We begin with a reward challenge at F4, which Amanda wins, only to find herself in a difficult spot when Jeff offers her the opportunity to eat her booty (so to speak) alone, or to take either one or two other people. Her first of several potential strategic blunders arises when she fears offending Denise by making her the odd person out and fears offending Todd by not including him, so she takes just Todd, which is probably the least intelligent of her possible moves here. At least if she took Courtney, she could claim it was based on how skinny Courtney is -- this just comes off like sucking up.
After the March Of Dead Survivors, the F4 find themselves at the final immunity challenge, which involves balancing dishes on the end of a pole. Todd sucks at it, and Courtney doesn't seem to have the strength to make use of her proven ability to stand stock-still, so the two of them are out, leaving Denise and Amanda. Denise makes a rather pathetic attempt to make a deal with Amanda that seemingly consists of, "I am willing to lose, which I'm about to do anyway, and I will agree that after I lose and you win, I will not vote you out, which I will not be able to do anyway, since you will be immune, in return for you not voting me out." Or something. Amanda has no interest in a deal that isn't even a deal, and, at least in part as a result of actually doing a better job of stacking dishes than anyone else, Amanda wins the final immunity. Somehow, this is perceived as putting Amanda in charge of who gets voted out. Denise embarrasses herself something fierce by going to Amanda with straight-up begging, telling Amanda to refuse to vote Denise out simply because Denise's life is so pathetic and sad (she has to go back to her family, oh noes!) that she needs the money more than other people. Having just seen this direct preview of the sob story Denise will unleash on the jury in the event she gets to F3, Amanda wants Denise at the end even less than before, but tries to remain noncommittal, with the exception of a really weird moment where it appears that she tells Denise in great detail why she's not sure whether she's voting for Denise, and then says one thing's for sure: she's not voting for Denise. I suspect shenanigans there on the part of production, but it's hard to say.
At the F4 tribal council, Denise hits the sympathy/guilt card hard, boo-hooing about how Amanda promised not to vote for her. Amanda glimpses her future and realizes that, as a result of trying to play smart and look after Denise's self-pitying feelings at the same time, she's walked right into a trap, which is looking like a great big phony -- the same "better a snake than a rat" trap that has sunk women at final tribal councils going back to Kelly and Rich. So she weakly tries to defend herself, and Todd seizes his moment, having a big old mugging moment of hilarity at her expense. Amanda suddenly realizes that she's going to be (1) the mean girl; (2) the phony; and (3) the one everyone gangs up on and laughs at, and thus begins the collapse of confidence that will ruin the rest of her game.
Denise is booted, just like everyone told her she would be, and when Amanda, Todd, and Courtney get back to camp, Amanda is upset with Todd for mocking her in front of the jury, which he disingenuously denies having done on purpose, even (it appears) to himself. By the time the F3 get to the final tribal council, Amanda feels defensive and torn between trying to be nice and trying to defend her gameplay. She, of course, decides to try to have it both ways, which is the one thing that can't work.
The jury questions aren't as horrible as some -- James is mercifully brief, to begin with. Jean-Robert complains about having to vote for any of them, but -- continuing his streak of doing everything possible to make it look like whipping his ass at poker would be the easiest thing ever -- he totally falls for it when Todd unloads a wagon full of horseshit about how he got rid of Jean-Robert because Jean-Robert was such an overwhelmingly huge threat. Huge! A huge threat! Jean-Robert, unable to argue with his own greatness, shuts up. Peih-Gee asks the question Amanda anticipated when she ousted James, which is what she did that was worth anything, and Amanda says she ousted James. Erik is nice, Frosti (to his credit) is mostly unmoved by Todd's sucking up and mostly appreciative of Courtney's straight talk, and Jaime makes an absolute ass of herself by trying to attack everyone simultaneously in a weird quest for relevance. She needs to shut up, hard. Denise then gets up and squanders every bit of goodwill she's earned throughout the game by acting like a self-pitying asshole, taking home the award for Most Disappointing Juror by a landslide. She was betrayed! (By a situation everyone saw coming!) She thinks Amanda and Todd are dishonest! (By trying to beat her!) She is a lunch lady, and therefore deals in honesty! (O...kay?) Denise sucks.
The long and the short of it is that, as usual, the jury makes it rats-versus-snakes and chooses the snake, handing the victory to Todd -- though Courtney makes an interesting surge with an outstanding performance at final tribal council (probably better than Todd's, if you ask me) and gets two votes. Amanda -- in the great tradition of women who play well, feel obligated to either pretend to be sorry or actually try to feel sorry, and who fall into the ravine between "keep it real" reality-show expectations and "don't brag" socialization-of-women expectations as a result -- receives one vote, having played a smarter strategic game than anyone. Her vote comes from Erik, the only consistently nice and decent person on the jury, which certainly says something.
It's an incredibly unsatisfying end to a very bad season, topped off with a reunion where Todd, downright delusional in the glow of his victory (which he pretends not to have seen coming even though everyone who saw the final tribal council saw it coming, going so far as to burst into tears of "surprise"), explains that he foresaw everything that would ever happen in the game, and that everything -- up to and including the casting of 93-pound Courtney -- was part of his master plan. James takes the popularity contest, grabbing a hundred grand that production basically handed him by presenting him as the lovable, down-to-earth truth-teller that he totally was not. Boo to this season; bring on the half-All-Star season, and you better get some Jonathan Penner in that mofo, because I can't take another season without anybody who's capable of landing a satisfying punch.
Previously on Shanghai Surprised: Everybody started out in Shanghai, where they were left in their regular clothes, which came as a shock to everyone who showed up braless in cocktail dresses, Jaime. From there, it was basically the world's most boring Pagonging, in which nobody from the losing tribe really tried to get up a revolt, and nobody from the winning tribe who clearly wasn't going to make it to the end particularly cared that they weren't going to make it to the end, and there wasn't even a really good along-the-way booting like Edgardo or Leann or one of those.
Credits. For some reason, someone felt it necessary to caption the final four with their occupations: Todd "The Flight Attendant" (in reality: desperately aspiring media personality), Denise "The Lunch Lady" (in reality: janitor), Courtney "The Waitress" (in reality: aspiring media personality), and Amanda "The Beauty Queen" (in reality: aspiring media personality). It's interesting that everyone was referred to by occupation except Amanda, whose current occupation, whatever it may be, was thrown over in favor of mentioning a past status. I mean, at least the rest are all jobs, but I doubt Amanda's current paychecks come from the Beauty Queen Company. In any event, as I look thoughtfully upon the faces of the jury, I think to myself, "Wow. Not only do I not care, but I haven't cared in weeks and weeks."
Hae Da Fung, Night 36. Two frogs discuss tribal council, where Peih-Gee was voted out. "Guys, we actually did it," says one frog. Oh, wait. That's a voice-over from Todd, who's coming back with the rest of the F4. They all congratulate themselves on what a great plan it is, and the great part is, they can now all play as a team, because nobody else has to be voted off! And so it goes in DeniseLand, where Denise is living. "DeniseLand: Where Four Equals Three, Forty Is Old, And Everybody Gets Mac And Cheese!" Courtney interviews that she figured on coming in last, and now she has a one in four chance of winning. She learned probability, you will note, from Jeff Probst. They share a group hug, and Todd literally says, "I love us." By which he means, "I love myself, and all that I see of myself in you." Courtney tells the others that these four were "the bottom of the totem pole from the beginning," which is...a lie, which probably explains why Denise, who has dual citizenship in Hey I Notice There Is A Fire Burning Up Your Pantsylvania, agrees with it. Courtney interviews further that she would love to win immunity in the last challenge and wind up in F3 with the necklace. That's thinking, there. Never let it be said that teeny girls aren't crafty.
A frog pounces upon and eats an insect. I wonder if that means something. Sometimes, I cannot grasp the symbolism, because it is so nuanced. At these times, I go and lie down.
The morning, the final four are barely awake before they start complaining about how hungry they are. Denise tells us that this will be a "tough fight" to make it past F4. "Tough fight," "lost cause"...what's the diff? She insists that "this is a life-changing experience." And she doesn't know the half of it, unfortunately, given that it's going to change her life from "pitiful sob story" into "cautionary tale about feeling overly sorry for yourself." They receive treemail suggesting that they're going to take part in one more reward challenge, which will give them the opportunity to eat. Amanda says she's "going to cry." She says that having no food has sent her into a bad mood for a few days, and this reward is hugely important to her as a result.
