Previously: the season. Well, those ten minutes went quickly. Maybe we can all get out of here in a couple of pages and return to our lives before you can say "burnt coconut-manioc-plantain stew."
Credits. You know, I'll tell you: what really disappointed me about this season was that it seemed initially like there might be some sort of volcano theme or motif at some point, and it just never materialized. Damn those unrealized expectations.
Skull! Volcano! Moon! (That's good for triple-motif points, for those of you playing the home game.) It is Night 36 at Alinta, and the tribe has just returned from the removal of Julie. And Eliza, shockingly, is complaining about the heartbreak of tribal council. Which I think may qualify as a fourth motif, although I may have to await a ruling from the judges. She was so happy when she voted to boot Twila, because she thought it would go that way! She was so thrilled! Chris voices over that, indeed, he voted against Julie and "took Eliza by surprise." Which isn't too difficult, provided you know how to walk quietly and make like a book with lots of words in it so she doesn't pay any attention to you. Chris adds that Julie "pulled a fast one" after the merge when she returned to the women rather than staying with Lopevi, so he "got her back." Indeed. So if you're keeping track of which motive is the frontrunner in the dart-throwing contest that is the race to the finish, that's one point in favor of "revenge."
Eliza goes on around the fire, babbling for everyone's benefit about how difficult it is for her to know whom to trust when it almost seems like everybody else is trying to keep her from winning. Man, she hates that. She continues her noisy complaints about hearing one thing and then hearing something else, almost as if there is trickery afoot, and Chris -- temporarily putting aside his efforts to keep her on his side in favor of his ever more pressing need to get her to shut her blinking yap -- says, "Part of the game, Eliza." Eliza, however, is also still unhappy about Twila making the comment (or the implied comment) that Eliza "didn't deserve to be" in the final five, whatever the hell that means in a game where you can win prizes by answering questions about other people's personal hygiene or whatever. Twila -- unable to leave well enough alone and determined to drive off any remaining jury votes she possibly can -- overhears and repeats that she doesn't think Eliza deserves to be around, so there. Eliza, Twila maintains, is only here as a result of "riding people's coattails." Not really possible, but let's not do that argument again. When Eliza tries to argue for her own usefulness, Twila rips into her for not doing anything around camp but "boil[ing] freaking water." And as I recall, she wasn't great at that. Of course, it's not a real survival competition, and you're not graded on how hard you work, so this is all just a little silly. It's also rather striking, the way Twila is doing a greatest-hits version of the arguments I hate. And I think we know that "I played with integrity" will be making an appearance soon. Maybe somebody will say "fly under the radar." Granted, they'll probably stay away from "think outside the box," but you can't have everything.
Eliza, in spite of the fact that she doesn't really need to defend how "deserving" she is to Twila, decides to continue and thus validate this silly line of reasoning by countering that perhaps Twila herself doesn't deserve to be there. Her problem being that she doesn't seem to know why not. "At least I played the game and worked hard," Twila says sharply as she continues to prepare for bed. "Working hard is not necessarily playing the game," Eliza says with the mysterious tone that a remark can only muster if it has high intelligence or a total absence of content. Eliza goes on to argue that it's more important to have energy at challenges, and points out that she has emerged victorious in a couple of noteworthy instances, so maybe she knows what she's doing. Twila gets frustrated at Eliza for abruptly making a good argument, and snots that Eliza of course has plenty of energy, since she doesn't work around camp. Eliza's response has lots of squeaky sputtering in it, but it amounts to "Well, duh." "If you conserved your energy," Eliza says, growing squeakier by the minute, "maybe you could do better at challenges." And then the music comes to a halt, and there is literally chirping, and then Eliza adds, "Probably not, but maybe." Heh. Twila throws in a sarcastic "Probably not; you're right," because she can't think of anything else. Repetition is the last refuge of the gobsmacked. "The only reason you're here, Eliza, is because everybody's used you up to this point," Twila says, finally gathering her thoughts. Well, Twila, you can tell that to Sandra, who's entire million-dollar-winning philosophy was, "Use me! Use me!"
Later, around the fire with only Chris, Eliza says that Twila is "a dumb bitch." Which, if it doesn't go well for her, will sort of make her a dumb bitch's bitch, so I'm not sure why she went in that direction. She laments to Chris that she can't stand the idea of seeing either Scout or Twila in the final two. Eliza questions Chris about whether he's going to stick with an alliance to her, and he assures her that what he did with Julie was for the benefit of their alliance. Would he lie to her? You know...again? He also reminds Eliza that Julie wasn't exactly concerned about Eliza when it was Julie's neck at stake. "She voted for you," Chris says. "Remember?" Well -- well -- Eliza's not concerned about Julie right now, but nice doubletalk, there, My Pretty Ponytail. Eliza hesitates again. "Ye of little faith," Chris says with some disappointment. "Why don't you just put a little bit of faith in the person you aligned with?" Eliza starts to ask what they're going to do about F4, and whether he thinks they can get Twila or Scout to turn on the other, which is obviously the problem with this plan and obviously the reason it probably won't go the way Chris is telling her it will, and Chris tells Eliza that now isn't the time to discuss it. And because Eliza is not as smart as she sometimes seems any more than she is as dumb as she sometimes seems, she lets it go at that. Chris interviews that he hasn't thought much of the women in the tribe since he wound up the only guy with six of them. He adds that he finds that the fact that Eliza and Twila can't stand each other makes life interesting. Because Chris loves the chick fighting. And...volcano!
It rolls over to the morning, and Chris is by the fire, where it is Day 37 at Alinta. Scout combs her hair with some kind of a pick (it's a shame this isn't like The Flintstones, where it would turn out to be a crab or a row of birds tied to a twig). Eliza, still sporting that tiny hickey on her forehead where someone tried to drink her through a straw (which almost appears possible), tells us that while she would have expected herself to be around at the end, it wouldn't have been with these people. She then claims that it's fairly clear, with four people left, who will stick together and who will vote against whom. Presumably, Eliza is now confident that Chris will happily march into a tie that will expose him to the risk of booting rather than break his alliance to Eliza. Why would he do this? I'm just not sure. She acknowledges that Scout and Twila have wanted to get rid of her for a long time, so she's sure they'll enjoy that part. She says that she badly wants to win immunity, and that if she doesn't, she certainly hopes Chris will. I'm not sure what difference that makes, really. Who cares if Scout or Twila wins immunity? You'd just vote out the other one under Eliza's plan, wouldn't you? And as a matter of fact, it seems to me that if Eliza believes Twila and Scout won't turn on each other, she would actually rather Chris not win immunity if she doesn't, because her one opportunity to avoid an otherwise inevitable tie would be to convince them to get rid of Chris, no? I suppose it can only be mean that Eliza is hoping Chris will get Scout to turn on Twila or Twila to turn on Scout, and that if he has immunity, both of those options remain open. Or else, Eliza has swallowed too much seawater and gone goofy.
