-
TV Social
Login
Recent Comments
- itchy: I’m putting on my prediction hat and going to call it right now:...
- itchy: Could be worse, you know. I could have given you a vision of me wearing tighty whities.
- LadyStardust: What the heck was up with Johnny crying at the end with...
- kennyballerina: I’ve definately experienced situations like the...
- LadyStardust: @brebay – ooohh, thanks!!
- Chicken Lips: So I’m confused (it isn’t hard to do sometimes)...
- Hatched One: Oops – meant comment #81. Hey, it’s 12:39 am here.
- Hatched One: @snowshoecat #80: I can use all the help I can get!! Besides, where else can I get this high-quality...
- unwise: You can see part of the hip roll guys boner in that picture. It’s cropped so I guess...
- Tracy: It’s just that I can’t stand that sound–you know that sucking sound that emanates from the...
Hot Shows
-
Fresh Tweets!
- Cyrus Beene is my favorite magical sparkle bunny #Scandal goo.gl/83Grt @ScandalABC @jscandalp @georgenewbern @Miss_Jess03 1 hour ago
- Nia is a trash bag full of crab-ridden c words. #RealWorld Recap @mtv goo.gl/VFTeG 16 hours ago
- Can't take my eyes off you, indeed. #LazarosPackage #AmericanIdol Recap goo.gl/bakRA 1 day ago
- @timmonslisa love to the timms! 1 day ago
- RT @timmonslisa: #FF @sequentcreative @tvgasm @chris_lala @stoopidhsewives @cynjok @crankyashley @C_Copka @H_Outsider @bbwraven @RealityRed… 1 day ago
- "The power of hotness should never be underestimated." #OUAT Recap goo.gl/R26pa @abc @Onceabc @ginnygoodwin 1 day ago
- "How can we miss you if you won't go away?" #DanceMoms Recap goo.gl/rmWvX @DanceMoms @LifetimeTV 1 day ago
- one city. two days. seven strip shows. happy mary, happy me. #sytycd recap goo.gl/uIb7O 1 day ago
- Ingo is the personification of plain oatmeal. #DWTS Recap goo.gl/wLxym 1 day ago
- VIDEO: Amanda's Audition Tape: Hell's Kitchen goo.gl/ILMIQ Amanda takes on the man! @HellsKitchenFOX @amandaohly @betette 1 day ago
- The one time a bedroom will not be featuring tittays on this show. #top10tv goo.gl/Sa7j6 #gameofthrones @hbo @gameofthrones 2 days ago
- Finale - Part 2. Deep breath, we'll all get through this together! #Revenge Recap goo.gl/X7LMh 2 days ago
- Where there's smoke, there's farts. #AmericanIdol Recap goo.gl/jk7CC 2 days ago
- Kim sobs like they pulled McRib from the menu. #DontBeTardy Recap #url @BravoTV @KimZolciak 2 days ago
- Andre looks like we just showed him how Honey Boo Boo's Mama washes her ass. #BadGirlsClub Recap goo.gl/rbzeX @oxygen 2 days ago
- Weird Al reference: It had to happen sooner or later. #BreakingAmish Recap goo.gl/LMS7T 2 days ago
- Guest @thesunah Bilsted kicks some ass in a BS Gossip Rant! tvgasm.com/home/kanye-cra… @JudithShelton @maryforrest @dyalacki 2 days ago
- "Where is a face-slapping hooker when you need one?" #Mad Men Recap goo.gl/k4yzW @MadMen_AMC @AMC_TV 2 days ago
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
9:59 pm
34 Comments
Gee, I wonder what’s going to happen?Final Immunity Challenge! I was going to make a whole bunch of Princess Bride comparisons, but Dalton Ross has beat me to it. That sort of…sucks, but that’s what I get for trying to go all George Lucas with the trilogies. The setup is not elaborate, but it is pretty awesome. There are four identical platforms which are tilted at thirty-five degrees toward a pool of water. The four survivors will get up onto the platforms and hang onto them. Every five minutes, Probst will increase the angle by five degrees, progressively dumping the Survivors into the water (and simultaneously wishing that Jonny Fairplay were there for him to carry out his sadistic fantasies, instead of four sort of nice people). The last person hanging wins immunity. This is where Probst tells them that the Final 3 will face the jury. Oh, and there is also a Chinese water torture element to the whole thing, because some barrels will be dumping water slowly onto their persons and making the platform slippery throughout the whole challenge, because you know who would win this? Jack Bauer.
The challenge begins. Cassandra doesn’t fall until around fifteen minutes, and I put her over/under at five, so good for her. Also, the whole thing looks extremely painful and tense, so kudos to the designers, and also I’m not sure I would have lasted that long. Oh, and every time Jeff increases the angle, you can tell that he is really enjoying it. If he had a handlebar moustache, he would be twirling it.
After another ten minutes the other three are still hanging and in intense pain. Earl grunts, and some caption guy translates it as “my wrists”, but unless Earl speaks that language that Jabba the Hut speaks, I’m doubting it. They all look like they are being tortured. Which they kind of are, because Jeff will not stop talking. At least be like, “WHERE ARE THE DOCUMENTS?” to add to the atmosphere instead of tossing everything you can think of out into the air, Dreamz version of Jeff.
Earl falls next. Dreamz shoots a look at Yau-man, and he looks so evil, like he’s hiding something. This is where I started to think that Dreamz was going to screw over Yau-man. That look. Also, why not just fall so you’re not faced with the choice? Because you’re full of shit and have been spewing moralistic crap in the confessionals, when what you really want is the money.
Yau-man, of course, falls. Sigh. Dreamz wins immunity.
Back at camp, everyone but Dreamz has a discussion about the fact that they think he’ll follow through on his end of the deal, after which they will vote him out. Dreamz comes over to them and sits down with a look of trepidation on his face. Yau-man, sensing this: “Hey, Dreamz? If you change your mind, can you at least not vote me?”
No! Don’t give him the out by offering an alternative means! Press his ass and make his one track mind think that he will go to hell if he doesn’t! Bad move, Yau-man. Dreamz tries to be coy and ask Yau-man why he thinks Dreamz would ever change his mind. Oh, I don’t know, because you are a zombie freak who operates largely on whim?
Yau-man interviews next to the immunity necklace about how nervous he is about Dreamz. Welcome to the club. Population: me. Also, you owe back dues for the last thirty-eight days. Way to join the party late. There are no more scones, but there’s definitely plenty of Jack Daniels.
Dreamz tells Cassandra and Earl how hard it is going to be to give up a million dollars. He doesn’t talk about how hard it is to give up an OPPORTUNITY at a million dollars, he’s talking about the money itself. What I’m saying is, he thinks he’s seriously, actually going to win. That’s not a joke, even. Well, it is, but not in the way we’re all thinking.
Earl tells Dreamz that he think he’ll do the right thing. And, get this: Dreamz explicitly refers to keeping the necklace as “the wrong thing” and tells Earl and Cassandra that if he does that, they’d better vote for Yau. So, later when he tells you that his whole plan was to manipulate Yau-man, and that the right thing for him was to go after the money, for his kids? You can do a little Control F on this paragraph right here, in which he is full of shit for not the first time. I’ll even put a rarely-used word here so that you can come right to it. Amalgamation. There. Search for that.
Dreamz interviews that the benefit to giving the immunity necklace up is the opportunity to show everyone that he is who he’s been saying he is for this entire time. To him, it means “I am noble, I am a truth-teller, I am…Dreamz.” So, one-third of that sentence is right, which is on par with everything else he’s said all season. Plus, he refers to himself in the third person, and you know what that means? Dead to me. I mean, if he wasn’t already.
Tribal Council! Probst spends eight hundred thousand minutes drilling Dreamz about his decision making process. In case you are curious, it is not an easy choice to make. Also, Dreamz basically affirms my hypotheses regarding his inability to think beyond what is occurring right at the moment in which he exists by being like, “Well, at the time, I wanted the truck. Now I want the money. Later, I may want a sourdough melt.”
