Survivor Vanuatu: Episode 12 Recap
High And Mighty - Or Just A Little Cocky?
By Professor Dan
December 3, 2004
Jeff runs through the events shown last week, culminating in the surprise ouster of Leann by Twila, Scout, Chris, and Eliza.
Back from Tribal Council, Ami and Twila are getting into it: Ami says "That was a really nice move." "Screwed you didn't it" shoots back Twila. No it didn't screw her, Ami replies, it screwed Leann-Ami's still here. Ami tells Eliza that every week, it's been Twila and Scout who have been saying "Eliza, Eliza, let's get rid of Eliza". Eliza responds, "I know, but who saved my ass tonight when I was REALLY going to go home?" "ME, ME!" shouts Twila. Ami says, "I'm just glad I didn't swear on my little brother or my family 'cause that would be real yucky." Privately, Ami says how terrible it was for Twila to swear allegiance to her and Leann on her son's life (it was actually on her son's NAME). She goes on: "I don't know if I could ever have respect for that woman again."
Twila tells Ami, "You and Leann and Julie thought you all was so high and mighty…" Ami admits that she "totally got a little cocky", because, she said, "I knew that I had people I could trust." Twila, privately, says that "We got the power." Scout says to Ami, "You're cocky", to which Ami responds "I'm also one of the most giving, loving, caring people…" (RIGHT…)
(Okay, let's recap this recap: Ami is in full-fledged martyr mode because Twila snookered her, and because Eliza, WHOM SHE WAS TRYING TO VOTE OUT, jumped to the Chris/Twila/Scout alliance as her only chance to stay in the game. Geez, get over it, Ami-it's not like you and Twila did a "pinky-swear" or anything!)
Day 31: Treemail! It's a jar with a stick in it. Great-a Reward Challenge involving water. They kind of hope Eliza gets some food-she is rail-thin, especially from the back, where her shoulder blades jut out alarmingly. (Fortunately, neither silicone nor saline implants shrink when one loses weight, so from the front she still juts out alarmingly too!)
When they arrive at the RC, who should appear but Jeff Probst, driving a brand new silver Pontiac G6! That's the Reward for the first-place Survivor. But the top THREE Survivors will go with the winner to a Vanuatuan resort for hot showers, drinks, restaurant food, and a soft bed to sleep in.
The Challenge: starting on the beach, each Survivor will swim out, race across a series of outrigger canoes, floating platforms, and balance beams to the end, where they will dive to retrieve one of three flags suspended underwater. They'll bring the flag to shore, then repeat the drill until all three of their flags are ashore. First one to get all three of their flags ashore wins the car. The top three finishers go to the resort. On my go…
Ami, Eliza, and Chris are the first to get to their flags, and the first to get them ashore. Julie follows. Twila and Scout are trying, but they're not really in it. Ami gets her second flag ashore, then Eliza follows, and Chris, and Julie. Basically it's Ami vs. Eliza for the car, and Eliza wins, with Ami coming in a close second. Now it's a battle for that third spot, with Chris and Julie running virtually neck-and-neck bringing back their third flags. (As they're catching their breath before diving down to get that third flag, Chris asks Julie, "Do you want this bad?" "I really do", she says. "Me too", Chris responds.) They are dead even coming into shore, each falling off the obstacles once, but Chris puts on a final burst of speed coming up out of the water at the very end. Chris wins third place! Off the three drive in Eliza's new wheels.
At the resort, they all take showers. Ami: "I actually feel human again." Chris complains privately because he showered third, and the girls had left him no hot water! On the beach in their robes (their clothes were getting washed), Ami apologizes to Eliza "from the bottom of my heart" for voting for her. She puts the blame on Twila and Scout (when of course it had been Leann's idea, and Twila and Scout had seemingly agreed to the plan BECAUSE that way they could turn Eliza. Apparently Eliza is supposed to believe that Twila and Scout strong-armed Ami and Leann into voting for her, so that they couild run to Eliza to get her vote for their alliance? Pretty shaky...)
