She may not have been voted out but she definitely left her mark. Mackenzie Heck chats about her being murdered in a most unusual way and who she thought was a Traitor.
John Powell: How are you doing?
Mackenzie: I’m good. How are you?
John Powell: All right, thanks.
John Powell: Now you got to sit back and watch everything that’s happened. How are you feeling today about everything?
Mackenzie: Yeah. I mean, I’m definitely excited to see how the season plays out. 100%. It’s been so cool to see what they put together after living the experience. So, yeah, excited for sure.
John Powell: How did you feel at the time when you found out that the Traitors were going to be targeting you and three others?
Mackenzie: I mean, after being put in the grave and knowing what happens, it’s definitely nice now to know what their thought process that led to me being in the grave. So after seeing that, I mean, it’s good to have a little bit of that closure but like I said to some other people, it’s just kind of funny because in my real life not a single person in my life would describe me as quiet so it was kind of funny that I got thrown into that group. I think a lot of my strategy when playing the game I was definitely actively listening. A lot of the time I wasn’t completely quiet. I felt like I was still having conversations, a lot of conversations with people but I think I just wasn’t having conversations enough with the Traitors which led to me being labeled as quiet to them because I wasn’t too involved with chatting with them. There are 20 people there and it’s hard to get conversations with everybody. It’s still so early in the game so I just think I was falling under their radar, which led me to be one of the people that was being put into the grave.
John Powell: While you were in the grave there wasn’t really any kind of formal plan or strategy about who the players were going to save. Did that surprise you being down there?
Mackenzie: Yeah, no, it definitely did. Exactly like Shaughnessy said, I think I would have been on the same wavelength as her, of, like, “Guys, we should talk about this. Who are we going to save? Does anybody not trust somebody? Like, do we have a reason not to save one of these people in here?” I mean, them not talking about it definitely scared me a little bit and then, obviously, I wasn’t getting rungs in my grave. And I was like, “Oh, crap. Like, I think they think that I’m a Traitor.”
John Powell: Did you did you have any inkling about why they picked others over you? Was it the fact that you think they thought you were a Traitor?
Mackenzie: That’s the only thing that I had to go off of. I obviously knew that they had breakfast that morning and they had chats. So I was like, “Crap, like, maybe somebody brought my name up around breakfast, and I wasn’t there to defend myself.” I’m thinking all these things. What could it be? Obviously, we see now that the Traitors were kind of taking Thompson under their wing a little bit, you know what I mean? They kind of seemed like they wanted to use him as a shield later. It came down between me and Thompson and that was just the smarter pick for the Traitors. A lot of people are like, “It was up to the Faithfuls to decide who they wanted to stay,” but you’re forgetting that the Traitors are playing the mission too. So, they are also able to put rungs in people’s ladders and for me, I think it only showed that only Venus put a rung in my ladder. Like, Kevin… I don’t recall Kevin or Coco putting any in mine. They wanted to save Thompson because they needed him for later in the game. I just don’t think they could have used me as they seemed to want to use Thompson.
John Powell: It must have been very frustrating. Was there anything else you could do besides call out to them and, like, “Hey, give me a rung?”
Mackenzie: I mean, absolutely not. And, you know, it’s hard because I’m yelling, like, “Help me,” or, like, “Guys, am I Faithful?” But, people are also out there looking for rungs, so there aren’t even really people around. Nobody’s standing around being like, “Why should we save you?” People are out there running on the hills and trying to get these rungs. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much that I could do.
Sometimes I can’t even see who’s putting rungs in my hole because everybody is looking over and putting one in. Some people are just running by and dipping one in. I think it was also just a bit unlucky that I was in the grave furthest down, you know what I mean? There was a lot of running. It was a very physical challenge. So, I’m like, you could even hear them say, “Let’s just get the closest ones first,” you know? So I think I just really lucked out that I was in the furthest grave and that was the one that they wanted to do last.
John Powell: You must take some solace in the fact that you’re going to be one of the people who was never voted out of the game.
