Somehow without a villain Survivor just
wouldn't be the same. Let's face it,
what would Survivor 2 Australia
have been without Jerri? Or Survivor
1 Malaysia without Richard
Hatch? Hence our genuine
appreciation of Alexi 'Lex' Van Den
Berghe's contribution to Survivor 3
Africa ~~ a thing of demented, sordid
beauty. With his spiked hair, body
piercings, and wall-to-wall tattoos, Lex
is a bona fide original.
We will always
remember Lex as having committed the
single largest blunder in Survivor
history. His inkling that he'd been
betrayed by tribe-mate Kelly Goldsmith was
as wrong as it could have been, hence his
subsequent wrath & vengeance
altogether misplaced.
But what else
could you expect from a drummer in a
rock-n-roll band, that bedrock of
narcissism, self-indulgence, over-the-top
antics, and consciously outlandish
behavior? Perhaps the biggest
surprise was that Lex came within a
whisker of winning it all. His
alliance-building was expertly contrived,
his string of challenge victories against
strong competition an impressive display
of grit and fortitude both. But he
fell one challenge short and fell to third
place, out-of-the-money but hardly out of
our collective memories.
|
