Previously on It's Not Whether You Win Or Lose, It's Whether You Keep Ami From Winning: Ami was practicing her winner's strut, and she was concentrating so hard that she forgot how to count to four. When she and Leann made it perfectly clear to Scout and Twila that it was an Ami/Leann/Julie alliance, not an Ami/Leann/Scout/Twila alliance, Scout and Twila looked around and saw that there were two other people left who might also not want to go home yet, and Ami's lock on the game was finally broken. Weep for Ami's lock on the game; you will not be seeing it again. Now, six are left. Can Ami pull something out of her shapely ass, or will this keep going the way it's going and send her back to Crissy with no ill regrets?
Credits. Hee hee hee hee hee. Sorry, just celebrating a little in advance.
Alinta, Night 30. A snake wraps itself around a pole. The tribe is back from tribal council. "Well, I can say that that was a really nice move," Ami says, in a tone of mock admiration. "I just felt like we was gonna get all screwed over," Twila says simply as she adds to the campfire, "so I felt like I'd take up for the little guy." "'Take up for the little guy,' that's cute," Ami spits. "Well, you're taking up for your own guy, not for the little guy," she tells Twila contemptuously. Just a note to Ami: that's always what "the little guy" means. It is always is a reference to yourself. Even if you're not short. So Twila is hardly using it differently than anyone else does. Ami continues to babble, with what she's trying to portray as casual amusement but is actually seething anger, about how Twila's the bad one, and Twila's the one who said she was down with the four-way alliance and so on. "Screwed you, didn't I?" Twila says, about tired of being snorted at. "You didn't screw me, I'm still in the game!" Ami insists. "You screwed Leann," blah blah blah. Because certainly, that has no effect on Ami whatsoever. Chris watches with interest. "The bitterness started as soon as we got back to camp," he notes in a night-vision interview. "I'm livin' with five wildcats right now!" Dude. You have got to get over your intense interest in seeing chicks fight. Unseemly!
Twila accuses Ami of just keeping Eliza around for her own purposes, and Ami, of course, snorts that now Twila wants to keep Eliza, when before, she was always wanting to vote Eliza off. Well, true, but...so what? Twila may have wanted Eliza voted off; Ami actually voted for her. If the point is that Eliza has no reason to feel guilty about going against Ami, it seems like a pretty difficult thing to refute. Ami chatters on about how Scout and Twila always wanted to get rid of Eliza. "I know," Eliza puts in, "but who saved my ass tonight? When I was really going to go home?" As Ami persists in claiming that Eliza actually owes Ami, because she kept Eliza in the game -- you know, right up until she tried to vote her off -- Twila raises her hand behind Eliza, happily saying, "Me!" Twila certainly has stored up her resentment of Ami for a good long time, because she seems to have an abundant supply.
Now, you begin to see the genuinely unpleasant person Ami is, when she says to Twila, "I'm just glad I didn't swear on my little brother or my family, 'cause that would be real yucky." Okay, first of all, "yucky"? What's , a frowny-face tattoo? Second, please keep in mind that the person who dragged Ami's little brother into this discussion of reality-show moralizing was Ami. And if that's not "yucky," I just don't know what is. Furthermore, I realize that oath-taking is an old and sacred tradition, but this entire thing with "swearing on" people is so stupid. The only people who really care about maintaining some kind of a "I swear on so-and-so" system are people who want everyone to agree to some kind of system of "safe words" so they can lie all they want and then be able to repurchase their credibility for one "I swear on my father's grave" or whatever. It seems like a load of hooey to me. "I swear on my son," "I swear on that tree," "I swear on my children," who cares? It's all lying. Lying is generally bad in real life with the usual white-lie exceptions, but it's not bad on Survivor, because lying is part of the game. I mean, it doesn't actually endanger your son if you swear on your son and you're lying. That doesn't actually cause your son to die, unless you live in a Stephen King novel, so it has nothing to do with how much you love him or how important he is to you. What is the difference between saying, "I give you my word," and "I swear on my son"? Nothing. In both cases, in real life, you should be telling the truth. In both cases, in Survivor, it makes no difference.
The reason Ami is mad, it appears to me, is that she misjudged Twila to be some kind of a backwards hick who, in Ami's mind, would never swear on her son and lie. That's what I think. Ami believed that she had Twila pegged as the sort of simpleton who believes in Elvis sightings and believes that you will kill your son if you swear on his name and you're lying. In other words, Ami thought Twila had an identifiable weakness, which was a superstitious, unsophisticated belief in the validity of swearing on things or people. Turns out Twila was faking that quality, largely. And Ami is angry as all hell, because she has been flat-out beat by Twila, whom Ami has never respected, ever, going so far as to lecture her about her femininity in front of a group of other women, which, seriously? One does not do, particularly when one is talking to a woman who has had a child, and presumably is thus familiar with her femininity and has managed just fine up to now without French braids. Ami, I believe, resents being outsmarted by a southern highway worker.
