The reunion show opens, as it must, with the scene in which certified genius Jean-Robert (known by the people drinking pinot douche-io around Jeff Probst's torch-shaped pool as The Wise, Be-Powdered-Wigged Judge Of Human Behavior), tells Todd on the first day that he can tell Todd is just one little wacky schemer. This was, of course, the person-reading equivalent of watching Rupert for a day and announcing, "Sir, you cannot fool me; I can see that you are a pirate." A medley of Todd's more self-aggrandizing statements follows, because of course, the fact that he won proves that all his statements about what a strategic genius he is turned out to be exactly true! Not shown: Todd digs a ginormous hole for himself by giving away two immunity idols; Amanda and her Wedgie Of Vengeance dig Todd out of said ginormous hole; Todd argues successfully for the ouster of Jean-Robert at a point where Amanda wants to boot Peih-Gee, leading to serious problems when Peih-Gee turns out to be, just as Amanda argued at the time, very difficult to get rid of; Todd has to count on Amanda winning immunity from Peih-Gee, given that he performs in challenges the way Bobby Brady performed in ice-cream-eating contests; Todd pusses out on a challenge and eats instead, while Amanda is the sucker who thinks the alliance will obviously stay in the fight; Todd calls half the women on the tribe "bitch" at one point or another, etc. etc. Do not adjust your set; this is Todd TV. What you are about to see is an hour-long discussion of a fictional season of Survivor that never occurred, in which Todd was a brilliant genius, Amanda didn't exist, nobody won any challenges except James, Denise was a lunch lady, Jeff Probst was entitled to know each contestant's situation vis-à-vis other contestants vis-à-vis penetration, and in the end, it was all about merit, people. Merit.
We cut back to Big Hair Todd, still grinning and looking like somebody just gave the organ-grinder a fat tip and he feels like his performance really, really helped. Jeff Probst -- who will never be Phil, no matter how many nature-saluting silver pendants he ties around his leathery neck with black string -- welcomes us back to the Survivor China reunion. Jeff turns to Todd, congratulating him on his victory. Jeff recalls for us that Todd has been watching the show forever, just waiting until he was "old enough to get on the show." He now invites Todd to explain his "game plan," priming the pump (which -- spoiler! -- will be pumping exclusively bullshit for the foreseeable future) by telling Todd that Todd clearly had what he would do "all laid out." Todd's opening comment is that his brilliant game plan was -- listen closely, students of the game! -- to "do everything [he] possibly could to be sitting right here." Remember what we discussed during the finale? How Todd talks and talks about being strategic and about how strategic he is and about his philosophy of strategy, but when it comes to the specifics, what he's saying doesn't really make any sense? He's kind of the food stylist of Survivor, in that he knows all about what the photographer needs the food to look like, but when you touch those beautiful pancakes, they're covered with hairspray to keep the syrup from soaking in. In explaining the genius of his strategy, Todd says that he needed "a second person [he] could trust from day one," and he reaches over to condescendingly grab Amanda's hand. He then announces that he needed someone smaller than he is, and also to be "friends with the strong guy." He claims -- and he's not joking -- that he essentially had a cast of people in his head, and it turned out to be the cast that was there when he arrived. Everybody's just a link in the chain! Ripples on a pond! Todd is the puppetmaster!
Nothing if not cooperative with big phonies who suck up to the notion that this is a meritocracy, Jeff Probst is like, "Hey, I've heard you were willing to make relationships and then betray them!" Again, strategy of being strategic. Theories of game theory. We are staying far, far away from the dangerous "What did you actually do?" question. Not "How did you feel about what you did?," and not "What did you think ahead of time were going to be your guiding principles?," but "What did you do that made you win?" Because...I don't think Todd would know the answer to that question any better than I do. The answer is kind of "I played a solid C-plus game and almost everybody else flunked," and that doesn't make much of a reunion. Todd gives an over-rehearsed speech about how he just hoped people would appreciate that Survivor was a game, and that relationships are different from the game, blah blah. You know, the first time I heard that incredibly innovative piece of strategic thinking, I was too distracted to appreciate it, because the Flock Of Seagulls music was playing so goddamn loud.
