Jesse Lopez Talks Survivor 50 Ep 10

[00:00:00] We all love Survivor, and in my first ever book, The Tribe and I Have Spoken, I'll tell you how this little show evolved from that juggernaut first season on the beaches of Borneo all the way into its landmark 50th season. I'm like a storyteller, that's what I do. What role did the greatest players, the unforgettable moments, and Jeff Probst himself have in shaping what Survivor has become today? And what contribution did we play in building this worldwide tribe of Survivor fans? Love you, bae!

[00:00:28] For you future players, I've also included my Ultimate Survivor playbook to help you win the million dollars, unlike me. It's fun, you know what, dude? It's fun. This hardcover edition is filled with beautiful Survivor illustrations in every chapter and is an amazing edition for every Survivor collector. I'm a meat collector. Pre-orders are everything for a book launch, so to say thank you to everyone who pre-orders, you'll receive an exclusive digital bonus chapter

[00:00:56] called The Ultimate Rites of Passage, my personal tribute to all the players who have ever competed on the show. All 751. This is huge. I needed this. Pre-order wherever books are sold, in hardcover and as an audiobook at robhasabook.com. That's robhasabook.com. Nicely done, Rob. Hey, everybody. What's going on?

[00:01:25] Rob Sestranino back with you. And we have a special guest with us here in the studio. So much of what I have to do on the podcast is I am always talking with people who are not in my home, but it's always a thrill when this person stops by here. My local Survivor friend is here. Unfortunately, he's not on Survivor 50, which really bums us all out. Yes.

[00:01:54] Here's Jesse Lopez. Jesse, how are you? I am good, Rob. I'm so happy to be here. Yes. I was actually thinking on the drive over how special it is. I may not have one Survivor, but I am one of the only people that gets to do this with you in person. Gets to come here. And it's really I think it's been a while since you've been here to do the podcast. I want to say it was maybe the night of the Survivor 46 finale. Was that what? Yes. And what a night that was. It was a traumatic night for a lot of people.

[00:02:24] And I think that was the last time. And we were like in the corner over here. And so I've really I've gone through a lot of different evolutions of trying to interview you in this room. And this is now I think that we're sort of landing on what the permanent solution is. Even though we are split screen, if you're watching the video, we are in the same in the same room. So, see, Jesse, it's just that. I can prove it. I can prove it. Yeah. Let's prove. Jesse has a Feastables.

[00:02:54] Okay. And now I have the Feastables. Okay. This is not. We are in the same room. This is not any trick. I have a book, The Tribe and I have Spoken, coming out everywhere on Tuesday at RobinsBook.com. And now Jesse has the book. Now I have a book. Jesse was one of the first people to have the book. I do. By the way. Yes. Yes. My wife is enjoying it. I am getting through it. I have been busy with work. Yes. But my wife has been enjoying it.

[00:03:20] She doesn't read very much books, but she's reading this one and she's been saying how fun it is. Yes. Okay. By the way, Sam, let me know in the private chat what the volume level is between Jesse. I hate in the comments when people are like, oh, this person is louder than the other people. So I want to make sure that we're doing okay on that front also. Okay. Sam says Jesse's a little bit lower. Hey, no time like the present to tell me. Let's make some adjustments. Okay. Let's see what we can do here. Okay. All right.

[00:03:50] So I'm so excited to get the chance to talk to you about Survivor 50. We haven't gotten to talk much about all of this, but first, how's everything going? Good? Good. Good. Life is good. You know, just working, kids, a lot of soccer practice, a lot of soccer practice. My kids are very much into soccer right now. We got to hang out in Atlanta when we went to the Ron Clark Academy. We actually, yeah, we got, we, yeah, we hung out more in Atlanta than we do.

[00:04:17] And then it was, there, there were questions asked of why do you go to Atlanta to hang out when you could hang out anytime. We can have breakfast whenever we wanted, Rob, here, but we did fly to Atlanta to have breakfast. Yeah. You know, I really can't. Like, I really, like, we're busy. Like, we have work and stuff. Like, on the weekend, where are we going to go? Like, I'm going to brunch with Jesse, everybody. Maybe I just need to surprise you more. Like, maybe I just need to, like, come on.

[00:04:46] I don't know that Nicole would like that. Nicole does not tend to love a surprise pop-in. Just be like, hey, Rob, what you like? Or as we call that, the Mr. Beast of just like, hey, guess who's here? I'm like, Nicole, you know how you said you love chaos? Well, welcome to the house, Jesse Lopez. Flip a coin. I'm taking Rob with me if it lands on heads. Yeah. So, okay, we'll get into all of those things.

[00:05:13] And, of course, you have a very special relationship with Mr. Beast. Very special. Where not only did your son, Gio, compete on Mr. Beast's YouTube channel and won on Mr. Beast's YouTube channel, but you also competed in Beast Games Season 2. That's like a footnote, man. Like, if you blink, you miss me kind of deal. I think the bigger connection is my son.

[00:05:41] And I will say, like, watching, we can get into the episode and the excitement of it, but I will say that watching it with my family last night, seeing Jimmy show up on Survivor 50, was, I will say, like, the one time this season where I was like, God, like, I kind of wish I was out there. Would you have flipped the coin? That would have been you. Oh, I would have flipped the coin. You would have flipped the coin. I would have flipped the coin. Yeah. Yeah. I was so excited to see Jimmy there. I think that it is, it was very special.

[00:06:11] Like, Survivor has changed my life in a lot of ways. It's a lot of what I have in my life is because of Survivor. I didn't win the million dollars, but I got, like, that safety net from Sia and from the money that I got in my placement. And then it opened up the opportunity for my son to be a part of these Mr. Beast videos and to eventually win. Like, my 12-year-old won like half a million.

[00:06:35] Like, he has no idea the sort of way that he's just changed his life through Mr. Beast. And so seeing Mr. Beast survivor all at once, it was very emotional, very fun to see. For anybody who maybe doesn't know the backstory there, can you tell people what Gio did to win $500,000 on Mr. Beast? Yes.

[00:06:57] My 12-year-old son, he got invited, he's competed in three different videos, but the last video that he competed in, he spent seven days in a circle. There were 100 people. 99 of them were basically adults, grown adults in their own circles. And then they competed in challenges that involved, like, a balance beam. These were, like, physical challenges. These were not, like, they were skill-based. You had these guys who were doing, like, handstand push-ups. And then you had my 12-year-old there who was, like, screaming, I've played these games before.

[00:07:27] Yeah, he got in their heads. Yeah, he got in their heads. And it came down to him and another adult in this, like, paintball shoot-off. And he won half a million dollars. And so just insane. Like, I can't even process that still. But, yeah, so Mr. Beast changed my family's life. Survivor changed my family's life. And to see them cross over has been just. And, honestly, here's a little bit of, like, backstory that, like, makes this whole Survivor 50, Mr. Beast connection even stranger for me.

[00:07:57] Is, like, I did my 50 casting interview on Zoom with Jeff and Matt Van Wagenen and the producers at the Mr. Beast studio while my son was filming that video. And they were like, tell us of this Mr. Beast that you speak of. It might have been, like, that they saw Jimmy in the background of my casting interview for 50. And then they reeled him. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Very, very, very strange. Very weird connections that are happening. It is weird connections.

[00:08:25] And what did you think of the Mr. Beast visit from last night? I think that there were a lot of people that were very nervous about this. People who were nervous. Very nervous. Not nervous. Let's just be real. Like, they were angry about this. And I don't think that Jimmy himself was very intrusive. Like, he was not. He was very muted. And I think that the twist that he brought was very fitting for, like, a Mr. Beast kind of thing. Yes. I think that he tends to do.

[00:08:55] Other than, like, so, like, you know, we have all these Jimmy Fallon twists. These Billie Eilish boomerang idol twists that don't really, like, have any connection to who these people are. Like, is Billie Eilish Australian? Is that why it's a boomerang idol? I don't believe Billie Eilish is Australian. Okay. Yeah. So, there's, like, no connection. But this one, like, actually seems very fitting for Mr. Beast to bring in this twist. Like, he often in his videos has, like, moments where he's like, if you take this risk, you can, like, double your prize pot. Or it'll add $100,000 to the prize you're competing for.

[00:09:24] So, this felt very fitting. I thought it was very fun. And I thought he was very laid back, which I think people were worried about him being too much in it. Yeah. I do think that this twist did really fit into the ethos of Mr. Beast, which is a lot of, like, are you willing to risk blah, blah, blah for the chance to win this? And I think that that really was a great use of that idea here in the Mr. Beast Super Beware Advantage.

[00:09:54] It was a little bit of a long name. I think we could have just called it a Mr. Beast Beware Advantage. The Super Beware just got a little extra. Yeah. How about the Beast Wear Advantage? Beast Wear. You know you don't like that? I think it was pretty good. No? We can workshop it. Yeah. But, yeah, I think it made for a fun episode. With that said, I would never do it again. Like, don't do it again. Don't do it again. Please not do it again. I feel like that they really, they got lucky because it was going to be such an exciting tribal council. And it would have just been, okay, show's over.

[00:10:24] Good night, everybody. Rick Devins, you lose. Goodbye. And what was going to happen? We'll never know. Yeah, no, but also. But that's the chaos of Mr. Beast. It could have gone very bad. And I think they got the best case scenario there. Oh, far and away. They got absolutely the best case scenario on all fronts of that. That Rick Devins was there. I think if somebody, they had to go to rocks and somebody had to do it against their will. They had to go to rocks and it was Sari. Yes. Yes. And they flipped the coin. And then Sari goes, burn the house down. Yeah. It's like, all right, season's over.

[00:10:54] You ruined. So they played with fire, but much like Rick Devins. They flipped the coin and like, hey. They landed the coin. It was fun. It was fun. But I do think I would hate to see anybody go home on a coin flip. I feel like that goes against like every, like I love Survivor. Like, and I love Survivor because I feel like it is all about, like it's, it's about the elimination mechanism is like always the same. It's like you're voting someone out. And so there is always a way to flip the vote.

[00:11:22] Whether you lose your vote, whether you're swap screwed, like you can still fight and try and sway things to go your way. Because at the end of the day, it comes down to a vote and there's like social dynamics there. I don't ever want to see anybody go home. Yeah. On a coin flip in Survivor. You know, in a season with 24 players, I, I don't mind it as much, but I want it to be that somebody will flip the coin. Okay. If they want, and, and again, I like that Rick volunteered.

[00:11:49] I wouldn't like it if somebody draw, drew a rock out of a bag, but it should, tribal council should not have been canceled. Then it should have been then. And then somebody, Rick will flip the coin and then somebody will get voted out after that if he loses. So he loses, he goes home and we still do another vote. And guess what? Rick's gone and now it's time to vote. Like, yeah, I'd still hate it. Like, I'd still hate it.

[00:12:13] Like if it had, like if it had gone any other way, I would hate it because I really do think like if I wanted to watch people get eliminated by like a coin flip or like a channel or like something like that, I would watch another show. Like Survivor has always been about like you get voted out. I think we kind of dodged this like bullet really in 41 and 42 with the do or die stuff. We did not like that. And like, and the feedback was bad then. But I think we really got best case scenario. But do or die was also not an opt in.

[00:12:43] Do or die was that whoever is comes in last in the challenge. You got to opt into the challenge. Yeah. In 41 and 42. And then whoever came in last of the people that opted into the challenge had to do do or die. Yeah. But this, I guess then this would have been worse if they didn't have Rick there because there was no opt in. You're all drawing rocks. And then one of you is flipping this coin no matter what. But yeah. So, but they got the best case scenario. They got the best case scenario. Rick got the best case scenario.

