Survivor 49's [Spoiler] Walks Back Bold Queen Sandra Comments: 'I'm Forced To Eat Crow!'

The following contains spoilers for Wednesday's episode of Survivor 49.

This season of Survivor wasn't kind to the Kele tribe, which found itself absolutely decimated after just three episodes. Due to Team Blue being whittled down to two, Jeff Probst pulled an audible for this season's band of battle-torn castaways: A good old fashioned tribe swap! 

In Wednesday's episode (read our full recap here), buffs were indeed dropped, shaking up the players into just two tribes this time around (woo!), which poured even more gasoline over the perceived war between the former Hina and Uli tribes. After a hard-fought challenge, it was the new Hina — Sophi, Matt, Jason, Savannah, Jawan, Rizo and Nate — who found themselves sitting across from Probst come nightfall. With Sophi having made quick work with her social game and getting tight with the majority, former Hina members Matt and Jason became personae non gratae. But after floating Nate's name around camp and not quite gelling with the Uli clan, Matt Williams watched his game go up in flames — and the smoke rise from his extinguished torch. 

Below, Matt talks to TVLine about the tribe swap that changed his game, his connection to his former Hina tribe and why he didn't use his Shot in the Dark. 

TVLINE | Jeff says, "Drop your buffs!" What's the first thing that runs through your mind?
MATT WILLIAMS | Well, [it was] an emotional roller coaster. I was excited to actually mix it up a little bit. Weird to think being on the winning tribe as a bad thing, but it was more like we were out there camping and having a good time and just kumbaya, rather than playing Survivor. So it was like, "Oh, cool, something's happening." I was excited until I saw the distribution of the buffs and what color I had versus everybody else. And I knew, I'm in trouble. This might not end well.

TVLINE | You swapped into a tribe with four former Uli members. What was your initial take on their dynamic?
I knew that they were gonna be strong. At that stage in the game, it's a numbers game. Jawan was telling me, "Hey, I'm on the bottom, I'm looking to do something. What are you doing?" and I was hoping that there was more truth to that than there ended up being. But I thought, "If I can flip you on it, it's kind of my only path forward, and I'm gonna run with it and put all my eggs in that basket," so to speak. But in the back of my head I was thinking it would be silly for them to not pick me or Jason. So, I kind of knew this was a long shot. This was a Hail Mary. These guys are gonna stick together. If they don't, it's gonna be awesome, but I wasn't hopeful.

TVLINE | Can you tell me a little bit more about why Nate was the member you tried to target? Jawan said he's at the bottom and he was like, "I'm looking to change some stuff up." I didn't have any information other than what I witnessed at the challenges and what Jawan was feeding me, but I just assumed Nate was in a leadership role on that tribe. If Jawan's at the bottom and he's wanting to make a move, that's the move. I was trying to pitch it as, "This is your opportunity to make a big move and to get yourself from the bottom to the top," and kind of chop the head off the snake, so to speak. I kicked around... should I make a fake idol? Should I try and get everybody to vote Jason out? And I just figured even though there's a low probability of this ever coming to fruition, this is the direction I'm gonna go and I'm gonna go with it full bore, and if it works, it's gonna be really cool. But here I am! Everybody else is still on the island.

TVLINE | You seemed surprised at Tribal by how well Sophi had worked her way into the majority. Why is that?
The day of that Tribal, Sophi, Jason and myself... I woke up on the beach. There's just the three of us. So what are we gonna do? We've gotta come up with a plan. And I said, "You know, I'm friendly with Jawan. We talked at the journey that we went on. I think I can work with Jawan. Let me see what's going on there." So Sophi and Jason were actually a part of the plan. The plan was me, Jason, Sophi and Jawan all write down Nate. That's what we were talking about all day long. Then I find out that she was actually taking information to Nate and Savannah, so I'm like, "Well, this took an interesting turn! I thought Sophi was part of our plan [but] she was actually infiltrating our little group and letting the other side, if you will, know exactly what we were trying to do.

TVLINE | If you had stayed with your old tribe and had gone to Tribal Council, what do you think would've happened, because the yellow tribe seemed really tight!
I think I would have been fine. Steven and I actually had an alliance that never made the edit. We were "The Early Birds." We had a deal that we were gonna work together to the end, no matter what. We were gonna share information, we were gonna go to the end and we were gonna build fire against each other and one of us was going to win. Within an hour landing on that beach, I said, "Look, right now, the two of us have a 1-in-18 shot of making it. If we work together, we'll get to the end, and now we have a 50/50 shot. We'll make fire against each other." And talking with Steven after the game, he was like, "Dude, I was so 100% on board with that. That was a real deal. I was in." With Steven and I voting together, I would have been fine. I was making a massive contribution around camp, and I don't think I would have been in any danger had the original six gone to Tribal.

TVLINE | Alright, Matt. We saw you say twice that you weren't a fan of Sandra's game. Two-time winner Sandra Diaz-Twine! Defend yourself! 
It's one of the things that I've been vocal about for years. How can you play the game like that? How can you win when your strategy is "anybody but me"? And then there I am on the island saying, "Anybody but me!" [Laughs] When your back is against the wall... I'm forced to eat crow. Sandra, you are the Queen! You did win twice and it worked for you. It became my strategy, but here I am. It didn't work out so well for me!

TVLINE | Shout out to Sandra! So, you didn't play your Shot in the Dark. Was it because you trusted that Sophi, Jawan and Jason would follow through with the plan?
I thought about it and I thought, "You know what? I'm not even going to consider playing the Shot in the Dark," because even though it's a long shot — it's a Hail Mary — I would be the biggest chump in Survivor history if those guys wrote down Nate and I played my Shot in the Dark and threw my vote away and the whole thing went to crap because I thought, "It doesn't look good. It's probably me going home tonight." I'm gonna chalk it up to bad luck on the color of a buff that I drew out of that pot, but yeah. I would look like an absolute schmuck if they did write down Nate and I didn't and played a Shot in the Dark. I just couldn't take the chance. You have to get lucky in Survivor once or twice to win the game and I got unlucky with the color of buff I drew... It's not unlucky, it's just that there was that Hail Mary that hit the ground and nobody was there to catch it.

TVLINE | Do you regret telling the tribe about your past in finance, and do you think that had anything to do with them turning on you?
After watching the show last night, I'm like, "Oh, maybe I shouldn't [have]." I never really thought they were gonna use this against me, but then after watching Savannah, "Oh, that guy's smarter than he's leading on, white collar sociopath," I thought, "Well, of course they're gonna use it!" When you're playing Survivor, any information at all, somebody's gonna grab it and use it to direct the game in the direction they want to go. Yeah, I should have just said, "No, I've been an airplane employee my entire career." But I didn't really think I had anything to hide. I'm proud of my past. I've done a lot of really cool stuff. You want to talk about it? Let's talk about it. I made it eight days with nobody asking me what I'd done. I should have just said, "Nothing, man, just day labor. I just get by." It might have been a better play.