Emily Flippen had a plan on this week’s episode of Survivor 50, and that plan involved using Rick Devens’ love of theatrics to convince the others that he was going to play his immunity idol on her. Then they would put their votes on Rick (who would play the idol on himself), and the duo could blindside Cirie Fields. What they didn’t know, however, is that Cirie had an extra vote, and she used it to force a tie and then take Emily out on the revote.

It was the end of a topsy-turvy run for Emily, who kept spreading information all over the camp, whether it helped or hurt her main allies. Was there a method to her loose-lipped madness? Did she think her final gambit would work? And what was it like having a front-row seat to Ozzy’s blindside? We asked Emily all that and more, and you can watch or read the entire interview below.

EMILY FLIPPEN: Well, I’ll tell you what, I’m feeling relieved right now that the loudmouthery has come to an official end, I guess. But honestly, I’m so thankful to have had the opportunity to play season 50, obviously. Same with 45. I think I lasted probably a lot longer than I should have. And getting to play alongside so many greats is really an honor.

How were you feeling about your chances of staying walking into that Tribal Council?

Not great. I think I’d give myself probably, in my head, a 65, 70 percent chance of leaving. I remember at one point somebody asked, “Don’t you think you have better odds with your Shot in the Dark?” And I remember thinking to myself, “I probably do. Like, a one-in-six chance probably feels better than whatever I’m walking into.” But it didn’t feel like me. Out of all the ways to go out, I kind of wanted to go out fighting and swinging. And I knew that if that plan had worked on the off chance that it did, that Hail Mary shot could potentially be a game-winning move for myself if I stuck around. So I’d decided I’d rather take the swing. But I had the awareness that it was very unlikely to succeed.

Was there ever a point where you legitimately asked Rick to play his idol on you? Or did you kind of know that was off the table?

I kind of felt it was off the table. I didn’t think it was a realistic thing that Rick would be willing to do, especially given the fact that he knew the target was on his back so heavily. So in my mind, I thought my best opportunity was to benefit from the aggressive amount of focus and hatred that there was for Rick and see if I could use that to my advantage. But no, I never seriously considered asking him to play the idol on myself.

Were your surprised Rick still voted for Cirie on the revote even though your fate was sealed at that point?

Yes. There was no doubt in my head. Nobody else was going to flip on a revote. So the moment that the extra vote came out, I knew my time was done, but we did have to go revote. And Devens had already kind of made his bed with Cirie by going along with my crazy plan and voting for her once. So I fully expected Rick to vote me off to try to save some face because he has to go back to camp with those guys. And when I saw that he voted for Cirie a second time, I looked over at him like, “Man, you really are crazy.”

During the voting, you guys don’t know there’s an extra vote out there. So during the voting, were you starting to think like, “Oh my God, we’ve done it! We’ve got her! We did it!”

Yes. There was a half-second there when I was counting, the votes are coming out, and I’m thinking to myself, “Oh my gosh, did this plan work?” I look over, I think I’m smiling. I’m like, “Holy…” And the moment Jeff [Probst] said, “One vote left.” And then we realized it wasn’t gonna work. And at the time, obviously I had no idea where the extra vote had come from.

So you get your torch snuffed and Jeff tells you to immediately go sit on the jury. Did they at least give you like a protein bar or something before that second Tribal Council started?

I was shocked, actually. I started to walk down the path and Jeff was like, “Nope, nope, other way, other way.” But no protein bar. But thankfully Christian did lean over to me and he said, “What can I have waiting for you at Ponderosa when you get back?” And I said, “An entire bottle of wine, please.” And when I got there, apparently the bartender said, “No, you get a glass of wine.” But it was a great-tasting glass of wine.

I know you don’t have a stopwatch out there, but how much time after your Tribal ended before the second group walked in?

That’s a great question. Virtually immediately. I mean, maybe five to 10 minutes in between. You do a couple of re-setups where you’re making sure that the cameras are positioned well for the next group of people that come in, but they were ready to go virtually immediately. So I had very little time to process it. And then to come back and suddenly you’re on the jury and I’m watching everybody else vote and I’m listening to them almost like in the third person. I was just there a second ago, and now I’m over here. It was a jarring experience.

How awkward was it from your seat on the jury watching Ozzy in an absolute daze after getting voted out?

It was heartbreaking. That’s the only word to use. I was not expecting that. Now, obviously I was not clued in on the conversations that were happening between Tiffany, Jonathan, and Cirie. But in my mind, I thought for sure Aubry was a dead man walking. So when I saw the votes for Ozzy, I was shocked. And honestly, the first thought in my head was, “I have to ride back in a boat with this guy. That’s gonna be a weird boat ride.”

Tell me what that was like at the challenge when Tiffany was declared the winner, but then Jeff has to go consult with everyone watching and then disqualifies her and gives it to Jonathan. How long did that process take?

It took a while. I wish I had the exact stopwatch here, but we got back and almost virtually immediately as Jeff is saying the rules of what we’re doing next, there was a pause. “Okay, wait, we’re going back. We’re looking at the footage.” And it probably took a good 10 or so minutes of sitting there on that bench while we waited for judge, jury, and executioner to come back with their verdict. And obviously, unfortunately for Tiffany, they deemed that I guess she didn’t lift her foot up in time.

Were you guys trying to figure it out or were you all on lockdown? Were you on ice?

We were on lockdown. On ice. Yeah. And you don’t wanna show your hand too much, so I think a lot of people were just like, “I’m gonna be quiet about how I feel about this until I actually know how it’s gonna end.”

