Rob Cesternino joins Shannon Guss to catch up on everything he thinks about Survivor AU Titans vs Rebels after 3 weeks.[00:00:00] Be warned that once you pick up a refreshingly cold drink from McDonald's and people see just how refreshingly cold that drink from McDonald's is
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[00:00:24] Price and participation may vary cannot be combined with any other offer a combo meal Happy week three. So you're gonna say happy Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day to all those to celebrate. But you know, so we're putting this out for the patrons on Wednesday, and then we'll drop it for everybody else on Thursday. So it will be over for a lot of people when they listen to this. For me, you. Yeah, so happy Valentine's Day to you, Shannon. Yeah. And I have to say, great day for it to be Valentine's Day
[00:01:43] because I love this season of Australian Survivor. the American, the US survivor, and it is like incredibly well made, but it is much more of like an exploration of the human condition and the journey of its 18 it. I just think, well, there are some things in US, but not doing this US versus Australian thing for every chicken forever. But I just, there's some format aspects of Australian
[00:04:22] survivor that are so good, like two massive tribes are swapped like cool characters, kind of that highlighted editing that's been a bit more even but still had its stars like their ingredients here for what could be just like phenomenal survivor. And I think that's the fact that the two things are so different and so like So I wanted to hear Nick and I just am really, I love this whole group. There's very few duds here in the Australian survivor season nine. Yeah, depends who you ask, but okay,
[00:07:01] let's go through it.
[00:07:02] Let's go through it by characters.
[00:07:04] Who's get the top level characters
[00:07:06] if you're such a natural. And I mean, I knew I knew all this, but I hadn't seen the show myself.
[00:08:22] And so you do such a great job.
[00:08:24] And we're so lucky to have you.
[00:08:27] Oh, well, that's probably what it is.
[00:09:41] I actually agree with you in terms of blunders.
[00:09:43] For me, like, wooze the worst mistake in funny enough. I cooked it. Yeah, it's perfect. I think that, yeah, I think that Hetchi sent herself home.
[00:11:00] That would have really put a fine point on how awful that was.
[00:11:04] And it was clear, but it would not the difference between losing and winning, and she got lucky that it wasn't even the difference between losing and being in, because she sent home Sarah. Sarah as well though, you can't feel that bad for her because she as well took so long to get her. She was in the color crew. Yeah. She is, you know what, this little thing. I was watching her post game, you know, before and after.
[00:12:20] She also mentioned a partner.
[00:12:21] Like, was that entire freaking group?
[00:12:23] Let's see.
[00:12:24] Shannon, let me tell you in a moment I'm being open here. Okay, I mean, I can pull my punches if that's what the audience wants. It's not. Yeah, we want coming home. But I'm telling you- But I'm telling you- I don't know. I told you I nothing, Rihanna. And I have no idea.
[00:13:40] Like I'm sure she's a lovely person.
[00:13:43] But my reaction was, I'm telling you my reaction when I saw what she did was that I know, I mean, it's so good. I love it so much. You know, Ferris and Kirby is just so fun. And we've talked about this a lot in the evolution of strategy of, you know, there are not many like prolonged pre-merge wars that go on. And I think that's one of the
[00:15:00] reasons why Heroes vs. Villains is, you know, such a great season that you really have.
[00:15:06] I was talking about the US Heroes of Stones. really? I'm upset that you feel that way about it because it is kind of like she does it in this, I don't want, it's not chaos cast like, but it's almost that same duality where she's kind of pulled back. Yeah. It kind of feels more neutral, but actually she's fearless. Like actually she's in tribal council saying like whatever she wants, she's saying like she doesn't sit with us like
[00:17:22] And I got such great insights in the Garak exit interview today, which I really encourage everyone
[00:17:24] to listen to all the exits from this week.
[00:17:26] They were all great.
[00:17:26] But he said that Kirby was in on the challenge throw
[00:17:29] with the cuddlers and this foundational kind of mess
[00:17:35] that had happened in that first vote.
