[Jeff Probst]

This is Jessica's Final Tribal Council Thread.

All other Jurors should remain in their own threads. Final 3, remember... this is not for you to address each other, but to talk to Jessica. In-fighting amongst the Final 3 should be reserved for the Live Final Tribal Council on Sunday.

Jessica, you have until Saturday at 8c/9e to post your statements/questions to the Final 3. Remember not to take up too much of their time as they have 10 other jurors to get to. Please no listing or questions requiring novels for answers. You should post all of your statements/questions in your opening post in this thread. There is a live Final Council on Sunday where you will get to address everyone live about the statements they have made as well ask follow-ups.

[Jessica]

Sherri

First off, congratulations on making the final 3!!

You are someone I have been targeting since the merge! Once I found out that you were part of the Jed vote and the issues between you and Liz, I wanted you out of this game. My plan was to get close to you so that you would trust me and then I could take you out. As the game went on, I started to see that you were a social threat to win the game, and then you became a challenge threat. Once I realized around F7 that you were more than likely going to make it to the end, I wanted to be on your good side. Your flexibility to not only make deals with me but to hold true to those deals, speaks volumes to me. I see you as the most well-rounded player in the finals. You crushed the social game, found 2 idols, won the last 3 immunities, and were flexible to the situations around you. You also had the best jury management of the F3. Even with all these amazing things you accomplished, you still have to fight for every vote from this very passionate jury.

I feel like I don't know a lot about your strategic game, especially after F9. Please walk me through the strategic moves you made, if any, that allowed you to be sitting in the F3. If you didn't have much of a strategic game after F9, tell me why you chose to lay low and be a follower. This is your game, own it.


Matt

First off, congratulations on beating me in fire, you beat the worst challenge performer of the season!

I find it hard to believe that I met you and Sherri at the same time, the merge. You were non existent until after the Alexis tribal. Personally, I thought you were more of a goat than Aurora at the time but that's for another conversation. I understand that playing an UTR game can be a legit strategy, but that means you are going to have to work twice as hard to earn my jury vote. I don't know a single move you made before the Hope blindside. So in my eyes, you waited until the F6 to decide to make some moves and hope that it wasn't too late. I also feel like we never had an honest conversation the entire game., which made it hard to trust you and want to work with you. But clearly your game wasn't all that bad because you are sitting at the end when 11 others are not. But now you have to prove that you played the best game against 2 of the strongest players throughout the entire game.

My question to you is, what makes your game more deserving of the win than Sherri and Michael's game? Please go into as much detail as you think I need to write your name down on Sunday. This is your chance to WOW the jury with a scooby doo reveal and unmask this amazing game that you seemed to keep to yourself for most of the game.


Michael

I don’t have any questions for you. Instead, I want you to sit back and listen for once. We played this entire game together. We built a relationship and broke down each other’s walls. We talked about our personal lives and you because my best friend in this game. You told me probably 50 times that you wanted to go to the end with me and we had worked so hard to make that happen.

Did I lie to you? Yes. Did I vote for you? Yes. But evidently you played the perfect game and never lied to me or voted for me........ oh, wait. Did I miss the conversation we had about you and Matt being a duo for the entire game? Was I off that day? Or how about learning that you talked shit about me to other players in the game. And let’s not forget about Thursday’s vote. So please, step off your high horse and take off your rose colored glasses. You played a decent game, I’ll give you that. But the way you treated people in this game, is going to be your downfall.

I respect your game but because you worked so hard to get close to me, just to burn me in the end, I don’t respect you as a player. Remember after I voted for you the night Hope went home? We had a nice heart to heart and I told you I’d never vote for you again? Well I’m keeping that promise.

[Sherri]

Hey Jessica! Thank you for all the love. I really did have a great time getting to know you during this merge. I mentioned this more during Allie's question, but I really appreciated you trying to build something with me...even if it was all strategic! That was smart of you, for sure, and it almost got you to the finals too. I'm certainly ready to keep fighting for this though so we'll get into your question.

I do feel that in a way, my strategic game has been overshadowed by my social game somewhat. Clearly the social game and the bonds I made were crucial for this game, but I was always key in making a lot of strategic decisions too. I was always thinking ahead and I never wanted to rely on just my social game. I wanted to set up the best possible endgame for me so every decision I was making during the merge had that in mind.

A lot of my strategic decisions in the mid-merge around F9 were focused on dismantling the opposing alliance, and someone who I felt was at the heart of it, Alexis. She was someone I didn't want to go too far with but she was so well protected by both immunities and other people. I was always testing the waters regarding Alexis and if people wanted to take her out or not. I knew if I acted too early, it could come back on me, so I started chipping away at people that A) Alexis trusted and B) those that didn't trust me fully and probably wouldn't work with me long term. I know this is cheating since it's pre-F9, but I'll just quickly mention that the Rocker/Liz boots were the start of this. I pushed for both of their eliminations and thankfully, many of the others agreed with those boots as well.

