The Ultimate Shock

I would normally never do this, but I must say something I egregiously forgot. Confidential to Erin, whose birthday was April 16th: Aside from my neglectful nature, I would have wished you a happy birthday properly at the time. Now go give your brother a hug.

Previously on Survivor: Lido Deck: The rich got richer and the poor got poorer on this most Dickensian of all seasons, where big and powerful Koror (led by the old guy and the dolphin trainer who looked like Olive Oyl's ganglier kid brother) ripped out the heart of pathetic Ulong (led by a gaggle of gym rats, he-men, Neanderthals, and other people who listen to Matchbox Twenty on their iPods. Tom was the new Colby, except with fewer mommy issues and no car that folds out into a tent. The few opportunities to vote him out were missed, thanks to a strong alliance that backed him up, even when he showed flashes of arrogant prick-itude. Ian's image -- once Flipper-like in its sheen and harmless playfulness -- acquired a tinge of the stinging jellyfish after he neglected to turn the other cheek to Katie's reward-challenge smackeroo. Before he knew it, he was crying and apologizing and generally acting like nobody sent him flowers after he got his legs waxed and everything. Caryn was the last to be sent packing, meaning that the final four will be tragically without a truly nasty sourpuss. We're down to four of the five members of the first strong alliance to emerge all season -- maybe the most successful large alliance ever, alongside Chapera, and it looks like they're getting toward the end with a surprising lack of emerging bitterness. Can it last? And can it make us forget Vanuatu?

At Koror, a crab is nearly washed away by the drama of it all, here on Day 37. A bird flaps agreement. The final four are rousing themselves in the shelter, and Katie moans, "Day 37..." She also comments that "true colors came out last night," referring apparently to Caryn's attempted de-pantsing of Ian. A-Jenn smiles down at Katie, which Katie gets a lot, as a result of lying down most of the time. Katie comments in an interview that Caryn actually did Katie a major favor by "going off" at tribal council. Things, she explains, were already resolved between herself and Ian as far as what a terrible person he was for failing to take her on a reward right after she knocked him out of a reward and spent her down time scheming to throw him out of the game. Still, Katie appreciated Caryn's bringing out Ian's having "betrayed" her in front of the jury. I love the fact that Katie thinks the jury would ever vote based on some kind of proxy petty personal grudge on her behalf, when all the members have their own petty personal grudges to rely on. Who needs empathy when you have self-pity?

The music builds. We go to a commercial.

When we return, Tom and Ian are still camped out on their poles. It has now been eleven hours and forty-five minutes since they stepped up there. Think about what time it is where you are. Think about twelve hours ago. That is a freaking long time they have been standing up there, y'all. Ian looks over at Tom a little...mischievously, I would say. Finally, Ian says, "Okay, I have a solution." He goes on: "As you know, I've had an interesting day. Um. I'll go down. And take Katie. And I'll give up the million to get back your guys's friendship." Jeff jumps in: "Wait. You will step down if [Tom] doesn't take you, but instead takes Katie. As a way to show that you do care about these guys." Ian confirms that is what he means. "You would do that," Tom says. Ian confirms his intention again. Jeff straightens out yet again what Ian is offering, and he's the first to refer to it as "taking back [his] integrity." Which is such a pile of horseshit, but okay. Ian tells Jeff that he doesn't want to leave the game feeling the way he's feeling, so he'll step down and step out. He tells Tom that he's said all along that the friendship was more important, and standing up there is making him feel like "a traitor to that." Jeff asks Tom whether it would work for Ian to do this to get Tom's respect back. "Ian would have my friendship after this game anyway," Tom says, which of course he can afford to do, "but he wins my respect back." By giving up the money. See? They had no deal for anything regarding this stage of the game, so this isn't about honor. This is about money. "He wins my respect back by handing over the money." Gross. Absolutely gross. Tom just sold Ian his respect, and no amount of honor talk is going to change it, and it's gross. Ian turns, and with a swell of music, he jumps into the water. At 11:55 into the challenge. Dude. I can't believe he didn't wait for the twelve-hour mark.

