An "Insider" Look at Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, Episode 5, Part 1 – "I Don't Know If I Can Do It Anymore"

Amanda Before Tribal Council

“I have James' vote in my pocket. Like, whatever I wanna do, he's down with.” It doesn't matter what it is, Amanda tells us. Throwing that away would be stupid.

If James still can't walk in a couple of days and they are still losing, she'll have to re-evaluate the situation. For now, though, she's standing pat with James. “I'm not gonna let people like Candice and Tom convince J.T. to get rid of my secret weapon.”

Candice likes to talk about making and changing alliances, but they are already made. It's part of the game and it's already decided.

The best things for Amanda, she feels, would be to get rid of Tom. Strategically, she wants James around. He works well around camp and there's no reason to turn on him now. She asked him about his knee and he told her he'd be fine in a couple of days.

Amanda wants to give him time to heal so she's fighting for him.

Chocolate Feast

“The reward was wonderfuuuul,” Sandra tells us. She started with a chocolate cupcake with peanut sprinkles. Next, she had chocolate cake with a marshmallow filling, then a yellow cake with chocolate and coconut icing. After all the coconuts she's eaten lately, though, she scraped that off and went straight to the cake. She kept going with straight chocolate candy and chocolate covered graham crackers. Se drank ice cold coffee laced with chocolate and lots of water, too.

There was so much food. They didn't even get to half of what there was to be had.

They needed that reward. The Heroes didn't want it or they would have tasted the chocolate on their plate. They didn't have the energy to even compete.

Sandra does not feel bad about James' knee. At this point she thinks he's out of the game, but does not feel sorry for him. That's how bad they feel when the “muscley guys” on the Heroes tribe throw the Villains around. It's only fair that the Villains had the upper hand this time.

Another Loss for the Heroes

Rupert doesn't know what else the Heroes have to do to win. They are ready for the challenges when they start.

They do the physical parts very well. They just crumble on the mental parts of the challenges. “I think I spent as much time pulling pieces off of that puzzle as I did putting them on.”

Rupert admitted to Jeff that maybe the Villains are better at puzzles than the Heroes. “Maybe the Villains are better than us at puzzles. And it's not even a maybe anymore. They are. They proved it.” Everyone has a strength, but puzzles are not the strong point for the Heroes.

Tonight they are going back to Tribal Council and they will be down to six on their tribe.

“Six Heroes and nine Villains. Not good odds for the Heroes.”

Going Bananas

Rupert says it was hilarious this morning. Tom told him this morning, very seriously, that when they went to bed there were twenty-five bananas, but there were only five left in the morning.

Rupert wanted to ask him how many he ate. He's seen Tom eating the bananas on the side before. Everyone does. He knows that James has eaten them four and five at a time. Rupert has done it, too. “I don't give a damn!”

Food is becoming an intense subject now. People are getting hungry. They are losing weight. They are getting selfish with their food. They are getting greedy. They take now, instead of sharing. “That is also the game of Survivor.”

This is a test. Will you still share when you are hungry? Will you give your water away when you are thirsty? Lots of people won't

“Couple more of days of this, Tom might turn into that food monger little Jenna Lewis was, fightin' over scraps of meat! Maybe.”

Downward Spiral

Jerri says it's obvious what the Heroes are thinking every time they lose a challenge to the Villains. “It's on their faces. It's in their body language. They are getting knocked down further than I'm sure they thought they would ever get knocked down by us.”

On paper, the Heroes have all the advantage. The personalities on the other side are not good. Jerri is very aware of how Colby and Rupert are to deal with. When they lose, they have a tendency to get down on themselves. That brings everyone else down. Nothing will lift them up. She thinks J.T. is ten times worse than them.

I don't know what they are like around camp, but J.T. went into the merge in Tocantins badly outnumbered. Then they lost one of their dwindling alliance immediately. But he still held on to win the game. He, at least, can recover from a loss.

“As far as I'm concerned, they can keep pulling themselves down into that hole.”

James's New Role

James tells us challenges are his forte. “I'm pretty much a challenge god.” He's never had to worry about his role in a challenge. This is new to him.

Now he won't be the guy in front, bashing the other team. He'll be a finesse guy. “I can do finesse. Somewhat. Kinda.”

James isn't done yet. He just has to get himself in position ahead of time. He has one bad knee. Everything else is good.

It kills him to sit in the shelter. He got caught up in the girl-talk today. He hasn't been around girl talk for a long time. He got tired of it today, though. He couldn't leave because his knee wasn't wrapped. He was stuck there. Yesterday it was all about country music. “So being stuck in the shelter kind of sucks.”

He needs to keep his leg elevated. He can't try to tough it out this time. He'll keep it elevated and move it from time to time to make sure it doesn't stiffen up. So he's stuck in the shelter for now.