To look at it now, it would have been so easy for Drew Christy, the impetuous and outspoken dude on “Survivor: San Juan del Sur—Blood vs. Water” to have just laid low for one more week.
He could have made it to tonight’s buff-dropping tribe switching.
But that wouldn’t have been Drew.
Instead, he threw the immunity competition, sending his previously unbeaten tribe Hunahpu to tribal council for the first time – where the long-haired Florida salesman was promptly voted out.
“I definitely went out with a bang,” Christy said in a phone interview Tuesday. “Even though it didn’t work out the way I wanted.”
For a guy who was formerly so far under the radar he was often filmed snoozing while teammates worked, last week’s episode was all about Drew.
First he tried to bargain with Jeff Probst when he found the flint his tribe had formerly lost, trying to get back a fishing equipment prize they had bargained away for the replacement flint. “Maybe it was a little bit delusional,” he said.
Then he volunteered to go to Exile Island – mostly to strategize with Jaclyn, the boyfriend of his teammate Jon, with whom they had hatched a plan to align, along with Drew’s brother Alec.
“Once the merge happened, the four of us would be a strong alliance and a force to be reckoned with if we made it that far,” Christy said. “But obviously I did not. “
It was also with Jon – and Jeremy and Natalie, he says – that he had talked about their all throwing the immunity competition.
“Jon and Jeremy sat out that challenge,” Christy pointed out. “Two of our strongest physical competitors sat out of that one. They were along with throwing the challenge with me. I surely didn’t think that it would come back and bite me that bad, but it sure did. “
Part of his intent in throwing the competition and sending Hunahpu to tribal for the first time was to keep the dwindling Coyopa from going for a fourth consecutive time. “I didn’t want my brother voted out on his tribe,” Christy said. “I knew if we kept beating them, I didn’t really know how he stood with his tribe over there.”
Mostly he couldn’t wait ridding his tribe of who he called “snakes” on the show. “I grew impatient… with trying to get some of these people voted out of our tribe.”
His rush to go to tribal meant that he was the one voted out, though.
Christy said sleep deprivation and hunger made him act a little more erratic than usual and the show edited his behavior to look even worse.
Rather than being the lazy guy, he said, “they didn’t show me opening coconuts for al the girls or starting the fire, or going to get water or building the whole shelter, or waking up four or five times at night to make sure the fire was still going to keep the bugs off people. There were so many other things that I did that wasn’t really portrayed in the show. It was definitely funny to watch that’s for sure.”
He declined to help weave a roof in one scene, because it was unnecessary. “I don’t know if you noticed, but the roof was already done.”
Another thing he said was lost in the edit was that his insistence in getting fishing equipment back came from the fact he was allergic to shellfish. While everyone was chowing down on crabs he sat there waiting to go fishing for something he could eat.
Christy said he and his brother have a lot of “Survivor” skills for camping out and fishing with their dad in Florida.
“That was another thing that was intimidating to the tribe mates. They didn’t know what to do and I knew what to do when the rain came, I knew how to collect water. I knew how to keep the fire going through the rain and collect coals and do a lot of survival techniques that a lot of the other tribe mates didn’t know how to do. That obviously wasn’t documented on the show either.”
As for the social game, “there were a lot of factors and variables coming into the game, trying to get people to trust you. I kind of made some mistakes taking in front of people just being a little bit too forward rather than going with flow. I was pretty opinionated. And I think maybe that’s why they cast me for the show. They knew I was pretty strongminded and didn’t take no for an answer.”
Does that mean he think his spectacular one-episode flameout would make him eligible to be cast for return visit to compete in a future season?
“I surely think they would,” Christy said. “Jeff seems to like me.
“I’m anxious to get back on there and prove myself to everyone else that has been trash talking about my game and everything else. I’d sure like to prove myself in the game of “Survivor” because I feel like I’m definitely more than the average player on the game.”