[00:13:11] I would love to talk a little bit about Rick, the survivor player. Now, I don't see a path for Rick to win this game. I really feel like that last night Rick solidified himself as a survivor legend. I think so. I mean, Rick has been so much fun this season generally. And I think that I don't know if he had, I guess, like the legend status coming out of Edge of Extinction. But he definitely had just a higher sort of. He went from fan favorite to legend. Yeah. And would you. I don't know.

[00:13:41] I feel like a lot of people. I feel like Christian did that this season as well. Yeah. So, like him and Rick have like benefited greatly from coming back. Who else? Who else has gone from like a. They sort of like really cemented a legacy this season. Now, some people already had a legacy. Ozzy already had a legacy. Sari already had a legacy. Coach already had a legacy. I mean, I don't know if like D has done it to the same extent. But I think the fact that she was the last winner, it says something.

[00:14:06] But I do think that Rick and Christian in particular have like really sort of like solidified their status as like mainstays and survivor. Right. I think there's a few more. I think that Rizzo has like kind of like like I think he's almost there. Like I think if he does like one big thing also, like I think he's starting to get there. Emily, I think is is star is starting to go there. Like if she's like I think she's really close. Just keep like spilling beans, Emily. Yeah.

[00:14:36] Keep spilling beans. And yeah, it'll be great. We'll solidify it. Like I think we're looking at like the one time players who are like now are in their second shot of doing something that the players from the new era didn't really come in and like haven't. I think. Well, I feel like Jonathan is is on that trajectory that he's really solidifying legend. Again, that's a big word. Like I guess now I'm starting to be like who's had a nice second run. Yeah.

[00:15:05] Like even Rizzo like is. I think he's got to make a bit if he has a big episode. I think he's on the he's on the cusp. Yeah. But without a doubt, I think Devins for sure. Like Devins was already coming in like a fan favorite. But coming in and just like playing with like the idea to put the idol at tribal is just so much fun. And I think, yeah, his moves are not lending themselves to him going very far and going to the end really. But they're lending themselves to some really fun shit. Yeah.

[00:15:34] Wouldn't say that he's playing to win, but he's playing to entertain. And I think people appreciate that. Leave a mark. Leave a mark. Giving a mark. Yeah. Yeah. And to me, that's like would have been my dream to go and like go and have an experience like that, whether it was in Survivor or the Traders to just be like you and I both. Goosey. You and I both. Like, you know, if you win, you like great. But everybody, you're probably not going to win. Yeah. Yeah. No. I mean, you just got to go in there. That was sort of my mindset.

[00:16:04] Like, yeah. When I was thinking about like, oh, am I going to go back? It was like, I'm probably not winning. I'm probably not going to win. So like, let's just have fun with it. Yeah. And I will say I was also coming off the fact that my 12 year old won half a million dollars. So I was like, let's just have fun with it. So Rick Devins is having a lot of fun. And, you know, I thought he was and, you know, to get to like the tribal aspect of things, I thought we had a very fun tribal because of Rick Devins, not because of Jimmy. Yeah.

[00:16:33] And Jeff was really selling that it was because of the briefcase. Yeah. He really was trying to give us that. It was, you know, like about all this because of Mr. Beast, like the dopamine. I think that Jeff kind of was over explaining a little bit of like I kind of was feeling like that was the one area where I felt like that we were getting a little in the weeds of Jeff, like explaining why this was so exciting. And and then that that it's your brain is feeling a rush right now because Mr. Beast is here.

[00:17:03] And it's like, all right, let's just get to it. Like, you don't need to explain what's happening. We all we're all we're all following. Yeah. Lots up in the air. Rick was doing it was doing just fine by himself. Yeah. Like we didn't need the addition of that. Yeah. I was thinking about Survivor 50 and your participation in a hypothetical Survivor 50. Oh, God. Do you feel like that you would have been just, you know, part of what's going on?

[00:17:33] Would you have integrated well into with this cast? Or do you think that maybe you would have had problems? I don't know. Like, I really don't know. I will say I haven't really like tried to think about that much. My therapist told me to not think about that very often. But I do think that I think I would have had a target, you know, but I don't I feel like I'm pretty disarming.

[00:17:59] And, you know, I don't know that necessarily like hanging out with me and chatting with me or like, oh, this guy's got, you know, he's cerebral or anything like that. Yeah. I don't know. What do you think? It's hard for me to judge. It is hard because I'm trying to think of like what group you would have been on. And I started thinking about, like, who do you think got your spot? Oh, God. Because I don't know if there's like a one for one of there. I don't think that there's really a Jesse that got picked. No, I don't know.

[00:18:27] Is it is it the like family man role? And in that case is like that Joe? Is it is Joe? Is Joe the you? OK, so let's say I'll say hi. OK, but I'm very different from Joe. Yeah. I don't know that. Like I feel that. And maybe it was when they wanted to bring some of the winners back. I'm not sure. So, OK, let's just say hypothetically, let's put you in instead of Joe. And now you're you're on the tribe with Christian and Rick. Are you part of that?

[00:18:56] I would love to be a part of that. You would have been part of that. That would have been fun. Well, so you would have been lumped in with the nerds. I kind of I kind of identify as a nerd. Like, you know, I don't know if I come off that way, but I feel like I would be I'm fairly nerdy. Like I'm into Marvel. I'm into like weird like things like wrestling. Yeah, you would have been. And then I feel like you would hit it off with Ozzy. Yeah. I mean, he grew up in or no, he lives in Venice. I grew up in Venice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, this is perfect. I think you'd hit it off with Ozzy.

[00:19:25] Is that the same tribe of Sari? Yeah. OK. So I have thought a lot about like interacting with Sari. Yes. And in particular, like how everybody else is interacting with Sari. And I keep like as we like the early episodes when Sari was just getting her way and everybody was just going along with it. I was kind of like, why are we doing like, why are we listening to Sari? I feel like my knee jerk reaction to anything Sari suggests would be like, no. Don't do it.

[00:19:54] Like I want to do the opposite of whatever you're doing, even if that objectively sounds good to me because I've seen like you on all of these shows like this. You are a known mover and shaker. And like for the first few episodes, I was like, I don't know why people are like listening to her. And I am starting to wonder, and I'd love to get your take on this. Is there stuff being left on the cutting room floor in terms of people's confessionals about Sari?

[00:20:23] Like, do you think that people are like going along with what Sari wants because they are thinking like long term, well, she's not going to win a challenge. Like we can get rid of her whenever and she'll be, you know, as soon as the numbers start to dwindle, you know, she's going to be this huge threat. Everybody's going to look around and be like, hey, the storybook ending here is Sari. Like, let's take her out. And so is that what's driving why people are listening to Sari? Who do you think would be saying that?

[00:20:52] I mean, maybe Rizzo. Maybe Rizzo. I could see that possibly. But I think that Christian really wanted to go to the end with Sari. He said that in his preseason. I don't think Ozzy's saying that. I don't think Tiffany's saying that. I don't think Joe's saying that. Maybe Emily and Devins could be maybe looking at her that way. So like everybody's just like willingly like working with Sari and like okay with like getting deeper. It seems like it. Yeah. That's wild. It is wild.

[00:21:18] And then it's like, I don't like maybe like maybe I need to be on an island with her to understand this. But like I think like going in like everybody would have to say like you can't let Sari get far, right? Yeah. And so like that's the one thing. Jonathan did say it earlier in the season that Sari, like him and Dee, that was like the one thing that they seemed to agree on that Dee had a friend who said, yeah, you can't work with Sari. And she talked to Jonathan about it. Yeah. No. But that's like that's where I've been like placing myself is like, would I listen to Sari if I was on 50?

[00:21:49] Because like my knee jerk reaction is don't. You might be gone if you don't. That's true. That's true. Or if I accidentally say Ozzy to her, like that's what's been happening. Yeah. So I, it's hard for me to imagine you in these groups because it's just have to imagine like, okay, well, who, I don't think people really got targeted for being like, oh, they're a good player. I think that people, you went out of good social game. I don't like.

[00:22:19] So are you saying I would have gotten far? Don't do that. It's hard to say. It's really like, I, I struggle to imagine like the, like seeing you there, but I don't think that, I don't see problems if I try to imagine it. I don't know. I did. Hmm. I think I would have like, when I look back at it, I think I probably would not have gone well for me. For you. Yeah. I think that it would have been, you know, maybe I last longer than on the traders, hard to be shorter, but I kind of feel like. But why though? Why?

[00:22:49] If Sari can do it, like in Sari has this sort of stat. People like Sari. People like you. I like you. They like the idea of me, but then when it comes to like, to actually like, well, we can't let him stay, I would have let you stay. You're going to do something like, well, you know, but I really, what do I do? I feel like you're like well connected. Like, I feel like you are like probably. But I think that that's the, that's the fear.

[00:23:17] I think that people would say that, oh, he's well connected, but I would like to say in my defense that I think I'm trustworthy. I think so. I think so. Yeah. I don't think that there's a lot of people that are like, what? But Rob really betrayed me. Yeah. And I also think it's been so long since like your like last survivor season that it's like, yeah, but I think that the relationships would hurt. But I do think in terms of like trust that I like, I think that doing what I've done,

[00:23:47] like I do think I built up a lot of trust with people doing the podcast that I'm not going to like do anything that's going to embarrass people or anything like that. Like there is like a degree of trust that you have to put into a person to like, if you didn't trust me, you wouldn't come here. This is true. You know what? I think this really all hinges on like whether or not you would have gotten on a Zoom. Yes. I do spend a lot of time on Zoom.

[00:24:16] But but I I I would not have been a big pre-gamer of like with like talk to a million people. That's fair. That's fair. I would not have been either. Yeah, I get that. I did not know whether I should answer my phone when random people were calling me during that two year period of 50. Yeah. Suspense. But sometimes you did. I think on the third try. Yeah. What did they say? If somebody called me three times, I would answer.

[00:24:45] Do they act like, hey, like, well, I was just thinking of you. Just casual check in, Jesse. Like, you know, I'm just thinking about you. You know, if we ever happen to like be on an island, you know, like. Yeah. We should just hang out. I could tell you going back to Survivor All Stars back in 20 years ago in season eight, that was not sociopath behavior. But just calling somebody on the phone now. Random like that. That's what you know. Just text me.

[00:25:15] You can't work with that person. Somebody's just calling you out of the blue. And you want to get on FaceTime and Zoom rooms? Why are you sending me a Zoom link? Forget it. Yeah. Forget it. You can't do that. Yeah. Okay. Do you have thoughts about where this goes from here now? So you have Jonathan, who's now on the bottom again. Yeah. No, I. Rick with an idol.

[00:25:41] I was going to say that like I have been impressed with Jonathan's game. I think that he. Maybe it's because we didn't see much of like his strategic or his like any agency from him in 42. But like I think that he has been getting a lot of like, I don't know if he's been getting a lot of flack. I don't know if that's fair to say. But I will say that, you know, he got left out of a vote by D. Tiffany Camilla. And I don't know that they expected him to make a counter move. Yeah. Right.

[00:26:10] Like I would not have expected him to like make a counter move. And like I'd expect like Jonathan, you don't got like the brains. Like you're going to just be okay with this. But he did make a counter move. He found another alliance. He saw the writing on the wall where he, you know, fell in that D Camilla stuff. And he made a counter move, took out Camilla, took out D. Probably felt like he had some sort of role in the Christian. Oh, a big role. And yeah. And so he was probably riding a little bit of a high.

