Bside, this is your best recap of ANY show EVER. I loved this season's survivor and you wrote the most hilarious ending ever. I'm not the type who usually laughs out loud, but you had me giggling like a little schoolgirl for all 8 pages. THank you so much.

btw, I'm up at 2:48 because I have a stupid corporations exam (law school) tomorrow morning, so perhaps I shouldn't thank you.

BTW, I LOVE your Yul speak. You should do that for other recaps. You're almost better at Yul Speak than Yul!

anyways, thank you for the awesome work and good night!

I can't wait for the reunion recap!

I found it quite ironic that in her closing comments (after being voted off) Sundra said that Survivor had "ignited" something in her. This is ironic because she failed to ignite much at the tie breaker. I had quite a good laugh at that one.

Yay! I'm glad that Yul won, although I honestly felt terrible for Ozzy. Normally, I always favor one finalist, but this time I loved them both. Glad Ozzy got the car though. Plus he gets a little bit of money anyway, doesn't he?

~Georgia~

Best F2 in the history of Survivor. They were both deserving since the both excelled in their respective fields.

Great recap! I loved your yulisms. After all your Aaron Eckhart comparisons to Adam, I have to say I think he looks more like James Tupper from "Men in Trees." Adam, I mean, not Aaron Eckhart.

I'm with you on that toe fungus ad. Eeeeew!

I was FURIOUS that no one on the jury came right out and asked Yul, "Do you think you would be sitting here if you hadn't found the special immunity idol?" No one mentioned it at all. It was creepy and eerie like the proverbial elephant in the living room. I personally do not think Yul would have been there without it. And he certainly would not have been there if Ozzy had not won the challenges for Aitu. Articulate or not, he won because he found the "golden compass." Ozzy was a pure player and should have won. I was a crazy cussing monkey after the results last night. The only thing that made me feel better was that Becky got not one single vote. That was just funny.

All in all, I think it was the best season ever, and I have watched since day 1. I just wonder how the next one can keep up the ooomph!

to geewits,

so do you think Yul should be penalized because he found the idol?

also, using the idol to change the game in your favor is extremely difficult. It's not as if Yul used the idol just to stay safe, he used the idol to CHANGE the BALANCE of the game by switching Jonathan around and he leveraged the idol for much greater benefit than just simply saving his own ass. In fact, his use of the idol alone shows just how greatly he manipulated the game, there are also a lot of subtle things he did to win. You also do realize that Yul was second in most challenges and that he often let Ozzy win so he wouldn't be an even greater target (brains AND brawn). Everything is part of strategy.

What's with all the softballs at the final tribal council? It almost felt like Fox News anchors taking turns interviewing Dick Cheney. Where are the tough questions? Where's the anger and the bitterness? Disappointing.

And the firebuilding challenge... come on, how hard can it be to start a small fire? I'm not saying that I was the one who burned down my high school chem lab, but "If I Did It", it wouldn't have taken more than 15 minutes.

joyfulchicken:

what's there to be angry or bitter about? Yul and Ozzy are clearly the 2 best players so no one can begrudge their position. Now, if Jonathan made it to the final 3, we would have some MAJOR fireworks.

Masterbruce, of course Yul and Ozzy deserved to be there, but it still would have been fun to see some sweet irrational reality TV anger, right? ;-)

Ozzy looked so much like Joey Lawrence at the reunion show I kept expecting him to say "Whoa!"

Great recap!

I LOVE that Yul won but this great season was made oh-so-much better by your recaps, B-Side. You are so funny.

I have been waiting for your brillant recap - Bside - thanks for the amazing screencaps - the eye rolling is hilarious. Can we send a link to those idiots so they can see what tools they are? The Yul speak was tremendous. Can you imagine him hitting on a girl - "It would benefit us both if we could find a moment to engage in the practiced ritual of inane conversation followed by libations and perhaps a stimulating session of erotic nonsense, or perhaps we could cure cancer and save the world together".

