Surviving the Early Show: Rebecca and Jenny’s Interviews

Welcome to Friday morning on The Early Show. This week, they have two Survivor guests, as both Rebecca and Jenny were voted off in Thursday night’s episode.

Our host for the segment summarizes that first Raro decided to “fire” Rebecca because of her poor performance. Then Raro had to vote off somebody else, and Jenny’s alliance decided they’d rather keep Candice around.

First, they talk about Rebecca getting kicked off. Did she feel like she had a shot? Rebecca says she didn’t really see it coming until that day. She knew she hadn’t done well on the previous immunity challenge where she pretty much collapsed, and that she really had to step up her game in the challenges. But in her final one, she didn’t collapse and she thought she was pretty much safe.

What was her reaction watching the show when she heard what Jenny said about getting rid of the person with the worst overall performance in challenges and around camp? (Mind you, Jenny is sitting right next to her in the studio!) They laugh and Rebecca says it hurt, getting more serious quickly – even though she knows she was weak at that point, it still hurts to hear somebody you’re close to say that. She takes responsibility for losing one of the challenges, but not all of them. It was definitely a collective action.

The host notes that Jenny cleared the hurdle of the first vote, but then the bottle came out. Had anybody guessed what was in the bottle? (Um, host guy, did you watch the show? Just wonderin’.) Jenny says they guessed everything – potential merge, maybe they’ll get a buffet, and even that they might have to vote out another person. They did go over every scenario.

Did Jenny feel like she was good for another day or two once Rebecca was gone? Definitely. She felt they could move on and play the game. But you never know. After the note came out, she wasn’t nervous or concerned at first. She tries to explain further but is interrupted by the host to ask who she thought was going to be voted off. She thought Jonathan and once again is about to explain when the host cuts her off and answers the question for her by saying it was because he’s new. Um, host guy, you might want to let the person you’re interviewing actually answer the questions. Jeez. But no, the host continues to say Jonathan’s kind of “out there” and catching fish, while Jenny tries to get a word in edgewise but fails.

When the host runs out of things to say, Jenny is finally allowed to talk again and says she really thought it was going to be Jonathan because she felt her alliance would favor her and— host guy interrupts her again! How annoying! I bet she’s wishing she could vote him out of the studio right now!

He says at the beginning of he game, they talked about how tribes were divided by race, etc. In the end, do they feel race was playing a factor? Rebecca says that at some level it does play a factor. Even early on, you could see where, for example, Yul and Becky were both Korean and they shared that bond. Then when Jonathan and Candice mutinied over, they wanted to be with their original tribe, so she says race played a role there as well. My thought on that, though, is that tribe played a role more than race. We’ve frequently seen original tribes being the basis for ongoing alliances, so it’s not surprising that this is the case here as well.

Jenny says she didn’t actually notice it until she was watching it last night! She thought, “Wow, all four white people voted me out.” Nate was the only one who had her back.

The host actually grasps the concept I was talking about above and says you have to think about whether they still would have done the same thing if the original tribe had been a mixed-race group. Jenny says she doesn’t know – it’s all socialization and game dynamics. I agree.

Time for the secret scene. At Raro, Jenny says it’s time to do something about their stinkiness. Parvati says none of them have washed their clothes in 22 days. Ew. So the women are forcing the guys to wash their clothes. She’s sure the guys wanted to parade around in their underwear anyway.

And that’s about it. OK, as far as secret scenes go, that one was pretty, well, stinky. The host says he hadn’t thought about that aspect of island life much. Jenny and Rebecca agree that it gets pretty rank out there. Jenny says you’re sleeping “bumper to bumper with people in a small shelter, and you can smell everything.” Ew again. Rebecca notes that you’re in the same clothes from day one.

Without much of a segue, the host notes that Rebecca is a makeup artist. She says she is, and she’s co-hosting on Monday with her girls on The View! So we should tune in for more Survivor dish.

And with that, we’re done! Well, The Early Show is done. I still had my own interviews to do with the two ladies, so click over to “Mark Burnett Is the One Who Outwitted Me”: An Interview with Survivor: Cook Islands’ Jenny and “I Hoped My Loyalty Would Persevere”: An Interview with Survivor: Cook Island’s Rebecca!

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out these other recent Survivor: Cook Islands articles here on RealityNewsOnline:

David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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