Surviving the Early Show: Michelle’s Interview

After a surprise twist, Michelle was voted out of Survivor: Fiji on Thursday. So on Friday, she not-so-surprisingly appears on The Early Show.

Host Harry Smith introduces the segment by noting that after the merge, Michelle was assured that she would be safe. But she lost because she was an unknown quantity. I’m not sure where he gets this “unknown quantity” nonsense – that’s not why she lost. But that’s a topic for another article later this week.

Ah, okay, we see the Tribal Council clip of Alex saying he has no reason to vote for anybody, except when it comes to Michelle he says he doesn’t know her as well. If that’s what made Harry think Michelle lost because she’s an “unknown quantity,” it just goes to show that Harry doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But we’ve known that for a while, haven’t we?

After we once again see Michelle’s torch being snuffed, she is in the studio with Harry, laughing. But she says she was crying last night when she watched. Harry brings us back to the beginning of Thursday night’s episode, talking about how they got to Exile Island and merged – except he can’t remember the name, “Exile Island,” instead babbling like Porky Pig until he just says, “the island.”

Michelle says at that point, she was pretty comfortable. She had an alliance with Earl and Yau-Man and they had pulled in Cassandra. Then at the challenge, Harry notes, the merged tribe is once again split. They lost, there was no deliberation, and off to Tribal Council they went.

Michelle says that from the challenge to Tribal Council, there was no talking or touching allowed. The first words they spoke to each other were at Tribal Council.

Harry once again brings up Alex’s remarks about not knowing her as well, but doesn’t give Michelle a chance to point out that he doesn’t have the foggiest idea what he’s talking about.

He immediately asks her if she knew she was done, and she says as soon as Alex made it clear who he would be voting for, yes, she did. She knew Dreamz was kind of floating and Alex put it out there.

Skipping back to the point after the merge, when the tribe returned to Moto and found nothing there, Harry says she seemed really ready to rough it. Michelle agrees, saying luxury was great, but it was time to play the game. Plus, those who had been on Moto the whole time would get a chance to rough it as well.

Did the twist make her mad? She says it was a little heartbreaking to be the victim of a twist like that, but you have to expect it. It’s Season 14 and it takes strength, intelligence – and a lot of luck.

Harry says Michelle has become very popular because of something that happened on the show and which was uploaded to YouTube and has received around 80,000 hits. They replay the scene of her acting as caller for the challenge where she was on a platform and her tribemates were blindfolded. That’s when she became so overexcited that she stepped right off the platform and fell. I know it’s terrible, but every time I see that, I laugh.

But I guess it’s okay, because Harry and Michelle laugh too. He says she must have been okay because she climbed right back up. Michelle says she was so focused on Yau-Man that she didn’t even realize she was on the edge of the platform. At the time she didn’t realize how hurt she was, but it was a six-foot platform and she certainly hadn’t braced herself for the fall. She still has scars from that.

No secret scene this week – I guess the not-so-secret scene we just saw took its place. And, as usual, not a whole lot of insight coming out of The Early Show, other than Harry’s completely wrong-headed idea of why Michelle lost. Watch later this week for my correct analysis of that question. And if you want to see a more in-depth interview, you can click here for my interview with Michelle.

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

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

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