Of course, as one of my friends pointed out, the truly bad-ass move for Tom would have been to say that Ian's being willing to do that was all it took, that they were square, and that he wanted to -- what was it? -- "duke it out like men." One demonstration of loyalty from Ian, one show of loyalty -- let's call it even and forget the whole thing. After all, Tom already paid Ian back for his "sin" by voting twice to try to get Ian booted and forcing Ian into a tiebreaker just to survive. You'd think that "honor" would suggest that your move there is not to accept somebody's quitting in order to please you. You tell them that the gesture is enough. It would have been a rare moment of grace in a stupid show, not to mention maybe the sexiest thing to ever happen, but it is not to be. ["And furthermore, if Katie really cared about their friendship, she might have roused herself long enough to tell Ian not to do that for her, and that she didn't want to get in the final two that way. Not that I really expected it of her, of course, because SHE SUCKS." -- Wing Chun]

So, Tom wins immunity. He and Ian clamber up onto the raft where Jeff awaits. And they hug. "I was about to fall off, too -- I'm surprised you did that," Tom says warmly. And Ian playfully shoves Tom, and he falls in, so they're totally friends again -- and all Ian had to do was give Tom the money. Isn't Tom a great guy? -- and then Ian and Katie hug. Because Ian is a big, big sucker. Tom takes the necklace, and Jeff decides that just in case Tom were to get a pang of the stupidity of what he's doing between now and tribal council, they'll just hold tribal council here, verbally. Which -- what? They will? Since when? Gross! Unfair! Come on, Probst -- send them back to camp and let it play out. That sucks. Of course, Tom votes out his "buddy Ian." I mean, before he does it, he asks Ian -- in front of everyone, with no time to think -- whether he still means it about the deal, and Ian says he does. Not that he has a choice after seeing what Tom tried to do to him all day. So Tom tells us how he now feels a lot better. What with the million dollars and everything. Katie and Tom are sent back to the beach; Ian is taken away with Jeff.

The sun rises on Day 39, over Tom and Katie. Tom starts talking to Katie about comparing their dreams, and then he's marveling over how they're the final two, without "anybody else here at camp," blah dee blah. They discuss how the time is almost here to leave camp. Katie talks about how "this is it" and so forth. Tom interviews that Katie is "so likeable" (!) and "such a character," and how he's not sure whether people might give it to her rather than Captain Immunity. And then he blathers that he can't believe he's here and so forth. He talks about how they're leaving the beach for good, which of course is "bittersweet" as always.

And now, it is time for the ceremonial Burning Of Camp. Tom shouts out their plans for the "celebratory bonfire." They burn the picnic table, the dishes, the sleeping mats, the coffee pot, and a variety of other things that geeks would have paid a jillion dollars for on eBay. Katie voices over about how inside Tom is this "scary beast," not hitting on "smug prick," which is actually the way to attack Tom at this point. She vows to reveal Tom's machinations to the jury. Katie and Tom climb into the canoe and abandon Koror for good, as the Trumpet of Pretend Gravity tootles. Katie hopes to get credit for her choices. Tom promises "no half-truths" with the jury. Honor! I'm so tired.

"AAAAH-AAAAAH," says the dark Tribal Council Music. As usual, this is about as overproduced as a Busby Berkeley musical in reverse, so everything is serious and every dance number includes only one girl. When Tom and Katie are seated, the jurors are brought in. Jeff reminds them that, now, the jury has the power. Thanks, Jeff.

Coby sits pouting with his arms crossed as Tom tees up for his opening statement. Tom claims that he's honored to be there, because he loves honor. "Judge me on who I was," he says, "the fact that I came out, I played real hard, tried to provide, went out and did my work, and never had a nasty word for any of you." He does not add, "Except Ian, whom I tormented mercilessly to get to this point." He returns to "honor," and "humbling," and so forth. Now, on to Katie. She says that she and Tom played very differently, and she's not "even close to Tom in some aspects." She emphasizes, though, that she managed to keep herself in the game without ever having immunity, so she obviously knew something. She insists that attaching herself to Tom and Ian was her plan from the beginning, so there ought to be some respect for that. She, too, is "honored" to be in F2. Oh, everyone is so honored when they're so close to money.

