season 14 episode 12 insider videos

Transcribed by James Barber

Tribal Council

ALEX (Yau-Man; smiling face on card): Nothing personal, just trying to stay in this as long as I can. Best of luck.

BOO (Alex): It's just the way the ball bounces. Good luck.

STACY (Alex): This is one vote that should have counted last week. Game over.

YAU-MAN (Alex): Goodbye. It's finally time for you to go. We tried it once and it didn't work. Now it will work. Thank you.

EARL (Alex): You put up a good fight. I respect that.

DREAMZ (Alex): Sorry, bro.

CASSANDRA (Alexis, with a smiling face at the bottom of the card): Hi. You played a really good game.

Alex's Final Words

"The game is a funny game. If anything, I don't know that I would have made any move that I made differently, because there's so much luck, there's so much speculation, there's so much that's out of your control - the only thing I might do differently is the feeling behind the moves I made. I think I maybe tried to take control of the game earlier than I should have and made myself a target because of that. I still think back to every move I made. I still would have made the same move, I just would have been a little more careful at times about what I revealed and the people I trusted. Not because they necessarily backstabbed me, but because I received second-hand information. I've got no regrets."

(cut)

"I know I played this game to the best of my ability. I gave it 110% every single day I was out here. Even though I didn't make it to the end, I can be proud of everything I've done. I kept my integrity. I never gave up. I always did my best. No matter what happened, I knew I wasn't going to have any regrets because of that. For all the kids out there who feel like their situation is hopeless, that they're thinking about giving up whether it's school or otherwise, just remember never stop dreaming, never stop fighting, never stop pushing for those dreams. You can and will amaze yourself. There's no such thing as impossible. Never give up."

(cut)

"I think the rest of the tribe, the 6 remaining members are living in a dream world if they think they're not going to have to backstab each other. Things are going to get very ugly at this point. I don't believe they're seriously sitting there thinking this is going to be a walk in the park. There are 6 people left, there are 2 people at the end of this game. They took out somebody they could trust and now they're gonna be left looking at each other knowing half the people have already lied, not knowing what the other half are thinking. I think it's gonna be a real mess. It's gonna be fun to watch from this angle now."

Alex, the Day After

"The game of Survivor is interesting because I think there are a lot of stressful moments in it, and your body's undergoing so much deterioration, you're worried about a lot of different things. But now when I look back and think about it, it was a lot of fricking fun. It was fun in the way like playing a super-intense basketball game is fun, or a boxing match against a really worthy opponent. You get your ass kicked, but you had a really good time in retrospect."

(cut)

"Post-merge, I think at that point in the game people's paranoia and emotions got the better of them. I think that made it harder for rational decisions to be made. Also at that point in the game it was revealed I'd gone to Harvard Law School. I think that made people a lot more wary about trusting me. There were conversations had and all the sudden I became a huge target, partially due to that, and people felt like I was trying to take control of the game. I think that's one of the lessons I've learned, that sometimes in the game of Survivor, it is very much like this - in life, if you try to hold onto something very tightly, it is very slippery, and sometimes goes right through your fingers. I think that's kind of what happened with this game. I tried to take control of it too early on, and it slipped right through my fingers. When people saw me doing that, and saw me as more of a threat, and heard of my background, it sort of fell by the wayside."

(cut)

"I would say the darkest moment of the game for me was post-merger when I had an alliance that was basically destroyed as a result of betrayal from one of the alliance. That was probably my darkest moment because although conceptually I knew it was a possibility, it hadn't even crossed my mind. Having it actually come down, and then coming back up from that and not letting myself just sort of give up, it really took me to the edge where I felt like, wow, should I just give up and tell these guys, 'You got me, get me out of this fricking rabbit hole,' like I've had enough, or get back up, stand on my own two feet, and keep fighting."

