One bad decision can haunt you forever.

Not only is that the theme of the season, but a sign brandishing those haunting, painted words warn the temporary residents of Ghost Island to beware of every choice they make. And those words seemed to have spooked “Survivor” super-fan Kellyn Bechtold, Ghost Island’s most recent exile.

To ensure that the tightknit old Naviti within the new Malolo had the numbers, Kellyn decided not to sacrifice her vote at the next Tribal on a game of chance for a potential advantage. It was one of many game-changing decisions made in the episode.

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Domenick decided to disclose his idol​ to Laurel.

Michael decided to play his idol for the tribe.

Sebastian and Chelsea decided to hold fast.

Chris decided to reveal that he liked himself.

The editors decided to surprise the hell out of us.

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After a nail-biting Immunity Challenge, where Naviti made an incredible comeback to win, Malolo was sent to Tribal. Old Tribal alliances split the tribe 5-4, and even Michael’s Oscar-deserving performance of a double-idol bluff couldn’t stop his ally Brendan from getting his torch snuffed.

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Here’s what the high school gym teacher had to say after his boot episode:

Who came up with the plan of how to use James Clement’s idol?​

The overall approach of getting up and waving the idol around and threatening Naviti was something that Michael and I cooked up, but the part about pretending the idol had extra powers, and it was good to protect two people — that was Michael. He came up with that on his own and I thought it was a pretty savvy play. I was impressed.

In hindsight, do you think there might have been a better way to play it?

Yeah, you know, it all happens fast out there. The other way to play it would be rather than saying, “Hey, we’re putting all our votes on Bradley” would be to say, “We’re all going to vote for one of you” and that might have caused a greater stir, but in the end I don’t know that it would have made a difference. I think they felt like they had a plan, that we didn’t know who they were going to vote for. I think they felt pretty good about their chances and as they turned out, they were right.

After you called Jacob out for not having the paper to go with his fake idol, how worried were you that the old Naviti would ask to read Michael’s paper and expose its true power?

We considered it, but the real story is with James and the Immunity Idol, it actually came with two letters. The first one was the standard one that says, “This is an Immunity Idol.” The second one was a letter that basically gave the story of the James idol… or idols, but it started out, the first line was, “This is an Immunity Idol.” So we had two pieces of cloth that each said, “This is an Immunity Idol.” Originally the plan was, we were going to try to make a fake idol, wrap it in the second cloth and then it would look as though we had two. Things got in the way and to make long story short we weren’t able to make that second, that fake one. So regarding whether people would believe Michael about the idol covering two people, you’d have to ask him because that was actually something he came up with on the fly and I didn’t even know about it until he started talking. I knew that wasn’t true. I knew the power of that idol, but I didn’t know that he was going to try to make it seem as though it protected two people.

Would you still consider it cursed?

No (laughs). I’m not a big curse guy. I think we kind of make our luck, but certainly if you buy into all that, I would say that we certainly didn’t reverse any curse because one of the good guys still went home.

After seeing the episode, who do you credit for your demise?

I think that it’s equal. Des was the one who threw my name out, so good for her on that — that was news to me I didn’t know until I watched it last night. I really credit Kellyn and Bradley for the most part. I think they were kind of leading that group of five. They were the ones that were kind of reining them in, and you know, we pinned it all on Bradley last night. We needed someone to have a target, but I think it’s equal parts Kellyn and Bradley running the show and doing a really good job of keeping Des, Chelsea and Sea Bass all on the same page.

What bad decision did you make that will haunt you forever?

As weird as it sounds for someone who went out forced in Survivor, I felt like my decision-making all along the way was pretty good. It’s just the execution wasn’t there. There were opportunities for me to do better. I could have done better in that last immunity challenge and I had a chance to close it out and I didn’t do it. I could have done a better job of convincing Michael to play the idol on me. So it wasn’t so much decision-making as it was execution in my case.

Other than not winning, what “Survivor” milestone are you most upset you won’t be able to experience?

I wanted to know what it was like to win an individual immunity challenge.

What was it like being at home finally watching a season of “Survivor” you’ve been on?

To be honest, I don’t even know that it’s sunken in yet. It doesn’t feel real. I don’t think I’ve absorbed it all. It doesn’t even seem real, even though I’ve watched all of my episodes, it still has not sunk in.

How hard was keeping this all a secret from your students?

They asked me every day! I wasn’t able to tell them where I was until CBS released the cast, so that wasn’t too long ago. And since that happened I would get questions every day, every class period from students about how I did and whether I won. So I guess I don’t have to answer those questions anymore.

How prepared are you for the grief you’ll get teaching basketball?

Oh it’s coming, it’s coming. It’s alright. The thing is, I can still take any one of them one-on-one.

Looking back, how would you have trained for “Survivor” differently?

I probably would have come in about five pounds heavier. I think that would have made a bit of a difference. I made a conscious decision to try to slow my metabolism and get used to being able to doing a lot of hard work off less calories, so it wouldn’t be as much of a big shock out there, and that was the wrong move. I just should have come in a little heavier so I had more fat stores to burn off in those first couple weeks.

How has your passion for “Survivor” changed since playing?

If anything it’s intensified. I went out of the game on my birthday, on my 41st birthday, and I have thought about playing and how I could go out there and win the game every day since.

How low can a Malolo go, when a Malolo goes so low?

(Laughs) The Malolos can fly pretty Ma-high-high. We’ll have to reserve judgment and see, but I like my group. They’re a gritty bunch. Hopefully you can see that from the edit. It’s a tough bunch of people.

Watch “Survivor” Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Global and catch the full episodes here.