Jeff Probst was caught ‘off guard’ by ‘Survivor 51’ player dropping out

If you don’t succeed at first, try, try, try again. Rob Antonson hilariously tried to stop Survivor 51 last week by voting himself out of the game. When that didn’t work, he moved on to plan B.

Rob began this week’s episode by explaining that “I didn’t want to just quit. I feel like just quitting ruins the game. If you come out for medical reasons, it’s totally different.”

Which explains why Rob suddenly started complaining of foot pain. He asked to see the Survivor medical team to have him evaluated. But when Dr. Barry allowed Rob to continue, finding only evidence of a “small cut,” the player decided to withdraw from the game – citing a fear of infection… even though several players (like Lewis with his mangled hands from Exile Island, or Patt with his shoulder full of abrasions) had much worse all over his body.

Jeff Probst showed little emotion on screen when he informed the members of Rob’s Savu tribe that the Rhode Islander was retiring from the game, but what did he himself think of the situation? The host sheds some light on his thinking, thanks to his weekly publication Field Notes on Instagram.

“Rob’s decision to voluntarily leave the game took me by surprise,” Probst said in the post. “He had said in an interview that he had stepped on something in the ocean, but never requested a medical examination. This is unusual because we check players quite frequently.”

The host and showrunner then participate in the meeting between the player, doctor and host at the camp.

“When we finally got Dr. Barry to do an exam on him at camp, Dr. Barry found nothing wrong with Rob. To be clear, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t in pain. It just means we found no medical evidence of a problem.”

Probst then shares his own personal observations

“Rob looked and sounded emotionally exhausted, which can happen to the strongest humans. Survivor humiliates you very quickly and can get you in various ways. Days four, five and six are often VERY difficult for players. This is a threshold that must be exceeded. If you can overcome the desire to give up, you will almost always find that second wind.

The host then connects the same dots that all the viewers connected as well: “I can’t help but piece this together with the previous tribal council where it looked like Rob wanted to step down. Is there a connection?”

Members of Rob’s Savu tribe certainly believe so. Everyone interviewed on camera during the episode questioned the legitimacy of Rob’s foot injury.

One player said: “My mom called me Ori, not Stupid. You’ve been fine for the last 48 hours, but the day things don’t go your way, now all of a sudden it’s a medical problem. My opinion is that Rob is looking for the easy way out.”

Probst summarizes: “The speculation from Rob’s tribesmen was very clear: They think he staged his departure. »

Rob’s abandonment also put his teammates in an immediate hole.

“This is a MASSIVE LOSS for the Savu tribe,” Probst writes. “Because every time you lose a tribe member, you increase your chances of being voted out because you have one less tribe member. And in this case, they didn’t do anything wrong.”

Savu’s downsizing was not complete, as Carter Krull would later choose to mutiny for the benefit of the Toka tribe, after suddenly finding himself on the wrong side of the numbers. This was another decision that surprised the host.

“We didn’t really think a mutiny was likely,” says Probst. “We just put it in the game as a bookend to the original abandonment, where they spent time together. It was also there as a reminder that in the open era, we really think anything, including a little moment from the past, is possible.”

Probst also says he and the producers would have been fine regardless of Carter and his eventual mutineer Devin Way’s decision.

“We don’t care what a player does with any twist or advantage. All we want is to create an opportunity. When I got the call that Carter had mutinied, I was shocked. The last time this happened was in 2006, in season 13, when Jonathan Penner and Candice Woodcock-Cody mutinied. Even back then, I thought that It was a unique moment in a series. It’s still wrong.”

Hey, at least Carter didn’t give up!

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