Survivor Guatemala, Finale and Reunion Show: Pussy, Thy Name Is Rafe by Landru (Duh.)

Y’know, I could be writing about TAR. This sucks. I mean, all that excitement that is an actual race all the way around the world; it’s just amazing, y’know? But I get stuck with another dumb old Survivor finale. Yawn.

Okay, that’s about as much as I care to try to sustain that ridiculous joke. That I would do the Survivor finale is clearly the worst-kept secret in the relatively brief history of the original Circle Of. I’m sure you got the reverse bad joke the first time, when I belabored it in last week’s TAR summary. When we were fleshing out the idea for show blogs, I immediately stamped my little foot and asserted Manifest Destiny as a claim to every Survivor finale for the remainder of history. I tried to assert the same claim to every premiere and finale of every show, forever, but Dweeze is smarter than I am, so that sorta fizzled. And now Dweezil owns my mortgage, and that’s what I get for being an imperialist.

It’s been a tough season of Survivor. Much has been made of how tough it was for the contestants, and I suppose that’s true, given the sheer volume of crocodiles, puking, and disagreeable companionship that they all faced. It’s been tough for us too, though, what with the sheer volume of assholes that we all faced. I mean, this season was purely sphincteriffic, and you can safely bet the mortgage that I’ll be exploring that in gory detail when we get to the ritual transcript of the reunion show.

A tradition has developed in my season-ending Survivor writings; as you probably know, in each of the last several seasons, I have brutally castigated one particular survivor, singling him (and in each case, it has been an owner of a Y chromosome) out for extra-special anger. I crucified Lex after the All-Star edition (sorry, I can’t link to it for legal reasons), then did the same to Tom after Palau (same legal problem, sorry). Both epitomized an ideal of dishonesty so fundamentally crass that even I couldn’t stand it, and there is a nontrivial number of people in this world who would die puking and laughing at the concept of me having a moral center when it comes to game-playing. And I? Only play games for fun, not for a million fucking dollars.

But there’s this thing, this hypocrisy thing. I don’t lie to win a game and then claim I didn’t. Neither did a number of people who have won Survivor, including Richard Hatch, Brian Heyduk, and Chris Daugherty. But a lot of people, both winners and losers, come out of the jungle claiming not to have lied, or to have played righteous, morally centered games. Almost every fucking one of them is lying through his or her teeth. Lex (a repeat loser) and Tom (an arrogant bully) were two of those. I hurt them for it, much to the distaste of some assclowns who thought Tom was a right guy in the face of incontrovertible and massive evidence to the contrary. These? Were people who think you can be nice and still have sex with hot chicks. We call them losers.

Rafe is this season’s big villain, despite the presence of personalities for various reasons more superficially villainous. But they’re just loud pigs. Rafe is a whimpering piglet. Rafe is a guilt queen. Rafe is a passive-aggressive piece of shit. I will lexify Rafe later on, but know this: I’m really quite pissed off at him, and he has justified every queasy feeling I’ve had about him all season. See, I had this liberal guilt problem with Rafe. He’s gay, and he’s a weenie, and he mewls and pukes a lot, and I convinced myself that I had to at least tolerate him because he was an underdog, and because I’m supposed to be nice to stray dogs and gay people, even annoying ones, and then Wheezy convinced me, in an odd and unintentional way, that I had to respect him because he was puppeting things a lot more than I gave him credit for.

But beginning last week, with his insufferable whining about Cindy not giving everybody a car, and continuing into this week, with his passive-aggressive attempt to get Danni to take him to the Final Two against her clear self-interest, and his sniveling and self-righteous attempt (which Danni beautifully kicked in the nuts) to get anyone other than him to vote for Stephenie when that strategy failed, it started to dawn on me (I’m slow) that I was just being a fucking limousine liberal moron. Fuck you, Rafe, you mincing little bitch. And don’t even think I’m done with your pansy ass. In a purely literary sense, I mean.

We must first previously. Previous to the previouslying, I had thought long and hard about tonight’s festivities, and I had concluded that I had to pull for Danni. This was not an easy call. I don’t like her. I don’t like her as a piece of eye candy, and I don’t like her as a player. A friend of ours disagrees with me about the eye candy part—Gothie adores her, and he’s welcome to. I’m not so big on bones, myself. I think that, as a player, Danni has skated through with a tremendous amount of luck and radar deflection. Her ass was flatly saved by buying an immunity challenge cheat card; she managed to position herself as someone nonthreatening, or at least less threatening than an alternative, at every key juncture. And she was mostly truthful about all that, certainly truthful in Survivor terms. No small accomplishment for someone who labors so hard at being a dumbass. But she earned the thing in the face of challenging challenges and perilous perils, no question. And I was fortunate enough to decide, pre-show, that this was probably the case, and to reason out that I disliked the other three finalists intensely. So I was actually okay with the outcome for the first time in many, many seasons.

Okay, so previously, we did a hell of a lot, and Jiffy tells us about it in pretty gruesome detail, although less so, it seems to me, than in previous finales. We started with the introduction of celebrities Bobby Jon and Stephenie. We recap the death march through the jungle, and a whole lotta puking, and then more puking. We remember with good cheer the day Bobby Jon’s eyes rolled back in his head, and the day wretched old Jim got scragged, and the demises of the nonentities Morgan, Brianna, and Brooke. We see Amy’s ankle getting crushed, and Bobby Jon and Jamie barking at each other, and the demises of Mahgrit, Blake, Brian, and Amy. The merge ensued, and Brandon died, and Judd lied. Former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom saved his ass, temporarily, and Bobby Jon bit the big one, joining the jury and politely thanking Jiffy for the opportunity. The insane loudmouth Jamie followed his redneck neighbor to the jury (snap!), and Former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom then joined them after Rafe kicked his gangly underbitten ass in an immunity challenge, and Judd bellowed his way to the jury shortly thereafter, exiting with his deathwish for the final five. Finally, Cindy became the first girlie on the jury when her gloating about her brand new car became too much to be tolerated in and around camp, and we were left with a final four of the Dobby, Lydia, the mincing, cowering Rafe, big weepy loserhead Stephenie, and bony sportschick Danni. Who will win? Well, Danni will, but you knew that already.

We roll credits, and go to:

Commercials, brought to you by Olay:

radiator noises and other skin-drying implicative things, for some Olay product; a French guy, who may or may not be the guy who played the French villain in Ocean’s Twelve, for the Salvation Army; a woman driving, for GM and Mister Goodwrench; pulsating cheeseburgers and a Flying Lizards ripoff version of Satisfaction, for Wendy’s, which urges you to Rock Your Burger, and I’ll welcome code translations for that; pompous scientific-sounding voiceover, for Quaker Oats; CBS, for the show that continues to prove that Charlie Sheen is not a comic actor, and for the TAR finale.

And we’re back.

At the camp, it is a quiet morning in the jungle, and the final four are waking up. Lydia is building the fire; she confesses how smug she is that she made the final four. She wonders the same thing the rest of us have been wondering for the last eight weeks: “Why am I here?” She attributes it to destiny, to somebody watching over her; I attribute it to harmlessness and a willingness to do all the cooking.

Danni confesses that she is a wreck. In a serious blow to my willingness to support her campaign, she also confesses that she is a fan of Kansas basketball. Well, rock, chalk, fuck you, Danni. But you still leave me with no alternative. Rafe toasts the final four with Cindy’s coffee and confesses how proud he is that he made it to the final four.

Lydia excitedly picks up some non-tree mail and dashes back to camp, very excited. So excited that the others assume that this can only mean one thing: food! It’s hard to fault them for this assumption, given that Lydia appears to be ready to pee herself.

No such luck. The message instructs the final four to embrace Mayan culture, the spirit of which is still alive. The message refers to these ancestral grounds of the Maya as sacred, which Lydia reads as “scared.” Yes, I’d be scared too, if I were these ancestral grounds, given that these people have been making a mess of me for six weeks. Of course, if I were the Maya, I wouldn’t be scared, because I’d have been assimilated about 600 years ago.

Lydia is tremendously excited. The others are baffled, and dismiss her. I’m guessing an immunity win in the next challenge would be a pretty crucial thing for Lydia. For one thing, she’s stark raving batshit insane. For another, someone else can probably fix the damn corn for another day or two. And for another, she’s stark raving batshit insane.

Stephenie shrieks at Lydia because the message does not involve a seven-course meal. This is not the last time in this episode that Stephenie will annoy the willies out of me. Stephenie has a two-track mind: one track is herself, and the other is food. Stephenie? Is not a nice person, either, but is so blown away by Rafe in sheer evil that she’s going to pretty much get a pass from me.

Lydia raves and wails and tells us that she has a vision. She was hoping for some sort of feast, which would be pretty much unprecedented, and this will not be the last time we’ve wondered if these people have ever watched Survivor. There is no feast for making the final four, dimwits. Lydia wonders as an alternative if the Maya people will come to camp and perform some sort of ritual.

