This episode kicks off with an overlong reward challenge that nets Gregg, Tom, Caryn, and Janu a feast that Janu can't even bear to eat, so delicate is her constitution. We arrive early at the immunity challenge, a vaguely creepy exercise in which the specter of drowning is raised and Janu lasts a blistering six minutes before tweaking, leaving the ultimate victory to Tom. In this case, Janu's tweaking gets her exiled to a beach by herself for the night, and we learn that she has managed to be on Survivor for 25 days without learning to make fire, and for this, sheâ¦kind of wants you to feel sorry for her. She ekes out an existence for 18 hours or so, and then she's back home, skinnier and creepier than ever. Gregg and Anonymous Jen are determined to boot Stephenie in spite of Janu's obvious unsuitability for continuing castaway life, and while Tom and Ian would like to change that result, they're not ready to go to a 4-4 tie, so they head for tribal council apparently resigned to booting Steph. But Jeff Probst takes a strong hand in the discussion, noting that Janu apparently wants to go home, and if she wants to go home, she might consider laying down her torch. After Steph expresses her frustration at what she knows is her impending boot, Janu indeed gives in to Probst's peer pressure and quits the game. And thus does Steph manage to hang around for another week. Never has one person endured so many consecutive tribal councils without actually getting snuffed.
Previously on Pizza Burden: Steph came over and joined Koror, and she was immediately welcomed with open arms, which happened to be full of brambles and knives. Coby decided that in the absence of allies who could protect him, he would try a new strategy involving being really, really selfish and bitchy, because everyone think that's hilarious and adorable when the women on Sex And The City do it. The tribe chowed down on fish and lobster, and Tom had a bit too much of the free booze. (Been there.) At the immunity challenge, everyone gradually hopped off their perches in return for food, and Tom was eventually left to carry home individual immunity, which came, as usual, in the form of ugly jewelry. The weakened Janu was passed over for eviction in favor of the snooty Coby, who was sure that he was booted only because everyone respected him so very much. (And also, it's not him, it's them, and also they think he's a great person, and also they just aren't ready to get serious with anyone right now.) So Coby went home and, one hopes, shaved. Because all that facial hair just was not flattering. Now, there are eight left. Who will go ?
Koror, Day 25. Flies are present in large numbers. Janu is tying up her hair as Caryn makes a hash mark on the team's improvised calendar. Janu interviews that Coby was, of course, voted off last night, and comments that this surprised her, which is your first clue that Janu is more than a bit alienated from the tribe, all of which seemed to be in on the vote except for her. She is also getting thinner by the second, it appears, and she looks downright skeletal in the interview in which she says that she was so stunned that she couldn't even say goodbye to Coby. She adds she felt "betrayed" because she hadn't been told in advance what was going on. What I find so amusing is that we've gone from a first season in which alliances were considered dishonorable in and of themselves, all the way to a tenth season in which the failure to make someone a part of a previously agreed-upon group vote is a betrayal. Everyone knows you have to tell the entire group what the bloc-voting plan is so that they don't have to vote on their own! After all, if Janu really liked Coby, why would she have enjoyed being offered the opportunity to gang up on him? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Out in the water, Anonymous Jen and Katie have a conversation in which Katie talks about Janu's behavior at tribal council. She compares Janu's face to a jack-o-lantern, which...isn't nice at all, but I have to give Katie the fact that Janu does look pretty weird and a little...desiccated at this stage of the proceedings. Janu's actually sort of lucky Katie didn't say she looks like a jack-o-lantern as of, like, November 8th. Katie interviews, showing her usual capacity to be That Obnoxious Girl In Study Hall, that "Janu is completely mad." A-Jen and Katie talk about how Janu was all excited, thinking she was going home, and then it didn't happen. Katie goes on to say that Janu's reaction was "scary," and that Katie "didn't like it at all."
