This week, Mike and Liana are joined by Survivor 44's Frannie Marin![00:00:00] Willkommen beim Froster Feierabend Tipp. Schneller als der Lieferservice von Oh keine Lust zu kochen. Zu Hey schon fertig. Zum Beispiel mit Froster Butter Chicken. 100% frei von Zusätzen. Nur mit natürlichen Zutaten nach dem Froster Reinheitsgebot. Kurz Mhh voll lecker. Null künstlich. Gerichte von Froster. Und das Bestellen kannst du dir sparen.
[00:00:30] You let up pray to your mama that they're not super lame. And if that all sounds cool, I can tell you the name. It's the R-H-A-P-B-N-B.
[00:00:42] Mike and Leanna gotta play in some games. You let up pray to your mama that all sounds cool, I can tell you the name. It's the R-H-A-P-B-N-B.
[00:01:06] Mike Bloom, Ed. We got an absolute wallop of an episode. We laughed, we cried, we drank arguably too much milk. And here we are. Break it all down as we look ahead to the next phase of the game. Of course, I am Mike Bloom joined as always by Liana Boris. Liana, how are you?
[00:01:27] I'm doing well. I'm still recovering from this episode. I've cried multiple times now watching it. So it really was, as you said, a full glass of milk, including David's weird little two second montage with his milk and the beautiful music that accompanied it. I love it all. You know what they say, don't cry over spilled milk. And David might have before he shed some tears later on in the episode. I'm intrigued. Our guest, Franny Marin, who do you think would have a bigger reaction?
[00:01:55] You getting visited by your sweet boyfriend, Matt, out on the island or David receiving like a full milk truck out on the island? Unquestionably, David, maybe if Matt brought milk with him, we would get a similar reaction. But I think that that was a really tender, tender moment. And if it was a milk truck, like there's, you know, nothing would compare. Jeff would be crying again. This would be a legendary episode.
[00:02:21] Yeah, because David would have like made a huge sinkhole in the budget because he would have cleaned out that milk truck within like five seconds. Yeah, he really guzzled it. It was it was really something else. You know, I'm a milk. I'm a milk drinker. I'll say it. I don't have lactose intolerance. It's one of my most shining qualities. And so I can really sell yourself short. Like, well, I'd be a Franny. Like one of my top three qualities is that my stomach can take an increased amount of dairy.
[00:02:50] Yeah. Yeah, it's really, you know, it's up there in terms of skills. But yeah, David, it's something else. I'm still really hung up on the fact that he doesn't drink water. That one is still, you know, I think about that every day. I know he gets he gets all his liquid from cows. It's so it's so bizarre to me. But I love the fact that we're a couple of minutes into this podcast. And the thing we've discussed the most is David drinking milk.
[00:03:15] Not to discuss anything else. Like there wasn't any other big emotional moment that happened in this episode. We're really milking this stuff. So we are finishing off the pre merge phase again. Listen, I get rid of the mergatory BS label like we're officially meeting the individual phase of the game, I should say next time. And I've seen it bandied about that some people feel survivor 48 might be the best pre merge of the new era.
[00:03:44] I would still say 47 wins out. But I mean, Franny, like, talk about a way to end it. I mean, from beginning to end so much packed into just one 90 minute installment. Yeah, it is incredible. I also feel like I've had a really helpful like rule review this season. We've really gotten into the rules and what happens in very specific scenarios. And, you know, a lot of that is due to losing votes and weird twists and stuff.
[00:04:13] But I also think it's fun. I feel like it's exciting to see the players kind of get into the nitty gritty and have to, you know, use the rules and the structure of the game to their advantage. Like what happened last week with Kyle and Camilla was so fabulous. Yeah, this is my favorite pre merge of the new era, I think. And I was in the new era. This is great. This is really good. Yeah. What are we talking about here?
[00:04:39] I think I think the other benefit of this pre merge is that now it has come at the expense of some players. We haven't gotten to know fully, but we've been able to see some storylines really flushed out. And I think we've also set up the post merge quite well. So we sort of had initially the Vula chaos and everything that was going on there. Then we, I guess, continued the Vula chaos, but with, you know, Loggi and Siva now thrown in there.
[00:05:05] And then ultimately, you know, this episode with both the emotional side of things, as well as some of the strategic gameplay, I just feel like it's been all encompassing. We've almost like hit on all of these different notes. And that's made it feel like a really well balanced meal, not just emphasizing one element over the other. I would agree with that. I do feel like we get a sense as to who all of the remaining 13 players are. Like, I think even players like Chrissy and Charity who aren't given as much screen time,
[00:05:35] we get a general sense as to like where they are in the competition. And maybe it comes at the expense of like Chrissy becoming the new enemy of say, though. So, God, I adored the back and forth, like the before and after of say being like, Chrissy, if you trust your gut too much, don't listen to the warning signs around you. You might be left in the dark. And then immediately after Bianca's voted out, say, he's like, what happened? Of course, he's like, oh, you know that she didn't have a vote like so freaking petty. So freaking good.
[00:06:05] Yeah, I really want to see the, you know, the birth of Chrissy, the petty queen in the post merge. I really think she has it in her. I think that they, you know, they kind of teach you that in the Midwest. And she's clearly very Midwestern. Like there's the superficial, very nice, you know, top level. And then underneath, we do have a deep pettiness ingrained within us. And I want that to pop out with Chrissy. Yeah, I think Fargo called it like Minnesota nice, right? Is that a thing?
[00:06:31] Yeah, the Minnesota nice is that the like emblem of it is that, you know, you're wearing, let me use my knitting here. You're wearing a mitten and behind the mitten, you're giving the middle finger. But nobody does it because you're like, hello. That's exactly it. That's exactly the Midwest. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, that's great. And that's the thing, too. I mean, especially for charity, like, let's say, for example, again, like you, you kind of have a sense of where her place is. Within the other social dynamics that are happening.
[00:07:01] And I think especially now that what we got in this episode was setting up the Kyle, Camilla, Shaheen, Joe sort of foursome. I think that that is going to be really interesting, especially the fact that the episode left in the fact that, you know, we Camilla, I think, said this. We can benefit from the fact that it looks like we had a really chaotic tribal and we're not working together. When in reality, this seems to be a relationship that all four of these players want to cultivate. Yeah. Yeah. Which is really fun.
[00:07:27] Because I know certainly last week, us and a lot of the fandom were talking about like, God, I hope new Vula doesn't go to tribal council because these are all big characters. They are, you know, I think from perspectives, likable characters as well. And so, yeah, they want to go in that direction. Now, this is where things get complicated, right? Because obviously Joe will want to bring in Eva. Obviously, I imagine Camilla and Kyle would want to keep David and Chrissy back in the loop to connect those see before. So, like, when does that alliance get too big and too unwieldy?
[00:07:56] Is it going to be endgame plans? Because they're also all big threats. But I mean, again, there is very obviously one big emotional center of gravity in this episode. But I also want to give a lot of kudos to that scene that the Vula four had as well at camp where they were able to connect over the fact that, granted, their parents respectively all had incredibly different stories.
[00:08:22] But I think all of them were able to speak from a perspective of minoritized community and living through certain parts of history. And I think obviously, you know, they were filming at a time where they didn't necessarily know that the rights of those communities might be more in danger than ever. So it feels even more prescient to see it happen nowadays. But like this is sort of what has kept me investing so much of my life in this show for 25 years. Like, it's not necessarily about the gameplay.
[00:08:52] That's all well and good. It's about the human element. It's about this idea that all these people have such different backgrounds yet felt that comfort and that vulnerability within these incredibly cutthroat game where they can blindside each other tomorrow. In fact, half of them just blindsided the other two in the tribe.
[00:09:10] But they're all going to sit around, you know, around some pastries and talk about the fact that they are all coming from, you know, wanting to represent and wanting to make their parents proud considering how much they expended to get them on that island in the first place. Mm hmm. Yeah, I thought it was incredible. I feel like that moment and this is kind of how the show set it up. But I really do feel that that moment of sharing between all of them is what is going to build that foundation for that group of four to work together.
[00:09:38] Because I feel like, especially with their, you know, situation after the swap where it's these two groups that are really opposed. I think if, you know, they had really stayed focused on the game, they're talking strategy, maybe they have to go to tribal again. And there's not time to make those deep bonds because, you know, everything moves so quickly in the new era. But because they got this moment of pause and moment to connect, they are, you know, they have a shared reason for playing that is much deeper than maybe some of the connections they've made so far.
[00:10:07] And I feel like that's going to be, I don't know, I feel like that might be something that they want to lean back on as they get into the crazier steps of this game. Like they know that they have those kind of shared values and what they're fighting for. And yeah, it was so good to see. I loved it. It was amazing. And this is the reason why I'm so happy for these 90 minute episodes, because there's a universe where we don't get this moment, right? If we didn't have the extra time to be able to dedicate to it.
