Survivor’s [Spoiler] on That Wild Sue Montage: ‘This Is Where I Need to Tread Lightly…’
The following contains spoilers from Wednesday’s episode of Survivor 47.
The season’s biggest threats are dropping like flies.
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In Survivor’s pre-Thanksgiving Day episode, Genevieve and Kyle found themselves on the chopping block after Rachel won her very first individual immunity. Despite Genevieve’s masterminding of Sol’s exit, the rest of the players continued to worry that Kyle could win his way to the game’s final three seats. And they couldn’t let him skate any further. By a vote of 6-1-1, the Beka tribe pulled the trigger and sent Kyle to Ponderosa, making him the fourth member of the Season 47 jury. (Read our full recap here.)
Below, Kyle talks to TVLine about his heartwarming backstory, Sue’s wild words, the unseen olive branch he extended to Gabe and more.
TVLINE | Why do you think I’m talking to you today instead of, say, Genevieve?
KYLE OSTWALD | I went hard, dude. When I came into Survivor, I went in knowing that I was gonna put my foot on the gas and my foot wasn’t coming off the floor until I saw God or a checkered flag. I knew that doing that was a high risk, high reward situation, but I also knew that there was only gonna be one winner in the end of this game.
Once I got into the game and started seeing what was happening, I then saw that there could be an alternative goal in mind if I did not win the million dollars and [title of] Sole Survivor. There was still something that I could achieve, a goal that I could still hit that could carry even more weight for my family into the future than the actual million dollars. And that’s when things seem hard, when things seem difficult, show up and show out the best that you can. If you’re feeling weak, give your everything. If you’re feeling strong, give your everything. No matter what, don’t roll over, don’t play dead, just show your family who they are and where they come from because I’ve had a very clouded vision of that growing up. It’s been very difficult for me to find that sense of family pride to carry into the future. But to be able to stand out there and compete and go head-to-head with some of the best people on planet Earth… I didn’t win the million dollars, but like I say, what this did is it put a ripple effect into my family’s future that I think will travel indefinitely and give the future generations a spot where they can start and just be proud of where they come from and where they stand in life.
TVLINE | Genevieve was also on the chopping block. Did you think you had any chance of surviving since she was also vulnerable?
I didn’t think so. I didn’t feel like Genevieve was gonna get nailed yet at all. I felt like people felt Genevieve was pretty… I don’t want to say “dormant,” because she was an active player the whole way through. But I feel like one thing that was really highlighted was the Sol moment because she was very active in the Sol vote. Very wise, very smart. Her strategy was brilliant. She’s a thinker after all, but I don’t think that it was enough to where people were going to sway off me when the opportunity to strike Kyle came again, because I worked with Genevieve during that Sol vote. I helped paint that picture after I had lost my individual immunity to Gabe. I needed somebody to go home other than me. Names were brought to me like Sol and I was willing to go after that.
I was trying to paint in different people’s heads reasons why maybe I should stay, one of them being Genevieve. And I’m trying to tell her like, “If you clip me now, you’re next and if you’re not next Genevieve, Gabe, you’re gonna be next.” These competitors that we’re against are very intelligent people and they have been threat-hunting this game from the beginning of it. So it’s like, “I am your shield to the end. Use me as a vote.” If you think that all I have is a sob story and an immunity run to get me into the end game, you should be able to beat me with your strategy talk because we’ve had physical threats in the end game of Survivor several times. People have done better than me and have not won. That’s what I tried to deliver and it worked for a while. After I lost [the challenge] and saw how vulnerable I was, and that the momentum had really shifted towards me, I knew it was coming. I went as hard as I could. I had no quit.
TVLINE | You shared a lot about your family and being a family man. Were you ever concerned that your backstory might make people not want to bring you to the end?
Yeah, I knew it. How many times have you ever honestly wanted a physical threat, a family man in the end game? I mean, you can call it sympathy votes, the family votes, the physical threat votes… a lot of it wasn’t shown but I feel like my social game was quite strong for my position in the game. And it’s tough, man. I knew that I was painting that threat on my back the whole way through and it’s OK. I knew what was gonna happen if I failed, but like I said, there was an alternative motive behind it, so I just let it rip.
