Survivor Fiji: Finale

"Dreamz is a smart guy
But undisciplined in his
Thinking." Well said, Yau.

Well, that’s it for another season. Perhaps the most disappointing thing was that the finale turned out to be three hours of entirely predictable television. Perhaps the most exciting thing is that there will be at least one more series of Survivor. More on that later.

As usual, the final episode started with a recap of the series so far and then it was pretty much straight into an immunity challenge to determine the final four. Survivors had to work their way through five mazes while blindfolded. The drawbridges across shallow moats between each maze gave plenty of extra footage for the "people falling over" montage they ran in the reunion special, and once again showed that brains will beat brawn any day, and that Cassandra really isn’t that competitive.

Yau-Man won, which guaranteed places in the final four for both he and Earl thanks to the immunity necklace and immunity idols they held respectively. Dreamz made lots of noise about how worried he was going into Tribal Council, forgetting – or ignoring – the fact that his deal with Yau-Man of the truck for immunity in the next round made him rather valuable. Cassandra looked stressed, but since that was about the only look on her face for the previous 37 days it didn’t mean much. Boo, who was only still around because he’s won the previous immunities, was absolutely correct in being worried. He didn’t go down without a fight though, pointing out to Earl that the difference between first prize of a million dollars and second prize of a hundred thousand dollars is nine hundred thousand dollars. Somehow I doubt Earl needs Boo to do his math homework for him.

The next day brought an analogy from Earl about how Yau-Man’s the older Asian guy and he’s the young Black guy and they’re buddies and it’s like Rush Hour. Jackie Chan would probably be more flattered by the comparison to Yau-Man than Chris Tucker would be by the comparison to Earl.

Even more torturous was the stroll down memory lane on the way to the final immunity challenge. As many of you know I just hate this bit every season, although Yau-Man lessened my pain to some degree by picking up Jessica’s torch and saying "You were first to go: we hardly knew you" which was blunt and true. The awful, schmultzy Hollywood music playing in the background swelled to a crescendo as they lay all the collected torches on a canoe and set fire to it as it floated out to sea. That’s six minutes of my life that I will never recover.

Jeff cheerfully pointed out that the final immunity challenge would test everyone’s desire to win and tolerance for pain. Apparently Fiji is one of the CIA’s extraordinary rendition sites now, albeit specialising in medieval techniques (maybe the producers subcontract development of tree mail poems to the same torture specialists). Survivors had to hang by the arms while water dripped on their heads, with the angle at which they lay increasing by five degrees every five minutes. It was barbaric – the final immunity challenge always is – but at least the producers have learned from previous seasons and the challenge was over in less than half an hour.

As expected, Cassandra and Earl both went out early leaving just Yau-Man and Dreamz. There was almost no point in Dreamz winning: he’d just have to hand the immunity necklace over to Yau-Man anyway under the terms of their deal over the truck. I was waiting for Yau-Man to point that out and tell him to let go, but it didn’t happen. They both seemed to be looking forward to the inspirational moment at Tribal Council where Dreamz handed the necklace over, fulfilled his promise, set a fine moral example to his son and brought us all a little closer to world peace.

Only it didn’t happen. For days, Dreamz had been talking about how he intended the keep his word and be an honourable man, but he’d also been making noises about not being sure what he’d do until he got to Tribal Council. Dreamz is so infuriatingly inconsistent that nobody really took any notice until the point where Jeff asked if he was going to hand over the necklace and he said "I’m gonna keep it". He could have redeemed the situation by giving back the truck instead, but he didn’t even do that. Very, very disappointing but not very surprising.

What was surprising was Earl’s vote, which along with Cassandra and Dreamz’s made Yau-Man the final jury member and gave us an all African-American final three. They spent their last day burning everything in the camp (which I have to admit is one of my favourite final episode traditions) and enjoying a sumptuous breakfast. Earl’s mother might have been disappointed to watch him eating jam straight out of the jar with a knife, but she’d have been proud of his performance in the final Tribal Council.

Cassandra’s beige-ness and Dreamz’s betrayal meant that Earl was virtually guaranteed to win, and he made it easier still by asking for the respect vote, not the sympathy vote (Dreamz) or the underdog vote (Cassandra). Dreamz tried to claim he wasn’t playing for sympathy, but then reminded everyone about his underprivileged background and how many people he could help with that money and boo hoo woe is me blah blah tell someone who cares.