At any rate, Scout tries to tell Ami to ease up on Twila, but Ami continues to snort that Twila swore on her son, and it's "the truth of [Ami's] life" that she's glad she didn't blah blah blah. Scout gently asks Ami not to "put Twila down," and if you didn't know Ami was coming back with "Twila put herself down!," you haven't been paying attention. Ami -- infuriated, impotent, and humiliated by this entire development because she had no idea it was coming -- continues to talk with disgust about Twila's hideous betrayal of...whatever she's supposed to have betrayed. In an interview, Ami keeps up with this line of discussion -- how she's "disgusted" by Twila, blah dee blah. She has lost all possible respect for Twila, could never respect Twila again...it's a little bit funny, really, watching Ami try to come up with additional superlatives to describe her sense of moral outrage, particularly since her first word on the subject was "yucky."
Having been shat upon for this by Ami a few times, Twila says she'll respond if Ami wants. "Oh, I'm listening, BIG EARS, what?" Ami snorts with a smug grin, so bored by having to talk to dumb old Twila who is so beneath her. Taking note of Ami's attitude, Twila says, "Well, that's the thing, right there. You and Leann and Julie thought that you all were so freaking high and mighty." Ami snorts in disbelief, but allows, "I totally got a little cocky," and Twila says, "You're dang right." Ami goes on to say that she was cocky because she "knew [she] had people [she] could trust." In other words, she was only cocky because she loves everyone so much and believed they were as good and trustworthy as she was. I totally believe her. How about you?
Twila lies down later, staring straight up toward the camera. "We've overthrown the queen and the little princess. People like that just piss me off, because they think they're so much freakin' better than everybody else," she says. And like I said, I'm convinced that this goes all the way back to the patronizing way Ami treated Twila from the very beginning. "We've got the power," Twila says with a little smile, raising her fists to enjoy the moment. "Chris, I, Scout, Li -- we have the power now." She pauses. "I have a great mind sometimes, I love it," she says, and laughs. And while it's more than a little off-putting to see anyone engage in quite this much self-congratulation, Twila is the only damn person in the entire tribe to get a clue and make a move since about Week 2, so relatively speaking, she is coming off as rather brilliant.
Back out at the fire, Scout is still talking to Ami. "Ami, you're cocky," she says, continuing where Twila apparently has now left off. "Yeah, I'm cocky," Ami says dubiously. "I'm also one of the most giving, loving, caring people," she says with impatience, as if it's so irritating to her that these qualities go unrecognized by others. After all, what's the point of being a good person if people won't sit back and let you have a million dollars? Ami has also apparently missed out on the fact that it's generally a reliable rule that people who are genuinely "giving, loving, caring people" don't find it necessary to tell everyone all the time how great they are. And..."giving, loving, caring"? You didn't even want to tell the guys how to open a coconut, jackass. Ami is not a peace goddess; she's a poser, and at bottom, not a very good sport, or she wouldn't be tormenting Twila for kicking her ass. At least Hatch, with his cry of, "I've been bamboozled!," recognized that you at least have to pretend you don't mind being outplayed, because you're going to look like a jerk if you don't.
In an interview, Ami tells us that she's now competing with all her heart. As opposed to the game to this point, where she hasn't been trying at all. That's the only reason she's in trouble, you know. She's too nice. She'll tell you so herself.
The morning, a hermit crab crawls out of a shell. Twila goes to pick up the treemail, and instantly notices that it comes with a container of water. Water challenges are not her favorite thing. The bad poetry further suggests that there will be a hot shower involved, and a "game-changing reward." Twila says in an interview that everybody wants food, but that she's kind of hoping Eliza wins the reward, because Eliza is just too darn skinny. They throw in a dramatic shot of Eliza's shoulder blades here, but Eliza is really just teasing, doing the thing where you make your shoulder blades pop out in order to make the point that anybody who wins the reward should take her along for all the eating. Which isn't to say Eliza isn't skinny, because...she is. Twila, as it turns out, has been calling Eliza "Olive Oyl," and I cannot believe I didn't make that connection until now. Because it is a fair comparison.
Challenge beach. The final six approach, and up to the beach zooms Jeff in a...white car. He parks and hops out, and informs them that indeed, the winner of this reward challenge will get the car. It's a Pontiac G6. In addition to the car, the winner -- along with the people who finish second and third -- will go on an overnight resort visit, where they can eat, sleep, and shower. In order to get them excited about the meal, Jeff is going to show them what he swears is "the actual menu" from the "restaurant" where they'll be eating. He reveals it, and it includes garlic bread, chicken corn soup, coconut shrimp, beef carpaccio, a scallop and mushroom dish, grilled chicken breast (if you decide you'd like to watch your calories), steak, and a veal thing (in case you really hate baby cows). Then, you'll get to sleep over and come back in the morning.
The challenge is out on the water, and involves a balance segment in which you're running over platforms, outrigger canoes, and beams over the water. Then you dive out for a flag in your color, reverse the course, run back up the beach, and stick your flag on a pole. You do this three consecutive times to fetch three flags, and the first to get their third flag planted will win.
"Survivors ready...go!" Ami is the first to dive for a flag; Scout immediately falls way, way back, and she doesn't even look like she's walking especially well. Ami hangs up a flag; Eliza hangs up a flag; Chris hangs up a flag; Julie hangs up a flag. This all basically turns into Ami in the lead, Eliza in second, and Chris and Julie fighting for third. But then on the way back with the last flag, Eliza passes Ami when Ami keeps falling in. Did Ami throw the car? Discuss. I think Ami badly wants to go on the reward with Eliza to work her over, but I'm not sure she wants to win the car, since winning the car might completely eliminate any possibility that anybody's attitude would soften toward her -- particularly Eliza's. Eliza does indeed make her way to the post and plant her last flag, winning the car.
