Surviving Micronesia with Cast-off Mary Sartain

by Troy Rogers

The first episode of CBS' Survivor: Micronesia - Fans vs. Favorites gave fans a shock, as the series' most famous villain, Johnny Fairplay, extinguished his own torch. In Week 2, following Fairplay's anticlimactic bow-out, the new crop of survivors were back to outlasting, outwitting, and outplaying each other in an effort to position themselves for the top spot of sole survivor. In the end, fans were treated to the classic blind-side, out-of-the-blue elimination of Mary Sartain of the Airai tribe of Fans, which set a fast pace and early scheming tone as the show heads into Week 3.

 

The morning after Mary's expulsion from Micronesia, The Deadbolt took part in a conference call with Sartain to find out what happened to her strategy, what's in store for Mikey B’s future, and how Joel campaigned to oust her from the game.

Mary Sartain on Mikey B’s new strategy:

"I think he’s really going to have to watch himself. At this point, my tribemates are going to see that Joel is a little crazy and to be very weary or they are going to continue the massacre and keep on voting off good people."

Sartain on the major difference between watching the show and being a Survivor:

"Well, it was a good thing we couldn’t smell it through your TV because I’ll tell you, we weren’t a very clean bunch. It was raining a lot, our clothes were disgusting and damp all of the time, they never got a chance to dry out. Some people had some mold issues going on and it really wasn’t the best of conditions out there. There was so much rain we got in the first three or four days, we just couldn’t keep dry."

On the shock of getting voted off:

"Basically, all of the sabotage going on behind the scenes, I didn’t know that people were - well, I kind of had an idea that people were talking, but I didn’t know it was about me."

On who she expected to go home:

"I was expecting it to be Tracy. It should’ve been Chet, but we kind of voted - my alliance said they wanted to vote Tracy off. The strategy there was [that] we wanted to eliminate the three people who had eliminated themselves. It was Tracy, Chet, and Cathy. Cathy had the immunity idol, so we couldn’t vote for Cathy, that would’ve been an easy first out. But Chet had kind of sabotaged us in the challenge when he said he was a really great swimmer and we realized he couldn’t swim at all. Tracy was just kind of the one tagging along with the other two and she didn’t really do a lot of work. Basically, I saw her more as a physical threat out of those three."

Sartain on the most difficult aspect of being a Survivor:

"The elements, it rained for about three or four days straight. We were always cold, wet, and given that we didn’t have a proper shelter, we had to sleep in a cave and we basically got picked at by rats. We infiltrated a rat home in our cave and they didn’t leave us alone. I think it was the worst night in Survivor history for us."

On Johnny Fairplay going home the previous week:

"I really didn’t think much, honestly. We didn’t know that he was going to leave and quit the game. So when we got back to the next challenge, we thought his team had eliminated him themselves. We were pretty happy to see him go. I think it was a little weird because it takes a lot to get out there and give it your all, and when somebody quits it definitely makes you unhappy. Everybody worked so hard to get on Survivor and then someone is just going to quit, it kind of makes you a little upset."

Sartain on the way Joel plays the game:

"A paranoid guy. Pretty much paranoid, yeah. Basically, he was thinking that Mikey B was gaining too much control and [he would] take over the ladies’ votes and eventually vote him out. So I think he was a little paranoid. I think he overanalyzed things and jumped the gun, because we wanted - at least Mikey B and I - wanted nothing more than the fans to go as far as possible."

Mary Sartain and her strategy going into the game:

"Well, you know it’s really hard because a lot of great players have different strategies over the past years. My strategy was to take an inventory of people's personalities and align myself with two really strong players. Not necessarily physically, but [who] knew the game really well and hopefully go in an alliance with five strong people with different things to offer in the game. Basically, strength in numbers, that’s what I was looking for."

-- Troy Rogers

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