An "Insider" Look at Survivor: Guatemala, Episode 5: Golden?

Blake’s Final Words: True to his reputation, Blake rambles a lot and is very hard to follow, so bear with me. He didn’t humble himself enough. He had prepared himself physically and mentally, but he didn’t expect to hurt himself. He recovered, and that combined with the Golden Boy thing made people aware of him. That and your incessant talking on and on and on about nothing, as we’ll see later.

He wasn’t the weak link, he thinks he was kicked off because of his competitive nature. They had the alliance of four, the others said it was those four to the end, but he thinks Danni flipped on him. No hard feelings, it is a game. She knows Steph tried to play everyone. Danni was supposed to vote out Brian, and Blake knew he would get the three votes. Danni’s the sweet girl, the cheerleader, why would she play him? He doesn’t understand taking that risk. Brian is the weakest of the group. It made sense to him to vote down Brian and Amy and try to bring Gary into a five person alliance.

He loved the experience, wish he’d played it better. He should have seen it coming. He doesn’t think Brandon or Bobby Jon would go back on their words, but he may be wrong. Amy or Brian could have turned her. Why would you turn 4-3 odds to 3-3? He wishes them all the best, and will miss the competition. He’s a type A personality and sitting on his ass in the sun doing nothing was killing him.

Blake, the Day After: I have a feeling this is going to be painful.

He’s a little dejected, considering the competitive, type A people are being voted out of the game (like who? Morgan?). He didn’t see it coming. When they had the split, the four people that came over were all in his alliance except for Margaret (I assume he means that Danni came instead of Margaret, because you’ll see later what Danni has to say about this). The plan was to vote out Amy, Brian, and Gary.

He wanted to “be a man” and tell Brian he was going home following the immunity challenge loss. I thought he was a Survivor fan. If he is as big a fan as he says, he’s a moron. But Bobby Jon told him to hang back. Later, he was told by his alliance that it was going to be Brian, so he felt confident in the 4-3 decision. Sure enough, he got Gary, Amy, and Brian’s vote. It was 3-2, which he expected, and then Jeff pulled out “the last vote” and it was him. He couldn’t believe it. He also can’t add. He knew immediately that Danni flipped on him.

If all his stories at camp were this rambling, I’m not surprised they got rid of him. He tells a story about how you’ve seen enough Survivor to know how tribal council goes, but the whole thing has no point whatsoever and made my head hurt, so I’ll spare you. It’s funny, when he gets rambling, it’s almost like he shifts into another gear, and his eyes light up and he smiles really wide. He loves talking, it’s obvious. He needs to be a radio host.

He says people go on Survivor for three reasons: a million dollars, the TV exposure, and the experience. He would have liked the million, but the big part was the experience. It’s such a weird microcosm of people, it’s amazing. One night everyone was asleep and he was hyperventilating, and he started talking to Brandon. He thinks his life has been amazing (cut out a minute of crap), and Brandon hasn’t done anything. If Brandon doesn’t win, he’ll still go home with a big prize.

No more coming home late at night and throwing in a bag of Ramen noodles for Blake. Nope, now he’s going to cook, spend more time with his family, and so on (and on, and on, and…) He’s focused a lot on food, saying he knows exactly what the three spots he’ll go to when he gets home will be. Hmm, I wonder what they’ll be. Mine would be Humperdink’s, Razoos, and the seafood place outside the mall at Preston and Belt Line which I can never remember the name of. Oh, sorry, got distracted. It’s hard to pay attention to his rambling, I swear.

He was totally healthy around day 12. They didn’t have a competition, which was bad. He was dying to compete, and it was just boredom. The best part of the day was at 7 at night, when the sun was coming down and you’ve finished eating, and you can just lay back. It was the noon to four spread when you’re just waiting for something to happen that was just killer.

He didn’t get eaten up that bad by mosquitoes. He’s got his mom’s skin. Bobby Jon’s back was just a road map. Kill me. Please, someone shoot me, preferably in the ears. He’s lot a lot of cuts and scrapes. Everyone’s feet are swollen. He came here knowing he needed to take care of two areas – his feet and his groin. OK, that’s it. I’m done.

On the Ropes: Reward challenge. Couldn’t anyone on Nakum have told Jamie what Brandon was doing? Jamie had his back to him, but still. “Chop at it, Jamie!” Would that be so hard? If they did that and he didn’t listen, well, he’s an idiot.

Fish Bait: Margaret and Lydia try to fish. It’s about as interesting as… watching someone fish. Seriously, it’s been about three minutes and unless the Jaws music starts up, I’m falling asleep. I know I complained about all the clips being from the show, but this is ridiculous. Oh, Margaret loses their next-to-last minnow. Lydia puts the last minnow between her teeth, where it thrashes around. That was different. I would have laughed if she swallowed it. She baits the hook, and a fish “walks right up” and takes their last piece of bait. Oops.

State of the Union: Four minutes of Bobby Jon, as he discusses Yaxha after the immunity challenge. I live for Bobby Jon clips – he needs his own talk show. It’s no one’s fault they lost. When Lydia catapulted, it was going more in her tribe’s direction than Brian’s went toward them. But if they win, they win, they lost, they lost. So it’s no one’s fault, but if it were, it would be Brian’s, basically.

The rain was a nightmare. They all got soaked and had to sleep standing up. Blake somehow stayed dry under the shelter. Things like that matter, when people are trying to get dry, you have to share the wealth. He’s called Golden Boy because whenever he tells a story, he always comes out squeaky clean, like in the shelter.

It takes a while, but people’s true personalities come out. Come day 11, the person you allied with and liked on day 4 isn’t the same person as they were before. That’s when character starts showing. Maybe they don’t work as hard, or aren’t as nice. That’s why Blake is lacking. It comes into play because they’ve got a long way to go.

Blake started out really sick, as did Bobby Jon, but Blake had it worse, he had breathing issues. They both overcame it, Blake toughed it out. It’s going to get a lot harder. He doesn’t see Blake’s character being a strong as Gary’s in the long run. Well, that explains why he voted for Blake.