‘Survivor’: Jeff Probst Reacts to Shocking Elimination in Messy Tribal Council

The Tribe Has Spoken

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[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Survivor Season 48 Episode 2, “Humble Traits.”]

“Spicy” Jeff Probst came out to play in the second tribal council of Survivor 48. The March 5 episode saw the Vula tribe back on the chopping block for the second time in a row, and tensions rose even higher between Sai Hughley and Mary Zheng after an episode full of disagreements between the two. Their teammates tried to capitalize on the conflict, but it backfired and resulted in a blindside. Probst, Season 47 winner Rachel LaMont, and Jay Wolff reacted to the surprising vote results and fiery pre-voting back-and-forth on the On Fire podcast aftershow.

Survivor is a game of lying, and Sai did little to conceal her lies when it came to making amends with Mary after Stephanie Berger’s elimination in the premiere. Their relationship didn’t progress positively throughout the episode, leading Mary to believe that Sai’s comments in tribal council were about her. Sai came in hot at the beginning of the Jeff interview, saying that she thought the talking was pointless because the majority had made their decision. This lit up Mary’s defensiveness. She said that Sai should be honest about being dishonest in the game, because it’s silly to act like Survivor is a game of honesty. Mary, who had lost her vote in a solo journey earlier in the episode, was attempting to paint herself as a more trustworthy ally who should be kept around. It turns out that Sai was telling the truth; her comments weren’t about Mary.

Kevin Leung was shocked when Sai “outed” the fact that they had a majority alliance vote locked in, fearing that she just made it obvious that they were voting out Mary. But Sai had no remorse — she knew the tables had turned against Kevin, and she knew she had an idol in her pocket. She played it, and Kevin was voted out in a blindside vote initiated by Cedrek and orchestrated by him, Sai, and Justin. They took Kevin out because of the power he had gained in a few short days and because he was suggesting a Sai elimination. Kevin was the sole vote for Sai, leaving both him and Mary shocked. (Mary was also left out of the voting loop for the second week in a row; she’ll need to fix that if she has any hopes of a future in the game.)

Kevin Leung (Robert Voets / CBS)

LaMont said in the March 5 episode of On Fire that she feels for Mary and gave her take on how the player can turn the tide in her favor. LaMont is an expert on this very thing. She was frequently left out of voting plans in Season 47 and figured out how to pull out ahead of her competitors without a majority alliance. It was her impressive solo game won her the $1 million.

“I have been in this situation where your tribe blindsides you and takes out your closest ally,” LaMont shared on On Fire. “I think Mary needs to very quickly find a way to kind of play dead, grovel, hope that somebody else emerges as a bigger threat than her. And while she’s doing that, she needs to be simultaneously hunting hard for that idol because she has nothing to lose at this point. So, Mary needs a lifeline. People? Much more valuable long-term than trinkets, but sometimes your advantages are the only things that can save you. So, if you’re up against a wall with no options, you got to try everything.”

Last week, Stephanie didn’t play hard enough and that made her the first boot. This week, Kevin played too hard, and it made him the second. “This is one of the reasons why Survivor‘s so hard,” LaMont admitted. She says that players need to be able to “gauge how far you can go in either direction” in order to succeed in this battle of wits.

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Probst said that he “felt for Kevin,” who had a rough start with a shoulder injury in Episode 1 but had a fiery desire to keep playing. The host was fiery himself in tribal when Justin talked in hypotheticals. Cedrek then compared tribal council to therapy and called Probst the therapist. In On Fire, Probst called this group messy.

“They were a mess, and there was tension. So, I just tried to meet them where they were,” he admitted. “And just like Mitch [Guerra, who had a compelling personal moment earlier on], the entire tribe delivered.”

“They took us inside the story of their tribe, and they let us watch them playing the game in real time,” Probst went on. “I thought it was very compelling watching them work through things, making their case while also listening intently to everybody else to make sure their alliances were still tight and that the plan they want to happen is still happening. But one of the big benefits of a tribal like this, and this is for any future player, is that because it gets personal, things that need to be said, get said. Like Cedrek mentioned, it’s therapy. And any good therapy session, when it’s over, which in this case means when you go back to camp, you’re going to have some healing to do. And the first place you start is by blaming the therapist. So, you blame me. ‘He was so pushy tonight. Spicy Jeff.’ Yeah, blame me! This is your game. But this kind of tribal is not unusual.”

Learn more behind-the-scenes details in the full episode of On Fire, embedded below.

Survivor, Wednesdays, 8/7c, CBS