Survivor: Cagayan -- Brawn vs. Brains vs. Beauty's premiere concluded with the Brains tribe eliminating David Samson and Garrett Adelstein from their tribe at two separate Tribal Council sessions during Wednesday night's episode of the CBS reality series' 28th edition. 

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David, a 45-year-old from Plantation, FL who is president of the Miami Marlins, was voted out of his six-person Brains tribe at the season's first Tribal Council. He was immediately designated as his tribe's leader and had to pick out the weakest link. He selected Garrett, who in turn convinced his tribe to vote David out.

The tables, however, turned on Garrett soon afterwards. The 27-year-old pro poker player from Santa Monica, CA, was voted out of the Brains tribe at the second Tribal Council session.
 
In an exclusive interview with Reality TV World on Thursday, David talked about his short-lived Survivor experience. Below is the concluding portion of his interview. Click here to read the first half.

Reality TV World: Jeff Probst said he thinks Garrett underestimated how physically demanding Survivor is and how nutritional deprivation is especially hard on his body type. We saw Garrett complaining about the conditions, which suggested he may not have been still interested in the game by Day 6. Did that make your own vote-off more frustrating? Did you sort of feel you'd wasted your time focusing on a problem that might've resolved itself? You were just so focused on Garrett still being there on Day 39.

David Samson: Yeah, I think that, I too, I've been a couch contestant since 2000, and I just never focused on what it would feel like to be that hungry, thirsty and tired. And I think that Garrett, from my standpoint, is someone I didn't want out early.

I wanted him to stay with me for a little while, because just like you said, he would not be a great guy to bring to the merge, but up until the merge, he'd be perfect given the makeup of the other tribes and what we were competing against. But obviously for both Garrett and I, it did not work out.

Reality TV World: Did you go into Tribal Council really believing you were aligned with Kassandra "Kass" McQuillen or what did you think your relationship was with her at that point?

David Samson: I thought and still think that we -- that she was going to vote with me and she did, I think. I actually can't remember. I hope she did.

Reality TV World: She did.

David Samson: Yeah, there were two votes for [J'Tia Taylor] and two votes David, and then when the third vote came out David, I said, "That was it." When the second vote came out David, I thought it was possible that [Latasha "Tasha" Fox] just stayed with J'Tia even though we told her not to and she agreed that J'Tia was so weak. But when the third one came out, I knew that was it.

Reality TV World: Part of the reason I was asking was because she made that move to flat out tell J'Tia she was on the chopping block and should start scrambling, which seemed to be a foolish move that kind of tipped the dominos leading to your vote-off. So did you know that she did that? And if so, were you onboard, or when did you find out?

David Samson: She told me she did it and I told her that that's not how I would play, that I don't agree with that decision. You don't tell someone you're voting them off because then they do get into scramble mode. To me, J'Tia was so bad -- I mean, off the charts bad -- that even telling her didn't matter because it still was going to be 5-1.

Because that was, to me, the difference in her play versus the other five. But, you know, her scrambling, I don't want to say her scrambling led to me, because I think it was more Garrett and that's the disappointment I have, that Garrett didn't understand that having J'Tia out first made more sense, and he paid the price for that.

Reality TV World: You were obviously already out of the game by that point, but it doesn't sound like you were surprised then how things continued to go with J'Tia in the second hour of the episode, especially how she struggled in the challenge and then dumped the rice out when she thought she was being voted off?

David Samson: No, I said it on the episode. In the real world, I love her. But on Survivor, she's the mayor of Crazytown. She's just -- she's that player, and having that player around is not useful in the beginning of the game, the middle, or the end. It's just not useful.

Reality TV World: Spencer Bledsoe was worried you had the hidden Immunity Idol to the point where he seemed hesitant to vote for you. Had you done or said anything to try to give him the impression you found the idol? Did seeing that comment surprise you? 