[00:10:32] And I think I completely agree with you, Franny, that it was because they got this moment of pause, which I think when we think about rewards, it's about like, oh, refueling and being able to, you know, get some glucose in your system. So you can refuel your heart as well. Exactly. And that's what needed to happen. And I'll be at a bit of a tonal shift from charity being like, I dream for a buttery croissant. And then Camilla's like, so genocide. Okay, we're getting a little bit serious here, but I loved every second of it.
[00:10:59] And it is a bit overshadowed, obviously, by the Eva Jo moment. But you still see how important those social relationships are in terms of guiding the strategy moving forward, as I do think that this alliance of four will play a big part in post-merge. And also, maybe this is why you should swap the tribes more, Survivor, because I don't know if these types of conversations would happen exclusively if the four of them weren't on the beach together. Yes.
[00:11:23] Well, because if this was happening at a merge or at a fake merge, whatever, they don't have the time to sit down and talk about this. They literally don't. And so, yeah, that's what makes this so special. And like you said, Mike, there's, you know, we have a really rich understanding of all of the relationships going into the merge. This is the most excited I've been about a merge in a long time because it really does feel like, you know, Avengers Assemble. There's all these different people that have different levels of relationships.
[00:11:48] And I cannot wait to see, like, which ones supersede the other and how they all mix. I think that maybe charity is not in a good spot, but everybody else has a lot of options. Right. I think a lot of people are sort of estimating that she's kind of teed up as sort of like what we usually give as the equivalent of the merge, Tory boot. Right. Which is like no matter what the format is, if she's left vulnerable, it's OK. Who's an easy person that everyone can agree on?
[00:12:13] And it seems like really the only person that would disagree vehemently with a charity boot would be Mitch. It seems like everybody else is more than happy to either go along with it or is actively saying, like, we want to get rid of her. I think what I'm most excited about, there are a lot of things to your point, Franny, that I'm excited about. I'm excited to see who Cedric's next victim is. I am obsessed because like this is a very personality filled cast.
[00:12:39] That's why it's been like a murderer's row of pre-merged boots, including Bianca here that we'll get into. And the fact that I would argue the most mild-mannered among them, right? This like very, it is very like a contemplative, you know, very nice man surgeon from South Carolina is the most cutthroat player of the season.
[00:13:03] And that we have two outcomes where one time a player didn't tell Cedric that he had lost his vote. And that's why Cedric ultimately got rid of him. And then you have Bianca who told me that Cedric did tell her about Justin. So she's like, well, I guess I better tell Cedric I don't have a vote so I don't wind up like Justin. Only for him to orchestrate the first 2-1-1 vote in U.S. Survivor history specifically to take her out.
[00:13:28] It is like, it's incredible to me because I don't think Cedric himself would have counted himself as, you know, the most backstabbing player of the season coming into this. But due to circumstances, he winds up, he's voted out a third of the cast so far in five episodes. Amazing. Yeah, I love it. I live for every moment. It's so good. I also like during the preseason watching all the interviews, I thought to myself, wow, Cedric, like this is kind of a wacky cast. Like we've got a lot of big characters.
[00:13:59] Cedric, what a pillar of calm. I said to myself, watching this now, like the pillar is falling. It's grumbling down. Yeah, it's so, so good. One of my favorite moments of the episode, actually, besides all the, you know, wonderful emotional things that happened, is Bianca. She's building up to telling Cedric about the lost vote. You can tell that she's like fighting herself. She's so nervous. And then the moment that she says it, Cedric goes, oh, really?
[00:14:26] I feel like you can tell immediately that she's not happy about it. And I was like, oh, no. Oh, my God. It's so iconic. I was actually, okay. So here's the thing. I was going to save this for the game, but I just feel like it's so appropriate for me to share now. So, Mike, please. I have some screenshots I took of the icon, Cedric. So here.
[00:14:49] So this face, this one right here on the, if you're looking at watching the YouTube video, the bottom left, that's the face that he makes when Bianca tells him about the lost vote. He's just like, duh. It looks like he stepped on something smelly. That's how it looks. And I love it because Justin said this a couple episodes ago, right? That it's like, I learned not to tell Cedric anything right before tribal council because it will just get him incredibly confused. And like, this is the physicalized representation of that computer.
[00:15:19] He is wearing it on his face. The man, the icon, the legend, Cedric. Also, there's a shot when they're walking to tribal council where he just won't stop looking at the camera. And it's like, Cedric, this is supposed to be, you're not supposed to look at the camera. Like, all of them are walking this way to tribal. Cedric, you've done this four times at this point. You should know. Exactly. He just keeps staring at the guy. Anyway, I had no strong feelings on Cedric really until this episode.
[00:15:44] And I feel like it was especially just like the culmination of all of these things sort of coming together and the story that Cedric has gone on. If I didn't think he was an icon after voting for every single member of his tribe previously, I mean, certainly an icon now. And like Chrissy, of all people, you know, we saw the relationship with Cedric and Mitch. So I kind of assumed Mitch would be the one that he would bring on board. But for some reason, it's Chrissy. Like, what in the hell happened? I'm hoping that we get some explanation at the beginning of this next episode.
[00:16:12] I could I could kind of see it, at least from like a demographic perspective. You know, they are both in their mid 40s. And while this is an older cast, I think on average, like they're on a tribe with a bunch of people that are at least 10 years younger than them. So like I could imagine an opportunity for the two of them to connect. But yeah, it is just a really freaking odd vote. I mean, even talking with Bianca, she's still not entirely sure why it's a 2-1-1.
[00:16:38] I think the big question mark is to like, was Mitch left out of it? Why was Mitch left out of it? You know, I feel like to your point, Liana, from what we saw in the previous episode, of all people on Siva that Cedric would want to bring over, it would be Mitch. But I guess maybe he wants to bring Chrissy over just knowing like, OK, it's either her or you, you know, so you've got to make this move.
[00:17:02] It's a little bit easier to force somebody's hand, I say from the perspective of clearly the most malevolent player of the season in the form of Cedric McFadden, the butt doctor. But like, I really want to see him deliver that information because I'm like, how does he deliver that? Like, it almost feels like he's giving a diagnosis to his patient or something like that. It's like, Chrissy. All right, let's sit down. We've got a few things to talk about today. Just going to like deliver the prognosis. What is happening?
[00:17:33] I genuinely wonder. I also really hope that we get a little flashback moment at the top of next episode because like, I don't even think I saw them whispering to each other during tribal. So like we saw no exchange of information. But when Bianca was telling Cedric about the lost vote, it looked very late. So I wonder if maybe Chrissy was the only person that Cedric could get to to share that information. Like, like maybe he just knew he had to drop it with one person and knew that that was enough.
[00:18:03] Because yeah, the bond with Mitch seemed really genuine. Like I can't fathom that Cedric would explicitly leave Mitch out. But I wonder if that's going to have repercussions, even if it wasn't intentional. I think that Mitch, you know, going into the next stage of the game might feel really alone, especially if he finds out that people aren't so hot on his number one alliance member charity. The only thing I could possibly think of is that Bianca expressed to me that she actually was in a really good relationship with Mitch.
[00:18:33] She had said that had she survived this vote, she would have wanted to get Loggie back together. But like she actually did want to work with Mitch. Maybe Cedric had sussed that out and thought, OK, if I try to get Mitch into this, he's going to refuse to vote for Bianca. And so Chrissy is the one that I can really get on board here and just hope that say and Mitch don't tie up the vote, which I imagine that Mitch wouldn't have anyway. And that's also a lot of fun, too.
[00:18:59] Again, that you have someone like say still like technically protected by Cedric here, saved by Cedric. So she does get her wish in the form of Bianca was really trying last minute to partially reveal this information to Cedric, not only to protect herself, but to be like, let's just all pile on say it's the easiest thing to do. And for the very understandable gripes that say had with Cedric, she put her eggs in the right basket as now twice. You could argue all four times they've gone.
[00:19:27] He has protected her in some way, shape or form. Yeah, it's insane because he consistently their relationship is so odd. And I'm so curious to see how say reacts to this vote, because like you said, Mike, every time Cedric. Like, I mean, he wrote her name down a couple of times, but in the end did protect her and did keep her around. But always like at the expense of sharing information with her. Cedric is always like obfuscating something from say and say, I think, is not going to be happy about that. But then who does she have to turn to?
[00:19:57] Like she was kind of connecting with Bianca. Now she's facing the uncertainty of an entire merge tribe, the majority of which she's never interacted with. Like, I think she may just fall back on Cedric and Cedric's probably continued to, you know, gaslight gay cube girl boss. He'll probably protect her, but he's not going to tell her anything. I know what an icon, especially because, you know, after Chrissy does that whole thing at tribal council where she goes, did you know? Did you see? Did you see that there's only four votes in that?
