Fireman Joel's Torch Gets Snuffed Out

It’s getting ugly on Survivor: Micronesia, which, of course, means it’s getting really good. This week, the fans and the favorites merged and viewers learned that the more things change, the more they stay the same. For weeks now, every player who has stuck their head out and tried to take charge has seen it get chopped off at tribal council. The latest victim of his own power was Joel, the ‘fan’, who dragged the ‘ball of goo’ Chet through the mud and saw his own torch get snuffed instead of the weaker player. He spoke to us late last week about leaving the island, who he wants to win, and if he regrets any of his decisions.

Joel on why the weaker players are getting the upper hand:

“You know, strategically, it makes sense to keep some of them around. I think this season we're seeing a whole lot more of them, kind of bonding together, than maybe we've seen in the past. You figure that if you take some weak people to the merge with you, some individuals that may not have a chance of winning the individual immunities. That could be good, strategically.”

On how far Chet can go:

“I don't know. I wish he was gone last night, but I'm sure that Mikey wished he was gone last week and Mary wished that he was gone the first vote, but, I don't know. I don't know how far he'll make it. I don't think he's made it this far by any efforts of his own, so other people out there could continue to carry him. Last night it was Tracy and Cirie and who decided to carry him, so it just depends, and we don't know what other choice there is going to come along either.”

On dragging Chet through the jungle:

“I can't say that was hard for me to watch. I'm thinking that a lot of people were laughing while they were watching that, sadly at his expense, but my goal was to win. I couldn't see behind me. I was hoping he was keeping up. I felt something tugging on me every now and then, but you know, the training we do for the fire department, we do stuff like that. We have 150 lb tires that we pull that are fastened to hoses to simulate pulling a line and taking a plug and stuff like that, so the tension that was on didn't feel like that much, but it looked pretty brutal watching it.”

Who Joel is hoping for now:

“I had a very early alliance with Alexis. She's one of the sweetest girls I've ever met. Natalie and Erik and if any of the three of them wins, then I'll be pleased. Anyone else is really irrelevant to me and I don't mean that to sound callous, but that was my alliance and I'd like to see one of them win it all.”

On how he got paired up with Chet for the reward challenge:

“We get to decide as a tribe who gets paired with who. I guess my fault in that was probably not saying "Hell, No!", but who's going to take the bullet in that situation? I figured if anyone is going to take it, I'll take it. You're already walking on egg shells. You've got four brand new, you know we just got or designed a brand new tribe. You don't want to offend anybody. You don't want to be the "I'm too good to pair with him" or anything like that, so hey "I'll take him and we'll do the best we can. If I have to pull him through the fence, I'll pull him through the fence.”

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