Jeff now turns his attention to Jean-Robert, showing him (and us) the clip where Jean-Robert promised Todd that if J-R got played, he'd make sure Todd didn't win the money. This threat, of course, was empty from the beginning, because Jean-Robert never had the ability to carry it out. Thus, while Jeff is playing this as if Jean-Robert chose to forswear the intent of this threat by voting for Todd, in fact, Jean-Robert was stuck in a situation where his mouth had already written the check, and his ass had already stamped it "Insufficient Funds." So at that point, it was either (1) vote against Todd, making it appear that J-R did everything he could to keep Todd from winning and couldn't do it (making himself appear, not to be indelicate, as if he might be impotent or limp or, as they say in The Art Of War, flaccid like a noodle (they say it in Chinese, of course)); or (2) vote for Todd and make it "I changed my mind," a.k.a. "I meant to do that." It's not hard to see where a narcissist like Jean-Robert is going to go with that decision. This is why I personally believe that Jean-Robert was going to vote for Todd all along, and in fact, Todd's sucking up at tribal council -- while a good move that gave Jean-Robert an excuse and probably some comfort -- had very little to do with the victory. Jean-Robert is the only one of these jurors I am confident would never have voted for a woman, particularly one who beat him straight-up, like Amanda.
But anyway, when Jeff puts his persistent puppy teeth into Jean-Robert, demanding to know what made Jean-Robert decide to vote for Todd after all, Jean-Robert claims that Todd's answer at tribal council changed his mind. "Specifically, what part of his answer?" says Jeff Probst. Everyone starts to giggle, because everyone knows that what J-R is going to claim changed his mind is the part where Todd sucked up to Jean-Robert by telling him, essentially, "The reason I voted you out is that you're so awesome." When J-R claims not to know what Jeff is trying to say, Jeff smugly reminds him that Todd flattered him into giving up his vote. J-R admits that he had to agree with Todd when Todd argued that getting rid of J-R was the best move, since J-R was "the biggest threat." Jeff now turns to Todd, who eagerly (but pretend-reluctantly) gives up the fact that he was just sucking up! He was just employing flattery! To get Jean-Robert's vote! The thing I find hilarious about this is that for Jeff Probst, this is an example of how crafty and smart Todd is, and to me, this is a great example of how crafty and smart Todd didn't need to be in order to win, because everybody else was such a bunch of pinheads. I mean, really. Todd: "I voted you off because you were awesome!" Jean-Robert: "Sold!" That's your genius strategy? "Vote for me for class president, because I will make recess three hours long, and I'll spend the school's stapler money on cupcakes!" All credit to Todd, obviously, for doing what was kind of obvious, but this isn't "scheming"; this is, like, office politics at the level practiced by Dilbert-ian middle managers the world over. Flattery to gain favor. "Love you, babe!" Sorry, but...big whoop.
Let me pause for a moment and just say one thing: I don't particularly dislike Todd, except when he's going on about what a genius he is and refusing to give credit to anyone else for anything. (You'll notice that he does a lot of "Part of my strategy was my brilliant choice to put Amanda in my alliance," but not a lot of "I won in part because of Amanda's great play.") Aside from being a glory hog, he's probably a decent kid and a lot of fun at parties. My objection is to the insane way this season has developed, such that we never talk about why Todd actually won -- mostly a matter of discussing how everyone else methodically knocked himself or herself out of the game with missed chances, leaving a guy standing who probably wasn't very many people's choice for winner and should have been really easy to get rid of. Instead, we're talking about Pretend China Season, and that irks me, because so little was interesting about this season that I wish we could focus on the things that really happened. Okay. Anyway.
Jeff has more questions for Todd, asking him about his strategy of making an alliance with Amanda on the first day. Todd's only explanation for choosing Amanda, incidentally, is that they "had some sort of connection." He says that he proposed an alliance to her, which she took him up on a few days later. He then explains that he decided he needed Courtney in his alliance, because she was smaller than he was, so if they lost a challenge, she would be voted off and he wouldn't, because he wouldn't be the smallest. OH MY GOD THAT MAKES NO SENSE. That's a reason you'd hope she'd be on your tribe at the very beginning, I suppose, and it might be a reason you wouldn't pick her to vote her out the first time around, but it's not a reason you'd want her in your alliance. Quite the opposite. Courtney's the last person you'd logically pick for one of your close allies if your hope is that she's the easy boot in the event your team loses immunity. This makes no sense, it doesn't appear to be a theory Todd had an opportunity to put into practice nor a theory he actually put into practice, and I don't understand why we're talking about this instead of about things that really happened. I mean, the reason Todd's saying this is that the other option -- "Courtney wound up in my alliance because she was on my original tribe and wasn't Jean-Robert or James" -- kind of makes it sound like some of this fell in Todd's lap. Which it did, but we're not talking about that.
