosie yells at Kathy for falling for Neleh's ruse, and Kathy insists again that there were too many people looking at her. ["Yeah, as if CBS would ever show footage of Kathy's naked boob. Although, actually, they have already done that on another show this season." -- Wing Chun] Neleh and Kathy hug; since neither of them won a million dollars; there's no hard feelings.