[00:26:40] I know he lost coach and Chrissy, but I think like he was riding a little bit of a high. I'm like, man, things are going my way. Let's go for Ozzy. Jonathan's been on a weird, very like up and down trajectory this season where, okay, he was got blindsided on the Charlie boat. He's down. But then he gets out Camilla. He's up. And then he's they get out D. He's up. And then coach and Chrissy go out and he's down. And then he gets out Christian. He's up. And now he loses Stephanie. He's back down.

[00:27:10] So it's really volatile trajectory for Jonathan so far. Yeah. But I will say he had, like you said, like he has bounced back before. And so maybe he can bounce back again. But he's interesting as a player in that. Has he ever been targeted for a vote? No, I don't think so, actually. I'm trying to think that he's never, never in the pre-merge. And in Survivor 42, he goes very deep into the season.

[00:27:38] He gets into Final Four fire making. Nobody's ever trying to get this guy out. Yeah. And he is a challenge beast. I don't like I don't know that he's like got the reputation at the individual portion. Yes. Like he's definitely like a contender to win. You know, he's such an interesting build of I'm trying to think back to in Survivor 42. How many times? And, you know, if I was on we were on Zoom like, you know, the people do. It'd be easier to look up.

[00:28:04] But let me see if Sam could give us this info of how many individual immunities does Jonathan have. I know he won one in Survivor 42 on the they had like the doghouse challenges in the water where and the sea was very angry that day, like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli. It was very, very choppy. But I think that also his weight helped with like sort of normalizing the thing so he could balance on it.

[00:28:32] But I think it was like the quickest they've ever done that challenge. I feel like 30 seconds. Yeah. But I'm not sure if he has another individual immunity win. So it's interesting to individual immunity wins. But I think he's not really thought of as an individual immunity beast. So in the pre-merge, you got to keep him around because he's going to help you so much in the team challenges. But then he's not really thought of as one of the people individual immunity, a real individual immunity beast. Yeah.

[00:29:01] So but I don't know that that's factoring into why he's like not getting targeted, I guess. Like, I don't know if anybody's like, oh, well, Jonathan's definitely not going to win the challenge. We can kick this can down the road. Yeah. So it makes me wonder like why he's not. I think that they just think, oh, well, he's not a threat. Maybe I think that he just has like this camouflage of like, oh, well, he's too big. He's not he's not planning anything. He's got no brains. He's not going to sneak up on us. Which I will say is a little bit unfair given what he's done. It really is unfair.

[00:29:28] You know, I think that he's not going to he's not getting the credit currently, honestly, from fans, but also from it seems like people out there. He's got a couple fishier, I think. Oh, did he? I think so. Good for him. Congratulations, Jonathan. Yes. Well done. But it'll be interesting to see where he ends up going. I do feel like it's going towards that he has nobody. And I feel like him and Aubrey feel like that. Maybe there's something there. Well, yeah, he has he has had his people picked off.

[00:29:58] Yeah, I think he well him and Joe are still like the last of the honesty and integrity. I don't know what Joe is part of anymore. Really? I don't know. Joe is in the honor and loyalty and integrity group. But then he also just keeps telling Sari the plan. Yeah, it's it's very. I don't know what I don't know where his head is at. I feel like we're not seeing much of Joe. Like he kind of pops up here and there.

[00:30:22] But like, I don't know that I totally get his perspective on things other than like he absolutely hates Rick. He hates Rick Devins. That's like his one storyline in the season. Yeah. He's been kind of purple this season. Yeah. So I do think, yeah, like you said, you're back John. And I do think that like Jonathan's people have been picked off. I don't know that Joe is a reliable person for him. So he is kind of solo. And Aubrey has been pretty much solo this whole game. Yeah.

[00:30:50] Aubrey has been like a mismatch, like for the seat, like in terms of like the vibe for the season for me. And I'm sure people like have talked about this, but like. Well, I want to hear what you have to say about this. I think that like the season has been like this whole celebratory, you know, joyous sort of like thing. But like, honestly, the pre-merge, Aubrey just seemed like she was very sad the whole time. I don't know. She didn't find her people. But, you know, she has like weird moments of joy where she's like eating a grub. Yes.

[00:31:19] We need more grub. She's really pumped up. Yeah. Yeah. She's dancing. She was very joyous while eating the grub for sure. Yeah. Um, but yeah, she's been, she's been a unique sort of journey in, in the sense of like, she really has kind of, she kind of got bullied into playing her idol. Uh, yeah. I felt like that's what happened. Um, and, and now she's like solo, but still, like, I still don't know that she's found her people.

[00:31:47] I've said that with Steven, that we saw a lot of Aubrey in the episode last night. We saw Aubrey's perspective on almost everything that was going on. Last week, we saw Aubrey flipping against Christian. She said, hey, I don't want to be lumped in with the nerds. I want to work with different types of people. It seemed like that she was off with Jonathan and Stephanie and Joe in the last episode. That seemed like that didn't cut, really take in this episode. She kind of was like being lumped back into talking about Rick Devins in this episode.

[00:32:17] So it's, it's really unclear where she is. I kind of thought that she would be tighter with Ceri and Tiffany, who we saw her have a relationship with Tiffany earlier in the season when Genevieve was saying Aubrey's name. And certainly Aubrey played with Ceri in Survivor Game Changers, but we don't really see Aubrey around them too much. Yeah, no. Aubrey is getting the, it's almost time to make my move at it. I literally said that. Yeah.

[00:32:45] But like, I feel like, you know, kind of like Mitch got that in 48. Like a couple of people have gotten that throughout. Yeah. No. A couple of people got in that in recent seasons. So I feel like we just keep hearing about like, it's almost time. It's almost time. So like, I'm wondering is next week time? Well, what would the move be? Take out Ceri? Maybe. Maybe. Might be too soon for that. Honestly, wait. Don't do the move yet. Don't do the move yet.

[00:33:14] Well, it was too early to take out Ozzy. Yeah. Was it? Yeah, I think so. Because I think that for Jonathan, I thought he was in such a good position with, after the Christian vote, you got really indignant Ozzy, where he was talking about like, oh, Christian, Emily, and Rick Devons, you can't even trust them. They're lying backstabbers.

[00:34:01] They're pants on fire. Yes. And I thought that maybe he might be in a little bit of a tug of war. Instead, they decided that now we have to vote out Ozzy. Yeah. I do think, so from my view, I think that Jonathan targeting Ozzy is kind of what led to Stephanie. Oh, 100%. That is like, so if he would have just been like, yeah, let's stick to the plan and do the obvious vote for Rick Devons.

[00:34:24] But this is what I was saying earlier is like, I think that he kind of was riding high on this, like looking back at his game, probably like, well, you know, I kind of took out Camilla and I got the belt buckle of Christian. And he's like, all right, well, I should set my sights on the next big shark, the next big fish in the sea. And it's Ozzy, but just so happens that Sarit catches wind. That was bad. That is not, when Sarit catches wind of you going after Ozzy. Yeah.

[00:34:47] Do you think any part of this had to do with that there was the fall on the sword item at the auction where Jonathan bid on a thing and then it was two boxes and it was the one had the sea slug and one had fried chicken. And that Ozzy got the fried chicken and he could only eat the fried chicken if Jonathan ate the disgusting sea slug.

[00:35:13] And then he ate the disgusting sea slug so Ozzy could eat the fried chicken. And do you think that Jonathan was like, that really burned me up, Mr. Ozzy. That changed everything. As he was throwing up, he was like, this is it. This is the moment. That changed everything. I now hate Ozzy. Ozzy's not my friend anymore after this. Let me see if I can bring this up.

[00:35:42] Penner talked about the sea slug. What does a sea slug look like? Uncooked. What does it look like? I think it looks disgusting. I don't know. I guess you have to boil it and it becomes like leather. But yeah, Penner talked about this because I guess he had to eat it on one of his seasons. Let me see. Here's Survivor Penner. And let me give you some. I got some good Penner tweets last night. Okay. Here we go.

[00:36:11] Here's a Penner tweet for you. He said, here. Sea slug is absolutely the worst thing I ever tried to eat. Raw was impossible. Something like a salty rubber slime covered mousse turd. I am so privileged that I get to be here in person while you do this.

[00:36:40] All of you other people, you just have to see it on Zoom. I get to see it live in a living color. Yeah. You get some other good tweets. He said, wow, this beast shit is insane. Wait. Wait, is that the tweet? That was it? That was the tweet. That was just this beast shit is insane. Yeah, look. See? He didn't even capitalize beast. Put some respect on it. He had another wow tweet.

[00:37:10] He said, wow, Shakespeare and Abbott and Costello in the same tribal. I don't know. I don't know. I guess that. I guess Ceree said who's on first. So. I might have missed that. I might have missed that one. Yeah. Penner's locked in. I've been thinking a little bit about the sort of $2 million. Yes. Right. And I do think that it's actually really fun and interesting that they did it this way. Yeah. Versus like starting the season with we're competing for $2 million.

[00:37:40] I feel like doing it that way would not have necessarily shifted anything. I think you're still going in and you're playing the sort of same way that you had your mindset on. I think doing it at this point in the season, like flipping it to like, oh, you're actually competing for $2 million does do something. I think it has the potential to shift how people are thinking about things.

[00:38:04] And one person in particular, like I'm thinking about is Rizzo. And this is why. Because like I've been thinking about like being in Rizzo's position of like I was just on my very first season of Survivor. And now two weeks later, I'm out here with Ceree and Ozzy. I'm in an alliance with them. And this is a dream. Maybe I just like ride it out with Ceree and get to the end with her.

[00:38:33] You know, I'll be super fan boy and I'll just get to the end with Ceree and I'll give her her win. But now it is a lot more money. And so like I do wonder if this changes things. And Rizzo is just an example, right? But like I do wonder how much this changes things for people. Yeah. In terms of just how cutthroat they're playing. Yeah, I think it's very interesting that they have only done this one other time in Winners at War.

[00:38:59] I ultimately don't think it changed any of the gameplay in Winners at War. I don't think that people necessarily played harder because it was $2 million. They were also millionaires. Yeah. But they also had already won. And they were all just coming back with their other weirdo baggage of like, well, but people didn't like it when I won. I didn't get enough credit when I won. So it's a really good point that you bring up of will this now with the end is in sight. It's day 19.

[00:39:27] There's only a week left in the game. And all of a sudden it's like, oh, and now it's $2 million. And so I do wonder if this could lead to more cutthroat gameplay. And, you know, I've talked about this over the years. Certainly talk about it here in The Tribe and I have spoken. But the idea of the prize of Survivor, I think, has largely gone away.

[00:39:55] We don't really talk about the million dollars and what we're willing to do for the million dollars. But I do think that you're a big part of that conversation because I think that in the times where it does come up, specifically in the new era, I think one of the only times that really it's talked about is with you. And we get into the letters.

[00:40:17] And when your story on Survivor is I'm doing this for my family, I'm going to make this move against Cody. But I take no pleasure in this. I'm not I'm not Russell Hance where like these dumbasses aren't going to know what's coming. I'm doing this because I'm a villain. And you you took no pleasure in making this brilliant move against your friend.

[00:40:43] But you did it for your family and you did it as a provider. And I think that that follows in a lineage of, you know, doing a thing that would have been seen as a being a villain in the early days of Survivor. But this is how a hero acts on Survivor, where that what you're willing to do as a provider for your family. And I think that there is this lineage.

[00:41:08] I think that Jeremy Collins is really the most important in that of being the dad who's there to provide for his family. And I think that you're such a big part of that. But for the most part, that we really don't see too many people even talking about the money. And so it's a little bit of a departure for Survivor to even put a focus on the prize now going from one million dollars to two million dollars.