True to form the jury members’ questions demonstrated more about themselves than the people about whom they were supposed to be learning. Most of them used the opportunity to either simper to Earl and give him an opportunity to look even better, or to attack Dreamz and make him look even stupider. Edguardo did both by asking Earl how he knew about Mookie’s immunity idol, and all Earl had to do was say "Dreamz". Alex the lawyer didn’t so much ask a question as audition for a role on Law and Order. Boo went on an entirely unexpected rampage about whether Dreamz acted as a ‘Christian man’ in the best bible-belting tradition of the revival tent circuit. Rocky’s question was simply incomprehensible, Michelle giggled non-stop, and Mookie backed Dreamz into a corner where he had to try and explain how lying is not the same as betrayal.

Lisi inexplicably criticised Cassandra’s choice of footwear, and then asked Dreamz how many zeros there are in a million. She seemed to think she’d shown him up when he answered "six" until she looked at the jury, saw none of them was laughing and realised that maybe he’d got the answer right. She also created some serious tension when she pointed alternately at Cassandra and Dreamz, chanting "Eenie meenie minie mo, catch a...". It’s ok, she said "liar", but it was fun waiting to see whether Earl, Dreamz or Cassandra would have been first across the Tribal Council floor to deck her if she’d stuck with the traditional version.

And then it was Yau-Man’s turn. He told Dreamz that he felt personally responsible for the mistake of trusting him (which Dreamz answered by saying he’d always planned to go back on his promise, in direct contrast to the crocodile tears he squeezed out on the night). He also gave Earl the chance to admit that he only voted Yau-Man out because he couldn’t beat him, which made them both look good.

The most telling moment in the whole series came when a camera angle showed the votes were positioned vertically in the ballot box and Jeff was just pulling them out at random until he’d read out Earl’s name five times and could declare him the winner. If there had been a vote for anyone else in there the papers would have been read out in a specific order to create a bit of tension. Jeff later admitted that Earl is the only person to have ever won in a clean sweep, which made it even more amazing to learn that Earl doesn’t even watch Survivor and had no real idea of how the game works going into it.

The reunion special proved a number of things:

• Dreamz is incapable of giving a coherent, consistent answer, even to a yes/no question;
• it probably took the skill of every hairdresser on the CBS payroll to brush the knots out of Lisi’s hair, but they eventually managed to clean her up to a presentable standard;
• Rita (aka Miss Venezuela) has a roll of double sided tape and needed most of it to hold her entirely inappropriate dress in place;
• Papa Smurf seems to think that the trauma of three days in the luxury Moto camp justifies getting a tattoo of the Survivor Fiji logo which covers most of his upper arm;
• Boo is either really tough or really stupid (or perhaps both) because he completely tore his ACL when he popped his knee a few weeks into the show, but sought no medical attention for it at the time and hasn’t had it fixed since he got back; and
• Jeff has a natty dark blue sweater as well as the natty duck-egg blue sweater he normally wears at the reunion.

As mentioned earlier, there will be at least one more series of Survivor. Of course whether we get to see it – and if we do, how late we’ll have to stay up – is still uncertain. They’re finally leaving behind the tropics and heading for China of all places. I’m sure the Olympics has nothing to do with the Beijing Government’s decision to allow production of an American TV show for the first time. I’m just looking forward to tribes with names like Taiwan, Tibet and Falun Gong. Voting is too democratic, so perhaps the producers will choose a Survivor at random to be taken out and shot for the organ transplant black market. The gross food challenge will be a doddle, and there could be an entire reward challenge around who can eat the most Yum Cha in a one hour sitting.

Once again it has been my great pleasure to pick the juicy bits out of my favourite show for your Monday morning amusement. Now grab your torches and head back to camp.

Survivor Fiji: week 13

Ford Super Duty;
It can haul three tons of stuff.
Buy one! (Pretty please?)

Apparently next week’s grand finale will be Survivor’s 200th episode. Before you decide to stay up for that milestone event I should warn you that it starts at 11.15pm and runs for three hours, including the reunion. That’s OK, I’ll stay up (*sigh*).

