Ordinarily, the conversation coming out of a Survivor finale is mostly about how the jury voted and whether they picked the right winner. We’ve gotten some of that after 50 aired its final episode this past Wednesday, but most of the conversation has actually been about the spoiler longtime host Jeff Probst accidentally blurted out. It seems every fan and former player has dropped a snarky take on what happened. I’ve read every single one I could find, and after consuming all of them, I have to talk about the one from multi-time castaway Chaos Kass McQuillen.
The always opinionated castaway, who made the jury on two fantastic seasons (Cagayan and Second Chances), has been a vocal critic of modern Survivor and the way Jeff Probst runs the show in the past. To my surprise, she dropped a tweet defending the show’s figurehead for this particular mistake, but then, because she’s Kass, she also ripped his soul out in a follow-up comment.
Her first message came in the middle of everyone dunking on Probst for his big mistake. During the finale, the show aired the pre-recorded lead-up to the fire-making challenge, then cut to Probst, who blurted out who the winner was prior to the actual fire-making competition being shown. It was confusing and awkward, and while he recovered nicely and made a few funny jokes about it later in the night, it was still not ideal.
For like a forty-eight hour period, it felt like every single person even vaguely related to the show was taking turns twisting the knife. The clowning just wouldn’t stop, and then, out of nowhere, Chaos Kass, one of Probst’s harshest critics, dropped a tweet in his defense. You can check out her quote below…
I don’t like Jeff and think he’s terrible for countless reasons but this isn’t the one to beef about. RU telling me you’ve never made a mistake in your 25-year career? Shut up, trolls. Y’all can’t even hold down a job for 5 years, let alone 25. GAL
I’m not saying that’s the nicest tweet I’ve ever seen, but from Chaos Kass, you’re gonna take that if you’re Jeff Probst every single time. She’s one of the least likely contestants in the history of the show that I’d guess would defend Probst, but personally, I’m glad she did. From my perspective, Probst should take his share of the blame as the show’s producer, but he’s not the one directing the show. There are about a dozen other people who should have caught this mistake, either during the rundown or while they were live on the air.
You would have thought this would have been at least a small step to Kass mending fences with the popular reality competition, but someone responded to the tweet asking why she didn’t like Jeff. Let the record show she did not hold back. Look at this savage explanation…
He’s an ass, interferes with the game, has no sense of humor, and favors alpha males. Basically, he’s a Scorpio with control and inferiority issues who plays favorites. He’s a great host but terrible producer.
Yikes. There are too many allegations to dive into all of them, but I think it’s worth talking about that last one because it’s become a common theme among some fans. Probst is, in my opinion, one of the greatest reality show hosts of all-time. He really sets the emotional stage during challenges, asks really thoughtful follow-up questions at tribal council and always appears in control. Most fans really approve of him as the actual host of the show.
During the early years of Survivor, he was simply the host, but as time went by, he accrued more and more power behind the scenes. Eventually, he became the loudest and most powerful voice as the lead producer, and the game has really evolved to fit his taste. That taste has led to the show no longer casting villains. It has led to way more confessionals about what players have learned and the emotions they’re feeling. It’s led to mostly casting superfans obsessed with the show and a dramatic increase in twists and advantages.
We’ll see if that changes though. After the recent finale, Probst and company announced the show would be moving away from the so-called New Era and into the next phrase called The Open Era. We’re allegedly going to see a lot of things we haven’t seen in a long time, with much greater variance in structure, theme and direction between the seasons. Who knows? Maybe even Chaos Kass will approve. We’ll see.
