Survivor Guatemala: Survivor Live Recap, Episode 5

It’s time for another episode of Survivor Live, CBS’s Internet interview show with the most recently booted contestant(s) from Survivor: Guatemala. The show is usually hosted by Dalton Ross of Entertainment Weekly and Survivor: Amazon winner Jenna Morasca. This week, Jenna is away and there’s going to be a surprise guest host. My own occasional comments are enclosed in square brackets like this [Is the suspense of the guest-host spoiled by the website graphic that shows us it’s Survivor: Palau winner Tom Westman?]

This week’s castoff guest is “Goldenboy,” a.k.a. Blake Towsley, the model and real estate broker from Dallas with the great life.

Proceedings begin, about five minutes late, with Dalton welcoming Tom and Blake to the show. Right off, Dalton asks Blake if he saw his eviction coming. Nope! He thinks he should have seen it coming because in the filming of his private interviews, they were repeatedly asking him the boot sequence. As he kept repeating the sequence “Amy, Brian, Gary,” he thought they were dim for repeating the same question so often!

Blake thought Bobby Jon, Brandon and Danni were all covering his back, and they had the numbers to take it into the merge. However, he didn’t realize how much Danni was working behind the scenes. “I let that one get past me,” he concludes.

Tom is surprised that Bobby Jon picked this moment to finally break his word in Survivor. Blake thinks Bobby Jon flipped at the last minute. [I don’t - I think he thought it through carefully.] Blake also thinks Danni was worried that Stephenie was going to see it as a threat if the merge involved a lot of strong men, and he thinks he appreciates that point. [No, Danni saw you as privileged!] Blake felt Stephenie and Gary (but not Brian) were pulling the long-term strings.

Blake wanted to tell Brian he was going home. Bad plan… and Bobby Jon talked him out of it. Tom says, “As you saw, the surprise is a lot more fun, isn’t it?”

Tom asks, why target Brian and not Amy, with her being older and injured? Blake says Amy was the most fun to have around camp, and you don’t see it on TV.

Dalton says it drives him crazy when people keep someone around because of friendship and still doesn’t see why it went down this way. Now, when the tribes merge, the original Nakúm have lost their majority. Mistake? [Whoops! Dalton is so-oo correct!] Blake doesn’t comment.

Blake says that Margaret was going to be the fifth vote they were counting on when the tribes merged. Their biggest fear was Stephenie, because she had Rafe, Judd, and Jamie “dancing like puppets… eating out of her hands.”

The reward challenge clip is run, with Steph’s reactions prevalent. She is full of advice early on, then she gets quiet, and at the end, her frustration is evident.

Blake admits that the cart ride was great fun. It was bittersweet going past the other tribe; you want to celebrate but they will be voting for you soon enough. [That’s why Jamie’s upcoming over-celebration at the Immunity Challenge was so foolish.]

Our first caller this week is Julie from California. She wonders how Blake feels now after seeing the episode, seeing that he was voted out for talking too much instead of being a strong competitor. Blake says that when he got sick early, it derailed his plans to be a main provider and challenge winner for his tribe. He blames the editing a bit, telling us Amy was always talking about sex and Judd was getting more grouchy and more depressed, and we didn’t see any of that.

Tom deduces, “So… you’re still in denial. Those people did vote. You can blame it on the edit, but…” and “These were their final ‘shots’ at you as they voted.” [See our recap of the voting in Survivor: Insider for details, but Blake doesn’t know why he was voted out.] They told him that when he’s not in his element, he’s no fun.

Dalton suggests not flaunting that you are well off and happy with life. After all, Gary is hiding his situation for a reason. Blake doesn’t really respond.

Blake liked to hear about Brandon. One of his brothers is a rocket scientist! These were people you’d never meet in your life, and he thinks he may have worked too hard at soaking it in.

Blake was most misled by Danni, who pretended similarly to just be into the experience, but in fact was really playing the game hard. [At least Danni played to win.] To him, the challenges made it fun; the other days were more boring.

When asked about his interplay with the others, Blake responds that he talked with Bobby Jon about modeling, and Gary about real estate and landscaping. These were his connections with the others. He tried to find something for everyone.

Dalton is nervous, because the next caller is Jenna from Pittsburgh. She says Tom is doing a good job today. Yes, it’s her, and on a bad phone no less. We find out that she did a very creditable 120 miles in her charity bike-a-thon [good job!].

Jenna liked this week’s episode and wonders if Blake had ever talked to the minority trio to keep those lines of communication open in case the game turned badly. He says he did to some extent. He talked to Gary about hunting, Brian was always around to talk, and Amy was hysterically funny. He thought he had a friendship with them, but not really enough to be trusted in a strategy move. Primarily he didn’t want to jeopardize his situation with original Yaxhá.

Blake says that he thought Bobby Jon was talking with Gary a little. Jenna corrects him, saying, “Bobby Jon was obviously talking to the other team.” [The dude is clueless!] After reconfirming that he liked Brandon the most, Blake admits he may have played it too safe and should have talked to Gary more. Jenna’s done and Dalton hangs up on her with glee. Moving along…

Blake didn’t even realize that he’d shaken Bobby Jon’s hand right after they were having a whiz together, until his mom and girlfriend berated him for it as they watched the show together!

Dalton has them run the next clip - but it’s incorrectly identified on purpose as “a Stephenie clip.” It’s really the old clip of Tom, drunk in Palau! Ha! Tom laughs, too.