[00:17:37] So there was a connection there that did derail.
[00:17:39] And I find that a really interesting comparison
[00:17:41] because a lot of people have compared Sarah to Kirby,
[00:17:44] possibly on influence and secondly on looks. game. I need stretch of the imagination. But I just felt like Tony and Kage on it wasn't perfect. Definitely not. But it was like the highs were so high to dig him out of the lows and the holes that he dug for himself. That was game changers. And well, but then he was basically in the, what was the sky nest? Was it spy shack or spy spy nest by spy?
[00:19:00] Anyway, yeah, I shoot in the sky. Spine. Do you see Tony is coming back to social media?
[00:19:07] Have you seen this? be my cost. Because, okay, well, I feel like Tony and Tony talking. Talking Tony. What? The name of our new podcast is called Talking Tony. Oh, I was going to do the Tony cap. Talking Tony, I think is we got it. We got it. No, that's copyrighted to networked. But all right, well, I'm excited about that.
[00:20:20] Ferris is in isn't Tony 1.0 because at Ferris is probably between that and game changes
[00:20:25] Tony not in a bad way, just, she's just so cool. Like, I think a girl crash, like, I just think she's awesome. But, um, sorry, it's true. I think she's amazing. I just find it really amazing when you see just women come out and run the game like that. Like, is it long term? Is it like a 47 day game? I don't know.
[00:21:41] Well, I just, I sleep soundly she that I had presumed at the time like,
[00:23:01] she she told them, right? She told them she was doing this, right? She did too much. I felt like, Garic, there was like, my my radar was peaked when like the cold open was all about Garic and how he had to go after Kirby. And then there was like another like extra confessional from Garic. I thought they went like a little too mean. Paul Garic, it really did feel even nixed at last week. He was like, Garic is going to go with Ferris' proxy. It just immediately cursed him on that. Yeah. Nick did a good job of really talking up Garic. How much he loved Garic? We loved Garic. I feel sad. I feel really upset. He said it was a fan.
[00:25:41] Yeah.
[00:25:41] And he smelled the rest.
[00:25:42] It was going to be him.
[00:25:43] He did.
[00:25:45] He knew it was very sad when Viola and Valeria got separated because I felt like that I feel like the Twitter deserved them and that duo.
[00:27:02] And ultimately, yeah, you're bound to get some good ones. But yeah, oh, going back to that tribal council that no one voted US survivor.
[00:28:23] There's no voting confession. No votes. Putting claiming to be a Seinfeld fan. No? I've seen Seinfeld 10 years ago. Okay. So anyway, like 50 people probably. Yes. I forgot that you bend the knee to the much inferior friends.
[00:29:42] Yeah.
[00:29:43] Okay.
[00:29:44] Well, I don't want to do a whole Seinfeld versus friends thing.
[00:29:47] Seinfeld is like the Beatles of sitcoms. and yeah, that's funny. I came to learn that it had actually been a secret signfeld podcast, which I didn't know. I like knowing what podcast I'm doing. Yeah. So anyway, it's fine. It's fine. We'll get over it. We'll get through it together. But yeah, now you've, well, this is, so how many signfeld quotes have you snuck into this? Not many.
[00:31:00] You're gonna get a reputation as secret signfeld guy.
[00:31:02] You shouldn't be.
[00:31:03] I mean, I did a signfeld recap podcast.
[00:31:05] I shouldn't be a secret signfeld guy.
[00:31:07] I'm very glad I've given you so much joy in my pain. Stop cracking yourself up. Don't find it funny. Stop it. Yeah. Yeah. Garic a little bit of the Kramer of Australian survivor.
[00:32:22] Who's Kramer?
[00:32:23] Stop it.
[00:32:24] No.
[00:32:25] Okay.
[00:32:26] See, that's the top line levels I can get. So it was just a fool there and I think to try and just trying to get it. Yeah. And just to relate to my own survivor experience a little bit, like I've been in this position in the middle back in survivor of the Amazon and I wasn't going to meet all stars.
