Chris Works Both Sides While Eliza Burns Yet Another Bridge

While TVgasm is trying to secure some seats for this weekends live finale of Survivor: Vanuatu, our Survivors were still on the island, rapidly pissing each other off in the waning days of their seclusion. Although the alliance of Chris, Scout, Twila, and Eliza had worked well for two weeks, it was really the classic marriage of convenience. Twila and Scout had never voted for Eliza, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t annoyed by her continue presence. Likewise, Eliza knew that Julie and Chris were the only ones left in camp that had actually voted for her at a tribal council, but they ended up being the two people Eliza trusted most in the game.Twila has been getting a testier every week, and the game really changed when she and Chris orchestrated Leann’s removal. Since that moment, she has been getting progressively more difficult to live with, but not especially so until you mention her son. Twila swore on her son that she was still with the Ami game plan. Now even though Ami didn’t believe Twila’s promise, she constantly reminded Twila that she broke that promise from the time Leann left right through the time Ami was voted out. You would assume that would have been the end of things, but Eliza, whose constant talking has been her greatest throughout her stay, decided to pick up where Ami left off and remind Twila what she had done.

Eliza has done well in this game, she hasn’t really been a power player, but she has made it through many tribal councils without getting voted off, which is all you can really do. She has also been one of the most easily manipulated players in the entire game, and has switched sides many times. Even though Ami wasn’t able to convince Eliza to vote out Scout, she did convince Eliza that she was her best friend in the game, and has always looked out for her. So, Eliza had to carry on Ami’s legacy, which in the final days was pissing off Twila. The problem is that Twila doesn’t take a lot of shit, so she completely flipped out when everybody got back from tribal council. And I’m not talking about some little Howard Dean flipout, I am talking full on hellfire and brimstone Al Sharpton style flipout.

There was at least a small chance that Eliza would have stuck with her four person plan, but when Twila started going off the deep end, Eliza started rethinking things. Twila’s episode was also the perfect opening for Julie to get herself back in the game. It wasn’t that difficult at all for her to get Eliza on board, but Eliza wasn’t going to do anything unless Julie was able to secure Chris’s vote. Eliza also said she wasn’t going to do any campaigning on her behalf. Chris and Julie always had a nice rapport, all she needed was some time alone with Chris away from Scout and Twila. If only there was a reward challenge that she could win and take Chris along with her. There is? Oh, Survivor, you are so very convenient.

Our very timely reward challenge is another staple of the Survivor world. Towards the end of the season, you always have to have some sort of “Greatest Hits” challenge. It was a successive series of events, and one survivor would be eliminated after each leg.The producers must have been counting on Ami to make it this far, because Eliza and Julie were lathered up pretty well after the first two events, which was the famous mud crawl from the first episode and the pig chase, also in the mud. Scout was eliminated in the first challenge, and Eliza proved that she still hasn’t mastered the art of grabbing a muddy pig. And what is it with Eliza? She is now about 95 pounds it seems, but her boobs aren’t getting any smaller. Sure she is young, and they should be firm, but they may be a little too well-shaped and perky. I smell implants.

The next challenge was our Ikea portion of the show, with Chris, Twila, and Julie racing to untie a tiki puzzle and put it back together again. Chris has played himself into perhaps the best position of anybody left on the show, but damn was he a dumbass today. He quickly put his puzzle together, but there was something wrong, and he couldn’t figure out what it was. After Twila and Julie finished, Jeff made it a point to point out to Chris that he failed to notice he was missing a piece, and it was only feet away. Mark Burnett LOVES the missing puzzle piece in the background close-up shot even more than he loves the teams are only a few steps apart wide angle.

That left only Julie and Twila for the final step, which had them climb a ladder, cross a balance beam (which was about twice the width of any balance been used up until that point) and then shoot a few ceramic plates, which leads to the inevitable bucket of fire that rises and declares the winner. Julie ended up beating Twila, who hurt her ankle coming down from the balance beam. Whoa, that means that Julie has a chance to take Chris to wherever their reward challenge is and have a little quality time with him. The conspiracy theory in me says that it was just a little too convenient, but the evidence on screen tells me something else. Julie knew exactly where she was in the game, she had to win, and cam through in the clutch.

