“I really wanted the Brains to stick together,” Debbie says after watching her alliance member, Neal, be medically evacuated from the game. An infected wound on his knee concerned the show’s physician, making him the second causality to a medical evacuation this season.
“Neal and I were very close. As close as Aubry thought she was to Neal, I thought I was just as close to him. So it was devastating. First, it’s hard to watch anyone go out like that from an injury. And then to lose somebody that was still a core alliance member, it was really a bummer.”
In addition to intense heat, Debbie says the castaways were given no rice or beans. During the premiere episode, the contestants were shown collecting supplies from the boat, including live chickens. However, Debbie says she received no rice or beans to supplement her meals like in past seasons.
“If we didn’t win it [food], we didn’t get it unless we foraged for it,” she says. “We went into the ocean and got clams and snails, scallops, oysters.” On the former Beauty tribe beach, and the location of the merge, “there were coconuts and mangos… That was it.”
It’s a curious addition to an already tough season and that need to forage may have added to the cast’s injuries. Tai, who was shown to have nasty scars on his inner thighs this episode, tells Jeff he received the cuts while climbing trees for mangos. It’s a stretch; tree-climbing has always been common on Survivor. However, the injury tool is shocking and undeniable.
Before examining Neal, the doctor looks at Tai, Scott and Aubry’s injuries. Debbie says she too was injured.
“I didn’t show it there [to the cameras]. I stood up against a tree with my back turned and when Jeff asked me if there was anything wrong, I said ‘nope I’m good.’” She says she has scars to prove it on the back of her right shoulder; she just didn’t want to tell anyone.
After Neal’s evacuation, there was no tribal council. Next week, he will sit in on tribal council as a jury member and watch the remainder of the game play out. Eventually, he will have a vote in deciding who should win the million-dollar prize.
His departure not only affects Debbie’s game, making her an alliance member down, it also incriminates her ally Aubry. Neal had a hidden immunity idol. Granting him the power to nullify votes cast against him at tribal council. As his closest friend in the game, Aubry had hoped he would give her the idol before he left. He didn’t, and worst of all, the rest of the cast knew he had the idol.
“The scene that you didn’t see was him pulling Aubry off to the side and having a quiet conversation with her for about five minutes,” Debbie says. “It was really crappy the way he did it, because he put a massive, massive target on her.” Everyone assumed the idol changed hands, when it didn’t, it left Aubry vulnerable.
Overall, it was unlucky week for the former Brain tribe. Brawn is gunning for them, and the Beauty seems willing to join the athletes. They saw benefits to siding with the Brains as well, but Brawn has idols and shared important information with them. For example, they exposed Neal’s immunity idol. Had he not been medically evacuated, there was a real possibility that Neal’s name would have been written down at tribal council.
“My take on it was that they still could go either way,” Debbie said of the Beauty tribe. To her the vote was still up in the air. Strategy halted when “we saw the boat pull up. We knew that somebody was going home.”
“I was still pretty much convinced that Beauty was going to stick with us, just because the Brawns were so repulsive.” She says, “Many, many, many conversations take place back and forth, back and forth. The reoccurring theme was Jason and Scott are thick as thieves. They left you no doubt in your mind; you were not going to be able to get a wedge between those two.”
“My pitch was, look just break them up. [On Brains,] we’ve got Joe, who is no physical threat to anybody. Aubry wasn’t a real physical threat either. Neal, I pointed out, was already damaged and injured. Let’s break these two up while we have the chance, and the chances don’t come often. They’re two strong guys who are in a good position to win immunity.”
Had they gone to tribal council she was going to write Scott’s name down.
“He’s a millionaire already. He kept bragging about it.” While this may have been incentive to bring him to the end for others who think he cannot win because of it, it was incentive for Debbie. It’s the merge, everything is new “so, let’s make it easy,” she says. “Scott is unbeatable; he’s the strongest of the men; he’s already wealthy. Somebody has to go. Make it easy on yourself.”
Strategically, there was another important reason to target Scott.
“Scott was actually the brain! So taking out the guy who is actually holding Jason together, holding Brawn together, being the driving force,” was essential. It would also weaken Jason, “because now you’ll have a Jason that’s putty in your hands.”
Next week is the first tribal council after the merge. It’s time to draw lines in the sand and prove loyalty. After a rough week and loses to her alliance, will Debbie come out on top? “It’s another massive blindside,” she says. And “it’s a good one.”
Tune in to CBS Wednesday, April 6 at 8pm for next week’s episode of Survivor.