In an interview, Caryn explains, pretty level-headedly, that Katie was "gossiping" about Janu, and Janu overheard it and got upset. Indeed, as we watch, Janu and Katie get into it, and Janu calls it "junior high" that Katie is talking about her behind her back. When Janu makes it clear that she wants to hear directly from Katie about whatever is bothering her, Katie says, "You were being creepy. I'm sorry." And if you demand to hear things directly, that's what's going to happen. You're going to hear things you don't want to, like, "You're being creepy." And then Janu goes into a big thing about "why don't you tell me to my face?," and...again, I swear, I do not understand the value these people place on being insulted directly. I mean, if it's someone you're supposedly close friends with, that's one thing. But Janu and Katie aren't friends. Come on! Janu got her feelings hurt because she overheard something Katie didn't mean for her to overhear, and it's certainly clumsy and probably insensitive of Katie and A-Jen not to make sure they weren't overheard, but you don't actually have the right to tell people that they can't say negative things about you unless they're willing to share them with you. There's nothing dishonorable about telling a friend that a third party was making weird faces at a meeting. People who claim not to do that, ever, are lying. (Or boring.) And it occurs to me that the world really would not be a better place if everyone shared all of their unkind thoughts directly. ["To me, that was the message of the climactic school-wide riot in Mean Girls: the social order works because we say mean things behind each other's backs." -- Wing Chun] You're meant to have outlets to express your frustrations within reason, and while you're responsible for the content of your venting when you do it on television, you don't do anything wrong merely by keeping your less flattering comments about people from the people at whom they're directed, it seems to me.
At any rate, when Janu presses the issue, Katie -- in a way that I think is warming up to be relatively sincere, all things considered -- says, "I'm sorry; I just didn't --" and of course, Janu can't have that, because if Katie offers an appropriate, low-key apology for being tacky about being overheard, that will deny Janu the ability to complain further. So Janu cuts her off, saying, "No, you don't have to be sorry. That's who you are." Oh, nice. The quality of any argument is increased by the transformation of undesirable behaviors into innate, unchangeable character traits. "Well, I'm telling you that I am," Katie says. "I apologize; that wasn't fair." Janu presses the dumb insult-me-to-my-face point, saying, "I'm not used to playing games. ["Then maybe you shouldn't have come on a game show?" -- Wing Chun] If I had something to say about you, I swear to God I would come up and say it to your face." Wow. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone I know who isn't like that. How horrible would that make everyone's day? "Excuse me, Harry? I just wanted to tell you I hate that shirt." "Good morning, Greta! By the way, if you tell one more story about your dog, I'm going to follow you home and shoot it." "No, I really don't want to go out with you again. It's your laugh. It makes my teeth vibrate." BAH! What a world.
Anyway, Katie interviews that Janu then got all upset and wound up "doing" Katie "doing" Janu, which she says was "even more scary," and...I kind of see that, actually. For whatever reason, Janu feels the need to tell Katie again, "I am very upset." Which...if you won't accept an apology, it's hard to imagine what the point of this dressing-down is supposed to be at this point. Katie tells Janu that she apologized for her behavior, and that if Janu chooses not to accept her apology and "can't get over that," then -- and Janu cuts her off: "It doesn't matter if I can or not. You're done. You're done in the conversation." Gregg steps in, saying that he doesn't want this to blow up into a big thing, and Janu, of course, has to make sure no one misses out on her personal drama, saying, "It's going to turn into whatever it's going to turn into, because all you guys are going to turn on each other." Yeah, you know, it's...hard to imagine how she wound up not having a lot of friends.
Gregg interviews that Janu has become "something that we need to, you know, put up with out here." He calls her presence "kind of a buzzkill," but goes on to say that's not a reason to vote her out. Janu plays a role in his strategy, whereas -- dun dun dunnnnn! -- Stephenie does not, and in fact, Stephenie "threatens" Gregg's strategy. Gregg points out that while some people think Stephenie "deserves" to be here, his opinion is that whoever helps him, that's who deserves to be there. And, amen to that. "Winning this game is hardly about deserving," he says, and as much as I love Steph, I could almost jump through the TV and kiss Gregg for saying that. I won't, though. That's how I wound up in the emergency room trying to explain the glass shards in my nose that one time. "If you have a role in my strategy, then you deserve to be here so you can help me win a million dollars," he says. And really, they ought to print that on every buff they hand out for the rest of this show's life.
