[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Survivor Season 46 Episode 9.]
Idol this, idol that. Jeff Probst says that promising to play an idol is a big nothing burger in Survivor. His comments come after Hunter was eliminated in Survivor Season 46 Episode 9 with an idol in his pocket, despite having sworn to other players that he was going to play it for himself in tribal council that night. Promises like this, Probst says, are complete “nonsense.”
Probst revealed his feelings about idol promises in the On Fire podcast released after Episode 9 aired on CBS on April 24. He told his co-hosts, Survivor fan Jay Wolff and Season 45 winner Dee Valladares, that he knows as much about what players are going to do with their idols as fans: “Nothing.” As the host and showrunner, however, he knows “who has an idol for sure.” In his 20+ years with the show, one thing is certain: “It’s extremely rare when a player will say in interview, ‘I am 100% playing this no matter what’ because the ‘no matter what’ is situational.”
This was in reference to Hunter revealing in the 11th hour that he had an idol to select players. It was an attempt to shift the vote away from him after he saw the writing on the wall. Valladares said in the podcast that Hunter shouldn’t have revealed this precious intel — he should have blindsided everyone by revealing it just before the votes instead. She admits that that could’ve angered some of his allies, but a savvy player with good social skills can fix that rift.
Hunter took a risky bet that his last-minute organizing was enough to send Q home instead of him and didn’t play his idol. Earlier in the episode, he said it was a guarantee that he would play it. This was his fatal mistake; Hunter was eliminated after a tiebreaker vote. Probst says Hunter’s idol move was completely predictable, implying it was foolish of Hunter to say he was going to play it no matter what.
“You may get in there and suddenly something happens and you realize, ‘Oh, wait, not have to play this. I could hold it for another week.’ So I don’t listen to any of that nonsense,” he explains. “When they walk into tribal, they can declare, ‘I’m going to pull it out right now, Jeff, and show everybody I’ll be playing this tonight.’ Yeah, maybe, or maybe not. Or maybe that thing isn’t even an idol in the first place. So I say nothing.”
Probst literally got popcorn out to watch the Episode 9 tribal council following the chaotic tribal Q caused in Episode 8. The aftermath of that live tribal played out throughout Episode 9, and it’s clear that Q has lost all of his allies. While Valladares thinks that Q made a big mistake in causing that tribal chaos, she thinks he can still recover from the massive blunder. But she admits that if he does make it into the final three, it would take something “historic” for the jury to vote to give him $1 million.
Elsewhere in the On Fire episode, Probst answers a fan question about how Hunter was able to participate in a journey when he didn’t have a vote to sacrifice. Take a listen to the full episode below.
Survivor, Wednesdays, 8/7c, CBS