We open with a "Chinese warrior" emerging from foggy, darkened woods with weaponry at hand, and it's just so very embarrassing realizing that someone set up the lights, and the mist, and put that guy in that outfit, and was like, "Action!" I wonder if that's, like, somebody's cousin who's an out-of-work actor, and they called him up all, "Uh, Gene, can you come in and put this costume on, and then sort of run around with this shield? I know it's a step down from your role as Goofus in that off-off-Broadway Highlights adaptation, but we're having trouble finding anyone."
We roll into an introduction in which footage of similar pretend warriors is spliced together with shots of Jaime trying to roll a big ball through the mud. See, there are parallels. Because being an ancient warrior has a ton in common with being a reality-show contestant. In fact, being on a reality show is better. When was the last time a Chinese warrior got to attend a celebrity bowling event, hmmm? Jeff Probst solemnly voices over that on this "special episode" (read: Thanksgiving turkey-digesting footage dump) (sorry, that sounded...gross, in a way I did not intend), we will "take a closer look" at the journey the F7 have taken to get here. How, HOW, did these people manage to last more than halfway through the game? What is their secret? What do they have to teach future generations?
Let's re-meet our F7. Come on, you know you want to! Wee Todd tells us that he's small, but that he's fast and smart. Courtney says that her strength is weakness. That's deep, man. Peih-Gee says she knows that she can seem bossy and bitchy. Erik says that he has no enemies. Denise and her mullet want to play as long as possible. Amanda declares herself "a huge threat in this game." Which, interestingly, I could not agree with more at this point. And, of course, the show's most favoritest guy, James, is saved for last, like the Hallelujah Chorus at the end of the Christmas concert. He tells us that the rest of the people in the game would all be dead without him, which sort of completes his transformation into Rupert; hooray! He shall reign forever and e-e-ver! King Of Kings! And Lord Of Lords! King Of...well, King Of Dumb-Asses, actually, so never mind. The upcoming bonus footage is teased with bits of Todd bickering with Jean-Robert, everyone eating worms, and a promise from Jeff that there will be fourteen scenes of new material! Fourteen! So don't go wandering off to eat any pumpkin pie just yet! Jeff says that this has been "one of the most unpredictable Survivors ever," which would be a lot more true if the James Will Go Far edit had been a little less blunt for the last two months. Rhubarb rhubarb recap recap, James is "virtually invincible," rhubarb rhubarb.
Credits. Everyone is back -- even the pre-jury boots! They must be so happy to see themselves again. You just know Leslie is at somebody's house, like, "Look. I told you I was on Survivor." Thirty-nine days, people. One Survivor! And several exposed bosoms!
As mist blows in high speed across the Great Wall (I...don't know), we return to the first day, when everyone approached camp on a truck.
New Scene #1! Everyone climbs the one zillion stairs to the temple, carrying their suitcases on their heads in some cases. Erik points out that every time they thought they might be getting to the top of the stairs, they'd take a turn and there would just be...more stairs. I realize this was difficult, but somewhere, I imagine everyone who was on the Guatemala season -- which began with an eleven-mile trek through the jungle -- being like, "Yes, I'm sure that was a terrible half-hour for you, bitches." Chicken (remember how there was a guy named "Chicken"? Oh, so droll) yells up to everyone that it's not like there's money at the top, so they really don't need to hurry. Denise is sort of hanging back with him, and she explains in an interview that she figured there was no harm in lingering with the old, slow guy and letting the young, spry people run up if they chose to. A winning attitude! When they finally reach the top, they're sorted into men and women, and the women are told that they're not exactly appropriately attired for the temple. Ashley and Jaime are both hanging their boobs out to Jesus, so to speak, so you can sort of feel the monks here. Somewhat embarrassed, Ashley admits that the monks gave them drapes to cover themselves up, acknowledging, "I'm sure they don't get a lot of skimpy dresses in the temple." Just another reason that maybe you shouldn't wear a nipple-skimmingly small dress during any part of your Survivor experience.