We move to a challenge beach. Jeff welcomes the tribe and tells them that, in this challenge, the tribe will divide into two groups of four. Each group will carry six pieces of scaffolding out into the water, one at a time, and use them to construct a tower. Once the tower is built, one person will climb up it and get a flag, and then they'll come down, and the team will race up onto the beach. First one to get there with the flag will win reward. The reward will involve meeting with a high chief at a traditional meeting house, where they'll have beer, dinner, and dessert. Time to get going.
The two tribes are Steph, Ian, Katie and Jen, versus Tom, Gregg, Janu, and Caryn. Ready? Go! I have to say that of all the really tedious challenges I have ever recapped, this is the most tedious. There's just very, very little I can tell you, with the exception of a few things. Janu and Caryn initially do nothing, while the entire other group gets to work. After Probst makes a couple of hinting remarks, Janu finally starts participating, and ultimately does well. Katie becomes the drag on her team, because she's just...really not fast. Ian and Steph are very frustrated with their team, but they can't move as quickly as the Tom-and-Gregg-driven other group. So it goes on and on and on and ON and on, but very little happens, and ultimately, Tom, Gregg, Caryn, and Janu win reward. Man, that damn thing took forever. And for someone who hasn't apparently had the energy for two weeks to do anything around camp except lie in a hammock, Janu certainly did pour it on during the challenge that stood to net her a reward. That's the kind of thing that will not make you any friends on your tribe.
Later, the winners make their way to their feast. They are welcomed by a group of locals, as Tom explains how great it was "to meet the people," and to respect them and be respected by them. "It's just another gift that I bring home," he says. Caryn agrees that being blessed by a real chief and given a floral headpiece was pretty damn cool. You know, I would take a floral headpiece right about now. They enjoy some dancing entertainment as Gregg praises this look at "what is life in Palau really like." ["When tourists are around, yes." -- Wing Chun] Dancing follows. Once that's over with (thank goodness, because culture, yuck!), they adjourn to a little building where the feast is to be held. Janu explains that they sat down and were confronted with "epicurean delights." It's good to know that the energy that she hasn't been putting into digestion, Janu is now devoting to vocabulary development. Caryn eats at the little table as she voices over that there wasn't any strategy talk -- everyone just tried to enjoy the food. But very quickly, of course, it turns into a drama about the Endless Suffering of Janu, who tells us, "I'm going to make myself sick." She excuses herself from the table, explaining, "I thought I was going to have an embolism." Excuse me, an embolism? Awfully dramatic for a case of indigestion. I'm not sure I've ever read the instruction, "In case of embolism, induce vomiting." Caryn asks rather disbelievingly whether Janu is throwing up all this food, and Gregg confirms that she is. Gregg interviews that it was too bad to waste part of a feast like this on somebody who couldn't actually enjoy it. Then, just because we love the people in the cheap seats, Janu gives a very impressive, rattling belch, and we are done.
Back at camp, the feasters return to find the rest of the group eating dinner. They begin to describe all the food -- the ribs, the salad, the chicken and corn...everything but the throwing up. Caryn explains in her interview that they held back for a while on the fact that they had brought some food back, but eventually spilled the beans -- literally, sort of. Everyone digs in very happily. Tom laughs as he explains that Janu took some of the food for herself that they had brought back for the others. Katie also calls this "interesting" in an interview, pointing out that Caryn did the same thing. "But," Katie says, "what are we going to say? 'Get your hands off something that you brought us'? I don't think so." So I think that to Katie's credit, she had exactly the right attitude in that situation, which is that it's a little weird and maybe a little uncouth to eat the food you bring back for your starving comrades, but it's not like it's something they have any standing to complain about. It's basically taking a gift back, or taking part of a gift back, and you can't really complain when people do that, but it's going to raise eyebrows.