That? Would be pretty fucking scary, since the Maya have been dead assimilated for 600 years. Wikipedia would have me believe that Mayan language and culture still exist in dispersed form throughout much of Guatemala and Belize. Since Lydia is able to communicate in Spanish with the five Mayans Guatemalans who come to visit, I’m guessing that Mark Burnett and company did not look terribly hard for actual dispersed, assimilated Mayans.

And it is, indeed, five persons, allegedly of Mayan descent, who come to call. They make circles on the ground from sugar, which Stephenie promptly devours, and light candles and incense and make burnt offerings of rosemary and sugar and honey. The selfish, insensitive, Ugly American bitch Stephenie complains because the alleged Mayans don’t give her the honey, and instead pour it on the ground. No sir, you don’t have to confine yourself to TAR to find Ugly Americans.

The alleged Mayans begin to chant and pray as they perform the ritual, which appears to be geared toward praising their ancestors. A sedated chicken is produced, and Stephenie immediately wonders if this will be offered to the survivors.

Y’know what? No pass. Stephenie, you are one of the dumbest, greediest, least appreciative bitches ever to move upon this earth. You truly believe, deep in your greasy little Jersey soul, that everything has been placed in this universe for your convenience and to serve the splendiferousness that is you. For one thing, you’re wrong; it’s all about me, as you’d understand if you hung around in a better crowd. For another thing, you’re wrong; you have now had the opportunity to travel the globe to at least two different exotic locales, and in each one you have utterly failed to appreciate the wonder that surrounds you, instead focusing entirely on food. If you visited Italy, you’d ask for pizza, and whine and pout when they served you meat and fish grilled with herbs and olive oil instead. You’d wonder why people built the Vatican, which is, after all, just another temple erected by primitive persons whose motives you are incapable of grokking. Go fuck yourself, Stephenie, you nasty little self-absorbed piece of monkey shit. Judd deserves to be in the final four more than you do, and Bobby Jon damn sure deserves it more than you.

The chicken, which appears to be sedated, is dispatched and tossed onto the fire as a sacrifice. Rafe tells us that they pull the chicken’s head off and throw the chicken in the fire. He relates that Stephenie asked him if the chicken was dead. Rafe is forced to point out that it would be difficult for a beheaded chicken to be alive, per se.

They don’t do that sorta thing in Jersey, except maybe to Patriots fans.

Rafe, to his credit, is awed by the ritual, and immerses himself in watching and appreciating it. A bowl of some sort of liquid—which, judging from Lydia’s reaction to it, is alcholic in nature—is poured and passed for drinking. Lydia then proceeds to tell us that, since she is of Hispanic heritage her ownself, this is all very special for her and she feels a kinship to the Mayans on that account. That’s nice, if irrelevant; Mayan civilization had largely declined by the time the Spanish arrived, and was further dispersed by the arrival in the Americas of the Spanish and other Europeans. Lydia should rightly feel more kinship with the culture she encounters in Survivor: The Spanish Riviera, although Survivor: The Spanish Inquisition would be a hell of a lot more entertaining, come to think on it.

Tamales are passed and enjoyed, so it appears food is involved after all. Stephenie, however, still wants to eat the fucking chicken, and forces Lydia to ask the alleged Mayans if it would be permissible to eat this creature that they have lovingly sacrificed for the benefit of four American idiots and an American television show. The alleged Mayan reiterates the obvious; this is an offering to the gods, you Ugly American assholes, so why don’t you just truck it on down to the fucking Taco Bell, you sorry sacks of materialist shit?

Rafe worshipfully recounts the ritual, and how it is to express gratitude to the land, the water, the forest, the ancestors, and relates that he is happy to have had a cultural experience here. I am forced to give Rafe props for this. His own background is damned odd, and yet he has managed to retain enough capacity in him to question things, that he is able to appreciate that not everyone believes in the same stuff. It’s a shame that someone so broad-minded is also so fucking self-centered and whiny.

But, as we have learned over time, survivors who aren’t self-centered don’t often make it to the merge, and survivors who aren’t whiny don’t get a lot of camera time.

The first immunity challenge is an elaborate maze laid out inside a sort of earth-art sculpture of a giant bird (a macaw, I think, which we are told is a famous Maya deity). Jiffy claims it is the most complex challenge maze ever made for Survivor. Puzzle pieces are hidden in the maze; upon collecting a piece (or pair of pieces—there are eight, at six stations), the survivor must make her way across a pontoon bridge, and up some stairs to the puzzle station, then drop off the puzzle piece(s) and cross a rope bridge to return to the maze. The puzzle will form either a jaguar, a crocodile, or a monkey. The aerial view shows us that the maze is, indeed, huge.

Lydia may as well just take a nice sit-down. Her little Dobby legs aren’t going to cut it in this mess. There are lot of dummy stations. Stephenie, Danni, and Lydia get on the board quickly; Jiffy says that “everyone has found their first pair.” We’ll let you know if we identify Danni’s pair.

As the thing develops, everyone is starting to tire after only two stations. Stephenie and Rafe get off to a lead, with Danni not horribly far behind. It doesn’t take long for Dobby to fall well behind. Steph and Rafe are pretty much neck and neck for the last half of the challenge. Danni hustles, but she’s a little behind. Dobby gets lost, and may as well take a swim, but Jiffy exhorts her on, “those short little legs working,” as he tells us in his inimitable style that relies entirely on ignoring the existence of “be” verbs. Rafe and Steph find their last stations and begin puzzle assembly; they’re both well into it when Danni gets up the pyramid with her last piece. They have a huge lead, but Danni cheats, looking over at the other two as she starts to assemble the puzzle, and makes up a fair amount of ground. Rafe nails it, with Danni and Steph not far behind. Dobby triumphantly drops off her last puzzle piece in a burst of Jamie-like futility.

With that agony and ecstasy under our belts, we are reminded—twice in succession—that several cars went unclaimed in the last episode because Cindy was such a greedy little whore, and then we’re off to:

Commercials:

a dweeb ransacking his house for the credit card bill, for some Citi card; a guy and his laptop, for Circuit City; a trailer, for the remake of The Producers; loud music and stylish electronic equipment, to wit some phone that both does cell-phoney things and sculpts your bikini line, for Cingular; CBS, for some other damn crime show that apparently stars the inherently not believeable Mandy Patinkin (whose only acting success, for my money, involved swordplay and a bad accent, although he did turn in a reasonable performance in some Muppet movie I saw about sharing and materialism), and for CSI: Sipewicz; my low-grade, ridiculous, not media-market-worthy local news, for itself; cars and reindeer, for Mercedes; and my provincial local news, again, for itself, reminding me that My Local NFL Franchise actually won a football game, proving once again that Keeping Hope Alive is not always a good thing, although of course my provincial news wouldn’t dare to reveal to me a truth like that there.

And we’re back. For those of you who care about these things, we’re about a half-hour and 3,500 words into the tape, an extrapolated word count of about 21,000 freakin’ words, but fear not. You know I always front-load the word count, since as the tape rolls and I show no sign of closing in on the end of the thing, my writing becomes much more clipped and desperate. I’m guessing we’ll come in around 16K for this puppy. Shouldn’t take you more than a lunchtime and two, three coffee breaks to polish this shit off.

So we head back to the camp, moaning and bitching about how tough the challenge was. Rafe gloats that it’s weird and incredible to have the immunity necklace. He thinks he can get to the end of the game and “maybe win it.” Oof. That Steel Reinforcing Rod of Foreshadowing Doom does not look good sticking out of your monkey-like forehead, Rafe.

Stephenie covers her ass, telling Rafe she wants to go to the final two with him. She confesses that he’s the only one she thinks she could possibly beat, since he’s lied to exactly the same people she has. This is fundamentally correct, although she fails to credit that Rafe is, at a personal level and with the well-known effects of the Stockholm Syndrome playing on survivors’ minds, considerably more likeable and less whiny than she is (Steph whines to everybody, everywhere; Rafe tends to save his most high-pitched stuff for confessionals). It would be mildly entertaining to see these two in the final together, because Judd’s head would explode. However, the Million-Pound Shithammer of Foreshadowing hangs over this conversation and confession, too, swinging back and forth and chirping thusly:

Hi! Nope, I’m not foreshadowing! Nope, not me! No, really! Burnett is telling you the truth this time, unlike the other 463,226 times he’s used precisely this device in an attempt to lead you away from expecting the actual outcome! Don’t mind me, I’m just the Million-Pound Shithammer of Face-Value Prophecy! Steph and Rafe, Final Two, Judd’s Head Explodes! Film in about an hour! Would I lie to you, honey? Would I say something wasn’t true? Would I liiiiiiiiiie to you?