Chris comes out, drink in hand. A Vanuatuan band comes and plays for them. It's all wonderful.
Back at Camp Alinta, Scout is saying privately that it's "humiliating" that she can't compete with the younger players physically. Six years ago, she claims, she could've beaten any of them. (Which doesn't answer the question of why she's on this show NOW, when she can't.) Twila and Scout are worried about Ami working on Eliza. Will she turn? Scout thinks not.
Back at the resort, they're having dinner. Ami suggests to Chris and Eliza that they might want to consider splitting up Twila and Scout (and going to the Final Four with her and Julie.) Privately, Chris asks, "Does she think I'm STUPID?" (Well yes, Chris, she probably thinks ALL men are stupid. And you AREN'T exactly Rocket Scientist material, ya know…) Ami goes away for a few minutes and Chris and Eliza talk. Eliza is kind of leaning towards the idea, because she likes Ami and Julie, and she doesn't like Scout and Twila. But Chris tells her that as it is, they HAVE F4 locked up: "Final Four, and look at our competition-a 60-year-old woman and Twila! I mean, why don't we just get the checks out now?" Eliza is nodding, smiling… then Ami returns and they quickly change the subject.
They go to bed, or rather, Ami and Eliza go to bed, and Chris sleeps on the couch. As he snoozes, they're still talking: Eliza says that it's ironic that Twila and Scout have been pushing to put her out, but neither of THEM has ever written her name down. Ami tells her that "It makes me want to puke", hearing her say that. Eliza responds, "If it hadn't been for them, I wouldn't be here." Ami comes back by saying she's saved Eliza "fifty million times" when others wanted her out. Privately, Eliza says that Ami HAS protected her, and that she's "like a big sister to me."
Day 32 and the clean-and-fresh resorters arrive back at camp. The other three marvels at how good they smell, especially Chris: "Chris doesn't stink any more!" Eliza, Julie, and Ami immediately start hanging out, plucking each other's eyebrows while Twila worries about Eliza's loyalty and Scout fumes at them not working. Scout says privately that "Ami is a control freak." Ami, meanwhile, thinks that Scout is jealous of her physical ability. Scout and Ami are bickering over minor stuff, and Chris is loving all of it: "They're a bunch of alley cats going at it, and strategically, this is the best thing for me." They aren't even paying any attention to him, and he likes it that way. But, he says, "Ami needs to go home."
Day 33 dawns, and Julie, Eliza, and Ami get treemail. Included is a thing like an orange hockey puck that says "Alinta". The Immunity Challenge, it seems, will be a game of skill.
At the IC, they see a large table with a map of some Vanuatuan islands painted on it. On each island is a round indentation, a bit larger than the puck, painted like a volcano. The game is simple: it's Survivor Shuffleboard, except they'll use their hand to slide colored pucks down the table. The goal is to land on an island. If you do, you get a point. If the puck goes into a "volcano", it cannot be dislodged, but all others can be knocked off by someone else's puck. There will be 5 rounds, and the person with the most points at the end wins Immunity. They randomly choose the starting order, and it then rotates each round.
Round 1: The order is Chris, Twila, Eliza, Ami, Julie, Scout. Eliza, Ami, and Julie each land on an island, scoring a point (Julie's is a bank shot that goes into a volcano.)
Round 2: Twila gets one in a volcano, and Julie scores. The rest all miss.
Round 3: Chris scores (finally!), and everybody else misses.
Round 4: Ami scores, then Julie misses. Scout finally gets on the board, and then Chris knocks one of Julie's off and takes its place! Twila scores, and then Eliza accidentally knocks her own puck off its island, bringing her score down to zero!