[00:41:35] It's much more about the experience for the players in Survivor in this modern era of the show. And so I think that will be a really fascinating part of these last seven days of is the money going to start to come to the forefront as it's not about the title and the baggage. Now, it might be about the money. Yeah, yeah. And so I think in like newbie seasons, like it has like there's they're casting so many like very like hardcore fans that like just getting out there is like a prize in itself.

[00:42:05] So it's like the million dollars does take a sort of backseat. Obviously not in my case. I was very much like I'm tired of walking around with holes in my shoes. I would really like the million dollars. Yes. So I can provide for my family. But I think like a lot of the people that are out there, it's like, wow, this is such an experience and the million dollars is so far away. So let's put it to the back of our heads. In this season, I do think like you have the sort of like gravity of being on season 50.

[00:42:29] So a lot of people have been out there just like almost like I feel like with that sort of same like mindset sort of in the sense of like, I can't believe I'm on season 50. Like I'm one of the lucky 24 to get on 50, like to represent like the franchise. And, you know, I'm here to like have fun and like leave a mark. But now we have up the prize with six days left. I think it was day 19. Yeah. That's what Tiffany was saying.

[00:42:58] Now it I hope that the money does weigh on people like that's what I want to see a little bit more of is the money weighing on people. And I do wonder if it's going to weigh on someone like Rizzo. I mean, he's a kid. He doesn't have kids. But like, you know, like that's a lot of money. That's a lot of V bucks. There's a lot of money. There's a lot of V bucks for sure. And I wonder who it's going to really impact the most in terms of. Aubrey did just have a kid. Aubrey did just have a kid. Get those family letters.

[00:43:28] And of course, we did get to see Aubrey. And of course, with the macaroni and cheese, this tastes like home. And then with Jeff's like, wow. Yeah. Wow. Mac and cheese. You didn't say it tastes like mac and cheese. Tastes like home. Tastes like home. I don't know. I just do the craft, like fill it with water, put it in the microwave in three minutes. Tell me about the macaroni and cheese ritual at your house. You know, we go to Costco.

[00:43:57] We get the big like craft, like three minute quick ones. We're very, it's very simple. Simple. It's not a moment. It's not a moment. We're not like mixing the cheese together. Yeah. I will say. Joe said that. And his part of his memory is his daughter dropping ketchup on the floor. Also, there's a lot of things that get dropped on the floor. There's ketchup. There's socks, clothes. Yeah. Yeah. Joe just, he's 13. So he's just throwing everything on the floor. Yeah.

[00:44:27] Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if my wife was on Survivor. Would she miss the mess? Would she think of it fondly? Of the kids like leaving crumbs everywhere. Like, oh, my husband leaves a paper towel on the counter. And I used to, it used to make me mad, but now it makes me miss him. These, these, no, maybe it's the opposite. Maybe it's the letters from home and the auction. They're like, you know what? This has motivated me to stay here longer. I'm going to stay here longer. Not for the win, but just so I don't have to go home. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:44:55] So, well, okay. We'll keep tabs on that. This is going to be the, I'm going to give you credit if this comes up as a big part of the show moving forward. The money. The money. Yeah. I hope it does. Yeah. I hope it does. But yeah. Those family letters. Well, talk about the letters because you got the letters. Letters were a big part of your story in survivor 43. I want to know, does it change anything that everybody got their letters? I know it's all been such a big deal in these new era seasons of, oh, some people got their

[00:45:23] letters and some people didn't, but does it sort of like take away any of the impact of the letters that everybody got their letters? I think so in terms of like the conflict and the tension, right? Like I do remember, you know, getting picked and then going back. And I guess I wasn't actually expecting people to be like very upset. I thought they would be sort of like understanding, like we are all playing survivor. Like we know that this type of stuff happens where you get left out of like getting your letters.

[00:45:52] But I remember like Carla being pretty upset that she didn't get picked. I remember Gabler being pretty upset and angry that he didn't get picked. And like it did make like people a little bit mad at like Noel for her choices. Right. Like picking Sammy over like somebody who has a wife and kids. Right. It was like a point of tension. And so I do think there is drama left on the table. That's the idea. When you just give everybody their letters.

[00:46:21] I do wonder if it could be in conjunction with playing harder. Of course, you know, part of your story was, you know, a very specific letter with with a Gio wrote to you about get that money, baby. And that was part of your story. That's poetic. What? He wrote me get that money and then he went and got it. And then he got the money. He said, listen, dad, if you can't do it, I'll do it myself. I didn't make a fire. Yes. But it like it inspired you to play harder getting the letter.

[00:46:50] And I wonder if in conjunction with this, like just to go back to Mr. Beast for a moment in in Beast Game Season 2, I think they did. They did basically the Survivor 40 thing of the final 10. I think it was. They all got their family visit. And it was right before they did like a big game where they had to be like super cutthroat. And I think that they want it on Beast Games. They try to remind people of like, but remember, like you, you have friends here, but this is who you're playing for. Yeah.

[00:47:20] And I wonder if the letters serve as a reminder for everybody. Hey, just when you're feeling good about this new family, remember you have a real family. Yeah. No. And so, yeah, I do think that like me getting my letter in 43, it made me extremely grateful to Noel. Noel. But it also made me realize like in that moment, I need to get rid of Noel. Also a cast member of Beast Game Season 2. Yes. She fell off a pole. Also a blink and you miss it kind of moment.

[00:47:50] Yeah. No. So I do think it gives you that sort of like edge and motivation to make the cutthroat move. So I think that in conjunction with the fact that there's $2 million on the line, maybe everybody's just going to take out their Dakers and start, you know, taking shots at people. Maybe even Joe might operate with a little bit more deception and betrayal. Could Joe backstab somebody? Is it physically possible? I don't think he could.

[00:48:18] And I think that one of the reasons why he wants to go hard after Devin's is that to him, that's not a backstab. Like I think that for Joe, that there's honor in this person is not my friend. I'm going. I said I'm going after this person and that's what I'm doing. I'm going after this person. I don't have to lie to anybody to go after Joe. So or go to Rick. So like for Joe, this is like an easy one for him. Yeah. But he has also just kind of. There's no gray area.

[00:48:45] I know he hasn't like turned on people, but he's also voted out like people that he like probably told he would never vote out. Like coach. Like coach. Yeah. But he did say that he wouldn't write coach's name down. They made him go back and write coach's name. Yeah, that's true. I did hear that. Yes. Which I don't know. I feel like you voted Chrissy. Coach was going to go with her. By proxy. Yes. That doesn't count. Yeah. No, maybe that.

[00:49:12] But maybe the letters from home in combination with the two million dollars in combination with the memories of home from the auction are going to push Joe to drop the honor and integrity. Like maybe we're going to watch the slow corruption of Joe. What would he do? Moving forward. I don't see it. Yeah, I don't know. It was his alliance that could actually turn on. I just enjoyed him in this season where he hasn't really been the focal point, but

[00:49:41] every vote is like, but yeah, but what are we going to tell Joe? Yeah. Yeah. Everybody's been very like, you know, working around him. They're working around him. But it's also like, it's based off of like the 48 edit. I don't know how much it's like based off of like what he's doing out there. Like, is he like running around saying like, well, I guess he kind of is because he was like telling Devin's like, I would tell you if I was going to vote for you. Like I would be so straight. But I think with that, he was doing semantics with Devin's on that one also because he that

[00:50:10] Rick's like, okay, Joe, you were going to, but you wanted to vote me out. And he's like, I wasn't going to vote for you. If I was, I would tell you. And I think that he was that, that he was in the group. He was going to, he was voting for coach. Like they told, like he wanted Rick out. And then they said, Joe, we don't have the votes for that. That, that, that, that coach is going home, go with the numbers. And so Joe was going to tribal council to write down Chrissy's name, not even coach.

[00:50:40] And, but, and then I think trying to sell to Rick, like I, I wasn't going to write your name down that night. I was, I would tell you if I was. He's like, as I was taking my seat, I was not intending to write your name down. I would have liked nothing more than to vote you out, but we didn't have the numbers, Rick. Like, you know, even if all the way up to the seat that I was taking, I was going to vote you out. But Rick also wants to have it like, ah, hi.

[00:51:09] I like, I got you. So yeah, no, they're a little, uh, well, they won't. They is very cute. Yes. Yes. What do you think is at the reunion? Do you think that they'll, uh, like put them together? Well, like it's weird to think about this survivor season is going to have a reunion. Yeah. The live finale. That'll be, that'll be fun. And honestly, it's going to be spicy. It seems like it could be like, you know, listen to the exit press here and there. And the cast doesn't seem to love each other. Yeah.

[00:51:37] No, I'm honestly like it's their exit press has made me like very grateful. I was like, you know what? I'm glad I didn't get picked. Cause it seems like a lot of like drama. It seems like a lot. I don't think would you have had beef? Like there's people on this season who seem like they have beef that I didn't expect to have beef. Yeah. Because even coming out of survivor 43, I don't think that you had beef with your cast a little bit. Yeah. It was, I stayed off. I tried to stay off Twitter. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:52:05] I mean, your season had a lot of beef, but I feel like not with you. I just, you know, I just faded to the background. Maybe that's what I would have done anyway. Yeah. No, but yeah, no, I'm excited for the live finale. Yeah. It's going to be a little crazy. Hopefully spicy Jeff comes. Probably not. I don't think the Jeff will be too spicy at the reunion. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. I kind of want, it'll be really interesting to see how they handle it. Yeah. If there is like a little bit of like, well, you have like, let's just track the stories

[00:52:34] for the reunion. Potential interesting stories for the reunion. Okay. There's who pregame with who? Like people are. Will they touch that? Will they, will, will they touch on that? I mean, it's come up in the exit press. Yeah. Yeah. And so I kind of feel like. I think they need to be very specific if they ask about this though. They can't ask like, Hey, were you guys on zoom? I don't want anybody being like, I don't have zoom. I don't think that Jeff is going to ask these questions, but I think that these are things

[00:53:01] that the other players will blurt out when Jeff asks them like, uh, all right, Donaldson, how you doing? You know? Um, and you take control whatever he's going to say. Yeah. We should take bets. We should be like, yeah, like make a bingo card. Like will zoom be mentioned at the, this would be a good podcast. Yes. Okay. Mike Bloom is standing by for things. Okay. At the reunion show. All right. Are they going to talk about that? Um, they're going to talk about that.

[00:53:28] I know that there was, of course, with all of the airtime in the edit and, and how much, uh, did the women get under edited? I think that that's, I think that like you saw a lot of people Brown, like, um, well, yeah, Zach Brown got more confessional than Tiffany. Now in fairness, Tiffany has way more confessionals than Zach Brown. And Mr. B is that Mr. Beast is totally purple. No confessionals for Mr. Beast. Billie Eilish though. You know, I do think they made Billie Eilish very purple. Yeah.

[00:53:56] You didn't get to see anything from Billie Eilish, although she's going to be in a commercial 50 times. But I think that, you know, you, you, Chrissy, uh, and Angelina both, I think, uh, if they like, what are they going to do? Not ask them a question at the reunion. And you know, that's what they're going to talk about. Yeah. Yeah. Certainly Angelina. Yeah. Uh, who else, who else do we got? We got Charlie who the Charlie and D Charlie and D of it all. You know, there's some tension there. Uh, who else do we got? Who else is, who else is beefing? Yeah.

