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Previously on The Wacky Adventures Of A Big Bunch Of Delusional Fools Who Need To Shut The Fuck Up, And Craig: The entire season, which we don't get to find out about before the opening credits. Instead we learn that collecting abalone from Whaler's Way like Knob has been doing all season is illegal. Trust him to do that. Although, if he gets the same end result as Colby (who swiped coral from the Great Barrier Reef during a reward in Outback), I will be happy. Probably pissed about the actual winner, but happy about him not winning anyway.
Credits. This theme music really is the absolute worst Survivor theme I've ever heard. And I've watched through a full Youtube playlist with about a hundred different opening creditses on it.
We open with a live audience, clapping like they actually watched this show and care who wins. Eddie McEverywhereBackThen is standing at the Tribal Council voting hull (from which that camera-hiding net I talked about way back near the start of the season has been removed). He confirms that the ship has been moved away from Whaler's Way, and is now stinking up the Crown Showroom in Melbourne. Just in case the live audience clapping wasn't a dead giveaway. Eddie informs us that twelve people have so far been forced to "walk the plank". It's really not so interesting to discuss when the plank isn't situated above deep water. Tonight, one of the four tools remaining will win half a million dollars, for no reason other than the entertainment of the three people still watching. For the first time, we are told that the winner will also get a Ford Escape, just like Sylvain won all those weeks ago. We are also reminded of how "sixteen Aussies -- just sixteen -- have played Survivor so far", lending credence to a rumour from back then that Eddie was possibly the only person in the country who didn't know the show had been cancelled. And Link's been out watching these people all the time. We're told that we're about to see what he saw, which is really weird, because I don't remember him being at camp for much of what we're about to see.
Link has seen a lot of clouds. He's also seen the artificially rusted school bus. Promo photo shots, including one of Link himself standing in front of the cast and easily looking like the hottest thing in the picture, which is much easier given that Craig is not visible from our point of view. And how did he see that, given he was in the damn picture? Anyway, the tribes were sent off on Day 1. The waves of the Southern Ocean made the Kadina mast sway in the wind, but Tipara's stood firm. Blunt metaphor alert! Lucindork voted for herself, and we hear a Frankenquip of her saying that "it's / just / too tough" for her. Kadina's love of winning reward challenges, and Craig's love of both shoulders (mmm) and pimping Solo (blecch), did not help them win the stupid Bell. Until they decided to get a product placement in an Immunity Challenge. Craig got shirtless, pleasing millions of Aussie women and a smaller amount of Aussie men, including myself. Sylvain was more tired than modern American sitcoms. Kadina was snuffed one by one in a sad set of edited together shots. Half of Tipara were under the impression that this was The Amazing Race without the travel, while the other half correctly thought this was Survivor, and therefore decided to play the game like it was supposed to be played. Hatie seemed to be involved with everything, while Lance was naive and Speedo-wearing. Kadina was outnumbered at the merge, but got to shower with the grown-ups anyway. Caren and NoMind were also snuffed. Craig the "warrior" supposedly had to charm over the women in order to stay in the game, which does not explain the discussions with Long Pole Joel and Lance. Craig was a hot manipulative little snake. He had to basically win the Immunity Choke Chain eight times in a row, but unfortunately Sophie yanked it after two. Lance was too nice to play the game, and Long Pole Joel decided to get nasty and use his long pole to wedge a way into the end game. Everyone slid down that steep hill to the debris challenge, because that was slightly funny the first time. Sophie didn't think so, and she got snuffed. The clouds remind us that now, only Long Pole Joel, Sciona, Knob, and Hatie are left. Who will outwit, outplay, and outlast the others... TONIGHT?
The audience is clapping, as they do. Eddie makes a fool of himself by almost stumbling on the Tribal Council walkway, and thinks impersonating a sumo wrestler will get him out of it. It doesn't work. Eddie tells us twelve people have done what he just did, which is stupid; because that's not the plank people walked up after they were snuffed. That's the gangplank to the voting hull. Did even he give up on the show? It turns out the front rows of the makeshift studio are filled with the contestant's loved ones. Eddie reminds us that Someone's Going To Win Money. Thanks, Captain Exposition.
As you may have noticed, tonight's show is a little different to other finales. First, we'll watch the actual episode. Then, we get to bitch with the jury for a little while, and finally everyone else gets to join in. Eddie does Link's job and tells us what happened last week. He makes it sound even more boring than Link usually does. So, let's get this last episode done already.
The group walks back from last week's Tribal Council. They sit around the fire, and... I know I've quoted this before, but here it is again, and it's possibly even more true this time: "Things are about to get awesome, so get a bowl of popcorn and sit down. And put your feet up. And put on a party hat. You may want a horn." Hatie says that Knob's true colours are finally coming out, only thirty-five days too late to be interesting. Knob pretends to not know what she could possibly be talking about, and she says he's "been playing too many games" and that his mind is "caught up in lies and guilt". Yes, guilt really is a tricky web to escape from. And I'm sure that if we had a dancing challenge, we'd learn that his guilty feet have got no rhythm. Hatie tells Knob in front of everybody that he's been "coercing and conspiring" and "unloyal" [sic], and yet he lies to them and tells them he's committed to them. See, a few weeks ago, I would have told them both to get a life, but now, I am completely on Hatie's side. It's amazing what being the only person to not notice that this isn't a Montessori school will do. She does not seem to notice that Sciona was also part of this plan to get ride of her and Sophie, or that it was Long Pole Joel’s idea, but whatever. Someone's finally laying the smackdown on Knob! Hatie snaps that Knob was always telling her and Sophie to "trust [him], trust [him], trust [him]", and then he backstabbed them. Apparently, Hatie "wouldn't trust [Knob] as far as she could throw [him]". I'm not sure how far that is, or whether she would even WANT to throw him, given it would require physical contact and all, but this whole scene, more than it's gone down in history as one of the biggest non-suicidal nervous breakdowns any reality contestant has ever had, really just shows how much she's the lesser of four evils here. She's still in the wrong, of course, but all four of them are. Hatie? Wrong. Long Pole Joel? Wrong. Sciona? Wrong and unwilling to own her actions. Knob? Sixteen different kinds of wrong.
Knob bitches that Sophie came to him and asked whether he was committed to her -- and by extension Hatie -- and Knob wasn't going to tell her he wasn't. That would make sense in almost any other situation, but here it's bullshit, because he knows full well that lying to Sophie was not the situation she means, that Sophie was in the Complicated Alliance Of Eternal Overplanning with both he and Hatie, and that Sophie was in the minority with Hatie, trying to plot a way to get Long Pole Joel out of the competition. Hatie retorts that he was lying to both her and Sophie about taking them to the final two right from the very beginning, and she's right. Sciona looks tired, but her eyes pick up for a second when Hatie tells Rob he's "dumb as dogshit". Well, it depends on which breed, I suppose. I hear dalmatian shit is actually pretty intelligent, as far as animal turds go. Knob congratulates himself on how he played the game, and says he "played it with integrity, whether [Hatie likes] it or not." Hatie sarcastically calls him "a fuckin' hero". Except for the bleep. Why the fuck does "fuck" get bleeped, but not "shit"? Hatie wonders what Knob's definition of "dishonesty" is, and: exactly. Knob rants about how you can't choose what the truth is in this game (and: you can, because it's your decisions that shape what becomes the truth). Long Pole Joel looks nervous as Knob tells Hatie that she's not exactly the most innocent person, and that she needs to wisen up because it's a game. In which you're trying to get people to like you, so shut up while you still can, Knob. When Hatie tells him he's "played it like an arsehole", Knob wonders who he's hurt. Well, there's Hatie herself, then Sophie, Princess Jane, Lance, Craig, NoMind, Caren, and Jeff. Knob played a major role in all of their bootings. Hatie thinks Knob is "a gutless wonder". Suddenly coming to something almost forming a bit of sense, Hatie apologises to Sciona and Long Pole Joel for having to witness that. Flames fade out.
The next day, birds fly around, informing us that it's Day 36. So, yes, we are having a four-day finale. There are also kangaroos, waves, more kangaroos, and the Aurora boat. Hatie confessionals about how sweet Sophie was, and how she took losing really well, and how Hatie feels like she doesn't have any friends left, but that Long Pole Joel was still at least acting nice around her. At this point? Go Hatie! Otherwise, go Long Pole Joel! Otherwise, go computer crash!
At the cliffs, Knob tells us that the only way he's stayed sane is by destroying perfectly harmless driftwood. He's making a plaque that says "the tribe has spoken", so that Link can show it to him instead of saying the words. Heh. But, knowing what Link's been like all season, he'd probably say it as well.
Hatie confessionals that she pities Knob, and hopes Sciona and Long Pole Joel will see the light. She's going to do whatever she can to make Knob lose.
Everyone except Knob walks to the coast. Hatie confessionals that she knows about the mini-alliance between Sciona and Knob, and that Long Pole Joel apparently knows but doesn't care. Long Pole Joel tries to get Hatie to join him and Sciona for some reason not made clear to us, but it seems to be in the episode only to try and convince us that Long Pole Joel is a Nice Guy.
Knob realises he's not about to win Miss Congeniality, so he decides to hunt for shells in a small rockpool. He confessionals that Survivor is a tough game. As I'm sure Sylvain and or Lucindork will tell us during the reunion show, so you can go ahead and take this opportunity to shut the fuck up, Knob. Knob tells us something about how the abalone they've been eating tastes, and it's even harder than usual to make sense of what he's saying. But apparently the smaller, more illegal abalone taste better. Go figure.
A sea cucumber wrinkles up. I stand corrected. Sea cucumber FTW!
Hatie confessionals that she has an emotional owie because of Knob and she wants a hug from her daddy. She cries.
