Episode Report Card Sara M: D | 2 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Last Dance With Merry Jane
By Sara M | Season 21 | Episode 14 | Aired on 12.15.2010
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Jud is happy to be alive and thinks he's going to surprise people with how smart he is. Yes, we're just waiting for that. The remaining players get a product placement phone and once the young'uns figure out how to play videos, everyone sees videos from their families. Jud's mom says he's intelligent. Is he a secret mastermind, or is she just one of those mom's who tells their kid they are brilliant? How does she feels about him being called Fabio on national television? She seems to take it well, and jokes that he was Jud the Stud. I'm not sure which is worse. Dan's son is very sweet and clearly just loves the hell out of his dad.
The players have to do a challenge that involves them jumping in that same pool Jud peed in. Did the drain the water? Then the loved ones have to do a puzzle. Chase and his mom win the challenge. He picks Sash (and his mom) to come, and then also chooses Holly and her lovey-dovey husband. Dan reacts to this by telling his son that Chase is a scumbag. Then Chase asks Probst what will happen to everyone else. He replies, "They will be taken and executed." Probst, getting a sense of humor after all these years. Then he wants to know why Jud is crying like a baby. Jud weeps that he would have taken Chase had he won. Chase is making friends all over the place.
At camp a bitter Jud and Dan complain about how Chase screwed Jane over. On a boat with food Chase, Sash and Holly say they are going to be the final three. The immunity challenge is a blindfolded puzzle game, but it involves walking back and forth between some pieces , so Dan's still in last place. Jud wins. Maybe he is a secret genius. Everyone in her alliance decides they want to vote Jane out, and they tell her that to her face. She reacts by scratching her face and giving them the finger. Good for her. Then she picks up a bucket of water and douses their fire right as they are heading to tribal council. Awkward.
At tribal council, she starts calling everyone on their shit. Probst is in his glory watching her talk about Holly being a thief and a bad role model because she stole Dan's shoes. The jury is loving pissed-off Jane. Then Chase outs his alliance's entire lack of strategy in front of the rest of their tribe. Morons. Did I mention that Chase is wearing his "hidden" immunity idol around his neck? Then Probst basically tells Dan and Jud they should team up with Jane to vote Holly out because, otherwise, the moron alliance is going to kick them out one by one. Thanks, Probst. I'm really not sure Dan would have figured that out. Chase and Sash play their idols, since it was the last night to play them. But Probst telling people what to do didn't actually amount to anything, and Jane gets voted out. Her bag looks really full. I hope she pulled a Naonka and took some flour and pots and pans with her. -- Angel Cohn
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!In a bit of foreshadowing of what we'll see him pull at Tribal Council, Probst uses the previously on segment to create his own version of the season so far, which he claims was dominated by Chase's inability to make a decision. That has been a factor to be sure, but his "indecision" wasn't why he voted Brenda out. Nor did Chase ever "conspire" with Ben to vote Jud out - from what we saw, they were playing Ben all along to make him think they were voting for Jud while they were actually planning on voting Ben out. In fact, despite Chase's "indecisiveness," he's been pretty consistent on wanting Ben out, even before the tribe swap. So Probst is just making shit up. And now that all he talked about was Chase and his indecisiveness and turning against allies, we know that's what this episode is going to be about. They really need to stop tailoring these previously on segments to be so specific to the episode that follows.
As soon as the tribe is back at camp, Sash pulls Jud aside and says they took Ben to save Jud, and Sash would have told Jud all of this but the other people in his alliance wouldn't let him. Sash promises Jud that he has his back and thinks he just earned another jury vote from Jud. He may have, actually. Why do Jane, Holly, and Chase just let Sash walk around stealing their jury votes? I hope all those false promises he made to everyone come back to bite him in the ass if he makes it to the Final Tribal Council. But they won't. They never do. Sash boasts in an interview that he is in control of the game once again and Jud will be the next person to go unless he wins immunity. Jud interviews that his tribemates might think he's gullible and naïve, but he is on "high alert" and looking forward to seeing the surprise on their faces when they realize they underestimated him. Oh, please let this happen. I've been waiting for it almost the entire season.
The next day, a cell phone arrives at camp along with the treemail. Everyone knows what that means: family time! It takes a second to figure out how to play videos on the Product Placement phone, but soon, Chase's mother and brother pop up and he is immediately in tears. Next up is Sash's mother, who actually calls him Sash even though I'm still convinced that no one actually calls him that. Jane's daughter is next, along with what must be her many big dogs. What's the deal with all of these people coming on TV with their pets? I mean, Jane I can understand since she's a dog trainer, but why do we have to see Chase's mom's dog and Sash's mother's cat (or maybe that was a Pomeranian?), too? Ah, and now we meet Dan's sons, two handsome Italian boys from Brooklyn who somehow managed to appear on camera without their pets. Good. Dan bawls at the sight of them. Man, these family visits take down the hardest people on this show. Holly's entire brood (including a dog) show up for her video, and her husband says he can't wait to touch her again. I'll bet Holly is annoyed to see her daughters standing still and not out practicing the cross country sport their mother forced the to stick with. Finally, Jud's mother, who calls him "Juddy," makes him cry and says some inspiring words that are too boring for us to watch, so he talks over it in an interview instead. Still choked up, as he says the video "really got me, man," he says his mother tells him "the perfect thing, man." "I just wanna see my family, man," he sobs. Man.