A wailing voice takes us over to the challenge area. I feel you, wailing voice. Jeff welcomes the final four. He takes the immunity necklace back from Eliza, and then introduces what they're calling, not unreasonably, a "vertical maze." You can think of it as a really big jungle gym that has the additional challenge of only being traversable in particular ways, and you'll be about right. Each person will be assigned a color, and they'll each go around the maze picking up ten pairs of tiles in their color. When they've gotten all their tiles, they'll untie each pair, and each pair will contain a letter tile. Whoever arranges the letters into a two-word, ten-letter phrase first wins immunity.
"Survivors ready...go!" So as usual, Scout is never in it. It's a battle among the other three, and as usual, there's very little substantive recapping to be done. Because you don't really want to read a whole page of "[person] climbs up" and "[person] climbs down," and unfortunately, nobody's blurred ass hangs out or anything. Suffice it to say that Chris, Twila, and Eliza all perform similarly and adequately. And people keep almost stepping on Scout. Chris eventually stakes himself to a small lead, and although it takes him a couple of minutes to sort out the word puzzle, he manages to win immunity, and is mightily excited, as I think he believes this to have been his moment of greatest peril. It certainly would have been had Eliza won immunity, which she almost did. Anyone else in this final four would have been wise to realize that Chris had more jury votes in his pocket than the rest of them, and I suspect Twila and Scout would have turned on him and gone to F3 with the less popular Eliza and not even been all that heartbroken over it. And Chris knows it, so when he wins, there is much "YEAH!"-ing and fist-pumping. It's one of the few major displays we've seen from Chris this season, actually. Jeff calls Chris over and puts the immunity necklace on him. He then intones that, after thirty-seven days, one of the three remaining women will be taking a powder.
Back at camp, Chris points out that it's a beautiful day, after acknowledging that it's easy for him to say so, what with winning and all. He interviews that he "needed [immunity] bad." He then returns to his now-boring "last man standing" theme one more time, because it's only been stale for about three weeks, and when it comes to compelling dynamics, nobody can get enough of Lone Man Against A Tribe Of Angry Broads. That's why it's featured in many of the universe's great paintings. He voices over that, at this point, the alliances that have been formed throughout the course of the game have little meaning, but you'd never know it from the footage of him, Scout, and Twila sharing a big pre-tribal-council hug. Scout prattles to Chris about how she's waited for the day when they could be the final three -- and, presumably, the day when they could hose Eliza. "It's gonna happen tonight," Chris says. Twila smirks in an interview about how she "want[s] to gloat" about getting rid of Eliza tonight. She then laughs to Chris about whether this means she doesn't need to pack a bag. Chris interviews that Twila bugs the crap out of him sometimes, so he was trying to keep her calm all day. And in what I think is actually one of his better maneuvers, Chris tells Twila that he thinks she should wait until just before tribal council and then just gloat all over Eliza about how she's going home. While this is a good idea, it is not an especially subtle one, and to her credit, Twila sees right through it and says in an interview that Chris just wants her to piss everyone off so that they vote for him. Hee. That sequence was one of the few that made them both seem deserving of where they eventually wound up.
Chris now has a conversation with Scout in which he recalls that she originally approached him with some kind of a plan. I'm not sure there's much point to this conversation except for them to stand around cementing their mutual loyalty. I hate cementing. Scout tells him that she wanted to play the game with him from the day they met. Apparently, Chris is not as excited about playing the game with Scout, considering that he then laments in an interview needing to "put up with three women all afternoon." I'm telling you, his fiancée must be so proud at moments like that. She must hope all their babies are girls.
Chris heads off for a talk with Eliza, where he assures her that the two of them will vote for Twila and force the tie, and then "whatever happens, happens." Eliza grins. Her hickeyette winks in the Vanuatu sunlight. Chris tells Eliza in a voice he hopes sounds good and gloaty that Scout and Twila have no idea what's coming, because he's never let on to them that he has an alliance with her. Eliza interviews that she feels fortunate to be in the final four with "someone that I feel that I can put all my trust into." Namely, Chris. And apparently, the fact that he is lying to Twila and Scout doesn't really bother her. You'd think he would think it was really mean, considering how she's going to act later, wouldn't you? She smiles and preens as she voices over that neither of them will be voting against the other. You'd think she'd get the vibe of herself being all Marcia Brady, "I'm beautiful and noble," brushing her hair in the mirror. And, you know, maybe stop being so snotty before she winds up playing Juliet's mother. But no, we then watch as Eliza chats with Scout and tells her that she should try to get in with Chris and make some kind of a deal, because Twila already is, and Eliza would rather see Scout and Chris in the final two than Twila. So...I guess that's supposed to be some kind of a fake-out where, in Eliza's mind, she's fooling Scout into thinking that Eliza is resigned to her fate? This is getting so tricky. When Eliza "teases" Scout about joining up with her against Twila, Scout "teases" that she's considered it. Is this supposed to be exciting? This is like watching two heads of lettuce play canasta.
There is more fire-sitting as Chris voices over that "there's no loyalty" at this point, and that he is only interested in winning, and seriously, you could so totally take this portion of the show from any season, and it would be interchangeable with any other season. It's like they're not on the show; they're participating in a summer-camp skit in which they all act like they're on the show. Except there's no funny part where the whole thing turns out to be about farting. "Hell with everybody else," Chris says with a shrug. Again, that kind of risk-taking bravado would be so daring if somebody didn't say basically the same thing every season. I'm in it for myself! I'm out to win this game! I didn't come here to play for second! This isn't about friendship! I have to play the game!
