An “Insider” Look at Survivor: One World, Episode 8, Part 1 – “We’ve Got a Plan”

If you win a challenge, Michael tells us, it’s smart to stock up on calories. After the ice cream reward, he was strong the whole next day; hopefully, this reward will keep him going for a day or two.

At first, Michael didn’t think winning rewards would be a huge advantage, but as the game progresses, you feel energy just having food in your stomach. Getting away from rice and eating something normal is “huge” in game terms. If they have an immunity challenge tomorrow, winning this reward today could help him win.

I’m Suffering (Tarzan)

Tarzan tells us that he hasn’t won any of the reward challenges, so he hasn’t had any extra food. It’s not all bad: He’s losing the weight he wanted to lose. He hasn’t had any protein at all, just carbohydrates and a little bit of fat over the last 21 days. That, for a self-described “fat 64-year-old,” is really hard from a metabolic standpoint. He’s suffering more than anybody because he’s fat and old.

Hungry and a bit jealous, Tarzan explains he hasn’t gotten to eat anything other than rice – no ice cream, no peanut butter, no jelly, no pizza, nothing! He’s sick of coconut, so he can hardly eat it anymore. He imagines if he lasts a lot longer in the game, he might even exceed the amount of weight he wanted to lose.

I Do Care About My Tribe (Tarzan)

Attempting to rehabilitate his image, Tarzan insists that he cares about the people in his tribe. He feels that his fellow castaways are some of the most decent people he’s run into – he likes them all, and wishes them well.

There’s only one person Tarzan feels didn’t like him – Jonas – but he’s gone now. Tarzan doesn’t disrespect the person who “maligned” him, however; he thinks Jonas is brilliant and may still achieve his dreams. That said, Tarzan doesn’t want to play with someone who is hateful to him all the time, so he’s glad Jonas is gone.

Until he retired, Tarzan explains, he worked 90 hours a week. The only people he met were surgeons and nurses – there was no time to meet anybody else. He would wake up at 5 a.m., get home at 9 or 10 at night, and he might get called at 3 a.m. for an emergency – and he kept this schedule for 30 years. As a result, he never had the choice to be out with people.

Doctors do have social settings where they have to mix. Tarzan hasn’t been shy about admitting that he’s awkward outside of the medical setting, however, and he doesn’t even really like the rich people he would be around. He prefers a man who has worked his way up and isn’t impressed with money.

Maybe if he stays retired, Tarzan muses, he’ll meet people like his fellow castaways more often. He believes they’re a stellar group of people who have been picked for their qualities – he’s really impressed with them.

Don’t Want a Jerk to Win (Sabrina)

Sabrina isn’t sure if she’s making a dumb move teaming up with Kim. They both agree that three women should be sitting together at the final Tribal Council. While they don’t want to dwell on the end game yet, it’s going to come up sooner than they know.

Sabrina has never wanted to sit beside Kim at the finals, because Kim is “America’s sweetheart on this island.” Sabrina looked around at who her jury votes would be, however, and now she thinks she has more votes than she originally believed. If she did sit next to Kim at the end, Sabrina feels that it would be close.

Sabrina is certain that she and Kim share one belief about the endgame: They don’t want a jerk to win a million dollars. Instead, they’d rather have nice, cool people who played the game and were competitive together at the end.

Sabrina knows that it would be a big risk if she orchestrated to get Kim out. People would hate her then – Kim is just that likable. For the first time, though, she saw herself maybe sitting next to Kim at the end. She doesn’t know if that’s a dumb move, but it’s a possibility.

Another Tarzan Moment (Jay)

As high winds whip the trees behind him, Jay laments that it’s been raining non-stop since the previous night, when the tarp started leaking and blowing in from the sides. They’ve even had some of shelter go flying – it’s been miserable.

Jay was lying on ground when Tarzan and everyone “started yelping back and forth” after Tarzan jerked a piece of bamboo off the wall. Jay feels that the bamboo might not have been doing too much, but it was part of the wall “for sure.” Tarzan pissed everybody off by pulling the shelter apart, trying to make firewood when they have plenty on the ground to chop up. But Jay just chalks this up to “another Tarzan moment.”

Jay doesn’t think that Tarzan screwed up the shelter (as some other castaways did), but he does think Tarzan is wrong that the bamboo wasn’t part of the shelter. It might not have been a vital part of the wall, but it was still a part of it.

“Tarzan does his own thing around here,” Jay explains, and when Tarzan’s actions clash with what someone else thinks Tarzan should have done, then it always causes a “ruckus.”

A Little Strategic (Kim)

Kim wasn’t sure how excited everyone would react when the reward challenge winners returned with the cooler of the sponsor beverage. It created a really positive moment back at camp, though, when they might otherwise be wondering if they should tell the rest of the tribe how great the reward challenge was.

Empathizing with the castaways who didn’t win the reward challenge, Kim explains that she knows how she feels when people come back to camp coming off a reward. You’re a little envious, and so the winners downplay how good the challenge was when they come into camp. Thankfully, right now everyone’s having a great time, so that’s not going on so much.

Kim is happy to share the sponsor beverage with everybody – she got a lot of protein while they get a lot of sugar (implying that the former is far more important than the latter). Being able to share with her alliance members – most of whom were back at camp – is a good thing, though: She’d rather them win immunity than the people she went on the reward with. So it’s “a little strategic” to want her alliance to have energy.

Also, Kim hates being one of only two people from her alliance hanging out with a random group of castaways for hours. You end up feeling funny coming back into camp, wondering how everyone else is feeling and what conversations have gone one while she’s been gone. So she’s glad they’re happy.

Kim thinks they can make the cooler of soda last for three days. There are 30 sponsor drinks in there, so when somebody else goes home, Kim tells us with a smile, there will be “three for everyone!”

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Andy Baker is an avowed Superfan who enjoys nothing more than debating the psychology and sociology of Survivor. Adulation and condemnation both warmly welcomed at Andrew.Brooks.Baker@gmail.com.

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