Incidentally, among the million missed questions in this reunion -- and often, Jeff asks the right questions, but in this episode, he asks completely the wrong ones -- is the issue of why Amanda was really a good alliance partner. You know why? Amanda has the magic combination. Two factors. Know what they are? Because Jeff can't put it together, and when I tell you the magic combination, you'll know immediately why Jeff can't put it together. Amanda is great at challenges, but not at politics. This is how, if you are ever on Survivor, you should pick your alliance partner. Dreamz. Boston Rob. Pick someone who is good at challenges, but bad at politics. Jeff Probst can't process this, because he can't look at a slim, swimsuited-woman and think "challenge monster." He thinks challenges are about James, and Aaron, and Colby, and Ozzy. But is Amanda good at challenges? Absolutely. As much as anything else, Todd is here because Amanda is good at challenges. Amanda is the only person who was left, by the time they were desperately trying to get rid of Peih-Gee, who was capable of keeping Peih-Gee from winning an uninterrupted string of immunities and knocking somebody -- quite possibly Todd -- out of F3. If Todd were a woman and Amanda and Peih-Gee were men, Jeff Probst would see this immediately: "You needed him to be strong in challenges, because otherwise that other awesome guy would have rocked you both by bulldozing his way to F3!" But because Amanda and Peih-Gee are girls, Jeff Probst can't see that this was the endgame -- that Challenge Monster Peih-Gee had to be taken out by Challenge Monster Amanda in order to protect Challenge Suckybaby Todd. Good at challenges to protect your alliance, bad at getting votes. Great alliance partner.
You know...it's only now, as I write this, that it occurs to me that there's a decent argument to be made that if Todd and Amanda are indeed much like Rob and Amber, as has been said over and over, he's the Amber, and she's the Rob, and not just because he won. She's the one who got out James. She's the one who recognized what a threat Peih-Gee was. She's the one who kept immunity away from Peih-Gee when that mattered and Denise when that mattered. Good at challenges, good at thinking of the right strategic move, bad at getting votes: Amanda and Rob. Hopeless in challenges, not much with strategy, but there to scoop up votes at the end: Todd and Amber. Very different delivery and affect, but ultimately? Similar role. I'm just saying.
And now, Jeff asks Todd about the decision to hand over two immunity idols to the person who was then believed (falsely, it turned out) to be an immunity threat already. Sitting behind Todd, James starts mugging and head-shaking, and Jeff promises to get to him later. Todd says, basically, that he gave James two idols because he "needed the strongest person on [his] side." Because...? What exactly is the reason why you need to be allied with the strongest guy, as opposed to trying to get rid of the strongest guy? What was that again? Oh, that's right. There's no explanation, because it doesn't make any sense. And, again, it has nothing to do with why he won. There's not one thing that happened after Todd aligned with James that benefited Todd and had anything to do with James being the strongest guy. And yet, here we are, talking about why that's the strategy. Todd also omits entirely what appeared to be the actual reason for giving James the idol he could have kept at the time, which was that it was so incredibly important to get rid of the all-powerful Jaime. Mentioning that, of course, would create a problem, because show mythology is now that Jaime was a useless idiot, so for Todd to remind us that he was so afraid of her that he gave James two idols as part of a plot to get rid of her would interfere with the show mythology where Todd is a genius. So now we have a different explanation, which is that Todd did this to cement a bond with James, because being in an alliance with the physically strongest guy -- which, again, has nothing to do with why Todd won -- was so important. Furthermore, Todd is obviously full of shit when he claims that he intended from the beginning to befriend James as part of some grand plan he formulated when he was fifteen years old, given that he looked right into the camera at one point and vowed that he was going to get rid of James, along with J-R, as part of "taking out the trash." Since he's making all this up, Todd gets himself in the weeds quickly, so he retreats to another vacuous explanation of his Theory Of Winning, which is all about how you have to be willing to roll the dice and take the risk and it's a game. I can kind of see how he's a prolific message-board enthusiast.
