An “Insider” Look at Survivor: One World, Episode 7, Part 2 – Tarzan and Other Ball Breakers

Welcome to a recap of the special “Insider” videos for this season of Survivor. Each season, CBS posts a variety of behind-the-scenes videos, special interviews, and extended footage at their website, and I’m here to tell you all of the juicy details that you may have missed by watching only the broadcast episode. My partner in this effort, Andy, is in charge of recapping half of the videos while I do the other half.

Roll ‘em!

“We Probably Would’ve Won”

Jonas talks about the reward challenge. He describes Leif going first and not digging the hole deep enough. Leif dove into the hole face first and then his butt got stuck under the bar and it took forever for him to get unstuck. The game was pretty much lost at that point.

Oh, they made a good comeback at the end, but they still fell short. And the reason that they fell short was Tarzan. Jonas and Tarzan were assigned to assemble the puzzle, and it seemed like Tarzan was working against them. Every time Jonas would put a piece into the puzzle, Tarzan would remove it and declare, “That’s not right.” Jonas says that Tarzan never actually helped out in a positive way by putting a correct piece in place; he just removed pieces.

And then Tarzan would wander off and bug Jeff during the challenge. Jeff would say, “Jonas gets another piece,” and Tarzan would go up to him and say, “Hey, I got a couple of pieces, too, you know.”

Jonas concludes by saying that it is very frustrating working with Tarzan. He only criticizes things that other people do and never contributes anything positive. He just complains all the time, and they probably would have won if he had actually helped Jonas with the puzzle.

“No Pizza For Me ”

Mike was disappointed in the random draw for teams in the reward challenge. He was stuck with Tarzan, Leif, and Jonas. He says that they were the worst possible male players he could have on a team. He notes that Leif was stuck for a long time digging under the bar. The main part of the team caught up in the middle of the challenge, but in the end, Tarzan was in charge of solving the puzzle and that completely doomed the team.

Specifically, Jonas was placing the correct puzzle pieces on the board and Tarzan would then remove those correct pieces. It was frustrating to watch and Mike was just wishing that Tarzan would back off and get the heck out of the way. But no such luck.

Tarzan is obviously a screw-up who gets on everyone’s nerves. But Mike says that this is exactly the kind of person everyone wants to sit across from them in the finals, so no one really wants to vote him out. The problem is enduring him for another 21 days. Mike actually is probably the only player who would rather get rid of him now and save himself the grief.

“It Was Disappointing”

Leif also tells us about the reward challenge. He says that it was one of the most frustrating challenges yet. His team was just so darn close to winning but came up short at the end. He could taste the beer and pizza, they were just that close.

Of course, his failure to dig a hole under the bar was what really cost them. He can’t really explain why he wasn’t able to dig fast enough. He thought that he’d be able to just squirt right through. But as he was digging, he looked over and saw that Jay had already gotten through, and he thought that he’d better go through now. Unfortunately, the hole wasn’t yet big enough and the sand collapsed around him in the hole. So he had a tough time wriggling out.

Leif details the team’s thoughts on making him go first. They figured that, as a little guy, he could get through it pretty fast. But it didn’t work out that way. Although he dug well, as a little guy, he ran out of gas a little too quickly. Plus, the hole he dug for himself was too small for the next player to fit through and that person would have to do a lot of digging, too.

And the thing that really sealed Leif’s fate is that he’s got a bit of claustrophobia and doesn’t do well in confined spaces. So, when the sand collapsed on him, he began to panic. But he was able to focus and calm down and slowly dig himself out of the hole that he was in. (Note for the record: This is one of the few times that someone will use the phrase “digging out of a hole” and mean it literally.)

He is thankful that his team was able to make up for lost time, and he knew that it would all come down to the final puzzle. Leif was worried, however, because it was Jonas and Tarzan teaming up, and he knew that those two have a history of butting heads. He could see the tension between them and knew that it would take a huge effort by Jonas to overcome the handicap of working with Tarzan. Leif sadly notes that Tarzan is very, very stubborn and it takes a huge amount of effort to convince him that he is wrong about anything.