Julie of course picked Chris, and the two were whisked away to a….volcano! But this isn’t any dormant volcano like Julie and Leann were frolicking around, this volcano was very active. I wonder if the Vanuatu islands are known for their volcanos, CBS hasn’t been hitting that point home enough. Chris and Julie, along with their guide, used some horses to climb up Mount Yasur and were continually commenting at how beautiful and barren the terrain was, and how special the trip was because they would never get a chance to be so close to an active volcano. Uhh, Chris, there are volcanos on every single continent of the planet, although I can’t be sure of Antarctica. Africa? Try Kilimanjaro. Europe? Try Vesuvius. And if you don’t want to experience so much jet lag, try Mt. Saint Helens right in the in the good old US of A.

The meal consisted of beer and hot dogs, which were cooked using the steam vents inside the volcano itself. I was wondering if the hot dogs were made with corn or tofu or something, because they had this old pasty color. But the food didn’t really matter. First, it doesn’t look like that many people are starving, and second, Julie really wanted the chance to scheme with Chris. She ran her idea about the voting out Twila past Chris, and he seemed intent on at least hearing her through her proposal. As I said before, Chris has been non committal, but has positioned himself in a perfect place to take the game in the direction that he sees is best. With the plan out in the open, the two were able to enjoy their time watching the lava as some of it billlowed from the side o the mountaing. The camera angle made it look like they were close up, but considering all of the heat and fumes would probably end up killing the. Bside also noticed that the magma seemed immune to the CBS night shot filter. Verdict, more camera trickery than anything else.

Chris and Julie returned to camp nice and rested, and whatever pretense we had about Eliza sticking with her old alliance of the day was further stomped into the ground. Giving up over twenty years of age to Twila and Scout, they pretty much just made fun of her, and started a banana scandal that was the craziest thing this side of the Kel beef jerky episode. Twila hid some bananas in the ground, and Eliza wanted some. Eliza wanted to know where they were, but Twila said she was waiting for them to get ripe. She then said that if Eliza wasn’t quiet, she would let the bananas rot in the ground. A very mature display, but one well worth the price of seeing Eliza throw a fit.

Right away Chris hugged Twila and told her everything was solid as a rock. Reality contestants have now gone on to use solid and rock solid whenever they choose to show that a plan is going well. This will eventually progress until people are saying things are rock steady, and solid gold. It’s some sort of lingo that I guess us civilians will never understand. Eliza went to Chris and then Twila went to Chris, and each time he saw a woman, he told them that he is 100% behind their plan, but with the immunity challenge still up in the air, who knows what is going to happen.

The immunity challenge was quite boring. Jeff read a story about an ancient Vanuatu chief and how he got buried alive with some of his closest friends and their wives. The challenge involved running around to several huts, completing a puzzle that would give them a question about Jeff’s little tale, and they had to answer that question. If they got the question correct, they got a tusk to put on a necklace. The first person with to go to the various huts and come back with five tusks was the winner. All this running around meant that Scout was out of the running and all of the reading meant Twila wouldn’t come out on top. With the way Chris was talking, everybody needed immunity, and Chris knew that the girls could be playing him, so he was working hard as well. Eliza ended up winning, and was given a little assist by Twila. As Julie went to answer her last question, Twila was coming out of the hut. Twila remembered that she hadn’t put the puzzle back, so she went back scrambled the pieces. That time delay was enough to ensure Eliza an easy victory.

Now we know that Eliza wasn’t going to go home, and that it was going to come down to who Chris thought should go. While he was talking to Julie, he said it was a matter of which friendship in the game was the strongest. Chris told Julie that they have always been closer than he was with Twila and it was no question. To make things more interesting, he continued to tell both sides that there was no chance he was going to vote for the other. Although Chris told Julie that his relationship with her was more important, it was essentially Twila that put him in the position of where he is. When it comes down to it, saving Twila gives him the best chance of making it to the final two, because on the last day, it is much easier to go up against Scout and Twila in the endurance challenge than it is to go up against Julie and Eliza.

At tribal council, Chris voted to send Julie home. Eliza was shocked at the outcome, and now knows her days are numbered unless she continues to win immunity. Julie played well, but she was never able to get in a leadership position towards the end. Still, we hope to see her around Los Angeles. I’d like to see some of her tattoos.