[00:20:27] Did you see that she didn't have a vote? And then say does turn to Cedric and you can kind of see Cedric be like, oh, did you know this? And Cedric kind of nods. So yeah, a hundred percent. Right. I think you're going into another situation where Cedric has omitted information. Now, I think, as you said, Franny, it did seem quite late when Bianca told Cedric. So I think that there's a universe where essentially he can be like, look, I needed to save you. This is what ultimately ended up happening and sort of explain his way out of it.
[00:20:51] And Chrissy also is such an old school kind of feeling player that Mike, to your point about like why Chrissy, I think Chrissy is the type of person that would react to being like, oh, someone didn't tell me information. Yeah. Yeah, gone. And so I think that she would have been an easy one to convince if Cedric thought that far in advance or yeah, it was just stochastic. And he ran into Chrissy right before they went to tribal council. And that's who ended up flipping.
[00:21:15] I mean, what is also so fun about next episode is that, yes, Cedric is meeting up with a bunch of new people. But all the new people have experienced with Cedric as of late is her saying, don't celebrate too much, people. And don't gloat about the fact that you still have half a fruit platter left. Some people are starving, not me. But I'm speaking up to half of the other people. They're really feeling it right now. I'm actually doing great. And in other news, I deserve a break.
[00:21:44] So I'm going to do that too. That was so good. She was like, I just, she's something else. Say it's, you know, great. I'm still thinking about her, like writing out that message for Mary with sticks. That's fabulous. That's the core of what we want from Survivor. It's just so funny and so ridiculous. I mean, my, one of my favorite lines of the episode might be, I'm an adult. I don't have to tell you what I'm eating. You psychopath. Yes. Yes.
[00:22:13] As she's like walking out of the ocean, smelling a machete. Like the context was weird. Oh my God. It was so funny. There was a, but say is even involved in almost like all of my favorite quotes, even if she's not the one saying it. So in the immunity challenge, she goes, they're like, it's okay. You have no pressure. Her tribe makes like trying to be like, it's okay. It's okay. Say goes, I don't feel any pressure. Jeff walks by and just snidely goes, you should. She's like, what? Okay. Sassy Jeff. Yeah. I mean, Jeff clearly.
[00:22:43] Well, this is the thing. This is what happens when you go to tribal council often is you build a bit of like a rapport with Jeff. And so Jeff, I think has a different relationship with the Vulas than everybody else because he's like, uh, remember when he was like kind of punching down on Justin back in episode two of like, yeah, it'd be nice if you want to challenge, but you did it. And you're here. I think he just kind of is in that. I mean, remember when he did this in 46, but he's like, you know, last try to finish otherwise known as the losers. I was going to say Yannou. Like he kind of has this negging relationship with the disaster tribes.
[00:23:13] And so it felt very par for the course for me for Jeff to walk by the table and be like, say, you really should be sweating right now. Yeah. He did. Yes. Oh, Cedric had that horrendous ball bounce. Jeff was like, abysmal failure. Okay. But to be fair, that was horrible. Listen, he's not, he's not a physicist. Okay. Like he, if he had to bounce the ball, maybe he'd understand. Yeah.
[00:23:42] That was pretty funny though. Just like throwing the ball on the end of the cuts to charity, like actually laughing on the bench. So yeah, she's like stifle turning, trying to stifle laughter. Oh, it's so funny. Well, so we, we talked a bit about the Cedric side of things. I've referred to him as the grim pooper because of just how many people he has taken in his wake. Let's talk about the Bianca thing, because this was something out of it. This was the don't go in there moment that you're screaming from the couch.
[00:24:12] Franny, can we try to get in Bianca's head and figure out why she chose to this, why she seemingly relented on really trying to push this two, two vote to say, I got to tell somebody about this. Yeah. I think that it was probably driven by two big things. Thing one, we already talked about, which was hearing the story about Justin going home and Justin not telling Cedric about the vote. That probably motivated her to think, hmm, like if this is really a person I want to work
[00:24:40] with, he is not going to take well to finding out this information later. But honestly, in my opinion, I think seeing Thomas voted out probably prompted her to do that. Because even if you think that the merge is coming soon, if you're Bianca, you're looking at this spread. And who are you really tightly aligned with right now? Maybe Star? Like maybe that's the person who she's closest with. But I think if you're Bianca, even if you make it through this tribal, if you have lied to everyone about not having a vote and caused a lot of chaos, people are going to be frustrated
[00:25:10] with you. That's a tough way to go into the merge, in my opinion. And so I can see the logic of wanting to confide in one person to sort of like build up a new number one ally. I think she definitely picked the wrong person. But besides that, I think that the logic is strong. If she had seen Thomas walk into the reward challenge, I don't know if she would have done that. No, I think that both of those points really distill down to Bianca's future path in the game.
[00:25:39] What happens after this tribal council? And especially, you know, she's thinking, OK, I'm going to we see it in confessional. She says, I'm going to have to play damage control. OK, so this is her maybe trying to preempt some of that damage control that she's going to need to do. I think what is really funny is that, say, warns Bianca about Cedric, right? In a previous episode. And ultimately, Cedric is the reason for her downfall. But yeah, I think it's you know, it's about it's the same reason why I think Thomas didn't
[00:26:06] play the vote blocky, splitty, whatever he had. It's the idea that the vote blocky splitty, whatever he got. I don't know. We talked about that already. A vote split would be interesting. I'm like, aha, now your vote counts as two votes. It's gone undergone vote mitosis. Oh, my toes. Yeah. I can't wait for that reward. We need it. We need it. And again, it was about longevity.
[00:26:36] It was about, OK, sure. Revealing that vote split is OK, whatever it was called. The vote mitosis. Revealing the vote mitosis is going to help you get through that tribal council. But you have potentially irreparably damaged your relationship with Shaheen and Joe. And so for Bianca, this could irreparably damage her relationship with Cedric or, you know, whomsoever she wanted to work with moving forward. Yeah, I think that's exactly it. It's as much as you imagine someone like Bianca especially would be banking on the short term of like, I don't have a vote.
[00:27:04] I have to get through this tribal council. I think that for her, you can't help but have that nagging feeling of like, yes, I've only known these people for a couple days. But like, what impression am I going to leave on to them? And so if it's like, you know, saving yourself now and then facing the prospect of like just becoming the mergatory boot when then you have half of the people in the game, because I imagine that they would take this back to the Sivas and to Mary and be like, look at what Bianca did.
[00:27:33] Very easy person to take out at 13 versus like, all right, I'm going to try to confide in somebody here. And she had expressed to me that actually her gameplay moving forward as well would have been like a loggy Vula mega alliance, which is also very interesting given everything that was happening on new Vula that she didn't necessarily know about. But like that she wanted to specifically bring Cedric in. And it was just to to your both of your points, just telling the wrong person the wrong thing.
[00:28:00] I would say it may be the wrong time, though, again, we're not entirely sure if Cedric had more time, but what have happened? Yeah, I I will say for Bianca, like I think Cedric, you know, it would have been like, was the absolute wrong person to tell that to, but she maybe couldn't have known that per se. But I think she did everything else right. I think a lot of people, if they are told in the final hour that somebody doesn't have a vote and they're kind of like strong armed into not sharing that with anyone, I think
[00:28:28] they would see that as a sign of trust and want to like work with Bianca and make things happen with Bianca. Yeah, I think that Cedric was just he's not having it. He said, oh, really? Not like it. Well, we'd be remiss, of course, in talking about this episode not to get into the Joe and Eva of it all, because like, I mean, listen, there was a lot of hype built up from, you know, the promos leading into this.
[00:28:56] And it ends up culminating is that this this absolutely beautiful moment that I think truly has kind of transcended the show. I mean, if you look at like they posted the scene itself on YouTube, it has like at least 500,000 views on it. It's gotten a lot of coverage and even publications as big as CNN as well. I mean, Jeff even speaks about it in the moment. Like it's one of those rare opportunities that I would even say genuinely as well. Again, this didn't necessarily feel like, OK, we're going to sit down at tribal council
[00:29:25] and talk about gender dynamics. Like this was obviously bred out of an incredibly emotionally tense moment that then brought about this absolutely beautiful, open, heartwarming conversation multiple times over. And so, you know, I think it only makes sense that we give our own respective reactions to it. I don't think I'm necessarily taking a shot in the dark, Mary style, to say that we all absolutely loved this scene. But Leon, let me put let me not put words in your mouth anymore. What did you think about everything?
