‘Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X’ exclusive: Michelle Schubert on her post-merge mistake, key Mari vote

Michelle Schubert was, at least in our mind, someone who could make it really far on “Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X.” As a result of that, we were just as blindsided as anyone to see her voted out of the game Wednesday night. We thought the only way she or anyone else would go home is if Adam used his immunity idol, and that didn’t even happen. She went home simply because she didn’t have the numbers, and the other players felt confident enough that she didn’t have an immunity idol.

Today, we spoke to the former Millennial / Vanua tribe member about her journey, the big move to take out Mari during the game, and some of the events of the merge episode that led to her elimination.

CarterMatt – A good starting point is this: Was there anything that you did that you feel was the wrong move on this past episode?

Michelle Schubert – Yeah, I made a mistake, and it was something so fixable. I decided to stop strategizing for the first vote. Jay had pulled me aside at the merge and said that Michaela was telling Bret and Sunday that ‘you’re a huge threat and you’re always strategizing with everybody and you control all the votes.’ All that stuff. [He told me] ‘you should prove them wrong and sit back and come out swinging for the second vote.’

At the time, I said ‘that sounds logical. I don’t want to. My gut tells me not to but my brain tells me ‘that sounds right.’ I just went silent, and all of the people I’d been building trust with and making alliances with — I’d already found some cracks — I think had I kept those relationships up and kept talking, I could have easily had a different vote out there. As it was, I fell silent and everybody felt ‘if she’s not strategizing with me, she’s strategizing with someone else. We gotta get rid of her.’

How much did the Mari vote and your role in that end up making you into a threat?

I think it did because it should people that I was out there playing the game and was able to rally votes and find cracks and really play a strategic game; but, I wasn’t the only one with blood on my hands at this point in the game. I was among the threats, but I think there were a lot of things that went into my downfall, and I think it was something that I could have squirmed out of had I tried harder.

How sure were you that you were going home? Was it a complete blindside?

I did not feel comfortable with the vote. As you may have seen in my Ponderosa video (we’re including that below), this was my first and only vote where I was not looking people in the eyes when we were making the decision as to who to vote for. I just had my alliance tell me what names to write down. This was the one vote where I wasn’t taking care of the relationships and the strategy.

I honestly didn’t know who were the people voting with us. I didn’t know what the numbers were supposed to be. I felt awful about it.

Did Jay share with you that he had an immunity idol, and was there any talk of playing that?

He did tell me that, and there was a part of me at Tribal Council that almost leaned over and said ‘hey, I think you need to play your idol for me,’ because I started to get little inklings throughout Tribal Council. Obviously I wasn’t terribly sure; if I was terribly sure I would’ve absolutely done that. You have to me pretty dang sure to ask someone to do that at Tribal Council (laughs).

Do you think he would’ve actually done that?

Yeah. I do believe that he would’ve used it, if he felt it was necessarily. I’m just not sure if he would’ve felt it was necessary.

Why were you former Vanua members so quick to target you? How much were you on the outs out there?

I was definitely the unclean leper outside of the city that nobody would strategize with (laughs). There was no question in my mind. If we lost again, I had a little bit of information that I was sitting on and I would’ve used with David to try and create a rift between David and Chris. I would’ve hunted for an idol like crazy.

But, I’m not sure it would’ve changed my fate in that instance.

What was your take on Adam, and how aggressively he was playing the game after the merge?

I did notice that he was scrambling around, and that didn’t make me nervous. What actually made me nervous was when he sat down and started laughing. That was when I was like ‘uh oh, now he’s safe and he knows it.’

Who did you want to go to the end of the game with?

I didn’t care. I was confident enough in my own gameplay that I felt like I could pretty much go to the end with anyone that I wasn’t already planning on getting rid of. I felt good about it. The more important thing at the moment was to keep people close who would never vote for me, and get rid of people who weren’t aligned with me.

Then, when it gets down to maybe final five, that’s when I would’ve started to think about [who I could beat at the end].

Did Taylor alienate any potential allies with his food-stealing, or was that a bigger deal on TV than it actually was?

Outside of the game, I’m sure people would say ‘that wouldn’t really bother us.’ But, inside of the game, you’re really looking for any reason to be mad at somebody. As soon as there is a target on someone else, there’s not a target on you. So, [we] were all that upset. We were really hungry, and we didn’t like that somebody was eating more than their fair share. I do think people saw that and said ‘that’s the easiest person to make a target. He and his alliance.’

What went into the move with Mari, and talking to Hannah about at Tribal Council? It was a great move and great TV, but did you make it because you were really worried about not having the numbers — it turned out you didn’t need her vote  — or did you specifically just want her to feel clued in on the plan?

There were two main reasons. One reason, the simplest, was that Hannah and I were really aligned. We would talk a lot and we would pray together, every morning and every night. Not that we share the same faith, but we would pray together and talk philosophy or religion, and then we’d start strategizing together. Something that we agreed on was that we would always tell each other what the vote was going to be, even if we didn’t always vote together, we would let each other know. I kind of felt this pull to her. I already told her that, and I did want her involved in the majority and want her to know. I didn’t necessarily have time to tell her before Tribal, so I decided I was gonna do it at Tribal. I didn’t even know I was going to be sitting next to her.

The other thing was that Michaela and Figgy had decided that they were going to argue at Tribal. It wasn’t fake and it wasn’t contrived; they really were arguing and yelling at each other at Tribal, but at the end of the day we knew they were going to vote together.

But, I was worried because they were really heated at one point! Part of me was thinking that if Michaela took this a little too personally, she could say ‘screw you, Figgy. You’re going home.’ It was definitely a bilateral decision.

Last thing — if you go back, what is the one thing you’d do differently?

There are actually two things. The first thing is that I wouldn’t stay silent. The other is that I wouldn’t feel indebted to someone. I should’ve really gone hard to rally votes [against] Chris at the merge, but there was a part of me that felt like he got me through that CeCe vote. They were willing to vote out CeCe and keep me.

I shouldn’t have felt that way because it really didn’t have to do with helping me. It was really for the betterment of his game. He knew that he needed someone who was good at challenges and puzzles, and that was me. It wasn’t for my goodwill, and I think if I had that mindset, that everyone in the game is making decisions for themselves, I would’ve played more level-headed and strategically come the merge.