As for the outcome I really hoped Ozzy would win. I think he was more deserving - we did not see one hungry person in his tribe, ever. He participated at camp and won practically every challange and while not as cerebral as Yul, he was able to stay under the radar for almost the entire 39 days. In almost every previous season, someone like Ozzy would have been voted off early as a threat. He was somehow able to be low-key enough to not be considered a threat while feeding the entire tribe AND winning all the challanges. Yul on the other hand was a threat from the get-go and while it was impressive that he was able to maintain himself as a "leader" and make it to the end, he was clearly the intellectual leader, his integrity was almost a weakness in my opinion.

Yul was deserving of the win but like everything in his life, I am guessing he always wins and I would have liked to see it go to Ozzy for the pure enjoyment of seeing him kick everyones asses throughout the entire show. Yul will probably do something honorable with his winnings which isnt such a bad thing either.

I am just glad niether of the two girls won because that would have been a travisty. They were worthless, both of them. Becky annoyed me the most and I wish she would have been voted off before Parvity because at least she performed in challanges and made life around camp interesting.

Tribal was boring and not at all what I expected. I was hoping for a Candice or Jonathon rant - If nothing else, I wanted to listen to Jonathons voice...yum.

Coattail riders cannot light fires. But I was impressed that Becky didn't accept YuleLog's offer of the hidden idol. She understood that by not taking it she would improve her chances at winning the votes - by .0000001%.

Sundra is freaking gorgeous all cleaned up. Unfortunately Awezzy isn't. What happened OzzMan?

Loved Yul telling us that the first thing he did when he got home was get a Costco membership and eat everything he could get his hands on! LOL.

This year Probst was really working my last nerve...he just seemed so pissy.

Thanks for the recap laughs b-side.

hb

Ozzay started badly in the first challenge because he got the hardest 'get to the puzzle piece' part of the event. All the other ones were easier, so he just flew right by those. But I too was dazed seeing Ozzy losing to everyone in the start.

My tvgasm moment was when Ozzy lost his balance twice but miraculously regained it! The final vote between Yul and Ozzy was also exciting. Afterwards though you could see how depressed he was, like he just got punched in the gut. Sad

I was kinda disapointed with not only the jury's questions (how about "who would you have taken with you to the final two?" I mean come on) but also the lack of "I bet x votes for y, but what will z do?" I can't guess who voted for who, and I'm not really interested because none of the jury had any reason to particularly like or dislike ozzy or yul because ozzy stayed aloof from everyone, and yul was only close to becky.

b-side, i am so with you on the subject of probst's transition from final tribal council to the live studio show. burnett/CBS people: if you are reading this, PLEASE bring back probst's extreme sports-journey montage! it's AWESOME!! probst rules! that neck thingy he was wearing was a little too close to the 80's high school-pukah shell fad (hope julie didn't make it for him), but probst is the MAN and should be given ample opportunities to jump out of planes and mount jetskis and motorcycles outfitted with special ballot jar receptacles.

as for the finale: yeah, it was slightly anti-climactic, but the schadenfreude made it worth the trip. adam finally got his long-deserved comeuppance--though, to his credit, he looked like was closer to catching ozzie than yul was on the HARDEST PUZZLE EVER. the neverending fire-building contest gave that tribal council an unexpected and rather unsurvivor-ish comedic element (according to becky, it got so bad that they were sharing cornhusks and, at one point, sundra offered to settle the whole thing with a game of rock-paper-scissors). yeah, final tribal was relatively lame (i actually thought jonathan's questions were pretty pointed, but he was clearly performing, not venting his spleen like sue hawk), but the fact was that the only people on the jury who aren't idiots were friendly with all of the finalists, so we couldn't really expect much to begin with.