[00:54:26] Jenna versus everybody. Uh, you know, Jenna Lewis, uh, I think that that's the kind of, but I think that that's like a beef that's sort of like contained to the show. Yeah. Um, it'll be like Mike White and Christian. Oh, Mike White. Yeah. That's the biggest one. That's one of the biggest ones. And you kind of wonder if, you know, that like, I, I wonder, like, I hope they make amends. Well, I think that there's a realistic chance that because of like the white Lotus shooting

[00:54:54] schedule, I think that they're doing this role. I think he might not be there. Oh, I think, I think you might have Mike White on zoom. That'd be great. He'll be like, I wasn't on zoom then, but I'm here now. Oh, I was really hoping for like a handshake, like at the live finale. Yeah. Kind of between Christian and Mike. Yeah. We'll see. I mean, maybe who knows? I don't know. It's not impossible to make amends with Mike White. No. Mike, Mike White's very reasonable. Yeah. And so we'll see what happens there. Yeah.

[00:55:23] You know, is coach on good terms with everybody? Surprisingly, maybe. Maybe. Yeah. I don't know. And then, I mean, and then we'll see how the rest of the fallout goes. But I think this could be very like that. It might. I think this could be the last read live reunion. I think. I think. Because of how it's going to go. They might have been off more than they could chew. Because of like budget. No. Well, I think it could be both. I think it was very expensive. Because they didn't have to go to Jimmy for the extra million. It was very expensive.

[00:55:53] And also that there was a lot that did not go according to plan. When we thought of this idea. You guys have ruined it for everyone. Yeah. We didn't think about that. The players. There could be a lot of salty players. And they're going to like. You know, the Survivor After Show is a lot more of a contained element. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. That's true. I have a lot of questions for you, Jesse, from the listeners. I feel like we're all over the place. We're a little all over the place. That's fine. Okay. All right. Yeah.

[00:56:22] I mean, did you have notes? No, I didn't have notes. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like. But I think the questions will. Help me. Yeah. Okay. Kind of scattered. All right. Let's see. Would you. Let's see. Okay. I'm going to give you a lot of questions for you about the Mr. Beast coin flip. Okay. I love it. All right. Was there enough chaos at the auction? Josh asks.

[00:56:50] But like there were only two chaotic moments and Mr. Beast. Did you feel like that Jeff totally oversold the chaos at the auction? Yeah. I did sort of feel that way. I sort of felt like there was. Yeah. There was only the two moments that everybody else was just getting all of this stuff with. They ate so much. Yeah. They were getting so much food. Like there was so much food dished out. And I do wonder how many like. Like how much of the time like people were like very much like oh is that going to be the chaos? Is that going to be on the chaos?

[00:57:19] And then what did they just stop expecting it? Even my kids were like dad. Is there going to be chaos in this one? Yeah. Not really. Honestly you should have heard Gio. His ideas for the chaos. What would have been? Like the milkshake came out and he was like I hope it's laced with laxatives. Oh my God. Yeah. And then he was like there was the covered thing and Gio was like I hope there's bird poop under there. I don't know. He was like yeah. So like not enough chaos for my family's taste I guess.

[00:57:50] Hmm. But yeah. I think he overselled the chaos. He did oversell the chaos. I really thought the chaos was going to be then when they went to the challenge. I was like oh okay. I can't wait to see what this challenge is going to be. And it was just like such a like easy like no stress challenge for people who just ate a bunch. Yeah. What would have really been chaotic is if they had a bunch of alcohol. Yes. At the auction. And then they took them to the challenge. It's not that kind of show anymore I don't think. Well come on.

[00:58:19] They had the margaritas. But they didn't. Where was the margarita lesson? There was no margarita curse. They took us back and got everybody a little buzzed and then they could have done the challenge. That would have been pure chaos. Answer this question. Okay. Josh Wolfson said do you think Mr. Beast had more to do in this episode and did they cut it? It was rumored in the wake of Zach Brown that they were cutting Mr. Beast's segments from the episode.

[00:58:47] Do you think that was in any way true? I don't think so. I think that Jimmy is like I think people have this sort of expectation of Mr. Beast based on like the YouTube videos and him being very loud and screaming things. Five million dollars. He did get to scream after Rick hit the coin flip. He was like you guys just won. You guys just won one million dollars for the prize.

[00:59:15] Yeah but even that I feel like was sort of like muted compared to like how he is in like YouTube videos and stuff. I think that he is just like excited. He's 27 years old. Yeah. He has done so much stuff but like I do think I've heard him talk about like when he goes got to go to the pyramids. He's just in disbelief a lot like with this kind of stuff like he can't believe that he's able to do these things.

[00:59:38] And I saw like some BTS of him shooting Beast games when he arrived to the island Fiji to do the crossover there. And he was just kind of in disbelief. He was like I honestly thought this was a joke. I thought they were going to call me like on our flight and tell me they couldn't do this. Yeah. So I think he is really just respectful of what Survivor has built. And so I think he realizes he had to like take a step back for the contestants.

[01:00:03] Well I talked to him about it as well when I went to go to talk to him a couple of weeks ago. And he was talking about really that him and Jeff are sort of like the only people that are sort of like the hosts but also like the creative person behind the things that they do like on this scale. Yeah. And like it's a very small group of people that are like you know doing this type of thing. And he was very excited about this. He was like I can't wait for everybody to see it. It's going to be good.

[01:00:33] He saw the bad press about Zach Brown and he said he was nervous. But he's like I'm not going to spearfish. I like he said my thing is totally not about me. Like it's about them. It's about the players when I go there. And so he wasn't like oh yeah I got so many confessionals and I'm really I'm going to be the star. It's really all about me. Yeah. You know I think Mr. Meets doesn't need to go to Survivor to go like get more famous. No.

[01:01:00] I honestly think he like I don't think they cut anything crazy. Yeah. I think that like maybe he said a little bit more and they just but it was not like they had huge chunks of Jimmy going on like lectures or anything like that that they cut. If people didn't see also that the Survivor episode of Beast Games was really really good. Yeah. I honestly think it was the best episode. I think it's episode four of Beast Games and it was really really fun.

[01:01:27] And Jeff was like it's like super fun on Beast Games. So Jimmy did talk more in that episode. He did talk much more. Yeah. But Jeff also talked a lot. Jeff got a lot of confessionals in the Beast Games episode. Yeah. I do think that Jimmy was just kind of sitting there watching and learning from Jeff. Okay. Here's a question for you from Ray James. Odds that Rick Devins or any of the Devins children end up in a Mr. Beast video.

[01:01:55] A shot in the dark one in six or 50 50. I'll take 50 50 on that. Yeah. I think there's a very high high chance that Devins or one of his kids gets in. I think that I think that Jimmy likes people who are very outspoken who are very like show many and I think that Rick Devins is that he is like very just outspoken. He speaks his mind. He speaks his mind in an entertaining way and he also is willing to take risks and he did it right in front of Jimmy. Yeah.

[01:02:24] I could see Rick Devins in another video because he has kind of a allure now to him of like he's the guy that flipped the Beast coin for a million dollars on Survivor. Yeah. You know. Yeah. I don't think that he'll be on like Beast Games season three or anything like that but I can definitely see him like in a Mr. Beast video. And honestly I will say I am like super happy that Rick Devins had this moment because I've known that Rick Devins is a fan of Mr. Beast. He's reached out like multiple times.

[01:02:52] As Geo has been doing his videos. For a very long time. Yeah. Rick Devins. Listen. When Rick Devins found it was talking about the Billie Eilish boomerang idol and talked about how like oh Billy Eilish one of the greats. Yeah. I don't know if he knows so much Billie Eilish but I can remember from a couple of years ago where that Rick Devins was tweeting about how he went to Walmart with his son to clean up the aisles. Of the feastables.

[01:03:23] People like why hey people like were giving him like like some crap online like hey hey like like this is late stage capitalism. Why are you cleaning up Walmart for Mr. Beast? He's like I don't know my son likes it. I'm just. I think he even ended up like in an article like like a Rolling Stone article written about like these feastables that were like falling off of shelves and like Rick Devins was like quoted in it. So like this is the path has been leading the year the entire time.

[01:03:54] They should have had flashbacks of that article. Yeah. But honestly there's so. We need to clean up in aisle seven. Can Rick Devins get down here quick? Right. No. It's honestly interesting that like so much this season has been like kind of poetic. Right. Like I think like Coach and Ozzy going to like that first challenge together was very like you know poetic.

[01:04:21] I'm thinking of Stephanie being like solo and doing. Yes. I mean look at Christian's journey where that his survivor fate ends up being on a puzzle where he's sort of born into the survivor world on a puzzle. And then like for Rick Devins like the like who's been a huge fan of Mr. Beast and you can point to things in like the Twitter sphere or whatever and see see the connect. It's I'm very happy for Rick Devins that he had this moment.

[01:04:50] I honestly think he was going to flip the coin whether he was on the bottom or not. Mm hmm. Okay. Lyle wants to know if Jesse was in Rick's position would he have flipped the coin? A hundred percent. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Yeah. Like even if I wasn't in Rick's position like I think it would have just been like I can't like especially because I had just like Gio had just filmed his video where he won like three months prior to this. So I guess that. It's a hard thing. Yeah.

[01:05:17] You you would have to do it if you were on Survivor 50 and he showed up. And Mr. Beast shows up. But if this was Survivor 43. Oh. Would you have flipped the coin? Mm hmm. No. Mm hmm. I think I was like in too good of a position at that point. Yeah. Like throughout that season. Tell me what you think about this because I was thinking this through of that if Rick Devins flips the coin you're out. Rick I'm sorry.

[01:05:45] I feel like Mr. Beast does something nice for Rick Devins anyway. Like I kind of feel like that like is that crazy? Here's a hundred thousand dollars. Yeah. I like it. You know what though? I'm still giving you a hundred thousand dollars. But like Rick here's a Lambo. Yeah. He has a brief. That's what he does in his videos. It's like you didn't win the prize but you're going home with a thousand bucks. Like he probably would have been like going home with a box of feastables. Something like that. Something real nice.

[01:06:14] So they've had any feastables at the auction? Honestly I'm shocked they didn't. I'm shocked. I'm literally shocked that there wasn't like a feastable sanctuary. I think it would have given too much. Should they have given Rick Devins a feastables also? Should it have been like Rick? And if you hit the flip of the coin you're going to get immunity and an idol and double the prize pot and you'll get a feastables to eat in front of everybody right now. Right.

[01:06:42] Honestly I wonder if there was anything cut from like Mr. Beast's involvement it might have been like they had feastables at the auction. You know? But honestly I would have been very happy to get feastables while I'm starving. Okay. Alright this is from Cleon who says which item in the auction would you have wanted the most for Rob and Jesse? So out of the items we saw was there something that you thought looked particularly good? The grub.

[01:07:12] The grub. Would you eat the grub? Yeah. I say yes to things. I say yes to things just to see what happens. Yeah. That's sort of my philosophy in life is just say yes and see what pans out. I don't know that anything particularly good would have come from eating a grub. Yes. But I probably would have done it. Because in real life you are a vegetarian. Yeah. But now like when you're on Survivor is it just like open season let loose so you can eat the buns? No problem? I ate meat out there. I didn't give a shit.

[01:07:41] It's kind of like that question that vegetarians get of like but would you eat meat if you were stranded on an island? Yeah. The answer is yes. Whatever. I will. Yeah. You know? I'm on vacation. But yeah. I don't know. What would I actually want from the auction? Honestly I'm so frugal. I'd probably be like let me pocket this $500 and just keep it for after. Did I ever tell you I had money left over from the auction in Survivor the Amazon? No. Oh I did get to keep it.