So then there was the ceremony, and the part where Leslie Cuisinarted a commandment and some other stuff to come up with something the Bible kind of says if you squint, and then the tribes were split up and everyone was sent off to camp. Todd got Aaron to be the leader of Fei Long, because Aaron is a musclebound sucker, while Chicken made his tribe angry by refusing to work after they rejected his suggestions.
New Scene #2! Zhan Hu, it turns out, got a little nutsy waiting for food, because in this clip, they're resorting to eating worms. Erik catches one and says that he'll certainly eat it. I believe it's Peih-Gee who tells him that if he's going to eat it, he should try to "squeeze the poo out." Wow. Having to de-poo your own food before you eat it is never good. Shrimp is probably as close as most of us ever get. Erik interviews that the search for plants to eat had been fruitless (hotcha!), and that they didn't have fire to boil rice, so worms it was. Peih-Gee also partakes, as Dave complains that watching her remove the poo is "TMI." Like...it's too much information that worms have poo? Worms basically are poo, Dave, so...get with the program. Which is on Animal Planet. Peih-Gee interviews that this indeed required people to explore "their boundaries," but that she thinks they'll be glad they did, since you have to eat something, and that's what survival is about, kind of. She has a point. She confidently eats some worms in front of Dave, who's a huge baby about it. Ashley interviews that this entire thing is "gross" and "filthy." Sherea is surprised to find that eating the worm is not as bad as she feared. If you're not a fan of worms, it turns out that, over at Fei Long, they discovered frogs, which you can roast over the fire. Zhan Hu discovered what appear to be some very bitter leaves that nobody much enjoys eating, to the point where Jaime tells everyone she liked the worms better. Fei Long also seems to have found some root plants growing in the water that are edible -- plants that someone refers to as "sea celery." Those actually look like green onions more than anything. It would be interesting to know what that stuff actually is. It's destined for avant-garde menus, I'm sure. Along with, perhaps, worms that the chef lovingly de-poos prior to your arrival.
What's less pleasing to eat than the frogs, worms, and sea celery? Spoiled rice that Jean-Robert winds up eating after it appears there's some confusion about just how old it is. I'm sort of shocked that they were leaving leftovers of rice in the first place, let alone letting anything spoil. I mean, what are you, too full to eat it all? Give it to Courtney! She's clearly not! Jean-Robert and James also bicker over a clam and whether it's good to eat. They find some other fruits and rando items, and James tells everyone that J-R is the testing ground for new foods to see if they're poisonous. Hey, at least he's useful for something.
Immunity challenge; Fei Long won; Chicken went home: "Day-um!" Todd and Amanda formed an alliance; Aaron told J-R he didn't work hard enough; J-R claimed that his spirit was willing but his flesh was weak, but it was all strategy, because actually, his spirit and his flesh were both weak, along with his powers of logical reasoning.
New Scene #3! Jeff tells us that "people" began to think Aaron wasn't a good leader, which turns out to mean that James went out to a boat where Aaron was taking a nap and started lecturing him about how much he sucked. Apparently, nobody is allowed to lie down on James's watch, because James goes down to instruct Aaron that taking a rest is inconsistent with his role as leader. James bitches that they need to get fire (this was apparently early in the game), and Aaron tells James that he tried on the fire and couldn't do it. (As nobody else can, either, in any season, without the benefit of a lens.) Aaron asks James whether he can do anything with fire, and James deflects the question by insisting that they could "together." Which is bullshit, based on everything we've ever seen. James tells everyone that the only reason anything is getting done is that he does things himself rather than sleep where he'll get rained on. James insists to Aaron that they're the only two who have any physical capability at all, dismissing the rest of the tribe as "a stewardess," "two older ladies that don't do much," a "card player," and so forth. Todd uncomfortably imitates James's delivery of this lecture, but he rather wonderfully says that he didn't really care about James essentially dismissing him as a sissy, because if it meant that James blamed Aaron and not Todd for everything, that was fine. I do admire a guy who can take something that's basically an insult and find the silver lining in the fact that if the form of the insult is that you can't do anything but lie around and eat fruit, hey! More time to lie around and eat fruit. James seriously tells the camera that either everyone will help him out, or -- you guessed it -- they'll all die. The self-importance that it requires to actually believe and say repeatedly that without you, people would all die is really something to behold, because James is serious. I mean, I realize that without recaps, you would all die, but I think we all agree on that, right?
