Survivor Gabon: Ep. 11

The Survivor Gabon finale opens with more of the spectacular wildlife shots we have been privileged to throughout this, the 17th edition of Survivor. The Probst-narrated season recap starts. We are briefed on the early dominance of the Kota tribe over Fang (pronounced Fong), the re-formation of the tribes and the brilliance of Kenny and Crystal in engineering the blindsiding of 4 straight Kota members after the merge.

We are introduced to the final 4, with a particular emphasis on (1) Bob’s run of challenge victories that have kept him in the game against the Kenny – Crystal – Susie alliance and (2) Kenny’s failed attempt to stab Bob in the back after Bob promised to hand him the immunity necklace and Kenny’s subsequent outrage when Bob found out about the planned blindside and refused to cooperate in his own game-death.

The show proper opens with Nobag (of hammers), the merged tribe that replaced Fang and Kota (many colors), returning to camp on Night 36 after evicting Crystal at Tribal Council. Susie and Kenny are now in the minority against Matty, Sugar and Bob. Kenny, apparently clueless as to the fact that the others know he intended to betray Bob and have him evicted, tries to embarrass the man by saying, “You are not a man of your word.” Takes one to know one, Kenny.

Morning, Day 37. Sugar tells the camera she wants to go to the final 3 with Bob and Matty. She doesn’t trust Kenny and his powers of persuasion and sets out to screw him over before he does anything to disrupt her alliance.

Sugar takes Kenny for a walk and asks, “If Bob wins the next immunity, which is highly likely, then Susie’s gone, and it’s me and you and Matty, eh?” Kenny agrees. In voice-over he tells us that he felt betrayed by Sugar at Tribal Council, but now it’s all better and he’s sure she wants him in the final three. Amazing how fast a sex goddess can wrap a boy around her finger.

The two check the tree mail and find new clothes and instructions to do themselves up like warriors for the immunity challenge. They show up at the challenge and I’m disappointed: not a leather vest among them, much less my favorite Warriors outfit, the Baseball Furies.

The challenge is two massive mazes, with the first one being an elevated one they must walk along the top of. Survivors each have a color and must find three bags of the same color hidden in huts inside the second maze. Each bag must be returned to the staging platform individually. When all 3 bags have been gathered they can start on the puzzle. First to solve it is in the final 4 unless they do something stupid, like Bob almost did with his immunity necklace last week.

To enter the maze, which has a wooden fence perimeter, the survivors must dig below the lowest fence rail and slide under it. Surprisingly, Susie makes it through first.

Matty is first to make it to the puzzle solving platform with a bag of puzzle pieces. Sugar is the first to get all 3; Bob is second, Matti third, Kenny fourth, Suzie fifth. And Bob wins immunity for the third straight time.

Cut to camp, later in the day. Kenny lies in a hammock and tells us in voice-over that he’s good – Matty and Sugar will see to it he gets to the final 3.

Tribal Council. Jeff asks Kenny about the immunity deal from last Tribal. Kenny says Bob lied to him and didn’t give him the necklace like he said he would. Does this guy still not know that all the others know about his plan to blindside Bob once he gave away immunity? Or does he honestly believe you have to allow a murderer to kill you if you at one time told the murderer you wouldn’t hurt them? Bob speaks up, wondering the same thing. Kenny still won’t admit that Bob was justified in witholding the necklace. The jury and the other players laugh at him. Kenny – you are a total buffoon, boy. You need to shut up.

And, of course, the others send him home. For a guy who played the game so smartly for so long, Kenny sure went dumb in a hurry. If I was a family member, I’d encourage him to get a check-up: he may have a brain tumor.

Day 38. Tree mail sends them on the fallen Comrades tour, with the final immunity challenge awaiting them at the end. As always, the final 4 pay tribute to the fallen in the order that they were knocked down and stepped on. As they set off, Matty tells us in voice over that all the Survivors were, “quality human beings and quality competitors.” Guess it wouldn’t do to have defeated a bunch of morons. And this time, we get bon mots from the fallem themselves:

Michelle: “Actually being there and shivering cold, I was surprised I couldn’t mentally overcome that.” Because the cold of equatorial Africa was too tough for me I have cancelled my planned trip to Canada.

