TVLINE | Why did everyone believe Rizo that his idol would expire at the Final 6 Tribal?
I’m not as big of a superfan like Rizo and others. I studied a lot of the game. I obviously watched a lot of seasons before to get up to speed, but that was a mechanic that I just hadn’t studied closely enough. So in hindsight, yeah, that was pretty silly of us, but we all bought it. Also, I wasn’t super-duper afraid of his idol at a certain point because a lot of it was being flexed theatrically. It felt like a play for the jurors, and from what I could see, I didn’t think it was landing. They were kind of rolling their eyes. You saw it a bit in the episode last night. I don’t think it was playing off the way that he thought it would. I was like, “Great, if he’s gonna play it at six, it makes my job of figuring out how to play my Block-a-Vote a little easier,” because I know he’s gonna either play it for himself or probably Blue Soph. I was confident that I knew it was either going to get played or it was gonna get flexed. Whether it expired at six or five, I don’t think really made a big difference to how we were maneuvering. But that was kind of a dumb-dumb moment on our part. He was like, “Bro, I don’t know how you guys didn’t know that.” Rizo is a brilliant game player. Kudos to him, man. It was a great play and we bought it. I don’t know why we didn’t question it harder, like, “Hey, can I see the parchment?”
TVLINE | Major props for accomplishing that strenuous journey! If you had to guess how long or how far the trek was, what would be your guesstimate?
Man, it was at least 500 miles and it took me three days! [Laughs] Bro, I have generally no idea. I have no concept of time. I have no concept of distance when I’m running out there, and I was hungry, I was tired, I was stressed, and I was running for my life in the game, trying to preserve my vote, but also win this advantage and secure a path forward in the game. It was just one foot in front of the other. The only thing I can concretely tell you is that that buoy did not move. The tide had not risen at all. When I came back around, I was shocked. I thought it was going to be a photo finish. I did not realize how much I was hauling and booking it. I didn’t stop running the entire time. I didn’t stop moving. The only time I walked was when I was in the water and physically couldn’t move, and I had my hearing aids in. I wish I had taken those out in hindsight before I went on this, but I couldn’t swim through the water through those portions. I had to tread through because I didn’t want to damage them. I was killing myself out there. I was sliding off rocks. There was a moment where I was scaling up this wall and I looked down and I was like, “I don’t think this is the way I was supposed to go, because if I fall, I’m literally gonna die.” So I scaled my way back. I was like, Spider-Man, dude. I was going crazy out there. I think there were some people on Reddit who maybe mapped it out? I haven’t looked at that yet. But it felt like forever, man. It was crazy.
TVLINE | People seem to have strong opinions about Savannah. Sage called her a mean girl. Kristina flat out said she doesn’t really like her. What’s your take?
I would say this. Savannah did not [give me] the best first impression either. She didn’t come off as very authentic at first. I think maybe it’s the journalist in her, maybe it’s a defense mechanism, but the first time I met her, she’s got these really wide eyes that aren’t blinking and she’s smiling, and she has this great way of asking questions, but not giving up any personal information. I clocked that, and so I didn’t necessarily think she was a mean person, per se, but I think that does rub some people the wrong way. But what really changed my opinion of her was getting to know her. We had that one heart to heart where she confided in me after the Nate blindside about her past trauma and being bullied. As someone who was also bullied growing up, I can empathize very heavily. You don’t have a lot of information to go off of when you’re out there. I knew that Sage didn’t like her from the early days, and so I kind of had a preconceived notion of who Savannah was. But I changed my mind about her when we had that conversation. And so it kind of taught me as a person not to make these snap judgments, even when you’re in this game and you have little information to work off of. Maybe it didn’t come off as authentic at first, but I think that maybe she’s a little misunderstood. I love Savannah. She’s awesome.
TVLINE | I want to talk about killing chickens for a second! First, how was that experience and second, you said you had weird dreams or nightmares about it? Please elaborate!
Dude, I’m still having freaking dreams about this chicken. I had never really killed anything aside from that rat that my roommate’s dog had maimed. But I eat meat all the time. I’ve just never been a part of making it happen. And I did a bunch of research right before I went on, so I first and foremost wanted to keep them so they could lay the eggs. But I looked back and did some research [on] how often they lay eggs. In “47,” they laid eggs so infrequently that they decided to trade them back. So I looked up, what are the things that chickens need? And it’s like, a stable environment. Don’t have that on “Survivor.” Good, consistent nutrition. Don’t have that on “Survivor.” To roam free. Unfortunately, they did get that eventually when they escaped from our coop. But at that moment, I was like, “Someone’s got to kill these chickens.” I have gutted fish before. I’m from Colorado, so I was a little familiar.
I wish I had Googled how to kill a chicken, man. In hindsight, I wish I used the machete, but the machete was dull. Alex was freaking out, this thing’s fighting, and I didn’t trust myself not to chop my own hand off or cut myself somehow. So I tried the whole twisting thing… I think what haunted me the most was that I wish that I had been able to do it more cleanly. Just knowing that the life of something that’s in your hands is draining away and you’re responsible for it, even though I eat meat all the time. It’s very hypocritical, but yeah, it really, really hit me hard, and I would do it again in a heartbeat if I needed to. But it did stick with me and those chickens that escaped, they were a constant reminder staring at me from the little trees. They’re like, “We freaking know what you did to our friend, bro!”