[01:08:08] And then the freaking camp burned down and my money burned up in the camp. How much was it? It was $240. Jesus. And that was the first thing that I came back from. I was with Mateo and I was on the reward. And then Jenna was like the camp burned down. All of our stuff is gone. I was like what about my $240? That's like $500 today. Yeah. Because back then I was like I'm going to Burger King.

[01:08:36] I was like already spending that money at the airport. Yeah. You could have bought Bitcoin with that. Well Bitcoin was not going to be invented for like 10 more years. I could have like saved it. A lot of good things could have came from that. A lot of things could have happened that would have been good with that $204. What would you have bought? What did you want from the auction? Okay. So out of the things that I saw, I mean the chocolate chip cookies I think were looked really good. No? No.

[01:09:06] My family looked at the cookies and were like those look mid. Mid cookies? No. But on Survivor those would be pretty good. Because I think a lot of the food, Jeff talked about it that oh no the food is like we keep it. The food is very hot and fresh now. I don't know. I think that a lot of the stuff I feel like is sitting there. Yeah. I would have gone for the fries. Fries. Yeah. They had onion rings. I feel like that we don't... I feel like that was a Survivor first, the onion rings. Maybe somebody will fact check me on this. No. Did they have brownies?

[01:09:36] They did not. Not a ton of chocolatey type things. Even Aussie's cake, not too chocolatey. This is lending itself to the theory that they cut a scene of feastables. They had feastables. And they cut it. Yeah. So yeah, I don't think there was one particular thing that I was like really like oh man, I could go for that. Yeah. Did we have a burger? Like you know, there's a lot of stuff that got cut. Like I feel like Joe didn't eat anything. Yeah.

[01:10:05] I'm just happy for Rizzo that he got food because honestly he looks like he's dying. He is. But Stephanie in her exit interviews was kind of down on Rizzo. And then even with me, she was like oh Rizzo, he didn't even eat the chicken. I couldn't tell if she was saying that he was full or his stomach hurt or he didn't like it. Nah, I don't know. I feel like... Why would he do that though? Like what? But... He's a picky eater. Picky eater. But he's starving. I felt bad for him.

[01:10:34] Like I was watching the show and I was like I wouldn't outbid him. Yeah. Like I would want to feed him. Yeah, but Rizzo's dinner on the auction, it looked like what I would have for dinner here. Like I feel like that's not a good auction food. No. I don't know. What did he get? He got like grilled chicken. He didn't eat the cookies without bread. Oh yeah, my wife was saying that that was the best meal out of the auction. That was the best meal for him. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Okay. They did have a chocolatey milkshake for Emily Flippen. Yeah.

[01:11:01] And that's the one that Gio said like the chaos should have been like the laxative. Well, maybe they did because maybe that's what they cut out because she's like, oh my God, I just remembered. I'm going to poop my brains out. Did you say that? She did. I missed this. I missed it. She did. There were a lot of people throwing up. Maybe that was the laxative kicking in. Yeah. Gio. Gio's power. Gio's power. He called it. Yeah. Okay. Let's see. Who from Survivor 50 do you see making it onto the next Beast Games?

[01:11:31] Ooh. I mean. How about a future Beast Games? A future Beast. Not the very next one. Not the next one. Someone's like currently casting and all that stuff. Oh, by the way, listen, and this is on a related note. How did Jared being on Beast Games compare to Sari on Survivor? Yeah. Sari acted like she didn't know who Mr. Beast was, but Jared was on Beast Games at the same time that she was playing Survivor, right? He was. He was. I saw him there. Why haven't we talked about this? Yeah. Yeah.

[01:12:00] I ran into Jared when I got to Vegas and I was like, dude, what are you doing here? I was like, shouldn't you be staying ready for the family visit? Yeah. He's like, oh, my brother's going to go. Turns out apparently there's a fucking family visit. No family visit. Yeah. Right. Did it not seem like Sari doesn't know too much about Mr. Beast? Yeah. She did seem like a little bit like unimpressed. But it was like literally this was filming at the same exact time. Maybe they don't tell each other what they're doing.

[01:12:30] Like maybe he doesn't know. They gotta tell each other what they're doing, right? Maybe she didn't know he was on Beast Games. Maybe she didn't know that this is the Mr. Beast from Beast Games. Maybe she thought he was on Squid Games. Because right. The timing on this was when when was Beast Games? It was filming around the same time as 50. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like we literally 50 flew out. And then I was like, I need to like disconnect from the world. Let me go on Beast Games. Yeah.

[01:12:57] We were we were, of course, like, OK, well, Jesse, I'm going to go do the traders. You go do Beast Games and we'll come back here. And then like a week later, we're like, like WTM. Yeah. We were like, well, that didn't work out. I thought I was going to have five million dollars. I thought you were going to win the traders. Yeah. Look at us. It was like our summer did not go as we had thought. But it was literally the same that you were doing at the same time as when Survivor 50 was happening.

[01:13:27] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they literally I mean, there was a pot. Suus May was on the islands of Fiji as this episode was being filmed because they filmed the Beast Games crossover during Survivor 50. Pretty much at the same time. Yeah. That's why Jimmy's out there. This was back to back. Oh, OK. OK. I didn't know you didn't know this. I thought they came back. I thought they did it before. No, this was back to back. So Jeff was pulling double duty. Where was Jeff during these like what? What episode was this where Jeff?

[01:13:55] Yeah, no, there's not that many off days, but they were out there at the same time. This like Jimmy was there because they had just done. I feel like that maybe the episode prior. No, Jeff did the challenge in day on. We're going to like get the calendar. So on day 18, when Christian gets voted out, I think that's when Jeff is doing the challenge. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe when like doing Beast Games, he got like loosey goosey. Yeah. I think that they had like maybe a down day after.

[01:14:25] What was it after? So Coach and Chrissy got voted out. Yeah. And they had the duos twist. And then maybe that day after where I think that they kind of I feel like that they kind of had like a down day around camp. Maybe that's when they did it. Maybe that's the day they did Beast Games. Yeah. And then Jimmy just hung around for like two days. And then Mr. Beast hung out to go and do the. Yeah. I wonder if Jimmy knew, though, that Sari was like Jared. Like, I mean, Jared wasn't around very long.

[01:14:53] I don't know if they got word to him that Jared was on Beast Games. And then. But I don't know. Who knows? Yeah. No. But somebody knew. Sari had to have known who Jimmy was. Maybe she just was like. Maybe she's playing Koi. Playing it off. Like because she's like, you know, what if Jared won five million dollars already or something? Yeah. She could be like, hey, can I get an update on how Jared did on Beast Games, please? It was strategic why she didn't react. Yeah. Doesn't want to get into it. Riz God, I could see. Very excited.

[01:15:22] Let's just go through the whole the the the cast and who's in the casting pool. Riz God, key demo for Beast Games. I think that he would be he would actually be really good on it. Yeah. I think he I think Jimmy would cast him. I think Jimmy. I think for sure. Riz God. Rick Devens. I can't see Riz God on the traitors. I could see it. Don't don't don't sell him short. I just feel like the man limit the legend. I guess so. That I struggle to see it a little bit more.

[01:15:53] Him in the him in the castle. I could definitely see him on Beast Games. Yeah. Q if he wants to do it. On Beast Games? Yeah. He'd be pretty chaotic. He'd be great. He'd be great on Beast Games because he doesn't care. And he would smack a button for like two dollars and eliminate like half of the people. Like Q's rich already. Yeah. Like he doesn't care. Yeah. He didn't. He's just there for the fun. Mm hmm. I think. Yeah. I think Jimmy should absolutely recruit Q. Rick Devens. Rick Devens. Sure. Honestly.

[01:16:23] Let's let's recruit Emily to a Mr. Beast video. I don't know that she would do it. I don't know if Emily would want to do it. I'm trying to think of like a Survivor 50 women who would be apt to go to. D I could see going to Beast Games. Yeah. Why not? Yeah. I mean she's already. Yeah. She's done the challenge. Done Survivor 50. Beast Games is different. Beast Games is just a different thing. I guess Chrissy. They should put her on Beast Games. Yeah. I think it's about who's going to like provide the most entertainment. Right.

[01:16:53] Like who's going to be like the crazy. Because there's like so many people. Right. Like there's a thousand people or 200 people. Yeah. That it's about like who do who would we put on there that would actually like pop. And like. Yeah. I think Q. I think like Rizzo. Jenna Lewis would be a tough customer on Beast Games. Yeah. She'd be fun. Yeah. And this is kind of a wacky one. Camilla. Okay. Any reason why? I just think that she's going to be very cutthroat. Yeah. I could see it.

[01:17:22] She'll kick a bunch of people off. Beast Games is weird. It's hard though because you have to like get into the right position and get lucky enough to be in a position to be cutthroat. Otherwise you're just getting eliminated because your team like didn't build a block tower fast enough. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Here's from my Mike Catherine ever. Okay. What was or was the reward that Rick Devins got too powerful? I was talking about this with Steven last night.

[01:17:51] Do you think that he's safe and an idol? Is that too much? I honestly wonder if it's like it was so I do think it is a lot but I wonder if they made it a lot because the downside was so dramatic. Right. Like you're like actually just eliminated. You're done for and they really well I guess like they were going to have somebody do it regardless because if nobody stepped up they were going to rock draw. I do think it was a little bit much.

[01:18:20] I think that being safe and the two million probably enough but I do I'm very happy that there's an idol in there that's just like a regular idol. A regular idol and Rick Devins can play for anybody. We can have a little bit more you know of a dynamic advantage. I think that they've done a bad job with the idols here in this season where you know we had the idols in the pre-merge but they were only the Billie Eilish boomerang idols where you can't even play them on other people so they're sort of like limited power idols

[01:18:50] that didn't even go to the person who found them and then in the post-merge is that okay well this is going to be open season people are going to be finding idols and we're not even finding idols. Where are the idols? There's no like it's like did people vote for no normal idols in the season and now that the one normal idol that we have in the post-merge comes by here's a coin flip to get the idol. Yeah do you think that there's just no idols hidden out there? Do you think people are looking for them?

[01:19:20] I'm sure that Rick Devins is looking for idols. Yeah that's true. I mean I'm sure I'm surprised it's not a bigger part of the story that Rick Devins hasn't been just going crazy looking for idols. Yeah honestly Rick Devins is like the perfect person like in so many ways to flip this coin but to land it and to get an idol like I think he is an agent of chaos and I'm very excited that he's the person with the idol.

[01:19:43] Yeah okay so here is I guess this is a fun fact from Noah Stephanie basically revealed who she voted for because she spelled Aubrey's name wrong twice in a row. Yeah that's true. I when when it first happened Aubrey's like you spelled my name wrong and then it happened again I was like wait two people spelled their name wrong and then it just turned out it was Stephanie twice. Mm-hmm.

[01:20:11] Ben Gregory says should Jonathan or Joe have signaled to Stephanie to play her shot in the dark or was it good for them to just burn the ships? So didn't Stephanie say like an exit press today that she was told like you're good like don't play your shot in the dark? I thought. Did she bring that up with you? I talked to Stephanie I didn't read or listen to a lot of the other exit press that she did. Okay I think she might have said that but I could be wrong. Can you tell me this? This is kind of like a nerdy procedure question.

[01:20:39] Okay Stephanie has the steal a vote. Could she steal a vote and play a shot in the dark with the other vote? Oh like sacrifice the the vote she just stole. Yeah hey I'm gonna steal Rick's vote with Rick's vote I'm voting for Aubrey and with my vote I'm playing the shot in the dark. I would hope so like I don't I don't know the answer but like I would hope so.

