Survivor S06E14

When we last leftSurvivor, Peachy was a gleeful, dimpled subway rider; Rob was the "smartest player to never win"; newly spiky Matthew made it to the final two and only got one vote; and Jenna was revealed as the unpleasant victor. We were live in NYC at the Survivor Amazon reunion show, and Jenna and Matthew -- who had shared the very first celebratory hug -- were now suspiciously sharing the last.

Peachy, attired in his New Yorker costume -- shades of black and gray -- welcomes us back to the Amazon reunion show. He congratulates Jenna on a "well-earned" victory and calls her "very tough" out there. She was "very" lots of things: spoiled, entitled, ungracious, lazy -- the list goes on -- but "tough" is not my word of choice. Peachy points out that Jenna "pulled off" several accomplishments: she was the youngest competitor of all six seasons of Survivor and thus the youngest winner ever; she won four of eight immunity challenges (the only person ever to win more was Australia's Colby), including having "dominated" the last two when she desperately needed them; she was the only player ever "crazy enough" to give up immunity; and she turned down an offer from Rob guaranteeing her a spot in the final two. What's on Peachy's mind -- and the minds of the rest of the viewing audience -- through all this is, "Christy! What the heck is goin' on?" Christy, resembling Jodie Foster, tucks her hair back and grins ambiguously as we see the clip of Christy warbling that, "Those freakin' evil stepsisters of mine are not gonna win the million dollars. Not gonna happen!" Peachy asks what happened to change Christy's mind, and she responds with the standard "outwitted, outlasted, and outplayed" shtick. When Peachy questions whether it's just a "nice answer," or if she really believes that Jenna outplayed both her and Matt, Christy pauses before agreeing, explaining -- if "explaining" is taken in the loosest sense of the word -- that since she'd been with Jenna since the beginning of the game, but only met Matt halfway through, she felt like she'd "give [Jenna] that opportunity to win." Peachy points out that Christy is working with an interpreter and snits, "Too bad you didn't have one out in the game -- might've helped you a little bit!" I'm not sure that came out the way Peachy intended.

Peachy turns back to Jenna, and lays out what he says everyone must be thinking: for the bulk of the thirty-nine days, she "acted like a selfish, spoiled only child." The audience claps and hoots as Jenna agrees that it's a "fair enough" description. Peachy thinks she changed, though, in the last few days: she "got game." He adds, "To me, [you] became a lot more likeable." Jenna responds, "And that's a hard thing to do!" She insists that she's young and has a lot to learn, and that the crumbling of her alliance caused her to wrestle with the decision, "Am I gonna fight, or am I gonna run?" While watching herself throughout the season she thought, "Boy I am spoiled sometimes! And I am...annoying!" She tells us again that she's learned a lot about herself, and claims that it's a hard thing to do with a viewing audience that isn't aware that she's learning. Matthew's and Jenna's arms and legs and hands and feet are completely intertwined as Peachy points out that Jenna "took a lot of heat;" she admits that it was mostly deserved and she's a better person because of it, which is what matters in the end. She rests her head on Matt's shoulder.

Peachy wants to talk about strategy, citing Jenna's claim of her intention to take the most deserving person to the final two with her. He questions whether Matthew was really the most deserving, or whether the choice was part of Jenna's strategy. She admits that it was strategy, explaining that she wanted the jury to think she believed she was taking the most deserving person to the final two. Peachy wonders what would have happened if she'd chosen Rob, and she responds that he would have kicked her butt. Rob, looking rodent-like, laughs as Jenna concedes that it would have been a well-deserved victory. Peachy asks the seven members of the jury whether their votes would have changed in a final contest between Jenna and Rob, and we see Christy, Deena, and Rob nodding their heads. Butch, meanwhile, emphatically shakes his head in the negative, which is funny since he would have had to change his vote, because voting for Matthew wouldn't have been an option. Peachy concludes that the jury is mixed, and it might have been a wiser move on Jenna's part to take Rob. She snittily agrees, "Well, I guess so!"