Reward challenge! Fei Long wins. Kidnapping Jaime; secret scroll; immunity idol.
New Scene #4! Following the flooding of the Zhan Hu camp, the contestants have to figure out how to set up channels to drain the three large, flat areas that are in their camp. It's actually kind of cool how they figure out how to drain one into the , and then into the , and then down to the lake/pond thing. It looks like everybody pretty much pitched in on this big Army Corps Of Engineers-ish project, but particularly the guys and Peih-Gee. It's kind of problem-solving, but it's also kind of playing in the mud and building waterfalls.
Jaime gives the clue to Leslie, figuring that she's weakest. Leslie tries to align with Todd.
New Scene #5! At Fei Long on Day 5, Aaron puts on his dirty suit and wakes up the tribe for one of his "powwow" meetings (seriously, he apparently begins them all with "Do you guys want to powwow?," which would get you a punch in the face in the settings where I hang out), where he announces that "it's been real, and it's been fun, but it hasn't been real fun." Wow, clever. (And: way to screw up the episode title, ya buffoons.) He says that he no longer wants to be the leader, so he's surrendering his position. And...then he assigns everyone jobs. That was totally random, and I can kind of see why they didn't show it the first time around, which is always the potential problem with clip shows and deleted scenes.
New Scene #6! At Zhan Hu, Dave is crazy with lack of sleep. He explains to us that the reason he's not sleeping is that he keeps getting squeezed out of the good places to sleep in the shelter, and nobody accommodates his big tall self. He tells the camera "Open your eyes, please" in German, which...yes, I'm willing to agree that the lack of sleep is beginning to affect him. There's some Arte Johnson creeping into his persona that I don't think he intends to be there. Dave takes all of this out on the tribe by cautioning them that they shouldn't eat before a challenge, because digestion saps all your energy. Of course, this was the challenge where Dave laid a total egg and lost it for them because of his complete lack of energy, so you've got to think he felt a little silly about that one.
That night, Dave should probably have been booted, but Ashley went home instead.
New Scene #7! At Fei Long, Leslie is grossed out that the camp is a huge and fly-infested pit, so she cleans up. When she talks to Denise later (with everyone else still asleep), Denise chides her for throwing out the fish heads (which were apparently covered with flies), because James planned to use them as bait. You'd think he might have shared that with the group, but apparently, he didn't. You can tell that Denise knows James is going to be a dick about it, just from her cautioning tone when she warns Leslie about the situation and how James is going to react. Denise, in an interview, says she can't believe Leslie "threw all [their] food away." Which, of course, she didn't -- she threw the planned bait away, and I would tend to think that if you're going to keep something like that around, you might just mention to everyone that it's not garbage, because it sure looks like garbage, and if you've been going around bitching that nobody does any work, you might anticipate that somebody would try to clean up around camp.
As James wakes up, Leslie asks him if he wants to go fishing, and then breaks it to him that she threw the fish heads away, apologizing and telling him she knows there's a "learning curve" for her, and that she's going to try to get him some more bait. Just as ungracious as he's been in every single second of the show toward every single person he's encountered, James refuses to cut Leslie any slack, just stone cold-ing her, despite the fact that what happened was the result of someone trying to do exactly what he's been saying he wants, which was pitch in around camp. He claims in an interview that Leslie woke him up and said he had to go fishing -- which absolutely did not occur; she asked him if he wanted to, because she knew that if he was planning to go fishing, she needed to tell him about the bait -- and further eye-rolls over the fact that she threw out the fish heads. This, it turns out, is where he gives his most explicit "nobody could survive without me" speech.
Immunity challenge. Zhan Hu wins at last.
