"Survivor: Worlds Apart" (CBS)
Quick Note: Just because the season is over, doesn’t mean the fun is over. Check out our interviews with “Survivor: Worlds Apart” champ Mike Holloway and finalists Carolyn Rivera and Will Sims. And, be sure to follow me on Twitter (@gordonholmes) for up-to-the-minute news and info.
Watch Every Episode of “Survivor: Worlds Apart”
Sierra Dawn Thomas: (Groggy) Good morning…
Gordon Holmes: Good morning.
Thomas: (Laughs)
Holmes: You certainly sound bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
Thomas: (Laughs) Rough night…rough night.
Holmes: I assume you were hanging out, reading poetry, talking about your feelings…
Thomas: A little bit.
Holmes: Rodney, let’s start with you. How much weight did you lose out there? It didn’t really occur to me until the finale how emaciated you were getting on those final days.
Rodney Lavoie: Oh dude, I looked like a crack head. I was at 147 pounds exiting. And my natural weight every day is like 185-190. But, when I came into the game I tried to do a little strategy. Instead of putting on weight, I tried to cut down a little bit, so I think I was around 180.
Holmes: It’s cool that I’ve got you two together because you were the ones that didn’t vote for Mike. What was the rationale behind your votes?
Lavoie: Ladies first, baby.
Thomas: Aww…the reason I didn’t vote for Mike was because I was with him from day one and what I saw wasn’t strategic. I watched this guy pretty much lose it. He was fine and then there was this day where he got paranoid and just lost it. He was running between people, there was no strategy when it came to his social game. Yeah, he was an amazing physical threat, but that’s all I saw him as. Mama C., she was keeping up with all the guys, winning immunities, being the oldest person, being the last woman in there, she was holding her own. And she did, in my eyes, have a better social game. She was our mom out there and that’s why I thought she deserved my vote.
Holmes: Rodney, how about your vote for Will?
Lavoie: My vote for Will was because I played the game with a lot of pride, a lot of loyalty. And the reason I made it as far as I did was the big move I made at the merge. When Sierra and them blindsided me with Joaquin, it lit a fire under my ass. I realized that I was on the bottom of this (In His Mike Voice) “Blue-coller strong.”
Holmes: (Laughs)
Lavoie: I had to make a move. I took Will and said, we’re going to let Mike run the ship, but we’ll let him run it for a little bit then we’ll take out Joe, Jenn, Hali, and Shirin. I call it, then what happens? They all go on the jury. And then when he flips we start our Axis of Evil. But, I also had my blues. And the way I got Sierra and Dan back over is the love letters. People don’t understand that those love letters at the auction they mean more than what you see when you’re sitting on your ass watching from home. Sierra loves her family just like how I do. She read those before every challenge. And I give Mike props because he was on top of my game. He knew that I was out there and making moves, but he blew it up at the wrong time. That’s bad strategy. Was he smart for knowing that information? Yes. Was he horrible for doing it right when we got our love letters? Absolutely.
Thomas: (Laughs)
Lavoie: I give Mike props because he’s a challenge beast. His back was against the wall and he said (expletive deleted) you guys, I’m winning this.
Holmes: For the record, feel free to throw in as many impressions as you want.
Lavoie: (Laughs) Alright, brother. I gotcha.
Holmes: Sierra, how did you and Dan come back together after he was berating you when Lindsey was eliminated?
Thomas: So, I was in a very vulnerable place coming back from that Tribal. I was blindsided, I thought I was going home. And then for all of them to tell me how they feel about me was really hard. Any other day I maybe could have handled it, but in that situation it was really tough. It strained mine and Dan’s relationship. With time it got better. He apologized about 100 times when we were out there. There came a point where I got really annoyed and I said, “If you apologize one more time I’m going to kill you. I get it. You’re sorry.” But with time it got better. I had no choice. I could be a girl and play with my emotions or I could buck up buttercup and play the game.
Holmes: For the record, feel free to say “Buck up, buttercup” as often you like.
Thomas: (Laughs) You got it.
Holmes: Going back to Mike’s move with the letter at the auction. Dan’s take seemed to be that you’re expected to lie in the game, but Mike’s move seemed personal. Did Mike’s move seem like a game move or did it seem personal?
Thomas: At the moment it felt a little personal. But that was Mike’s game. He was out of control all the time. I couldn’t expect any more from him than to do that. He was wild and doing all of those things. It didn’t feel personal to me because I was like, “I don’t care, I’m dropping my $20.” He should have just stuck with it. It was weird when he was wishy-washy about it.
Lavoie: It’s the same thing as Carolyn promising me. They make it seem like I’m a crybaby, whiny person, but Sierra told me straight up, “I’m not giving you no reward. I’m not giving you shit.” And that’s alright, but Mama C. promised me twice. And when you promise someone something…it’s like at Christmas when you promise your kid that a toy truck is going to be under the tree. And then I go there and the toy truck isn’t under the tree…not once, but twice. Don’t promise me if you’re not going to keep it. But Mike made a promise to Dan, and Dan (In His Dan Voice) “Loves his wife, Erin.”
Thomas: Oh my gosh, I thought that was Dan on the phone.
Holmes: So good!
Lavoie: We all are going for this advantage, and Shirin came up with the bright idea that we could all get our love letters if we put the game on pause. Mike, could it have been good gameplay for him? Of course, but this is a social game. It don’t matter how many immunity necklaces you have because that only keeps you safe for one week. It’s the bonds you build that will take you to the end. That’s why me and Sierra were in the top five.
