Samoa This! Episode 15: "Most Evil Survivor Ever" Loses - Fans Heartbroken

[kungfuhippie]

Ok, lets be quick about this. Its over, Christmas is coming, no one cares. Its over. I'll take you through it one more time. Treemail. Big challenge. Supposedly the talk is about booting Natalie when Brett inevitably wins immunity. I say supposedly because hat's what Russell says. I don't see anyone else really going on and on about it. Russell figures Brett is beatable. The other guys think its like stepping into the ring with Mike Tyson, but Russell doesn't think he's Mike Tyson. He's just feeble old Brett.



The challenge is a very weak obstacle course designed to take less than 5 minutes. Obviously Probst has an appointment he needs to get to or they've reached the overtime budget for the crew. This won't take long. Run accross some netting, over a balance beam, grab a bag of puzzle pieces, come back, climb a steepish plywood incline, do the puzzle. Do that first, win Immunity. Off they go. Russell who had threatened to go all out, takes the lead. He gets started on the puzzle first, but everyone is pretty close behind. We know Jaison is not exactly a puzzle genius. We also know that Brett kinda is. So, not a huge surprise that Brett wins. I guess he's Mike Tyson enough. He's the Mike Tyson of puzzles. Watch out, jigsaws, he'll bite your f@%*ing ear off.



Russell wats to keep Natalie since she can't beat him in the finals. He tells her he'll try and change the boys' minds. Turns out that's not at all hard to do, because he says to Jaison "We have to get rid of Mick" and Jaison goes "Myeh. All right. I agree" He tells Mick they have to get rid of Jaison and Mick agrees immediately as well. Seriously, Russell could tell them they needed to get rid of their moms and they would both go "Yeah, she had a good run. She can't compete. Boot her." Natalie, Jaison and Mick all remark to the camera that they've all had a pact with Russell since the beginning to go all the way. Too bad they never mentioned this to each other, they might realize something is a little fishy with that. Russell has a final chat with Natalie about their choice and they head off for Tribal Council.



The TC chitchat is all about trying to beat Brett at the next challenge and trying to set yourself up against opponents that won't garner votes from the jury. We've heard all this before, its all Foa Foa has been talking about for the last two weeks. Lets get to the vote. (They vote.) The victim is Jaison, who looks right ticked about it. If fact in his parting words he reveals he i now backing Brett. So much for Foa Foa pride! I don't like to call people boring, because, you know, it could be the edit. But Jaison was a little...boring. Not too broken up about seeing him gone. I'm pretty sure he was the only one harbouring any sorts of illusions that he could actually win. Anyways, one down, one to go before the finals!



Back at camp, Brett lays out his plan for moving forward: Win the next Immunity Challenge. That's it. Pretty simple, really. Russell gets a hankering to promise someone something he has no intention of honouring (its been a while since he made a fake deal!) so he promises to take Brett to the final 3, asking for the same courtesy from Brett. He of course gives it and they shake on it. That was close, Russell almost missed doublecrossing one person in the game!



Treemail arrives and it announces the generally overblown and drawn out 'Fallen Comrades" schtick. The final four are to take a walk and pick up masks representing the Survivors who have been voted out along the way so they can burn them psuedo-ritualistically. Its sort of nice that they share a few memories of each person. But most of Russell's memories are like 'She looked at me funny , so I got rid of her!' It also helps us remember all of these people since we see a few clips of each of them saying philosophical things and generally doing something like falling down and/or almost dying.



From that heartwarming episode, its right to the next Immunity Challenge. If you are hoping fondly for one of those deals that test your endurance and all that, sorry; those are a thing of the past. What they have prepared is a little exercise you might do on your first day at Clown College. Each competitor has a little sculpture of a man about a foot high. That goes on top of a litle hand held platform on a stick. Every two minutes the players add another foot long section to the bottom of the stick, raising the little guy higher and higher. About 8 or 10 minutes in, Mick loses it as he's tring to add another section. Natalie is out a moment later. Now its the big man and the kid. The guy who thinks he should win and the guy who will win, if he can just get in front of that jury. It gets pretty tense and exciting, considering its just two guys holding sticks. The wind comes up both guys almost drop their sculptures a couple of times but recover. Finally (well, sort of finally, its only like 15 minutes or something, its not like 16 hours or anything) Brett loses it and can't recover. Russell finally proves himsellf with an Immunity win.