At this point, the little Annie Lennox in your head should be screaming, “Bollocks! He’s fooking lying to you, the fooking SAS producer-scum barstid!” But you’re not stupid, and she’s doing just that. Right? Always listen to the little Annie Lennox in your head.

The conversation and the confession continue, with Steph and Rafe reminding each other that they’ve never once lied to each other. I am unable to provide evidence to refute this. Then Steph confesses that their best strategic move is to take Lydia with them to the final three. This is indisputably true, and I realize that she is telling me this precisely because, in a few hours of game time and about ten minutes of tape time, Jiffy will be snuffing Dobby’s torch (but, thankfully, allowing her to keep her clothing).

The explanation lies in Rafe, who confesses that he promised to take Danni to the final three. Of course, he earlier swore loyalty to Lydia, but apparently there was some complex final five-final four-final whatever devil-bargaining in there, so it’s less sinful to light Dobby on fire and sacrifice her to the gods. Danni’s lobbying doesn’t help Rafe’s mindset one tiny little bit; she damn sure remembers that he promised to take her to the final three in return for her help in demolishing the old order and getting rid of all those big macho boys. Danni confesses that she is uneasy about the whole thing, and Rafe reminds her in conversation that he remembers her help, and Danni tells her best lie yet: “I wouldn’t be able to win anything tomorrow, anyway.”

And that, friends, would be the Million-Pound Shithammer of Face-Value Prophecy.

Stephenie shithammers this home by walking up and joining the conversation with a hearty, “We don’t have any nuts left, do we?”

No, Stephenie. No, Rafe doesn’t.

Conversation turns to the dearly departed, to wit the blackened chicken that our allegedly Mayan friends left behind. Lydia, Stephenie, and Danni all see nothing wrong with eating the chicken. Rafe is squeamish about it, and while that’s reflective of some pretty silly superstition, it’s also reflective of some respect for other cultures. Not even Lydia and her phony connection to the non-Hispanic Maya have enough respect for these peoples’ beliefs to leave the got-damn chicken alone. Stephenie whines that she wishes we did this earlier.

Fuck you, Stephenie, you self-absorbed loser moron.

On the trip to the chicken, Dobby begs her mistress for one more night in camp. Stephenie reminds Dobby that she is worthless and ineffectual and nonthreatening. Dobby takes this as a positive sign and confesses that she is, in fact, worthless and ineffectual and nonthreatening. Not you. You take this as a sign that Mark Burnett is wasting a lot of footage lying to you.

The chicken returns with Steph and Dobby to the others. Steph attempts to mitigate the supercallifragillistic disrespect she is about to show by suggesting that “We can say a little prayer or something, if you want, to make you feel better.”

Fuck you, Stephenie, you condescending, disrepectful, self-absorbed loser moron. I hope you got salmonella and spent the three nights after the final tribal council shitting your worthless guts out, you creepy, whinging bitch. I hope you’re eaten by a crocodile, you scumbag.

Rafe, of course, balks at eating the chicken. He respects the culture, he respects the power of the sacrifice. Steph confesses about it: “Rafe is a pussy,” she confesses. “It’s a fuckin’ chicken. I fuckin’ ate it. What the fucking fuck, anyway?”

Two seconds later, in tape time, and an unknown amount of time later in reality, a gigantimongous thunderstorm blows up. No shit. Burnett time-lapses it beautifully. Steph asks the group if they should say “a prayer of forgiveness or something.” The very, very best answer would’ve been a timely and accurate lightning strike, but we get no such gift.

This sequence epitomizes Stephenie with unintended perfection. Lie or otherwise do whatever you must to get what you want, right now, without vision of the consequences. Then, do or say whatever you must to get out of the consequences. You might wonder why I’m being so hard on Rafe in the runup to the horror that is the next hour or so of tape, when Stephenie is behaving so badly—in fact, has always, with great consistency, behaved this badly.

It’s simple. I hate gay people.

Okay, okay, seriously? Stephenie is real upfront about who and what she is. Her attempts to evade consequences are so transparent that it’s not really possible that she could believe that they’re anything else. I mean, yeah, it’s possible. But there’s something so inept about Stephenie’s moral ambiguity that she really does have to realize it’s there, and she’ll even, in her high-pitched and miserable way, cop to it on occasion.

Rafe, on the other hand, genuinely believes that he’s a good person and that he’s not whining. His ego is so unjustifiably ginormous that it overwhelms his capacity for true empathy. Oh, he’ll use a display of faux empathy as a tool, as he did last week in the car debacle, and as he will do in about 30 minutes of tape time (and again during the final tribal council). But he is, fundamentally, a soulless fuck. Stephenie, by contrast, has a soul; it’s just trapped in a perpetual cycle of self-pity.

So there’s this conversation and some confessing about how the giant storm is a direct result of their disrespect for the sacrifice, and for the gods. But like the thunderboomer, it passes, and we’re off to tribal council.

The jury struts in, Bobby Jon giving some sort of odd pagan redneck hand symbol, and Cindy, bringing up the rear, sporting a pair of really giant sloppy hooters barely contained in a halter sort of top. Where the fuck did those come from? Did she have those all along? Jesus H. Tittyfucking Christ on a Wobbly Fucking Crutch, those are some nasty breasticles! Get her away from me! No, really! Augggghhh!!!!

Jiffy begins the questioning, asking Rafe about the ceremony. Rafe blathers, a bit, and Jiffy asks if the ritual connected the survivors to the land. Rafe answers in the affirmative. Jiffy asks about the storm. Dobby discusses the storm, admitting to Jiffy and the jury that they ate the fucking chicken.

As if Jiffy didn’t know this. I mean, if Dobby and the others hadn’t fessed up about this, the next question was gonna be another question about the storm, and Jiffy woulda followed that up with as many questions as he needed to throw at them to elicit before God and the jury that they ate the fucking sacrificial chicken.

Jiffy cuts short Dobby’s incredibly and unnecessarily long story about this with a simple, incredulous statement: “You ate the chicken.” Dobby says that she knows for a fact that the Mayan gods were angry, because why else would it thunder and lightning like that?

Uhm…because it was a fucking thunderstorm, you misshapen twit?

The jury yawns and rolls its eyes at this unduly long tale of woe. Jiffy interrogates Rafe: “So you really don’t respect the ceremony.” Rafe issues an impassioned denial. Jiffy asks Dobby and Danni if they ate the chicken, then asserts that Steph ate it.

Jiffy then claims he’s not judging them (he is, and I got no problem with that…do you?), then demands that they discuss it. Stephenie protests that she was hungry. Former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom shakes his head in disgust. The word “bitch” or worse appears in a thought bubble over each jury member’s head. Stephenie says that they all believe that the storm was worse because they ate the chicken.

Sigh.

The storm was worse because a warm body of air collided with a cooler body of air. Moisture was released. You’re in the fucking tropics. It’s hot. It’s moist. These things happen.

Still and all, you shouldn’t have eaten the fucking chicken, you impertinent trollop.

Jiffy lets it go, and goes after Dobby. “Will you be surprised when they kick you to the curb?” Dobby protests that she’s not threatening. Jiffy gives Danni a shot, having figured out along with the jury and every viewer that the last person on Earth Rafe is gonna vote out is Steph. Danni reminds us that if Dobby’s sneaky little ass squirts through to the final two, she’s gonna kick ass and walk home rich.

This line of bullshit, coupled with the immunity cheat two episodes ago and Danni’s bald-faced lie about not being threatening in the final immunity challenge, will give Danni the game.

Jiffy goes after Steph, who lays out the correct rationale for clubbing either Dobby or Danni; Dobby is well-liked, and if she sneaks through, whoever’s up against her is fucked. But she’s not totally buying the nonthreatening Danni, either.

This is another of those points where you have to wonder if these people are new here. Does Dobby have the slightest chance in hell of winning a challenge that will, one way or another, involve endurance? That has, most times, involved also balance, or strength, or both? Puh-leez. Dobby has no fucking chance in hell of winning a final immunity challenge. And a stringy little piece of horsemeat like Danni? Bitch has endurance and grit and determination written all over her.

Meaningful glances pass among the jury. At this moment? You know, for absolute fact, unless you are blind and stupid, that there is no way in hell that Stephenie LaGrossa will win this game.

We’re ready to vote; Rafe isn’t giving up immunity. No votes are shown at this time. Jiffy heads off to pick up the Yet Another Ice Bucket of Fate, and starts counting. One vote for Danni, three votes for Dobby. Duh. There is much head-shaking on the jury as the votes are read. Jiffy issues a somber speech and tells the final three of his hope that the gods have forgiven them.

Lydia’s out-confession is…well, vapid and useless. Let’s just go…well, first we have Lydia’s Febreze Survivor family moment, which features Dobby’s pudgy son telling us how quiet it is around the house without her there.