at first when i heard they were going to have a final 3, i thought it was a bad idea, and very unfair to the players. but as it turned out, having 3 at the end made the vote much closer and the outcome more suspenseful. it also pretty much saved the game for yul, sparing him the difficult task of beating ozzie in the final challenge. sucked for becky first to have to sit there and pretend she even had a shot at winning, then to sit there at the finale knowing she probably wouldn't pull a single vote (she later said she was mostly worried that she'd cost yul the game if sundra or jenny threw her a pity vote), but, for once, the best two players made it to the end. becky was underestimated throughout, and she was smart to pass on the free ride to the finals, but how could you justify awarding the top prize in a survival game to someone who needed an hour to start a fire WITH MATCHES?!?!?

i liked yul better and was glad he won, but i sorta felt that ozzie's dominance in the challenges and his survival skills should have earned him the win. either outcome would have been fine; yeah, yul had a bit of luck getting sent to exile while the idol was still there, but he used it so much more wisely than terry. he really made his own luck. ozzie was magnificent, but if candice and jonathan had not mutinied, ozzie would probably have been eliminated before the merge, so the luck factor sort of evens out in the end.

as for the eyerolling young'n'lazies, i have two words, for you: SCOREBOARD, BITCHES!

the show was sooo long, and yet so much was left out. poor brad never got to out himself (or his alleged new BF, J.P.), for one thing, and we never found out why, after all of their grody, gingivitis-infused face-sucking on national TV, candice and adam have been so mum about the fallout of their relationship (i thought probst would really pick at that one), or what happened to nate's leg (my guess=bedroom/bathtub misadventures with parvati).

thanks as always for the hilarity, b-side--looking forward to next season. have a great x-mas--

Probst ought to fire whoever colors his hair; I think they had to dip into the shoe polish to hide homeboy's grays. I've seen better hair in a Ron Popeil infomercial!

I guess the jury picked Yul since he played the mental and physical game; Ozzy tipped that balance more towards the physical.

Also, I too hate Toe Fungus guy, but I love Tears for Fears.

Great Recap b-side! i have to say, i truly was voting for ozzy though. He was the epitome of a survivor, he won every competition, he was miles ahead of everyone. and it wasn't just physical, he won the most CHALLENGING PUZZLE EVER! He won other puzzle challenges too! Also i don't understand how Yul was voted one of the sexiest men over ozzy. Backwards people! and Sundra looked HOT in the reunion show, i thought! Great re-cap B-side!

First of all, thanks B-Side for great recaps all season long. For my money, this was the best season since season 1. Nice to have two very deserving people in the finals. Poor Becky, I almost thought she would admit under questioning that she didn't deserve the money. That would have been great. I don't think Yul is getting the credit he deserves here in the comments. While everyone called him an idiot for letting it be known he had the hidden immunity idol, it ended up working brilliantly. He became untouchable, but remained humble enough that no one got pissed enough to try and force him to play it. I think Ozzie gets $100,000 for 2nd place, plus a new SUV that's got to be worth at least $30,000, so our boy made out pretty well for 5 weeks of having the time of his life, so I can't feel too bad for him. Yul will likely go right back to the business world, but it'll be interesting to see how Ozzy transitions back to real life. Does he go back to doing Skinemax, go back to school, or try to make a living as a professional ex-Survivor? If he plays his cards right he may be able to make a living as a motivational speaker. Was pretty great to see an alliance stay intact all the way to the end, proving that it is possible to win without lying (too much).

Yul should now try out for "The Apprentice". He would really kick ass on that show too, and could do the Mark Burnett two-fer.

I'll comment further after the recap of the reunion show, but I gotta agree that Sundra looked stunning, and Candace went from cutie to matronly looking in record time. By the time of the finale, she looked like she gained 25 pounds and aged 15 years.

"Later, the Aitu Four and their giant man-slave Adam all trekked on over to the Immunity Challenge..."
I love that description but let's face it, Adumb would be the worst man-slave ever. The word work is not in his vocabulary.

