Another season of Survivor is officially in the books! After 26 days on the island of Fiji, the Survivor 47 jury made their voices heard when they cast an almost unanimous vote for Rachel LaMont.
We say almost unanimous as Kyle Otswald threw one vote in the direction of fellow finalist Sam Phalen, making the jury’s final vote five votes for Rachel, one for Sam, and well, not one single vote for Sue – though no one was really surprised by this as Rachel and Sam were the clear favorites from this year’s Final 3.
Given how incredible a game Rachel played across the season, the vote wasn’t exactly surprising to fans watching at home; however, the final votes didn’t exactly play out how Sam imagined. In fact, in breaking his silence on the final tally for the votes in a new interview with TVLine, Sam made it clear he was honestly surprised to only get one from the jury.
“Yeah, I was, to be honest,” Sam told TVLine when asked if he was surprised by the final vote. “It really did feel very close. I did feel throughout the entire game, if I was sitting next to Rachel at the end, I had a compelling argument to make, and that it was going to be very tightly fought, but also very a tight battle in the votes.
Honestly, we can’t fault Sam for feeling a bit let down by the jury and believing that more than one jury member would have thrown a vote his way. There’s definitely a world in which the vote could have ended up closer than it did and Sam thought he had locked down a few particular votes.
At the top of the list for Sam was Sierra, who he confessed to thinking he had fully locked down. It turns out he also thought he’d be able to sway Gabe Ortis into voting for him as well during the Q&A before the final votes were cast.
“I expected to get Sierra Wright’s vote. I think I expected to get Gabe as well, but definitely Sierra for sure. So, Kyle and Sierra felt like two votes that I was relying on. Then I was pretty confident that I’d be able to sway Gabe over my way over the course of Final Tribal,” Sam told TVLine.
Ultimately, there isn’t much that Ben regrets about his gameplay over the course of the season; however, there is one thing he wished he had the opportunity to do in the game which he feels could have been the turning point for his gameplay and odds of winning.
“I do I wish I would have won an immunity challenge and had been able to take Rachel out. But I don’t beat myself up over that specifically,” Ben confessed.
Honestly, he’s not wrong. If he had been able to take Rachel out of the game, that could have paved the way for him to walk away as the Sole Survivor and win the game. Not only would it have been a major power move which he could have pointed to at the end of the game, but if Sam was sitting next to any other player outside of Rachel his odds of winning likely would have been greater and it’s possible he might have emerged as the winner of the season.
Of course, it’s easy to look at the What-If’s after losing a competition show such as this as how can you not second guess every decision and consider what could have happened if just one or two things played out differently.