Amanda also could have won by not taking Todd to the final three.
She knew he was a silver-tongued schemer. Why put herself in a position to let him talk his way into $1 million, when she could have tried to get Denise into the final three? Denise is the ultimate coattail-riding hanger-on. People might have liked her, but I can’t imagine they would have thought her the best player.
Amanda could have voted against Todd instead of Denise and urged Courtney to do the same. That would have thrown him out of the game or, at worst, produced a tie between Todd and Denise, and he might have lost in the tiebreaker.
Also, I agree with others who say she was the key player in the game but did it so quietly that some others didn’t realize it.
That’s right. I think it’s a misconception among some potential finalists that the juries vote for the people they like the most…or at least, some people seem to try to play with that in mind. But it seems to me that more often than not, they vote for the one who is the biggest schemer & ran the most plays during the course of the game. If you are stuck between trying to look like the good guy and trying to look like the mastermind, pick the mastermind every time. It’s too hard to pull off being the good guy…at some point, you had to have screwed over a few people…better to just be confident about it and say, yeah, I’ve had a plan all along. The juries seem to respect that.
I’m really confused as to where all this “poor Denise” stuff came from. From her “there’s nothing for me after this” crap to her “well I got demoted when I came back” I was dumbfounded the whole show.
In 38 days we didn’t hear anything about Denise being poor. We also didn’t hear anything about her having a bad life. She loved her family and when her husband showed up they really looked like a very happy couple. Come day 39, she’s poor and and her family isn’t as great as we’ve seen with our own eyes on the show.
Then she tells us she was demoted on the reunion. That’s sad and all (and apparently untrue), but she just came in fourth place in Survivor. Fourth place gets $60,000 or four years worth of $7 an hour lunch ladying.
Man, I’ll bet Burnett and company think guilible’s not in the dictionary either.
Oh, and Todd looked like Elvis and Courtney looked like… Courtney Love.
Yup.
1st place = $1,000,000
2nd place = $100,000
3rd place = $85,000
4th place = $60,000
Everyone who comes to the reunion = $10,000
So now “lunch lady” actually got more than Courtney. They really screwed up when they started handing out Entitlement Prizes with Rupert. Now there’ll be an expectation for Pity Prizes. Way to go, Burnett. I hope we get to find out what the Flat-Out Lying Penalty is…
It’s not entirely clear to me that Denise received her pity-check before the school super called Denise on her story. OTOH, CBS is getting awfully huffy (deservedly), so they probably issued the payment already.
I was sure Amanda would win until she totally blew it in the last few moments of the game. Todd really stepped up to the plate, and hit a home run. Maybe Amanda just didn’t realize how well she played the game, and how the others would see it if she just explained. Trying to make excuses, plus her terrible body language, pretty much gave the win to Todd. It’s not so much that he won as that she lost.
Speaking of “Lost”, did you guys see the thread about that show-- it’ll be Thursdays at 9PM, so we might have some “Survivor” - “Lost” nights to look forward to.
I just watched Julie Chen interviewing Denise and her school superintendant, and even though she was asked twice, point blank, if she would return the money if it were granted, she danced all around but never came near answering the question. I can’t imagine how uncomfortable this must be for her, but there’s no one she can blame this on but herself.
Denise was asked during the interview, “Will you still take the $50,000 if it is given to you?”, which tells me that Denise does not have the moola at this point.
Actually, after seeing that interview, I can see how it was all just a big misunderstanding. Denise may have dramatized events, but they were not essentially inaccurate. She really had been a lunch lady, and that was the position she wanted again because being away from her family had made her long to get off the night shift to be with them again. But the position she left is gone, and she can’t get it back.
The bad part of it was the implication (or at least the inference) that the school district did this to her as a result of Survivor.
Yeah. Denise said on the reunion that she was “too popular” with the kids, and that she was a distraction, and that’s why she couldn’t be a lunch lady. That doesn’t sound like the truth – Denise wasn’t a lunch lady when she got back from Survivor.
I still don’t see how even making the appeal makes a lick of sense. For all intents and purposes, Survivor became her job for the next year or two. She can use her winnings the same way she would have used her lunch lady salary.
EDIT: And personally, I think the whole thing was a bit of revenge on Courtney to make her feel terrible about all the things she said. And then it backfired in Denise’s face in a truly spectacular way.
I’ll go out on a limb and say I feel bad for Denise.
First, I think she got caught up in the portrayal of her as “The Lunch Lady”, which, let’s be honest, has a much nicer ring to it than “The Janitor Lady.” I think she ended up liking the recognition and attention when she got back, more than she realized she would. She probably (and the video of the interview seems to confirm) missed being with her family due to being on the late shift, a lot more, after having spent 39 days completely away from them.
So she asked the Food Services Director if she could have her old job back, and was told ‘No’, so a janitor she stays.
Now she’s sitting in the spotlight on national television, having earned (and enjoyed) the moniker of “The Lunch Lady,” and is asked about what she’s doing now. In Denise’s mind, it’s shameful, or maybe simply less glamorous, to be cleaning toilets. And in her mind she did “lose” out on the Lunch Lady job by not being able to return to it after the show. So she embellishes a little bit by saying:
Technically there’s nothing incorrect in that statement. She went back and talked to the Food Service Director = true. They didn’t give her her old Lunch Lady Job back = true. She’s a janitor now = true. She misses her family because of the hours = true. Never once did she actually say she was demoted, even though that’s how it came out sounding.
I honestly don’t think she meant to make it look like the school did anything wrong, per se, she just didn’t explain it well, and of course, tried to paint herself in the best light possible to save a little face about no longer being “The Lunch Lady.” And I think that if Burnett hadn’t offered her that extra $50,000.00, this would be a dead issue, not even being discussed.
Well, yeah, since that was the reason Burnett offered her the dough. She told a sob story, and took money as a result. Turns out the sob story was, if not a lie, a distortion of the facts to make it look like life had screwed her over. Of course, I don’t think Burnett should have offered her the money in the first place-- it’s not fair to the other folks, and will just encourage this kind of crap later on.
Thanks, squeegee for disabling the link. Although, if we’re linked to on ew.com, I guess a link here at the SDMB is truly a drop in the bucket. Today’s net has been better, but still not back to normal.
As for the rest of things… well, the world knows pretty much exactly what I do. (Remember, I work in a completely different building.) I was cheering Denise on 'cause, hey, there’s someone from Douglas, way to go!