"It felt weird and scary to see Ozzy so far behind, and quite frankly, I was so disoriented that I nearly broke out in a cold sweat and tremors."
Ozzy got to do the immunity challenge in the best order by doing the rope bridge with the planks first. That was the hardest one and once that was done he could breeze through the rest.

"or it could take five minutes, which was about as long as it took Ozzy to figure it out." It's called editing, B-Side. It actually took 25 minutes to put the puzzle together correctly.

What was interesting about the trek of memories is that, for once, everyone voted off was known by one of the remaining survivors. Usually there are eliminated survivors that nobody knows because they were from the other tribe.

I liked that the Aitus did the totaly fair and mature thing and forced a tie. It may not have been compelling but it was nice.

As hilarious as it was that neither Sundra or Becky could start a fire with the flint, it bugged me to see Candass mouth "come on". I'm sure she wouldn't have done any better. She of the "I have to work to get food?" attitude.

I realize all the softball questions in the final TC were boring but who on that jury, besides Jonathan, had a right to be bitter? The only person who was backstabbed by the final three was Jonathan, everyone else was either voted out by their own or because they weren't part of Aitu.

I also would have been happy if either guy had won but was pulling for Yul a bit more than Ozzy. It's hard to explain why. Maybe because there was a touch of arrogance in Ozzy (though, of course, that's just my perspective and he did throw a challenge which is never a good thing. Ozzie will be fine- you can make good money at porn! And JasonR, besides the $100k and the SUV, Ozzy got paid for every episode of the show which in the first season was $15k each. If the final three hours is considered one episode that means 14 x $15 = $210,000. That's assuming there hasn't been a raise. They haven't talked about the compensation since the first season. That's why it's so good to get on the jury, they all get "compensated" for every episode.

Thanks for the recap, B-side. Too many giggles to mention individually. Look forward to the reunion recap.

"Still, it wasn't as cringe-inducing as those commercials where the toe fungus guy hops into the toe by lifting up the nail. I HATE THAT." I agree. That's the most disgusting commercial on TV and I always change the channel.

Now, right off the bat I gotta tell you that I was all for the Oz man. Jonathan says he didn't like Ozzy's sense of "entitlement". And Zevonia says he's "arrogant". Nay, nay. The man was quietly confident, the kind of guy you want be with when sharing a foxhole. Ozzy is confident in his abilities and always gave his all (even when throwing the challenge to oust Billy). Like they say: "It ain't bragging if you can do it".

I liked Yul and his loyalty was admirable, but he showed me he could lie to win, which Ozzie didn't. Remember it was Oz who proposed the tie to give the girls a chance to duke it out. Yul offered the idol to Becky AFTER he gave his word to Ozzy and that took away some points in my mind. Of course, the jury didn't know that, so all they thgought was Yul was the same stalwart who'd whipped their asses.

In all, a splendid season after a sputtering start. I would love to see Ozzy and Yul team up in the Amazing Race, if there's another season of that.

Excellent run, B-Side. You made it all more fun. Season's greetings to you and the TVG gang.

This is the first time since I began watching Survivor that the person I have been rooting for from the beginning actually won. Yay Yul!

I actually think Ozzy looked more like Michael Hutchence at the reunion show and that was not a cute look for him. I agree with others who said he was way hotter on the island.

I was really pulling for Sundra to win that final immunity. Everyone who discredits Sundra and Becky are overlooking their participation in the group challenges-especially after the mutiny when it was do-or-die for them and they pulled off the 4-in-a-row wins.

I was so disappointed when Becky got the fire lit. I was wondering what they would do next (give them a lighter? or scissors?).

I've never seen a jury that was so jealous as this one. They were really immature.

Early in the season I felt Ozzie was like Jonathan said (arrogant, sense of entitlement). But as the season went on I got past that and was really happy he got a car (he looked happy about that).

