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(Melanie Amaro and Josh Krajcik perform a duet on Thursday's X Factor finale in a Fox photo by Ray Mickshaw.)
The final results show of The X Factor's first season turned out to be the one where there weren't any surprises (unless you count Stevie Wonder joining Justin Bieber onstage).
Melanie Amaro won the $5 million recording contract; Josh Krajcik came second and Chris Rene third.
The results, predictable as they were, were just one small part of a two-hour program that started out like a Christmas variety show, switched into a concert special and then back to a talent contest finale.
It's a cliche to say there are no losers, as the judges did when they gushed over the top 12 performance at the beginning of the episode, but it certainly seemed like everyone left happy.
Melanie was almost speechless with joy; Josh was grinning ear to ear at his runner-up status; Chris seemed genuinely grateful just to be there, telling host Steve Jones, "I got to touch a lot of people's hearts out there and I've just got to say thank you."
We watched a replay of Rachel Crow's elimination in a clips package of the top five shocking moments of the season (I don't even remember the one called "Chad's not happy"). But then we saw Rachel confident and happy onstage, telling Steve "there are amazing things coming in the future," before she introduced British X Factor winner Leona Lewis. Lewis sang "Run" while scenes from the season played on the screens behind her, which had the smiling judges recounting how much they'd enjoyed being on the show.
Drew, the other contestant who had a wrenching elimination (why wasn't that in the shocking moments?), got to sing, dance, hold hands with and hug her idol, Bieber.
Marcus Canty was back, looking chuffed to join Pitbull and Ne-Yo on "Give Me Everything (Tonight)." Astro threw down with 50 Cent on "Wait Until Tonight" and managed to hold his own. And the rest of the top 12 at least got to share the stage for a group rendition of Lady Gaga's "Edge of Glory."
Dare I say it was a feelgood night all around.
It started with the top three performing Christmas songs: Melanie did "All I Want for Christmas Is You"; Chris followed with "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"; Josh sang "Please Come Home for Christmas." The songs were good. Some of the staging was cheesy: giant fake presents and candy canes for Melanie; a dancer inside a giant snowglobe for Josh.
Each performance was followed by a sort of sentimental ambush of taped messages from the contestants' friends and families. Melanie couldn't speak for crying after seeing her mother, father and grandmother, among others. Heck, I was teary after seeing Chris's little boy say, "I love you, daddy" and hearing his friends and siblings tell Chris how proud his dead father would be. Josh held out the longest but ended up in tears after seeing his mom and daughter onscreen.
Justin Bieber was next up, getting some help from Stevie Wonder on "The Christmas Song" and following it up with a rollicking "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" with a stage full of male dancers. Justin brought out Drew (with new red hair) to sing the last line and told Steve, "She is a very special girl and she will go far." Then Steve had to ruin it by reminding Drew that her "dream was you and Justin holding hands on a beach watching the sun go down."
"That was kind of better," Drew replied of her onstage experience.
That was the best of the guest musical numbers. Pitbull and Ne-Yo were the second best.
Fiddy's performance, meanwhile, featured the show's female dancers in white leotards writhing on white sofas scattered around the stage plus a bathtub (a bathtub?). The couches were later used by members of the L.A. Lakers basketball team who walked out and waved their arms around a bit before taking seats. Fifty Cent's rapping must have included some swear words since the sound cut out several times.
There was also a notable duet by Josh and Melanie on David Bowie's "Heroes." I was most struck by the genuine goodwill between the two as they sang. Josh gave Melanie a big hug and said, "I love you" after the song.
And when she won, Josh told Steve, "I feel amazing. Melanie deserves it. She has a wonderful voice.
"I have had such an incredible experience here. I got to be myself, sing what I wanted to sing and I couldn't be happier."
There's no sense feeling sorry for Josh. I very much doubt he's going back to slinging burritos. Simon told him earlier, "You are gonna sell a lot of records. I can feel it."
Steve made several fruitless attempts to get words from Melanie besides "Omigawd, omigawd, omigawd." She cried, she hugged some people who came running up onstage, she fell to her knees and prayed, then she sang "Listen" as best she could through the tears.
"I'm looking for Melanie Amaro. She just won The X Factor. That's her," quipped Steve, trying to fight his way through the other contestants, who had engulfed Melanie.
"Omigawd, I don't know what to say. Thank you," Melanie finally said, then shouting, "God is good!"
Simon Cowell, who was Melanie's mentor and the mastermind behind bringing The X Factor to America, told Steve, "We came here, Steve, to find a superstar. We found a superstar. Thank you to everyone who supported this. I'm very, very grateful."
The show will be back for a second season and is already gearing up to start auditions. There have been rumblings about the ratings (around 12 million in the U.S., more than a million in Canada per episode, though nowhere near American Idol numbers) and whether Steve and Nicole Scherzinger will be back next season.
But none of that mattered on Thursday night.
What did you think of the finale? Were you glad Melanie won? Will you watch next season?
You can comment here, tweet @realityeo or visit my Facebook page.
I've been "Coached."
When I asked Edna last week why Coach had so much influence on his Upolu tribe, she said it was his ability to make people feel important (and I never got time to blog that interview, so apologies to Edna).
The first thing Coach told me when I interviewed him this week was that he'd been reading my blog throughout the season. So guess who was feeling kind of important? And then my next thought was, oh crap, what unflattering things did I write about him that he might have read?
Anyway, it was clear that Coach, a.k.a. Benjamin Wade, 40, artistic director and conductor of the Susanville Symphony in California, was still feeling the sting of losing the 23rd season of Survivor to Sophie Clarke, his third time playing the game. Here's an edited version of our chat:
DY: Hi Coach, how are you doing today?
CW: I'm good. I read your stuff every week, I want you to know.
DY: Did you really?
CW: Yeah, it was one of the ones that always came up, Toronto Star ... every week, Toronto Star would do something and I'd check it out.
DY: You were one of the stars of the show from where I was sitting. I think you're one of the more interesting people to have played Survivor over the years, but I understand you say this is it, you're done with it.
CW: Yeah, I'm done with it, so I don't know if you really like me or if you don't like me, so I guess we'll have to just make sure we’re good on this last interview that we do, for Survivor of course. I expect you to be chronicling my exploits when I go and do my new show and all that other kind of stuff that's gonna be happening this next year, but we can get into that later.