Tribal council. The final four enter, and then the jury walks in. Julie gives Chris a look, and Chris obligingly tries to stare at the ground like he feels bad. And like he's not about to do exactly the same thing. Jeff brings up the long game they've been playing, and he reminds Chris that he's the one with immunity, as if he's forgotten. Jeff asks Eliza to recall the very first challenge, in which there was one guy who couldn't even cross the balance beam. "This guy right here," she says, as if it's a quiz and she knows the answer and will now get a cookie, as she pats Chris on the leg. Chris tries to look suitably embarrassed, and "jokingly" "chastises" Jeff for bringing it up. For some reason, they're showing Sarge and Chad staring coldly, as if they've never forgiven Chris for not getting over the balance beam or something. Odd editing moment. Jeff asks Eliza how she feels about Chris's having immunity, and she says that if she couldn't have it, she's glad Chris has it. And again, I'm just not sure I get that, but her thinking may be more advanced than I'm giving her credit for. HAHAHAHA...just kidding. It's totally not.
Once again, Jeff brings up the animosity between Eliza and Twila, and Eliza shows off all her shiny teeth as she talks happily about, in contrast, her "strong bond" with Chris. Julie is probably over in the jury box grinding her teeth. Well, or crying. Jeff moves on to Twila, asking her about the fact that no matter how strong any of her friendship "bonds" may be, she's always been up-front about not trusting anyone. "Exactly," she says. He asks her if she still feels that way, and by way of answer, Twila smiles and holds up her packed bag, which she has brought along just in case. And it's full of poisonous spiders! Just kidding. Twila does add, however, that this is her first night "at peace," and Eliza turns around and gives a puzzled look like, "Why does she think that?" to Chris. Chris tries to appear conflicted. This should be where Eliza gets nervous, but I don't think it is. Jeff then asks Scout about the fact that somebody is obviously going to be surprised to be voted out, and Scout basically says that she would be surprised if it were her, but that she knows it's possible. Jeff then asks Chris about his "driver's seat" position as the guy who appears to be in with all three of the women. Chris agrees, but adds that his focus is still on "playing the game," no matter what friendships he may have developed. He says that he'll be putting his friendships on the back burner and playing. And you can tell that all three of the women in the final four are like, "Well, he doesn't mean his friendship with me." Which is awesome.
Jeff asks Twila if she ever looks back and wonders whether she was "a little rough" on a particular day. She begins her campaign for jury votes by saying, "Most definitely." She says she's made "major mistakes," and Ami gives the first patented Ami eye-roll of the evening. God, other people are so uninteresting. And they don't have integrity, and they smell bad. Twila gently tries to take a swat at the elephant in the room by bringing up her decision to swear on her son, which she knows the bastards on the jury are still holding against her. She describes herself as "very ashamed," but says she can't undo it. Jeff asks Twila what she thinks James will have to say about being sworn upon, and basically, she laughs that if she wins, he won't care. Which, of course, the stupid jurors sit there looking all condemning about, but if your mother worked the kind of hours Twila apparently does and had been taking care of you all your life, you'd be a pretty big dickhead if you didn't forgive her for a single misstep, and you would indeed want her to win, because it would mean she wouldn't have to knock herself on her ass twenty-six hours a day anymore. In other words? Cram your sanctimony, Sarge. Twila repeats, at any rate, that she certainly shouldn't have done it. So are we clear on that? She regrets it? Oh, good.
Jeff asks Chris whether he's giving up immunity -- after telling him that he would be "a fool" if he did -- and Chris (obviously) chooses to keep it. Jeff sends people off to vote. Eliza votes for Twila. "Twila, I am voting for you for the third time this game," she says. "You're like the cockroach that won't die under the refrigerator. Hopefully, you're going home tonight." I think something went wrong with that cockroach metaphor somewhere around "refrigerator," but that's all right. Scout votes. Twila votes for Eliza. "You have drove [sic] me crazy from day one. If you go home tonight, it's going to be the happiest night since I've been here. You've got a lot of growing up to do." I love the sisterhood, don't you? Chicks rule! Boys drool! Chris votes.
Jeff goes for the urn. First vote, Eliza. Second vote, Twila. Third, Eliza. Fourth...Eliza. Eliza turns around and tries to give Chris the evil eye. Chris is un-evil-eye-able. Twila smirks, and then she actually grins with teeth and hunches up her shoulders, all happy. Which is probably a little much. Eliza walks over to Jeff and is snuffed. And I was kind of sad, because I was enjoying Eliza's plucky and highly unlikely race to the end. Except when she was sort of a bitch. But sometimes that was good, too. Anyway. Farewell, Eliza. Get that thing looked at. She turns around and looks at Chris one more time, and he makes a face that I hope was edited in from elsewhere, because it's basically a gratuitous fuck-off shrug, and I would hate to think he lost his judgment enough to make that face at her right after she was eliminated and before she voted. Eliza walks off. Jeff tells the remaining three that they'll do one more challenge tomorrow, and then it will be time for the winner to take somebody to F2. In her adios interview, Eliza discusses how "shocked" she was that Chris voted her out. "Turns out I did not have a single ally this entire game," she says. Meaning someone who would put aside their own interests in favor of yours? No. No, you probably didn't. Marathon runners have the same problem when they discover everybody's always trying to, like, pass them and stuff.
The group paddles over toward the Island of Sacred Camera Setups. When they get there, they walk up the beach and head for the first torch. Brook. Remember Brook? Yeah, me neither. And nobody has anything to say about him at all, literally. They're like, "Oh, Brook. That was a guy, right? What's up with that? That's a chick's name." But that doesn't stop Brook from bragging in his little interview about his incredibly demanding...three-day experience.
Twila calls Dolly "very personable," and compliments her lovely eyes. Dolly reflects on her indecisiveness and how it kicked her ass. Poor Dolly. I think she feels sheepish.
John P. says that the experience will change the way he looks at things. Because now, he'll be looking at them from his seat at the Really Really Big Table Of Slightly Famous People In L.A. That You Totally Recognize From Something But You Can't Figure Out What It Is But It Might Be Elimidate. In the first of several extremely funny snark-ass edits in the Dead Survivor sequence, John P.'s comments about appreciating other people "emotionally" are played over footage of his incredibly uncomfortable attempts to navigate the hugging challenge without hugging any other boys. That edit cannot be an accident, and it was as funny as all hell.
Mia says that she usually gets along with people, but she didn't in this case, because she's Italian. Great excuse. Very convincing. ["Yeah, don't drag the rest of us down with you just because you're an unpleasant biznatch." -- Wing Chun]
And then...oh, Brady. Brady, Brady. Why couldn't we be together longer? He says that he's not sure he could have done anything different, and I'm sure he couldn't do anything to make himself stay longer in the game, although more nudity during his limited tenure would have really been appreciated by those of us in the cheap seats. And really, if you have the right frame of mind, every seat is cheap.