On what is presumably the day, A-Jen heads out to pick up some treemail with Tom and Steph, and she brings out a cage-like plank with a note attached that references claustrophobia and panic. Betting that this isn't some kind of Jeff-Probst-ian sex game, they quickly come up with the idea of an underwater cage. Steph interviews that, as she understands it, whatever this challenge turns out to be, she needs immunity as the finger-quoted "strongest girl," and someone who is perceived as a threat. Despite, you know, never having won immunity, ever. Stealthy! She says that she's "doing the best [she] can out here."
The tribe converges on a beach. Jeff takes back the necklace from Tom, and then he tells them that this will be an experiment in not panicking. They'll go out and set themselves up under a sort of a grate out in the water. They'll start in water up to their necks, but as the water rises as the tide comes in, they'll gradually get squashed against the grate and run out of breathing room. Person who stays in the longest will get immunity. Also, the first person who bails will be taken off to a separate beach to spend the night alone with just flint and steel, a can of water, and a machete. It will be like your own private Jack London story. Or maybe that Stephen King one where the doctor eats his own foot. With that bad news delivered, Probst sends them out into the water.
Everyone heads out into the water. As they all sit there, feeling a little like jackasses, Ian says, "So this man walks into a bar," and they all chuckle. "He's got a bar in one hand...and a bar in the other," Katie adds. As Jeff makes ominous remarks about how the first to quit will be sent off alone, clearly irked that they're not taking this whole thing seriously enough, Tom says, "I'm thinking of stepping out just to get away from this crowd for a night, Jeff," and there is laughing. "A little vacation from the tribe," he adds. Jeff asks A-Jen if she'd be okay alone, and she says she suspects that she'd find it "tough." Asked about her prospects, Janu says, "I would do my best." She then adds, "I'm already getting cold in here, so I don't know how long." Jeff asks her which is worse -- being cold in the water, or being left alone. "Probably hanging in this water cold right now," she says. "Are you starting to panic a little?" Jeff asks. "Yeah," she says, and swims out from under the grate. "Just like that, Janu's out," Jeff says. There is laughing that's shown here, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It's not that I don't think they might laugh at a joke made there about her leaving, but it's hard for me to imagine that they would all spontaneously laugh at the same time just because Jeff said, "Just like that, Janu's out." I mean, she kind of deserves it, once you see the graphic that says she lasted all of six minutes, which isn't even enough time for once through "Paradise By The Dashboard Light," but still. (Did you know that song is eight fucking minutes long? I had no idea until recently.)
Anyway, Jeff asks, "What just happened, Janu?" He asks if it was because he said the word "panic" in her presence. She shakes her head as she gets out of the water and scurries up on the platform. I'm very skeptical of her whole routine about shivering and looking miserable, because she spent plenty of time out in the water during the reward challenge building the scaffolding, and that didn't seem to even lay a glove on her. I find it hard to believe that she's suddenly incapable of dangling in the water for six minutes. I think she's a bit full of it. ["And really inept at the game, too, because if her object was to show how frail and pitiful she was, and thus make her teammates vote her off, it demonstrates that she doesn't get that they might be motivated to keep the frailest and most pitiful person around to continue losing immunity." -- Wing Chun] Jeff asks Janu how she is at getting fire. She says she doesn't know, and guesses she'll find out. He asks her if she's made fire, and she says no. No? She's been there twenty-five days and she hasn't made a fire? Fool! Again, laughter is shown, and again, I kind of don't believe it. Like I said, they'd laugh, but I think they'd be laughing at something in particular rather than at nothing. Anyway, Jeff asks Katie, "Are you glad it's her and not you?" "Well, hell, yeah, Jeff," Katie says, in a kind of James-ian voice, and then people do laugh. "Are you kidding?" Katie laughs. "I don't want to go over there!" And to me, it has a chagrined air of admitting she's a total wimp, which is what I think is making the rest of them laugh.