DY: Okay, that sounds good. Let's talk about what we saw going on on Sunday. At the very end of that final tribal council, I thought that you looked really almost crushed. What was going through your mind?
CW: Those people out there, I had really given everything that I had to those people. It was a beautiful experience those 39 days. You know, the game play, the whatever, that's all secondary to me. It was the real life bond I thought I had formed with those individuals and it was really just a beautiful experience to lead people. Those people wanted to be coached, they looked to me, even from the first day on how to build shelters, how to approach the challenges, and it was really cool to have that. And I gave my heart and soul to those people and there were people that were ostracized, there were people in our own alliance like Edna and Brandon, and even Sophie and Albert, they all turned on each other. And I was the glue that held it together, I was very positive, very reaffirming....
This journey was a lot less about me. In the past, it’s been my personal journey or going out into the woods and getting lost for a couple of hours like I did in Tocantins. On this trip, I was really there for those people. I told them from Day 1 I want to make this experience the best that I can for you guys and I want you guys to truly appreciate every second you have out here because every new day is a gift and so to do that, and to see how quickly they became embittered at me and the resentment that I felt that they had towards me was a difficult pill to swallow. That's the third (final) tribal council, I've been on the jury twice; I know how those juries can get and I could just see - and I don't care what the people have told you. It's very easy for Ozzy to say, "You know, if Coach would have just admitted to strategizing I would have voted for him." That's just not true.... It's like nothing short of me saying, "Look, I'm the devil and I used you guys, I don’t care a rip about you guys. I did it for a million dollars," which is totally far away from the truth. If I had said that they would have given me the money. I could just tell at tribal council that nothing I could say or do, short of completely compromising what I felt in 97 days of playing the game, nothing was going to win the game for me.
And you can look at that ... with Whitney. Whitney didn’t ask me a question, so obviously there's no way I can get her vote. Dawn, again, didn’t ask me a question. All she had was a comment toward Sophie. Keith asked me, "Coach, did you have the immunity idol? Was it for yourself or was it for the tribe?"
"No, it was for the tribe."
"Really Sophie?"
"Yeah, Keith, it was for the tribe."
"Albert?"
"Yeah, Keith, it was for the tribe."
Keith still votes for Sophie. It's kind of like Ozzy, you know: "Sophie, you’re a pretentious bitch. I'm jealous that I'm not the one who got to the final three" is what he was really saying, so I'm not gonna vote for Coach 'cause I kicked his ass every step of the way. I mean I out-led him, I out-built shelters. The only thing he did better than me was catching fish. So I just felt that really that bitterness permeated the jury and there was nothing I could do.
The next day at Ponderosa (the place where voted-off contestants stay during the game), not that you guys could see this, but the next day at Ponderosa, I walked into Ponderosa everybody's such a hard ass, basically saying "Hey Coach" and that’s about it. Within 24 hours, they're all coming up to me, they were all coming up to me, doing the same thing that they did in the game and that is, "Coach, did I play a good game?" "Do you still like me?" "Can we still be friends? What's your number?" And then they were just so desperate to seek my approval, I was thinking to myself, "Where was that 24 hours ago when it counted most?" So actually, the day after I was even more despondent because it's just so easy and human nature how people can use you when they feel as if they've been duped or used or they're made to feel foolish or they're just jealous of your success.
I didn’t play a perfect game. By no means did I go out there and completely compromise who I was.... Anyways, it was just tough to see all of a sudden that hey, guess what? When it's all said and done, they're not going to give me anything, but now they need to use me again and they need to feed off of me, empowering them. That was the trick to this year.... But you take anybody this year, after (a returning player) winning last year, Boston Rob, Cirie, Amanda, Parvati, Rupert ... nobody would have been able to get to the end and the fact that I did it is because of one reason and that is because I empowerd people, and I graciously and compassionately led them from Day 1 and made them feel good about themselves.
Edna came into the game and she was completely ostracized by the others. I studied her for two days and watched one thing I could bring before the others, "Look at how valuable she is." I watched her on the beach sharpening a machete. I've been on there three times. Nobody's ever been able to sharpen a machete.... Edna sharpened the machete, must have been, I'm not kidding you, an hour straight sitting in the sand with a rock in the ocean.... And that night, I said, "Feel this machete, that's incredible. How did you do that? This is a machete that Richard Hatch used. It's so dull you can't cut anything with it." And she said, "Well, you know, when I was 6 in my parents' restaurant, they had a Chinese restaurant, they took me in the kitchen and had me sharpen the knives." Then, all of a sudden, she became a real person.... Sophie, same thing, the first day total fish out of water, couldn't connect to anybody because she is a different person. She can be very magnanimous in victory, but she really had a tough time out there connecting to everybody. She had very little social game. I took her under my wing.... It wasn't about the money. I was going to donate it to my symphony. I was going to put up a perfoming arts centre in a rural area of northern California. I don't care about the money, but it was just kind of really, really difficult to not kind of cement my third and final time in this trilogy.
DY: Yeah, but at the same time, you told Jeff that you felt that you'd redeemed yourself by playing and how so?
CW: As I told him, I felt gutted that I didn’t do the business out there and I didn’t win. Any competitor worth his or her salt is going to go to the national championship game, that final round, and hope and pray for the victory. So it was so gutting on one hand and on the other hand, I do feel like I’ve won. Just because of the sting of defeat is kind of coming through my pores in the last 24 hours and I have to lick my wounds a little bit, but I was so close. On the other hand ... for the last six months, or however many months, it has just been a beautiful memory. It's why I'm never playing the game again. With the exception of two more votes on the final tribal council, you cannot get a better game from somebody like me from start to finish. I connected with the audience in a way I never had before.... People have always emailed me from the very beginning. I would have thousands of people say, "Coach, man, we really appreciate you trying to play with honour and integrity. We really appreciate the example that you set for our kids. We really appreciate you being very genuine out there." .... Now this time it was like, "Coach, hated you the first time; second time I felt sorry for you; this time, I really hate to admit it, but I absolutely love how you're playing the game." So that was really fulfilling.... I wanted people to see that I was simply a regular guy and that I had feelings and hey, guess what? I did it. I said I'm gonna go out there and I'm actually going to play this game and quite possibly in a situation where anybody else would have failed coming back on the heels of a returning player win I made it all the way to the end and so close, almost won it, so obviously I played a pretty doggone good game.
