Days 34-36: December 15-17, 2001
Aired: May 16, 2002

For the last time, no, I ain't payin' you to wash my windows, old man!  Step away from the car!

    Since the centerpiece of this episode was Jeff Probst's tale about a wily Marquesan chief disguising himself in battle, only to let down his hair and reveal his true identity in victory, we'll get the truth-telling out of the way right up front this week.  In this episode, we learned:
- Pappy is actually the "I'm not dead yet" guy from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
- Neleh is really Vecepia, and so is Sean (you'll see why later).
- Kathy, despite all appearances, is Keith Famie in disguise.  No wonder Patrick turned up his nose at her cooking!
- Survivor: Marquesas is really only slightly less predictable than Scooby Doo, and last, but by no means least,
- Sean and Vee are really screwed.  Unless they're not, of course, and Sean's outbursts were merely acting (which would make him really the Master Thespian, sans the velvet robe).
    We open, as is usually the case in these late episodes, with scenes of a camp in chaos.  Or at least, as chaotic as five people who spend 95% of their time laying about, groaning softly, can appear.  Sure, they can work up a lather half-heartedly plotting (read: whining) about their opponents every so often.  But that's only after the producers make their hourly rounds, poking them with sticks to see who's still alive, and who can used as low-cost extras for the morgue scenes on CSI.
    It seems Sean and Vee are busy whining to Kathy about the alliance Paschal and Neleh have.  Okay, to be accurate, Vee is sitting there motionless, and Sean is "busy" in the sense that his mouth appears to be moving.  Kathy nods and grunts occasionally, and tries to burrow down into her turtleneck, hoping to be mistaken for a rock.
    Just when Kathy fears this might never end, Paschal and Neleh appear, and take Kathy aside to inform her how "pukey sick" it makes them to see the alliance Sean and Vee have going.  Again Kathy nods, hoping that the motion of her head will provide enough momentum for her body to roll all the way down to the waterfall.  Sadly, it does not.
    Luckily, the next round of stick-poking is accompanied by tree mail, informing the contestants that to get today's reward, they have to complete five challenges, not just one!  On the plus side, it's composed of challenges they've already done, so while the contestants have to do more work, the production assistants got another night off to drink heavily and eat fafaru.  Everybody wins!  We could go into a lot of details explaining the challenge, but since it's all been done before, we figure we'll take the day off, too.
    In short, Sean wins handily, easily finishing the fifth and final stage before anyone else even reaches the third part.  Meanwhile, Paschal is stuck way back at the start, apparently testing to see if he knocks his tiki tower onto the ground randomly, maybe he can get the ten pieces in order by chance.  As he wins, Sean races around, chasing Jeff Probst, and leaping on him.  Suddenly, Probst becomes pukey sickly aware of how poor Patrick felt in the last episode when his mom wrapped her body around him.  And as he takes his hair down, we see that Sean is really Kathy.  Or, judging from the unending stream of hallelujahs flowing from his tongue, maybe Sean is really Vecepia.  As he flops around on the ground, it becomes clear that all things really can come through Christ, including epileptic seizures.
    So, after Probst revives him with a little more stick-poking, Sean gets a shiny new Saturn VUE.  Or at least the promise of one at some future date, after the show finishes airing.  This astounding product placement opportunity, replete with a slo-mo thumbs up from the proud winner, wasn't exactly a secret, since it was announced before the first episode aired.  No matter.  Sean says that this win goes out to all the inner city kids, although he notes that he'll be damn sure to keep his windows rolled up and doors locked if he ever drives it through their neighborhoods.
    With that out of the way, everyone returns to their whining about food.  Then about each other.  Seems Pappy and Neleh are particularly incensed that Sean and Vecepia have an alliance.  Never mind that Pappy and Neleh do too, and have voted exactly the same way at every tribal council, whereas Sean and Vee do not have a spoken agreement, and have voted for different people on occasion.  In fact, Vee has voted with Pappy and Neleh at every opportunity, while Sean has not.  But that's not the point, says Pappy, who, after letting his hair down reveals himself to be the exhumed corpse of George Wallace.  "Once those negroes start organizing," he says, "the next thing, they're going to want to vote at tribal council.  And we can't have that!"  Neleh agrees, "Yeah, that would make me pukey sick."
