Survivor 47′s [Spoiler] Calls Vote ‘the Opposite of a Blindside’ Despite Ally’s Messy Challenge Meltdown
The following contains spoilers from the premiere of Survivor 47.
A #SurvivorMeltdown by one of their own should’ve given the rest of the Gata tribe a fast-pass to Episode 2, right? Wrong.
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In the premiere of Survivor 47 (read our full recap here), “Pod Save America” co-host Jon Lovett was in for a couple big surprises. Not only did his No. 1 island buddy throw him under the bus merely minutes after the tribe lost the immunity challenge, but the rest of the tribe grew wary of Jon’s intelligence and speaking ability. By episode’s end, not even a Hail Mary pitch to vote Anika out was able to save him from the wrath of Jeff’s torch snuffer.
Below, Jon talks to TVLine about dealing with the Andy fallout, the thinking behind his Anika pitch and why he didn’t play his Shot in the Dark.
TVLINE | You joked that your family and friends wanted to see you suffer. What was the reaction from your loved ones once they found out you were on this season?
JON LOVETT | Well, first of all, I kept the secret. I really did. But I think there were people that didn’t understand it and there are people that did, especially Survivor fans. It’s just a bananas decision, and I respect that it is bananas. But especially for people in my life that are Survivor fans, it was like, “Oh, it’s a once in a lifetime experience. Of course, you should go on Survivor if you have the chance, and whatever the concerns are, the hardship of being out there, what happens when it airs, take a chance. Take the risk.”
TVLINE | Was this vote a blindside?
It was the opposite of a blindside. Andy losing it had really narrowed the ways in which it could have gone and basically going into the final vote, what I felt was, “I’ve got a 1-in-6 chance with the Shot in the Dark.” I probably had roughly the same chance with the vote. And there’s a bunch of conversations they obviously have to compress, but there were a lot of different conversations about where the vote should go. There was probably a 1-in-6 chance that I could’ve successfully been able to move the vote off of me and either back onto Andy or onto somebody else. So really my only choice going into that vote was, “Do I play the Shot in the Dark or not?” And I decided not to, and that was probably wrong. But in the moment, it was based on the information I had. I felt like I made the best decision. I do think it would have been really funny to turn the bag upside down and get the Shot in the Dark in front of everybody and go vote. I wish I’d thought more about doing that in the moment, but I did consider it.
TVLINE | Andy struggled hard at the immunity challenge and then threw you under the bus in front of the entire cast. What was your instant reaction that?
It’s after the challenge. Everybody is spent. You’re tired, you’re trying to hold it together, you realize you just lost. What I was thinking about in that moment is, “OK, in the views of everybody now, I’m tied to this person who is now unreliable.” In the moment I thought, “OK, he just said to everybody, ‘I’m not a threat anymore,'” right? That’s basically what he said to everybody. “I’m sort of losing it a little bit and I’m gonna point at Jon.” Was that strategic? Was that paranoia? It doesn’t really matter. That’s sort of what was happening. So in the moment I’m just thinking, “How, now, do I get either Andy plus two people or the other members of the tribe to vote with me to stay?” I started looking at it and I’m realizing it’s hard to do it without Andy. I’m pretty stuck.
TVLine | Was there any possible way you could’ve gotten the majority to vote Andy out instead?
I think I was more obviously a threat and Andy no longer was one. How do you get people off of that? Maybe I could have worked harder to persuade people to think about how important that was. But here’s the problem and this was the Catch 22 of what happened when we got back. How do you persuade a bunch of people to vote for someone when they’re telling you that’s who they’re voting for, right? I’m like, “We should vote out Andy, guys.” “No, we agree, we’re voting Andy.” “I know, but we should actually do that.” It’s very hard to have an honest conversation when, because of the Shot in the Dark, there’s no way for everybody to be honest.
I felt pretty sure just based on the how clean it was like, “Oh, this is a vote on me.” That’s what I would do. Why on earth would you not? He just went off the rails in front of everybody. Nobody’s gonna trust him. He’s just something to carry. Why wouldn’t you keep him around? I could have been 6’2″, built like a refrigerator and I don’t think the strategic choice is different. So that’s why in the end, trying to get the vote off of me or Andy wasn’t out of any affinity for Andy. It was just like, “I have to have a different conversation here. There has to be some other way to do this.”
TVLINE | We saw you approach Sam with a pitch to vote Anika out. Why did you think Sam would be receptive to that and why was Anika your proposed target?
My recollection of it is that basically it happened very quickly. We were moving as a group of six all the time. There was very little time of people breaking off. It was really hard to leave, and really hard to get time. There were very few conversations. So I do think Andy pulling me for a moment to go get bamboo, there were these little moments that I think in a group of six in a fast and moving game, kind of cements everything. And so what it felt like was there was Andy and me, there was Sam and Sierra, there was Anika and Rachel in the middle.
Now, my hope and expectation was that there really was a natural connection with me, Anika, Rachel and Andy. I did not know how much Andy had alienated Rachel from the beginning there. I obviously didn’t have Rachel’s perspective on it so I couldn’t have been aware of that. But because of how things were, I hadn’t really talked to Anika since the first day and I felt like she and Rachel had been moving towards Sierra, but that Sam and Sierra were more of a unit. So there was a way to pull them, with Andy, to vote for Anika. I thought Rachel was honestly just too levelheaded and on her game to be moving around this way. By the time we’re getting to kind of wrangling, I was aware that Rachel was not going along with Andy and because Anika was with Rachel, it was gonna be hard to get Anika. So it was really just process of elimination. You don’t see it, but Andy had floated Anika’s name a few times already leading up to this. And there’s conversations that you don’t see that make it make sense.
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TVLINE | You told everyone you were a podcaster and a speechwriter. We’ve seen others in the past try to hide their background or occupation. Why did you decide to be upfront about it?
I didn’t really worry about it too much one way or the other because people say, “Oh, I’m not a lawyer, I’m a law student” or “I’m not 19, I’m 22.” People have this in their minds, this idea that they have some liability. You saw this here, that’s not what happens, right? The game itself creates the conditions of who’s strong and who’s weak, who’s valuable, who’s not. And so I put more emphasis on just trying to be open in the hopes that that would create a better kind of trust and communication with the people I was with. I have no reason to believe that that’s not true. I don’t think if I had said I was a marketing executive, we’re not having this conversation.
TVLINE | There was a moment in the episode where you realized how much older you were than most of your tribemates. Was age a factor in terms of either how you meshed with the tribe or your elimination?
Maybe. I don’t know. That was sort of funny. I was 41 when I was there. I was like, “Oh, I’m the oldest person here by a couple of years. That’s such a surprise.” I’ve been watching Survivor since high school, or at least that’s when I watched the first season as it aired. It’s like, “Oh, wow. It has been on a long time.” I was younger than everybody when it started and now I’m older than everybody while I’m there.
TVLINE | Your time on the island was short, but if given the chance, would you do it again?
Right now, it’s not like I have some profound regret of how I screwed up the experience. I feel like I didn’t have the experience. It was enjoyable. I learned a lot. It was fascinating. But yeah. Why not? Why wouldn’t you have me back? And by the way, I wouldn’t just be doing it for me, I’d be doing it for Survivor itself. They were denied the full experience of me. [Laughs]
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