They are going on very little food and water, sleeping conditions are absolutely awful, and they can hardly trust anyone out there. The stress of that experience would be plenty to make an emotional moment upon seeing a loved one.

People have brought up missions, but missionaries are constantly around “familiar people” and talk to loved ones each week. That or for the older missionaries, they would get letters often from family. And I bet those letters often made missionaries cry.

That being said, the episode is normally pretty lame. And once I realized winning survivor requires 90% luck to win, I stopped watching