Survivor's [Spoiler] Explains Big Reward Decision and Endgame Plans: ‘I Thought I Could Beat Everybody'

Yahoo

16-05-2025

48
Viewers were hungry for a big move and in Episode 12, secret island besties Kyle and Kamilla finally struck big.
More from TVLine
Criminal Minds Star Breaks Down That 'Seminal' Moment for Series, How the Devastating Twist Will Affect [Spoiler]
Survivor Recap: Kyle and Kamilla Line Up a Risky Frame Job - But Did It Work?
The Rookie Trio Ponders Tim's Next Move ('He's Whipped!'), Fights Over Season 7 Highlights - WATCH
After Joe secured his fourth immunity win, the two Ks hatched a devious plan of trying to convince Joe that Shauhin was flipping. Kyle and Kamilla doubled down on their ruse by whipping up a bold-faced lie: that Shauhin showed Kamilla an immunity idol that didn't even exist! All of this 'information' was enough to put seeds of doubt in Joe's head, and not even the world's most awkward conversation between Joe and Shauhin was able to clear up the confusion and trust between them. When the final votes came in, Joe and Eva believed the story they'd been fed, and Shauhin's game came to an abrupt end. (Read a full recap here.)
Below, Shauhin details his feelings about Kyle and Kamilla's move, that tense conversation he had with Joe and why he chose to feed the game's most obvious frontrunner.
TVLINE | Man, you got got! How did it feel watching all that back on TV?SHAUHIN DAVARI | Oh, the feeling was crazy because my friends and family didn't know, and so they were going into it thinking that [I] could win this thing like, 'You've played a great game and there's a lot of game left to be played. You definitely could win this thing,' and so they had a lot of confidence for me. 'You haven't won a challenge yet, and we know you can win challenges.' So they thought like, 'OK, maybe this is the time he wins the challenge,' and they were right. I did win a challenge. I just won the wrong one.
But the feeling last night was awesome. I was surrounded by my community and we come together every Wednesday night. We have since Season 43. So to go from us just getting together and watching the show and enjoying it and playing Survivor fantasy to now all of a sudden, they're rooting for me and cheering for me and jeering for me and they got to have 12 episodes of that. For it to all come to a close last night, it was a really beautiful night.
TVLINE | What's your reaction to Kyle and Kamilla's frame job? Any thoughts or hard feelings about how it all went down?Yeah, how dare they? My mom right now is putting hexes on their future children. [Laughs] No, man, I mean, it's a game, and you see that right after I get voted out as I recognize, 'OK, it must have taken a gargantuan effort to get me out because Joe and Eva and I were very close. Some of the things you might not see is that Joe, Eva and I were a very tight three as well. Joe and I spent every single day on the beach together. We woke up and had midnight conversations all the time about the game. You don't see any of that stuff, and I certainly understand the duo that is Joe and Eva, like obviously, the hug heard around the world and this incredible, maybe best TV moment that I've ever seen, and I got to see it in person. I wasn't unaware that they were a very tight duo, but Joe and I also had a very good relationship out there, something that you didn't really see. He was The Rock and I was Kevin Hart. We had so much fun together out there. So in order to convince them, that move had to be big and I knew that it had to be big right when it was happening.
Also, I felt like I was playing the best game out there, so it made sense for them to get the person that they maybe figured out was playing the best game, or they were scared that I was playing the best game or whatever. At that point, you gotta have respect. If you know the game and you love the game and you thought you were gonna win the game, well, if you get got before you get to the end, you gotta pay respect to the people who got you.
TVLINE | You had this tense conversation with Joe where he was kinda, sorta trying to suss you out. What was your take on that in the moment? Is there anything else you wish you would have said or done?I wish that I was gentler. I was not gentle in that conversation and I could have been, and I normally would have been, but I think after 23 days of not eating very much and not sleeping very well and all the discomfort out there, I was not as gentle as I could have been, especially knowing that he had just had a conversation with his sister which he had been waiting to have for the better part of a decade, and he had just come back from loved one's letters where his kids really got him into an emotional state that was powerful enough for him to share the story of his sister or to close the chapter of that story with his sister. And I didn't recognize that because I felt maybe that he should feel a little indebted to me because I took him on that reward, and so I kind of reacted in a way, and he kind of reacted in a way because of where he was at emotionally. We were just on an off day. And in that off day, Kyle and Kamilla come in with their claws and just hook that dude, right? They hook him and they hook Eva and it's a perfect storm inside. The ship of me, Joe and Eva, we just didn't make it out the other side. Or at least they did. I didn't make it out the other side. Man overboard.
