For Joe Hunter and Eva Erickson, the cameras had lengthy pale away by the point of their memorable second in Survivor 48’s milestone Episode 5, throughout which Jeff Probst cried on-camera for the primary time within the present’s historical past. Eva, Survivor‘s first brazenly autistic participant, skilled what she known as an “episode” after a very tough immunity problem. Joe, her No. 1 ally and the one particular person with whom she had disclosed her autism, had been placed on one other crew for the problem, stopping him from supporting her in the course of the occasion.
When her breakdown continued post-game, Jeff let Joe go to her. What occurred subsequent introduced the host to tears. Survivor is nominated for 4 Emmys this yr, together with Excellent Host and Actuality Competitors Program. As voting involves a detailed, Joe and Eva replicate on this standout episode from Survivor 48 within the video interview above.
Eva’s frustration boiled over in the course of the recreation as a result of she was holding up her crew. Her lifetime of enjoying sports activities meant that the frustration of failing your crew was a well-recognized feeling, she tells TV Insider. And nothing on set — be it the cameras surrounding them or the watchful eyes of her opponents — contributed to Eva’s fears within the second. She was laser-focused on not letting her crew down. The problem required guiding balls by way of a movable tabletop maze, however the maze had a number of openings that might ship the ball rolling again to the start, forcing the participant to start out over. Eva simply couldn’t get a grip on the sport. When she lastly bested it, her feelings spilled over into an emotional meltdown.
Eva knew going into Survivor 48 that she’d want to seek out one tribe member she might belief with the main points of her autism, and she or he shortly put her belief in Joe. She selected proper, as he was keen to assist her by way of that powerful problem utilizing the compression strategies she informed him about. Joe watched in ache as Eva couldn’t cease crying. Her teammates tried to assist, however solely Joe was informed what precisely would assist her in that second. With Jeff’s permission, Joe ran over to Eva and gave her a giant hug. It was the bodily compression that helped Eva actually decompress. Squeezing her fingers had the identical impact.
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It’s an enormous threat to disclose your closest alliance to anybody in Survivor, and Joe and Eva did so in entrance of each single different participant within the recreation. The publicity places a goal on each of your backs, however the duo says that this second was so highly effective, it was simple to let their alliance be proven and navigate the implications collectively. Joe was able to be eradicated for serving to Eva and exposing their friendship. “I’m going residence for this,” he recollects considering, however he didn’t care. He simply needed to indicate the gamers how you can assist Eva in case she wanted it later. “It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, she wants me.’ I do know she’s acquired this, as a result of she’s so aggressive,” he explains. “However I don’t take pleasure in seeing somebody I care about wrestle both.”
Survivor is a tough recreation of social politics, the place you must stability being genuine sufficient to be preferred and trusted with sufficient secrecy to maintain your subsequent strikes hidden. On a private stage, the sport is usually a profoundly transformative expertise. It’s not as frequent for gamers to have these moments with different individuals, and particularly not in entrance of each single different participant without delay. These are sometimes the moments that come from solo journeys or some form of privateness or isolation.
The truth competitors collection has produced boatloads of uncooked emotion in its 25 years on-air, however this second with Joe and Eva was certainly one of its most absolutely bared moments of authenticity. It’s an instance of how Survivor, even within the early phases of gameplay, strips you to your emotional core and forces you to behave on intuition — and a reminder that despite the fact that Survivor‘s been round for 20 years, it’s nonetheless one of many few locations on actuality TV the place you’ll get such profound shows of vulnerability.
Eva explains how precisely the squeezing helped her on this highly effective second. “Compression has all the time been one thing, since I used to be somewhat child, that has helped me keep grounded,” she says. “Having that squeeze, telling Joe to take my fingers, him hugging me very tight, that helps carry me again to actuality. I can visually image that my mind is all out right here, and by squeezing me in, you’re holding all that stuff inside, and I get to return down once more.” The compression made her really feel “heat” and reset. And she or he beams with appreciation and gratitude for her pal within the video above as he shares what he felt internally throughout that scene.
“I’ve by no means felt so related to somebody that was going by way of one thing with two individuals simply attempting to navigate by way of it along with no agenda,” Joe explains. “It’s these moments the place generally you place your arm round a pal at a funeral. You lean in, and there’s nothing extra to say besides you’ll be able to really feel one another’s breath sample and there’s simply this second the place you change development collectively. That’s one of the best ways for me to explain it. It was this change between two souls.” He says it was a pure second of “therapeutic” for each of them.
Jeff wept after listening to Joe and Eva clarify what they’d simply watched. It made him consider his household and the way he’d need his children cared for on the earth. “That’s when it hit that individuals are going to be impacted by this,” Eva recollects. “If Jeff is tearing up, the world, once they see this, they’re going to be impacted as effectively, which was such a wild factor to appreciate whereas I’m out on an island so far-off from civilization.”
“For [Jeff] to expertise it with us, to let himself expertise it with us, I’m so grateful that he did that,” Joe provides.
Study extra about this memorable Survivor episode within the full video interview above. Joe can be again in Survivor 50 in 2026.
Survivor, Season 49 Premiere, Wednesday, September 24, 8/7c, CBS