One of the three medically evacuated players brought back this season on Survivor, Jonathan Penner, returns to Rob Has a Podcast to discuss his game on Survivor Philippines. Jonathan tells Rob right off the bat that he has had too many people asking him about why he didn’t make the alliance with Lisa and Skupin. Instead, Rob starts off wondering if Jonathan came into Survivor Philippines with a different gameplan than in his previous seasons. Jonathan says that he definitely learned from his previous stints on Cook Islands and on Fans vs Favorites and tried to do some things different but also some things in the same way – like being honest to everybody.
Rob goes back to the alliance with Lisa and Skupin and wants to know what Penner’s backup plan was if he didn’t want to go to the finals with Lisa and Mike. Penner actually wanted to go to the end with Skupin and Carter and believed that Lisa was in a much more inferior position in the group. He felt like this new arrangement only benefitted Lisa since he was already working with Skupin. Both Rob and Penner don’t understand why Skupin and Lisa would want to keep Denise over Penner when they seem to have much better shot at winning the game if Penner was to stay.
Rob goes back to Penner’s vote this week for Denise Stapley and wants to know why he spelled her vote as “Denies” at tribal council. Penner felt like she was responsible for pulling Lisa and Skupin over to the other side and away from him and that’s why he did that. Penner also felt that Denise and Malcolm were responsible for the target being on Penner and not on Carter. Rob asks Penner if there is more than what we’re seeing when it comes to Carter and Penner insists that Carter is a great kid and is funny as hell.
Rob brings up Mike Skupin and wants to know Penner’s thoughts on playing with him. Penner says that Skupin is an “adorable man” and they shared a lot of laughs but Penner doesn’t understand the game that Mike is playing.
Finally, Rob brings up Penner’s “Storyteller” speech and tries to mimic what Penner said and Penner is unimpressed with Rob’s impression. Penner says that the story he is hoping to tell is that he played his ass off and hopefully he would win the million dollars.
