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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Then Kim P. comes up and says that she too changed her vote. She too remarks on Kim's 56 years.
What is it with all this 56 crap?
Our dad is 56 and could still ride a bike over a mountain to kick our ass.
Tom goes off on "the weak one." He really goes off. He face is red and he's practically spewing saliva as he talks. By the time he stuffs his ballot into the pot we think that boil on his neck is going to burst.
And to think Kim thought he was sexist.
Kelly does a quick scene from "The Graduate." Is she making a weird crack at young Ethan and older Kim? The number was 568, the room number in her favorite movie. 568 is closer to 860 than 3, so Ethan may be lucking out.
If her agent could have seen it, he would have advised against it: The reading might get in the way of some really solid commercial offers.
Jeff goes to tally the votes.
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We come back for the final time. Something about Teresa looks strange. Ethan's beard is different. We notice there is no wind. And Jeff's voice is really weird.
Forget it, we think.
But then Jeff asks a weird question: Do they have any last words, anything to say now that the votes are in?
Why now, we're thinking?
Kim says that she was scared, and she tried to hide that. But he pumps her, and he gets an inspirational story out of her.
She was proving something to herself.
That's something that happens in a story: character development and resolution.
Now Jeff's voice is echoing.
"Let's get to the vote," he says.
Ethan and Kim hold hands.
They get two votes each.
Then one for Ethan.
Then one more.
Ethan wins.
He jumps up, and we hear his whoop, and then cheers.
Wait.
Cheers?
The camera pans back.
They're in a studio!
This is a sound stage! A recreation of the tribal council set. Complete with little grass huts and everything.
See, last year, there was a big production where Jeff Probst supposedly arrived at a studio via helicopter.
This version was far more seamless. The differences were very subtle.
It's the kind of trick that supposed reality shows and documentaries generally don't like to play, recreating "reality" in a place so false and fake.
Then we remembered. This show isn't about reality. It's about stories, and editing and manipulating situations to get the best story.
And even then, this version never really got one worth watching.
Kim, our character who made such a transformation, lost to the guy whose expressed goal was staying exactly the same.
For the second year in a row, a survivor had a chance to go into the final two with an unattractive challenger, and chose a nicer one.
And lost for her trouble.
Lex and Probst make a big deal out of the fact that no one makes the finals of "Survivor " in an accident, but we disagree.
Niceness is, well, nice, but you should play the game to win.
On the other hand, one of the piquant charms of "Survivor" has been to gauge precisely the characters' muddled thinking. None are brainiacs to begin with, and this is compounded by the mental tricks dehydration, malnutrition and bad hygiene play.
Did Kim kick Lex out blindly? Or did she think that he really was a great guy and thought others felt about him the same way? It's possible Kim did some number crunching, and figured out that she would have lost even bigger against Lex.
Kim? Number crunching? Nah.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
The camera pans down again. There is a beast lurking nearby -- a beast far scarier than the hungriest lion in the bush.
It's Bryant Gumble, the chuckle-headed host of CBS's morning show. You know, the one with Julie Chen. He's ready to host a post-finale reunion show.
He gets the final say:
"We're live in Los Angeles."
Nothing good can come of those words.
(Jeff Stark)