Duh. Let’s go to:

Commercials:

people pretending to play charades, for Febreze; a trailer for the DVD of The Brothers Grimm; the utterly fabulous XM Satellite Radio spot that features David Bowie savoring the necklace he swiped from Snoop Dawg, in which Ellen DeGeneres suggests that Snoop wants to be…Amish; SUVs in the snow, for GMC; an English-accented woman who is still Kate Winslet recounting various phony life experiences, for American Express; rain and Tiger Woods, for American Express; that asshole surfer, who’s supposed to be famous, for American Express; and CBS, for the Jennifer Love Whorewit show, and for some annoying crime/legal drama that isn’t Law and Order or any of its multitudinous progeny.

And we’re back. It’s still raining. Guess the gods just aren’t letting go of that chicken thing. But blissfully, that’s all we get of the night-vision equipment, and a new day dawns, to the call of the howler monkey. I don’t know why we’re sticking with this imagery, given that the howler monkey is back at Loser Lodge hobnobbing with his jury peers, but there you have it.

The fire is out, and we’ll have to use flint to start it. The howler monkey does not want the survivors to start a fire. Doesn’t matter, the corn is moldy and maggoty and nasty. Urn mail brings a message inviting us to the fallen comrades challenge. We’re not even bothering with poetry any more.

But I will. Oh yes I will:

You’ve offed 15 comrades
and buried their flesh.
Bashed in all their gonads,
and angered Ganesh.
You dissed a burnt chicken,
reviled the ground.
Now you’ll take a lickin’
your asses we’ll pound.
But first you must profess
to care ‘bout their plight
But oblige noblesse
won’t save you tonight.
You’re three sucky persons,
none of you are pure.
Survivor just worsens,
and you’re no damn cure.
So climb up the hill now
and burn you some pics.
You’re an affront to the Tao
because you’re all dicks.

Thank you. My mother still loves me. Of course, no one’s sent her a link to my blogs.

And off they troop to the fallen comrades thing. They climb a pyramid and start reflecting on the dead. They pluck a drawing of the victim off of a pole and chuck it in the fire. As the picture burns, there’s a little voiceover from the fallen comrade along with footage of his or her predeceasement activities, and some very little discussion among the surviving survivors.

Jim the dead fireman: Brak brak brak proud.

Morgan the bimbo: Brak brak brak it’s a bummer a dumb little bag of ho like me ended up having no frickin’ social skills.

Brianna another bimbo: Brak brak brak gee, I sucked.

Brooke, yet another bimbo: Brak brak brak gee, that was hard.

Blake, a male bimbo: Brak brak brak at least I have my dignity, except for that whole projectile puking thing.

Margaret, the nursemother: Brak brak brak at least I have my dignity, except for that whole pissing off everybody in the game by being such a bitch and letting Judd get my goat thing.

Brian, the other gay guy: Brak brak brak I really thought I was gonna win.

Amy the cop: Brak brak brak I feel good about myself, except my ass is pretty fat. Go Sawx!

Brandon the farmer: Brak brak brak golly, those people are sure a pack of gosh-darned hyenas.

Bobby Jon, the…BobbyJon: Brak brak brak ah sure needed to be humbled lahk that there, but ah wish they dinnit make me squeal while they did me.

Jamie, the lunatic: Brak brak brak they a bunch a damn lahrs.

Former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom: Brak brak brak I’m a landscaper! I never played football!

Judd the frightening lunatic: Brak brak brak the game changed me and I’m not going to be an asshole any more.

Cindy the girl lunatic: Brak brak brak ah gawt me a car! A car! Ah hain’t never had me one a them before! A car!

Dobby the fishmonger: Brak brak brak no more porn for me, I guarantee it!

And after a brief promo for Survivor buffs, we’re off to:

Commercials:

a woman attempting to sound like Marge from Fargo, for Radio Shack; country and/or western music and redneck voiceover, for Chevy trucks; CGI bears and penguins peacefully coexisting, because they’d like the world to buy a Coke; a holiday-decorated home, for Lowes; bombed-out urbanity, for Degree antiperspirant; CBS, for itself, in an extended rant about how cool it is and how it’s not just for geriatrics any more; trucks and loud voiceover, for GMC trucks; a vapid woman on the phone, inviting the universe to her holiday party, for my local grocery oligopoly; carolers making actual war on Christmas by singing about the “Honda-days”, for Honda; and my provincial news, for itself.

And we’re back.

Whatever, oh whatever, could the final immunity challenge be about? Endurance, of course, coupled with balance and concentration.

Duh.

A wobbly platform sits beneath a wooden frame—like the kind upon which you would do chin-ups—from which dangles a pair of ropes. Survivor gets on the platform and grabs two ropes to assist her in maintaining her balance. After an hour, she must let go of one rope. After another half hour, she must let go of the other rope. If you fall off—that is, if your feet touch the ground or the base of the platform or, after you’ve let go of the ropes, the wooden frame (with your hands), you’re out.

Everyone hops up on a platform, and grabs two ropes. The platform is real wobbly and sensitive. They spend a few moments getting comfortable. Jiffy taunts them. There’s a bit of wobbling; Rafe wobbles dangerously as he removes and casts away his eyeglasses. Time lapses and clouds roll by; Jiffy continues with the occasional taunt, and the howler monkey howls.

After an hour, it’s time to release a rope. Steph is the first one to get in trouble, followed quickly by Danni and Rafe; each of them hangs by one rope, then finds a position in which they can endure. The platform is tilted toward the side their rope is on, and they lean back against one of the uprights of the frame.

Another half hour, and it’s time to let go of the last rope; each of them wedges in, leaning on the upright with their feet on the platform. Rafe is the first to screw up; he touches the upright with his hand as he tries to get comfy. He is deeply self-disgusted by the mental lapse.

As the challenge continues, Stephenie slouches farther and farther down the pole. Two hours and five minutes in, Jiffy taunts her about it. She whines about her lower back. Two hours and thirty-eight minutes in, we know something is about to happen, because why the hell else would we cut in at two hours and thirty-eight minutes? Danni looks relaxed; she’s picking at her nails. Steph is just about in tears. She tries to readjust, tries to scunch up the pole a bit, and falls butt-down on the ground. Danni wins. Stephenie weeps as she realizes what a big weepy loserhead she is. Danni moves to comfort her, telling Steph she’s tough.

And Rafe starts. He tells Danni that he wants to release her from any promise she made him about the final two. In fact, he goes on about it at some length, telling her how serious he is about it. Danni, being a reasonably honest (within limits) person and not horribly complicated or wise to the ways of passive-aggressive control-freak sissybitches*, takes this at face value.

*Please do not construe this as a generalization that all persons of the non-heterosexual persuasion are sissies. They’re not. Some are. So are some persons of the heterosexual persuasion. I welcome input from my gay friends on this appellation, and I am, really, quite sorry if it’s such a loaded word that you are backed into a corner where you have to take offense. But honest—it’s Rafe-specific. The guy is a fucking sissy bitch.

But Rafe doesn’t mean it. What he means is, “Danni, it’s obvious to me that I’m the one you should take with you to the final two, so I feel completely safe in making this grandiose gesture that will sound very good when I tell the jury about it, and make no mistake, I will tell the jury about it in an effort to polish my own apple. Since it’s completely inconceivable that you’d take this weeping wreck of a Stephloser with you, I may as well make this gesture, which will be completely without consequence. I’d expect you to do the same for me, even though I think I promised you nothing, when I did in fact tell you repeatedly that I wanted to take you with me to the final. So no hard feelings, eh? Wink wink, nudge nudge, a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat. Tough luck, eh Stephie?”

Fucking putz.

After getting this bit of control freakery out of the way, Rafe takes a moment to comfort Steph, who is in serious physical pain. Don’t get me wrong; she’s a big weepy loserhead. But she’s in serious physical pain.

After yet another reminder about the extra cars left over from that selfish bitch Cindy’s suicide by self-enrichment, we’re off to:

Commercials:

hip music and flashing neonish light, for some car…wait for it…it’s ugly…oh, that Pontiac that they gave to Cindy; a trailer, for King Kong; a woman in a square in…probably Italy, for Secret; stock cars crashing, for Farmers’ Insurance; that French guy, again, for the Salvation Army, again…oh, wait, y’know, it’s not the guy who was in Ocean’s Twelve, and he’s not French, he’s Antonio Freakin’ Banderas…sorry, totally my bad; a guy and his dog, for Claritin; and CBS, for some new show that’s supposed to be a comedy, but isn’t, or maybe it’s supposed to be CBS’ ripoff of Ed, but either way, it looks really crappy.

And we’re back, with a howler monkey hanging over the camp watching the survivors’ procession back in.

