SURVIVOR

Vanuatu Episode 13: Eruption of Volcanic Magnitude

Previously, Ami left and that's it, really. I'm just counting the days until I am free of this wretched season. Let me just get this recap over and done with.

Credits. Oh, just go away, those Survivors. Wait, Brady can stay though. I haven't gotten enough of an eyeful of that pretty boy.

Night. Day thirty-three, right after the Tribal Council where Ami's boot was supposed to be shocking, exciting, or something. Chris says that the night is wonderful. Scout agrees. Chris says that the night would be peaceful and quiet except for the "emotions" stirring in Twila. What is with Twila now? Well, it turns out that she is upset about Ami, Elazya, and Probby taking potshots about her swearing on her son's name about her lie to Ami. If you ask me, it's not potshots as much as it is just pointing out the fact (that is, Twila lied). I don't know why Probby is being such a hypocrite - he didn't carp too much on Jonny Fairplay passing off his grandmother as a tulip-pusher in the local cemetery, did he? But for Probby, female-bashing is the only way for that pipsqueak to convince the world that he has a pair of functional testicles so I guess I'll go easy on him on that one.

Now, the thing about Twila is this: she is upset about having to lie on her son's name. She says that she is sorry that she did that but she is sick and tired of other people attacking her for it. "People" in this case translates to Elazya. Twila says to the camera that Elazya knows how upset Twila is using That Lie so Elazya should not make Twila feel any worse. Yes, how dare Elazya feel bad that Twila lied to Elazya's friend! Doesn't that twit knows that Twila wants to win and cut Twila some slack? Boo hoo hoo. Saying that she only needs to apologize to her son, Twila pleads for international understanding and acceptance of her heinous lie by saying that all those people who attack her (this includes Scout, Elazya, Chris, Julie, you, and me, apparently) are incestuous perverts who sleep with their own mother and these perverts can kiss her considerable behind. I don't know about Chris and his mother, with them being redneck hicks and all that, but I am sure that Elazya and Scout are not sleeping with their mothers.

Oh, Twila. I'm sure her son will be happy to forgive if she brings home a million dollars. If Twila doesn't have the willpower to lie, then she shouldn't expect to win in this game. So here she is, calling the others around her "motherf**kers" when the others are telling her to stop beating herself up and get over it. Julie takes offense at being called a "motherf**ker" and Twila tells her that well, Julie deserves to be called that because Julie keeps talking about Twila's Big Lie. Julie correctly tells Twila that she did not even mention that Lie in the Tribal Council. It doesn't matter to Twila though. She lied so the world must be out to get her. Ooh, Twila, the voices in the night are coming! Run, Twila, run! Ruuuunnnn!

Julie says to the camera that Twila is mad because she's actually projecting her "heinous insecurities" onto the people around her. Or something. She's the troubled youth mentor, after all, not me, and I'm just quoting her. Julie hopes to use Twila's increasingly out-of-control behavior to her own advantage. Back at camp, Julie and Elazya cuddle in the shelter and share their mutual complaints about Twila's behavior. Elazya tells the camera that Twila should live with what she did instead of throwing temper tantrums around camp. She's right. Twila should just suck it up and play the game with style or just give up and jump off a cliff. It is strange indeed when Elazya is acting more grown-up than Twila but there you go. I hate to be smug but this episode proves what I've been saying since the first episode: Twila and Scout are really vile people who hide a mean streak under their irritatingly sanctimonious and judgmental front. And Twila, especially, is on the one-woman express train to proving me right. This is painful to watch. How I wish I was wrong all along about these two!



Morning, day thirty-four. Twila is on her own down the beach, acting like a solitary loonybin, and Julie tells Elazya as the two women watch Twila warily from a distance that Twila is angry because she has issues with everybody and she has a grudge against these people in her life. My, the Bowheads are very wise today. Meanwhile, Chris tells the camera that he is worried because Twila is alienating everyone. Remember, he wants a cripple and a hateful harridan to be in the Final Three with her. It's a good plan but Twila may make it hard for Chris to get there to the end.

Julie and Elazya take a walk in the woods where Julie tries to suggest to Elazya that they get together and target Twila. With Chris, of course, because Chris is very close to Julie and Elazya even when Chris have played a part in booting out every member of Julie's alliance. Sometimes these women are really clueless. Elazya tells Julie to talk to Chris about this plan but Julie should refrain from telling Chris that Elazya has in any way committed to this plan. Julie tells the camera that she now knows that Elazya is loyal to Chris and Elazya won't act against Twila if Chris won't. But I'm sure she and Elazya are still good friends with Chris.

