Survivor Live Internet Talk Show with Alex Angarita
Episode 12 - Survivor: Fiji  Cast-Off 
Segment 1 Transcript

DR:  Alex, thanks for being here.

Alex:  My pleasure, guys, happy to be here.

DR:  You were trying your best to sort of work your way out of this hole that you knew you were in.  You were hitting a bunch of angles, Boo, Yau-Man, all this.  As you get to TC, what sort of percentage shot did you think you had?

Alex:  Low.  Real, real low.  When you're trying to convince somebody of something you gotta sort of believe it yourself.  If you're trying to convince somebody of something you don't believe they're going to feel that energy and it's not going to work.  I had to put myself in the mindset, this is the best choice.  I knew from their perspective that it was kind of a long shot.  The fact that I sort of rattled the cages a little bit I think was good enough.  I went into it feeling good. 

JM:  I think it was more of Earl that shut that down.  Cassandra and Dreamz...I didn't think what you were presenting was supposedly a crazy or terrible option.  I thought it was actually, if you were an aggressive player, that might have been the strong move to play on their part instead of just sitting back and following Yau and Earl.  

Alex:  That was the trouble I had all along.  I feel like a lot of the players would think about the next move or that immediate moment but rarely did I come across people that thought two or three steps ahead.  A lot of my strategies were, 'let's do this now because in three moves this is what it's going to look like.'  Stacy and Dreamz are perfect examples of that. 

JM:  It would have been very interesting to have Stacy, Dreamz, Cassandra and yourself.  That would have been a huge power play on their part. 

DR:  You gotta look at the markup.  Stacy describes herself as not only a follower but a follower of Cassandra's.  Which seems to me, a follower of a follower.  You think she has no game, check me out. 

JM:  It's okay like getting third or fourth of fifth. 

Alex:  A lot of people were saying they just want to get to this place.  They weren't thinking, "I want to win." 

JM:  Why do you think that happens to people?

DR:  Scared to make a move?

Alex:  You have to believe that you can win.  I think a lot of the other players just didn't believe that they could win.  There are exceptions, I'm not talking about everyone.  I feel like the people that I tried to get to the next level, they just were not thinking along those lines.  They just were thinking, 'I'll be on TV a little bit longer.'

DR:  I want to jump ahead to the IC, Cassandra who is barely even digging, did you see that from some of these people in the challenges?  Didn't really care or couldn't try?

Alex:  I was fighting for my life. 

JM:  Everybody at home was going, "Get to the top of that pole."

Alex:  My arms were so tired.  My arms felt like they were going to fall off. 

JM:  You got a bad cut on your knees. 

Alex:  I got cut really bad.  I ended up getting an infection.  It swelled up, I was on crutches. 

DR:  You sorta looked like Ozzy at first but then, wah, wah, wah, wahhhhhhhh.

JM:  I think you guys got up there fairly quickly.  You guys flew up there.

DR:  I think quicker than the producers anticipated. 

Caller:  Your vote was the one that put Mookie out.  Was that something you thought about?  Did you know about the 3-3 split or was that a strategy move on your part?  The second part of my question is, last night you seemed to be a little bit laid back.  We didn't see a lot of you trying to get Boo, Stacy and Cassandra to change their votes.  We saw you talking to Earl which maybe wasn't a real good move.  Maybe you can explain what happened. 

Alex:  In terms of the Mookie vote, what I observed was that there was dissension among the other players as to which one of us was going to go.  We're sitting there, they are just far enough away where we can't hear what they're saying but we're looking at body language.  I thought that if the vote was definitely going to be in one direction there wouldn't have been that much discussion.  I thought to myself, maybe it's going to be a split vote and if it was in any direction and the only way my vote is ever going to count is if I vote for Mookie.  Mookie had expressed to me that he wanted to go anyway. I felt like it was my only move and I wasn't really doing a disservice to somebody that I considered a friend.  In terms of your second question, when I observed the people in the game, I realized that Boo and Stacy were not going to be players who would make a bold move.  They were trying too hard to get into that other alliance.  I didn't see them as people that were going to be willing to go with me of all people, knowing that I was at the bottom of that totem pole.  Where I did see a potential is anyone who has to deal with Yau-Man two generations now in the game.  Yau-Man holding that power card, I knew that I was going to be able to get to Dreamz that way, I knew I was going to be able to get to Cassandra.  I think right now, it's Dreamz, Cassandra and Earl.  If I could persuade them to make a move against Yau-Man, now all four of us are at least on equal footing versus letting the fourth person be somebody who has that power.  It almost worked.  I think that was my best bet and I'm happy I went with it. 

DR:  Was there any attempt to even try and find the other hidden immunity idol?

Alex:  I knew it was at camp but time is limited.  People think you have all day to do things.  You've got challenges, you've got to get to Tribal, you only have so much time to do certain things.  I thought searching wildly for an Immunity Idol wasn't the best way to spend time. 