DY: What can you tell me about your new show?
CW: There's like a couple of things coming up. Of course, the movie 180, in which I have a lead role and that's coming out in February. I've got a new show next year. I can't talk about a lot of the details, but you know, Coach loves the outdoors. I love culture, I love travelling, I love going against the elements, I love nature, I love the animals in the wild and I love to coach people, so a new version of Coach. I can tell you it's fall 2012.
(The photo of Coach is by Monty Brinton for CBS. And here's a mini trailer of 180 for you all to enjoy. Merry Christmas.)
For a while there, I thought we were watching The X Factor Canadian edition.
The big surprise of the season's final performance show, besides regular check-ins with hyperventilating fans in each of the finalists' hometowns, was that each got to do a duet with an established star. This was cause for great celebration, causing host Steve Jones to say "wow" almost as many times as Steven Tyler says "beautiful" on American Idol.
Two of the special guests were Canucks: Alanis Morissette shared vocals on "Uninvited" with Josh Krajcik (above) and Avril Lavigne bopped around to "Complicated" with Chris Rene. The third guest, American singer R. Kelly, broke the streak when he performed "I Believe I Can Fly" with Melanie Amaro.
Duets between contestants and stars are a well-used device on other talent shows. American Idol finales are jam-packed with them and The Voice finalists partnered with the like of Stevie Nicks and Miranda Lambert on its season ender.
By those standards, these duos were a bit anticlimactic. It seemed like each contestant got off to a shaky start, whether from nervousness or anticipation.
Josh Krajcik, normally supremely confident, seemed to pull some of his vocal punches after Alanis joined him and had a look on his face like "I can't believe I'm singing with Alanis Morissette."
Chris was way out of tune before Avril took the stage and the song didn't suit him much better after she joined in, but at least he looked like he was having fun.
And Melanie did not sound like she believed she could fly as she warmed up for R. Kelly, but hers was the best vocal matchup and she seemed most comfortable next to the pro.
Steve managed to curtail his gushing to ask how the stars had enjoyed working with the finalists (as if any of them were going to say it sucked). Alanis admiringly described Josh as "a very souful man"; R. Kelly said Melanie's "on her way to the moon"; and yes, Avril did say that Chris "kicked ass."
These were just the musical appetizers, though, the judges' and host's excitement notwithstanding. The real meat of the competition came in the solos as each finalist reprised their first audition songs. These were the songs that will determine who wins on Thursday night.
And despite my unwavering devotion to Josh, I have to say it looks likes Melanie nailed it. My fear is that the emotional heft of Chris reprising "Young Homie" on the very day he reached eight months' sobriety will push him into second spot ahead of Josh, whom I really would love to see win.
But this has been a season of surprises, so we won't know for sure until Thursday.
Here's how I ranked the performances.
Melanie Amaro: My one reservation about Melanie has been a lack of emotional buy-in to the technically perfect vocals, but that changed big-time on Wednesday with Beyonce's "Listen." I have never felt so much passion in one of her performances. And boy, can she belt. "That wasn't a $5 million performance, that was a $50 million performance," said L.A. Reid, referring to the amount of the winner's record contract. "Based on that performance tonight, to me, you should be the winner of The X Factor," added Simon Cowell.
Josh Krajcik: If Josh does lose on Thursday, at least he'll know he went down swinging. His rendition of Etta James' "At Last," accompanying himself on guitar, was a fabulous blend of soft and tender and loud and full-throated. And win or lose, I hope he gets to make records. L.A. praised him for making the song his. "That's what stardom is all about, making it your own." Simon said playing the guitar was risky, but "what I liked about it, it was all about you, what we liked about you in the first place. This is gonna be a very, very close vote tonight."
Chris Rene: There's a lot of appeal to Chris's circumstances, the fact that he's come from life-threatening addiction to being a finalist in a contest for a life-changing recording contract. As Chris himself put it, "People like me don't get a break like that." He's the competition's worst singer and even his rapping is hit and miss, but he gave the most infectious performance of the night with "Young Homie." If votes between Josh and Melanie are as close as Simon said, it's conceivable that Chris could come right up the middle and take the prize. Simon reminded Chris of the promise he made at his first audition to stay sober if he made it onto the show. "Not only are you a man of your word, you're a brilliant performer, you are a true gentleman and a really nice guy, and I hope America gets behind you," Simon said.
So you know what the judges think and what I think. Who do you think should win based on Wednesday's show? Comment here, tweet @realityeo or visit my Facebook page.
(The photos of Josh and Alanis, Chris and Avril, and Melanie are by Ray Mickshaw for Fox.)
I have to admit I found it a bit anti-climactic when Sophie Clarke won Survivor on Sunday night. She hadn't been on my radar much until she started winning immunity challenges. But I have to give her credit for outplaying and outlasting the two veterans. She seems very intelligent, well-spoken and she says it was she and Albert who kept Coach safe in the game, not the other way around. Who am I to keep a good woman down? Here's an edited version of our chat:
DY: Did you in your gut know what was gonna happen when you left that (final) tribal council?
SC: Yeah, I had a good feeling. I definitely got the least amount of heat and I think I was the only person who had something positive said to me. So yeah, I definitely had a good feeling. I mean, you never know for sure. I thought I had one more vote than I got, so when three votes came up for Coach I actually got pretty nervous. I thought maybe I misread the jury, maybe I didn’t win and I I started to get pretty terrified and tried to think up a gracious loser speech on the spot, but luckily that wasn’t necessary.
DY: No, that became Coach’s job.
SC: Exactly. Coach just does his little dragon move and he shuts up.
DY: Even though you did get something positive said about you at that final tribal council, Ozzy wasn’t saying nice things about you. He seemed to change his tune at the reunion show, but with what happened at the earlier tribal council, what made that so hard for you to hear?
SC: Ozzy and I clashed and a lot of that was just part of the game. We ... talked about it, we were both very serious competitors, we were both very hard-headed and we were very similar people and we clashed. And I knew that and I tried to call him out on calling me a brat and he called me out on calling him an asshole and that was all kind of game play ... but then when he mentioned that it wasn’t coming from him and it was people who had gone through Redemption Island, then it became very personal to me because I had spent most of my time out there with a bunch of guys, and I loved coming to the merge and being able to sit on the beach and talk to Whitney and Dawn. I had such great memories from that. And I really thought we had become friends, so to hear these people I thought I had become close to thought really negative things about me, it was really hard to hear. And at that point in the game you’re so exhausted and tired and hungry, any little thing can really set you off and I just had a little breakdown.