Gillian: “When you are happy, you’re lucky and you should be happy that you are lucky in life.” It’s like they say; lucky in life, suck at Survivor.

Paloma: “There’s nothing in this world that can be thrown at me that I can’t conquer.” Except reality TV.

Jacquie: “I want to continue the adventure my entire life. I want to live that freely.” I am currently house-shopping and have seen several lovely overpasses on I-80.

GC: “I know who I am now even more than when I came.” I’ve gotten that P. Diddy fantasy thing almost totally under control.

Kelly: “This game is going to be with me the rest of my life.” I’ve tried and tried but http://www.realitystarsrevealed.com/ refuses to remove that shot of my left nipple from its website.

Ace: “I think it’s daunting for a person who has traveled as much as me to be combined with a group of people who have traveled hardly ever.” More than daunting; I got my ass handed to me. I hate it when people are too stupid to fall for my eloquent bullshit.

Dan: “With this game I think I’ve learned to calm myself down.” Okay, asshole fucking camera shithead guy?!!!

Marcus: “I think that playing Survivor gives you an appreciation for the way the world really works.” Wait, I take that back. That would mean Jeff Probst is God, which of course he couldn't be. He doesn't have an MD.

Charlie: “I was really surprised with how patient I was in the game.” You’ll have to excuse me now, I’m stalking Marcus.

Randy: “Survivor Gabon has shown me that it’s alright to make friends.” Do you want to be my friend? We could get chips and pop and watch Next Top Model, okay? Or something else, if you want. Okay? Huh? Okay?

Corinne: “I’ve always been the kind of person who says exactly what’s on my mind and operates without a filter.” Which is good, because I never got the hang of formulating coherent thoughts.

Crystal: “In the end, I fell. And that has been very humbling.” Stumbling in the first challenge didn’t bother me. Stumbling in the second challenge didn’t bother me. Stumbling in the third challenge didn’t bother me. Stumbling in the fourth challenge didn’t bother me. Stumbling in the fifth challenge didn’t bother me. Stumbling in the sixth challenge didn’t bother me. Stumbling in the seventh challenge didn’t bother me. Stumbling in the eighth challenge didn’t bother me. Stumbling in the ninth challenge didn’t bother me. Stumbling in the tenth challenge didn’t bother me. But that eleventh challenge – boy, that was humbling.

Ken: “I really feel like I have changed, and for the better.” I now totally get that if I’m preparing to stab somebody in the back and they stab me first, I had it coming. Naw – just kidding: nobody can touch me no matter what I do because I know the indestructibility code.

At the end of the trail a group of Gabonese sits around a fire and cheers as the Survivors burn the emblems of the fallen. My Gabonese roommate translated. They were cheering, “Death to colonialism. Death to colonialists.”

The final immunity challenge is building a house of cards – highest after 30 minutes is in the final 3. Amazingly, the producers have finally found something Bob sucks at. Susie, the most ignored final 4 player ever, wins. It’s like the Lions beating the Titans in the Super Bowl.

Back at camp Susie can’t shut up. “I can’t believe I won. I can’t believe I won. I can’t believe I won. I can’t believe I won. I can’t believe I won. I can’t believe I won. I can’t believe I won. I can’t believe I won. I can’t believe I won. I can’t believe I won. I can’t believe I won. I can’t believe I won. I can’t believe I won. I can’t believe I won. I can’t believe I won.”

The other 3 can’t believe she won’t shut up. Finally Bob asks her to do so. She says, “I can’t believe he snapped at me. I can’t believe he snapped at me. I can’t believe he snapped at me. I can’t believe he snapped at me. I can’t believe he snapped at me. I can’t believe he snapped at me. I can’t believe he snapped at me. I can’t believe he snapped at me.”

