The Deadbolt Interview - Survivor Victory and Tribal Defeat with J.T. and Stephen of Survivor Tocantins

Survivor Victory and Tribal Defeat with J.T. and Stephen of Survivor Tocantins
by Troy Rogers

Survivor Tocantins CBS After another season of Survivor strategies in the Brazilian Highlands, Survivor Tocantins proved to be fertile ground for a number of tribal blindsides and strategic alliances. From the early days of the game when the survivors were getting to know each other, two unlikely Jalapao tribe mates, cattle rancher J.T. Thomas and Yale educated business consultant Stephen Fishbach, formed a strong alliance from the second day of Survivor Tocantins that lasted the entire season. Although J.T. and Stephen banded together with former SWV musical Jalapao tribe mate, Taj, the allied Tocantins friends held strong throughout the merge, masterminding the expulsion of almost every survivor in the game, to eventually survive until they were the final two survivors.

Despite forming a close bond through the entire season of Survivor Tocantins, J.T. and Stephen were put to the test in the finale when J.T. won the final challenge and had to choose between Stephen and Erinn. Although it seemed like an easy decision for J.T. to take his closest ally, their surviving final three tribe mate Erinn exposed a few cracks in their alliance, as Stephen began to look ahead to the million dollar prize with a different view than his Tocantins friend. At the final Tribal Council, when both J.T. and Stephen had to face the jury, Stephen was forced to reveal that he may not have lived up to his end of the alliance bargain with J.T. and most likely would have taken Erinn into the Survivor Tocantins final Tribal.

Survivor Tocantins CBS After J.T. poured on the emotional heartbreak when hearing Stephen's honesty, hamming it up for the jury and tugging at their heartstrings, his former tribe mates unanimously voted cattle rancher J.T. the winner of Survivor Tocantins.

The following morning we caught up with J.T. and Stephen on a final exit conference call to learn if their alliance held up beyond the game, why they didn't take Taj into the final three, what their strategy was to stay alive, and if they still keep in touch with "Coach".

THE DEADBOLT: So, J.T., how will the cattle benefit from your win?

JAMES "J.T." THOMAS: [Laughs] Well, I’m definitely not going to spend any of the winnings on the cattle. But the business is benefitting, because obviously sales and things are better. People are actually wanting to do business with me now instead of me chasing them around. But I’m going to continue managing the farm. This isn’t going to affect the farm much at all. Hopefully I will have an extra hand around the farm now, so maybe that will help out.

THE DEADBOLT: When the merge happened and Jalapao only had three members, what was your plan to stay alive?

J.T.: You know, we didn’t have much of a plan. I had made some signals with Coach and I wasn’t aware that Stephen had already put together this "Exile alliance" and was getting ready to kick me out of the game [Laughs]. I had made contact with Coach during the challenges just a little bit, but we knew there was a huge power struggle over there. It was all just the challenges and everything. We had one plan. We hit the ground running, Stephen goes one way, I go one way, and Taj goes the other way, and the first one that comes up with a decent plan we’ll go with it. And that’s what happened.

THE DEADBOLT: Stephen, even Erinn said that people who scrambled to save themselves got voted out. How do you think you fit into that at the end?

STEPHEN FISHBACH: Do you mean was I scrambling? At which point in the game? Sorry.

THE DEADBOLT: At the final Tribal.

STEPHEN: You know, I don’t think there’s any way I could’ve beaten J.T. in the final Tribal. There was no [way], scrambling or not scrambling. I definitely don’t think that I presented my game as well as I could have, but I also think it was kind of moot.

THE DEADBOLT: Well, in terms of picking one moment, do you think when you kind of tried to leverage the friendship against J.T. that it left a sour taste in their mouths [the jury]?

STEPHEN: I think it’s possible ... I actually apologized to him right after that. You know, I went into that final tribal absolutely certain J.T. was taking me. I knew his word to me was good. And sitting there and seeing how miserable J.T. looked, because it was much more than you saw, he was about to make a decision that he thought could jeopardize a million dollars and taking Erinn was a sure bet. Apparently he literally thought, taking me, I actually had a shot at it. So the way he was so nervous, it did totally freak me out, and I absolutely do think the way I scrambled could’ve left a sour taste in the jury’s mouth. It’s one of the moments I’m most ashamed of in the game. I’m not happy with myself that I did that and I did apologize to J.T. after. I did that.

J.T.: Let me add, he shouldn’t have apologized, because I was kind of nerdy to Stephen and all of our friendship there, because I egged a lot of that on. I really did, but it was all in good heart [laughs].

THE DEADBOLT: You always talked about taking the strongest people to the end and you didn’t take Taj. Why was that? I thought Taj was a stronger player than Erinn.

J.T.: Yeah, of course she was. The only reason I thought about taking the strongest to the end was to fill Coach full of his own strategy. Obviously I didn’t want to take the best to the end or I’d of kept Brendan and Tyson. So I just wanted Coach to feel I was staying true to what he wanted to do to change the game and just try to turn it around, when the truth was Stephen and I worked together since day two or three and we planned on going to the end and we were getting rid of the strongest people as quick as we could. That’s the only reason we got rid of Taj, was that we were afraid she would beat us.

THE DEADBOLT: Do either of you stay in touch with Coach?

STEPHEN: Yeah, we both do.

J.T.: Yeah, of course. I mean, Coach is a great guy. He’s a good guy. He’s very caring and his stories are a little offbeat from time-to-time, but he’s a really good guy all around.

STEPHEN: I mean, you really do just see one side of Coach on the show, just the maniacal part, and he was really caring and very encouraging. He was always trying to get people to do their best from the sidelines. I mean, in the grappling hook challenge, once he finished he was sitting next to me helping me out, basically guiding me. He didn’t help me, I didn’t end up doing well, but he was a very sweet, encouraging guy. And he’s a decent human being in spite of what you may think from the show.

-- Troy Rogers