Peachy has to give Matthew props for being at the "other end of the spectrum." He explains that Matthew initially didn't know anything about the game and didn't even know what treemail was, but "found a mentor -- sort of -- in Rob," who taught him the game so well that by its end Matthew had developed dual alliances -- either of which he would have willingly betrayed to make it to the end. Peachy rubs in the fact that Matthew only got one vote, before bringing up the one, unchanging issue: "The question about your sanity." Peachy asks Matt if he's really "nuts," but before Matt answers, Peachy wants to take a look back at one of Matt's "favorite, sort of, hobbies out in the Amazon." We see Matthew toothily sharpening his machete while Christy cutely calls him "creepy." In our household, we now sign "creepy" all the time, so Christy's done at least one small service in schooling home viewers in sign language. Matthew claims that it was "all an act," before refuting that claim: "I'm a crazy guy!" Peachy insists that it's a serious question, and Matt further explains that it was a strategic act; he needed people to "dismiss" him as nave or insane because it was the only way to "deflect" their attention from his physical threat in the game. He claims he "dodged an awful lot of bullets" in doing so, and that it was a "great vehicle" for advancing. Peachy feels like they're at Tribal Council again because everyone else is shaking their heads. He calls out Alex, who is acting "like a puppy dog out there." Alex laughs and manically recalls a time when Matthew flipped out at Jaburu after receiving two Tribal Council votes; he insists that Matthew insisted on doing fire duty by himself and "got all kinds of dehydrated." And while that doesn't sound like the most intelligent behavior, I wouldn't exactly say it's proof that Matthew should be checked into the room to Brittany Murphy. There's a reason that girl plays all kinda crazy so well in movies. Anyway, I'm not saying there aren't plenty of other reasons Matthew should be committed, but the fact that he watched the fire alone one night isn't one of them. Alex adds that Deena also saw Matt lose it out there, and starts to say something else, but Peachy slaps him down, insisting that they've all got the point. Alex is still getting his bitch on, addressing Matthew: "You were off...there was somethin' -- from that moment on, you checked out." Alex doesn't think it was an act, but unwillingly concedes when pushed by Peachy that it might have been the "best acting job ever."

Matthew admits to letting himself get extremely dehydrated on two occasions: once with Deena and once with Roger. Jenna clings to him as he explains that he got sick because he worked so hard at camp on the fire and water, and Peachy agrees that no one can deny his efforts. Matthew says that the experience was "really scary," and Peachy says they'll talk about that later, but if it's something you're particularly interested in, don't hold your breath, because it never comes up again. Instead, Peachy promises us that when we return from the break, we'll talk about the initial division of the tribes by gender, which he claims resulted not only in a heated battle of the sexes, but also in more unexpected same-sex conflicts, stirred up "particularly, [by] the younger, prettier girls." As we go to commercial, we see the clip of Jenna, Shawna, and a horsy HeiDDi bathing, and Peachy fusses with something beneath his seat. For no apparent reason, the audience is prompted to clap and laugh.

We're back to more meaningful clapping as Peachy clutches something purple and waves it around, announcing that the gender divide provided many things: it gave the audience someone to root for; put the men immediately on the defensive; and created underdogs out of the female tribe. He anthropologizes that the split also clearly demonstrated the impact men and women have on the opposite sex, and how our behavior changes when we're around each other. He calls out the male members of Tambaqui for being "goofy from the start," and points out that in the middle of the first Tribal Council, when they were getting ready to vote Ryan out, they couldn't stop talking about Shawna and HeiDDi. The men laugh as Peachy asks what exactly about the division heightened the sexual tension, and Alex Cinderellas that you "don't know what you've got until it's gone." He's used to having women "in [his] world," and without them around, he noticed "that lack of energy." We cut to a shot of a boingy-haired, laughing girl in the audience, who just has to be Shawna's sister. Alex finishes up by claiming that "whether it's platonic or not -- you just want that energy around."

Shawna agrees with Alex, and would you expect her to disagree with Alex? She laughs, "I think there's a reason men and women are hangin' out together!" Throwing her hands around, she "I don't know"s her way through telling us, "Basically, the fact is, I need men." Peachy highlights Shawna's readiness to leave the game, "and then suddenly -- here comes Alex!" We see the clip of Shawna sniveling about her "crappy-ass depression," and belief that "the only way out of it is to get out." Or in this case, "the only way out of it is to get Alex." We then see Alex prance into camp while a newly invigorated and on-her-feet Shawna welcomes him with outstretched arms. The audience laughs, but it's not all that funny. As she was the last two times we saw this clip, Deena is still amazed what a little testosterone can do for someone.

