Over 48 seasons of “Survivor,” Jeff Probst has seen contestants spill their guts, revealing vulnerable parts of their lives. He has observed physical and emotional pain, triumph and agony. But he has never cried on camera ― until the newest season’s fifth episode, which aired last week.
Credit Georgia Tech graduate Eva Erickson, who is on the autism spectrum. Eleven days into a 26-day competition, she was one of 14 remaining players. The show at this point featured three different tribes, and Eva’s team had yet to lose an immunity challenge.
Entering the fifth challenge, Eva had revealed her autism struggles to only one person: firefighter Joe Hunter. She innately trusted him to help her out if she had an emotional breakdown, something that happens on occasion when she gets overstimulated.
But during the fourth episode, the three tribes were randomly shuffled and Eva lost Joe. The immunity challenge on the latest episode asked each player to funnel a ball through a table maze. Eva was struggling so badly she began to cry in frustration. The show revealed Joe watching her, a pained look on his face, unable to help. (The show rules state opposing players are not supposed to interact.)
Eve finished the challenge but then collapsed into sobs.
Probst made an executive decision to allow Joe to console her with a hug and kind words, breaking protocol.
After Joe calmed her down, Eva decided to reveal her autism struggles to the entire cast of players, explaining how her parents supported her and helped her learn ways to deal with her issues. She has since received a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Georgia Tech and played on the Tech men’s hockey team and is pursuing a PhD at Brown University.
“Everyone who has autism should not be ashamed to ask for help and ashamed to receive it,” she said on the show.
Probst, who has never shed a tear in 25 years on the show, lost it.
“Now you got me,” he explained through tears. “I’m a parent, too, and I do see it. Wow, this has never happened. But I see it too, and it’s why I love ‘Survivor.’”
Probst told Dalton Ross of “Entertainment Weekly” that allowing Joe to help Eva was a no-brainer: “It’s not about logic or rules. It’s about being human. You don’t analyze those decisions, you feel them. You act before you even know what you’re going to say.”
Probst said the challenge was already over so “there was no question of fairness. All that mattered was connection. Compassion. Letting her know she wasn’t alone. And I know I speak for everyone when I say that words fall short when trying to describe what Joe did in that moment. You have to see it to understand it. Talk about instinct. It was one of the most intense and beautiful displays of saying ‘I got you that I have ever seen.”
For Probst, who is also an executive producer on the show, this was a moment that’s impossible to forget: “I’ve watched this scene more than any other scene that has ever happened on our show. We put more time and energy and thought into getting this scene right than anything I can ever remember. We knew we were a witness to magic, and we wanted the audience to feel it too. I will be totally honest: I cry every single time I watch it. I just watched it again, and I cried again.”
Erickson told People magazine that “it was crazy seeing Jeff cry. I’d never seen that. Seeing Jeff get so emotional about the situation and thinking about his own family and his kids, that was the moment when it hit me, that this is a moment that is going to be remembered.”
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How to watch
“Survivor”
8 p.m. Wednesdays on CBS, available the next day on Paramount+
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