Spoilers for the season premiere of Survivor.
I always look forward to the season premieres of Survivor because — despite there being two seasons a year — it feels like the gap between them is long. It’s my ultimate comfort television, signaling that our fall or spring routines are back. There’s school, work, job events, pub trivia, new movies, sleepovers, and Hebrew school, but we still make time every week as a family to gather around the latest episode of Survivor and complain about the sound mix (seriously, something is wrong with the sound mix).
New seasons mean new players, and I appreciate that there’s often someone recognizable. They’re not exactly celebrities, but they’re public figures. Usually, it’s a little-known or mid-level former NFL player, but sometimes we get someone like Mike White. This season, we got Jon Lovett. The Jon Lovett — the former Obama speechwriter, host of Pod Save America, and co-founder of Crooked Media. I know that guy! I mean, I don’t know him, but I listen to his podcasts! He used to be engaged to Ronan Farrow! He’s famous to a small subset of America’s liberal population who spend too much time focused on politics!
I was excited to see Jon Lovett this season, and I had even read earlier in the week that Jeff Probst thought he was one of the show’s best all-time storytellers! Wow! What stories he must have to share!
Or would have, had he not been eliminated on the first f**king episode!
Someone has to be the first eliminated each season, and often, it’s someone annoying (though honestly, the annoying ones usually last several eliminations), too physically weak to help in team challenges, a drag on tribe morale, or someone who decides to quit.
But not Jon Lovett. He was eliminated on the first show because he played too hard. He also might have been matched with an incompatible tribe.
Here’s the gist: There’s a player this season named Andy. Andy tried so hard early on to make connections that he seemed desperate. Within three days, the game had already taken its toll on him. Paranoia set in. He thought his tribemates disliked him and assumed, based on no real evidence, that he would be the first voted out.
Andy gave everything he had during the immunity challenge but lost it. He had an emotional breakdown. During the breakdown — in front of all three tribes — he confessed that, in his delirium, he planned to throw his closest ally, Jon Lovett, under the bus at the tribal council. Andy made a real ass of himself and became an easy target. He was as good as gone.
But here’s what happened: Jon, in a conversation with the rest of the tribe where they all agreed to vote out Andy, asked who they would tell Andy they were voting out. They said they’d tell Andy they were voting out Jon, an easy lie that made the most sense.
Jon didn’t like that. He grew paranoid and, rather than allow the rest of the tribe to use him as the decoy, decided to go after another tribemate, Anika. Nobody wanted to vote out Anika, but Jon’s early attempt to orchestrate a blindside put a target on his back.
Plus, the rest of the tribe reasoned — perhaps rightfully — that Lovett is a weak competitor in challenges and that Andy would be better, and that Andy was no longer a threat and didn’t need to be voted out just yet. So, the mostly younger group (Lovett is only 42 but seemed much older compared to the rest of his tribe) banded together and ousted Jon because he posed a strategic and social threat but didn’t offer enough in challenges to offset that.
And now, we don’t have the most recognizable player in the game this season to watch. There will be no fun stories about the Pod Save America crew or Ronan Farrow, and we’ll never know who would have sent him letters from home. We’ll never get to see Jon Lovett lose it after 21 days on the island and lash out at a Gen Z’er for not doing anything around camp! It’s a real bummer.
Post by @podsaveamerica
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We’ll obviously have much more on this week’s episode in the next installment of the Podjiba podcast. Subscribe here or wherever else you get your podcasts.