Grid Effect

Welcome to the two (scratch that, three) longest hours of my life. Luckily production decided to spend the first ten minutes recapping the season for all those potential viewers that have never seen an episode of Survivor, but may have decided to tune in for a finale of a series they haven’t seen a single episode of. It’s really an untapped market, not entirely hypothetical. So, we’ll give it a few before they’re done with rehashing and credits. In the meanwhile, we mailed in, or rather delivered a possible completely inaccurate recap of the last episode, so here’s a more comprehensive recap.

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And we’re back. The season recap was actually only seven minutes, but combined with the first commercial break it exceeded eleven. So we we’re half right. Coming back from TC, the unlikable yet triumphant gang returns to camp and celebrates their “journey”. Courtney considers how great it would be to win immunity, even more rewarding than the reward I suppose.

Denise is voicing over about diet, which she is obsessed with. I suppose it’s appropriate for a lunch lady to have this mindset. They get a note about reward challenge being for food. And it sounds like their food supply has diminished since James left camp, because it’s never been this much of a concern before. We were never as enamored with James as the show wanted us to be, but we like to give credit where it’s due.

At said reward challenge, their going through an obstacle involving an approximation of the Great Wall. The reward turns out to be a sweaty pizza and beer, watery soda and some brownies. Jeff calls it a meal for one, which seems a little gluttonous. Because who the hell eats an entire pizza with multiple toppings, a plate of brownies, a case of beer and a pitcher of soda by themselves. And how cruel would it be to throw it away in front of them.

During the challenge, Todd jumps out to a small but early lead over Amanda. Denise and Courtney are two stages behind and are essentially eliminated from the get go. Todd is first to arrive back with all his pieces to work on his puzzle before Courtney and Denise even bring back their first set of pieces. The puzzle seems relatively difficult, and they all manage to get back with their pieces before someone wins. But Amanda takes it in a close one, she even throws them a condescending “you guys did real good too” as she walks towards Probst to claim her prize.

She is then given the option to keep the food for herself, or share it with one or two other people. She agonizes over the decision, then shares decides to share it with Todd. That’s right, Todd. The same Todd she was livid at last week for finishing the leftovers on a private jet back from a reward that she was shut out of. And I’m not really even understanding how this is even remotely strategic. If anything she should be trying to curry a favor with Courtney or Denise so one of them hitches their wagon to her star. Todd is going to do what he feels is in his best interests, the other two you can manipulate.

The melodramatic twosome eats their lunch, and Amanda explains that she chose Todd to see what his game plan is, and he needs to get rid of her if he wants any chance of winning. Amanda doesn’t pull any punches and comes right out says that she doesn’t have any faith in him to not “stab her in the back”. He uses a ton of hyperbolic “I trust you to trust me to trust you” lines in order to convey his position. She looks ambivalent as always.

Denise is glad to be with the cool kids, and is worried about being shunned like she was in high school. Or some such. Courtney and Denise decide to do some sun bathing, and they’re both disgusting for completely different reasons.

Todd is worried about his tribe rebelling. For good reason as well, it seems like when one gender is outnumbered like this he/she tend to be odd man out. Sexual orientation be damned and sans Chris at Vanuatu. He expresses as much to Denise. Courtney is attributed with the episode title in reference to Todd, and really I thought that honor would go to Denise, “slippery little sucker” sounds like its in her everyday lexicon.

Courtney and Amanda share some opinions about Todd, and their not exactly laudatory. Todd keeps saying, “going all girl power on me”, and, you know, he more or less orchestrated this entire situation. If he’s so concerned with the gender card, maybe he should have kept some of his male counterparts around. He makes an attempt at being reassuring to Courtney and Amanda, saying they they’d be, “the most awesome final three, like, ever”. They look at him disdainfully. Someone’s feelings are going to get hurt here.

Todd arrives back at camp with some tree mail and its the in memoriam of all the contestants they contributed to voting out. We generally refuse to recap any of this, because what is their to say about it. And considering the dismal nature of this cast, we’re particularly unmoved. So pick it up ten minutes for now.

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I think that’s all the filler we have room for in the two hours. At least for the first hour. And minus commercials. When they arrive at the top of the monument they’ve been hiking up the steps on, Probst greets them with their final Immunity Challenge. Man, that was touching.

The challenge is a balancing one. And its not themselves, but rather a stack of dishes that gets progressively taller at the end of a stick on an unstable platform. First person to drop their dishes loses. Apparently its not terribly difficult because they get to nine dishes and thirty minutes before anyone slips…And it’s Todd, whose dishes were off center and they fall accordingly. This is probably the least athesetically appealing challenge yet. And this includes that one with the dart throwing mechanism last week.

Courtney falls after complaining of…fatigue? We’re not sure, but have no idea what else it could be. Denise tries to cut a deal with Amanda, which is as transparent and desperate as it gets. Amanda does look pretty steady and we get a closeup of the sweat dripping off Denise’s hand. Amanda ends up winning in non-dramatic fashion, and we’re not sure there is any other way to win this challenge. Balancing dishes? Are you fucking kidding me? I think next years challenge they’re actually planning on watching paint dry.

This was a familiar sight.

Back from commercials, Amanda is suddenly worried about hurt feelings and feels put upon. So naturally, Denise targets her for persuasion. Denise attempts to guilt Amanda into voting for her because of her unstable financial condition. Amanda is contemplating what the right move is. Courtney and Todd are entirely prepared to vote out Denise, Amanda is waffling but doesn’t want to upset a potential jury vote.

