Survivor 49 Finalist Thought Chance Of Winning Was 0%: 'There Was A Lot Of Disdain Towards Me On The Jury And It Sucks'

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

Sage Ahrens-Nichols had a bumpy season in "Survivor 49." After playing from the bottom of her original Uli tribe and occasionally butting heads with winner Savannah Louie, she still found herself sitting in the Final 3 after Sophi spared her from competing in the ever-stressful fire-making challenge. Despite her admirable strategic efforts, the jury didn't pick up anything she was putting down at final Tribal, and after a hard-fought battle, the season's wacky scene-stealer lost the game with only a single jury vote to her name — Jawan's. (Read our full recap here, plus our Q&As with Rizo and Savannah.)

Below, Sage talks to TVLine about not connecting with the jury, her back and forth relationship with Savannah, and her confusing and emotional moment during the After Show.  

TVLINE | I saw your posts on Instagram where you said that playing the game of "Survivor" was much different from the edited TV show "Survivor." What did you mean by that?
SAGE AHRENS-NICHOLS | I don't think it's a novelty perspective by any means. I think every player can relate to that. It's just very interesting being on the player side of it now, like, "Oh, that's what they mean." I've always understood it cognitively, but now I know what that actually feels to recognize and embody like, "Oh yeah, this is very different." For me, I was always more intrigued by "Survivor" the game than "Survivor" the TV show. It is edited. We're filmed like 23 hours a day, seven days a week. I give the hour of having to travel and stuff that's not filmed, like when we can't talk. We're there for 26 days, and then you're packing that into a 90-minute episode with commercials. Of course, it's gonna be a whole different thing from "Survivor" the game, because in "Survivor" the game, you have 18 different storylines that all are factoring in different variables. We could make 18 versions of "Survivor" the game that we all played just based on the 18 perspectives that we have. 

TVLINE | It looked like the jury blamed you for Rizo and Savannah getting so far in the game, which struck me as odd. But did you feel the jury turning away from you in real time? What were your thoughts on your chances as you were sitting at Final Tribal?
We don't have enough time to get into all of the buildup, but I definitely did not think that I had Tribal in the bag. I was painfully aware after the Jawan blindside, I was like, "My chances are 0%." The way it was edited was like, "The only person that could certainly beat me is Steven." That was taken out of context. I think he could've certainly beaten any of us there. If I'm looking at all the different scenarios of who I could sit next to and I'm doing the math in my head based on jury reactions throughout the season that we don't see... like Nate. If Savannah, Rizo, or Sophi talk, he would go [wide eyes and a big smile], and then when I would talk or anybody else, he'd go [eyes down, head down], and look at the ground. I'm like, oh crap. And he's the first juror, so he sets the tone.

I also was planning on playing an overt game, but I ended up having to play more of a game of concealment than I wanted to versus being able to play a game more defensively like the trio did, because they're a minority, but they had the majority power the whole time. So the narrative of them being on the bottom, like, yeah, you were on the bottom for two seconds at the Nate vote, but the rest of the pre-merge and after that... I'm one person. Kristina, in the episode, said anything that Sage and Jawan wanted to happen, they had the power. No, I freaking didn't. Nothing that I wanted to happen, happened. I didn't want to have to vote out Steven, but there's so much that wasn't shown about his game, but he played a freaking full circle like social, physical, and strategic game.

TVLINE | What jury vote surprised you the most?
I was hopeful that I would get Jawan. Another part of the reason of voting Steven, he's the only one besides Jawan... they don't show this, but Steven and I were playing like this [crosses fingers], so only those two know the extent of my strategic game. So having them on the jury, hopefully they'll advocate. Hopefully, Steven will respect the game move because he was a triple threat. But also, Kristina, on her way out, when she hugged me, this wasn't shown, she said, "If you get to the end, you have my vote." So I was like, "Oh, that's a surprise!" I was not expecting that, but I was like, "I'll freaking take it." So I was thinking, well, I'll have maybe at least two votes. But she changed her mind, which she's entitled to. I don't entirely know why, but I can't control people, so it's good. It's OK.

TVLINE | You had an emotional moment during the After Show. Former finalists have been outspoken about the difficulty of trying to process the loss and other emotions while the cameras are still on you and rolling. I wanted to give you the floor to discuss any After Show thoughts or feelings.
I genuinely don't want to throw people under the bus, [but] another part of the reason I've been so quiet this season [while the show has been airing] — it's not the only reason, but it's a part of the reason — I tried to talk to people the day after. When we were sitting in Fiji before we flew back to the States, long story short, people weren't ready and I had to respect them. I was like, "Well, let me just give people time." I'm trying and trying to connect for the purpose of understanding what wasn't shown. There was a lot of disdain towards me on the jury, and it sucks. Since it wasn't shown that way, the people who haven't acknowledged it, they never have to now because it's like, "No, you saw it, it was fine."

But there are people like Sophie Segreti. Love her to death. She called me up before the show aired. I still haven't talked to some of these people. There's been no communication, but Sophie was one that did reach out. And I was like, "Sophie, I understand that you want to be on good terms, but it's really gonna depend on how this conversation goes. I need you to be real with me because, as was shown in the episode where I'm saying I feel like I've hurt people and I don't feel like I deserve this comfort that I'm receiving right now,"... and also the comfort is really confusing to me because, again, viewers don't see it, but what I just witnessed, I was like, "I would think that you guys hate me," based on how they rolled their eyes at everything I said. They argued with everything I said, and then when Savannah and Soph talk, they would light up and it felt like this very intentional contrast that I was like, I think these people want to hurt me.

