'Survivor 47' Players Give Their Most Controversial Hot Takes

Survivor has been on the air for almost 25 years. The CBS reality giant sports 46 seasons, almost 700 contestants, countless twists and turns, and millions of fans who have watched along for decades. So, naturally, they've gleaned their own hot takes on what they do and don't like game-changing CBS reality series.

I got to ask those opinions of the Survivor 47 cast when interviewing them days before their journey of a lifetime began. And their thoughts ran the gamut between seasons, contestants, and the show itself. With the contestants having left to play before the last two episodes of Season 46, many current events were top of mind, including how idols should be played–or even if they contain as much power as claimed. Others advocated that "big moves" don't need to be made for the sake of a resume point, with political podcaster Jon Lovett even calling it a "performance of strategy." And surprisingly, not one, but two contestants gave hot takes about controversial two-time finalist Russell Hantz.

Take a look at the video and transcription below to hear the Survivor 46 castaways give their hottest takes. Survivor 47 premieres on September 18 with a two-hour premiere on CBS.

Related: Meet the Full Cast of Survivor 47

Andy Rueda: There is nothing more overrated in Survivor history than the hidden immunity idol. These things are not worth the parchment that their notes are printed on. I mean just think about it. Let's talk about the new era specifically. Maryanne is the only winner in the new era to ever touch a full-fledged hidden immunity idol, one without a quick expiration date like Gabler. And she used hers to her advantage in certain ways, but she never had to play one for game reasons. None of them did. That goes to show that holding an idol is orthogonal to your winning, right? And you see so many times people get the idol, they get so excited because they think it's their ticket to the end. And, more often than not, it blows up. In 46, how many people are leaving with idols in their pockets because of the idea, the myth of the idol?

It is so clear to me that the real advantage is knowing where the advantages are. If you are someone who knows where they are on your tribe, but you're not holding it, you have all the power, and you know you could do exactly what you want without having the target on your back. So that's where I want to be. Brandon picked up the Beware Advantage and handing it to Sabiyah right away. But I think if I get the chance, I will be the first one to leave it, cook up an idea of how to use it to my advantage, and definitely get someone else to take it.

Anika Dhar: My hot take would probably be that people don't play their idols enough. I don't think that it's embarrassing to play it incorrectly. I understand, as a Survivor player, that you want to play it with that Wentworth effect. You want every vote to be canceled out, which I think drives players to then prevent themselves from playing it. Because if you play it and then no votes are cast for you. I understand how that could be a little embarrassing. However, I personally don't think that it's embarrassing at all. And I think that if you have any inclination, any at all, that you are the target, there's no harm in playing your idol, because it is worse to go home with it as a souvenir. I mean, we've seen it in the recent season a lot in 46, all [four] went home with it in their pockets. And then we've seen it in many seasons prior, too. And I understand wanting to keep it until Final Five, Final Six. But play your idol! That's my hot take. [Laughs.]

Aysha Welch: Okay, so I feel like people are hard on the wacky phrases from Season 41 to 42. Bring them back! I feel like there's so much you could do with it. Mat chats are a thing, right? So do something that maybe Jeff isn't aware of. Make Jeff laugh. Make Jeff belly laugh, and if you have the ability to do that, next time you go cast a vote, you have an extra vote, or you have an idol or something. Or call someone out on a different tribe. Yeah, that's risky. But it's going to be a big payoff if you can get an idol. I need people to be able to say a thing at the mat chats, and then get a reward from it. That's why I really like the wacky phrases. Obviously, what they had with the bunny rabbit; that's too obvious. Do something [like] "several"; say something that people will remember. Imagine if Jelinsky was able to get something from that. That had a lasting impact. We're on Survivor Forty-Several! I think there's so much you could do with it, and they should just revisit that.