Bubba is declared "awesome" by Chris, and then Bubba tells us that he learned all about himself. Or something. And what he learned is that Bob Barker isn't attractive enough to wear on your belly for weeks.
Lisa is still mad about the fact that her one comment got her thrown out of the game. "At least I went out with my word," she says. Because when all else fails, there is always moral self-congratulation to fall back on.
John K. explains that he's kind of pissed that he didn't win. Yes, that's all he has to say, reflections-wise.
Rory says that he has no regrets, because he loved Vanuatu more than anyone, and that's what he wanted. Aside from the money.
Sarge -- still angling for opportunities to prove how much better he is than everyone else -- tells us that his mistake was placing trust in people based on demographics (like who was old and who was young) rather than according to their character. Translation: "I shouldn't have aligned myself with Twila just because she was old and had a twang."
Pretty, pretty Chad takes aim with the slingshot in slo-mo as he voices over that his "soul-searching" exposed him to a variety of emotions. He exposed me to a variety of emotions, too, and some of them were fairly naughty. Thanks, Chad!
Leann tells us that, on some days, she just wanted to be at home eating cake. Huh. I sure am surprised she didn't win.
A lusty shot of Ami in her bikini takes us into her inevitable and unwelcome voice-over, which concerns her girl-power strategy and the way the women were "definitely a force to be reckoned with," right up until the horrible point when they were forced to eat each other and wackiness ensued.
Oh, Julie. "The little sister I never had," Chris says. In the second hysterically snarky edit, Julie talks about the battle raging inside her about "what to expose and what not to" as we see her blurred naked ass lying on the beach. She claims to "feel good" about how she played at the end, aside from the part where she got her ass voted off, probably. She's just happy about all the parts where she was nice.
And then finally, there is Eliza, and no one even tries to find anything nice to say about her, which I think sucks. You could at least give her props for making the final four even though everyone hated her and tried repeatedly to get rid of her. Eliza says that this was "the best experience of [her] life." And there you have it: the March of Dead Survivors.
Chris, Scout, and Twila walk up to the grave site of Roy Mata, and they try to appear serious and ceremonial. Chris's offering is the spirit rock from the first night. I'm sure the chief really appreciates getting his rock back and everything, but I think when you're dead, you don't need a spirit rock, because you're already a spirit. Scout's offering is one of the chief staffs, which she dedicates to "a man who actually gave his life on behalf of peace." Scout is officially the Doofus In Search Of Meaning. Twila has a staff to offer as well. "Thanks for letting us stay on your island," she says, in the manner of an after-the-fact thank-you note written to your aunt after she puts you up at her summer house. Scout voices over that she loved walking where "indigenous people have walked for hundreds and hundreds of years." Except that the place had been declared taboo, so according to Jeff, nobody ever went there after old Roy was buried. I'm not trying to be picky, but...you know, there's a flaw in there somewhere. They all deliver another "thank you" to the dead chief, and then mercifully, we're done with this entire segment, which was skeevy. This show's fetishizing of native cultures never hits me quite the way they intend. It's like they're turning the world into one big It's A Small World ride.
Oh, and then Scout speaks...some language that isn't English. Because that helps with the peace part.
We float up to the immunity challenge location, which is on some rocks near the water. Jeff welcomes the final three, and begins by revoking Chris's immunity necklace. Then he explains how immunity will work. Each person will take a bow and arrow, and they'll draw the arrow back. They'll have to stand on a little pair of stumps, both balancing and keeping the bow cocked. (Or whatever.) If you let go of the arrow so that it breaks a little paper barrier, or if you step down on the platform from the stumps (although, notably, not if you take a foot off of a stump), you'll be out. Winner goes to F2.
Ready...set...go. They stand. They hold. The sun shines. This is as exciting as ever. Jeff comments on the fact that the sun is shining. Before long, predictably, Scout allows her arrow to break the paper, so she's done. That was not very suspenseful, that part. If you didn't know this was coming down to Twila and Chris, you don't know jack, and you deserve not to win the pool in your office. The thirty-minute mark comes and goes. Chris decides to go for the deal. "You know the outcome, Twila," he says. "It's good as gold, Twila." She tells him that he should be the one to give up, given that he had immunity last time. Chris counters that he's proved his loyalty to her twice in a row. Twila responds with unique eloquence: "I might fall off this thing or ram this thing through my ass, but I sure as hell ain't gonna step down off this pole." Heh. "Hold your focus, Twila," Scout says, drawing Chris's attention. He comments that this "speaks volumes," presumably about Scout and Twila's relationship with each other. "I think I know where you're coming from, so you'd better stay up 'ere." Now, what was the point of that? Even if Chris had concluded she couldn't be trusted, this isn't when you tell her that! "The challenge is on," Jeff says, and all I can think about is when Ross was all, "Challenge accepted!" in that one episode of Friends where they played trivia for Monica and Rachel's apartment. At some point, I promise, all my really outdated pop-culture references will stop popping into my head an inopportune moments and making me look old.
Time passes. We reach the fifty-five-minute mark, according to Jeff. Chris asks Scout whether she's rooting for Twila. Scout demurs.
Later, Jeff asks Twila if she's feeling it in her forearms, and she says she is. Chris, on the other hand, maintains that "it's too early," and that he's not hurting yet. Jeff asks Twila if she believes Chris. "Not at all," she chuckles. Jeff asks Chris why, if he and Twila really trust each other, he doesn't just take a powder. "'Cause I want to win," Chris says, trying to seem adorably shy. "'Cause I want to win," Twila repeats with a smile.
The sun beats down. It is later. Twila and Chris try to psych each other out by talking about the heat. And then, the ending develops. Twila bobbles on the stumps, and as she's trying to right herself, she lets the arrow go through the paper. At one hour and seven minutes, Chris takes home the final immunity. He pumps his fists at the sky. And then he hurls his Ohio State hat. No, not the Ohio State hat! Actually, it can probably get up on its own at this point and swim away. Twila looks at the ground and shakes her head, and then Jeff hands Chris the final immunity, as Chris tries to act grave. Jeff tells Chris that he has the afternoon to figure out whom he would like to take with him to F2. There is one more fist-pump before we leave the challenge site.