[00:29:56] Just tears, just emotional overwhelmedness. I think you just you can't help when you see somebody going through that. I mean, as an empathetic person, you just like you just react. And I think that that's the other reason why we see Jeff start crying. And I will. Well, OK, that being said, I will say the moment was emotional. I reacted accordingly. Well, I think we got click baited on the Jeff crying bit just a teeny tiny bit, because I feel like all the promotion was like Jeff crying. And I was like, cry more.
[00:30:25] I was like, you're not crying enough. Yes. I was like, when did he start crying? This moment has been going on for 10 minutes. I think exact same thought. And then he cried for like two seconds at the end. I said, OK, we wrapped that up a little too quickly. To be fair, though, we don't know what happens when they left. Like he might have just crumpled into a ball. Like David, when he sees a glass of milk. Oh, no, no, that's 2% crap. Yeah, I just that was that was like the one thing I wanted to see.
[00:30:53] But but yeah, I mean, the game this week was inspired by Joe and Joe's reactions to this whole moment. And I think being able to see the emotion across tribal lines to see a relationship be beyond the game. I mean, all of that stuff, Mike, as you mentioned, the reason why you keep coming back to Survivor is because of the human emotional moments and what a better way to showcase that than with the Joe and Eva connection. Yeah, I thought it was so incredible for me.
[00:31:19] One of the highlights of it was Eva's comment at the end about like, if you are a person with autism, you should not feel afraid to ask for help or to receive help. That for me was kind of like the key statement there, because this moment was only really possible because Eva had confided in Joe and had that moment back, you know, episodes ago. I was so impressed with how Eva was able to tell Joe exactly what she needed. She said, this is what you're going to look for.
[00:31:49] This is what I need in that moment. And she wasn't embarrassed about it. She wasn't like, I'm going to be really upset and good luck. Like she she knew and she communicated that. And then that's one half of it. The other half is that Joe cared and listened and paid attention. Because I think that there are people who could hear that and could think, OK, good to know. But then you're on different tribes. There's the craziness of a challenge. You're not clocking that something that that's happening in this moment.
[00:32:16] But Joe, in the moments leading up to, you know, Eva finishing the challenge, he is watching her like a hawk. Like that's what actually kind of got me, you know, starting to tear up because he is so attuned. He cares so much and he knows that something is wrong. And he's just like chomping at the bit, waiting for the moment that Jeff kind of lets him go. And then he does exactly what she asked for. And it works.
[00:32:43] And that was so great because I think that like whether it's autism, whether it's like any other anything that people like deal with and bring into survivor, bring into life. It's so hard to know yourself and know what you need when you need help and to ask for it. Those are two really hard things. And Eva was able to do those really, really well. And it made for such a potent moment. Yeah, I loved it. It was so good.
[00:33:07] And not to mention the fact that like after that, I mean, you know, when ever any of us in life have had things like panic attacks or emotional breakdowns, like you were just so depleted after that, let alone in such a deprivational environment. Yeah, they stuffed themselves with pastries, but like expended all that energy. And including through Eva's episode, the fact that she was able to so eloquently open up
[00:33:32] about everything about her history and even just the idea of opening up, let alone, you know, packaging it in the way that she did must have just taken so much because remember that she was so concerned to the fact that she only confided in one person in the cast of like, I don't want anyone to use this information against me. And I'm sure in that moment, there had to have at least been a little bit going through her head of like, this will forever change the way that people see me in this game.
[00:33:59] But it is profoundly outweighed, I think, by what this moment could mean for everything outside of it. That's why she says, like, I want everyone to stop thinking about the game for a second and think about what this means for people out there. And obviously outside of the normal, it really profoundly affected me in a couple of different ways. I mean, one from the Eva perspective, it was that point that you both mentioned about not being afraid to ask for help.
[00:34:27] And I think, you know, much like Jeff, that this really got me as a parent because it just reminded me, obviously, getting to take care of a little one and being responsible for their day to day and staying safe in an increasingly unsafe world is, is so tough. And there are times when you are dealing with them and you're trying to figure out like, how can I, how can I support you?
[00:34:56] You know, how can I make sure that that you are able to enter a world where there's there's so much that can be working against you and make sure that you can flourish and be the fantastic person that you are. And sometimes it is just being there and listening to them and being able to create an environment where they feel they can ask for help. You know, not feeling like they will face any sorts of judgment that that was, you know,
[00:35:22] very apples and oranges. But like, I face that as a child feeling like I can never ask for assistance because I automatically fear judgment. I automatically feel becoming otherized and ostracized. And so I kept, I kept a lot bottled within and it has manifested in a lot of therapy sessions 30 years later. And so for, for Eva to state that so openly, I think was a necessary
[00:35:46] statement that that needed to be made. The other perspective that really resonated with me was from Joe. And I had the very special honor of getting a very, you know, special interview with Joe this week where he sat down with me, talk to his perspective. I mean, I give him so much credit because he has never dealt with the situation before and not only had to learn what to do, but also like had to really
[00:36:11] suss out when was the time to do it? Like he expressed to me, he didn't know, like, okay, if she's having this reaction, does it mean it's an episode? And he didn't want to also as well in the process of supporting her, like essentially out her secret. He didn't want to be the one responsible for revealing this considering how much she confided in him. And again, this is, these are two incredibly different situations and I do not mean to conflate them, but when I was watching it, the scene, this
[00:36:39] most recent time, Joe happens to the way the camera's frame wrap his right arm around Eva in the midst of consoling her and tattooed on his right arm is the name Joanna. And for those who are not aware, Joanna is the name of Joe's sister who tragically lost her life to domestic violence a couple of years ago and is the entire reason why he is playing. She was the fan of Survivor. She tried to get him to
[00:37:08] apply and get into the show. He wasn't into it until it was too late and he is out there for her. And he said that on the mat on the first day I was there. He said that he felt Joanna out there. And it's a, it's a very different situation, but like, I can imagine there was at least a part of Joe that was thinking like, this is my opportunity to protect someone. This is my opportunity to see someone
[00:37:35] who is, who is really hurting, who is going through something and nobody deserves to suffer in misery alone. Especially when you have that information, you know, this is an opportunity to make someone feel so protected in an environment where they are anything but. And I would like to imagine when Joe is telling her, you know, you're safe. I'll see you on the other side. That that was
[00:38:04] maybe someone else talking through him as well and giving him that opportunity to, um, to be able to, again, protect someone that has basically become family to him over the course of this. So we don't typically get in our fields here on the BNB, but I just wanted to call out not only that scene, but both parties involved Joe and Eva. I know they've, they've made the rounds as well with
[00:38:30] other parties talking about their experience. I just think it was such an important, heartwarming, emotional scene for what it's worth. I don't know if we necessarily needed Jeff starting out by underlining being like, all right, the rules typically state that Joe, you're not allowed to cross. Yeah. Yeah. But Jeff was like, but thank goodness I've been in the rules. You're welcome.
[00:38:53] Your savior, Jeff probes. Yeah. No. Um, well, first of all, I mean, thank you, Mike, for sharing like your perspective on the situation as well as bringing to light some of those other human elements that could be playing into what we're seeing on our television screen. And this is why survivor outside of the game will always be about human connections and human relationships. And, and Jeff even fricking says it too, when he kills the mood a little bit about being like,
[00:39:21] I mean, they can blindside each other later, but for now it's our best friends. It's just like, Jeff, we did not talk about the game for like a hot second. Yeah, exactly. That was so funny too. Cause, because Joe, you know, the whole time he's got his eagle eyes, he's so intense and he's just like staring and nodding. And then Jeff goes, you know, Joe and Eva might blindside each other tomorrow. And Joe gives this huge smile. Like, I don't do that. You know, Jeff, I didn't think about that before. I think I probably would. That's an interesting idea.
[00:39:49] Or could it be that maybe Jeff was trying to purposely like bring down their threat level? Cause look, there is certainly a matter that some people have talked about, about like, well now are, how is everyone going to handle this relationship knowing how they're able to so publicly support each other? Maybe Jeff's like, oh yeah, but, but they can still vote for each other, right? They might not be a voting block. They could just be very good friends. Exactly. They barely know each other. So it's, you know. Yeah. I mean, just a social relationship, not a strategic one. Come on guys. It's fine.
[00:40:20] But the other thing too, to come out of this situation is Star and Eva's relationship, which is another huge out of fricking nowhere thing. They're at each other, at each other, at each other. And then all of a sudden Star decides to give up. I mean, technically I guess Eva did solve the beware advantage, but to be able to have that emotional connection and to be able to be like, yeah, no, it's fine. It's your idol. And I think the, for my first part, of course, the strategic me, even though just experiencing all of that emotion was like, oh, that's, it's a public idol. Of course, Star wouldn't want it. That's perfect.
