The Amazon's Final Four

On Sunday night, May 11, Survivor: The Amazon fans will tune in to see which of the final four will win the million-dollar prize and the title of Ultimate Survivor. Will it be Jenna Morasca, Butch Lockley, Rob Cesternino, or Mathew Von Ertfelda? The world will find out during a two-hour finale, followed by a Survivor reunion show, on CBS, starting at 8 p.m. ET.

Survivor: The Amazon, the sixth installment of the series, began Thursday, Feb. 13, with two tribes of eight contestants each camping near The Amazon's Rio Negro River, which is teeming with piranha and caiman crocodiles.

The contestants were divided by sex. In the premiere episode, host Jeff Probst explained that it was fitting for the reality show to have a tribe of women competing against a tribe of men, because the Amazon was named by Francisco de Orellana, a Spanish explorer who in 1541 discovered the territory. He first encountered a tribe of very fierce and courageous female warriors, so he named the land after the women warriors.

Beginning with the men of the Tambaqui tribe, the new survivors were:

• Ryan Aiken, a 23-year-old model from Ellicott City, Md.
  
• Alex Bell, a 32-year-old triathalon coach from Los Angeles.
  
• Rob Cesternino, a 24-year-old computer projects coordinator from Wantagh, N.Y.
  
• Mathew Von Ertfelda, a 33-year-old restaurant designer.
  
• Dave Johnson, a 24-year-old rocket scientist from Pasadena, Calif.
  
• Butch Lockley, a 50-year-old school principal from Olney, Ill.
  
• Daniel Lue, a 27-year-old tax accountant from Houston, Texas.
  
• Roger Sexton, a 56-year-old construction company executive from Valencia, Calif.

• Shawna Mitchell, a 23-year-old retail saleswoman from Redwood City, Calif.
  
• Deena Bennett, a 35-year-old deputy district attorney from Riverside, Calif.
  
• Jeanne Hebert, a 41-year-old marketing director from North Attleboro, Mass.
  
• Christy Smith, a 24-year-old children's adventure guide from Basalt, Colo.
  
• Janet Koth, a 47-year-old homemaker from Manchester, Mo.
  
• Jenna Morasca, a 21-year-old swimsuit model from Pittsburgh, Pa.
  
• JoAnna Ward, a 31-year-old school guidance counselor from Orangeburg, S.C.
  
• Heidi Strobel, a 24-year-old school gym teacher from Eldon, Mo.

"My strategies - my book of goodies - was gone," Ryan said. "I work better with women than I do with guys."

Janet Koth, a 47-year-old housewife, was the next to go, amid rumors she smuggled in a granola bar.

"Absolutely not! It was not mine. I adore Survivor. It's my favorite show. There's no way I'd cheat on it," Janet said on The Early Show.

Sick and dehydrated after just six days in the Amazon camp, Janet admitted what fans had been saying about the latest Survivor game.

"I really feel like on this one, they turned up the heat," she says of the show's producers. "I think that the people have stronger personalities than ever before. And certainly the environment was just so harsh. So harsh."

Daniel Lue was the next to go, the second member of the Tambaqui tribe to get the boot. He hadn't won a friend in tribemate Roger Sexton.

"Well, you know what? Me and Roger, we don't look eye to eye," Lue said. "Can't you know - he's twice my age. And this year, I don't think I'll be sending him a Christmas card."

"Well, you know, he's very bossy. I mean, he just knows exactly what he wants to say and he just says it without even thinking. So, Roger, that's Roger for you. He's very strong and opinionated. So he just tells me exactly how he feels."

The following week, at tribal council, the vote came down between JoAnna and Shawna. Shawna asked several tribe members to vote her off because she was not feeling well. But JoAnn was the one to go instead.

The week after that featured a surprise twist: the gender-divided tribes sought new co-ed alliances. The original all-girl Jaburu tribe was broken up, with the new team determined by Jenna, the swimsuit model.

Dave, the rocket scientist, had the honor of breaking up the all-male Tambaqui tribe. But his newly created group lost that night's immunity challenge and sent Jeanne Hebert packing.

Then there was a soap-opera installment of Survivor: The Amazon that saw Shawna voted off the island by the Jabaru.

It was a love triangle that brewed between Shawna, Matthew and Alex. Though Shawna obviously only had eyes for Alex, this didn't prevent her from flirting with the rest of the boys.

The first challenge offered a reward for a large basket of fresh fruit but involved a test of balance and wit for the survivors. Each player went head to head with a member of the opposing tribe in a logrolling competition. The first team to win five times would win the fruit basket, and it was Tambaqui that took the prize home.

For immunity, the teams were set up like piranha feeding on raw meat. They had equal slabs of meat hanging from a tree and were forced to bare their teeth and tear off as much meat as possible with their hands tied behind their backs. The Tambaqui won this challenge as well.

At tribal council, the vote came down between Matthew and Shawna, who had offered herself to be voted off. She said that she had had lows in the past few days, but had recently hit a high and was having a glorious time in the Amazon. In the end it was Shawna, much to the dismay of Alex, who was sent packing.

Viewers who were looking for a little escapism got it the following week. The two tribes merged into one, but it quickly became clear that it was no longer the men versus women. Instead, it was almost everyone against Roger, who did not have an inkling that he was going to be the next to go.

On The Early Show, Roger said, "That's correct. I had no idea until tribal council. But then I knew. Jeff asked some questions about how confident we felt, who was going to be tossed and Alex gave an answer and I go, 'I don't like that answer.'"

"Because originally it was men versus women," he said. "Then the tribes went men and women."

Roger's ouster did not bode well for Dave Johnson, the 24-year-old rocket scientist from Pasadena, Calif. In an 8-1 vote on the next episode, Dave was voted off. Perceived as a strong competitor and therefore a threat to others, his tribe members sent him packing at Tribal Council. Dave became the first member of the jury.

"I think once I saw that, I was out of the loop," he said of the vote against Roger. "Once Roger really got all the votes, it was apparent that I really didn't have a good idea, a grasp, of what was going on behind the scenes. I kind of anticipated both Alex, Jenna and Heidi to keep me up to speed. And didn't work out so good.

Deena Bennett exuded so much confidence on the following week's episode that she could have been mistaken for queen of the Amazon. But the rest of her tribe favored a quick exile and voted her out.

"Well, pride cometh before a fall," said Deena. "You anticipate certain things, and my house of cards kind of just fell to pieces. But it's the nature of the game. You know, you expect some things to go a certain way. And you have to anticipate that some people are still conniving and scheming. And it was my time to go."

"There was a plan," said Deena. "There was a plan when we left Jaburu, once we merged and became Jacare, that said 'Hey, this is the order that we're going to take people off in,' and I saw that there was a potential threat in Alex and I tried to make a move on Alex. Only I underestimated the amount of power that he had over Jenna and Heidi. Plain and simple."

But it wasn't long before Alex was the one whose torch was being extinguished – the following week, in fact.

Then, the next week, Rob, Butch, Heidi, Jenna, and Matt remained in the game, while Christy Smith, the 24-year-old adventure guide for the deaf from Basalt, Colo., became the 11th person voted out of the tribe.

Said Christy, "I had a lot of power, I thought, and I didn't. And my ego just went a little bit bigger at the wrong time."

And then, on May 8, the tribe voted to dismiss skeletal siren Heidi Strobel, who, at tribal council, boldly referred to herself as a "mastermind," and stated that she deserved to reach the final four.