By JOHN STANG/The Daily Inter Lake

The final four were really hungry: Run down. Weak. Little energy.

“You know you have immunity coming up. You need food to get it done,” said “Survivor” contestant Amanda Kimmel, formerly of Kalispell, in an interview filmed on an island in China’s Zhelin Reservoir last summer.

But her remark aired for the first time Sunday evening during the finale of “Survivor: China.”

Sunday’s three-hour broadcast was the season’s last with the winner to be announced live in Los Angeles two hours into the show.

Kimmel was among the final four contestants, going against:

• Todd Herzog, 22, a constantly plotting and easily offended flight steward from Utah who created and led a coalition of four including Kimmel.

“He’s a real schemer. You can’t trust him,” said Larry Small, 50, Kimmel’s stepfather of 15 years in an interview Wednesday with The Daily Inter Lake.

Her mother, Peggy Small, 50, added: “Things are going on in his mind all the time.”

• Denise Martin, a 40-year-old lunch lady from Massachusetts. She’s been low-key, loyal and occasionally dissed as a puppet of Herzog and the other remaining players.

“ She’s helped by having no confrontations. She’s been more loyal to the [intact finalist] team than anybody else,” Larry Small said.

• Courtney Yates, a 26-year-old waitress from New York City. The physically weakest of the 16 players who began the game, she made it to the final four because she was in Kimmel’s and Herzog’s alliance.

Peggy and Larry Small of Kalispell see Yates’ biggest strength as being no threat to the others, so they keep her around.

Her weakness? Larry said: “She’s bitchy.”

“I’m the biggest bitch on the planet,” Yates said in an island interview filmed last summer and aired Sunday.

The “Survivor” contracts with the players stress extreme secrecy, which meant the Smalls had no idea until Sunday evening how their daughter would fare.

The 39-day-long contest can be split into four segments repeated every few days: Reward challenges to get food and advantages over the others; immunity challenges to get a necklace that forbade others from voting that player off the island; the scheming to get a player farther into the game; tribal councils, during which players get voted off, one at a time.

Sunday’s episode began with a reward challenge — a combination of an obstacle course and puzzle solving.

The prize: Pizza, brownies, beer and soft drinks.

Herzog led Kimmel slightly through most of the contest, but Kimmel overtook him on the final puzzle.

She was then allowed to pick one, two or none of the others to share the food and drink.

After some soul-searching, she picked only Herzog.

And after the pair left to eat, Martin grumbled: “It hurt my feelings a little that Amanda didn’t pick me.”

When Kimmel and Herzog returned from their meal, she confided to Yates that she picked only Herzog to make him trust her.

Kimmel, 23, is the hometown girl.

The Smalls’ daughter was born in Denver. The family moved across Montana a lot because of Larry Small’s job with CitiCorp and Peggy Small’s job with Pella Windows and Doors. The family lived in Whitefish for about six months in 1996 and 1997.

Kimmel attended Whitefish Central School as a seventh-grader.

The family ended up in Billings, where Kimmel graduated from Billings West High School, a year or so after being a model for year in Chicago.

She was a straight-A student and a jock.

Track. Volleyball. Softball. Longtime hiker in the backcountry off the regular trails.

She thought about going to the University of Colorado, but decided not to.

The family — including her kid sister, Katrina, now 21, who graduated from Flathead High — moved back to the Kalispell area, where the parents opened their own business, Aqua Soothe Hydro Colon Therapy, just north of town. Amanda Kimmel moved back to this area in 2003.

Kimmel worked as a waitress at Red’s Wines and Blues. And as a clerk at Herberger’s.

She linked with a local personal trainer and ex-Marine — Rick Nelson, who since has died — who trained her for the Miss USA pageant.

And he ran some extreme backcountry hikes, and Kimmel led a few.

And that led to CBS hyping her as a “hiking guide” — a bit of glammed-up exaggeration, her parents said.

Fashion is Kimmel’s passion.

Kimmel liked doing makeovers for women at Herberger’s.

She wants to become a fashion designer. After the inside-China portion of “Survivor” ended last summer, she moved to California to live with her sister and chase that dream.

“Survivor” is set up so three finalists face the previous seven people voted off — pleading their cases to win the best out of seven votes to win $1 million.

Winning the final immunity challenge means a guaranteed spot in the final three, while the other three remaining contestants sweat becoming the last person voted out.

The contest: Using a lever and fulcrum to balance a growing stack of porcelain plates, dishes and bowls.

The last to drop his or her stack wins immunity.

The stacks of crockery grew and grew.

It was hot. No breeze.

Close-up shot of sweat dripping from Herzog’s beard.

Herzog dropped his plates first. Then Yates.

Martin asked Kimmel whether she were interested in a making a deal going into the final vote of the tribal council.

“I’m not giving up,” Kimmel replied.

One more bowl each is added to Martin’s and Kimmel’s stacks.

“Sure, Amanda?” Martin asked.

Kimmel replied: “Yep.”