Danni confesses about how cool she is with being in the final two. Rafe continues to bombard her with guilt. “Don’t feel like you have to do something just because you made a promise,” he pleads. Well, why don’t you just quit fucking mentioning it, you mincing bitch? I mean, if you fucking mean it, why don’t you just let it go and shut the fucking fuck up about it, rather than badgering the poor woman into the ground? Especially when it’s obvious to everyone but you that her best shot is to take Stephenie? I mean, with hindsight, I can say that it didn’t really matter—in fact, it’s possible that if she’d taken you, she’d have gotten all seven votes, given the degree to which you and Steph have gone out of your way to brutally buttfuck, with sandpaper lube, every single person on the fucking jury. But really, dood, if you’re sincere, why do you have to keep fucking saying it?

Fucking putz.

Danni confesses about how difficult it is to make this choice. Danni recognizes the fundamental unfairness of what Rafe is doing. Rafe continues to hammer the issue with Danni, constantly reminding her of the promise while claiming to release her from it.

Rafe confesses that Danni promised. He appears to be claiming that he wants Steph to have a chance to make the final two. But actually, he’s just trying to make sure he nails down Steph’s vote, because he’s sure he’ll need it in the final two against Danni, because it’s just not within the range of possibility that Danni could think she has a better chance against Steph, so she’s gotta take Rafe, right?

Danni flat-out lies to Steph again, telling her that she, Danni, thinks she has no chance with the jury. Steph reminds Danni that they saved Danni’s ass by offing Dobby. Danni confesses again about how hard it is. It’s pretty obvious that she knows what’s in her best interest, but she continues to feign confusion.

And we’re off to tribal council. In comes the jury. Bobby Jon is grinning; so’s Cindy, and so’s Dobby. There’s a reason the jury is laughing its collective ass off, and that reason is that they see the immunity necklace around Danni’s neck. Their asses are saved; they don’t have to choose between Losey Loserton and Passive-Aggressive Priss. It’s a happy time to be on the jury.

Jiffy goes right after Steph and Rafe for voting out Dobby and leaving Danni in the game. Steph claims she didn’t know if today’s challenge would be physical or mental.

Let me repeat myself:

Are you fucking new here, you got-damned loserhead moron?

The jury cracks up at Steph’s lame rationalization, and because it just can’t stop cracking up, because the joy of seeing that immunity necklace around a neck that doesn’t belong to Stephenie or Rafe is just making them simultaneously cream and pee their knickers. They haven’t had this much fun since they got to Guatemala, not even when Judd beat Bobby Jon so bad at ping-pong that Bobby Jon’s eyes rolled back in his head, not even when Dobby tossed Cindy off of the second-floor balcony and into the pool, screaming, “Shut the fucking fuck up about your fucking car, you fucking country bitch!” Nope, not even when Former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom cried, “I’m a landscaper!” while watching ESPN Classic footage of the 1984 Dallas Cowboys. Or when Jamie wandered around a nearby Guatemalan village, asking villagers why they were against him. Nope, nothing tops this for pure jury funbags.

Jiffy asks Danni how she feels. She maintains her humility, so Jiffy goes back after Steph. But she’s not real satisfactory, so Jiffy gives Rafe a chance at some apple polishing. He starts his long story about how he released Danni from her promise, and the members of the jury exchange glances…then crack up again. See, Rafe? You’re such a miserably transparent piece of shit that even fucking Judd gets it. Jiffy presses Rafe about why he’d do something so remarkably fucking stupid, and Rafe lames his way through it. Jiffy goes after Danni again, and she goes through the rationale of the pros and cons of picking either Rafe or Steph. She remembers that she wouldn’t be there if not for Rafe, and she notes that Stephenie is universally reviled. Bobby Jon and Jamie exchange a high-five. Stephenie doesn’t miss it. The jury cracks up and nods in total agreement as Steph explains that it doesn’t like her. They crack up even more and nod vigorously in agreement as Rafe allows as how he just might be an asshole.

At this point, if you don’t believe that Danni is going to win, you’re just stupid.

Danni goes and votes, and of course, she kicks Rafe to the curb. Rafe manages grace in public; hugs are exchanged, and Rafe goes out wishing both of the girls luck. Danni weeps. Jiffy dismisses them. Rafe’s final confession is basically an admission that he’s a lying sack of shit and that he totally didn’t mean it when he released Danni from her promise.

Fucking putz.

Febreze brings us the fucking putz’s family moment, which consists of a lot of people who look frighteningly like Rafe. And we’re off to:

Commercials:

the charades thing, again, for Febreze, again; two people kissing tenderly, and a lot of structures in the form of cell-phone signal bars, for Cingular; Patriots fans, for Coors Light; a trailer, for The 40-Year-Old Virgin; a skateboarding kid, for an Epson photo printer; people dancing and tossing gifts around, for Kohl’s; CBS, for Dave, and for an alleged comedy that apparently highlights Doogie Howser, and for CSI in the Navy; a car being instructed by its navigational system, ineptly, for Nationwide; Maria Sharapova, inexplicably making a commercial for a Canon camera instead of having sex with me; a gas pump spiralling out of control, for my local association of Honda dealers; an idiot at a copier, inexplicably, for Aamco; Derek Jeter, for K&G, which sells crappy mens’ clothing; and my suckjob provincial local news that may as well be in Billings, Montana, for itself, twice.

And we’re back. We’re halfway through the run-time, just about, and our running, provisional word count is at around 8,400 words, which puts us more in the range where I thought we’d end up, although I’ll revise the forecast down to about 15,000 words, considering that so much of the second half of this will consist of the usual faux transcript of the reunion show, and less of it will consist of the densely packed, adverb-laden ranting that you’ve come to expect from me as your due.

The howler monkeys are not best pleased by the final two, and wake them up. Steph confesses about how difficult it’s been for her to get here, about how she had a target on her back. Uhm, Steph? Shut up. Danni’s been targeted and outnumbered for something like three weeks of this bad drama. You’re a whiny loserhead.

Danni, who seems to be a nice person, confesses that she and Steph are a lot alike. Yikes. Uhm, Danni? No you’re not. You’re not a whiny loserhead.

There is much “this is the last time we’ll…” as the two knock about the camp, and the pool. Steph gives us an unintentional beaver shot as she climbs over the rail of the pool, and I really could’ve done without that, couldn’t you?

The two start a fire and enter the time-honored ritual of burning everything in the camp. This tradition, started by Jenna Morasca and Unterseebootkapitan Matt von Weirdenheim back in Brazil, is an important part of making it to the end of this game. There is a bunch more babble about how hard it was to get here. It is dull. Dull, dull, dull. They don’t even load a bunch of burning stuff into the boat and float it down the lake. Steph continues to brak on in a confessional about how much more wonderful she is than everyone else, and claims that’s why she’s in the final two, and they’re not.

Uhm, Steph? Shut up. You’re in the final two because you’re a scheming bitch and everyone detests you.

We say goodbye to the camp with a wide shot, and head off through the darkening jungle for a tribal council. Both women are cleaned up, shined up, ready to go. Jiffy brings in the jury. They look appropriately somber, except for Rafe, who is grinning like an idiot and wearing a big “I’m Voting for Steph, Why Don’t You?” t-shirt. Dwork.

Jiffy congratulates Danni and Steph, and braks on about how their fate is in the jury’s hands. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shut the fucking fuck up, Jiffy. We’re not new here.

Danni gets the first opening statement. She is honored, and it was hard for her to break through the numbers game, and was surprised that no one thought she was a threat. The jury is mostly bored; Cindy smiles slightly, and Rafe looks like he’s thinking about what a horrible bitch Danni is. She invites them all to Kansas City for barbecue and football, regardless of the outcome.

Stephenie thanks the jury for “making it an amazing experience for” her, pretty much summing up the tenor of her existence. She’s also honored; she acknowledges that people are probably upset with her, and promises to be honest with them. She’s honored some more. Yep, honored.

Jiffy announces Question Time, but doing so with any immediacy would offend our senses of drama and commercialism, so first we’re off to:

Commercials, brought to us by Radio Shack and Fun With Dick and Jane, this year’s exciting Jim Carrey Christmas vehicle:

a trailer, for the aforementioned movie, which appears to be about Dick and Jane becoming armed robbers; the annoying Marge from Fargo ripoff, again, for Radio Shack, again; a man rowing and people adoring inanimate objects, for some Chase credit card; a woman climbing stairs to hit on some guy, for McDonald’s; three bears, for the Hummer 3, and by the way, the Goldilocks in this commercial is one seriously hot little item of objectification; and CBS, for CSI: Vice, and for the TAR finale, in which I command you to root for the Linzes or the Bransens, and for that dumbass Ed ripoff, and maybe I’m confused because this is the guy who played Ed, or maybe he just looks like him, and really, I’ve given this shit more thought than it deserves.

And we’re back.