JM:  You have a challenge, sometimes come back, there's campaigning and then you go to TC.  There's very little time in that day to do more than just try to save yourself. 

DR:  Speaking of campaigning, Alex was trying to turn the tide his way and talk to those folks about getting Yau-Man or at least the idol out of the way.  Let's take a look at the clip from last night's Survivor.

<video clip>

DR:  What's the deal with Dreamz?  Is he just going to do whatever, whoever speaks to him last tells him to do?

Alex:  Basically. 

JM:  Cassandra said, "Obviously Yau-Man is playing to win."  Well, obviously. 

Alex:  Yau-Man was more honest with them and upfront about what was going to be in his best interests. 

JM:  It seems like he's trying to be as honest as possible without offending people. 

DR:  Did you catch Earl winking or not?

Alex:  No but Dreamz told me that Earl had been winking. 

JM:  Dreamz will tell you anything.  You don't even have to ask him and he will just tell you.

DR:  How long did it take you to adjust to that?  We know you adjusted rather early because you told Mookie, "Don't tell them about the idol."  He let it slip.  After spending some time with Dreamz you knew that basically any information that you gave him was open information.  

Alex:  He's complete chaos.  It's like throwing a piece of information into this chaos blender.  It's gonna spin it off and you don't know where it's gonna go.  Maybe it's going to come back and hit you in the face.  I knew that and that's why I said specifically, "Do not tell Dreamz."  As soon as he told Dreamz, I said to Dreamz specifically, "Don't tell Cassandra."  That's exactly what he did. 

DR:  Dreamz kind of reminds me of Christy from my season.  You kind of just never know where exactly that they're going to fall or who they're going to vote with.  You know that their vote is always up in the air. 

DR:  Dreamz did do some crying last night, that's sort of like Christy. 

JM:  Yeah, with the letters. 

Alex:  Little cry baby Dreamz. 

JM:  Only girls can cry with letters.

Alex:  There's no real emotion there, Dreamz, come on.

JM:  Now we're supposed to feel bad for him?

Caller:  Alex, good effort.  Are you surprised after watching the show and seeing some of the internet posters, the popularity that Yau-Man has generated?

Alex:  I'm not surprised by Yau-Man's popularity.  You don't expect someone of Yau-Man's physical makeup, a self-proclaimed nerd, that's not what you picture when you think of Survivor.  Yau-Man, more power to him.  I think he's a great player.  He's got heart, he's intelligent.  He plays with big boys, he's not intimidated. I tried to get rid of him last night because that was my only move but it wasn't a personal thing. 

JM:  Usually, you want to get rid of the players who are smart and can convince people and who you think will win, at this point.  You can't just think about getting to the final two or three, you have to think about winning. 

DR:  And he is a threat in the challenges, too. 

Alex:  I think every single one of us can relate to Yau-Man in some way.  That's what makes him a great survivor. 

JM:  I think the viewers like him because he's very entertaining.  He's a refreshing kind of character.  He's doing a heck of a job that a lot of people half his age have not been able to do. 

DR:  We talked about being a lawyer and stuff.  How much was TC sort of like a court room in the sense that you really have to think about the way that you answer things?  It's almost like the jury is sitting next to you and they're the people that you're trying to convince. 

Alex:  There's a lot of game play that goes on at Tribal and I don't know if fans at home really get a chance to see all of that.  You're playing against Jeff, you're playing off of Jeff.  Like the Michelle vote in my instance, I took that chaos as an opportunity to plead my case.  I was able to bounce off of Jeff to sort of create the results I wanted.  I think, looking back on it, even more could have been done at Tribal.  I don't think enough players really take advantage of that opportunity to just stir things up.  Too many people stay quiet.  Too many people are just afraid. 

JM:  People are usually very vulnerable at TC.  Dalton always says that Jeff is another player in the game.  You always have to think about playing Jeff, too. 

DR:  You told us in last week's episode, "I'm going to TC, I'm stirring it up." 

Alex:  I know. I wanted to entertain America but I also wanted to stay on. 

DR:  Were you trying to get Mookie to stir things up?

Alex:  That whole stirring up conversation came before we thought Cassandra and Stacy were listening to us. Once we saw that they were listening, so much for that.  What's the point of stirring things up when everybody knows that Yau-Man has got the idol.  At that point it was more trying to read the room, trying to figure out where people were at.  Wreaking havoc was only going to have more people be annoyed at me.  At that point I was better off just kind of staying low. 

JM:  I'm sure there will be much more.

Alex:  There will be some fireworks.

JM:  We hope so.  The final jury questions are usually nasty comments. 

DR:  With Rocky on the jury hopefully we'll be seeing a little bit.  We're going to take a quick break. 

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