Probst asks Yau-man whether he did any work to make sure that Dreamz kept his side of the deal. Yau-man, already knowing that he is royally screwed, looks at Jeff. “Whatev. Can we get to this, please? Your questions bore me.”
Jeff asks Yau-man what his gut feeling is about whether Dreamz will keep the deal when it comes time, and Yau-man tells Jeff that he thinks Dreamz will do that, because saying no gives Dreamz license to keep it for himself, even if Yau-man already knows what’s going to happen. Which he does. Jeff gives Yau one last opportunity to talk to Dreamz, and basically Yau-man tells him that whatever he does, he’s going to have to live with it. Well, that, or (as he will later do) rationalize it by painting a revisionist picture in which he expects everyone to believe that he is a better strategist than YAU-MAN, of all people.
He will, of course, not be giving up the necklace. He looks very distraught about all of it.
You know, out of the great tapestry of frustration that Dreamz has woven for me over the course of this season, this is what irks me the most. I don’t blame him for wanting to keep the necklace. I think it was a good move on his part that ended up keeping him in the game. He’s got a family to take care of, taxes to pay on a car. Good call by Dreamz. However, what I do blame him for is the fact that he doesn’t own it. You can tell that Dreamz himself honestly thought he was going to be giving away the necklace until about five minutes before he kept it. He told us that he was planning on giving it way, to keep his honor. So please Dreamz, just tell us that you decided to keep it for yourself, and that you honestly thought you were going to eject yourself from the game to keep your integrity, but that at the last minute you changed your mind, because you wanted the money, and you’re okay with that. This, of course, did not happen. Instead, he decided to try to fool everyone and talk about how he was planning on doing all of this the whole time, and how he wanted the car AND the money, and aren’t you all dumb for believing him. That is some bullshit, right there. You can’t spend a large part of the episode (or of the entire season) talking about what a good person you are and how terrible everybody else is and how much better and moral you are then them, and then in the last five seconds of the season pretend to be the second coming of Richard Hatch. Your hand is in the cookie jar, dude, and you have crumbs around your mouth. Don’t tell us all about your elaborate plan to blame it on your little brother. That’s insulting to all of us.
God, so repulsive to think about. Moving on.
So, time to vote. Guess what? Three votes for Yau-man, one for Cassandra, so Yau-man is out. It’s…actually sort of understandable, except for all the stuff I’ve already said. Yau-man gets snuffed; in his final words, he is predictably gracious about things and is surprised that Earl did not try to force the tie so that he had a shot against Cassandra. Well, it’s probably because you would have whipped her ass at a fire building contest and Earl doesn’t want you around winning the million dollars that is now his, but it could be anything.
Bye, Yau-man. You were really cool. I hope you’ve officially taken over the “most popular Survivor ever” title from Rupert, because I cannot stand that guy.
Back at camp, we get out last Tribal Council night vision of the season. All three of the remaining contestants worry about the jury ripping them up for their actions. Is she worried that she wasn’t positive enough? I don’t get it.
Dreamz talks all about how he had to screw over Yau-man, and how he had no choice and has no regrets. He also says he planned it out “step by step”. Like the step where he voted for Mookie when everyone else voted out Ed, or the other step where he tried to vote out Yau-man but was completely unsuccessful, or when he straight up told Cassandra that “every plan he’s tried hasn’t worked.” Dude, just admit that you fumbled your way to the end! God.
Morning of Day 39. It’s the last day! The three castaways go trudging up the hill to get their last bit of treemail. It looks like the Bataan Death March; they look both worn out and pissed that some producer asshole who has been eating for the last month is telling them what to do, again. Of course, when they see that there’s a setup for a feast, their eyes light up like it’s Christmas morning and they go barreling toward it. The clue tells that that a plane will be dropping the food for them. Bring on the superfluous plane!
The three of them make an X on the beach for the plane. The plane, of course, flies past it completely and drops the food in the water, where it was told to drop it. Cassandra looks put out. Dreamz looks confused. (Surprise!) Earl sighs, shakes his head, and goes to get the box, because he knows Cassandra will take eight years to get it, and Dreamz will worry that they have to let whatever’s inside free so that it can get some air. Also, how the hell are they going to open a box without Yau-man there to do it for them?
There’s a huge breakfast setup, which they proceed to enjoy while talking about how proud of themselves they are for having made it so far. Oh, and Dreamz was homeless.
Earl looks around the camp, surveying his kingdom. You can tell he’s really, really tired of staring at the same crap for 39 days. Know how? Because he wants to burn everything. He tells us about how he’s planning on burning those palm fronds that he’s been sleeping on over there. (Dreamz: “Burn!”) That log? It’s gonna burn. (Dreamz: “Burn.”) Even that case that just got here this morning, with the foot in it. It’s gotta burn. (Dreamz: “Burn.”) That immediately reminded me of Astronaut Jones. (Why don’t you jump out that space suit and show me that fatass?)
Earl (seeing his opportunity): “It’s a fire sale!” Oh man, that is awesome, because the only thing that could make Earl cooler than he already is would be for him to be an Arrested Development fan, too.
Cassandra hands Earl a pair of underwear that belongs to an unknown person. Earl says that that’s “really gotta burn”. Dreamz, a half hour later: “Burn.”
Dreamz tells us again how proud of himself he is, and how he feels like he’s standing next to Oprah. Well dude, I hate to break it to you, but if you had taken a dive in the name of your integrity? You probably would have been. And she would have given you stuff. But enjoy the truck, and the zero votes you are about to receive. It’s a great consolation prize.
Final Tribal Council! Opening statements. Earl says that he plaed an honest, clean game (I think this was actually supposed to be a subtle shot at Dreamz), and got to the end by putting himself in right position so he didn’t have to sacrifice his integrity. Largely true. He asks for them to vote the respect vote, not the sympathy or underdog vote. Boy, he’s really got Cassandra and Dreamz numbers, doesn’t he?
Cassandra talks about how she has never waivered, be loyal to the people that were loyal to her, and tried to stay positive. Also true. You will be shocked to hear that she hopes everyone can be friends afterwards.
Dreamz opens with his life story. Homelessness is a strategy, apparently. He hopes their votes count and helps him to help other people. So, no argument about how you played the game? No attempt to win the million, other than a plea for sympathy money? Wow, Boo was totally wrong about this part.
And now: the jury questioning. Get ready for the parade of assholes, people. They’re twirling batons this year. And throwing candy. But the crappy candy, those peanut butter things that come in the orange and black wrapping that you used to hate getting every Halloween.
Michelle is going first. (She’s not part of the parade, by the way. She accidentally drove into the middle of it, and now she’s smiling and waving at everyone.) By the way, she looks really attractive here. Call me, Michelle! She wants each of them to tell her what the biggest hardship they faced and overcame was; she words the question like she wants a concrete answer, not some elaboration on strategy. Dreamz tells her that sleeping in the dirt and starving was no big deal, because he grew up having to do that. Not that he wants your sympathy, or for you to be aware that he was homeless when you vote, as he mentioned earlier. This, of course, does not mean that he won’t be mentioning it every five seconds from this point forward. He’s just saying, he doesn’t want you to have any sympathy for him. Right before you vote.
As he said, the hard part for Dreamz wasn’t the food, but the water, because when he was homeless (Has he mentioned that he was homeless? Because: He was homeless.) there was always water from hoses or whatever. The hard part was having no water, and then having to do challenges. That’s probably true, and would be the hardest thing for me to deal with. Cassandra tells Michelle that the hardest thing for her was to overcome her inability to swim. She doesn’t give the real answer, which was that she spent 39 days coexisting with Dreamz with no break whatsoever, with him breathing town her neck all “Let’s get rid of Boo! No, let’s get rid of Alex! Wait, who is closest in proximity to me? That is the only qualifier! Boot Mookie! No, Rich! Can we get rid of Rich? Is Boston Rob on this island somewhere? Let’s get rid of him! And then Amber! I’m always confused! I feel funny! My head hurts!”.