Reward challenge course. Probst is waiting. He explains that this challenge puts them to the test against "our version of the Great Wall Of China." Oh, Lord. That sounds terrible. I don't exactly place my faith in Mark Burnett Productions and their ability to replicate cultural marvels. I fear flags, plastic, and somebody at the end with a gong. I can sort of see the higher-up non-creative executive type all, "You know, great season, Marky, but NOT ENOUGH GONGS. Why the hell aren't there more gongs? Isn't this China? They had more gongs on The Gong Show, and I don't think Chuck Barris was entirely Chinese. Get on that, would you?"
At any rate, this basically is an obstacle-course challenge, made up of stairs and a little bridge you have to build from planks and so forth. It ultimately requires puzzle-solving at the end as well. First to finish will win, and what's the reward? Food, of course. Specifically, pizza and beer. And pop. And brownies. I can't believe that pizza has black olives on it. That would ruin the entire thing for me, seriously. A reward should be a democratic and ubiquitous pizza, not something with aggressive, gross black olives. ["Looks like I'm also taking Todd on my pizza reward, then." -- Sars] Jeff insists that this food will comfort you; this food will very nearly love you back. You must have this food! This food will write you letters that explain the way this food feels. And, of course, you'll be stronger going into the immunity challenge. Because of the wonderful food.
The challenge develops into a battle between Todd and Amanda to complete the puzzle at the end, with Todd entering that phase with a lead. You can tell how hard they're working to pad this two-hour episode by how long we sit there watching Todd and Amanda try to arrange puzzle blocks in a cinderblock "wall." And then, all of a sudden, Amanda raises her arms, and, with a little bead of sweat at the tip of her nose, she's the winner of the reward challenge. She goes over to meet Jeff, who tells her news to throw up to: she has the option to eat alone, bring one person, or bring two people. It seems to me that there are two right answers here, just on the social level. One is that you eat alone, making the argument that it's a game, and you think everyone will understand. The other is that you take two people, saying you took as many as you could, and you just eat the fact that you're going to piss someone off -- logically, you'd decline to take the person you're planning to vote out at F4 anyway. In other words, Amanda should either take no one, or take both Todd and Courtney. Now, as Amanda later pointed out, if she takes no one, everyone else can hang around and scheme against her. So, trying to split the difference and hedge her bets for the first of far too many times in this finale, Amanda takes just Todd with her, which seems idiotic to me. It's true that this keeps the other three from plotting together, but it seems like the worst of her available options, numerically. I think she ought to commit at this point -- take Todd and Courtney, tell Denise she got to eat at the Great Wall reward, realize Denise is going to be mad, and live with it. Or, even, take Todd and Denise, on the theory that Courtney doesn't have enough power to do anything to you and has a weird tendency not to take the game personally. Either way, at least then Denise and Courtney aren't both mad, and you don't look so watery. Jeff sends Courtney and Denise back to camp, leaving Todd and Amanda to chow down.
Amanda interviews that she picked Todd to eat with her because she doesn't trust him, and she thinks that he wouldn't have chosen her to eat if the situation had been reversed. So...this will help? Or something? As they eat together, she tells him that she's having some doubts about him, and she thinks if she's going to be backstabbed, it would be by him. Todd puts on his boo-hoo face and says this makes him feel "kind of sad." Todd goes on to tell her that he's been honest with her all along (except the part where he was trying to get a deal together to boot her while he was Great Wall-ing with Courtney and Denise, of course). Todd interviews -- and this is where you learn that he's entered the realm of self-delusion -- that it was just so hurtful that she doubted him, when he was honestly and truly going to stay loyal to her. Aside from, as stated, the part at the Great Wall where he tried to get Courtney and Denise to agree to vote her off in the event that Peih-Gee won immunity. I'm never sure what causes this kind of easily disprovable doublespeak, but in Todd's case, I think he performs so incessantly and is such a poseur, and he sees his experience so much through the lens of how he believes he will be perceived by fans of the show, that he doesn't even remember things he's actually already done. All he's seeing in his head is the edited episode and how he will look in it, and he doesn't remember that he will have said other things in past edited episodes. He proceeds to swear on his mother's life that he would take Amanda to F2 if it came to that, even though he already tried to get her out at F5. Hope his mom's got her health insurance paid up! Todd insists that the "honest, 100-percent truth" is that he wouldn't want to lose to Denise or Courtney. Unworthy!
Hae Da Fung, Day 37. Denise strips to her underwear and jumps in the water while voicing over that it hurt her feelings not to be invited to eat with Amanda, because they haven't had much food. And then she launches into a big old sob story about how, as a kid, she was always picked last in games and she wasn't popular, so being included in this group of people has been great, but at this point, "there is going to be somebody left out." Right here is where, if Todd and Amanda were listening, they'd get their first hint of just what's going to happen to them, because any time someone is using Survivor to relive her painful formative experiences of childhood kickball, somebody's getting a face full of bitter at the final tribal council. As Denise and Courtney lie around complaining about how hot it is, Denise comments that she'd believed Todd was close with Courtney, but now it seems like it's him and Amanda. She apparently is trying to plant a seed of doubt in Courtney's mind about the closeness of her relationship with Todd, which is stupid, because how does it reflect on Courtney and Todd's relationship who Amanda brings to eat? Think, Denise -- Todd didn't choose Amanda. Courtney asks Denise whom she wants to vote off, and Denise says, "Todd." That drives me insane. She's been presented with numerous opportunities to vote off Todd, and she's declined them all on the theory that she could beat him in an F3 situation, and now she's decided to make her big move? Unbelievable.
As Todd and Amanda speedboat back from the reward, Todd interviews that he has no way of knowing for sure whether he can trust the women he refers to as "my girls," or whether they're going to turn on him. He will have to hope. He returns to camp and immediately starts complaining about the heat. I'm not sure Denise and Courtney are all that impressed with the post-feast whining.
Later, Todd gives Denise a speech that I truly respect him for getting through with a straight face, in which he tells her that "it hurts" that he's going to have to vote for someone. It hurts! Feeeeel for Todd! Todd has feelings, and is hurting! He pouts that he's afraid they'll "go all girl power" with the vote, because obviously, hysterical females ganging up on him with their terrifying uteruses and clubbing him with tampon-filled handbags is the only reason he might get voted off. Denise asks him who he thinks has the best shot at winning in front of the jury. "Amanda or Courtney," Todd says. That's such a dumb question for her to ask him; it's not like he's going to tell her what he really thinks: "Well, Denise, I think I have the best chance of winning, so...hint hint!" She tries to parlay this into a claim that she and Todd should vote one of those two out. She doesn't get, apparently, that Todd (1) won't mention himself, for the reason stated above, and (2) won't mention Denise, because that would make her aware that he's planning to vote her off for fear of facing her, so "Amanda or Courtney" is what he's going to say, no matter what he really thinks. It turns out that Courtney is nearby, listening in on this conversation (way to sneak, Todd, you crazy genius!). She interviews that she heard her name go by in this Todd-Denise exchange. She further says that that "slippery little sucker" Todd tends to "weasel his way" into things.
Courtney and Amanda take a little walk together, and Courtney tells Amanda about the discussion she overheard. Courtney has observed that Todd is saying different things to different people at different times. Amanda and Courtney crouch together by the lake to gather...something, and Amanda relays the conversation in which she told Todd she didn't trust him, and how he acted all hurt. Todd comes strolling up in the middle of this little chat and tries to ascertain whether everything is okay. He voices over that he's hoping Amanda and Courtney are still on board with him to get rid of Denise at F4. Once again, he blames any possible ousting of himself on a misguided notion of "girl power." He tells Courtney that he thinks they're "the most fantastic final three in the entire world." Of all the final threes in all the world, this is the best! Eat it, final three of Canada! Give up now, final three of Portugal! We are the best final three! In all the world!
