‘Survivor: San Juan del Sur’ interview: Wes Nale on immunity challenge, idols, Jaclyn, and Keith
First of all, apologies for the later “Survivor” interview this week! Due to the holiday last week, we did not get an opportunity to chat with the most recently-eliminated castaway Wes Nale until Monday, but we do have all of his responses for you today in this article.
Wes spoke with us a little bit about his strategy, whether or not Keith really ruined his chances in the game, and some other odds and ends from this season a pretty fun, albeit short, chat.
CarterMatt – I know you said that you regret stepping down for the chicken wings, but do you think that you could beat Reed?
Wes Nale – Well I jumped down after an hour and I felt fine. I wasn’t struggling or anything. Everybody else seemed to be struggling or shaking. No doubt I feel like I could have gave Reed a run for his money easily, but I [don’t know if I] would have beaten him or not. After two more hours, I’m sure I would have been struggling.
Was it hard going out with only two votes? It wasn’t a majority vote by any means, and all Keith had to do was give you the idol, and you are still in the game.
It could’ve happened anyway. He could have given me the idol. He could’ve went home. I could still be in the game with the idol. But he panicked, and told them ‘stick with the plan.’ That made everything go haywire. I honestly thought he was going to wake up to Jeff and say ‘I’m going to play this idol for Wes,’ but he didn’t. I told him ‘this is your idol, do what you want.’ He played it how he wanted it, and he saved himself.
Had Keith not said that, do you think the results would have been different?
100%. I was trying to make Jon feel comfortable, I told everybody that Jon got the idol … I honestly thought he was not going to play it, because we were going to make him feel comfortable. I had heard from what other people told me that Jon said that [he was not going to play the idol]. He only played it because he felt unsafe.
Going back a couple of episodes, we saw that Jaclyn wanted to go against your alliance because she didn’t like how she was treated. Did you get any sense she was feeling that way?
We definitely found that out at tribal. She acted the same with us [the day she was alone] as she did the other twenty-something days that we were there. She didn’t do nothing at camp, she might have gotten water a couple of times, and she never talked strategy with anybody. Jon was the one that talked strategy, and he would go back and tell Jaclyn, and I suppose they would then go back and make a decision.
Jaclyn never came up to me to talk strategy, so I didn’t know why the hell I should go and talk to her. She didn’t try to approach me from day one. There’s no reason that I should go up to her day 21. I knew good and well that she hadn’t been talking to me.
Had she weighed some of her feelings to her, and you had said that you would make more of an effort to talk with her, do you think that would have changed anything?
Probably not. I don’t think she had much to say in what she did and didn’t do. I think whatever Jon said was going to go, and because Jon said that he was with us, I didn’t worry about Jaclyn at all. I felt like Jon was making all the calls, because I never saw her talk strategy to anyone.
After going through this experience, has your relationship with your dad changed since you’ve been back?
No doubt. We’ve gotten closer. We were close at the beginning, but we never really shared emotional stuff; we were just manly men, we never cried and I never saw him cry, maybe expect for once when I was like nine or ten.
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We’re going to have our review for tonight’s “Survivor: San Juan del Sur” article up later, and you can check that out today at the link here! Also, sign up if you want to secure some other great TV updates on all we cover via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: CBS.)