Chris and Julie are fighting for third. But not right at the moment, because right at the moment, they're both really tired, and they're resting out in the water before they continue. "Do you want this bad?" Chris asks Julie. "What?" she says. "Do you want this bad?" he repeats. "I really do," she says pleadingly. "Me too," he says, and they both dive. Heh heh. The show must love people who do movie dialogue like that without even being asked. They're neck and neck coming back up to the water and getting onto the course. Julie is in the lead at first, but she falls into the water, and Chris -- who came within a hair of going home the first week because of balance problems -- stays up. Well, he stays up longer than Julie before he also falls in. They're ultimately dead even again as they dive into the water to head for the beach, but as they emerge from the water, Julie seems to have no gas in the tank for the run up the beach, and Chris grabs third place. Which quite possibly makes a huge difference in the ultimate course of the episode, of course. Ask yourself what would have happened if Eliza had been sent off to the lap of luxury with Ami and Julie. Might things have changed? Oh, I think they might. Jeff tells a grinning Eliza again that she is richer by one car, and that they can leave now, in that very car, for their reward. They all cheer, although weakly. They're tired. Scout, Twila, and Julie go back to camp, and the reward winners take off in the car.
Eliza's car flies along the road toward the resort, and she interviews that she doesn't think the fact that she won a car has quite "sunk in yet." She talks about how great the ride to the resort was with the sun roof open, and we watch as they pull in at their destination. It's a bungalow on a beach, and really, it is pretty idyllic. Inside, they have chairs and a bed, and of course, there are bathrobes for them to wear when they get out of the shower. Ami says that she was able to wash her hair and scrub herself enough that she feels clean. "I smell good," she says in an interview, sniffing her own armpit. You know what they probably say in the editing room -- you can always cut to Ami for a touch of class. When Chris goes into the shower, though, there's no hot water left. "Bitches," he says in an interview through clenched teeth. Heh.
While Chris is in the shower, Ami takes the opportunity to work on Eliza. "I'm really sorry that I voted for you," she says. "I really should have trusted in you a lot more than I did." And she's clutching Eliza's hand. They sit down, as Ami says that she's regretting her vote "from the bottom of [her] heart." Huh. You know, regrets about your past actions that only arise after you're toast are somehow less compelling than other regrets. "I'm sad," Ami says, "that I got pulled into Scout and Twila's, like, nastiness towards you." Wait...huh? You -- you did? How can the vote be the result of Scout and Twila's nastiness when Scout and Twila didn't even vote for Eliza? My recollection is that it was largely Leann's brilliant idea to get rid of Eliza last week. And that Ami went along with it to make Leann comfortable, and attributed it to a discussion about who "deserved to stay," so at the very least, Ami threw over Eliza in favor of Leann's theory of personal merit. Ami goes on to tell Eliza how she doesn't like the way Scout talks down to Ami. "I'm used to it," Eliza says with a laugh, and then she points out bitterly that Scout only became nice to her yesterday, when they needed her vote. Exactly! Why are these women conducting this conversation as if there's something wrong with wanting someone's vote? I agree with Eliza that Scout's been a right bitch to her at times, but Eliza wasn't offered an opportunity to join a sorority with Scout and Twila -- she was offered an opportunity to stay in the game, and she took it. She voted out Leann in order to improve her own odds. Twila and Scout made a plan with Eliza in order to improve their own odds. Ami allied the women in order to improve her own odds, and then she voted out Eliza in order to improve her own odds, and now she's trying to work Eliza right now in order to improve her own odds. Everyone wants to win! Everyone's playing the game! So what? I mean, if Ami didn't vote against Eliza to help herself, what possible reason did she have for doing it that would make it appropriate for Eliza to see her sympathetically or to resent Scout -- who didn't vote for her -- more than Ami -- who did?
Just then, fortunately, Chris walks out in his robe with a drink in his hand, talking about how nice it feels to be clean. Ami talks about how great the day was, sitting around on the beach, and just then, some musicians emerge to play for them. The music is highly cool -- very beachy and rhythmic -- and they all look to enjoy it quite a lot. "The best reward ever," Eliza states plainly in an interview. The music ends, and they applaud, and I agree that it looks like it was a pretty good reward.
Back at camp, meanwhile, Twila and Scout are hard at work at the typical camp task of carrying a box, and Twila is grousing that she winds up swallowing half of the ocean whenever they have a water challenge. Scout says that, for her part, she could have lived with the water challenge if not for all the walking and balancing. Which I doubt she could have, but I get her frustration. Scout interviews all about her physical limitations, saying that her inability to compete in these kinds of challenges is "humiliating." She says that with even her body from six years ago, she believes she could outplay the people who are left. And before you doubt her, remember, she's a rancher. People who work outside can often kick the asses of people who work inside, if you'll pardon the gross overgeneralization, and I don't doubt that, given the current competition, Scout is probably right.
