Survivor: Say Goodbye To Gabon (Episodes 1714/1715)

Who the heck is Susie? And how did she end up thisclose to a million smackers?

Jeff starts the two-hour finale by doing my job for me, recapping the past 38 days. He says Ken and Crystal's scheming did Randy in, when you and I know that was alllllll Sugar and Bob. He also says that Bob is the last of the old Kota tribe left in the game, forgetting, apparently, that Sugar was also on Kota before the first mix-up. WTF, Jeff?  He also notes that Matty hasn't won a challenge since the merge, and that Kenny survived eleven trips to Tribal Council. Jeff also reminds us that Bob is going into the finale having won four straight challenges. Foreshadowing, anyone?

Night 36 finds the egregiously named Nobag tribe dwindled down to a measly five members. Sugar says playing the idol -- and giving it to Matty -- "felt glorious." She says she's never felt more powerful. Ken, of course, feels betrayed by Bob, for reasons only he can explain, and even then, not well. "He's not a man of his word. All promises are off," Ken bleats, conveniently glossing over the whole part where if Bob had done the "honorable" thing, Ken would have turned around and stabbed him in the back. I'm just not sure Kenny's anger is righteous, in this particular case. It's too bad, since we're going to hear a LOT more about it before all this is over.

As Day 37 dawns, Sugar wants to vote out Susie and Kenny, taking "good guys" Matty and Bob to the F3 with her, but she knows she's got to get Ken back to believing her to make that work. So they go off for a little chat, and she totally convinces him that its her, him, and Bob to the end, giving Ken a nice little dose of what he's been dishing out for days.

Before the next Immunity Challenge, they receive a basket with lengths of fabric, face paint and beads. Hey, maybe Bob can make yet another faux idol necklace! Since they're handing out beads and all…The challenge is a massive maze dotted with huts like the ones the tribe lives in. Nobag looks more ridiculous than usual in their war paint, no one moreso than Bob, who Jeff describes as "very Village People." No shit. He's in a mini-skirt and painted-on fishnet stockings. I'm not sure "hooker" was really the look he was going for.

For the challenge, tribe members will dig under a wall, then make their way across a series of elevated planks to the maze gate, where they'll have to undo a knotted rope to gain entrance. Once there, they have to search among 25 Gabonese huts to find the three that have bags of puzzle pieces in a box. Then they wind their way through the maze to a raised platform where, once they have all three puzzle piece bags, they will assemble a Gabonese hut. The first player to finish his or her hut wins Immunity.

You'd think skinny minnies Bob and Ken would have an advantage in digging themselves under a wall, but Susie's first to wiggle through. All three men get through next, with Sugar, "squeezing her booty through," as Jeff unwisely puts it, bringing up the…um…rear. Matty falls off the elevated planks and has to go back to the beginning, giving Susie, Sugar, and Ken the advantage as they enter the maze. As usual, Matty comes back strong and looks like he's well on his way -- he's the first to the platform with the first two bags. Bob looks tired as he brings his second bag up. Sugar ends up being the first person to start assembling the puzzle, meaning she navigated the maze more quickly than anyone else, especially Susie, who never does find her third bag, and is still wandering out there (just like that blindfold challenge!) while the rest of the players start assembling. Could just be a good edit, but it looks like Sugar and Bob are neck and neck at the end, but who wins? BOB. Who else? That makes Bob's fifth straight challenge win, tying a record set by…shit…Colby? I have no idea. Anybody know?

After the challenge, Ken feels like he can just chill because…why? Does he still think Bob's going to hand over his Immunity? Kenny seems really young right now. Matty seeks him out and tells him that if he's going to write Ken's name down, he'll tell him. Susie's finally figured out that shit's happening behind the scenes that no one is deigning to tell her about. Welcome to the show, Susie! Where've you been for 37 days? Matty and Sugar then confirm that Susie's next…except…Sugar says, "Susie or Kenny?" Oh, Sugar. Stick to your instincts, babe! They haven't failed you yet!

Dang, it's already Tribal Council? Wow, we're booking right through this, aren't we? I guess that's so there's plenty of time for the friggin' Trail of Tears and Asswipe Central -- aka "The Jury Speaks." Jeff notes the noteworthiness of Bob's challenge feat, and asks he how does it. Matty says, "Bob's money, man. The guy is just good." Can't argue that, and it's always fun to hear Matty's vaguely stoned dudespeak. Ken notes how different his life is from Bob's -- basically, Ken plays videogames and Bob lives a rich full life -- and brings up the stupid deal again, saying he must have missed the fine print where Bob gets to decide what he does with his own Immunity necklace. Bob points out that the real fine print said if Bob gave up his Immunity to Ken, he'd have gotten shit-canned, so fuck off, game boy. Only he said it more nicely than that. Oh, and he's keeping his hard-won Immunity, in case you wondered. Three votes later, Kenny's a goner. I think that was Sugar and Matty's best move. Kenny had a history of lying and a real thirst for both the blind-side and the back-stab, while Susie's been 1) kind of a non-entity, socially speaking, and 2) not exactly a powerhouse at challenges. Regardless of the final outcome, I still think they made the right choice.