Caroline Vidmar: I have a bit of a hot take with the direction I think the show is, going in at the moment right now. And as a heads up, for other people listening, we currently are in the middle of Season 46. we don't know what happens the point where we are in right now. Everyone is talking about how they need to make their big move, and it needs to be their move, and solely their move, and everyone needs credit for it. And so many of these big moves are stupid. They're not good for people's game. You should not be getting out your number one ally way too soon. Just because something is a big, flashy move doesn't mean that it's a good move. So I think that that's something right now where it's grinding my gears a little bit. I don't feel like people are as irritated as me. I'm here for strategy, I'm here for smart gameplay. And I think what it's best is when the players don't know about it till the Final Tribal, and then it all makes sense how devious and strategic and smart it all was. That's the game I want to play. I don't want to just do something that's big and flashy, and then I go home the next episode.

Gabe Ortis: I mean, he's made two appearances now in this conversation, with Russell Hantz. Everybody looks at him–and I wasn't there. Everybody has their stories about his attitude towards other players, again, don't know. But in terms of loyalty, everyone pegged him as this sneaky, conniving player in both games that he played–his third season, he didn't make it deep enough to have much of an impact–he took his premerge, Day One or Two alliance to the very end. With the exception of Sandra, because he had to trade her out for Danielle, because Danielle had her breakdown at Tribal that led to her her boot. But if you were part of Russell's alliance early in the game, he was taking it to the end. Now maybe it wasn't because he liked you, or because he wanted to be friends with you, or he respected you. He probably just saw you as a tool. Regardless, that loyalty was unbelievably strong.

And I don't think that he gets that perception very often, if at all. He was a very, very loyal player to both of his alliances in both Heroes vs. Villains and Samoa. But, because of his missing tooth smile and Southern drawl and idol sneakiness and the way that he went after opposing alliances. Yes, he was very sneaky, and yes, he lied a lot, and yes, he was very conniving when it came to opposing alliances. But that's what you're supposed to do, right? You're very untrustworthy and unloyal if you're doing the people who you told, at Day One, we're going to work together. But, if you're trying to get my people out, yeah, I'm gonna lie, cheat and steal to do anything I can to get you out. So I think he deserves a little more credit for being a loyal alliance member.

Genevieve Mushaluk: I don't know if this is a hot take. I hate firemaking in the Final Four. It's probably a regurgitated take. I'm sure everybody hates firemaking in the Final Four. I feel like it just forces the players to get out better players early, and then it disadvantages great players, like Jesse, because it all comes down to making a fire. When that doesn't really measure the best gameplay, which is what I would look for as a juror. The best gameplay, as I interpret it. So, yeah, I hate Final Four firemaking. Also, I would suck at it.

Related: Everything to Know About Survivor 47

Jon Lovett: Here's my honest answer to that right now. And again, famous last words. Man, putting us on, talking about this before the game, it's a piano hanging over our heads once the game starts. I'll tell you what has been my frustration, which is, and you see it even in this season, maybe to its extreme. This idea of you have to make big moves, you have to build your resume, and up to and including when people say, "Oh, I may put myself in fire to prove that I deserve it." [Laughs.] In a war, nobody fights an extra battle to prove they're good at war. I find this idea of big moves for their own sake a kind of performance of strategy. [It's] not strategy; it's the theatre of strategy. To put on a show for the jury, to show that you understand how to be strategic, or how to play the game. And I don't have an answer to it. But, for whatever reason, it really kind of bugs me. It feels performative. I don't know how to get around that, because that is ultimately what people value, then it is what is valuable. That's the nature of this game, that the group of people playing decides what has value. But that, to me, I find a little bit strange.

Kishan Patel: I'm just saying, we need to go back to two tribes. We need to bring back the auction every single year. We need to get rid of the journeys. No more of this journey BS. The journeys, they're old. They're canceled. We're done. If you see, every single time, no one believes. No matter how truthful you are, no one will believe you. There's still going to be that one person who's like, "Oh, I think they're lying," even though they said verbatim everything that happened. And then it creates doubts. Like, "Oh, this person might have this." And that could be beneficial, but it often makes you an easy target too to be blindsided at any point. So I'm not going for it. The risks are way higher than the benefits. So I just think we get rid of them. And I'm not volunteering for that.

