Survivor 49's [Spoiler] Talks Squealed Secrets, Rizo's Theatrics, And Hurt Feelings: 'I Was Completely Gutted'

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

The advantages were aplenty in the penultimate episode of "Survivor 49," but even a well-used advantaged can't always guarantee one's safety. 

With the Final 6 in place, two sides were seemingly warring against one another. Steven, Kristina, and Sage were one faction, fighting tooth and nail against Rizo, Savannah, and Sophi. After Savannah won immunity and with Rizo having an immunity idol, options for the vote were limited, forcing Steven to whip out his Block-a-Vote to silence Savannah at Tribal Council. After more idol theater from Rizo (who can't quite seem to give it a rest), Sophi used her Knowledge Is Power on Steven — a shoot and a miss, since it was already used. But it was all for naught. Kristina and Sage flipped on their ally, and Steven was promptly sent to Ponderosa. (Read our full recap here.)  

Below, Steven talks to TVLine about that bonkers Tribal Council, playing his advantage, his hellacious journey, and so much more.

TVLINE | Let's get the most important thing out of the way first. Can you hit me with a cool space fact?
STEVEN RAMM | Dude, I got you covered. So, Titan is a moon of Saturn, and it's the biggest moon around Saturn. What's really fun about it is it actually has weather patterns, so it has four seasons, and it has rain, it has lakes, it has oceans, it has full meteorology going on there, but because it's so far away from the sun, it's actually hydrocarbons that is the fluid, so it's like methane and some other hydrocarbon stuff. But [when] I think of methane, I think of cow farts, so I just imagine if we go and explore this world as astronauts one day, we're gonna step out and be like, "Dude, this is a planet of farts." Let's say we find aliens that live there and they come visit Earth, maybe they expel bodily gasses that are like oxygen, the stuff that we breathe. So maybe they'd come to Earth and are like, "Bro, you guys smell like farts," and we'd be like, "No, you smell like farts." Next thing you know, we're in an intergalactic war over whose planet smells more like farts.

TVLINE | Wow, that's a whole lot to process. [Laughs] But I asked for it!
Ask and you shall receive!

TVLINE | Let's talk about that Tribal Council. You said you were hurt by your vote-out. Who were you most hurt by?
I was very hurt by both Sage and Kristina, but probably a little more hurt by Sage just because we went back all the way to that first Tribal Council vote when it was me, Jawan, Sage, and Shannon. She and I had worked together from the very beginning of my first Tribal Council career, and she had worked with me to make sure the votes didn't go on me. Honestly, I would have been totally cooked, especially in that merge vote, if Sage and Jawan weren't with me. So, I really felt like we had tested our loyalty and alliance, true and true, and I really felt that when she said, "Hey, you, me, and Kristina at the very end," I completely believed it. She's such a genuine, authentic, and wonderful person, and we just bonded on a very personal, human level out there the first couple of nights that we actually met. We both have ADHD and we just are both very similar. We're both weird and quirky and had similar high school experiences growing up, so I think as much as I was obviously betrayed by Kristina because we go way back, I think I was talking a bit more strategy with Sage at that point.

I think it made more sense to me from Kristina's perspective to vote me out, because if I'm Kristina, I probably wouldn't want to sit next to me at the end, but maybe she felt she had a better shot with some of the others. But for Sage, I don't know, I was surprised that she was as threatened about my game as she was. To flip to the point where she'd rather sit next to the other three members in the alliance that we were working against... I was completely gutted. But it's a game, and I don't harbor any ill will. While I was shocked in the moment, that was the move that they both felt was best for their games, and whether it was or not will come to play in the [finale], but I can't fault anyone for [it]. You're out there to win a million dollars, and at the end of the day, we can be friends outside the game. No hard feelings.