We return from commercials to Day 38 at camp, where Todd is bringing back a sealed scroll. He reads the message, which congratulates the F4 on outlasting twelve of their compatriots. You know what this means! "Honor their memories"! Scatter their ashes over this obstacle course! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is time for the March of Dead Survivors, after which, the message says, they will proceed to the final immunity challenge. They paddle together across the lake to a giant statue of "the Chinese goddess of compassion and mercy." Who, surprisingly, does not have her eyes covered when they arrive. Apparently, the goddess is currently relegated to standing guard over the Dead Survivors' torches. This go-round, they are instructed to light a string of firecrackers by each person's dead body. Er, "torch." To celebrate the person's fire and send them off to the reality-show afterlife, also known as The Quest To Sleep With People From Shows Lower On The Totem Pole Of Importance Than Yours, Beginning With Big Brother.
They paddle and paddle, and then Todd gives a megalomaniacal voice-over speech about how every person voted off has participated in his victory. It sounds innocent enough here, but you will learn at the reunion that Todd genuinely believes that he directed everything that happened on both tribes, at all times, from Day 1, so this is not an exaggeration or colorful talk. Everyone was a pawn in his little game. He is the puppetmaster! He claims to be "grateful" for people like, say, Dave and Chicken, who played a "huge part" in getting him to the end. Seriously, Todd: shut your yap. Todd goes for further seriousness points by telling us that out of sixteen people, only one will be the winner. Wait, let me get a pen to write that down.
We begin, as we must, with Chicken, about whom Todd insincerely oozes, "With a name like Chicken, how can you not be cool?" The fact that he doesn't know Chicken, barely met Chicken, and doesn't need Chicken's vote doesn't keep him from sucking up to the absent Chicken. (Euphemism alert: "What do you think he was doing when he locked himself in the bathroom?" "Oh, I'd say he was sucking up to the absent Chicken, if you get my drift.") Chicken interviews that he wanted to be himself. He couldn't relate to anyone! No available poultry!
Courtney says she wished she'd gotten to know Ashley better. Nobody says "boobs." Ashley interviews that she's been through tough things as a wrestler, but it was nothing like this.
Courtney calls herself and Leslie "unlikely friends," and Leslie tells us that the game is "hard." Thank you, Leslie. I thank you, Jesus thanks you, and the monks of China thank you most of all.
"The guy's fun" is all Amanda can say of Dave. Dave tells us his strategy was to be likable and indispensable. Well, zero out of two ain't bad! He thinks his downfall was being too helpful. Fortunately for Dave, the sound guys can't be arsed to interrupt the music long enough to put chirping crickets on the soundtrack.
Everybody talks about how much they liked Aaron, and he tells us that he tried to "wear too many hats." But not too many shirts, fortunately. He compares the competition to surfing, which I think people feel obligated to do regarding the game and their daily lives. At least Aaron has it easier than the person who has to say, "Survivor is really similar to pharmaceutical sales, because...wait, it'll come to me..."
Courtney misses Sherea. Sherea says she was stronger than she thought. ("What did I learn from this experience? I learned that I am awesome!")
Of Jaime, Todd sarcastically snots, "Having you around camp was like having your favorite piece of bubblegum in your mouth. Fuuun-tastic." What a jackass he is, seriously. He's that guy who always thinks he's putting one over on people, and except when he's in the company of dumb people, he's never getting away with anything, but everyone gets tired of telling him to shut up, so they let him entertain himself, and being indulged eventually swells his head to the size of a watermelon. HATE.
Jaime's footage is of her "idol" being thrown in the fire, because we can't get enough of that, and she says that she was lucky to have Erik out there with her. All they will remember of you when you're dead is your faux-mance.
They reach Jean-Robert's torch, and Amanda smiles and says she thinks he'll be "the player most changed after this." Courtney says she sure hopes so. Heh. Jean-Robert tells us that he's very astute about other people's feelings. Oh, very.
"You're my munchkin, and I absolutely adore you," Courtney says to Frosti's torch. Frosti's torch: "[Cold silence]." Frosti tells us that this helped him on his own path, and honestly, I don't think Frosti needs Survivor. My sense is that that kid will be fine. A little odd, but in a good way. I was intrigued by you, Frosti, and I'm sorry that your body is being thrown on the pyre with the rest of the deceased contestants.
They get to James's torch, and Denise insists that he was a "great big giant teddy bear" underneath it all. James tells us that dealing with the other people was the hardest part for him, but he's learned that he can indeed deal with other people, even when they're still alive and not inside locked boxes.
At Erik's torch, Amanda talks about what a nice, sweet guy he is, and how genuine. Erik says he tends not to be a risk-taker, so this was a big deal for him. Also, he is a virgin. No, he doesn't say that.
The group continues to deny any props to Peih-Gee, with Courtney being the only one to step up and say that she admired Peih-Gee for being a tiny person and still being such a fighter. Peih-Gee talks about the terrible odds she faced and the way she at least made herself proud.
Please note that of the twelve people they just discussed, Courtney, Amanda, and Denise all had at least one person of whom they spoke with genuine warmth; Todd had nobody. For all his "I love everyone" posturing, he has nothing nice to say about anyone when they're not there to be sucked up to, and he just proved it. His bullshit comment about Chicken and his snide sideways slam at Jaime were all he had to offer up. Well done, Glurge Miser.
Jeff calls everyone in for the final immunity challenge. They each take their places at stations where there's a sort of a rod with a handle on one end and a stack of dishes. And...commercials. What will happen?
When we come back, Jeff takes back immunity from Amanda. Jeff says this will test each person's ability to focus on what they're doing and tune out distractions. He says that in the challenge, you balance a stack of dishes on a long arm with a swivel point in the middle and a dish-sized wooden platform on the end opposite your hand. You stack dishes one at a time as Jeff instructs, and you have to balance them by holding onto the opposite end of the swing arm. The dishes fall, you lose. Finally, we are ready to begin.
They start by each putting a large plate on their platforms. Then a bowl. This is going to get really boring. I interrupt this heart-pounding balancing action to tell you that Todd looks more like a Monchichi than ever, and Amanda's hat looks like she bought it at a 4 Non Blondes Going Out Of Business Sale. More and more dishes are stacked. At 27 Minutes Elapsed, Todd looks wobbly. Another small bowl is added. Todd's not steady, and now his dishes are tipped to one side, so...only a matter of time, there. "You have nothing to do but dig deep," Jeff Probst intones seriously, as if it's the first stage of the Everest climb, and up at the top is a potion that will cure cancer and can be used on popcorn instead of butter. First to lose his stack of dishes is Todd, which was a while in the coming and not a surprise by the time it happens. Worse at the concentration challenge than anyone...that kind of makes sense.
At this point in the challenge, Amanda makes a significant move, which is that she places her second-to-last dish, a bowl, upside down, which seems to instantly make it more stable. Denise and Courtney do not follow suit. Because it's a bigger bowl on top of a smaller bowl, Amanda's arrangement essentially exploits the size of the dishes, while Courtney and Denise's arrangements fight it. Courtney's dishes wobble. Amanda remains perfectly still. Jeff tries to fill, prattling about "this is it," and "there are no more challenges," and so forth. Jeff is not a person who should attempt to fill, seriously. Courtney looks desperate, then says she doesn't feel well, then lets her dishes drop. So now, it's Denise and Amanda. Denise doesn't look happy about this development at all. For some reason, Jeff Probst has never seemed any more ridiculous than he does at this moment, droning on in a desperate attempt to build suspense about a contest about which nobody cares, because these people are boring and also it's dishes and also what happened to challenges that took eight hours? That was awesome. Ian and Tom too much man for you, Burnett?
Amanda looks like she could do this all day. Denise looks like she's thirty seconds from total organ failure. So, of course, Denise chooses this moment to attempt to extract concessions. "All right, Amanda, what do you think?" she asks. "What do you mean?" asks Amanda. "Make a deal?" Denise asks desperately, Jon-Dalton-style. "You don't want to give up easily, do you?" Amanda asks gently, because it's nicer than "What are you thinking you can offer in this 'deal,' other than your willingness to drop out now instead of sixty seconds from now?" "Come on, I won't write your name down, you don't write my name down," Denise says. "I'm not giving up, Denise," Amanda says simply. Jeff cautions them not to lose their concentration, then tells them they have to put another bowl on. "Oh, crap," Denise mutters. "You sure, Amanda?" Denise asks, and it's...kind of hilarious, given that it's so obvious that she's just asking, "Before I lose on my own, are you certain you don't want to give me something in return for my losing intentionally?" "Come on, let's battle this out, Denise, you're not a quitter," Amanda says. It's amusing how it never occurs to Amanda that the proposal here is that she would quit; it's obvious that Denise is going to quit, and equally obvious that Denise will lose anyway, so the deal, she is toast. The time to deal is when both people legitimately believe they might lose the challenge and legitimately believe they might be voted out at F4, so the 75 percent chance you perhaps have that someone will keep to a deal is better than your 50 percent chance of winning immunity.
