An “Insider” Look at Survivor: Tocantins, Episode 8, Part 1 – “That Thing is Cursed!”

Brendan’s Final Words

Brendan starts by saying, “Thank you, everybody, that was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in my entire life.” He goes onto say that experiencing this is so different than you think from watching on TV.

Brendan says the game was fun and great people were involved. Going into the game, he didn’t ever expect to have any certainty in the game. He knew, after the merge, he’d become a big target. “I didn’t think it would happen quite that quickly. It kind of feels good to be blindsided, because I wanted to blindside someone too. It’s all part of the game.”

Brendan wishes everyone the best of luck and, “I’m so psyched to be able to witness it on the jury.” Brendan says it would have been great to win the money, but he came for the game and to enjoy such a rare experience. “The rules you know of normal society are taken away.” Brendan thinks the experience will change him forever – hopefully, in a positive way.

Brendan thinks Sierra is in trouble now. He assumes the others thought they had the immunity idol, so that’s why they voted as they did. “It was very smart.” As soon as the game becomes individual – all bets are off. Brendan then pulls out the immunity idol and says, “The thing Sierra needs right now is in my pocket.” Brendan thought about hiding it and telling Sierra where it was, but he didn’t. Brendan isn’t sure it would make a difference, anyway, because if they want her out she’ll go. “It’s just a matter of time.”

Brendan definitely has a gamer’s attitude toward Survivor, which I appreciate. I think he’s wrong to say Sierra doesn’t have a chance, although her situation is dire. Things – and alliances – do change surprisingly in the game, so it is possible she can make such a shift or take advantage of one.

Brendan the Day After

Brendan looks remarkably different in this video – more so than most guys the day after – but I’m not exactly sure why. He begins by saying, “y Survivor experience was awesome!” The location was beautiful, and he thought the other players were “awesome” too. Brendan thinks it would have been fun to win.

Watching on TV, you can’t really understand how it feels to play the game. Losing the food and comfort and having people talk about you in the game is “creepy.” But he enjoyed it. It’s “kind of a backhand complement” that the others wanted to get rid of him so fast. Brendan immediately started thinking about what went wrong.

Brendan believes he made an alliance with Sierra way to early in the game, and it hurt him. Making the exile alliance with Taj was fine, but he should have brought Tyson or Coach or Debbie into the loop on that alliance. Then they could have made the decision together. Brendan worked with Taj early on because there was only a 50 percent chance to get the immunity clue each time.

This brings up another thing Brendan would do differently. Tyson came up and asked him if he had the idol, and Brendan said no. He should have said yes and passed it off to someone else. “That thing is cursed!” All the idol does is enlarge the target on you.

Brendan says that people would come up to talk to him individually. He tried to sometimes bring the person they were talking about in on the conversation, but he didn’t do that enough. He also didn’t use Tribal Council enough to flush out alliances and facts. He should have pushed both things more.

Brendan thinks it’s a mistake to make alliances too early in the game. You shouldn’t make one until you have to do so. Brendan thinks he had a quietly competitive relationship with Coach in the game. Coach wanted to lead the tribe, but the tribe asked Brendan to do it. Brendan wanted Coach to lead so he could lie low. Coach really wanted to lead the tribe.

Brendan thinks Coach’s stories are “fantasy land” rather than fantastic stories. “Something about it wasn’t right,” and Brendan wished he had called him out on it more. Coach claims to be about honor and integrity, but he said a lot of half-truths. “I don’t believe the guy. I don’t have a lot of respect for him.”

Brendan would like to hang out with a lot of the people from the game afterwards – people like Taj, Jerry, Tyson, and Debbie. Brendan doesn’t think you can take the relationships in the game as a foundation for friendship, but he’d like to get to know some of the players out of the game.

I find it refreshing when players who haven’t won the game acknowledge that they might have made different or better moves to get farther into the game. I always puzzle over why people say they would play the game exactly the same when they’ve just lost. It’s nice to hear Brendan analyze some of his mistakes.

Coach’s Trustworthiness

Coach interviews, “My grandfather once told me that a man is only as good as his word and there are a lot of shady men out there.” Coach feels like his word is his bond. Coach loves J.T. He reminds him of his friends from Knoxville. He’s a good old boy. Coach has a great connection with J.T. already.

In this setting, and all the crazy stories he tells people, “I’ve been through hell and back in my life.” Coach says he hasn’t told folks 90 percent of what he has gone through. He told them about the Amazon story. “That’s heavy duty.”

Right. Sure, Coach. Coach lies blithely in the game to players not in his alliance – like Brendan. Why is it that people like Coach love to claim their total honesty while lying to folks that “don’t count?” Its fine to lie to people in a game like this, but don’t get all sanctimonious-pygmy-fighting-shark-wrestling on me. I hate when that happens.