Secret Scene: Elyse
Elyse enjoys getting her bathing suit.
<Elyse and Whitney walk along the shore>
Elyse: It's like it's warmer in the morning and it gets chilly at night.
Whitney: I know. I was expecting it to be um...cold in the morning. I need to get my bathing suit sandy. <they sit down>
Elyse (solo): We got a surprise. <sing-song voice> New swimsuits. </sing-sing voice> I've never been so happy to see something that would serve as a pair of underwear in my life. The new swimsuits inspired us to wash all our clothes, boiling our unmentionables, it's just a good day. <shot of Dawn boiling clothes> It's going to be nice and calm. We're going to look very snazzy. You just feel good about yourself wearing a fresh pair of clothes. It's like a new day. Having something clean just kind of rejuvenated our spirits. It's just like <stretches> taking the day, sunbathe, feel good about my new swimsuit before it gets disgusting. <laughs>
<Elyse, Dawn and Whitney on the beach, saying they're sandy>
Elyse on Redemption Island
Elyse joins Christine on Redemption Island after just being voted out at Tribal Council
<Christine wakes up when Elyse arrives>
Christine: Oh boy. I don't know you but I feel like I have to hug you. How you doin'?
<Elyse introduces herself and sits down>
Christine: So how'd it go?
Elyse: It was totally out of nowhere.
Christine: I know.
Christine (solo): Finally, I got some company. <applauds> I feel bad that she was voted out, but being selfish, I have someone to talk to.
<Christine tends to the fire>
Elyse: Can I help you with...
Christine: No, don't worry; just relax.
Christine (solo): I am a mother, so I tend to mother...people. <Christine offers Elyse a banana> That seems to help get me through. If you don't constantly keep your mind busy, you can break very easily out here, and I'm trying not to do that.
Elyse: How've you been?
Christine: <laughs> Oh, it's bad out here. It's bad. I don't like it. 10 days out here, 10 days of losing.
Elyse: You spent more time out here than you have in the group, right?
Christine: Yeah. Double.
Elyse: Not how you expected to spend...
Christine: No. No no. Not at all. It's like solitary confinement over here. It's so bad.
Elyse (solo): Christine was very welcoming. She's spent twice as much time at Redemption Island as she has in the game. I can't imagine how lonely and stir crazy and exhausted she must be.
Christine: It's just a little slice of hell out here, really.
Elyse: Is it worth it?
Christine: If my kids can say, "That's my mommy. She did it!" then I'll be alright. I hate it out here. I hate it. <Elyse tries to tell her that her kids are proud>
Christine (solo): My daughter is 7 and my son is 9. My necklace is dog tags with my kid's names and their birthdates, and a heart which says love on it, an elephant for good luck, and a heart from my family, because that's where my heart is. My heart's always there. <begins to cry and covers her face with her scarf>
<one last shot of Christine despondent>
Totally Blindsided
Elyse did not expect to be voted out at Tribal Council
"Now that I have a little bit of time to think about what happened at Tribal Council, I think I expected to be more at peach about what happened. I just have this uneasy, unsettling feeling. I felt totally blindsided. That happens, that's part of the game, I understand that, but in no way, shape, or form did I expect to be sent home by my tribe THIS early. No way."
(cut)
"The votes don't really make a lot of sense to me. 3 votes for me, 2 votes for Dawn, 2 votes for Cochran. Unless it was some big orchestrated scheme and it was supposed to end this way. I don't see why that would happen, it doesn't really make any sense, but it does feel like a slap in the face, because somehow, along the way, plans were made and I wasn't a part of it - that always hurts your feelings - but beyond that, I always thought we were a really unified group, we were all on the same page, had the same vision. Apparently I was just working towards a different vision than the rest of the tribe, or at least 3 other people on the tribe of 7."
(cut)
"I think with Ozzy's leadership, they know what they're doing, but there's still a big piece of me that wants to believe Ozzy was with me, that Ozzy might have been the other Cochran vote last night, that what happened was independent of him, that maybe he would have stepped in. Maybe that's silly of me to think so, maybe I'm giving him too much credit, but if the votes are all over the place and it wasn't on purpose, I don't know what direction they're going. It sounds like they're going to make themselves too vulnerable if they're going to go into the merge with this hodgepodge frame of mind."
(cut)
"I thought about what it's going to be like at the duel, to see a couple of my tribe members there. I have an idea of who might be there. I think it might be Keith and Ozzy, just because Keith hasn't been yet and Ozzy talked about wanting to go to the next one. It's going to be bittersweet, because on the one hand I think they'll be cheering me on, they'll want me to do well, they'll want me to come out on top of Christine, maybe make it back into the game in a few days. At the same time, these are the people that left me out and sent me here and put me through the coldest, darkest, most lonely night I think I've ever had in my life. It's hard to face people like that with a smile. It's just...it hurts."