Amanda and Denise place their last bowls, sticking with their opposite-facing arrangements. There is waiting. There is sweating. And then, Denise's dishes fall off their perch and crash to the ground. Amanda hugs Denise, saying, "You think I was going to let you quit on me? Come on." Amanda happily skips over to Jeff, who puts the necklace around her neck. He tells Denise, Todd, and Courtney that one of them will not be seeing the final tribal council. Dun! "If there was ever a time to pull out all the stops to try to make a deal," he begins, and in my living room, I finish: "It was two weeks ago." But Jeff says "This. Is. It." instead. Back to camp with everyone.
Hae Da Fung, Day 38. Amanda tells us that while she's excited to have immunity and a guaranteed spot in F3, she's concerned that whoever leaves will blame her, because she's the "free vote." Todd and Amanda wander off into the woods together, which leaves Amanda and Denise in the shelter. Denise interviews that the rest of the group is pretty much younger than she is, and she's the "old lady." So she feels left out, but she hopes to sway Amanda. She approaches Amanda and sits down to talk. "You already got a deal with everybody else?" she asks. Amanda tells Denise she hasn't decided yet whom she wants to vote for. She tells Denise that she "put up a really good fight today." Amanda says she admires Denise and the way she doesn't give up.
And here's where things go bad for Denise, who gives this speech: "I mean, everybody's gonna have things that they can still do. You know what I mean? But this is all I've got right now. I'm not gonna have much after this. You know, that's the only thing. Todd's going to have a career in L.A., you're gonna do your fashion line. This is all I got. I gotta go back to my family." NOT YOUR FAMILY! "I'm not saying it's a bad thing, I'm just saying, you know, that I'm gonna go back to making seven dollars an hour working as the lunch lady, doing the same things day after day like I've been doing." It's sort of appalling to watch this and realize that for a while before she left to come on the show, Denise was already working in a different job by choice, not as a lunch lady, and was making $17 an hour, not $7. I'm not saying $17 an hour is a ton of money, but it's the difference between "practically minimum wage" and "not," and no matter how many times I see this, I just can't get over the fact that she flat-out lied like this in a quest for pity. I mean, working as a janitor isn't embarrassing, and working as a lunch lady isn't embarrassing, but this? This is really, really embarrassing.
At any rate, Denise has just treated Amanda to a sneak preview of the sympathy plea she will make in front of the jury, so as much as Amanda feels bad for this sort of pathetic person who's willing to make herself as pathetic as possible, she also knows more than ever that there's a huge risk of a giant pity party if she takes Denise to F3. Amanda interviews that Denise "has played a great game" (for Amanda, I'm assuming she means) and has been "honest," so she'd love to take Denise. But she can't take Denise. Amanda tells Denise she needs "a little time to think about it."
As Denise takes a walk, Todd, Amanda, and Courtney have a talk in which Todd tells them he's voting for Denise. Courtney says she is, too. "The three of us to the end?" Todd asks. "All right, just like we wanted." "You guys can tell her whatever you want to tell her," Todd says. "You can tell her the truth, I don't know." "I'll tell her the truth," Courtney says. "I mean, is that okay with you, Amanda?" In a weird little sequence, Amanda starts to say she doesn't want to "do that," and Todd jumps in all, "Because you don't want a bad mark from her?" and Amanda says "No," and it's not clear if "No" means "Yes, that's why," or "No, that's not why." But in any event, Todd's like, "Do whatever you want," and it ends there. Todd voices over that Amanda "holds all the cards right now," which is sort of true and sort of not true, in that any of them can force a tie, but only Amanda would know that the tie wouldn't involve her. Her position is somewhat better, but that doesn't change the fact that Denise is on the block because of all of them, not because of Amanda.
At any rate, Todd gives his "I just have to hope they're with me" speech, which we've now heard from him a million times, and which just reaffirms that he isn't nearly the genius he thinks he is, because he spends entirely too much time sitting around like, "Oh, well, I just have to hope nobody from the majority I'm part of decides to change her mind." I've said a number of times over the last couple of years that as good as Hatch's game seemed at the time, you couldn't really play Hatch's game anymore, because all he really did was make an alliance and hope nobody would make any moves against it. Apparently, I was wrong, because aside from a couple of boneheaded "I am so strategic!" moves that didn't help him at all, that's really all Todd did. He made an alliance, his larger tribe had a majority at the merge, his tribe Pagonged the other tribe, and nobody who was in his tribe but not in his true alliance bothered to take any of the numerous opportunities available to change the game.
Amanda and Denise go off to take a walk, and Todd whines to Courtney in the shelter that "she's" probably trying to convince "her" to vote Todd off. No idea who is "she" and who is "her." Thanks, editing. Todd goes on to complain that Denise and Amanda are all "making peace" now. Courtney opines that Amanda's smart move is bringing Todd and Courtney, because Todd is "the schemer," and Courtney is "the tagalong." Todd says that he'd be "proud to lose to" Amanda, and not so much to Denise. Much as he earlier told Amanda he wouldn't be proud to lose to Courtney or Denise. Courtney agrees that losing to Denise would be no good: "This isn't, like, welfare. Like, she doesn't deserve it just 'cause, you know, she sucks at life." It's interesting, because as horrible of a thing as this is to say (you'll recall Adam made a similar remark about Jonathan "sucking at life" once), I think I kind of understand how it happened here. It certainly seems that Denise is not shy about lamenting how pitiful and meaningless her life is (in her own eyes), so I think Courtney isn't saying she's concluded that Denise sucks at life, as much as she's saying, "Denise saying that, boo hoo, she sucks at life is not a good reason for her to win." Which is very true. But whatever she means by it, Courtney looks down at Todd and sheepishly/proudly (it's always hard to say with Courtney) pronounces herself "the biggest bitch on the planet." The biggest bitch on the planet? Oh, please. Not even close. You wouldn't even be the biggest pin in the cushion.
Amanda and Denise talk. Amanda asks Denise whom she's voting for. Denise says she'd like to vote for Todd if she could. Amanda wants to explain her position to Denise: she and Todd have had an alliance from day one. She says she'd rather have Denise in F3, but it's problematic to "backstab" the person she's had the longest alliance with. Eh, nonsense. Denise asks Amanda if she'd be willing to consider having them both vote for Todd and forcing the tie. Amanda wants to think about it. And then, for almost the only time in this entire scene, we hear an entire line that involves no video of anyone's lips moving when Amanda says, "But I will guarantee you that I will not vote for you tonight." And then Denise nods and says, "Okay." This incredibly critical line, in which Amanda promises and swears the opposite of what she's going to do, is the one place where they happen to cut away from her mouth moving? And then they cut back for her saying, "But I cannot guarantee what they will vote." I'm just super-suspicious of this entire thing, given how Amanda seemed so certain later that she hadn't made a promise to Denise. Like, she knows she's on camera; why would she be, in post-show interviews, so confident that she hadn't done it? It makes me really suspicious that there was a line like, "But I guarantee you that I will not vote for you tonight without giving you a warning ahead of time." It just makes no sense to me that she would have this entire discussion with Denise where she's making it perfectly clear that she might very well be voting for Denise and doesn't know what she's doing yet, and then at the end, she'd say, "So anyway, I swear I'm not voting for you." It isn't sensible to me, and I'm left confused. Like, if she's telling Denise she's not voting for Denise, why isn't Denise acting more excited, since that would obviously mean Amanda was agreeing to vote for Todd? Why would Amanda essentially say, "I guarantee you that I will not vote for you, but I refuse to commit between voting Todd off [an obvious good move] and voting Courtney off [an obviously ludicrously bad move]"? What would be the point? It doesn't hold together, and the cuts make me suspicious.
