We're only a few weeks into the Survivor season, so one bad day – even one bad hour – can be enough to send a contestant home. The players will latch onto any opportunity to stick around three more days, whether or not their decision makes long-term sense.
This is what happened to 19-year-old Spencer Duhm. Despite physical strength and a clear understanding of strategy, Spencer struggled in the immunity challenge, leading to Jalapao to lose the victory at the last minute. JT, who had dominated during the challenge, pointed out Spencer's struggles to everyone on the tribe, so even though beautiful blonde Sydney was not a physical or mental asset to the tribe, Spencer was voted out of Survivor: Brazil at tribal council.
The college student from Lakeland, Fla. explains why he couldn't change JT's mind, what his strategy was, and his biggest mistake in the game.
You just had one bad day and you were voted out.
That's kinda how it worked, yeah. One bad afternoon and I was out of there. It was quite a bad downturn, and quite a rapid one, too. It was frustrating that I got all the blame for our loss at the challenge, but stuff like that happens. I wish my allies had stayed with me a little bit longer, but it’s part of the game. It was frustrating, though.
What makes JT so much of a leader that everyone would vote with him?
He was kind of the default leader of our tribe. He helped us build the shelter, he helped us do the fishing and whatnot, because that's kind of his forte. So because he's the one who got mad at me at the challenge and he performed so well, the target was on my back because he pointed me out over everyone else. I think that's where it stemmed from.
But you're a huge Survivor fan, are you not?
Oh, yeah. I've seen every episode.
Couldn't you think back to past seasons when something like this happened and figure out a way to avoid being voted out?
Really, what happened was that we got back, Taj went down to the water and got angry, I checked with Sydney and could see that she was not going to be very supportive of me, so I went down to talk to the guys. I was thinking, "OK, Taj was supposed to be the next to go anyway, so if I can just be calm and composed and be reasonable with them, maybe they'll let me slide this time." I went down there, we talked about the challenge and they seemed to get over it; they really did. It was about five minutes of conversation about it. JT realized that it wasn't that I wasn't putting my effort into the challenge, it's just that I was really bad at it. Which is true. Then we talked about getting rid of Taj and possibly Sydney, but Joe was allies with Sydney. Joe was one of my allies, too, but at that point, I was going to agree to whatever just to keep myself safe that night. Joe went and told Sydney afterwards that it could be her head or mine coming up, so she agreed to turn on me.
Why wasn't Sydney voted out last time instead of Sandy? Sydney's pretty, but she doesn't do anything.
Everybody asks that! I think it's because I had an alliance with her, along with Joe, and Sandy was just kind of irritating. Sydney was a lot more fun to have around camp. She and Sandy performed fairly equally in the challenges. Sandy probably outperformed her a little bit, but not enough to outweigh Sandy being irritable. This time, Sydney had the numbers against me. She really hasn't done a lot as far as challenges go, which is why I find it funny that they turned on me, because if you're trying to keep the strongest, clearly I wouldn't be the one to go. Her flirting powers didn't really work on me, I just figured I'd be able to work with her and take her to the final two, because I could beat her.
Did you know about Taj's secret alliance with Brendan?
None. I thought she had the idol because she had been to Exile three times and it's fairly easy to find, but I didn't suspect that she had created some kind of cross-tribal alliance, especially since she picked Sierra to go. If Taj and Brendan had gone back every time together, I might have suspected something, but because she was so adamant about getting somebody else, I figured she wasn't bonding that well.
What did you think about Taj's admission that she's married to former NFL player Eddie George?
It was kind of peculiar. I don't know why she didn't make up a lie, there. It really didn't send up a red flag in my head, as far as voting her out, because I was already planning on it. I feel like, in the game of Survivor, we all have our reasons to be there. We all have an equal right to be there. Granted, she's married to a millionaire, Brendan's a millionaire and apparently Debbie's married to a millionaire. We have a millionaire's club on this season and I'm just a poor college student and they all lasted longer than me. That seems a little unfair!
Do you think whether or not a person a person has money in real life should affect whether or not they win Survivor?
No! I don't think it should affect it at all, which is my point. It didn't raise a red flag for me that she's married to Eddie George because I feel like we should all have an equal opportunity. Clearly JT felt differently, because they showed that confessional where he said she should be voted out because she already has money. That, to me, doesn't really matter. I feel like we all should have an equal opportunity because we're all people in the game and we should all be treated that way. But if it came down to voting for her or someone else in the finals and I couldn't care less who I picked and I liked them both equally, then I might pick the other person just because of that, but I wouldn't vote Taj out just for that reason.
What was your strategy going into the game?
My strategy going in was to find one or two people who I could trust, as much as you can trust in the game. Two people who could watch my back as I watched theirs, and to hopefully work together strategically and bounce some ideas off each other to see what would be the best move to make. I wanted to pick people I could relate to, so there wouldn't be friction there, but also people I could beat in the end. So I picked Joe and Sydney; I was hoping to take Sydney to the finals because it's one of those situations where they might not vote for the blonde girl, thinking she hasn't done much. But I also thought I could work with them because I got along really well with them. On the trek in, which is when I bonded with them, it seemed like their heads were in the game, but as I came to find out, no, they were just kind of there. They didn't care so much about the game, which was frustrating for me because I'm like, "Seriously, guys? I'm trying to kick ass, here. You guys could help out a little bit."
Do you think you could have done anything differently?
I think I could have picked different people for my alliance, for sure. Stephen was one of the people I was considering aligning myself with early on, but I picked Joe and Sydney. But Stephen's a very strategic player and had I bonded with him, maybe things would have been different. But I chose the wrong people and it backfired on me.
I know he wasn't on your tribe, but did you guys get a sense of how weird Coach is?
We had an idea that he was more of a pompous ass. The things he would say when Jeff Probst would ask him questions – he just comes across as a jerk sometimes. And in the challenges, we would notice and would comment on the fact that Coach didn't seem to do that much despite the fact that he seemed to be one of their stronger guys. He wouldn't hold the weights; he didn't seem to do anything in the overall challenges. Just a bunch of different things added up and finally we were like, "You know, this guy must be a lot weaker or just trying to hide or something, but either way, he's not very competitive.
Who do you want to win?
Really, anybody from my tribe. When I left, I had great relationships with all of them. I was a little frustrated, obviously, when I was voted out, but at the same time, I had great relationships with them and I wanted them to do well.
Survivor: Brazil airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.
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