This week gave us one of the most paranoid reactions we’ve seen in 199 episodes. Boo is worried that the others are scheming against him behind his back. Ever the man of action he decided to build a short-cut trail through the jungle to the water well so that he can sneak up and listen in on conversations that take place there. In his foolproof theory he’ll know what everyone is up to and they won’t be able to do a thing about it. Gee Boo that’s, like, really evil. You da man. It’s just a pity that the whole time you were off alone working on this eighth wonder of the modern world everyone else was back at camp talking about you. There’s nothing left for them to say, either at the well or anywhere else.

The crappy tree mail poem was so blatant even Dreamz worked out it was the car challenge. He’s the only one of the remaining six who doesn’t own a car. He’s also the only one without a driver’s licence, but that didn’t stop him from embarking on a campaign of shameless begging to either just be allowed to win the challenge or be handed the prize by the actual winner. Even I thought he had more dignity than that.

Dreamz was wrong: it wasn’t the car challenge, it was a truck challenge. A Ford Super Duty to be precise. It can haul three tons in the tray and tow twelve off the back,. To prove this, after the challenge they hauled a huge crate of school supplies and towed a mobile staff office to a nearby school. I’m not sure if the producers or the Ford marketing team came up with this idea, but they used a hoist to suspend the crate of school supplies over the tray of the truck (sorry, Ford Super Duty) then dramatically drop it to show off the suspension. Not once but twice, from a couple of different camera angles. Wow, that’s a truck!

Despite his team having to go back to the start three times because he kept falling off the balance beam, Yau-Man won. There’s a number of horrible racial stereotypes about men in hats, the elderly and Asians being bad drivers. Yau-Man avoided them all - and simultaneously proved the stereotype about nerds being smarter than jocks - by offering to give Dreamz the car (sorry, truck. Sorry, Ford Super Duty) on the following condition: if they both make it to the final four, and Dreamz wins immunity to make it to the final three, he has to give it to Yau-Man. Of course Dreamz said yes. Of course Jeff looked stunned. Of course Earl just smiled wryly.

As reward winner, Yau-Man also got to pick whom to send to Exile Island. His choices should have been Dreamz, Earl and Cassandra as members of the losing team, but Dreamz had to drive his new Ford Super Duty to the school with its three ton crate of soccer balls and pencil cases. (Actually Boo had to drive because Dreamz doesn’t have a licence, but you get the point.)

In the end, Yau-Man sent himself to Exile Island. He said it’s because Cassandra isn't strong enough to cope out there, and Earl has already had to go too many times. In truth it meant he got the next clue for where Alex’s immunity idol has been rehidden (which he dutifully shared with Earl, who found it easily). He was also spared the pain of visiting the school and witnessing Dreamz trying to teach impressionable children how to speak English.

The immunity challenge was only notable for three things:

1. Jeff’s first opportunity this season to pronounce the word buoy as "boo-ee" (I love that so much!);
2. The editing team’s first ever opportunity to pixelate someone’s potty mouth (in this instance, Stacey); and
3. Boo winning immunity again and stuffing up everyone’s plans to vote him out next.

Many of you know that in my spare time I’m a Contracts Manager, and my inner bush lawyer cringed at the loopholes in the pact between Yau-Man and Dreamz. The main one, which even Dreamz spotted, is that the whole deal is conditional on them both making it to the final four. All Dreamz has to do is get Yau-Man voted out prior to the final four and he gets to keep the car and his spot in the final three. Likewise one might argue that Dreamz does not have the necessary mental capabilities to understand the contractual terms and give informed and binding acceptance of Yau-Man’s offer. Either way, Dreamz tried hard to get rid of Yau-Man this week so that he can honestly welch on the deal and not have the rest of the world think he’s untrustworthy. I mean, if this season has proven nothing else it's that Dreamz can be trusted with a secret, right?

The other pressing loophole is the car curse. Nobody has ever won the car and gone on to win the series. Perhaps it really is a car curse and not a truck (sorry, Ford Super Duty) curse. Is it the winner or the possessor of the car who is cursed? I guess we'll find out next week.

In the lead up to Tribal Council it genuinely looked like Dreamz had convinced Cassandra, Boo and Stacey to help him vote Yau-Man out. It was an easy choice for Stacey, because Boo had immunity and she was the only other unaligned person left for them to vote out. (Oddly, in his recap on last week, Jeff described Alex as the last member of the Four Horsemen alliance. I thought Dreamz was a member, too?) Cassandra had a tougher call to make, because if the plan backfired she’d have burned bridges with both Yau-Man and Earl. Boo just does what he’s told.