Around the fire, Twila, Scout, and Julie talk about Eliza's nice new car, and Twila says she was sure Ami had it wrapped up, and that she was happy to see Eliza pull it out. Twila wonders out loud what they're doing on the reward, but then she seems to decide that this is something she might discuss with Scout in private. So when the two of them are off working, she tells Scout she thinks Eliza is still a little shaky. The editing suggests that they actually do have this conversation in front of Julie, but I sort of doubt it, since Julie seems to watch a single conversation wearing two different outfits. SUSPICIOUS. Anyway, Twila says that Ami will be off trying to sweet-talk Eliza, but Scout thinks Eliza will be fine, and is "solid." Twila interviews that she hopes Ami's maneuvering won't work on Eliza. Scout is just glad that Chris is there too, since that might very well help keep Eliza from falling for any BS from Ami.
We return to the Reward Resort, where Chris, Ami, and Eliza are chowing down on their dinner. Chris comments that the meal was good, and that they packed away as much as possible. Ami talks about how good the food was, and also mentions how much she liked the company, because she likes everyone, yay! She is a happy little dolly, and she likes everyone! Ami starts singing at the table, all, "What an interesting game it's been," and...shut up, Ami. What is with the random singing? Do people not realize how annoying that is? If someone at your office came in singing, "The coooopier is broooken," you would hit that person, and no one would blame you. Unless you are in an opera and can sing about everything in Italian? Shut up. What's even better is that Ami gives Chris and Eliza a little speech about how she knows that they want her to go "because [she's] the physical power" (uh...that's not really why), but that she thinks they'd be better off breaking up Scout and Twila. It's what's best for them. She's only thinking of them. Now, see if you can follow Ami's logic. Chris and Eliza should break up Scout and Twila, but should leave in the game Ami and Julie. That is so logical that it inspires me to think I could undoubtedly walk on my ceiling and make water boil at 12 degrees.
Ami excuses herself from the table, and when she's gone, Chris looks at Eliza in amused disbelief. "She's so full of shit," he interviews. "Does she think I'm stupid?" He says, never one to miss out on the obvious, that Ami is still just working Eliza, hoping to change something now, late in the game. Eliza starts to say to Chris that it might indeed be a good idea to break up Scout and Twila. Eliza points out that she and Chris could make it to the final four anyway. Chris shakes his head. "Not Ami," he says, cutting this off before Eliza starts to get silly. "We're a pure final four," he tells her. "And if we change anything, nothing's guaranteed." Well, exactly. That's what Ami's people did when they went to the Eliza boot, and we know how that turned out. Chris pointedly tells Eliza that if they get to the final four, "look at [the] competition. A sixty-year-old woman...and Twila." Insulting, but...true. Chris makes one more fate-tempting comment -- which I hope is just meant to influence Eliza, and isn't what he really believes -- about how Jeff might as well write out the checks to the two of them now. When Ami appears behind Eliza, Chris says loudly, "So, are you gonna go cruising in your new car as soon as you get it?," just so Eliza knows to shut up without turning around. Chris says that he's "realistic enough to keep tabs on Eliza," and that he just listens to her reassurances that all is still going according to plan. He claims to be "counting on the fact that Eliza's mentally strong." That can't be a comfortable feeling.
Because there's only the one bed and the girls are taking it, Chris stretches out on the couch in the living room. "Is it comfortable?" one of them asks him. "Yeah, I can definitely sleep out here," he says. I'm sure it's better than, say, sand and leaves. Everyone says good night. And then, as Chris snoozes, Eliza and Ami chat. No! Not chatting! Eliza calls it "ironic" that Scout and Twila have pushed for her ouster regularly, but have never actually voted against her. Wow...that is ironic, at least mildly. The rare correct use of that word almost gave me a heart attack. Ami immediately twists these words into her usual rhetorical pretzel, saying that it "makes [her] want to puke" hearing Eliza say that Scout and Twila have never voted for her, and thus are "so great." Which, of course, is not at all what Eliza said. She was correctly noting an oddity in the situation, not praising Scout and Twila. Eliza says that, like it or not, without Scout and Twila, she would no longer be in the game. "You know what?" Ami spits nastily. "If it hadn't been for me, fifty million times, turning the tides and letting you know what was going on...I have every single time had your back." Except for the "voting you out" part. Other than that, total loyalty.