Girl, you know it's true.
Ooh, Ooh, Ooh I love you.
Yes, you know it's true.
Ooh, Ooh, Ooh I love you. I FREAKED when the living half of Milli Vanilli waltzed in as a member of the jury at the final Tribal Council. Oh? That was Rebecca? My bad.

ugh, I can't stand Candice!!! she's just... bhleck.....

ugh, I can't stand Candice!!! she's just... bhleck.....

LQ - Girl, that was pissing funny! "...the living half..." LOL

hb

Thank GOD you mentioned the eye rolling. My husband actually chucked a pillow at CandAss during one esp. bad one. What was up with that?

Ready for the reunion recap now....

I didn't watch the show regularly, but did watch the finale, and I couldn't get over how much Ozzie looked like this guy, Jose Maria Torre who is a Mexican actor/designer:
http://i.esmas.com/image/0/000/004/303/josemariaNT_.jpg

But then at the reunion show, not so much.

Did the hidden immunity idol help Yul? Sure. But it really came down to using it to it's greatest advantage. Look at Terry last season. He could have used it to turn the numbers to his alliance's favour, but he didn't and it cost him, and his alliance worshipped him a lot more than Yul's alliance.
Actually, Terry is a great comparison for this season. He was as dominant in the challenges as Ozzy was, but because of his selfish/stupid inability to put the idol to use, he wound up playing the game alone. If Ozzy starts getting too big a head from all his winning, he should look back at Terry and be thankful he had his alliance or he may well have been gone when Adam won immunity.

All that aside, really friggin' funny recap, B-Side. I was worried about hurting myself from laughing a couple of times.

I'm all right with Yul winning, but I would've liked to see Ozzy win, since he is not some amazingly intelligent master Google computer guy. And if Ozzy was stranded on an island alone for a month, he'd totally survive. I swear he's part monkey. And fish. And GOD. ...Ozzy was so awesome, and I loveloveloved him until I randomly found out about his Playboy ordeal. That made me sad. :( It also made me sad that he was so chunky at the end. Where'd his nice body go? Where did that fat neck come from? And the Johnny Depp hair... All gone...

Yeah, and that maze challenge. I was so freaked out at the beginning that Ozzy was behind, but when I realised that it was because he is clever and did the most time-consuming section first, I was yay.

And the pole challenge. Have any of you read the previous-Survivor blogs on the website of this season? Ethan's convinced that Ozzy's some superhuman. He said, "did you hear those clicking noises that Ozzy made when he got up onto his pole? I'm sure he was speaking to the air and water molecules and telling them to hold him steady." Or something.

Anyway, amazing recap! I LOVE these. I can't wait until The Apprentice: Lose Angeles in January!

Best season ever! It was so refreshing to have a final 2 (well, 3, but really a final 2) where you actually LIKED the people in it. The past 5 or 6 seasons have really just been "well I hate this person less, so go them." But I really wished both Yul and Ozzy could win. I loved them both so much. Yul was the best strategic player and Ozzy was the best physical player. What a decision!

One question: Why hasn't anybody done a screen grab of meathead Adam with his "Yule" card?

Thnaks for the great season of recaps B-side! I feel a certain kinship to you as I too was clutching my pillow to my chest when Probst was reading the final vote. As much as I like Ozzy. I was riding the Yul-log for champion all the way so I was happy to see him win.

Two things (but I'm sure there are more) that bothered me:

1. Yul said this game gave him confidence. Well, that's hard to believe given he graduated from Stanford and Yale and has worked at top management consulting firms.

2. Ozzie saying in his opening statement that he played the game staying true to himself and then admitting later that he played up a surfer image for the other contestants.

Funniest scene ever in reality tv--Sundra and Becky's fire competition. When Jeff said they were going to matches, I lost it.

"I was riding the Yul-log"- zoobabe, that puts an interesting picture in my head!

zevonia- that was my intention so thanks for getting it! :)

b-side, this recap was hilarious! You had me laughing the entire way! :)

Man, I was so sad that Ozzy lost!! I'm still not over it *cries*