After 33 days in the Brazilian Highlands, Debra "Debbie" Beebe became the eleventh castaway to be eliminated from Survivor: Tocantins during last night's broadcast of the CBS reality series.

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"I'm really the girly girl, and eating live fish and sleeping in the freezing cold, and just everything that I endured, I'm just so proud of myself," the 46-year-old middle-school principal from Auburn, AK said following her elimination.  "And I know it was a hard decision for them to make, to vote me off tonight.  I don't hold any grudges, this is a game and you got to play it the best.  I may just sit on the jury and see what goes down."

Survivor: Tocantins' eleventh episode began with the Forza tribe's six remaining castaways returning from the Night 30 Tribal Council session in which Sierra Reed was voted out of the competition.

Once the castaways got back to camp, Benjamin "Coach" Wade immediately made it clear that although they weren't a part of his "Warrior Alliance" with Debbie, James "JT" Thomas Jr and Stephen Fishbach, he was upset that Tamara "Taj" Johnson-George and Erinn Lobdell had not joined the foursome in voting for Sierra's elimination.

"Erinn and Taj took the coward's way out and voted for two people who didn't deserve to be voted for, Stephen and Debbie, it was preposterous," Coach told the cameras.  "People that don't even play this game half as honestly as me, even half as bold as me, like we saw tonight, pissing me off."

"Erinn and Taj need to be cut off at the kneecaps for writing your name down and writing Stephen's name down, that was ridiculous," Coach told Debbie. "This is a time for the 'Warrior Alliance,' there's a reason why we have a name... I have two words for you: Taj and Erinn.  We're going to run them through with a sword at the next two votes and I'm thinking Taj has to go next."

"You've got to let it go," Debbie replied.

"Coach does not let things go... it gets so old," a frustrated Debbie told the cameras later.

After returning to the camp's shelter, Debbie -- apparently realizing that her previous concerns that Stephen and JT might not be 100% committed to the Final 4 "Warrior Alliance" with Coach and herself were valid -- immediately began attempting to ensure that Coach would be voted out of the game before her.

"[Coach] just called me over to talk, he's really upset.  I said I know, it's over," Debbie vented to the other castaways.

Meanwhile, Coach continued to stew by the fire.

"Cowards, cowards, cowards all around me," he mumbled.

"I don't care about the million dollars! I care about my integrity and honesty and changing this game from start to finish and I've said that from Day 1!" Coach angrily vented to the cameras.

The next morning, Debbie continued her attempts to end her game-long affiliation with Coach and ensure he'd be voted out of the game before her.

"Coach and I have been together since Day 1 but lately it's been not a positive thing for me," Debbie told the cameras. "As a social person in a social game it is not a good thing for me to be attached to Coach, he's a downer.  People are tired of [his] comments and directives [and] not doing a whole lot around camp.  So I laid in bed last night and it came to me... [that] I need to step up."

Taking advantage of some alone time with JT, Stephen and Taj, Debbie suggested that Coach needed to be the next castaway to go home.

"Hey... I'm second guessing a lot... Coach doesn't want the money either, so why is he here?" Debbie told the threesome.  "Things are coming out that I didn't sign up for and I think you guys probably feel the same, you know what I'm saying?  We're going to have to talk... I love him too but we'll have to talk."

Afterward, JT began to worry that his alliance with Stephen, Taj, and Erinn -- the alliance that, unbeknownst to Coach or Debbie, JT seemed to consider his real alliance -- had made the wrong decision in deciding not to send Debbie home at the game's last Tribal Council.

"Debbie is playing a very strategical game right now," JT told the cameras.  "Debbie may be more of a loose cannon than I thought.  Debbie may be up to some no good around here."

"[I'm] so sick of Debbie," JT vented to his ally Stephen later.

"Yeah, I'm starting to really dislike her," Stephen responded.

However immediately thereafter, Debbie approached the pair and pledged her loyalty to them.

"I don't like going against Coach, but as far as I'm concerned I'm on a tribe with you two and I made an alliance with you two," Debbie told JT and Stephen.  "And I give you my honest to god pinkie swear word on that.  God strike me dead.  I am in it with you two."

"Debbie is a very strategic player... she worries me a little bit," Stephen said afterwards.

Later that day, the castaways met Survivor host Jeff Probst for the Reward Challenge, which ended up being the season's traditional Survivor auction in which each castaway was given $500 to bid on various reward items.

Several of the castaways won desirable food items during the auction, however Taj landed the most memorable item when all the castaways gave her their remaining money after Jeff revealed that the final item would be a video from home.  After Taj won the right to watch a video from her loved ones, Jeff surprised the castaways by revealing that she had also won the right to have her husband, retired NFL star Eddie George, stay at camp with the castaways.

