A Survivor 46 Contestant Had An All-Time Meltdown Over Applebee’s, But Many Fans Were Less Than Sympathetic

The subject of food is always a touchy one on Survivor, especially as the show goes on. Weeks of high stress, dealing with eccentric people and not eating enough can make food-involved reward challenges sometimes feel even more high stakes and tense than immunity challenges. Last night’s episode was a good reminder of that when one contestant had an all-time meltdown over not being picked to eat an Applebee’s burger. Her furious tirade will no doubt live on in references and clips for decades, but the reaction online was less than sympathetic.

Spoiler Alert: This article contains a lot of conversations about what happened during last night’s reward challenge but also some conversation later in the article about tribal council and what happened. So, if you’re not caught up, bail on this article or watch the video and don’t read the analysis below it.

Before we get to the video, let’s add a little context, as this meltdown didn’t come out of nowhere. Because of a variety of food issues and allergies, Liz Wilcox hasn’t eaten much since landing on the island. She can’t do the coconuts and as a result, she has consumed less than her fellow players, who already haven’t been eating much and are getting skinnier by the day. So, she walked into this reward challenge and found out the winner got to eat a full meal from Appelbee’s, including a Bourbon Street Mushroom Swiss Burger. In a wild plot twist you’d never see coming, Liz apparently goes to Applebee’s every single Wednesday with her daughter and orders this exact burger, which had her feeling all kinds of hungry and homesick.

Unfortunately for her, she lost the immunity challenge. Q won. He was then asked to pick people to join him on the reward. Liz, who had been direct about how hungry she was and how much she loves Applebee’s, openly begged at one point to be taken, but Q instead picked Tiff, Maria and Kenzie. Host Jeff Probst asked a visibly distraught Liz how she felt about not being picked, and she just exploded, unleashing hell on Q for now only not picking her but also his actions earlier in the game which she felt led to her being on the outs with the rest of the tribe. She later joked it was more than she yelled during her divorce. You can watch the full rant below…

Now, first, let me offer a little bit of sympathy for Liz. Not eating sucks. Players are always more emotional and quicker to anger when they haven’t been fed, and she’s eaten less than almost any Survivor player ever has up to this point in the game. I also completely get the personal connection with Applebee’s. I don’t have the same affinity for that chain, but if I was on Survivor and Jeff was teasing Boston Market or Panda Express, I’d be even more emotionally invested than usual in winning. I also understand the collective frustration everyone has for Q when he’s single-handedly torpedoed plans that were in the works and generally acted very messy during his time on the island. Because of all that, it would be weird if Liz wasn’t frustrated about not being picked.

But the problem is Liz responded to the situation (and again in numerous confessionals and conversations on the island) as if she was entitled to be picked. She acted like Q personally stole food from her when the fact of the matter is she was last or second to last throughout most of the challenge. She had a chance to win and didn’t, and on top of that, it’s not like she’s been BFFs with Q throughout the game. He pointed out that she voted for him at the last tribal council, but to her, that didn’t seem a reason enough to not pick her. Here’s an example of a tweet that was very common on social…

There were also a lot of people on Survivor Twitter talking about production’s role in all of this. Why would the producers cast Liz and put her on the island if her allergies legitimately don’t allow her to consume almost any of the food? It seemed like Jeff was really leaning into Q and coaxing him to pick Liz, but many feel it’s not a player’s responsibility to ensure another player is eating. Instead, it’s Q’s responsibility to pick whatever is best for his game, and if Liz went on the island knowing she can’t eat any of the food, then that’s ultimately on her. Here’s an example tweet…

It’s also not Q’s fault that Liz is seemingly on the outs with the rest of the tribe. She clearly doesn’t have that close of a relationship with the other players. Yeah, her blindside of Tevin didn’t come across exactly how she wanted on her resume because he made tribal council weird, but that doesn’t explain why the other castaways felt the need to keep her out of a future vote. Clearly, she’s not as close with anyone as she thinks she is. Throwing that entirely on Q just feels like a big excuse.

Meltdown aside, however, Liz survived to see another day and is now, potentially, in a way better position than she was before. Despite her very loud issues with Q, she swallowed her anger later in the episode and saved Q by voting out Tiffany instead. The goal was to flush her idol, and that happened. So, while Liz was frustrated about being left out of the previous vote, she was very much the swing vote here, which could put her in a position to resuscitate her game. I’m not optimistic about her chance of winning given the public blow-up and the fact that she doesn’t seem that close to many of her tribemates, but her chances of being a low vote finalist are seemingly rising by the day, whether fans on the internet have sympathy for her or not. 

You can catch new episodes of Survivor 46 on CBS on Wednesday nights. This season has been a wild ride, to the point where not even news of returning players on Season 50 has lessened the emotional investment from fans, but after watching must-watch moments like this meltdown, it's easy to see why.