Peachy commends Shawna on her cute "hi!" and points out that she was ready to quit a million-dollar game, but as soon as the three men showed up, she decided to stick around. Shawna explains that she knew she was sick -- whether mentally or physically. She was "totally on a one-way canoe to Psychosville," but she had to decide what was right for her, even if it was wrong for the rest of the tribe. Although she still felt like crap when the men showed up, she was determined to spend her last time there having fun, flirting, and going out "in style." Peachy's done with this subject, but Shawna can't be stopped from Sandra Bullock-ing about what a fun-loving, jolly girl she is, and how she hadn't laughed the whole time she was out there. Peachy is happy to point out that once Shawna was gone, Alex moved right on to another tribe member. Alex insists that he has "nothing but love" for Shawna and thinks she's "awesome," but "whether or not [they're] gonna have...be...married down the road," is doubtful. He says they'll always be friends.

Peachy doesn't want to pick on Rob because he insists, "You're great! You were great on this show!" but then he does anyway. He says Rob came across as the guy who always got picked last and didn't have a lot of luck with the ladies. Alex pats Rob's shoulder as Rob agrees with Peachy that it's a fair and accurate thing to say. Peachy points out that he was content to play that role, and Rob announces that he has good and bad news: the good news is that he has a girlfriend who's great, and the bad news is that she doesn't believe anything he'd say. I'd venture to say -- now that he's out of the running for the million -- there might be more bad news headed his way. Rob has a tendency to wrinkle up his nose and squint his eyes when he laughs. It's not pretty. Unless, I guess, you're a female rat.

Peachy returns to the unanticipated issues among the members of the female tribe, which he wants to "revisit," citing a particularly "memorable" moment at their camp. He also wants to "revisit" the footage of the women washing themselves and each other, and I suspect he may "revisit" this footage often from the privacy of his own home. In this clip, HeiDDi embarrasses herself by talking about being one of the "cuter girls," and how she, Jenna, and Shawna had to cut themselves off from the older women: "We're younger, and we're cuter, we've got better bodies, and for some reason that's, like, a huge issue with older people." HeiDDi puts her head in her hands and laughs, although I wouldn't be laughing if I'd said something as horrible, small-minded, and egocentric as that.

Peachy doesn't even know where to begin, but clearly he does, since he turns to the most potentially venomous woman: Jeanne. He asks where the problems initiated, and she responds -- through new, unflattering bangs -- that she wasn't aware it was even going on, because she was busy working so hard. Jeanne adds that she was "thrown for a loop" when the episode aired, and Peachy asks HeiDDi what made the younger women stick together. HeiDDi has pencil-thin, Pamela Anderson eyebrows -- and Pamela Anderson everything else, for that matter -- laughably claims that she began the game as "an athlete," but from the very first day people were glaring and snickering at her. She decided that since the others were making it into a "looks issue," she would look at the situation the same way. She dismissively holds up a hand, and turns without making eye contact to mutter, "I am sorry if I offended anybody. Truly I am." She insists that she was being constantly mocked because she was "too little, too weak," when all she ever wanted was to be part of Joanna and Jeanne's camp-building efforts, but they wanted nothing to do with her. Butch stares at his hands, probably embarrassed to be within a hundred yards of this discussion. Jeanne shakes her head in dismay as she insists that it wasn't "a problem with her beauty or size or anything," but because HeiDDi wasn't doing her share of the work. The audience claps and laughs along with Jeanne, while HeiDDi looks peeved. Peachy asks Jeanne if there's any substance to HeiDDi's assertion that the others were younger and willing to use their assets, while she wasn't and didn't. Jeanne shrugs and points out that they got further than she did. Peachy questions whether it was difficult for her to watch the show and hear their comments, and Jenna looks uncomfortable as Jeanne responds that it was indeed hard, but that she was with her friends and family members, who judge her the way they want to see her. So her friends and family members judge her, too -- just differently? Peachy commends Jeanne, who looks like she's in "rockin' shape!" and she proudly agrees that she is, before Kim Cattrall-ing that women over forty know what they want and are very comfortable with themselves and their bodies. She insists that she's very proud of herself "and women," in general. She smiles. Aw.