Jeff now turns to Amanda to ask her about her "biggest move in the game," which was getting James booted and, as it turns out, saving Todd's bacon. Rather than asking Amanda to explain her thinking, though, Jeff asks her to talk about how she felt at tribal council waiting to see whether James would play an idol. She says that, indeed, it was stressful, because James kept eyeing the bag, and she was sure he was going to reach for an idol any minute. She also mentions that she was pretty nervous about going back to camp with James in the event it didn't work, and how it was possible that he was "going to kill everyone." That's...uncomfortable, a little. Fortunately, James obliges by nodding that he might indeed have killed them, and then laughing. What's sad about this is that this is literally the only thing Amanda will be asked in the entire reunion, and it's not really a question about her -- about her unexpected challenge prowess, about her bad performance at the final tribal council that some people believe lost her the game, about her strategy, or about her conflicted feelings over booting Denise. It's just more shit about James not playing the idol, as if Amanda -- who many people believed would win going into the final episode -- isn't worth really addressing about her own game.
And now, Jeff's favorite part of the whole episode. He gets to talk to James! Yay! Whee! Jeff looks at James with faux-disapproval, and the audience goes wild with hysterical laughter at Jeff's flirty smile. The laughter is sort of pitying and creepy, though, the way people used to hoot and holler when Rosie O'Donnell lost her shit over Tom Cruise. (Remember that? Before they were both, in the immortal words of M. Giant discussing Ann Coulter, "poo-flinging bugfuck crazy"?) Anyway, Jeff grins as he responds to a fan catcall with "You've got fans, even in spite of making the biggest blunder in the history of this game!" I'm sorry, Jeff -- I think that's still Lex. Jeff runs through the situation again, reminding us all of James and the idols and so forth, even remembering to add the very relevant detail that there were only three tribal councils left where the idols would be good, and James had two, making it even more incomprehensible that he didn't play one.
When Jeff finally gets to the question -- essentially, the "What were you thinking?" question -- James pretty much shakes his head and says he trusted his alliance. Asked whether that cost him a million dollars, James says that it did. Which is...totally absurd, because James wasn't winning immunity and probably wasn't going to win immunities that wound up going to Peih-Gee and Amanda, meaning that even had he played an idol at F7, that exposes him at either F6 or F5, in addition to at F4, giving them two more chances to get rid of him before we even get to the issue of who would have gotten votes. The only thing James will admit is that he might have been vulnerable because "it might have been a swimming challenge," which presumably he's saying is the magic challenge he wouldn't have won, unlike other challenges he apparently thinks he would have won. (Incidentally, when he said the word "swimming," someone in Mark Burnett's PR department was like, "DUDE! Did you have to say 'swimming'?") Again, James didn't win immunity at F10, when the immunity challenge was about memory, or at F9, when the immunity challenge was about balance, or at F8, when the immunity challenge was about listening and memory, or at F7, when the immunity challenge was about strength and aim. So would James necessarily have won the F6 challenge where the obstacle course was combined with memory? Or the F5 challenge where it rehashed challenges he sucked at, including the drum and the throwing stars? Or the F4 challenge about balance and stillness and concentration? My point is that I always wish there were less mythology in these shows, and that we could actually see people discuss what really happened, which is that the big monkey in the wrench for this alliance was not James, because (1) he played stupidly when it mattered; and (2) Amanda was all over the fact that it needed to be addressed. Instead, the big problem turned out to be that Peih-Gee was really fucking good at challenges. James was not a strong challenge performer; the challenge showdown was Peih-Gee versus Amanda. This was a perfect year for Jeff Probst to be like, "Let's talk about why it is that people always assume the biggest guy will win all the challenges when time after time, it just doesn't go down that way." And he didn't.
And now, Denise. About whom "Oh, Denise" doesn't really begin to describe it. Jeff asks her about the chance she missed to flip and go with Peih-Gee and Erik at F6 to get out from under her last-place spot in her four-person alliance, which everyone knew -- including her, it almost seems like -- would result in her finishing fourth. Denise hems and haws and slings a lot of nothing until Jeff is like, "DUDE." He points out that, clearly, she was low man on a four-person team. She was going to come in fourth. This was a chance for her to get to F3. Denise basically says she thought she'd be last in either group, refusing still to see the difference between "at the bottom of a group of four," which means you never see the final jury, and "at the bottom of a group of three," which means you do. She does say she thought Peih-Gee would win an F3 with her and Erik, and Todd would win an F3 with her and Amanda. So how about Amanda and Courtney? How about Amanda and Peih-Gee? How about Erik and Amanda? How about Erik and Courtney? She halfheartedly says she thought her best shot would be to win at F4 and "take" Courtney and Amanda. She just...she's one of those people who thinks everything just happens to her, and she reacts, and unless you can fault her for her reaction, she's just a victim of all of it. But we'll get back to that.
