There may be no crying in baseball, but there is no stopping the tears on reality shows.
Both “Survivor” and “American Idol” were soaked in them Wednesday as they approached their finales. (“The Voice” may have had some crying as well, but the DVR can record only so many shows at the same hour).
On “Survivor,” it was the mere glimpse of the unusual product placement Sprint logo on a bamboo box indicated that the remaining half dozen castaways, one of whom had just described his 30 day exile as jail, would get video messages from loved ones.
Seems like they got letters only a couple of weeks ago, but they reacted much more strongly to the idea of video, either because they had been exiled for that much longer, or because they enjoy watching video much more than reading.
At any rate, the videos of loved ones on the island sent all of the women crying, wailing or collapsing and all of the guys too. When Brenda reunited with her dad, host Jeff Probst said it was the first time that he too started crying.
Brenda and her dad won the immunity challenge which meant nothing but hard decisions: Who would go on an afternoon with loved ones with her? She picks Dawn because they are such good friend and Dawn is such a crying nutcase. But wait, there’s more twisting of the knife — a second loved one of each contestant is also on the island and Brenda and Dawn can spend the day with them too OR she can allow the other four to have the day with their loved ones and Brenda will have to sacrifice her’s (and with her’s, Dawn’s reunion as well).
Brenda does the selfless thing and we see how that all works out: She’s like a goddess, which makes her a terrible threat just before the finale, so she’s blindsided at tribal council. Eddie, the kid who has been targeted and has had his almost certain ouster postponed for several tribals in a row, just continues on (and may likely do so into the finale). And Brenda just cries during her post ouster confessional.
Tears of joy! Tears of pain! Contagious tears!
It was the same but even more on “Idol” as the hometown visits were somehow more poignant than ever, with Candice going back to a warm island embrace from a place so tucked away, she was “coming from nowhere” that Randy Jackson would later mention.
Angie’s homecoming is a little more reserved. She greets her friends in a coffeeshop, but other customers there just look on with disinterest if not distain. Her family reunion numbers just three — a big crowd is kept away by cops across the street. Her first stop is the local Fox TV affiliate where they introduce her by saying it was Angie’s first return to Boston “since the attacks.”
What did the attacks have to do with Angie? Well, there are a lot of “Boston Strong” signs out in the city, more than one person says her presence helps heal the town after the marathon bombing and there’s something chilling about big crowds in those small New England streets for a parade that look a lot like marathon celebrations.
Nobody mentions it, but it’s striking visually how segregated the crowds are for Candice and Angie — and for Kree too when she goes back to Texas. But she spends a lot of time at a rodeo there, too. That’s where she began singing. But she returns to an story she first told at the beginning of the season about how both her parents died at a young age and she and her sister have had to raise themselves with extended family.
They go back to visit the rickety family homestead and once more “Idol” is a saga of rising up from nothing to the glitzy Hollywood stage – more of a story of class struggle than race. Each of the hometown visits culminate in a huge concert which each young woman says is the biggest moment of their life (Candice, for her part, has never given a concert before at all). And with the way singing competition winners have been just as often lost to obscurity soon after their finales, they may well be the biggest moments of their lives.
For all three, the filmed reports of going back resonate with or in some cases eclipse the emotional songs that follow, for a wallop that makes tough people like Nicki Minaj reduced to tears and unable to speak.
These are the times when “Idol” and “Survivor” speak to something bigger and more emotional than either show can properly articulate or address. Maybe the country also needs a big cry.