TVLINE | I couldn't tell what was the worse move: Sophi not using the Knowledge Is Power to steal Rizo's idol, or Kristina and Sage flipping on you. Neither made sense to me, really. 
Bro, from my perspective, I'm sitting out there and I'm like, "What is happening right now?" I had no idea that Sophi had the Knowledge Is Power. Obviously, Tribal Councils are very long and of course not everything gets shown, but she was coming at me pretty hot from the get-go in Tribal, firing shots left and right. I was expecting, when she started reading her thing, I was like, "OK, this is something she's gonna use on me," just based on the way she was saying it and leaning and looking back at me. It was such poetic justice to me that she was just so cocky and like, "Steven, you shouldn't keep a secret if you don't want people to take it." All these different things. And I was like, "You have no idea how this thing works," which is funny because I told Sage and Kristina exactly the mechanics of it. I let them read it, but I don't think it clocked to them [how it worked].

I found out later, I think they told the others that I had this advantage, which is why they wanted to steal it. They told them exactly what it was, and so that's why they were like, "We're just going to take it." Hindsight's 20/20, right? Maybe to Sophi, she just felt like I was a bigger threat to sit next to at the end, or maybe she just really wanted to stay loyal to the people that she had been working with, which is valid too. So no shade towards Sophi. She made the move that she felt was best, but I will say, Rizo's been dangling an idol, but you want to take my little Block-a-Vote that expires after this Tribal? What? You're out there not eating. Everyone's brains do funky things.

TVLINE | I know you didn't reveal the specifics, but any regrets on telling them you had an advantage?
No regrets at all, because I knew if I came back and did not tell them that I had won an advantage, no one's going to buy that because it was a strenuous journey. I had been doing very well in the physical comps up to that point. I think that everybody assumed that I was going to come back with something in my back pocket, and so the next best thing I could think of was instilling a little bit of fear in people, even my allies. It's not that I didn't trust them. I just didn't want them to inadvertently let something slip that would then tip off what it was. And so I was like, "When the moment's right, I will let both of you know. You guys are my people. I want to work with you and move to the end of the game with you and sit next to you at the end. But just for safety purposes, I'm just not gonna tell you what it is." And in doing that, Rizo, for example, you could see the wheels spinning. He was trying to figure it out and he was so convinced that he knew exactly what it was. He's trying to psych me out and bluff me out. It was part of my strategy. He'd been dangling this idol and threatening this idol in front of us. I was like, "Now it's my turn to dangle things a little bit and play those mind games." I just wanted them to spin their wheels a bit, and expend a lot of mental energy where maybe it wasn't necessary, because if they're worrying about this thing, then maybe they're missing the bigger picture over here or maybe it's opening up a lane for me to move forward. Maybe I could use it as an olive branch with Rizo or with Savannah or with Sophi to make inroads and maybe work together with them in the future.

They didn't show it a lot, but I was talking with Rizo one-on-one quite a bit. I was talking with Savannah one-on-one quite a bit. My big regret was, I wish I talked to Blue Sophi a lot more. She was one of those people I just could not get a read on. We'd have conversations and she was threatening to flip all the time, but I just didn't see it happening. I just always thought that she was going to vote the way that Savannah and Rizo did, and so I was like, "What's the point?" I just didn't think that I had a chance to really pull her in the other direction and that's a mistake. I didn't know that she had a Knowledge Is Power, but if had I known that, I think I could have made a pretty compelling case to make the better play and convince her to flip. That's a lesson to any [future] Survivor players out there. Don't close any doors.

TVLINE | Why did everyone believe Rizo that his idol would expire at the Final 6 Tribal?
I'm not as big of a superfan like Rizo and others. I studied a lot of the game. I obviously watched a lot of seasons before to get up to speed, but that was a mechanic that I just hadn't studied closely enough. So in hindsight, yeah, that was pretty silly of us, but we all bought it. Also, I wasn't super-duper afraid of his idol at a certain point because a lot of it was being flexed theatrically. It felt like a play for the jurors, and from what I could see, I didn't think it was landing. They were kind of rolling their eyes. You saw it a bit in the episode last night. I don't think it was playing off the way that he thought it would. I was like, "Great, if he's gonna play it at six, it makes my job of figuring out how to play my Block-a-Vote a little easier," because I know he's gonna either play it for himself or probably Blue Soph. I was confident that I knew it was either going to get played or it was gonna get flexed. Whether it expired at six or five, I don't think really made a big difference to how we were maneuvering. But that was kind of a dumb-dumb moment on our part. He was like, "Bro, I don't know how you guys didn't know that." Rizo is a brilliant game player. Kudos to him, man. It was a great play and we bought it. I don't know why we didn't question it harder, like, "Hey, can I see the parchment?"