[00:40:48] Put a target on Eva. But I don't think that that's where it was coming from. I don't think it was a strategic decision. I genuinely think it was just an emotional decision where Star felt connected to Eva and everything that she had shared and was like, no, you genuinely deserve this. Like this was a human moment, not a strategic moment. Yeah. What I think was really interesting actually. And again, I only noticed this upon watching this thing for the umpteenth time and a puddle of tears was after Joe is able to, to really get
[00:41:13] Eva through her episode. If you pay attention, you can also see that as soon as she gets back to the mat star squeezes her hands as well. Like, like you, like you could tell that she was really paying attention to what was happening in the moment, even though she obviously was not fully aware as to the situation. And yeah, I mean, it really shows that perspective of like, you never really know
[00:41:39] what's going on with somebody. And not to say that like, Star is then a completely silent, like, well, Eva was strategizing against me because of her autism. Like again, I don't think that, I think that's casting a bit too much of a Y net, but I think it allowed her to not only connect with Eva, given the fact that she has several family members on the spectrum, but then maybe recontextualize a bit of the way the two of them were specifically interacting. I also did love, by the way, when
[00:42:03] Star is like, all right, everybody, I'm going to be open here. New chapter. I found the beware advantage. And Eva goes, oh, you're such a great liar. I was like, okay, Eva, really good acting, very strong. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone on the tribe already knows about it. They go, Star, no way. It's literally the Shots Kikachu meme. Who, okay, wait, wait, wait, who doesn't know?
[00:42:29] Okay. Cedric, Say, theoretically don't know. Yep. Mitch. So I guess. Mitch Chrissy. Is that it? Mitch Chrissy. And then, well, I don't know if Joe, did Joe and Shaheen tell Kyle and Camilla? Oh, that's true. Okay. I guess. I was trying to figure out what percentage of this guy has to know about this. Maybe it came up where like, Kyle's like, yeah, this is how I found my idol. They're like, oh yeah, well, here's what's going on with Star. For all we know, she's still clinging onto that decorative wheel trying to
[00:42:56] figure out what's going on. Yeah. But do, will they make public that it transferred ownership to Eva? So that's the other thing as well is that again, speaking to the strategic element baked into the human emotional element, I think there's a non-zero chance that Star's like, yeah, a public idol isn't great. So if I could just kind of nudge that onto somebody else, that helps diminish my threat level considerably. I mean, what's interesting is that her idol hunting and really laboriously
[00:43:25] pursuing this beware advantage did kind of manifest in antisocial behaviors, at least from our perspective, or like she wasn't around for the bonfire. She's off on her own doing all this stuff. So it might be too little too late, but I guess if people are looking for reasons to target others early on, Star has removed one off the docket by being like, well, now you don't need to worry about me playing an idol because that very publicly fell into somebody else's hands.
[00:43:50] Yeah. I also think that that did feel really genuine. And the moment like prior to everyone joining in on the idol hunt where they're back at, this is new Loggie, right? Or new Siva? Yeah, new Loggie. New Loggie. And Star is kind of like thanking Eva for having this moment. Star's like shouting, like you can tell that she's really, really passionate about this. And I think it comes across very genuinely. And so I think that that, like this, this really core emotional moment of
[00:44:19] Joe and Eva and like really humanizing them, I think kind of extended to Star because I think that's, you know, maybe the most like passionate about something we've seen her and some of the, you know, bigger moments of sharing we've seen from her so far in this game. And I think her tribe probably felt that and maybe feels a little more connected to her. I did think it was funny, like the moment where Star is like, Eva, you should have this. I think by the group that I was
[00:44:42] watching with, we were kind of expecting Eva to be like, no, no, no, no. We were like, Star expected a little more pushback on that one. But, you know, it just, yeah. It's sort of like, no, no, I'll take, I'll pick up the tab. No, you don't need to all do so. And just the verbal game of chicken to see who actually ends up picking the prize. Yeah. Eva was like, no, I'll take it. That sounds great to me.
[00:45:09] Yeah. I mean, considering the day that she had, I think she's sort of like, yeah, sure. You know what? Well, listen, I just very much, you know, revealed a part of myself. And that's a really interesting point, Freddie, that I'm so glad you brought up is like this idea that I think watching your competitors be so open and transparent about themselves probably inspires you to do so in the process. I mean, how many people have I talked to who have said how much, you know, they found themselves in people like Marianne and Carolyn who are like, I'm going to be myself
[00:45:37] fully out authentic. If people don't like that, die a new, but almost always authenticity will win out in that game. And how many people were then inspired to be like, and I'm going to show my personality as well, because these people did and succeeded from it. So I think there really is something to somebody that you've been living with for 10 days, revealing this massive secret about themselves in such a public setting that like, you can't help but not only support them, but also think, all right, well, maybe this also gives me permission to showcase parts of my
[00:46:07] personality that I've been withholding as well. Right. I mean, each cast establishes whatever their norms are going to be. And so as soon as you start to see this behavior come up more and more, you're like, oh, okay, this is the norm. This is what we agreed upon doing instead of being a super cagey group of people that's not sharing anything about ourselves. We are made potentially as a group more open, but willing to share all of that kind of stuff. All right. Well, let us share some of our
[00:46:33] own information, Liana, about what we thought Miss Bianca Roses would do in this season. I loved getting to talk with Bianca, big personality and goes out, you know, in a very unconventional way. I think unfortunately, one of the strikes against this pre-merge is that we've now had two out of the five pre-merge boots come from bad dice rolls in a journey that they were forced to go on and risk
[00:46:59] their vote. But she tried to make it work. She tried to make it work. How much did Bianca make it work from your fan fiction, Liana? How did you have her doing preseason? Yes. So I had Bianca's pre-jury. I said that due to the big characters on her tribe, we sadly don't get to see a lot of Bianca. That is until her boot episode with a staggering 14 confessionals in one episode. It was like the
[00:47:26] producers were cramming in all the little fun out of pocket comments from Bianca, including some additional erotic dreams all into one episode. While Bianca formed a close bond with Thomas, they were outnumbered by Joe, Shaheen, and Eva, aka the Storm Chasers. That's been- Oh, I forgot about the Storm Chasers. Of course. Classic. So when Loggie loses a puzzle, Bianca becomes the easy scapegoat. Her ally was Thomas and her enemy was the Storm Chasers.
[00:47:54] Okay. Well, I also had Bianca going pre-jury. So I had said that despite her chipper demeanor and great sense of humor, Bianca will find herself sticking out aesthetically on Loggie early on due to her lack of athletic background. Luckily, she's able to find an on-island client in the form of Thomas as the two become tight. Bianca is able to put her self-proclaimed positivity to use when
[00:48:23] she becomes basically the cheerleader of Loggie. The tribe's winning streak allows her to hit the bench on multiple challenges where she'll use her Italian bravado to root the purple people on. The catch-up queen brands herself as the sit-out queen. Bianca does get picked by another tribe to go on a journey where she loses her vote. The PR master tries to spin a story to Loggie to make it seem like she didn't, but it only draws more suspicion to herself. Unfortunately, when the merge hits,
[00:48:51] the first tribal council that Bianca attends ends up being her last, and she can't even vote in it. With Loggie and Thomas in particular as large targets, everyone else in the game decides to handicap him by taking a shot at Bianca. Somehow, Boston Rob will find out about the sex dream she had about him in her youth. He'll make a cheeky response about it on social media, which will absolutely mortify her. I totally support her in that. Her closest ally is Thomas, and her enemy was everybody.
[00:49:23] Very good fanfix. That's rough. Yeah. I like the term sticking out aesthetically to describe you're the least athletic person on your tribe. What a nice way to say it. That's an aesthetic mismatch. No, no, no, no. It's not that you're not strong. It's just there's an aesthetic mismatch. She's sticking out aesthetically. We're trying to go for something here, and you're not really vibing with it.
[00:49:49] We're creating a brand here on Loggie, and you just don't quite match our branding. Oh my God. You're not getting on the mood board, unfortunately. 29 players, you're welcome for me bringing that term into the lexicon to use when you have to inevitably tell somebody why they're getting votes on the tribe. Yeah. That's beautiful. I love that. All right, Franny, you are the Cedric here. You were judge, jury, and executioner. Who do you think was more on the nose about Bianca?
[00:50:15] Oh, it's hard. I mean, you both really kind of hit the nail on the head with a couple of minor wobbles, but I think I feel like I have to give it to Mike. The losing the vote of it all was so specific. Spinning a story about not losing it. Yeah, I like it. I thought it was really good. We didn't quite see sit out queen, like you said, Liana, but I could have seen that reality come to fruition. And mostly I'm just disappointed that we never talked about the erotic dream.
