A longtime fan of Survivor, Jordie admitted to feeling like something of a ‘couch expert’ in the game. “I used to watch the show with my family and you go, ‘Oh I reckon I could do that’. And I did! Turns out, I could do it,” he told 10 play.
On Monday, Jordie’s time in the game was finally up. This time there was no Purgatory second chance for him to win his way back into a game that had been so stacked against him ever since his brother’s blindside.
Managing to win immunity when he needed it most, make under-the-table deals to save his skin and, of course, thrive in the chaos of his own making, the Joker said when it came to his final Tribal Council he was under no illusion that he could last any longer.
“I shouldn’t have been there, I should have gone home weeks ago,” he said, laughing. “I just somehow kept managing to do things to get by! I don’t know how I did it.”
After returning to the game with Shay and KJ as the purgatory three, the trio did the unthinkable with the help of KJ’s advantage and were able to fracture the majority alliance that had such a stronghold on the game post-merge.
After successfully flipping Dave, there was the opportunity for the ‘misfits’ four to take control of the game, but Jordie says he could feel his new allies were ‘scared’.
“They were all being a little bit sketchy,” he said, “they were throwing out other people’s names and my name and I thought oh, all this hard work. We finally blew up that alliance, surely they’d be smart enough to stick with it, but unfortunately they weren’t.
“People are worried about getting to the end rather than getting to the end with a resume,” he added. “They saw the majority as an easy ticket to the end, but unfortunately I think they forgot that it’s not enough to just get there, you’ve got to be there with a resume.”
Watching the season, fans at home were stunned when, despite his best efforts, Jordie was unable to convince his tribe that Sam and Mark had swiped an Idol out of his brother’s hands. But the Joker said he wasn’t so frustrated by it all.
“It was sort of fun, I actually sort of enjoyed it because it was like, you guys have no idea! You’re all going to watch this back and realise what you’ve done,” he said, laughing.
Though it turned out to be his final Tribal Council, in a final act of vindication Mark whipped out the Idol and admitted the truth behind how he and Sam came to own it.
“It was also good that he played it and didn’t actually have to,” Jordie said, giggling. “I really enjoyed that. He did his big speech, ‘the ghost of Jesse! And I’m going to use it to take out his brother!’ It’s like, well, you actually didn’t have to. I got rolled anyway, mate!”
Making it so close to the finals, Jordie admitted that he’d go back to Survivor in a heartbeat.
“If they said, ‘Do you want to go back this arvo?’ I’d go back this arvo,” he added. But having played such a visible game this season, would he change anything about how he played the game if he got a second shot at it?
“I don’t think I’d change anything, I really don’t,” he added. “My only aim was to have fun, and that’s what I did. If that’s your only goal, you’re never going to get it wrong. That’s the same as life as well, you’ve got to have fun.
“Of course the goal is to win, but if that’s your only goal in life, just to win, and your only goal in Survivor, you’re going to walk away pretty disappointed because it’s a very hard thing to do!”
Australian Survivor: Blood V Water continues Sunday - Monday at 7.30 on Network 10 and 10 play on demand
