Survivor 49 is here! Every week, Parade.com's Mike Bloom will bring you interviews with the castaway most recently voted off the island.Jason Treul's story is a rarity on Survivor, having started much more climactically than it finished. That's because he was initially the male alternate for Season 49, at peace with the fact that his time would come down the line. But when a pregame situation caused two people to be removed from the cast, the show pulled Jason aside 12 hours before the game began to tell the Pokémon fan, "I choose you."
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Despite the wild whiplash of being suddenly thrown into the game, Jason immediately got his sea legs. He proved himself as one of the biggest assets of the Hina tribe, as his puzzle skills helped keep them undefeated for the first week. But the same buff provided a very different path come Day 7. Jason and Matt Williams were left as the only original Hina, suddenly on the outside of a four-person Uli majority. Feeling his back against the wall, Jason tried to intimidate the others into not voting for him by claiming he'd play his Shot in the Dark. But the Super Smash Bros. player's special did not work on his opponent, with them even debating giving him the boot. And, while he avoided becoming the victim of his first Tribal Council, the return trip was not so successful. Losing another challenge, Jason spent the afternoon pitching himself as a possible connector to Hina come the merge. But the law clerk failed to put together a winning argument, as he was taken out unanimously.Now out of the game, Jason talks about why he chose not to play his Shot in the Dark (and why he threatened to use his the round before), an unseen alliance with MC over being alternates, and his headspace going into the game after being told he'd be a cast member 12 hours beforehand.Related: Read our Survivor 49 pre-game interview with Jason Treul
You felt more in danger at Tribal Council than Mudkip against a grass type. So I was surprised you chose not to use your Shot in the Dark, especially after claiming you would last week. Was there a plan you were in on that you felt you needed your vote for?It's funny, because when you are fed a bad plan, it turns out there's a lot of real plan that has to make the episode before your fake plan gets any airtime. So I think that the one thing that happens throughout the entire day of tribal is Savannah is on my ass like a prison guard, feeding me this Rizo scheme all day. Like, "Jason, are you sure we want to do this? This is a really big move for me. It's blowing up my spot if you aren't loyal." And I'm like, "Dude, Savannah, chill, okay? We can do this.Looking from the outside, if I had a moment of calm, I think that, yeah, of course I am on the outs. It is a very reasonable thing for a person in my position to want to play the Shot in the Dark. I said that last week kind of in those terms, expecting the reception to be, "Oh yeah, no, that totally makes sense. We don't fault you for it." But I get pulled over by Savannah, "Hey, Jason, are you not loyal to us? Are you loyal to your old Hina?" I get pulled over by Rizo, "Jason, if you play the Shot of the Dark, man, I don't know if we can trust you like that."So I think that there was sort of this campaign to squeeze that Shot in the Dark play out of me by multiple people. Jawan rigged the rocks to make sure that I didn't have an advantage. I think that it was like a full-court press to diffuse any chance of that. Obviously, credit to myself, I'm very oblivious. I think that another person in my spot would have done better than me. But I would say credit to credit where credit's due. It wasn't nothing. I think that other people were actively trying to distract me, put me on wild goose chases, keep me from a moment of calm to want to play my Shot in the Dark.Was there a reason why you wanted to target Rizo out of the former Ulis?You would be surprised how little information they gave me. They call me cagey, but like, bro, dude, like there's five of you, and none of you talking to me about anything! All I had was my relationship with Jawan, an unfortunate relationship that he happened to be on the bottom. And I really liked Nate. Savannah is the one who's talking strategy. I get a very aggressive vibe from her, but she's the one who wants to talk strategy. So I go with her. I don't know if it made the episode, but there's a conversation between me Savannah and Sophi the morning before the challenge that we lose. And they're like, "Oh, this is a really interesting combination of people." I guess sort of like what Shannon is proposing, this "one from each tribe" type of thing. They're trying to pitch some sort of idea like that to me. I know that Savannah and Sophi are very close, and I say, "Hey, whoever it is. Just know that the only relationship that I've made on this beach is Jawan. So if it has to be him, then it has to be him. But I get along with that guy, and he can be loyal potentially in the future." Which I think is a good read before the wrong reasons, right? I think that they can obviously use the me vote to get Jawan closer to them, right? Then they're like, "Oh, well, then what about Rizo? And I'm all like, "Okay! That's fine with me if it's fine with you." Because I am just not trying to push into the unknown of a dynamic I have no idea about. So I kind of said my cards. I think that had I known that Jawan was on the bottom the way that he was, maybe I would have pounced on that. But I had nothing, and all I did was just sort of speak words, and they're like, "What about Rizo?" And I'm like, "Yeah, if that's what works, no complaints. I'm chipper and ready to go."So we have to talk about the fact that you were originally the male alternate for this season, then were told the day before the game that you would become a cast member that season. Walk me through the timeline, and your headspace and your world got turned upside-down.It's crazy. I think I said in the first episode, like 30 minutes before I went to bed [I was told I was in the cast]. It's actually 30 minutes before I did not go to bed, because there's no way you can sleep after you learn that information. But let's start off with where we left off. Because when I was talking to you, I didn't know I was on the show. I thought that we were just jib jabbing about a conversation that we would talk about a year from now, and no one will have known about. So to even see that was a trip. I didn't know what was going to happen. That whole experience, press day, when you talk to folks, that's kind of what my prize is as the alternate. Like, I get to pretend to be a Survivor for a day, and then they'll throw you on the plane. So after I talked to you, after I talked to Dalton, I was like, "Wow, that was really fun. I can go home, and I can maybe talk to my fiancé about my experience. I can cry to my therapist about my experience. That's what I get." So I was very much at peace. I was kind of processing that part of the journey. I was also beginning to sort of cool off my pre-gaming, because I was like, "Okay, I'm actually not going to be in the show, so I don't want to throw any sort of misleading narratives to other players. It's their time." Lo and behold, I get pulled off to the side by one of the handlers and taken into the middle of a field. Not as a group, just myself. And I'm like, "Oh, okay, so they're gonna, like, end me."