So now actually moving into F9/F8, we had the boots of the so called goats, Aurora and Shamar. I wasn't really paying much mind to those labels and I didn't want them to distract me from the goals I had. Aurora was someone that I got along with but I feel like neither of us had each other in our long term plans. I wasn't entirely sure if she was completely loyal to Alexis but I did think she'd be more loyal to her than me. Then we get to the Shamar boot which wasn't my first option for that round. In fact...he was probably my third option! But this game is all about adapting and changing things up at a moment's notice.

This was the round that I thought we finally had the numbers to take down Alexis but then of course she won immunity. I would have also wanted to boot Michael this round, but we all kind of assumed that he'd just be playing that necklace (which he did). For me, the only natural choice was Shamar. He was someone I got along with very well and he had been a good friend, but clearly we were on different paths. I had approached him that evening about voting for Alexis and he told me he didn't want to do that. He said he reconigized her threat status but thought we could all still work together...though I knew that wasn't the case since Alexis had already been after me! So anyway, when Alexis did win, Shamar was the first name I pushed since having someone around that was loyal to Alexis, was not good for me. Prior to that point, I had been pushing the narrative of us not knowing where Shamar was at or what he was doing and that he was a question mark...so that made the sell quite easy.

I talked about the actual Alexis boot a bit more in Allie's question and I'll be going over all the things surrounding the Hope boot in her own question...so I'll leave that for then! I think what's important here is just to reiterate that my strategic game and how I positioned myself was just as good and important as my social play. I wasn't one to just take it a round at a time and I was always thinking and rethinking about the best possible game for me in the long run. Everything around the middle of the merge went almost exactly how I wanted it to go, and that was in part to me pushing the vote onto who I needed it to be on. Judging by my growing threat status, things were going to difficult for me in any endgame combination, but I truly believe I put myself in one of the better scenarios to make the end. Even if that left me needing to win challenges, I had taken out my strongest competitors at that point since I knew that would open things up for me to take out some wins.

Please let me know if you have any other questions and I'll gladly answer them! Thank you!

[Jessica]

I don’t think I’m supposed to do this but I do have 1 follow up question for you Sherri, only because you mentioned it earlier. Hope and I were already planning on voting for Alexis because of her threat status, are you saying that you were the leader of that vote out? Also, if Hope and I hadn’t of flipped, do you think Alexis would have gone home that tribal?

I won’t ask follow up questions until Sunday during the live portion. Thank you for your answer, I will definitely take it into consideration.

[Sherri]

I don’t think I’m supposed to do this but I do have 1 follow up question for you Sherri, only because you mentioned it earlier. Hope and I were already planning on voting for Alexis because of her threat status, are you saying that you were the leader of that vote out? Also, if Hope and I hadn’t of flipped, do you think Alexis would have gone home that tribal?

I won’t ask follow up questions until Sunday during the live portion. Thank you for your answer, I will definitely take it into consideration.

Oh no, I don't want to make it seem like I was like THE leader who led her boot there. Everyone knew she was a threat and she was on everyone's radar. That was definitely a group effort when we eventually voted her out. I think if anything she was just on my radar for such a long time so I was personally trying to build to this moment where everyone would come together against her. It wasn't just a one round plan to me and I was really thinking ahead to the moment we could do it, planting seeds, booting her allies. I don't want to pretend that I was the sole mastermind behind this but I do think I was a key player in the decision making leading up to that point.

As for what you and Hope were doing there, I suppose if you didn't decide to flip there then Alexis probably would not have gone home there. I definitely feel that would have been a mistake since she was the biggest threat at the time and we all knew, but if for whatever reason you didn't flip then I guess Alexis would have lived. Then it may have been me going home if you joined up with Alexis? Though I'm not sure if Hope really wanted to boot me at that point so I'm not sure what y'all were planning as an alternative plan.

[Michael]

Jessica, originally I was not going to respond to this. But I think that it’s very important that I do to make it very clear to everyone else why I did what I did and how we got to that point.

I consider myself a very loyal person, and I don’t mind helping a friend and/or ally even if it’s not always “The best game move.” That’s totally fine for me. I’m certainly not afraid of making big game moves to save a friend. If you have my trust, I will do anything I can to try and protect you. If a person breaks my trust, I’ll forgive but I won’t forget. I will also remember that down the line and if choices get difficult.

When we became partners, you spent the first week lying to me and not trusting me. I found that be both shortsighted and offensive. I had no reason to try and get you out premerge and every incentive to keep you around. Yet you still believed that for whatever reason I would try and vote you out. We weren’t even on the same tribe and you were yelling at me on what I should do and trying to dictate how I should play my game. Which is funny, because later in the season you have the same complaint against me. It honestly hurt my feelings because I had done nothing to you and even paid Stranded Coins to get you as my partner. I wanted to work with you and I told you that. But you saw me either as someone who was out to get you or as someone you could push around.