In any event, Denise certainly has walked away with the impression that Amanda isn't voting for her, because she interviews that she "sorta" believes that Amanda won't vote for her, but she's not sure. Denise tells Amanda that she likes her and believes she'll "do the right thing." Oh, ugh. She tells Amanda that she believed her previously when Amanda said that she "had her back," and Amanda says she did mean it. "Well, now's when I need you to prove it," Denise says petulantly. Denise has not learned the You Owe No One Anything lesson about this game quite yet. It will take a little time.
Courtney and Amanda have a discussion in which Amanda says she's suddenly nervous about Todd, because "everyone likes Todd." Not everyone, lady. Courtney tells Amanda that be that as it may, Denise will get in there and get all sad and start crying. Amanda says that Todd is more "connected" to people than she is, and that he's such a skilled bullshit artist that she fears facing him in front of a jury. On the other hand, of course, she's had a sneak preview already of Denise's sob story that she'll no doubt give the jury. Courtney says she'll vote with Amanda, so it's whatever Amanda wants. Amanda says it's not just for her that they'd boot Todd -- it's for both of them. Amanda interviews that Todd is the greatest threat to her, because the jury is younger (read: they won't care about Denise's crap as much as Todd's glad-handing) and because Todd seems to have more personal connections with people on the jury than she or Denise has. She interviews that she's been going back and forth about what to do, and she cannot figure out what she should do: get rid of Denise, who has a sob story about making seven bucks an hour and having a family to feed, and who's never really done anything to make anybody mad; or get rid of Todd, who is a gifted suck-up and sort of a Johnny Handshake type, but who's participated in throwing a lot of these people out of the game and who can legitimately be accused of snaking almost everyone on the jury?
It's been fashionable this week to talk about how obvious it was that Amanda needed to vote out Todd here, which is the kind of thing that's always clear in retrospect, but at the time, I don't know. At the final tribal council and the reunion, people behaved very protectively toward Denise, putting hands on her shoulder a lot, supporting her...I think the notion that Denise would put together votes based on a combination of sympathy for her family, the fact that she's such a nice lady, and dislike of Courtney and Amanda could legitimately make Amanda conclude that she would not fare well against Denise. Amanda made a ton of mistakes in the finale, but I'm not sure that the jury's reaction to Todd was as easy to predict for her as it was after people at home already knew what it was.
Tribal council. Jeff brings in the jury, ending with the recently booted Peih-Gee, now resplendent in her green dress. Amanda opens with her last great strategic move of the game: she decides to keep individual immunity. Jeff asks Todd about the fact that these four have been together all along. So how will he vote tonight? Todd says this will be the hardest vote of all (it HURTS, it HURTS!). So now, it's about who you want to be up against. Jeff asks Denise whether it's appropriate to boot the biggest threat, or whether that person "deserves a shot." Denise goes into a clearly prearranged speech about her position ("bottom of the totem pole," you'll recall) and how she's had a hard time breaking in. Courtney is asked whether she thinks it's fair to say Denise is an outsider, and Courtney explains -- with surprising clarity -- that everyone is outside something, and when you fixate on it, it's more your insecurity than anything else, so it's a matter of perception. Jeff asks Todd how important perceptions are -- you feel like you're on the outside or the inside, but you don't really know until voting happens. It's a fair point, I guess, though not especially interesting. Todd says the only person who should feel comfortable is Amanda. Does that mean Todd isn't sure he's safe? Todd says he hopes he's safe, but he's not sure. Jeff, still trying to get somebody to make a jerk out of herself, asks Courtney how sure she is that she's going forward. She's like, "Nobody's sure, dillweed," so he finally finds a new line of questioning.
"Denise," Jeff says, "why does it make sense to keep you tonight?" Denise says -- I swear -- "I don't know why they shouldn't vote me out." Peih-Gee makes a probably apocryphal face. Denise goes on to say that as she understands it, the theory is that she'll do better with the jury because she has kids and a sad story to tell. Wasn't the question, "Why does it make sense to keep you?" and not "Why doesn't it make sense to keep you?" Did Denise just justify her own booting? Man, it's remarkable how handy Denise is to have around if your objective is getting rid of Denise. Jeff asks Courtney why keeping her would make sense. Basically, Courtney says that she's not the type everyone will be happily congratulating on her plucky victories. She sort of manages to say "people don't like me" without either sounding proud that people don't like her or sounding depressed that people don't like her, which is tough to do. She says that no matter how people are voting, there's a good chance she'll come up short in some aspect. "Oh, and then there's my winning personality; I'm sure I've ruffled a few feathers along the way," she says.
Jeff asks Amanda whether she was in high demand this afternoon. Amanda says having immunity makes people treat you differently -- you're not in danger, so the power structure is different. Jeff asks Denise whether Amanda's vote is more important than usual tonight, or if it's "just another vote." This is where Denise decides to relay to everyone that they traded "I've got your back"s earlier in the day, and Todd raises his eyebrows slightly, like, "Eesh, really? I don't know that Amanda should have done that." That reaction strikes me as genuine. Denise ends up saying that she just hopes Amanda votes with her. Amanda, who I cannot believe would jump in here if she didn't think she were genuinely correcting Denise, because jumping in is so fraught with hazards, says that she didn't say she had Denise's back today; she said it a few days ago. At which point Todd, who is not supposed to be talking to the fucking jury, turns to them and nearly giggles and mouths, "BURN." I wonder if mouthing "BULLSHIT" at the jury would be allowed. I really wish they'd issue the "don't take this opportunity to communicate with the jury" announcements like they used to, or else they'd just clarify that everyone can talk to the jury. Amanda says to Denise, basically, that Denise knows what their conversation really was today, and Denise says, "No, I know, I understand." I'm telling you, something is wonky about that whole "I guarantee I won't vote for you" line. They're both acting here like they're recalling something much more vague than an absolute swear not to vote a certain way, and I don't know why Denise wouldn't have just pointed out that she received a guarantee of no vote, were that the truth, rather than this whole "I have your back" discussion. At any rate, Todd continues performing for the jury, making faces and encouraging them, as they -- also increasingly unable in some cases (James and Frosti in particular) to control their urge to show off for the cameras -- act like buffoons laughing at the way Amanda just had to break it to Denise that there was no back-having at this particular moment.
Jeff calls out Todd for having "the best grin on [his] face." Todd immediately starts spinning, claiming that all he meant was that it was really harsh, that moment, which is not true, because the look of glee was obviously far more than that. He also claims he was reacting with pain on Denise's behalf, which: not. Jeff points out to Amanda that Todd just went out of his way to put a great big show for the jury at what appeared to be her expense. Amanda says, pretty good-naturedly, that she understands that the politicking has begun, and all she can do is put herself in the best position possible and hope for the best. She still has a little bit of her nicer smile left at this point.
And now it's time for voting. Denise votes for Todd, saying she has to vote for him since he's voting for her. Courtney votes. Todd votes for Denise, complete with a bullshit little speech about what a great competitor she is, which is ridiculous and therefore kind of patronizing, not that she doesn't deserve it. Amanda votes. Jeff takes the urn and returns with it, and Amanda looks all sad, for the first of way too many times in the episode. I don't know what's up with that face. So here come the votes. Denise. Todd. Denise. Denise. Wow, who knew that was going to happen? I mean, other than everyone watching the show as of at least four or five weeks ago, as well as Peih-Gee and Erik and probably Chicken. Amanda gives Denise a hug, and Denise is snuffed, which she completely deserves, given her absolute refusal to do anything that might have helped her go out better than fourth. Considering that her entire plan was geared toward coming in fourth (whether she admitted it or not), she did well to come in fourth. Amanda looks really sad now, and given the interviews in which she talked about how much she couldn't decide what to do, I think she does feel sort of bad about this. But I also think she's displaying sympathy for Denise because she believes the jury feels sympathy for Denise -- in other words, if she believes the jury feels so sorry for Denise that it would hand her the money, she probably believes that she needs to show some boo-hoos over throwing Denise out of the game. But seriously, this face she keeps making, like she's carrying around her own personal tinkly piano, is driving me bazoo.
