Survivor 50's [Spoiler] Details Her 'Messy, Chaotic Game' And Reveals 'One Of My Biggest Regrets'

Spoilers ahead for Episode 11 of "Survivor 50!"

Not all schemes go according to plan on "Survivor."

Emily Flippen learned that the hard way when, after a wild split Tribal twist, she and Devens tried to fake out their competition. With Devens holding the game's only transferrable idol (more on that below), Emily attempted to sell a story to Cirie, Tiffany, and Jonathan, saying that Devens was going to use his idol on her rather than play it on himself. The ruse was partially successful. Devens did catch some strays at Tribal Council. But Cirie ultimately saved herself by making good use of her extra vote. After a tied vote and subsequent re-vote, Emily's torch was the one to get snuffed. (Read our full recap here.)

Below, Emily talks to TVLine about her final fight to stay in the game, her "messy" and "chaotic" early moves, and how her outside relationship with Christian hurt both of their games.

TVLINE | I want to start with this plan you concocted to try and get everyone to vote for Devens. Heading into Tribal Council, what did you think your odds of survival were, and how much work did you put into that scheme?
EMILY FLIPPEN | The entire day was putting work into the scheme and trying to convince myself that maybe this has a greater than 2% chance of working. At some point, somebody did ask me like, "Don't you think your Shot in the Dark has better odds, a 1-6 chance?", and I remember thinking to myself, "Yeah, that's actually probably true." But I was also thinking like, "You know, I don't want to go out via a Shot in the Dark." I figured if this plan works — I was playing a pretty messy, chaotic game to that point — then maybe this helps me build some argument for why I deserve to be there at the end. I just needed to do something, and I thought I'd much rather go down swinging, fighting, doing everything I can to stay, as opposed to just passively being like, "OK, well, let me take my 1-in-6 shot," which, if it had worked, I think maybe would have just bought me one more week, so to speak. So, I'm happy I tried, but I did not think the odds were good.

TVLINE | The plan was so smart. It almost worked!
Well, for a second there I thought it did, right? I didn't know about the extra vote. So when the votes started to come in, I think you see it, I smile at Devens. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this crazy Hail Mary plan just worked?" And the moment Jeff goes, "One vote left." I was like, "Oh no." I knew it was my name that was being written down. I mean, Cirie's not an idiot, right? She basically invented the split vote. I remember thinking to myself, the chances of this working is pretty low, and the only way I justified it to myself was like, Cirie was not eating anything. For whatever reason, she was not tolerating the rice. And I was like, "Hey, maybe her brain's shutting down. Maybe just one little slip up is all you need." But look, Cirie's not gonna slip up like that.

TVLINE | At Tribal Council, you spoke about how you regretted how you went out in "45," and that this time you fought hard and did everything you could to stay. Do you think that might've pushed Cirie into using her extra vote?
I think she was going to use it regardless. That's a great question though. I don't actually know the answer to that. At the time, what I was doing was trying to make it seem to Tiffany and Cirie like I was playing it up for this argument for Devens, right? So it's kind of this two layer thing that was happening where they thought that I was trying to pull one over on Devens to get him to play the idol for myself, so I needed to act like that was the case. So a lot of my commentary around Tribal was trying to put on an act for them as if I was acting for Devens, which is a little bit of a mind-F, I'm honest with you. [Laughs]

TVLINE | Looking back at the early parts of your game...
We don't have to! We can just ignore those! [Laughs]

TVLINE | You spilled a lot of secrets all over those islands! You told people about Aubry's idol, you told Ozzy about Mike coming after you...
I have no memory of any of this! None of this happened, right? [Laughs]

TVLINE | The edit made it look a little chaotic, but we know you're a smart player. I'm curious if you stand by all of your leaks, or if there are any that you look back on and view as mistakes.
I don't know when I got positioned as a smart player, a strategic player. I think I was always a personality hire. I kind of feel like maybe if you're not a pretty girl, they expect you to be a smart girl. Well, some of us aren't pretty and some of us are also just a little dumb. In this case, I really wish that I could say that this was strategy on my part. The truth is, I think Christian said it really well, when I have foot and mouth syndrome, I just verbally process things and I spit things out of my mouth before I even have the chance to think about them. I actually think that's probably the reason I got cast on "Survivor" in the first place. The producers said, "Oh man, this girl just can't help herself! She's gonna say whatever crosses her mind and then regret it immediately," which I did with Bruce on "45," right?

So I wish I could say this was strategy. It was not strategy. I have so much regret around the harm that I caused my allies and the people that I was working with. It's one thing when your mistakes hurt yourself, you can live with that because it's your own mistakes, but it's another thing when your mistakes hurt other people and then trying to live with the pain that you caused somebody else who's trying to play a really good strategic game. And you're over here just being an absolute chaotic mess, throwing wrenches in all of their plans totally unintentionally. I hope people are able to laugh at it. I was yelling at the TV being like, "God, Emily, please just shut up for once!" [Laughs]

TVLINE | Dee told me in her exit interview that she would've blown up her own game to keep you safe and get you the win, but you voted her out! Did you not feel that in the game?
No, and I really, honestly was flattered but shocked that she felt that way. Obviously I'm acquainted with her in real life. We went through this experience that was "45" together, and I love Dee as a person. She's a wonderful, strategic player. I really came into the game wanting to play with her, but I was not in the same mindset that I would throw away my game necessarily to help her get to the end. I was actually really afraid about making the same mistakes twice when it came to Dee because I knew how she's a triple threat in every definition of the word. She's an absolutely incredible player and I was afraid about getting Dee'd again, so to speak. 

