Survivor's [Spoiler] Explains Secret Tribal Council Whispers, Something That 'I Didn't Feel Right About'

The following contains spoilers from Wednesday's episode of "Survivor 49"!

MC thought she was past it. The Final 10 players had officially made the merge and were excitedly looking down the road to settle into the post-merge game of "Survivor 49." But Jeff had other plans: The dooming split Tribal Council had returned! 

In Wednesday's episode (read our full recap here), the players were separated into two teams and after a hard-fought immunity challenge won by Savannah, five players found themselves immune from the vote. After the unlucky rock draw, MC found herself on a team with mostly former Uli members, especially after a new twist allowed challenge winner Savannah to join the opposite side and attend Tribal Council with the losers. With her Rizo plan fizzling, MC discovered that her ally Sophie had been gunning for her, which caused Tribal Council to erupt into chaos in the season's very first live Tribal. But having played her immunity idol the week prior, MC was vulnerable to the vote and became the second member of the Season 49 jury. 

Below, MC reveals to TVLine what she whispered into Jawan's ear, how the split Tribal Council messed up her plans, and why she ultimately had to fight back against Sophie With An E.

TVLINE | We have to start here: What did you whisper to Jawan at Tribal Council before the vote? You said you had "one more big ask."
MICHELLE "MC" CHUKWUJEKWU | Yes, so I will take you on a little bit of a journey. That favor started with something that I had asked Jawan back at camp before Tribal Council. When Sophie said that she was going to put a vote on Jawan, that made me feel uncomfortable because I know that Nate had been voted out previously and after watching Season 42, I know how I felt when I saw multiple Black people on the jury in a row, and I didn't want that to happen again. So, that is what prompted me to go speak with Jawan and tell him about what Sophie said. So when I went to Jawan, I had an out of game conversation with him and I said this could wreck my game. I told him everything that I just told you and I said that I will be on his side and I would vote with him against Sophie. He ended up freaking out and telling everybody at camp, and I think that made it messier and probably ended up flipping the vote on me, which is very ironic.

But he had told me that they were going to vote for me and so at camp, I had asked him to fight for me and to try to get the vote on Sophie. Since I had done him a favor, he could do me a favor. So that was the first ask, and then at Tribal Council, I was asking him again to just put some votes on Sophie. I knew there were going to be at least two votes on me with Rizo and Savannah. I wanted to put two votes on Sophie and two votes on Rizo, so I was asking him to stick with that plan because if it was a tie and Rizo didn't use his idol, we would be able to re-vote and then we could then all vote for Rizo.

TVLINE | You played your idol last week and ultimately wound up not needing it. Any regrets there? I have to imagine that it's something you've thought a lot about.
Hindsight is always 20/20. You play a game like this, you think, "I could have done that, I could have done that." But even at last night's Tribal Council, I did not regret playing my idol [the week before] because I needed it in that moment to figure out information and to figure out where people's loyalties lied. Yes, it would have been nice to have it and if knowing that there was going to be a split Tribal the next day, that would have been great [info] to have, but when I played that idol, I had no idea there was going be a split Tribal. I had no idea that it was gonna be four Uli and then just me and Sophie. So, I don't have regrets about playing it.

TVLINE | Speaking of Uli, how much of a shock was it for Savannah to show up out of nowhere, and how much did her presence affect the vote?
When she pulled up, the atmosphere literally changed, and I definitely think it affected the vote because before she came, it was Rizo. It was going to be Rizo no matter what. I still don't fully understand why the vote had to change even when she did come. But I think maybe they were just spooked by what advantage she had and just the fact that she and Rizo were there together, so they could brainstorm something. But nothing had to change. I just think people kind of get freaked out.

TVLINE | If Savannah didn't win immunity, would she have been the one to go home? What was her status in the tribe like before that immunity challenge?
Yeah, I think she would have definitely went home. I mean, last week's episode, the only reason that she didn't go home was because we were worried that Rizo might play an idol on himself or Savannah. So Nate was more collateral damage, just trying to weaken their numbers. So yeah, it was a good thing that she had that immunity necklace.

TVLINE | Here's another hypothetical. Say the tribe hadn't been split into two, would someone else have gone home?
100%. I would not have gone home. If it was not a split Tribal, all my allies were on the other beach. I think there are so many situations... they kept us on different beaches too. If we had all been on one beach and it was still only five or six people going to Tribal Council, I also think that would have led to a different result. But Kristina wasn't there, Steven, my No. 1 ally, wasn't there. Alex, who we had been bonding with wasn't there, and even Sophi B wasn't there. Sophie B was definitely someone who was with Rizo and Savannah, but she was still willing to go on either side. So it's just an unfortunate rock draw that led me to being with the people that I was the least closest with.

