Jon Lovett makes a great point about Andy's struggles in the Survivor 47 premiere

What a premiere episode for Survivor 47! The new season kicked off with a bang on Wednesday, Sept. 18. Unfortunately, one of the great narrators of the game was eliminated after an epic meltdown following the first immunity challenge.

Spoilers ahead for the Survivor 47 premiere!

In the Survivor 47 premiere, Gata won the reward challenge, somehow, and then we're absolutely destroyed in the immunity challenge after flipping over their boat. It was a mess, honestly, and it got messier.

As three tribe members tried to solve the big puzzle at the end of the challenge, Andy Rueda started to melt down, literally. He overheated during the challenge and needed medical attention, then he started telling the doctors, Jeff Probst, and then the whole tribe that he was on the bottom and he was going to ask his tribe to vote out Jon Lovett, who Andy revealed was his only ally in the game so far.

It was hard to watch, and obviously, I feel terrible for Andy. He mentioned years of feeling alone and like an outsider, which became magnified and resurfaced during the first three days on the beach. Conventional wisdom suggests the tribe would see someone who is struggling and vote them out to keep the tribe united and try to turn this upside-down boat around.

Well, this is the New Era of Survivor, so you know it's never that simple.

Why Andy wasn't voted out in the Survivor 47 premiere

In the end, Jon Lovett was voted out during the first tribal council. The former speechwriter for President Barack Obama and host of Pod Save America was the first person voted out of Survivor 47.

In an interview with TV Line, Jon shared why he thought he was targeted instead of Andy, and I think it's great insight for where the game of Survivor is right now.

"I felt pretty sure just based on the how clean it was like, “Oh, this is a vote on me.” That’s what I would do. Why on earth would you not? He just went off the rails in front of everybody. Nobody’s gonna trust him. He’s just something to carry. Why wouldn’t you keep him around? I could have been 6’2″, built like a refrigerator and I don’t think the strategic choice is different. So that’s why in the end, trying to get the vote off of me or Andy wasn’t out of any affinity for Andy. It was just like, “I have to have a different conversation here. There has to be some other way to do this.”"

There was a lot of conversation about keeping Andy because he's stronger than Jon, but I think Jon's point is actually correct. It's much safer for each person on the Gata tribe to keep Andy around than it is to keep someone like Jon around. Andy just revealed to the whole group that he's not a serious player. Every person on the beach probably felt bad for Andy or empathized with him and his situation, but they also just went from a 1-in-18 shot to win Survivor to 1-in-17. Then, if you take out Jon, you go to 1-in-16 because no one is going to vote for Andy at the end. There's no way!

We've seen this in recent seasons of Survivor. In season 46, Q Burdette tanked his chances to win the game after getting caught in a lie and then blowing up tribal council for several votes in a row. He was used as a shield for Maria Shrime Gonzalez and Charlie Davis to take out bigger threats for several votes in a row.

We also saw Liz Wilcox have several meltdowns in season 46, and she was kept around until the very end, although she did make a few moves, because everyone knew that she was not going to win the game.

When someone outs themselves as an unserious player, keeping them around makes a lot more sense than voting them out makes a lot more sense.

In the Survivor 47 premiere, Sam Phalen basically said that during the episode. While everyone else was talking about keeping the tribe strong, Sam said the important part when he revealed that they needed to get rid of Jon because he's a very smart player. You keep players like Jon around, and they might take over the game. We've seen it happen so many times.

The problem for the Gata tribe is how long they can keep the train on the tracks. Andy made it like a day and a half before the issues started. Predictably unpredictable people aren't the worst people to be allied with on Survivor, but they can tank your game as fast as they can tank their game, too.

Q's behavior in Survivor 46 is the perfect example. There's a good chance that Tiffany makes it to the end or closer to the end if Q doesn't reveal that she found a hidden immunity idol. Hunter, if he chooses not to play with Q and keeps the Nami tribe strong, could have made it further in the game.

We'll see how it plays out with the Gata tribe and Andy, but it's very clear that they made the correct decision so far in eliminating Jon.

Survivor 47 airs every Wednesday night at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and Paramount+! We'll be following along all season, so stay tuned for more news!