Kyle Ostwald: I want to see some strong players make it to the end. I want that the era of "bring a goat with you, so that way it's a unanimous decision at the end, and you got it locked in," I want that to kind of be gone. I don't know how I'll feel when put in the position. But at this point, I want to see some players make it to the end where there are some split votes. I'm kind of tired of seeing all the votes run one way, and like, "This person gets everybody's vote. This person doesn't get a single vote." I want a real nail-biter. I want the people that are sitting there to be chewing on their fingers, like, "What the hell is about to happen?" And then, when it comes out, I want whoever sitting in the in the final seats to feel like they've done something. I want them to have a couple of votes. I want them to feel a bit accomplished, even though there's only going to be one winner in the end.

Rachel LaMont: I think that idols and advantages in the new era are set you up to fail. I feel like, more than not, not only are they not successful. But they also socially isolate you or make you suspicious or whatever. And I don't know that, at least premerge, that they are worth the squeeze.

Rome Cooney: So I understand that a lot of people, a lot of people, are not fans of Russell Hantz. Now, granted, I didn't see the social aspect of it when I watched and binged it. So I just got to see Russell without any outside thoughts or anything. And I'm like, "Okay, this guy's kind of mean to people behind the scenes." But I mean, hey, his gameplay was absolutely incredible. He ran both of the seasons he was on back to back. I mean, it was one of the most incredible gameplay I've ever seen. But his social game was awful. Literally the worst social game and the best gameplay in Survivor history combined in one person. [Laughs.] It's pretty incredible.

So I think that Russell should have won his season. I feel like he should have won Samoa. And I know that that's a controversial take. But I also feel like Yul, in my opinion, he's the winner that I least respect. Not because of him as a person. I love him as a person; he's a great guy. It's because of the super idol. He found it immediately, and then essentially didn't have to do anything all game, except for play the social game. So once he got to the Final Tribal, all he had to do was use the social game that he had to be able to figure things out. And Ozzy just couldn't compete with that. Even though Ozzy was winning all these challenges, it didn't matter, because Yull, all he had to do was focus on the social game because of the super idol. So that's my controversial hot take, right there.

Sam Phalen: I'm a hot take guy. I love a good hot take. I'll give you two. Number one, I think Winners at War is a mid season at best. I just felt like so many of the players didn't come to win. They came to kind of make it a capstone on their Survivor career. And they got to a point at eight, seven, six in the game, where they were just like, "Hey, vote me out. It's been a great ride." I'm like, "No! You're playing to be a Survivor legend, the greatest ever if you win twice, especially if you're two for two at it." So that kind of bothered me.

Here's my hottest one. The best player always wins. There has never been such thing as a robbed Survivor player. The best player always wins and is always deserving. I believe the game is a game built on–we hear it all the time–social contract. What is your season's social contract? And I think, objectively, you could look at a Season 43 and say, "Hey, Jesse, on any other season of Survivor, probably outplays everybody else from his cast." And he probably does [over] Gabler on most seasons of Survivor. But Gabler played the best game of Season 43 the same way Yam Yam played the best game of 44. And the reason why is because he found a way to get himself to the end and navigated the end game, navigated the jury that he was dealt to win the game. It's just hard to argue for me. So I think everybody who wins, deserves to win.

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Sierra Wright: I really want the live [final] Tribal back. When you go home and you can have that moment with your loved ones, give them a big hug. And I feel like that is a high. A lot of people are like, "What? No, the emotions are so high and fresh when you're out here on the island," which I get too. But, a little selfishly, I would love to hug my family when I get crowned the 47 winner and just have them there.

Sol Yi: So my parents, my family, they've been like, "Don't lie. Make sure that you're being honest with everybody. Don't come off as a person who's a liar or a sleazeball." That's my pet peeve. It's like, "Guys, this is a game! This ain't real life." You know who I am as a person. I'm trying to play a game, and the best way to play a game is to lie your ass off. So I'm going to deceive people. That's what I was telling them, "Stop it." And so that's my pet peeve. Who goes into a game like, for example, Balderdash, where you try to you write a definition. Could you imagine if you played that game telling the truth? Why are we playing then? What is the point of this? That's my pet peeve. It's like, "This is a game. Relax, chill out. This is not who I genuinely am." Now, don't get me wrong, a lot of the show, I'm going to be myself. I have to be. That's how I'm going to create bonds. But in terms of strategic gameplay, I mean, I got to do what I got to do. [Laughs.] And, if you're not, then you ain't going to win. That's just the truth.

