by Troy Rogers
The latest episode of Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains
proved that tension within the Heroes tribe fractured
the group and quickly divided the Survivor Heroes
into clear alliances. Although the tension began
with James a week earlier, with Cirie Fields of
Survivor Panama forming her own strategic alliance
with Candice of Survivor Cook Islands and J.T.
of Survivor Gabon, this week saw Survivor Heroes
Tom and Colby fight to keep themselves in the
game despite being on the wrong side of the Survivor
numbers. This week a Survivor twist came in the
form of two hidden immunity idols that both the
Survivor Heroes and Villains found as a group.
When Tom found the immunity idol but failed to
keep it hidden, the Survivor stage was set for
the biggest blindside to date in Survivor: Heroes
vs. Villains that put Cirie, Colby and Tom on
the Survivor chopping block.
When the votes were split between Colby and Tom, J.T. became the Survivor swing vote that caught Cirie and Candice by surprise, with Cirie becoming the latest member of the Survivor Heroes tribe to have their torch extinguished.
The next morning after Cirie Fields was caught in the Survivor blindside cross hairs, we caught up to Cirie to talk post Survivor strategy, what went wrong, and how she felt about Tom's dramatic play of the "not-so-hidden" immunity idol.
THE DEADBOLT: How shocked were you to be blindsided like that?
CIRIE
FIELDS: Not too shocked. We had a plan in
place. J.T. told us Tom had the idol, so we
could get that out and hopefully get Colby out.
I'm always a little leary of J.T., as well as
him of me, so I knew there was a 50-50 chance
things could go as planned. Or Tom could finally
get through to J.T., as he has been trying all
day, and J.T. could flip.
THE DEADBOLT: After Jeff put your torch out and you were walking away, did you have any idea who it was that flipped?
CIRIE: I didn't really have a positive idea. I kind of thought who it could be, but you never know. I thought we were solid, James, and I thought Rupert was solid. I thought Amanda was solid. I knew Candice was solid, I just wasn't sure about J.T.. But without seeing it myself, I could just speculate as to who it was.
THE DEADBOLT: Back when you voted out Stephenie, why didn't you and Candice side with Tom and Colby?
CIRIE: Well, the problem was, for me, I had been trying to side with Tom, Colby, and Stephenie from day one. Stephenie was okay with it but Tom and Colby weren't. So after so many attempts of trying and trying and trying to align with Tom who was actually, we felt, the leader of that alliance, and getting the cold shoulder, it kind of fell flat for me to be offered an alliance now that you've realized that you can't trust J.T. and you don't have the power that you had before.
When you were in power, you didn't want to align with me. Now that you're scrambling, now I'm okay. And knowing that you wanted me gone from day one, I would feel really uncomfortable aligning with you at this point. And that's what happened. I really wanted Stephenie to stay. I grew to like her a lot. But at that time I didn't feel comfortable either way.
THE DEADBOLT: When did things begin to fall apart? Was it right from the beginning, because I'm sure it didn't start with the outburst from James?
CIRIE:
No. At the Heroes' tribe, it was always this
underlying, intense kind of tension going on.
On the surface, it all seemed great. But as
you saw from the confessionals, you don't put
your cards out on the table in front of everybody
on day one, two, three, or seventeen. But you
form opinions and you all saw what the thing
is worth. No one would say it in person. They
wouldn't say it, but you could feel it.
THE DEADBOLT: I noticed that the Villains decided not to go for the hidden immunity. Was there any talk on the Heroes side of doing the same thing?
CIRIE: Actually, there wasn't. As you know, it was just that we found the clue and everybody decided to do whatever they were going to do. The only thing that was kind of necessary was for someone else to see, or hopefully someone from your alliance could see, so we would know where it was. The hidden immunity idol is a good thing to possess at some times. But if everyone knows you possess it, you're a huge target.
THE DEADBOLT: I noticed that Jeff didn't ask if anyone had the hidden immunity idol just before he was ready to read the votes. Did you notice that?
CIRIE:
[laughs] It was so funny being there when that
happened because we all knew Tom was going to
play the idol. It was almost like he couldn't
wait and the anticipation was killing him. To
see him stand up - they didn't even show him
fully - he stood up and put his hand out and
was like, "Stop! Wait a minute, Jeff!" It was
so dramatic. It kind of lost [impact], being
that we all knew he was going to play it. It
was already lost on us. But then he had to add
to the drama by making a big presentation. We
knew Jeff was going to ask, he's done this before,
give him a chance [laughs].
THE DEADBOLT: Do you know why Jeff forgot to ask?
CIRIE: [laughs] He never forgot to ask. Tom didn't give him a chance to ask. As soon as Jeff said, "I'm going to read the votes." Before he could say, "If anyone wants to play the hidden immunity idol," Tom just jumped up and said, "Wait a minute, Jeff!" And made his normal Tom speech. So, it wasn't that Jeff forgot, he just didn't get the opportunity.
[Thanks to our friends at survivor.com for clarifying that the hidden immunity idol wasn't officially revealed to the tribes, which meant that Jeff couldn't have asked for anyone to play it.]