However Jeff also had a second surprise and offered Taj the chance to have everyone's loved ones spend the afternoon at the tribe's camp if she were willing to send herself to Exile Island for the next two days and spend her own visit with Eddie there.

Taj immediately accepted the offer and traveled to Exile where she reunited with her husband

"He just looked like an angel... I just wanted to take him to the side and have a conjugal visit," she told the cameras afterwards.

When they returned back to the tribe's camp, all the rest of the castaways were greeted by one of their own family members -- except Coach, who was greeted by (who else?) his assistant coach.

Debbie got to reunite with her husband, while Erinn reunited with her father,Stephen reunited with his brother, and JT reunited with his sister,

While the rest of the castaways seemed to use the afternoon to show their loved ones how they had been living for 31 days, Coach spent his time having his assistant give him a chiropractic session and falsely boasting about his Survivor accomplishments.

"Hey man, I'm running this game!" Coach boasted to his long-suffering -- and now former, presumably -- assistant coach.

"Guess what they call me in this game?  Dragonslayer, because I'm slaying all the dragons," Coach told his assistant, conveniently ignoring the fact that he had actually given himself that nickname. 

"I'm running this freaking show, let me tell you that right now!" he continued.  "I think I'm going to be in that Final 2, unless something crazy comes up."

The following day, Debbie resumed her not-so-subtle plotting against Coach, however JT was unimpressed.

"Debbie's opened out like white on rice the last few days... she's throwing Coach under the bus right now and they have been tight since Day 1, you need to watch out for people like that," JT told the cameras afterwards.

Meanwhile, Coach continued his attempts to convince JT to vote off Taj as Debbie looked on.

"I keep thinking if she plays the immunity idol [when only she and us four are left] then one of us could go home," Coach said.  "I'm not trying to get paranoid but I just don't want any wild cards."

JT agreed to Coach's plan but then admitted he was just telling him what he wanted to hear.

"Coach's strategy isn't the same as mine in this game, I feel like I'm really a few steps ahead of Coach in terms of strategy," JT told the cameras.  "I tell him what he wants to hear at this point... [but] we're not really the page anymore."

With Taj still in Exile, Debbie later had a conversation with JT, Stephen and Erinn in which they once again discussed voting off Coach.

"It's going to have to be like y'all did with Tyson, a blindside," Debbie told the threesome.  "But it's going to have to be every single one of us writing [his name] down.... he's going to think we're voting for Taj, that's who Coach will think we're voting for."

"Coach thinks he's in an alliance with myself, JT, and Stephen, but JT and Stephen have had it [with him] as well," Debbie told the cameras afterwards.

Later, Debbie -- who had questioned why Coach was still in the game if he didn't want the million-dollar grand prize one day earlier -- suddenly told JT and Stephen that she would be "happy" to finish in third place and pledged to give them the individual immunity necklace if she were to win the Final 3 Immunity Challenge.

"I will do anything in my power for you two to be sitting there at the end, I swear to you, I swear to god," Debbie told the pair.  "If I have the immunity idol and it's down to us three, I'll give it to one of you so I can be voted out.  I mean that.  I'm happy with third, swear to god... I would do it, I swear to you."

JT and Stephen immediately relayed the offer to Erinn, who had a quick response.

"OK, she's out," Erinn snapped.

"With Debbie making that promise to Stephen and myself it also makes me wonder what promises she's made to other people," JT told the cameras afterward.  "Even if she says she only wants third place, nobody wants third place in this game."

The next day, the castaways met Jeff for their next individual Immunity Challenge and were reunited with Taj.  The challenge required the castaways to dig, walk and crawl under an obstacle course and then wander into a field and memorize ten arithmetic symbols that were spinning on large placards. 

After memorizing as many of the symbols as they could, each castaway would have to go back through the obstacle course and write the symbols in the same order on an answerboard.  Once they had written all the symbols on the answerboard they could then complete the simple math -- the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of eleven single-digit numbers -- and calculate the math equation's answer.  The winner would receive immunity from the evening's Tribal Council session.

JT raced through the obstacle course and quickly jumped into the lead position in what seemed to be a two-person race between himself and Debbie, however Stephen suddenly came from nowhere and managed to solve the equation after taking just a single look at the ten symbols, winning immunity.

"Stephen, I gotta ask, you memorized all ten symbols in one pass, [how]?" Jeff asked.

"I made each symbol be a number -- so I had pluses be ones, divided bys were fours, times were threes -- and I know the brain can remember a seven-digit number because that's why phone numbers are seven digits, so I divided it into two numbers," Stephen explained as the rest of the castaways looked on in amazement.

"Well it worked, that was pretty much one of the biggest come from behind victories ever," Jeff said.

Once the castaways returned to camp, JT  celebrated his ally's victory.

"It's just like I got the necklace, every time something goes our way I try hard not to do it but I just look at Stephen and smile because he knows just like I do [if] we just keeping battling it out and doing what we're doing we can do this," JT told the cameras.