Michelle moves on to Earl, and when she says his name, she busts out this huge, excited smile, and you can tell right there that she’s going to vote for him. It doesn’t matter what Earl says. Irrelevant! Anyway, bye Michelle!
Edgardo is next. His question is for Earl. How did Earl find out who had the immunity idol from their alliance? Earl waits the perfect amount of time, smirks a little, and then just says “Dreamz.” Dreamz sits to Earl’s left and looks busted. What’s a zombie to do? That’s it for Ed, who returns to his seat. All he needs to know! Ha. I found that to be sort of petty and self-centered, but also weirdly awesome, in a way. Like, he’s at least open about the fact that he’s going to base his vote on personal issues, instead of cloaking it in a veil of morality and abject, bald-faced hypocrisy like the rest of these people are about to do.
Mookie is up next. He smiles like he’s about to totally burn these people. As many people on these shows who smile like this do (Mirna) (Lex) (Judd), he’s clearly actually about to make a fool of himself instead, and then be really proud about it later. (Speaking of which, if you have not read the TV Guide interview with Mirna in which she says, with total seriousness, that she suspected that the Beauty Queens were prostituting themselves for money because they always had it when no one else did, you should check it out. It will cement your hatred of her forever, even if you don’t like the BQs. She also says in the same interview that she was put on the race “to provide comedy” because she’s “pee your pants hilarious”. I’ll let that speak for itself.) Mookie asks Dreamz whether he told anyone about their immunity idol. Dreamz says yes. Mookie asks him if he would consider that a betrayal. Dreamz’ response: “No. It’s lying.” Oh, that makes perfect sense! Way to make me side with Mookie, jackass. Great. Now I need a shower.
Mookie pushes him some more. “Really? You don’t consider giving away the biggest secret of an alliance of which you were a part to be betrayal?” Dreamz: “Well, that might be the way YOU see it, but to me, it’s just a lie, just a con, just a deceit, it’s just a…” and then he trails off, because the next word in that syntactic soup of synonyms would be: BETRAYAL. Way to think on your feet! Quick, tell him you were homeless! It’ll throw him off the scent!
Also, you will be surprised to know that issues of semantics elude Dreamz. His whole game has just been so crude, you know? Flying by the seat of his pants, acting according to his whim without thinking about the long term implications (see also: the truck), and fumbling his way through to the Final 3. It’s a bit late to argue the finer points of your “betrayal” versus “a lie” there, buddy, because there are no finer points. That equation, from where I am sitting, equals zero and therefore Does Not Exist. You’ve already demonstrated through your words and actions that your grasp on that particular portion of the game (which would be, you know, THE WHOLE THING) is tenuous at best. Mookie then squanders all the high ground he just built by offering a word of advice. I hate when people offer “words of advice” because if you have not asked someone for advice, and they give it to you, it’s usually not advice, but a tactic to allow them to gain the moral high ground. Mookie would like everyone to know that tonight is not the time to lie. He clearly thought that this was going to be his shining moment. Dreamz rolls his eyes. Word, Dreamz. (Wait, what?) Mookie, a word of advice: SIT. DOWN.
Alex. Sigh. I guess I have to write about this. He immediately takes a crossed-arm stance. First, he asks Cassandra to describe a moment in which she “grappled the most with maintaining her integrity”. Cassandra mentions a time during the beginning of the game when she walked into a conversation between Alex and Boo involving Cassandra herself, and she had to decide whether to listen or to walk away. Alex gets all pointy and tells Cassandra that one of two things are going on. Either (one) she’s lying, and that was not, “in fact”, her biggest struggle, or (two) she cared very little about taking Stacy, “pretending” to like her, and then dumping her when it suited Cassandra to do so. Alex is basically saying that Cassandra took advantage of Stacy for her own personal gain. Solid, considering that’s THE WHOLE POINT of this game.
Anyway, there are three issues with this statement. One: Cassandra sort of, you know, didn’t vote Stacy out. Two: Just what the fuck was Alex planning on doing with Stacy if she had stayed with him instead? Didn’t he tell everyone he was planning on ditching her at five to go to the end with the Four Horsemen? Apparently he was planning on going to the end with her, and then throwing himself under the bus so that she could have the money, because he loves her just that much that he needs to protect her honor in the face of Cassandra, of all people? Hate.
And, most importantly, Three: Alex, before he asks this question, has already decided what he considers the answer to be (since Cassandra didn’t mention Stacy in her response), and has therefore rehearsed this entire thing and, as a result, has cemented his status as this seasons Biggest Asshole on that merit alone. Seriously, he gets to decide what Cassandra’s biggest struggle was when he was never ONCE aligned with her, spent his entire game on the side opposite to hers, and then towards the end when he was doomed, she was the only one who was nice to him when he was ostrasized? Shut up, Alex’s faux moral outrage.
So, Alex says all this, and invites Cassandra to respond. Cassandra begins logically responding with the point that she didn’t vote out Stacy, Yau-man and Earl did, so maybe he’s asking the wrong person this question and he should shut up right now, but Alex cuts her off quite rudely, because that’s the way this went when he rehearsed it in his head. “I get to talk.” he says, after just asking her a question. So what, it was rhetorical? He starts ordering her around, and demanding that she shut up, when he just asked her a question not two minutes ago. When Cassandra (quite correctly) ignores him, he asks if he needs to say it in Spanish and asks Edgardo to translate so that she will understand. Because Cassandra’s Hispanic? I don’t get it. He’s so proud of this line, you can tell. It’s almost written on his hand it’s so rehearsed. And you just know he sat around in the Loser Lodge with Ed and came up with it after hours of brainstorming, after which they laughed to each other about how clever it was and then high-fived a bunch, referencing Scarface and whatnot. Sort of like that conversation he had with Mookie.
Man, it takes a lot do make yourself look the worst in a season which contains both Lisi and Rocky, but congratulations for getting that done.
Alex moves on to Dreamz, and he says, without irony, “riddle me this”. Thanks, Adam West! You think when someone inevitably punches him in the face, one of those giant “POW” cartoon bubbles will appear? I sure hope so. Alex says something to Dreamz about how since he professes to be a role model for kids, why would lying and cheating be a good path for him to follow as an example for the kids that “you and I” (me, from the couch: “snort”) are trying to help? So, acting like a pompous shit-stirring douche with little to no logical basis for acting as such when given a public forum is also an adequate demonstration of leading by example? Just checking.
Dreamz tells Alex (and this is the only time I’m going to agree with Dreamz, so watch carefully) that Survivor isn’t like the real world, because the whole idea behind the game is to lie and cheat your way to the top, so there’s nothing that’s not acceptable. In the real world, that is not the case. True. Alex moves on, because this is a rare show of logic from Dreamz, and he’s already totally faced Cassandra, OMG, everybody’s so going to be talking about what a badass he is when this airs. Alex: “Well, I would wish you luck, but unlike you I’m a man of my word, so I don’t wish you any luck at all.” And then he makes Stacy’s bitchface. Oh, BURN! You guys, he is so awesome. If you ever see him on the street, be sure to show him your boobs or something.
Honestly, did he read that insult off of the desk in a fourth grade classroom? He is nowhere near as smart as he believes himself to be.
Moving on, FINALLY. Oh, but it’s to Lisi. She has also clearly rehearsed this entire thing. She starts with a little game of “eenie meenie” but with the words changed to talk about lying and karma and all of the things about which she has no concept. After she’s done, she asks to see Cassandra’s water shoes. Cassandra obliges with a most excellent WTF face, and Lisi proceeds to insult her shoes, calling them the worst looking water shoes that she’s ever seen. This, apparently, tells her that Cassandra was completely unprepared to play the game. Would Cassandra agree with that? As a general rule, when searching for a metaphor, please do not start with conservatively designed, functionally suitable footwear.
