Survivor

Welcome to the Survivor Blood vs Water reunion show.

We're live in Los Angeles.

A lot to talk about.

We have the entire group from the season all cleaned up, looking so pretty.

Plus, in the audience, we have last year's winner, John Cochran.

His life has taken a very big and exciting turn since we last saw him, and we're going to get that update.

And we're going to show you, like we did last season, a tease of what we're doing next season.

See if you can figure it out.

First, we have a new winner, and his name is Tyson.

I think tonight I fell back in love.

None of you have a chance in hell.

Tyson is hurt.

Are you all right?

My shoulder popped and I can't lift it.

I'm threat number one.

Everyone knows that.

But when Rachel left, I told myself if I was going to stay, I had to get to the end.

I'll let fate decide where I'm at.

Tyson scores for Tadhana.

I don't want to come off as the kingpin or the decision maker.

I'm like the big bad bull.

Tyson wins Final Immunity.

So first of all, Tyson, congratulations.

Thank you.

You know, we have loyal, loyal fans.

People understand this game.

They know how hard it is.

You've played three times.

So what was different this time?

You know, with the Blood vs Water theme, I went out there just to have fun and let

Rachel have an experience that I'd had and she could connect with me better.

And when she sacrificed herself for me, wouldn't let me go in and trade,

I told myself I'd already had the experience of getting voted out twice.

And for me to make her sacrifice worth it, I had to fight and scrape to get to the end all the time, 24-7.

And was that dramatically different?

Did it manifest itself inside you when times you thought maybe I'll be lippy or

maybe I'll think about doing something silly?

Yeah, definitely.

I think it mostly kept me focused.

And it kept me focused when other times I've played, I've kind of had,

you know, brain farts or just thought, you know what, I'm so tired, I'm just going to relax for the day.

And every time I wanted to relax, I said, no, I got to keep fighting.

I got to make sure everything's going my way.

And so I really think that it helped me keep focused.

I'm not a focused individual.

Rachel, are you surprised to hear that you had that big of an impact, that you were the inspiration?

Yeah, I am.

I had made that decision.

I was really confident about doing that at the time.

And I always knew he had it in him to get to the end, but I still left that game and

still wondered and hoped, you know, that I did make the right decision.

Try to tell me.

I always ask this at the live shows.

To give the people who haven't had a chance to play, but think about it and

dream about it, the physical demands, not just what we see with the bug bites

and the toenails, but the emotional, the mental fatigue.

You know, I don't think very many people other than Caleb slept more than two hours a night.

Is that true?

Glenn, go to a big shot of the whole group.

Is that true?

Do you guys really stay up a lot, worried, wondering what people are saying?

Yeah.

It's hard to sleep.

And it's uncomfortable.

It's difficult to sleep.

It's difficult to sleep on the bamboo.

And then on top of that, you've got strategy running through your head 24-7.

Every single scenario is playing through in my mind.

What if so-and-so gets voted out?

What if so-and-so wins the challenge?

What's my next move?

And I tried to have an A, B, and C plan in place all the time.

And so I would get like a half hour of sleep here or there through the night for a total of two or three hours.

But when I was lying awake, staring at the sky, all I was thinking about was,

how can I get one step further with the people I need?

And I gotta say, I like this, not that I don't like the other Tyson, but you can,

well you can, you can be confounding at times because you just circle,

circle, circle with sarcasm.

I like now that it's over, seeing this guy who can clearly form a sentence,

and stay on track, and has a beautiful girlfriend, and-Boom, right?

Score.

Yes.

All right, well, Monica made it to the end too, and although she only received one

vote in the final tribal, she impressed a lot of people this season.

With her dominating physical play.

All right, this one for the kids.

Monica the only woman in this challenge.

Now that I don't have Brad anymore, I have to think about me.

Monica has it.

I'm here to show the kids more than one badass lives in our house.

Tyson is out.

Monica wins her second immunity in this game.

That Monica is going to sit in mediocrity.

She died in Samoa.

Monica wins her third individual immunity.

Peace out.

For the kids.

It's.

Fair to say that you and Brad both, you're compelling, polarizing, controversial.

People either love you or love to hate you or like him but don't like you or love you but don't like him.

You know, it goes all over the place.

But one consistent thing with people this season was, as each episode came on,

you earned more and more and more and more respect.

And you kept saying, I'm doing this for me and I'm doing it to show the kids.

Why was it so important?

What is it about your life that you needed the kids to know there's more than one bad ass as you said in the show?

Well, thank you for the nice compliments for start and I, it took until I actually

watched the show and watched the edit that I thought, you know, what was survivor about for me?