Mackenzie: I think it was a smart move for the Traitors. I felt like we all came across as relatively Faithful. You’re kind of just on a whim of who is it going to be and it just happened to be me. I don’t think there was any malicious intent behind it. I think it’s just the way the cards fell. It’s part of the game. Someone had to go and unfortunately it sucked but it was me. So what can you do?
John Powell: Did you have any idea that there was a married couple in the game? Did you have any clues or hints?
Mackenzie: Oh, my God! Absolutely not! I truly had no idea! They played it off so well. Good for them! I think they did a great job! I think it’s so cool to be able to go and do that with your partner and exactly like they said, it’s so hard. It’s so hard to just not be able to interact with your partner the way that you want to…It was crazy. It was almost a bigger surprise than the Traitors for me.
John Powell: The Faithful are always behind in this game because they have very little to go on at the start to figure out who might be a Traitor. Who did you think or who did you suspect of being a Traitor based on your time there?
Mackenzie: So my post-exit Traitors reveal was just posted on the Traitors page as well but I had suspicion it was Venus. That wasn’t really a name I was throwing out at that time, because the only real evidence that I had is I just felt like she was really nervous walking into breakfast that day. To me, her energy just felt nervous. I wasn’t really going to go around saying Venus’s name and being like, “I felt she was nervous at breakfast.” I didn’t really think that was credible information to raise my pitchfork at but it was on my radar. And also for me, I was just like, “I think one of the Traitors has to be a strong woman,” right?…Meredith’s name was being thrown around. I had conversations with Meredith. I didn’t think it was Meredith. I didn’t think it was Shaughnessy. I was just like, “I think it’s Venus.”
We were sitting across from each other at the Round Table as well I just had a little bit of suspicion maybe she was starting to clock that as well and that’s why I was being put in the grave. I really have no idea but a little bit of suspicion about Venus.
After the whole grave situation, I was like, “Oh, is Thompson a Traitor?” Yeah, you know, “Did they put a Traitor in in this grave?” You could hear people talk about how maybe it’s… you know, maybe they’re flying under the radar, but they’re a Traitor, just like Neda Kalantar did in a previous season. So I was like, “Oh, crap. Maybe it’s Thompson,” because before that I didn’t really know where to put him on my Faithful to Traitor scale. I was unsure. So I was like, “It has to be Thompson.” And then I was also a bit suspicious of Kitten. I just wanted to investigate that more, you know what I mean? It was Coco and Kevin. Was I suspicious of them? Sure. But like I said, it was more or less I just wanted to have more chats with them but I feel like Kevin, you’re always going to be suspicious of Kevin. You’re never really going to know if you can fully trust him.
John Powell: Now that you’ve been able to watch it all back, what are some of the things that really surprised you the most about watching it back, things that happened?
Mackenzie: Hmm, that’s a good question. I haven’t really thought about what surprised me. Um, I think I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t necessarily say surprised but just getting to see what actually happened on, like, the strength boat in the first mission because after that mission some people were leaving upset, different boats. For me, I was like, “I want to know what happened on each of these boats,” because I want to see how people’s behavior is. I also wanted to know the full story of what actually happened. Of why Shaughnessy got off that boat. You know, were they just, like, “You’re a girl, get off the boat”? I wanted to know the true story of what happened because that was something that everybody was talking about. We always felt like we didn’t really know the the true story of that. We didn’t think it was fair Shaughnessy got off the boat. We were rooting for her in that sense, also. So being able to see that was definitely something I was excited to see. I’m trying to think, if there’s anything else that sticks out too much. I think just even being able to see the next challenge, like all of us running off the dock. I’m like, “Oh, I, you know, I really want to see how they edit this and, like, put it in there.” You know, I thought that was, like, a really interesting challenge, lots of explosions happening.
John Powell: Would you ever come back and play again and if you could you rather be a Faithful or a Traitor?
Mackenzie: Oh my gosh, right? 100% come back and play again. If they ever have the all-star cast of maybe people who went out a bit too early or people play againI 100% would. I would do it again in a heartbeat!
I definitely think that I would be interested in being a Traitor the next time…I just feel like I’m a lot more comfortable in what the experience looks like and I know what to expect now so I feel like I could definitely come back and potentially carry the weight of a Traitor.
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