When you finally came around to the fact that you could work with me, I felt like we had our first breakthrough. But it was seemingly every day that you would have some sort of small meltdown with me, I tried to be patient and understanding, but it was almost every day that you’d question what I was doing, question my motivations, or question if we were even working together.

You didn’t trust me enough for the Missy blindside, and that hurt my feelings but I don’t think that was a breaking point for us. I was still trying to protect you from being voted out and there were many people trying to convince me that you needed to go.

Things worked well for a while until the Liz vote, when after another meltdown you had with me for the Rocker vote. But that day you promised me that you really trusted me and you’d vote whatever I asked of you. Our relationship was very tense because I knew that you weren’t being upfront with how much you trusted me. You lied to me about voting for Liz and you chose not to vote at all. Because as you admitted yourself, you were being a coward and instead of taking any kind of stand, you did nothing.

You didn’t push back on the Elizabeth vote, even when I asked you if you were okay with that. You just let it happen. That move was in our best interest. People knew that the partner twist was starting to close in and the longer us four were still in the game, the more of a target we would have had. Taking out Liz was a move to take the target off of ourselves while also getting the partner idol. When you decided that you were upset with me and couldn’t trust me anymore and went to work with Hope and Alexis. No longer wanting to work with me. But I had immunity and I wasn’t going anywhere. I lied and I threw you under the bus at tribal, saying that you leaked the chats to me. Which isn’t true at all. But what I think is most interesting about the whole tribal is after you were in the middle of betraying me, we had this conversation:

Jessica
When did I tell you about the Aurora plan.. I looked through our messages and saw nothing


Michael
It's easy to tell when you're up to something Jess. It's why I had so much trust in you


Jessica
But I didn't say anything. That's the only reason I got so mad. You knew me better than anyone here and you used that to lie about my loyalty


Michael
Jess, I REALLY don't think you should be trying to make some grand stand about your loyalty when I said that in the middle of you trying to backstab me.


Jessica
Okay, that's fair. So we're both at fault here

Jessica, we were NOT both at fault. You betrayed me and then got upset when I threw you under the bus to try and defend myself. We had a small make up session and you eventually owned up this comment and apologized. We worked together for the Shamar vote because it was in both of our best interests.

Once again though, you decide that you wanted to lie to me about voting out Alexis. (This is your fourth lie to me and your third true betrayal) Honestly, if you had told me that Alexis was the plan I would have still asked to vote for Sherri, But I still wouldn’t have told Alexis because it would have likely caused me trouble.

Once again, you apologize for lying to me AGAIN. This is the time when I reveal some very personal stuff about my life and really try to bring down my walls with you…for you to IMMEDIATELY try and VOTE. ME. OUT. Even if Hope didn’t know about Matt’s idol, you were TOTALLY fine risking my life in the game instead of Stephannie’s life. What’s more insulting, is that you were making a bad move because that vote was going to put you into a minority position no matter what the results were. Either Matt goes and I’d run to work with Steph and Sherri or I go and Matt sticks with Steph and Sherri. You were trying to betray me to put yourself into an even worse position! Bringing us to our FIFTH lie and your FOURTH big betrayal towards me. DIRECTLY AFTER I OPENED UP WITH YOU.


After that vote I yelled at you, I was over it. You had tried to vote me out me out multiple times and you tried to pull so many blindsides on me, and all of them failed. How could you expect me to trust you after I told you so many personal things about my life after the Alexis vote and you went to just go fuck me again?

When it came to the final four. I came to an impasse. I could either vote out Matt 3-1, who had never lied to me throughout the game, who had never betrayed me throughout the game, and who had been a REAL friend to me throughout the game. Or I could tie the vote, and give him a chance. I went with loyalty. I went with the person who was honest with me.

So no, Jessica, you DON’T get to claim that that I burned you in the end. You don’t get to claim to be the victim. You are the one who decided that my life in the game wasn’t worth anything to you, and YOU are the one who started lying and betraying me first. YOU are the one who tried to backstab me MULTIPLE TIMES before I went for you. If you don’t like being voted out in fourth place, tell me why it would have been okay to for you let me go out at sixth after bearing my soul to you?

I don’t expect your vote, but I want you to understand your hypocritical attitude towards me. You went after me multiple times, and if I didn’t have that hidden relationship with Matt, you would have voted me AND Matt out earlier after promising me that you wanted go to the end with me as well. You are responsible for your relationship with me just as much as I am with you. You hurt me multiple times while Matt was nothing but a real friend. You are not the victim here. You are the results of your own actions against me.

