Dwight Moore says Jeanine was not reaching for the idol at Tribal Council on Survivor 43
Dwight Moore thought he had outsmarted the competition this week on Survivor 43. He correctly surmised that James Jones had come into possession of a Knowledge is Power advantage and put into motion a plan to swap around trinkets so that James could not steal anyone's idol or advantage. But what Dwight did not anticipate was the knife stuck in his back from a member of his own pre-merge tribe.
With the vote seemingly trained on either James or Ryan Medrano, Cody Assenmacher and Jesse Lopez instead flipped the script to take out one of their Vesi own. On the plus side, at least Dwight made the merge. On the minus side, he came up just short in his bid to make the jury.
Adding some intrigue to Dwight's final moments was the fact that Jeanine Zheng — whose idol Dwight was holding — appeared to be asking for her idol back as the votes were being read, so he did not leave the game without it. Or so it seemed. We spoke to Dwight, who tels us Jeanine was not actually asking for the idol back. He explains what really happened, while also shedding light on Cody and Jesse's betrayal, the real story behind helping Baka in the challenge, and everything else that went down on the island. You can either watch the interview above or read it below.
Robert Voets/CBS Dwight Moore on 'Survivor 43'
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Okay, Dwight. Why are you here talking to me right now?
DWIGHT MOORE: I genuinely just got completely blindsided. Going into Tribal, I kind of knew I was catching a few votes just the way it was going, but I never imagined Jesse and Cody were gonna flip on me that day. So the blindside wasn't me getting votes. That was expected going in. The blindside was how many. I was like, "Oh, that's seven. That's not four, that's not five. That's interesting."
It's crazy how quickly things can change, because up to that point, no one had really thrown my name out outside of Cody. And then I was surprised that he threw it out at that point because the day before when we were at 13, I was putting in a lot of work trying to make sure he didn't even catch a vote as a stray. So I was confused.
I'm confused too. Why was it that Cody was targeting you?
From Vesi early on, I think you saw it in the episode when I came back from the journey, he didn't believe me about my story when I told the whole truth of what happened. He called me a strategist a lot, even on Vesi to my face.
Hey, better than being called a salesperson.
Yeah, salesperson gets you booed immediately. Strategist at least you stay for a few days. But I knew he was calling me that. Jesse warned me on day three or four, he's like, "Cody's calling your strategist around here." It was kind of frustrating, to be honest. We actually didn't talk game until day five and I talked game with everybody else on day one. But Cody didn't talk game with me or Noelle or Justine the first few days.
So the divisions were kind of clear pretty early on. But then, hitting the merge, it was like, "I trust Noelle, I trust Jesse, and Jesse and Cody work well together. So at that point, I know he might be a problem for me, but I can at least try and work with that. Even though we may not be the best of friends in the game right now, I still want to open that bridge to work with you. Unfortunately, it was not reciprocated, because the first chance he got, he got me out in the merge. Maybe I should have tried to get him out at 13, or even earlier.
What about the Jesse angle? He's trying to put you in the pineapple zone, whatever that is. He's comparing you to his wife, yet he clearly at every turn chose Cody over you. So what was your take on that relationship and how surprised were you when you realized he was team Cody?
So even when Vesi started, it was a pretty clear division of Jesse, Cody, Nneka, and then myself, Noelle, and Justine. And the bridge between that was Jesse and I. So when I lost my vote, of course they got power, those three. I risked my vote because I knew I was never going home since Jesse had my back. So when he lied to me about the Justine vote, I was frustrated, but I was like, I can't just be scorched earth and hate all these people. I gotta keep working with him.
So we wrote Nneka, and then from there we established it again. Hitting the merge, I'd forgiven him, which was to my detriment, but holding on to a grudge for that long can blind your game. So even though at that point I knew he lied to me once, I gotta go with the devil you know [versus] the devil you don't. These people on Coco and Baka are complete wild cards. We hit the merge, and Baka implodes within two seconds. I'm like, okay, this is very volatile. And Coco, they had their own drama as well.
It's like, okay, you know what? I can work with Vesi. I know them at this point. They've been honest with me. We were all honest about the journeys to each other. I guess Noelle lied to the boys, but she was honest with me, and Jesse came back and opened up his note publicly so I was like, I'll work with this.
Robert Voets/CBS Dwight Moore on 'Survivor 43'
You said Coco had their own drama. What was their drama?
Once we hit the merge, we found out that Ryan was on the outs of the Geo vote and that the first vote there was a split between Geo and Ryan and the rest of them. So it was like, okay, there's a split within Coco. And then the Baka chaos that happened at the merge meal thing. That was just a whole disaster.
Alright, we've got to get into the Tribal Council. First off, did you have Jeanine's idol with you at Tribal?
Yes. Lord, I wish I played it.
Did it ever enter your head to play it?
Of course it did. I was thinking, "Should I try and get the idol played?" But it was a risk to play the idol at that point because if I'm wrong, then I am playing someone else's idol incorrectly. So I come back with the people who tried to vote me out mad at me, and the people who trusted me mad at me. It's just a whole disaster.
If it was my idol that I found, I'd be like, "Cool, whatever. I don't even want one vote." But it becomes a problem when it's someone else's. Especially with the Knowledge is Power in play again, it just changes so many things with so many advantages in play.
I understand why you didn't play it, but we see you telling Jeanine as the votes are being read, "I got you" and "I see you, I see you." What did you mean by that?
