On Tuesday night Jessica Smith's Flica was put out instead of Jonathan's after Aitu decided to extinguish her for being paranoid and all over the place.
It was a unanimous six vote firing that wiped the frown off Flica's face and seemed to make her happy. I caught up with her for us to find out whether she's on this planet or somewhere else.
Here's what she had to outwit, outplay, outflake:
Tashi: Why were you so preoccupied with making alliances along lines of who you liked instead of gameplay and strategy?
Flica: (laughs) You know I wasn’t really familiar with the show before I was recruited to be on it. I had a hard time, I didn’t really understand why people were rude and stand-offish - it was difficult to make alliances with people like that.
Tashi: So you were recruited, you didn’t audition?
Flica: No I didn’t enter the show, I got a call and they asked if I wanted to be on a reality TV show and I went to the finals and ended up getting on the show. It was really quick and I watched some of the episodes when I was in that process. I was just so excited about all the challenges - I thought I’d be a strong player, I’d be good at the challenges, I’d be friendly and hopefully I’d find my niche.
Tashi: How did they find you?
Flica: On the internet, I think it was MySpace - I was playing roller derby for the league and they contacted the league and got my phone number.
Tashi: What was it about you that you think they wanted?
Flica: My sparkling personality (laughs). I’m a stilt walker/fire performer, I was also playing roller derby and I designed all the uniforms for my team - I’m pretty much a go-getter - I guess that’s what they thought was interesting about me. I play all these hardcore sports and I’m a big sweetheart, it’s kind of a contradictary but it works for me.
Tashi: Survivor’s such a huge thing - how could you not have watched it before?
Flica: I don’t know, I like to sew and I’m very busy all the time so I just don’t watch TV much.
Tashi: You do know that you were the Courtney of Cook Islands.
Flica: Not at all, well I mean because of my hair and she’s a fire dancer but that’s the only thing we have in common. There’s been like a billion lawyers and a billion pharmaceutical reps – there are so many different hings you can compare people too – is Bruce Cao Bui?
Tashi: Do you know Courtney? Did you see the season with her in?
Flica: Yes I’ve seen part of her show yeah and we were not – it’s not a bad thing, she’s just more spiritual, hippie like mama type thing and I’m more like country bumpkinm funky fun - we’ve never gotten to hang out, I dunno, we’re not on the same page.
Tashi: Okay. Your socks - were those inspired by Sally Socks from last season? Sally also wore those groovy socks.
Flica: No, they’re my roller derby rocks.
Tashi: Oh, so that’s what they are. We don’t have roller derby here.
Flica: Yes they’re roller derby socks, a lot of the girls where them in roller derby because you have knee pads on. They picked my roller derby top for me to wear on the show and then they picked the long socks.
Tashi: So somebody chose what you would wear?
Flica: Yeah, you send them things and then they pick them out for you.
Tashi: Who would you say’s the biggest actor on the show?
Flica: Um … Jonathan.
Tashi: Is he all an act do you think?
Flica: I think it’s all an act and I think it started the first day when he put the chickens under the box and he didn’t tell me he’d put them under the box and I wasn’t there when he did it and I picked up the box and the chickens ran away.
I was like “Oh Jonathan this would make a great table,” – it was one of those things where he knew the chickens were under there and he was like, “So, why do they call you Flica?” and he just changed the subject and let me walk over to the box and pick up the box. I didn’t know they were in the box - why would I do that? I felt set up - I felt that many times I was set up and I felt like Jonathan had a lot to do with that.
Tashi: It sounds like you felt like you were in Joe Schmo where you were one of the schmo’s there to do the challenges amongst people who had all sorts of other things going on.
Flica: Right, I think they were aware of that - they knew I wasn’t familiar with the show, that I’d only had a month to prepare myself.
Tashi: If you were to do it again, would you act?
Flica: Heck yes I would. Now that I’m away from it, now that time has passed and I’ve gotten to see a lot more episode from different seasons and hung out with Survivrs at events, I’d definitely have a better idea of how to manipulate my situation more.
Tashi: What would you do?
Flica: I think I would focus harder on a strong alliance - the thing was I didn’t really like my alliance with the original Caucasian tribe ‘cos I didn’t trust them. I knew I’d be the first person voted out - I was just the puzzle piece that didn’t really fit.
When we merged I needed to try to find another group people in order to try to align with and unfortunately everybody kept flipping around all the time and I was never grounded as to what I should do. Everyone kept coming at me and then Cao Bui and I ended up flipping - we wanted to vote off Becky which would have really changed the game but then Yul came to me and said he had an alliance with her and we have to vote off Cecilia to break up the Latino alliance.
It just got really got confusing to me because everyone was thinking about the orginal alliances instead of the one we were in.
Tashi: Who would you want to be in a strong alliance with?
Flica: Cao Bui, Ozzy, Cecilia, Ozzy and myself. The whole plan was to vote off Becky, then Jonathan, then Yul - I still talk to Ozzy and Cao Bui and Cecilia’s one of my best friends in the whole world, I’m so so lucky to have been able to build that relationship with her. It’s been really hard for me because I didn’t want to vote her out.
You could see it my face, it totally tore me up, I was like “But she’s my friend,”. I’ve just come back from Spain with her - it’s beautiful that friendship can last after some kind of crazy, traumatic experience like that.
Tashi: You were called paranoid - were you?
Flica: I don’t think she could have even been saying that about me. (laughs) That’s the funny thing.
Tashi: Who out of them all freaked your brain most?
Flica: I thought Jonathan was kinda disrespectful to me, the way he talked to me and stuff. It’s just not the way I’m used to being talked to - I think he just annoyed me the most. There’s just a different mind-set of somebody who’s been watching the show for years and years and years and this is their dream to be on the show.
They know how to get to people and get under their skin because that’s what they do and then somebody like me, I was new at the game and didn’t kno what I was doing and just tried to do my best.
I went on some really great adventures every day, went fishing with Ozzy, fell in love with the coral reef and enjoyed every moment of it. I feel I got more out of the experience than those who were playing the game all the time.
Tashi: You’d say that someone who knows the show would have a better chance of winning?
Flica: Yeah and you have to be good at lying and backstabbing, which I’ve never been good at. I’m trying to get better but it’s just not in my character. (laughs)
Tashi: It’s like the movie The Man Who Knew Too Little - with Bill Murray where he gets himself into situations where has has no clue what’s really going on.
Flica: I felt like I knew too much because I was on the original Caucasian tribe and every time Candice would say to me: “We have to stay strong, we have to strong,” and I’d be like, “But I don’t like you.” It really bugged me Candice and Jonathan bossing me around all the time because I’m just not used it. I think that once they figured out they couldn’t boss me around, it caused problems for me.
Tashi: It’s interesting that they cast people through MySpace.
Flica: Yeah I think it makes it good ‘cos then they don’t have everyone who knows the game really, really well which makes things interesting.
Ends