Once they reunited with Taj at camp, JT and Stephen immediately told her about Debbie's Final 3 immunity offer.

"Debbie is the most strategical woman of the year," JT told Stephen and Taj as the three laughed about Debbie's offer and her attempts to get them to vote off Coach and Erinn next.

"The downsides of losing Debbie are she is a really hard worker around camp, [and] she's a very strong presence," Stephen told the cameras.  "I actually think she would step aside at three and let me and JT have it.  [The] other downsides to losing Debbie are a couple of more days here with Coach."

Afterward, Coach once again approached the pair and suggested they vote Taj off next.

"I think about it and I got my instincts saying 'You got to get rid of Taj next because if she has the idol she's going to play it at [the Final] 5,'" Coach told JT and Stephen.

"We're solid... the four of us have nothing to worry about, the only that can get in our way is the idol [and] if we play this right that's over with," JT replied, once again lying to Coach.

"Coach is always wanting to reassure that things are going his way and it's just hard to deal with, I mean I don't want to lie to him," JT explained to the cameras afterwards.  "I hate lying to anybody so anybody I got to lie to I try and avoid them.  So the sooner I get the people I got to lie to out of the game the better."

Before leaving for Tribal Council, Stephen and JT expressed their amazement at their current positions in the game.

"So are you ready for this tonight?," JT asked Stephen.

"This is the right move, right?" Stephen replied.

"I think it is, man, and I trust you a 100%," JT replied.

"I trust you a 100%," Stephen confirmed.

"And we ain't got a damn thing to worry about," JT boasted.

"Right now, we have played an awesome game," Stephen said.

"I know," said JT.

"And nobody wants to vote us out," Stephen noted.

"And I don't know why neither," JT replied.

"I know, they all know that we're sort of running things but everybody wants to be on our good side," Stephen said.

Afterward, Stephen continued to express his surprise at how easily and smoothly things were going for the former Jalapao tribe members, who had begun the game's tribal merger at a 4-6 disadvantage to the Timbera tribe and had lost their only member to a medical evacuation.

"Whether or not Debbie is scheming, whether or not Coach is delusional -- right now it doesn't matter," Stephen told the cameras.  "We need to just figure each move strategically to make things easier for the next move.  We don't need any of them to be loyal right now, as long as we have a strong alliance we can pick them off one by one."

Once the castaways arrived at Tribal Council, Coach once again demonstrated his poor understanding of the tribe's internal dynamics.

"Debbie's playing the game for the same reasons I am, and that's for integrity. and so that's why we paired up on Day 1 because I know she will never lie to me no matter what,"  Coach told Jeff.   "I trust her implicitly, she will not lie to me in this game."

During the Tribal Council session, Jeff also questioned Taj's statement that Coach was "a warrior."

"A warrior?" Jeff asked

"That's what he says, he's a warrior," Taj responded.

"That's what you said!" Jeff noted.

"Because that's what he calls himself!" Taj replied.

"I didn't come up with that by the way," Coach interjected.

"Let me guess [it was] some chief in a small village," Jeff responded, causing the rest of the castaways and the jury members to erupt in laughter.

"That's fine," Coach shot back at Jeff. "Hey, every time we come in here and you want to try and cut me down because you want to ferret out the truth, I love it."

Immediately afterward, Coach -- who had just spent days campaigning for Taj's ouster -- proceeded to lie and tell Jeff he felt that she deserved to make it to the game's end and that it would be "very difficult" for him to vote out her.

"I think that every time that each one of us sit here and analyze each person up here we all think is it justifiable [for them to advance to the end]," Coach told Jeff.  "And obviously coming on the heels of her doing something like that it would be very difficult for any of us to want to vote her off tonight."

"Anybody who will stand here and put himself on the line and be this honest, that's never told a lie, deserves to go as far as his body can stand," JT told Jeff about Coach while maintaining a straight face as several of the other castaways smirked silently.

Debbie also played up Coach's alleged "honesty."

"I think Coach is determined to be honest, and this is a game where honestly is huge but can it really last through the duration of the game,  I don't know," Debbie said.  "If there is an Achilles' heel on Coach that could be it."

Debbie also predicted that the night's vote would "be a surprise" that would "change the way the tribe behaves and how we're going to figure out who belongs where."

However, when Jeff counted the votes, Debbie discovered that the "surprise" was apparently on her and she was the one who didn't "belong" in the "changed" tribe.

Coach voted for Taj and Debbie voted for Coach, however the rest of the castaways all voted for Debbie, resulting in Debbie being eliminated via a 4-1-1 vote.

Survivor: Tocantins' next episode will air on Thursday, May 14 at 8PM ET/PT on CBS.
About The Author: Steven Rogers

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