Cassandra says that no, she does not agree with that, because it’s sort of the last day, and given how her and her water shoes are still around and Lisi’s on the jury still digging dirt out of her nostrils from that time when she fell on her face, she thinks her shoes are just fine, thanks. I don’t get any of this. Are they white and is it after Memorial Day? Because if not, I’m lost.
Cassandra, awesomely: “I don’t see the relevance in the question.” Wow, that one sentence was a better insult than Alex’s entire diatribe. Lisi tries to clarify that she brought up the shoes because they are a metaphor for greed or something. Various WTF faces follow: Probst, Yau-man, Earl. She asks Cassandra to agree with the fact that water shoes = greed. Are they Prada water shoes? I need more details.
Cassandra is like, “Well, we’re sort of all here for the million dollars, so it’s not a greed thing, it’s a We’re On The Same Show, so Shut Up thing. What, are you here to enjoy the company of Rocky?” Lisi takes this as vindication and starts throwing her hands in the air like “I’m RIGHT!” and you can see immediately that she’s wearing a Kabbalah Bracelet, as if you needed any more indication that she is a giant poseur.
She moves onto Dreamz; she asks him how many zeroes are in a million dollars, seeking yet again to make him feel dumber than she is, which is so despicable. He’s like, “Well, six. Could you make it a little less obvious that you’re trying to make me feel dumb?” I’d feel a lot worse about the whole classist aspect of this if Dreamz wasn’t basically attempting to do the same thing (with the same degree of success) to the eighteen million people who watch this show every week. Quick, ask me how many zeroes are in a million dollars! Now ask me whether I buy Dreamz’ story that he was playing Yau-man all along, and his confused stares and tenuous grasp on reality was actually all a ruse to net him both a car and the money!
But props for confusing Lisi, anyway, who asks him to repeat it because she thinks it’s the wrong answer, but she catches herself at the last minute. You can see it in her head: “Oh! SEVEN figures, but SIX zeroes. Math is so tricky.” As I’m sure you are aware, I don’t like Dreamz at all, but no one deserves this, especially not from Lisi, you know? Well, maybe Alex.
Lisi then asks Earl why he put on such a big show yesterday after Yau got voted out, when he voted for Yau in the first place. Earl: “Well, because I was counting the zeroes in the one million dollar check that was written out to ME, right there in that instant. The look of surprise was actually an expression of imminent success. You don’t have my check, do you?”
Stacy’s next. She says that the only difference she sees between Earl and Dreamz is that Earl is a little bit more sophisticated. Well, that and the use of a logic-based decision making process. Since Earl is better off in the real world than Dreamz is, Stacy would like to know whether she should base her vote on need or not. The correct answer, which Earl gives, is that it’s a million dollars, so it will change anyone’s life; he shouldn’t be disadvantaged because he has a job and a car. The show is not called The Great Big Affirmative Action Hour with Jeff Probst. Again, not to crap on Dreamz’ struggle, but he got the amount of votes that he deserved for the game that he played, as I’ve already stated.
Rocky is up next. He has been talking to Nate, because he would like everyone to say why they are “the biggest kicker”, meaning that he wants to know what makes each of them the best at the game. Wait, a game related question? From ROCKY? Surprise, everyone!
Cassandra says that she is the biggest “kicker” because she listened to everyone when they needed to talk and that she could then provide some good feedback. Rocky cuts her off because he thinks that this is not an appropriate answer. But, here’s the thing: it’s actually a great answer. Cassandra played a really good game because she was an excellent active listener. She kept her ear to the ground, listened to what was going on, and made a choice based on the information that she had, which was often more than anyone else had. She made moves when she needed to, she didn’t follow the crowd, and she managed to wrangle Dreamz the entire time and keep him in line with her. She wasn’t a follower because she made her own choices on several occasions, including the decision to try to get Yau-man out at six. People think that she didn’t do anything because she sucked at the challenges, but I am telling you, she was a ninja. Juries don’t tend to respect that kind of game, so someone who plays like her never wins unless the jury really hates all the other options. I’m not saying Earl didn’t deserve his win, because I think he did, but I also think that Cassandra hasn’t gotten nearly enough credit for doing the amazingly cool subtle things that she did.
So, Rocky gives her another chance to answer, and when she repeats her whole thing he cuts her off. He moves on to Dreamz, who tells Rocky that he deserves the money because he made sure that every time he was on the chopping block he transferred the attention to someone else and that’s how he avoided elimination. He also says that he manipulated Yau-man. Wrong! Also, a poor choice if he wants votes, given how defensive everyone’s been about him so far. Hanging around picking your nose and telling everyone all about your day in a giant run on sentence until all the adults were done talking and had made a choice about who to vote out does not count as “strategy”. Half the time, they told you the wrong name anyway, because they thought you would tattle on them. Rocky commends him for his direct (untrue) answer, because the real answer is that he got to the end by being a mindless, information spewing automaton for thirty-six days, and then doing something that he originally wasn’t planning on doing in the first place and equivocating about it.
Earl tells Rocky that he’s the best because he never even got a vote; he made a lot of strategic decisions, and that’s how he got to the end. True! Rocky thanks him and sits down, coming off (overall) considerably better than I would have expected him to.
Boo. First he gives propers to Yau. Boo basically wants to know whether Dreamz intended on keeping the deal when he first made it, or whether he was planning to break it the entire time. He wants Dreamz’ “Christian answer” and he keeps heaving religion all over the place. And as I have said, with his accent, he sounds almost uncannily like the God Warrior.
Dreamz, of course, equivocates and can’t give a yes or no answer. He talks all about how close he is with everyone, wonders why the Earth rotates around the sun as it does, predicts the outcome of next year’s World Series, asks questions about the Dharma Initiative, starts handing out Schrute bucks all over the place. He just talks and talks and talks in hopes that everyone will forget that he has no idea what he’s doing, ever, at any point, including the moment in which we all exist, right now. Boo keeps harassing him to answer the question, but since Dreamz doesn’t know the answer (Seriously, he doesn’t. Think about that momentarily. Are you not scared shitless?) there’s nothing you can do. The two are trapped in the historic Supreme Court battle of Dreamz v. Logic, Reason et al., a battle that has been fought and appealed on numerous occasions throughout the season and to which no definitive outcome has been (or ever will be) decided.
Then Boo says something about Christians not being for sale, but tell that to all those ancient Roman lions. Zing!
Yau-man is next. He says that he can admit when he’s made a mistake, and then he proceeds to blame himself for his own elimination (bringing the total number of jurors with some perspective re: that particular issue to ONE), and then tells Dreamz to enjoy the truck and not to feel guilty about having it. Dreamz thanks Yau-man because he was never intending on giving back the truck in the first place. Yau-man then tells Dreamz that he’s going to give him the chance to “have the gonads” to tell everyone why he changed his mind about the truck. Dreamz literally says the following words: “Yau-man, I did not change my mind.”
Marinate on that shit for a moment. How do you argue with someone so divorced from reality like this? He actually thinks that this is the case. He has convinced himself that he did not lie.
You guys, the call is coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE.
He is the most terrifying thing in the history of mankind. That is all.
Dreamz means to convey that he never had any intention of honoring the deal (Lies!) and that he’s sorry he had to pull one over on Yau-man like that. Yau-man clarifies, because Dreamz has said it in his usual wishy-washy garbled random-speak, like he’s Beaker from the Muppets. Then, fucking get this: Dreamz tells Yau-man that he should have remembered that it was a game, and he is so condescending about it that my face turns a new color which, last I checked, is not found on our modern color wheel. I was so angry that light refracted off of my face in a heretofore undiscovered way.