Bobby Jon gets first crack. He is gracious and congratulates Steph and Danni. He asks Steph how proud she is of herself for playing the game. She responds that she’s very proud of the way she played, and acknowledges that she backstabbed “two people” (the camera pans to Judd and Jamie, in case we’re having trouble sorting them out from the other three people on the jury that Steph backstabbed). She asserts that she has no regrets, and nothing she’d take back. Oof. Nighty-night, Steph.

Bobby Jon asks Danni the same question. She’s proud and happy with the way she played, and is grateful to be there. She does wish that they had won more challenges back when she was teammates with Bobby Jon.

Bobby Jon purrs like a little kitten. Steph deflates.

Former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom steps up to the Whompin’ Space. He alleges that the game will be played until the last answer is given, and that he’s judging them on who gives him the most honest answers. This is, appropriately, a lie; the game is over, everyone hates Steph, and there’s no way in hell that former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom is voting for anybody but his little chum Danni. No. Way. In. Hell.

Former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom asks Steph why he shouldn’t vote for her. She acknowledges that they had an early alliance, and she slipped it. Danni acknowledges that she had an alliance with former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom, and that she then aligned with Rafe, and that maybe that was selfish, but you sometimes have to be selfish in this game.

Former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom purrs like a little kitten. Steph smirks; she thinks they just gave former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom the same answer. They didn’t. Danni’s answer included the words, “I’m sorry.” She fessed up to a bit of selfishness, and Steph blamed the alliance break on her and former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom getting “separated.”

No, not quite the same, huh, Steph? Feeling the loserheadedness building, are you? Good.

Jamie steps up, asking Danni about who her top five would’ve been if she had had numbers. She immediately lays a claim to Bobby Jon and former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom, and Brandon. She doesn’t name a fifth name, but Jamie doesn’t notice. He doesn’t care, either, because he’s voting for her anyway. He telegraphs this by laughing maniacally and promising Steph a tougher question. He asks Steph how she thinks people feel when she buddies up to them at tribal council and then slits their soft underbellies. She declaims responsibility for Jamie’s being voted out, and says that she had good reasons for voting people out, and hopes that they’d respect her selfishness judgment. Jamie doesn’t give a shit about her lame answer, but he’s polite about it.

Poor, diseased Dobby steps up and lectures Stephenie about how loyal Dobby was to mistress. She’d like to know why on Earth Dobby should vote for mistress. Steph thanks her for her loyalty. She defends her decision by again reminding Dobby that Dobby is worthless. She claims that “really competitive people” want to be up against the best.

This is perhaps one of the lamest tribal council lies ever. Dobby is gracious about this bit of abuse.

Dobby poses about the same question to Danni. Danni notes that she kept the lines of communication open, even when Dobby was doomed. She reminds Dobby that everyone’s trying to win. Dobby clutches at her blanket scrap and returns to the jury bench.

Cindy steps up, and asks Danni who she’d remove from the jury, if she could. Danni immediately answers that she’d take out Rafe, because it’s obvious to people who don’t even know who Rafe is that he’s gonna vote for Steph. Cindy tosses the same question to Steph, who claims she’d remove Bobby Jon, because he was the first one on the jury.

WHAT???? Look, Losey Loserton, it’s gotta be obvious to you that there are at least three votes on this jury that are never, ever gonna go your way. It’s actually obvious that there are more, but in your creepy little mind, you could probably rationalize that you might get a vote from Bobby Jon, or from Lydia, or from former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom. Why not pony up and admit you’d cheerfully lose Jamie or Judd or Cindy, all of whom you have got to know you viciously screwed?

Dumbass.

Cindy smiles brightly, knowing that it didn’t matter what kind of question she asked this deluded bimbo anyway.

Rafe steps up and congratulates the two, claiming that he regarded them as sisters. He recalls, to Danni, that she once told him that, in the final three, if faced with a choice between a person she could beat and a person who deserved to win, she’d choose the person who deserved to win. Why, wonders Rafe, did she make the opposite decision?

WHOA!!!! You arrogant little sack of pussymeat! What the fucking fuck makes you more deserving than Steph? You conceited fucking twit! You are a totally passive-aggressive dirtbag, a mincing, skeeving, sack of dysentery! Fuck you and all of your ancestors and all of your progeny, you egotistical fuckwit!

This is perhaps the most galling question ever posed to a member of a final two. It is a no-win question, and mind-bogglingly rude, on the heels of this prissy little drama queen’s very public release of Danni from her promise. How this saint of a woman kept from leaping across the fire and tearing out this little pussy’s throat is beyond comprehension.

Danni answers him straight up, noting that Steph did, in fact, deserve to be there, and showed that in every challenge, particularly the final immunity challenge.

But Rafe doesn’t care about the answer. He sniffs something like, “well, I just wanted to know why that decision changed, and I think you answered that.”

Unbefuckinglieveable. I call on you, America to do the following: if you see this fucking dirtbag in the streets, remind him that he’s a giant pussy and pop him in the fucking mouth. Asshole. Fucking putz.

Rafe then turns to sucking Steph’s dick, which is, even when flaccid, about 14 times as big as his best stiffie. He makes a campaign speech for her, claiming that she “dominated” the game, and that he understands that, because they spent all their time strategizing together. He then tosses her a softball, asking her about her best strategic move that he didn’t tell him about.

It is a crime against humanity that Judd and Jamie and Bobby Jon and former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom do not, at this moment, leap up from the jury bench and rip this egotistical little pussy into crocodile meat.

She claims she was completely honest with him. Rafe then coaches her from the jury box, telling her he’d really like to hear in her closing comments why she should beat “the other person.” At this point, I will credit Danni with a bit of fire; if looks could kill, Rafe would right now be cinders. And should be.

Pussy. This guy is a perfectly good argument for opening up every playground in America as a genuine Lord of the Flies experience. Roast the little piggie.

Fucking putz.

Judd steps up. He asks Danni if she’s ever been rollerblading or iceskating. She says she has, but not well. Judd answers that she skated right through the game. He then asks if she was deceitful, or a backstabber. She does allow as how she lied to Jamie and Brian, because she didn’t want a confrontation with either of them. Judd, an incredibly profuse and bad liar, suggests that Danni head for confession and beg for forgiveness when she gets home. Danni replies that she does. Judd doesn’t know how to handle this.

Judd asks Steph if she’s still starving. He claims she eats more in the jungle than he eats at home. She says, in a line that I must leave alone if I hope to retain a shred of my dignity, that she needs meat. He replies that the only thing she should be starving for is his vote. He begins to rant about Stephenie’s lies. She denies lying—not a good move, since it’s another lie. She should just shut up and take Judd’s shit, and by and large, she does. Judd accuses her of going over the top when she lied to Judd’s wife. Steph asks if she can respond; she says she didn’t lie to Kristin, that it wasn’t a lie when she said it. There’s some more exchange, in which Judd says something about a promise he made to her, and I’m guessing it’s that completely unoriginal “I’m never writing down your name” promise, and they spit at each other, and Judd finally tires of her shit, saying that he likes her answers.

Jiffy praises the jury, which is a little silly; they’re not a particularly good jury. He gives the girls a moment to think over their answers, during which we’ll conveniently go off to:

Commercials, brought to us by Buick’s new Wallymobile:

a sound-test dummy, for Buick; a couple at dinner on their anniversary, for Sirius, in a really dumb commercial; a woman sniffing laundry, for Tide, in a really creepy commercial; a man and his apparent grandson, for some Crest mouthwash; a trailer, for King Kong; a box of Afrin, for Afrin; my Birmingham, Alabama-quality local news, for itself, in a commercial in which we discover that the man who’s name cannot possibly really be “Topper” has a giant bald spot that he usually conceals from us; a SUV, for GMC, again; a family in a shaking house, for Hecht’s, which is a regional department store chain, for those of you who do not live in this region; a faux environmental documentary, for Kia; and my Tulsa, Oklahoma-quality local news, for itself.

And we’re back.

Steph gets the first closing statement, and she thanks the jury and says she’ll prove to them why she deserves their votes. She says that the game will bring out bad qualities in people, and she’s very sorry that she hurt some of them. She then flushes her chances down the toilet by saying that she tried to align herself with great people, and that she never let other players make decisions for her. She closes by saying that she would be honored to have their votes, and I’m not sure how this proves anything, but whatever. She bores me, and she’s a loser, and why don’t we kill her?

Danni does a little better. She talks about the numbers game that nearly killed her, and how she bided her time, waiting to find out that Steph and Rafe were in control. She notes that Steph and Rafe were why each member of the jury is sitting on the jury instead of on a tribal log. She notes that she had to make a bond with the people in control to survive. She says she’d never claim she deserved a million dollars over anybody else, and assures the jury that it will go to good use. Like, y’know, those gigantimongous collagen-inflated lips she’s gonna be sporting at the reunion show in about ten minutes of tape time.