TVLINE | For the record, I hate the split Tribal, post-merge. Boo!
Me too! [Laughs] Also, I played my idol because I thought we were past the split Tribal thing. I thought we had all made it to the merge at that point. There were only 10 of us, so I was very shocked that there was still a split Tribal happening. I just was not expecting that. You just never know what to expect in "Survivor."

TVLINE | You told Sophie that you were feeling "weird energy" from her, and later, there was that unfortunate game of telephone regarding Sophie's proposed Jawan vote. Did all of that make things awkward around camp? What were your last few conversations with Sophie like?
So the conversation where I was getting weird energy from her was actually after everything else, when we're about to go to Tribal Council. At that point, Jawan had actually told me that the vote was gonna be on me and that Sophie was gonna vote for me as well. So I was going to Sophie to have that conversation and see if she was going to lie to me. And she did. It was just extremely awkward because everyone was acting differently. Sophie wasn't looking me in the eye. Rizo was being way too nice. And Sage, I had a conversation with her as well, and she was just being shifty. I could tell everybody was lying to me. So it was very, very awkward to know when everyone is voting for you and they're just lying to your face.

TVLINE | This Tribal Council was the most chaotic one yet. What else didn't we see in the edit from that night?
I don't know if they showed it, but I spoke with every single person at that Tribal Council. My goal was to get Jawan to put some votes on Sophie, but I also wanted to spook everyone else and cause enough confusion that they might also throw a vote on Sophie as well. I wanted them to think that I had something or that me and Jawan had a plan so that maybe they wanted to do a split vote on me vs. Sophie. Then I went to Sophie and I told her that I was still voting for Rizo. So I was just trying to cause as much confusion as I could, but it ended up not working out.

TVLINE | Why do you think people ultimately landed on voting for you instead of Sophie?
I had more social ties. Sophie and I were both seen as physical threats, but I think I was more of a social threat than Sophie was, and that is dangerous because you're not gonna win every single immunity challenge, but if you do have people on your side socially, that can do a lot for you. It was just unfortunate that all my social people were on the other beach.

TVLINE | You were an alternate for this season. How did it feel to get told that you would actually be on the show, and how much time did you have to mentally prep before filming started?
Two hours. It was insane because the whole week I was like, "A girl is going to drop out. She's gonna get scared. She's gonna get sick. Something's gonna happen where I'm gonna get into the game." And then the last day came and all the women were standing strong and I was like, "Oh, I guess I'm going home tomorrow." So I had finally kind of settled in and accepted that fact that I was not getting into the game. And it was literally 30 minutes before we went to bed that the PAs pulled me aside. They were acting like I was supposed to go see our doctor and they take me to this corner. I'm like, "The doctor's not over here," and they pull out a camera and they're like, "How's it feel to be on 'Survivor 49'"? The whole week I was imagining this moment, right? I was imagining like, "Oh I'm gonna say this, I'm gonna do that," but in that moment I was so shocked and mind-blown and literally speechless that it was actually happening. So yeah, it was amazing.

Then the next morning, we wake up at 4 a.m. and I look into the closet — I literally didn't know what tribe I was on because I had to bring yellow, red and blue clothes. I look into the closet and I'm wearing yellow and I'm like, "OK, it's getting started." It's been a crazy experience.

TVLINE | Anything else you think viewers should know about your time out there, the vote or your exit?
I feel like whenever it comes to this vote, a lot of people will be confused by why I chose to go against Sophie, who was my ally, and kind of go with Jawan. So I hope this makes it more clear of my decision in doing that. I will also say that my goal was still Rizo, but in the case that he played his idol, that's when I was like, "OK, well, these are the other options." And some people might say, "OK, well, it's a game for a million dollars. Don't make it about race," and I think unless you are someone like a person of color, you're not going to fully understand, but that is a chip on your shoulder that you do have to deal with, and I don't have regrets. I feel like I did my part. Obviously, I did want to play and win and make it all the way to the end. But there was also just something that I didn't feel right about, putting another Black person in a row on the jury, because it's so rare for people of color and Black people to even get to this point in the game. So, yeah, I was playing for a million dollars but I was also going for something more too.