Back at camp, Matty says that Susie seems really nervous. She knows she has to win the final Immunity Challenge; if she does so, she's voting for Bob.

Day 38 brings my second-least-favorite part of the season -- the memorial Trail of Tears. This year's no different. The tribe heads to Exile Island to pick up torches and masks representing each player, then takes them to the top of a savanna and burns them to the accompaniment of some Traditional Gabonese People dressed in Traditional Gabonese Costumes, playing Traditional Gabonese Instruments. I had forgotten that we started the season ousting four women: Michelle, Gillian, Paloma, and Jacquie. Discontents GC and Kelly were next, followed by "shyster" Ace, as Matty describes him. Cue tears from Sugar. Dan went next, followed by Marcus, who the editors show kissing/biting/chewing on Charlie's shoulder in a way that makes me wonder just what they've been getting up to over at the Jury House these past few weeks. Marcus' brofriend Charlie went next, followed by Randy, Corinne, and Crystal. And finally Ken, who Matty describes as "a sweet kid." I give Ken credit -- he turned off his TV and went to Africa, which is more than I've done.

The final four head straight to the last Immunity Challenge from the Trail of Tears. Ooh, it's not an endurance challenge! Way to switch things up! Instead, each player will have 200 tiles with which to build a house of cards. The first player to reach 10' wins. Alternately, whoever has the tallest house after thirty minutes wins. What do you want to bet they tried doing this and realized no way in hell could they get to 10'? I'd have thought Bob would be a shoe-in for this challenge, based on past performances, but he's never in it. I don't know whether he overthinks it or what, but he never gets more than a few stories high, and even then his house collapses. Sugar, true to her nature, builds fast, shaky houses that get to about 7' and then collapse. I think if Matty had more time, he'd probably have won this, since his house feels most solid, but in the end, it's Susie who builds her house up to about 8', and then, with five minutes left in the challenge, sits on it. No, not literally, but she stops building and counts on nobody else beating her. It's a good strategy -- Sugar's the closest, and her last house falls just as time gets called. Susie wins the last Immunity and a one in three chance at the million!

Um…yay?

I don't have strong feelings one way or the other about Susie. She sure won two critical challenges when she needed them to survive, so I guess she's got the outlast down, but good grief -- she sucked wind at most challenges, and she was never included in any strategic discussion that I can remember, so…it's like there's no there there.

Later that day, Susie gets a case of oral diarrhea, going on an on about how she didn't expect to win, and how great it is, and she seems to want the others to really talk up her win and tell her how wonderful it is. All three other players tell her, in their own way, to shut it, including Bob saying, "Let's just have lunch, okay?" And, yeah, his tone was a little testy, but he's fully expecting to get voted out. Sugar doesn't want Bob to have his feelings hurt; she's even more "super-emotional" than usual at the moment, to the point that she's thinking about forcing a tie in order to give Bob one more chance. "It's like choosing between my dad and my brother," she says. Bob heads off by himself, to meditate on his inevitable ouster, or something. At least that's what the others think. In reality, he's gone off into the woods to PRACTICE MAKING FIRE. Ha!!! That's awesome! He's a very practical man, our Bob. Don't worry if you see what looks like blood in his mustache; I'm pretty sure it's leftover makeup war paint.

At Tribal Council, Sugar's agonizing father-or-brother decision takes center stage. Bob chokes up when he says he's a good dad because he had a good dad. Awwww! I'm not at all surprised when Sugar forces the tie, and off Bob and Matty go to make fire. Let's see, who was out there in the woods practicing? Who was a scout leader? Who can make a bench out of twine and sticks? BOB! And that's who flints his way into the F3, sending Matty to the Jury.
Back at camp, before they set fire to the huts, Susie's still talking about how she can't believe she's still there, and how insane it is. Yup. It's insane, all right. After a nice brunch that arrives via tree mail, Sugar says she knows the jury hates her: except for Marcus, she helped orchestrate every ouster.