It was about as a young woman, you have, or you know, a young child,

you have a dream of what it's going to be like when you get married and spend the rest of your life with someone.

And Brad had surpassed every single one of those dreams, and the life that we've

built together with those three kids, Rex, Judge, and Honor, is priceless.

And I fought so hard and worked so hard in all the challenges to just sort of say

thank you, and that even though you've made this great time for us, I'm still

that gritty little co-ed that caught your eye at University of Florida 23 years ago.

And I haven't let any of this go to my head, and I love you.

So thank you.

So, we've been starting to get some Twitter questions in from our audience.

Philly Girl FU wants to know, so what did your kids say?

They're at home, you're watching week by week.

You know, the kids said this, Mom, we're so proud, but we're not surprised.

As a mother, I think every mother is a rock star to her kids.

Whether she plays Survivor or she doesn't.

So what was the emotional wear and tear?

Because we just saw it.

And by the time we get to day 39, you're exhausted.

How hard was that for you?

Because it seemed to get very personal.

You know, Jeff, from the very first in-walk Redemption Island, it hurt me more than it hurt Brad how he was attacked.

And I felt like from day three to day 39, I was just pummeled.

And I'm not somebody who normally gets down in the crying.

It was just, it was very difficult.

I want to pop, there was somebody, who's the person that was talking to you?

Yeah, all right, we were talking before the show.

What's your name?

Missy.

All right, you were talking to me about Monica and her out there.

What was your take on how she played and why did you have such a connection?

I just felt that Monica stayed true to herself the entire game, despite what her

tribe mates might have said about her or said to her in addition to her husband.

And she's dominated challenges and she deserves to be there.

So you felt Brad was hard on her too?

At times, yes, but at the same time, you know, they have that relationship with

each other and I think that they knew they were in a game situation, so.

Thank you.

So Brad, what is that like for you to see Monica, you know, having all these people say all these comments about her?

It was very difficult, Jeff, and watching the edit is tough, but Monica's one tough cookie.

I mean, I know she can handle it and I know she knew it was a game and everybody was trying to beat her.

And I'll tell you this, Rex, Judge, Honor, myself.

We've known that more than one badass lives in our house for a long time before Survivor came out.

Thank you very much.

I love you more now than I ever did when we got married.

We know you guys complete each other.

We get it.

We love it.

Jervis, I got to move on to Jervis.

No, no, I got to move on to Jervis.

Thanks, Vytas.

Vytas, Vytas.

This is what it's like at Tribal.

You turned on me, you turned on me early, but you made up for it with this.

This is what happens.

I keep talking, asking questions, Brad and Monica are having their own conversation.

You rock.

Jervis, the big question I got with you from people, on the street, was,

why didn't you take a leadership, a more visible leadership role?

Strategically, you had to have thought through that.

Well, it's hard.

I mean, when we were in Galang, Aras was kind of the leader of our tribe, so you can't have two leaders.

It's only one.

You know, you're following Aras' lead, and then when Aras went and it was Tyson,

it was, my strategy, look, Aras is in the, I mean, Tyson's in the front, so if

anybody wanted to take out our alliance, they want to go for Tyson first,

which gives me three days to come up with a new plan.

To me, that was smart game plan.

So, along the game, are you thinking, I can still win, even though the

perception is he's the leader, or are you thinking at some point, something's gonna have to break for me to slide in?

Yeah, I thought I could win, but I was also, I always had a plan of getting rid of Tyson in the back of my head.

It had to be the right, I know, I'm sorry, bro.

I love you, but I was.

It had to be the right moment.

Like any, like Tyson, when I was trying to get rid of Aras, it was, I had no way to do it, I couldn't talk to Tina.

All right, so, you knew what you were, you knew what you were doing.

Tyson came to me like, hey, you want to get rid of Aras?

I'm like, I was thinking the same thing, let's do it.

But it was hard at that point because I didn't know if I could trust Caleb,

Hayden, Ciera enough that they would flip on me next.

So, I was kind of, it's almost like I backed myself into a corner and I'm looking at it like, man.

Which speaks to how difficult this game is because you got to the end, but in order to win, everything has to line up.

Ciera, two of the biggest moves this season were made by you.

That really surprised me, because when it started, I thought you were toast.

I thought you were done early.

So let's talk about the drawing of the rocks.

Did it really happen at Tribal like it felt it did to me?

It totally happened at Tribal, and it was crazy, crazy.

I mean, I'm sitting here thinking like, OK, Ciera, are you four?

Like, am I really four?

And when it hit me in my mind that I didn't come here for fourth place,

I came here to win, I thought, am I going to play all the way to four,

go home, and then wish, like, dude, you should have made a move when you had