Courtney Hate
"This isn't, like, welfare. It's a game. Like, she doesn't deserve it just 'cause, you know, she sucks at life" -- Courtney, "Survivor: China," on efforts by Denise, a lunch lady in a cafeteria, to stay in the game because she and her family need the money more than the other contestants.
Speaking of heartless, immoral types, if you missed the "Survivor: China" finale on Sunday, you missed seeing one of the most unlikely "Survivor" contestants ever making it to the final three. For a minute there, it actually looked as if Courtney could win it, too. While the other two finalists, Tricky Todd and Ass-Out Amanda (whose butt was apparently hanging out during the entire season, based on the amount of camera blurring going on), batted their eyes and flattered the jury, rail-thin big-city cynic Courtney said that at least she was upfront and honest, and admitted, "I was physically scared to be in this game in the beginning."
But then Courtney insulted former competitor and juror Jean-Robert ("I won an immunity. Did you win an immunity?") while Todd (brilliantly) told Jean-Robert that he voted him out only because he knew that Jean-Robert was the biggest threat in the game. Everyone watching knew that this was far from true, except for one person: Jean-Robert. Todd might as well have said that he'd eliminated Jean-Robert because Jean-Robert was so studly and handsome that he would make Todd look bad by comparison. When Todd finished speaking, Jean-Robert looked very satisfied, didn't say another word, and ended up voting for Todd to win it all, despite having vowed to take him down a few weeks earlier.
So Todd won. Courtney came in second with two votes. And Amanda, who played a great game but started kissing up and acting demure to an insincere degree in the home stretch, got only one vote. Also, the wit and absurdly pretty physique of James the gravedigger won him a $100,000 fan-favorite prize voted on by viewers at home.
And what happened to poor Lunch Lady Denise? At the reunion, she reported to the audience that she was taken off the lunch shift because her star status was causing a big distraction at her school. So she was being forced to scrub toilets at the school at night instead, and she never got to see her kids. Then, at the end of the show, Jeff Probst announced that show creator Mark Burnett felt so bad for Denise that he was going to give her $50,000 of his own money, just for sucking at life -- er, rather, in order to turn her life around.
Later, the superintendent at Denise's school claimed that Denise had lied, that she was actually a full-time custodian (a promotion from cafeteria worker) at the time she took a leave of absence to appear on "Survivor." So, can we assume that Denise told a lie simply to win the sympathy and love of Americans everywhere? Hey, maybe Denise doesn't suck at life after all! I bet she's dumped one or two bodies in the river in her day, too! High five!
We can be "Heroes"!
Speaking of bodies piling up, how about the last few episodes of "Heroes" (9 p.m. EST Mondays on NBC), huh? Looks like we're back on track to save the world again, this time from a deadly virus that threatens to wipe out almost everyone on the planet ... except for people with really incredible immune systems, or people who are completely isolated in a luxury hotel in Acapulco. Uh oh. Imagine if the Earth were repopulated by a small band of dumber-than-average but cuter-than-average drunk assholes!
Isn't that what happened here in America? We were founded by outsiders, small groups of heartier-than-average, more-religious-than-average questioners of authority who believed in subverting the dominant paradigm and giving the king and/or queen the finger from across the big pond.
Unfortunately, those tough pilgrims and zealots paired up and gave birth to a bunch of dumb, in-bred ruffians, who set to work building strip malls and forming touch-football leagues. Thank God for the eventual influx of highly intelligent, wildly good-looking Carpatho-Rusyns, or this great land of ours would be led by aggressive, unattractive, in-bred half-wits.
Oh, wait, it is! Anyway, this gives you some notion of what the heroes of "Heroes" are up against ... although none of them seem capable of discerning who's good and who's evil or whether or not they should be working for or against "The Company" or each other.
Come to think of it, "Heroes" has more than a little in common with "24" -- first they're fighting a nuclear bomb, then a deadly virus. Various alliances form and shift and form again, with friends and foes at odds or working together in random succession.
And then there's the dialogue. Sweet Jesus, the dialogue of "Heroes" can be bad, almost as bad as "24's" dialogue, but not quite. Take this exchange, where Nathan's eeevil mom explains the simple, Landry-like reasoning behind the original collaborative effort to kill off the Earth's population:
Mom: And in the end Adam decided that the world just wasn't worth fixing, and that it needed to be wiped clean with an unstoppable virus. And just before it was too late, I, um, I came to realize how wrong it was.
Nathan: Did you? You and Linderman wanted to blow up New York to save the world. Doesn't sound to me like you've changed much at all, Ma!
But mommies never really change, boys and girls. You don't need to be a hero to know that. Neither do their impudent troublemaker children, whether they're poisoning their nephews' and nieces' minds against their parents or drinking too much DayQuil, then wrestling bad little doggies to the ground for fun and sport. So enjoy the twisted delights of the season and lean into the chaos, my lovelies! You get the chance to lounge around your parents' house in dirty socks whining for someone to refill your glass of red wine but once a year. Happy Holidays!
About the writer
Heather Havrilesky is Salon's TV critic. She also maintains the rabbit blog. You can find more of her columns in the I Like To Watch directory.
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