Brett is pretty sure that Russell was full of crap about taking him to the finals. But a guy can hope. Meanwhile Russell is indulging in fantasies of winning the whole thing. No one could deny him now that he won final immunity to take out Brett. He's also getting a little sentimental - he likes Brett, wants his daughters to meet someone like him someday. Mick starts getting a little antsy, worried that Russell is going to boot him and keep the beloved Brett. Russell is gathering firewood - something he doesn't normally do (I believe he said early on in the game he didn't come to work, he came to play the game). The firewood gathering is suspicious anyway. He's worried about Russell's 'strange plans and ploys' Mick is acting pretty jittery and paranoid, but to be fair to him, Russell is off with Brett right now working on another strange plan and/or ploy. He tells Brett how he thinks he's great and that he has a deal with everyone. But maybe, just maybe, he could vote with him against Mick and create a tie which might result in a fire lighting challenge. What can Brett do? He's like 'sounds good, dude.' And he hopes Russell is a man of his word. I got news for you Brett. He ain't. He says an awful lot of words to a lot of people. No one could be a man of all of those words. Especially the words that conflict with and contradict so many other words. Off then, to another Tribal Council.



Probst kicks the idea of keeping Brett around and everyone chats about hat. Not super surprisingly, Natalie and Mick aren't big on that idea. They vote and Brett is out. I wander if Russell thinks that telling people he will save them and then not saving them is somehow really appreciated by the? He seems to go out of his way to get people's hopes up before dashing them. Well, dashing hopes is fun, I guess. Brett was well loved by pretty much everyone on the show. Maybe if he got a total of more than 5 minutes camera time in the first 11 episodes, we might have come to love him too. As it is, I'd say he was a nice kid with a great social game and some challenge skills. But he was also, apparently, mostly extraneous to the main plot of the season, which is to say, he wasn't Russell, or a person important to Russell's game.





The next morning, the final 3 enjoys the traditional breakfast feast accompanied by an impressive barrage from Russell about how his colleagues have no chance of winning. He encourages Natalie to brush up her speech and prepare answers is she wants to beat Mick for second place. Any checking of the ego which Russell had been doing up until now is finished and he lets it all out. Its kind of mortifying! Russell even goes so far as to tell them the votes as he sees them - Shambo, Dave, Brett, John and Erik will vote for him. Despites the savage browbeating, Mick and Natalie express some belief that they have a chance at it. No sense in telling Russell that though, he is really, really, really not interested in that. Fortunately, someone thinks of something to do that will stop Russell talking about how awesome he is; burning stuff! Everyone likes to burn stuff. When you get a little tired of going on about how great you are, you take a break, burn a bunch of stuff and you're ready to go again. The camp is burned in the usual manner and they head towards the final Tribal Council as Russell, in a voice over, expresses supreme confidence that he will impress the jury far more than the two bums he brought along.



The jury, ready for their big moment, files in. They wear expressions which might give a clue as to what's to come. Laura looks peeved. Dave looks creepy. Shambo is grinning from ear to ear like a maniac. Probst calls for opening statements:
Mick: "I'm nicer than Russell. Vote for me!" (much shaking of heads from Jaison and Shambo)
Natalie: "I challenged myself, I grew, you all helped me get here, thanks." (Less head shaking, but little enthusiam)
Russell: "I made huge moves. I screwed you all over. These two are losers. Vote for me" (Shambo grins even more maniacally).



Now time for questions - Jaison wants to point out that none of them are poor, for some reason. Shambo is insane (no surprise there.) She gets Mick and Natalie to start talking, then interrupts them and tells them they suck. She finishes with a thumbs up, a wink and a smoochy face to Russell. Brett is inexplicable, asking only Mick what the two of them would do on a bro date together. Not sure if Brett is addled from dehydration and believes he is on the dating game. Luckily for Mick, they aren't because his date sounds terrible - it starts with checking out the news, then eating, then talking about sports and girls. Brett explains that the question was to see if Mick invested any time getting to him as a person, so I understand that answer to be a fail. He should have said something like, "As prayer warriors, we would go out and fight a prayer war. Then, later, maybe design some t-shirts!" Since we know that he and Natalie have a lot in common and he doesn't talk to Russell at all, you can draw your own conclusions as to who he will vote for.



