In a messy and surprising Tribal Council, last night’s episode of Australian Survivor saw Mark lay Feras‘ plans out for the Jury to see. A long time ally of Raymond, Feras had made Final Three deals with both Mark and Caroline, meaning that he was either lying to Mark, lying to Caroline, or about to blindside Raymond. As it turned out, Feras stuck with Raymond, and the vote came down to a tie. Caroline and Raymond were forced to make fire to stay in the game, and when Raymond was unable to get a fire going, he was eliminated from the game.
Chatting to The Latch over the phone following his elimination, Raymond says that there’s “so much” we didn’t get to see from the Tribal Council.
Describing the situation as “funny, as always”, Raymond laughs as he recalls “roasting Mark for his obvious attempts at trying to pander to [the] Jury” after playing a game “that didn’t encapsulate anything”.
He laughs again.
“I wish I’d known how to make fire!” he exclaims.
Ahead, Raymond tells us everything about his elimination, his gameplay, and whether he’d return to Australian Survivor in the future.
What We Didn’t See At Tribal Council
“It was very obvious, at least to me, that Mark was trying to demean Feras’ game, and in my opinion, Feras played a very, very good game,” Raymond says.
What we didn’t see from last night’s Tribal Council, Raymond says, was the part where he told the Jury all the reasons Mark shouldn’t win.
“It was really funny,” he says. “It was really fun to be able to piss off a diplomat as much as I did, but I mean, it’s sad that it wasn’t shown, and if a bear shits in the woods and the tree falls and no one’s there to see it, did it happen?”
As for whether the Jury was buying what Mark was selling, Raymond says that we’ll “have to wait and see”.
“But look, the Jury isn’t stupid,” he adds.
Raymond Is Surprised Mark Didn’t Vote Feras Out
While Raymond’s torch may have been snuffed out, he’s immensely proud of the game he played.
“I really think that I played a good game,” he says. “I don’t know if I would’ve changed too much.”
Recalling the moment he was eliminated, Raymond says that “it’s a whole bunch of emotions that punch you in the face at once”.
“The only way [I] can explain it is feeling love for the first time, or feeling death for the first time, and I think it is an encapsulation of both,” he says. “I mean, [it’s] dying in a game while also having the new beginnings of being able to eat a cheeseburger in a few minutes. But yeah, what a weird collection of emotions, all at once!”
However, he is a little surprised that he was eliminated before Feras.
“I didn’t think [there] would be a chance where someone like him would be taken further than me,” he says of his longtime ally. “It’s really bizarre, but I think that really encapsulates the unpredictability of a season like Titans Vs Rebels.”
Raymond Didn’t Think He Could Pull Off His Advantage Play
One of the biggest twists of Australian Survivor: Titans Vs Rebels was the introduction of a brand new advantage — If Raymond could get every single person on the tribe to vote for his elimination, he’d be given complete control over who went home that night.
What followed was one of the season’s most entertaining plays. For days, Raymond declined meals and lay on the beach looking forlorn, hoping to convince his tribemates to write his name down and put him out of his misery.
“I was lying in the dirt for three days, not eating or doing anything!” he recalls with a laugh, adding that “it’s probably going to be the last time” we see that advantage.
As a “massive fan of the show”, though, Raymond says that it was “surreal… it was an honour to be able to do something in the game that hasn’t been done, [and] on top of that, for it to be a nail-biter episode” was the icing on the cake.
“I think it brought something to the season which has been really well received, which is what matters to me,” he says.
But while he was happy to be making good TV, Raymond thought he had “about a five percent chance” of actually pulling it off.
There Were More Pros Than Cons to Raymond’s Advantage
“There’s so many pros and cons, and the pros outweighed the cons,” he explains. “If I’m voted out in a move like that — which is the dumbest move of all time — then hey, maybe I’m brought back for an All Stars season with absolutely no target on my back, because I just look like an idiot to everyone. But if something like that pays off, you’ve got a pretty clear run to the end, a big move on your resume, and you go down in the history books in a show so loved and adored by a lot of people all around the world.
“It’s sort of win-win, and worst case scenario is that you end up eating a cheeseburger and [looking] like an idiot on national TV, which again is something that’s funny,” he adds.
As for whether he’s heard from the Academy about his Oscar-worthy performance, Raymond laughs.
“We might be waiting on that one for a few millennia, for a few lifetimes!” he says.
If a Tree Falls in a Forest and No One Is Around to Hear It, Does It Make a Sound?
Over the course of our chat, Raymond likens his gameplay to this philosophical question on three separate occasions.
“To be honest, I played a game that I don’t think a lot of people saw,” he says at one point.
When asked to reveal something no one knows about his time on the show, he replies: “Um, I think that there’s so much of me that wasn’t shown, so… my whole game?” he laughs. “Is that an answer? Can I say that?!”
“I wish they’d shown more of me at Tribal Councils or any of my confessionals, because my Tribal Council were usually pretty funny, and even some of the lines that were said by other contestants, it came from me making the dumbest joke of all time,” he adds.
Given the opportunity to do it over, Raymond says he wouldn’t change much about his gameplay, but he “would be more bodacious”.
“I would [be] even more ridiculous, stuff like that,” he says.
“I’m a fan of Survivor, and if I’m going to make an ass of myself on national TV, I want it to at least be one of the best seasons of all time,” he says. “I tried to bring something to the game, and I wish a little bit more of the stupidity side that I brought to it was shown, but I don’t think that there’s much that I would’ve changed. I did a lot of things intentionally, and I think it’s funny! It’s my sense of humour, in an ironic way, and I’m grateful that I’ve got a lot of friends out of it.”
Would Raymond Return to Australian Survivor?
As a huge fan of the show and a player who successfully pulled off one of the season’s biggest twists, you might assume Raymond would be eager to return and compete on the show again.
For Raymond, “It’s a hard question”.
While he’d “love to play the game again”, watching the show back has made him question whether he’d be the right person to get the call to return.
“I genuinely think I played probably one of the best games out there,” he explains. “I think that I played a really good game, and watching it back — [it’s] not that my journey wasn’t important, but that I probably didn’t make as good TV as what I thought I would have while watching it back, means that my spot could probably go to someone else.”
He adds: “Watching an edit like that back, I don’t think I’m deserving of going back. So, I dunno! Maybe if I have to fill a spot and they’re desperate, I might go back, but I dunno, maybe give it to someone like Eden instead, or Garrick.”
Australian Survivor Is Still “the Most Fascinating Game on the Planet”
As we chat, Raymond’s love for the game is evident.
“Survivor is very much a game of little, little, little decisions, and it’s sad that you only see the first layer when there’s like four or five layers of everything that you need to think about, and it’s such a mind game,” he says. “Sorry to bore you with that answer, but it’s the most fascinating game on the planet, and it’s sad that I might have only had one chance to do something like that!
“It’s something that I’m absolutely obsessed with and would love to play again, but what other comparisons are there out there in real life?” he continues. “Do I start trying to manipulate my friends? Do I start going to the pub and trying out body language techniques? What am I supposed to do, how am I supposed to — yeah, it’s sad that there’s no other game quite like it!”
Australian Survivor: Titans Vs Rebels airs tonight at 7.30pm, only on 10 and 10 Play on Demand. Miss an episode? Catch up on 10 Play.
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