UK Survivor 2, Episode 12: Here's Jonny!

It’s taken 37 days, plenty of rain, three dead chickens, one dead cayman plus other assorted beachlife consumed in the name of entertainment, one sunken machete (hello Tayfun), plenty of dreadful singing, 24 hours standing on a log, and any number of bad outfits worn by Mark Nicholas, but we are finally at the final episode of Survivor Panama. As this is not Survivor: Marquesas, there is no big budget set in Central Park, but instead the large arena in The London Studios, normally used for less physically demanding Saturday night family shows such as Blind Date and Don’t Try This At Home (especially if you’ve seen Bridget’s or Susannah’s wildlife killing skills and are tempted to copy them using your cat). There is a full house however, including a nice line of kilts worn by Jonny’s friends in the front row.

Anyway, to recap firstly on the final two days on Bocas del Toro. Susannah had made “her most difficult decision of all on Survivor” and voted off John, leaving just Jonny, with whom she felt the most relaxed and comfortable (obviously John’s quick-fire bad jokes were not to her taste). Jonny was pleasantly surprised as he had expected Susannah to vote against him instead.

Both are now trying to focus on the ordeal of the final tribal council and their pleas to the jury, who are of course Helen, Alastair, Drew, Dave, Bridget, and John. They are split up on the final day so that they have time and space to consider their vote and the questions that they want to put to the final two. Susannah and Jonny meanwhile spend a nerve-racking day pondering their final addresses. Susannah is helped by having a paper and pencil that she won in the previous reward challenge. Jonny, who has put plenty of people in front of a jury in his real job, now contemplates experiencing the same fate himself. If Susannah wins, he threatens to visit her ‘three houses’ and slash the tyres on her ‘six cars’. (Three houses? Do you know the price of property in London?)

Susannah and Jonny then ceremoniously cut up the Columbus tribe banner and set light to the shelter before rowing the final voyage to tribal council, where they are faced by a nicely washed and turned out jury. They each start with a speech. Jonny stays away from the subject of the million pounds completely and focuses on his lasting memory of each member of the jury. With Helen, it was the frequency of her swearing, Alastair causing the tent to shake whenever he got up, Drew’s fast hands and the time they spent together being wined and dined on a boat after winning a reward challenge, Dave’s willpower and focus on the Newcastle United soccer score rather than his wife when communicating with his son, Bridget’s energy and long stories about her family history and her sex life (er, hang on, we did not get this on TV; perhaps it was R-rated?) and John’s High Fidelity-like top five lists and his excruciating karaoke rendition of ‘YMCA’. Susannah meanwhile starts by flattering the jury on how gorgeous they all look and claims that she really wasn’t just an arty-farty teacher with a posh accent but had always tried to be herself and had enjoyed the unforgettable experience.

Then the questions start. Helen cuts to the chase straight away by asking Susannah why, when she already seems to be financially secure, she should get the money. Susannah replies that appearances were deceptive and she had student loans and big credit card bills to pay off (although she does not elaborate on what those bills were for, which may be a big mistake). Helen then asks Jonny why a mainly ex-North Island jury should give him their support. Jonny states that he had always tried to be friendly and helpful to everyone.

Alastair asks Susannah whether she regrets making rash comments to the cameras, rather than face to face. Susannah states that she has a bad memory and cannot remember making any such comments (although the jury may find this difficult to reconcile with her obvious aptitude towards the challenges that did involve good recall skills) but felt herself to be largely honest. Alastair then says that he felt Jonny had been over-diplomatic about his alliance with John at the previous but one tribal council and asks if he would have taken him to the final if he had gained immunity, to which Jonny replied in the affirmative.

Drew congratulates both the finalists and asks what they felt were their three main qualities, Susannah believes she is trusting, determined, and inventive; and Jonny honest, friendly, and caring. Dave asks if Jonny would leave the police if he won the prize, to which he replies that he would, as knowledge of who he was would make it difficult for others to open up to him (although if celebrity-struck supergrasses started asking for his autograph in exchange for information, it might be to his advantage). Susannah was asked about how her life would change, to which she mentioned her debts again and how she would help her family and a breast cancer charity.

Bridget is characteristically gushy, congratulating Jonny and Susannah from the heart (although for once, she doesn’t burst into tears). She asks Jonny if he would have played the game the same if the prize was only a few thousand pounds. Jonny states that he would, even if there was no cash at all. Susannah is asked about whether she feels herself to be honest and truthful, to which she replies yes (it is fortunate that Lee is not on the jury, as he may have taken exception to that comment).

Finally John steps up and states that “he had been to more light-hearted murder trials and this was like the trial of Fred and Rosemary {West: two notorious serial killers who buried corpses in their house – at least on the island only the hens and the cayman got it}”. John asks Jonny if he would cope with unscrupulous people taking advantage of his friendliness if he won the million. Jonny felt himself to be streetwise and wary of new people. Susannah is then questioned about what she felt would be the negative aspects of winning; she considers it would be the danger of taking the money for granted which she would not do, having now experienced how little people could live on.