Maybe Yau-Man is psychic, or maybe he’s an excellent judge of character. Maybe he’s actually paranoid and says things like this all the time and they just end up on the cutting room floor, but it was oddly prescient when he said to Earl as they left for Tribal Council, "I have bad vibes." Either way he was alert for the hidden meaning when Stacey made a seemingly random comment to Jeff that she believed it would be a split vote that night. It was enough to spook Yau-Man into playing his immunity idol, and he smiled a little bit wider every time Jeff put a vote with his name on it on the scrap heap, leaving two votes for Stacey and none for anyone else.

That puts Stacey on the jury and me out of our office sweep. Next week we get to see if it’s a final three again this season, who those final three are, and who eventually wins. We’ll also see if Jeff wears the same duck-egg blue V-neck sweater to his third reunion in a row, and whether Lisi’s grooming standards are a result of poor suitcase packing or genuine lack of effort.

Survivor Fiji: week 12

Here’s some advice, Boo:
When Dreamz sayz you’re talking crap
It’s time to shut up.

The worst part about tonight’s episode was that Mookie isn’t allowed to say anything from the jury box, so we don’t know if he’s worked out that Alex betrayed him. I still don’t know if Dreamz worked it out either; at one point he was standing there with a hand splayed out in front of himself and a very confused look on his face saying, "I’m trying to do the math quick." Since he was only using one hand and there were eight votes to be counted I think he was going to be there a while. Let’s just say the camera crew didn’t waste any film by hanging around until he figured it out.

Alex, meanwhile, was operating in ‘ninja mode’. This consisted of pretending to be asleep so that he could hear what people were saying. The obvious flaw in his plan was that it would only work if people talked within his range of hearing. Despite the odds they actually did. Entirely in keeping with the odds all he heard was Earl, Yau-Man and Cassandra in violent agreement that they would vote out Alex next and Boo after that.

The reward challenge can be summed up in the words "Try not to get food poisoning or catch a communicable disease." Various lumps of roast pork were hanging from ropes in the hot tropical sun. Survivors had their hands tied behind their backs and had to use just their teeth to rip off large chunks of the meat, then run back to a table and dump the meat on their plate. With everyone using their mouths on the same targets someone was bound to end up with at least one form of hepatitis. Several of them picked up meat they’d dropped in the dirt, and Stacey is going to have some nasty bruises from trying to crack the pork open like a pinata using her face as a weapon.

Frankly I didn’t think Boo would be able to resist the urge to just stand there and eat, but at the end of five minutes he had the heaviest plate with Yau-Man and Dreamz close behind. The three of them got to go white water rafting with a bloke who looked just like George Speight, while the losers had to try and use cold seawater to wash the grease and roast pig detritus out of their hair. No NEW! Olay Ribbons this week.

It was an hour and a half helicopter ride to the rafting location. Everyone had to wear headsets with microphones, so they all had to listen to Boo’s non-stop stream of verbal consciousness. See Dreamz, that’s an example of a soliloquy. It certainly wasn’t a conversation because everyone else was sitting there gritting their teeth and wishing he would just shut up so they could enjoy the ride. Same for the boat trip down the river. And probably on the flight home again. The horror, the horror.

The trip included a picnic lunch and letters from home. Yau-Man’s son apparently got six As and a B in algebra on his report card. He would have preferred his son to get 6a + b("Spanish or something") but he still seemed fairly proud. Dreamz got a letter from his sister that made him cry. Her grammar and punctuation probably would have made me cry too, but Dreamz said he was touched by something she said which was allegedly profound. The most profound news in Boo’s letter was that his Daddy’s horses are eating well.

Earl got sent to Exile Island, which he was very, very happy about since it gave him a second clue to the re-hidden immunity idol. He reckons he only needs two clues to find it, but we didn’t see him even looking for it let alone finding it. We did however get a single camera shot featuring two snakes at the same time, which is the first real evidence that there’s more than one out there. Jeff promised thousands of poisonous sea snakes. Why hasn’t anyone been bitten yet?

