Survivor

I'm a licensed sex therapist, my thoughts aren't on like, oh, missing home yet,

my thoughts are on, how do I stay here, it's just ache and pain, I'm trying to

tell myself to suck it up, Denise is a machine, but if you do vote me out

tonight, you will give a million dollars to one of these two people, they cannot

beat Denise, congratulations Denise, anything that's going to get me to the end

of the game, it's going to be me, Denise wins, I am one stubborn,

determined woman, we.

Are live in CBS Television City, Los Angeles, where Denise, with tears in

your eyes, just won a million dollars, congratulations,

so I know from hearing from people on the street during this season that a lot of

fans saw you as an underdog, did you truly believe you were an underdog?

Absolutely, 100%, just going from tribe to tribe, I just know I had to keep fighting

and fighting and fighting and reconfiguring what I was going to do,

and absolutely, going to every tribal council, every tribal council,

was there a moment when you thought, truly thought it's over?

Oh, the Final Four, that's when I, that's when I, I really thought I am in hot water.

So, your biggest move had to be cutting Malcolm.

Yeah, 100%, I had to cut him.

Now, Malcolm, you had a chance, you had the opportunity, why, if nothing else, why not just lie to Denise?

Yeah, I took a page out of Penner's Ways to Get Voted Out playbook.

But I thought I had it locked with Skupin and Lisa, I really, you know, I thought

that they were stuck to their word with me before, and if I get them to shake on it, we're good.

So I honestly, and you saw it at that last travel council, when she said what she

said, my face just dropped, and I was toast, and I was in shock.

To the members of the jury, if Malcolm goes to the end, even with Denise, does he win?

If you're in the jury and you give him your vote, raise your hand.

There's only two?

Really?

So if Malcolm is in the final with Denise, does Denise still win?

All right, well, pretty convincing.

So either way, Denise, it looks like you were in pretty good shape.

So you're a sex therapist in your normal life.

Yes.

So what do your clients think about this when you're out there and you're so

vulnerable and you're wearing a bikini and all these issues?

This has been absolutely one of the unexpected gifts of playing this game.

Is that it's with, I've had clients that have just been fantastic about it and

we've had all of these really authentic conversations about religion and body

image and just trying to do something different and digging deep and getting up off their couch.

I ask because you were concerned about how you were going to

be perceived with this clientele you'd worked so closely with.

Completely.

Yeah.

Because you worry because they see me in one light in my office and then you're just completely exposed out here.

I mean, and it's completely out of your control.

So a big issue in the game of Survivor is trust.

Trust.

Always.

And it came in these last few days.

It was so much.

Lisa, you betrayed Malcolm, too.

I mean, he takes you to the reward while you're conceiving how to blindside him.

Well, it was also very strategic of him to take me to the reward.

I don't think that was just totally out of the goodness of his heart.

It was a smart move to take me to the reward.

Penner, you had a chance at this.

You had two big chances.

One with Jeff Kent, which we'll talk about.

You had an offer for a Final Four.

What was happening in your head?

Because as I'm watching, you know, a lot of this stuff I don't know.

So as I'm watching it back, you're over there so smug going, I don't know, I'll get back to you.

Well, I didn't feel smug at all.

What I felt was that I had played a very specific running, scrambling game up to that point, staying alive.

And the reason that Lisa trusted me was because I had never

lied to her and didn't realize that now was the time to start.

I mean, I knew at some point I was going to have to do something.

I knew that, but I certainly didn't realize the end game was upon me.

I had played an open game with her and didn't start lying.

What was the deal with you and Jeff Kent?

Because when you guys ended up together, I thought if these two get together,

this could be fantastic.

Sorry, ask Jeff, because I totally agree.

When I shook his hand twice with five fingers, I thought that we had a gentleman's agreement to go to the five.

And I was shocked.

I mean, not disappointed, but surprised that he was gunning for me from the get-go.

So, Jeff, it did seem as though, more than anything, you wanted Penner out before you.

But I never wrote your name down one time, buddy.

And the thing is, I was trying to deflect all the attention off of me and put it on somebody else.

And I was dumping it all on Penner.

And now I approached Penner many times and said, we can do this.

And I gave him the idea that they were gunning for him, so he needed to use his idol.

But Denise was the problem.

Denise, we couldn't get Denise to go, so therefore I couldn't side with Penner.

And Carter was my other boy, and I had to go with Carter.

So you were shocked when Penner voted the way he did that night at Tribal.

We still don't know why he voted the way he did.

And we kind of had a run in afterwards, the fact that would you throw that vote

for, because if not, we'd still be on that island together.

Skupin, surprised that you didn't get more votes?

You know, I think that you go into the Final Three knowing your game and knowing

how hard you fought, and I think you expect to get all of them.

I mean, because you... You know what you personally did.

I'm not seeing what she did in her confessionals.

I'm not seeing what she did.

I know what I did, and I clawed and fought the whole game, so...

So as you're sitting there at the last Tribal Council and right here tonight,

you fully expect that you should and deserve to win?