The questions are all over and the six members of the jury one by one cast their votes in the urn, which then miraculously appears in the studio (again, unlike Marquesas, there are no corny shots of Mark riding around in a helicopter and then a taxicab to deliver the urn, although with the impossibility of finding a black cab in central London after dark, he would have done better getting a 77 bus).

Jonny and Susannah then enter the studio to rapt applause; Jonny wearing a smart shirt which doesn’t quite cover the large tattoo on his arm and Susannah looking very glamorous. They were asked how their appearance on the show had changed their lives. Jonny was now being followed by photographers and mobbed by people in the street, while Susannah, who was now supply teaching, was being teased by the kids in her class, who started singing the Survivor theme tune at her (which is no mean feat as it is practically impossible to sing, being a random collection of wails, pipes and drums). In response, she threatened to skin the kids like the cayman, which, having seen the way in which she hacked off its penis, would be a very frightening threat to any boy.

Each has 15 seconds to make a plea to the viewers, who were phone voting to decide the seventh vote. Jonny states that is lucky and privileged to have had such an experience and denied that he was afraid of spiders (despite the evidence of his dire performance in the 'batcave'). Susannah says that she belongs to one of the two main hate professions in society, cops and teachers and as a cop (Charlotte) won last year, it should be a teacher this time. This is a pretty thin argument as both professions are way down the hate list compared to some; rail workers, parking attendants and politicians immediately come to mind.

The jury are then introduced and briefly talk about their experiences. All have unsurprisingly experienced extensive public and media attention. Bridget had been asked by her local hunt to present a cheque to local nurses in her bikini, to which, the world will be relieved to know, she declined. Drew had indirectly used the show to change her life by taking the advice of the show’s psychologist about her strained relationship with her mother, which had subsequently improved; proof indeed that the benefit of a show like Survivor need not purely be about financial gain.

After a quick round of filmed inserts from Jonny and Susannah’s friends and families; it is time for the moment that everyone has been waiting for: the final result of the vote.

The phone vote is revealed first of all and it is now that the much-predicted bandwagon starts to roll. Over one and a half million people voted. Eleven percent choose Susannah. A massive 89 percent back Jonny. He offers to buy everyone voting for him a pint {of beer}. He might need to consider the math a bit more carefully, as around 1.3 million pints at approximately £2 each would lead to rapid bankruptcy, even with a million pounds in the bank.

The jury votes are revealed in reverse order to elimination, with John going first. No surprise here as John votes for his friend and ally Jonny. He is unconvinced that giving a million pounds to Susannah would not affect her adversely. In his final joke of the series, he advises Jonny to seek financial advice, not to spoil his nephew and, most importantly, to find a decent hairdresser. The thought of Jonny without peroxide is actually quite scary.

Next Bridget and a minor surprise as she also casts her vote for Jonny, whom she states had learnt so much and was a “superb bloke” and votes for “with her love”. Whether she was aware of Jonny’s moaning about her behind her back about all of her boring stories at the time of voting is uncertain, but, despite having endured all the various complaints and jibes by her former tribal allies (and this column) throughout the series, she is a warm and caring person and can go back to her farm with a great deal of respect and dignity.

Three-nil to Jonny and one more vote would swing it. As the next vote belonged to Dave, who had always expressed reservations about Susannah’s background, there was only one inevitable outcome, despite Mark’s attempts at protracted dramatic effect by slowly removing the crucial sheet of paper from the urn and inserting a dramatic pause before announcing the name, Jonny. The man himself shakes hands with Susannah, jumps while punching the air, embraces his family then takes a mallet and smashes open the glass case containing the magical million pounds (I hope that it was sugar glass, otherwise he is going to be finding nasty shards every time he reaches for a new wad of notes).

Just to make it a very bad night for Susannah, the other three votes also went Jonny’s way, making it a seven-nil whitewash, identical to last year’s unanimous vote for Charlotte. We saw no more of Susannah, which is a shame as – despite her sometimes haughty persona, her obvious social and intellectual elitism, and her open ambition to win the million – she is an intelligent, genuinely nice, caring, and funny individual, who deserves better than a humiliating mass rejection live on national television. I am sure that she will have the drive to use the experience to enrich her life and her much-mentioned husband, Barnaby, who appeared briefly, is a very fortunate man indeed.

But back to the winner. Jonny is the first Scot to win a major reality TV show in the UK (which, following their failure to quality for the World Cup, will give everyone north of the border something else to celebrate this weekend). He is the second cop to win Survivor. He has pledged to use the money to help his family as well as cancer charities, after losing his mother when he was eighteen. Unlike Charlotte last year, who was endured rather than liked, Jonny is a genuinely friendly and popular guy and, although street and web talk would have made John the ideal peoples’ choice as winner, Jonny would not be far behind. This time Survivor has a worthy winner. And it was predicted by this column at the tribal merger stage. You could not hope for more than that.

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