Tribal Voting

What did Zhan Hu have to say when they voted out the third member of their tribe?

Erik (Dave): Sorry bro. I know you worked really hard, and I appreciated your work, but I couldn't convince the rest of the tribe it was worth keeping you around.

Jaime (Dave): I don't like the fact that you went to the other tribe and told them all my secrets.

Sherea (Dave): You are the weakest link. Goodbye.

Peih-Gee (Dave): Sorry, Dave. I think you outlasted your usefulness.

Frosti ("Crazy Dave"): We tried to help you, we tried to warn you; you just didn't get it. You just kept talking, man. You gotta listen.

Dave (Sherea): Be the best teacher you can be.

James is Over It

James vents his frustrations about his tribe members. What is really bothering him?

"For some reason they decided to get on my nerves today. I don't know why they messing with me today. Usually, they leave me alone. I'm up there chilling, making fire, boiling water, for the last three days I've been up there chilling by myself. They've been out here playing, enjoying themselves, which is great. Enjoy yourselves, be one with nature, have fun, socialize, talk and hug, just leave me alone. They've been bothering me up there. They should know better. They should know they're only gonna get a negative response. If you tell me, 'Thank you,' I don't care. I will tell you constantly, 'Thank you,' means getting your ass up and helping me. Thank you doesn't come from words. I can't work off words. I work off physical energy."

(cut)

"I'm used to hanging out with people who don't have jobs where they actually go into work, where they go into work and go into sweat. My job I can't stop. I can't make up an excuse for why I didn't hoe that. I can't stop moving. These people have excuses. The weather will be bad, or something happened to their dog, or God forbid, something happened to their parents. None of that affects me. I have to do work regardless, whether I'm tired, or hungry, I just gotta keep on moving. Whether it's hot; I'm not gonna go play by the water; I'm only gonna use more energy playing by the water."

(cut)

"I'm really not getting frustrated yet. I should be frustrated, but I'm used to doing stuff by myself, no big deal. The whole thing that's killing me right now is the whole 'Thank you' and all that other stuff. They'll come up and...'Thank you' would be shown by picking up a jug and getting some water, or help pulling the rope, not go and lay your ass down. Or giving directions or telling me something to do. Just leave me alone and let me make the water. You'll have water, I'll have water, and everything will be all good. That's kind of getting on my nerves, this whole liberal talk thing. It means absolutely nothing, nothing but lip service. This lip service stuff is killing me. It really is. If you don't want to do nothing, don't say nothing. Don't come up to me every five minutes and ask how I'm doing, tell me I'm doing a good job and then go lay your ass down. Apparently you're not that thirsty. Don't complain about what I make the water in; if you don't wanna drink it, you don't have to. Stick your lips back in the algae-filled river."

(cut)

"They sit down and formulate a great plan. They just go off by themselves, about their business and they don't do anything. They all go lay down, they all come hang out in the water. They're always congregating. That's one of the big things that started aggravating me at first, and it kind of stopped, because everytime they would, I'd bust it up, cause it's pointless. They'll call a big meeting, make me stop what I'm doing to go sit through this meeting, everybody will delegate powers. I'm sent off on a job, I'm doing my work, I'm coming back, and the stuff that everybody else is supposed to be doing, that helps me out and gives me fuel and water, they're not doing it."

(cut)

"They can hug later on. They can hug by the fire. They can hug while I'm working. So that's what they do now. They gather together and they don't do nothing. They have a big smoke, a big fire, a whole lotta lip, a whole lotta hugging and stuff, all to sit their ass back down and come play in the water. Which is cool. They can do whatever they want. Just leave me alone and let me make my water."

(cut)

"Right now I'm just so aggravated with these people, I'm almost ready to go home anyway. They're killing me. The thing is I don't mind doing the work. It's not the work, it's not the weather, none of that is killing me anymore. It's the little attitude they give me when I'm chilling and minding my own business. I don't bother them when they're in the pool. They want me to come in the pool and be sociable. I'm like, 'No, we need water.' Leave me alone, and if you keep asking me that, I will give you a more aggressive response. They seem not to learn that, because they're on a damn learning curve. I don't know how many times they got their hands burnt when they were kids, but I'm surprised they have any fingers. It don't make any sense for a person to...and they don't ever get over the hump of learning stuff."

(cut)

"I do need their help. I can't do everything by myself in the challenges. I probably could, but I'm not in a position to do stuff by myself. There's no way I could do the stuff by myself. They help out when they need it, but the thing that's killing me is this whole lip service thing. They really have a sense of arrogance, like they could do it without me. Please Lord, let them send me home."

(cut)

"If they ever voted me off, in the next few days they would realize all my bitching and all my nagging really was for a purpose. The next few days would be hard for them. They'd really lose. Not only would they lose their best competitor for the competitions, they'd lose their mama who's over their cooking and cleaning for everybody. So they'd be in dire straits."

Practice Makes Perfect

The tribe practices hurling meteor hammers for the upcoming immunity challenge. Is Courtney worried about having to participate?

(Todd throws the meteor hammer, and a few of them cheer)

Courtney : So, Todd, show me how to do that. Let me get dressed. OK, I'm dressed. (laughs)

(Courtney throws as Dave watches her while drying off)


Courtney (solo): Since I sat out the reward challenge that means I have to compete in the immunity challenge.

(shot of Jean-Robert watching her throw, and he says, "Uh-oh")


Courtney (solo): I am practicing a lot, because what can you do? You're given a thing and you have to practice. You can't just go out there and (makes goofy noises as she spins her hand)

Todd : You were doing just fine, just swing it above your head and aim at something.