Knob acts like he's going to get washed away by a shin-deep wave. Tool.
Knob has a full bucket of probably-undersized abalone, but tells Long Pole Joel he only has around twenty. Long Pole Joel asks if he's a "high-five type of bloke", and Knob tells him once again that he's not. Didn't we have this exact same discussion with these two a couple of weeks ago? But Knob gives him a high-five anyway. Long Pole Joel is still stunned that Knob can find shells on a rock.
Later, Long Pole Joel continues his Knob worship, and appears he's also inherited Link's love of Basic Mathematical Facts at some point, because he points out that with only four people left, they each get five abalone. Sciona mumbles something, continuing her theme of Being Deemed Irrelevant And Ignored By The Editors.
A weird little piece of bell music takes us back to the Aurora boat, and it's only now that I notice that, in addition to being crappily steered by its pilot, the boat's mast/tribe flag is sticking out of the bottom rather than the top. How bizarre.
Hatie washes the abalone, while asking for Sciona. Hatie apologises again for her behaviour the previous night, and it appears that Sciona has morphed into Knob. I always figured Sciona would fill out this show's role of Bearded Lady. Hatie continues apologising, but turns the whole thing into calling Knob out for his lying throughout the entire game. Hatie, SHUT UP. I really don't want to have to throw my computer against the wall before this episode ends. Knob responds that what he's done isn't any different to what Hatie has done. Raceguy's Bullshit-O-Meter pings. Sure, they were in an alliance together, but when Hatie tried to sway people's votes, like she did with Kadina, she never said she was going to take them to the end with her. Hatie bitches about him spitting on her face and sarcastically calls him "a champion". Do you get the feeling she might be taking all this backstabbing to heart, just a little? I think she might. Knob says that Hatie was the one who proposed their alliance and... therefore, she's responsible for him being a lying, annoying dickweed? I don't get the connection. Hatie points out the alliance wasn't just the two of them, it included Sophie and Sciona as well. Which is completely true. Hatie then ruins whatever amount of cred she had accumulated by being in the right so far by comparing Knob's role in the alliance to a trigamist. Knob wonders if he's "morally inept", or whether this has to do with sex. In either case, yes. I gathered that from everything that's happened over the past however long I've spent writing these recaps now. Hatie responds that her trigamism talk was just an analogy. After Knob whinily tries to protest again, Hatie congratulates Sciona for her courage. Sciona confessionals that "she's an extraordinary young woman", and the prize money isn't that important. It's not clear whether she's talking about Hatie. We cut back to the camp discussion, where Sciona is wearing different clothing and looks much less clean, as she tells Hatie that she's like "a 25-year-old version" of herself. Well, that's one point against the concept of evolution, isn't it? (Current score, for those controversy geeks keeping track? Evolution -1, Creation -28,455,892,106.) Sciona tells Hatie she hopes they can still be friends once Hatie finishes blaming Knob for the world's problems. Of course, I can guarantee you Sciona would not be saying that if Hatie were pointing out all her faults.
We get a little weird bit in which Sciona's confessional voiceover is heard over low-volume audio of her talking to Hatie. Damn near sublimiBRING BACK THE MOLEnal, that is. The confessional tells us that if she wins the Immunity Sushi Roll, Long Pole Joel is going home. And if she wins the one after that, she gets to decide whether Sciona or Knob is going home. And I think we know which way she would vote if that was happening. So in essence, Sciona thinks she's getting through to the final two no matter what. Thanks for taking a vast amount of the fun out of the episode, editors.
Commercials. Sixteen minutes in and this is the first commercial break? Inconceivable! Normally, we'd have been subjected to two commercial breaks and a news update by now.
The audience is still clapping, even while being burned alive with the help of some creatively placed CGI work. Eddie is not being burned alive, and pretends to be interested about Hatie's mini-meltdown. Just get me back to the actual show already! I despise everyone left, but not as much as I despise you, Eddie.
The Fast-Forwarding Genie grants my wish, and takes me all the way to Day 37 (according to Eddie), where nature shots of the seaside introduce the Bucket Mail, which is decidedly NOT at the beach, so I don't know what that's about. Long Pole Joel and Hatie do the deed. Well, not THE deed, given that it probably wouldn't fit in Hatie's teeny-tiny frame, but the read the conch shell message anyway:
One step at a time
Find what is yours
Winning is cool
When your flag soars
Just like me, Sciona wonders whether that's the entire message. And it is, thank Jebus. I can't believe they felt the need to edit in that Bucket Mail. Couldn't we have skipped it, just this once? We could not. Sciona actually checks the shell to make sure that Long Pole Joel and Hatie weren't lying about being short-changed. And Long Pole Joel reads it again. Knob walks in as he does so, trying to appear as though he was a part of the discussion. Seriously, Knob weirds me out more than any Survivor contestant ever. Well, not more than Brian Heidik, but... anyone else. Remember crazy Matt from Amazon? He’s got nothing on Knob.
An ugly wooden obelisk sits in front of the clouds. A sweeping reverse shot shows it again, this time inside a group of tree stumps. The Crap Four do their best Abbey Road impersonation, amidst more obelisk shots. Link welcomes them to the clifftop. Just, you know, in case they didn't notice the cliffs during any of the other challenges held around here. Link tries to claim that playing near the windy Southern Ocean is appropriate, because of the prize. But he doesn't explain it yet, because that would give away that what he's saying makes no sense. You start from an oil barrel on the outside of the grid, and use a plank as a balance beam to move around. No falling off, and no trying to move to a stump somewhere else is going. Attached to each stump is a little holder, and inside each holder is a peg or a flag. You've got to find the four pegs and the one flag that match the colour of your plank and platform. When you've got them all, go to the obelisk, balancing your plank on the base (which Link is calling a "lighthouse", even though there's no windows or anything for said light to escape). Then, use the pegs to climb up the obelisk, and place your flag in the top. First person to do it wins. And what do you win? Ice cream. With toppings. And an advantage in the multiple-choice trivia-quiz Immunity Challenge tomorrow. Which means Eddie is wrong. This couldn't possibly be Day 37. If tomorrow's the Final 4 Immunity Challenge, then that makes it Day 38. Which means there's only one day for the Torch Walk Of Booted Losers, the Final 3 Immunity Challenge, the Final 3 Tribal Council, the Final Day Of Reflection, and the Final Tribal Council. Not happening. So it's Day 36. And I am pissed that we have to find out now what the Immunity Challenge entails. But the basic twists of an Immunity Challenge advantage reward, and of a final episode reward challenge happened YEARS before they showed up on the US version, in Guatemala and Exile Island respectively. So it's got that going for it, which is nice. But then again, this "challenge" is basically random luck, which sucks. Meh.
Survivors ready? GO! Quite frankly, this challenge was so poorly edited and headache-inducing that I'm not even going to bother trying to recap it. Hatie wins. Link comes in for the obligatory handshake (of course, he'd be dry-humping Long Pole Joel if he won), and comments on how unusual the combination of her chicken win last week and her ice cream win this week is. Which reminds me, she's now won three challenges in a row. Even Tipara wouldn't have managed that as a whole tribe if Sylvain hadn't proven himself incapable of holding bolts for twenty seconds. So... go Hatie, I guess. It's weird. I want her to win more than any of the other idiots left, but it would still make me want to claw my eyes out if it happened.
We see a bunch of close up shots of the icecream stump and its assorted trimmings. Hatie and the people who have no business tasting anything on the stump exclaim how wonderful it is, and how they're happy Hatie is sharing (what happened after the chicken last time?), and you'll notice that Hatie has a proper bowl, while the other three all have shells. So I don't think even the producers expected everything to be this communist. And where the hell did they get shells, anyway, given that this isn't near the beach at all? As far as I'm concerned, the contestants can all get into their little time machines and go back to when the Soviet Union was still around. Or even better, East Germany. That way, Hatie and Sciona are masculine enough to fit in perfectly.
I am NOT happy with this development.
Sciona boringly confessionals about how she can't figure out that two Reward Challenge wins plus an Immunity Challenge win by Hatie equals a grand total of three challenge wins. (For her next trick, she's going to wonder how many fingers Link wants to raise in the direction of these castaways. Correct answer? Two, one on each hand.) She continues that she doesn't know what'll happen if Hatie wins, but then points out that she's already decided that Long Pole Joel is going home if that happens. Wow. It's like having to put up with Tina and Colby all over again. Except Knob is even more arrogant than Colby and Sciona is even more boring than Tina. Neither of which would have been considered possible under any other circumstance.
Without a commercial break or any nighttime shots, we see the sunrise of Day 37. You'll notice that the sunrise is even funner without having to see Kochie and Mel. The sun reflects off the water, which reminds me that we're yet to see one of the sharks that Link was warning us about and which appears in the logo and credits.
We follow everyone getting up and looking lethargic, and Hatie stumbles through the brush to go to the toilet. Luckily, we cut away before anything happens. Unluckily, we wind up staring at Sciona and Long Pole Joel, who are walking to the beach to fish.
Seemingly later on, Knob attempts to make small talk with Hatie, and Hatie does not appear to be interested. One point for Hatie.
Knob confessionals that he felt like we was going home yesterday. Which is impossible, because there WASN'T a FUCKING Tribal COUNCIL yesterday! What the hell is up with the editing of this episode? This is even worse than the new episodes of Survivor have gotten. Knob says he was hurt by Hatie's tirade, but that when he puts it into context (ie. he was in the wrong and deserved most of what he got), he was able to deal with it fine. Which doesn't match what was later revealed, with rumours that all four of the remaining players tried to quit, and only decided to stay because the producers threatened to give the prize money to Sophie. Because apparently Sophie is the Antichrist. Or something. What did they think would happen if they all quit? A random lottery? Donating the money to CHARITY? Fools. Like they would ever do something stupid like that. Knob also tells us he's going to see a shrink when he gets home for even agreeing to come out here.