Jeff asks Peih-Gee how close she thinks she was to flipping Denise. Peih-Gee says she knew that Denise was going out in fourth place, so she didn't understand why Denise didn't want to do anything to keep that from happening. Peih-Gee, being one of the few people rationally trying to analyze her own play, says she thinks one of her mistakes was trying to get rid of Todd instead of Courtney. Now, Denise -- who two seconds ago said she thought Todd would win an F3 against her and she wanted to be at the end with Courtney and Amanda -- snots that she would tooootally have gotten rid of Courtney, but Peih-Gee was too stubborn and wanted it to be Todd. Now why in the hell would Denise want to get rid of Courtney? Courtney is, in Denise's own theory, one of the few people Denise thought she could beat, so how is that in Denise's interests? I'm totally confused. I wish she would just admit to paralysis -- "You know what, Jeff? I froze, and I didn't take the risk I needed to take to advance in the game, and that was my biggest mistake." I'd be grudgingly forced to admit some respect for her.
Jeff now plays his favorite meaningless game: the hypothetical vote, in which he asks a bunch of people who've had the chance to see the entire show what they would have done in the event that things went differently, and he assumes that they can accurately tell him what they would have done back then, not having seen the show and having had four thousand discussions with friends and family. The informal straw poll indicates that, had the F3 been Erik, Peih-Gee, and Denise, Peih-Gee would have "won," getting imaginary votes from imaginary Todd, Courtney, and Frosti, and kind of Amanda and kind of James, so Jeff is all, "Peih-Gee, you almost won!" I'm sure she feels just awful now, Jeff. Peih-Gee obligingly is all, "Oh, noooo!" but I think she's smart enough to value that experiment correctly -- at zero. Furthermore, hey, Jeff? If Peih-Gee really was that close to winning, Todd really needed Denise to be a dumb-ass in order to win, because his strategy left open a kind of obvious route to his own undoing, along with a great motive to undo him.
Jeff promises that, after the break, we will talk more to James. Well, that's awesome. Can't get enough!
When we return, we watch a montage of Courtney moments designed to drive home the fact that, in your real life, you probably don't want to be friends with Courtney. But if you were out there with nobody to talk to and no friends, she would probably be the most enjoyable person to sit around and talk shit with. Back at the reunion show, Jeff tells Courtney that she has the record for "the most one-liners." He asks her whether, in her life as a New York waitress, she gets recognized a lot. She says that the tourists recognize her. Particularly, she says, she gets recognized by little children whose parents have no idea who she is, but who look at her and (apparently sounding quite a lot like Cindy-Lou Who, based on her imitation) say, "That's that girl from the show!" Jeff asks her why she thinks it's kids who most often recognize her, and she goes to the "family show" explanation. But she also says -- pretty astutely, as a matter of fact -- that she thinks kids relate to the most childlike person, referring to her small size, her pigtails, her little flowered 'do, her bratty behavior, and so forth. And then, awesomely, Jeff Probst is all, "Do you enjoy that; do you like kids?" And Courtney -- because she wouldn't be herself if she didn't -- says, "No, I actually hate kids." Everyone laughs hysterically, largely out of envy, because it's hard not to envy a person who can get away with that kind of thing -- with declaring whatever the hell, because at this point, what's anybody going to do to her besides thinking what they already think anyway?