Back at camp it is a foregone conclusion that Bob will be voted off at the final Tribal Council. That is, until Sugar decides she is too torn between Matty and Bob to vote either one off. Instead, she tells Bob, if he votes for Matty, she will vote for Matty and that will tie the vote and send the two to the tie-breaking fire starter competition. Bob agrees and heads off to practice with his flint and steel.

At Tribal the plan goes off perfectly. Matty is thunderstruck by Sugar’s vote. Bob wins the challenge and it’s Bob, Sugar and Susie in the final three.

Day 39. The final three get tree mail that senda them to a stash of food and drink They feast on pancakes and eggs with juice and wine. Yuck. They burn a hut and head off to face questions from the jury.

Cut to Kenny. He wants Bob to admit he did back out on his deal (he admitted that at the tribal council when he evicted you, Ken. Your mind has been broken.). Ken wants Bob to admit he’s not an honorable man because he short-circuited Kenny’s assassination plot. Poor imbecil Kenny.

Cut to Randy in his Travis Bickle Mohawk, telling us that Tribal will strictly be a chance for revenge, exactly as one would expect of Travis.

Cut to Corinne, who wants to say the things she couldn’t say when she was on the chopping block. So much for her self-image of always saying exactly what she thinks (if unfiltered speech can be called thinking).

We are at the climax. The jury enters the Tribal Council area. Suzie makes the first opening statement.

Susie deserves the million because she got into the game just to prove to her son and her students “what it is to try.” Impeccable logic: I didn’t play to win a million, so you should give me the million.

Bob tells the jury he tried to be friendly and useful. “I didn’t outwit you, didn’t outplay you. I just outlasted you.”

Sugar reminds the jury of all the time she spent on Exile Island, says she didn’t form an alliance until the very end and she thinks she should get the million because she made it through the game as a free agent.

Now it’s the jury’s turn.

Charlie: “My first question is for the ladies. When Jeff asked us to rank each other and evaluate our peers, Susie, you were rated as the worst of your tribe and Sugar, you were rated the second worst of your tribe. Why do you think we, the top of the totem pole, should vote for you now that we’re making a new pyramid?”

Suzie gives her stock answer – underestimated, kept trying for my sons and students, yadda-yadda. Sugar, who is nobody’s lap dog (who’d want a lapdog that cries all the time, anyway?) says she doesn’t know that people should necessarily vote for her, but it would be nice.

Charlie (a just-this-side of flamingly effeminate gay man) addresses Bob. “We spent a lot of time together and I’m curious if you feel that all of our intimate cuddling and spooning all night long may have been a little more enjoyable than you would like to admit.” Nice, Charlie. Embarass the married high school teacher on national TV.

Well, clearly Charlie liked it. As for Bob, he says, “You are a wonderful person and I like you a lot and you kept me warm at night. I didn’t give a hoot.” And spooning’s not porking, lonesome Charlie, much as you wish he had.

Crystal’s turn. “Sue, if coattail riding is your strategy, bravo: you’re a coattail rider.” Sue nods pleasantly and stays silent. Crystal says the same to Bob, adding that Sugar has controlled him like a race car and challenges him to tell her one strategic move he made that wasn’t at Sugar’s behest. Bob, like Susie, agrees pleasantly that he road coattails and didn’t have to strategize much because others were doing a good job of it. She goes after Sugar. “I never lied to you. Even about a booger check.” A booger check? Women check each other for boogers? This is going to seriously dim my threesome fantasy. Crystal wants to know why Sugar voted her out. Sugar tells her it’s because of the mean way she was treating other people.

And hey, Crystal: You grabbed game-boy Kenn’s coattails early on and road them till Sugar cut them off. You know that, don’t you?

Kenny asks Susie why she deserves the million, blah-blah-blah. What he really wants to do is go after Bob. He asks Sugar why she stabbed him in the back and you can see the virgin really thought the sex goddess might have a thing for him. Sugar’s response is to cry and say she’s sorry if she hurt him. His response is to say he doesn’t believe her.