Yau-man smiles, because Dreamz is super-transparent at all times and Yau knows he is full of shit. “So, you’re not going to admit that you changed your mind?” Dreamz sticks to the theory that he was never planning on honoring the deal. Seriously, I cannot believe that he expects us all to buy this “Dreamz is an evil mastermind” theory after we’ve seen him say what he does in confessionals. I know I’ve already talked about it, but: damn, yo.
Dreamz apologizes for having to be so deceitful, and then scolds Yau-man for forgetting that the whole thing is a game. Thanks for the lesson, Dreamz! Yau-man is taking notes about how to play the game from you, so that he does it right next time.
Also, Yau-man forgot that it was a game? That must be why he’s taking this whole thing so personally and not taking responsibility at all. Put it in your burn book, Yau-man. You’ll get him. (Shh…Dreamz slept with the gym teacher. Don’t tell anybody.)
Because Dreamz is missing the entire point, Yau-man basically says, “So you are not going to admit that you changed your mind about the immunity necklace?” and when Dreamz affirms that yes, he was planning on screwing Yau-man the entire time (lies!) and also that
he was one of the original signatories to the Declaration of Independence, ghostwrote part of The
Iliad and invented modern democratic process. What? It’s true! Dreamz himself has said it, so it must be true. Remember how we were in Iraq at first because of the WMDs, and now all of a sudden we’re there to liberate a tortured people? Dreamz is this concept personified.
Yau-man, clearly incredulous that Dreamz has completely forgotten everything that he has said and done over the past 39 days (because empirical evidence is for pussies like Yau-man who didn’t make the final three, instead of strategic geniuses like Dreamz), he
politely moves on to Earl. He wants to know why Earl voted for him. Because Earl is not an idiot, he tells the truth, which is that he knew he would lose against
Yau-man, so he voted him out. Up front, honest, respectful, to the point. See how easy that was, Dreamz?
Whew. That was tiring.
Time for the jury to vote. They show exactly zero of the votes, which was clue number one. Jeff goes to get the votes, but we will of course be waiting until it’s live in New York for them to be read. Apparently the “Jeff takes a journey through the jungle and on a waterski over shark infested waters to read the votes” segment is a thing of the past, which is too bad because those things were awesome. Indiana Jeff and the Temple of Douche! Coming soon to a theatre near you.
Speaking of theatres, we’re now in the Ed Sullivan Theatre in New York, where David Letterman is filmed. The final three are already seated as Jeff enters. It should be stated that Cassandra cleans up really nicely, Earl has had his teeth fixed, and Dreamz has
shaved and is rocking a pretty nice looking watch. Jeff has to spend a few minutes quieting everybody down before reading the votes.
The first one is for Earl. The place erupts in applause. The next two are also for Earl, who starts to look a little overwhelmed. Dreamz looks like he can’t believe he’s not winning. After the fourth vote for Earl, Cassandra starts congratulating him. The fifth vote is read, and Earl wins! Yes! That’s pretty awesome. Two good winners in one season! Yul
and Earl for All-Stars 2!
It turns out that Earl got all nine votes, which is a Survivor first. Also, he deserved every single one of them.
Next time: The Reunion. Subtitle: Dreamz babbles for forty-nine minutes. See you in a couple of days, I promise. Also, if we’re both in the game at final four and I have immunity, I’ll totally give it to you.
What?
TV Social
-
34 Comments
A lot of good stuff here. I really loved your Tod from “Scrubs” reference. Dissing Rupert? Not so cool. Dreamz had kinda grown on me, maybe his whole “comic relief” presence. Earl deserved the win, but I wish Cassandra had gotten a vote or two.
That was the most excrutiating Jury questioning session of all time. Alex and Lisi annoyed me SOOO much I half expected Jeff to step in and start laying into them about the absolute insanity of their line of questioning. Poor old Cassandra, what on earth did she do to deserve that?? Both Alex and Lisi were cockily planning on voting her out until she was smart enough to align with someone else and at the same time seize control of the game. She never backstabbed them or lied to them – she wasn’t even on the same tribe as Lisi when she was voted out! And she was a far better friend to Stacey than Alex was, as you pointed out she actually stuck with her and attempted to out Yau-Man instead. I was screaming at my telly throughout. Grrr.
BEST. RECAP. EVER.
You stand on the podium with the TVG All Stars. This recap exuded snark, irony and it was very observant. You’re the perfect Survivor geek and I hope you stick with it. Loved your comment about that idiot Mirna. Made me realize that being beautiful can be a burden, if assholes like Mirna feel entitled to make comments like that about two hard-nosed competitors.
But I digress: Dreamz would win the “Top Douchebag” title if he was smarter, but you rightly place that honor on Alex’s shoulders. Lisi would be a contender, too, but that woman has no common sense whatsoever. I felt uncomfortable just watching her show her ignorance and low IQ in front of millions of people. And that’s with SIX zeroes, too.
Earl earns my respect, even if he did come off a bit cocky knowing he’s torpedoed Dremz and even Cassandra. Yes, she did play a cerebral game, but she didn’t have the leader status Earl earned. Earl and Yau Man made up the best alliance I’ve ever seen. One of the things that impressed me early on was that Earl unselfishly allowed Yau to find the idol thanks to his clues and never acted as if it was his prerogative to use it. Classy.
Good season, excellent finish, even better recap. Now go and take over wriring for TAR.
I’m an attorney. I’m hard working, I’m honest and I’m regularly humbled by the very intelligent people I work with and against. Most attorneys are like me.
25-30% of attorneys are sneering, entitled assholes with god complexes. they try to denigrate those around them and pleasure in any iota of power they can exert over others.
Alex represents the latter half and he makes me hang my head in shame. At tribal counsel I saw nothing but an asshole, and frankly not that smart of an asshole. Best wishes alex, hope you realize all of your peers hate you and shudder when they see your name on a document.
okay so I realize this isn’t as big of an issue in this day and age. I also realize that Lisi is a complete idiot, probably more stupid than anyone on the history of survivor ever.
BUT, her little eenie, meenie business really burned me. She clearly does not know the origins of that poem/rhyme, a SLAVE poem, where the second line used to be “catch a N-word by his toe”.
But watching her do this to three african americans who have soundly beat her at a game completely beyond her, just make me want to scream, slap her silly and then take a shower. I needed to wash the lisi off.
My husband works for the company that Alex is a lawyer at. He said all the girls swoon over him and that he dresses like a model everyday.
His line of questioning made me hate him more than I thought possible.
Am I the only person on Earth that thinks CBS should have given Yau-man a truck? They gave Rupert a million dollars for heavens sake?
Great Recap. Thanks Schoonie.
“My husband works for the company that Alex is a lawyer at. He said all the girls swoon over him and that he dresses like a model everyday.”
That makes me sad. All that guy deserves is to be constantly laughed at for being so ridiculous in every way.
Thanks, anonymous, for noticing that “eenie meenie” nonsense from Lisi. I also gasped when I heard her start that rhyme. I think she knew the original rascist origin and thought she was being clever. What a despicable person!
Schoonie,
Great job on capturing and articulating the frustration anyone with a brain felt watching Dreamz through this finale, and the annoyance and rage at listening to Alex and Lisi be the complete asshole douchebags they are at final tribal. You are the king of Survivor recaps. Looking forward to the reunion show recap, and I hope you’ll be doing next season too.
-JR
I think Yau was very smart giving the truck away. From all of the people that have won cars in the past, they all say the cars end up costing almost as much as buying the car. Dreamz screwed himself by taking the car. He does not have a licence (did you notice Boo was driving the truck during the show). All in all, Dreamz will end up with around 10,000, which is not bad at all, but after taxes and paying off the car, he is not as well off as he was thinking he would be
Schoonie, I have already proclaimed my “heart” for you and your recaps, but I disagree with one of your main points. Dreamz was totally playing the game the whole time! Okay, kidding! God, I can’t even type that without cringing. What I disagree with is when Dreamz is talking about doing the “wrong thing” — he was referring to the “wrong thing” being keeping the necklace. If giving it to Yau-Man was the “right thing,” Cassandra and Earl couldn’t vote for Yau-Man because he would have immunity. So I don’t think that scene was telling in any way. He was still referring to keeping it as the wrong way to go. Right? Either way, he was infuriating.