Now, Jeff gives his big speech about how Amanda, Todd, and Courtney have gone as far as they can in the game, and now, it's all in the hands of the jury. Oh, goody. Over in the jury box, Peih-Gee nods and smiles all, "Eat it," and I already like her less. In her parting words, Denise tells us that she definitely thinks she'd have won the whole game if she'd stayed in the game, so...that would make it eminently logical that they voted her out, right? Right. I'm sure she'll see it exactly that way. She also rather hilariously says that staying out there thirty-eight days "is a spectacular thing for a forty-year-old woman." Oh, come on, lady. Forty? I mean, if you're Rudy, and you were around to read contemporaneous news reports about the French Revolution, then this makes sense, but forty is not nearly old enough to be bragging about all you can still do at your advanced age.
Night 38, after the jury. Amanda, Todd, and Courtney return to camp. "Congratulations, girlies," Todd announces. Blech. Amanda, however, is not feeling the love. Todd wants to talk, and she basically asks him if he has another knife he'd like to bury in her back in front of the jury. He blinky-blinks like he has no idea what she's talking about. Rather absurdly, Amanda complains in a night-vision interview that "Todd made me look bad in front of the jury." Is Todd...on Amanda's PR team now? I have no idea why she believed that there was some kind of a pact that they wouldn't do things to try to make the jury like them better than the other person, but apparently, it comes as a great shock to her that Todd was doing anything to try to make her look dodgy to the jury. Todd claims to Amanda that all he did was make an "ouch" face, which is a complete lie, of course -- he made an "ouch, ha ha ha" face and mouthed "burn," which is what bothers her. I mean, Jeff even asked him about his huge grin, and it's hard to convincingly claim that yours was a huge grin of sorrow, so this isn't very convincing from him either.
So anyway, Amanda insists that his comment "cut [her] off at the knees," and Todd pretends to be all contrite, like, "I didn't mean it that way." Which he did, and who cares? Other than stepping all over the supposed rule that you don't talk to the jury (which he did) and the general distastefulness of mugging for the jury like a showboater (which he did), I'm not sure what Todd did wrong, really. I mean, I get why Amanda dislikes the result, but...sometimes, that happens. In other words, I think he kind of acted like a cheeseball douche, but he didn't wrong Amanda, that I can see. "I'm not retarded; I know what happened," Amanda says. Amanda explains in her interview again how she's sure she didn't make any promises to Denise today, which continues to seem so odd to me. Like, whether it's a good idea or not, and or splitting hairs, Amanda seems to have been trying very hard not to promise Denise anything for 99 percent of the discussion we saw, and she seems so sure that she didn't promise anything that she's willing to confront Denise at tribal council, so I have a hard time believing that, in fact, she flat-out told Denise she wouldn't vote for her. Amanda winds up telling Todd that he can trash her if he wants to, but he shouldn't expect that after he does that, they'll still be friends and everything will be (finger-quotes here) "okay." She interviews all about how disappointed in herself she is for putting herself at the end with someone who would backstab her. Oh, Amanda. She also refers to how Todd has "lied/cheated his way into the finals." He cheated? Now I think she's just high from lack of food. She quite rightly refuses to accept Todd's "I didn't mean to turn it on you" (which is crap), but she hasn't handled this entire thing well at all. In an interview, Todd disingenuously swears that it was entirely accidental that he made Amanda look bad. He pouts to her that he wishes she would celebrate with him that they made the final three together, but she's in no mood for celebrating. She says they can celebrate without her; she's going to bed. Well, I'm sure nursing your unhappy feelings will help, Amanda.
The sun goes through several stages of change, and then it is Day 39 at Hae Da Fung, a.k.a. The Black Mighty Wind Of Angry Bees or whatever it was. Courtney and her incredibly long dark roots wake up. Todd wakes up, and they talk about it being the final day. "I can't believe sometime in the twenty-four hours, I get to use a Q-Tip," says Courtney. Ha! They all agree that eating peanut butter directly from the jar will be a highlight. A nearby monkey agrees, but will get no peanut butter. The final three make their way to the treemail statue, where they find the traditional giant basket of breakfast goodies.
As they start cooking breakfast with great excitement, Courtney tells us that she's glad China was as tough as it was. They toast with mimosas, and Amanda seems to have slept off some of her unhappy feelings from last night. Courtney says she's proud, because making final three was her goal, and she did it. She tells us also that she thinks her relationships with the jury are pretty good (!), and she points out that she's never tried to be anything other than herself with her "winsome personality." Heh.
Courtney introduces the ceremonial fire by throwing on "Jean-Robert's five-hundred-dollar Louis Vuittons." Poor Jean-Robert! Yeah, those shoes are looking pretty dirty, there. As they burn a big pile of stuff, Todd says that in China, on Survivor, he's "felt more emotions" and "thought more about [his] life" than he has at any other time. And that is...extraordinarily sad. He says China has made him "grow up." Fire, fire! Stereotypical music! Todd explains that he likes his position with the jury, because he "backstabbed and lied," but he "was playing a game." And yes, that is the most interesting thing Todd has to say, after thinking more about his life than he ever has. Amanda interviews that she really thinks it's up in the air, and she has a 33 percent chance of winning. She says she's just going to go in and "tell them the honest truth about my game and how I've played." She says -- and listen up, here -- that she thinks the game may have helped her get over her "fear of failure." Ohhhh, I don't think so. She says she's nervous, because it's all "coming to an end," which she knows will be "emotional." The fire burns, burns, burns!
Oh, final tribal council. How I have not missed you. The F3 sit down, and the jury files in. Jeff goes into his usual speech about how this is the last chance that the F3 will have to demonstrate that they are "deserving" of the victory. Each of the F3 will make an opening statement, and then...jury questions. Oh, jury questions. How I have specifically not missed you.
Amanda's opening statement is first. She tells the jury that today has offered many opportunities for reflection, and that she feels "very blessed" to be where she is. Her first comment is that she followed a specific strategy from the beginning of making an alliance with Todd immediately. She says that in the late part of the game, her strategy was to try to keep it to people she could compete with physically, and she points out that as a result, she won the last two immunity challenges. She says that she has, however, done some things she's not particularly proud of, including voting for people who didn't think she was voting for them, including James, Jean-Robert, and Frosti. "I am sorry if I hurt your feelings," she says. "And I really respect playing with all of you." So here, Amanda tried to cover both sides -- she took credit for her strategy and she says that she regretted situations in which anyone might have taken anything personally. What doesn't make a lot of sense about it is that she picked the three people who I think are least likely to say that she "hurt their feelings" by voting them out. Like, on the whole jury. She doesn't say she's sorry if she hurt Denise's feelings, or Jaime or Erik or Peih-Gee. She apologizes to Frosti, Jean-Robert, and James. I'm sure it makes sense to her if she thinks those are the people to whom she actually lied about her vote, but they're not the people most likely to care, or at least to admit that they care, particularly about "hurt feelings." I think what Amanda does often has an internal logic to it, but she doesn't do a good job of calibrating it to what specific people are looking to hear.
Todd opens with, "Thank you for being where you are and helping me to get in this spot." Gross. He says that he played a game with lying and backstabbing and "hurt[ing] people that [he] cared about." So...kind of what Amanda said. I mean, if you're going to say, "Hey, it's a game," then you don't really do the "I hurt people that I cared about" mambo. Todd says that he just wants them to differentiate between his "strategic game" and the "relations" (ick) that he had with other people on the tribe. Hmm. But he swears that on a personal level, he was for real. He insists that he was "the most strategic." Interestingly, Todd does not, unlike Amanda, explain exactly what he did that he thinks was so strategic; as always, Todd talks a lot about the philosophy of being strategic and awesome and scheming and how it has nothing to do with how he feels about people, but there's not all that much actual concrete strategy for him to discuss -- only the idea of it. He talks about how it's his "dream come true." My favorite part is Peih-Gee examining her nails in a bored fashion as Todd prattles on. She couldn't be more over him if she jumped into a hot-air balloon.
As Courtney begins her statement, we see Jean-Robert rub his head in disgust. Courtney's argument in her own favor is basically that she didn't know anything about the game and didn't know anything about strategy and got here without having anything going for her at all. She says she was surprised every time she didn't get voted out. Frosti smiles and rubs his chin thoughtfully. She says she weighed 95 pounds when the game started, and just physically participating was very scary for her. She says she started to get on her feet a bit more around the merge, won an immunity for herself, and went from there. She says she made effective alliances and was always as out there as she could be, basically. She says that whether you liked her personally or not, she deserves credit for getting to the end in spite of terrible odds. Not a bad speech. Like Amanda, she at least mentioned some concrete things that she did, instead of the Todd "Let me tell you my philosophy of how I theoretically played the game, and I am strategic, and look over there!" approach.
