Survivor: Cook Islands – Survivor Live, Episode 4

It’s time for the fourth episode of the season of Survivor Live, CBS’s internet interview show that features the most recently eliminated contestant from the previous night’s Survivor: Cook Islands episode. Hosted by Dalton Ross of Entertainment Weekly and Survivor: Amazon winner Jenna Morasca, this week’s guest is the blindsided one, J.P. Calderon.

Dalton begins the show by alluding to the Culture Club’s hit, “Karma Chameleon.” He’s referring to the fact that ever since the original Aitu decided to throw a challenge, one of their number has been the bootee. Yup, that’s karma all right, and we don’t mean “Carma Electra!” Watching from home at this point, Billy must be giggling like a schoolgirl!

This leads me to this week’s trivia question. It’s been frequently mentioned that this season, three Hispanics have been booted in the first four weeks. Since I don’t have much of a backlog of Hispanic-Survivor trivia, let’s go another way. A second group achieved that same pedestal for the first-ever time this week, that of three boots in the first four weeks. Who is that group? As usual, the answer will be near the bottom of this article.

OK, back to the show. Both hosts deviously say they like to see someone get blindsided on Survivor. Dalton notes that J.P. seemed to almost respect that they got him this way, and asks if this is so. Not really. Jenna thinks it was “a terrible move,” because unlike too many others, he was there to play the game and not just “for the experience.”

J.P. admits he was “super-shocked” and felt he ought to have been in the game a lot longer. He says, “I guess I’m a little cocky or arrogant, but I thought they needed me.” Jenna says she was sure he’d last longer, “and that’s why I picked on him a couple of weeks ago.” Dalton reminds us she was “drinking Hatorade” about J.P. over the Billy boot. Jenna jokingly implies she hoped J.P. would have lasted so long in the game that he’d have forgotten about her early abuse.

J.P. continues, “I think a couple of the girls felt threatened over the whole alpha-male thing…” Jenna interjects, “What about Brad? And Adam?” J.P. shrugs and replies, “I don’t know, I don’t know. I’m a little let down, a little bummed out.” He was sure the men’s alliance had the numbers because he believed Cristina and Parvati were on their side.

Jenna notes Parvati was the last one let in on the plan and suspects from her own experiences that there is some resentment of her obvious flirting from the other women. Dalton asks if he was ever concerned that voting might split along gender lines and J.P. admits it did not occur to him. He had been keeping Cristina in the loop on all discussions and was sure he had her vote. He sheepishly adds, “She hated me, by the way.”

Jenna asks if there was more to his boot than his team rebelling against his authority. He feels that’s all it was. I’m pretty sure his cocky manner was in the mix too. But the fact that of the four guys, he had by far the least support of former tribemates now on Raro, that’s the bomb that did him in.

J.P. observes, “Our team was the football players and the cheerleaders. The other team was the geeks and the librarians. With the football players and the cheerleaders it’s ego, no one wants to be told what to do.”

J.P. notes that the only challenge they won was a physical one. Commenting on the tribes he says, “The other team, some people back down, some people take charge, they listen, they work... with us, everyone just wanted to be a hero, I guess.” J.P. adds that he was trying not to be a leader and says, “If I want to be a leader, I’ll really show I’m bossing people around.”

I’m afraid J.P. wouldn’t do too well on The Apprentice, either… there’s so much more to being an effective leader. In fact, one of the main points may be, do not be perceived as being bossy. But I’ll save the rest of those thoughts for when my Apprentice articles start up!

Following on this theme, Jenna sets up a perfect segue for Dalton to show a series of clips of J.P. being bossy. Dalton tries to gives him some leeway by admitting that there’s always some time you will be sitting down, and it’s up to the editing what we viewers get to see about any given player.

J.P. says the scene of him reclining and giving orders to Parvati was right after the challenge where he did the swimming portion, and “I was wiped out.” He adds that their meal that night was all fish that he had caught. He says he and Brad spent two hours fishing while everyone else rested, and offers to go down the list and call everyone out on what work they did. Myself, I fully expect the others were working to some degree while he fished, but maybe I’m wrong?

Jenna wonders what Adam contributes, since we see him so little. J.P. says, “Adam contributes, we called him “the crab guy”… ” All three break up, recalling an earlier episode when J.P. said to Cristina and Cecilia, “You guys got crabs?” He further notes that it was subtitled, so no one could miss the reference.

J.P. still thinks of Adam as “a good guy.” He says, “Nobody liked Cristina at all,” (we don’t hear why), but he stuck his neck out for her, “because she applied herself and worked. If somebody annoys me I don’t care, but if they’re valuable, you gotta keep them.” Dalton says, “That’s why I keep Morasca around.” J.P. continues, “Rebecca and Jenny, I just don’t understand...” The thought is never completed, but I think we can assume J.P. doesn’t feel those two did enough work around camp.

The first caller today is Mike from Montréal. He asks why Brad and Adam voted against him. J.P. reiterates, “I don’t know.” He surmises they may have known how the vote was going to go and didn’t want to be outnumbered. He wishes he had got some warning, saying, “I would have called everyone out, in public, right there.”

The hosts tell him, “That that’s why they didn’t tell you!”