Yeah. Not going there. Besides, I need to see one too after deciding to recap this.
Knob asks Hatie whether she'd compete in Australian Survivor: All-Stars, and she says she probably would. Just as soon as she gets the Euthanasia Hotline endorsement deal finalised. She compares it to a really tough race, which kind of surprises me, even from her, because if you were going to compare any reality show to a race, I don't think Survivor would be at the top of many people's list. I would consider it... uh... "amazing" if Survivor was the first reality show you thought of if I said the word "race".
Hatie confessionals that it's not good to string people along only to vote them out. Well, of course not. That explains why she tried to swing Caren's vote. She says she understands why Knob did what he did, but she thinks he's "confused" and "out of perspective". Trust her to understand the confused person.
Hatie hugs Knob, and Knob appears to refuse to let go. Ew.
At the shore, Long Pole Joel is fishing, but the fish aren't biting. Maybe they realised who they were going to be fed to. Sciona confessionals that the game is all about relationships and struggling to survive. Can you believe it's only taken her thirty-seven days to learn what we all knew after Jeff Probst's voiceover in the very first episode of the very first season? Genius, that woman. Back in real life, Sciona tells Long Pole Joel that "most people sort of, you know, miss a lot in life because they're not looking". Lady, he was fishing in eight inches of water. I don't think it's even possible to miss seeing anything in water that shallow. She also calls Long Pole Joel a "searcher" and a "bloody nice bloke" and, least surprisingly of all, a "warrior". I wonder if Knob made a bitchy confessional about THAT use of the word. Sciona and Long Pole Joel continue the episode theme of Uncomfortable Hugging.
Waves. The Bucket Mail is back again, so soon after the previous challenge. Insert an emotionless cheer here. Long Pole Joel makes the obligatory "You've Got Mail" joke which... wasn't that funny the first time someone on Survivor said it, and certainly isn't funny here. And why is he carrying a tin with him? He must know the message isn't written is carefully arranged droplets of water, right? It is, in fact, on a carved piece of driftwood or... something.
Think hard about your time here, for soon it will be gone
If your memory fails you now, you won't last long
One step at a time, you'll walk over the sea
When you stand alone, you'll win Immunity
The screen unexpectedly whites out for a moment, and when we see Long Pole Joel and Sciona again, they demand to know where Knob is. He's resting, as though he hasn't actually done that for the past 37 days already. And he's using the camp bed Hatie won. Presumably without asking, because we know after the events of yesterday and the night before that he would not have been given permission to do it. Sciona reads the fucking message AGAIN, just in case we weren't forced into a Boredom Coma the first time. Hatie makes a surprised exclamation, as though none of the three previous seasons of Survivor had had a challenge all about remembering what's happened so far. Which is stupid, because THEY ALL DID. Borneo's was at that Tribal Council where Kelly turned on Sue; Outback's was the very last challenge, and Africa's was the one they fucked up with that question about body piercings. Knob also seems to cotton on to the basic idea of the challenge.
We see some impossibly white sand and some impossibly blue water, with a yacht sailing on it. The players walk along the beach to Link. He greets 'n' grabs, this time from Hatie. Apparently, they're standing in a place called Memory Cove, but I can't find any such place on my maps (yes, I am a map nerd, deal with it). But, you know, it's not like Survivor to mock up place names or... shipwrecks or anything.
The challenge is very simple. On the boat, there's a plank for each person. Each plank has five spaces marked on it. Starting from the one closest to the boat, you answer a set of multiple-choice questions about the challenges that have happened so far. You answer with a set of cards marked with A, B, C, and D. If you're correct, nothing happens. If you're wrong, you move one space closer to the far edge of the plank. When you're out of room, you jump from the plank into the cold, cold waters of the Southern Ocean, and presumably some sort of rescue boat has been planned to unnecessarily stop these people from drowning. Last one still dry wins the Immunity Towel Rack.
As you know, Hatie won an advantage in the reward challenge. Though it's not explained this simply, whenever she wants, she can choose to not answer a question she clearly doesn't know, and will then be able to save herself from getting it wrong. As far as Immunity Challenge advantages go, it's quite possibly the least advantageous one ever, compared to Danni's "switch places with someone whenever you want" that she got in that challenge in Guatemala which was pretty much a giant version of that challenge Lance won in this season, and to Boo's and Corinne's "skip the first part of this two-part challenge" rewards in Fiji and Gabon respectively. But anyway.
Survivors ready? Well, we're not, because we have to zoom around and around the boat with our camera first.
Okay, NOW they're ready. First question. How many poles were in the water for that epic failure of a challenge in the first episode? The correct answer is zero, given that they were logs and not poles, but Link will only accept the answer of four. Everybody gets it right. One of the names of the Aboriginal tribes who inhabited this area during Link's Storytime is what? Once again, neither of the actual answers he gave during the challenge (Penggala and Nayo) is an option. Correct answer is supposedly something along the lines of "Parhnkala", and Long Pole Joel is the only one who can read the minds of the increasingly incompetent challenge producers. Everyone else moves back. How many votes did Jeff get when he was voted out? Correct answer is five, and we see all five votes -- from Long Pole Joel, Knob, Sophie, Princess Jane, and Lance -- being made. Interestingly, Knob voted for Jeff, but neither of his major allies at the time did. Guess he's not that close with either of them, then. Sciona's the only one who guessed wrong. Also, I recapped that vote wrong a couple of times I mentioned it. But I am way too lazy to go back and edit the recaps so it doesn't look like Knob is the devil incarnate, so... whatever. How many obstacles were at the obstacle course that caused Kadina to keep Sylvain over Deb (sniff)? This one's also a sucky question, because how do the contestants know if, for example, climbing up that wall is a separate obstacle from sliding down the rope after it? Everybody says there were eight obstacles, but they're wrong, because Link thinks there were seven. Now, Long Pole Joel has four wrong answers left, Knob and Hatie both have three, and Sciona only has two. This challenge could be over pretty quickly, the way we're going.
The next question concerns the mail messages. Oh, joy. What form did the message for the donut platform challenge on Day 5 take? And, no, "form of... an ice bridge!" is not an answer. The correct answer is coloured rocks, as we see. Sciona is the only one to get it wrong, because she thinks it was one of the platform pieces itself. Yeah, not so much. As she takes her final safe step, Link tells her she's "one step away from walking the plank". I thought that that was what they were actually doing throughout the challenge, but what do I know? I only obsess about this show. Long Pole Joel proves that he also obsesses about this show too much, by reciting the message for that challenge. Nerd. By the way, they were able to keep that treemail message around camp until at least the merge (and Kadina used the "Immunity Is Yours" rock to decorate their tribe gate), so there's no real reason for Sciona to have missed that one. Next question: What was the second thing you picked up on the walk to camp on the first day? Again, this depends on whether you count the map as an actual supply. Link doesn't appear to do so and the editors show us images of Long Pole Joel picking up the correct items, blankets and the tarp. The two girls and one of the guys pick A, while the other guy picks B. All of them are wrong, because the tarp and blankets were C. Sciona thinks she's out, and asks for a cattle prodder when Link confirms her suspicions. Link does not oblige, but does take her letter cards from her, in case she accidentally leaves them in a position where fish could learn to read. As you know, the last thing we need in the world at this moment in time is smart seafood. Sciona nervously jumps, and there's a camera underwater to catch the aftereffects of her splash. Nice. There's also a camera high above the contestants providing aerial shots of the contestants still in the game, but the sun glare is really ruining the effect. The water is all shiny and oily looking, and the same sun glare is making it impossible to see the line markings on the planks anywhere where there’s no shadow. This challenge really would have worked better on the land, which it kills me to say, because we've had very few water challenges this season, and at this point I think one was sorely needed. And not only have both elements of the challenge have been done since in the American version -- walking the plank in Pearl Islands and challenge trivia in Vanuatu -- but they were both done as their season's Visiting Loved Ones challenge. Weird.
Next: We remember that Link didn't have any balls during the slingshot challenge, but what colour was Princess Jane's winning ball? The scoreboard is shown, and hers was that weird red colour. Hatie chooses to use her advantage to skip the question, and Long Pole Joel is wrong. But Knob is right, which means he's suddenly in the lead with three steps to go, while Hatie and Long Pole Joel each have two left. The next question is about how many wedges there were in the donut platform challenge. There are two things notable about this question. Firstly, we get a nice time-lapse shot of the twelve pieces being formed together into the donut, and secondly, Link says the challenge was on Day 6, even though just a few questions ago he said it was on Day 5. Idiot. Long Pole Joel is the only one who gets it wrong. In the buried treasure challenge on Day 4, Kadina won a fishing rod and some ice-cold cans of Solo. What else did they win? The correct answer is "a bottle of spicy sauce", and only Knob is right. Long Pole Joel performs a magic trick in which he makes his cards disappear, and then steps off the plank backwards. Does that really make it less scary? Hatie also takes a step back, and is one her last safe space. Knob still has three chances, which means the Link reminder that this is for Immunity was probably done solely to not make us realise this. There's been a question cut out somewhere here, because Knob suddenly only has two steps left instead of three. The question: What colour was Princess Jane's palletoon in the endurance challenge? We are treated to the hilarity of Link teasing her and her green raft with the model boat again. Both think it was purple, but it was green like I said. The purple raft was Sophie's. Hatie looks over the edge of her plank, before Link reaches out to grab her cards. He tells her to jump off, and she stands with her arms cross like she's thinking "How DARE Knob outsmart me! ME!". She whines about how she can't do it, and eventually nervously jumps. Knob barges his way back onto the boat to get the Immunity Pegleg, and looks as though he's about to cry. Do I care? A - Yes, or B - No. Knob unintentionally holds the card with the correct answer, B, up to the camera. Link asks him why he's acting like a four-year-old whose balloon animal popped, and he says he was relieved. Link proves how much he pwns all of these remaining contestants by pointing out that Knob had no real reason to be worried tonight, given that if Hatie won Long Pole Joel would almost certainly have been voted off. When Link points out that this is the first time Knob hasn't failed at life during a challenge, Knob rambles on about having options. Whatever. I'll be sure to let Wall Street know about that as soon as it fixes itself out.