But what happened with her vote-out was not intentional. I was completely unaware that I had thrown her under the bus like that to Rizo until I was literally watching the show back and realized. And Dee, being the really kind person that she is, never said anything to me over the course of the past year. She was just, you know, water under the bridge, it is what it is. What happened, happened. But no, that was not strategy on my part. I very much wanted to work with Dee. I don't know if I could have because some of my allies like Rick and others weren't sold on the idea of working with her, but I came into the merge wanting to at least work together for the extent that we could have, and I did not mean to do her dirty as much as I did her dirty. It's one of my biggest regrets, if not my biggest regret.

TVLINE | Christian was one of your biggest allies in the game. Were people aware of your relationship with him outside of the game, and if so, how much did that hurt you both?
Yes, very much so. It's out there, so I think it's fair for people to know that Christian and I know each other in real life. I did not expect to be on the same tribe as Christian, which was shocking, I think, for both of us. And I very much wanted to work with him because I've worked with him as we played this game Blood On the Clocktower together. It's been a total blast, and I felt like I had an understanding of who he is as a person, like how he operates and plays, and that obviously gives you a leg up on working with somebody. But that was out there virtually immediately. I remember Savannah came back from the first journey that she went on, and she was saying that even at that journey, I forget who it was, maybe it was Colby, was talking about how we know each other from this video game. So it was already being positioned from very early on that Christian and I were a tight pair, and I was afraid of that perception to an extent, but there was very little I could do about it because we just kept getting tribe swapped together and then going to Tribal Councils! So at this point, people knew that we were working together, that was just out there in the open, which is obviously why I was left out of the Christian vote. Nobody would have clued me in on that.

TVLINE | Have you seen the clip of Billie Eilish that's been going around about the Boomerang idol?
No, you're actually the second person who asked me about it, and I've been avoiding the internet for maybe obvious reasons, but tell me about this clip!

TVLINE | She was on the "Good Hang With Amy Poehler" podcast and she was like, "Apparently I wrote a letter to the castaways," and almost using air quotes as she spoke. She didn't really seem to know exactly what was going down with the boomerang idol that her name was attached to. She was speaking rather flippantly about it. I was going to ask you for your take on what she said...
Well, I'll tell you what, that is mildly devastating because, man, that boomerang idol was just the talk of the town. It's disappointing [that] through this point, it hasn't really played out the way that I think it was designed to play out. But one of the more interesting things about that idol design was that it could not be transferred. It was non-transferable. You could only play it on yourself. And that's part of the reason why I came up with the plan that Devens could play his idol on me. I was trying to sell it to them that it's the only idol in the show so far that can be played on somebody other than yourself. And if Rick is trying to make a big move, this is his big flashy move to make, because nobody else can do it. So I think it added an interesting dynamic.

TVLINE | Who would've been your ideal Final 3 had you made it deeper into the game?
Man, you tell me. At this point in the show, I was very worried. I was positioning myself to be a no-vote finalist, that I was going to get taken to the end, and I didn't really see, necessarily, the most realistic path to winning for myself. If the plan against Cirie worked, maybe that builds up some win equity for me, given the fact that Cirie was so closely ingrained with so many people on the cast, but I remember thinking to myself, "You just have to judge how the jury is feeling. It's not necessarily about how you feel." There's still so much game left to play. You still don't know everybody who's on the jury, but at this point in the show, if I had not been voted off, I remember thinking to myself, I wasn't sure if Joe and Rizo necessarily had the most respect. Obviously, I was unaware of a lot of what was going on behind the scenes with both of those players. They had their own relationships, own alliances that were blind to me at the time. But, based off of what limited information I knew at the time, I remember thinking to myself, maybe that combination. I have a more differentiated game vs. them.

But obviously watching it back, especially Rizo, for instance, has a lot more going on, I think, than the impression was at the time. But yeah, old school players, it's a hard pitch to be a new era person arguing for why somebody like Coach should give you their vote, right?

TVLINE | I asked you after "45" if you'd ever play again and you were like, "Nope, I'm done. I'm good!" but here you are. So I'm going to ask you again! Will we see Emily Flippen in Fiji for a third go at the million?
Yeah, maybe I live at 500 Hypocrite Hill in Fiji or whatever. I was lying to myself, not just everybody else, I swear. I said this [after] "45" and I know that I ended up doing the exact opposite, but I'm genuinely happy I tried on "50." I'm so thankful to have gotten the opportunity. It was a once in a lifetime experience, but I think I want to keep it that. I don't really have an interest in playing again, and I don't think that the audience necessarily wants to see me do the exact same thing again, which is just likely what I would do, which is put my foot in my mouth, be a total absolute chaotic mess, blow up a bunch of people's games. That's not fun, for me, for anybody else. So I'm flattered I got the opportunity, but I think I will spare the audience from having to witness the absolute train wreck that would be a third season for me. Not that I would even be asked, but no, I'm good.