The show cuts to the Reward Challenge. Hey, it's time for the "second chance" challenge, the one where Burnetto recycles all the props and try to pass off his cheapskate skinflint actions as some karmic balancing thing. Jeff "My Face Is A Bad Word" Proboscis tells the Atloonteans that they must first crawl through a mud trench, enter a pig pen to grab a pig, and drop the pig into its cage. The first three to do so will advance to the next round where they will do a tiki puzzle, go across a balance beam, climb down a net, and hit plates with slingshots. The first person to do this wins the Reward. And what is it? Probby announces that it's a horseback ride to the top of Mount Yasur where there will be a picnic of hot dogs, hot wine, and hot chocolates awaiting the winner. The winner will also get to sleep over at the top of the volcano. The cost of this Reward to Burnetto? I'll be surprised if it goes over a hundred bucks. Who on earth eats hot dogs with chocolate and wine anyway?

By the way, I love how Burnetto has the scene reenactment of the Challenge using Scout's color. This is an evil and so subtle way of giving the finger to Scout. It's way classier than ripping off Scout's prosthetic leg and beating her in the backside with it so I definitely approve.

Scout proves skeptics wrong by speeding across - oh, who am I kidding? She's out in the first round. Go, Scout! She's an inspiration to everyone everywhere. Elazya can't get past the pigs. Chris can't solve the puzzle. Twila hurts herself down the net. So Julie wins. Probby asks her to pick a partner for her visit up the volcano to eat hot dogs and chocolate with beer, an ecclectic combination of gourmet delicacies found only on this show. Julie says that it is "ironic" that no one will take her if these people win but she'll take Chris along with her. Chris runs over to her! Yay! He'll use her and then betray her! He'd be so cool if he shows a smidgen of the mastermind behavior of master players in the past. Chris makes Rat Boy look positively Machiavellian in comparison.

Chris and Julie are taken to the mountainside where they meet Joe and his horses. Why horses? Why not pigs, which Probby has said again and again are the best thing ever in Vanuatu? I guess the local "culture" is no longer sexy for the Atloonteans who have made into the Final Five and it's better to have a mountain man fantasy than a more local stereotypical set-up then. Ooh hot dogs! Ooh yummy! Oh intrigue. Or rather, Chris just lies and lies and says that Elazya can trust him, Julie can trust him, and he is so smart because he "doesn't tell her no". I love a man who thinks he is so clever by answering in double negative, as if by doing so he somehow comes off as more cunning that he really is. Meanwhile, Julie says that Chris is her rock and she can rely on him. Even after, you know, he has plotted with the opposing alliance to take out her allies one by one. Are Julie and Elazya congenitally unable to look past a man's sweet words or does Chris has some mojo that I am too classy and discriminating to discern? Whatever it is, it is game set check as Julie somehow allows herself to believe that Chris with her now. Why he should be with her and Elazya now is one thing that I guess she never considers. There is no benefit for Chris to get rid of Twila and Scout - he will win by a landslide if he is with any of the two bile bags.

Back in camp, Elazya is given the Cinderella treatment by Scout and Twila. She wants to find out where Twila buried the bananas that Julie and Elazya found for the tribe and Twila won't tell her anything other than to shut up or Twila will let the bananas rot in the ground. Scout is watching with unabashed glee as Elazya scampers around trying to find those bananas to feed herself. When Elazya finally locates the bananas and tells Twila off that she would do the same and hide the bananas while Twila will never find them, Scout is even more gleeful as she sing-songs condescendingly, "Touché! She got you! She got you Twila!" Twila tells Scout that Elazya is behaving childishly and guess what, mature and sensible Twila doesn't care if those bananas rot! So there!