[00:33:42] No, no, there was no middle. It was everybody against me.
[00:34:45] that's, I mean, when Dina and Alex for people who,
[00:34:50] the five people that know about this, were going after each other, I felt very much like,
[00:34:52] let's not do this.
[00:34:55] Let's not split this up.
[00:34:58] But when people are feeling that type of way,
[00:35:01] it's like, you really, it's very hard to sort of like,
[00:35:04] try to broker peace because then that the people
[00:36:02] Charles and Winna and Valeria. But-
[00:36:02] I know all the names, it's crazy.
[00:36:04] I really do this season.
[00:36:05] I feel like this has been very few,
[00:36:07] and I guess credit to Australian Survivor.
[00:36:10] That I feel like that I don't know
[00:36:11] who the most purple person, you get a little bit of Scott, right?
[00:36:15] Could you name every play-up?
[00:36:16] I think I could.
[00:36:18] Let me try.
[00:36:19] So from-
[00:36:21] Old people, old people,
[00:36:22] The people that are currently in the show.
[00:36:24] Don't ask people.
[00:36:25] We got voted out last week, Rob.
[00:36:27] Who got voted out? So Ferris had him, Garak and Eileen. And then there's Kirby. And he has one more. One one shouldn't be open. There's another one. Oh, Raymond. Okay. And then there is Kirby and Kelly and Scott.
[00:37:40] Yeah.
[00:37:41] Okay.
[00:37:42] Okay.
[00:37:43] And then the be happy. I am thrilled. Brain versus brawl and we asked you the end to name or the cost.
[00:39:01] You couldn't do it.
[00:39:02] But you couldn't aim Tobias right now.
[00:39:04] So maybe Tobias is nothing Tobias. you know that you're talking about Nick Wilson. Redacted. Okay. All right. Well, then I did you would see you you wanted me to answer your question of I want to read that did the split vote who is redacted and then I was supposed to answer also redacted. Yeah, but I would have seen the knowing in your eyes.
[00:40:21] It could be so many different redacted.
[00:40:22] You record you're the one who brought redacted up.
[00:40:26] He invented the minority split vote. going home mate, like playing the idol. I feel like he was also kind of pushing up. Like, oh, no, we're not going to do it. Because Ferris already misplayed an idol. Like your Ferris, you find idols. Just play it. Tony. Yeah. Well, I mean, look, yeah, we we discussed this on the podcast today because I feel like, you know, he's in my if he if Gary goes,
[00:41:40] he's in a minority, he doesn't have a night or that sucks. But the possibility of taking
[00:41:43] out Kirby, I just really door watching Kelly. I thought she's so fun. And then the idea of sending her over was inspired. And then, yeah was like Kelly's secret titan bonds? I think that Kelly was like a major player in all of this. I think they would have showed it. Yeah. I think so. But there are those are not the titans that she hit it off with. Yeah, there are there are Kelly stands that are saying that, you know, maybe it was her
[00:44:22] maybe it wasn't curbing. Yes. I mean, there's people are the context at all, because I haven't even spoken about that, because it has been kind of a hot button issue. Well, how do you know, like, don't you have to ask people if they are single? Unless they practice ethical nominogamy? And in that case, like, are you in a couple
[00:45:41] and looking for a throttle?
[00:45:44] I don't know.
[00:45:45] Did you just do the show on that?
[00:45:46] Is that the throttle?
[00:45:47] Yes, is on just a mushroom. So I don't know. That really like an organic thing to weave into a conversation. The smiling assassin, is that her? I thought that was fair.