New Scene #8! After the challenge, J-R blames Todd for messing up the puzzle. Which he kind of did. Courtney interviews that J-R wants to blame everyone else, but that she's voting for him -- she calls him "Snoreface" here -- in any event. Wow, I wish I'd heard that sooner, or I might have called him "Snoreface" myself. Courtney shares this with Todd, so Todd marches right over and confronts J-R that he hears J-R has been shit-talking him. J-R is all, "Fix your tone," and Todd's all, "Watch your mouth," and it's very, very boring, because neither of them is smart, and neither of them is likable, so it's just two kinds of blowhard blowing hard on each other. Yawn. It ends in this sort of uncomfortable truce, where they're both being douche-y, but they're both afraid of being the one who seems to be the douche in the situation, so they're both trying to be the one who was nice first at the end. It's a lot of hooey, but least they're not yelling at each other anymore, so I'm satisfied. Todd interviews that he did this to show off how strong he is, and if I'm not mistaken, he wound up apologizing to Jean-Robert there much more than the other way around, so...I am not so sure how successful that was, in terms of proving that Todd could not be messed with.
Tribal council. Leslie went home.
Remember how Courtney and J-R hated each other? Remember? And then, there was an immunity challenge, and Zhan Hu lost again, and Sherea and Dave went to war over the shells she threw out. Finally, Dave went home.
And then there was the kidnapping and the tribe mix-up, sending Sherea and Frosti to Fei Long and Aaron and James to Zhan Hu.
New Scene #9! The members of Fei Long sit around doing impressions, beginning with J-R, whom Todd imitates primarily by sticking out his nonexistent belly. Sherea, Denise, and Amanda find this much funnier than I do. I think they're tired and hungry. Sherea interviews that this is what she likes to do for fun anyway -- sit around with her friends harshing on people. I would never do that! Especially not at work! Todd's impression of Amanda focuses on her cheerfulness, and Sherea is thankfully not offended by his impression of her, which has...seriously, if I were Todd, I'd stop with some of the exaggerated voices he likes to do when imitating Sherea and James, because not everybody is going to find that particularly funny. He seems to be okay with Sherea, but...again. Just...caution might be smart. Courtney's impression of Jaime is pretty good in some ways (the squinty blinking), but in the end, it comes off as fairly ridiculous, considering that she wants to be insulting Jaime for being (1) a blonde with (2) a tiny bathing suit, which...look in the mirror, New Yorksy. Courtney's whole "she bartends at a frat house" business just comes off mean and petty and jealous, because frankly, Courtney is a waitress herself, and I'm not sure she'd have anything to be a snob about even if being a snob weren't...you know. Kind of snobby. When she goes to "aren't there ads for [Jaime] in the back of a magazine?," it's clear that she's just trying to find somebody to put in a lower position on the Bikini-Wearing Blonde In A Service Industry Ladder, so she doesn't have to be on the bottom.
At Zhan Hu, Jaime and Peih-Gee decided to throw the challenge. Aaron went home. And then there was a reward challenge, and James was kidnapped, and Todd hatched his brilliant plan to give James two immunity idols instead of keeping any for himself.
New Scene #10! Amanda and Todd try to "threaten" Frosti into really trying to win the challenge by telling him that if he doesn't, he'll be sent home. They're very proud of this and very "We blackmailed him!" about it, but...does anyone think Frosti was otherwise going to try to throw the challenge, knowing that he was a very, very likely victim of booting? That makes no sense. I don't know what Todd and Amanda are "blackmailing" Frosti into doing that he wasn't already going to do. He's not going to throw it to the other tribe so that his tribe winds up voting someone off. The entire point of the throw/win business, if they're worried about it, would be that he would try to help Zhan Hu lose and boot James, which means...helping Fei Long win. I think they're thinking themselves in a circle here, just a bit. It just doesn't make a lot of sense.
James tried to throw the challenge, but he couldn't, because of Denise and the balut. Sherea went home. James found the second immunity idol. Jaime was so stupid HA HA HA, blah blah blah James-promoting propaganda. Merge!
New Scene #11! It seems that the party from the merge went on into the night, and everybody got drunk and acted like stupid idiots, all of which was captured in night-vision, as it always is. Lots of drunk people discussing whether they're drunk, lots of drunk people discussing whether other people are drunk, Todd stumbling drunkenly into the bushes to pee, drunk people singing, James whining about everyone singing, Denise telling us she's too old for hangovers. Aren't we all.