Interestingly, Jeff does a decent job of raising the issue of Courtney's weight, saying that it was hard not to wonder if she was anorexic when looking at her. He says that she started the show at 93 lbs. and left at 86 lbs. -- which is only about a 7.5% drop in her weight, not really a big percentage for spending thirty-nine days in the wild, except for how tiny she started out. Courtney says that she's gotten this all her life from well-meaning people and "Health teachers" and so forth, and I'm sure it's true. She insists that this is just the way she is, and that she's fine. I'm not sure I believe she's entirely fine, but I do think most people with huge, looming anorexia-type issues don't make as many self-deprecating remarks about how small and skinny they are as Courtney does, so I tend to think she may actually be that rare person who's built very, very skinny by nature, just as there are rare people who are built very, very heavy by nature. At any rate, she doesn't seem to mind having it brought up; and it's certainly not a new experience for her. Jeff says, "Your weight now is actually more than it was when the show started," and she's like, "Thanks!," all faux-fended about being called fat, which is stupid, but whatever; this is the kind of insightless conversation people feel obligated to have with hamheads like Jeff Probst. Jeff asks Courtney whether she enjoyed any of it, because she looked miserable so much of the time. She tells him that much of it sucked, but that she's proud to have survived in a situation so far out of her normal experience. She calls herself a "barfly," which is a little bit great, and says she's often asleep during the day under normal circumstances. You can understand why maybe it's okay that she doesn't like kids, because I'm not sure she lives an entirely kid-friendly lifestyle.
Jeff moves on to Jean-Robert, and says that in spite of the fact that J-R was apparently played by Todd with methods only slightly more sophisticated than those used by Eddie Haskell, J-R clearly was a great judge of people. Like when he was at that reward challenge with three other people who knew about the immunity idol, and he read the clue about the immunity idol, and he didn't have any idea that all three of those other people already knew about the idols and had possession of the idols? Remember how great he was at reading people right there? Truly great. Awesomely great. The Brett Favre of reading people. Or when J-R had no idea he was getting booted? That was another great read. How does he do it? Anyway, Jeff goes back to the fact that J-R picked Todd out early as someone just as full of himself about his game-related abilities as J-R himself was, and uses this as evidence that J-R has the smarts. Jeff asks J-R if he thinks he made any mistakes during the game, and J-R says that while he might have made mistakes, if he had the chance to do it all again, he'd do nothing differently. And, I guess, come in ninth all over again. This is one of my favorite contestant arguments -- "Jeff, if I had it to do all over again, I'd choose to be de-pantsed exactly the same way!" J-R explains that "sometimes you go all in with aces, and a lesser hand calls you, and you lose." So Jean-Robert has just told you that all eight people who finished ahead of him? They just got lucky, mister. Jeff asks about J-R's poker career, and I actually can't be bothered to type anything more on that. Poker, blah blah.
Jeff promises that, after commercials, we will hear about the very different welcomes James and Denise received when they got home. Oh, yes. We will start to hear about it. Also: who wins a hundred grand? I can't imagine! Someone relieve the suspense!
When we come back, it's a quick run through the James hagiography, including the (if you think about it, pretty small) number of challenges where he was really relevant. Back at the reunion, Jeff holds court about how very popular James is, and asks him what kind of reaction he's gotten. He says he gets a lot of kids and "older guys." Huh. A confused Jeff Probst, wondering whether it's just him and babies and dudes who love James and wondering whether that would mean he's a sissy, is all, "Just kids and older guys?," and James is like, "Women too," and everybody in the audience says, "Wooooo!," and now I'm bored. Asked why people say they like him, James says it's because he has "no filter." Hey, James was the Sexy Man Of The Week in People! Probably not because he has no filter. And then we see a childhood picture of James, and WHO KNEW he would turn out so sexy? Who indeed, Jeff. Who indeed. Jeff asks what James's strangest experience was, and James talks about setting up for a funeral and discovering that people were lingering after the burial. He thought they needed something funeral-related, but it turns out that they were attempting to meet a C-list celebrity at the gravesite. Oh, yes. Oh, really. Can you imagine going to the reception later and being like, "Um, sorry I lingered at the cemetery, but...you see...did you watch Survivor?" He also says he took pictures with them. At the cemetery. At the grave. That's where I will admit I think he should have drawn a line. I don't think "Ma'am, I'm working right now, and given the occasion, I don't think pictures are appropriate" would have been too much to ask. Jeff asks James whether it was good to use his celebrity to make a sad occasion less sad. "Maybe this is helping them grieve," he says seriously. And that, right there, is my funniest line of the season. I mean, I seriously can't understand people concluding that a funeral -- of, as it turns out, the funeral of the son and the brother of these two women -- would be a good time to linger for celebrity picture-taking. It's not healing; it strikes me as, at the very least, deeply weird, and again, it's a missed opportunity. Instead of "Maybe this is helping them grieve," the thing to say is, "How do you deal with the utterly false sense of intimacy people believe they share with you?" Because that's actually an interesting question, unlike, "Do you think seeing a semi-famous person at the funeral sped along the healing process?" I mean, I totally get how wacky things happen at funerals that make you laugh and break the horrible sense of heaviness that otherwise sets in, and if you run into a celebrity, maybe it lightens your mood. So asking the women about it might be interesting. But asking James about it is...he's just a prop, really, in that story. What's it like to be a prop? I guess I might have been interested in that.