Commercials. Choose your own favourite past commercial break joke to go here.
The tribe walks back to camp, past their Bucket Mail. They head down to the beach, and Sciona confessionals that Hatie never gives up. Yeah, we know. That's part of the reason Craig isn't here instead of you right now. As if to prove Sciona right, we watch as Hatie tries to explain to Long Pole Joel that Sciona and Knob "are gonna vote for one of you or me". Well, obviously. She explains that Long Pole Joel and Hatie need to force a tie in order to keep either of them in the game. Long Pole Joel confessionals that Hatie pointed out the same thing he used to his advantage two episodes ago, prior votes. Sciona has a vote against her already, from Lance, so if they vote together, Sciona will be eliminated based on prior votes. Of course, she does not take into account that Long Pole Joel has not one but FIVE prior votes against him (three from the original vote and two from the tie-breaker in the Princess Jane boot), but that's not important to her, because it doesn't affect her personally. Hatie also tries to say that backstabbing people in order to further his own game is what his family and girlfriend would tell him to do, and I find it hard to believe that she knows his loved ones better than he does. Sciona confessionals AGAIN about how much Hatie loves a good fight. The implied prefixes "cat-", "bitch-", and "scrag-" are all omitted from Sciona's confessional, though. She does add that Hatie is very sharp. Well, at least that matches her pointy ribs now.
The tribe eats their almost-definitely-illegally-undersized abalone (babylone?) catch. I'm sure you can guess how riveting this is for me to watch. And you'd be wrong, because it's only on for a couple of seconds before we move on to something much more fun. Hatie pleads to Sciona about something along the lines of how they could still have a final-two deal. But, as with everything major that happens on this show, it's not entirely clear. What I think Hatie is hoping for is that Knob will vote for her after everything that's happened, which is a dead certainty. Then, by getting Sciona and Long Pole Joel to vote for each other, she's not only guaranteed to stay in this game, but with Knob winning the Immunity Lockpicker and her not voting for herself, whoever she DOES vote for will be going home. Crafty!
But of course, Hatie is not counting on Long Pole Joel to tattle to Knob about her plans. Now, why on EARTH would he do that? If he keeps quiet and Hatie's plan to get rid of Sciona works, he not only has no reason to throw the challenge, but he'll be almost guaranteed to WIN THE GAME.
Think about it for a while: If he votes Sciona out, then wins the last challenge, he picks his own partner. And if he doesn't, he'll get taken anyway, because there's too much spite between the other two now. Then, whomever he takes will have three jury votes against them from the two Kadinas and whoever finishes third. He'll lose the vote from Princess Jane (who actively tried to get rid of him because of his poor social skills). So all he really needs to do is win over one of Lance, Sophie, and Sciona in order to win the money. And you know that even if Princess Jane and Sophie vote for Hatie, Sciona won't. And he would be a millionaire. If he votes for Hatie, she's out, and he has that deal to throw the challenge. If he does, he's out, which would be a worse result for him than what happens in the other scenario. If he wins the challenge anyway, Hatie will vote for him and whoever finishes third will vote against him, cancelling each other out. Then he'll still have to get three out of the five remaining votes. If he goes against Knob, Knob will probably get votes from Lance (who appeared to respect how he was outwitted), Sophie (who had no problem with leaving where she did, despite the final-two deal with Knob), and Princess Jane. Which would mean Knob wins. If he goes against Sciona, he has a chance with Sophie and Lance (hey, look, I can rhyme! They soooooo totally should have put me in charge of writing the Tree/Rock/Bucket Mail messages, because at least I couldn't possibly have done any worse than they did), but he loses Princess Jane's vote anyway. He also loses Knob's vote, and Craig's because of his "warrior" bond with Sciona, therefore meaning he needs all four votes from NoMind, Lance, Sophie, and Hatie. He'll get Hatie's, but the other three are by no means guaranteed. But either way, he'll be basically screwing himself out of a million dollars. Not that screwing himself would be impossible even if no money were on the line.
It's sort of interesting how there are two swing votes here, by the way. Usually at this point you're getting rid if whoever would do best against the jury, but all four of these people have pissed too many people off (not least of all the viewing audience). Which is actually an interesting development for a non-fanfic Survivor, even if there's no way I can be truly happy with the ending.
Back with the main argument, Sciona remains confused about how voting out a likable buff guy now will help her win the money more than voting out a detestable girl who, despite her appearances, has proven herself to be completely pathetic at challenges not involving thought or random luck. Is she seriously that stupid?
The other conversation. Knob whines about how it's Sciona's turn to get yelled at, even though that has nothing to do with what's going on. At all. Like, conversations about cannibalism would actually be more relevant at this point. And why wouldn't Hatie bitch about Sciona in front of everybody?
Pissed Sciona calls Hatie "the single biggest threat to anybody in this game". No, she's NOT. As I just mentioned not four paragraphs ago, if Hatie survives, Sciona is voted out and Long Pole Joel will win, which means Sciona herself is the biggest threat to Long Pole Joel winning. If Hatie gets to the final two, she will lose the votes from the two Kadinas, she will lose the votes from the people voted out tonight and tomorrow night, and she will lose the million dollars. There's no way Hatie can win, which is EXACTLY why you WANT HER to STAY! Twenty million people in Australia in 2001, and THIS was one of the best sixteen people they could find?! Fuck that shit. To put the cherry on top of Hatie's shit sundae, Sciona basically tells her of Long Pole Joel's deal to throw the final challenge. My GOD. Not only is it a stupid idea to tell her that, but you don't even know that he will keep his damn word! This is Survivor, after all. (Exhibit A: One 2008 Ford Super Duty. Exhibit B: Dreamz.) Hatie gives her her best bitchface for a few seconds as she goes about splashing water or something, before sniping that Sciona shouldn't be able to look at her in the mirror every morning. Well, the rest of us can't either, but that's because we poked her eyes out after seeing her both in a swimsuit and later naked. (Sorry for reminding you.)
Big, big wave. Blunt metaphor alert!
Now standing up and in a different location, Sciona mentions the deal. As soon as Hatie sounds nervous and wonders what on earth Andrew O'Keefe has to do with anything (by the way, for "Top Trillion Likeable Game Show Hosts"? He's not on the list!), the camera guy physically gets up and walks down through the rocks to get the money shot. Dude, this person rocks. And in honor of that, it's time to finally give the camera guys their due. So, from the extra-long, extra-fast end credits, we love: Paul "Andrea" Bowen, Matt "Oh, It's Already Been Broughten!" Bronger, Stuart "The Guy So Nice They Named Him Twice" Bruce, Paul "Bang" Croll, Ben "Ji" Herbertson, Dion "Girl Power!" Isaacson, Gregory "King" Kung, Scott "My Three -sons" Richardson, and Nigel "Ladderen" Rungen. And Andrew "Lamest Name Ever" Johnson. And Leo "Mount" Faber.
While I was getting that out of the way, Hatie starts crying. CRYING. And I really wish I hadn't recycled that quote from Miss Alli into the recap already, because it's even more apt here. Apparently, Hatie can't believe that Sciona is finally trying to win the game. Sciona says it's because she made a deal with Knob rather than with her. Well, sure. And you would have voted for her as soon as you realised she had more than one final-two deal in the works instead of waiting for the time when the person who actually has several final-two deals in real life has the Immunity Brain Freeze. Frankly, she was right to not make a final-two deal with you. Sciona and Hatie are both doing their best Alicia impressions (boy, I miss her, compared to the newer Survivor casts). Hatie counts to three and repeats herself as though she is teaching kinder kids. And I suppose she practically is, so I'll give her condescension a pass here.
As we cut to a different shot, Sciona points out that if Hatie's final three plan worked, she would have finished third. Why, Sciona? You had Knob on your side since Day 1, and it's not as though you couldn't even attempt that last Immunity Challenge. Fuck. Hatie points out that she never committed to Sciona, and Sciona uses it to point out that she did commit to Knob. As Hatie correctly points out, she didn't commit to Long Pole Joel, did she? Fuck.
I'm going to have to start bleeping myself if this gets any stupider. ["You'll do no bleeping thing." -- SexySuntannedWhoreBoy]
Hatie wants to know the deal that's causing her boot. Sciona yells right in Hatie's face that she's "been here for thirty-eight or thirty-nine days" (only thirty-seven, lady), and that she's "not gonna change now". Of course not, because it would be stupid to say you're not gonna change your alliances if you haven't done so in, say, the past five days or anything. Sciona says she's not learning anything about the plan. Well, she's already been given enough that we've seen to figure out what's going on, plus probably some more we haven't, so I'd say she should be at least somewhat close to figuring it out. Unless I'm overestimating her abilities again. It's certainly near impossible to underestimate them. Hatie storms off like RaceSister.