I don’t think Lisi knew or was thinking about the racist origins of “eenie meenie.” Unless, when she was rehearsing her Tribal Council speech with Alex and Mookie (I can totally see them holding a pre-Tribal rehearsal) one of them told her of the origins of the rhyme…but I think she’s too dumb to think about something like that.
I actually kind of liked what Edgardo said. I think part of the reason he asked what he did was so that everyone in the jury could hear how things really went down and would vote accordingly, thereby taking more votes away from Dreamz.
Alex is a retarded douche. Who says “riddle me this”?! What a self-satisfied dumbass. At least you can laugh at Lisi knowing that she’s too stupid to have any influence over anything important, but Alex is out there douching up cases left and right. Good lord.
can’t wait for the reunion!
I think it’s important to mention that Dreamz actually spends his days working with cheerleaders – that pretty much (to me) explains his erratic behavior. Modeling his behavior (whether intentionally or not) after a well-known stereotype totally explains his brand of krazy.
I am in the minority, but I will say this, Schoonie! Your thesis is that Dreamz should give away his immunity because he made a promise in a game of dishonesty and outwitting the next guy. Why don’t you place the blame where it belongs? Yau-Man? He trusted someone who obviously couldn’t be trusted and lied to everyone, alliance member or not. I also think it’s unfair for someone to say that Dreamz shouldn’t be playing for the money? Why the hell else are the people out there?
Seriously, Dreamz played the role of the village idiot because no one would believe he was smart enough to get to the end. I mean, he was boxed in from day 1 as the strong idiot, so why not play that role as far as it goes?
I’m tired of people not giving Dreamz credit. Yau-Man didn’t deserve to win anymore than Jessica, who went out first. She played a horrible beginning game and Yau-Man played a horrible end game. If he wasn’t a fan favorite, everyone would be cheering Dreamz’s move and saying how it was good “game play.” You all are acting like a bunch of hypocrites.
I thought Lisi’s water shoes/over your head comment sounded like a bad rip-off of Judd’s question to Danni in Guatemala. He asked her if she’d ever worn rollerblades, because she skated through the whole game … or something like that.
“Your thesis is that Dreamz should give away his immunity because he made a promise in a game of dishonesty and outwitting the next guy.”
I never said that. In fact, I said that keeping the necklace was a good move. You can find it in the recap.
“Seriously, Dreamz played the role of the village idiot because no one would believe he was smart enough to get to the end.”
He didn’t “play the role”. It wasn’t all some clever plan to get to the end by appearing not to know what he was doing and then screwing over Yau-man. He actually DIDN’T KNOW WHAT HE WAS DOING. Look at the confessionals; he’s so emotional and honest about wanting to live up to his word that keeping the necklace was a spur of the moment decision, just like everything else he did in the game. He never once thought past the immediate boot, made no long term plans, and did whatever struck his whim the entire time. I’m not saying he’s not a smart guy in real life, I just think he has no capacity for the thinking required here. There was no “village idiot” to it. There was just idiot.
And he wasn’t “boxed in” to his role, as you say. People didn’t pull that out of thin air. It’s not like he’s a nuclear physicist or anything and because of his act on the first day, people boxed him in. That’s the way he was acting. Asking how many white people there are on the island while everyone else is trying to get to sleep does not exactly bode well for your status as a good player, or as someone who is particularly socially apt.
People aren’t giving Dreamz credit because he doesn’t deserve that much. As I’ve said in the recaps, props to him for getting to the end, but that’s the only credit he deserves. He doesn’t deserve credit for masterminding anything, or for orchestrating things. The empirical evidence is there: he was just crazy, random him, and this time it happened to get him to the end.
All I can say is that I have had a crap-ass day and I prayed and prayed installment #2 would be posted so I could read it and laugh… & crack up I did – once again so much I was afraid I’d wake my kids up…
The hilarity started for me with the parade/Michelle comments and just got better from there.
Alex & Lisi sufficiently made jackasses of themselves…it’s so irritating when the jury members get up there (after leaving “Loser Lodge”) and act so pompous & righteous. They are just pissed b/c they were out-played. Their sense of entitlement is infuriating. Okay, enough, I’ll move on.
Earl deserved it, but I agree…I would have liked Cassandra to have gotten a few votes. I agree with Schoonie that she played a great game and received NO credit in the end.
Credit to Dreamz? Change your name to slutty_crazy_whore! Dreamz basically Forrest Gumped his way to the final 4. Yau-Man could have worked something out (maybe convince Dreamz to vote for Cassandra?) and didn’t, so that was kind of odd. I agree that CBS should have given him a new car or something. I hate Rupert too and they gave that clump of hair $1 mil, and Yau-Man played a better game.
I doubt girls would be swooning after Alex after that pathetic display. Lisi and her feathered 80′s hair were almost as bad.
Schoonie, again, I have to disagree. As you point out in your critique of Cassandra, no one within the context of Survivor respects the type of game she played, so why does she deserve a vote? You can’t on one hand PRAISE someone (Cass) who the other players don’t respect while CONDEMNING another person (Dreamz) the same players also don’t respect. Both Cassandra and Dreamz used what they could to get to the end.
If you remember, it was DREAMZ who orchestrated trying to get Yau-Man out at six, so as to avoid what happened at the final TC. Cassandra just nodded, said “Uh-huh”, “Uh-Huh.” It was Dreamz who went to Stacy to see if she was on board, etc. I think where I disagree with you is that Survivor is a “social” game within the “community” of people playing… so Dreamz played the village idiot, because he was deemed that by the other players in the game. So, if being dumb like a fox gets you to the end, that’s all that matters. I mean, come on, getting to the end in Survivor is all that matters because the final TC can be such a crap shoot between people voting with their hearts or their brains. Who cares if the jury “respects” you, as long as they vote for you? The prime consensus was that Yau-Man had to go; he was clearly the front-runner. I just feel that if Dreamz had made a similar move on Lisi, Rocky, Alex, or someone equally unlikable, you would have been fine with it. Because Yau is a fan favorite, the move is all of a sudden wrong.
Personally, I don’t believe that Cass deserved any votes and this is why. If you have to “mastermind” something to win, as Schoonie indicated in the comments, then she didn’t do that. She played the game like last season’s Becky and the same result occurred. No one will vote for a rider of coattails, no matter how good a listener they may be. At least Dreamz had an impact on the game, imploded an alliance, and single-handedly made the second half of this season watchable.
I just feel Dreamz takes a lot of shit, most of which is undeserved. Vent over.
“You can’t on one hand PRAISE someone (Cass) who the other players don’t respect while CONDEMNING another person (Dreamz) the same players also don’t respect.”
Why not? I’m not going to automatically disagree with something just because someone I don’t like agrees with it. I take each individual opinion, assess it, and make my own decision. It’s kind of a petty sentiment to automatically disagree/agree like that, just because of who someone is. I’m not saying anything about you, I’m talking about the jury, to clarify.
“As you point out in your critique of Cassandra, no one within the context of Survivor respects the type of game she played, so why does she deserve a vote?”
