Survivor 46: Jeff Probst Addresses Calling Out a Player in Season Premiere Tribal Council

The premiere of Survivor 46 on Wednesday night was certainly an eventful affair. Not only did the two-hour episode end with the first player being voted out of the game, but it featured perhaps the most spectacular disaster of a first three days that anyone has ever had in Survivor. If the eliminated player’s game out of the gate wasn’t bad enough, they had host Jeff Probst calling them out for their gameplay at Tribal Council. WARNING: This article contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the Survivor 46 premiere! Continue reading at your own risk…

David Jelinsky will go down as the most memorable first out in Survivor. He failed to complete a puzzle in both team challenges, quit the “Sweat” challenge that would’ve given his tribe their supplies, and gave up his vote to protect players on other tribes after volunteering to go on the first Journey of the season. It all culminated in a Tribal Council where Jelinsky told Probst and his fellow tribemates that he “wasn’t one to quit,” leading every head to turn in his direction.

This also resulted in a slightly spicy exchange with the Survivor host, who wasn’t a fan of Jelinsky saying he didn’t quit things after having just quit two different things in the two days prior. The exchange allowed viewers to see a side of Probst that hasn’t shown itself much in the new era of the game.

“I think there’s been a weird thing sort of happening lately that I’ve been picking up on, which is this feeling that it’s okay to just be good,” Probst told Entertainment Weekly immediately after that first Tribal Council. “‘I tried. I’m going to quit. I tried. I’ve done that enough. My feet hurt, and I don’t have any stake in it.’ But you can’t quit and then say something about the word ‘several’ meaning ‘seven’ – that’s just not going to fly.

“So yeah, I was pushing back. Jelinsky finally did own it. It took quite a bit of work to get him to own it. And I think that justifiable ethics – the way we couch things and the way we see it – is one of the things that’s so interesting about Survivor. Because if Q had had a different partner, I’m not sure they would’ve quit. My guess is Q realized ‘I can’t do it alone. He’s going to give up. So let’s just stop now. Let me cut my losses now.’ And that’s probably one of the reasons Jelinsky is gone.”

What did you think of the Survivor 46 premiere? Let us know in the comments!