DY: Understandable, but what I’m reading today is that people are saying they actually think that helped you.
SC: Exactly ... it’s funny because at first I left tribal thinking, "Gosh, I’m screwed. What jury person wants to vote for the crying, whining 22-year-old girl?" and then I started to think about it more when I got back to the beach and I realized that their problem with me was that I was too guarded; I didn’t show vulnerability; I was too blunt. And so actually, by crying and by being vulnerable in front of them, I think actually proved to them that maybe their opinions of me weren’t right, so I think I definitely won over some jury votes. At the time, I was so overwhelmed I wasn’t really paying attention to what they were thinking, but watching the show I do notice that they seemed to be genuinely sympathetic.
DY: There’s been things said in the past by other contestants about women sometimes coming in with a bit of a disadvantage perhaps, because there tends to be an assumption that if you’re female you’re just gonna ride somebody’s coattails to the end. What do you think about that?
SC: Exactly, I mean it’s so hard to talk about. I feel I need a women’s studies major to answer this question properly, but it’s interesting what makes people decide who was the person who carried who to the end, 'cause they’re both there at the end and what’s to say that the person who was a little louder and a little more vivacious was actually the one who’s doing the carrying? It’s really impossible to say. I do find there seems to be a pattern; everybody assumes that if two people go to the end, a man and a woman, it is the man who brought the woman and not the other way around. I think I was fighting that battle at tribal council. I remember being quite shocked actually when I first came in and hearing Ozzy saying, "Coach this is your game to lose," because I really felt like it was my game to win or his game to win.... When he said that it made me feel like I was a non-entity, I was the backup vote, and I definitely didn’t feel that way playing the game.
DY: There was a perception that Coach was in charge on Upolu. In fact, I felt that way watching most of the season. Was he, do you think?
SC: Albert and I had a very strong alliance in the beginning and we talked a lot about, because a lot of people on our tribe wanted Coach out, pretty much all the girls did and Rick wasn’t too fond of him at first. And Albert and I talked a lot about it and I said, "Listen, this guy is a bit of a nutty guy. He is fiercely loyal. He’s over the top. This is kind of the perfect guy to deflect the attention." And we made a decision that we should align with Coach and we formed a close relationship with him, but we definitely always considered him more of a figurehead and I think we always felt like we were really making the decisions. And it’s a tricky game to play because it’s hard to convince people that the man who looks like he’s making the decisions isn’t necessarily doing that.
DY: To some extent, it's the way it’s edited, because it always seems like people are going to Coach and saying, "I want to do this, what do you think about it?"
SC: Exactly. I guess the only thing I can say to that is, they never showed this, but Edna and I had a final three alliance, and Albert, Rick and myself had a final three alliance, so Coach wasn’t necessarily in the centre of the Upolu 6. There were many alliances that did not include him. In addition to that, I think everybody approaches the game a different way. Sometimes when they showed me I would say, "Hey, what do you want to do?" And you’re playing a game, saying that doesn’t actually mean you’re asking someone "What do you want to do?" Often I would approach Albert or Coach or someone that way because I knew that their personality was such that they wanted to feel in charge. I made sure when I talked to Coach or Albert in the beginning, before we had a falling out, I never said, "Hey, listen, here’s what we should do." I always made them feel like it was kind of their decision, but I tried to plant seeds. I think the most effective strategy is often really subtle, it’s how you make people feel about decisions and that’s hard to come across on camera.
DY: I would think it probably is. Obviously it turned out to be a good decision to take Coach because you’re talking to me today.
SC: Exactly, but it was definitely a risky decision. I think I didn’t even realize until the final tribal how much Savaii saw Coach as cult leader. Because I really was working from the background. It worked out for the best though. I have nothing to complain about.
DY: In the bio that I saw of you, there was one quote, it talked about you saying you were going to ... mentally mess with people and beat on their bodies, and it would be easy. So the question I was going to ask you was how easy was it?
SC: It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. It was physically the hardest thing and emotionally the hardest thing. Strangely, I think that the easiest part of it was the strategy. And it was kind of the nicest part of it too. I mean, you have nothing to do all day except strategize so it was a way to keep yourself occupied. And I think also I was very lucky in that I managed to form an alliance that was very cut and dried. And I didn’t have the same kind of stress, I think, as the Savaii members had, 'cause over there things were changing every day. I was playing with people who weren’t very variable and they wanted to stick with the plan and it made for a more relaxed kind of easy pass, at least for the first 20 days or so.
I'm scheduled to talk to Coach and Albert Tuesday, so keep watching this space for that.
The photo of Sophie with Jeff Probst was taken by Greg Gaynes for CBS.
In the end, the third time wasn't the charm for either of Survivor: South Pacific's two returning players.
Ozzy most certainly would have won the million dollars had he got to the final three. But after handily dispatching Brandon in a gruelling Redemption Island duel and winning the first immunity challenge once he got back into the game, Sophie snatched the most crucial immunity victory from his hands.
And she also snatched the title of Sole Survivor from Coach, who couldn't overcome the bitterness he had sown among the people he had to discard to get to the finals and had to settle for second place.
Sophie Clarke, a 22-year-old medical student from Willsboro, N.Y., is the champion.
I was disappointed for Ozzy. He'd become a duel-winning machine on Redemption Island and it would have been nice to see him get the benefit of that perseverance. Sure, he was arrogant at times but no more so than anybody in the final three, Coach, Sophie or Albert.
At least Ozzy had the consolation of winning the $100,000 Sprint fan favourite award on Sunday night. Cochran was a distant second. Jeff Probst said Ozzy won by the biggest margin in the history of the award.
Dare I say I was disappointed for Coach, too. He went from having a target on his back at the start of the game to becoming leader of his tribe and turning his alliance into an impregnable group (with some help from Cochran after the merge). Sophie seems smart and she was strong at challenges, but I can't figure out what she did strategically besides choose the right alliance and stay loyal to Coach.