[Laughs.] They're gonna put you out to pasture. Literally!Like, "Well, it's been great. It's been a real treat. "But then they go over and they tell me, "How does it feel to be on Season 49?" I thought maybe it was something involving my flight information. Maybe I need an extra chat with the therapist or something. But, yeah, they informed me just point blank, "How's that feel?" And I'm like, "51?! That's insane! I did so great that you want me on the show next season or in a year from now?!" I was so checked out of 49 I don't even think I registered that they said this season. So my brain is a whole jumbled set of marbles as to what's going on. Insane. I lose all motor functions to my legs. I collapse to the ground, and I just start screaming, because it's like, how is that even possible? It made no sense. I was looking at every single male contestant like, "What's gonna happen? You all look so good, and you're ready to go." So it was insane. I have no idea how it happened, but it did. Mike, isn't that crazy? Last time we talked, I remember I gave you that line: "Look how far I've come." Look at it, dude. That's crazy. It's wild.On the surface, a lot of us were speculating that you would connect with MC as the other alternate being brought in with this historic situation. Plus, you also had Sophie S., who was an alternate for Survivor 48. Was that the case once you all started getting to know each other on Hina?Here's the thing, Mike Bloom. [Leans into the camera.] It did. Dude, of course! That's all everyone's talking about. Especially when it's a group of strangers, where nobody knows anything, the only shared experience you have is pregame and Ponderosa, right? What are people going to talk about? I said on the mat I'm the alternate. Me and MC knew each other were alternates, because there's a moment when you're outed as the alternate. And that relationship was probably my strongest relationship on Hina. I don't think it got any airtime. I think it's hard to maybe tell a story of a tribe that never goes to Tribal, right? But MC, after she found the idol in that tree that I missed, she shows Steven, and then she shows me the idol too. And that's one of the things too, when Uli was saying, "Jason's being so cagey. Why?" It's because I don't want to freaking out my fellow alternate! She has this moment where she comes up to me. She's like, "Jason, you and me, we deserve to play this game as much as anybody else." She found the idol, and we use that as a moment to bond as alternates. And when I'm on Uli beach — like Hina beach with it scribbled out and they wrote top of it — I was thinking, "Do I give this information to make them trust me?"Like what Sage did with Rizo.Yeah. I'm like, "This is actually information that is helpful for me. But it's something that could also backfire potentially." I love being a game player, and I love leading with my head instead of my heart. But like, "Oh my God, why MC?! Why'd it have to be you? Why'd you have to find the idol?" I would have thrown Kristina or Matt, whoever, under the bus. But not you! Not my fellow alternate. I don't want to be crabs in a barrel about that. It's such an interesting thing from my point of view. What is the emotional turmoil as to why I want to keep Hina close? I think it's because the me and MC of it all. And do I regret kind of keeping that close? Maybe. But I think that I am also proud of the fact that, when it was something that was potentially an upside, I stuck to my guns that way. And I know that's going to be like, "Jason lost it because he didn't do that." Whatever. Screw it. I lost because I didn't do that. Who cares? That relationship was really important to me.To your point, the only dynamics we really saw of Hina pre-swap were the Matt/MC/Steven/Kristina alliance. Do you get the sense as to who would have gone had you gone to Tribal Council in the first three episodes?I think it would have been either Matt or Kristina. And, from my point of view, MC and Steven were in that four-person alliance, which Sophie and I knew about, right? So how strong is that alliance, if all six people know about it? But then me, Steven and MC also had an alliance that clearly Matt didn't know about from last week's press, which I watched. So I think that to be in a spot where you know about them, they don't know about you, that MC has an idol that is sharing with you and Steven. I think that I felt pretty strongly positioned. Who knows what would have happened? Maybe the reason that all that content is cut from the episode is because it's a bunch of MC and Steven saying, "We got Jason! We're lying to him. This thing is actually real, what we have with Matt." So I don't really know their perspectives on it. From my point of view, I felt pretty good with the information that I had.I know that some former alternates who have played talk about, when they get to play, they do so a bit looser, since they're essentially playing with house money by getting onto the season in the first place. Do you feel that was the case for you? Did your play style change knowing that, less than a day before the season started, you weren't going to be on it at all?I mean, it's interesting. Because how does that come out on a show where we're winning and we're not going to Tribal, right? And the moment I go to Tribal, I have to, sort of fight for my life. I think that if I was ever in a spot where I had power, then maybe you can do something about that. I think that if we're just talking about like, move for move, beat for beat, I think that my alternate experience colored my experience of the game. It's very vivid, but how I played it, I think that a lot of people put in my position probably would have fallen in the same way, if that makes sense.I would say beyond that, though, yeah, dude, maybe having two alternates on the challenges, really just amped and ready to go, Is that gonna help you on a puzzle? Is that gonna help MC literally lift people and fling people up a wall? Yes, it does. I think that our challenge prowess maybe had that spark in order for us to do super well. Because I was like, "Dude, what the hell?! I just got here and I just won something already!" I didn't expect that at all. I didn't think that I was going to be the person that jetted our tribe forward. I thought I was going to hold everyone back because I was so shell-shocked about being an alternate. But that was not the case.
Related: 'Survivor 49's Matt Williams Explains Why He Revealed His Secret Finance Background (Exclusive)
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