Boo’s extra reward for winning was a leg-up in the immunity challenge. Literally. Everyone except Boo had to wear themselves out digging through a patch of sand looking for three paddles, with the first two people to find all three going through to the final round. Boo already had his paddles - which actually turned out to be steps - in the nice purple drawstring bag he’d been given for winning reward. The only others to find any steps at all were the well-fed Dreamz and Yau-Man, and the utterly desperate Alex.

In the final they had to use the steps to climb up a power pole sticking out of the water with a flag pole sticking out of the top of that. Alex nearly won without even using the steps, but Boo’s combination of a full stomach, fresh arms and the comfort that his Daddy’s horses have been eating well was first to the top. He celebrated the win by holding the flag pole with one arm and waving his other fist around in the air while roaring. Luckily the camera helicopter didn’t get too close, because his resemblance to King Kong on top of the Empire State Building was already convincing enough.

By winning immunity, Boo put Alex’s head squarely on the chopping block. Yau-Man did a little piece to camera about how he feels very safe and can afford to keep the immunity idol for another week at least. You could hear the cheers from the editing suite as Alex the ninja chose Yau-Man as the person he would try to convince Stacey, Cassandra and Boo to vote out that night.

My vote for funniest scene of the episode goes to the bit where Earl spotted Alex a little away from the camp trying to win over Stacey. Earl told Boo to go and break up the conversation, and this is how it went:

Boo: Stacey, I think everybody wants to talk to you when you're finished over here.
Stacey: Who is 'everybody'?
Boo: Everybody besides you and Alex.

It was great TV because for a while there it looked like Alex might have pulled it off. Even better was Stacey totally sucking up to Cassandra and Dreamz, the two people who a couple of weeks ago were beneath her contempt. Cassandra has quietly become quite the little power broker over the last few weeks. She knows that Earl and Yau-Man are looking to take to each other to the final two along with some who isn’t a threat to them, and while they’ve already made a promise to her I don’t think it’s one they can afford to keep if they want to win.

Either way, she’s possibly lost Alex’s vote now. Her alliance dutifully voted for him, along with the Earl and Yau-Man. Boo also voted for Alex, although that might have just been a fluke since nobody seemed to bother briefing him. He’ll be voted off as soon as he fails to win immunity so his opinion doesn’t matter. Either that or everyone was afraid that engaging him in conversation would result in another soliloquy.

Survivor Fiji: week 11

A word to the wise:
Remember past actions; they
Foretell the future.

That they do indeed, Alex, and this week was very much a case of your past actions biting you hard in the backside. Oh, and thanks for dictating this week’s Haiku.

So much of the episode was devoted to Mookie And Alex scheming with each other that I’m just going to use the acronym MAA to save keystrokes. It started out with MAA’s past actions towards Dreamz – and vice versa – coming to their entirely foreseeable conclusions. MAA were mad because he hadn’t come to apologise and explain that it’s just part of the game. Dreamz can’t understand why they don’t want to play with him anymore, even though he betrayed them and lied to them and voted for Mookie. He went to try and explain that they all got outsmarted the night before - which was exactly what they wanted him to do - and they turned on him for turning on them. The funniest part was Dreamz lying while attempting to make MAA believe that he hadn’t turned on them, then admitting that he’d voted for Mookie, but still absolutely insisting he was on their side.

The other person who hasn’t learned anything is Stacey. In the early days at Moto while she was in the majority she treated Dreamz and Cassandra appallingly, giving Cassandra the coffee dregs and laughing at Dreamz for thinking it was instant. Fate did its thing, and she hasn't been in a secure alliance since the reshuffle in week six. Yet the first thing she did this week on return to camp was gloat about MAA being unnumbered and declare "They’ll be lucky if they get fed." That was too hypocritical to be funny, although the night-vision camera made her eyes look totally evil as she said it, which was rather amusing.

This week’s Reward Challenge was brought to us by the good folk in Olay’s marketing department. Survivors had to play lacrosse in a mud pit, so they were good and dirty by the time the randomly selected green team of Stacey, Earl, Dreamz and Alex beat the orange team. Their prize, along with a night at a luxury spa resort, was a very nicely presented basket of the NEW! Olay Ribbons body washes range which comes in Aloe Lotion ribbons, Jojoba Butter ribbons and Almond Creme ribbons. It’s NEW! And it’s from Olay. And it’s called Ribbons. And all the Survivors were desperate to win it so it must be good.

