Surviving the Vanuatu Reunion: “Chris Can Lie to Anyone”

As we now all know, Chris beat out Twila in a 5-2 vote to win Survivor: Vanuatu (and if you didn’t read my recap of the two-hour finale, now is your chance!) So that means it’s time for the live reunion!

Jeff Probst begins by reminding us that Chris seemed unlikely to win, given that he was the cause of his tribe’s immunity loss in the very first challenge, and then he was the last man standing while being surrounded by six women. He promises us that the next hour will answer a number of lingering questions, like what happened to the women’s alliance, if anybody has forgiven Twila, and why her lie was worse than those Chris told.

First, we are taken back to something that Chris told the camera while he was trying to break up the women’s alliance. He had said that if you try to question a woman, she will snap your neck. But if you make her think you’re opening up to her, she will start thinking with her heart. Seems like he knew what he was talking about.

Probst notes that Chris had a good ability to read people, which is one reason he’s sitting where he is. Of course, then he has to take us back to his failure at the first challenge and his position in a tribe full of women, as I already mentioned. He asks Chris is there was a key place where everything changed.

Chris says the turning point was after Chad was voted off and he had to watch what he said. Julie had asked if he hated her because she had gone back to the women, and he said no, he didn’t hate her but he was disappointed. Ooooh, my mother used to use that one on me when I was a teenager – it’s a toughie. He says that because of that, Julie campaigned for him in her alliance.

Chris adds that both Sarge and Chad had been openly upset at the way things turned, so he saw an opportunity to keep his mouth shut and try something different.

Probst notes to Julie that Chris paid her back by stroking her hair and cutting her throat. She says she even wined and dined him beforehand! But then she voted for him because he played her so hard. She says she wouldn’t vote out of spite, so she recognized that he had played well.

With Eliza, it’s basically the same story. And she voted for him too. She says it was a little for Chris and a lot against Twila because of the way she had treated her. However, through watching the show she says she has grown to love Twila and doesn’t harbor animosity towards her. But at the time, she was furious.

Chris says that thought “absolutely” went into his decision on who to take to the jury. He says Twila is… Twila. She said what she thought. She notes that what he’s really saying is she told the truth and lost, and he lied like a dog and won. Yeah, well, that sums up Survivor in a nutshell! The audience loves it.

Probst moves to Leann, noting that she also voted for Chris. She explains that there was no way a guy was getting to the Final Four, let alone the Final Two, so he really played the game. Also, she promised Twila she would never write her name down. Heh. She admits that she couldn’t separate feelings from the game, so her vote was indeed as much against Twila as for Chris.

On the flipside, Ami voted for Twila to win! She says Twila played her and she didn’t think she could be played. Since Twila got her, Twila deserved to win. She insists that nothing in her vote had to do with keeping to the women’s alliance – it was just that Twila “flat-out outplayed” her. She has nothing against Chris at all.

Why did Scout vote for Twila? She says she had a strong alliance with Twila all the way to the end, and when it came down to it she couldn’t give a million dollars for that much BS.

Probst asks Sarge if he was planning to vote for a man all the way, if it was Chris specifically, or if it was against Twila. Sarge says it was not at all a man/woman thing. But he would not surround himself with a person who has no values – specifically about Twila lying. Probst is about to ask how Twila’s lying is different from Chris’, but Sarge anticipates it just as I do and explains. He says it had nothing to do with the end or her swearing on her son’s name, but rather at the time of the merge when she turned on him.

Chad says he voted for Chris because of how well he played the game. In fact, he thinks Chris played the best of any season. Well, I don’t think I’d go quite that far, but he certainly has played better than most we’ve seen recently.

Probst goes back to Ami and talks about the whole female alliance – it worked well for a while, and then there were five women on the jury, and still a guy wins! Why is it so hard to keep a female alliance together? She says it’s hard for a group of women to support and believe in each other. They all lost it and got paranoid rather than focusing on getting women to the Final Four. Um, that’s because this is an individual game, not a political statement. Each of those women involved wanted to be the ones in the Final Four, and nobody was going to willingly lie down and say, “Get rid of me so you can go on!” Please.