    Vee, perhaps foreseeing that a Sean tirade (coupled with his ill-conceived domination of the reward challenge) will guarantee her a spot in the final four, nobly arranges an air-clearing chat session around the fire.  There, the same poorly-worded arguments and accusations of alliances we've seen since the start of the episode come up again, as they will once more at tribal council.  With the skill and aplomb of an eighth-grade debating team, we're made painfully aware that nobody will admit to being in an alliance, even though everyone is.  We're beginning to think that even CBS's threatened upcoming broadcast of "Ultimate Manilow" may be preferable to more of this.
    The next day dawns, and Paschal lets down his hair to reveal his true identity: The Amazing Kreskin, mentalist and seer of the unknown.  Sprawled in his well-worn rut at the base of the tree, he beckons Kathy by exerting all his strength to flutter one eyelid.  He informs her of the fruits of his psychic vision: "Sean and Vee appear to be playing some game called Survivor.  It's just like Gina person told us three weeks ago.  They sit around a lot and don't do much.  Now, bring me some of the food they brought back yesterday.  I'm going to continue resting here."  Stunned by this bold proclamation, Kathy races off to fly a kite, in a vain attempt to be struck by lightning, and escape these people.  Sadly, she fails.
    Instead, the script calls for her to tell Sean that Paschal and Neleh are tremendous adversaries, and should be voted off (revealing herself to be Kathy from Episode 11, who said the same thing to Robert, then did the opposite).  Thankfully, before we can see much more of this, we're taken to the immunity challenge, which, when its hair is let down, is revealed to be the same story recall immunity challenge that was used in every season past.
    This means Jeff Probst gets more camera time than usual, and that we're treated to shots of the Survivors looking thoughtful.  In Pappy's case, that means almost nodding off.  The story involves a cunning chief using trickery to defeat and eat a rival chief.  In a stroke of sly, subtle editing, these parts are juxtaposed with images of Sean and Paschal sitting next to each other.  Clearly, this is implying that Pappy intends to shove Sean into the pig trap as soon as they get back to camp, if only he can work up the strength.  Eventually, the challenge begins, and plays out largely as it has in seasons past.  And as Kathy and Neleh race to the finish, they let down their hair to reveal they are both really Keith Famie (and thereby the co-winners of this year's Stumblef*ck Award.  Take a bow, ladies!).  Yes, each has dropped one of their precious tikis.  Kathy races back and finds hers, making her the winner, then promptly rushes over and gives Sean the kiss of death.
    So it's come to this: will Kathy pick the obvious strategy of allying with Sean and Vee, and split up the inseperable Neleh-Paschal "We're not an alliance" Alliance, as she's threatened to do for two weeks in a row?  Or will she, as every past contestant has done, despite all of Burnett's wacky swapping and twisting of the tribes, stick with her original tribesmates once again?  Oooooh, the tension is thick.
    As we're brought to tribal council, "ominous" music plays.  Probably because jury member Zoe appears to have shaved off her hair, revealing herself to really be Robert.  Who knew?  No, more likely, it's to set the tone for more thrill-a-minute arguing about who's in an alliance and who's not.  None of which changes anything, and there are few surprises in the voting.  At least until, as she casts her ballot, Neleh lets down her hair to reveal she's really... Vecepia!  "There's too much drama!"
    Yes, it's a stunning, tricky conclusion, as Sean gets snuffed.  After a quick stick-poking reveals Sean's carcass is now fair game, rival chief Pappy slavers over the meatiest part, striving to capture his vanquished warrior spirit.  And Neleh finally follows through on her threat to get pukey sick.  Praise the lord!

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Days 31-33: December 12-14, 2001
Aired: May 9, 2002

Oh sh..., I mean, oh my heck!  That wasn't supposed to happen! Now Burnett's going to play up the infinitesimal possibility of me getting booted for the next fifteen minutes!  But still, I'm so happy to be here!
 

    One of the good things about the waning episodes of each  Survivor season is that, with the expository delving into the castmembers' motivations and alliances out of the way, and fewer people to film, there's more time to focus on the strategy and manipulation that goes on.  Which is what the interesting part of the show is, anyway. 
