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E! Online Recap
« on: May 20th, 2002, 9:44am » |
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"Survivor": Vee Stands for Victory
by Josh Grossberg
May 20, 2002, 10:00 PM PT
Maybe the Man Upstairs was listening, after all.
Vecepia Towery, the 36-year-old Bible-thumping office manager from Portland, had her prayers for a million bucks answered as she squeaked by good Mormon Neleh "Oh my heck!" Dennis by a 4-3 vote to win an all-female finale Sunday on Survivor: Marquesas.
Vee, as Towery's known to her friends and 15 fellow castaways, managed to "outwit, outplay and outlast" her peers to become the first African-American, the second female and the fourth million-dollar winner on the popular CBS reality game show, this time set on the island of Nuku Hiva in French Polynesia.
She did it by sticking to original Survivor champion Richard "The Snake" Hatch's playbook on self-preservation.
Following a last-minute alliance switcheroo that saw her betray third-place finisher, 47-year-old single mom Kathy Vavrick-O'Brien, in the final immunity challenge (per Survivor tradition had to keep their hand on a tiki idol without letting go), Vee's admission of her own duplicitous strategy in the final episode's Q&A session seemed to propel her past Dennis, the 21-year-old Utah native and psychology student.
The two God-fearing finalists faced bitter accusations from some jury members that their pious personas were merely a cover for some very Machiavellian tactics.
But, as Vee told Rosie O'Donnell (who hosted the post-Survivor: Reunion party live from New York's Central Park), she kept her faith right up to the end.
"[It was special] to see God's work at hand and to know it was him," she said.
Here's a quick recap of the two-hour finale:
The night began with the final four--Towery, Vavrick-O'Brien and 57-year-old Georgia judge and Maraamu Tribe elder Pacshal "Pappy" English--playing the traditional memory game, in which they were quizzed on how much they knew about their fellow castaways.
Towery won immunity and formed an alliance with Vavrick-O'Brien against Dennis and English, who had earlier agreed not to vote each other off. That forced a 2-2 tie between Vavrick-O'Brien and Dennis. To resolve the deadlock, Vavrick-O'Brien, Dennis and English each drew a stone. Pappy pulled out the wrong color and got the boot, setting the stage for the final showdown.
Next up was the classic hold-your-hand-on-the-idol endurance test.
After six-and-a-half hours of excruciating numbness (and host Jeff Probst rattling on about the unbearable heat), Dennis--intentional or not--suggested Vavrick-O'Brien pull up her shirt to keep her boobs from hanging out on national TV, causing Kathy to lose concentration and fall to elimination. That opened the door for Vee, who two-timed Kathy by offering to step down and give Neleh immunity if the Neleh voted Kathy out.
Before the final jury, while Neleh professed her "unconditional love" to those who scorned her, Vee instead took a cue from the Hatch-man himself and came clean, arguing that she stuck with her strategy all the way through to the end and played the game the best.
The votes were cast and sealed in a drum. The scene then switched live to New York, with a helicopter-borne Jeff Probst hovering patriotically in front of the Statue of Liberty and then zooming over Big Apple landmarks before he landed and was whisked by cab to Central Park to unveil the winner on live TV.
O'Donnell, a longtime Survivor fan who has given away gifts to the losers on her talk show, finally got in on the official action as she stepped in for former CBS anchor Bryant Gumbel for the post-show get-together.
By which point all the venom and back-stabbing had played out, and everyone partied down to the sounds of a Nuku Hiva band playing the theme to Gilligan's Island.
While Vee went home with a cool million in the bank, a Saturn and newfound celebrity, Neleh didn't exactly leave empty-handed--she snagged the $100,000 runner-up prize.
In the meantime, anyone thinking Survivor has run its course, can think again. Another round of the reality-adventure series is due to start filming in July in Thailand's Tarutao Islands National Park and slated to debut in the fall.
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