Congrats, Denise!

Sorry for the late post.  It's quite difficult during the Christmas season to be all caught up on everything & yes, there was a Christmas party on Sunday night.  Thank heavens for the PVR and for friends who did not spoil the ending for me!  All caught up now - thanks for waiting!

Well... yeah.  Denise!  What do you guys think?  Are we happy?  We all knew it would be her or Malcolm and Malcolm looked like the bigger threat.  AND he didn't win immunity, even with an advantage that he'd won in an earlier reward challenge.  The final immunity challenge was a balancing one and it turns out that Malcolm has shaky hands when he gets nervous.  As he said in the reunion show, he could have had 100 free tries and he still would have lost that one.  Skupin won it, by the way, so he and Lisa by extension were safely in the final three. 

Denise tried to talk Malcolm into voting with her instead of against her.  Both of them vote for Lisa, and then it becomes a tie and a fire challenge.  But Malcolm wouldn't commit ("took a page out of Penner's 'how to lose a million dollars' handbook," he said at the reunion.) and figured his best bet was to vote with Lisa and Skupin against Denise.  Remember, he had a bit of an alliance with them from when they went out to pet the whale sharks? 

It turned out that Skupin & Lisa were more afraid of sitting next to Malcolm than Denise.  And truly, I think Malcolm would have won it if he was sitting there... I don't think Lisa & Skupin were going to win either way.  They made too many people mad from their old yellow team.  It's delightful to remember that they were the outcasts - the ones that none of the kids from the yellow team liked, the ones that were bullied.  And here they are sitting at the end... But, all those guys were pretty bitter about it - Artis, Pete, Abi.... all except RC, who was pretty happy for Lisa and in the end was the only person to vote for her.  (Carter was the only person to vote for Skupin, FYI, everyone else voted for Denise.)

The final Tribal Council was surprisingly bitter.  I mean, there's always, always one or two people who are bitter and holding onto whatever happened to blindside them or vote them off... Always.  But this was a particularly mean-spirited group.  The ones I thought would be jerks - Abi and RC - were actually not that bad.  RC asked some questions (and that laugh...after every single thing she says... oh my.... are you not glad you were not subjected to more of that? Yikes.) and Abi just played up the "poor me, I was told I am unlikeable, I am so heartbroken," thing.  I think Denise actually got her vote by simply apologizing and saying you know what, I stand by a lot of what I said to you, but maybe I could have gone about it in a different way and I really didn't mean to hurt you if you are truly hurt by it." 

Then... there were the ones you'd expect.  Carter was nice.  Pete and Artis weren't super nice, but we knew that was coming.  Jeff Kent was quite reasonable.  But then.... Malcolm and Penner.  These two were hardcore jerks.  Was I the only one weirded out by this?  I mean, maybe I sort of understand Malcolm because it was all so recent for him & he hadn't a lot of time to process. But getting all mad at Denise for 'nodding'.  "Don't you dare sit there and nod at me!"  Whaaaaat?  I'm pretty sure he knew how this worked. They both on a number of occasions said that they had an alliance down to final four and then it was everyone for themselves.  She was true to that alliance.  Also, ummmm... Malcolm, you were trying to do the exact same thing to Denise, only she was able to better convince Skupin & Lisa.  That's all.  Honestly, how these people let either one of Malcolm or Densie make it to the end is beyond me.

Then there was Penner.  My former favourite.  He was a class-A jerk.  Told Denise that she was a bitch, told Skupin that he was never in trouble, he never got his name written down (while Penner holds a bit of a record for it) and then outed Lisa as a TV actor.  Denise again had the "Whaaaaat?" facial expression. Skupin didn't say a whole lot (though, it was funny that he didn't realise his name hadn't been written down... though shouldn't that be a PLUS for Skupin?  Shouldn't you congratulate the dude who people on his tribe did not like, who was the only returning player to make it to the end WITHOUT having his name written down once? Seems like a bit of an accomplishment.) And Lisa just stayed calm and said yes, it's true I was an actor.  Shall we talk about what kinds of jobs you did in your youth, or would you rather talk about what kind of person you are today?  I thought it was a good response.  But Penner made it all about him and came off like a whiny, whiny baby.  Tragic. 

