'Survivor 46': Hunter McKnight was '100%' going to use his idol, but one change led to being voted off

In the most dramatic Tribal Council fight yet on Survivor 46 (on Global TV in Canada, CBS in the U.S.), Hunter McKnight reminded us that you need to play your idol when you have one. The science teacher from French Camp, Miss., left the island after a revote, initially tying with Q Burdette.

Looking back at his final moments on the island, McKnight told Yahoo Canada that it was a "less cut and dry" scenario in terms of playing the idol. In fact, his initial plan was to play it.

"When I went and told people about the idol, I knew that would cause a scramble and it was also going to give me a chance to read who's willing to work with me," McKnight recalled. "Kenzie [Petty], who I was actually pretty close with, came up to me and said, 'Hey look, Siga's writing your name down,' and at that moment I'm like, 'Wow OK, Kenzie is willing to play ball more with me than I expected.'"

"At the moment I was like, hey Kenzie it's OK, I'm playing my idol. I had actually gone to apologize, I said, 'I know that my scramble is going to mess up any blindside that you may be trying to do, and so let me just apologize for that.' Because I did want to work with Kenzie."

CBS

Survivor 46

Watch Survivor Season 46 by adding the STACKTV channel to your Prime Video subscription. 14-day free trial then $12.99/month

$13 at Prime Video

McKnight explained that going to Tribal, his thought was that he was going to play the idol, "100 per cent," but then, as we saw, things changed when he got there and host Jeff Probst came out with popcorn.

"It's like a fever dream of a Tribal, it's not normal, he's supposed to come in, he's supposed to get to the point," McKnight said. "And then Tiffany [Nicole Ervin] and Q stop talking to Jeff and start hollering at each other, calling each other liars."

"In my head I begin to think, if they're going to split votes between me and Q, how are they going to split the votes? ... I knew Charlie [Davis] and the Siga crew were voting for me. ... Tiffany was the question mark. ... If Tiffany writes Q, he goes home and I make it through with an idol in my pocket. If Tiffany writes me, then I go home. The way she went at Q I was like, it's OK, she's going to be writing Q. And I was wrong, and then I went home."

'I'm trusting the word of one person to forsake the word of two people'

In terms of his social game, McKnight maybe wasn't putting his effort in the best places.

"People look at it like, 'Man Hunter's social game is abysmal,' I mean there probably is truth to that, but all of my social equity that I had been spent in people that were cannibalizing each other," McKnight said. "I spent a lot of time with Q. I spent a lot of time with Tevin [Davis]. I spent a lot of time with Liz [Wilcox]. Those are the people that I was trying to invest in. I spent a lot of time with Kenzie, I didn't spend as much time with Tiffany, because I figured Q was good with her, that would keep me informed there."

He added that if he could go back and change anything from his time on the island, McKnight would put more effort in fact checking conversations.

"I should have, [in] little conversations with people, just the fact check more often," McKnight said. "Like when Q told me Tiffany was trying to get me out, what I should have done is gone to Tiffany and Kenzie, because I'm trusting the word of one person to forsake the word of two people, basically."

"If I would have gone to Tiffany and had that conversation, a lot of stuff would have been exposed."

'Everything is examined when you're doing Survivor'

One thing was certain about McKnight throughout Survivor 46, and that's his immense skill in challenges. He actually builds Survivor challenges in his backyard for his kids in play, but McKnight stressed that's not why he was successful in this part of the game.

"I don't build them to practice, I build them for my kids to play, and so going into the game people were like, 'Hunter should have hidden his challenge ability more,' I didn't know I was going to be that good at challenges, that wasn't my plan," McKnight said. "I wasn't expecting that to go so well."

"The ones where I showed off the most, like the sandbag one and the basketball one, we were behind up until that point. ... But I love the challenges. It's like a big jungle gym, like things I did growing up, like playing cornhole and swimming, and throwing stuff and being on trees and climbing. ... The whole backwards flip on the poll, ... I was not trying to showboat. I just thought, I wonder if I could hang upside down from this thing, because I wasn't sure if I could. And then it worked. ... Everything is examined when you're doing Survivor, so you've got to be better about all the little things."