[00:50:44] But I am going to give it to Mike. I am wondering if she ended up telling anybody on the island about that. Like, yes, you have nothing but time out there. And maybe if Bianca was on New Loggie, she would have felt the permission to be open as well, to be like, all right, everybody, stars being an open book and sharing her beware advantage. I've had sex dreams about Boston Rob. How about you? There's something I've been holding in this whole time.
[00:51:12] Yeah, yeah. To me, I would prefer if she was on New Vula and they're all telling their stories about their parents. And she goes, thank you all for sharing. Now I would like to share my story. I kind of wish that she shared it at a challenge because that would have made Jess cry. Oh, overwhelmed with emotion. I'm like, I thought I was the only one. Now you got me. So much in common.
[00:51:39] Boston Rob's next dream support group incoming? T-shirts? Yeah, there's a text chat. It's fine. They're all B-O-C-EVs. Yeah, just watch out who's in that group chat. Oh my gosh. Yeah, exactly. It's on Signal. Don't worry. Sorry. Um, okie dokie. So today's game, originally I was inspired. I was going to check in with Casuals Corner, but the casuals just were all really sappy and emotional like the rest of us. So there wasn't a ton of snark there. Um, yeah. For example, one comment,
[00:52:08] have watched every show since the start. This is the first time I've cried. You could feel the love out there. So just a lot of really likes and hearts and not exactly what I look for, particularly in a Casuals Corner. I want the snark. I want the meanness. Yes. So instead, I went back, rewatched the episode and was taken the first time I watched it, but especially on the rewatch of Joe's face. So Mike, I've shared my screen. I'd like to point
[00:52:33] out as what Franny had described as all of Joe's faces of this like concern, staring, watching, um, even Jeff getting in there a little bit, uh, with him sort of leaning over, staring at Eva. She's undergoing sort of this emotional response to the challenge. So what I've decided to do is to play. Oh, and then the other thing I made because I couldn't stop thinking about it was the Simpsons do it for her. Uh, so for Joe, it's just pictures of Eva.
[00:53:02] And there's, Oh my God. I just, it was like 10 o'clock last night and I was like, yeah, we should go to bed, but we're going to make this instead. I'm intrigued. I didn't see that in the collage you did earlier. Uh, did, did, are you going to talk about the pointing in the game at all? Uh, no, no. Okay. We can talk about this for a second because Joe has now done this twice in two episodes where Joe has a move where it's like,
[00:53:30] so he does it in last episode when Thomas is walking out where he's like, like my guy, like, cause that's the thing is I think you look at it as a, as a still image and you're like, is Joe, am I in trouble with dad? Like as Joe calling me out, but it's his gesture of support. And we see it in this episode when, you know, it gets brought up. I think it's Eva or like David says something and then Joe's like, yeah, it really, it gives accusatory, but plus with the eyes
[00:53:58] and everything, but in context, very supportive, most supportive point I've ever seen. I think. Yes, exactly. Um, now pointing aside, we're going to stick with facial expressions for the most part, and we're going to be playing a game inspired by, we did this last season with a couple of questions, but we're going for the full game this time. And that is what emoji is most represents the facial expression of a castaway. We'll come up with a clever name at some point.
[00:54:27] Emo, emoji, maybe it's a movie. Can we call it a TV show? Can we call it emojos? Emojos. Yes. Okay. That's the emoji emotions inspired. So the way that this is going to work is I'm going to show you four different emojis, and then you are going to guess which emoji best represents a particular survivor's reaction. So Mike, you will go ahead and kick things off where you are going to be guessing of these four emojis, which represents Shaheen after the last
[00:54:57] episode's tribal council. So this is when they get back to camp and Shaheen is reacting both in actually in confessional as well as just chilling around camp in the same way. So your emojis to pick between are the sort of crossing hands, pouting emoji, the hands on head. Oh my gosh. Emoji, the I can't believe this just happened, the question emoji, or of course the classic face palm
[00:55:24] emoji. See, face palm. I like how we all just had a little head, shoulders, knees, and toes. Head, shoulders, yeah. Was it like for podcast versions? More so like forehead, chin, shoulder, chest, sternum. Yeah. Uh, all right. So D is the most visual thing and like he but I'm trying to remember like so at tribal council he was definitely like face palming. He had his full head in his hands just in response to
[00:55:53] everything. So this is specifically like in the night vision they're back from kind of hashing everything out. That is correct. Yes. I am going to say, uh, see I also feel like Shaheen kind of like nervously touches his beard and so I feel like that would kind of be encompassed in D. So any, any face touching I will just funnel into the D option. Okay. So your answer is D, the face palm
[00:56:18] and you are correct. Classic face palm moments, multiple, uh, from Shaheen here. Oh, this is like a new Picard meme. It's kind of a tender, a tender face palm. It's like a soft touch. It's like, like a slap. Very Rodin, you know, I'm sure that, yeah, that was his inspiration. All right,
[00:56:45] Mike, you have one point Franny. Let's go to you to see if you can remember the reaction from Bianca when seeing that Thomas was voted out. So this is at the reward challenge on the mat. Bianca reacts to Thomas leaving. So is it a, the single tear crying emoji, the open mouth shocked emoji,
[00:57:09] the open mouth hands on face emoji, or the neutral expression emoji? Okay. Um, I was very confident about Shaheen. I'm less confident about this one, but I remember a reaction. Okay. So I know it's one of these four. That's a good start. Yeah. Um, I feel like she was trying to keep it a little more
[00:57:35] control. I'm between B and C. I feel like there was a jaw drop, but I feel like she was trying to keep it a little more controlled and not have a huge reaction. So I'm going to go B, no hands, jaw drop. Do you need to go full Colkin? Yeah, no, not full Colkin. Well, unfortunately, Bianca did go full home alone. Uh, Mitch, uh, we also get a similar reaction from him in this episode. I don't remember what Mitch is actually reacting to. See, Mitch more so, see, she's
[00:58:03] Colkin-y. He looks like, he looks like the scream. Yeah. Yeah. He's very scream. He's very scream. A big Bart day. Wow. She really looks, man, I fumbled that. She looks exactly like the emoji. I've never seen somebody look so much like that emoji. It's the hand placement also. She's like, I got it so perfect. Kind of upset. Um, all right. Well, not to worry, Franny, we have a few more questions, plenty of time for you to catch up, but let's go back to Mike
[00:58:30] and we're actually sticking on the Bianca train here. I don't know if you can guess. This is a wide spectrum right now. Okay. So this is what Bianca did when handing like the emotion that she had on her face when handing the immunity idol back to Jeff before the immunity challenge.
[00:58:51] So is it a kissy face emoji? Is it a neutral face emoji? Is it a emoji with hands up or is it a exhausted emoji? All right. First off, let me put out a bold supposition. Liana, anything with Bianca is never going to be neutral face. This woman again is incredibly expressive. She wears her emotions on her face and apparently her appendages. So I don't think it is B.
[00:59:16] So I'm, what I'm remembering from handing off the idols is Mitch does the classic. See you soon, which is always like the fun death knell, right? That Jeff always likes to point out. And I believe that Bianca was in solidarity with that. So I'm going to say she kissed it or didn't kiss the goodbye, but not for long. Okay. So yes, I sense Franny's frustration. That's what she would have answered too. I assume because yes, it is correct. Wow. Blows a kiss to the immunity idol.
[00:59:46] And that was a kiss of death as well. She never saw it again. It was the kiss of death. Was it the grim pooper? Is that what you called Cedric? I don't know. Bianca's mentioned some of that energy by being with Cedric. All right. Let's see Franny, if you can get a point here on the board. So now these are all hand
[01:00:10] reactions, I suppose. And this is going to be what Chrissy does when she arrives at the mat for the immunity challenge. Okay. So does she give Jeff a, a, okay. Okie dokie Jeff. Okie dokie Jeff. I mean, does she wave at Jeff? Does she give Jeff a thumbs up or does she give Jeff a good old
[01:00:33] fashioned shuckabra? I can't fathom Chrissy giving Jeff a hang loose. And I would love, I would love to be wrong, but I'm going to eliminate D in this moment. Unlike Survivor 45, you're going to eliminate D. Yeah, exactly. Um, oh gosh. I mean, my, my instant is saying wave, but I'm wondering if I'm
[01:01:02] being too, um, nail on the head. I'm going to go wave. I'm going D again. Chrissy's a classic waver. She loves to greet Jeff. She loves to wave. Yeah. Chrissy. And I noticed this last episode or two episodes ago where she's just got all these little moments where she's like reacting to things and you get little teeny tiny sentences. She's like,
[01:01:28] Hey Jeff, what's going on, Jeff? How's it going? Like she's just constantly greeting people. So that's the interesting thing about the pre-merge as well is that there are aesthetics in a manner of speaking to each of these tribes where Vula is game faces, abject misery. Loggy, no matter who comprise the tribe, we're always hooting and hollering and making the most noise coming in, going full of floor and Siva is sort of the Goldilocks in the middle, but the constant was
[01:01:56] always to your point. Chrissy said, Hey Jeff, how you doing? Or in this case, I do remember her vigorously waving to him. So she is the one that is trying to bring the energy that does not match up to Loggy whatsoever. I love it. Chrissy is fascinating to me. I hope we get to see more. I also love it because it doesn't imply that like she thinks what Jeff is like in a crowd, not paying attention to her. She's trying to flag him. Hey, Jeff. Notice me. All right.