[00:47:01] I don't think you can, that one's hers. I actually, I feel bad because I feel like the IU single one is what she'll be most remembered for on this. And that's not good. Like people have been upset about that. Can I just say, like, I don't think she meant to do anything upsetting. No, I honestly think and like, it's a broader conversation, but like, people have been upset about it. I don't think Nathan,
[00:48:21] definitely not Nathan, and all Alex took it badly. And I think people always say,
[00:48:24] the genders were reversed, but like the genders aren me There you go, so that's how that's gonna be a wild pre-challenged scramble for Kelly next week
[00:49:40] Yeah, I mean all the cutlers are broken up. So I don't know how many
[00:49:43] How much tempting is going on?
[00:50:42] So, they're rebels. They're rebels.
[00:50:44] He, clearly, their relationship rebels,
[00:50:47] he even made it a-
[00:50:48] Yeah, that's the whole rebels tribe
[00:50:50] where it's like, you know, your partner can't be mad at you.
[00:50:53] Like, I'm a rebel.
[00:50:55] It's like that those TikTok videos were like,
[00:50:57] I'm a something.
[00:50:58] And so it's like, I'm a rebel.
[00:50:59] I cheat on my girlfriend on live TV.
[00:51:01] You know, I'm like, right.
[00:51:03] Yeah, well, Ferris and the secret scene that I posted,
[00:51:06] I talked about this on-
[00:51:07] You want loyalty?
[00:51:08] Maria, God. Rob. You really are Lucy, goosey, a stripper, on Valentine's day on this hello day of love. Yeah. Um, you should go bad, but that's fine. Okay. I'm going to make you feel bad about this literally forever more. You're doing a good job. Okay, that since when cannot separate themselves from you enough. So half of me to say, yeah, the Spain, Spain would use Bruce spelling. They're looking at, I mean, they speak Spanish. Like they, I mean, they both like English is in favor, like in that way. Although I have to say, so the spelling bee, I was a little underwhelmed on the words
[00:53:41] that they spelled and the spelling bee like I felt like, okay, here we go.
[00:53:45] Spelling bee.
[00:53:46] I saw people were, the spelling times they podcast. They should have done like tequila.
[00:55:03] Yeah. That would have been tequila. That's another it's not easy to spell.
[00:56:03] They didn't like Caroline voting out Viola. Yeah.
[00:56:04] But Viola was coming for Caroline, right?
[00:56:10] I'm preaching to the choir.
[00:56:12] Listen, I loved Viola and the killer V's.
[00:56:17] I wanted them to be a thing.
[00:56:19] Because I don't have insane killer V's.
[00:56:21] Did V said that last?
[00:56:22] That's excellent.
[00:56:23] I don't think I made that up.
[00:56:24] I think that was in the show.
[00:56:25] I feel like that at least in week one.
[00:56:27] I feel like that was in the fold? I don't think she's going to kill him. She found it. She was to sound really ominous. The plan should be to vote him out. I have a plan to put him out of me. He's been incredibly trustworthy. That's done. So they should just do that as soon as physically possible.
[00:57:40] This might be a little bit of a hot take, but I'm kind of happy.
[00:57:43] Alex is back in the fold.
[00:57:45] Oh, it's not a hot day.
[00:57:46] Yeah. OK.
[00:57:47] We love Alex.
[00:57:48] Yeah. You can be on any deep. This is your podcast where I'll begin. It's Rob has a podcast. Like if you want to do any of these I think you were bequeathing the whole deep dive to me. It's me and it's me and you taking on Oh, no, no, you can talk to Kelly for as long as you like I will not be there For the other deep times that I want to do you always welcome to how do you know you want to do one with her
[00:59:03] God instinct
[00:59:05] very weeks of Yeah, what else is there? There's Raymond's, I paused my game to be here shirt. Oh, okay, that's Raymond's shirt, because Kelly has been wearing that. I was like, that's like, is Kelly a gamer? No, she took his shirt like a girlfriend shirt and then she said it a lot and that might have been another thing people had a problem. But again, context matters.
[01:00:20] She took his shirt and was it against his will?
[01:00:24] No, I don't think so, but she was like and I'm like walking around and I'm like doing things just like, you know, like I'm gonna have like a, like I would do like a phone call, but we can get into everything from Survivor. When are you walking around? You know, I don't like to be just like locked in
[01:01:42] behind this podcast desk for like three, four hours.
