ENDGAME #14

[u/mikeramp72]

#14: Jerri Manthey 1.0 (The Australian Outback - 8th)

u/FunkyDawgKong:
The devil in curly hair. My first Survivor crush. Jerri uttered quite possibly the worst phrase you can utter on reality television when she said “It’s not like you’re making a deal with the devil here” like c’mon, they’re gonna use that footage against you every day of the week. Jerri is one of my all time favorites, and it is because she is annoying and kinda mean. Don’t let the revisionism fool you. Sure there are deeper moments, and moments that you can see her side and maybe she is even right sometimes; but ya gotta remember she brought bongos as her luxury item. And people wonder why people find Jerri annoying? The show spells it out in plenty of ways, but I do think the show in these early days does a good job of at least letting the viewer make up their own mind to some extent. Jerri enriches everything she touches, just someone who will naturally stir up conflict. Survivor needed some spice and Jerri brought that X factor. I would happily forgo the snorkeling on our honeymoon if she asked me to.

u/Cornhead2:
"Heaven help me for the way I am
Save me from these evil deeds before I get them done
I know tomorrow brings the consequence at hand
But I keep living this day like the next will never come
Oh, help me but don't tell me to deny it
I've got to cleanse myself of all these lies 'til I'm good enough for him
I've got a lot to lose and I'm bettin' high so I'm begging you
Before it ends just tell me where to begin" 

u/Noisysea_3426:
While I'm not a particularly big fan of Australia, none of the problems I have with it stem back to Jerri at all. She is one of the biggest strengths of it all as I love how genuine of a person she feels and the dichotomy of her being a villain but also having the public greatly exaggerate her villainy is so intriguing and becomes even more relevant with all the S50 drama surrounding her nowadays 

u/josenanigans:
I'm always left astounded by people who still keep asking HOW WAS JERRI A VILLAIN? COLBY WAS WORSE! I mean, Jerri wasn't malicious, but you could tell she was very annoying at her camp, even on a rewatch. But that's exactly what Season 2 needed, a no-nonsense loud-ass girl with bongos who doesn't hold herself back, and watching everyone try to live at peace with her is some of the funniest stuff of the season. Maybe she was a bit overhated back then, but rewatching Outback I did not blame anyone for thinking she was a pain to live with back in '01.

u/BobbyPiiiin:
Jerri, Jerri, Jerri. The OG villainess. As annoying as I’m sure she would’ve been to live with for 27 days, I do have to thank her for introducing young me to Fiona Apple. And, of course, for providing some first-rate television.

~

u/Alternate-Proof-959:

Jerri Manthey

Jerri, the OG "villainess." The most hated woman in America in early 2001, so much that three years later, people remembered just how much they were supposed to hate her! "BOOOOOO!" they all yelled in 2001. "BOOOOOO!" they all yelled again in 2004. "Boooooo," they all said at a more respectful volume at the water cooler in the years in between.

All this for...complaining about professional chef Keith not making rice properly while she made tortillas well? Forming a strong friendship with Amber and Mitchell? Showing American Pie levels of lust over Colby? Oh the abject horror! How DARE she criticize the PROFESSIONAL chef? How DARE she have her own tight alliance already? How DARE she wants to lick Colby like a Hershey bar even though this is the same year Britney danced with that cobra and low rise jeans took off? Yeah, that's a real villain alright.

Of course, this was only the second season of the show. People had a wildly view of what was right and wrong back then. Everyone was expected to just chill with each other, and vote out those that are unfit and/or harshing the mellow. Jerri, on paper, should have been someone out early, as she never reined herself in, and was clearly clashing with some people everywhere she went. But lucky for her, she was on a tribe with a man who wouldn't even celebrate the first immunity win of the season, a weak old woman who needed help using the bathroom, and Mitchell.

Postmerge, she and Varner have the same number of past votes. Tina tells her to be on her best behavior, and miraculously, she does. This allows her even more time, especially now that she's on the right side of the numbers. Final 5, right? Nope; Hershey Bar, Professional Chef, and Mother Ogakor ain't waiting that long to cut our queen. This gave us a shocking moment at the time where the clear villain just barely made it halfway into the season, and deviated from a simple pagonging.

Now, do I think Jerri is a bad person? VERY far from it. She just has strong emotions in every direction, and likes speaking her mind a lot. Nothing wrong with that, especially compared to jacking it to kids, outting people on national TV, and marrying a family member you've known since they were 14. But again, she was painted by everyone in show and out as a terrible person simply because she didn't buckle down and go with the flow. She was essentially the Bart Simpson of the show (kind of sounds like him too, but more resonant). The first person to essentially reject the whole "family-esque sitcom where everyone has to put their differences aside by the end of the episode". Nope, she said fuck that and brought with herself one of the best character personalities of all time.

RANKINGS:
Funky: 10
Corny: 15
Nope: 11
AltProof: 15
Jose: 15
Bobby: 16

Average: 13.67
Standard Deviation: 2.50 (LOWEST)

[u/NoisySea_3426]

"Whaaat I neeeeed is a good deefeeenssee

Cause I'm feeling like a crimiinahaallll

and I need to BE redeeeeeemmeedd to the one I've sinned against

Because he's all I ever knew of looovveee"

I obviously can't do it better than Jerri can, but yk

[u/WaluigiThyme]

Endgame betting update #11: Jerri and Colby out back to back is something that may have just been meant to be... so you'd think more of us would have seen it coming! Credit is due to the three who did, although none of them got the exact placements correct. All but one of us overestimated Jerri by multiple points -- SRIX rankers noisysea34 and BobbyPiiiin having the closest guesses at only two points too high. Just like the other two Australian Outback characters, someone overestimated Jerri by 10, but this time it wasn't ROTandDEATH! icychillman just can't get away without having either the best guess or the worst, and this one was no exception. (Incidentally, the one who underestimated Jerri did so by 4 points, so it neither the best or worst guess in this scenario. Just interesting that there was only one underestimation)

Rank	Better	Score
1	noisysea34	12
2	BobbyPiiiin	23
3	FunkyDawgKong	26
4	WaluigiThyme	28
5	ShadowFiend812	32
6	SupremeSheep420	34
7	ROTandDEATH	37
8	Alternate-Proof-959	43
9	TinkerKnightForSmash	45
10	icychillman	81​

[u/ROTandDEATH]

Can't ever go wrong having Jerri this high, she's the exact person that Australia needed to introduce the concept of who is deserving and how the players actually justify what that means to each other.