After the challenge, the final three return to camp in their boat, and Chris interviews that he's "still pretty shocked" to have walked away with immunity. "Long day," he says to Scout and Twila. "You're probably the toughest chick I've ever met," he tells Twila. Which would be nice, if he weren't already famous for all that "women are snarling cats" crap floating around in his head. I kind of wish she had punched him, because he would have deserved it. "I just question what your decision would have been if you'd won," he says as he hugs her. "No," she responds. "No, no." We then learn from a Twila interview that she and Chris have had an agreement about going all the way to F2. She says that she's not sure now what he'll do, because Chris might think that she tried to stay in the challenge in order to go forward with Scout instead. "But it's not true," she insists. Indeed, Chris interviews that Scout's decision to cheer for Twila made him suspect that Twila and Scout might have an arrangement about F2, or at least that Scout thinks she has a shot in that circumstance. In fact, he goes so far as to say, "I guarantee you they had a pact." And then he says that if he finds out that's true, he won't necessarily take Twila to F2. Of course, if that's true, and he would have changed his decision based on what he discovered about Scout and Twila's arrangements, he's not as good a player as I thought, because there is zero reason to figure that into his thinking at this point. The only thing you want to be considering is whom you think you can beat. This is no time to get back at people for making side deals.
Chris sits down with Scout and tries to look at her all intense-like, saying that he "need[s] [her] to be honest" about what's going on between her and Twila. "I don't know who I'm pickin'," he says meaningfully. "Did you and Twila have an agreement to go to the final two together?" Scout tells him no. She and Twila had an agreement to go to the final four, and an agreement to get rid of Eliza. And that's the span of the Scout/Twila alliance. Chris tells Scout that Twila told him the same thing -- that she had no deal with Scout -- and he didn't believe her. He then interviews that Scout's honesty surprised him, because Scout had to know that a different answer, even if false, could potentially have improved her odds of going to the end. Which I suppose is true, but...I'm not sure Scout would see any advantage in telling Chris a lie about this at this point, truthfully, even though Chris says that if Scout had told him they had a deal, "Twila would have been packing tonight, for sure." As to Scout, Chris says, "She's honest, and I respect her for that." He's going to grind her up like an allspice berry, but he respects her. He adds that some jurors will go on likeability, and some of them will go on game play, and he's not sure who will do what. I'm not even sure if he thinks he'll get the likeability people or the game play people. I suppose he's safe with the literalists who think Twila agreed to subject her son to human sacrifice, but that's about all I would count on. Chris and Twila share a hug, and in a tiny interview snippet, he says that he might just make his mind up at tribal council. Although...if Scout has now cleared up his one doubt, what's the problem?
But anyway, here we are, at the least interesting F3 tribal council ever. Because really...who cares? Especially about Scout. I mean, who cares? I suppose that's a failure on my part to get into the spirit, but...really. Anyway, the jury comes in. Eliza has had a chance to put some cover-up on that thing on her head, so we have a clear and uninterrupted view of her hairline-to-chin bitchface as she sits down behind Julie. Jeff opens the discussion by confronting Chris about the way he started trying to deal with Twila as soon as Scout was out. They have a sort of a stupid conversation about how Twila's quitting would have been a great deal for Chris. Again, I just hate the feeling that I have that this entire finale is made up of blander versions of things that have gone on in other finales. All of the attempts to make this "interesting," as here, where they're trying to make some kind of an adventurous point that it's easy for Chris to suggest that Twila drop out, and the fact that he wouldn't drop out instead means that they don't really have trust? I mean, we have this argument every season. Enough.
Anyway, Chris allows that Twila's very tough, and that he doesn't blame her for not quitting. Thank you, Chris. That's quite an insight. Jeff goes on to ask Chris whether he was "approached" after winning immunity, and just to make sure that nothing interesting happens, he says that he wasn't. They basically left him alone. Scout tells that she looooves everyone, so "there can't be a bad outcome in this game." Jeff asks Twila whether she thinks that a bad outcome is possible, and she says that it certainly is. Because she wants to win, and that's her focus, and that's the fact, Jack. "I don't want to settle for third," she says. Jeff asks Chris whether, in light of those differing reactions, it would be easier to boot Scout. It's kind of a dumb-ass question, because if you watch the dynamics, I actually think Chris is a lot more likely to get Twila's vote than Scout's, no matter how angry Twila might wind up about not being taken to F2. Scout is not going to give her vote to anybody but Twila in an F2 situation. Chris, at any rate, says that he admires Scout for having been willing to change the game for her benefit and others' benefit. He also admires Twila's tenacity and her willingness to do anything to win. But ultimately, he's only interested in his own ability to win, so reasonably enough, he plans to take whomever he can beat. Jeff goes through a big explanation of what the final vote from Chris means, in case you were thinking that Chris's chosen person would now be eligible for the National Spelling Bee. I don't want to say anything, but I think Jeff thinks you might be a little s-l-o-w.
But anyway. Chris drops his lonely vote into the urn, and at least Jeff is kind enough not to say he's going to go and tally it. He pulls out the vote, which says...Scout. True to her word, Scout hugs everyone. She doesn't mind. The bitches on the jury all are shown looking happy that it was Scout, but I'm not sure they're thrilled that Twila got to stay, so I'm not sure what the point of that shot was. I would have been surprised if it had said "Twila" and they had all burst into tears. Scout walks off on her iron knee. Jeff talks about how the jurors hold everyone's fate in their hands, blah dee blah. And now, Chris and Twila have one night together, so there will be lots of nookie. Okay, not really. Wouldn't that be great, though? I'm thinking it would be impressively loud, with lots of swearing. Anyway, Scout exit-interviews that she's so proud of having changed the game and been loyal right up until it didn't benefit her anymore. And isn't that the best kind of loyalty? The kind the lasts up until the moment it competes with self-interest?
When we return, it is the last day. Day 39 at Alinta. Chris and Twila are rattling around camp by the fire, and Chris is marveling at the final pot of manioc he will ever prepare, and the last time he will probably eat it in his life. Chris is going low-carb, I think. Twila interviews that she's proud, and that once she turned things around for herself, it went great. She and Chris chat about how many people Twila pissed off in the game, and Chris counters that they weren't exactly "kissing [his] feet" late in the going, either. He interviews that he's "feeling stress," and for some reason says that he "never imagined" he'd have stress on this particular day. On million-dollar day? Dummy. Chris claims that he had planned to get up and just enjoy himself, but then he saw the opportunity to play the game some more. We watch as he engages Twila in a conversation about the jury, in which he tells her that he doesn't intend to take crap from the jury and encourages her to rip into the jury all she wants, because that's what he's doing. And if she doesn't see that coming from a mile away, the mental highways on which she is working have an obstructed view. Chris interviews, for the dumb people among you, that he's trying to get Twila to remind the jury just how pissed off they were at her. "I really don't know if I'm inclined to sit there and let them do that," he oh-so-craftily tells her, referring to his expectation that the jury will try to pound them both for being the last two. Very proud of himself, Chris interviews that, in fact, he has no intention of being rude to the jury. And it is here that I begin to think that Chris may be overthinking the situation.
