This week, Nate Moore became the eighth person eliminated from season 49 of “Survivor.” The former MCU producer found himself caught in a blindside when Jawan Pitts and Sage Ahrens-Nichols flipped on him during Tribal Council, leaving him vulnerable as he no longer had the numbers to protect him at the vote.
What is most surprising about this shocking turn of events, though, is that Nate turned down the chance to have an immunity idol played for him.
Nate Moore Turned Down Immunity Idol
Nate found himself at the center of a power shift in “Survivor” but could have avoided his exit from the series if he had taken the opportunity to make use of an immunity idol that was offered to him by a fellow player.
Speaking in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Nate explained how he knew he would be at risk of elimination after it became clear that Sage Ahrens-Nichols and Jawan Pitts were considering moving away from their original Uli tribe allies.
He detailed the two possibilities that he had calculated based on what might happen, saying, “So, going into that Tribal, I remember Rizo, Savannah, and I having a conversation where it’s like, ‘Either we’re going to get through this and go final six, or something bad’s about to happen and then we’re going to have to figure out how to pick up the pieces.’”
With that in mind, Rizo had suggested that he could play his idol to potentially keep one of the three of them safe. “Rizo offered to play it for me,” reveals Nate. “He was like, ‘Look, if I feel it….’ And I, very dumbly, was like, ‘Don’t do that, man. You got to save it for yourself!’ And I remember Savannah asking Rizo if he would play it for her, and he said, ‘Maybe.’”
He continued, “So there was a little bit of like, will Rizo play it for either of us? And Rizo also knew he was at risk. And so the last conversation I had with Savannah before we left for Tribal, it was me and her on the beach. Everybody was going to get their torches. And I said, “Savannah, I think it’s you or me, we’re going to catch votes.”
Nate Expected That He Might Be Voted Out
Having turned down the safety of the immunity idol, Nate realized that both he and Savannah could be at risk. After all, the other players, like Michelle”MC”Chukwujekwu, would not be willing to vote for Rizo out of fear that he would use the idol on himself and render their votes worthless.
“Did I think I was going home,” Nate pondered. “Not necessarily, but I knew one of us was going to catch the votes because we both knew that whatever alliance was there was not going to vote for Rizo because they were so scared of that idol.”
“So like the Matt vote, I was like, ‘Look, I’ll see my name on the parchment.’ And I think you can see it in the episode. I see my name, I’m like, ‘Okay, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.’ I was pretty sure whoever was going to get five, because again, I knew Alex wasn’t with us. At six, I was like, ‘Oh, boy. That’s not good.”