[01:02:25] So we are two to one Franny. We're going back. No, we are going to Mike. I lied. Franny, we're going back to Mike. Franny, we're going back to Mike. Just wanted to let you know, just like Chrissy was flagging down. Hey, Franny, just so you know, we're going back to Mike. So Mike, your emoji that you are going to guess next is what reaction does David have before the
[01:02:50] immunity challenge while he is standing on the mat? So is this like in response to anything to Jeff saying anything or the immunity idols being given away? This is Jeff describing the challenge. Okay. What reaction is David giving? Is it a smiling? Is it be winking? Is it smirking?
[01:03:16] Or is it D eye rolling? All right. Well, so let's I'm going to start with the outliers here. I don't know why David would wink during a challenge description. I don't think it's outside of the realm of possibility. Let me be clear that David be like, Hey, how are you doing challenge? Like I'm ready. I'm getting ready for you. So like, or maybe he was like, maybe he finally got Jeff's ball dropping joke from the previous challenge. And I was like, aha, I'm picking up what you're putting
[01:03:45] down there, what you dropped. And so I don't think he would. The only other thing I would, the only logic I would think was that it is so odd that that's why you ended up making this a question, but I'm going to discount it for now. I will also discount D. I don't know why David would roll his eyes. If anything, I think he is firmly into the challenges. And so I think he would go with C like, I think it would be the reaction of like, Oh yeah, I'm absolutely going to crush this.
[01:04:12] It's swimming in the water. It's pulling this boat table mazes lay down for me like lovers. So I imagine he gave a big old smirk on the mat while this challenge was being described. You must be drinking spilled milk. Well, Mike, it doesn't miss a drop of that spilled milk because yes, we get this little David. I don't know what is going on here, but I just like, can I say something like, Oh,
[01:04:40] David, look at this look he has. Got more whole milk back there, Jeff. Well, that's the thing. David also has this, like his hair is usually in this slicked back, not pushback look to it, but like between this and especially the way his hair was after he like went under the log in the midst of everything that was going on. Like I kind of like this more tussled look that he has. Yeah. Very like McDreamy. I feel like he really is very Patrick Dempsey.
[01:05:05] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is a very Island hot kind of energy as well. Yeah. Okay. Mike, we're going back to Franny. I just wanted to let you know. Just saying it. Okay. So Franny for you, this is the emotion, the reaction that we get from Eva as soon as she lands the ball in the final hole in the challenge, winning it for Loggie and preventing
[01:05:35] them from going to tribal council. So there's a, and D are so hard. What's the difference between A and D? I feel like they're being set up for me here. You're like, Mike, did David wink, roll around on the floor? Or does he noddle? Franny, these are four indistinguishable faces. Which one did Eva mean? This is great.
[01:06:03] They're all very distinct. Thank you very much. I will describe them. Okay. So one is closing your eyes and screaming in anguish. So much powerful emotion. B, a single tear. C, all of the tears. D is like waterfall and cascade tears. Or D, a little bit of emotion. So D is like a smaller, D is a smaller scale than.
[01:06:29] As you can tell based on the amount of I lines. The more I lines, the more emotion. The more I lines, the more emotion. Everybody knows that. So yes, A would be a more amped version of D. Yeah. D's like, I finished. Yay. Okay. We're eliminating D. I'm also going to eliminate B.
[01:06:56] I really feel, there was a head back, there was an eye squinting. And I feel that this might be controversial because she was certainly crying beforehand. Mm-hmm. I feel that the moment of success was not necessarily a, like, was there a tear shed in that exact moment?
[01:07:22] I'm not sure. I maybe don't think so. But were there lingering tears? Perhaps. So, you know, I feel like it's kind of, it's a lose-lose here. But, oh God. Okay. I'm going to go. Oh. My heart says A, and I think I'm going to be wrong, but I'm doing it. My heart says A. Good. You should stick with your heart. That was the correct response. Yes. It was the head back.
[01:07:49] The tears had sort of subsided at this moment as she locked in to ultimately solve these. And that was so visceral. I mean, even, I mean, what was also really interesting as well from that moment was like, to your point, Jeff was in his usual narrator announcer mode. Even had a little of a side comment to say. But, like, you could almost tell that Jeff knew something was different with the way that Eva was reacting. You know, when she, like, wails out, why am I not getting this? You could tell, like, there's a lot of emotion building.
[01:08:18] And so, like, he actually, if you rewatch, gets, walks up to the table and is sort of like, you got this, Eva. Like, is actually very supportive without necessarily, like, overstepping his boundaries as challenge commentator where you could feel the mood distinctly shift. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think he says to her, like, you've been close a lot of times. Keep pushing. Like, it felt much more, like, encouraging Jeff than sassy Jeff. And Say is probably like, what the hell? Yeah. You just insulted me.
[01:08:47] And now he's, like, complimenting Eva. But, yeah. This is another really great translation of emoji to face. One of the best, you know, head back, eye squinty representations I've ever seen. This is what they mean. Whenever you send this emoji, just imagine Eva's face. Mm-hmm. Okay. Mike, this next one is for you. These are down to our last two questions here.
[01:09:15] So, what is David's reaction trying to solve the beware advantage? Is it A, a pondering? Again, I think this would be the most over the top, but I cannot not imagine him literally doing the thinking man's pose. Is it a hmm? Is it B?
[01:09:36] Now, obviously, his face is not melting, but I felt like the facial features is kind of this just, like, he's smiling and trying to help, but, like, clearly it's not actually going in. Like, nothing is kind of sinking in. Is it sort of an inquisitive eyebrow raise? Or is it a, like, I don't know what's going on? Oh, see, these could all be in David's wheelhouse. Like, he could very much be like, yeah, words aren't my thing. You know, I communicate with looks.
[01:10:03] It could be legitimately, to that point, it could be him being like, I want to show people I'm thinking, even if I'm not. It could be just be like, nothing is pervading this membrane right now. Like, nothing's sticking. Or it could be, like, I feel like A and C are the most pose-happy faces, which, like, David would obviously, he's not a model, but sort of has that aesthetic to him of being able to create these looks. So this is a really tough one.
[01:10:32] I'm gonna say, you know what? What the hell? I think he put his hands on his chin and did the 50-man's meme. Oh, I desperately wish that that was the case. But no, we get the inquisitive slight eyebrow raise. A little bit tough to tell with this picture, but you do see it where he's like, huh. Inquisitively watching other people solve the beware advantage.
[01:10:57] Also, I believe this is the same shot that has spawned maybe one of my new favorite images that I hope becomes a meme, where Mary is saying, like, this must be an L. Yeah. Oh, that's good! I hope that becomes a meme. You gotta make that reality. Yeah, I think Mary has posted it a couple times. So I hope that it ends up showing some traction later on, because it's very, very fun. Yes. I'll go back on Twitter and disseminate it. That's good.
[01:11:27] Okay, so this is our final question here. Frannie, you have the opportunity to tie it up with this question. So you're looking for the reaction that Mitch gives as soon as the first Bianca vote is revealed. So if you remember from Tribal Council, we get a say vote, we get a Chrissy vote, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, we get a Bianca vote. This is Mitch's reaction to that Bianca vote.
[01:11:54] Is it a sideways hmm? Is it B, an open mouth shock? Is it C, again, neutral face? But this time with eyes open, not hmm, more like hmm. Or is it a shock face, mouth closed, but eyes wide open? Okay. Okay. Um, I, I am trying to put myself back there. I feel like I, Bianca's would have been very clear.
[01:12:24] She, you know, she really got into it. I think that Mitch went with mouth closed, eyes wide open. What is going on? Did I just miss the boat? But I'm going with D. All right. It's tough. Like, I do think his mouth is open to a certain extent. And his mouth is open, but not crazy wide open.
[01:12:53] But Franny, you were on the right track. It was essentially similar. It's barely open. Like by happenage. It's liver open. I know. Yes, I would be open. You can please file an appeal. We'll be happy to review the footage. And potentially take, you know, I'm more than happy to take a win away from Mike Bloom. But as it stands today, Mike Bloom does ultimately end up winning. Also, just a shout out to the icon that is Cedric.
