Joe Hunter finished a few votes short of winning Survivor 48. Viewed as largely the biggest threat for most of the game by many players after the merge, Joe rolled off four individual immunity wins and was protected from getting voted out by allies, Kyle Fraser, Shauhin Davari, and Eva Erickson ahead of the finale.
Throughout the game, Joe's honest game, so to speak, became the subject of conversation at camp and Tribal Council. While we didn't see many opportunities for Joe to explain his gameplay at Final Tribal Council, we learned from exit interviews just how many players felt like Joe wasn't being as honest about his gameplay as he was letting on.
Mike Bloom of Parade spoke with Joe about his gameplay and asked about Joe's thoughts regarding those exit interviews, notably David Kinne's insistence that Joe lied to him.
Here's what Joe told Parade about the jury's perception of his game:
"But when it comes to lying and deceit or whatever, with David specifically, it's like, 'Listen, that's your perspective.' And I feel what happened on the island and how I was treated by that person and treated by a few others in the moment, that trust was broken before any of that happened. And I didn't play a perfect game, and I absolutely made mistakes. But I will strongly disagree that my game was deception, or that I lied. There was a lot other pieces to this that are, 'Hey, that's not how it went down from my point of view at all.' But I want to respect if that's how he saw it or others, then I'll respect their opinion. But I couldn't disagree more."
This is a very tricky situation because there was always going to be disagreements within these big alliances. David had a very specific way he wanted to play, and in many ways, it aligned with how Joe felt he was going to play, as well. An opportunity to work together came about midway through the game, and the two biggest physical threats in the game formed a partnership. That worked well for, I don't know, six minutes of gametime until Joe backed Kyle Fraser and steered the vote away from Kamilla Karthigesu. Joe and Kyle were close, too, and it made sense why Kyle and Joe wanted to keep Kamilla around while David wanted her out of the game.
Look, David sensed that Kyle and Kamilla were close, and they were, but David was the one who sealed his own fate by calling out Joe in front of other players in the alliance. That's what we saw happen on TV anyway. Of course, there were other conversations, but we saw David accuse Joe of "going back on his word," basically.
Then, that culminated in David getting voted out of the game. Largely, though, I don't think that was Joe's call. In the episode, I believe we saw Eva Erickson as the one who actually decided to vote out David. By that time, all of the other votes were lined up. So, this idea that Joe was the leader of the majority alliance and he was just picking people off was actually quite far from what actually happened. He was great in challenges, and because of that, Joe was often the one player who wasn't in jeopardy after the merge. So, he probably plays the game a little bit differently from that safe position than he would if he were continually on the chopping block. By my calculation, Joe was safe in all but four Tribal Councils after the merge. And, one of those was when they voted out Mitch Guerra.
I also think there was a perception that Joe was just in control of the game the whole time, as Chrissy Sarnowsky mentioned multiple times. That perception, which was not true, was almost amplified by the other strategic threats in the game. Kyle, as he mentioned in his speech at Final Tribal Council, was humbled mightily on the first day in the game, which forced him to change his strategy. He fell in nicely alongside Joe, who was getting the brunt of the criticism for this majority alliance. Shauhin Davari basically did the exact same thing. Now, he was a Day 1 ally of Joe's, but Shauhin probably plays the game a lot differently if he doesn't have Joe standing right next to him getting all of this blame for the honesty and integrity stuff.
Overall, I don't think Joe deserves any hate for how he played. How many Survivor players in the history of the game would take being in a strong majority alliance after the merge that would lead them to the Final Three? Almost every single one!
If Joe doesn't drop the ball at the immunity challenge or miss out on the opportunity to win the fire-making challenge, he might be sitting at home, $1 million richer, but that's not what happened. He still deserves a lot of credit and no hate for the game he played.