Around the pot, Long Pole Joel and Knob are sitting in silence. Did one of them fart or something? All of a sudden, we hear Hatie demand to know if they don't want to hand her the money on a silver platter. She bitches about how Knob is lying to her. Well, duh. Knob tattles on Long Pole Joel's tattling. Sciona butts in and yells some more. This time, it's completely deserved. That redemption arc sure ended abruptly, didn't it? Hatie Blagojeviches about how they should all listen to her, and I really want to see how she'll bullshit her way out of being accused of bullshitting people. It's like watching Connex and the Victorian Government blame each other about train meltdowns. But I don't even get that small luxury, because Knob continues tear shreds into this poor defenseless uberbitch. Brilliantly, the sound editors catch Long Pole Joel ignoring the whole feud and talking about how their food isn't ready yet. He's a little bit funny. Now, if only we could get him to stop fucking elevator shafts long enough to tell some big dick jokes.
Knob tries to claim that it's only because of Long Pole Joel that "we've" made it this far, which is complete bullshit. Had the girls had their way, Long Pole Joel would have been voted out instead of Princess Jane, and at least one of you would still be here anyway. Probably both, because at that point Hatie was still thinking in terms of the Complicated Alliance Of Eternal Overplanning, and would still have been unaware of Sciona's and your final-two deal, and would have booted Princess Jane next. So you'd still be here. Not only that, but he does it while ignoring all bar two words of Hatie's question. Fuck off, Knob.
The argument returns to Long Pole Joel being told to vote for Sciona, and Hatie points out that she never explicitly said the words "Vote For Sciona", which was true. And as she points out, she only told him that they would need to force a tie to save him. Which could only save him if they voted for Sciona. But the point is she only implied that they needed to vote for Sciona. Knob points out that there was no need for Hatie to try and get Long Pole Joel's vote in an effort to get him out of third place, because of the deal he had with Knob and Sciona. Which would have resulted in him leaving in third place. Not seeing the logic here. Hatie calls Knob "a habitual liar", which is true. Sciona once again butts in and points out Hatie has lied too. Again, true, but BUTT OUT, SCIONA. You've had your argument with Hatie. Hell, even Knob's had his. Wouldn't you like to try and see Long Pole Joel be nasty and catty? Hatie claims she's told exactly one lie throughout the course of the game. And excluding all the other lies she's told, she's right. But Knob's lying is "habitual and perpetual and continuous", while she's only lied to Long Pole Joel and to Lance. Which makes two, not one. Sciona tries to claim she also lied to Long Pole Joel. Lady, his cock might be gigantic, but it does not count as a separate person. Shut up. Sciona bawls her eyes out and says she doesn't even want to see the rest of the tribe. Well, that'll make Tribal Council fun, won't it?
Hatie checks the name on the coat she picks up as she makes a sarcastic speech about how well everyone else has played, then walks up the hill. It looks like it's the same hill from Craig's Adventures With The Bees, so if we're lucky, they might still be around. The camera follows Hatie as she walks all the way home, against the sunset. But then it's light again all of a sudden, so I don't know what's going on there. She provides a walking confessional about how everyone else is scared of her. And, yes. Sciona admitted as such. But, quite frankly, I'm more scared of being cannibalised by Knob, or of having to watch Sciona naked again, or of choking on Long Pole Joel than I am of you. Hatie is trying to convince herself it was all a bad dream. And here I was, thinking Killer Fatigue could only show up on TAR.
Back at the shore, Knob decides that, having reduced Hatie to tears, it's now time to start talking over the person who backed him up. Such a pleasant man.
More shots of Hatie crying, over tinkly music. She calms down enough to tell us that, while the game is about lying to people, she didn't think anyone would want to lie to HER. No, of course not.
The three people at the shore discuss how Hatie is such a sore loser.
Spur-of-the-moment Hatie confessional. She tells us that she's always looking for a way to win, but now it seems impossible. And then she says it. "Maybe I could... kill one of them." Officially, not good. Unofficially, I would at the very least not protest two out of the three possible murders.
The sun sets. On Hatie's chances of winning. Blunt metaphor alert!
Commercials. Saw the promo for Celebrity Singing Bee last night. Rob Mills looks even more like a tool than usual singing You Can't Stop The Music in his oversized construction worker hat. But that other guy looks completely comfortable in the leatherman's hat. Huh. The things you learn about people when you don’t expect to. (Give me a break; I didn't actually mock the damn Village People.)
Cliffs and another sunset shot. We are finally at the first of three Tribal Councils of the episode, which seems a little late in coming. Normally, we'd be at least up to the Torch Walk Of Booted Losers by now. The tribe walks in, and Link sounds bored. He must not know yet what's happened today. Link points out something Jeff Probst never does, that the jury outnumbers the players. Sobering thought, especially considering who's on which side of that fence. NoMind is in a denim jacket and pants. Craig has jeans and a blue Hawaiian shirt, which really brings out his eyes. All one-point-two millimetres of them. Princess Jane is dressed for the races, and is already in a cardigan roughly the colour of beer-induced vomit, which will help. Lance has on black shorts and a yellow short. Sophie has... ew. She has blue jeans, mixed with a pink crop top, and a green jumper tied loosely around her neck. I would take that jumper away and tie it around the neck of whoever decided THAT combination worked well together. Tightly.
Knob, you stopped sucking at challenges today. How does that make you feel? Knob rants about how he's comfortable with how he played the game. Which he isn't, if he has to turn a question about how he feels about winning the Immunity Chainsaw Buttplug into that. Now listen closely here. He says, clear as day, that he DOESN'T believe he's been able to separate personal emotions from the game itself. Which is the exact opposite of what he's said at least once during this game. And he's proud of it. Of course, the editors cut to Hatie looking sad. Shortly after, the editors cut to Lance, looking bored. Then to Sophie, looking tired. Lance And Sophie: Representing Raceguy's Emotions Since Three Seconds Ago. Knob closes his Whine Of The Week by saying he didn't expect to not hate people. Coincidentally, I was expecting to not hate you, too. Guess we were both wrong. Hatie, if you got stuck with the rest of your fellow losers again, would you? Not without crying. But otherwise, yes. Knob looks fed up. Sophie has a glazed-over look, and I am half-expecting to see her cradled in the arms of a hot shirtless guy and posing for a Mills & Boon cover the next time we cut to her. (Take it off, Craig!) Hatie really takes the jilted lover vibe she's going for here a little too far. Craig also appears fed up, but that may just be his smouldering eyes, which seriously make him look like he's trying to hypnotise the fake mast into falling down and stopping anyone else from crossing over to the jury side. Princess Jane just looks regal. Time for a new question: Long Pole Joel, how do you feel knowing that you have a chance at the half a million dollars some sponsor randomly ponied up since the last Tribal Council? Who cares, because this Tribal Council is really about facial emotions. And Link gets off a whopper right after finishing the question. Observe:
Besides, Long Pole Joel rants about his lack of knowledge about the Complicated Alliance Of Eternal Overplanning anyway. Link asks a follow up question, and he says he was happy he was outsmarted. Yeah. Not winning an IQ test, this guy. Sciona, justify not being the pawn in the chess game you think this game is. Wow. Great question. Really. Much better than his usual standard. But Sciona still bitches about how she's playing chess, but not as a piece on the board. Well, it does figure she'd go for the most boring role possible, and being that giant stopwatch professionals play chess with seems to be perfect for her. Sciona also goes on about how she doesn't know what the jury is voting for, and when she says it could be on who has done best at challenges, Long Pole Joel raises his eyebrows. More than once. HA! Take that, Terry!
Since Princess Jane is rubbing her hair again, it must be time to vote. Hatie votes, on the edge of tears. Sciona votes with a bitchface. Knob votes, jangling the Immunity Bling all the way like the attention-seeking jerk he is. Long Pole Joel votes with no emotion on his face. Just like usual.
Link grabs the votes and returns. One for Hatie. Surprise! And another for Hatie. And one for Long Pole Joel. Which must be Hatie's, which means she must have checked out of the game for real during that argument. The last vote is for Hatie, and is enough to boot her. Buh-bye. Hatie takes her snuff like a man. A really, really emotional man, but a man nonetheless. No shocks there. What is surprising is that she wishes the remaining contestants the best of luck as she walks off the "boat". Link reminds them of the big challenge tomorrow, and sends them back to camp.
Without Hatie's final words, we cut from an aerial shot of Tribal Council back to Crown Casino, which has apparently been infected with The Clap. Eddie asks how good this episode of Survivor this is, and I'm not particularly sure he wants to know that two people yelling at another until the latter threatens murder does not make the show particularly enjoyable. Apparently, people are hugging, crying, making out, and touching each other backstage. And that's only Craig and Long Pole Joel. Eddie compares the studio atmosphere to a rock concert. Only if it's by The Wiggles. Of course, the audience claps at that.
It turns out the reason we didn't get Hatie's final words is because Eddie is going to interview her right now. This certainly won't be affected by all her bad publicity AT ALL! There is much clapping. Shut up, audience. Go back to Rent-A-Crowd. Hatie walks out waving and wearing a horrible see-through shawl. Thankfully, she is also wearing a boob tube. Eddie asks why she keeps crying, and she self-deprecatingly (I KNOW!) points out how enjoyable it is "to have a nervous breakdown on national TV". Hee. Eddie asks how she thinks she appeared, and then answers the question himself by talking about how loudly the audience was cheering when she was snuffed. She extends on his answer and the audience laughs at her self-deprecation. I get the feeling that if we had seen “I suck!” Hatie, rather than "Nobody's going to try and stop ME from winning MY money! MINE!" Hatie, she would have been almost as popular as Craig. She really is almost endearing here. Hatie's family is in the front row. All five of them. And isn't that the worst possible set of seats they could have?
Hatie is asked to take a seat on stage where she can be laughed at by the audience for the next little while until someone else gets booted. She alludes to Long Pole Joel possible reneging on the deal, which would definitely make me happy. Eddie comments that Long Pole Joel looks dumb. The audience laughs. Eddie? You're not exactly the picture of intelligence yourself, what with being able to help exactly one Millionaire contestant get the right answer to a question over the however many years you hosted it. (And even then, it was someone you worked with.) And let's not even mention 1 Vs. 100. The audience claps as Hatie takes her seat.