I actually took this paragraph about why Cassandra deserved to win more than Dreamz out of my recap because it was getting too long, but I’ll just put it here:
I would like to take a moment to put forward the theory that Cassandra deserves the money more than Dreamz does. If you’re looking for someone who just followed the flow of things and rode coattails and did whatever everyone else was doing, you should probably look at Dreamz first, not Cassandra. He threw every option possible out in every place possible, and then once the grown-ups decided what to do, he followed them. I don’t see the merit in that, honestly, besides the commendation I give him for avoiding his own elimination, because he’s not making any choices or pursuing any long-term strategy; he’s just puking all over the place and hoping that someone else slips and falls on it while he bumbles along behind everybody to the end. Once he did have to make a decision, he wouldn’t even own THAT one, and it’s the only one he really has to take responsibility for! I mean, even Vecepia owned her shit, right? Think about it, is all. Cassandra’s not the follower here: Dreamz is.
Basically, slutty, doing everything that you can possibly think of doing (which is what Dreamz did most of the time) is not “strategy”. Strategy involves thinking out your options, weighing the pros and cons, and then choosing the one that benefits you the most.
“If you remember, it was DREAMZ who orchestrated trying to get Yau-Man out at six, so as to avoid what happened at the final TC. ”
It was also Dreamz who failed at this. So…why is this a point in his favor? It was a poorly thought out plan that Yau-man saw coming a mile away.
“So, if being dumb like a fox gets you to the end, that’s all that matters. ”
That’s the thing, and it’s where I think we disagree: he wasn’t dumb like a fox. He was just dumb. He had no idea what he was doing, fumbled his way through to the end, and happened to get that last immunity. He wasn’t planning on breaking his deal until five minutes before he did it, so that’s not a valid argument about how smart he was, either. He just did what he wanted.
“I mean, come on, getting to the end in Survivor is all that matters because the final TC can be such a crap shoot between people voting with their hearts or their brains.”
Not true. It’s about the individual jury members, assessing whether they’re more likely to use their “brain” or their “heart”, and then get them voted out while keeping whichever part dominates them on your side. It’s not random; it’s the people.
“I just feel that if Dreamz had made a similar move on Lisi, Rocky, Alex, or someone equally unlikable, you would have been fine with it.”
Not true. It wasn’t about who Dreamz screwed over, or even that he did it. What pisses me off about him was that he spent thirty-six days talking about what a good person he is in confessionals (in which you are contractually obligated to be truthful, by the way) and how he was planning to keep the deal to show his son all about his integrity, and then at the last minute he does something to save his own ass (which is understandable), and then all of a sudden it’s been something that’s been planned out step by step the whole time? You can’t talk about integrity one minute, and then the next minute talk about what a heartless snake you are. Pick one, because you can’t be both.
If you show me evidence of that that took place before the point at which he kept the necklace, instead of after when he attempted to rewrite the whole story after it had already taken place, I’ll believe you, but I haven’t seen a shred. If he would just admit that he did it and wasn’t planning on it, I would have respected him no matter who it was. But trying to pull the wool over the audience’s eyes about something when the writing is on the wall is disrespectful to the people watching the show, and an insult to our collective intelligence. It was the lying about his motivations that pisses me off, not the action itself. It could have been Rocky and I would have had the same reaction. It’s about what Dreamz did after keeping the necklace, not the action of keeping the necklace itself.
“At least Dreamz….single-handedly made the second half of this season watchable.”
True. Someone asked me about an All-Stars 2 cast, and I totally put him on it. Just because I can’t stand what he did doesn’t mean he’s not good TV.
Oh, sorry, one more thing:
“Because Yau is a fan favorite, the move is all of a sudden wrong.”
That’s the thing: I never said it was the wrong move. In fact, I said it was the right move. It’s not the move that was the problem, which is why I think you’re missing the point of what I’m trying to say. It’s him acting like he’s fucking Richard Hatch for it, when he’s actually just some guy who was planning on sacrificing himself and then changing his mind.
I don’t put the blame on Dreamz when it comes to keeping Yau in the game at 6. It was Stacy who blew it at TC, saying that it would be a split vote. If you recall, Earl tried to soothe Yau’s concerns (probably to get rid of him also). I guess that I do believe it was a valid strategy to play the game as wildly as Dreamz did. What about Jonathon from last season? What about Jon and other players who quote “play the game hard just to get to the end?” I concede your point that he should have admitted it in the final TC, and not play to sympathy, and that was a misstep.
I think Dreamz played the game hard, with the hand he was dealt. He played in the same vein as Jonathon from last season, but as Stacy pointed out, Dreamz is not as eloquent as Earl or some of the other players in the game.
I don’t think that what you are saying is necessarily wrong, I just feel you’re way too hard on Dreamz, when other players have done worse within the game.
What he did isn’t the problem for me; it’s that he’s not honest about what he did. It’s a travesty.
The difference between Jonathan and Dreamz is that Jon thought out ahead when he made his choices, and then did what he thought would help him the most in the long run. Dreamz saw a big shiny truck, thought “Dreamz want truck!” and then when it was offered to him, he took it without thinking of the consequences. That’s not strategy. That’s being an idiot. When he said that he “manipulated” Yau-man during the final TC, that was bullshit. He was planning on living up to his end of the deal. I just don’t see it, and there’s no merit in it. We’re going to have to agree to disagree.
Yes, I totally respect your point of view and hope you get cast for one of the next few seasons! LOL.
I was thinking of who should return for All-Stars 2, (from Vanuatu on…)
1. Eliza from Vanuatu
2. Rory from Vanuatu
3. Tom from Palau
4. Jonathon from last season
5. Yul from last season
6. Earl from this season
7. Yau-Man from this season
8. Cirie, from the season Aras won.
9. Judd, from the season Danni won.
10. Amy, from Vanuatu.
11. Dreamz, from this season.
I can’t think of who else I would want to see again. Any other suggestions?
Schoonie, you do seem to be taking this whole Dreamz thing a bit too personally. He’s hardly the first guy to go back on a promise in Survivor (poor Twila), and while it boils my blood as well to see him pretend that he’d been yanking everyone’s chain from the beginning, that’s his story, and he’s sticking to it. He deserves to be chastised and ridiculed, but, on the scale of insufferable idiots we’ve been introduced to on Survivor: Fiji, Dreamz still ranks no less than 4th on the list behind 1. Lisi, 2. Alex, and 3. Rocky (who did manage to rehabilitate himself somewhat by not being a total ass at tribal council, hence his ranking behind Alex, who did the opposite by definitively revealing himself to be the giant, narcissistic phony you always knew him to be).
Where I really agree with you, Schoonie, is on the distinction between playing a clever, deceptive game and just flat-out lying or breaking promises to get what you want or to advance in the game. The fine line between acceptable and unacceptable deceptions comes up for debate almost every time at final tribal council, the most notorious instance being the Twila vs. Chris final in the Vanuatu season. And even though I loathed Chris and couldn’t believe he wasn’t voted out first after that balance-beam debacle, Twila set the standard by which all other major betrayals are judged: she swore on her son’s life to keep a promise she broke shortly thereafter.
Now, part of me thinks ‘never believe anyone in a game for a million dollars who is willing to swear on god or their children,’ but another part of me feels that this is where the social game comes into play. You have to be smart enough to get people to trust you without making a clear, public, easily recalled promise of such magnitude. Even though I thought Chris was a jackass, he did this very effectively, lying and double-dealing all the way to the win without going back on any hard promises that weren’t relatively easy to rationalize or defend betraying.
Dreamz blew this part of the game royally with the Yau-Man deal. While his decision to screw Alex’s alliance could easily be rationalized or defended–after all, Dreamz never made any hard promises to those guys, and he had reason to turn on them when he learned that they were withholding information from him–when his kid-on-christmas morning greediness kicked in after Yau-Man offered him the truck and the chance to eat good food and get away from camp, he sealed his fate, effusively swearing to god and begging with abject shamelessness. Dreamz rightly pointed out in tribal that Survivor is a game of deception, but the ‘outwit’ part of the game also involves getting to the end without making everyone on the jury hate you, and in order to do that, you need to seem to have been playing an ‘upright’ game, if not an honest one. Dreamz’ claims to have been fooling everyone with those integrity speeches the way Edward Norton fooled Richard Gere in ‘Primal Fear’ are obviously false, and only weakened his position. He wouldn’t have gotten any votes, but he might have been forgiven somewhat by the audience if he’d owned up to making some regrettable decisions.