Close-up shot of a bead of sweat dripping from Martin’s hand. Then she spilled her crockery.

Kimmel smiled.

Kimmel stumbled into the “Survivor” applicant pipeline when she was Miss Montana USA in 2005.

The CBS reality show “Fear Factor” approached some Miss USA contestants about applying, and Kimmel ended up an alternate.

But that led to “Survivor” asking the longtime fan of the show to apply, which she did three times —successfully on the third.

The 6-foot-tall former model has competed in several pageants. Miss USA. Miss Earth. Miss Kite of the World in China.

She’s a stunner — lookswise.

Playing on “Survivor” appealed to her because her looks wouldn’t do her any good.

It’s a game of mental and emotional toughness. Strategy and plotting and betrayal. Luck. People skills. Manipulation. Physical strength and skills.

Cutthroat.

“You’re in your rawest form. It goes to your inner core. It’s who you are,” Peggy Small said.

That was the arena in which Kimmel wanted to prove herself.

Before she flew to China, Kimmel rented every “Survivor” DVD she could find.

She studied.

What worked? What didn’t?

She decided to form an alliance early in the contest — which she did with Todd.

Her other pre-planned tactics: Be low-key, let others occupy the limelight that typically also bring knives in the back, avoid confrontation, but work behind the scenes.

Part of that approach came naturally.

Kimmel is person “who wants to make sure no one’s feelings are hurt,” Peggy Small said.

When she played board games such as Monopoly, Kimmel could play close to the vest, spring a surprise, and then “flash her pretty green eyes and smile” to take out the sting.

But Kimmel also tends to be the center of attention at gatherings — while her strategy calls for the opposite. She loves to talk a lot. Her height draws eyes.

In an on-show interview, Kimmel said: “I’ve been quiet because that’s part of my strategy.”

Peggy Small said: “Being quiet and in the background is totally against her characteristics.”

Martin strongly lobbied Kimmel not to vote for her — knowing that Yates and Herzog want to vote off the lunch lady because she would be too sympathetic during a popular vote.

Kimmel agonized: She liked Martin best. But Herzog and Yates had ticked off more people who would have the final vote. And Kimmel had an alliance with Herzog and Yates since the China game’s earliest days.

Kimmel told an island confessional camera: “I wanna keep [Martin] around, but she’d be my greatest competition in the end. This is my million-dollar decision.”

Herzog told another island confessional camera: “Amanda holds all the cards now.”

Kimmel didn’t trust Herzog, and feared him also in the later popular vote.

“Everyone likes Todd. … Todd can sugarcoat everything too well,” she said.

The final four voted 3-1 to cast out Martin.

The vote nagged Kimmel, who looked gloomy at the tribal council and back at the players’ bamboo lean-to.

“I have nothing right now to celebrate. You guys can celebrate,” she told the other two.

Larry and Peggy Small watched “Survivor: China” twice each Thursday evening.

First at 7 p.m. on cable channel 8 from Missoula.

Then at 9 p.m. on cable channel 2 from Spokane in the Pacific time zone.

First viewing it to watch the basic story unfold.

The second is to study nuances of conversations, monologues and facial expressions — all for future plotting.

They watched their daughter subtly nudge other players to take out one strong contestant — the ultra-athletic gravedigger James Clement, who got backstabbed before he thought to use two immunity idols he had collected — as well as orchestrating the timing of the exit of a second guy — poker player Jean Robert Bellande whom few, if any, trusted.

In an on-show interview before the betrayal of Clement, Kimmel said “I’m tired of being out of control. I like control.”

The parents analyzed and re-analyzed the shifting alliances, strengths and weaknesses of the shrinking number of players.

“It’s like trying to figure out a puzzle before it’s put together. We feel good about her chances,” Peggy Small said.

“Survivor’s” very last round on the island consisted of seven voted-off players questioning the three finalists — venting, quizzing about strategy, asking why each deserved to win.

Kimmel began that session by apologizing to three players, including Clement and Bellande, whom she helped to backstab. “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

Herzog portrayed himself as an upfront schemer who played the game as it should be. Yates stressed that she was the tiny little girl who succeeded against heavy odds.

Bellande vented against Kimmel and Herzog for sandbagging him.

Kimmel told him: “I did not want to vote for you. But too many other people did. … I was between a rock and a hard place.”

Peih-Gee Law scolded Kimmel: “I think of you with the doe eyes, always apologetic to people, letting Todd take the heat.”

Kimmel criticized Yates for her constant whining, and Herzog for lying to almost everyone during the game.

Yates and Herzog slammed Kimmel for her nice-girl front while participating in some cutthroat moves.

Then the seven voted:

The show instantly switch from last summer’s China to Sunday’s Los Angeles.

Host Jeff Probst read the votes.

Yates. Kimmel. Herzog.

One vote each.

Then Yates.

Then Herzog, Herzog, Herzog.

Reporter John Stang may be reached at 758-4429 or by e-mail at jstang@dailyinterlake.com