Teaser shots of the final three and the jury sitting around. But Link gets to walk around with the Immunity G-String. If only Craig were wearing it.
Commercials. In the Nein Newsroom tonight: Static.
Sunrise.
Windmill. Sciona gets the water and confessionals that she feels and acts a lot younger than she is. Which is convenient, because she looks a lot older than she is, so I guess it evens out. Sciona calls herself "a female version of Peter Pan". Except she doesn't even bother to put on the green tights. Knob would make a funny Tinkerbell, though.
Long Pole Joel grabs some sprouts from the ground and eats them. He confessionals that you can't vote someone out without a reason, then lives up to his university graduate reputation by becoming lost for words. Turns out Long Pole Joel has no problems being selfish to win.
Knob spends hours sitting in the same basic spot on the cliffs, which the editors thankfully turn into a time-lapse shot. Brilliantly, they also put the confessional voice-over of him saying "I'm tired" right on top of a shot of him lying down. Hee. Knob, now lying down in an actual confessional, says he's packed his bags no matter what. Yeah. Right. Knob says he doesn't know what challenge it is. Well, of course that won't matter, what with Long Pole Joel agreeing to throw it and all.
Speaking of the challenge, we get shots of three tiny tin sheds, each missing the roof and two walls. There is firewood, and there is one of those yellow "elimination discs" from that wonderful challenge Lance won. And lanterns. There is not, however, a tree mail. WOO! But couldn't we have skipped some of the 26 messages before this one while we were at it?
As the tribe walks in, Link dispenses with his normal greeting, to show how big a deal this is. He makes each of them choose a shed. When they're done, Link makes them plonk their arses down on the disc inside the shed. He takes the Immunity Kindling back from Knob. Now he greets them and tells them this is their final challenge. Thanks for the heads up. SexySuntannedWhoreBoy thought they were all getting lapdances from midgets. Link says that the challenge is worthy of having the jury show up to watch. Firstly, we'll be the judges of that. Secondly, if you can't tell where this is heading, you need to watch this show some more. The jury walks past the sheds in Mighty Ducks formation, and it almost looks like Hatie is STILL crying.
The challenge itself is very simple. Use the materials in your shed to make a fire, and use the fire to light a lantern. Then, because it's Day 38, hang the lit lantern from a small section of covering on top of the shed as close to 38 minutes after the challenge starts as you can. Becky and Sundra would be so screwed at this. Oh, and no talking. Way to remove any lingering chance this challenge has of being interesting, producers.
The sun is glary.
Survivors ready? MAKE! Sciona and Long Pole Joel make fire, but Knob sits around, rocking himself to sleep. Someone tries to start their fire with kindling. Craig and NoMind watch intently. Or, as intently as you can without wanting to punch one of these people in the face.
After seven-and-a-half minutes, Long Pole Joel has his fire. Sciona also has hers. Knob continues sitting around. Boy, this is really moving fast. Sciona leans over her fire to make a mark on the shed wall, while Long Pole Joel gets a nice faceful of smoke.
Sophie is trying her best to look like she cares, but she's doing as poorly as SexySuntannedWhoreBoy and I were when we watched this the first time.
Sciona continues making her fire.
Knob has at least picked up his kindling. Thank God for small mercies.
Link reminds them -- Knob especially, presumably -- that you can light the lantern whenever you want, but your time stops when you hang it up.
Long Pole Joel lights his lantern. Sciona has hers done, too. Knob? Still playing with kindling. And I thought Long Pole Joel was the one who was throwing this challenge.
At 9 minutes and 30 seconds, Long Pole Joel hangs up his lantern, and his chance of winning this game.
The sun is just as stroby as before.
At 25 minutes, Link walks past the sheds with the necklace, just to remind the players how ugly it is. He says that whoever is closest to 38 minutes wins Immunity.
Princess Jane moves her hair out of her face.
Knob has finally started actually trying to make his fire, only twenty minutes after Long Pole Joel and Sciona finished.
Knob has fire, and hangs it up immediately. 32 minutes, 25 seconds. Even the music at this point has given up.
Everybody sits around. Remember, at this point, we're just waiting for Sciona to hang up her lantern.
38 minutes. Sciona looks at her fire. And rocks herself to sleep.
Apparently, we have a winner. Thank God. Link tells Long Pole Joel his time, 9 minutes 33 seconds -- which is different than we were shown. Hilariously, Link seems more than a little annoyed that Long Pole Joel didn't even try to win that much. I think he wasn't expecting someone to throw away the money at this point in the game. Sciona still hasn't put her lantern up, and it's now 46 minutes since she began. Knob's time is exactly the same as we were shown. And he wins the Most Boring Challenge Ever. Sort of surprising, given he was against Sciona. Knob gets the Immunity Thing handed to him. Hatie looks pissed.
[Edited to add: I cannot possibly mention anything about fires at the moment and not mention the horrific events of the last week or so. Sadly I can’t do anything to help fix the situation, but: Get well soon, Victoria.]
And now we finally find out why the jury is here. They're not going to go to Tribal Council tonight, and instead Knob must vote someone out right now, in front of their face. Knob makes a little speech about how Long Pole Joel was the antithesis of himself in terms of gameplay. Well, yes, given Long Pole Joel didn't really make me want to slap him until a couple of episodes ago. Knob pleads to the jury, which really should not have been allowed. In the least surprising plot development all season, though it does have some fierce competition, Knob takes Sciona with him and votes out Long Pole Joel. Sciona grabs Long Pole Joel and forces him into a group hug.
As Knob and Sciona head back to camp, we return to Crown. Audience status: Still high. Boy, that was a short segment. Eddie wonders the same thing I did, about whether throwing away the million dollars was a dumb move, and I think we can all agree that it was. Long Pole Joel walks out on stage. He is wearing the ugliest possible combination of shirt, pants, and shoes. Unless the shirt was a Collingwood jersey. (Hi Eddie!) Eddie wants to know what the deal was about. I normally wouldn't blame him for not watching this dreck, but he really needs to watch it if he's hosting the last episode. Long Pole Joel unnecessarily explains it for Eddie, and uses a lot of hand gestures. Halfway through Eddie trying to point out the stupidity of the deal, the audience claps. Eddie tells them off. Hee. He's no Gretel Killeen, but he's good at shutting up an audience. Eddie points out that he still wound up with nothing, and didn't even get food or comfort for those extra five days, so it was pointless. Long Pole Joel says he was there to push himself to his limits, and that's what Survivor's about.
Look, I get that you never went out there for the money, and that's admirable and all, but frankly, you should never have made it as far as you did if that was the case. More than even Princess Jane, YOU are the one person from Tipara who didn't deserve to make it as far as you did. Princess Jane was at least an outer member of the alliance and would have finished fifth if it weren’t for you. Some people might see that as you worming your way into the alliance, but because you didn't even figure out that there WAS an alliance until Lance got the boot, I don't. Not only that, but even ignoring the alliance, you played a ridiculously poor social game. It's really only because Knob and Sciona were perfectly willing to cause Hatie to spaz out like she did (and they must have known something would have happened after her reactions to Craig) that you are here. Especially since there were other people who wanted to play the game more, but got booted early. Fuck off.
As if to show their lack of knowledge of the game, the audience claps when Long Pole Joel tells them his integrity was valued at more than half a million dollars. I can't possibly be the only one wondering if it was worth less than the full million dollars you'd get on the American version. Long Pole Joel is asked whether he ever thought about whether he should not throw that challenge. He says he hasn't. The audience claps.
Long Pole Joel hugs Hatie.
Eddie reminds us someone else will still win the money, but then changes battle plans completely and introduces each of the jury members. NoMind is wearing a simple black shirt. Craig is hot no matter what he wears, but especially in the pectastic shirt he has on. Lance is ignored, but is later shown in a yellow shirt and white jeans. Jane is wearing lime green. Sophie has a black dress that really shows off her rack. Don't blame me, I didn't edit this.
Lance kisses Hatie. There goes his credibility.
Eddie reminds us how the jury works, as though we hadn't already gotten that from Link throughout the episode, and then tells us that we'll be getting the last Tribal Council after the break. I have this strange feeling we're missing something, but I can't remember what it is. The audience claps. Shut up, audience.
We see aerial footage of Knob and Sciona walking along the cliffs. Boring.
Commercials. I miss back when The Simpsons was good.
After some basic Seaside Stock Shots, we see Knob and Sciona walking. Hey, it's Kadina's camp! Why are they here? Knob, of course, bitches about how Kadina was able to get rid of all the dirt from their camp. As he does, the camera closes in on a Tribal Council torch. Oh. This must the Torch Walk Of Booted Losers. I'm actually happy they put it here instead of before the final challenge, because it always annoys me that the last few players are remembering the eliminated people when one of them is still to be snuffed. And it sort of makes sense to start at Kadina; given so many people got booted so early.
Anyway, Lucindork. We see her taking her top off again, and suggesting about the blanket thing, and losing the tiebreaker challenge (stupid badly made fires). Knob says it must have felt horrible to have gone through all the auditions and still have gotten booted after three days. Well, in all fairness, she did vote for herself. I'm not sure it was that horrible for her. Lucindork is shown telling everyone that she's the weakest link. Goodbye.
Tim, Tim, Tim. Completely unmemorable, right down to the clips of him tying knots. Knob says Kadina would have missed him when he left, and I agree, if only because he would have won the next challenge for them.
Bald Spice suuuuuuucked. And still does. Knob tells us Bald Spice was always sick. Sciona says she think he had trouble out here.