And let's investigate this. Eliza saved herself in the second week, and she didn't learn she was on the block from Ami; she learned it from Dolly and, to a lesser extent, from Leann. Ami certainly did not save Eliza that week. Eliza went to tribal council in Week 5, when they booted Bubba, and Eliza was never in any significant jeopardy. In Episode 6, Ami went after Lisa because Lisa allegedly showed a lack of loyalty to Ami, and not because Ami was trying to help Eliza. The only person that week who ever appeared to be considering a vote against Eliza was Scout, so it certainly didn't appear that Ami saved Eliza that week, since the other popular choice was Rory, not Eliza. The booting of Rory was decided by Julie and Twila, and Ami had nothing to do with it, and what's more, that week, the men were voting for Ami herself, not Eliza. The week, Sarge was voted off in a fairly ho-hum elimination in which Eliza, though the women didn't like her and the guys thought maybe they could exploit that, was not in great danger of being voted off. The only time I can see where Ami played a significant role in Eliza's not being voted off was when Chad was voted off, which happened not because Ami was trying to help Eliza, but because Ami wanted to get rid of Chad in case he started winning immunity. And you can tell it wasn't any particular loyalty to Eliza that drove Ami to "have her back" in that instance, because she voted against Eliza in the very tribal council. In other words, it is true that Scout has often agitated for Eliza to get booted, but it is not true that Ami has had to step in and spare Eliza's neck repeatedly. Nonetheless, Ami has managed to construct an entire mythology in which she has been Eliza's champion, and that Eliza would have been gone several times over if not for Ami's intervention, which just isn't the case. And she's actually using that mythology to cause Eliza to feel guilty about voting against someone who voted against her how recently? Last tribal council. At the time this is all happening, it was literally yesterday. Ami voted for Eliza yesterday, and she's implying that Eliza should feel guilty about voting for her now. It's nuts.
Anyway, in an interview, Eliza adopts the mythology herself, of how Ami has been the one to save her from being voted off, and how Ami has been "like a big sister." A big sister who votes you off before the four other little sisters she likes better, but a big sister nonetheless. Eliza murmurs to Ami as they lie in bed that she feels bad now about the decision she made, presumably last week (which is actually yesterday). Now that she has Eliza set on this path, Ami tells her she shouldn't feel bad, which anyone who has ever dealt with the passive-aggressive in its natural habitat recognizes as Ami for "Please feel even worse." "More than anything else," Eliza says, "I just got my feelings hurt." "We should stop talking about it," Ami declares, "because I don't expect any miracle from you, I should just be quiet." Eliza stares at the ceiling.
The day, there are fish, there is sun...there is happiness all around. Ami, Chris, and Eliza walk back into camp, looking notably cleaner than everyone else. Ami hugs Julie, saying, "Hi, pretty." Hurl. Julie goes on to note that it was especially nice to have Chris clean, because Chris usually doesn't smell so good. I doubt that any of them smells like baby powder right now, so Julie probably shouldn't get too pleased with herself. Scout even hugs Eliza, smelling her hair and asking how the reward was. Eliza pronounces it "fun." When Eliza sees Twila, she calls out, "Hey, T," and Twila smiles, almost shyly. Twila interviews that she suspects Ami worked pretty hard at turning Eliza from the plan. "I am very worried about that," Twila says. "Ami is so pissed off at me and Scout, no telling what all she'd do."
In the shelter, Eliza and Ami pluck each other's eyebrows, and...I would certainly file that under Least Welcome Developments of the New Season, the communal eyebrow plucking. Scout says she's going off to fetch wood, but Ami says that she and Julie and Eliza can't help -- they have to stay behind, because they're waiting for a pot to cool off. "It'll take all three of us, probably, to pour it," says Julie (I believe). "Yeah," someone else says. "Definitely take all three." So Scout -- at sixty years old, not walking well at all, and not having just had a reward, unlike two of these fuckwits under the shelter, goes off by herself to get wood, while they sit there and giggle at her. So when Ami gets high-horsing about how there are just certain things you do because you're such a good person, ask her about letting a pretty obviously injured Scout limp off alone to get wood for the camp. Nobody ever said you had to be nice, but it would be nice if Ami would spend her last days at camp perfecting something other than hypocrisy. Scout interviews that having them shirk the work that needs to be done around camp is pretty irritating. "Ami is a control freak," Scout says. "She likes to control her world and everyone in it." I'm no Scout fan, but...right on, rancher.
Later, as Ami and Julie and Eliza continue to socialize, Ami tells them that Scout is obviously just jealous of Ami. They all agree that this is certainly the explanation. Ami says the same thing in an interview -- that Scout just doesn't like her because she's jealous, hinting that this is because Ami still has a hot body. It's not possible, of course, that Scout turned on Ami after Ami and Leann declared to Scout that they had no intention of taking her to F4. Later, Ami turns up her nose at the manioc stew, saying it's leftovers and she wants to cook some that's fresh -- and, presumably, throw away perfectly good food. Scout protests that they don't have all that much manioc, but Ami insists that she just got some and that they have plenty. Ami interviews that it's like Scout put cayenne pepper in her pants and asked her to dance. And right around here, you start to notice that it's not really Scout who's jealous. Scout is going to be in F4, and Ami knows she's probably not. Just like Twila, Scout has offended Ami by beating her when Ami doesn't think she should be beatable by such a person. It's very human, but it's a little funny watching her throw around such elaborate armchair psychology that makes so little sense. Ami tells us that she thinks Scout needs to see her name written down. And then she tells Chris that the thought of Scout in the top two "makes [her] sick." Yeah, I'll bet. Because she'll be looking at her from the jury. Chris says in an interview that the women are all ripping on each other, and that it's strategically perfect for him. "I don't even think they're looking at me," he says, and I agree. "I'm just sitting back and watching them shoot each other." True, that.
