Rizo Velovic warned that it was going to be “advantage-geddon” in Survivor 49 Episode 12’s Tribal Council, and that was very much the case. Two advantages were played and wasted. Sophi Balerdi’s Knowledge is Power didn’t produce the desired result, and Steven Ramm‘s Block a Vote didn’t shield him from elimination. A savvy lie kept Rizo’s idol in the game for yet another day. He heads into the Survivor 49 finale with a usable idol in his pocket. Steven, meanwhile, was blindsided in a unanimous vote after his closest allies flipped on him.
With Savannah Louie safe and Rizo shielded by his immunity idol, Sophi and Steven became the targets. Steven had to play his advantage before leaving for Tribal Council. He blocked Savannah’s vote with it, and there was hope for his plan to eliminate Sophi, especially after Sophi used her Knowledge is Power to try to take his advantage. Everyone knew he had one, but he didn’t reveal what it was, so they were blind to the rules for how he had to play it. Since he didn’t have anything she could steal, the advantage she had kept secret for so long was wasted. Steven trusted that Sage Ahrens-Nichols and Kristina Mills would vote for Sophi along with him, giving them the majority. But Steven was betrayed by Sage and Kristina and was voted out.
Rizo asked whose vote was blocked before the votes were read. He was trying to determine if he should play his idol, and he decided not to, which revealed that he was lying about the idol expiring at the final six Tribal Council. Fans online questioned if Rizo was allowed to ask those questions before the votes were read. Here, Steven gives his take.
Give us a play-by-play of your decision to block Savannah’s vote.
Steven Ramm: I was really, really happy that I got to keep it for the final six because after that, it was going to expire. And so I knew I wanted to play it or had to play it, honestly. And it was perfect. It gave us the numbers. It was at six, I was able to block one vote, and so it’d be 3-2, even though there’s another idol at play. I had no idea there was a Knowledge is Power in play. That was crazy. But leading up to it, it just seemed very obvious that the people I’ve been working with and placing so much trust in and had been so loyal to me up until that point. Kristina playing her idol for me, Sage working with me, and she could have easily voted me out in the first swap when it was three Uli members versus me, the one Hina, but we decided to work together.
CBS
She honored her word, saved me there. And then, honestly, the same thing with the Nate vote. We’d worked together. And so at that point, I thought we had built such a foundation of trust, and we were all working together on the same page. I think I was maybe a little bit blind to the fact that just because I wanted to sit with them at the end, they maybe didn’t feel the same way. And so, going into it, my logic was very simple. I was like, I know Savannah is one of the three people that are going to be throwing votes on me, so I’m going to block her vote. And then Rizo and Soph, we’ll see where their votes go. But I was just doing the best I could, trying to get the numbers in my favor.
So I had to play it before I went to Tribal Council, which was honestly a unique mechanic that I had never seen in a season leading up to that. Maybe it has happened. I’m not as big of a superfan as I think some people are playing the game. So maybe it’s happened before.
Right before we left for Tribal Council, I was the last person to talk to production, and I was able to say whose vote I wanted to block. And at that moment, the advantage no longer existed, even though I saved it as a souvenir, put it my little pocket because I was like, I’m not giving this up. This is a cool keepsake from this awesome experience. But yeah, I knew going into Tribal that the advantage was gone. And that was kind of scary too, because sometimes you want the flexibility to be able to change whose vote you’re blocking based on what you hear in Tribal Council. Tribal Council is like 99% theater. It’s all politics, and people are all acting, and they’re all incredible actors, and nothing anyone says is true, but sometimes you get this little spidey sense, the hair’s on the back of your neck stick up. And I was a little bummed that I had to burn that advantage before I left. I was like, dang, let’s say I want to switch it up for whatever reason. I don’t have that ability to do that.
Do you feel that having to play it before Tribal was unfair? And I wonder if you felt differently in hindsight after Sophi played her advantage on you and wasted it.
I didn’t think it was unfair. It’s a game. I was just happy to have some sort of advantage. I will say I ran around an entire island, and I was hoping it might be something a little bit more powerful, given all the effort that I put in to get it. I was really hoping it was going to be an idol or something bigger, but honestly, a poor carpenter blames their tools. I was given this awesome tool, this awesome advantage. Regardless of the mechanic, this is an opportunity for me to shake things up and really flip the game in my favor. And so I didn’t look at it as being unfair. I just looked at it as having an opportunity. All the game is, is you just have to seize these moments and these opportunities when you have them.
Clearly, Sophi’s move was wasted because you didn’t have an advantage to give. But even if you did still have your Block a Vote, should she have taken Rizo’s idol instead?