The voting is, of course, muy mysterioso. Judd’s vote is shown, and confirms the old Alicia/LeAnn joke that he’s never voting for Steph. Yawn. Rafe makes a little speech about character as he loudly proclaims his love for Stephenie. Puh-leez. You wouldn’t know character if it fucked you in the ass, bitch. Go away.

Jiffy goes off to get the votes, and makes no bones about it; we’re going back to LA to open this here giant ice bucket. He hies off into the jungle, and to a waiting helicopter, which is, mysteriously, the same chopper that takes him to CBS Television City in LA.

Of course, it’s traditional at this point for me to remind you of seasons past, where Jiffy’s long voyage as a cabin boy and a fisherman and a glider pilot and a hog driver and a parachutist is recounted in loving and fraudulent detail. They actually run the transition reasonably quickly this time, although they do pretend that Jiffy is giving the chopper pilot directions, which seems more than a little dubious. As usual, Jiffy doesn’t fall out of the damn helicopter, and triumphantly carries the ice bucket into the live-show studio, where dramatically dolled-up versions of Stephenie and Danni await. Both are in kicky little boots; Danni is wearing a fuck-awful top, and appears to have gained back weight to a point where she’s about thirty pounds up on where she was when she entered the jungle. Most of it in her lips. She’s damn near unrecognizable.

Danni keeps moistening her joke-sized lips from within her mouth—you can see her tongue moving behind her teeth and lips, and it’s fucking disgusting. Her smile is uncharacteristically phony. She has lost the girl-next-door look that the Gothmogginator fell in love with.

Jiffy is cheered and adulated. He thanks the jury for a good final tribal council. He’s lying, the final tribal council sucked rocks. He reminds us that the winner gets a million bucks and a car that Cindy chose not to give away. Yeah, whatever. Tell us how much Danni won by, assclown.

Danni keeps sucking her lips and teeth as Jiffy reads the votes. Of course, he shows us the Judd vote and the Steph vote. Steph knows she’s toast. Jiffy reads another three Danni votes, and it’s over. Danni and Steph hug. Danni runs off to hug her family, and it becomes apparent to all of us what a horrible fashion choice Danni has made for the evening. Her family is proud and happy, and it’s pretty obvious that Danni’s gonna be a sucker and give them a lot more of the money than they deserve. The rest of the cast comes in, and Jiffy starts brak about nothingness, and we’re off to:

Commercials:

a guy at his desk talking to his wife, for some Citi card; a blonde and a lot of sparkly shit, for Diet Coke; a whiny guy with high cholesterol, for Quaker Oats; an elf, for the Home Despot; and another reminder that you can win a Pontiac because Cindy’s a selfish bitch.

And we’re back, with footage of Jiffy auctioning off the immunity cheat that won Danni the game.

And it’s time for me to do that thing you make me do. No, no, not the scratching. This:

Jiffy: Welcome, to our reunion…

(A dark shape comes moving quickly from stage left. It knocks Jiffy off his little stool; Jiffy emits a little shriek and whimpers as he looks up into the angry, darkly handsome face of his Lord and Master…)

Andrew Savage: Shut the fuck up, Probst, you fucking pansy. I’m taking over. You couldn’t handle these people with a…a handle.

Jiffy: But…

Savage: Shut up. Kneel. There.

(Probst crouches at Savage’s side)

Savage: Good doggy. Bonebitch, is there any way you’d have won without that immunity cheat?

Danni: (Cowering) No. You’re not going to hit me, are you?

Savage: Probably not, but those lips are pissing me off. Just stop doing that disgusting tongue thing, and maybe you’ll be okay. So what was your best move other than lucking into that cheat shit?

Danni: Offing that pussy Rafe. He would’ve whined so much at the final TC that they would’ve given him the money just to go away.

Savage: Pussyboy, what the fuck possessed you to give Danni that “I release you from your vows” bullshit? Were you bugfuck insane, or did you cave because Steffi cried, or did you actually delude yourself into thinking you were honorable?

Fucking Putz: I wanted Danni to make a decision she’d be proud of.

Savage: So you were a pussy. And you’re still being a passive-aggressive pussy. Game’s over, Pussyboy. Shut the fuck up. Open your mouth for the rest of this show and I’ll slit Probst’s throat, got it?

Fucking Putz: Yes.

Savage: (Waving machete) Yes what, you little bitch?

Fucking Putz: Yes Sir, Mister Savage, sir.

Savage: That’s better. Pussy. Bonebitch, explain how you outwitted these clowns, even though your brains would fit in a teaspoon.

Danni: I like to think of myself as a Stealth bomber…

Savage: I didn’t ask you about your bathroom habits, you lip-sucking freak. Cowgirl, get your ass up here and kiss this team picture of the World Champion 1985 Chicago Bears.

Former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom: Yes Sir, Mister Savage, sir.

(Former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom shambles up to Mister Savage and kisses the team picture of the World Champion 1985 Chicago Bears.)

Savage: Sweet! So what’d you think of this bony little puddle of collagen?

Former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom: She was nice, and smiled, and just blew these dworks away.

Savage: That’s fucking sick.

Jiffy: (Moans)

Savage: No, you freak, I’m not asking that pussy any more questions. He’s boring. He’s passive-aggressive. He’s deluded. I’d flame his ass off that stool if California didn’t have the death penalty. You hear me, Probst, you wanker?

Jiffy: Yes Sir, Mister Savage, sir.

Savage: Better. Better get a bucket! Haw! So Dobby, what the hell was up with you going to the final freakin’ four?

Dobby: Well, I came in with a different sorta strategy…

Savage: Oh, shut up, you misshapen circus geek. I can’t believe the format of this dumb show requires me to acknowledge the existence of everyone who played. That’s really, really stupid, you know that? Burnett? Where are you, Burnett, you disingenous cowflop?

Mark Burnett: Yes, Mister Savage, sir?

Savage: Can you just vaporize everyone in the back row for me, there’s a good stooge?

Burnett: Uhm….

Savage: Right. California. Death penalty. My bad, never mind. When we come back, I’ll tell Bobby Jon how stupid his haircut is, and ask Stephenie why she’s such a got-damn loser and why she spells her name wrong. Then I’ll challenge Judd to a duel.

(Footage of howler monkeys, crocs, and other Guatemalan wildlife. Including leaf-cutting ants.)

Commercials, sponsored by Memoirs of a Geisha and Radio Shack:

a chick with attitude, for Radio Shack; a trailer, for the aforementioned slow, ponderous adaptation of Memoirs of a Geisha, and please understand that I did not see this movie myself, but it should be really apparent to anyone that this film oozes slowness, ponderousness, and chickflickitudinality; wee persons in a toy store, for Leapster, the greatest child-quieting tool since the dawn of electronics; developing-world urban scenes populated by a hot-looking chick, for Degree for womens; that damn surfer, again, for American Express, again; snow, for a car with preheated washer fluid, which turns out to be a Buick Wallymobile; and CBS, for The Early Show, on which Rupert will bellow and Julie Chen Moonves’ head will bobble, and for CSI: Navy Sucks, and for the TAR finale.

And we’re back, with footage of the Survivor newbs ogling Stephenie and BobbyJon in the first episode.

Savage: One of the dumbest fucking things Burnett has ever twisted up on this show was letting these two boobs have another shot at the thing they fucked up in Palau. Stephenie, why are you such a whiny loserhead?

Stephenie: Well, I knew coming in that I’d be a target…

Savage: Oh, ferchrissakes, would you just shut the fuck up? I mean, you’re not in the jungle any more, it’s not like every word that comes out of your skeevy mouth has to be a freakin’ lie. You’re a loser, baby, so why don’t we kill you?

Jiffy: (Raises hand)

Savage: (Sighs deeply) Right. California. Death penalty. My bad, even though you’re a little pansy bitch, Probst. So Stephenie, did you really think you had the slightest chance in hell of winning, there at the end?

Stephenie: I knew they’d never give me the money on the second chance. Of course, Rafe was just as bad as I was…

Savage: Oh, shut up, bitch. He was way worse than you, I mean at least you ooze insincerity from every pore of your body. You! Bony freak! I said stop licking your fucking teeth, it’s fucking disgusting!

Danni: Yes Sir, Mister Savage, sir.

Savage: Cindy, you were starstruck by the addition of Stephenie and BobbyJon.

(For the second consecutive reunion show, the sound technicians fail miserably at wiring the fifth-place finisher for sound. Like that nasty bitch Caryn last season, Cindy is, at first, nearly inaudible.)

Cindy: Wull, ah allus admahred Stefunee, ‘n…

Savage: Ye gods, has anyone ever understood a word you say?

Cindy: Ah won uh car!

Savage: Yes, yes you did. Good for you. Now take your paltry fifth-place winnings and use them for diction lessons. Or…uhm…something. Heh. So Cowgirl, were you starstruck?