At the end of the day, I'm pretty glad Denise won.  I'd have been happy for Malcolm too.  Or for Lisa, or even Skupin... though a little less so.  Denise made a pretty good case for herself.  She  had been to EVERY single Tribal Council and survived. She had forged relationships in all three tribes. She had to constantly reinvent strategy whenever she got moved around.  She had to compete hard and work hard at camp to make herself seen as a useful commodity.  She listened well and observed relationships and used what she could to her advantage.  Overall, smart play.  I have to say, it was interesting to see all three in the final three were the 'old' people in the cast.  (Old in Survivor is over 40.  It's like dog years....)  Brains count for a lot in this show.

Not a lot to tell about the reunion show. It was kind of the Lisa Welchel hour.  She talked at LENGTH about God and how he loves all the Survivors, blah, blah, blah.  She took up a lot of the time so they couldn't really ask a lot of the questions I think would have been interesting.  The usual quick question to the first people off... and surprisingly not much at all directed at Russell.  I know he was 4th out, but he was a pretty big part of this season, non?  Dawson ran down and kissed Jeff Probst on the lips.  Uh, girl is a crazy stalker.  Jeff: Thankfully that kiss was not as good as my wife's.  Ha!  Sorry, honey, the security officers will be seeing you out now.  Dana is feeling much better, thanks.  Penner looks weird with hair and no scruffy beard.... and does he dye his hair now?  Weird.  Abi came across pretty well - she said that she knows now after watching the show that she "has a lot of work to do."  Artis thought it was funny how he was perceived as "the angry black man"... and RC went on AGAIN about how Pete and Abi screwed her over.  To which Pete responded, "Uh, I think someone's still a little bitter."  Ha!  Generally, there was not a lot of love. It seems like the first people out - the non-jury folks - get along pretty well.  And the final three seemed to still have a lot of love.  Malcolm for sure has calmed down about losing, as has Jeff Kent.  But if you're Denise, you don't really care at the end of the day if any of these people like you once you walk out the door with that cheque. You did your job.  You won the money.  You will take it back to your family in Iowa.  The chances of having to see Penner or Abi or RC on the street are slim.  Life is good. 

Unfortunately, the PR wizards at CBS have seen fit to make the next season, Fans vs. Favourites again. Bleh.  We've talked about this before.  Is the talent pool in America drying up so badly that they can only find 9 people for the show?  They have to recycle people who've played before.  Boring!  We've seen this now a bunch of times.  Fans vs. Favourites, All-Stars, Redemption Island... they are all just different names for the same thing:  Boring.  I liked this season because the folks who were playing again DESERVED another shot.  They left the show medically - not getting voted out (with the exception of Penner, who had been voted out in another season, then med-evaced.)  But come on now, Mark Burnett. Enough already.  And who are we going to have to endure again?  Will it be interesting Survivors who we might actually want to see play some more?  Dudes like Malcolm might fall into this category.  Or, will it be Russell Hantz (or any Hantz for that matter)... or frickin' Rupert?  Good lord, if Rupert is on the air, I'm quitting the blog.

OK - so I've just checked into it - don't read further if you like to be surprised.

It looks like we will see Malcolm again.  And....are you sitting down?  Baby Hantz.  Ugh.  Gross.  Also Dawn from South Pacific, who I liked a lot.... and John Cochran... and Phillip Sheppard?  Really?  I mean, he was good TV, sure, but really? One time was enough.  Also a bunch of people I'm going to have to look up because they're such "Favourites" I can't even remember who they are:  Andrea, Brenda, Corinne, Erik, Francesca?   Ugh... ok, just googled them. Blech. These people were all voted out for a reason. WHOSE FAVOURITES ARE THESE???  Who out there is like, Andrea... yeah, she was my favourite player EVER!!! You'll remember them when you see them.  Erik was that long haired young dude who pulled one of the dumbest moves ever when he let those girls talk him into giving them his idol?  Remember?  When I google image searched Corinne, one picture showed up with the words: "Miserable Human Being".... Right.  Fan-frickin'-tastic.  You know I'll watch anyway, but I'm going to have words with Jeff Probst.