And now, as Scout goes to pick up a blanket, Ami calls out to her from wherever she and her bitchy friends are gathered, "Get your own damn blanket, that's ours!" So now, Ami is basically showing off for her friends, exactly like the girl you knew in eighth grade who would holler loud insults at the least popular girl in your class just so her friends could sit back and chuckle at how cool she was. All she needs is a Trapper Keeper. Chris repeats in his interview that Ami needs to go home, because while they've knocked her down once, he doesn't at all assume she couldn't make a comeback if they aren't careful. If they let that happen, I am going to all of their houses with a newspaper and swatting each of them on the nose.
The sun goes down, and then it is the day. Treemail comes with a little flat orange disc, and the tribe can't make enough sense of the bad poetry to guess at what it might be. Chris interviews that, so far, he hasn't been able to make any headway in physical challenges against the women, and that he badly wants immunity. "Immunity's the only thing that's going to make me safe," he says.
We head to the challenge, which is in a clearing in the woods. Jeff goes to get the immunity necklace from Ami. "I don't think it'll come off," she "jokes," yanking the necklace uselessly because she is so, so funny. Jeff just says, "Try," in this, "Yeah, hilarious, now give me the necklace" voice. Jeff explains that the immunity challenge will revolve around this giant table surface that's right in front of them. The surface has a map of Vanuatu, and they'll each have five pucks with their names on them. (They're about the size of the bottom of a glass, maybe.) You slide the puck across the map and try to get the puck to rest on an island. Touching the island is considered on the island for the purposes of the challenge. You can also knock people's pucks off an island. You can also, however, drop your puck into a "volcano," which is a depression a little bigger than a puck. If you can get in there, then you can't be knocked out, and you'll keep that point for sure. At the end of the game, the person with the most pucks touching any part of an island will win immunity.
First up is Chris. Miss. Twila, miss. Eliza, hit. Ami, hit. Julie banks off the side of the table into the volcano. Dude, that was awesome. She high-fives Chris on the way by. Scout misses, to close out the round. So Eliza, Ami, and Julie each have a point as we head into Round 2. Twila quickly gets in the hunt by hitting with her second puck. Eliza misses. Ami misses. Julie hits and is in the lead. Scout misses, and Ami and Julie have a little laugh at her expense, because old people are hilarious. Chris misses. The sound guy really goes nuts during this challenge, by the way, with gongs and bells and all kinds of stuff to signal that people are missing. I think I'm not the only one who's been bored for a number of weeks until recently. End of the second round, Julie has two, and Eliza, Ami, and Twila each have one. Eliza misses again. Ami misses again. Julie misses. Scout misses. Chris hits. Twila misses. Julie has two; everybody else has one except for Scout, who has zero. Ami opens the fourth round by hitting. Julie misses. Scout hits, finally. Chris knocks Julie off and puts himself on. (Pretty good.) Twila knocks herself on. Eliza not only misses, but knocks off the only one she had. Let us hope that this is not a metaphor for some grander application of Eliza's shooting herself in the foot. So now, Chris has two, Ami has two, Twila has two, Scout and Julie each have one, and Eliza has none. So here we are, in the last round. Julie misses. Scout hits, so she's tied with Chris, Twila, and Ami with two. Chris steps up and...hits. Twila misses. Eliza misses, by a lot. Ami walks up to the board. She surveys the situation. She shoots, she...knocks herself off the board. HA HA HA! My favorite part? Yes, Ami will be finishing with fewer points that Scout or Twila. I don't want to say the volcano gods spit out Ami's pucks or anything, but you never know. So, Chris wins immunity, and the tribe is headed back to camp to see if they can hold it together long enough to get rid of Ami. Please, please, please, get rid of Ami, oh, won't you?
Volcano! We return to camp, where the tribe is congratulating Chris on his victory. Chris is happy that he finally won something. He interviews that he found it "humorous" that "it took a non-physical challenge to beat the chicks." Ugh. STOOOOP. It's like they shipped him in from Operation Petticoat. "I'm looking at it as though I've achieved something great here," he says. Around the fire, Ami gets out her penchant for inadvertent meta-statements and says, "Can you believe I knocked myself off?" Ami interviews that this was one of her weaker challenges, and that it "just happens to be the challenge that I needed the most." Twila and Eliza sit on a rock, and Twila says, "You do know, she's got to go." "But then you're not going to turn around and vote for me, are you?" "No, hon," Twila says. "I swear -- well, I can't [something something]," and she chuckles about not expecting anyone to believe her word in the game anymore, which was a little funny. Eliza is struggling: "It's hard, 'cause, you know, you swore on your son..." I don't get the impression Eliza is trying to guilt Twila; I think she's just explaining why it's hard to believe Twila, and I certainly don't blame Eliza for that. "Yeah," Twila says simply. "I did do that, and that was a mistake. I take it back." Reasonably enough, Eliza points out that that's not so much help for her now. Twila repeats that Eliza has nothing to worry about -- that the four of them are "solid." This is much more the problem with Twila's earlier broken promise -- it's not that it's immoral, but it can make things hard strategically, because how does she promise anybody anything now?
Twila now interviews that she does believe "Ami could influence Eliza." She points out that if Ami wasn't a smooth operator, she wouldn't have gotten as far in the game as she did in the first place. Twila tells Scout that Ami's got just this one day to work on Eliza, and she knows that Eliza doesn't fully trust Twila right now. But Twila is telling the truth! She swears on -- well, never mind.