Sue Smey: The one thing that I really don't, and it's more just my own personal feeling, is that the challenge where you're all under the water and your face is just up through the cage, [Last Gasp]. I feel I could do that part. But being in the cold water for hours, I don't think I could handle it. I always run cold to begin with, and that's because I'm a scuba diver. And when I'm underwater for too long, my whole body gets too cold. And I have a wetsuit on, so I can't imagine. If it didn't last too long, I feel like I could do it. But if it's hours, there's no way that my body would be able to take it.

Teeny Chirichillo: My hot take is that I believe every season of Survivor should have a handful of people who do not know a single thing about the show, who have not really seen it, who have maybe [only] seen a season that was shown to them. Here's the thing. Of course, I would like that, because then it would work well for me. But in general, even on Nicaragua, Na'Onka was plucked off of a boardwalk. I'm pretty sure Courtney Yates was taken from a restaurant in New York City.

Some of the most captivating, entertaining people who play just unpredictably and who are kind of learning the ropes as it goes, are people who aren't me, who literally have a picture with you, and knows every little intricate detail of this game. Of course, it would be beneficial to us "gamebots," because we can kind of take advantage of their cluelessness. But I also just think it would just adds a level of entertainment and unpredictability to a game where, even [with] as many twists as you can make, the people who really know their shit just know that they have to adapt to those kinds of things. Adding people who don't know any of that would just be super cool.

Tiyana Hallums: I keep coming back into my background of Season 46; it's so ingrained. After every single episode, I listened to the podcast, so it's just deeply ingrained in my brain. Season 46, when Liz absolutely pops off at Q because she didn't get to go to Applebee's. And I know that I wasn't on that beach, so I get that. I understand. However, in my opinion, as an audience member, she had no right. It just screamed entitlement to me. Unfortunately, I did not see it as, "Oh, she hasn't eaten in X amount of days. She's allergic to a lot of things." I'm very much someone that, you know what you're getting into when you come on Survivor. Obviously, you don't know what Starvation is. But if you're allergic to everything on that island, you knew you weren't going to eat for however many days until there was a reward.

And then to put it on Q after writing his name down, I agreed with Q. And this whole time, I've been kind of anti-Q, because he's been going off the rails. However, that one scene where everyone was like, "Damn, that's cold, that's unfortunate." I wouldn't bring someone on a reward if they wrote my name down unless I was trying to reconcile something. But it doesn't seem like they're trying to do that. And so I felt like her screaming at him and being like, "You messed up everything. This was my move." Just because you went to Applebee's with your daughter every Wednesday or every week does not mean that [you] should get rewarded. For example,I love ramen. If there's a ramen challenge, I'm gonna work hard as hell to get it. But if someone doesn't pick me, someone doesn't pick me; that's the name of the game. I'm not gonna pop off at you because I didn't get my ramen.

Terran "TK" Foster: I like the old Survivor better than the New Age Survivor. I honestly like the 40-day Survivor better. I feel like you almost had to be more skillful in that game, because people really were loyal to each other at that time, because you spent so much more time togethe. You actually, genuinely were like, "I'm not leaving if these are my three. These are my three the whole time." So it really took some negotiating and some some convincing to get somebody to flop. You really had to have a skill set to get someone to do that

Now, it's all about the numbers, right? It's all about the numbers. So if you have the numbers on your side, it's like, "Hey, we got five, you got four." And they're like, "Okay, alright, I'm going with you guys." So it's not as I feel like skillful in a way. It's a little more strategic in the way that you're counting the numbers. But it's not so much skillful in the way that you have to interact with the players and use the emotional aspect of the game to your advantage or disadvantage. So I feel like that was a big part of Survivor that brought me in, the fact that you really had to build those relationships to get people to maybe do something they otherwise wouldn't have done.

Next, check out our interview with Survivor 46 winner Kenzie Petty.