Twila lies in the hammock and voices over that she is "apprehensive about tonight." She says that she thinks the deserves the money because she played the best. She "didn't suck up to anybody," for one thing, and I'm not sure when that became good game play. She says she never was less than genuine, and hopes the jury won't hold it against her that she "outwitted and outplayed" them. Apparently, she has never seen the show. She and Chris have another hug as they're getting ready to leave camp, and then they sit in the hammock together. And when they do, the string abruptly breaks, and it dumps them on their asses. Twila breaks out in laughter. "What an ending," Chris says. I'm sure we could come up with some incredible ass-breaking metaphor, but I won't. Because this episode is so long already. Chris interviews that, as they approach tribal council, he's more and more concerned that the women's alliance will, "out of spite," vote for Twila just to keep the women's alliance from being all for naught. Then he and Twila pack up their gear, discuss how "wild" the experience was, and take off. And there is one last lingering shot of the "coffee" setup, because Folgers paid good money and wants something.
As they walk to tribal council, Twila talks about how she will remember for a lifetime her "sense of pride" about playing the game. And it was great, and it was an adventure, and yak yak yak. Chris says that it's "ironic," and tries for a very, very stretched analogy where he won on this island even though the island is all about chiefs and he wasn't the chief in the tribe of six women and him. That is just a little too thin of a thread, there. "Now, it's down to me and a woman," he says, as if that matters. He also claims that even just being the last guy in the game would be "an accomplishment."
Vvvvvvolcano! And then...the final tribal council. And the members of the jury enter, accompanied by loud drumbeats on each of their names. Ominous! They all sit. Jeff begins by snagging the immunity necklace back from Chris. He congratulates Chris and Twila by getting to the end, but says that now, they'll have to sit here and be berated endlessly for being better at the game than the whiny babies with whom they are about to be confronted. He tells them that they'll each get to "make an opening statement" (ugh), and then the jury will ask them questions, and they'll throw around a lot of bullshit, and then they'll say some more crap, and then the jury will vote for whomever they were going to vote for anyway, based on what they think will reflect most positively on them and prove that they didn't really care about winning anyway, they just cared about playing with integrity. If you disagree with any portion of this description, I humbly suggest you have never seen the show.
Chris's opening statement says that he deserves to win, not only because he was "loyal to the alliances that [he] made throughout the game," but because he overcame such long odds, given the fact that he was the last guy with all those chicks. Julie already appears to be wiping away a tear, which...come on. I am convinced someone is peeling an onion just off-camera. In Twila's opening statement, she says that the only thing she wanted to do in the game was win the money for herself and her kid. She says she didn't do everything exactly right, but that everything was just done to win. "I worked hard for it," she says.
The first person to get a shot at the jury is Eliza. Wearing her black-and-white tube top with the little black bow on it, she says that she wants to start with some comments. She tells Twila that she "achieved what [she] set out to do." She did whatever it took to get to the end. "You were a deceptive, lying bitch," Eliza announces, quite pleased with herself. She says that Twila "never treated [Eliza] with an ounce of respect," and says -- as bitter and jealous people have been doing for many moons -- that she might envy being in the final two, but doesn't "envy [Twila's] life." Yes. Because Twila is a bad person. And you're awesome. We get it. Put it on a t-shirt and save me the trouble time. Eliza then reports, however, that she thinks Twila played well, and at least was "outright" (huh?) in her play. Eliza then turns to Chris, saying that he shocked her. Which is kind of the point. "Whereas I knew Twila was going to be a deceptive, lying bitch," she says, "I did not know that you were a deceptive, lying bitch, too." Well, I hope that felt good, because it kind of doesn't make any sense. It makes people on the jury laugh, though, including Chad, who looks with guilt at the ground. Eliza rips Chris for "pretend[ing] to be [her] friend," and then for betraying her, first with the Julie vote and then...well, of course, with the vote to boot Eliza herself. "Un! Necessary!" she declares.
And this whole theory, of course, that Chris needlessly damaged Eliza, is bullshit. Because had he not kept her on the line, Eliza would have gone to Scout or Twila to at least discuss booting Chris on the basis that all three of the women would rather face each other in an F2 situation than face Chris. And Eliza didn't do that, so Chris outsmarted her. As much as she'd like to believe he could have just told her he intended to vote her off and she would have taken it gracefully, she wouldn't have. So anyway. "My request tonight from the two of you is I would like an apology," Eliza snaps. Now that will be a highly meaningful apology. It's moments like this when you can see that there is absolutely nothing to this except a person who's been embarrassed by losing and now sees the opportunity to make the people who beat her eat shit. I used to kind of defend Eliza, but she just plummeted in my estimation by using her time this way. "Twila, you first," she says.
Unsurprisingly, Twila is not so interested in apologizing. Twila says that she was respectful to Eliza when Eliza was respectful to her, and not when she wasn't. Twila points out that she never said unkind things to Eliza until this week, and Eliza says that Twila nevertheless said horrible things "behind [her] back." Which really doesn't constitute talking to Eliza with disrespect, of course. "All I said was you talk too damn much, and you do!" Twila says, with growing impatience. Eliza insists that's not the only thing Twila said, and Twila claims that it is. Eliza gets all eye-rolly, but when Twila wants examples of other things she's supposed to have said, all Eliza can really come up with is Twila saying she didn't deserve to be there, which was said only at Jeff's urging and was said to Eliza's face, so...not a great argument, that one. When Twila continues to defend herself quite convincingly, Eliza snipes sarcastically, "Uh, is this an apology?" Yeah, that's not Eliza's proudest moment, there. When will people ever, ever learn that grace flatters every figure? Finally, Twila loses patience. "You think I'm a lying deceptive bitch?" Twila says. "Well, I think that you're a spoiled rotten little child." Not very politic, but it's hard for me to blame her at this point from a personal standpoint. Twila goes on to say that if Eliza doesn't think she owes Twila an apology, Twila doesn't think she owes Eliza one, either. Eliza smirks. I'm so torn about this, because on the one hand, letting your pride stop you from handing out a meaningless platitude is unforgivably dumb game play, but on the other hand, I'm always weirdly impressed by people who draw a line beyond which they decline to kiss ass. Because honestly, people who want you to kiss that much ass aren't going to vote for you anyway. Speaking of which, Chris has no such reticence where fanny-smooching is concerned, and he readily offers up his apology. He insists that he didn't mean to "do [Eliza] wrong," he just did the pact thing as strategy. And he's soooooo sorry. Eliza, sure that she just got away with something, sits down. Shut up, Eliza.
