When I learned Jon Lovett would be a castaway on season 47 of the greatest reality show of all time, “Survivor,” I was extremely excited. I looked forward to seeing what the 42-year-old Jewish podcast host would bring to the island. In one of his pre-show interviews, he said, “If I was introducing myself I would say, this is Jon Lovett, he is a former presidential speech writer and TV writer, he is now a podcast host, and he is best in small doses.”
Unfortunately, this introduction was quite prescient, because we only got a very, very small dose of Lovett this season. He is officially the first boot of season 47! Devastating!
Things started out OK for Jon. He was cute and funny, per usual. When Jeff had the players do some light introductions, Jon’s teammate Andy explained that in high school, he only had four friends. “Four friends, sounds great to me,” Jon joked. His team, Gata, had a great comeback in the first challenge and won their flint, pot and machete as a reward, while the other two tribes got nothing. When the six members of Gata got to their camp, they gathered in the ocean to get to know each other, and things still seemed OK for Jon. He mentioned he was a speech writer and a podcast host — I probably would’ve left out the part that I was a speech writer, but at least he didn’t say “for Obama” — and his teammates didn’t seem to know exactly who he was, which I thought was probably a good thing. He seemed to get close with Andy; the two collected bamboo together, and Andy shared that he’s bisexual and Jon shared that he’s gay.
Jon did seem to have a little bit of trouble connecting with the rest of the tribe — they’re all a bit younger than he is, and it seemed to throw him off. “I’m not just trying to connect with a group of people,” he says in a confessional. “I’m trying to connect with a group of young people.” This follows a scene where everyone is reminiscing about Vine, and one tribe mate asks Jon if he knows what that is. Yikes! As a fellow elder millennial, I did share Jon’s feeling when he told the camera he felt kind of old.
Jon and Andy both seemed to be in trouble when the other four members of their tribe easily made an alliance while they were off together. But Jon’s fate was really sealed when Andy had a full-on meltdown after the immunity challenge. As it became clear his team was going to lose, and with his own perception of being on the bottom, Andy either overheated or had a panic attack (or both?) and had to lie down and have the medical team check on him. Once he regained his strength and was standing with his team at the end of the challenge, he gave a bizarre monologue about how he felt very unpopular on his team, how it was bringing back his childhood trauma, and that he was getting ready to throw his best friend Jon under the bus and vote him out. I have watched almost every season of “Survivor,” and it was truly one of the most uncomfortable things I’ve ever witnessed! Players on the other two tribes were visibly shaking their heads and putting their fingers to their lips, silently begging Andy to stop talking. At home on the couch, my wife and I mimicked these behaviors. I thought for sure Andy would be voted out, but alas, things didn’t go that way.
When the yellow tribe got back to camp, it suddenly became quite clear that Jon was going to go home. As soon as Jon was filmed in a confessional explaining that if he was going to be voted out first, he wanted to go out swinging, to experience “one glorious and perfect episode” — the title of episode one — I knew it was over for our guy. Of course he coined the title of the first episode. He’s got a way with words! Jeff Probst called him “one of the greatest storytellers that we will ever have on ‘Survivor.'”
I really feel for him because I don’t think it came down to gameplay at all. This early in the game, sometimes getting voted out first is just bad luck. And once I saw the votes cast, I realized that some of his tribe mates might have been downplaying that they knew exactly who he was — and how powerful he may have been as a player. At least one tribe member wrote “John [sic] Love-It” on their vote, so perhaps he didn’t fly under the radar as much as I initially hoped.
The most Jewish thing Jon did in his very short time on “Survivor” was speak with caution about bringing about the “evil eye.” Unfortunately, the evil eye found Jon anyway, and now he will no longer grace our TV screens every week of this “Survivor” season. Luckily, we can still find him on his podcast and online, and he has gone on record saying he would go on the show again. Maybe a redemption arc is in his future — fingers crossed. For now, I’ll be tuning in to the rest of the season and trying to figure out if any other cast members are Jewish to fill that Jon-shaped hole.
