This season of Survivor has been one of the wildest competitions in recent memory and the emotions are certainly running high in Micronesia. After a brief break due to NCAA March Madness, Survivor: Micronesia returned last Thursday only to see Denver coffee shop worker Ami Cusack get voted off the island in an emotionally charged Tribal Council.

The day after, The Deadbolt sat in on a conference call where the gang at Survivor.com took the lead and put Ami through the paces to find out what went wrong with her strategy. As we said to Ami just before the call ended, we had our money on her to come out on top and we were sad to see her leave. Here's a portion of what Ami had to say during last week's exit interview...

Ami Cusack on her strategy heading into the game and the thought of girl power:

"I Definitely thought about it, but I wanted to get to know the players a little bit first, because after seeing Parv, she's a flirt. A huge flirt with guys, not girls. I can always hope and dream, but... I had to see what I was playing with first. After I saw that that most likely wouldn't work, I wanted to go with people I could trust, like Yau-Man and Eliza and not so much Jonathan, but definitely Yau-Man and Eliza. Those are two people that I very much trusted."

Ami on whether she had an alliance:

"Yes. I had an alliance from day 2 with Jonathan, Yau-man, Eliza, and Johnny Fairplay, as much as you can be in an alliance with him, and Cirie. We'd all talked about sticking together until the end. Well, that didn't last very long as you well know. I did have a strong alliance at the very beginning, but obviously not that strong."

On getting closer to the fans in recent weeks:

"I didn't really feel like I was part of anything. I didn't feel like I was part of the Favorites, just because they had a strong 5 and I wasn't part of it. We never really talked about anything. The Fans, they were struggling to stay above water, so I was the first person they came to, because they knew that I was on the outside."

On Chet changing his strategy and leaving the game:

"I didn’t' talk to him about it. I know that Eric and Tracy were drilling him, drilling him, drilling him, trying to get him to stay in the game. He just wouldn't do it. So I stayed out of it. If there was no way of him staying in the game anyway, what's the point of me even conversating? He was very adamant about leaving. So I just kind of stayed out of it."

On her relationship with Amanda and Cirie:

"Cirie, I just like hanging out with her. She's funny. She laughs a lot. She's like hanging out with your kid sister, playing around the block. She's fun to hang out with. Amanda, she's from Colorado as well, she's lived there as well, so she's a cool outdoors girl. I wasn’t' that tight with Amanda."

Ami and her thoughts on Ozzy:

"In the game, before he voted me out, I absolutely loved and adored him. I think he's an amazing man. I loved being on the beach with him. He's adventurous. He's always going. Always, always going. I like that about him."

On whether she would have ever voted Ozzy out of the game after she told him she wouldn't:

"No. I wouldn't have voted Ozzy out. I really, absolutely think that he deserves the millions dollars."

Ami and what she thought of Eric:

"He came up to me after he totally sold me down the river and he's like, 'I'm so sorry, Ami. You're the only that's been nice to me on this beach. All the other Favorites have been really mean to me. You were there for me at the very beginning... wah, wah, wah!' He's a nice kid from a small town and hasn't seen much of the world."

On whether she's still angry or can be friends with Eric:

"I can't be angry about that. He's playing the game. He's playing Survivor. But do I want to be friends with him? At this point? No. I'm not going out of my way to be friends with the guy."

Ami on the reason why she was so emotional at Tribal Council:

"I was really upset that Ozzy did not feel how much I would support him and how much I really thought he was a rock star. That super bums me out. I think a lot of that emotion came from stuff that was going on in my home life as well. So when you're dealing with sensitive issues and you go out on an island and you're put in a situation where you don't feel like anyone genuinely loves you and you're dealing with things, it's hard. You saw KB, Kathy, she lost her mind out there. You really feel isolated and there's no one there just to give you a hug and say, 'You know what? I love you and everything's going to be okay.' So I was sensitive and that's not the Ami that you guys are used to, but we all have our moments."

On whether she was prepared for Tribal Council:

"I knew about 5 minutes before we were leaving for tribal council that that was going to go down. So I wasn't really prepared, no."

Ami and her emotions as she left the show:

"When I was leaving, they cleared out the contestants and I was leaving and saying goodbye to the crew and I felt like Alice in Wonderland, or like Dorothy with my headband on and my dress and my bag under my arm like Toto. I really was going to miss everyone - such a great group of people, both the crew and the cast. I was really sad to be leaving the excitement. It's really a fun thing to part of Survivor."