Survivor's [Spoiler] Details 'Isolation, Fear And Sadness' Felt, One Person Who 'Made My Life A Living Hell'
The following contains spoilers from Wednesday's episode of Survivor 48.
Wednesday's Survivor cooked up what could've been the season's biggest, most shocking blindside of the season. Kamilla won immunity. A huge target — Joe, who could easily win the million — was in the crosshairs. And then, nothing. Nada. Crickets. So what happened?
Was it Mary's lack of coconut etiquette? Her blatantly calling out Joe at camp? (We asked her this and more in the Q&A below.) But a major factor of the night's vote was Kyle, who was still struggling to hide his connection with Kamilla while trying to save face with his Strong Four alliance. But sometimes a lack of decision is a decision, and when the group sat in front of Jeff, Mary was the only player with the nerve to vote for the season's frontrunner. And yet again, the majority alliance predictably cut the player who was merely treading water at the bottom. (Read our full recap here.)
Below, the eliminated Mary recalls the aftermath of isolation, how playing from the bottom affected her emotionally and her real feelings about her in-game frenemy, Sai.
TVLINE | Mary, I have to just start this with a statement: It is insanity that Joe wasn't voted out last night.
MARY ZHENG | [Laughs] I know, I know. Thank you for acknowledging that! That felt good.
TVLINE | The edit faked us viewers out with this whole "Joe blindside" thing, but at Tribal Council, did you think you stood a chance, or did you know what was coming?
Oh, I knew it was coming. I could smell it from two miles away. There was one point we were all in the shelter and I was like... well, I was eating a coconut probably. I was like, "Well, it's been good playing with you guys." And people weren't even like, "No, no, no, it's not you." There was just nervous laughter from everybody. And I appreciated that because I hate when people try to lie to me. It's so disrespectful. I'm a human lie detector. You can't get s–t past me. I'd known that I'd been on the bottom since David, since Star, and so I was like, "Today is the day."
TVLINE | You rattled Joe by telling him you were voting for him. Then, there was the alleged lack of "coconut etiquette" that we saw in the episode. Did this extra chaos convince everyone to cut you instead of Joe, or was the plan already the plan?
No, the plan was already the plan. For people to say that they didn't want to work with me because I was eating all the coconuts is honestly preposterous because there were so many other reasons and I want to dive into them. The first is that these people are so tight with each other. It is a season where everyone's been like, "I've told these people such personal things." [They are] Day 1 connections. I literally didn't have a single real connection out there at all. Well, no, actually I did get along with Star, and Eva was nice to me too. David and I were super strategic. We were strategic allies. Although, I want to preface: I love David. I love all the people. But they had actually connected in a way where they were like, "I'm gonna be friends with these people afterwards." I hadn't felt that.
The second reason is that they viewed me as a threat, rightfully or wrongfully. The people that I played the game with viewed me as a threat. I had a lot of people come up to me after, and say, "Hey, we're sorry we didn't work with you. We're sorry we didn't try to get to know you, because we knew that if you got to final Tribal Council, you would be getting all the votes." I think, partially, they didn't know how lucky I got on Vula. I think they thought I was the strategic mastermind. I wish I was, but I'm not. And I don't think this was apparent from the edit, but I felt really ostracized and hurt the last few days. I've talked about it with my castmates after. I was like, "Hey guys, you really hurt my feelings," and they were like, "Dude, we're sorry. We didn't mean to do that." I get that. I knew with my head that it was not personal, but there's a lag between your heart and your head, and my heart was just feeling like, "Why does it feel like if people make eye contact with me, they're gonna catch cooties?"
TVLINE | A byproduct of the game, I guess.
Exactly. It's a byproduct of game, and everybody was out there playing for the first time, and everybody was making the moves they thought were best for them, so I can't fault anyone.
TVLINE | Did you know anything out there about Kyle and Kamilla's connection, and how much that was a factor on Kyle's decision-making?
I did not know the extent, but David and I both clocked that something was going on and that they were working together. David and I — the edit is so crazy because it makes it look as if David brought me into the alliance, and it makes it look as if I manipulated David and all this stuff — but David and I were working together and we were coming to our own conclusions independently, bringing them to the other and being like, "Oh yeah, cool. Thanks for validating my thoughts." And we knew that Kyle, Kamilla and Shauhin — we didn't know exactly what was going on — but we knew something was going on. The way that Kyle didn't want to vote Kamilla out? That was evidence for us.
TVLINE | Your relationship with David wasn't well explained in the edit. When did you guys link up and what drew you two together?