Elyse the Day After
Elyse reflects on her time in the game the day after she lost the duel on Redemption
"I think though this experience has definitely changed me in a lot of ways. It helped me figure out a little bit more about who I am. I was expecting that. I was expecting to be able to walk out of this and say, this is what I'm like when I'm under pressure, this is what I'm like when I'm pushed to my limits. I didn't think I would have to push them so far <laughs>. I'm really kind of proud that even though I wanted to give up every single second, because it was so uncomfortable, it's so demanding, it's so hard. You want to quit and you want to say, I'm done, but until my very last minute I was in 100%."
(cut)
"I think the highest point for me was after the challenge that we won and we won blankets and mats and pillows, and it wasn't so much that we won those things - those were godsends, don't get me wrong - it was the first time our group felt like a really solid group. We'd already been to Tribal Council once, we knew we needed to win. It kind of felt like, oh my gosh, the game is really on, and we can do this, we can make it really far. I can make it really far."
(cut)
"In relating to my tribemates, it's funny; I knew we'd all get along really well - it's a social game - but the people I typically work with back home or worked with in school or at jobs, I've never been around a group so diverse. I've never been with so many people from so many walks of life. Having done the pageant thing at Miss America, to a certain degree pageant girls all kind of follow the same template. We're all in school, we all want scholarships, we all have talent. Working in Vegas, I work in nightlife, a lot of us are outgoing, we love to have a good time, we're very social. That's kind of what blends us together. Being out on a beach with my tribe, even though we all got along well, there were so many different personalities and backgrounds, it was a situation I'd never really been in, being around a bunch of strangers. Before going into the game I compared it to, we just look like a group of people who sat on a bus together by coincidence, and that's kind of what it was. There wasn't any commonality other than we're here to play a game."
(cut)
"I think one of the things that might have been a drawback for me was that my strategy was so loosely defined. I think people who go into the game with a very rigid concept of what they want the game to be and how they're going to play it, they maybe have a leg up on people like me who are more like taking everything in, absorbing it, and flying by the seat of our pants. Looking back, I don't know exactly what I would have done differently, if at all. I kind of came out of the game really fast, and the votes at Tribal Council were kind of all over the place. But it's great to not be unanimously voted out <laughs>; that could be the silver lining."
(cut)
"Oh my gosh. When I get home, I think my friends are going to be FLOORED at the changes I've made inside. I think immediately I've already noticed I'm a more relaxed person about things I've been uptight about before. I can't imagine ever in my life watching bugs crawl all over me, and I don't really care, I just kind of flip 'em off. Or if a fly lands over my plate, that would really be enough to make me excuse myself from the meal. At this point I've eaten...I don't even want to talk about what I've had to eat. Fish covered in swarms of flies, and you're starving, so you eat it. It's kind of funny how things that really don't matter fade into the background in the name of the game, in the name of survival. I think they'll be really impressed. When they see the show, and I'm chopping things with machete and I'm sleeping on bamboo and I'm dirty...<scoffs> get out of here. <laughs> They're gonna go crazy."
(cut)
"One thing that stands out to me about this experience is hearing about how everyone has persevered with what they've went through in the game. Hearing people say, I'm here because I want to show my kids, or my mother, or my parents, that I'm this, and for me, the accomplishment means so much because the only reason I'm here is for me. To prove I'm here, that I would do it, that I wouldn't give up, that I would give 100% even when I didn't want to, that I would savor every excruciating moment out there, freezing and tired and hungry and dirty and stressed. I did it. I think this is going to sort of be the marker I compare all of the other difficult things in my life. If I have problems at work, or problems with relationships, it's kind of like, if I can persevere, what I went through out here in the South Pacific, <scoffs> I can get through anything. How many people can say they have one experience in their life that they can use that as the measurement of everything else? Not very many. I've been very blessed to have this experience. It was definitely bittersweet to come out of the game, but at the end of the day, I'm happy with the way things are."
I Have to Get Back In
Christine is desperate to get back into the game
"Since I've gotten onto Redemption Island, I've had lots and lots of time to think. In the beginning I was thinking of why I was voted out first from my tribe, and that's really what consumed my thoughts. Why was I voted out first, what was it, who was the ringleader, who was behind it. That's pretty much what I thought about. Then when Stacy came, she confirmed all of that, and now my thoughts have leaned more towards what am I going to do when I get back into the game. My thoughts certainly have shifted, shifted more from being angry and 'why' to, OK, what next. I have 4 duels under my belt right now and honestly, they're not getting any easier. If anything, it's giving me more and more agita."
(cut)
"Like (not sure what she says...nellabush?). You know, an upset stomach."
(cut)
"Because the more duels I have, the closer I get to getting in the game, which is wonderful, but conversely, the more days I'm out here, and I lose one duel, all of these days are just gone, just for nothing. That is giving me agita. Thinking about all these days and it could be all lost in a second."
(cut)
"I want this so badly. I want to get back in the game. I don't know what my previous duelers have felt, but I have this insatiable drive to get back into the game. I have to get back in. It's not a question of want - no, I have to. Maybe that has driven me and steamrolled all four of the previous duelers. I don't know."