Jeff observes, "Doesn't seem like a lot of love lost with these guys; they don't seem too concerned about you tonight." Just about everyone, in unison, relatively seriously, takes offense at this and says something along the lines of "That's not true at all." But this is the week where Jeff tells you how to live, so he's all, "You know what? I'm sitting here asking her if she knows how to make fire, and you guys are making jokes like you're at open mic." See? With "open mic"? I think they cut out whatever jokes were being made to make it look like they were just randomly laughing at Janu, where in fact, they were probably making jokes to entertain themselves. Something else, too -- when Janu quits, the water is essentially still low on her neck, and by the time Jeff pulls this "you should be ashamed" number on them, they're all tilting their heads up because the water would be up over their mouths if they didn't. It wasn't at all as it appeared, that this all went down in the thirty seconds after she hopped out of the water, so not every joke they might have made in that time or all levity that was introduced was necessarily all about Janu getting out of the water. When you're waiting for the tide to drown you, you have to entertain yourself somehow, don't you?
In fact, I would say that based on the "Elapsed time: 32 minutes" shot, I think at least ten minutes or so passed between when Janu quit and when they were berated. Then, at about forty minutes, according to Jeff, they're all beginning to look up at the sky and press their faces against the grate. Jeff tells them that "this is where 'mind over matter' comes into play." At fifty-six minutes, the water is over everyone's ears. Caryn takes that cue and ducks out. A-Jen ducks underwater, and then Katie goes out. Steph goes under as well. A-Jen drops out, as does Steph. So now, it's just Tom, Gregg, and Ian. Gregg is to quit. Tom versus Ian. Tom, as Jeff points out, comes up with a sort of "hand snorkel," in which he cups his hands around his mouth so that water won't flood his mouth but he can still breathe. Interesting approach. Ian plugs his nose. Ian goes under again, and clearly tries to find a way to recover, but he ultimately ducks out, leaving super-calm Tom as the immunity winner for the second week in a row.
A boat comes in to pick up Janu, and the team sends her off with waves and "good luck"s. Jeff gives the immunity necklace to Tom. Jeff tells the rest of the group to swim back to their boat. And for being so mean, they're going without dessert. Meanies. They can just sit around their camp and think about what they've done.
Janu's boat speeds her toward her private island, as she voices over that she's being put there because she "couldn't finish out the immunity challenge." Like, not quite, dear. You're not going for not finishing; you're going for being the very first weenie to quit. Six minutes? Give me a break. Anyway, once she is on shore and her boat is leaving, Janu sets her priorities and decides to start by building a fire. She tells us that she thinks she'll be okay and not too scared, provided she has fire. If she doesn't have fire, she thinks she'll be a little bit more wigged out. She tries to make her fire, but initially has very little luck. Because -- remind yourself -- she has been out here for twenty-five days, and she hasn't yet made a fire. That is insane. Insane! As she tells us how she tries to "put little pieces" on the fire to make it go, we get a lovely shot of what looks like a green thong peeking out of the top of her buff/skirt in the back. Night falls. Still, Janu is trying to build a fire. Remember -- she has flint and steel. She has specific materials intended to make fire possible. She has the thing that has always made past castaways jump up and down with happiness, because once they have it, they will have no trouble making a fire. In other words, it isn't just that Janu hasn't made a fire -- it's that she hasn't learned how fires are made, because it appears that she simply doesn't know how to construct one or keep one going. She voices over that she's all isolated from the tribe, it's her against them, she has no friends, blah dee blah. Wonder how that got to be the case. Finally, she gets her fire going, and that makes her happy. She supposes aloud that maybe God actually wants her to stay on Survivor. You know how much I love that kind of thinking. And then she dances around, saying, "It's all mine." I do believe she's gone a little bit...you know. "Wee-oo, wee-oo."
