You know how reunions are always full of immature people trying to justify their actions and pretend they’ve gotten over their bitterness towards certain people? Or how everyone always looks like they’ve been assaulted by a group of blind, crazy make-up artists and hairdressers?
This reunion was different than usual because there was very little bitterness and the mad make-up artists and hairdressers in the show’s employ seemed to have cut down on the crack they usually smoke before styling the contestants.
The Guatemala reunion was characterised by a kind of gooey atmosphere of sweetness and light. The feuds were almost non-existent, everyone seemed like they were friends (as opposed to everyone pretending like they’re now friends but secretly hating each other’s guts like always), and the righteous justifications were few and far between.
I’m sure that next season’s reunion will be full of all the normal ingredients and this was just an anomaly in the history of Survivor reunions.
First, the important stuff. That’s right, how everyone looked compared to their Guatemala selves. When I say that the stylists cut down on the crack pipes, I don’t mean that there weren’t a few people who looked better starving and dirty than made-up and clean.
Let’s take our final two, who got the worst of it. Steph and Danni were similarly attired – big hair, high boots and enough lip gloss to shine Danni’s brand new Pontiac. Surprisingly enough for a former pageant girl, Danni seemed uncomfortable with all of this lipgloss. She found it difficult to answer Jeff’s questions, her lips as weighed down as they were by all that lipgloss.
Why all this big hair and shiny lips, you may ask? The answer all lies in the increased costs this season faced. Having to deal with expenses brought upon by paying off the Guatemalan government to look the other way while the cast pissed upon their national history, Steph’s food consumption, and the Judd wrangler hired to shoot him with tranquilisers when he got too rowdy, the crew were forced to cut costs by buying wholesale.
Unfortunately the stylists hired for the finale decided to use the 20 kg of make-up and hairspray all in one go, and Danni and Steph were the unlucky victims. And there you have it, the real reason that Danni’s lips looked like they’d been collagened to death. It aint collagen, it’s just a metric ton of discount lipgloss.
But enough about the lipgloss. I know I’ve waffled on about it enough. I sound like Cindy and her damn car. Despite the lips, Danni looked great with the extra weight. Steph…well, let’s just say that Steph looked better in last season’s reunion.
How can someone with such distractingly freaky lips still look so damn smoking?
Steph plots her revenge on the make-up people for making her look like an aging drag queenOtherwise most of the contestants escaped the wrath of the stylists unharmed. Brandon in particular looked very good with his new haircut, a billion times better than he’d looked on the show. In fact, Brandon was looking better than Bobby Jon who somehow always looks better when he’s all dirty, stubbly and crazy.
Hey, when'd Brandon get hot?
Why is it that without the dirt and crazy, BJ looks like a thirteen year-old boy?
BJ’s new buddy Jamie looked like he’d managed to give his parole officer the slip. Besides coming across as just a little drunk, Jamie looked like an escaped convict. Maybe he’s got an acting role lined up and is method acting. Or maybe he’s a paranoid git who finally snapped and was hauled off to jail following the show.
It's nice that the prison warden gave him the night off to attend the reunionAmy clearly threatened to arrest the stylists if they did a bad job because she looked great. Brianna (who?) also looked amazing. Lydia and Margaret looked good. So full marks to the stylists for those ladies. Now if only they can stop trashifying the younger women in the final two.
Even Judd looked civilised, which is quite a feat considering how apelike he really is. I don’t want to say he looked good or anything but let’s just say I can now sort of understand how any woman can stand to marry the big ape.
Shallow comments done with, let’s get to the meaty parts of the finale. One of the first issues Jeff talked about was Rafe’s rescinded promise and his subsequent pissiness when Danni took Steph instead of him to the finale.
Thankfully, Rafe had left most of his self-righteousness back in the jungle though the martyr complex was still present. He claimed he was disappointed in what Danni did because he had wanted her to do the right thing and not look back in five years’ time and be ashamed in what she’d done.
Rafe? Danni just won a million bucks. Trust me, she’ll be looking back on this and smiling as she drives in her free car to her fabulously expensive house.