    Okay, we'll admit it.  That's what would be good about Survivor's final episodes in a fantasy world.  In reality, what you're left with instead is Mark Burnett forcing you to sit through half an hour of the contestants weeping, then the remainder of an hour padded with strategizing that doesn't actually come to pass.  After all, Survivor is a great, exciting mystery, and the pure, delicate nature of the massive secret of who gets booted can't be sullied by pedestrian tactics such as having a coherent plot.  Nobody, not every spoiling board on the net, not even naive Early Show host Jane Clayson, could possibly have guessed that solitary, unaligned General Robert would be given his discharge.  Oops!  Did we just spill the beans (hey, keep your distance there, Clarence)?  No, of course we didn't.  Everybody knew that part.
    The problem is, despite the supposed rebirth of the series due to its return to its island roots, along with the alleged "free-wheeling" atmosphere invoked by this, these people still do exactly the same thing past contestants have done.  Neleh and Paschal are nothing if not the exhumed corpses of Lis and Rodger, now appearing as animatronic robots with even more perky/ folksy/ patriotic /fervently religious dialogue to mouth.  And despite a brief power struggle resulting in John's ouster, the dominant group has since proceeded to ritually dispatch the remaining members of his alliance, same as always.  And to cover this up, we've been given the same runaround Burnett has provided in seasons past.  Well, this week is more of the same.
     But at least we're given entertaining themes to distract us in the meantime, such as "Kathy has become borderline psychotic, and should not be trusted with sharp objects."  We open, coincidentally enough, with a manic-looking Kathy, hair leaping at strange angles from her head, crouched over something with such feverish intensity in the early-morning gloom, that you have to blink twice to be sure you didn't see a shopping cart and a freeway overpass in the background.  Then we learn, through a veil of tears, that despite not talking about him once in the past month, she's desperate to see her son again.  Okay, yeah, that must explain it.
    Apparently this is some sort of virally-borne mental illness, because Pappy soon starts breaking down too, while contemplating the fact that these five other people are now as close to him as his immediate family (excluding Neleh, of course).  True, any sane person might start bawling if faced with the prospect of 900 straight hours with these people, so we'll cut Pappy some slack, here.  Robert, of course, is standing tall, and keeping family (and pretty much any other) thoughts clear out of his head, because he's leaving this hellhole in two more days.
    Having seen all this family talk (okay, it was probably all filmed after the challenge, but play along with us here for a second), Jeff Probst rushes off to Mark Burnett with a suggestion.  "We've got a problem.  We need to give them some sort of challenge, but most of them, with the exception of the General, are now so weak they're barely more than slightly-breathing corpses.  How can we keep kicking them while they're down, but not in such an obvious way?"  Burnett responds, "Well, we could continue taunting them with the family members we flew out last week." Probst: "Yeah, I had some fun with that at the last TC.  You should have seen their faces!  Oh wait, you did... anyway, these extra people are costing us a bundle.  How can we best use them to prop up our ratings?"
     A dark cloud passes overhead, encircling the Evil Executive Producer's head in a penumbra of darkness (from Probst's perspective, anyway).  "How about we let the family members fight each other in a challenge... say, blindfolded jousting?  No, people have thought of that before.  Screw it, let's just take an old challenge and put them in it.  Here's a little tip for your directing career, Jeff: Tears equal quality entertainment.  The more tears you see, the better the show.  We'll have these people sobbing so loudly, the Emmy voters will probably hear it all the way back in L.A."
    And so it comes to pass.  After sneaking in a product placement for Cingular's new Spider-Man cell phones, Probst unleashes the lachrymal floodgates as he introduces the parade of friends and family.  They compete in the S1 challenge "Squared Off," now made completely novel and unique, due to the replacement of the old, boring squares with snappy, zippy hexagons.  One by one, the family members are eliminated, and as each one leaves, the tears form an ever-rising tide of salty water, welling up around the Survivor's ankles.  Luckily, they find an outcropping of rocks upon which to escape the flood (this must be the catastrophic rainfall the promos promised). 
    Eventually, Kathy's son Patrick wins.  Which is a good thing, because if it had been anyone other than a blood relative, she might have mistaken it for a wild animal the next morning, and done a little hunting with her trusty machete.  Made all the more likely because, as opposed to previous family rewards, there is no car, yacht or elaborate feast waiting for the O'Briens.  "Sorry guys," Probst says, "We blew the budget for this challenge painting all those hexagons.  Here's a Buff(TM) as a consolation prize.  Try not to get it too dirty, because we'll want it back when you leave."
