On last week's "Survivor," the Fans and Favorites blended into new tribes. Does this mean that the Couples' Alliance among the Favorites is done for? Or will the members be able to stick it out until the merge? Time will tell.

Joel got frustrated with Chet, and literally had to drag him around a maze for one challenge. But Joel ended up being the one voted off at the end of the day. Here's some of what he had to say for himself in a talk I had with him last week:

On why he tried out for the show:

I've been a fan of the show for a long time. It's always been something I've wanted to do. But my schedule and just life in general didn't allow me to do it. It just happened that my wife and I and my mother-in-law all found an open casting call was going to be in Arizona and it was the perfect opportunity. We're in a situation now with my job and my family that we have stability there. That wasn't there in the past. I didn't have an opportunity to leave for seven weeks and go try to be part of the show. That opportunity presented itself now and it was the perfect time to take advantage of it. They're dangling a million dollars for seven weeks of your life. That's pretty hard to say no to for me.

On how being in the show compares to expectations from watching the show:

It wasn't more than I expected. Having watched numerous amounts of the previous seasons, I had an idea of what to expect. But I don't think knowing what to expect prepares you for what you're going to be in store for. The reality is they drop us on an island, 10 people who have no idea who the other nine are, with a machete and a pot and they say, "Hey, good luck." And they start filming you. The people holding the cameras are completely silent. You can't talk to them. You're literally trying to survive, trying to get water, trying to get food, trying to kill things, trying to build shelter. You can watch that a million times on TV. It doesn't mean you have any idea how to do it in real life, though.

On the most difficult part of the show:

For me the toughest part of being out there was being away from my family. I've got a seven-month-old right now and an older boy who's two and a half right now. Being away from them and being away from my wife -- in the past, I don't think my wife and I have spent more than 48 hours away from each other. So that was hard for me, more than dealing with the elements or anything else.

On the best part of the show:

The best part was the test, the test of being there. You sit home on your couch and you go, "Why'd they do that?" or "That was a stupid move," but now you're in the middle of it, and you get to do it. You get to say, "Put your money where your mouth is, tough guy, if you think you'd be so good at it." For me, that's the best experience, being able to test myself at things I thought I'd do well at.

On the lessons he learned:

Some of the things were just confirmations. I know I'm extremely competitive. I know I'm very vocal. One of the things I learned about myself when it came to being voted off is sometimes I let my emotions get the best of me. As long as I played the game logically, I think I was doing very, very well. As soon as I allowed my dislike for certain people on the tribe to cause me to want to vote a certain way, that was my downfall. I need to keep my emotions a little more in check, I think.

On Chet:

You know, Chet's not a bad guy as an individual. He's just not a competitor. If I was choosing people for a football team, he wouldn't be one of the people I would choose. That doesn't mean he's a bad person. That doesn't mean he doesn't know how to play the game of "Survivor." The smartest thing for me to do would be continue to stay aligned with him and Tracy and Erik and say, "Hey, the four of us should never, ever vote for each other." If that was to work, the worst case scenario was it would have been a four-four vote instead.

On why a Fan alliance didn't happen on his new tribe:

I think because I was so emotionally frustrated with Chet, it didn't allow me to think about it. [On my original] tribe, I would run numbers in my head every night. I never allowed my emotions, my like or dislike for anybody, to dictate how I was going to vote, regardless of what you see in the edit. I was trying to play the game solely based on numbers. If I had done that after the shuffle, there's a high possibility I'd still be there right now.

On Chet outlasting him:

At this point, I'm kind of indifferent about it. I don't think he's really doing anything to make himself last longer. I think it's just the luck of the draw. People see him as someone they want to keep around. He's not someone who's going to win an individual immunity. He's not someone who I think would ever get votes if he makes it to the final two. I don't think anybody feels he deserves to be there. And sometimes strategically, those are the kinds of people you want to keep close to you.

On the women players seeming to run things:

I don't think they are, but maybe because I don't think they are is the reason I'm sitting here talking to you. I don't know. Maybe they are and I'm in denial in acknowledging that. My take on that is as far as Tracy's concerned, she had very, very little to do with my decision to vote for Mikey, regardless of what that looked like. As far as Cirie is concerned, she caught wind of a plan that some people on the new ... tribe had and she worked very hard to change the cards back in her favor. I applaud her for it. She did really well in a short period of time. She didn't have a lot of time to work with. We were pretty much set on voting Chet out. Under 24 hours, she went to the people she needed to go to and got the votes she needed. That's how you play the game. You can't sit around and go, "Oh golly gee whiz, I think they're going to vote for somebody I don't want them to, and then I'm probably next." You get on your horse and you play hard. I don't think I have anybody to blame but myself. I don't harbor any hard feelings because everyone out there wants the million. I got outplayed.

On being paired with Chet for the maze challenge:

We were a brand new tribe with four members from either side. We all got to discuss with each other as a tribe who should be paired up with who. I think kind of the general consensus was somebody's going to have to take a bullet for the rest of us. ... If anyone was going to be pulling Chet along, it was going to be me. The other option was pairing him up with somebody else and counting that as a loss. But that wasn't really an option to us. We had to roll the dice and hope that pairing two people who were so opposite would somehow put us out on top.

On being voted out:

I don't think I was as blindsided as they made it look, the way they edited my facial expressions. If you've watched other episodes, you know a picture's worth a thousand words and I made a lot of faces. The way I remember it, my smiles came after my surprised looks. Once I saw I got a couple votes, I pretty much realized what was happening. My thought process was, "Well-played. Well-played. You got me, and I'm going home tonight. You outdid me." I was a little confused with Ozzy. I was a little confused with Ami. Both of them had come to Erik and me and tried to broker a deal to vote out Cirie. And I thought we were all under the understanding that we would go with Chet this time and Cirie next time. That was the biggest surprise for me. I didn't think it was going to be me until halfway through Tribal Council, and then I saw things that Cirie was saying and I kind of went, "You know what, tonight might be my night." ... The best way I can describe it is disappointment. All you want to do is go eat. Eating is disappointing. Yeah, I want to go eat, but I'd rather still be there. It's a real bittersweet situation, because everything you've been craving, you get. But you're not in the game any more.

- posted by Raoul