Todd’s still exceptionally paranoid. Courtney acknowledges that she’s a tagalong but says that Denise “sucks at life”, then appropriately calls herself a bitch. Perhpas realizing that not everyone can have wealthy British fathers to pay our way in NYC.

Denise and Amanda bond over the dishonesty of Todd. Then Amanda claims that she won’t write her name down, but she won’t write down Todd’s either. So that leaves Courtney. Denise is getting demanding now. Amanda then goes to Courtney to get Todd out of the picture, and convinces Courtney to vote whichever way Amanda does.

At TC, PG looks phenomenal. They discuss the same mundane bullshit and no one invokes anyone else’s name. Todd is quite duplicitous. And really, if he can’t convince Courtney to vote with him, then he doesn’t deserve to win. Denise can’t offer a good reason to keep her, but offers a pretty valid reason to vote her out, that being that the jury might sympathize with her financial situation. Things pick up when Denise tells everyone that Amanda said she had her back, Todd and the jury mug at the claim and Amanda looks mightily nervous. They go to the vote, Denise votes for Todd, Todd votes for Denise and has some kind words for her. The votes read as such:
Denise
Todd
Denise
Denise
Everyone looks disappointed outside of Courtney, who seems downright giddy. And perhaps explains why she draws my ire so. In her exiting words, Denise is succinct and rehashes her situation, while doing a fantastic job of holding back some tears. Or at least that’s how it seems.

Back at camp, Amanda is disappointed that Todd called her a liar essentially in front of the jury. Its quite a skilled move, and if she wanted to get revenge she should have done it with her vote and put him at the vote. She gives him a lecture about morals and ethics. He tries to convince her otherwise but to no avail. Amanda seems to regret the course of direction she has chosen, and when Todd suggests celebrating, she says their’s no reason.

When they wake up, Courtney exalts the under-appreciated practicality of Q-tips and they cook some food left for them. Courtney feels good about her personal standing with several jury members, and while people do tend to vote alongside party lines, they want to believe that you showed something while there. The three of them burn some artifacts from the thirty-nine days while they all voice over their shot at winning. Todd and Amanda both also seem cautiously optimistic.

At the jury vote Jeff lays down the ground rules as always. For their opening statements, Amanda delves into her good fortune and plays the humble card but doesn’t really seem to have anything to say. She admits to aligning with Todd and regrets to voting out James, JR and Frosti. This is already really, really long, so I’m not going to delve into how many things were wrong with that sentiment.

Todd asks for the jury’s respect for the game he played. Courtney explains how much she overcame not being a Survivor viewer and physically diminutive. She seems pretty resigned to losing when she asks for them to acknowledge the underdog card.

Now it’s the jury’s turn. James goes first and congratulates all of them on their position, then asks Courtney what she enjoyed most about the experience. She says discovering she wouldn’t be the first person voted off.

JR asks Courtney why she should vote for her, and she points out her one immunity win and that he compliments her answer. He goes after Amanda and Todd for disloyalty, they both give defensive and not entirely valid answers. Todd gives him what he’s looking for: validation, Amanda does not. But the efficacy of it might have been killed when everyone laughs at JR’s expense.

PG admits that Todd deserves to win and gets an answer out of him that lies somewhere in between honesty and hostility. She calls Amanda a tagalong in so many words and asks for a legitimate reason to vote for her. She looks unmoved even though Amanda admits to leading the vote against James. Does she realize that he can hear her?

Erik wants to know about the risk element, and directs his question to Amanda. She claims leading the charge against James was a risk, which is bullshit because her name was never on a ballot.

Frosti is idignant when he asks Todd about matters of trust. Wasn’t Frosti just systemically voted out? He had some inside knowledge and instead of trying to use it he let Todd and Courtney lead him around by the nose. Oh, and he refers to him in the third person. Todd says he apologizes for admittedly voting him out when he said he wouldn’t. He looks for some validation from Frosti and we’re not sure if Courtney provided it.

Jaime, since she doesn’t really don’t know any of them, demands they say something disparaging about their fellow competitors. Courtney waffles, Todd gives a definitive answer and Amanda’s question is directed to answer about Courtney, and Amanda explains that she doesn’t really put forth any effort into anything. Amanda claims that Todd lies too much, Todd retorts, “Yeah, I did the dirty work for the nice girl”. Ouch, that is honest. Sort of. Amanda probably isn’t geting enough credit here, but she’s not really selling it well either. I hope Jaime is glad that we everyone to remember who she was. Denise, sporting a peach colored wife-beater, doesn’t really ask a question but just berates her recently separated from tribe. It’s a lecture and not an actual question.

We go to the vote, Jaime admits that Todd earned her vote at the jury. Erik votes for Amanda, clearly not realizing he doesn’t get to lick anything off her fingers for doing so. Denise votes for Courtney, presumably strictly for being an underdog. Wow, no Becky’s in this three. JR explains that “you just stole a million dollars, well played”, but we don’t see who he wrote down….

They transition from China to Hollywood for the reunion without the montage. Courtney and Todd look like they’re auditioning for something, the latter has an Elvis like mullet, Amanda looks almost the same. They go to the vote:
Courtney
Amanda
Todd
Courtney
Todd
Todd
Todd
He hugs all the people he bent to his will then runs out to greet his parents and they cut to his hometown in wherever Utah. A gay flight attendant in Utah, talk about being ostracized. Probst attempts to offer a bevy of reasons to watch the reunion while James stands in the background separated from the main hub of people.

We’ll delve into more exposition in the reunion post coming later today.