I do believe that Rafe is going to be the one looking back on what he did and regretting his two big mistakes – taking Danni to final four instead of Lydia, and releasing Danni from his guilt-trippy promise. Or he would if he was the type to dwell but I have a feeling that he’s not.
Danni compared herself to a stealth bomber because no-one had seen her coming. I’d make a joke about how Steph is therefore some fuel-guzzling obsolete plane that should’ve been dismantled a long time ago but went on to surprise everyone when she outflew all the newer, shinier planes, but I don’t know enough about aviation.
Speaking of America’s tarnished sweetheart, Steph was asked about how coming back had messed up everyone’s image of her. She replied that it was silly to criticise her for playing a much tougher game than she had in Palau.
Ah, but Steph, we didn’t stop loving you because you played a tougher game in Guatemala. We stopped loving you because you grew an entitlement complex the size of a pyramid and ascended to godhood in your own mind. The only god on this show is Jeff Probst, and don’t you forget it.
Jeff apparently got a memo that told him to stop being Steph’s cheerleader because there was a notable absence of “Steph is arguably the greatest female Survivor to ever walk the earth.” He helpfully pointed out that Steph had lost 36 out of 46 challenges. Tee hee. Thanks, Jeff. Whatever would we do without your bitchiness?
Jeff also very nicely added a “Lydia, bless her” before pointing out how shocked he was she’d gotten so far. See, even the host of the show thought Lydia was deadweight. Lydia claimed she had gotten so far because she was the provider. Lydia, doing the pancake dance does not count as providing. Maybe if you’d made actual pancakes.
By contrast, Jeff was far too lenient on Judd. But then, I’d consider anything less than locking Judd in the stocks and pelting him with rotten fruit lenient. Judd used the excuse of assholes anywhere by calling his bullying dickheadedness ‘brutal honesty’.
And he still didn’t admit he’d lied during the game. No, he apparently told everyone the wrong thing about the idol because he had been drinking the night before and was still out of it. Yes, the only reason he lied in this game was because he was hungover. I suspect that Judd’s life is one permanent hangover. I know my head aches and I feel like throwing up whenever I’m exposed to Judd for too long.
Jamie tried to play off his paranoia by joking about still being paranoid, only it came across as creepy rather than funny because he’s nuts and looks like a convict. He did manage to joke about it at least which is more than I can say about Judd. Man, who knew Jamie was going to come across as mature compared to Judd.
The reunion show would be remiss if Gary’s big lie wasn’t brought up. Since everybody knew about it even during the show, Gary was not lynched by the other survivors. Amy didn’t even beat him down like she’d promised. A bit disappointing really. But who could hate the loveable Gary enough to beat him down?
Danni revealed that the reason she had recognised Gary was not because the producers had sneakily fed her information. Mark Burnett would never influence the show like that. Turns out she thought he looked familiar in casting and realised who he was when she oh so conveniently went to his alma mater college
because Mark Burnett casually suggested it to watch a football game.
There was a nice bonus clip of Gary finding the hidden immunity idol. He had a very “I love it when a plan comes together” expression, I thought. He also talked all spy-like about how “highly secret” it was because even weeks into the show, he was still a bit confused about whether he’d gone on Survivor or Alias.
What else was there? It was such a lowkey and friendly reunion that there’s not much to talk about. Margaret and Brian very admirably went back to Guatemala to help with the mudslide relief effort. A million Noddy points for them.
Cindy wanted to go back as well, but that’s because she loved living in the jungle so much that she wishes she was still there. She enjoyed living without a shower, surviving on corn and being feasted upon by bugs galore? I always knew there was something a bit screwy about that woman.
Fascinating stuff, as always. Before the sweetness and love and boringness drove me to drink however, the preview for next season enticingly came up. Next season has people being banished to Exile Island to live by themselves and be slowly driven mad from isolation. Sounds like fun.
And that was that. Our last glimpse of this season was a teasing glimpse of the next one. Can you deal with the four month waiting period?