Yeah, I’m sure she probably regrets it, too. But yeah, of course, that’s the more powerful advantage to take, especially in hindsight now, knowing that they knew they had the numbers and they were all about to blindside me. It’s just kind of unnecessary to take my Block a Vote. Even with that, they still had the numbers anyway, so it felt a little bit mean. I don’t know. They were like, let’s just twist the knife a little bit and steal his one advantage that he earned, even though we don’t need to take it. So yeah, I don’t know. I was honestly shocked, one, that she had the Knowledge is Power, kudos to Sophi. She hid that so well and played that masterfully. She had this ace in her sleeve. And then when she started reading that and looking at me, I was like, ‘”You’re going to take mine?” But I knew I didn’t have it, and so that’s why I was grinning. At that moment, I was feeling extremely confident that the vote was going to go the way I wanted it to. Of course it didn’t, but that’s the game.
CBS
About that. Heading into Tribal, you were confident that Kristina and Sage were going to be on your side. Earlier in the episode, though, you did sense that Kristina might be approaching the time when she would need to betray you. Did you have a sense that Kristina might flip on you heading into this Tribal, and how strong was that sense if so?
Yeah, my spidey senses were going off, left and right. I mean, there were a lot of moments that kind of led me to question whether things were actually going to go the way I wanted to. First off, we get back from the immunity challenge, and Sage and Kristina immediately go chat on the beach for quite a while without me. And we had three people, and we don’t necessarily always need to talk. I trust that they would clue me in on what they talked about after. And that’s what happened is Kristina came, and that’s when we had our one-on-one talk, and she let it slip that I was in the conversation as someone that they might write the name down of. And I was like, “Why was I even in consideration? What the heck?” And then after that, Kristina stumbled, and she tried to do damage control. After that, she went and talked to Sage again immediately right after.
I was like, “Are you trying to get your story straight again or let Sage know, ‘Oh, I accidentally said this, but I think it’s good?'” That was kind of putting some alarm bells off. I also talked to Rizo right afterwards. I kind of mentioned I had the weirdest conversation with Kristina. She just said this, and leading up to this vote, Rizo and I had been talking a lot more. He was trying to suss out what my advantage is, but I think both of us were trying to leave doors open in case we decided to work together in the future. And so I was starting to get to know Rizo, and I was like, maybe he’ll confide in me, maybe. And so I just said, “Hey, this really weird conversation happened. What do you make of it?” And he was like, “Oh, Kristina, I wouldn’t worry about it. I wouldn’t worry about it.” And I’m like, “Why are you defending my ally to me? Wouldn’t this seem like a good opportunity to drive a wedge between us?” And so that kind of tipped me off, too, that maybe they had been in cahoots more than I gave them credit for.
Honestly, I just trusted. I just felt in my head, I was like, logically, it just makes sense. We’ve got three votes. We have a chance to swing the majority in our favor and really go into Final Five with the numbers and the ability to control the game and control who goes to Final Four, and hopefully we can all sit together. So even with all those alarm bells going off, I got a little blinded, and I was like, maybe it’s going to work out in my favor. There really wasn’t much more I felt like I could do, though. I was like, “What do I say that I haven’t already said?”
You said in this episode that Kristina was a “sloppy” player. Do you still think that?
I mean, yeah, in that moment, I stand by it. I feel really bad that that got aired. For every critical thing I said about Kristina, I said 20 amazing things. She’s truly someone that I care about a lot and love as a human. And we worked really closely in the game, and she was incredibly loyal to me. She played her idol for me, so in that moment, I think I was just a little frustrated because there were moments even before that that didn’t make the edit, but they were conversations. Sometimes we’d have a plan, and then she’d go talk to someone, and she would forget the plan or forget details. I get it. You’re out there, and it’s tiring, and things slip, but we were so late in the game, and when you get down to six, there’s no room for error. Every little thing that someone says could be used against you.
And so when she did that, I was like, “Oh my God, no!” I do regret saying that. I think that she’s a much better game player than I think is being reflected currently. And so I feel terrible for making that joke. But at the moment, I did feel like she was being really sloppy, and it was just really frustrating to me. I was like, “I thought we had this plan. Why are we deviating from this plan that seemed so perfect?” And so that should have been another red flag. I was just going 65 miles an hour in a school zone, blasting by all these red flags. They were nothing, dude. That’s Survivor for you.
What are your thoughts on Rizo getting to ask questions after the votes and before he decided what to do with his idol? There’s been some talk online among fans saying that Jeff Probst maybe should have stopped that.
I didn’t think you were allowed to. I don’t know. I was kind of like, “What the hell? Why are they able to strategize?” I don’t know. I thought maybe that was part of the rules that I just didn’t see. It’s not my place to step in and mediate when things are right or wrong. Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t think it changed too much, but the fact that they were able to have that conversation was something I didn’t know that you could do, but I don’t know. It’s out of my control.
At the most, I felt you could nod or wink or make gestures, but I didn’t think you could have full-on conversations once they got back and were getting ready to read the votes. But at the same time, I was also tired and sleep-deprived. I just ran around an island and won this advantage, and so I was completely gassed. I was like, “Maybe I just missed part of the rules. Maybe this is fine.” I don’t know. But yeah, it took me by surprise too when that happened.