The morning at Koror, it is Day 27. Tom tells us that the group's big decision at the moment concerns who will be sent home this evening. He has a meeting with Gregg, and Gregg asks him who he thinks is going. Tom throws out that "the girls" seem to want it to be Janu, but Gregg counters that that's "an emotional response" to the way Janu is acting. He's pretty quick, that one. Gregg thinks that Steph is a bigger threat. Tom reminds us in an interview that he, Ian, Steph, and Katie agreed very early that they'd go for an F4 alliance, and that if they were split, they'd look out for each other when they got back together. But the problem is that Tom, Ian, and Katie now have a different alliance with Gregg and A-Jen, and Gregg and A-Jen are determined to get Steph out. At a talk in the shelter among Tom, Ian, and Gregg, Tom asks how long they're supposed to continue "rewarding Janu." Gregg immediately says that they can boot her ; that's fine -- right after Steph. Tom continues to try to save Steph, saying, "I still struggle with the question of why not now...." Gregg says that "Stephenie's a bigger threat than Janu is." Besides, Janu actually wants to go home. Gregg is also concerned about Stephenie's ability to withstand eleven consecutive tribal councils without going home. I love Steph so much, but Gregg is a smart guy to have his eye on that. He comments that they need to end Stephenie's "story" before it goes any further. And in an interview, Gregg says that Steph is a very tough competitor, and that she's also got that crazy-ass iron will, which undoubtedly makes her dangerous. He talks about how you can just see Steph first conquering her own tribe, and then this one, and they need to "prevent that from happening." In the shelter, it appears that agreement is reached to boot Steph. Tom tells us that, indeed, that seems to be the will of the group. "It's not where my heart is," he says, "but anything can happen."
Janu returns in her little boat. She jumps off saying that it was "great," and when they ask how she did, she says that it took her a few hours to make fire, but that she did it, and they congratulate her and tell her she seems to feel better. She makes some thinly veiled comments about getting a break from everyone (they fall about five feet short of "I hate you all"), and they all tell her it sounds like she did great. She interviews, of course, that because people were nice to her now who were mean to her before, she concluded that it was "not nice."
A bit later, Steph talks to A-Jen about how Janu seemed to be happier upon her return. Without looking Steph in the eye, A-Jen purports to agree. Steph then interviews that there's an agreement to boot Janu, and Janu even seems to want that. "But for some reason," she says, "I have a feeling it's me." She comments that nobody went off to talk with her today. And then she gets even better confirmation when she goes to talk to Ian. She asks if he's still voting for Janu. He confirms that that's the plan. "I don't think so," she says plainly. "I don't think it is. I think it's me." Ian stands there and...kind of doesn't answer the question. Thus answering the question. ["I lost a little love for Ian in that moment. Also, nice poker face, buddy." -- Wing Chun] Steph interviews that nobody seems to want to talk about it, so she's feeling rather nervous heading out for the vote.
Evening. Tribal council. The team files in. Jeff welcomes the first member of the jury: Coby. Janu tries to smile at him, and looks...man, she does look creepy. It's the firelight, and how thin her face is. I cannot deny that pumpkin comparisons would not seem to be entirely without validity. Furthermore, it's interesting how Janu feels like Coby was her one true friend, when he was saying shortly before he left that he wanted to push her into the fire. At any rate, Jeff asks Janu how her night on the beach alone turned out. She tells him that she "did great": she got the fire started, and then she danced. Jeff talks about the magnitude of the accomplishment, and she talks about how she came back to the new day and so forth. Jeff points out that people waved and said "good luck" to her as she was leaving. "Did you buy it?" he asks. Ultimately, she says she didn't: "I'm sure that half of it was sincere, but the other half of it was, as they call it, 'the game.'" She finger-quotes this last part, because for good people, as for Yoda, there is no "game." And me without my special melodrama-reflecting glasses to keep me from going blind.