And now, it is time for what is almost always the grossest part of a Survivor season: the snotty jury questions. And leading off? Oh, yeah. It's Coby. A perfect opening, snotty-wise. "So this is going to be serious," Coby says. "I have issues." Well, yes. Yes, you do. And not the ones you think. "I'm bringin' 'em," Coby says, because he thinks he's a bad-ass. "Bring 'em on," Tom says, smiling because he knows Coby isn't a bad-ass. "I respect the fact that I was outplayed by the two of you," Coby says. "But that doesn't mean that I have to respect the way either of you played the game." Well, in fact, it does. If you were genuinely "outplayed," as opposed to other people cheating or something, then I don't see how you can't respect that, but...okay. "So, Katie," he says, and Katie grins and nods, and Coby claims that she's making the whole thing so tough with her "little grin." Don't worry, Coby -- it won't last. Coby just wants to take this opportunity to tell Katie that if he votes for her, it won't be a vote for her, it will just be a vote against Tom. He tells her that she sat out of challenges, she didn't work enough around camp...oh. And: "Your self-proclaimed 'social skills' really don't lie anywhere outside of your alliance." He goes on to tell her, as people have been doing since time immemorial, that she was "riding the coattails of people who do play the game." Of course, there is no such thing as riding coattails in this game, at all, ever. We've been over this. But Coby says it anyway, because it's better than admitting that he shot his own foot off by being such an asshole to everyone. Coby then turns his attention to Tom, and says that Tom played "almost as dirty as [Coby] would have liked to." In fact, he played, Coby says, "every bit as dirty as Ian." So that's the new mythology -- that Ian played dirty. And then there's something about how Tom dances around things at tribal council, and Coby doesn't really wind up asking a question; he just says that he's going to be watching Tom's answers. Or something. And then Coby gets all dramatic: "And know, with every word you say, it could cost you a million dollars." It would be all I could do not to burst out laughing with some of these speeches, seriously.

Now, it's time for Gregg. He tells Tom that when there were seven people left, Tom didn't have immunity, and was at risk. And he says that he and Tom had a discussion about the fact that anyone who broke the five-person alliance would pay for it in the jury. So Gregg would like to know why he should give his vote to Tom. Because Gregg, he claims, kept his word. Kept his word! And...like, think about the idiocy of this question. Think about how absurd this wounded-bird thing Gregg's putting on really is. Gregg was plotting against Tom on the boat before he was ever voted out. He broke that alliance well before Tom did. In fact, he plotted to break it from very early on, all the way back when he made a side deal with Coby. And now Gregg is...the defender of the five-person alliance? It's insane, if he actually believes this, which he appears to. Surprisingly, Tom's response manages to be even stupider: Tom tells Gregg that he was falsely led to believe that Gregg was plotting against him. By the new scapegoat of Koror, Ian. Of course, Ian absolutely correctly figured out what was happening with Gregg and with Katie, and pretty much saved Tom's ass by putting him on notice. And now Tom is claiming to have cleverly since figured out that he was misled. So these two guys, Tom and Gregg, are totally idiotically talking past each other in a conversation in which neither of them has a leg to stand on in terms of what they're saying, but they're both speaking with total conviction nevertheless. They're both men of honor and nonsense. "Katie," Gregg says. "You were worthless around camp. You were insignificant -- even embarrassing -- on challenges. You would think that the least that you could do was, you know, make some friends around camp. Yet I still can count a number of instances where you've ridiculed, made fun of, almost all these jury members, and even betrayed them at times. So my question to you is, explain to me and the jury how being so pathetic is your [finger-quotes] plan, and not your plan to get an invite to number two, but your plan to win you a million dollars."

You know, one of my peeps talks about how the stupidest jury question is, "My question is I WANT AN APOLOGY," and while this isn't that, it is, in fact, "My question is YOU SUCK," which I hate almost as much. It's not that I don't see some of what Gregg is saying, but this is just gratuitous, in the sense that he's only using words like "pathetic" because, essentially, he can. There's a way a guy like this uses a word like "pathetic" on a girl like Katie -- not the prettiest girl, kind of the girl who knows she's not the most popular but tries to get by anyway -- that's reminiscent of the football quarterback taking time out of his day to really stick it to a student-council geek, you know? It's unnecessary. He knows Katie has a weak spot, and he's pounding on it as hard as he can, trying to make her eat shit because he's momentarily in the power position, and it's very, very unflattering. He gives the impression here of very specifically trying to hurt Katie -- in fact, he gives the impression of having planned this speech to be as hurtful to her as possible. It's more than venting; it's unsettlingly vicious in a way that I would never have seen coming from this guy. ["And yet it's echoed in a lot of other jurors' questions, which made me think they all got together and compared notes kind of a lot." -- Wing Chun]

Katie is momentarily floored, and initially doesn't know where to start. She picks up on the worst word in the speech without any trouble, saying she's sorry Gregg thinks she's "pathetic." "And I'm sorry you had to go there," she adds, almost tearing up but pulling herself back at the last minute as she says, "because I would never say anything like that about you." She says she doesn't think she's pathetic. She doesn't have "an athletic card" to play, and she says it yet again in defending herself -- "pathetic." She tells Gregg she had a strategy, and she followed it. Three times she mentioned the word "pathetic." I guess in a way, Gregg should be proud of himself for clearly finding something that really upset and hurt Katie, as that appeared to be the plan.

