Nine years and eighteen seasons ago, Survivor: Cook Islands ended with one of the most fiery Final Tribal Councils of any season. And then there was the penultimate Tribal Council — you know, the one where Becky Lee and Sundra Oakley went head to head in a fire-making challenge that only ended after several hours and several wasted flints and matches.

Survivor: Worlds Apart featured a similar ending, albeit one with a bit more blaze to it. Rodney Lavoie Jr., the trash-talking Blue Collar from Boston and the founder of the so-called Axis of Evil alliance, lost his shot at the million dollar prize after being forced into a tie-breaking fire-making challenge at the final four. Rodney was one day away from standing before a jury of his peers, pleading his case to win the title of Sole Survivor. To this day, he believes he would have won. We will never truly know.

Rodney is not thrilled about the fire challenge. He is not comforted by the fact that he at least got some fires going here and there, unlike Becky and Sundra’s showing in Cook Islands. He’s up at night thinking about what would have happened given the chance to speak in front of the jury. As he said so often on the show, and as winner Mike Holloway reiterated in his interview with me, Rodney is a hustler. If only he could have hustled up with his fire.

Moments after the finale, Rodney and I caught up on the Worlds Apart red carpet and talked about…well, the fire, mostly.

You truly were fired from Survivor.

Do you understand, this is the hardest thing to deal with. Coming into this not as a superfan and not knowing too much about the history…I know about the Patriots history and Tom Brady and all that. But I didn’t know that Boston Rob’s the greatest and all that. I didn’t know there were other past players who did all their stuff. For me to make it as far as I made it? The best thing that Rodney does is eat food and talk [expletive]. I had one more day and that’s all I had to do, plead my case and then I’ll have it. You don’t get to plead your case on a fire challenge. When it comes to the fire challenge, it’s only happened, what, four or five times in the history of the game?

So what I can’t sleep with at night is how Carolyn broke her flint and she got another one. Watching it, and looking back on it, I was shocked. Everyone on the jury was absolutely shocked. Because…look, are you a Survivor fan? Do you know Cooks Island?

Of course!

So, in Cooks Island, you know how Becky and Sundra got into a fire challenge [at the final four]? They couldn’t get fire, and after an hour, they went from flint to matches. Sundra wasted all of her matches. Did Jeff go and give her more matches? No. She had to watch Becky just plant the fire.

In my case, we’re just stroking flints, and they went and gave Carolyn a fully working flint. For her to come and break it on her own, why would you reward her with another one? If you’re on Survivor and your shoes catch on fire, do you hand her some new shoes? If you misplace your rice, he takes the whole damn camp. If you lose the machete or you break it, is he going to give you another machete? So I feel like it was like the Tuck rule with Brady in ’01. Was it a fumble or was it not? [Editor’s note: Josh Wigler knows nothing about sports and cannot verify this comparison.]

I have to live with the fact that I didn’t get the chance to prove my point. If Mike had won and I would have lost? Man, you got me. I’m not bitter, man. I would take it with pride. But today, when Jeff asked the jury who they would’ve voted against me and Mike, it went 4-3 for Mike. But that’s after the show. Guess who raised her hand for me? Jenn Brown. She raised her hand and said she would have voted for me.

And who knows what you’re going to say when you get up there in front of the jury. You could have turned some heads.

Survivor is about what you say now. Jenn Brown goes out in the final episode talking about Mike and how he’s the best.

You did not seem to be buying that.

I didn’t seem to be buying that? No, because I wasn’t, because if I was there…I couldn’t wait to talk. Look, Mike, with his back up against the wall, I give him credit. I’ll tell you right now: Mike is a challenge beast. He is a savage. Back against the wall, he deserves that million dollars. But look at who he was up against. He didn’t get to go through the battle against Rodney. I was there with him from day one. I knew Mike’s every last move from when he pissed off Lindsey with the rice, to where he got Kelly voted out and he changed up the vote and Kelly went home, I knew all the bad social moves he made with the auction and love letters.

Those love letters? People don’t understand. You as a Survivor fan, you’re just watching it and thinking, “Man, what a strong strategic move Mike made!” But in the game, when that’s the only thing you have, before immunity challenges…Sierra, Carolyn, we’re all reading our love letters. They mean everything. I took that and said, “We cannot let him disrespect our families like that.” And look what happened! We gunned for him! I made everybody wanna get Mike out of this damn game. We all came together, but his back was against the wall and he won.

But my social game was unbelievable man. And Mike will tell you that in his interviews. He’ll tell you how I came into this game confident. He’ll tell you that he had his back up against the wall and he did what he had to do, but Rodney’s a gamer, man. He said in the edit that I’m a goat. I ain’t no damn goat, that’s for sure.

Look, I’ve asked a bunch of people about you as they came off the show, and most of them said the same thing.

Like Hali! She said, “Who’s the most underestimated player in this game? Rodney.” Even Shirin! She gave me a reference to Harry Potter, of some guy who was a dominant man or whatever. I don’t know Harry Potter neither, but…

You were the bad guy in her comparison. But you were the bad guy.

What was his name?

Voldemort.

Yeah. The guy who led a group of people and [expletive] like that? Yeah. That’s what I was doing. Look, you play for a million bucks, brother. Outside of the game, let’s rip shots, let’s party. Let’s have a good time. But when you’re playing a game for a million dollars? This game’s cutthroat. Check your feelings and emotions at the door.

I love that you went back and watched Survivor: Cook Islands. Did someone say to you, “Rodney, go watch Cook Islands. You’ll feel better”?

No. I took it upon myself. What I did was I looked up fire challenges and found out that Cooks Island was the last one. I looked up the YouTube video and was like, “Dude. Wait a minute. Is there a double standard here?”

But come on. It has to make you feel a little bit better. You weren’t that bad.

I almost had the fire started! It was so close. It shouldn’t have even got to that, after she broke it. Like Becky and Sundra, if you’re not going to give her matches, then you can’t give [Carolyn] flint. But let’s flip it. Let’s say with Becky and Sundra on Cooks Island, if he gave her matches, then it would have been cool, because you gave her matches.

So, what you’re saying is, we have a bone to pick with Probst.

We have a little bone. Just a tiny bone.

We have a tiny bone.

But let me just get this on record, and you better put this in your [expletive] article. I would not be here without Jeff Probst. And what he did for me for my birthday, giving me a signed autograph by him, and giving me a birthday cake, is the best thing that I’ll ever celebrate for the rest of my life, that I had somebody that the whole world looks up to in the best reality show of all time to take time out of his day to give me a damn birthday cake on live television. I love that man.

All of this, this is me just keeping it real. You gotta plead your case and why you think…I played this game and gave you blood, sweat and tears. I made it all the way to day 38. I have to bring up the fact that I got tied into something that doesn’t happen very often. If I got voted out, I would’ve said, you guys got me. I didn’t get got, though. I got out fired.

Josh Wigler is a writer, editor and podcaster who has been published by MTV News, New York Magazine, Comic Book Resources, Digital Trends and more. He is the co-author of The Evolution of Strategy: 30 Seasons of Survivor, an audiobook chronicling the reality TV show’s transformation. Josh hosts podcasts about film and television on PostShowRecaps.com.

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