Jeff tells Caryn that she looks really irritated, and Caryn, clearly offended by Janu's characterization of her good wishes as phony, says that she's floored by Janu's interpretation, and that it's totally off, but that if that's the way Janu chooses to take it, she will have to take it that way. What Janu did wrong there is that she didn't even distinguish between the people like Katie who had been fairly open about not liking her, and the people like Caryn who might have been potential sources of support. I don't think Caryn's wishes of good luck were phony at all. "That's in Janu's head," says Caryn. Which, I am beginning to believe, is a rather scary and chaotic location. With bats.
Jeff asks Tom about how the game is being affected right now by "worth versus threat." In other words, is it now about keeping around the people you can beat, rather than the people you like the best? Tom says that people aren't voting, at this point, based on who they like: "Eliminating competition is part of this game." Steph, knowing this is bad for her, looks grim and frustrated. Jeff asks Gregg the same question. Gregg agrees that it's not about worth, and that everybody is a threat who wants to win. "You definitely want someone in the game who's not going to really try, than you would someone who's going to give five million percent," he says. "And some plans have been established, and some people may be threats within those plans, and unfortunately, you know, Survivor isn't always about fairness and who deserves what." Way to keep your cards close to your chest, genius. Steph now puts her head down, resting her forehead on her hand. Asked why they should keep her, Katie points out simply that she's not a threat to anyone. Coby has a great time making faces just as madly as he can, desperately trying to get himself on camera in the only way that's open to him, but Katie's really not saying anything all that remarkable. In fact, I assume that's what Coby would say about Katie if he were asked to comment on why she was still there, so I'm not sure he has much to eye-roll about, not that this has ever slowed him down in the past.
"Janu," Jeff asks, "why keep you?" Janu thinks for a minute. "No reason," she says. "They can get rid of me." Steph actually wiggles in her seat and sighs, so uncomfortable is she with this developing suckfest. "There's no reason they should keep you?" Jeff asks Janu. "No, because I have to be honest. I had a really rocky road, so if I was them, God, I'd be sick of myself already." Steph's eyes go buggy with disbelief. "You almost seem like you want to go home," Jeff says to Janu, which is actually rather an understatement, since she's now said twice in a row that the team should get rid of her. "It doesn't matter, Jeff. Whatever happens, happens," she says. "I'm completely satisfied." Jeff moves up only a fairly small step by saying, "Is there a part of you that wants to say, 'Yes, vote me out'?" "Yes, absolutely," Janu says. "But I don't know what they'll do."
Jeff turns to Ian. "Why keep somebody who's saying, 'I want out of this game; I'm not going back to camp'?" Ian is the first to literally raise the issue of quitting, saying, "If you feel like you don't want to continue in this game -- if you feel like, you know, you want to set your torch down -- then you have the power to do that. You have the ability and the power to set your torch down at any time. And there's nobody keeping you here."
Now, Jeff moves to Stephenie, pointing out that "if looks could kill, Janu would be on the ground." Heh. Steph says that it's not anything she has against Janu, but that it makes her crazy to hear somebody say she doesn't care if she's here or not. Steph tears up talking about how she's desperate to stay, and would do anything to stay, and here's Janu who doesn't want to stay, and it appears that she's going to. Janu tells Steph to understand that Janu has "already received what [she] needed to receive from this whole experience." Steph is not comforted. Me neither. Steph says that's fine, if Janu doesn't care, but Steph still cares. "Someone asks me to vote them out?" Steph says. "See ya. Because you don't deserve to be here." "So you feel you're in the hot seat tonight," Jeff says. "I know I am," Steph says, now quite in tears. She tells Jeff that it's driving her crazy that somebody who wants to go home really badly is going to stay, and that Steph herself is going to go home for being too much of a bad-ass. Tom looks at the ground, because he does not like the way that sounds. He is supposed to be pro-bad-ass, and this is sort of interfering with that construct.
