“I Loathe Lisi” Finally Gets Cancelled
Survivor: Fiji – “I Loathe Lisi” Finally Gets Cancelled by Ken Kellam III -- 04/10/2007 At times, Lisi’s behavior seemed as goofy as that of famed sitcom character Lucy Ricardo; the difference was, Lisi wasn’t fictional, and certainly not nearly as lovable. Join along as Ken examines her behavior in the game, subsequent interviews, and tells us why Lisi has still got some splainin’ to do. Lisi provided us with some of the season’s most confusing -and most infuriating - moments. Many of those moments seemed to have Alex and Edgardo exclaiming “Ay-yi-yi!” in exasperation, not unlike Ricky Ricardo whenever his beloved wife Lucy did yet another harebrained thing. Now, her tribemates have given us one of the most satisfying moments of the season by finally showing her the door, just as my colleague Kari Kennedy predicted in SirLinksALot's Survivor: Fiji page “Who will go.” Then came the interviews, both on The Early Show page and with RNO, that many of us thought would clarify her bizarre behavior. Instead, they only served to confuse us even more, to the point that it seemed as if a trained professional should conduct any subsequent interviews, and only then in a padded room. Let’s start off with her Early Show interview. When asked why she did the show, she summoned the name of Andy Warhol, saying she simply wanted her proverbial 15 minutes of fame. Frankly, that sounds like an answer she came up with after thinking about it for a few months. I’m not sure why she did went on the show, but then, I’m not sure I’d be inclined to believe anything she says at this point. That brings us to the whole issue of the immunity idol. On The Early Show, she claimed she knew they found it, but in her RNO interview, she said she didn’t know it was found until she watched it on the tube. Honestly, I believe the latter. Otherwise, why did she start to dig for it, with Mookie helping her? Her claims of “dramatic effect” simply don’t hold water. If she knew they’d found it, why didn’t she allude to that in her confessional, when she was saying, “You’ve got to get up pretty early to fool an old cat like me?” If she really wanted dramatic effect, I think she would’ve stated that she knew the idol had been found, but she was just playing along. Then there’s the whole bit of calling her tribemates losers. Before the reward challenge, she asserted that she didn’t take challenges seriously. Okay, I’ll put this as simply as I can: When you win reward challenges, you get to eat, which leads to energy, which leads to increased performance at reward challenges, which leads to immunity, and oh, never mind. If Lisi is reading along, I probably lost her after the word “energy.” In any case, she claimed not to take challenges seriously, but when they lost yet another immunity challenge, she became quite serious, labeling her tribemates “losers” without including herself in the bunch. But if they’re losers, what does that make her? After her ouster, I did as I always do, and took a second look back at the episode, this time paying special attention to her performance in both challenges. In the reward challenge, it seemed as if she was just going thru the motions, and she looked to be completely out of sync with the rest of her tribe. As we now know, Ravu lost, and she went back to Exile Island. Now, I doubt Ravu would’ve won no matter what she did, but she certainly didn’t help their cause. Then, there was the immunity challenge. Not only did she fail to score any points for her tribe, it seemed as if most of her tribemates outperformed her, as they either got closer to the target than she did, or she didn’t even hit the target. The point? She was outperformed by those she called losers. It’s like calling someone an idiot who got a higher grade on a test than you, or calling someone a weakling after he’s just bench pressed more than you. They may be losers, but they certainly outperformed her. Let’s also address a “secret scene,” in which she made clucking noises, and when they annoyed Mookie, did it even more. I refuse to believe she knew she was going anyway, and felt like she had nothing to lose. Rather, she probably thought she was in tighter with Alex and Edgardo than she really was and believed that due to his being the only original Ravu left on the tribe, Mookie had no power over her. In her RNO interview, she claimed to have seen a couple episodes of the second season in the Outback, but also stated she didn’t realize the show was still on. What I’d like to know is, if she didn’t know the show was still one, how on Earth did she come to be on it? Even if she claims she was recruited, how would recruiters know how to find her? For someone who didn’t know the series was still on, she seemed to know a lot about alliances, especially keeping them secret from Cassandra and Dreamz until the time was right. She also knew about eliminating the strong, i.e. Liliana, even if she didn’t know to wait until the individual stage. She also knew that if Gary went out, this got her closer to winning, even if she expressed herself in rather callous terms. Regardless of what she claims, I think she knew more about the show than she let on, even if she showed herself to be less than a strategic mastermind. One of the most ironic things that Lisi said was that all the emphasis on winning was very juvenile, “when you’re a kid and you’re losing and you blame the other person.” Yet by labeling her tribemates as losers, that’s exactly what she was doing. She blamed them, yet refused to take any responsibility on her own. It’s not as if she were an all-star on a team of also-rans. Rather, it was like she were on a team of also-rans, but she wasn’t even good enough to start. When it came time for tribal council, when she seemed to waffle between wanting to stay and wanting to leave. Of course, now she claims she knew she was going, and simply pleaded her case for dramatic effect. But if this were the case, it seemed awfully confusing to Edgardo and Alex, and no doubt, to many of us watching at home. Remember the grape-squashing episode of I Love Lucy? To make a long story short, Lucy was in a huge vat of grapes, which she was squashing with her feet. Well, in Lisi’s final words, she seemed surrounded by sour grapes, as that’s what her closing comments sounded like. She again labeled her tribe as losers, and I refuse to believe it was for dramatic effect. Rather, it looked like she was honestly furious about being ousted and was getting her parting shots in. As the game went on, Lisi’s behavior got stranger and stranger, and it seemed like her brain was more disjointed than a Picasso painting. Her interviews did nothing to dispel the notion that she’s, shall we say, a few castaways short of a full tribal council. It will be interesting to see what she comes up with for “dramatic effect” in final tribal council.