Former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom: Of course not. I used to be a star landscaper.

Jiffy: (Raises hand)

Savage: Yes, Jiffy. I know. You’re lying, Cowgirl. You told Jiffy that all these people were starfuckers and you were jealous because no one here was as big a star as you.

Former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom: Yes Sir, Mister Savage, sir.

Savage: So Stephenie, you’ve played so much that you’ve actually set records, mostly for losing. I just wanted to acknowledge the actually measurable dimension of the extent to which you suck and are a big whiny loserhead. So anyway, you really pissed off that gorilla in the middle row. Remember this, people?

(Footage of Judd’s exit: “Nice guys. Hope you guys all get bit by a freakin’ crocodile. Scumbags.”)

Savage: You were really an asshole, weren’t you? So what’s the deal with you and Steph?

Judd: I love her. She’s a good girl.

Savage: Do people recognize you in New York?

Judd: Yeah, they know me.

Savage: What’s up with you and Mahgrit? You were really close to breaking her scrawny neck.

Judd: It was strategery. No hard feelings, Mahgrit.

(Judd slugs Margaret.)

Savage: By the way, you totally lied.

Judd: I was drunk.

Savage: BobbyJon, I promised to remind you that your hair looks unbefuckinglieveably stupid.

BobbyJon: Yup. This haircut’s a-humblin’ me, Mister Savage, sir.

Savage: You have no idea how to play the game, right?

BobbyJon: Wull, yew gotta match your socks to yer tah.

Savage: What the fuck? What the fuck did you just say?

BobbyJon: I dunno.

Savage: Whatthefuckever. Get a haircut. And use protection when women throw themselves at you. Rupert reproducing was enough, I can’t imagine the consequences of you knocking someone up. So Jamie, you’re a redneck, too. Watching you two crackers go at each other was fucking priceless.

(Footage of BobbyJon and Jamie fighting over the cotton harvest, and barking at each other about Emmeline Pritchert’s honor, and beating each other senseless over the Alabama-Georgia game.)

Savage: So Jamie, you and BobbyJon are just big ol’ redneck butt buddies now, huh?

(Jamie and BobbyJon hug, and not in an entirely manful way.)

Savage: You were just completely insane out there, weren’t you? I mean, did you not report to the producers that you were supposed to be on some kind of medication?

Jamie: Rafe, you’re not voting for me, right?

Savage: No, seriously, dood. You were completely bugfuck.

Jamie: brak brak brak

Savage: Oh, ferchrissake…

Jamie: Yes Sir, Mister Savage, sir. Ah were completely bugfuck, sir.

Savage: Next up, I’ll rip into that Cowgirl bitch again, just for sport. Kiss the picture, bitch!

Former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom: Yes Sir, Mister Savage, sir.

(Former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom kisses the team picture of the World Champion 1985 Chicago Bears.)

Savage: We’ll be back, after these:

Commercials, brought to you by Puffs, and you people are in deep, deep trouble now:

Okay, actually, you’re not. See, there’s a problem with the English language, or at least with my creative interpretation of it. There are, as I understand it, only two commonly recognizable synonyms for “snot,” and I used both of them the last time I tried to do snot poetry. So you’re off the hook, because I just don’t have time for that shit.

claymation and way worse poetry than mine, for Puffs; a kids’ birthday party, for that Epson photo printer; a line of black cars, for Cadillac; an alleged talking dog, for pet microchips; the whiny guy with high cholesterol, again, for Quaker Oats, again; more and different dancing people, for Kohl’s; CBS, for Dave, and for CSI: We Spawned A Million Ripoffs, and That’s Just on This Network, and for that missing persons thingie, and for that Rob-Morrow-as-an-FBI-agent show that’s just not credible; my local Pawtucket, Rhode Island-quality news, for itself; more cars and more snow, for Mercedes; some still-fat chick, for some weight-loss program; and annoying noise, for Toyota.

(And we’re back, with footage of Former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom lying about being a former NFL quarterback.)

Savage: So Boneybitch, how’d you recognize such an insignificant NFL has-been loser as Gary Hogeboom?

Danni: My daddy was a Cowgirls fan and made me memorize the entire pictorial history of the team, or he wouldn’t let me go to Bible camp.

Savage: So Cowgirl, you were busted.

Former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom: I’m a landscaper!

Savage: So Sawxfan, just kill him now.

Amy: Uhm…

Savage: Nuts! Damn this state! Okay, so you’re a cop. Do the crooks recognize you, especially after you got that ridiculous makeover?

Amy: Sawx rool!

Savage: Judd, how much weight did you lose?

Judd: Three hundred pounds. And then I shat out Rafe and lost another hundred and twenty.

Savage: So Grits Girl, why were you so greedy about the car?

Cindy: Ah won uh car!

Savage: Right. So Margaret, you’re going back to Guatemala to be a goody two-shoes?

Margaret: Yes, me and the other gay guy are going back to do relief work.

Savage: Are you freakin’ nuts? Jesus, you liberals make me sick. Okay, Piss Boy, how big are your girlfriend’s tits?

Blake: Bigger than freakin’ houses, dood. Once, I was suckin’ down some brewskis, and…

Savage: Oh, shut the fuck up. We’ll have a little more from the other low-grade losers when we get back.

(Previously unseen footage of Former Dallas Cowgirl Gary Hogeboom finding the baby immunity idol, and after another reminder about buffs, we go to:)

Commercials:

Noise, for Chevrolet; barbarians with seasonal jobs, for Capital One; attitude chick, again, for Radio Shack, again; glamor cats, for Iams cat food; fake scientific voiceover, again, for Quaker Oats, again; sigh. Victoria’s Secret. CBS, for some crap, and for some other crap, and for yet more crap, except this is heinous Christmas-y crap starring Doogie Howser; more loud annoying noise, again, for Toyota, again; people singing annoyingly, for the Virginia Lottery; and my provincial, raggedyass, might-as-well-be-in-Lubbock local news, for itself.

(And we’re back, with footage of the introduction to the Bataan Death March in the opening episode.)

Savage: Farmboy, you sure were fucked up after that death march thing.

Brandon: It was pretty freakin’ ridiculous.

Savage: So you had a morality problem, by which I mean you had morals.

Brandon: It’s tough being from the Midwest. These people are ugly.

Savage: Geezer, what the hell were you thinking?

Jim: Auuuggghhhh. (Keels over.)

Savage: Brian, are you bitter about getting housed by the other gay guy, especially since he’s dumb as a post and you’re probably not.

Brian: I was unlucky.

Savage: Oh, bullshit. You just sucked.

Jiffy: (Raises hand.)

Savage: No, Probst, you may not kiss the entire back row’s ass. Bimbo chicks, make noises.

Brooke, Brianna, and Morgan: Tee-hee!

Savage: We’ll do…I dunno, some crap…when we get back.

(Pontiac pimps it car, again, and again, and again.)

Commercials:

the dweeb trashing his house, again, for some Citi card, again; loud dance music, for Target; Jared, but not his aides, for Subway; and CBS, for Dave.

(And we’re back.)

Savage: Probst, where’s the next season of Survivor gonna be?

Jiffy: Panama. Exile Island. Forcing people to do a Janu and hang out all lonesome.

Savage: That’s completely fucking lame. And Panama’s been done already, and done well. Is there no level to which you and Burnett won’t stoop?

Jiffy: No. And we’re auctioning shit for the Elisabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

Savage: Good. Now shut up. And the rest of you, go away, we’re done here.

(End of show.)

Thank you for reading. The Circle Of blogs, Survive This and What’s So Amazing? have had a fabulous first season, owing entirely to the efforts of the my colleagues in management, TechNoir and Diamond, and our brave scheduling slave, Dweezil. It was easy for me to say “Hey, let’s do this,” and to set a skeletal framework for a couple of Blogspot blogs, and to sucker a bunch of people into writing because Landru wouldn’t stop whimpering at them until they agreed to do it. Credit for the hard stuff—fleshing out the concept and the templates—goes to TechNoir, who did more than most of the design and coding, and to Diamond, who added such splendid innovations as the poll software that our writer colleagues have been exploiting to great effect all season, and our notify software. Dweeze courageously put himself in the line of fire for the other hard stuff—scheduling—heroically balancing egos (mostly mine), calendars, peoples’ personal issues (mostly mine), and their enormous talent, for the good of the blogs—and for your entertainment. Thanks also to our writers; in addition to the above three, Gothmog, Kimmah, Beannie, TeamJoisey, and summary-virgin-no-more Wheezy (who turned out as, I think, probably the most wicked funny of us all, despite stiff competition from all of the others I mentioned) contributed outstanding work to the blogs’ first season.

We’re going to be back next season. Keep an eye, sign up for our notify lists, and keep hitting the site. Thanks again for reading.  ¶ 6:51 PM