Jeff asks Tom to comment on the relevance of his at-home job and the focus on things like "unity" and "camaraderie": "When you hear somebody like that laying it out," he says, "and you have somebody to 'em who's saying 'please get rid of me,' is there a dilemma for you?" Tom says that there is, and he says Steph would fit in on the truck at home with no problem. He also adds, though, "It's not work, and it's not camaraderie. It's Survivor, so there's a huge difference." If they wanted to get Jeff to shut up, I have to say that this alliance should have started in with the mealy-mouthed, noncommittal answers, rather than continually telling him they intended to vote out Stephenie.
Jeff goes back to Janu. "If you had your way," he asks her, "what would happen tonight?" "I would ask the tribe to vote me out and keep Stephenie in." Jeff asks her what the difference is, then, between asking to be voted out and laying her torch down. She agrees that really, there's no difference: "So I would be willing to lay down my torch so that Stephenie can have a chance to stay in the game." Gregg's face: "Uh-oh." Coby covers his eyes, and on the backs of his hands, it says, "Get a shot of this! A close-up!" Steph jumps in: "Not just for me," she says. "If she wants to lay down her torch and she wants to quit this game, she can do it. But not on my account." Janu "rephrases" her offer, saying she'll lay down her torch, and that it's for herself. "I just want to be clear," Jeff says. "You are, on your own, quitting this game." Janu confirms. Rain starts to fall, and Jeff calls this perhaps her "final epiphany," and then he tells her to bring over her torch. When I have my final epiphany, I have to say, I really hope it doesn't happen in front of Jeff Probst. Snuff! Jeff confirms that Janu will get to be on the jury in spite of her wimp move ["bullshit! That's awful" -- Wing Chun], and then he sends her off. Jeff dramatically sets Janu's torch down, and then Steph exchanges a smile with Coby. Jeff points out to Steph that she just escaped the boot again, making her probably one of the slitheringest contestants in the show's history. He sends them back to camp.
Yeah, Jeff probably got a little overly involved. But nobody made Janu quit. If you're going around asking to be voted off -- as her exit interviews and other people's comments indicated she was doing -- then it makes a certain amount of sense for Jeff to ask you about that. Janu had already said there was no reason to keep her, before Jeff asked her whether she was sort of asking to be voted off. And Jeff didn't even raise quitting, initially, in terms of what we saw -- Ian did. And then Jeff asked Janu what she would want to see happen, and she said she would ask the tribe to vote her off, and that's when he asked what the difference is between that and quitting. In other words, as much as it seemed like a badgering of Janu, most of the questions picked up on things she had already said, and seemed to be fair things to wonder about. As for the tribe, when you have somebody who looks like hell and wants to leave and the group is making it clear that they're going to boot a hard worker and likeable person instead, it makes sense for Jeff to ask you whether that makes you feel a little bit skeevy, especially for a tribe that has been as touchy-feely as Koror. To me, the big pressure applied to Janu in that situation came from Stephenie more than from Jeff. And furthermore? Jeff hates quitters and weasels, and I think he correctly sussed out that somebody who no longer wants to be there is bad for the show, because they won't play in challenges and won't strategize, and they become a free boot. You don't want a tribe taking a free boot all the way to, say, the culling of the F5 to the F4, just dramatically. Summary: I would have Jeff take a lighter hand if I were scripting the thing, but what he actually did doesn't really offend me.
In her farewell speech, Janu reveals that she'd asked to be sent home by the tribe, and it hadn't "worked," so she ultimately decided to make the move herself. She insists that this was a "major power play." Pfft. Quitting is always a power play of sorts, I suppose. But so is drinking yourself into a coma. Doesn't make it a show of character.
week: Steph scrambles to put together a new alliance. Gregg frets over the failure to get rid of Steph. Janu's sniffing flower is available for someone else's use.