TVLINE | You helped take Gabe out the vote prior. Was there a world where you could’ve maybe worked with him a little longer or possibly gone to the end with him?
I have very mixed feelings on the Gabe thing. He’s a great player. I was willing to take it to the end, but I need to know that you’re in it with me to the end. If we’re gonna take our gloves off and just hammer on each other in the endgame, you need to let me know. Give me faith in that. And when I start seeing him play the game so well and inserting himself in different directions and making his moves and things are working for him and sometimes I’m not included in all of those moves, that starts making me question. Am I going to the end to brawl with a strong player, or am I going to get nipped right before I get my opportunity? Is he going to pull somebody that has not had such a strong game with him to the end just to gain more votes?
So throughout the game, I was trying to find opportunities to hit Gabe. The first time we’re on Lavo beach, I’m like, what are our numbers? We’ve got Rachel, we can move with this. What can we do? Several times in the game, I’m like, “How can we get Gabe?” But the problem was you can’t swing at Gabe and miss. If you swing at Gabe and miss, goodbye, you might as well just pack your lunch and go home. So I needed to make sure that when that happened, it happened.
But what happens in this moment before Gabe goes home? I give a window of opportunity. I’m giving Gabe an option at this point. If he has something in his pocket to play it. I walk up to Gabe and I say, “Gabe, this is not looking good, dude. You’re going home tonight. It’s happening, dude. Teeny flipped, the whole boat flipped on you right now, so if you have something, play it.” And I was hoping in that moment that I did not shoot myself in the foot because I figured if he did have something, there would had been such a strong respect held for that, that he may have given me back that bro code and we could have went to the end and just duked it out hardcore. But I gave him that opportunity to play something up his sleeve. I gave him that bro moment and he didn’t have it. So we swung and it hit, it stuck, and he went home. Part of me was very happy that he went because I felt like he was a very good player. It is what it is.
TVLINE | Why did Sue have such strong feelings about you, and what did you think about that big ol’ anti-Kyle montage that was shown?
So this is an area where I need to tread lightly because I don’t wanna step on anybody because I have nothing but respect for everybody in this moment. Everyone including Sue. But when I saw that, it starts to make me feel a little violated, in a sense, because I didn’t talk like that about Sue in the confessionals and things like that. I didn’t let things like that aggravate me. Her shutting me down on the beach… I didn’t let that get to me. It was what it was. At camp and everything she was very kind to me. I would try to talk strategy sometimes before a challenge or something and she didn’t like it. She would rather just keep positive energy, which is fine. I understand that. I don’t like it, but I understand it. But if I asked her, “Sue, could you hand me my water bottle?” She’d hand me my water bottle. She wouldn’t give me ugly faces or tell me to get it myself. She was very pleasant to me. So when I saw all the confessionals come out like that, I was a little alarmed and like, wow, [I’ve been] sitting here being nice to this person. I’ve been feeding this person, getting water, chopping coconuts for her, cooking coconuts for her, doing all these things for the group and her included ,and every time she walks away, she’s just talking smack about me because I threw a vote against her like 10 years ago? OK. So it was a little unsettling, and this is where I want to tread lightly because it gets a little bit of a rise out of you when you see somebody that’s just throwing your name constantly.
But I’ve gained a special kind of a following through this. What my character has done on this show is it’s united an extreme group of people, and by “extreme,” I mean very stand-up, big hearts, thoughtful, motivated people and it’s brought them together and it’s unified people in a way that it’s blowing my mind, the fact that I could be a linking piece to something so great. With that being said, when these things come into light, I don’t have to say anything to anybody. I watch it with my family and it is what it is. After that, nature takes its course. The world feels the way that they feel, people feel certain ways about different things and people feel obligated upon themselves to speak out and to say things to whomever they may say. And I will confidently say that my family is receiving nothing but love and support and I’m really grateful for that.
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