‘Survivor Caramoan: Fans vs. Favorites’ interview: Brenda Lowe reflects, blames Dawn

We’re in a torn position as a “Survivor” fan when it comes to Brenda Lowe and Dawn Meehan. Why? We understand how they both feel! From Brenda’s point of view, she was screwed over by a woman who she not only trusted, but she took care of. She helped Dawn when she was melting down and threatening to leave over a retainer. She was there for her strategically. All in all, Brenda did a good job of playing the “nice person” card, which in a way did make her a threat.

At the same time, you have to give props to Dawn for playing a strategic game. We appreciate that she’s making moves, but it’s the way that she is making them that hurts her. We’ll have of our season finale rankings up later in the day, and here’s a teaser: We think that some of the animals who keep showing up in between scenes have a better shot at winning right now than she does. She’s basically become the love child of Lil from “Pearl Islands” and Dan Gheesling from “Big Brother”: Too many tears, and making moves with the expectation that the jury will not be bitter, and judge her solely on her game.

Enough of this babble for now: We have a brief Q&A with Brenda to get to, and it’s not nice to keep you waiting.

CarterMatt – So what has it been like [watching it back on TV]. Does it hurt to have to drudge up these memories?

Brenda Lowe – Yeah definitely. I’m hurting, and my family is hurting too. They’re like ‘aw, that was pretty horrible,’ and it kind of was. It’s pretty bittersweet because we got to experience the family visit and you saw that, and it was amazing. And then afterwards, you see what went down.

I think what hurt me, which I didn’t really get to see to much of out there, was how no one really hesitated to vote me off. It was just a ‘her time to go, that’s it.’ That hurt my feelings re-watching it.

Well do you think winning the family visit challenge, and being basically a pretty nice person, hurt you in terms of being a threat?

I don’t think so. I know a lot of people have been asking that, and saying ‘you’re never supposed to win that challenge.’ You have to win it, and I was happy to win that challenge. And I would never stop being nice since that would absolutely ruin your day. I thought they were good people out there! Little did I know. I thought it would make everything better for all of us: We were having a good time, ‘let me save your teeth,’ positive things, you know?

Was it frustrating sitting back and watching the early part of this game and you weren’t on it? There were so many of us sitting around thinking that ‘Brenda’s a good player,’ but not seeing you on the show.

I understood why [I wasn’t shown], because I know what I was doing during those days. I was doing the whole under-the-radar thing. I was literally being invisible out there, as well: I was in the water by myself, I was taking time for myself, I was trying to not be in people’s heads as a threat and wanted to show people that I’m not strategic, that I’m [an asset] in the game. I didn’t want to be seen as buddy-buddy to anybody.

Plus, it was [what I came into this season with]. I didn’t play with anyone before like Cochran and Dawn did, or Phillip and Andrea. It was pretty intimidating.

Who do you blame more for you going home: Cochran, or Dawn? After all, you were planning to send out Cochran next week had you stayed.

Yeah, I’d have to blame her. Of course, Cochran did it for strategic reasons, and Dawn will say she did it for strategic reasons. But if she’s tight with her alliance, can’t she just say ‘let’s vote her off next week’? You could stick up and say something. Because it was easy for her to [do so], versus someone like Cochran who I had no attachment to.

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If you want to take an early look at next season, we have a pretty interesting feature here to go along with some suggestions for the cast. Be sure to check it out!

Photo: CBS