‘Survivor’ Runner-up on His Overconfidence: ‘I Thought I Had a Good Shot at Winning’

CBS "Survivor 42" runner-up Mike Turner.

The “Survivor 42” finale Wednesday night saw 23-year-old Maryanne Oketch take home the coveted crown, beating out co-finalists Mike Turner and Romeo Escobar in a landslide 7-1-0 vote. Although Maryanne swayed most jury members with her dominant Final Tribal Council performance, 57-year-old Mike was arguably the favorite going in, only receiving the vote of Jonathan Young in the end.

So how did Mike mess up his big lead? Well, he had a lot of time to reflect on his game in the 11 months since, and is not holding back when it comes to speaking out about it. Here’s what you need to know:

Mike ‘Shouldn’t Have Relaxed’ Before Final Tribal

In his exit interview with Rob Cesternino, Mike spoke about his fatal mistake going into his fateful Final Tribal Council: his overconfidence with regard to how the jury perceived him, no doubt in part boosted by his former tribemate Drea Wheeler’s comments upon her exit that “if you make it to the end, you’ll probably win.”

“I was very surprised,” Mike said of the jury’s tone toward him during questioning. “If I’m being totally honest, after I beat Jonathan in fire, I really sat back a little bit and said, ‘Holy crap, I just may have won “Survivor”!’ Because I thought that the biggest hurdle I would have to face.”

He did add that he understood why the jury was coming hard at him, however, even mentioning that it may have been in part to help him. “Maybe they were trying to do me a favor,” he explained, “to force me to say what they wanted to hear, and you know? I relaxed. I shouldn’t have relaxed, I did.”

By the time host Jeff Probst announced he was reading the votes live on location, however, Mike said he had lost almost all his confidence. “Oh, I was not confident at all [by that point],” he said. “I said, ‘You know what? Second’s not that bad’!” 

In an exit interview with TVLine, however, Mike revealed that he had no regrets on how he handled the Final Tribal, as he never intended to play dishonorably or backstab people close to him, and wouldn’t have lied about it for a million dollars. “I base my life and who I am on trying to be honorable,” Mike explained. “There was no way in the world that I was going to sit out there and say the social bonds I made with those people were not real and that it was a game play … It wasn’t worth a million dollars for me.”

Mike’s Biggest Move: Telling Maryanne About Omar’s Unseen Idol Nullifier

In his interview with Cesternino, Mike also spoke about the most important element of his game that viewers may have missed, and it all had to do with Omar Zaheer’s idol nullifier which never made the edit. In the interview, Mike said that it wasn’t until he found out about it that he believed Omar and Lindsay Dolashewich when they told him about Drea’s Knowledge Is Power advantage, and hence refused to give them his idol in fear of being made a fool of.

However, it was when Jonathan told him of Omar’s idol nullifier, as well as Omar’s plan to blindside Mike by using it against him at the final 5, that Mike decided to give Omar his idol.

Mike revealed that he then went to Maryanne with the plan of blindsiding Omar at the final 6 in order to save himself from being the victim of Omar’s plan, but she was at first hesitant because of her tight bond with him. At that point, which he said he believed was “my biggest move in the game,” he essentially manipulated Maryanne into turning against Omar. He explained:

So I leave, I say, ‘how can I get her to change [her] mind?’ So I went back, I said, ‘Out of curiosity, do you know about Omar’s idol nullifier?’ She goes, ‘What nullifier?’ I said, ‘He has a nullifier, he’s going to take me out at 5.’ I said, ‘Oh you didn’t know about it?’ She said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Oh, I guess you and him aren’t as tight as I thought.’ And I just walked away.

And then I mentioned Lindsay’s idol: ‘Oh you didn’t know about that? Oh, my bad, I thought they were taking you to the end. Sorry!’ And I walk away. Maryanne thinks about it, she comes and sits down, says, ‘Okay, listen, this is what we’re going to do.’

However, as we saw in the episode, Mike was still insistent on splitting the vote, as he was certain Lindsay would have played her Advantage Amulet – which was by that point simply an idol – on Omar, given that it was the last time she could have used it anyway. But regardless, the plan worked out anyway.

“I don’t think they told that story very well,” Mike said, “but that was a big part of everybody’s demise, or great gameplay, and that goes right down to Drea, Omar, Lindsay, myself, and Maryanne.”