I genuinely don't think I said that during Tribal. I think it was spliced in from somewhere else. But during Tribal, I was talking to Jeanine and Noelle — and this was before the votes were read, so it's during Tribal — I was talking to them like, "I think I'm catching five or six." And so to give more context, I knew Coco was all voting for me the whole day. That was pretty clear. And then minutes before Tribal, I see Sami and Cassidy talking, and then I see Sami get up, go to the beach, talk to James and Karla. So I was like, "Okay, I'm catching five." Because it was very obvious that he flipped on me.
So then I'm talking to Owen, "We need to undo the split. Could you put a vote on James instead? Because Baka's voting Ryan and Vesi's voting James." We didn't get to finish the conversation because we got sent to Tribal. So during Tribal, I try and talk to Jeanine. I'm like, "Okay, switch over to James," so that's chaos in itself. During Tribal, we were talking a bit, but it was really just like, "Okay, we're undoing the split," and they were saying "I got you. I think you're fine. I think you're fine."
Another reason the idol wasn't played was they were confident and I was thinking "Okay, maybe I'm just being paranoid." Because, of course, I can't have all the conversations myself. They had conversations as well on my behalf. So it's like, "Listen, if they believe in this, I'll trust them on this. I had their back before they had mine."
Robert Voets/CBS Dwight Moore and the Vesi tribe on 'Survivor 43'
It looks like as the votes are being read that Jeanine is reaching her hand behind her trying to get you to hand her the idol before you go, which is not allowed by the way. But did you notice her doing that? And if so, what was your reaction?
She was actually just patting my leg just to make sure I was okay. We talked about that. She wasn't reaching back to grab the idol because we all know the rules of once the votes start reading, you can't transfer anything. If I recall, once you start voting, idols and advantages stay where they are. They're locked in place. You're kind of in limbo in the game. You can't change anything about the game state.
So she was just trying to make sure I was doing great. She was like, "You're fine, you're fine, you're fine." Once I saw two votes for Dwight, I was like, "Okay, it's fine. I got three. Okay, four." And then I was like, "It could be me." And they're just like, "No, no, no, you're fine." You see Noelle and she's like, "Dwight, you're fine." And the fifth one comes up, they're just like, "Oh s---, he's definitely not fine." So yeah, they were just trying to cover me on that one. She wasn't actually reaching for the Idol.
That's interesting, because I thought she wanted you to give her the idol.
No, she wasn't asking for the idol back, she was just making sure I was doing okay. Just being a friend at that moment.
I want to go back to the challenge where you all decided to help Baka on the puzzle beat Coco. How did that begin?
Baka and Vesi started even before that. On the turtle puzzle — the second challenge that Vesi lost — Baka finished first, and Baka tried to help us with the turtle puzzle. We still lost the challenge. And then as they're choosing who goes on the journey, I look over to them like, "Send Noelle," and I mouth it to them and Sami and Elie see me and they send Noelle for me. At that point, Noelle goes on the journey, gets the steal a vote, and if Vesi goes to Tribal, we're completely safe because of the math and numbers. If you have a steal a vote and it's two to two, you can't lose.
So that saved my game for the pre-merge. I was like, "Okay, if we hit the merge with Baka's numbers as well, we can just run the game for a while." So Baka and Vesi, for me, was the optimal strategy. And then in parallel, Baka came to the same conclusion. Elie and Jeanine were like, "We need to work with Vesi because it gives us numbers."
It's funny, the Baca-Vesi alliance was set in stone separately at the same time. So that's why when we hit the double puzzle challenge, it was a no-brainer of, "Yeah, we're gonna help Baka win." Because, first of all, I'm not letting Coco hit the merge with six people again. We saw 41 and the winner came from a blue tribe with six people hitting the merge, so absolutely not. And two, they helped us on the turtle, so we owe them. We're gonna help them on this puzzle. And then at that point, we're not helping them with challenges anymore. But we owe them that and we can show them like, "Hey, we're trying to build trust with you guys."
So that was the vision behind trying to build some trust with people across the tribe, because you gotta take advantage of every moment that you can in this game to make allies. And if that can give me five allies hitting the merge, so be it. Now, I didn't know that they would implode the moment we hit the merge. But in a world where they don't, it works out a lot better.
Robert Voets/CBS Dwight Moore on 'Survivor 43'
What's something that happened out there that never made it to TV that you wish we had seen?
With the Knowledge is Power search, at the water well, it was me, James, Sami, and Owen. I actually got to the camp first [out] of the four of us. I had camp to myself. I was thinking about it, and I actually passed on Knowledge is Power. And then as I'm passing James, I tell him, "Hey, camp is open, you can grab it." So he goes up and grabs it, and at the same time I'm going to the beach and being like, "James has Knowledge is Power."
I see Knowledge is Power as kind of a flawed advantage when it's public because one, it's an advantage, so people without advantages are gonna wanna get you out. And two, Knowledge is Power by definition hurts people who have advantages. So if I grab Knowledge is Power, Cody and Jeanine — people who I want to work with — might have more incentive to get me out. So why would I want a target from the non-advantaged people and advantaged people. Why would I want an unnecessary target when, at this point, I'm just trying to maintain my allies. I don't want to give my allies a reason to target me. So Knowledge is Power, I just saw it as a major flaw. I didn't want it at all
And James is telling everyone about it!
That's the one thing you cannot tell. If I found the little note in secret, cool. But like I said, I found the note with Owen, Sami, and James. I only trusted Owen out of the three. So it's like, "I'm not gonna grab this. That's just asking to go home." And lo and behold, I went home, but for different reasons.
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