Yeah, I think you just go in with that mindset that you're confident,

you've played hard, and I thought I played harder than everybody else.

How about you, Lisa?

Did you, at the final Tribal, think, I deserve it and I think I'm going to get it?

I'm pretty realistic about the game I played.

And, you know, the truth is, as much as I would have loved to have won the million

dollars, or even 600,000, I really did grow and learn so much.

It was painful, but it was worth every moment of it, and, you know, silly thing,

corny as it is, the Facts of Life theme song is you take the good, you take the

bad, you take them both, and learning how to accept both sides of me has been worth a million dollars.

Jeff, Lisa referenced your $600,000 comment, which your exit, if you didn't

catch that, he said it's going to be even less now, so your exit speech is probably

the best there's ever been, can you compare, you know, you basically said,

look, I made 60 some million dollars in baseball, and I want to win this stupid

game, what is it about this game that you wanted to win?

You know, and this game draws you back in, too, when you get kicked off, you know

you're getting kicked off, and you're watching it back there, it draws you back

in, your competitive nature just gets kicked up another notch.

This is a very competitive game.

But what is it?

You could do lots of things, you were in the World Series.

You know, the anticipation, you know, baseball's a game of anticipation,

and I think that that's what this game's about.

You sit there at tribal council not knowing if you're going home, so that

anticipation increases your adrenaline drive through the roof, and that draws you

in to compete, and I think that's what this game does.

I gotta say about you, that all the guys on our crew learned a lesson from you,

and it's an ironic one, I think, because it was about sportsmanship.

You came in with this big baggage, which is, you know, from the major

leagues, and every time we had a challenge that Jeff Kent lost, I expected to hear

complaining, and every time he'd say, hey, you know, they got us, we'll try to get them next time.

So I did learn that from you.

Skupin, put, Michael, roll the B-roll of what some people called sort of Mr.

Magoo out there, which was Skupin.

That was you!

It was me, okay, I admit it.

Take a look at this, Skupin, because all of a sudden, you falling in the fire back

in Survivor Australia, even though it was incredibly tragic and scary, made a little more sense.

You just weren't out there long enough to have more accidents.

Look at this stuff.

So, is that, I mean, because we've played this game for 25 seasons, never had

anybody, every other day, I get a call going, Skupin chopped a finger off, Skupin did this.

Is that just because you play hard, or is this reflective of how you are at

home with your kids, that you've always got little knocks on your head?

You know, I think it's just that I play hard.

And none of those injuries even seem to affect me.

I mean, during the, when the mask shattered in my face and blood was

dripping on the puzzle, I'm like, where is this blood coming from?

And they're like, it's from your face.

I mean, I didn't even know that it happened during that time.

So, small little injuries, little nicks here and there.

And, you know, the adrenaline kicks in as bad as your foot hurts, limping to the challenge.

Once you get there, it's game on, you don't even feel it.

Well, you mentioned the mask, because what happened in one challenge is we gave Michael Skupin this mask.

I asked the guys in our department.

I asked the guys in our department to keep it for me after we were done.

It literally blew out.

Everything blew out and shattered.

There we go.

And shattered.

Take a look at that, because that's what's left of it.

It's just little shards of hard plastic or glass.

Anyway, Skupin, I want to give this to you as a reminder of your time on this show.

All right.

We have a lot more survivors to check in with.

We're going to talk with Lisa.

We're going to talk with Malcolm.

We're going to talk with Abi.

But first, it is hard to believe this is our 25th season, and after so many years

on the air, Survivor's still going strong, and there is one reason why.

It is you, our audience, and we'd like to take a moment to say thank you.

For 12 years and 25 seasons, you've invited Survivor into your homes.

You followed us across four continents, 18 countries, and invested in over 350 tribal councils.

You're the most loyal and amazing fans a show could ever hope for, and thanks to

you, Survivor is still the most watched show, Wednesdays at 8.

We thank you.

The Survivor reunion will continue only CBS.

We'll call the facts of life.

In real life, I'm trying to learn to open up, but this is not the place to experiment with that.

My whole life has been based on public.

You know, I've lived my life on the stage since I was seven years old.

I don't think I've ever needed any person more in my life.

Lisa, not giving up.

I do believe I'm taking control of my own destiny and the rest of my life.

Welcome back to the Survivor Philippines live reunion show where Denise has won a million dollars.

We're talking with Lisa Whelchel now.

So, we just saw in there, you know, the facts of life, people grew up with you

on TV, you grew up on TV, and then you come to this game in which you're going to

be stripped bare, very vulnerable, nowhere to hide, nobody necessarily even likes you.

Were you concerned about this image that you had to the public?

You know, I really didn't even ever think about that.

I was so excited to be a part of the game and in the game, and I'm really not like Blair.

I actually prefer not wearing makeup and not being in high heels.

So that felt very comfortable and very me.

And so it just really, I wasn't aware and self-conscious about my appearance.

It was much more about my opening up what was inside and the conflict that was going on in there.

So the Christianity, which was such a big part, is that a concern then?