‘Survivor 51’: Alexis Levine Reveals Her Real-Time Reaction to Linnea’s Elimination

Alexis Levine and Linnea Capobianco were each other’s number-one allies in Survivor 51. They never expected to be voted out in the same episode. Alexis’ elimination came first in Survivor 51 Episode 5, followed by Linnea’s. What connects their two tribal councils is the fact that Alexis unsuccessfully tried to orchestrate a deadlock tie that would trigger a rock draw, and that wound up being the exact circumstances of Linnea’s elimination (read our exit interview with Linnea here).

After the swap from two tribes to three in Episode 4, Alexis and Jenna Doore wound up on the same team with the “helicopter alliance” that is Devin Way, Jelly Loblack, and Ori Jean-Charles. Neither had any clue of the bad luck they had with this swap. Alexis survived their first tribal as the new Toka tribe, but she was on the chopping block next. Alexis tells TV Insider that she had a much closer relationship with Ori than the episodes showed, which made her hopeful that he would join her in the wild plan to force a tie and go to rocks.

Here, Alexis reveals how she reacted when she saw Linnea walk out of tribal council as she waited to be taken to Ponderosa. Plus, she details what we didn’t see from her friendship with Ori that inspired her tribal strategy.

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What stuck out to me with this episode is that you wanted to go to rocks, the other tribe went to rocks, and you and Linnea were really close. Linnea got voted out by the threat of a rocks draw. She just told me that you were shocked to see her after tribal. How did you react?

Alexis Levine: I got voted out, I’m sitting, and they said to me, “You actually have to wait for the other tribal.” I’m like, “Oh my God, are you kidding me? Give me food.” I’m really not even thinking about what’s going on. I’m assuming, yeah, Lewis [Kelly] or [Danny] Kilby, because that’s where the numbers were there. To see Linnea come out, the second that she walked into where I was, I was screaming, jaw dropped.

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On one hand, I could have cried to just see the one person who was really my closest friend in this game. On the other hand, I wanted to cry because I was shocked. How the hell did this turn around on her? It just made no sense.

How did you react when you heard the story of how she got voted out?

I was literally screaming. On one hand, I cursed Kilby and Lewis. On the other hand, I said, “I guess, good for them, major balls.” And you know what? That is what I was wanting to do for Ori. That’s where I thought things were going. I was prepared to do that, to save who I perceived as one of my own. It is funny that that’s how those two [votes] wound up.

Going into tribal, I though Ori was with me. And Dev and Jelly had said to me, “We were going to vote out Ori.” Of course, they were just telling me that as a decoy. In my mind, I didn’t just want to live through the night myself. I wanted both of us to make it through because if I made it through one night, what’s that going to get me? I’ll die the next night if it comes down to it.

I really, really was concerned with both of us making it through alive. From my perspective, I thought [Ori] was on the chopping block with me. I said to him, “Best-case scenario, Jelly votes with us.” We were working on that and I was hoping that that’s what would happen, but I was like, “Look, worst-case scenario, if they write your name down, Ori, I will go to rocks for you or to the part right before rocks where you are debating and pressuring each other.” I genuinely felt like I could do something there, but I didn’t get the opportunity.

Robert Voets/CBS

Did you feel that he would go to bat for you in the same way?

No, and he wouldn’t have, but that’s OK.

So, you were offering it to him hoping he might reciprocate it?

I thought that they were writing his name. Yeah, I hoped that he would reciprocate it. I feared that he wouldn’t, but I didn’t really care. I didn’t have a lot of options. That was the best I could offer, was to say, “Look, I’ll ride or die for you, period, because there’s no point in making it through by yourself.”

It’s a compelling offer. What conversations at camp made you trust the plan might work? You were not completely confident, but what gave you hope?

I don’t think they showed this as much, but me and Ori really were quite close. I had been with him from day one. On the original Savu tribe, I was in a four-person alliance. My number one really was Linnea, but then it was me, Linnea, Ori, and Sharonda. We really were tight.

I actually slept next to Ori every single night, and I would wake up in the morning and we would mutter some things to each other. It’s just a bond that builds from spending time on a damn island with another person. At that point in the game, he was who I had spent the most time with. When we got tribe swapped, it went from, I have multiple people who I care about, to this is my only person I’m going to cling to him for dear life, and I’m assuming that he’s doing the same, and he wasn’t.

Robert Voets/CBS

Did you have any clue about the helicopter alliance?

Zero clue whatsoever. I don’t blame them. Hats off to them. It’s funny. People have said to me, “How did you not know?” It’s based on something that you can see. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I did not clock it. Good for them. I’m not a person of color, so I don’t know what that’s like. Clearly, they had very strong bonds between them that I couldn’t relate to.

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Yeah, but also they weren’t telling anybody about their cross-tribe alliance, of course. When your tribe got put together with Jenna, I don’t think they were showing any hint of their alliance.

No, yeah.

It’s easy for viewers to say “it was right there,” but on the island, it must have not been clear at all.

In no way, shape, or form. And I really applaud Ori. He did a really good job at being strategic there and acting. I don’t blame him for doing that. He did a good job.

Did watching the episode teach you anything you didn’t know about your elimination? I imagine you found out about the helicopter alliance pretty soon after.

Not necessarily about my elimination. I think it was pretty straightforward. It came down to the helicopter alliance, so I found out about that pretty quickly and everything made sense once I found out about that. But watching back, it makes you realize your qualities in yourself.

It makes me realize who I thought I was is actually who I am, which is just somebody who’s always fighting until the very end, trying to protect the people that I love, defending people. That’s just who I am, and that’s who I was every minute on that island. I’m happy.

Robert Voets/CBS

You opened up at the beginning of this episode about your sobriety and your experience with addiction in the past. Was that the first time you had opened up to anyone on Survivor about that, or is it just the first time we saw it?

It was the first time that it was aired. On the first Savu tribe, I did have a long conversation one night on the beach with Sharonda and with Linnea. It was not just me, but all of us just talking about our lives and our childhoods and everything.

When you’re out on an island with random people, you have no choice but to just become best friends with them. And that’s what we did. I do believe in being open to people. A lot of people have said, “Oh, you were lying about what you did for a living. Were you worried people wouldn’t get to know you?” But I feel like everybody got to know me and they didn’t know what I do every day.

Yeah. You’re not your job. You have a whole life outside of work.

Exactly.

And lying in Survivor is rule number one. You should do it.

One-hundred percent, yes.

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