[01:21:06] Because they say that with the shot in the dark you are playing the shot in the dark you are giving up your right to vote but I'm stealing Rick's vote and I'm writing a vote for him and really the galaxy brain version of this is like and then when the shot in the dark hits then my one vote is gonna be the deciding vote tonight. Yeah no that I honestly like I know that they have like a rule book or whatever but there are situations I think that the producers encounter that they did not anticipate and I think that they will lean on the side of excitement.

[01:21:35] I don't even know who to ask about that question. Ask Jeff. Next time I see him like a little on top of it. Do you even like me? All right. How about assuming Rick was always plan A do you think that Steph was always the backup plan? I don't think that Rick was plan A. I think Stephanie was plan A. Do you think that changed the tribal council?

[01:22:05] I feel like. You think we had a real life honest to goodness live tribal council? No. Stephanie has been saying like in the exit press that it was gonna be Rick right? She said that. But that's her. A coach said it was gonna be Rick also. Yeah no. I felt like it was rolling in Stephanie's direction regardless of the coin flip. Which is actually really funny because I feel like a lot of Rick Devin's like shenanigans

[01:22:28] at like tribal where it seems like his shenanigans are what lead him to not be the one to like get targeted and go actually have no effect. Like I feel like his like grabbing the idol with Aubrey like when they were in the duo and coach went home. I feel like it was already rolling in that direction that time. And then this time I feel like. And they're like okay it's still the plan right? So we're still good right? Yeah. That's what it feels like.

[01:22:56] It just makes everybody like double check like okay but nothing changed right? Nothing. Yeah. So I don't know. This has sort of been the story of Rick's like journey I feel like. Even at Edge of Extinction like I remember watching and he did the whole thing where he like read the advantage that Ron had given him and he was like oh I'm gonna like go home or he like had no idea what that actual vote was gonna be. Like it didn't go in the direction that he thought it was gonna go. So like this seems to be a rich thing is he does things at tribal? Yes.

[01:23:25] The big one was the pilots and passengers tribal council. That was the famous one. And I talked to Kelly Wentworth the other day. Did that actually shift things? She said it did. That Julia was not supposed to. I think it was. No I'm sorry. There's a Julia and Julie. That I think that maybe Julie was supposed to go home at that tribal council. And then it ended up getting switched up at that tribal council where a different person went home. Yeah. Yeah. I don't.

[01:23:55] But yeah for this one I don't think that like. I think most of the time like when it's a live tribal it's really like all right let's either plan B or let's stick to the plan that we already had. Yeah. Okay. How about this question from Tyler who says who is the most likely to have a Gabler style win from this season? Who is who is like laying low? Who's laying low? Is it?

[01:24:26] I don't know. Like who is Rizzo's not laying low. He's not laying low. He's gonna just. You know I feel like it's like a Tiffany or Aubrey. Tiffany I could see. Yeah. Tiffany like. But Gabler like Gabler yeah he kind of like didn't really do much and then at the end you know it was all about like the social. But he was like in real life like he was just very well liked. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:24:54] It was a social game and then like yeah. So I could see I could see being like a Tiffany sort of Gabler style win. Aubrey has been getting the whole like you know I'm gonna come out of hiding soon or I'm gonna come out and make my move soon which is like Gabler got a lot of confessionals like I'm just waiting to blow the surface to come up and snap. I mean really if you were gonna like do like a one to one like could you not see Gabler

[01:25:21] saying like like I'm wacky. I'm like but I'm also. Because I'm sorry I'm a psycho. I'm psycho. But I'm also I'm waiting to make my move. I'm honestly pretty sure that Gabler said those words out there. I'm psycho. It is a little like Gabler coded. As he left sunscreen on his face. Now what do you think about last week when Jeff did the challenge and then and then he said I'm doing a Gabler. 43 lives. 43 lives. We got our representation baby.

[01:25:50] In a Gabler reference. In a Gabler reference. Survivor 50. Who would have guessed it? He is iconic. Too bad Gabler wasn't on this season. He could give two million dollars to charity. That yes. Yes. He could have donated. He could have flipped the coin and said I'm doing this for charity. Yes. All right. Let's see. Okay. If someone was going to pull a Jesse L turning on your best ally move who would do it?

[01:26:19] You think that somebody would consider doing a Jesse L? I really. Is that your severance name? Jesse L. Yeah. I think it's got to be like Rizzo. Like again like I think that the if he is currently sitting there and he's like I'm locked in with Sari. This is like a fanboy's dream. Let's go to the end together.

[01:26:44] I really think that like that two million dollars might start to change things. And it's like okay well you know if I go to the end with like now it's about money. And do I want to just give Sari this win? And I had already thought about thought Rizzo might like be starting to consider that down the line even without the two million dollars. So with the two million dollars now I could see him turning on Sari which would be like crazy.

[01:27:14] Like what a story. Anybody else like Ozzy won't do it right? That'd be crazy. Yeah. I don't know that I don't know if anybody else I think he would I think he would go to the end with Sari. I think he would go to the end with Sari. Before like cutting her. Yes. And there's nobody else who's like really other than Rick and Christian and like there's nobody else like Emily and Rick seem very close but I don't think they're like. It's not like that though. They're not like that. I think Emily would vote out Rick. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[01:27:41] So it would have to be like a Rizzo or Ozzy. Mm-hmm. Sari pairing. Okay. Let's see. Cam H says Jesse what gives you cognitive distortion man? Cognitive distortion? Is it cognitive distortion? He talked about first you get the dopamine and then that's the cognitive distortion. What is the? I don't understand half of what Jeff says to be honest.

[01:28:12] Luciano says Jesse can you share your casting story? What is it? Reminds your casting story. So you were you on the doomed survivor 41 cast that you were gonna you were it was it was March of 2020. Yeah. You were all ready to go. Yeah. Yeah. I am. So I went through casting in 2019. Yes. I had originally reached out to like a casting person and she and this was like probably like

[01:28:39] 20 whenever they film winners at war cast winners at war and she was like hey we only cast one season this year the other one you'll understand why we're not casting two but reach back out. So I reached back out in 2019. Yeah. I get called immediately. I go through Skype. You could have been on Survivor 39. If I had been early enough maybe. Yes. But I came in too far into it and so they had me reach back out in 2019. Um I get flown I do Skype with Jeff. Yeah. Skype at the time.

[01:29:09] It's not a thing anymore. Yeah. They do. They do Skype anymore. They do Zoom. Uh and then I got flown out. I'm out there with Jonathan Young. Okay. You know Bruce from 44 and 45. Zach Wartenberger from 42. Like I'm like out there in the hotel. In the hotel. Um it all goes great. Any women we know? Oh. Cassidy. Okay. Cassidy was there. We actually took like we had to do like an extra psych exam and it was just us and

[01:29:37] we had to do a psych exam right next to each other. Um yeah. And then I get the call in like March or in February actually of 2020 and they're like guess what? You're on season 41. And I was very excited. Sent all of my clothes and then I get the call like March 13th I think. Yeah. I think it was the day that literally like everything shut down that they were like hey uh we're

[01:30:06] gonna we're gonna hit pause. We're gonna come back and film this in a couple months maybe. But what was going through your mind as like things are starting to like really heat up with COVID uh and and how close were you to leaving for Survivor? Survivor dreams as the world collapses. Right. Like uh because I feel like that I would this would have really. I was freaking out. Yeah. I was freaking out. Like I remember so I had a connection to Molly Byman from season 39. Yes.

[01:30:36] And because she went to Duke and I was at Duke. Uh yeah Parvati 4.0. Yeah. And I was texting her I was like hey like when did they usually send you your flight information because like I was supposed to be leaving in like six days and they haven't sent me my tickets yet. She's like oh they should have sent it by now. And I'm watching the news COVID is picking up. I'm like oh god like is it gonna get like canceled? Is Survivor like gonna not film? And yeah it got delayed. Yeah. They delayed it like three months. They're like we'll check back in. Yeah.

[01:31:06] Six months we'll check back in. Actually we're not gonna film but you're definitely on when we do film. And then they were like actually we're gonna have to do the casting process with everybody again. Um and so I had to do the casting process again. I was in a weird spot when the second casting process happened for 41. The the new era 41 of it all. Um my mom had just died and I was just like the psych person was like yeah you should like hold off. Yeah.

[01:31:36] Uh and then they were like Jesse Tannenbaum called me he's like I promise you you're gonna be on the next cycle. I get called for 43 and it was very quick. It was like one interview with Jeff and I was on. So very long yeah long process for me to get on to Survivor and a really stressful casting process. Yeah. Yeah. So your Survivor story is uh either uh they they really jerk you around or they put you

[01:32:06] on right away. Yeah. There's only there's only two ways that they do it. Yeah. I have a very fun time with casting. Yes. Yes. Yes. Um but you're you're back in casting now for a future season for blood versus water. Oh yeah. For blood versus water. Me and my wife actually were leaving next week.

[01:32:31] That reddit there was a reddit post that said that I was gonna be on season 52. That got a lot of traction. Yeah. That got a lot of traction though like a lot of people were like texting it to me. It's like hey. Yeah. This is real. This is real. I got three phone calls. Yeah. I got three phone calls. They were like hey that's a crazy a cast list huh? Like you know if it were real like you'd work with me right? I'm like what? No. From people on the list were asking you about it. Yeah. I don't know.

[01:33:02] Yeah. I was like I don't know. Like I don't know. Like. It was like a very. Did you think it was. You know what? Did you think I was leaving? So I. I. I thought it was a very. Believe. So another. Another notable survivor texted it to me and said hey is this real? And I said. I really. I really don't think. Becca. Jesse's wife. Wants to play survivor.

[01:33:31] I'm pretty sure that she does. She's always. I don't think she really wants to. But it is kind of a very believable. I gotta be honest. I gotta be honest with you. Yeah. I don't know if she wants me to say this. Yes. But you're kind of wrong. Oh she does want to play. She. At one point she did. Yeah. Within the last two years she wanted to play. Yeah. That's where I'll leave it because. I don't want to get in trouble. Yeah. It really was.

[01:34:00] I thought it was a little survivor 47 heavy. Yeah. I think that it was. A few 47. It was Genevieve and Mark which Genevieve had said she would only want to play if she played with Mark. There are a lot of people saying this now. But I think that like and here's the other thing that Genevieve if she was going to play on survivor blood versus water would not have said I would only play on survivor blood versus water. She doesn't. I don't think she gives anything away. Anyway but also Sam Phelan but also Annika. Yeah.

[01:34:29] I thought there was a lot of a lot of survivor 47. Yeah. Got Sean Rector on there. Sean Rector. Well Sean Rector. I think he was in the mix for a survivor 50. And so I felt like oh maybe this is like sort of like the makeup call for survivor 50. Like this is like some people. I have not gotten any calls and honestly I don't know that I would put myself through another survivor casting process. But then Abby Maria tweeted out of like who is this person that they're saying is Abby Maria's boyfriend. Oh yeah right. Like they googled it and I was like this is a soccer.

[01:34:58] I think Abby actually like didn't DM me. She's like who is that? I don't know. You told me. Surprise. You told me. Well that would be fun. Yeah. Would Nicole want to do it? I don't know if Nicole would like. What if Becca did it? Would Nicole want to do it? Would she want to do it also?