Coach put a good face on his defeat, telling Jeff at the reunion show that he had redeemed himself this time around and he counted it as an accomplishment just to get to the end as a returning player after Boston Rob's victory last year.
I guess you could say that Coach played with some of the "honour and integrity" he kept harping on throughout the game, since he went to the finals with two of the players from his original alliance of five.
Turns out Coach might have won if Sophie hadn't been sitting next to him, which is what the jury members told Jeff at the reunion, but it seems like Coach was damned if he did and damned if he didn't.
If he'd taken Ozzy to the finals, as he promised several times, it was a guaranteed loss. And as Coach himself pointed out, if he'd taken, say, Cochran and Edna to the finish, "people are going to say Coach isn't a man of his word."
In the end, it's a game - albeit a life-changing one for the players, they attest - and somebody's got to win and lose.
Sunday's finale started half an hour late because of a late football game (I neither know nor care which one, I just know it was annoying).
Nothing much interesting happened until Redemption Island.
Brandon put up a good fight in the duel, which involved holding onto a pole with just a quarter-inch of wood as a foothold. After more than 40 minutes, which left both Brandon and Ozzy sweating and struggling to keep their grips, Brandon couldn't stop himself from sliding to the bottom and out of the duel.
Ozzy rejoined the four remaining Upolu members, Coach, Sophie, Albert and Rick, and won the next immunity challenge, which involved building a deck of cards with one hand while holding a board steady with the other.
Victory was by no means assured. Coach was right behind Ozzy and Sophie was brimming with confidence since she made houses of cards for fun, she told Jeff, and had a book about how to make them. But that turned out to be a curse rather than a blessing since she made her house so elaborate that she ran out of cards before she got to the required height.
Ozzy had to start over too, when his stack of cards wasn't high enough. Then Sophie got panicky and knocked her cards over. And that's when she showed a rather unflattering side of herself, barking at Albert to, "Drop your damn stack and pick up my pieces. I'm gonna beat you."
Albert refused and Jeff had to tell her that help wasn't allowed in the challenge. "You want Ozzy out of this game, beat him," Jeff said.
She couldn't, not this time.
Sophie got her chance at the next challenge, where Ozzy looked to be headed for another victory. He beat the other three castaways (Rick had been voted out by then) in a race through an obstacle course to grab bags of puzzle pieces, but he stalled on the puzzle. Sophie quickly caught up and won the challenge.
Ozzy' had one last chance to stay in the game: get Coach to vote for Albert, which would have forced a tie and fire-making challenge, one at which Ozzy could likely have easily beaten Albert.
Coach said he wanted to take the strongest players to the end (which should have automatically disqualified Albert), but he decided to dance with the ones that brung him, so off to the jury Ozzy went. All the jury members applauded him as he got his torch snuffed, which Ozzy said was an "awesome feeling" (not as awesome as winning would have been, but beggars can't be choosers).
The final tribal council didn't produce any Susan Hawk vs. Richard Hatch-calibre drama, but there were some tense moments and also some laughable ones.
Did Albert really think his butt-kissing opening speech to the jury would win him votes ("To me, it's not a game about chess pieces, it's a game about people. I think a higher power really brought us together," he said).
Ozzy, quite rightly, assessed Albert as "a person that happened to be at the right place at the right time and didn't really do anything too amazing." He called Sophie "a privileged, pretentious brat" (a similar accusation at an earlier tribal had Sophie in tears and Jeff essentially telling her to suck it up). And he demanded that Coach justify his refusal to keep his promise to take Ozzy to final three (Coach essentially said he wanted to win the million, so he was "dishonourable" at times).
Rick was the most outraged. He said Coach stuck him in the back; he said that Albert taking the immunity necklace from Brandon and using "the God thing on him, that was a bunch of bull"; and he told Sophie, "you lied the whole way through." She told Rick the only thing she was ashamed of was lying to him, but he seemed unmoved, declaring "You know how I feel about liars" before sitting down.
Brandon, meanwhile, wasn't as angry as you'd expect. He confronted Coach about voting him out of the game despite giving his word "as a man of God" he would never do so but seemed satisfied with Coach's answer that he wanted to make it up to Brandon. And he got pushy with Albert about whether Albert knew that Brandon was going home the night Brandon gave up his immunity necklace but seemed to believe Albert when he said no.
Coach seemed most affected when Cochran attacked his use of the word "honour."
"When you try to please everybody you end up doing all the wrong things," Coach said. "I tried and I fell short. I stabbed all of you in the back.... It became one big convoluted mess and I didn't know how to get out of it. My game that I tried to play was in shambles."
By the time Jeff walked off with the urn full of votes, Coach looked devastated, whether because he genuinely felt bad about screwing people over or because he knew he'd just lost $1 million is hard to say.
Now, a few highlights from the reunion show.
1. Jeff asked Coach about all the praying on Upolu, the most we've ever seen in any season. Coach said it "became almost like a prayer-palooza where everybody was praying openly every day" because people wanted to grab something "unshakeable" like faith in the rigours of the game.
2. Ozzy said he was incredibly proud of the way he played, that it was love of nature that made him want to play a third time and if he'd won the million, he might have slipped away to a deserted island somewhere. He also changed his tune on Sophie, calling her "one of the smartest people I think has played this game."
3. Cochran never apologized for flipping on his old tribe, although he did say he regretted the "defensive posture" he adopted in the game and he loved everybody there. But apparently the love ends in the studio, because he told Jeff he has not yet had a date as a result of his TV fame.
4. Speaking of love in the studio, Whitney and Keith are still a couple, but we were not treated to a Boston Rob-style marriage proposal or anything like that.
5. The saddest segment involved Brandon, who told Jeff that his family is not supportive of the way he played the game. In fact, no one from his family had travelled to L.A. to support him. His notorious uncle, Russell Hantz, was there, but at CBS's request to comment on Brandon's game. Russell at least had tears in his eyes when he told Brandon he was still Uncle Russell and would sit down and shut up if Brandon wanted him to. But it was obvious he was not pleased about Brandon's contention he wanted to restore the Hantz family name. "I made greatness. I brought the game to a level that you can't even comprehend," Russell said, adding that Brandon didn't do one thing right out there, to boos from the audience. Obviously, the Russell Hantz ego is still intact. It's the first time I've actually liked Brandon.
