The Villains won the Reward Challenge but lost the Immunity Challenge on Thursday night’s “Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains,” which meant that one more of their tribe had to go. Despite all the shenanigans (JT from the Heroes tribe had slipped Russell Hantz an Immunity Idol to try to save Russell from what JT saw as a strong women’s alliance) the real Villains’ alliance held and a woman — Courtney Yates — was ousted. ET: Can you talk about the dynamics of the Heroes tribe? What is going on there and how do you think Russell got in charge? Courtney Yates: Russell got in charge through Immunity Idols, which is crazy because they are not associated with him in any way. He found the Idol and somehow the whole fubar with Tyson happened and it really flipped the dynamics. Parvati and Danielle targeted Tyson, which was genius, because Tyson was the one holding together our alliance of six. We had Coach, Jerri, Tyson was close with me, Rob wanted in with me and Tyson and Sandra were together with us. When Tyson left, Coach and Jerri went rogue. Rob had no idea what happened and didn’t recover from it. Then it was three vs. three with two in the middle. That was the beginning of it: the Tyson episode. Jerri just wanted someone to make her feel safe and Russell played into that. Jerri threw her vote in with Russell, which made it four vs. three and Coach didn’t pick a side. ET: It seems to me as if alliances were formed so quickly this season. Maybe that wasn’t a good thing. Courtney Yates: When it originally happened it was Russell, Rob, me, Parvati, Danielle and Sandra all together. Then Russell and Rob were playing the alpha male thing and they did it in two different approaches. Russell was scampering around to all his old Samoa hangouts, because it was the same camp; Rob was taking the brunt of trying to get everyone organized, make a shelter and do all the work. Because he was vocal — there are always the dissenters against the one who is trying to organize everyone — Russell absented himself, so he never had anyone saying anything about him. The problem was that our men were not handy in any way, so it was like the girls making the shelter. Rob was trying to be there for the team in an old-school “Survivor” way, and Russell was, “Ha, losers!” and not around at all. That irritated the crap out of Rob and then Russell got pissed because people listened to Rob because Rob was like the leader, so his little troll ego was hurting and he needed to get rid of Rob. It turned into this whole war. That is what I figured would happen: all the big personalities would take each other out. Then people like me and Sandra could skate by, sort of dodge the fallout. It almost worked if it wasn’t for the crazy idols. ET: We are all thinking that Russell is the villain, but more and more it looks as if it is Parvati? Courtney Yates: Parvati is a great player. She is not to be underestimated. She has adopted this hiding in Russell’s shadow and letting him be the one everyone is targeting. She is his solid ally, but it is less against her and more against him lately. I always got along with Parvati fine. She is the one I approached, “Listen, for you it is better for you to have me, because I will be loyal to you and not the other two; whereas, Sandra doesn’t like any of you guys.” I was surprised that they chose to keep Sandra over me, because Sandra is a much bigger threat than I am. She won the game in Pearl Islands. She is really good. Nobody wants to give her any credit because she is a mom and her athletic ability isn’t great, but she has a lot of tricks up her sleeve. ET: Knowing that JT had given Russell the Immunity Idol, was there any talk of voting him out with the merge coming up? Courtney Yates: Everybody knew but me and Sandra because we weren’t in their alliance. Russell put his neck out on the line for Parvati, so she has to stand by him or she is going to look really bad. Her alliance is Russell and Danielle. I wanted her to pull me in and work against them, but that obviously isn’t what happened. Sandra and I were isolated at that point. It was me or her, not anybody else. ET: As a jury member, will you vote for the person who played the best game, or does likeability come into it for you? Courtney Yates: My jury vote is based on who I see in front of me and I pick which one of them it is. You will have to see. ET: Can they sway your vote by what they say at that final Tribal Council? Courtney Yates: I don’t think they can sway you to vote for them. I think it is more that you can sway someone to not vote for you by what they say. It is a bigger forum for [expletive]-uppery than it is for winning anything. ET: What will it take to win this season? Courtney Yates: It is a tough crowd. At this point, everyone who is left has made it to the finals, or won the game. It is a lot of seasoned people who have very specific ideas of what “Survivor” means to them. If you are in the finals, you are going to have to stand up and show that you did all of the things that the people on the jury hold to be the ideal “Survivor.” You have to embody the ideals that everybody sitting on the bench hold. I think that is going to be tricky for some of the players. There are some people that are so unique in the way they play that no one can relate to it. “Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains” airs Thursday nights at 8 p.m. on CBS.