CBS
Is there anything in this episode that didn’t air that you wish had?
In this episode in particular? Not really.
A previous episode?
Previous episodes, yeah. I wish that they had shown Sage and I’s relationship a little bit more. Her and I were a pretty in lockstep throughout the entire game ever since the Bottoms Up Alliance formed with that first vote where Jawan, Sage, and I were able to convince them to keep me over one of their fellow Uli members, which would’ve been the very easy vote and would’ve been the easily explainable thing to do once the merge happened after that Tribal Council. But yeah, her and I were in lockstep. I knew that the votes were going to go on Alex when he was being blindsided. Jawan and Sage both told me that, but we all agreed that it made sense for me to vote the wrong way so that we wouldn’t tip off the fact that I knew, because that would then let people know that we were working really closely together.
Our whole point of doing that was, we wanted Jawan and Sage to try to rebuild trust with their fellow Uli members that they had blindsided both with Shannon and both with Nate, but at this point, they had voted together for the MC vote and would be voting together for the Alex vote. And so hopefully, they’d be like, “OK, they’re with us, they’re with us.” And we were setting it up. We called it Operation Space Jam. It was so silly. But the first part of Space Jam was for me to vote incorrectly so that people wouldn’t know that we were working together. And then phase two was the blindside Savannah, and then Yellow Sophie comes in with this brilliant move, she flips, and that was a huge blind spot in my game. And hats off to her. That was an incredible move to blindside Jawan, but that didn’t really get shown. That really didn’t get reflected. And it makes sense because, of course, that plan blew up on the launchpad. But yeah, I don’t know. We worked really closely together, and we’re really close, obviously, outside the game too. So I was like, “Oh man, I wanted to see me and my friend talking game.”
What is your take on Rizo’s lie about his idol and how long it was still in play?
Dude, that was brilliant. I mean, honestly, I think that is a knock on us for not knowing the mechanics of it. And I guess I learned later that that’s a common, they expire at five. Everyone’s like, “Why did you even buy that?” And I’m like, I’m not as big a superfan as others that were out there. So that was something that I just was not aware of, but nobody that I was working with really saw that coming, so great bluff on his part and masterful move to hold onto that thing and not have to play it for a third time now. So hats off. I was very impressed. And he’s a very impressive person, and I’m glad I got to play the game with him and get to know him as a person outside the game, too. He’s incredible.
Why do you think no one would challenge the Savannah, Rizo, and Sophi alliance?
I know from my perspective, it blew my mind. None of the moves made sense. I thought we had a pretty solid seven-person alliance, and I know that we didn’t formally put a name on it or talk about it, but we had just come together to vote out Nate, and it just seemed like it would be easy to pick off the others that were working against us. And then first MC gets voted out, and not only that, but Rizo comes back with his idol. I was like, “What the heck?” I wasn’t surprised to see Sophie. I was just surprised that both her and MC didn’t come back. I was like, “What happened?”
From my perspective, I was also trying to downplay my threat level, so when they come to me, for example, with this plan, like, “Hey, we’re going to vote Alex out at the last minute.” I’m like, “Why not Rizo? Why not Savannah? Why are things changing?” But for me, I was like, Alex is someone that eventually we’re going to have to vote out. So this works for me. I don’t get blood on my hands, and I get to live and fight another day, and I get to of minimize my threat level. People don’t see me as someone that was orchestrating this vote, so maybe they won’t see me as big of a threat, and they’ll let me snake farther forward at their own demise. And that’s really what I was trying to do the entire merge game. I came in, and it was between Nate and I, and I was like, “Dang, I’m already getting clocked.” My whole strategy was to come in a supermassive black hole, and that didn’t work very well. People were like, “Dude, we’ve got to get Steven out.”
I just kind of felt like my back was up against the wall. People were like, “Steven, you’re just too likable, you’re too nice.” And they just didn’t think they could beat me at the end. But yeah, I wanted to get them out. I was like, “Why does this keep happening?” And I thought this was finally our chance to strike and get the three of them and break them apart. And when it didn’t happen, I was like, “Dude, am I just missing out on something fundamental? Is it me? Am I blind to some big picture part of the game? Is there something happening behind the scenes that I’m not privy to that is making these decisions make sense?” And it’s been a little bit vindicating to watch the episodes back and realize that no, I was clued in on pretty much for the most part what was going on with respect to conversations that my allies were having. But like, dude, I don’t know, man, I don’t know. That’s for them to explain.
That’s what’s awesome about Survivor, though, is two people can look at the same thing and walk away with a different impression on what the right path forward is. And nobody’s wrong. I mean, they got both Kristina and Sage one step further in the game, and at the end, you’re just trying to get to the next stage. I would’ve loved to have been there for it. I thought that was the right move. I still think that was the right move for us, but it worked for them. And so that’s just the way the game works. No hard feelings.
Survivor, Season 49 Finale, Wednesday, December 17, 8/7c, CBS
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