TVLINE | Major props for accomplishing that strenuous journey! If you had to guess how long or how far the trek was, what would be your guesstimate?
Man, it was at least 500 miles and it took me three days! [Laughs] Bro, I have generally no idea. I have no concept of time. I have no concept of distance when I'm running out there, and I was hungry, I was tired, I was stressed, and I was running for my life in the game, trying to preserve my vote, but also win this advantage and secure a path forward in the game. It was just one foot in front of the other. The only thing I can concretely tell you is that that buoy did not move. The tide had not risen at all. When I came back around, I was shocked. I thought it was going to be a photo finish. I did not realize how much I was hauling and booking it. I didn't stop running the entire time. I didn't stop moving. The only time I walked was when I was in the water and physically couldn't move, and I had my hearing aids in. I wish I had taken those out in hindsight before I went on this, but I couldn't swim through the water through those portions. I had to tread through because I didn't want to damage them. I was killing myself out there. I was sliding off rocks. There was a moment where I was scaling up this wall and I looked down and I was like, "I don't think this is the way I was supposed to go, because if I fall, I'm literally gonna die." So I scaled my way back. I was like, Spider-Man, dude. I was going crazy out there. I think there were some people on Reddit who maybe mapped it out? I haven't looked at that yet. But it felt like forever, man. It was crazy.

TVLINE | People seem to have strong opinions about Savannah. Sage called her a mean girl. Kristina flat out said she doesn't really like her. What's your take?
I would say this. Savannah did not [give me] the best first impression either. She didn't come off as very authentic at first. I think maybe it's the journalist in her, maybe it's a defense mechanism, but the first time I met her, she's got these really wide eyes that aren't blinking and she's smiling, and she has this great way of asking questions, but not giving up any personal information. I clocked that, and so I didn't necessarily think she was a mean person, per se, but I think that does rub some people the wrong way. But what really changed my opinion of her was getting to know her. We had that one heart to heart where she confided in me after the Nate blindside about her past trauma and being bullied. As someone who was also bullied growing up, I can empathize very heavily. You don't have a lot of information to go off of when you're out there. I knew that Sage didn't like her from the early days, and so I kind of had a preconceived notion of who Savannah was. But I changed my mind about her when we had that conversation. And so it kind of taught me as a person not to make these snap judgments, even when you're in this game and you have little information to work off of. Maybe it didn't come off as authentic at first, but I think that maybe she's a little misunderstood. I love Savannah. She's awesome.

TVLINE | I want to talk about killing chickens for a second! First, how was that experience and second, you said you had weird dreams or nightmares about it? Please elaborate!
Dude, I'm still having freaking dreams about this chicken. I had never really killed anything aside from that rat that my roommate's dog had maimed. But I eat meat all the time. I've just never been a part of making it happen. And I did a bunch of research right before I went on, so I first and foremost wanted to keep them so they could lay the eggs. But I looked back and did some research [on] how often they lay eggs. In "47," they laid eggs so infrequently that they decided to trade them back. So I looked up, what are the things that chickens need? And it's like, a stable environment. Don't have that on "Survivor." Good, consistent nutrition. Don't have that on "Survivor." To roam free. Unfortunately, they did get that eventually when they escaped from our coop. But at that moment, I was like, "Someone's got to kill these chickens." I have gutted fish before. I'm from Colorado, so I was a little familiar. 

I wish I had Googled how to kill a chicken, man. In hindsight, I wish I used the machete, but the machete was dull. Alex was freaking out, this thing's fighting, and I didn't trust myself not to chop my own hand off or cut myself somehow. So I tried the whole twisting thing... I think what haunted me the most was that I wish that I had been able to do it more cleanly. Just knowing that the life of something that's in your hands is draining away and you're responsible for it, even though I eat meat all the time. It's very hypocritical, but yeah, it really, really hit me hard, and I would do it again in a heartbeat if I needed to. But it did stick with me and those chickens that escaped, they were a constant reminder staring at me from the little trees. They're like, "We freaking know what you did to our friend, bro!"