Survivor 48 Juror Talks Almost Going Home First And 'Awful' Justin Vote: 'Loyalty Was Broken'
The following contains spoilers from Wednesday's episode of Survivor 48.
By the time Survivor's post-merge double elimination episode was complete, only one original Vula member stood to live another day.
After Joe and David won individual immunity in a record-breaking and grueling grip challenge, Sai found herself separated from former allies Cedrek and Mary, and was subsequently voted out. (Read our Q&A with Sai here.) When the other half of the tribe made it to Tribal, Kamilla and Kyle's clever plan to frame Shauhin was ultimately nixed, and Cedrek, a fish-out-of-water type who vowed to play honorably, was voted out of the game, leaving Mary as the only original Vula left fighting for that million dollar check. (Read our full Episode 7 recap here.)
Below, Cedrek fills us in on what we didn't see from his time spent in Fiji, plus explains his relationship with Sai and why he doesn't regret the Justin vote.
TVLINE | How surprised were you by the vote and how are you feeling after watching it all back?
CEDREK MCFADDEN | I was not terribly surprised. I had suspicion. I was aware of the dynamics on that split tribe, but I wanted to believe otherwise. So, surprised but not surprised.
TVLINE | Can you elaborate on those dynamics and why you were the one people voted for?
I think when you watch the show in hindsight, you see what's already connected between Kyle, Kamilla, Shauhin. You see the David connection and certainly Mary kind of going over to David. They already had a connection there. I was the odd man out. This is like walking into the room knowing what's gonna happen, but trying to realize maybe there's another option, maybe there's a crack here, and it just didn't happen.
TVLINE | If the tribe hadn't been split in two, what was your plan for navigating the merge, especially considering that original Vula numbers were much lower than the other tribes?
I built some connections that were going to continue after the merge. I already built a great connection with Chrissy, with Mitch, with Star, and with Sai, of course. What you don't see also is Kyle, Joe and myself. We were connecting. We had had conversations about what it means to have representation, to have the three of us on the season. That was going to be a furtherance of a relationship and an alliance. So there were many opportunities to further myself in the game, but you're talking to someone who, from that first vote, thought it could have been him. That first Tribal, I'm thinking, "OK, I'm going home." And the fact that I made it this far is just a blessing.
TVLINE | A few weeks back, you chose to eliminate Justin instead of Sai. How confident were you that once the tribes merged, you, Sai and Mary could make it work?
I was confident that that could happen and this is where the viewer is more omniscient than we are in those moments, right? What you see on the edit, you see Sai and my bumpy relationship. There's some messiness, but there's still a bond that is present. She's the reason why I didn't go home on the first vote because as soon as we landed, she came to me and said, "They're talking about you. They're planning on voting you out first." And that started our connection even from the beginning. She's smart, she's strategic, she's all the things, and she never annoyed me or got under my skin like she did with other people. We had a great working relationship, so I believed that we could pick up the pieces and start anew.
TVLINE | Even after saving her from that vote, Sai seemed like she lost some trust in you and even wrote your name down last week. What's up with that?
Some of that's warranted, right? I mean, I wrote her name down twice. That's not something that people forget. So that was definitely the start of that distrust and it continued, I think, for her not being able to get information about the Bianca vote in time. But I do want to say that that's just one part of what was happening. The other part of that, we were still discussing strategy. We were still discussing next steps and I'm sure we'll get into the Justin vote, but there was a reason that ultimately, she was the one I went with and because of that, I think that further improved our connection in the game.
TVLINE | Let's get to the Justin vote. Do you regret voting him out?
That was an awful moment because these were two of the people that I cared for so much in the game. And I ultimately don't regret that decision and here's why. Justin not telling me he didn't have a vote. Sai says what she says. Obviously, she does exactly what she should do, show the break in that alliance, show the holes in it. But more than that, and I said this during that Tribal, I said, "Jeff, this moment is transcending the game."
What you don't see is a person that's sitting across from you that has pain, that has hurt. And in many ways, for me, it was a human-to-human moment where I saw someone having a mental break. And in a very similar fashion — not exactly the same, but a very similar fashion that you see Joe comfort Eva in that moment — I saw Sai as someone that, if there had been any trauma, if there had been any issue that she was bringing into this game, had she left the game in that moment, she would potentially never recover from it. And I knew we would all potentially leave the game at some point, but leaving under those circumstances for me felt traumatic. I didn't want that to be how she left the game. And so I made a decision that was a human moment. It wasn't just she cried. It was more of, "I saw a fellow human being that was suffering, and I wanted to help my fellow human being in that moment."
TVLINE | How frustrating was it to lose so many early challenges in the pre-merge, and how did that affect your game down the road?
It would have been really helpful if we had not lost those. I am very aware that I was the culprit in many of those losses, and I reconcile that, but I also knew that there were elements to the game that I brought that were not the physical challenges. In some ways, the physical challenges can be a distraction from the real parts of this game. Had we not gone to Tribal, of course, we could have entered into a swap or merge with five or six or more people, and I'm aware of that. I don't spend a whole lot of time pontificating over what would have happened if we hadn't lost or if I could have just stayed balanced because, you know, I'm walking across this balance beam fine on my own. It's the balancing with Kevin that creates the challenge. I don't spend a lot of time... you can get lost in that deep hole that you'll never climb out of. But I do know that when we showed up, we showed up with the full intent to do our best and we fell short.
TVLINE | If Bianca hadn't told you about her lost vote, how would that Tribal have shaken out?
Oof! You know, I think we would have ended up in a scenario where we would have had a tie. As I understood it, Bianca was working with us to vote Chrissy, and Chrissy, I love her dearly. Those two were voting with Bianca to vote out Sai and we would have had a tie. That's where I have to leave it because even now in this post-game, when I talk to any of my castmates, I say, "Alright, let's set the timer. Two minutes, we're playing shoulda-woulda-coulda," because after that, there's no way to figure the end of that out. That could have gone so many different ways.
There's been a lot of discussion about, "Oh, Cedrek makes a single decision if you lose a vote." Well, I'm not monolithic in my thinking here. They're very different. If you look up from the superficial layer, yes, but it's very different votes. With Justin, we built this trust. We built this loyalty that was broken, and broken in live form in front of everyone and I'm having to kind of deal with it. With Bianca, it was different. As she says in that interview, she wanted to build that trust with me. We had not built that trust and in many ways that moment, instead of building more bonding, it felt more manipulative, and I know the difference.
TVLINE | What's something that happened out there that we didn't get to see on TV?
First, I have to say that I am grateful for the editing team. They do a phenomenal job at creating an ensemble piece. This is not a documentary of what Cedrek said and did last summertime in Fiji, right? This is similar to a Friends or a Seinfeld or a Living Single, where you have this array of characters, and they do a phenomenal job.
Now, you don't see the laughing. The belly laughs that happened out there. Certainly with Vula, we were always stressed and going to Tribal, but there was a lot of laughing. There was a lot of bonding that happened. I was really having these phenomenal conversations about family and work and goals in life and past struggles, and we had great conversations. You also don't see Sai and my relationship. You certainly see the bumpy parts of it like any relationship you have, but you're not seeing the really strengthening parts of making those bonds. It may be chaotic, but it's certainly a bond that got me through that first vote. You don't see us talking about our families. It was a full relationship. It wasn't as simple as what you see on the show, and the relationships between all of our cast sustain us today and make this such a rewarding experience. As Jeff says, the game is the lure, the experience is the prize, and that experience is what I don't think the viewer gets the full appreciation of when they just watch the game on television.