Jaime went home.
New Scene #12! There's really nothing to this scene except the show's continuing, embarrassing, gruesomely cynical attempt to use James to cleanse years of casting sins and to ask him to carry the weight of rebutting years of criticism over the way it casts African-American men. (Earl, simply by being wonderful and smart and funny and wry and cool and decent and of course winning, apparently did not count, because as you may have recently heard from Jeff Probst, Earl was not compelling.) James goes on about how he just loves to provide for people, which is sort of baffling, because if you love doing it, you don't hold it over their heads and complain about it endlessly. I know people who legitimately love to provide for people -- they love to give other people things, help, love, food, gifts, time, attention, affection, whatever -- and they don't get in those people's faces all, "Without me, you'd be dead." It's kind of a rule of legitimately loving to provide for people that you can't simultaneously resent them.
Immunity challenge, won by Courtney. J-R learned from Erik about James's idol, and J-R got booted after Todd couldn't stand to have someone else think of the same plan he already had. Seriously, it was that dumb.
New Scene #13! In case you needed any more proof that this entire thing is cooked to try to make you favor James, Jeff Probst comes right out and says -- totally falsely -- in a voice-over that when they got back from the ball-bouncing reward challenge, "Peih-Gee blamed James for losing the challenge." This, you will recall, is what she specifically didn't do. It's kind of amazing to me that they'd write a voice-over that is quite that blatant a fabrication.
In any event, any remaining doubt that James is a graceless asshole is washed away when Peih-Gee comes back and apologizes to him for taking out her frustration about the challenge on him by calling him out for his slack-ass performance. She doesn't do the usual reality-show apology, either, where it's "I'm sorry, but" or "I'm sorry, even though" or "I'm sorry if you misunderstood." She just straight-up says she apologizes for taking out her frustration on him and says she shouldn't have done it. And he's nothing but an absolute dick in response, refusing to accept her apology and continuing to insult her instead. When she says she's sorry, he says, "No you're not! Don't politic!" Peih-Gee doesn't lose her temper; she just tells James that she's genuinely sorry, and she understands that he can, of course, accept her apology or not. "No!" he says. "I really am sorry," she repeats quietly. "No you're not, you're really not," he says, even though she obviously is, and she said in her interviews exactly what she just said to him, which is that she shouldn't have taken out her frustration on him. "Please stop messing with me and go sit down somewhere," James orders imperiously. Peih-Gee tells him -- again, with remarkable calm, considering what a hectoring jerk he's being -- that she came to apologize, and not to fight with him more. He tells her that she DID TOO come to fight with him, which is sort of amusing in an "Argument Clinic" kind of way. When he tries to continue to make it ugly, she tells him that she understands if he's not in a mood where he wants to accept her apology, and that's fine: "I can understand that, okay? I know what kind of a person you are." He declares that her obviously sincere apology is "fluff," and that he hates "fluff." He is such a gigantic jerk in this sequence, it's kind of breathtaking. It's very rare to see someone who can't even squeak out a single grain of graciousness when someone offers an obviously sincere apology for a relatively minor dust-up in which both parties behaved badly. I mean, seriously..."I know what kind of a person you are"? It would be kind of funny if the show wasn't so determined to demonize her and lionize him. This is just...nasty and self-centered, and there's never going to be any nobility in it, no matter how hard Jeff Probst is trying.
Immunity challenge. Peih-Gee won over Frosti. Frosti was booted. And then Jeff announced that there was "more business to attend to" after tribal council! Eeeee!
Jeff importantly tells us that now, we have to wait for future twists and new challenges and blah bling blah, and I don't know where the fourteenth new scene was, because I only counted thirteen. I feel ripped off!
week: "More business to attend to," in case you haven't heard. And is Amanda turning on Fei Long?
Okay, maybe this is the fourteenth scene? Over the credits, we hear random clips of Courtney trash-talking everyone, which...is that really new?