‘Survivor: Kaoh Rong’ exclusive: Liz Markham on Debbie, Joe, splitting votes, and more
Wednesday night’s new episode of “Survivor: Kaoh Rong” was probably the most entertaining of the entire season from our vantage point, though for Liz Markham it had to be a tough one to watch … and understandably so. Despite being someone we consider to be a smart, effective strategist, she and her fellow ally Peter found themselves on the outside of the numbers as Debbie and Joe opted to team up with Neal and Aubry against them. This led to what appeared on the surface to be a blindside vote, and with Liz being the person we’re speaking with in our exit interview today.
In this chat, we spoke to Liz about everything in the episode, what was left on the cutting-room floor, and also just what it was like being out there in those conditions. Also, it turns out that it may not have been as much of a blindslide as it first appeared.
CarterMatt – How are you feeling right now getting past the trauma of watching yourself on TV?
Liz Markham – I think it is more relief than trauma. I thought that the episode would be so much worse for me than it was.
Why did you think that? Were there some things that they didn’t show that you were [glad didn’t make it to air]?
Yeah, there was a moment where we talked about throwing a challenge, but decided against it. I thought they could make me look like Drew Christy from ‘San Juan Del Sur,’ throwing a challenge to vote myself out. I’m glad it didn’t look that way. (Laughs.)
Not too many people want the Drew Christy comparison, but hey, he says that he’s a badass, so I’m inclined to believe him!
Basically a badass!
I think this is a good jumping-off point for everything that we have to talk about. Do you blame yourself and Peter more for what happened in the episode, or is it more that you give credit to a lot of other people, like Debbie, who made the move against you?
Debbie executed that very well. The way you see her in the first couple of episodes is basically just kind of a nut, and it fails to show how smart she is under that. She played very well, but ultimately it was my fault for making myself someone she wanted to get rid of more so than her fault for wanting to target me.
Have ‘Survivor’ contestants and even us as viewers sort of [been disarmed to] that sort of character? You know we look back at people like a Coach and a Phillip, and at least at first our reaction is to think that they’re not particularly devious.
It definitely took me a couple of days to see past her Coach-like attitude to realize there was lot more going on in there, and I’m glad she’s getting that fair portrayal. They’re not just painting her as this complete goofball, and they’re giving her credit for being strategic.
Were you surprised at all last night to watch some of the confessionals last night with Peter? I’ve loved some of what he’s said about the cats and all that, but he didn’t get the best edit last night.
They try to get you to say these confident things, and it’s kind of a careful dance to give them the answer that they want, but not in a way that’s going to make you look bad. (Laughs.) I think confessionals are whatever, you’re speaking to a camera and they can pick from hours of confessional time to use. Inevitably, you’re going to say something awkward.
I was more surprised by how Peter was at tribal. I think by the time that we went to tribal, Peter and I talked about it and we knew something was up. We didn’t really think there was much we could do about it. One of the last things that we said to each other was ‘there’s really not that much we can do.’
Did you ever consider going against Peter, or were you still reasonably confident that it would work out?
I thought that they would target him and not me. I thought that they didn’t like him that much and they liked me more, but as we saw that may not have been that true. If I realized they were doing a vote split, then I could’ve just voted for Peter and he would’ve gone home in a 3-2-1, and then I would’ve been in a position where I had to survive one more vote before the swap, and surviving one more vote can be done. It’s not that huge to recover from, but the impressions I made on people don’t change that easily. They become crystallized, and then everything you do reinforces them.
Was there a lot of idol hunting going on at the Brains camp? We’ve certainly seen it on the other two camps.
I think we were ALL hunting for the idol, all the tims. I think everyone except maybe Joe was searching a lot. The reason that splits happened was definitely idol fear. Peter and I were relatively confident that Neal had the idol, because we had noticed he had went out less often in the days leading up to tribal. We thought maybe he’d found it.
What was your take on Neal? Other than the ice-cream pants, we really haven’t gotten too much of his point of view on the show. You and Peter obviously thought he was a threat.
I think he imagines that wearing ice-cream-cone pants with a matching bow tie will make people perceive him as this Coach-like goofball, not-aware person. I think it was pretty easy to see past the ice-cream pants. He’s a smart guy, very savvy, knew what was going on. What made Peter and I excessively confident in our position was the amount of friction there was with Neal and Joe. You saw Joe snapping at me, but he snapped at Neal just as much. We just calculated that Joe hated Neal more than he hated me. (Laughs.)
So was there as much tension with you and Joe the whole game as we saw during episode 2?
Not really. There were just a few things here and there, like if he told me to do something and I didn’t, it would really bother him. Like we finally caught a fish on day 7 and he told me to cut the head off before cooking it and eating it, but I ate the head and that really annoyed him. (As Joe) ‘I told you not to eat that!’ (As Liz again) ‘But I eat fish heads all the time at home.’ I don’t know. I don’t want to waste food. I know I should listen to him, but I didn’t want to waste food.
Was it sort of an age thing, where he thought as the oldest player that he would command respect?
Maybe. I think that he also thought that with his military background that we should just follow him with matters on ‘Survivor’ and outdoor things. I think he does know a lot, I do respect him, but I wish it didn’t bother him so much that I tried to contribute.
I don’t usually ask about the weather in exit interviews, but this season is a little different. Can you try to explain how hard the conditions here?
The heat was pretty oppressive, I think over 100 degrees every day. The humidity was pretty incredible. I don’t think the Brains tribe got fire going up until we won the [challenge]. I think four of the six of us had successfully made friction fires before going out there, but I think humidity just kills fires and kills you as well. We would just go in the ocean and cool off as a break between hauling firewood and whatever else we were doing. Having the ocean there is a big refrigerator; it was kind of useful. (Laughs.)
How terrible was it having to keep everything a secret for this long? You go and film this, your friend Stephen Fishbach goes out and does ‘Second Chance,’ his season airs, and then your finally comes on the air?
It’s been almost a year since we went out there! [It’s a] really, really long wait, which sucked! It’s finally over, and we finally can talk about it. It’s a good thing.
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