And then Jeff Probst winks at James. Pardon me while I lean over and help my breakfast grieve itself into a trashcan.
Denise. (Full name: Oh Denise.) Jeff reminds her of her "very different welcome home," and refers to the discussion in which she sadly told Amanda that she'd be returning to life as a lunch lady for seven bucks an hour, and this was all she had to come home to. "Only, when you got home, that isn't even what happened!" Jeff says. "No," Denise says sadly, "I went back and I talked to the food service director, and they didn't give me my job back. [Dramatic pause, waiting for gasp of horror from sympathetic audience.] So I wound up having to go. I'm a janitor now, I clean the toilets, I wash the floors in the bathrooms, I vacuum the kids' rugs. I miss dinner with my family, I haven't been to a field hockey game yet...I'm missing out on a lot more than I had originally planned on doing." Jeff reminds Denise that she told him the reason she couldn't have her job back was that she was too easily recognized, and she says yes, yes, this is the reason -- all the kids come up and talk to her, so they didn't want that disruption. She goes in for the kill by looking out and saying that if anybody's looking for a day-shift lunch lady, they should sure give her a call.
As you know by now, this story was a crock. Parsed carefully enough, it doesn't contain technical lies, but you have to read it like this: "[Before I went on the show, I put in for a promotion from seven-dollar-an-hour part-time lunch lady to seventeen-dollar-an-hour full-time custodian. After I came home from the show, I decided I wanted to change my mind, so] I went back and I talked to the food service director [informally, though I didn't follow the official process], and they didn't give me my job back. [Dramatic pause, waiting for gasp of horror from sympathetic audience.] So [since I wasn't able to take back the decision I'd made earlier], I wound up having to go [back to the job I had when I left, so], I'm a janitor now [like I was before I went on the show]. I clean the toilets, I wash the floors in the bathrooms, I vacuum the kids' rugs [and I make more than twice as much money as before]. I miss dinner with my family, I haven't been to a field hockey game yet...I'm missing out on a lot more than I had originally planned on doing [when I originally decided to change jobs, a decision I now regret that I've decided to blame on other people, because that's how I roll]."
Now, Jeff says he's going to move along to something involving Denise and Courtney, and seeing it coming, Courtney gives the least subtle bird-flip to Jeff Probst that I've ever seen, to the point where there are a few hoots from the audience. At any rate, Jeff is referring to Courtney's comment that Denise "sucks at life." What's interesting about Courtney is that she's the rare person who is just as genuine in admitting fault as she is in finding it (thus actually "keeping it real" as opposed to "keeping it delusionally self-important"), and when Jeff asks her whether she regrets that remark, she says of course she does, adding that she tends to speak without thinking. Jeff wants to see the big apology, but the women both make it clear that Courtney has already apologized for this remark -- with nobody watching -- and that Denise has chosen to forgive her. It's good to see that Denise has developed a late-breaking talent for forgiveness, because if she'd gone for the moral high ground with regard to other people in this episode, it only would have made what's going to happen that much worse.
Jeff then decides that if he can't get a fight going, he'll ask Denise about her hair. Denise says that the reason she has her hair the way she does is that you have to have it short for food service, but that her husband likes it long because it's so feminine. Okay...(1) Your mullet is not feminine. I'm sorry. I understand that there are stereotypical feminine hairstyles; that is not one. (2) You haven't been a lunch lady for quite a while. (3) If there's one thing What Not To Wear has taught me, it's that men care WAY LESS about the length of women's hair than women think. (3) Plenty of short hairstyles are very feminine; the idea that long hair in the back makes you more womanly is just idiotic. Even if she weren't the boss, I'd still say here that Sars has very short hair and it's gorgeous and I envy it frequently, because it's fierce and still girly, and that's all there is to it. "Feminine" is about how you choose to package yourself on a particular day, and to reduce it to long hair is insane. Now that I think of it, most of the really girly girls I know have hair that's shoulder-length or shorter. Snack on that, Denise.