TVLINE | Viewers seemed surprised that you picked Joe to go on the reward, especially since the food was such a huge component to immunity challenge performance. Why'd you let him eat? Were you OK to sit in a Final 3 with him and Eva?A couple things here. Number one, as far as the Joe thing is concerned, you gotta remember that for the last maybe five days, we're talking about when the loved ones letters are gonna come, and every single person on that beach was like, 'Well, I'm for sure picking Joe because you want to see the loved ones letters from your kids,' and he was the last person with a kid out there. So the narrative of like, 'Why did you pick Joe?' I don't know that I buy that. I think most people would have picked Joe, except for maybe Mitch. Maybe Kamilla wouldn't have picked Joe either, but he's the only one who had kids left, so I felt OK about that decision. Fueling him, I understand why that would upset the people that were left in the game, but I don't know. I don't know that I buy that most people would not have picked him in that scenario.
As far as sitting next to him in the end, I mean, if you look at the relationships that I had built versus the relationships that he had built, I think that I have a pretty good argument as to why I would win at the end. If you look at the perception of him versus my perception and what was stated out there… like Star says, 'Shauhin is the brain.' Well, in the game of Survivor, the brain tends to win the game and the brain tends to be able to explain what's going on in the game. I teach speech and debate for a living. Doing public speaking and presenting persuasive arguments is all I do all day long, and I also build relationships, right? Interpersonal communication is also something that I teach. And so building these strong connections and asking yourself, 'The people that left. Did they think that they had a relationship with me?' Even Mitch says it in this episode that he felt like he could come make a move with me. He felt like he had been waiting to make this move with me at six.
Now, for me, what's the point of making the move if I think I can beat the people that I'm already working with? Now, to be frank, I thought I could beat everybody. I didn't go out there to play a game that I didn't think was a winning game. I wanted to win. I didn't want to do anything else. My only goal was to go win the game and I came up short, obviously, but I certainly think that if I made it to the end, at that point, I didn't care who I sat next to, whether it was Joe, Eva, Mitch, Kamilla, Kyle. I thought that I could make a persuasive argument that would win me the game, and I think given the people that were already over on the jury, I had a really good shot.
TVLINE | What was your reunion with David like when you hit Ponderosa?I got a really warm welcome when I came to Ponderosa, and the people on the jury said to me, 'You were our million-dollar pick. We were all going to vote for you.' Every single person said that to me. Now, they could have just been gassing me up because I was coming out of the game and I was sad. That's possible, but I think even after that, the conversations that we had let me know, 'OK, cool, I had played a really excellent game,' and I think you even see in some of the exit press that's already happened that they would have voted for me if I had made the end.
I think the reason why David and I had a good relationship is because I never said that I was going to do this honor and integrity thing. I said that I was going to play the game, and when they would start talking about that with me there, I would kind of just fall silent and not say anything. I've watched a bunch of Survivor and I know that that's just not how it works. That's how you make people mad. You make people mad by saying you're gonna do that and then not doing that, as opposed to what I did, which was search someone's bag, and then when we got to the merge beach, I literally told everybody. I said to every single person in this big round circle that we're all sitting in when Eva says I have autism. I talked about how I searched Kyle's bag because it's the game of Survivor and I was doing everything I could to protect my alliance and that's the truth. I wanted to protect Thomas, I wanted to protect Joe, I wanted to protect myself. I was doing anything I could to protect them, and so I think that David respected that type of lying honesty, if you will.
TVLINE | You did search Kyle's bag, but maybe not well enough, right?I needed this. [Lifts up a handheld metal detector that reads 'SECURITY.']
TVLINE | What didn't we see on TV that you wish was shown?Something about my game was the close-knit relationships that I had out there. You didn't see me really talk to Kamilla, but Kamilla and I were working together, as David was concerned about, right? Kyle and I obviously worked together on a bunch of votes. Switching it from Kamilla to Chrissy, that was a Kyle and me move. The David thing was Kyle, me and Joe. The relationship that I had and the closeness that I had with Joe is definitely something that was missing from the edit. Joe and I were together on a beach every single day except for the split Tribal, and that's not the case with Joe and Eva. Now, Joe and Eva had a tighter bond based on other things, but Joe and I were incredibly tight out there for sure. I love that guy.
TVLINE | Were you ever worried that if Joe was forced to pick between you and Eva, that he'd pick her?[Long silence] Oh, wow. You know, I think that he probably would have picked her. I didn't want to ever make him choose. I knew better than to make him choose. He was put in a really difficult position out there with Eva, not that he didn't want to be that for Eva, but that is a difficult position for a man who has the background he has, the history he has, the life he has, the family he has. That's a difficult position to be put in, to be put between his brother from another mother, the Kevin Hart to his Rock, and Eva. That is a difficult spot to be in for sure.
Best of TVLine
Yellowjackets' Tawny Cypress Talks Episode 4's Tai/Van Reunion: 'We're All Worried About Taissa'
Vampire Diaries Turns 10: How Real-Life Plot Twists Shaped Everything From the Love Triangle to the Final Death
Vampire Diaries' Biggest Twists Revisited (and Explained)