Bloggin' the Finale, Pt.1: "You ATE the Chicken? The Gods Will Be Mad!"

It seemed like the Recap To End All Recaps in the beginning of the show. We're talking almost 20 minutes and a recap since the season started. Oy.

Then, once that was out of the way, we found the Final Four at camp -- Lydia was happy and cooking; Danni was feeling the pressure and Rafe was proud of his decisions and happy with the folks in the F4.

Lydia headed off to get the Tree [JUG] Mail and came back skipping and frolicking... or something to that effect. The mail told of a Mayan ceremony, not a celebration! Lydia, you silly! ;-) They were expecting some Mayans to appear at camp to perform a ritual which ended up including a sacrifice. Yikes. When the Mayans arrived, there was incense, candles, chanting in native tongue and then... YIKES... a chicken lost its head. (And, certainly not of the chicken's doing.) It was a ceremony to honor the Mayan ancestors and the chicken was then burned in a fire.

The first Immunity Challenge of the finale was the most complex Survivor Maze ever -- it was in the shape of an Incan bird. The Survivors had to find puzzle pieces at seven separate stations, run them to a holder thingee and then, once all pieces were found, assemble the puzzle. Rafe won Immunity.

After the challenge, it was back to camp. Rafe thinks he just might make it to win while Stephenie thinks Rafe is the only one she might win against because they "screwed over the same people." But, when talking to Rafe about the F3, he said he gave Danni his promise that he wouldn't vote for her yet Stephenie thinks that Lydia should go to the F3 as she could be easily beaten in any challenge.

The always hungry Stephenie had asked Lydia to ask the Mayans if they could eat the chicken. The Mayans said no, it's a sacrifice and sacred. An hour after they left, Stephenie and Lydia checked out the chicken and then ate it with Danni. Rafe, who was very enthralled with the whole ceremony and touched by the cultural experience, refused to eat the chicken. But when the skies let loose less than an hour later, Rafe got rained on as well as the women. Were the Mayan gods angry? Rafe mentioned that he heard the Mayans say something about the Thunder God when they were there. Now, I don't know if I would have eaten the chicken or not. I think I'd be too creeped out by the thought of it unless I was absolutely starving. Would you have eaten the chicken? (I also would be wary that it was sitting out for an hour or more and had bugs all over it.)

Off to the first Tribal Council of the finale:
Danni tried to be convincing as she said Lydia is indeed a threat because she's so well liked by all. Did that work? We'll see. Jeff questioned them about the chicken -- he didn't seem too thrilled that they ate it. (Except for Rafe, mind you.) Stephenie mentioned that Danni is likely to get jury votes because she didn't have to backstab like Rafe and herself -- something I mentioned in last week's blog, I believe. ;-)

The votes were tallied -- Lydia voted for Danni, the others all voted for Lydia. Lydia goes off into the sunset and the Final Three are Stephenie, Rafe and Danni. Lydia took it well. She seemed thrilled to have lasted as long as she did.
To be continued...