6. Season 24 of Survivor starts in February with a new twist: the tribes will live together on one island, with the tribe with the resources having to decide if they want to share with the have-not tribe (I'm guessing no).
Of course, I'll be watching and recapping when the show returns. And I thank you all for reading this season and putting up with my ramblings.
(The photo of Coach, Albert, Sophie and Ozzy is by Greg Gaynes for CBS.)
There's no question that John Cochran became one of the most notorious players on this season of Survivor. The 24-year-old Harvard law student and Survivor superfan (he won a Dean’s Scholar Prize at Harvard for an essay he wrote on the Survivor jury system) changed the course of the game when he flipped on his original Savaii tribe. We talked about the flip, about Coach and about Cochran's potential legacy. Here's an edited version of our chat, which began with me telling him I couldn't possibly call him John.
JC: I don’t want to force my name on anybody else. I had that experience doing that and was a little bit mortified.
DY: What are you mortified about?
JC: Part of the thing is the people I was aspiring to be, they didn’t have to ask Jeff (Probst) to call them by their last names, so it’s a little bit cheeky on my part … “I’m gonna do rather great, so you better call me by my last name.” I was afraid I was going to end up being Purple John if there was another John on the show, a pathetic nickname.
DY: That would have been worse for sure, but now that he has started calling you that I don’t think anybody can think of you as anything but Cochran. And I have to tell you, I obviously do these interviews almost every week and you’re pretty much the only topic of conversation with everybody I talk to, so how do you feel about that?
JC: On the one hand it’s nice, I’m a huge fan of Survivor so it’s nice to be inspiring people to talk about it, but generally I’ve found that the feedback has been negative, so I don’t know if it’s the greatest thrill to be responsible for that water cooler talk.
DY: I understand. Let’s talk about the big twist, which was you flipping on Savaii and let’s explore that a little bit and your reasons for doing that.
JC: Jim’s kind of created the narrative that it was entirely out of cowardice. Certainly I did not want to pull rocks out of the bag, but I wouldn’t say that was my main motivating thing. The big turning point for me was the last tribal immunity challenge before the merge was that Jack and Jill thing where people are blindfolded and I was feeding rope ... which I took the blame for. I basically said it was my fault, but it really wasn’t. I’m not responsible for losing that challenge. Jim was the one that clipped the thing improperly and screwed up Ozzy. So we get back from that challenge, everyone’s blaming me for the loss and everyone’s sitting around the fire and says, "We’re gonna vote you out tonight." They tried to wrap it up in this whole thing of you’re gonna become a man at Redemption Island. It’s gonna be great for you and it’s gonna be such a growing experience. I didn’t sign up to become a man on Redemption Island.... It was eye-opening in that everybody, including my closest allies, who were really Dawn and Jim, were saying they were going to vote me off. So even though it ended up not happening because Ozzy had his miraculous dream about going to Redemption Island, it was revealing that nobody hesitated for a second to vote me off, even though now everybody claims they were dying to have me in the final three with them.
So I didn’t feel that much allegiance to my tribe and I certainly didn’t feel that much allegiance to be one of only two people on my tribe to have to pull a rock. It would only have been me or Jim pulling rocks that night for Savaii. I’m not gonna risk my game to save a tribe of people that literally 24 hours earlier were all gonna vote me off.
I’ve been reading all the exit interviews with my other castmates. They’ve all said that they wanted to take me to the final three.... I think some of it’s revisionism in that they see that my flip didn’t work, so to make me seem a little bit even more pathetic they say "We were all gonna bring him to the end." ... I’m not convinced anybody would have taken me to the end, but let’s say they did take me to the final three. What’s my final three argument at that point? "Hey guys, I was saved several times pre-merge and then post-merge, because I’m horrible at challenges, nobody bothered voting me off, so give me a million dollars."
So if I flipped, I didn’t have a great shot at winning either way. I flipped ... and if I’m brought to the end by Coach or say Albert or something, then the Upolu tribe mates on the journey will feel betrayed that they were not brought and I had, so okay, I’ll get the Upolu votes. I was still close enough with Dawn that I think I probably could have gotten her vote and maybe even Ozzy’s vote. I know it sounds kind of ludicrous when I say it, but I do think Ozzy ... he didn’t actually react that violently to me flipping. I think he was kind of able to disassociate himself from the personal part of the game.
I think my mistake was not flipping but was rather after flipping I felt a little bit too safe because it was was the first time I’d had this final four deal. Omigawd, I can finally relax for the first time and I was in no position to be relaxing.... I'm thinking maybe what I should have done is demanded that someone give me an imunity idol and then not flip,and then give the Savaii people a few people lead over Upolu and then flip.... The problem with flipping at the merge is that Upolu had the numbers advantage for the rest of the game and they had no reason to splinter at that point. They were too secure.
DY: I see what you’re saying, but you did what you did. How much of that was Coach being persuasive? Did you ever see through him?
JC: At the beginning of each episode, they’ve got “Previously on Survivor.” They said, "Coach seduced Cochran into jumping tribal lines." What really seduced me, I was kind of eager to jump lines anyway,but the fact I got a solid final four deal from Sophie, Albert and Coach. That ended up, of course, being a completely phony deal because I’m not in the final four right now, but just having that offer, I thought it was an offer that made sense. I had no reason to doubt it, because I kind of liked the idea of being thought of as somebody that wouldn't get any votes because I’d alienated half the jury votes from Savaii. I started seeing through some stuff from Coach toward the end. He said he was going to defend me with his dying breath the day before I went, so I said, "Oh okay, well since (you) are voting me out, why don’t you give me your idol?" He obviously had no interest in doing so.
When I came up to him with that plan to vote off Rick, I had Edna and Albert actually on board. They weren’t just yanking my chain on that ... but I (brought it) to Coach, he just, like, stares at the ocean for 20 seconds without saying anything and that’s not exactly the most confidence-building reaction to somebody’s who’s supposed to be your closess ally, so I was kind of seeing through him at that point.
As a Survivor fan, I was very aware of Coach’s reputation of Mr. Honour to a fault and I know he liked the idea of having someone like me out there who’s really receptive to his coaching. So okay, he’ll be genunine with me. He ended up not being, but I have no hard feelings about anybody really.
DY: You said that Dawn and Jim were your closest allies out there. Who else did you get along with on your original tribe?