And my knee-jerk reaction is not defensiveness. It's like, well, wait. I want to understand [if] I've done something for a whole group to feel this way about me. [It] indicates that I've done something and I legitimately... I'm not scared of accountability, but legitimately, I don't understand what that is. I don't know what I've done to merit that sort of reaction where I could tell just sitting there. I was like, "Oh, these people want me to hurt, which means they're hurting." So yeah, it was just very conflicting. And then when I said, "I don't feel like I deserve this comfort," they're like, "No, Sage, No," and then that hurt even more because I was like, "Wait, what? Am I crazy? Y'all were just there too." I felt very alone, very confused, and also overstimulated, overwhelmed. The after party sucks, dude. It was not a fun time. I was very vocal throughout the season. I was like, "I don't do big crowds." This was a lot. The cameras, the lights, everybody talking, Jeff's asking me questions while I'm still trying to figure out, have I... I literally broke down afterwards. I'm like, "Am I a villain?" That's not the game that I ever intended to play, but is that intention versus impact? So, is that the impact?

TVLINE | Moral of the story, boo After Show!
Yeah, it's giving broke, come on!

TVLINE | Savannah took you on this steak reward in the finale. Were you surprised by that?
Yeah, I was shocked. In one of my confessions, I was like, "I wouldn't have taken me if I was her." Like, what? It was never personal towards Savannah. I saw a snippet of, I think Sophie Segreti's interview with Mike Bloom, and she talked about how much I couldn't stand Savannah? I was like, hold on. There were moments in the game where it felt like this weird tension that I didn't understand, but me and Savannah actually had two [conversations], I think a part of one of the conversations was shown in the extra clips. There was a whole other conversation where Savannah came back to camp and she went down to the beach. When I walked back up to camp, a couple of folks were like, "Hey, did you see Savannah down on the beach? It looked like she was crying." And at that point, me and Savannah, we had already had the conversation that's shown in the extras for one of the episodes, and that conversation actually didn't go super well. A lot of it was edited out, but I was like, "OK, there's just gonna be this weird personal tension that will resolve after the game, but I gotta try to get my head back in the game." And in the game, she is a huge threat, just objectively so. 

But anyways, I walked down to her to check her on the beach. I'm like, "Hey, it doesn't feel like I should be the person comforting you, but you're alone right now. You're crying. Do you want space or would you be OK if I come sit with you?" She was like, "Doesn't matter." And I was like, "I'm gonna come sit with you then, so I hope that's OK!" I sit with her and she just opens up about [how] it's a hard game, and we're talking about personal and social dynamics, and I opened up to her about [our last] conversation. I was like, "I came to you in that moment explaining that I felt kind of hurt by some of the stuff that... people were also feeding this fire. Fueling this fire. They were like, "Yeah, Savannah was looking at you when she was making the chicken comments and was trying to get a reaction from you." 

And so, when I initially brought that up to her, I just wanted to resolve it because that was gonna conflict with the strategic side of the game, and I was like, "I need personal feelings and game feelings to be separate," and she got kind of defensive, which [I'm] not talking crap about her for that. But then when I approached her again on the beach when she was crying, I brought that up. I was like, "I understand, Savannah. When I approached you that one time, I walked away feeling like I was the crappy person when I had initiated that conversation to tell you how your actions impacted me." And she grabbed me, and was like, "Sage, sometimes you have to just literally grab me, I tell my boyfriend this at home, and say, 'Savannah, it's not all about you.'" She's like, "My default is to make it all about me. Sometimes I need somebody to literally just grab me and say, 'Savannah, you gotta think about other people.'" And I was like, "I respect that." Accountability goes so far with me, and in that moment, I was like, "Everything else, that's in the past for me." We can move forward because you were willing to just own it in that moment and say, "Sometimes I have a hard time thinking about other people's feelings," and I'm like, "That's OK. You're aware of it. That's the first step, and I appreciate you sharing that with me."

TVLINE | You said on the show that it's difficult for you to fake emotion. Was that a detriment to your game overall?
Oh, that's a complicated question because my strategy going into "Survivor," I didn't want to play as a character. I wanted to play as myself because, I didn't always know this, but over the years I've come to realize how I'm perceived. People oftentimes think I'm stupid or ditzy. So many times in my life people will say, "I thought you were gonna be a b-tch," and I think it's just because, genuinely, my resting face. If I'm just sitting here, I'm chilling, but my chilling face, people perceive as like, "Oh s—t." I'm literally OK. Just ask me. I'll tell you exactly how I'm feeling. All that to say, if I know how I'm being perceived, I know how I can use that to my advantage versus playing a character where I don't know how that's perceived because I'm not that person. It's gonna be more of a deficit for me. But it all comes down to the group that you're playing with, and I think unfortunately for this group, they weren't able to see beyond that surface level presentation. They didn't value the strategy behind that.

TVLINE | I was really rooting for you and Jawan while I was watching, and I hope you've had time to heal and that you're feeling good about everything now.
Yeah, dude. It's part of the journey. It's over. I've always been more excited about the journey itself than the outcome for anything in life. So, I'm ready for new journeys.