Holmes: Probst did that gimmick last night where he asked how many votes Rodney would have gotten at the final Tribal. And it looked like you would have done better than Carolyn or Will. Do you think when Mike chose to stick with Carolyn it was because he thought you’d be harder to beat in front of the jury?
Lavoie: Mike will explain it to you, but yeah. With the impressions I got everybody laughing. And I was struggling. I couldn’t wait to get to the final Tribal to be able to tell my case. But what you saw was Jenn Brown pointing to the jury and everyone was exploding and going nuts when she said, “Mike Holloway this, Mike Holloway that. Mike Holloway is God. If you don’t vote for him, you’re stupid.” And what happened? She raised her hand and said she’d vote for me. Everyone was like, “Whoa, why is Jenn Brown going to vote for Rodney?” This is coming after Mike gets the hero edit. So, if I won the edit would have been different. If Sierra had won the edit would have been different.
Holmes: At final six the alliance decided to target Carolyn. She was able to save herself, but why was the decision made to go after her if she wasn’t going to be a big threat at the end?
Thomas: She was a threat to me. That’s why I thought she had to go. That’s why I voted for. The whole time I played this game I thought, “Who do I want to be with at the end.” And in my eyes that was not Mama C. I thought we could get rid of her, we struck, but she had the idol.
Lavoie: That was the point in the game where those two promises got personal for me. Me and Mama C. were in a really strong alliance. She voted with me every single time.
Holmes: Was there any talk of keeping Tyler in as he had an immunity win and could have matched up with Mike?
Lavoie: I love Tyler outside of the game. Inside the game I did not see him as a threat of all. All he did was stay very quiet. He didn’t want to strategize with me. He’d always told me (In His Tyler Voice) “Hold that thought, and we’ll get back to it.” Bro, we’re about to have a Tribal. What do you mean, “Hold that thought”? In that case, he went home because he held that information about Carolyn’s idol. You don’t share that with me and Will? I proved to Tyler my loyalty. Who was on the bottom after Joaquin was blindsided? Me and Tyler. I told Tyler, “Me and you just got screwed over. Now I’m on the bottom with you.” And then, Tyler gets caught with Joe when Joe tries deep throating the clue. And you know what the clue is and you tell Mike exactly what the clue said? And then Mike finds the idol? Those two things right there…that’s just really bad gameplay if you ask me.
Thomas: Tyler was so silent it was creepy. He was so quiet. This person is playing a great game and he has amazing strategy and he’s going to do something big at some point. He’s not a great athlete, so that part didn’t scare me. But, I just thought he had more up his sleeve. Like Rodney said, you would go to talk to him and he’d be like “Shh…we’ll talk later.” And he’d never talk to anyone. It was so weird. It freaked me out.
Holmes: Alright, word association time. Let’s start with So.
Thomas: Intelligent.
Lavoie: Malcolm’s girl.
Holmes: Vince.
Thomas: Feathers.
Lavoie: Misunderstood.
Holmes: Nina?
Thomas: I saw her as happy.
Lavoie: Sweetheart.
Holmes: Lindsey?
Thomas: My boo.
Lavoie: Firecracker.
Holmes: Max?
Thomas: Intriguing.
Lavoie: The beard.
Holmes: Joaquin?
Thomas: Baller!
Lavoie: Bash bro. Or you can put bromance.
Holmes: Kelly?
Thomas: Sneaky.
Lavoie: Lovable.
Holmes: Hali?
Thomas: (Laughs) Space cadet.
Lavoie: Surfer…dude.
Holmes: Joe?
Thomas: Amazing.
Lavoie: We kind of call him MacGyver Joe.
Holmes: Jenn?
Thomas: Spitfire.
Lavoie: Alcoholic.
Thomas: (Laughs)
Holmes: Shirin?
Thomas: Smart.
Lavoie: Super fan.
Holmes: Tyler?
Thomas: Creepy.
Lavoie: Captain Morgan.
Holmes: Dan?
Thomas: Manties.
Lavoie: Harry Potter’s Grandfather.
Holmes: Will?
Thomas: Who? Just kidding…lovable.
Lavoie: Loyalty.
Holmes: Carolyn?
Thomas: Mama C.
Lavoie: Savvy.
Holmes: Let’s finish with Mike.
Thomas: Snickers.
Lavoie: Texas rattlesnake.
Holmes: This was a season that featured a lot of “Survivor” fans, but you two hadn’t seen much of the show going in. Where are you with the show now?
Lavoie: Last night, getting that birthday cake and celebrating my birthday for the twenty five millionth time now…having Jeff Probst giving me a signed picture of him with his hair slicked back, looking like a GQ model, he hands me a birthday cake, everybody singing “Happy Birthday” on national television, that’s something I’ll never forget for the rest of my life. It’s the best reality show of all time. It’s something you can pop in the DVD and think “Holy (expletive deleted), this is something that will go down in the history books.”
Thomas: I’m grateful. It’s amazing. I’ve made genuine relationships with every one of my castmates. To me, that’s worth more than the money. It’s an amazing game and I got to go far in it.
Holmes: I know you guys are super busy today, thank you so much for your time.
Lavoie: (In His Mike Voice) “Thank you! I can’t wait to spend the million dollars! We’ll go to Texas!”
Holmes: I will never get tired of that.
Any Questions? Drop me a line on Twitter: @gordonholmes
Tags: rodney lavoie, sierra dawn thomas, survivor, survivor worlds apart
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