[01:35:27] I just don't think that Nicole is kind of like I feel like that if they like called for like the civilian traders I think that that would be more up Nicole's alley. But the like going on survivor Nicole is not going to like want to be in the elements. Like it's not it's not her spot. Okay. Right. You know I think she would have certainly like certain strengths in the game. But I think that this is and that's not for her. Well you never know. Yeah. But maybe you're just saying that because you're in the mix.

[01:35:57] Maybe you're flying out for 52. I'm leaving. You know I am going to be doing a lot of traveling. I have a lot of travel coming up everybody. So be on the lookout. But first the first blood versus water that people thought that maybe me and Nicole could be on it and I was playing into it at the time. Okay. And I really then we Nicole was pregnant with Dominic and we were then going to be moving

[01:36:27] to like we were in like a two bedroom apartment. No not here. This is like way way way way back when. Yeah. And so we were moving to we were going to move into this townhouse that had three bedrooms. So I could have my podcast room and then also the baby could have a nursery. So we were moving. And so it we were it was coinciding with when they were going to leave for survivor blood versus water. And we were really playing up that we had a big announcement coming up of the like hey

[01:36:54] we have a big announcement and also I'm going to be offline for a little bit. And people were like really that at that point in time in 2013 people were really running with this. But then then we announced that Nicole was pregnant. That well I guess yeah. And then just like the fans who were probably like it was the survivor caramon finale and we were teasing and then like at the end of the show we're going to have a big announcement for everybody. We're going to like have a big announcement here live on the podcast.

[01:37:22] And then Nicole came in and we said Nicole's pregnant. And then I was like good night. Bye. I don't think that Stephen knew either. I think Stephen knew I wasn't on survivor. I don't think Stephen knew that we're that's what the big announcement. I will say the pregnancy probably softened like the blow for like people who would have been mad at you for their emotions. They were excited. You know but it got to like Aris. Aris was like sending me messages of like hey you're not. On this season right.

[01:37:49] Like you better like because if you are you're going to be the first one out because if you're lying to people. Well I will say that it was weird that this like Reddit list like caused people to call me and check. Like I was like I you are like a close friend. I would have told you. Yeah. So it is weird. Should I have played into it more. I mean I think you just troll people. That's really all you could do. I will say that kudos to whoever made the list. Yeah. Because it was a very convincing list.

[01:38:19] Can I say who else was on it. Sean Rector. Abby Maria. Sheanne. She. She. She. She. She. She. And was playing. Yeah. Well that was. I think so. That was. I think. Also was it enough people. Yeah. I'm not sure. I don't know. I don't know if I could just find it. Tyson did message me when I like posted it and he was like 11 women for the first time. So like that was the breakdown.

[01:38:47] And I was like yes nine horsemen of the apocalypse. Okay. What returning season would you be most excited to play on besides blood versus water from Johnny. I don't. I don't. I don't know that I would be excited to play on a returning season at this point. Yeah. I feel like I don't know that I would want to. Yeah. You did recently the endurance challenge. Yes. And as part of the festivities around.

[01:39:16] You did hands on a hard idol. Yes. That was fun. I was very excited to be a part of that. I'll be honest. Yeah. That was like super cool. I think that that should have been like the final immunity challenge. Should have been. Like that should have been on the ballot for this season. Like that is the iconic survivor immunity challenge. So I am like very excited even though it was for just like a trip to Fiji and it was in the middle of a train station. I'm very excited that I got to be a part of that. Yes. That is very few. You ended up coming in second place. Yeah. We don't need it. I always get this close.

[01:39:46] And your prize was a year's supply. A year's supply. Which a year's supply is quite a lot. I will say I didn't know that you could eat 2,000 chocolate bars in a year. Yeah. Okay. And I have been trying to share the wealth. Yes. Yes. If you want to partake.

[01:40:06] So, you know, Jesse has visited recently and shared some candy with my friend came over. Oh. Oh. That not – this is – my friend came over, brought candy, which I felt like it makes it my candy. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I can't tell you how many fights there have been at my house over candy that you brought here.

[01:40:34] I've caused so much problems. And then we went to go to Mr. Beast a couple of weeks after that. And then at Mr. Beast, they were like, oh, take some Feastables also. So my kids have had so many fights over whose candy is this. Look, you don't get to complain about how much Feastables you have, okay? Until you come to my house and see how many Feastables I have. Yeah, but do your kids – It is a gift and a curse. But do your kids fight over it?

[01:41:04] Or do you fight with your kids if they can have it? We give them like one a week, which is like – One a week? Don't judge me. My kids are like raiding the pantry. And like Nicole has – I don't even know where they are anymore because Nicole's had to like hide them. Why don't you hide them up here? Well, you know, I don't want to know where they are because I also like – You like the Feastables. I do like that. I really like the Peanut Butter Cup. That's the one I will say. And the – is it caramel or caramel? I've heard it both ways. It's definitely caramel.

[01:41:33] Sam shared the list of the Survivor 52 cast, although I need an eye chart to see what this is. Hey, that's my one. Okay. This is Sean Rector. Oh, Amanda Kimmel and her sister. That would be fun. Then Devin Pinto they got for this. Dama Bate. I think this is his daughter. Here's Jesse. Amanda Kimmel did it back out of this one. Okay.

[01:41:59] And then – oh, and then Soph. Soph. We go – like we have history. Yes. She stepped down out of the hands on a hard idol challenge for tickets to the finale. Yes. Okay. So there's Soph as the final cast member of Blood vs. Water 52. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We did it. Do you see anything else in this question list?

[01:42:28] Is that often that the guests can also see the question list? I can't see from here. Let me see. Yeah. The prize in two million from day one. If Jesse was part of – If Jesse was part of the cast and seeing how the jury is shaping up, would he still use the same strategy of voting his number one out as he gets closer to the endgame? Is that what you thought? Voting out my number one? Yes. Yeah. Well, I voted out like my number –

[01:42:55] But did you do it to like to put Cody on the jury to go vouch for you? I mean, that's like partially – but like that was also like motivated by the fact that like I felt like I did not want to lose to Cody and I wanted to go into the final three with like a slam dunk scenario. Yeah. Like that was my mindset was like I don't want to get to the end and have the sort of trauma of losing by one vote like to Cody.

[01:43:22] Like I would rather like crash and burn, baby. Like all of us crash and burn. You know, because then at least I know that like if I would have made it to the end, then I would have won. So like let's make this move, take out my number one. It wasn't to take out my number one for the sake of taking out my number one, right? Like it was so that like I have somebody on the jury rooting like who can vouch for me and hopefully I have like handled it in a way where he was willing to vouch for me.

[01:43:54] And also I don't have to compete against him. Like all of the moves get credited to me. But yeah, there's a lot that went into it. Yeah. Like I don't know on this season, would I take out my number one? Like if I'm if I'm Rizzo. Yeah. You're out of that game now. You're you're you're you're keeping all your number ones. Yeah. You know, you're not doing that anymore. I can't look. Look, I can't get to the end. Yes. I got to keep my number one. I'm OK with losing at the end. That's fine. That's fine.

[01:44:23] It would be a dream to lose at the end. Yeah. So what's next for you? What do you. Definitely not blood versus water debris. Yes. 52. I don't got much going on. Yeah. My phone's not ringing. I was thinking. So do you think that we'll get anybody else from the triangle? That's what we call our area here in North Carolina. Will anybody else from the 50s join us here? Oh, that would be fun.

[01:44:53] Would it be fun? But what if it was something we didn't like? That's fair. I kind of like that it's like just just us, you know, like I don't want anybody. That would get weird if somebody like. What if there was somebody else that that would like played and you like them, but I didn't. Yeah. That's where I think it would get weird.

[01:45:13] Like what what is worse than like both of us not liking the person from the triangle that is on season 52 is you liking that person more than you like me. No, you liking them more than you like me. Or you know what else would be bad if somebody came and played from the triangle and I really like them, but my wife didn't. That would be such a bad scenario. Rob, is that the is that the case right now?

[01:45:43] Are you sure? Listen, if you would know if Nicole didn't like you, you would know. OK. No, nobody has to ask. Does Nicole like me? Perhaps I do. But for the most part, you don't need to ask my wife if Nicole likes you or not. I might ask right now. You can ask her. Yeah. But I would advise you to not ask. OK. Because it's a thing also where it's like, you know, I wasn't mad, but you asked me if I was mad and now I am mad. I don't want to ruin this.

[01:46:13] Like we have like. I kind of feel like maybe you were mad the whole time. Yeah. But that's I digress. Yeah. No, but maybe we'll get somebody else here. But I don't know. I think maybe we don't. Yeah. Let's not. Yeah. Please don't. OK. How do you think the rest of Survivor 50 will go? I. Hopefully good. Like I really do feel like. Like they have been playing with fire. Like I said, like I would have hated for somebody to go home on a coin flip.

[01:46:38] I really do think that this season has been good in a lot of ways, despite some of the weirdness of like somebody having to vote themselves out, like write their own down and flip a coin and stuff. So I think it's you know, it's a great cast and they're showing up. I think it'll be fun. Yeah. All right. Well, next for me is tomorrow night. I'm headed to Washington, D.C.

[01:47:02] And I'm going to meet up with Stephen Fishback on Saturday afternoon for the first of my book signing stops. Then I'm going to go up to New York, get ready for the live show Wednesday night of a patron meetup on Tuesday. Some other fun stuff planned. Busy week. And then I'm going to head to Boston for another book signing with Jeremy Collins.

[01:47:33] Then I'm going to come home Mother's Day and then one week from Tuesday, I'll be here back again with you in our in the triangle. For a book signing here in Raleigh. Yes. Yes. I'm very excited for this. This is going to be fun. Of course, you can check it all out at robinswebsite.com slash events.

[01:47:56] Let me open this link and we are going to be at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, North Carolina. How about that? Packed house. Let's pack the house. I think it'll be a pretty good crowd. And of course, the tribe and I have spoken available everywhere. Books and audiobook. Audiobook. Yeah.

[01:48:19] So I have a copy, like I mentioned, but how do I get the digital, like the pre-order digital list? Oh, awesome. I kind of just want to see what you wrote about all the survivors. I mean, I could show it to you when we're done with this podcast. Oh, okay. All right. Cool. If you want to see it. I mean, you came all the way here. Is there, is that still a thing? The pre-order is still a thing. Yes. You still get the pre-order and that's going to come out June 1st.

[01:48:47] I believe we're going to have include our survivor 50 thoughts also. Did you handwrite these like sentences? No, I did it on the computer. Okay. That would have been pretty painful. Yes. Okay. All right. Anything you want people to check out? No, I got, again, like I don't got much going on. I'm at home with my kids. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, this was such a pleasure. I'm so glad you're back. Yes. It's always fun. Yes.

[01:49:13] And don't, don't wait for like four more seasons to come back unless you're on survivor 52 and then we have to, then you're, then you're on like with wait for it to air. Yeah. I enjoy it. I enjoyed this. This was fun. Yeah. This was fun. Yeah. Let's go to, let's go to breakfast. Let's do it. And then we'll leave no, no family. Yeah. Can we podcast at breakfast? Like maybe we should like take the podcast on the road. We don't know.

[01:49:41] We'll have, I mean, look, I love the podcast, but like it will probably have more fun if it's not a podcast. Yeah. That's fair. I mean, um, you know, we could, you know, cover more ground. Yeah. Let's do it. I mean, well, we can podcast if you want. I think that then in the, let's have breakfast without the podcast and then we can podcast second breakfast. I won't say no. All right. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Jesse. And of course, uh, we've got our patron Q and a coming up on Friday and a big week coming

[01:50:10] up as it's book launch week here on RJP. Take care of it. Have a good one. Bye.