[Jessica]

This is my question thread and I didn’t ask you a question. I didn’t go into detail for a reason but I see that you can’t respect that in return.

[Matt]

First off, congratulations on beating me in fire, you beat the worst challenge performer of the season! I find it hard to believe that I met you and Sherri at the same time, the merge. You were non existent until after the Alexis tribal. Personally, I thought you were more of a goat than Aurora at the time but that's for another conversation. I understand that playing an UTR game can be a legit strategy, but that means you are going to have to work twice as hard to earn my jury vote. I don't know a single move you made before the Hope blindside. So in my eyes, you waited until the F6 to decide to make some moves and hope that it wasn't too late. I also feel like we never had an honest conversation the entire game., which made it hard to trust you and want to work with you. But clearly your game wasn't all that bad because you are sitting at the end when 11 others are not. But now you have to prove that you played the best game against 2 of the strongest players throughout the entire game. My question to you is, what makes your game more deserving of the win than Sherri and Michael's game? Please go into as much detail as you think I need to write your name down on Sunday. This is your chance to WOW the jury with a scooby doo reveal and unmask this amazing game that you seemed to keep to yourself for most of the game.

Thanks Jessica. Our relationship is very hard for me to define. Going into the merge you were the one person I had never talked to and it showed in how we interacted. Compared with someone like Sherri who you also hadn't communicated with, I had learned about you from Michael's version of his interactions with you and I also assumed you were close to Liz. Liz and I spent some time fighting on the Pink tribe after Jed left. So those two factors contributed to why I was skittish around you and why we never talked beyond surface level for many rounds. Communication and conversation are a two-way street and I think we both tried to open up connection more by sharing idol clues. I never told anyone about that because I respected what we were doing but it doesn't make up for how non-existent we felt each other were.

In terms of not being honest and not making moves, I think a lot of lies happened and a lot of the merge moves this season were team efforts. I was in on who went every time besides the Reynold vote. I knew what was going on and when I wanted to push for someone to go I did, but I can't take credit for directing moves because I don't think anyone did that besides Alexis with the Allie vote. We seemed to work in parallel and not always together so it makes sense you didn't think much of me and I didn't think much of you for some of the game. I was genuine about wanting to work with you and Hope to the F3 so I wasn't being dishonest there whatsoever and I think that connection helped us get through some of the mid-merge votes. In any event, there were shades to both of our games and I understand where you're coming from. As I noted in my answer to Reynold, I was working behind the scenes to secure my own little team during the merge way before the F6, which is how I was able to help guide things in my favor given any scenario with any player who was in the game or voted out. I used my idol to shore up connections with people and make sure there wasn't too much paranoia about vote splits. I didn't work directly through you that much and that was okay because you didn't work directly through me that much either.

I deserve your vote over Michael because I didn't burn you as badly as he did. I genuinely enjoyed talking to you about personal things outside the game and never considered you a chess piece. You and I also had conversations where we talked about how Michael was the least threatening at FTC because he kind of hung out after Aurora left. He hadn't positioned himself well to be in the middle of votes or to make moves proactively.

I deserve your vote over Sherri because you were someone who was more in control and I was someone more in control than Sherri was. You yourself wanted to go up against Sherri in FTC and not me which made navigating the end game complicated. I also deserve your vote over Sherri because she is being righteous at this FTC but certainly did her own version of shit-talking during the game. Sweet Sherri had some sass. She said multiple times to me in DMs that Liz was the "ultimate goat" and she talked about having bake sales in the Stranded neighborhood to come off as sweet to get people like Alexis to like her. She talked about picking strawberries off Hope and Shamar in the Stranded garden to get what she wanted, and doing haircuts with people to get votes to go through. She also groomed people, probably yourself and Reynold included. She told me when she was going to talk to Reynold about things like her idols; I assume she told me first and went to Reynold second, but this arc of Sherri being so sweet and benevolent is not true in all situations. Sherri is a great person and I'm sure a lot of her conversations were fun and sweet but don't for a second think she wasn't trying to groom people too. Sherri's rebuttal might be that all the negativity somehow involved me, but don't forget that she told Rocker one of the funnest parts of the game was this sort of back and forth about the Stranded neighborhood fanfic and the newscasts. And let's also talk about awareness. I owned how shitty I was in certain aspects of the game from my OS on, but Sherri started off FTC by saying she led strategic decisions before you asked her for clarification. Now she's saying she made team efforts. What's the truth and what's the bullshit?

[Jessica]

Thank you all, including Michael, for your answers and explanations. Though I have a tendency to play this game emotionally at times, I really did enjoy playing with all 3 of you. I respect you all and am proud that you made it this far. I know I speak for most of the jury when I say this is not an easy decision. Thankfully we still have the live portion later tonight to help us figure things out