What To Know
- Survivor has replaced in-person loved ones’ visits with letters from home since Season 41.
- Letters from home came back in Survivor 49 Episode 12 on December 10.
- On the On Fire aftershow podcast, Jeff Probst addressed the possibility of bringing back family set visits.
Visits from loved ones used to be a Survivor highlight. And often, seeing their families gave players the last push they needed to keep fighting to make it to the end. Loved ones’ visits have been absent in the new era (since Season 41), but letters from home are still part of the game. That was the reward in Survivor 49 Episode 12, which aired on December 10.
Savannah Louie, Rizo Velovic, and Sophi Balderi got to reap that reward after Savannah won the challenge and brought two people with her to enjoy the prize. On the On Fire podcast, Jeff Probst was asked if the loved ones’ visits could ever return. He gave a hopeful answer.
Jeremy Collins, winner of Season 31 (the Second Chance season), is co-hosting On Fire with Probst and Jay Wolff this season. He said in the December 10 episode, “My loved one’s visits, I had two of them, and I would say top five moments in my life.” He keeps a picture from one of those visits on a wall in his home. Wolff popped the question about whether this reward could come back one day.
“Yeah, they could. For real, they could,” Probst answered. “It’s not that we don’t want to do them. We have been watching what the letters do, and the letters are a different experience, but a lot of the players say that in some ways it’s more powerful because you’re looking at handwritten letters and you’re seeing your dad’s penmanship and you’re like, ‘Oh, my dad took time to write this letter. He doesn’t have time for anything.’”
That was the case with Rizo in Episode 12. He was brought to tears by his father’s letter.
Probst said that whether or not the in-person loved ones’ visits return, “love in some form will almost always be part of the show.”
Survivor, Season 49 Finale, Wednesday, December 17, 8/7c, CBS
