Survivor Guatemala: Survivor Live Recap, Episode 6

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 hosted by Dalton Ross of Entertainment Weekly and Survivor: Amazon winner Jenna Morasca. My own occasional comments are enclosed in square brackets like this [Two for the price of one this week, it should be a busy hour].

This week’s castoff guests are nurse Margaret Bobonich and student Brian Corridan, who is a big Survivor fan.

Proceedings begin [on time this week] with Dalton welcoming Jenna back, who looks cute this week in orange. Dalton also welcomes Margaret and Brian to the show. As usual, he kicks things off with a gag question… this week, he asks Margaret if he (Dalton) has A.D.D.?

Dalton shifts conversation to Tribal Council. Margaret agrees that Tribal Council was insane, even watching it again last night on TV. On the original Nakúm tribe, Judd would be pacing constantly, always shaking, always moving. Brian corrects a misconception: Judd is from New Jersey, not NYC [I think he works in New York, though].

Jenna notes that Judd is playing like no other has, telling everyone his strategy and getting in-your-face with everyone. Dalton wondered if there was any chance the vote would shift to Judd as he continued to act wild, but Margaret was pretty confident she was going home. She says the Stephenie-Judd bond was very strong and escalating, and also that Judd’s mood swings were increasing.

Dalton mentions how scared and uncomfortable Rafe looked at Tribal Council, and uses that to segue to the Tribal Council clip. Unfortunately, it’s the “big ball” challenge clip we see instead. Oops!

Dalton asks about Bobby Jon and Jamie’s tiff. Brian calls it, “Just a bunch of male testosterone.” [I agree, I think this was overplayed and isn’t significant.]

Dalton wants to know where Rafe was in the challenge. Brian informs us that despite what Jeff said, the pairs weren’t randomly assigned, the teams got to choose their participants each time. It’s noted that big Judd won whenever he played. [I agree, it needs to be random and everyone should be taking part.]

Margaret felt that Danni’s height was a big advantage for her. Margaret also tells us that it’s Stephenie that decides who played in challenges.

Our first caller this week is Ernie from Ohio. He compliments both players and asks Margaret if she attempted to make friends with Judd, or was it a lost cause? She says that anything she did aggravated Judd, even if she wasn’t around at the time. She relates how one time, he shouted at her from the top of the pyramid and she was way down by the fire at the time!

She gave her beer at the picnic to Judd. Didn’t help. He traded food for beer, even though he hadn’t eaten for days. Margaret adds, by Tribal Council, they had all sobered up.

Jenna says, “Judd is obviously playing for himself only, and I don’t think anybody trusts him” Brian counters with the opinion that that’s not a bad thing, adding, “There’s a social aspect to the game as well, which he’s miserable at. That’s what he needs to watch out for.”

Jamie from Massachusetts asks about having Rafe give immunity to Gary. [This was in the Survivor: Insider clips. Brian had indicated to Rafe (somehow) that he should give immunity to Gary. [Why this wasn’t in the show I have no idea. It will be interesting to see Rafe’s face when the teams next meet!]

Brian admits he wasn’t “running the show,” but he always had a plan. He wanted to avoid a tie vote, and hoped to split the old Nakúm votes between himself and Amy, so his own block of three [Gary, Amy, himself] would be a majority.

The first step of this plan was to convince old Nakúm to all vote against Amy, because of her bad ankle. Step two was to try and further convince Brandon, who hates voting against anyone, that Amy had enough votes and it was OK for Brandon to vote for Brian. Votes for Gary could cloud the issue, so that’s why his name was in the envelope. [This would have lead to a result of one vote for Brian, two for Amy and three for Bobby Jon. Smart thinking! Too bad it didn’t work.] He says Amy didn’t pick up on it and it might have been “overthinking the situation.”

Brian is a big student of the game of Survivor and thinks it was smart that the tribe played him. Jenna asks why it was he that got voted out, instead of weaker Amy. Jenna saw that all the comments about Brian were so positive. Brian admits that Amy was closer to Gary than he was, and that after her strong performance after hurting her ankle (he calls it “broken,”) no one could call her weak.

Jenna notes there are still so many strong people left this season, one needs to begin to pare them down about now. Dalton wonders if Brian may have erred by “flaunting” his Survivor knowledge, but Brian says he underplayed it as much as he could.

Brian also apologizes to Blake, whom he thinks is very intelligent.

All hope there’s a puzzle next week about Survivor history. [Watching Judd open puzzles is even more entertaining!]

Maurice from Canada is aware his question was stolen, but asks if Judd was drunk at Tribal Council. Margaret reiterates that Judd was not drunk at Tribal Council. She adds that he often treated her like that around camp, especially when they were alone. She calls him “aggressive,” “volatile,” and “physically threatening.”

Dalton reminds us that many booted players have not had positive things to say about Judd (including Jim and Jake). Brian doesn’t admit to knowing Judd well, but as a viewer, he calls Judd’s actions “vicious” and “unnecessary.”

Margaret tells us that on his original tribe, Judd was more standoffish and also less aggressive. Some of the guys like Bobby Jon, Blake and Brandon would not have tolerated the bullying behavior, especially toward a woman. However, Stephenie was laughing with Judd and empowering him.

Stephenie is discussed next. While they were on the same tribe, Brian had no problems with her. Both were playing to win. Margaret had no confrontations, but felt she had to do what Stephenie said. Dalton notes, you need to be more political and not throw away votes by alienating people so readily.