Some apologists, particularly those obsessive psychos who hate Ami beyond reason, insist that Twila is behaving this way because Ami left some "psychological scars" in Twila before her departure. Oh please, for one I doubt Ami is that powerful. All Ami did was to say that she would never consider using a son's name to swear upon when one is lying. It's Ami's way of thinking and if Twila lets that affect her, that's too bad for Twila, isn't it? That just proves that Twila is not cut out for this show. But I really doubt that Twila can change overnight from the hardworking Burly Girl like these apologists insist that she is into a raving megalomaniac overnight. Ami isn't that powerful, give me a break. No, Twila and Scout are basically mean people with streaks of pettiness a mile wide and they have already shown signs of this since the first episode one. Let me put it this way: for two people who get off on saying that they are older, wiser, more honest, and therefore better people than the others, how do they explain their singular, unwavering hatred to a young woman more than half their age? Doesn't their treatment of Elazya strike you as... well, very immature and petty? And right then, Twila is still calling Elazya immature and childish. Is this where I check to see whether Twila is genetically related to a black kettle?

Elazya in the shelter complains to the camera about the way Twila is treating her. She calls Twila obnoxious and annoying and you know what? Twila and Scout should go back to whichever hickweed mud pond they crawl out from and sink their heads into it in shame because no matter how one dissect it, two fiftysomething women treating a woman in her early twenties this way is not the way to be, not when Scout and Twila still cling on to their mettle of self-righteousness.

In nicer news, Julie and Chris, in a scene straight out of a prom night tragicomedy, cuddle to watch the volcano spurt sparks (feel free to imagine what the whole spurting thing can be symbolic for) and compare the show to a Fourth of July firework show, and then go back down to earth where imminent betrayal awaits the silly girl who trusts the slimeball man too easily.



Good morning, people. It's day thirty-five now. No, it's not the last day of the show - there's only one more episode though, so put down those razorblades. Reprieve is soon. Anyway, Chris and Julie return and Chris tells Scout, when Julie is not within earshot, that he is still as solid as a rock (eeeeuw) with Scout (double eeeeeuw). Chris looks at Twila's injured foot, which must have only solidified his intention to take now two cripples to the Final Three with him, and then tells the camera that he and Scout have their "game" "on". Game on, huh? How about a fork off to go with that?

More intrigue and what-not, but oh, what's the use? Chris leads Elazya to believe that he's with them, tells the two bile bags that he's with them too, and Chris fans die of ecstasy as they live out their fantasies through Chris. I mean, that's so hot, so many women fighting over Chris like that! Who will Chris choose? The skeletal bonebag Elazya, the silly bimbette Julie, the bitter old cripple Scout, or the nutcase evil stepmother Twila? This is like one of those porno stories those Chris fans love to watch again and again (with the volume turned off so that Mommy won't suspect a thing). Chris is SUCH. A. STUD. Woo, is it hot here or what?

I'm more curious as to why Elazya and Julie believe that Chris want them with him to the Final Three. Hello, girls? What ate their brains? Elazya has no enemies in the Jury while Julie would only lose out on votes from the military xenophobe Lea and the personality-free Chad3P0, but Scout and Twila will cause most of the Jury members to vomit if they have to hand over the money to either one of the bile bags. Chris must be insane to take Elazya or Julie to the Final Two.

It's time for the Immunity Challenge. This one is fun. Probby tells a nice story about women getting strangled to death (as if the season and so many of the fans haven't been misogynistic enough already) while sending the Atloonteans around doing stuff and answering questions. It's hard to explain what they do here, so I'll just cut to the chase and say that Elazya wins the Dong Ring for, as she squeals in delight, the first time on the show. By the way, this is a mental challenge and Scout still gets whipped by the others, including Elazya whom she declared a few episodes back as "unworthy" of being on the show. Since her track record is a big beautiful zero when it comes to winning anything, she should look in the mirror to see what "undeserving" is really all about.

Elazya is happy because this is the first Tribal Council where she won't have to pack her bags for. She and Julie are sure that they and Chris would "shock the hell out of everyone". She has much to learn about the pigs on this show. Alas, Chris is reassuring the bile bags that he is with them. And then, he tells Elazya that he is voting out Julie. Elazya tries to tell Chris that Twila and Scout will never vote for each other so in the end it will be up to Chris versus Elazya in the next Tribal Council if one of the bile bags win Immunity. Or, in this case, if Twila wins Immunity, more like. But when Elazya has finished talking, she realizes that Twila is standing just out of her sight, listening. This leads to Twila trying to accuse Elazya of lying while Elazya tries to evade the issue by attacking Twila back with her own less than straightforward manner.