So crazy. Literally from Day 1 of new Lagi, David, Eva and I were like, "Let's work together." It was a mutual decision because it was mutually beneficial. They wanted numbers and I wanted someone to work with me. Day 5 was the last time someone wanted to work with me, who I could trust. (Kevin, who I actually probably shouldn't have trusted, but you know what? He took one for me, so shout out for that.) Eva and David are incredibly kind people and they really felt for me coming from Vula, and they were people who I thought I could trust. Eva had been incredibly honest, we see, this entire time. David as well, and so I wanted to work with them. If you're selling, I'm buying. I'm coming from Vula. I don't think people can underestimate the amount of desperation that I felt, and I know desperation is not cute, but I don't think anybody who survived Vula would not be desperate to work with people who they can trust.
TVLINE | I want to rewind a bit to your Shot in the Dark play? What did that feel like, and did you ever try to convince Cedrek to keep Justin over Sai?
Great questions. So I knew that my Shot in the Dark was gonna hit. If you look at my face, it's a face of excitement. I am waiting there with bated breath because, they didn't show this, [but] I took my sweet ass time picking that scroll. I do tarot, OK? I am an astrology ho since I was 17. I'm also a Reiki master, so I'm trying to feel the energy. I'm putting my hands over everything, trying to feel the energy of this scroll, feel the energy of that scroll. Took my time and so I picked it. I knew it was it and it was. That was lit.
Then, I didn't do anything to try to convince Cedrek because, to be honest, I wish I could say like, "Oh, it was strategy" — I was exhausted. The Tribal Council lasted for hours. Everyone pretty much cried and in that moment, as a human being, I just wanted people to stop crying and for us to just go to sleep. Honestly. When you have been on for that long at such a long Tribal Council, where things are so tense, where people are literally crying because what is happening is bringing up deep, deep pain from earlier in life, you're no longer just playing a game. This is real people who have real feelings and I stopped playing. In that moment, I just reverted back to being a human being where I was just like, "Guys, let's just all go home and sleep."
TVLINE | OK, real talk. What are your true feelings about Sai? You had a bumpy relationship this season, to say the least.
We had a very contentious relationship, but after the game, Sai called me and apologized, and I accepted her apology. Sai made my life a f–king living hell out there, and I want to clear up: I was not having fun at all being chased around the island. I felt like I was prey. That was not fun. I lied to myself. I wasn't intentionally lying to other people. I was lying to myself when I said I was having fun. I knew that I had to be mentally strong. I did not allow myself to feel the isolation, the fear, the sadness, the loneliness that I felt out there, because I lied to myself and said I was having fun. I did a little mental jiu-jitsu on myself because I knew that if I wanted to make it to the next day, wake up and have the strength to keep fighting, I was gonna have to gaslight myself into thinking that everything was OK, even though it was so not OK.
I felt incredibly antagonized on Vula, but also, everyone is out there playing the game that they think is best for them, and I completely respect that. But was it fun for me? Hell no, it wasn't f–king fun for me! Are we f–king watching the same show? Who in their right mind could be on an island and have to sleep next to people who want them out and be like, "Oh my God, this is great!" It was not great at all. But also I want to say this: Not all meaningful experiences are fun, right? I think life is about seeking meaning and it's kind of like Type 2-fun. It's not fun during, but when I look back on it, I'm like, "OK, yeah, there was some growth there."
TVLINE | What was the process like post-game of trying to deal with those feelings you were pushing down? How did you heal from that?
Ponderosa was really healing for me because I felt love. I felt care in a way that I especially didn't feel the last few days. When I came back from the challenge and I didn't get picked for reward, Shauhin was the only person who said something to me. He said, "Keep your head up." Everybody else was too in their own heads and feeling too disappointed in their own performance to have the wherewithal to be like, "Hey Mary, I'm sorry you cried." But that really hurt my feelings.
It wasn't until the premiere where I was able to move past the bitterness that I felt for my post-merge tribemates. I was like, "Listen, you guys. It really hurt my feelings when nobody would talk to me." And they were like, Yeah, we're sorry about that. We viewed you as a threat and we didn't want to sit next to your final Tribal Council. We didn't want to talk to you because why would you get close to someone you know you're gonna vote out?" That's just gonna make it harder, right? So, I literally thought when I was on the boat coming back to Ponderosa that I was going to be like [Season 46's] Venus and be that person who didn't go to any watch parties, who didn't have any friends, but when I saw Cedrek, Chrissy, David and Star waiting out there for me, I cried hard because that was the first time in a long time that I felt actually cared about by someone in the game.