(Courtney makes a bad throw)

Todd : Babydoll, that's your worst of them all.


Courtney (solo): I'm under no disillusion that I'm going to be the star of the team. (gives a thumbs up)

(Courtney makes another throw)


Courtney (solo): I'll probably be eating my words, but maybe it is for little people today. Maybe it's like David and Goliath with a slingshot. Little Todd in his bandana looks really cut.

(Courtney throws again)

Amanda : At least you keep hitting something.

Todd : Yeah.

(Dave laughs)

Dave's Final Words

Frustrated from having been eliminated, Dave reasons why his tribe made the decision they made. Find out just how he feels as he gives his confessional.

"I gave it my all. Perhaps I gave it too much. At least I did it with conviction and integrity. I thought I was humble. I thought I listened. I wish that some people had perhaps listened to be a bit more. There's nothing I can do about it. I wish them the best of luck. Ah, youth. (smiles)"

(cut)

"I believe I got voted out just because of apples and broccoli. Perhaps I was too strong. Perhaps I had too stringent of goals and guidelines to meet. I just wanted the best for everyone. I wanted everybody to be eating, wanted everyone to be sleeping well, wanted everyone to be hydrated. If they can't see that then well I can't force them."

(cut)

"I think that me being the third person voted off in this tribe might have a bit of a pattern, whether it's ageism or strength. Safety in numbers, I guess you could say, for a lot of people. When you're that young and you don't have enough experience out in the world to stand by your diversity and accept others, it is safer to flock together."

(cut)

"I potentially regret not honing my social skills a bit more in the beginning. I thought that perhaps the tribe I was with could see through the external social aspects and see the bigger picture, just by virtue of how our camp looks to their camp. I tried to make it really nice for my tribe. I had nothing but the best of intentions for them."

(cut)

"I learned tons about myself through this experience. There are still pieces of me that are less polished, and there's pieces of me that are worth a lot perhaps even priceless. I know I was a fundamental cog in getting this machine rolling. Yeah, I had a great experience, bug bites, dings, scrapes and all. Bring it on again. (smiles)"

Dave the Day After

Would Dave have done anything differently a second time? Find out his answer and more as he reveals all the day after being voted out of the game.

"When my torch got snuffed, when my life was put out from the tribe, there was no relief. There was a bit of regret that I couldn't pursue and persist in the game, because the only thing pulling me down in the game were the nicks and cuts on my hands and feet. I felt great every day, no matter how hard I worked, no matter how dehydrated I was, how much I wanted some food with flavor. None of that mattered, that's all just tertiary, that was superficial. I enjoyed myself to no end in out the field. Given a second opportunity, I would do it in a nanosecond (snaps fingers). I had a blast. The only regret I have is that I'm not out there longer."

(cut)

"My ability to finesse difficult people is definitely a nurtured aspect of my personality than a natural aspect. I do have foot and mouth disease. Only through having that foot pulled out of my mouth, usually by the knee first is how I learned to bite my tongue, keep at the longevity of timeframes of certain people. The shorter the timeframe the easier to deal with a total jackass. At the same time, the amount of intensity you're in someone's face like the duration of a tribe life can wear someone down in ways I wasn't anticipating. I learned a lot this time around in tribe life."

(cut)

"My tribe more than likely missed my unwavering productivity and my lack of bitching about the inequity of productivity. I work, I'm a workhorse, I like to work, it makes me feel good, I sleep better at night when I work hard. It was a very big exercise for me to bite my tongue and not illuminate the inequity of work at camp. Even though they said I was speaking fairly condescendingly to them, I think that was a grossly overinterpreted thing due to the amount of effort I put in. I don't think it was quite acknowledged."

(cut)

"What's with kids these days? I don't have a flipping idea. I come from an old guard in a sense, being the product of two ex-Marines and coming from the South. In terms of etiquette and respect and integrity. 'Do it once, do it right, or go to your room, Mr. Cruser' is what I was brought up with. I think perhaps all those values are lost in this new generation of young kids."

(cut)

"If there was a long-term hamstringing factor that affected me the most, it probably was my inability to pull back and just lounge. I would get up every morning and wash the deck of the boat of the mud, and the stairs so it would be safe for my tribe, and I would wash the pots and pans. There's a Buddhist phrase, 'Doing the dishes just to do the dishes,' and for me that was pulling back. Just doing the dishes and swabbing the deck. It's very difficult for me to sit down and do nothing. Just because I can and I enjoyed it probably made my tribe feel very uncomfortable, because their work ethic was very different from mine. That may have been the long-term ostracizing factor that affected me more than any particular blow-up with Ashley or Sherea. I could have been highly intimidating and guilt-providing for the other people in my tribe simply because they probably felt they weren't doing nearly as much as I did. What they didn't realize was I did it because I could, no strings attached. I could have bitched a lot more about the lack of efforts from the rest of my tribe, but that would have been bad for morale. If I can do it, why not let me do it, and appreciate that fact, although that's my perspective, not theirs, and that might have been my downfall."

(cut)

"If I had to summarize my Survivor experience, there's a phrase, 'Burning twice as bright but half as long.' I wish I was still in the game cause I have got limitless efforts, creativity, energy to give this game. At the same time I provided more in the time I was there and was so happy to be involved in a new place, in nature, collecting food, making camp happen, getting to know people, doing the challenges for better or worse. I just want more of it. I dig it."