An “Insider” Look at Survivor: China, Episode 10 – “You Can Never Take a Day Off in This Game”

James’ Final Words

James starts out by saying he had a great time here. He laughs and says he’s ready to go home because “I’m tired!” James is tired of being dirty. The experience was wonderful. He doesn’t know if he’d do it again. Dealing with all of the personalities and “all of this smiling” was tough. He thinks he did well for an “anti-social” guy. James says that the others were playing the game. They got rid of him and his idols. If he had gotten any farther, he and his idols would have been hard to get rid of for them. James totally understands the others’ move and isn’t at all angry about it. James knows he was a physical threat.

James says that, at first, he was just somebody they had to deal with as a physical threat. But then “I messed up” at the reward challenge and showed them that he’s actually pretty smart too. He also started hounding the others more around camp. They had to get rid of him now because he would have been so hard to get rid of later. It was good for them.

James learned that he can deal with people better than he thought. He grew. Before this, James never went outside much. He’s been put in so many different situations here – he’s tired! He didn’t want to leave, but he didn’t want to stay any more, either. Doing all that talking and dealing with the “fruit loops” wasn’t him. He had to deal with them. “It was killing me.” He wanted to stay as long as he could, but those people were taxing! He’s surprised they kept him around this long.

James has the two idols and he should have played them instead of rolling the dice one more time. He should have played them. “I knew better.” But for some reason he decided to try it again and see what happens. He did and he came up wrong.

James doesn’t seem in the slightest bit bitter about being voted out. He says that it was in the others’ best interest to get rid of him. He’s right, but if he knew that, he should have played one of the idols – as James, himself, acknowledges.

James, The Day After

James starts out by saying, “you can never take a day off in this game.” That’s what his problem was. He was distracted for the two days before the vote. He actually thought about using the immunity idol that night, but his head just wasn’t in the game. He didn’t “pull the trigger” when he should have. He was going to start using them at the next Tribal Council. He was just mentally drained that day and he didn’t use an idol when he should have.

James says “I’m not really a personality kind of guy.” So, the social aspects of the game were really hard. He got used to being around all those people… but not really. James does think the game will decrease his social anxiety. He thinks he’ll walk up to people more easily and be more social. James is sure he’s changed a lot and people will notice it when he gets back home.

James says that he doesn’t think he’ll do many of the things he did here again. He did so much fishing and camping and just generally taking care of life here. James then says, “I work at night, at clubs, and then I bury people during the day. So, I’m pretty much busy…” Wow. Now, that’s a quote! After that, James concludes that he doubts he’ll ever do anything involving camping again.

The survival aspects of the game were really hard – even harder than James thought they would be. He freaked out a bit the first time he caught a fish. He knew how to do that, but it was a big ordeal the first time figuring out what you do after you catch a fish – cooking and killing them. The outdoors was “kind of traumatic” at first, but he got the hang of it. Figuring out how to deal with the live fish once you caught it was odd.

“I just had a bad day,” James says about being voted out. He won’t be “what if-ing” about anything. “You hurt your head thinking about that stuff.” James thinks the other Fei Long may have messed themselves up by voting him out. He thinks it’s now a fair shot for anyone. James told them not to eat the apple, “and they ate it.” Now, it’s going to be a struggle to the end for them and James is going to enjoy watching it.

I think James is wrong that it was a bad move for the others to vote him out. He was a huge physical threat and held two immunity idols. And it’s reasonably likely if they had let him get to the final vote that James would have won. The former Fei Long still have numbers on their side, but it is getting to the point in the game where everyone is starting to think end game and jury. James was a threat to everyone else out there and he had to go.

Reward Challenge: Confucius Said

This clip is the same as we saw on TV. Most of the players do pretty well answering the questions, but Peih-Gee does the best. She decides to take Erik and Denise with her on the reward. Denise seems a solid choice as she’s a swing vote, but taking Erik along didn’t seem like much of a strategic choice for someone barely hanging on in the game.