[01:13:20] I just, I just feel like the glasses emoji, like perfectly encapsulates Cedric. And we've already been over some of his other emotional reactions. Yeah. Have you heard anything? Because I've had, when I've, you know, posted about Cedric, people have called him like Surgeon RuPaul. Have you heard that from anybody? So, yeah. So Pooja actually mentioned it in like the very first episode. And then now we started seeing other people talk about it online.
[01:13:48] So, I mean, and Jeff said he would want to see Ru play Survivor. This is, I think, as close as we're ever going to get potentially. But there is a certain Ru-ish element, at least in the facial features, not necessarily in the behavior. But here we are. I agree wholeheartedly. During the preseason, when I first saw the like cast photos, I was like, is that RuPaul? And then I watched Cedric's preseason stuff. And I was like, okay, not quite RuPaul. We're not quite there. Yeah, exactly. That's the thing, though.
[01:14:18] I actually would not be surprised if Cedric is RuPaul's inner saboteur. Like, this is almost like a horcrux. Like, this is a part of RuPaul that he has kept tucked away and has now manifested itself in the form of this person. He's like, I can't go on, Survivor. I'm too booked and blessed. This guy can go on in my stead and represent everything that RuPaul is. So RuPaul slit his soul and put part of it into Cedric and sent him on. Horcrux. Horcrux energy.
[01:14:47] Yeah, that's why Cedric has been so deadly in this game. It actually makes sense. That's where the killer instinct comes from. He's ripped up part of RuPaul's soul. Oh my God. The other reaction. Wait, hold on. Let me snag that. Nope, that's Cedric again. I grabbed a bunch of stuff. Okay. So this face. So this is Charity's face. We talked about this briefly earlier,
[01:15:15] but this is the reaction to when Jeff shades Cedric for his absolutely terrible bounce. And I think she looks like the Grinch maybe when the smile comes down. I think that's what it's getting. I couldn't find an emoji that matches it, but I think that's the sort of general energy. Oh, you picked the absolute perfect screen cap. Like, it looks like she's about to explode. I know. It's so funny. It's so funny.
[01:15:40] So anyway, thank you both for indulging me and reviewing all of the funny faces that the cast always made in this particular episode. I mean, Liana. Great episode for emojis. Exactly. If I could assign an emoji to my reaction to this game, it is nothing but the biggest smile in the world. Far from neutral. So let's finish things off by, of course, giving the spotlight to our guests, as we usually do here on the B&B. Highlight a charity or cause, not the person that we just saw bursting out laughing, that is important to them.
[01:16:07] Something you want the listeners to look into and perhaps they have the ability to donate to. Frannie, what would you like to highlight this week? Yes. So I've actually highlighted this group before on RHAP. So you got a little, you know, you may have heard of them, but I'm going to talk about Point of Pride, which is a wonderful organization that offers basically gender affirming care and resources to especially like younger trans folks without access to things. So they have like binders that you can apply for and receive.
[01:16:36] They can help support gender affirming surgeries if that's something that people want to pursue. And also just like provide resources, especially to young folks who are trans or genderqueer to like help them feel supported and to explore their gender identity. Yeah. Great organization. Check them out doing really, really good stuff. Very well said. So Point of Pride. Go ahead and check all of it out.
[01:17:04] Frannie, this was so much fun. Obviously a tall order to come in with considering, again, just how much was packed into this episode emotionally, emotionally, strategically, et cetera. But you rose to the occasion and then some. So thank you, as always, for everything you bring. Every time you step behind the microphone, what would you like to plug to the listeners out there? Oh, well, before I plug, I just want to say thank you so much for having me on. This was such a fabulous episode of the show. And I feel so excited that I got to come here and talk about it with you, too.
[01:17:34] And we really we went to the we went to the polls. I think I cried a little. And then I also, you know, had a devastating loss. We had some laughs. We really covered the full the full board. What will I plug? Well, I am wrapping up my Dungeons and Dragons podcast that I do with some members from my season 44 cast. We are approaching the end of our campaign and some really crazy things are happening.
[01:17:59] So for people who are excited about D&D or want to check it out, you can find that at Surviving the Dice is what it's called. It's on Spotify. It's on, you know, Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, all those places. And if you want to like follow up with me, I'm at Hail the Veil on everything. I don't know that there's anything to follow. I don't really post much, but that's what I'll plug, I suppose. All right. Liana, what do you have going on, particularly in the world of Cedric's, I guess, source of the horror trucks, RuPaul and the life?
[01:18:30] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The source of Cedric's energy, RuPaul. Also, actually, very emotional episode this week. We had the family makeover challenge, which is always a hard hitter when it comes to, you know, the stories and learning more about the contestants. And we're down to the final five, which is absolutely just wild to me. So Beth, Aman and I, of course, will be covering all of that and then leading into we only have a couple more weeks left of the season. So let's see how this bad boy wraps up.
[01:18:57] And then Pouya and I are, of course, doing the Pouya and Liana lounge where we talk about all of the things that pop into our heads. Weird moments. Really, like genuinely, I highly encourage if you just want an hour of goofy, silly nonsense, check it out either on YouTube or you can hear it in the Pouya and Liana feed. We and Liana dot com for all your needs. Yeah. In particular, if you want to find out what Liana does in like the six hours and 23, six days and 23 hours between B&B appearances, she likes to recap her week on the on the palette. It's always a lot of fun.
[01:19:27] Yeah, exactly. Hey, here's a weird thing that happened to me. So you get to hear about all of that fun stuff. And of course, you can check out first off my interview with Bianca, which was such a delight. She was able to shed light on obviously a lot of the decisions that she made in particular at the 11th hour, but also providing a lot of perspective as to the past, present and what she tried to manifest in the future of her game.
[01:19:50] I mentioned it before, but I really hope people get to check out my talk with Joe, which, again, we don't typically talk with players in the middle of seasons, but I think this necessitated a special case. It was it was a really fantastic conversation. I think Joe does such a great job expressing a lot that he was going through from his reaction to Eva first disclosing her autism to him, to his reaction in the moment to the challenge, to his reaction to her revealing her autism.
[01:20:17] He got for klempt, I got for klempt, everyone gets for klempt. If you check out this interview, wherever I do stuff at parade in my amazing race stuff and did a lot of Dondi this week because I had the one, the only Joe Manganiello in the studio with me to talk about a lot of stuff. Talk some Dondi, talk some other things. There's a clip that's going like somewhat viral about him talking about being on one piece.
[01:20:41] There may or may not be a clip that's coming out soon, if not all posted personally, where we decided to have him teach Mike magic, Mike dances. So that will make its way to the Internet eventually. Joe Manganiello, incredibly game. And we have a big game to talk about, as of course, if you missed it.
[01:21:04] I don't know if both of you watched Dondi, but like this was a week for just wild television history being made. I got to talk with, of course, David Janay, the near six million dollar winner of Deal or No Deal Island. That was a very fun chat. So lots of great reality TV stuff going on this week.
[01:21:25] I did a reality flash as well because Netflix released the show Battle Camp, which is sort of like its own Traders-esque all-star series that takes a bunch of people from. And I kid you not, the Netflix reality universe, as they're coining it, and puts them inside this like Disney channel. The NRU! The NRU! So whether you and are you excited for this or not, feel free to check out everything that you need to know over on the reality flash.
[01:21:52] As well as all the other random stuff I do out there on the internet. And that's going to do it for this week of the B&B. Again, really ran the gamut, I think, correspondingly to this episode. And it's a tough act to follow, especially these past couple episodes getting into the merge. But given the nature of this group, I'm very excited to see whatever the merge is going to behold next week. You know, a B&B will be there to accompany it.
[01:22:17] And if you have any game ideas that you want to accompany this, if any of the games that you've experienced so far gave you an emoji-like reaction, feel free to reach out to us. R-H-A-P B&B at Gmail. I don't know exactly where any of these wailing out of anguish. Or hashtag R-H-A-P B&B. Send us any and all game ideas. And we will try to fit them into some fun version of something that can play out over the course of the podcast. As always, I gotta thank everyone behind the scenes at R-H-A-P for packaging this podcast for your eyes and your ears.
[01:22:45] And Will from America for his theme song, which those of you that listening along will be able to hear imminently. Leon and I will be back next week talking about the merge of Survivor 48. Until next time, everybody, we'll check you out at your next week. Mike and Leon are gathered playing some games. You better pray to your mama that they're not super lame. And if that all sounds cool, I can tell you the name. It's the R-H-A-P B&B.
[01:23:15] Mike and Leon are gathered playing some games. You better pray to your mama that they're not super lame. And if that all sounds cool, I can tell you the name. It's the R-H-A-P B&B.