David Samson: Not one bit. I couldn't wait to answer that question because there's no way I had the idol, and Spencer and I had a relationship early that if I did have it, I think he is -- in his mind -- so smart, that he thinks I would tell him. But no. We all knew Garrett had the idol. If anyone had it, we knew Garrett had it, because he was alone on the beach.

Reality TV World: You knew that Garrett had to make some type of decision when you declared him your Brains' tribe weakest link. What did he tell you his decision was then when you all finally joined him at camp?

David Samson: He did not actually. He said that he spent the time on the beach trying to help with the shelter, but he didn't do anything. He said he spent the time trying to make fire, but he didn't do anything.

So it became very clear to us he had a cut on his leg that looked to me was a cut from climbing or digging or doing something. And he also took us to the waterfall as a great source of spring water and there was no way he was able to find that without a map, no way at all. So we all knew immediately something happened with an idol.

Reality TV World: So he just had no explanation of how he managed to hide a map or whatever?

David Samson: His explanation was so bad that it was borderline funny, and it made me question. I really thought that the game on Day 2 was going to change, and I thought that Jeff Probst was going to show up on our island and say that we're the anti-Brains tribe, because that's what it felt like.

Reality TV World: (Laughs) Do you think being labeled the Brains tribe put more pressure on you guys?

David Samson: No. I think being incompetent put more pressure on us.

Reality TV World: Who did you think was incompetent? Everybody?

David Samson: Yeah! Six for six. We just couldn't get anything done at camp. We had a terrible shelter. We had no fire. We just weren't good, and the challenge, we were bad at it. We had no chemistry, and like in my real world with baseball, chemistry matters and you can win games with good chemistry and you can lose games with bad chemistry. And we had bad chemistry.

Reality TV World: What did you think about the Brawn vs. Brains vs. Beauty twist in general? What was your reaction when you first found out about it?

David Samson: I'm not going to win the game, was my reaction.

Reality TV World: Why is that?

David Samson: That was not a great development for me, but I'm always able -- this is part of my job too. I'm always able to see the big picture from a rain standpoint and from an excitement standpoint, it makes for a great game. 

Reality TV World: What made you immediately think you weren't going to win the game?

David Samson: The blazer-wearing short white guy on the Brains tribe voted the leader within the first five seconds is probably not going to win the million.

Reality TV World: What did you think of the other two tribes? Was there anyone in particular that stuck out to you, and if so, why?

David Samson: I think that [Cliff Robinson] stuck out to me because I knew him. I knew who he was, though, I was very interested to see sort of what it would be like to play with him, which I never got to do obviously. So, I would've liked that.

And also, I would say that Alexis Maxwell stuck out as someone who was very pretty on the Beauty tribe, and there was something about her that made me think that she'd have a chance to do something, and whether or not that happens, who knows.

Reality TV World: How were you cast on the show? How did you end up on Survivor?

David Samson: So from 2000 when the show started, I think it was the summer replacement series, and I was in Montreal my first year in baseball. And from Episode 1, I wanted to be on that show, because it's something so different from my real life, something I've never done.

And I was waiting for the right time to apply, and last year, I realized there was never going to be a right time and if I procrastinated or delayed it any further, I may never have a chance to see if I could do something so extraordinary. So I applied and I got a call and that started the process and then I got cast.

Reality TV World: How did you manage to take a month or a month-and-a-half off from the baseball season to do the show?

David Samson: As far as the timing of it, there's never a good time. But at the same time, my job in baseball, I've got a lot of great people around me and I do not suffer from the indispensable-person syndrome. Every day at 7:10, there's going to be a game whether I'm there or not. We have decisions that are going to be made whether I'm there or not.

And I felt as though this is something I really wanted to do and the timing of it was such that it was the best of what could be bad timing. And I wasn't going to let a life-[changing] moment like this pass.

Above is the concluding portion of David's exclusive interview with Reality TV World. Click here to read the first half.


About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski

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