Ami is off working on Eliza from a guilt perspective as we speak, telling her, "I want you to know that I feel like I've stood up for you five million times [which, as stated previously, is Ami-speak for "once, for my own benefit"], and then, if you kind of, like, throw me off to the side at the very end of the game, that would hurt my feelings." So apparently, Eliza would have to let Ami win in order to avoid hurting her feelings, because Eliza isn't allowed to "throw [Ami] off to the side," and that's what it is if you take part in somebody else's not-winning. I truly do wish Eliza had just said, "Oh, don't worry. I'm voting you out, but I'm not throwing you off to the side personally -- I mean, hey, you weren't throwing me off to the side when you voted me off last week, right?" But of course, she doesn't say that. Ami tells Eliza, in that "I'll just sit here in the corner like a dog" way, that if Eliza just "doesn't give a shit now, then that's how the game goes." It's hard even to itemize the number of stupid things about that speech. But it pales in comparison to this one, given in an interview: "I really thought that I could go through this game and play, like, a fair game all the way through and not have to play dirty. And it just didn't work out. So I'm really vulnerable right now, and Eliza would be the only hope." Oh, Ami's integrity. How nice and bendy you are.
Twila and Chris take a walk, and she asks him whether he thinks Ami and Julie will be able to convince Eliza that she's better off going with them. Chris says there's no way, because Eliza knows that would result in a tie. "Eliza's not going to risk no tie," Chris says. He then explains that, as the tiebreaker has been explained to him, if there's a tie, they'd vote again. And then if the tie isn't broken, the two people with votes are immune, and everybody else has to draw rocks. In other words, there is an enormous incentive to avoid, and to break if necessary, any tie votes that come up. (I doubt they would have shown Chris giving that explanation if it wasn't accurate, so I suspect this explanation has been given to them.) "So Eliza could mess things up real bad," he says finally.
Eliza, as we speak, is off hanging out with Julie and Ami. While Ami is walking around on the rocks, Eliza tells Julie that when she met Ami, she asked Ami to be her big sister. Julie claims that she asked Ami the same thing. You'll remember that Ami was on the opposite alliance from Eliza and Julie at the beginning of the game, so, bullshit. Eliza interviews that voting for Ami would be difficult for her, because she likes Ami so much. She says she also likes Julie: "I have fun with them." She also claims that they've been her friends since early on, so seeing some of the shit-talking Julie has done about her probably hasn't been too pleasant. Julie and Eliza talk about how Twila is all nervous, and Eliza says that her alliance has been pestering her about hanging out with the girls, and hasn't wanted to accept that she's just being social. Asked by Julie who she's "more sick of, Scout or Twila," Eliza names Scout. And then Julie and Eliza have a bitch session about Scout getting a pillow at night. How can that be happening? Well, bitches, she's an old lady, and furthermore, who was it with the "that's our blanket" crap this afternoon? Eliza tells Julie how awesome it would be to engineer a 3-3 vote and surprise Scout, because "she would be so mad." Oh, good grief. If Eliza starts voting to create tribal council scenes that are funny, I'm slashing those brand-new tires. Furthermore, if she thinks anything will be funnier than sending Ami home, I think she is suffering from imagination inadequacies.
Back at the shelter, Chris, Eliza, and Scout are all sitting together when Scout says, "I just feel happy about where we are right now." She turns to Eliza. "Feels good, doesn't it?" Eliza looks at Scout like she just shot a bird right out of the sky and bit its wings off. In an interview, Eliza says that she's having reservations about her alliance, because she doesn't think Scout or Twila would take her to F3, and she thinks Julie and Ami would. She's probably right, and it's a perfectly fair and right thing for her to consider. Of course, that would require (1) getting through the 3-3 tie, which she might not or Julie might not, making the whole thing pointless, and (2) putting aside the fact that Ami and Julie are also much more likely to take late challenges from her than Scout or Twila. Ami interviews that she hopes Eliza will act on their "connection." Bleh.
Tribal council. Everyone walks in and sits down. Sarge, Chad, and Leann enter. Jeff mentions the reactions last week, and how there were the smug people and the happy people and such. Ami admits to having been "shocked," but of course, she doesn't couch this in game terms; she just says she was planning to come home and sleep to Leann, and that Leann didn't come home. It had nothing to do with Ami's seeing her shot at a million dollars vanish. She was just lonely at bedtime. Sniff! Jeff then attacks Scout, probably inappropriately, telling her that she's "the one" who wanted the women to stay strong, and yet she's with Chris. Of course, Ami wanted the women to stay strong just as much, and voted against Eliza. So...shut up, Jeff, and don't take sides like you're doing RIGHT NOW. I hate it when he does that. Even worse, he goes on to ream Scout for only wanting the women to stay together as long as it worked for her, which is exactly what Ami did and everybody else did, so it's unclear to me why Jeff's meddling to this degree and picking on Scout for it.