I don’t feel the same degree of rage at Dreamz that Schoonie seems to, I think, because by the time Yau-man made that deal, Dreamz was a known quantity. He made his deal with the wrong person. In retrospect, he should have offered the deal to Boo, who seems like the type of guy who would actually use and enjoy a big truck like that (which is really designed for towing boat and livestock trailers), had the strongest individual immunity performances of anyone left in the game other than Yau, was much more trustworthy and predictable, and, matter of factly, much more desperate for an ally. Yau-man should then have convinced Earl to swap in Boo for Dreamz instead of Stacy in their final 4 configuration, pointing out that they could easily get rid of Boo at the final 4, because Boo would certainly keep the promise to give up the immunity necklace.
Yau and Earl could then have approached Stacy and assured her that, once Dreamz was gone, there’d be no one between her and Cassandra, strengthening her position in the game. Stacy would have had no problem writing Dreamz’ name down. That would leave only Cassandra, whose vote would be irrelevant if everyone else was on board with the plan. Nothing would change in the scenario outlined above if Cassandra and Dreamz still went ahead with the plot to oust Yau-Man, so long as Earl and Yau both wrote down ‘Dreamz’ instead of ‘Stacy’ and Yau still played his idol.
Yau has since admitted that he should have considered other options before and after the truck deal, but said that he was afraid that tampering with the accepted boot order after it had been established for quite a while might end up backfiring. He might have been right; we’ll never know.
So, while I feel everything you’re saying about Dreamz, I just seem him as the boy who cried wolf. Yau-man should never have trusted him, before or after the truck deal, and thus can only blame himself for making a strategic error, since he did have other, better options.
P.S. – Dude, your recap kicked ass. Thanks for the hard work and for following through after the euphoria has passed. I can’t wait to read your re-caps next Survivor season, and I hope that you pick up another good show (but please don’t do Big Brother–I’m trying to wean myself off that massive, empty time-suck and doubt I’ll be able to succeed if you are re-capping).
As for ‘All Stars: 2′: please, god, no. Probst ranks the first All-Stars season as the worst ever, along with Thailand. We also have All-Stars to thank for Rob and Amber–’nuff said. Burnett and his crew have such a great formula going now with the new diversity initiative and the recruitment of people who are not well-schooled in Survivor history and strategy. Stick with what works, I say.
Let me just state that I don’t feel any “rage” towards Dreamz or anything, nor am I taking it personally. It’s my job to write about this and convey what I’m feeling, but I’m not angry at him, like, with real feelings. I happen to write very intensely, so don’t think I’m some crazy person who screams at the TV just because I write it.
Also, I’m a firm believer in the “this is a game” theory and nothing is unacceptable. There is no “you are a bad person because you kept the necklace” issue. That’s not my point. I’m a big fan of Boston Rob for this, and even Jonny Fairplay did well. I don’t think Dreamz sucks because he went back on his word. He sucks because he told everyone after the fact that he is a mastermind, when he’s really an idiot.
I’ve typed it before and I’ll type it again. Love. Schoonie.
I screamed when Earl said “fire sale.” Arrested Development forever. Miss that show.
Schoonie, let me just say that I think I love you!
This was an amazing recap, well worth the wait. It is obvious that you are a great fan of Survivor, your recaps are full of great observations.
Having to watch the final tribal council was excruciating. I wonder how many of Alex`s clients will be looking for a new lawyer now??
For me, the best part of the recap was when you admitted to hating Rupert! I honestly thought I was the only one who hated him. As much as I was repulsed to even see his name in print again, I was excited to realize that there was at least one other person who disliked him as much as I did.
Schoonie, will you marry me??
I don’t like Dreamz and therefore feel reluctant defending him (‘rage’ was probably the wrong choice of words, Schoonie; if I were able to revise, I’d resubmit ‘indignation’ or ‘reasonable contempt’), but the fact that he is an idiot and not a mastermind is part of why I feel a certain amount of sympathy towards him.
Consider: Dreamz went into the game likely expecting to emerge a hero, thanks to his hard luck story and the American public’s tendency to fall in love with people who have overcome adversity. But Dreamz’ lack of intellectual sophistication (not lack of intelligence–he is very bright; just not very well socialized or skilled at thinking ahead) led him to make a series of childish, impulsive decisions, beginning with betraying Mookie’s confidence and ending with reneging on his promise to Yau-Man. At the last tribal council, and then at the finale, he was suddenly confronted with the fact that, thanks to these choices, he was seen not as a charming fan-favorite, but as perhaps the most detested villain ever to play the game.
Add to this the fact that, as soon as his excitement about being given the truck wore off, it occurred to Dreamz that Yau-Man’s primary motivation for giving away the truck was not altruistic. Dreamz felt that he had been tricked by Yau-Man, and he rationalized that this entitled him to betray the promise based on the idea that Yau-Man’s gift was a trojan horse (Again, some blame falls on Yau-Man here, for not securing Dreamz’ confidence by suggesting that they should team up to vote out Earl or Cassandra).
Dreamz’ insistence that he was a mastermind throughout the game is just another example of his backwards reasoning–a way to try to convince people not to hate him for screwing over the beloved Yau-Man.
I am equally annoyed by Dreamz, but I understand, given the fact that the same 30 million people he thought would love and root for him now think of him with nothing short of contempt, why he would hold on to his silly story and try to rehabilitate his ruined reputation by pretending that his promises were insincere from the beginning. He’s just a shallow fool grasping at straws. It’s really kind of sad, actually. Yeah, Dreamz screwed Yau out of the million, but Yau seems like he’s doing all right to me–great job, loving, healthy family, beloved by America–and none of the other Survivors has been as generous in defense of Dreamz in their post-game interviews as Yau, who aptly explained Dreamz’ choice on the finale show and elsewhere.
Dreamz blew it, big time. I think Schoonie once observed that, if he’d kept his promise, he’d have probably been given a truck by Oprah and would have had a much more lucrative post-reality TV run of celebrity. People would have been clamoring to honor the homeless kid who chose integrity over money; instead, we’d all like to see him in stocks so we could throw rotten fruit at his head. It’s actually quite pitiful, hence my growing sympathy for the poor dolt.
I’d say ‘contempt’ is an appropriate word, Jack. He could have honored his deal and I would have thought he was noble but ill-suited for the game, or he could have said that he was never planning on honoring the deal in confessionals, and then not honored it, and I would have respected him for doing the best that he could without worrying about silly things like honor inside the game. The fact that he tried to do one and then all of a suddent pretended like he’d been doing the other the whole time is my problem with the guy. He thinks we’re all dumb if he expects us to believe it, and I don’t take kindly to being called an idiot, basically. He’s asking everyone watching the show how many zeroes are in a million dollars.
And, I love Arrested Development too, and when he said ‘fire sale’, that’s automatically where I went. That scene is one of my favorites in the whole series.
The other is, “You forget, dear, that I am trained twice over. I’m both an analyst and a therapist. The worlds FIRST analrapist.”
I will say it again as well. I heart you, Schoonie. I just finished reading the recap but haven’t gotten to the comments yet. Although I am uncertain about how good it might actually be, I will be checking out Pirate Master. Any chance you might recap that? And any word on whether or not you will be recapping BB8? I sure hope so ’cause it will be a long summer without you!
Thanks for the kudos. I’ll definitely be back for next season of Survivor. That’s pretty much all I can say right now. But you might, just maybe, see me before that.
It’s pretty great on Arrested Development, too when they are talking about “how detailed” tv shows are and George Michael opens up the kitchen cupboard and there is nothing in there except one granola bar. Love it. But this isn’t about Arrested Development. Sorry.