Survivor: Fiji – “I Loathe Lisi” Finally Gets Cancelled by Ken Kellam III -- 04/10/2007 At times, Lisi’s behavior seemed as goofy as that of famed sitcom character Lucy Ricardo; the difference was, Lisi wasn’t fictional, and certainly not nearly as lovable. Join along as Ken examines her behavior in the game, subsequent interviews, and tells us why Lisi has still got some splainin’ to do. Lisi provided us with some of the season’s most confusing -and most infuriating - moments. Many of those moments seemed to have Alex and Edgardo exclaiming “Ay-yi-yi!” in exasperation, not unlike Ricky Ricardo whenever his beloved wife Lucy did yet another harebrained thing. Now, her tribemates have given us one of the most satisfying moments of the season by finally showing her the door, just as my colleague Kari Kennedy predicted in SirLinksALot's Survivor: Fiji page “Who will go.” Then came the interviews, both on The Early Show page and with RNO, that many of us thought would clarify her bizarre behavior. Instead, they only served to confuse us even more, to the point that it seemed as if a trained professional should conduct any subsequent interviews, and only then in a padded room. Let’s start off with her Early Show interview. When asked why she did the show, she summoned the name of Andy Warhol, saying she simply wanted her proverbial 15 minutes of fame. Frankly, that sounds like an answer she came up with after thinking about it for a few months. I’m not sure why she did went on the show, but then, I’m not sure I’d be inclined to believe anything she says at this point. That brings us to the whole issue of the immunity idol. On The Early Show, she claimed she knew they found it, but in her RNO interview, she said she didn’t know it was found until she watched it on the tube. Honestly, I believe the latter. Otherwise, why did she start to dig for it, with Mookie helping her? Her claims of “dramatic effect” simply don’t hold water. If she knew they’d found it, why didn’t she allude to that in her confessional, when she was saying, “You’ve got to get up pretty early to fool an old cat like me?” If she really wanted dramatic effect, I think she would’ve stated that she knew the idol had been found, but she was just playing along. Then there’s the whole bit of calling her tribemates losers. Before the reward challenge, she asserted that she didn’t take challenges seriously. Okay, I’ll put this as simply as I can: When you win reward challenges, you get to eat, which leads to energy, which leads to increased performance at reward challenges, which leads to immunity, and oh, never mind. If Lisi is reading along, I probably lost her after the word “energy.” In any case, she claimed not to take challenges seriously, but when they lost yet another immunity challenge, she became quite serious, labeling her tribemates “losers” without including herself in the bunch. But if they’re losers, what does that make her? After her ouster, I did as I always do, and took a second look back at the episode, this time paying special attention to her performance in both challenges. In the reward challenge, it seemed as if she was just going thru the motions, and she looked to be completely out of sync with the rest of her tribe. As we now know, Ravu lost, and she went back to Exile Island. Now, I doubt Ravu would’ve won no matter what she did, but she certainly didn’t help their cause. Then, there was the immunity challenge. Not only did she fail to score any points for her tribe, it seemed as if most of her tribemates outperformed her, as they either got closer to the target than she did, or she didn’t even hit the target. The point? She was outperformed by those she called losers. It’s like calling someone an idiot who got a higher grade on a test than you, or calling someone a weakling after he’s just bench pressed more than you. They may be losers, but they certainly outperformed her. Let’s also address a “secret scene,” in which she made clucking noises, and when they annoyed Mookie, did it even more. I refuse to believe she knew she was going anyway, and felt like she had nothing to lose. Rather, she probably thought she was in tighter with Alex and Edgardo than she really was and believed that due to his being the only original Ravu left on the tribe, Mookie had no power over her. In her RNO interview, she claimed to have seen a couple episodes of the second season in the Outback, but also stated she didn’t realize the show was still on. What I’d like to know is, if she didn’t know the show was still one, how on Earth did she come to be on it? Even if she claims she was recruited, how would recruiters know how to find her? For someone who didn’t know the series was still on, she seemed to know a lot about alliances, especially keeping them secret from Cassandra and Dreamz until the time was right. She also knew about eliminating the strong, i.e. Liliana, even if she didn’t know to wait until the individual stage. She also knew that if Gary went out, this got her closer to winning, even if she expressed herself in rather callous terms. Regardless of what she claims, I think she knew more about the show than she let on, even if she showed herself to be less than a strategic mastermind. One of the most ironic things that Lisi said was that all the emphasis on winning was very juvenile, “when you’re a kid and you’re losing and you blame the other person.” Yet by labeling her tribemates as losers, that’s exactly what she was doing. She blamed them, yet refused to take any responsibility on her own. It’s not as if she were an all-star on a team of also-rans. Rather, it was like she were on a team of also-rans, but she wasn’t even good enough to start. When it came time for tribal council, when she seemed to waffle between wanting to stay and wanting to leave. Of course, now she claims she knew she was going, and simply pleaded her case for dramatic effect. But if this were the case, it seemed awfully confusing to Edgardo and Alex, and no doubt, to many of us watching at home. Remember the grape-squashing episode of I Love Lucy? To make a long story short, Lucy was in a huge vat of grapes, which she was squashing with her feet. Well, in Lisi’s final words, she seemed surrounded by sour grapes, as that’s what her closing comments sounded like. She again labeled her tribe as losers, and I refuse to believe it was for dramatic effect. Rather, it looked like she was honestly furious about being ousted and was getting her parting shots in. As the game went on, Lisi’s behavior got stranger and stranger, and it seemed like her brain was more disjointed than a Picasso painting. Her interviews did nothing to dispel the notion that she’s, shall we say, a few castaways short of a full tribal council. It will be interesting to see what she comes up with for “dramatic effect” in final tribal council.