Okay, how much of you telling everyone everything this season was strategic, and how much was you just being unable to keep a secret?

I really wish that I could say that it was a mastermind plan that involved me just spilling the beans to everybody. But my gosh, I mean, virtually none of it was strategic. I’m trying to think of a single time where that was a thought process in my head.

To put it nicely, if I’m trying to be generous to myself, I would say I’m a verbal processor. And sometimes it’s hard for me to catch up to what’s going on unless I can talk about it with somebody to probably be more realistic. I think Christian said it best when he said, “Emily has foot-in-mouth syndrome.” Like, that’s a very real thing for me. And I think I am maybe more impulsive than I initially realized heading into the season.

So a lot of what I was doing, I think was thoughtless, it was careless, it was impulsive. I found it frustrating, if everybody else did too. I promise you, I was watching the TV screaming at myself every week being like, “Emily, for once in your life can you just keep your mouth shut?” I did not realize the verbal diarrhea was such a problem until this season. Goodness gracious.

Well, it’s funny because everyone loved your arc on Survivor 45, but as we’ve talked about before, I actually love the original Emily 1.0 and it was because of that impulsivity. It was because you would just blurt out at Bruce at the Marooning or apply to the show because you were mad Gabler won. So it was nice to see that come out in an albeit different way maybe than we did the first season.

Yeah, I think I said this at the end of 45, but I always felt like the edit on 45 was particularly generous to me. And what you saw this season I think was accurate to how I played this season. But I definitely think that by the time that I was voted off on 45, you almost kind of didn’t recognize the person that I was. Not in a bad way. It was one element of what I was, but I felt more toned down, more neutered than I would be if I was just kind of being my unfiltered self. And I would say for better or worse — I think it’s for worse this season — I was my unfiltered self. And, as chaotic as I was, obviously, I think I had a lot more fun playing season 50 as a result. I guess that’s my takeaway.

You told me before the game that “I feel like the lesson that I left people with was that you had to change or pretend to be somebody else in order to do well. And that’s not really my experience or the lesson that I want to leave people with.” What lesson do you think you left people with this time around?

Uh, keep your mouth shut or all your friends are not gonna talk to you anymore? I went out on the same exact day I did on 45, and placement-wise with the number of people in the cast, I think it’s almost exactly the same with seventh in a cast of 18 and ninth in a cast 24. It’s weirdly similar. And so I guess I would like to think maybe if I’m being generous, the takeaway is you can just be yourself. Even if yourself is bad at playing Survivor, you still do as well as you did when you tried to shut up and play a better game. I don’t know. That is for somebody else to dissect. I’m gonna compartmentalize this.

But you said that you had more fun this time.

I did. I had a lot more fun. And I actually give a lot of credit to people like Rick and Christian and Cirie — people I played with who were just so much fun to be around. And there was a very real moment, especially after Christian was voted off where I thought to myself, “Man, if Rick isn’t here I don’t even think I wanna go back to camp, because all the fun would be gone.”

I don’t even know if you thought about it in these terms, but whom did you consider your number one out there? Was it Rick? Was it Christian? Obviously you and Dee have a relationship going. Was it someone else?

I don’t know if I ever put numbers on it, but virtually immediately there was an alliance between myself, Rick, Christian, and Cirie. And then we thought to ourselves, “We can use Joe as a number because he’s obviously very transparent and honest and we can get him on our side.” And that was kind of my core alliance.

I felt probably closest with Christian because I ended up tribe-swapped with Christian. He went through the ringer with me, built up a lot of trust going to so many Tribal Councils together. So I guess if I had to put a number on it in hindsight, that would probably be Christian. But that was really the core alliance that I was working with, and I was hoping to have these one-off relationships with other people, with Dee being a good example that could help me diversify or benefit. I just don’t ever think I really got legs with those relationships.

What is it like playing with Joe, because we’ve seen a lot of frustration from a lot of contestants when it comes to playing with him?

You know what? I feel the same way about Joe as I do myself. Part of the game of Survivor is learning to play around other people and their strategies, or lack thereof. Lots of people learned to play around my loudmouthiness, my chaos. And that doesn’t mean that it’s a smart move on my part, but it does mean that that is part of the game of Survivor.

And I think Joe is also a great example of that. You have to have people with different personalities who have different perspectives on the game, because if everybody comes in with the same exact mindset, then that’s not really much of a game of Survivor at all. So I actually really value Joe. I think he’s a lovely guy. I like the way he plays Survivor. I think it’s unique. I think it adds dynamicism, for lack of a better word, to the game. I hate to insult him like this, but I kind of see elements of myself in Joe.

Okay, Amazing Race team-up ready to go.

Oh gosh. He would kill me.

What’s something that happened out there that didn’t make it to TV that you wish we had seen?

Unfortunately, I think we all saw a lot more of me and my game than maybe I wanted to. So the thing that maybe stands out to me is just how chaotic the relationships were. And I think the editors are doing their best to kind of capture this. And I think with the MrBeast episode, that was perhaps a great example of collecting some of this chaos, but the alliances this season and the relationships were very shifting.

And I always felt like I had a good relationship with Joe. That was, of course, never shown, but I think it’s that times 100. I mean, you wake up one day and suddenly Tiffany and Cirie are like attached to the hip — that wasn’t really explained or shown as deeply as I think maybe it was felt on the island. The changing tides to the relationships and alliances out there in season 50 was dramatically different than my experience on 45, in which lots of people had very tight relationships that were not changing day by day.