"Survivor" - season finale

So the season finale of "Survivor" started with a reward challenge involving their own little version of the Great Wall. Amanda ended up winning, but she had the option to share her pizza, beer and brownies (what is up with them craving pizza so badly anyway?) with either one or two other people. I didn't think she was going to pick any of them, to make it more "fair", but she ended up picking Todd only, which surprised me a little. Maybe she didn't want to show her hand further by also picking either Denise or Courtney, since she and Todd have been in an alliance all along. But I thought it was interesting that she didn't pick him so much because of their alliance but because she wasn't sure about him and wanted time to talk to him alone.

And then the four go on their final journey to remember all of their fallen comrades. Wait, didn't they say last week that there would be three tribal councils? Which would mean they're going back to only having a final two? Maybe there's still another twist coming up.

The last challenge was kind of like an endurance thing of who wanted it more, but it had the added element of having to balance the plates and such. It was interesting that Amanda decided to flip her one bowl around, which seemed to perhaps steady a bit more. And she almost got distracted by Denise's attempt to make a deal with her, but in the end, Amanda won the final immunity. Yep, Jeff said final immunity and Amanda would be in the final tribal council, but everything was still worded strangely that it made me wonder if something else wasn't up. Maybe they'd have a regular vote off to three, and then Amanda would get to pick who goes with her to final two, so her immunity would end up being a double-whammy.

As Amanda was going back and forth about what to do, whether to vote for Todd to force a tie (since she apparently couldn't persuade Courtney to vote for Todd) or to just vote off Denise, Courtney threw in her two-cents to the camera and made a comment that Denise shouldn't win because it's not a welfare gig. Wow, that was pretty harsh. Loser at life? Denise seemd to be doing ok for herself, and I'm not sure what kind of position Courtney thinks she's in that she feels entitled to look down at Denise. Because Denise is a lunch lady? That's ridiculous. Courtney herself has said that she's pretty much been a tagalong to get where she is, and Denise has had to fight. Courtney's comment really irritated me, on top of everything else Courtney has done/said.

In the end, Amanda chose to vote with her alliance, and Denise was voted off. I did think Denise's comment about Amanda having her back was a little deceiving because Amanda was right in that she'd made that comment a little while ago, not that day. And Denise has it confirmed to her that she in fact did make the biggest mistake in not voting with P.G. and Erik earlier, when they could have kicked off Todd, and Denise would have had a real shot at final three. And for Denise, Jeff said she was the final member of the jury. So what's going on? Is it still going down to final two, and the one not selected doesn't even get to be on the jury?

The three had a bad final night at camp because Amanda was upset with what Denise said and Todd's reaction and her perception that Todd threw her under the bus. But all was well the next morning, especially since they enjoyed some breakfast treats.

So we get to final tribal council. Yep, it's final three again, not two. Hmmm, but maybe this council ended in a tie, so they had to have a run-off. After all, they already know who wins once the votes have been cast since they're all doing it on camera. There is a chance there could be a tie, and if so, they couldn't very well break a tie on the live show, so they'd have to have a run-off right then and there. Maybe that's the twist.

The questions from the jury were pretty much what you'd expect. I did think it was funny that Todd's answer to Jean-Robert left him literally speechless, and James was just simply cracking up about it. I thought it was interesting that James said twice that he didn't want to be a Bitter Betty. I'm wondering if that was directed at Denise, who we find out is obviously very bitter, but her wounds were the freshest. Everyone else had some time for thought and perspective, but for her, not much time had passed at all. You could tell by Denise's questioning, or rather, commenting, that she was really just ticked off at Amanda and Todd, and she ended up voting for Courtney because Courtney was the one she wasn't mad at because she had never promised her anything or broken her word, really because she was never in a position to do either. The most surprising to me was Jamie's questioning. Easy-going blondie had the most direct, pointed, biting, combative questions, and she wasn't letting them off easy.

And in the end, Todd won with four votes, with Courtney getting two votes and surprisingly to me, Amanda only getting one vote. I think Amanda really tanked herself in her answers to the jury. Yes, Todd had lied and cheated as well, as much if not more so than Amanda, but he completely owned up to it, that it was strategy, part of the game and he meant to do all of it, while trying to keep the personal relationships separate. Amanda waffled entirely too much, and she did play it off as if none of the betrayals were her fault, at one point even saying she had no choice but to vote someone off. She didn't want to be blamed for the bad stuff, but in the same breath, she also wasn't then going to claim the credit, though she tried to claim her rightful credit for James' ouster. But she played both sides, so I think she really just made people angry, whereas Todd might also have made people angry, but you could at least respect his game play.

I can't even say how much it irritated me that Courtney came in second. I wasn't too fond of Todd after a while, but he definitely deserved to win after all his machinations.

And since there was no tie whatsoever, I don't know if they just made a mistake when they had Jeff do the promo about there being 3 tribal councils or if they just deliberately lied about it.

Denise ended up being the key to the game. (Jeff tried to talk about Courtney's "welfare" comment, but both she and Denise seemed to blow it off, with Courtney saying she had apologized and Denise saying it wasn't a big deal, so Jeff just moved along. I was really surprised that Denise was that blase over the comment.) And her decisions in the game were motivated by what she talked about all throughout the game. She kept saying that she wasn't ever the popular kid in school, and that she was always the one who got picked last or never got picked at all. And her holding onto that hurt is what cost her final three and ultimately, it turns out, P.G. winning it all as well. Denise had been taken in, to some degree, by the "cool kids", aka Todd and Amanda and their alliance, and Denise couldn't abandon that. She said she was never picked as a kid - but she was picked in the game eventually - by P.G. and Erik. But P.G. and Erik were outcasts as well, and Denise's fixation meant she would rather reject the outcasts who were trying desperately to gain her favor and try to stay with the "cool kids" (which is probably why she refused to vote off Todd) in the hopes that their acceptance of her was real, that she could really and truly be included in their group. And in the end, when they did ultimately reject her, like we saw coming for weeks, she was angry that yet again, she was tossed aside by the "cool kids". Jeff made a comment about how it was nice that James was able to put aside his feelings and vote the game because some people just can't let the personal feelings aside. I wonder if that was directed at Denise, who clearly voted her emotions at the end.

When Jeff announced the fan favorite, I wasn't surprised at all that James won. The added twist came at the last break when Jeff announced that, because of the story Denise told about having been fired from her job when she returned, Mark Burnett had decided then and there that she would get $50,000 to help her out.

I liked Denise for some time, but her stubbornness in not seeing the game started to annoy me. And then I felt sorry for her about having lost her job. And then I saw this story, where it turns out that Denise's tearful confession wasn't entirely truthful. Her boss at the school district says that she was promoted, at her own request, to custodian, which included higher pay and more benefits, before she went on the show. When she returned, she wanted to go back to being a lunch lady, but the position was no longer available. This is a far cry from the sob story she told on the show.

So the next season of "Survivor" will be in Micronesia. (OK, yeah, I'm geography-challenged, but where the heck is that?) And this time, it's going to pit a team of returning contestants (all-stars) with rabid fans who have studied and know every aspect of the game. That's a nice twist that sounds like a lot of fun (depending on who the returning people are) - looking forward to seeing it, wherever they are...