Dispatches From the Gender War Front: Episode 14 - Best Player Wins; Viewers Experience Ennui

[kungfuhippie]

Well that was relatively satisfying. Not terribly surprising, but its better than being outraged. Ever since the Jonas got the axe it has seemed like Kim was on the path to a win, and indeed, so it was. The editors didn't steer us wrong. Wouldn't it be strange if Christina won after all those weeks of telegraphing Kim? After last weeks ejecting of Tarzan it seemed virtually impossible for Kim not to make the finals since we know Chelsea and Sabrina were loyal to her and suspected shifty player Alicia basically declared her loyalty as well. The only question, really, was would Kim take the two players she was closest to who were nice and maybe capable of getting a vote or two, Chelsea and Sabrina, or would she take Alicia, with her well known personality flaws and Christina who was, for some reason, reviled and disrespected by everyone in the game. Kim, having won immunity, chooses to play a balanced game and avoids backstabbing a close ally who might be offended and boots Alicia. This turns out to be the right decision given Alicia's final words of praise to Kim. In fact she feels respected and validated by the move. The only person she's mad at is Christina(!?) for some reason that I can't fathom. Clearly Kim can do no wrong at this point. She wins the next Immunity as well and has Christina come to ask if its the end of the line for her. Kim tells her it is. Its just that simple. On the one hand its disappointing that Christina goes out without any fight whatsoever. However, at this point she had nothing in her arsenal. At least she saved herself some energy. Its the same story with almost everyone who has gone since the merge. They should have done something earlier. Credit Kim, I guess for making all the loose-enders feel safe and want to go along with her plans rather than join up and create a united opposition.



So, final three: Sabrina (barely seen her in the last 8 or 10 weeks) Chelsea (mostly only talks about her relationship with Kim in confessionals) and Kim (has many confessionals where she talks about strategy, choices and balancing alliances) An edit like that says the the outcome is a foregone conclusion. Unless Kim screws up terribly in the final TC or there are a lot of very, very bitter jurors. Each of the final three women are relatively well spoken. But Kim kinda has more to work with since she ran the show and the jury knows in. The jury's bitterness is distinctly low-grade and a lot of them, like Alicia, Tarzan and Kat don't really have questions, they just want to give a final soliloquy on their experience. Sounds like this jury has their mind made up. The votes are cast and after a change of venue and some ensuing months for editing, etc are read. It isn't close Kim takes the win 7-2. Sabrina gets a vote from the one real bitter betty on the jury. Leif gave her the other to add to his record of mediocrity in voting. 4 out of 8 votes cast by him were in the minority. So Kim wins. Who knew? I'm happy at least, she seems to be a reasonable, balanced person. She's not self aggrandizing, she doesn't seem to be a fame whore, just a normal, nice, clever person who played an excellent game.



Heading into the live reveal/reunion show then, the question wasn't so much who was going to win, but a few other questions remained. The first question was what was Uncle Fester from the Addams Family doing in the audience?



Also, TV's Blossom, Miyam Bialik?



One of these questions will be answered later, but in the meantime Kim must be awarded the win. Then some chit chat about the season as a whole. Probst appears foolish by asking Matt about giving up Immunity to vote off Bill when he was already gone. Then he asks Michael about it, who says "in all fairity..." and then I'm not sure what else he said because I was chuckling about the made up word 'fairity'. Anyway, what else did we find out...Chelsea luvs Kim. We knew that already.Tarzan gets to jibjabber like a jackass for quite a while. He claims the taking out Bill was not a stupid move. I continue to disagree with him on this point. Troyzan looks like he never came off the island. He's all disheveled. He claims everyone played with fear and only did whatever made them feel comfortable. Which I agree with. He seems to think he's the greatest player to ever play the game. Which I don't agree with. Of course we have to deal with Colton.



And the most annoying player always seems to get the most airtime. So...apparently he's not a racist. Does anyone ever say, oh, yeah, of course I'm a racist. Aren't you? Probst says there's a difference between a villain you love to hate and a villain you don't want to see anymore. Which hopefully is his way of telling Colton we won't be seeing him any more. Then we get three character witnesses for the defense. Colton's mom, Mayim Bialik (TV's Blossom!) for some reason and an extremely random dude out of the audience.



Seriously, who the hell was that guy?? They all speak for Colton, some more convincingly than others in what is the weirdest and time-wastingest chunk of the show. I assume Uncle Fester was scheduled to testify, but decided he didn't want to be associated with Colton at the last minute.



Hmm, so then we get Alicia, who apparently only has love in her heart. Probst helps her out and lets her off easy. Christina forgives her and Colton - she's not exactly confrontational, did you expect anything else? Leif is still cheesed at Colton about the munchkin remark. Bill just thinks Colton's a jerk but he's not that concerned about him. He's more about talking up comedy as a career choice. He also looks a little like if Samuel L Jackson reimagined his Pulp Fiction character as an Edwardian fop.



Anything else? I can always pick on people's appearances. Tarzan's hair needed some conditioner, I think. Was Colton wearing his same green shirt? And what was Kim wearing? It looked like something you'd wear to wash the dog in.



As is his custom, Probst ignored completely a select few. It seems a little rude to ignore the second place finisher, but thats what he does here, he doesn't talk to Sabrina at all. The first and second boots, Kourtney and Nina, are the other ones he has nothing to say to. I don't have anything on Nina, but here's a picture of part of Kourtney. In fairity to her, you'll have to ignore Michael. You can see her tattoos. Looks like theres one that might be an adult and a child reaching a business agreement, possibly over girlguide cookies, and one of a bear who might be holding a trumpet. So we did learn something about her.



So thats it. A good win but a slightly underwhelming season. One thing I liked was my title for this season (Dispatches from the Gender War Front) made sense for almost the whole season, since it was pretty much girls against guys the whole way. I hate it when I pick a title and it immediately makes no sense. Like when I called it Russrobvor and they booted Russell immediately . Next season, three tribes, some medical evacs back. Please just don't let it be Colton. Blossom and Random Audience Guy would be pleased but come on, think of the rest of us!

Enjoy your racist-free, lunatic plastic surgeon-free, Survivor-free summer.

Stop writing me, I'm off the clock.
kungfuhippie@tvfunspot.com

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