(cut)

"The funny thing is I felt like I couldn't trust Mookie as much, because he had the immunity idol, he had in my opinion shown himself to be a bit wishy-washy. I had a really hard time trusting him. But Dreamz for the most part, I had trust for, simply because from day 1 the guy had been talking non-stop about honesty, religion, and all these things. Never trust a hard sell, right? That's what I realized. It's not like the possibility didn't cross my mind that he could double-crossed me, but having it go down was harder on me than I had anticipated. Having it be a mathematical probability in my head is one thing. Having somebody actually look you in the eye that you thought was like you in a sense that they were a trustworthy, honest, having that person stab you in the back, 'e tu, Brute?' What can I say? It felt very cold. It felt very barbaric in that sense. That was kind of an eye-opener for me."

(cut)

"I felt that this is an indelible mark in my life. I will not be able to erase this. People say, 'This is just a game, this is just game,' but it reveals a little bit about your personality, the way you do this thing. I wanted to make sure it was the real me. The real me is not a liar or backstabber. I played it that way, and when I was lied to and backstabbed, that made it a little bit darker than I expected. I knew it was a possibility, I knew it was coming, in a way."

(cut)

"It's not like poker, you know what I mean? I went into it thinking it's just like poker, it's just bluffing, but it's not. I think there's a line of integrity in this game, and personal character does have something to do with this game. It's not just who is the best liar. No. It's who deserves the money? It's outwit, outlast, outplay. Some of outwitting involves being able to lie."

(cut)

"I said this when I climbed Mount Whitney this past year. I'm about 500 feet from the summit, I've got 50 pounds on my back. I wanna throw up, right? (laughs) My head hurts, I feel like crap. I'm like, what's my problem? (laughs) Am I not fulfilled? Why do I put myself through these horrific experiences to like test myself? Sure enough, now I'm on Survivor, by far the hardest thing I've ever done. Physically, mentally. In terms of just like the wear and tear. Law school, all these things I've put myself through to test myself. I'd like to say, 'OK, that's it, Survivor's as good as it gets.' I came out here to see what I was made of, and once again, I feel like I did it."

Yau-Man on Boo

"Well, this morning while everybody was waiting for I don't know what, they sat around, bored, and Boo was off to somewhere. Suddenly the topic turned to bashing Boo and Boo's irritating habit of non-stop talking and having stupid ideas and saying stupid things. Usually we put up with it and behind his back snicker about it, but I think Alex, at the end of his rope, his time on the island is very short because he knows he's a big target, being the losing consortium so to speak, so he has very little patience with Boo now."

(cut)

"Boo is one of the most talkative men I've ever met. He does not seem to like silence at all. Every second, every minute has to be filled with some conversation or at least himself talking. During the rafting trip Dreamz and I were just laying back, when we were not paddling, we were just taking in the view, the postcard view, just enjoying it. He just had to keep commenting, had to keep saying things, he couldn't shut up. I thought we were going to throw him off the raft. He just kept talking and talking. Sometimes if it was about how beautiful things were, we don't mind, but sometimes it was other nonsense. None of us wanted to ruin the trip, so we just shook our head, try to tune him out, try to enjoy it. He definitely just talks too much."

(cut)

"It just turned into bashing Boo with non-stop talking about the rafting trip. Dreamz and I said he almost spoiled the trip for us with his constant talking and making stupid comments. Everybody else realized that's the way he is. People are now at the stage where we have been with each other long enough, we're starting to vent, we're starting not to be polite. We'll see when we actually tell the guy in front of his face. 'Shut up! You talk too much!' (laughs) The other thing is Boo comes from a very strange background. He doesn't seem to have a lot of family ties. While Dreamz got 4 letters from home, and I got 3, very long, Boo got 1 very short letter, 2 sentences from his mom, which is very strange. Nobody else. He didn't even seem to want to read it again. We don't know what sort of relationship he has. In a way we sort of pity him, about where is his family. Is that all his family? He didn't seem to care that much. Of course everybody started to psychoanalyze him and say does he just wants attention, is that why he talks so much, just blabs on and on. The other thing that irritates the women especially is his jokes are beyond @#%$-rated. He doesn't seem to realize some people don't appreciate it and he seems to not be sensitive to any of the social issues at all about appropriateness and politeness. It is becoming a problem. I think at some point we'll start telling him to his face and say, 'Shut up!' (laughs)"