JC: The problem with our tribe was that it was super fragmented so Ozzy would be off like a mile away meditating somewhere or finding hidden immunity idols, or whatever he was doing. Keith and Whitney were very, very close and they would spend a lot of time kind of paired off. Jim would like to spend time in the ocean, and then Dawn and I would sit around the fire commiserating. But I didn’t have cold relations with anybody. I got along fine. At the time I was thinking "Omigawd, I’m a great social player, everybody likes me, I’m like the greatest social game player in the world" and then (I heard) the confessional of Sophie, "He’s freaking annoying, he’s an idiot, he’s a jerk, he’s self-entitled" ... I think Sophie had some sort of beef with me, maybe, but I got along with everybody, I thought. I mean, now there’s a lot of backtracking I think. They’re saying they didn’t bring me to the end because I was so annoying and everybody would vote for me. I don’t think they actually felt that way at the time, I think it’s just kind of benefit of hindsight.
DY: How do you think you’re going to go down in Survivor lore? Do you think you’ll go down as bold and courageous or do you think you’re going to go down as another "Omigawd, what was he thinking?"
JC: Let’s say I pulled rocks and was eliminated by pulling rocks, everyone would say, "Freakin’ idiot, his tribe told him they were going to vote him off and he was still willing to pull rocks with them?" So it was really lose lose anyway in terms of my legacy. There are certain people who are supportive of my moves. I read all the online stuff obsessively and most people seem to really dislike the move online. I think time will kind of make the reactions a little bit less violent. My legacy will probably be ... enthusiastic fan of the game who made maybe an ill-advised move and ended on a good note, and really appreciated his experience.
In terms of whether I’m a villain or a hero, I don’t think I command enough respect either way. With villains, with Russell, for instance, people kind of hate him, but there’s a grudging respect. "Oh, he’s Russell." Or a hero like Colby or someone. I don’t necessarily fit into either of those moulds. I’m just kind of this weird, towing the line or not even on the same plane of existence. You’re probably better suited to tell me what it’s gonna be than I am. I hope it’s relatively favourable.
DY: The last question, Cochran, what is it about Survivor that makes you such a superfan?
JC: I don’t even know where to begin with that. Just take a look at the winners. There’s no one prototype for a winner. You have somebody like Vecepia, you have somebody like Todd, you have somebody like Natalie White and Fabio. It’s all about interpersonal dynamics. It’s really a great psychological thing. I don’t care about camping. I don’t care about seeing people catch fish. I mean I know a lot of people enjoy that and I’m not meaning to begrudge them that enjoyment, but I always just love seeing people that would not ordinarily have anything to do with each other being forced to live with each other in really difficult conditions and somehow rewarding somebody that basically had to have screwed you over to get to that point. So I find it fascinating. That’s why it’s so good after 23 seasons, because it’s all about the people that are cast, not about the location or the conditions.
Speaking of screwing people over, there's sure to be some of that going on during Sunday's finale. Coach, Rick, Sophie and Albert are still in the hunt for the million dollars. And either Brandon or Ozzy will be joining them after the last Redemption Island duel. You can watch it Sunday at 8 p.m. on Global and catch the recap here.
(The photo of Cochran is by Monty Brinton for CBS.)
(The semifinalists do a mashup on The X Factor results show in a Fox photo by Ray Mickshaw.)
Finally! An X Factor results show that didn't leave me having to pick my jaw up off the floor.
There was no weeping, no collapsing on the stage, no angry judges. The contestant who got the lowest votes was quite cheerful about the whole thing.
Mind you, I will confess to being on edge right up until host Steve Jones coughed up the name of the last finalist and, then, extremely relieved when I heard it was Josh Krajcik.
Marcus Canty's fourth trip the bottom was his last, finally.
Though Marcus and Josh were the last two left standing after Chris Rene and Melanie Amaro were sent to the finals, Steve was careful to say they weren't necessarily the bottom two.
So it's my guess that Josh and Melanie got the most votes and that one of them will win the $5 million recording contract next week.
I am thrilled that Josh got through and I hope he blows the roof off the place next week.
As for Marcus, he should have been gone last week. Only Nicole Scherzinger's idiocy kept Rachel Crow from reaping the benefits of her blistering "save me" performance. But I guess that's water under the bridge now.
The smile never left Marcus's face after he got the bad news. Steve's best efforts to get him to express disappointment at coming so close to the finale and falling short came to nought.
"Trust me, this is not the last time you will see Marcus Canty," said the 20-year-old R&B singer.
"God blessed me so much being here in this competition. I gave it my all and, really, at the end of the day that's all you can do." He thanked his supporters and told his family to "stop crying, it’s alright, relax."
L.A. said he knew Marcus would "continue to do great. You have my support."
It's my guess Marcus's mama will extend her "two years to make it in music or get a job" deadline, which was up about the time Marcus first auditioned.
A few other thoughts.
1. I found it interesting, in a segment where the judges commented on the four semifinalists, that Paula said that Melanie has "a beautiful technical voice": interesting because Paula seems to value vocals with heart over technically flawless ones. When asked for her impressions of Wednesday's show, Paula cited Josh and Chris as the performers she was most impressed with. "Heart wins out 100 per cent of the time," she said. Belatedly, after Steve had moved on to Nicole for comments, Paula mentioned "Melanie's note" in "I'm Feeling Good" as another highlight.
2. I get the feeling that wrangling those judges is like herding cats. In a throw to backstage, where the semifinalists were waiting with their mentors, Steve had to try four times to get L.A. Reid to respond to the comment, "You must be a little bit smug because you're the only judge who’s guaranteed to be in the final." L.A. had two contestants left, Simon Cowell and Nicole only one. Paula, who had none, kept wandering in front of the camera, kissing L.A. and Marcus and Chris as Steve tried in vain to get L.A.'s attention. "Paula, get out of my shot. Goodness," Steve said.
3. Steve seemed sincere when he told Marcus, "You're a wonderful guy, you really are, and I'm sorry you're leaving." It's those human touches of his that keep me liking him more often than not. On the other hand, he seemed way too excited about the prospect of Nicole performing "on this very stage." Um, yay?