Deb. I love Deb. We get shots of Deb just being awesome. She was really like the female Craig. But haven't we missed Jeff? Sciona says she wants to "get to know Deb" as soon as she gets out of this godforsaken hellhole, because of how determined she was at the obstacle course. Well, sure, judge a person's worth based solely on how they perform at an obstacle course. But we do get to see a shot of Deb landing on her sore ankle after the rope swing, which I don't think we saw during the original episode. Interesting.
Less interesting? Sylvain. Knob reminds us again that he won the car but can't drive. Shut up, Knob. We see Sylvain winning again. Sciona says she remembers him losing the bungy challenge. Boring.
And now we're into the People These Two Actually Met section, with Caren. There are a couple of shots of Caren looking happy, but not a lot else. And Knob and Sciona only say that she had "a lot of energy". If anyone has ever been more dudded by one of these Loser Walks, I have yet to see it.
NoMind. Knob liked her because she played Aussie Rules. The jury's still out on why he likes Long Pole Joel, then. I'm guessing penis envy. NoMind is shown kicking her football. Knob tells us she never gave up, even when she knew she was going home.
And the one I've been waiting to see. Craig. We see him talking to Sciona, and Sciona mentions that she made "just such a connection" with him, and that she loves his fighting spirit. Craig runs with a flare and then grins like a monkey, as Knob mentions the fire rod Immunity Challenge. But Knob also takes the opportunity to point out how scared he was of Craig. Not in such a direct way, of course.
The final two walk back to Tipara. Knob bitches about the campsite.
Jeff's torch finally shows up. And so do the boring clips of him snoring. Knob mentions his snoring, Sciona doesn't say anything.
When they get to Lance's torch, Sciona mentions how he was so good at getting food. Probably legally, too. Just like the yoga clips. But we also have to endure his Speedo. Ew. Also ew? Sciona talks about integrity.
Princess Jane gets clips of her actually doing work, which I definitely appreciate. Sciona remembers always talking about recipes with Princess Jane. Which she didn't actually do, because she was too busy swimming naked. We also see her quote-unquote "excellent" bargaining skills for chocolates.
Knob thinks Sophie is not happy with him. I would think it was Long Pole Joel she was pissed off with, if anyone. Knob claims she came to him with the final-two deal, rather than the other way around, which showed how much she clearly wanted to win. Sciona respects Sophie. And I respect the shot of her falling over.
Oh, this'll be fun. Hatie. There is a stunned silence, as though they're both thinking "How dare the producers ruin our final day by making us remember this bitch!" Sciona eventually opens up and says Hatie is a younger version of her. Poor Hatie. More shots of Hatie at the challenges, as Sciona whines about determination. Knob provides the startling revelation that she didn't cope very well with not being the center of attention. Colour me shocked.
Long Pole Joel's long pole is seen, but sadly it's the one with the torch at the end. When did he get snuffed, anyway? As he raps on the palletoon, Knob and Sciona both talk about how his starting to play the game six days before the end got them to the final two. Convenient. Just as we heard Lucindork talk at the start, we hear Long Pole Joel talk at the end. They've chosen to use his quote about wanting to stay, which makes me think the editors hate his quitting as much as I do. Love you too, editors.
The waves are less turbulent than they have been, which I suppose is some sort of Blunt Metaphor for how there's no way the rest of this episode can be enjoyable. Blunt metaphor alert!
Eventually, a helicopter shot zooms in so we can see Knob and Sciona. Sciona reflects on the friendships she's made. She says the one's she'll get the most out of are her friendships with Knob, Craig, and Hatie. SexySuntannedWhoreBoy has this horrible vision of them all visiting her at the same time. Better hide the cutlery.
There are more scenic helicopter shots, as Sciona calls Whaler's Way "simply stunning". Well, of course she says it NOW. I guarantee she wouldn't have said it if she was still in the mud at Tipara's old camp. By the way, it's only right here during this confessional that I notice she has two buffs on. I am stupid.
Epic music, more helicopter shots. Knob confessionals that he's going to the Final Tribal Council to "have some fun with it". So, the exact opposite of how you've been throughout the entire game then. He says the jury questions won't mean anything, but he's looking forward to seeing how mean Hatie and Sophie are going to be. Knob says that if he doesn't win, he'll be fine with it, because he's been himself. So, you're an annoying, jerky, lying fuckwit with a penchant for cannibalism discussion then? Good to know.
Knob and Sciona are STILL walking, believe it or not.
Commercials. I guess they must have sold out of that water Jeff was selling. Or gone out of business. Probably the second one.
Back from the break, Knob and Sciona finally turn up at Tribal Council. Where it's so windy the bottom of Link's shirt is threatening to quit the show too. The jury is already in place. As you already know, Craig looks hot. When Knob and Sciona sit down, Link congratulates them for making it as far as they did. He says this is "probably one of the most important moments" of the game. I don't know, 5:14am on Day 6 was pretty important.
Sophie and Princess Jane look bored. As they have been ever since they were voted out.
Link exposits about how the jury decides who gets money. He says he doesn't need to tell the jury how important they are, and then does exactly that.
Long Pole Joel looks like an angry serial killer. NoMind looks cold. Lance does not look like either.
Unlike in the American version, Knob and Sciona do not get the chance to make an opening statement. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Yeah, it's usually boring, but on the other hand, it means we'll probably get the finalists Sarah Palin-ing their answers so they can talk about whatever they want.
Regardless of what I actually think, it's time for NoMind to ask her question. She wants to know why, given that you were never any good at challenges, and admitted lying to the other members of your tribe, you deserve her vote. As we knew would happen, Knob is very defensive right from the beginning, but does not take the obvious route of telling NoMind she has to vote for one of them, so she should just suck it up and deal. He does instead say that he expected everyone else to be just as despicable as he has been. Well, sure, THAT justifies your actions. He also implies that you should never play Monopoly with his brothers. Sciona once again calls this a game of chess. I think her just saying that Knob was right was her own checkmate.
A fire burns brightly, as Craig gets up to ask his question. Craig's question is stupid. It pains me to say it, but it is. Without comparing yourself to the other finalist, what did they do that you wouldn't? Sciona once again says Knob did everything right. Can you tell who's going to win yet? Knob says Sciona was worried about being old, and became overbearing to compensate for that. He also reckons she played the game "as hard as anyone else did"; by which I assume he means "not much at all".
More fire. Hatie. Yay, time for the bitchy jury! Hatie reminds us she won three challenges in a row, and then reminds us of the rewards she won. She complains that they "accepted her generosity" with every intention of voting her out. I don't know what she's on about here, because I specifically remember her whining in a confessional about how everyone else automatically assumed she was sharing her chicken. But whatever. She wants to know whether Knob and Sciona think they played the game with "greed, dishonour, and cowardice". What sort of person would honestly say they were a greedy lying coward? Everybody always rationalises their actions to make them seem as though they were doing the right thing. Underworld gangsters? Killed my family first. Ex-girlfriends? Revenge for being cheated on. But enough about why this is a stupid question, it's time to hear Knob and Sciona beg for forgiveness. Sciona blames Hatie for thinking the social game and the political game are intertwined. Which they are. You're not going to form an alliance on Day 1 or Day 2 with the most annoying person on your tribe, and then keep it until the end. She also thinks Hatie does not know the difference between "betrayed" and "outplayed". Blah blah semanticcakes. But Sciona still wants to be friends! Blecch. Hatie looks disgusted, and I don't blame her one bit. Knob points out that she told him she was physically ill to have to share the chicken with her, and a whole bunch of other crap about his own poor social skills he takes special care not to mention. And he feels bad that she feels bad. Well, of course he does, because she's not giving him her vote. Hatie to Knob, with a frozen expression: "You're as cold as ice, you're willing to sacrifice... our love". Okay, not so much. She actually compares what happened to her to being tripped up by a training partner during the last few minutes of a race. Long Pole Joel seems interested for once. He must like bitchy jury speeches as much as I do. Knob looks resigned to his fate of being Hatie's scapegoat. When she mentions he hasn't earned the right to win, she shuts up and he whines about how he's older than she is, and weaker than both her and Craig. He uses both of them as an excuse to justify his betraying the Complicated Alliance Of Eternal Overplanning. Which is stupid, because Craig was already voted out by that point, and, as Link pointed out, the post-merge challenges were more based on brainpower than brawn. Fuckwit.
Sadly, there's almost no chance of more bitterness from Lance. Actually, Hatie's really the only person on this jury who I think would get snide with these two. Shame. Lance mentions how they talked about friendships and all that crap, and wants to know the "single most positive thing" Knob and Sciona learned about themselves. This could be hard for Knob, because he already thinks he's perfect and the sun shines out of his arse. Knob credits Lance for showing him how immoral he was and how he needed more faith in his son. Or something. He's clearly bullshitting for Lance's vote, and it's not making sense. Sciona was surprised to learn about how such a diverse group of people were able to get along so well, but that she had to look hard to notice that.
I'm sorry, but did I miss the memo about the diversity? And did Mark Burnett, too? From an interview he gave to the Herald Sun in the lead-up to All-Stars (February 4th, 2004, for those playing along at home): "The producers did not think about having, say, an Aborigine, a Queensland farmer, perhaps a gay guy from Sydney and an Australian rules football star. [...] They should have celebrated all that is different about Australians." Okay, I might have missed the memo about the multiculturalism, but we actually DID have three of those four examples. Knob used to play for Hawthorn in the AFL, Bald Spice was a gay guy from Sydney, and we definitely had a cast-member who was part-Aboriginal: Craig. And that quote really makes you wonder if Burnett uses similar stereotypes to try and piece together a cast for his version, which would make sense given how we seem to get a bunch of recruited professional competitors all of a sudden (Gary in Guatemala, Jean-Robert and Frosti in China, Crystal in Gabon). Ugh. But moving on.