Julie is . She gets up, already crying. Because she's so hurt. You know, about Chris. Julie says to Twila that she saw how Twila played, but really, her energy at this meeting is about Chris. She's either going to vote for Chris or against him, and it really won't have a lot to do with Twila. Fair enough. Twila nods with understanding, and Julie goes to Chris. She tells him that he approached her "as a friend," and asked her for help. And she helped him, even though she had nothing to gain. She goes on to say that he's the only person she allowed into a position to hurt her feelings. Bleh. Anyway, so now she's hurt. She again brings up the "we were like brother and sister" thing, and she asks him why he had to use their friendship to convince her he was going to save her when he wasn't. Chris says that it was his hardest vote. He tells her that at the time, he wasn't screwing with her -- he intended to go through with it, and he just...didn't. He admits that he lied to her, and he tells her he "can't take it back." She then says that she wants to know when he started "playing" her, because she thought their friendship was all real and stuff. He insists to her that he didn't play her at any point, even though he lied to her. "I let my heart get in the way," he says. He tries to appear to be fighting tears as he says, "I decided at the booth...I played the game." He is totally yanking hairs out of his thigh to make himself cry. He apologizes to her, too, and he tells her that he'll understand if she blows him off, but that he really did care about her.
And up is Leann. She jumps in by bringing up everyone's favorite topic -- Twila's swearing on her son. With which I am so very, very done, but here we are again. You remember that Sandra swore on her kids last year, right? You remember that. And no one gave a flying fuck? Remember? This is so dumb. Anyway, Leann hammers on it again, even though Twila already has mentioned it in tribal council in front of her and has expressed regret. Leann tells Twila she wants to know her "thought process." Huh? Her thought process? Wasn't it probably, "Maybe this will make me win"? Twila says that she had originally believed that the F4 alliance she was in was Leann, Ami, Scout, and herself. And that after Scout was thrown over for Julie, Twila figured she might well be . Seems reasonable to me. Twila adds that she trusted Leann, basically, but that she didn't trust Ami. And Ami makes a face, because that is so very, very silly, not trusting her. And also because she has already realized that the camera will show her more if she reacts visibly. Leann then says to Chris that she was obviously a women's-alliance person all the way, so she would like to hear why she should change her mind. Chris explains that he played the only way he could, and that he took the chance to change the game when it was brought to him by Twila. In other words, you might not extend your "alliance" so far that it extends to the person who was primarily responsible for your exit from the game. Again, seems fair to me. It's probably too logical to be anyone's voting manifesto, though.
up is Ami, so this will be some serious BS. She brings out the "irony" of Twila's refusing to apologize for a million dollars, though she would "lie" and "break friendships" for a million dollars. Unsurprisingly, that is not ironic. Shut up, Ami-lanis. Anyway, Ami goes on to tell us that Twila had no reason not to trust her, considering that Ami was planning to allow Twila to get fully to...what, F3 before banding together with Leann to get rid of her? Ami then turns to Chris, lecturing about how mean it was for him to lie to Julie and Eliza. Of course, when Julie and Twila were lying to Lopevi, that was okay. But this lying was bad. Because it was not being done in Ami's own interests. She insists that the lying was "for no reason," which it wasn't. And then Ami goes on to ask my very least favorite jury question, which is basically, "What makes you any better than me?" Chris, like most people, doesn't go with "I beat your ass, loser, so take it and like it." Which I sincerely hope is what I would say in the same situation. Instead, Chris tells Ami, basically, that she's too nice. HAHAHAHAHA! That was awesome. Wait until I wipe away my tears.
Asked the same question, Twila says that she first wants to apologize for the son thing, again, some more, but even given her regret over that, she allows that she's surprised to find herself put in the position of being the horrible person that "nobody likes." Which...I see what she's saying, but I think that may be something to be sucked up more and worried over less. Ami orders her to get back to the question, and Twila thinks about it a little and agrees that Ami is too nice. Not hard enough. Not tough enough. The first person to say "Well, what makes us different is that I beat you, and you didn't beat me first" will get my eternal love.
Chad starts his questioning with Twila, and you can basically tell that he's not there to be a prick or to prove anything. What did I say about grace? He asks her what about the experience has changed her. Twila says that she's learned that she needs to think about the way she comes across and think about what she says. She adds that she can be "quick to judge," which she thinks is bad. Chris says something about people's "genuine qualities" or something, and how they "never falter," and then he says he doesn't have those qualities, so it's probably not fair that he's in the final two. Or something. It's basically the "you're all superior human beings, and that's how I beat you" argument, I think. But really, it is very confusing, even though it goes straight to what jurors most want to hear. Chad's bald head gleams with bafflement.
And now, Sarge, whom you will see listed in your programs as our Designated Asshole of the Evening. He moves to Twila first, telling her that he holds to his values of loyalty and honor and such. Therefore, he would never want anything to do with Twila ever again, and wouldn't want to talk to her if he saw her walking down the street. Not that he's bitter. He then delivers the strange news that he thinks Twila needs the money a lot more than Chris, and he's 99 percent sure that he will vote for Twila. (Chris's entire face, head, and soul: "WHAT?") But first, he'd like to know from Twila whether a million dollars is "the price tag to cast your son's name straight to hell." He goes on to mock her stated hope that James would forgive her: "If my mother did it, I'd tell her to kiss my ass." So he just wants to know whether that's the price to send her son to hell. Now, let me get this straight. In Sarge's version of religion, one person can send another person to hell by swearing on their name and lying. So God would look at a perfectly nice boy who was decent and God-fearing his whole life and would send him to hell instead of heaven because of something that someone else did. Those are the implications? That is fucked up. I'm sorry. I try not to cast aspersions on other people's theology, but are you kidding me? That's your loving God? Whatever. That's actually a very reality-show version of getting into heaven if you ask me. You're in or out based on the quality of your alliances, I guess. At any rate, Twila, shaken, says to Sarge's "price tag" question, "No." Sarge then moves on to Chris, telling him that frankly, Sarge will probably not vote for him, since Twila needs to buy back her son's soul or something like that. Thus, he wants to know, if he doesn't vote for Chris, whether he and Chris are still friends. Chris, knowing that it is the only way Sarge might vote for him, swears that he doesn't care if Sarge votes for him. He only cares that they stay friends. He loves you, man! Sarge sits.