Y'all know the drill for the final Tribal Council: each player gets to make an opening statement, then each member of the Jury gets to whine like little babies spout abusive shit ask the final three questions. Susie says she just wanted to try. "It's important that I succeed in trying," she says. Really, Susie? That's your pitch? That's right up there with giving every kid in preschool soccer a trophy because they manage to get through a game without wetting their pants. Bob says his game strategy was to use his personality and his survival skills to make life better for the other players and for himself. I'm not sure being yourself can be called a strategy, but it was a better answer than Susie's. Sugar says she thinks she played a "perfect social game," and warning bells start going off in my head. Even if you do play a perfect social game, never say it. That's for other people to determine. She says she considered herself a free agent, since she spent so much time at Exile and switched tribes in the various mix-ups and mergers, and says she made her first real alliance right there at the end with Bob. This seems to come as news to Matty, sitting over there all clean on the jury.

Okay. I HATE THIS PART. Let's get Asswipe Central over with, shall we?

Charlie, sweet pea that he is, starts off the Jury questions. He asks "the ladies" why, since they were already voted worst in their tribes once, they deserve the million. "I'm trying," says Susie. "I don't know," says Sugar. Whoa, Sugar. You've done so well, so far, but you're blowing this. Then Charlie asks Bob whether he enjoyed cuddling and spooning with Charlie. WTF? Bob laughs him off, basically saying, "Hey, warm body." Man, when even Charlie disappoints, I know I'm in for a long night.

Crystal points out that Susie and Bob both coat-tailled sugar to the F3, especially Bob, saying, "Sugar remote-controlled you." That's a fair assessment, actually. She asks Sugar why she voted her out. "The way you talk and treat people," Sugar says. "I went with my heart."

Kenny tells Sugar she scarred him. *headdesk* That, of course, makes Sugar cry, which might be the end of Sugar, right there. He brings up the goddamn deal with Bob for one more encore. Bob says, "I assumed if I protected you, you'd protect me." Ken shakes his head and says that's not what he wanted to hear. GOD. Sorry, Ken, you're just…not in the right here. At all. I don't know where he's pulling this veneer of victimhood from. Ken was safe that night, and Bob knew it. Bob was the one who would have been vulnerable. I'm soooo over this whole thing!

I wrote down what Corinne says to Sugar, but my Ever-Patient Mister told me not to give her the attention she seems to be seeking, so here's what she gets from me: "Rant. Rant, rant rant ranty rant rant dead dad." Sugar flips her the bird, that's how bad it is. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: There's stuff that's okay within the game, and there's stuff that's not okay anywhere, and THAT'S NOT OKAY. My E-P Mister says it just makes Corinne look small and pathetic. I agree.

Thank God, Marcus is next, although he gets a WTF from me when he seems to accuse Susie of not being a positive role model. Huh? What did I miss? He says he, too, lost someone close to him, and wonders what Sugar would do with the million dollars to honor her father's memory. She says she'd give to lung cancer research and children's issues.

Randy's next, and he makes small, pathetic Corinne look like Mother Teresa. He asks Susie to elaborate on why she feels sorry for him (explaining what "elaborate" means, since, you know, she's got an accent and is probably some poor illegal immigrant who doesn't speak the English so good). He calls Sugar on laughing at him, and she reminds him that he made a jackass of himself. Bob probably wins his vote by saying he got mad at Sugar for laughing at Randy. Whatever. Since Randy's vote is accompanied by him saying, loudly enough for them all to hear, "You three can kiss my ass," it's not like anyone's winning him over.

My boy Matty's last up. He looks thinner, somehow, now that he's clean, than he did in the game. Eat something, Matty! He asks Susie why Sugar and Bob don't deserve the million more than she does. She brings up Sugar's treatment of Randy (*snore*) and then zaps Bob for "snapping" at her after she won the final Immunity. Of course, a snap from Bob is like a tonguebath from Randy, so I'm not sure she has room for complaint. He asks Sugar to reveal something "evil" she did. Tearily, Sugar says, "I let Kenny down." Damn. She's still buying into Kenny's passive-aggressive bullshit? Don't take that on, sweetie. Kenny made his own bed. Finally, to Bob, Matty says, "Why are they more deserving?" Bob says, "I don't think they are." Well. There you go.

Jeff walks the votes out of Gabon and into CBS Television City in Hollywood, where Bob's miraculously more kempt, Susie's gotten herself some Sarah Palin glasses, and Sugar looks like a million bucks. Jeff reads six votes: three for Bob, three for Susie, none for Sugar. NONE for Sugar. Wow, I'm really out of step with these particular Survivors, because I thought Sugar played a sensational game, right up to Asswipe Central, when she wasn't willing to kiss anybody's ass to get a vote. The seventh and final vote goes to…Bob.

Bob Crowley, the high school physics teacher from Maine, is the million dollar winner of Survivor: Gabon!

My E-P Mister turned to me and said, "Sugar gave him that million."

Yeah, she really did. We love you, Sugar!

I'll be back later with the Reunion recap. I might need a shot of Patron to get through that one, and I hate to drink before noon.