Steph steps up. She congratulates Tom and Katie for being there. She then reminds Tom of what he said to her when he pulled her aside and said he'd do what he could to fight for her. She'd like to know what, exactly, he did to fight for her. He tells her that he couldn't break his five-person alliance. Because, of course, Steph should understand that Tom wouldn't sacrifice himself for her, right? Right? Because it's only Tom for whom others are to sacrifice themselves. Steph asks Katie why Steph shouldn't vote for Tom. Katie claims that she hoped not to do this, but she feels she must, and then she says that Tom came to her before Steph even came to Koror, saying that whichever Ulong person came over, they needed to take that person out right away. Tom looks at her like she's crazy, but she repeats it. Tom's answer makes no sense. He says that he would have no reason to tell Katie -- when they might have had a four-way alliance with him, Ian, Katie, and Steph -- to get rid of Steph. Well, sure he would. If he believed going with the five-person group within which you have a three-person group is safer, you'd absolutely tell Katie that it had to be Steph. In fact, if you thought it was going to be Steph, you would certainly tell that to Katie. Why does it matter that Steph was in your alliance? Katie swears it happened. Tom doesn't, technically speaking, ever deny it -- he just says it wouldn't make sense for him to have done that. Steph has a seat.

Janu stands up. She starts with Tom, asking him to tell her how hard it was to "compromise [his] integrity" in the game. Tom says that he didn't compromise his integrity. He drew his lines, and he didn't cross them. He played hard, and "with as much honor" blah dee blah. He claims he tried not to hurt people. (Except Ian, I guess.) Now, it starts raining. Janu turns to Katie and says she wants to hear three positive and three negative adjectives about the way Katie played. And in an interesting, stupid, and weirdly admirable maneuver, Katie basically says that she knows Janu isn't going to vote for her, so she's not going to play that game. That's reckless and dumb for about six different reasons, of course, but I always want somebody in F2 to tell somebody on the jury to fuck off, because the dynamic can otherwise be revoltingly obsequious. Janu tries to get all, "You don't know you don't have my vote," and Katie shrugs, which again is stupid and slightly awesome. Janu is done, because Katie just won't play.

And now, Caryn. She asks Tom what she was to him. Pawn? Friend? Tom reminds her that she never was promised that she was in any alliance with Tom. He says he just told her they could "look out for each other's backs." And she returns to all her stuff about whether it was "legitimate and genuine," and blah blah, and then Tom tells her that he won't answer -- she should find the answer "in [her] heart." Barf. Now, Caryn moves on to Katie. She says she's going to say what she "observe[d]" about Katie: "You were phony and cruel to everyone except Tom and Ian. Aside from that, I also observed, laziest person at camp, mean, bad at challenges, unkind, and betrayed me. Give me one reason I should vote for you." I love that Caryn called Katie out for being bad at challenges. Caryn was probably the only person more lame than Katie at challenges. If Katie needed someone to whoop at log-rolling in order to save her life, I think Caryn is exactly whom she would call. I think, incidentally, that it's during Caryn's question that Katie realizes that she has absolutely no shot at the money whatsoever, and she just moves on to getting through the rest of this as painlessly as possible. She says that she's sorry Caryn thinks she's unkind, and she's sorry Caryn is obviously judging on a personal level. Caryn gets all, "The question was, Katie, these are the things I observed." Which wasn't the question. The question was "Give me one reason I should vote for you." And what Katie is saying is that if you think she sucks as a person and you're voting on a personal level, there's probably no reason to vote for Katie, because the reasons she could give you to vote for her are game-based. I also love that Caryn tries to dis Katie for being "carried" by an alliance, as if that isn't exactly what Caryn tried to do. I mean, honestly. Caryn basically tried to displace Katie in Katie's alliance, and now she's trying to get snitty? Whatever. Katie tells Caryn that there's no shame in alliances. And with the growing boldness of the condemned, Katie says, "That's why you're sitting over there, because you didn't make one." Spot-on, of course. Caryn has no smart-ass comeback for this, so she sarcastically says, "I got it, Katie," which is her way of pretending she's just holding back her brilliant rejoinder.