     This of course invites even more crying, as Patrick not only is stuck spending a night with the tribe, but also has to wear an attractive magenta head-tube-thingy while doing it.  He seems a bit aghast at this prospect, warily eyeing the hairy, stinky, half-crazed group of starving people.  As well he should.  After all, Colby and his mom at least got to spend their conjugal visit in the back seat of a spanking new Pontiac Aztek, whereas Patrick and his mom will be doing their spooning on top of a raft, right in front of everyone.  After expressing a bit of concern that his friends might tease him about this, Probst assures him that, this being Survivor 4, nobody will be watching.
     Once he gets to camp, things rapidly go downhill.  First, the castaways put him to work smashing shellfish and coconuts with rocks.  Then he has to spend hours with his mom, patiently explaining to her over and over again the obvious strategy she needs to adopt to reach the final two.  Which she promptly forgets.  Then he is asked scintillating, deep questions around the campfire about food.  The firelight sparkles off of Robert's bared teeth, as he runs his finger along the machete, and asks Patrick, "You look like you enjoy dessert.  Why don't you tell us about it, while I mentally calculate how much wood it would take to roast a large hu..., uh, 'pig'... on this fire."  Silently, Patrick decides "friends be damned, I'm sleeping with Mom tonight."
     Soon (probably not soon enough for Patrick) the morning comes, and Patrick races into the surf to swim out to Probst's speed boat.  "Not so fast there, Sonny," growls Pappy, and forces Patrick to hug and/or kiss every contestant first.  Luckily, just as it looks like it might turn ugly, Probst arrives to whisk Patrick away to three weeks of decompression and psychological counseling.  Kathy, apparently in the depths of an acid flashback, raises a peace sign and cackles maniacally.  Then there are more tears.
    After the furor dies down about the meal's, uh, "guest's" departure, things quickly get back to normal.  Robert, whose nickname "The General" rightly suggests a master strategist, suddenly realizes he's the last member of his alliance left.  Sean makes fun of Neleh, because the script called for some misdirection to distract the viewers from the General's brainstorm.  And in a stunning display of SEG's masterful editing techniques, Neleh appears to be able to speak several seemingly complete sentences, none of which contain "Oh my heck."
    So it's come to this: the immunity challenge is the only thing that can save Robert from his imminent demise.  Unfortunately, rather than coming up with a rigged IC uniquely matched to Robert's skills (which would appear to be, uh... log splitting.  Hey, haven't these people heard of the Outdoor Games?), MB opts to regurgitate the now-traditional plate-breaking slingshot challenge.  Only this time, to better conceal the alliances, and preserve the "suspense" of the final two episodes, the contestants are forced to shoot at particular targets each time, and not gang up on one person.
    Remarkably, none of the colored rocks "accidentally" miss too many targets, nor do they find themselves whizzing in Jeff Probst's direction.  Robert, of course, is quickly eliminated, and we learn that the mysterious "chick dance" was the same one used in the Bangles' "Walk Like An Egyptian" video. Who knew?  Oh yeah, and Vee wins.
    The rest of the show is devoted to making the audience think Neleh is about to be voted out.  We're not sure how effective this was, seeing as Robert was clearly going, although after a while we did start to wonder exactly how MB was planning to dig the plot out of this Neleh hole.  Answer: why bother?  Pile it on!  This is especially true at tribal council, where Probst asks everyone to list five things they really hate about Neleh.  This takes a while, because Pappy has trouble coming up with any.  And to keep up the charade, none of the votes, nor the catty parting comments in the voting booth are shown, probably since none were for Neleh.  Okay, Sean probably managed to slip in an anti-Neleh dig with his vote for the General, but it was curiously omitted.  And so, as vote after vote comes up with the General's name on it, the Burnett-created hype balloon slowly deflates. 
   As his torch is snuffed, the General glares over at jury members John, Zoe and Tammy, and says, "Wait a second, I'll bet you bastards voted for me too, didn't you?  Some alliance this is."  As Probst explains again that the jury is not to be spoken to, nor can they vote, Robert remembers, "Oh yeah, right. I'm the last one....  Well, at least I left with my knapsack intact!"  Then, looking behind him, he mutters, "Aww, crap."

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