Commercials. Why the hell are they bothering to make a prequel to the Da Vinci Code movie?
It's dark all around Tribal Council, but not on the boat. Princess Jane wants to know what you'll do with the money if you win, and will you buy her this adoooorable dress she found in Port Lincoln? Sciona loves Leonardo Da Vinci, and wants to start a charity named after him, because Australia doesn't spend enough money on smart people. Never mind all the funding the CSIRO gets. And universities. And private schools. Knob claims she wants to get his mother-in-law out of Zimbabwe, because his wife is worried. Well, then maybe she should have auditioned instead. Look, I know about all the political trouble in Zimbabwe, but it's no excuse to be such a whiny, self-centered jerk. You will not be surprised to learn that Knob does not mention anything else he will do with the money, like maybe... making a documentary about, say, a football player like, oh, I don't know, Shane Crawford. Or anything like that.
After another fire shot, it's time for Sophie to ask. Which means that, just like NoMind was shown asking her question out of order in that challenge she won, everyone except Hatie asked their question in the order they were booted. Which makes no sense here, because wouldn't the editors try to put the jury speech we all want to see right at the very END, not near the beginning? Sophie's question is the same one someone always winds up asking: Why does the other person deserve to win? Lance looks impressed with this stock-standard question. Knob thinks that Sciona is very capable and smart, for someone so old. You will notice he makes no mention of her actual gameplay. Sciona thinks Knob always gave a lot of effort, and suffered when "some tribe members" (the editors cut to Hatie) felt "betrayed". But he was always able to separate the game from real life, HATIE.
Long Pole Joel is our final juror and his question is the lamest of all. Any regrets? Sciona says she's got none and she "came into this game, um, wanting to win it, determined to give everything I had, and [she's] done that". I think she might be counting her chickens before they hatch, there. Knob regrets not staying with his kid. Then he should have stayed with his kid. Get off my screen.
Link sits down on the voting keg pedestal, and tells them it's time to vote. So, no closing speech either. If it was almost any two other players, I'd say that was bad, but I'm just happy I don't have to recap Knob and Sciona talking any more. ["Until the reunion." -- SexySuntannedWhoreBoy] Long Pole Joel votes. Hatie votes. Sophie votes. Princess Jane daintily walks up the gangplank and votes, Lance jogs up and votes. Craig votes. NoMind votes. Hey, don't we normally see at least one of the votes? Instead, we have to watch Knob and Sciona look constipated. Link heads off to get the votes. Rather than do the Probstian explanation of "Wait Until We're Back Home, Suckers!", Link just walks up the Snuffee Gangplank.
We cut back to Crown (clap clap clap). Eddie tries to make it seem as though everybody was really harsh on Knob and Sciona, but really it was only Hatie who had anything even approaching "Not Boring" to say. Clap clap clap. The jury, where Princess Jane is clapping halfheartedly. Eddie explains that four votes is enough to win "one half a million dollars" [sic]. And the car, in case you had forgotten that Ford? Is A Sponsor.
Knob and Sciona are introduced. Clap clap clap. They both look ridiculously pleased with themselves. Eddie asks Sciona if she thinks she won. It's bad enough he didn't watch the twelve episodes before this, but at least pay attention to something that happened three minutes ago. Sciona recycles the tiddly winks line. The audience tries to find it funny. She thinks it's still anybody's game. Aside from the fourteen people voted out. And Link. And the crew. And everyone else who wasn't involved in the show at all. Knob is asked the same question. He doesn't. He says he "probably hurt some people", and the jury is shown. Hatie is not, strangely. Both of you, were you surprised that you were edited like such dickheads? Sciona didn't care how she came out; she just "went out there to have fun". Knob is confused by this strange concept Sciona calls "fun". Knob doesn't care either. Clap clap laugh. Eddie congratulates them both on being so ignorant. He orders the audience to clap clap clap.
Eddie mentions Link was the only other person who was out there for 39 days. As Link comes out with the voting keg, Eddie exposits that he has the voting keg. Just in case you thought he has the beer inside attached to a drip in his arm. Clap clap clap. Link smiles widely. He's wearing white pants. Dude, white pants do not work on guys. Eddie congratulates him on managing to walk all the way to the stage without falling over. Which, as you remember, Eddie couldn't even do, and he was sober. Supposedly. Link confirms that he doesn't know and doesn't want to know who won. Me neither. Can we call this show off now and not reward either of these two fuckers? Eddie tries to use the fact that they're in a casino to justify seeing the votes. How will that help you cheat at Blackjack or Roulette? Link reminds Eddie that he was down the other end of the "boat", and doesn't know who voted for whom. Neither do we. Eddie takes the chance to ask Link what he thought of Australian Survivor compared to the American version, and if ever you were going to find an Aussie who didn't think it was crap, this is it.
One video to go. Woo! ["Until the reunion." -- SexySuntannedWhoreBoy] ["Quit ruining my fun." -- LessSexySuntannedRaceguy]
Link implies that the friendships made on the American version are fake, and that tonight was really all about "that raw emotion of real relationships falling apart". In the form of death threats. Fun for all the family! You will notice that he does not specifically compare it to the American version, which is undoubtedly what Eddie wanted to know. Eddie points out it's time to count the votes, and reminds everyone of the stakes again. Then he says what we all knew was coming as soon as we heard he was hosting.
"Right after the break."
Link laughs. The audience clap clap claps.
Commercials. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Clap clap clap. It sounds like someone's trying to play music over the audience, but they're just clap clap clapping too damn loudly and fakely.
Link welcomes us back, and in eight words he's already proven he's more competent at hosting live television than Eddie. Link calls Australian Survivor "one of the toughest competitions ever held on Australian television". And aside from all those pesky American reality shows, and a couple of Aussie shows for much less money, he's right.
Four votes to win, remember?
Link asks who bothered to turn up to cheer for them. Knob has his wife, parents, and some assorted stragglers. Link sarcastically points out that Knob can't get votes from any of them, so he can stop pointing out whenever he's ready. Sciona has almost her whole family, including some from Houston, and fewer assorted stragglers. Her much more famous nephew is not present. Do you think you've done enough to win? Knob thinks he hasn't. Sciona is still trying to figure out why the jury voted for who they did.
Link confirms that the jury was told to vote for whomever "was most deserving, and played the better game." He goes to start reading the votes, but realises he forgot a crucial mention of the car, so reiterates the prizes. Fucking up the name of the car in the process. Hee. The barrel has been kept safe for six months, and nobody knows the outcome. Aside from, I assume, the editors, the producers, and whichever camera guy was manning the camera under that net during the final Tribal Council. But aside from that, nobody knows. Link reminds Knob and Sciona they want to see their name on the paper.
And it's finally time to read the damn vote. Clap clap clap. Knob and Sciona hold hands. First vote: Knob. Clap clap clap. Sciona. Clap clap clap. Knob. Sciona. Clap clap clap. Link is doing his best to read these slowly, without actually pausing to pretend the votes mean anything to him. It's really unnervingly funny. Rob. Clap clap clap. Two each. Link pauses to ask how the final two are feeling, and Knob whines about how tense he's pretending it is. Link provides perhaps the best quote of the entire season amidst all the clap clap clapping: "I learned from Eddie." I think Link is really underrated. He's like the male Ajay Rochester: very boring when reading from a script, very funny when he's not. Laugh laugh laugh. Knob mocks Link's shaky hands. Link says he's "nervous about this", but whether he's referring to reading the votes or to fucking up the product placement remains to be seen. Vote #5 is for Knob. As if you couldn't tell from the shot of his wife. Three for Knob, four for Sciona, four to win. "The winner... of Australian Survivor... is [Knob]!"
Crap. Crappity crap-crap crap-crap-crap. Clap clap clap.
Sciona hugs him and congratulates him. His family cheers. The jury applauds. Long Pole Joel couldn't look happier if he was full of Botox. As his family storms the stage for no reason, Knob gets a hug from Link. Link hugs his wife, as the camera cuts to a wide shot of Link hugging Sciona. What, no handshake? There's a whole bunch of hugging and applause (clap clap clap), and it's hard not to notice that NoMind looks pissed. HA! I am so over people pretending to be happy with the winner. Long Pole Joel hugs Knob. Then Hatie does. Knob's wife is still in the audience. Blunt metaphor alert! Eddie tells us that the reunion is after the break. Oh, great. Another hour.
We finally see how the jury voted. Long Pole Joel voted for Knob for being "the strongest player". He says Knob should be proud, which is a bit hypocritical coming from him, who was always going on about integrity. Hatie voted for Sciona. Boy, there's a shocker. She says it was because of her "survival skills", but we all know it was because She Was Not Knob. Sophie voted for Knob, calling him a "dirty rotten scoundrel", which makes the audience laugh. She has no hard feelings, clearly. Princess Jane voted for Knob, because he "saved [her] bottom a couple of times". Of course, she would have been safe the time she was actually voted out if it wasn't for him, but whatever. She says she got out at the right time, because she thinks she wouldn't have been able to deal with the endgame the way it happened. Which wouldn't have happened if Long Pole Joel was voted out instead of her. Craig voted for Sciona, because he thinks she's responsible for Tipara being so strong. Surprisingly, NoMind voted for Knob. Do you get the feeling he was nice to her out there, but she didn't like how much of a jerk he came across as on TV? She wants Knob to be able to get his mother-in-law to Australia. Lance voted for Knob, because his daughter reminded him about the whole "outwit, outplay, outlast" motto of the show. Which isn't even related to this version. But that doesn't matter.
Next: I pretend to care about the Reunion show.
Commercials. Hey, did you know I'm recapping The Amazing Race Asia next? You do now.
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