Ami gets her big opportunity to talk about how offended she is when someone "flat-out disgustingly lies." I certainly hope she felt the same way about Julie and Twila telling the guys they'd vote with them after the merge. Ami says that any person who lies is "written out of [Ami's] life." Wow. It must be difficult when you aren't allowed at your own parties. Twila asks to address this, since Ami is being such an endless bitch about it, and she says that, yes, she swore on her son's name, and she regrets it and asks forgiveness: "But I am not the only freakin' person that has lied in this game. Get over it. Grow up. Get on with it. You've been had. Screw you." Ami laughs, and now Jeff calls her on that. Ami talks about how lying is one thing, but that this was, of course, extra-bad lying. Ami would, in other words, give her word and break it, she just wouldn't say "I swear on blah dee blah." It's like they wrote this whole thing to make the argument in favor of the part of Matthew where Jesus tells you to let your yes be yes and your no be no, because honestly, this is so dumb and petty and makes no sense.
Ami cranks it up by actually mocking Twila's feelings about her son, saying that her son is what Twila "claims" is the most important thing to her, and then Ami talks in this very sarcastic tone about how he's supposed to be the one thing Twila loves the most, supposedly, and that is just so unnecessary. "That is not worth a million dollars," Ami says. "That is not worth a gazillion dollars." Well, there you have it -- Ami's taking the most typical out there is for people who can't stand losing -- "I wasn't beaten; I simply choose not to play that way." It's always a lie, always. Just like it is now, when Ami claims that she was just "sad" about Twila turning out to be such a bad person and so forth. Jeff asks Eliza whether she thinks all of this is "sour grapes" from Ami, and of course, Eliza defends Ami for being upset that she was stabbed in the back, and really...this is so asinine. If you're going to bother getting into game ethics, which you really shouldn't, Ami's nasty behavior is certainly more offensive to me than Twila's telling Ami a lie after Ami and Leann tracked her down and demanded that she swear allegiance to them.
Jeff asks Eliza, if she feels so strongly about backstabbing, how she feels about her own vote against Leann last week. Eliza says that it was a very hard vote, and that she hadn't imagined she would make such close friendships. Leann: "[Bitchface.]" And then the cringeworthy segment follows in which Eliza talks about how nice Ami is to her (other than voting her off, lying to her about having saved her ass a bunch of times, and making her feel terrible about looking out for herself), and Ami cries, and Eliza cries, and it's all so phony it makes my head hurt. If Ami cared about Eliza's feelings, she wouldn't have tortured her with all that "you will so badly hurt my feelings if you vote for me" nonsense. It's fine for Ami to play hard, but you can't have it both ways. Chris looks around impatiently, like, "Fuck all, can we vote, please?" Love him. Interestingly, if Jeff asks Ami why she voted for Eliza last week if she loves her so much, it isn't shown.
Can't vote for Chris, everybody else is up. Go vote. Twila votes for Ami. "Drama queen to the end," she spits. Heh. And, yes. Chris votes. Ami votes for Scout. "Scout, you're pretty good at hiding your nasty side, but when your true colors come out, they're no part of any rainbow I've ever seen." So it would appear to me that that's Ami's obligatory "you're an unworthy lesbian" remark. She is impressive. I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone on this show who is as calculated as Ami in trying to find damaging things to say to people. It's just an unbelievable thing to say to a woman who's been gay a lot longer than Ami, and who's been dealing with it a lot longer than Ami, and who is in her own committed relationship. To cast doubt on someone's...whatever this is, sexuality credentials? It's just gross, and petty, and the only person it reflects poorly on is Ami. Julie votes. Scout votes for Ami: "Queens get dethroned, and a lightning will strike a lone tree on top of a mountain faster than anything." Yeah, that was pretty dopey, but you'll notice it's game-related, addressing Ami as a cocky power player rather than Ami as an unworthy human being. Eliza votes.
Jeff returns with the Urn-O-Votes. First vote, Ami. Second vote, Scout. Third vote, Ami. Fourth vote, Scout. Fifth vote, Ami. Sixth vote...Ami. So Ami -- who's been bugging me for so long -- is finally gone. Eliza, I must say, does not look that sad, now that it's happening. "Good luck, all you young'uns," Ami says as she passes the group, unable to resist the urge to fling a little more bitterness at Scout and Twila on her way out. It's also the precursor to the little lie Ami's undoubtedly going to be telling herself, that she was voted out by jealous older people. SNUFF! Oh, I could watch that all day. Finally, she walks away and we don't have to look at her anymore. ["To me, it looked like she also flipped off her former co-competitors over her shoulder, but that they pixilated her finger out." -- Wing Chun] And when she's gone, Eliza smiles all the way through Jeff's summing-up speech, so I really don't think Ami's work had as much effect as it seemed like it might. I've seen people really torn up over bootings before, and they don't look like Eliza looks here. I think Eliza is perfectly happy with her choice, and good for her. They head back to camp.
In her farewell interview, Ami says she'd like to hold Twila underwater for two minutes, and that would make her feel better. But aside from the homicidal fantasies, she's not bitter. She goes on to say that her "integrity is complete." She is such a silly person, and it is such a relief that she finished sixth and will vanish into the fog of history like the blip she has always deserved to be. Oh, and she includes a note to the effect that Eliza is among Ami's real, true friends, notwithstanding the absolutely crap-ass way she treated Eliza throughout the episode.
week: Twila gets mad. Eliza gets mad. Chris still thinks women is crazy!