Jeff says the jury can now take a moment to ponder its bitterness and antipathy before Question Time.
When we return, the first person called on is James, who does a corny bit where he looks around like he can't believe his name is being called. He does look to be in a good mood rather than a pissy mood, though, so maybe this part won't be as bad as we think. James stands up and congratulates everyone for making it to F3, saying that rather than being a "bitter Betty," he just wants to ask Courtney about a good time that she had during the game. Courtney talks about the very first challenge, and the fact that when she picked up the pole, she was horrified by how heavy it was, but when she finished the puzzle with the team, she was thrilled to think that she wasn't going to be the first person thrown out of the game. James says he's going to sit down, and Jeff has to continue his James promotional tour by asking James why he asked that question. Does...does he ever do that? Does Jeff typically ask jurors to expound on their reasons for choosing a particular question? Not that I know of. Just another way in which James is the most special contestant of all time. James says that he thinks the rest of the jury will be a little bit tougher, so he thought he'd start them off with an easy one. I will say this for James: that is a guy who I believe looked at the situation and realized that this was his last shot at making an impression, and he didn't want to spend his time snotting and whining and arguing with people. He went out well, and gently, and even though there's five percent passive-aggressive crap in his "I'm going to be nice, because everybody else is going to skin you alive" speech, it's mostly very un-bitter.
And now, Jean-Robert. Jean-Robert has the precise thing to say that you'd figure he'd say -- he hates the decision in front of him, because he vowed not to vote for Todd or Amanda if they backstabbed him, but he hates Courtney. I think Jean-Robert has just learned why vows not to vote for people in a final tribal council are pretty much empty unless you absolutely limit them to one person. Jean-Robert gets up and makes this speech, and then he says that he really wishes it were anyone else up there besides these three people. He claims, however, that his vote is "live" for any of them, meaning that he's open to voting for any of them. As far as I'm concerned, this is a complete pile of crap, but there you go. He begins by asking Courtney how, "in good conscious [sic]," he can vote for her. Courtney tells him that the play is "outwit, outlast, outplay," and she did that. "I won an immunity," she says, adding, "Like...that...did you win an immunity?" So now you know he won't be voting for Courtney. She says she had terrible odds and was no kind of favorite, but she made it anyway. Jean-Robert calls this "a good answer," then bitches about being blindsided, at which James theatrically rolls his eyes, head, and soul all over the place in disgust.
Jean-Robert says that this brings him to Amanda. He reminds her that they agreed not to backstab each other. He asks her whether she was lying when she said it, or just went back on it later. She says she wasn't lying, and didn't actually want to vote for him; that idea came from other people. She says it was a very tough decision and she wasn't proud of it. She says she's sorry "for lying" to him, and he pounces on this and is all, "So you lied!" and so forth all over again, insisting that he wants her to split the hair between "you lied to me when you said it," and "you broke your word to me later." I don't think she particularly distinguishes, which is why she said she lied the first place. Amanda, in a way that weirdly does nothing but adopt a distinction that Jean-Robert has insisted she make but nevertheless makes her look kind of weaselly, says that according to the weird distinction he wants drawn, she went back on her word; she didn't lie. Of course, this makes it seem like she's the one making Clintonian semantic distinctions, but it was Jean-Robert who insisted on a difference between lying (by which he meant, "you never intended to keep me") and breaking your word (by which he meant, "you later changed your mind after making a commitment to me"). Because he's been slamming her for "breaking her word" or whatever, she stresses that she broke her word only because she found herself stuck.
Jean-Robert moves on to Todd, and because they both speak fluent bullshit, Todd is much better able to deal with Jean-Robert. Jean-Robert dicks around for a while about how Todd betrayed him, and how it was stupid, because James was the biggest threat and they should have booted James. Knowing what Jean-Robert wants to hear, Todd assures Jean-Robert that he (J-R) had to go because he was sooooo smart and sooooo awesome and sooooo threatening. Which, if Jean-Robert had half a brain, he'd have immediately tagged as the most transparent of simpleton suck-up maneuvers. But he doesn't, so he licks it up and sits down. James finds this hilarious, laughing to the jury about how somebody finally got Jean-Robert to shut the fuck up, which he tells Jeff he's never seen before. What's so sad and frustrating about this sequence is that the cultural bullshit that always plays into final tribal councils, where women are approximately one million times as likely to be attacked for not being "nice" and "honest" as men are, is totally revealed merely in Jean-Robert's questions. Jean-Robert hollered at Amanda about lying and breaking her word and not being honest; he hollered at Todd about playing badly by booting him instead of James. Todd didn't apologize for being so dishonest partly because he wasn't really asked about it; only Amanda was asked to defend her character, while Todd was asked to defend the quality of his game.
And now, Peih-Gee. From the very beginning, I am praying that she doesn't turn into a jerk, and from the very beginning, I do not like the way she is waggling her head. Peih-Gee tells Todd that she wants him to explain how he put himself in F3, rather than being there because other people thought they could beat him. Todd takes great offense, telling her that you can tell he worked very hard to be where he is, because Jean-Robert told him he was sneaky on the first day. Er...objection, totally irrelevant. That's not strategizing; that's fooling Jean-Robert into thinking you're strategizing. Todd's argument is, "I gathered my numbers; I got myself Amanda, got myself Courtney." In other words, "I joined an alliance with at least two other people." Which makes him about as smart as about 90 percent of people who have ever played. He talks and talks, basically coming up with literally nothing except "I joined an alliance which was in the majority for reasons of challenge-winning having nothing to do with me, and therefore, my alliance wound up getting far in the game." And beyond that, he kind of...is admitting, if you listen, that he didn't really do anything to be sitting there other than hope that other people would think he was easy to beat. Because if he could think of anything, I think he'd probably say it. How can you tell that he has nothing to say in response to her question that has any substance? By the way he says, "I fought! It's a glorious battle! Art Of War! Yin and yang!" Seriously, Peih-Gee just asked him whether he just got to the end because he was in a big alliance with other people who chose not to vote him out because they thought he'd be easy to beat, and if you listen carefully to his answer, his answer is, "Yes."
Peih-Gee turns her attention to Amanda. She says that Amanda has been looking at her with "doe eyes," and that she's sounded apologetic the entire time. Peih-Gee says, "You wanted Todd to take the fall as the bad guy," which is how you know that Peih-Gee's post-game statements that she came in wanting to help Amanda are plainly not true or at least not entirely true; she wouldn't have made the "you're trying to make Todd the bad guy" remark in an effort to help Amanda. Peih-Gee says that she wants to know what Amanda did that was better than what Todd did. Amanda, just like some of us figured she would, brings up the ousting of James, which was her idea. She gives a totally unapologetic, totally straightforward explanation of the reasons why she decided to push for the removal of James, and she's 100 percent right. Peih-Gee's later statements that Amanda somehow failed in this situation to defend or promote her own strategic game are...ridiculous, because while Amanda horribly biffed other parts of this discussion, mostly by making that dumb face the whole time, she did just fine in answering this question. And with that, Peih-Gee sits down.
Erik steps up. He addresses himself to Amanda, asking her what she did in the game that was a risky move to help herself. Amanda again cites the booting of James. Erik tries to backtalk her, telling her that he doesn't see how removing James is risky as opposed to a "no-brainer." (If it's a "no-brainer," of course, Todd has no brain, because Todd didn't want to do it.) Amanda handles the question perfectly, pointing out that it was very risky, because if James played the idol, then Amanda's alliance partner, Todd, would have been voted out. Erik sits down, apparently uninterested in talking to anyone else.
