In her final speech at tribal council, Jennah-Louise implored remaining contestants to make big moves.
For Kristie, that meant positioning herself as a potential vote for someone else looking to make a play. For Sam, that meant permitting himself to lie to friends. And for Flick, that meant deciding to stay with the original Saanapu tribe or form a new alliance with the three original Aganoa members.
Complicating matters for Sam, he won the reward challenge of a good night's sleep and chose best mate Lee to be his bedmate. When Lee found out through El (who was told by Flick) that he was being targeted by Brooke and Sam, he poured his efforts into winning the house of cards immunity challenge to foil those plans. Without Lee as an option, Brooke proposed to oust El. Unfortunately for Brooke, Flick and El beat her to the punch.
WHO spoke to Brooke Jowett, a 23-year-old sales executive from Melbourne, about becoming the eighteenth person to leave Australian Survivor and the fifth member of the jury.
Q: Just how blindsided were you by the vote?
A: I was so confused! As soon as I saw my name written down the first time, I knew something was up. I knew I was going home. I even had my bag in my hand ready to go. There was no way I could have had just one vote — it was all or nothing.
Q: Did you have a sense this was coming?
A: I had no idea. I was absolutely clueless because I was trying to focus so much on acting normal around El and Lee and trying to make them feel comfortable, and I forgot about myself!
Q: Did you suspect Flick of flipping right away?
A: I instantly knew it was Flick. I thought if anyone was going to flip on us, it would have been her just because she had been so paranoid the last few, maybe a week or two.
Q: Where do you think that paranoia came from?
A: It could have come from Jennah-Louise stating that Flick was maybe on the outside, and I think that Flick started to get a little concerned that I was close to Sam and El was close to Lee and that kind of left her on the outer I guess? So definitely it started planting ideas in her head when people were talking at tribal council and whatnot.
Q: Did you try anything to reassure Flick that all was well?
A: Yeah. In fact, El told me she felt weird with Flick, that Flick was getting paranoid and all that, so I knew that meant that El was going to start plotting to get Flick out, and as the good friend that I was, I went up and told Flick that she kind of needed to put a bit more of an effort in and to make sure she wasn't acting like that. And then she lifted her game, fixed herself up and knocked me out!
Q: You looked genuinely surprised at the Jury Villa that the people you voted out seemed to admire your game. Did that shock you?
A: I was standing outside the Jury Villa, like, hating the thought of having to go in there. I was so nervous and everyone was lovely. As soon as I opened the door, everyone was screaming and hugging me. I was like, 'this is the best!' I was so happy, and I got to actually hang out with these people and be myself instead of being in game mode where I was hungry and angry and whatnot. I really got along with everybody.
Q: What did you learn about your game from them?
A: A lot of people did say their frustration with not being able to get into that core alliance, which is understandable. And this is good or bad, but I was going in there feeling OK that I was voted out because I didn't think I would get any votes at the end, so I wouldn't have won. But then I got in there and they were all, 'We were 100 percent voting for you,' and I was like, 'Oh, no! That's really sweet, but it's making me feel worse!'
Q: If El had been voted out instead of you, what was your next play?
A: So my debate was I wanted to go with Matt, Sam and Flick and myself to the end, and my issue was whether I took Sam or Flick to Top 2. So that was an internal debate I had for quite a long time. After seeing Flick's paranoia and everything, I decided that I'd take Sam and Sam decided the same thing and we trusted each other on that, but we made this big move and out I go.
Q: Between you and Flick was El. Why do you think she was able to keep both of you off balance?
A: El is incredible. She's 10 years older than be but I feel like she could be my best mate. She's such a free-spirited, hilarious person, so you just want to be around someone like that all the time, especially when you're on an island without your family and everything, so she was really good for moral support.
Q: You did great in challenges, too. Did you expect that?
A: Going into the game, I didn't think that I would be one who would win a challenge. I actually surprised the hell out of myself. I was really proud of what I achieved in my challenges. I'd love to be someone that girls can look up to and know that girls can do exactly what boys do, to the same standard, if not better. We're just as strong. I'd like people to view me as that.
Q: Of course, part of the 'Mean Girls' perception came from those you voted out earlier, who have said in interviews that you shut them out. Was that true?
A: Yeah, I think it was a bit hard. I think it was that fact that there were a lot of different alliances, like Sue, Kate and Jennah-Louise — we felt we couldn't talk to them as well. It's exactly the same situation, but it's just the fact that we were doing well in the game, we stuck together and we were strong. I think it's because we were successful that made people feel like that and, I guess, hate us.
Q: On the serious side, you have gotten harassed and threatened on social media. How do you handle that?
A: I'm really trying to ignore anything that goes on online but at the same time, you get so curious what people are saying that it gets hard to ignore everything, but my family and friends are amazing. I've got like this group message and all they do is send nice things and nice comments that they've seen, so they are trying to flood me with some positive views, and there have been fans out there cheering me up, too. If I wasn't doing well, no one would hate me, but since we were doing well, people were unhappy!
Q: Thinking on better days, what made you and Flick such good friends and such a force through most of the game?
A: I'm not much of a girly girl and I was like, oh God, if there are prissy girls here, I'm not going to get along with them, but Flick was really down to Earth when I met her and I thought, awesome, here's a really genuinely cool chick here that I can be friends with, and everything went from there. We spent every minute with each other and spoke about everything, so she was someone I viewed as an actually good friend.
Q: Do you see yourself reuniting with Flick anytime soon?
A: Oh, look, I still talk to her and I will be civil with her always, but we had all these plans for things we wanted to do together and they have been put on hold for a little while, I think.