Scout talks to Twila about how long they've been together, and then she turns to Chris. She tells him that she knows his true nature, and she knows how he reacted when all of these people were voted off. Scout tells Twila that "to [her] credit, [she's] not able to bullshit." And then there's something about "speak your truth" blah blah blah. "And Chris," Scout says gravely, "you are in bullshit up to your ears." I would have admired that remark a lot more, I have to say, if Scout herself were a nicer person. Because she's not, and her only point is pretty transparently to make herself look cool, so I'll leave her to it. But one thing is worth mentioning -- Scout is basically falling for Chris's shit, just in a different way. Because she's forgetting that when he acted like he agreed with her and Twila about how great it was to, for instance, boot Eliza, he was probably playing them. It's not necessarily that he's lying to Eliza about feeling conflicted, but Scout is basically so very snowed that she assumes that Chris told her the truth about his reactions and lied to Eliza. See? She's so snowed she doesn't even see the flakes. And I do mean, in this instance, "flakes."
Jeff thanks the jury for its usual sack of self-aggrandizing bullshit, and then Chris and Twila get some time to think about what they'd like to say to the jury. Other than, presumably, "Thanks for your self-aggrandizing bullshit," which will not make people vote for you.
Twila is first. Her first order of business is to tell everyone that she didn't intend to lie to anyone, and that's not her usual personality. "My word is good," she says, referring to her regular life, and not to Survivor, where no one's word is any good. She swears that the only thing she cared about was improving her life, and that she didn't care about anyone's feelings. Which, for some reason, she feels bad about, even though it's exactly what the game is. She makes her "people kill for less" point again, and tells Sarge with a lot of dignity and restraint, in one of the few moments in the episode I liked, that he doesn't really have to "rub it in": "You don't have to make me feel any lower than what I already feel for doing what I did." She pauses. "You don't understand...how that's bothering me," she says, and she legitimately is near tears. "I highly respect you, and to hear you say that just kills me." She starts to cry as she says she apologizes to everyone. And now Ami is crying, too, because this is exactly the kind of soft-focus BS that she likes to think she's all about. I am not impressed. Twila says that the game wound up playing her, blah blah, so she's the usual victim of circumstance. She swears that if she could do right by everybody, she would: "That's all."
And now, on to Chris. He first says that Scout certainly did call him out. He gets in a dig, however, when he says that it makes him realize that "you can't bullshit a bullshitter." In other words, the jury should probably not believe that everything out of Scout's mouth about Chris's reactions is accurate, either. He goes on to tell Julie that the only thing he cares about is that they can still be friends, and he doesn't care whom she votes for, either. "I'd just like to mend some fences," he says. So he brought her hat for her. Yeah, he wants the million, but she can have her hat. She smiles demurely. I am hoping that she is barfing on the inside. Chris now turns to Eliza, saying that he agrees that he owed her an apology. He says that what happened with her and Julie makes him feel undeserving. "And that's no bullshit," he insists, as if he would tell her if it were. He tells Ami and Leann, basically, "Sucks for you, talk to Twila about your gripes." And then he concludes by saying that no matter how they vote, Chad and Sarge are his friends. Boy power!
Jeff says that now, it's time to vote. Thank God. And as we've learned a million times, rather than voting anybody off, you vote for who you want to win. Sarge and his giant Puerto Rican flag shirt that looks like he got it from the JC Penney Made In America With Buttons From Taiwan Free Trade Collection are the first to vote. And Sarge votes for...Chris, complete with a drawing of a little NASCAR flag. "Psych," he says, holding up his vote. Heh. "I had to know where our friendship stood." And I kind of get that, actually, even though I'm so pissed about how he treated Twila that I can't fully enjoy it. Leann votes. Scout votes for Twila, thanking her for the experience and the alliance, whatever. "I love you," she adds. Bleh. Julie votes. Eliza votes for Chris. "You definitely screwed me over, and you definitely hurt my feelings," she says. "But ultimately, I like you better." Hee hee. I loved that answer. She almost recovered a tiny amount of my affection after her stupid demands for apologies. Chad votes. Ami votes for Twila, saying that because Twila spoke from her heart, she's getting Ami's vote. She so totally would. Because she thinks it makes her look good, and because it's so "shocking," it puts the focus back on her and guarantees that she'll be asked about her vote. Jeff goes to get the urn.
And when he returns, he tells us how they'll all just have to wait until we get back to the States to find out what happened, because he now has the opportunity, unlike the rest of us, to escape these people for a period of time.
And now, for the Intrepid Jeff the Weary Traveler sequence, in which he takes the votes through the jungle, emerges on the beach the morning, after apparently machete-ing all night long with the urn under his arm. There, he boards a plane, stops over in Hawaii for lunch or something (I'm just going by the line on the map), puts on his skydiving outfit, and jumps out over California. Yeah. Way to go, Studly. And then he lands, gets on a motorcycle, and drives to Hollywood. I realize that there have been some stupid things on this show, but this is real, real stupid, y'all. Jeff enters the studio on the bike (idiot), and then he heads into the big pit with the audience, and finally, we are about ready for the reveal. The audience is screaming. Chris is bigger again, wearing his long ponytail and black shirt. Twila is in blue, with a masterfully big mullet. Dude. That hair is not kidding around. First vote goes to Chris. Second vote Chris. Third vote Twila. Fourth vote Twila. Fifth vote Chris. Chris now only needs one more. Aaaand...the winner is Chris, who yells, "Fuck yeah!" and runs into the audience, warmly embracing his family and sending the CBS censors into Pepto-swigging convulsions. Chris's family clearly thinks that a million dollars sounds like a good thing. Elsewhere, a celebration breaks out in his hometown. I hate to tell those people, but they're not getting any money. And then Sarge hugs Chris, and then the old dead non-jury people start filing out. More hugging. Jeff looks at the camera and calls Jeff an "unlikely" winner, calls it "an emotional final tribal council," brings up Twila's "big lie," and promises much more to come. And I don't doubt it, even though I dread it.