At this point, it seems that poor Elazya is being dogged at every step by Twila with Twila naturally insisting that she's dogging Elazya because Elazya is somehow a liar or some other things Twila comes up with in her mind to justify her treating Elazya badly. Elazya doesn't really understand the game when she tells the camera that Twila has been targetting her since day one. While it is beyond the pale, as I've said, for women of Twila and Scout's years to act on a petty grudge towards a woman whose only flaw is that she talks too much and irritates them, Elazya should be thinking like Chris. She shouldn't be allying with Julie just because Julie is her friend. She should realize that Twila and Scout have burned their bridges with the Jury and see those two bile bags as stepping stones in the Final Two to a million dollars. Twila steals the scene with a beautiful display of imbecilic lack of self-awareness. She condescendingly tells Elazya to calm down because she says that Elazya has been acting crazy and driving everyone nuts in these three days.

She then turns to ask Chris what he is doing. Chris stammers and says that he's just, you know, lying on the hammock, doing nothing, ma'am. He then tries to deflect things by saying that he's just listening to Elazya. To the camera, he says that he's in a great position because he is the swing vote. But he moans, "They're all women! How do you trust any of them?" He obviously haven't heard of the saying that women could have ruled the world if women liked each other. As it is, he's astute enough to notice that both sides of the women camp aren't talking to each other. And how sad is that? Someone should realize that Chris has an automatic two votes from the two men in the Jury and any bitter female Jury could easily send a vote to him too out of spite. The women should get together, kick out Chris tonight, and next kick out the least unpopular lady of the bunch in the Final Four and then take their chances with each other in the Final Three. Like some wise person said, if only women liked each other, really.

And finally, the scene which convinces me that Chris is never a mastermind. He tells Julie that he's with them, he reminds her of their deep friendship, and have Julie and Elazya really thinking that he's with them when he's actually playing them all along. Is he mad? Julie will be in the Jury. Elazya will be in the Jury. Who the hell gambles on making the Jury members as angry as possible? And then Chris tells Twila that he's with her and Scout too. So by the end of the day he will have two very angry women seated on the Jury thanks to his perfidy. I know some people believe that Chris is smart but that's just the editing trying too hard to portray him as the second coming of Porno. Chris is just a stupid Slug. Look at this scene, for Hatch's sake - he is lying just because he could (and probably thinks he's so smart in the process). He doesn't think at all about possible repercussions of such stupid recklessness.

Twila says as they all leave for Tribal Council that she doesn't trust Chris because, as she says, "You're playing for a million dollars. People have murdered for less than a million dollars." Let's just hope she doesn't end up accidently bringing some tragic incident on her son with that vow she made... oops, is that a kick below the belt, Twila? Chris says that he has promised both sides his word but he hasn't made up his mind yet. Yes, what a mastermind, huh?

Night, Tribal Council. Chatter, chatter, chatter. I must confess that I was in the bathroom, flossing my teeth to my reflection in the mirror. I'm sure I will regret it later if I miss anything. But since nobody has even tried to strangle anybody else, I don't think I missed out on a lot. It's now time to vote. Scout and Julie deliver appropriately gloat-heavy (Julie) and ridiculously condescending (Scout) remarks as they cast their vote for each other. Anyone who cannot guess who Twila and Elazya are voting for must... well, I don't know, there's no hope for this person. Chris votes for Julie and says that this is the hardest vote he has to cast. Yeah, he's such a mastermind.

Poor Elazya. Her brief grin when Twila's name is mentioned turns into open-mouthed shock when she realizes that Julie is the fourteenth person voted out of the game. She turns to Ami in the Jury before giving Chris a wounded look. Chris just looks at the ground, probably trying to count his toes. His mother always says that he has ten digits on his legs but he doesn't believe her. One, two, three... oops, he lost count and has to start again. Probby sends them home and runs back to his trailer and clings to Colby as he weeps irrationally, "See? That means boys are better than girls, right? So you will love me more than you love your mother, right? Because boys are better, boys rule, girls drool, right, Colbaby? Colbaby? Answer me, please!" And Colby will be screaming "MOMMMMYYYY!" as he tries to kick off that weeping Probby clinging hard to his ankles.

Julie is curious as to why Chris voted for her and not Twila. If she can't understanding the reason, she will never get it. She is predictably hurt over Chris' betrayal, et cetera. All I can say is, this is what happens to stupid little girls who cannot put aside friendship for a million dollars. What, they think Survivor is real life or something?

Bring on the finale. Just thinking of the dance of joy when this wretched season is finally over is putting a smile on my face already.

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