4. Simon had the best line of the night and possibly the competition. Steve jokingly asked him to critique Nicole after she sang (screeched?) her song "Pretty." Simon said that since he was sitting in Nicole's seat he'd try to critique like her: "I believe in you. You believe in me. You transcend the universe. God is smiling on you. You are a waterfall and you are the ultimate rainbow," he said (I may have missed a couple of words, but that's the gist of it). Simon nailed her vapidness perfectly. My question is, is Nicole contracted to the show for more than a year? Can they get rid of her next season?
5. What happened to Melanie's Caribbean accent? I was pretty sure I didn't hear it Wednesday night and more sure on Thursday. I thought it was a huge relief for Melanie to talk like her real self, so what happened? Why drop it now?
That's it until next week, finals week. Josh, Melanie and Chris perform Wednesday at 8 p.m. on CTV, then there's a two-hour finale Thursday, same time, same channel.
And I seriously would love to hear some of your thoughts. I know X Factor is pulling more than a million viewers in Canada every week, so some of you must be watching. You can comment here, on Twitter @realityeo or on my Facebook page.
(Josh Krajcik performs "Hallelujah" on Wednesday's X Factor in a Fox photo by Ray Mickshaw.)
After what we've seen the last two weeks, woe to the blogger who tries to predict who will make it into next week's X Factor finale, especially since the decision is wholly up to the public this week.
There will be no "save me" songs on Thursday night, no decisions for Nicole Scherzinger to botch, but surely this is where Marcus Canty gracefully bows out. I can't imagine him leaping over Josh, Melanie or Chris for a spot in the finals. (But then again, I couldn't imagine him beating Rachel Crow last week, either. Nicole was still getting boos from the crowd Wednesday for last week's fumble but said the boos have made her stronger and she had "nothing but love and light tonight," whatever the hell that means.)
I'll admit I didn't think Chris Rene would get this far when the competition started and I'm not going to spout the same kind of mystical bunk as Nicole and Paula Abdul about his spirit transcending the universe (what does that even mean?) and his heart resonating to the world. But the kid moved me on Wednesday.
If singing ability were the only component of the mysterious X factor, then Melanie Amaro would win hands down - and she still might next week - but all you have to do is listen to some of today's hit makers when they haven't got a studio full of effects to buff up their voices to know that's not the case.
My rankings this week are based on who touched me emotionally, not just on vocal ability. So here they are.
Josh Krajcik: Objectively, singing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" seems like a really stupid risk to take, but Josh took it and won. I can't agree with Nicole that it's "the best version anybody's heard of this song," but it did give me shivers in the middle and the last notes were beautiful and brimming with feeling. L.A. Reid (dubbed L.A. Rude by a Twitter commentator) was the only judge who didn't get it, saying the performance lacked excitement. Whatever. It moved Paula to tears and had Simon Cowell congratulating Josh for singing himself into the finals. His first performance wasn't quite as rapturous but was still excellent. It was The Beatles' "Come Together," the viewers' "Pepsi Challenge" choice. It doesn't seem like an obvious pick to me, but Josh used his marvellous voice to elevate it beyond karaoke.
Chris Rene: I'm not gonna lie. Part of what made Chris's second performance, of Alicia Keys' "No One," so moving was the story that came before, about how Chris's dad died of cancer before Chris had a chance to make him proud. Sure, the vocals were thin and a little flat in spots, but it felt like the words meant something to Chris and thus, it meant something to us, the viewers. L.A. said stardom isn't about singing but about lovability. And Simon brought Chris to tears by telling him, "Your dad would be incredibly proud, not just of this performance but how you turned things around" (I thought it was sweet when host Steve Jones gave Chris a comforting hug). Simon added that Chris may be the competition's dark horse, an easy assumption to make after hearing the audience chanting his name. As for the Pepsi choice song, Sugar Ray's "I Just Want to Fly," it was more of the same: weak vocals, particularly at the beginning, but an engaging performance that made you want to cheer for the guy.
Melanie Amaro: I know, I know, Melanie had a moment. She sang "Feeling Good," the vocals were flawless, she looked gorgeous, the judges were on their feet; L.A. called her the "greatest female that's ever graced this stage"; Simon said this was why he brought The X Factor to America (well, really to make tons more money and become even more powerful than he already is, but I digress). So how come I'm not jumping up and down? Because I didn't feel it. I couldn't disagree more with Paula that this was Melanie letting go. Vocally, sure, she pulled out all the stops; emotionally, not so much. With the choreographed arm movements, even the calculated way she cast a side glance on the lyrics "You know how I feel," this was not a singer getting lost in a song. This is a singer who knows what she has to do to win the competition and is doing it to the max. And the audience is eating up the diva persona. That was proven by the viewers' choice song, Mariah Carey's "Hero." The fact Simon changed the song's major chord to minor didn't make it any less boring and predictable for me (although I did love the killer note in the middle). And hey, she's got the approval of her own hero, Mariah, who sent Melanie a tweet commending her "beatiful gift" and urging her to "never give up, never let go, no matter what."
Marcus Canty: After surviving three, count 'em three, trips to the bottom two, somebody decided the way to propel this underdog into the finale was to turn the cheese up to 11. True, Marcus didn't choose his first song, Boyz II Men's "I'll Make Love to You" (hey viewers, predictable much?), but the viewers didn't decide he should perform it in a three-piece suit while making eyes at the camera and wielding a white rose, which he gave to some pretty young thing in the audience. I have to agree with Simon: it was very corny. Vocally, I found it underwhelming, too. For his next number, Marcus turned George Michael's "Careless Whisper" into a dance song, complete with Marcus in a white suit shuffling around and pointing at the camera while dancers gyrated and confetti filled the air. The beauty of the original is that you really sense the philanderer's regret. This version seemed to say, "Hey, I cheated on you, let's party!" Frankly, I found it bizarre. Simon said it looked "being in a Vegas show in 1983." L.A. said Marcus looked like a champion. Steve reminded Marcus that the judges are redundant this week since they get no say in the results. If I were Marcus I wouldn't take that as a good thing, but who knows?
We'll get the answers tonight, at 8 p.m. on CTV Two. I wouldn't miss it and I'll be recapping it right here.
(The photo of Melanie is by Ray Mickshaw for Fox.)
Debra Yeo can kind of dance, can’t skate, does a mean karaoke version of “Car Wash” and would never consent to eat rice and sleep on bamboo with strangers on an island for 39 days. When she’s not watching reality TV, she is the Star’s deputy entertainment editor.
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