And now, Frosti. Frosti says to Todd that while he "loves" Todd, he doesn't know if he really knows Todd. "Why do you think that your game play deserves a vote from Frosti?" Are we referring to ourselves in the third person now, Frosti? Boo. Todd says, "I think you're a great kid." Apparently, the ancient Todd gets to pass judgment on "great kids" from the comfort of his Craftmatic adjustable bed between hip operations. He says a few more things about having "relations" with the jury (seriously, Todd, STOP), and then he says that he wanted to befriend Frosti and then put him on the jury, but his friendship with Frosti was still real. Was that...was that an explanation about what part of his game play would deserve a vote? Wasn't that just more "here is my theory of how I decided to play"? "I did do a big huge lie to my buddy Frosti," Todd says. Todd didn't even answer the question, dude. This is where it occurs to me that if he were being questioned by smarter people, Todd would have been absolutely eviscerated. Jonathan Penner would have taken this kid apart, but so would Yau Man, Cirie...hell, Shii Ann would have had him for lunch. Alas, this is a jury full of dunderheads.
Oh, and Todd closes his comments to Frosti with -- regarding lying to him -- "I'm sorry." Gee, he seems apologetic. I wonder if there will be punishment from the jury for that. Let's watch!
Frosti tells Courtney that she looks great (to which she adorably responds, "Thanks -- I dressed up for you"), and he says that he was surprised to be backstabbed by her, while he expected it from Todd and Amanda. Among other things, he's unhappy with her for not telling him when his name was brought up for booting after she said she would. Courtney pretty much shrugs and says she really couldn't do anything to help him, and telling him might have made him feel better and might have made him feel worse, but it wouldn't have made any difference. She insists that befriending him had nothing to do with trying to create a "pocket juror," which I think is a reference to what Todd just said about trying to become his friend and then put him on the jury. It also might be a reference to Frosti being so adorable that you could put him in your pocket, because if you told me I could have Frosti The Pocket Juror in my stocking this Christmas, I'd have a hard time saying no. Frosti sits down.
Jaime is the to go, and she's all ready to make life really uncomfortable for everyone who tried to defend her when she was unjustly called stupid for trying to save her own ass. Basically, Jaime gets up and asks the Adam from Cook Islands question -- she wants to hear them all shit-talk each other and air each other's "dirty laundry." Nice. Jaime says that Courtney should tell her all the dirty laundry she can think of about Todd that might disappoint the jury and make them not want to vote for him. Courtney tells Jaime that she doesn't think the reasons not to vote for Todd are a secret; Todd does all his bullshit in public. Jaime asks what exactly Todd has done. Courtney refers generally to his participating in the booting of most of the jurors, saying that there aren't other specific bullshit things that she can rattle off. "So he deserves a million dollars more than you do?" Jaime asks, leaping to the conclusion she wanted to reach, no matter what the answer was. Courtney kind of doesn't understand why she's being treated like a criminal defendant. "I think that each one of us has a different reason that we are deserving," Courtney says. "Exactly, but why is he not deserving?" Jaime asks. So she's...not stupid, but she is a bitch. Courtney says as far as she's concerned, "He might be deserving." "So Todd should get my million-dollar vote?" Jaime asks. Courtney: "If that's the way you --" Jaime claps her hands to make Courtney be quiet and says, "Okay, Todd!" Wow, she is making a gigantic, gigantic idiot out of herself. I'm surprised they bothered making such hoo-hah about her supposed idol when they could have just waited for her to implode with this.
Jaime moves on to Todd, asking why Courtney doesn't deserve the million dollars. Todd basically says he and Courtney have done the same things, so she's just as much a liar as he is. So his answer, I guess, is that Courtney is undeserving if you think he is undeserving. Forced to produce a reason not to vote for Courtney, Todd comes up with the kind of ridiculous answer that "she didn't want to be here in the first place." Really? I mean...obviously, she did want to be here, because she wasn't kidnapped in a van and didn't have a gun to her head. Is that the "silver tongue" people keep telling me he has? I mean, maybe if he's talking to a bunch of half-wits. Which...he is, so never mind. Jaime finishes by asking Amanda for dirt on Courtney. Amanda kind of embraces the pettiness of the question, telling Jaime that Courtney bitched and moaned, even when she came back from rewards. She doesn't think Courtney put her heart into the game.
Now, Jaime asks Amanda to comment on Todd. Amanda says essentially that a true strategic genius would have been able to play more elegantly than just lying to everybody. Interesting theory, but...weak-ass answer. "He lied too much for me," Amanda says. Even worse answer! Jaime encourages Todd to shit-talk Amanda in response. Todd basically says, "I did the dirty work for the nice girl." I'm still...I have to say, I'm still waiting for Todd to discuss one strategic thing he actually did -- as Amanda has discussed booting James, as she has discussed her thinking about physical threats -- in any of this discussion. Dirty work like what? Strategizing like what? It's remarkable to me that when Todd says something like, "They played their game strategically, but I played mine more strategically," nobody says, "LIKE HOW?" Finally, Jaime sits down.
Aaaaaand Denise. She opens with this crock of shit: "I'm glad you all can look me in the eye, that's nice." Oh, Denise. "I'm just up here, I'm a lunch lady, I dedicate my life to being honest, to being fair." If you take out all the untrue parts of that statement, of course, it comes out as, "I'm just up here." She goes into precisely the "poor pitiful me" speech you're expecting, complaining bitterly about how they all looked her in the eye and shook her hand and so forth. She tells them that she's convinced that the jury would have given her the money, so she basically thinks they took a million dollars away from her family, so she's going forward with that tone. Denise starts off by telling Amanda that she's lied even though she said she wouldn't (apparently, Denise thinks you have to announce that you're going to lie to people in advance, which...sort of defeats the purpose). She proclaims that you can't tell when Todd is telling the truth. "If you have these things in you that you can do that to people without even thinking about it, without even batting an eye, your conscience needs to be cleaned. You need to turn over a new leaf. You need to look inside yourself as well and realize what you do that affects a lot of people."
Wait. I need to lie down and take some anti-irony medication. I'll be right back.
Okay. WHEW! She moves on to Courtney, saying that Courtney is honest and outgoing and means what she says. So that's about the size of it for Denise, who has just prepared the karmic sandwich that will, in about six months, be stuffed down her throat with a razor-blade chaser.
And finally, Jeff Probst brings this to a close, telling everyone that now, it's up to the jury, and they will now vote. Back from commercials, Jeff explains that you're supposed to vote for who you think is "most deserving" of the win. Jaime goes first. She votes for Todd, with a smiley-face inside the "O." She says that he didn't originally have her vote, but he got it with his brilliant answers. So apparently, he earned her vote by repeating, "I am very strategic, and I am very tricky, and I play very hard, and I do the dirty work, and have I mentioned I am very strategic?" Erik votes for Amanda, saying he thinks she played the best game, and he can relate to her "struggle" over remaining honest. So there's one vote she got partly because she played up how hard it was. Denise votes for Courtney because she "always tried to tell [Denise] the truth." Urgh. Nobody else's vote is shown.
Jeff goes and gets the votes. Everyone looks around nervously. And then we are in L.A. for the reading of the votes. Eeeeee! And then we swing around, and...man, oh, man. Amanda and Courtney both fell out of the bangs tree and hit every branch on the way down, while Todd looks even more like a toy than before. Seriously. Also, everyone totally knows Todd won. If you look at faces, you can tell. Courtney kind of looks like she's in a punk band, while Amanda kind of looks like the librarian who organizes books about punk bands, and Todd looks like he's the starring character in that librarian's favorite children's book, Fuzzball McGee Has A Vest For Me! Jeff insists that this was "a very good season of Survivor," which I disagree with slightly, since it's my least favorite season ever.
The first vote is for Courtney. The second is for Amanda. The third one, you'll be shocked to know, is for Todd! If you doubt that they all know Todd is going to win, look at the way Courtney rubs his arm here, like, "Relax, babe, he's getting there." A second vote for Courtney. And then a second, third, and fourth vote for Todd. Oh, Todd. He immediately bursts into tears, which is the fakest thing I've ever seen, since he's obviously known this was coming for months, and then he leaps into the crowd. This is seriously the phoniest expression of surprise ever, you guys. People in Todd's hometown wave obligatory signs, as they must. The rest of the contestants come running out from backstage in a festival of irrelevance (nothing against pre-jury Survivors; I love you, seriously), and Jeff goes on about how Todd is a longtime fan, and how James was too dumb to play the idols, and we're tooootally going to talk about all of it. I just cannot wait.