Here it comes. Kenny wants to know what happened that caused Bob to go back on his promise to give Kenny the immunity necklace. Slowly, as if speaking to a not very bright child, Bob explains that when he made the deal the assumption was that they were protecting each other. “Once I became aware of the fact that you were organizing an assassination of me, you became my enemy.” Kenny’s response? “That’s not what I wanted to hear.” Bob does a great double take. Kenny, you have a cognitive misfire. Like I said, it may be a brain tumor.

Corinne has one question for Susie and if Susie can answer yes she will get Corinne’s million dollar vote. The question is, “If you win the million dollars, will you agree to have your vocal cords removed.” After Susie answers that, “I’m a talker,” Corinne goes to Bob. She tells him she adores him but he’s one-dimensional: she wants him to bad mouth Sugar. He brings up how angry he was with Sugar when she humiliated Randy after getting Bob to give Randy the fake immunity idol. And then Corinne makes her play for a spot in the the Survivor Book of the Damned.

“Sugar, you are an unemployed, uneducated leech on society and the only thing I would vote to give you is a handful of anti-depressants so that no one has to be subjected to your constant crying anymore. And maybe if you got some, it would seem a little more sincere when you are crying about your dead father.” Sugar flips Corinne a digitally blurred finger. Randy smirks.

Corinne, girl: you could have dropped your panties, shat in your hand and started gobbling your feces and you wouldn’t have humiliated and degraded yourself anymore. You have the judgment of a spider monkey. I’d say Randy and you should make babies, but that would be endorsing child abuse.

Marcus reminds the 3 that he is a physician. He tells Susie that she came to the game as a child educator and a mother and he is surprised that all it took was a game for her to abandon her “obligation to be a positive role model in the biggest game of all: life.” Hey Marcus: not used to being outwitted, are you? Susie had no obligation whatsoever to keep you in the game. She made a brilliant strategic move at just the right time and eliminated you, the strongest player in the game up to that point. You’re a doctor – take a freaking pill.

This jury is wacko, you know it? Have the twisted little people (Crystal, Kenny, Randy and Corinne) managed to infect the others? What a bunch of losers.

Next Marcus wants to know that if she wins, will she use a portion of her million to honor her dead father. Holier than thou or what. Now he goes after Bob for not taking responsibility for his decisions. This is incredible – who’d have thought that Marcus was the kind of guy who would spend all his time in the jury house stewing about being outplayed, outwitted and outlasted until he became a prettier version of the other petty, bitter losers he was bunking with.

Randy goes after Susie for the time she said she felt sorry for him. Looks like he wants all the humiliation he can get. She tells him the truth – the way he treats other people makes him look like what he is, a sad, bitter man and she wishes she knew how to help him. Next he attacks Sugar for “rolling in the dirt” with laughter after she humiliated him at his eviction and wonders, “Didn’t you want my vote?” Sugar stands right up to him: “You were a jerk.” He is stunned that he cannot cow the women. Finally he goes after Bob and Bob lets him know he was ashamed at being part of the unnecessary humiliation attendant to Randy’s torch being snuffed out.

Last up is Matty. He asks Susie the stupidest question; “Why are you more deserving of the million than the other two?” The only thing Susie can think of is that Bob got snippy after she won the final immunity. He asks Sugar to tell him something evil she did and confesses to feeling bad about hurting Kenny. Finally he asks Bob to tell him why the women are more deserving than he is and Bob replies, “I don’t think they are.”

The reason I watch reality shows is because of the insights it gives into human nature. One of the insights this episode of Survivor Gabon has given me is that losers will come up with anything they can to avoid admitting they lost because they were beaten by a better player.

By a vote of 4-3, Bob wins Survivor Gabon. Susie got the other votes. Sugar got snookered. Pity the poor would-be actress. Now all she has is the paparazzi following her, agents calling night and day and $100,000 in the bank.