Kelly asks Natalie and Russell a question. Mick is disregarded. Monica's request to Mick and Natalie to say why the other doesn't deserve to win gets Mick and Russell knocking heads. Natalie manages to avoid answering. Dave is sort of friendly seeming, but sort of weird. He asks what the finalists think their chances are. Mick says " After this? Maybe 20 - 25%" Obviously he is about as impressed with his performance here as we are. Natalie gives 30 - 40%. Russell feels his chances have gone down a bit and calls it 55% currently. Add up those chances, you only come to a little bit over 100, so these guys aren't bad at math at all. Laura asks Russell to talk about her, which he does. John asks Mick and Natalie to blow him away with reasons to vote for them. They don't exactly do that. Erik, the first member of the jury, has had a long time to plan his speech. He wants nothing from the finalists, just a soapbox to give his little rant about Mick being a feeble leader, Russell being proudly unethical and Natalie being weak and ineffectual - but more deserving anyway, that arrogant Russell and delusionally entitled Mick. It sounds like he's losing his mind, and hes enjoying his position on the high horse of the jury, but its actually is pretty awesome. One of the better speeches at a final TC. Probably better than anything the finalists put together! Erik gives Natalie his blessing and his vote and expresses his desire that four more people vote her way as well.



The votes are then cast. We see Erik voting for "Ratalie" and Shambo for Russell, saying hes the only one who deserves it in her humble opinion. But seriously, when was her opinion ever humble? The votes collected, Probst walks off into the night to emerge, as usual, at an appropriately decorated soundstage. He gives the spiel and begins to count the votes. One for Natalie, one for Russell. Another for Nat and another for Russell. Then, Natalie, Natalie, Natalie. Natalie. Natalie wins it. Obviously she looks happy. Russell, who has been looking extremely miserable the whole time continues to do so. At least you got a couple, Russ. Mick got nothing! Natalie was a nice girl who built great relationships. The jury liked her personally, thats what it came down to. Try working on those interpersonal skills for next time, Russell.



The rest of the voted out Survivors now emerge from the woodwork to await their 10 second interviews with Probst. But first the debate over whether Russell should have won. Probst and Russell think yes. Erik and Jaison are sticking with Natalie. Jaison is still a little ticked at Russell for burning his socks, and Russell has come prepared - he has a pair of socks in his pocket for Jaison. No doubt, if he won he would have handed them over magnanimously. But he's in a bad mood now, so he throws them in the fire again. This is about as lively as Russell gets He broods the rest of the show. He does offer Natalie 10,000 dollars and later $100, 000 for the title of Sole Survivor. That's just sort of a pathetic display. Get over it Russell. You're not the first good player to lose the game.



Now is the time to catch up on all the other players.But you know what? Probst has only seconds for them. I have even less time. After watching the reunion show again, I realized, they haven't got a whole lot of wisdom to impart. Shambo thinks shes an object of worship in Seattle (in her humble opinion). Laura thinks she's a hot grandma (she kind of is). Dave is sentimental. A sentimental weirdo. Betsy has a crush on Probst. Probst has no time for John, Kelly or Liz.



Not a heck of a lot more to tell. Russell beats out Shambo (thank goodness) and Brett for viewers choice player of the game. Maybe he can forget about that Sole Survivor title and go with Viewers Choice now. Hey, remember me? I'm Russell, the Viewer's Choice from Survivor Samoa. Anyway Congrats to Nat and Russell. Another season down and one coming up in February with returning favorites! How will Coach and Russell get along? Find out next time. On. Survivor!



Happy holidays all!

Email Christmas family updates here:kungfuhippie@tvfunspot.com

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[toque]

Thanks for a wonderful season of Survivor Samoa recaps, Kungfu! You make my absolute favourite reality show even better each time.

Your tone was just a little bit more biting this time around, which I enjoyed. It captured that feeling we have when a show is over. One of my favs:

We know Jaison is not exactly a puzzle genius. We also know that Brett kinda is. So, not a huge surprise that Brett wins. I guess he's Mike Tyson enough. He's the Mike Tyson of puzzles. Watch out, jigsaws, he'll bite your f@%*ing ear off.

Also, the pic of Jeff is hilarious. You caught my two favourite moments. First, Russel throwing Jaison's socks in the fire, and second, that priceless face Jeff made when Betsy told him he's making her sweat when he says her name.

Thanks again!

[Daniel]

Great recap KF! Still no love for Shambo Thanks for the great and funny recaps this season