An "Insider" Look at Survivor: Vanuatu, Episode 13: Mature Adults

For those who may not have seen it, I recapped this week's episode of Survivor (you can read it here), so there will be a little less comment from me than normal this week. I'm sure I won't be able to keep my mouth completely shut, however…

Julie's Final Words: She thought that she and Chris had a straightforward relationship and he said he'd tell her what was going on. He said he was 100% going to vote for Twila, she doesn't know if he changed in the last minute or what. Chris was her crutch, and the crutch broke!

She was frustrated with her performance in a lot of the challenges, which was a hard pill to swallow. She got a lot of compliments from the others saying how light-hearted and fun she is. The experience was all about willpower for her, sometimes she'd have a lot and others she wondered where it was. It's brought a lot of confidence in herself.

What surprised her was after meeting the 18 people, knowing how competitive, strong, diverse people they are, and she made it to the final five. Not that she's putting herself down, but the others were so strong. She's still learning from the experience, it's all pretty raw right now. She feels like she's going to grow and learn a lot. She's taking away the scenery that she's never going to see again, the people she met, some of which she doesn't want to meet again (said with a laugh), she's taking away a million things.

Julie, the Day After: Her Survivor experience was intense, educational, self-searching, fun, competitive, the list goes on. She feels like she will be reaping benefits from the experience as the days go by, it will never be forgotten. Because it's so intense, it forces you to strip yourself down and really test yourself. Her true test was her sense of will, she thought at times it wasn't where she wanted it to be. It was such a great feeling to win the reward at the end, when you keep getting defeated it makes you sink into a hole.

The whole separation of women thing was a parallel to the culture in her eyes, and it empowered them to prove themselves. They kicked the guys' asses early on, and it felt great. Her allegiance to the women was natural, but the coed aspect was more appealing and gave them strength. She didn't come in with any definite plan to separate by gender.

There's a strong spiritual sense to the islands and the culture. She was exposed to people who had very strong ties, like on her reward when Joe talked to the spirits about having the volcano erupt. In the beginning, the guys were awarded the spirit stone, and they didn't get to experience the effect. Since the guys had all these horrible things happen to them with the stone around, she would have been curious to see what would have happened if it were in their camp.

The thing about this game is that you find out things that you don't normally reveal that show. She did not reveal a majority of herself for strategic reasons. Except when she was over in Lopevi. What? Oh, you mean show herself mentally and emotionally, right, got it. She's not the type of person you get to know in 39 days, especially when your friends become your competitors.

The hardest part was definitely the nights. She knows that no matter how horrible it gets, it will never last forever, there's always another day. Those nights, hellish as they are, were almost comedic. But many of the nights were harsh and wore her down. Leaving the game was definitely the hardest, most heartbreaking aspect.

Most memorable was the reward. She had been down on herself for losing challenges and being so below average. So they had the challenge that was a combination of past challenges, and she shined. Then she got an incredible reward that she'll never forget, everything was incredible, there wasn't a bad moment of that whole day.

Rewards are everything, they separate you from the game and then bring the tribe closer together. They're such a great aspect to the game, you get to nourish your body, mind, and soul. She won a couple with the team - the beer and Pringles at the waterfall reward with Lopevi was huge because they had just come together as a tribe. There was harmony in their group, which wasn't normal. She also won the steak and eggs with Lopevi, and she almost started to cry, that's what the rewards do to you.

She doesn't know if her perspective has altered that much, but everything from the experience is progressive. Her perspective will grow. She's made so many great friends. She's interested to see how her life will change now that she's out of the game. It will seem strange now, after being in it for so long it felt like home, just like being in the game was strange at first. She's in a huge transitional phase in her life, having just graduated she needs to make a huge next step. This had given her the will and motivation to make those decisions. It's going to be big. She has great energy and appreciation to be able to do it - she just conquered the jungle for thirty-six days.

Twila Freaks Out: Replaying the opening segment from Thursday's show, when Twila yells at Julie and Eliza for talking about swearing on her son. I still say Twila had a right to be pissed. It was obvious that she was upset about it, and there was no need for Eliza and Julie to keep talking about it. I can't believe they were just trying to be funny, because that would be stupid and immature. NO, not Eliza! NEVER!

Calm Down: I could not get this clip to play. I contacted two different people and they could not get it to play either. Sorry!