Survivor Heroes Vs. Villains: Tom Westman - Stimpy's Take and Interview Commentary and Snarkfest by Stimpy
Tom Westman (45)
Tribe: Heroes
Hometown: Sayville, NY
Current Residence: New York, NY
Personal Claim To Fame: “Being a proud member of the FDNY as a Lieutenant of Ladder Co.108 in Brooklyn.”
Inspiration in Life: “My parents.”
Previous Finishes: Palau: Winner
Favorite Past Moment: “Palau Sunsets.”
Previous Survivor He Respects Most: Jenn Lyon (Palau)
Previous Survivor He Respects Least: “I’d rather not comment. I don’t know these guys well enough to say who I respect the least.”
Why Did He Come Back? : “It was so much fun the first time around. I couldn’t resist having another adventure.”
Stimpy’s Thoughts
And the winner of wearing the biggest target going into this season? Yup, that would be Mr. Westman.
Let’s see, he’s a previous winner. He was also a guy who capitalized on the sense of hero worship that was going on in Palau he won in a landslide. Toss in the fact he seems like a pretty nice guy AND he can be a challenge hog.
Hmmm. First boot anyone?
Somehow I doubt that.
Out of the four previous winners who are a part of the cast, there’s only two that I think have a reasonable shot at repeating.
And Tom is one of them.
He’s pretty coy in his video about how he’s looking forward to the ‘fun’ aspect of it all, but this man is not stupid.
Nor is he as nice as his edit in Palau portrayed.
There were hints of how he could browbeat people a bit back then, as well as trying to either manipulate them or pull on their heart strings.
Need some examples?
-Yakking away post-merge about how it wouldn’t be right for his fellow Koror-mates to dump him the first time he didn’t have immunity, because he had been such a force in getting them all (sans Willard) to the merge. It seemed like it fell on deaf ears, but I bet there was at least one or two people who thought ‘well, we’ll let him off the hook this once’.
-Pretty much out and out threatening Katie when he thought she might jump ship and hook up with Gregg and Jenn. There was no spin there folks, and no clever editing. Tom did exactly that.
-And when it seemed like his threats to Katie fell on deaf ears, he hatched a plan with Ian, that they’d rope in Caryn and force a tie vote. Tom sat there and said, that was the difference between the potential new threesome of Katie/Jenn/Gregg, and Tom and Ian. They knew their backs were against the wall, and they’d go to a rock-pull if they had to. However it became a moot point for Tom after he won immunity, so he was safe no matter what. Thus Ian had to fend for himself and get Katie to unflip. Didn’t see Tom helping out much there.
-His incessant brow-beating and manipulating of Ian just prior the Final Four Tribal Council. And how it continued after Ian survived the fire-making tie-breaker to stick around. It may have just seemed like Tom was hurt that Ian dared thought about moving against him, but it started to border on the vicious. And the key factor here was that Tom never once bitched out Katie for voting to keep Ian around. If Ian’s continued survival in the game was such an injustice to Tom, why wouldn’t he have complained to Katie about how she voted?
Simple. He wasn’t going to burn that bridge. And all the mind-games with Ian were designed to break him down heading into what Tom probably assumed was going to be an endurance based final Immunity Challenge.
The poor kid was already reeling from the way some of the tribe started to turn against him, and now he had Tom on one side and Katie on the other, just a-firing away with both barrels, and it broke Ian down.
So much so, that the moron stepped off at that final Immunity Challenge to regain the respect of Tom and Katie.
I’m sure at that point Tom wanted to channel Hannibal Smith from the A-Team and say ‘I love it when a plan comes together’.
It should be noted here, that the above spiel isn’t an indictment of Mr. Westman. Far from it. It’s a testament to why I think he can do well.
Toss in the fact that Tom is going to play up the ‘I’ve already won, no chance in hell the jury rewards me again’ bit, and if anyone is stupid enough to fall for that, they deserve to get beaten at the end.
Now, I’ll admit, we’ll see just how much Tom does bring to the table this coming season, because, unless the Villains tribe tears itself apart, I doubt the Heroes will get to the merge with most of their numbers intact. So, Tom is going to have to make some moves early on.
I can easily see him getting into a good solid alliance with Rupert, James and Amanda, probably with Stephenie in tow, and he may pal up to JT so previous winners can watch each others’ backs.
And, I don’t think Tom will have any qualms about cutting any of them loose when and if he feels the time is right.
Tom has also proven to be a challenge force, and that could work in his favor as well.
I’m not saying he WILL win it all again, but he most certainly could.
He’s got the tools and the talent, and knows how to put on a good performance in front of the jury.
If’n you recall at the Palau Final Tribal Council, he was very attentive to every question put to him and answered in a thoughtful, respectful manner.
Even though he probably had it in the bag before he went in, he didn’t go in thinking he had it in the bag. And that was the key that could help him again if he makes another appearance in front of the jury.
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