Stacey is the only babe left on the show, so luckily for both the producers and Olay’s marketing department she was on the winning team and was happy to do a slow strip down to her bikini in the resort's outdoor shower. She spent several minutes applying NEW! Olay Ribbons body wash to a loofa while holding the bottle label-side out, then rubbing NEW! Olay Ribbons body wash all over herself and moaning "Olé! Olé!" (no, I'm not kidding.) We also had to watch Earl picking dried mud out of his armpit hair. At least Dreamz now smells like apples and strawberries, for which everyone seems grateful.

Boo injured his knee so badly during the challenge they had to call out a medic who – luckily for him but oddly for the tropics – was wearing gumboots. He helped Boo stand up and there was a distinctly audible and utterly revolting click as the knee snapped back into place. Lucky for Boo he was apparently fine and quite happy to finish the challenge. Unlucky for Boo he was on the losing team and got sent to Exile Island for a night, although that had the bonus of getting a clue to where MAA's Immunity Idol has been reburied. Hmm, if you had to choose the person out of Boo, Cassandra, Yau-Man or Mookie who would be least likely to understand the clue and find the turtle before you got a chance, who would you pick? Smart choice, Earl.

Alex spent the entire reward trying to, quote, "wiggle my way back into this alliance," which was strange considering he's never been part of that alliance to start with. His efforts were a complete failure, especially when he tried to convince Earl to vote out Mookie next. Yeah, that’s a great way to prove that you’re trustworthy.

Back at camp, MAA got the idea of going through Yau-Man’s bag to see if he had the other immunity idol. They thought they were so smart when they found it. They thought it was a big strategic win for them. They thought they’d be able to call him out publicly at Tribal Council and make him look like a snake to the rest of his alliance. They thought they’d be able to get Yau-Man’s friends to all suddenly change their vote. They didn’t seem to think it was strange that there was one camera crew focused on them, and another camera crew focused on the nearby bushes. Yep, Stacey and Cassandra had been having a little pow wow of their own right near where MAA decided to hatch their evil plans and it was only Stacey standing on a stick which gave away their position, not the aforementioned camera crew.

MAA ran off down the beach in a paranoid frenzy to confront Yau-Man. They were out of breath and puffing by the time they got there, which took some of the impact off their carefully rehearsed line "We know you have the idol. Do you want to tell the group yourself or do you want us to do it?" Yau-Man just looked at them, shrugged his shoulders, smiled and said "You guys do what you think you need to do."

Yau-Man is so smart. He just moseyed back to camp and told the others that MAA had admitted going through the bags and then tried to blackmail him when they found the idol. In the horror of wondering whether MAA had been through their own bags none of them reacted to the idol news at all.

The immunity reward was a game of Battleship where everyone had to pick three adjacent squares on a grid, tell Jeff in secret, and then try to hit everyone else’s positions. Dreamz dropped the first bomb: out of 25 squares to choose from he hit one of his own and put himself a third of the way out of the game. Cassandra was next and did exactly the same thing! Stacey wasted a chance by bombing a square that had already been declared empty but somehow managed to win anyway, proving Earl’s point that the immunity challenges are all about luck not strength.

MAA were still mouthing off and threatening that if they were going down they were bringing hell down with them. Um, according to conventional wisdom Hell is already down. We know what you mean.

Boo came up with a crazy idea of half his group voting for Mookie and half for Alex. It was unclear what a deliberately tied vote was meant to achieve, and Earl expressed some well-placed fears that the plan was too mentally challenging for some of them to cope with (he didn’t name names but their initials might be Boo and Dreamz).

Tribal Council didn't go as well for MAA has they'd expected. Alex stated baldly that last week the snakes and rats came out, and then Mookie played his trump card by announcing how he knows that Yau-Man has the other immunity idol. A clearly stunned Jeff finished off the job of pointing out what an awful betrayal of trust that is, even to the point of highlighting MAA’s hypocrisy at complaining about snakes and rats.

Dreamz, true to form, blabbed that his alliance was planning to split the vote. Alex, true to form, used the information to save himself by voting for Mookie to make sure there was no tie. And Mookie, true to form, doesn’t seem to have done the math and clicked that Alex voted with the others.

A word to the wise, Alex: Remember past actions; they foretell the future. And methinks your past actions foretell you getting voted out very soon.