A-Jenn. She congratulates Katie and Tom. She basically tells Tom that she thinks he's a chauvinist who didn't respect her. Why should he get her vote? Huh. Good question. Tom tells A-Jenn that he didn't respect her game until late, when she pushed the issue of Ian's betrayal. Of course, she didn't think of it when she should have, so whatever. But that's what Tom says -- that he then learned to respect her game. Bleh. A-Jenn makes a really weird comment to Katie about how bad it is to just let people disrespect you over and over and take it, and for a minute, I think she's going to tell Katie she needed to tell more of the jurors to stick it. Like Gregg. Which would have been awesome. But no, she's on a more general something-or-other about how Katie had chances to "play this game like a strong woman." Or something. She wants to know whether Katie was "a strong woman or a doormat." A doormat? I'm so confused. Katie tells A-Jenn that she thinks that self-preservation is strong on its own. "I'm not here to prove that I'm a strong woman," she says. "I believe I am a strong woman. By me sticking to my plan and my strategy, yeah, I feel good about my game." A-Jenn sits.

And...Ian. He says he's going to ask them the same question. And it's this: "What's the biggest reason that we as a group shouldn't give you a million dollars?" Katie answers that if they didn't care for her "personality" or "sense of humor" -- which she was under the impression people "got a kick out of" (insert Coby making a face, as if he has any room to talk on this point at all) -- then that would be a reason. Tom answers that he's "already had [his] payday." Tom says that he's had a great experience with them, so he's already had a wonderful time, blah blah. He is a very smooth operator, I'll tell you that.

And now, closing statements. Tom says that this was him, "good or bad," and he stuck with who he said he would. He even manages to throw a little more mud at Ian, who already fucking quit the game for Tom's ungrateful ass, saying how he stuck with people "at folly" and, as a result of that, "hurt some other people." Of course, Ian was telling Tom the truth about those things, so...whatever, Tom. Anyway, Tom apologizes for those hurts, while blaming others for them, and says he's willing to be judged however they want, and that there are no hard feelings in any event.

Katie says that she's sorry if she hurt people, and wants to say that first. She says that Tom was the biggest competition coming in, and that's why she aligned with him and with Ian. She asks them to consider that she got here in spite of having basically nothing to work with going up against Tom. Which is...kind of a good point, in a strange way. It's one thing to get to F2 as Tom with a billion immunities -- it's another to get here as Katie when you can't run very fast and get tired easily. She says she had a plan, she executed it, and she's leaving with her self-respect.

Time to vote. Jeff reminds them that they're supposed to vote for someone, not against anyone. Steph votes first. Janu votes for Tom, saying it's because she had this "incredible experience" because Tom chose her on the first day. Gregg votes. Caryn votes. Coby votes for Katie, saying he got more "honesty" from Katie. A-Jenn votes. Ian votes. Jeff thanks the jury for their work, and he goes and gets the votes. He tells them that, of course, there will be no vote-reading now, only later. He leaves.

For some reason, we are spared the absurd Where In The World Is Jeff Probst business where he whizzes across the ocean on a waterproof moped or something, and he just plain walks into the studio in New York where the live finale will take place. I kind of feel robbed. He steps up to the podium. Everyone cheers. "Let's get to it," he says. If the audience doesn't shut up, though, it won't happen. Tom and Katie are both waiting patiently to hear. Winner gets a million bucks! And a car! And let's freaking get going, dude. Takes four votes to win.

First vote, Tom. Second vote, Katie. Third vote, Tom. Fourth vote, Tom. Fifth vote, Tom. And that will do it. Aw, that's cool. Despite making me mad in this episode, Tom is a really good guy, and at least he played an awesome, strong game, and it's always good to have a guy with an awesome, strong game win, because it means the jury didn't entirely vote like they sometimes do and like I thought they might, spiting the person who really beat them by rewarding a much less impressive player. Tom and Katie hug. She is not surprised. He runs out to hug his family. Back at the firehouse, there is cheering. The rest of the dead Survivors walk in behind the jury, stretching to obtain relevance. Jeff talks about the unexpected ending, Ian's stupid deal, and other mysteries, like lame-ass Ulong and the way it was eaten. Just come back soon, people. We've got a reunion left to go.