Round 5: The scores are Chris, Twila, Ami, and Julie with 2 points each; Scout has 1, Eliza 0. Julie is first, and doesn't score. Scout is next, and scores, bringing her into a tie with the other leaders. Chris scores next, taking the lead! Can Twila tie him? No. Eliza COULD try to be a spoiler and knock off one of Chris's, but she doesn't, nor does she score any. So it's down to Ami. She can try to knock one of Chris's off, or she can try to tie him by scoring one herself. She takes her shot, and knocks one of her own pucks off! Chris wins Immunity! Twila and Scout are high-fiving him. Privately, Chris thinks "It's humorous that it took a non-physical challenge to beat the chicks." (Yeah, especially since at the beginning of the game you thought "the chicks" would be no competition at all!)
Now, of course, the struggle is for the heart and soul of Eliza. Twila tries assuring Eliza that they won't turn on her, but Eliza doesn't like the fact that Twila swore falsely on her son. Twila worries privately, "Ami's got one day to work her magic on Eliza." And work it she does: Ami tries to lay a major guilt trip on Eliza, saying "I want you to know that I feel like I've stood up for you 5 million times (down from 50 million?), and if then you kind of like throw me off to the side at the very end of the game, that would hurt my feelings. But if it's like whatever, okay, so you don't give a ---- now, then that's how the game rolls." Privately, Ami says she's tried to play a "fair game", but now Eliza is her only hope.
Chris and Twila are talking. Can Ami turn Eliza? No, says Chris, she'd be crazy to expose herself to the risk of going out via a tie breaking rock. Chris thinks in case of a tie, they'd have a second vote. If it was still tied, then those two people would get Immunity and the REST would draw a rock to see who went home. (I don't believe that's the correct procedure-- I think everybody except the one with Immunity would draw a rock to see who left.)
Eliza and Julie are talking. Ami's like a big sister to them both. (Awwww... ) Does Scout still take the pillow every night? How fair is THAT? Eliza thinks Scout and Twila might not take her to the Final Three (well DUHHHHH…) Ami says privately of this night's Tribal Council, "Anything could happen."
At the TC, Jeff asks Ami about the last vote. Was she shocked? Oh yeah. He asks Scout, What's Chris still doing here? She'd told him she wanted to see it all-women. Scout responds that the Merge changed that, because after the Merge suddenly some women were "sitting ducks". So basically you wanted it all-women when it served your purpose in the game, Jeff says, adding that the girl power thing is now definitely over. Ami brings up the fact that someone else "disgustingly lied". Twila lays into her: "I'm not the only friggin' person who's lied in this game! Grow up. Get on with it. You've been HAD. Screw you!" Ami laughs, and goes on to criticize Twila's lie again because of her swearing on her son. Eliza, when asked, refers to Ami's reaction as "natural". Eliza says she'd miss Ami if she were gone, saying "she's the big sister I never had", and she gets all sniffly. So does Ami, who says that Eliza's been very willing to change.
The voting is interesting: they show Twila, who casts her vote for Ami with the remark, "Drama Queen to the end." Ami is shown voting for Scout, saying "when your true colors come out, they're not part of any rainbow I've ever seen." (Given that the rainbow is a symbol for gay unity, I took this as referring to Scout's and Ami's shared sexual orientation. Perhaps Ami and Scout had some sort of "lesbian pact" from the beginning, and to Ami it's like Scout is now betraying her lesbianism by betraying her? Food for thought…) Finally, Scout is shown voting for Ami, saying "Queens get dethroned. And lightning strikes a lone tree on top of a mountain faster than anything."
The final vote is tallied, and we all know it's gonna be at least 3 votes for Ami, and at least 2 for Scout (Ami's and Julie's). What about Eliza's? It went to Ami, who becomes the fourth Jury member. As she leaves, her last words are: "Good luck all you younguns."
Next week, more bickering and fighting, as Twila and Eliza apparently go at it. Short-lived alliance, possibly. That would be good news for Julie, who will be saying "buh-bye" if the Chris-Twila-Scout-Eliza alliance holds. I don't see the Chris-Twila-Scout alliance breaking up, so they can force either Julie or Eliza out next week if they hold firm. Should be interesting!
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