The embarrassments just keep on coming as Jeff moves on to Jaime to ask about her "love affair" with Erik that was "blooming" while they were on the show. Asked about the fact that it didn't seem like they got all that bizzay (this is how Jeff Probst's brain pronounces it) on the show, Jaime says that she was really nervous that appearing to be a couple would be strategically suicidal. After a lot of hemming and hawing, she gives up the fact that she and Erik are indeed now dating. Interestingly, Erik makes a sort of "ohhh" face that I read as...maybe he wasn't a hundred percent sure she was going to say they were dating -- not that he minds, but that he wasn't totally positive it was going to come right out like that. I'm maybe misreading, but that's what it looks like to me. And then...man. Okay. Jeff turns to Erik and says, "So, fucked her yet?" Oh, wait. He didn't literally say that. What he says is, "So Erik, on the show..." And from the smarmy little smirk on his face, everyone knows where he's going, so there's all this "Ohhhhhhh." Bleargh. "It's very clear that you are a virgin. So it begs the question: Erik, dating Jaime, are you still a virgin?" Erik smiles good-naturedly as everyone hoots, and he says, "Of course." In my favorite development, James leans over and says, "Mama's watchin'." HA! Damn, that was gross.
All righty. Time for the commercials, and then James -- OR WHOEVER -- will be winning 100K.
And now, the Shooting Gallery Of Who-Caresies. Dave! Why'd you get naked? Well, Jeff, it was the only strategy I could think of! Okay, shut up, Dave! Ashley! How are the wrestling fans treating you? Just fine, Jeff, even though I thought they'd be mad! Okay, shut up, Ashley! Aaron! Hey, you kinda got screwed, huh? Sure did, Jeff! Okay, shut up, Aaron! Leslie! Did they vote you off because of Jesus? No way, Jeff, I was a pain in the ass! Okay, shut up, Leslie! Sherea! Were you surprised you did well in challenges? Yes, Jeff, I was, but it was better to be good at challenges than do dishes at camp! Okay, shut up, Sherea! Frosti! How's the parkour? Fine, Jeff, why weren't there any obstacle-course challenges for me? Okay, shut up, Frosti! Chicken! Was it worth it, even though nobody remembers who the hell you are? Yes, Jeff, DAYUM! Okay, shut up, Chicken! Wow, I'm glad we got those people out of the way! They don't matter!
And now, we will award $100K to the person who received the most text-message votes. Who is it? Well, the top three finishers were Denise (pity-based), James (actual popularity) and Peih-Gee (merit). And the winner, of course, is...James! Nobody is surprised, of course.
Jeff quiets the crowd. He has something else to say. It is something regarding the incredibly sad story of Denise and the incredible kindness and generosity of Mark Burnett, if Mark Burnett does say so himself. Mark Burnett would like it known that in recognition of the incredibly sad things that have befallen Denise, he's going to give her $50,000. Yes, that's right. She's getting fifty grand for sheer pathos, all of which is a big fat lie. Denise's family cheers in the audience, not realizing that...they're never going to see that money, ever. In about three days, Denise will have effectively returned the money, the goodwill she earned will be gone, she will have destroyed her reputation with the school district that employs her, and -- horribly ironically, for a woman who clearly spent months after the end of the game consoling herself with the thought that she may not have money, but at least she has her integrity and can look herself in the eye -- her name will be synonymous, fairly or unfairly, with "bullshit liar going for pity with a big old made-up sob story bordering on a scam," and she will have made audiences more cynical, less sympathetic to working people who land in Survivor casts among models and bartenders, more suspicious of people who try to position themselves as honest, and generally more certain that everything they see on television is probably a load of self-serving crap. I don't think this is quite what Denise had planned for herself.
When we return, the season! And its twist!
After the commercials, it is revealed that, season, fans of the show will go up against past players -- not "all-stars," exactly, but "old players." They don't tell you much about who the "favorites" are, but the spoiler is over the internet if you care. I will tell you that at least one made me clap my hands happily, and at least one made me want to put my head in a vise.