[01:01:45] Is that good for you?
[01:02:43] your own feed. Okay, that's, that's fine.
[01:02:46] You're not really winning, winning this. Like this is, this is an audition to me.
[01:02:48] Then I'm not like, what, no, I am going to be invested.
[01:02:54] I just like, if it's going to be super long, like I feel like that, like, you know,
[01:02:58] I got a lot of stuff going on.
[01:03:00] I think I got up.
[01:03:01] I'll do my six hour deep double George.
[01:03:03] I did a deep dive with Dino that started at 11 30 p.m.
[01:04:06] doing that. She literally said Rob say goodbye to your family. She says that to people all the time. I don't even know why. When we were away in Cairns, she like she took my phone
[01:04:11] when Peter called and she did kidnap a voice. She ate Steven Fishback. I know she's got
[01:04:17] this, but I was going to say there's a reason was, he was. Sure. Well, where did you see peg leg? Yeah, and I really want to do the survivor UK quiz with you right now. I think you could get. May. There was Christopher. That's one. That click. I think that was Matthew. You got Matthew. Yeah. Was there Nathan also?
[01:05:41] Yeah, there was.
[01:05:42] Yeah.
[01:05:43] There you go.
[01:05:44] Could you do this fine?
[01:05:45] We don't need to quiz you on every season of survivor you've watched in the last three months.
[01:05:48] Yeah. such a good job with the challenges on the show. Oh my God. I'm just like, I have a vision in my mind. I'm sorry. Australian survivor is Jayden's jungle gym and then US survivor is like Drew and Brando talking about like Pokemon and that is like such a perfect gap. The Pokemon gym. Yeah, well, it's not, but but they've done the two types of gyms and it's the two types
[01:07:01] of survivor and yeah, I guess it's a third.
[01:07:04] Yeah.
[01:07:05] And we know one thing about Shannon Gus when it comes to survivor, that's- Yeah, that's- Then the producers cut to- Then the producers made me do that. They cut to your literal spreadsheet, which I could not even comprehend what was even in the spreadsheet. Yep.
[01:08:20] Do you do that all the time?
[01:08:23] No.
[01:08:24] Or would suggest that this episode was so
[01:08:26] fascinating to you that you built a spreadsheet cheat when you're crunching these votes, then tweet me in apple emoji. Firstly, I already got a message from Nati, who is someone that I spoke to about this when there was a similar mathematical loophole in survival 44. And he was like, hey, the 43 three loophole. And I was like, already on talking tribal with my spreadsheet. So that shows people are interested one. Secondly, people have spreadsheets. I met someone last
[01:09:42] week who has a spreadsheet of every Who? The great and wonderful, my guests next week, Haley Leake, big spreadsheet. Okay, I didn't know this. Yeah, and that's why I wanted to make this work.
[01:11:00] And she does work under the microscope, right?
[01:11:03] Exactly.
[01:11:04] So the other side of the microscope.
[01:11:06] No, I don't mean to like, a scopic strategy can really help you. That's why Haley and George could like dominate to that level because it was just like a chasm between them and someone else. In something like US survivor, where everyone's a very smart fan, that intensity might not be enough to be an advantage. And my start to tracking once you lose the bigger picture. So me and that's when we go back to comparing to US and AU,
[01:12:20] as we always do.
[01:12:21] But I like, you know, but my spreadsheet,
[01:12:24] it was more that I wanted to work out
[01:12:25] if it was like a prisoner's dilemma,
[01:12:27] like a true prisoner's dilemma for each of them and the titans would different ways, even if one tries to align to the other, Pharisees 4 can 4, 3, 3, like if they're a triangle, right? So if they all shoot at each other, his 4 will win the day, assuming Eileen works with the 4, right? It feels like you'll be like monkey clamping in the brain, like,
[01:13:42] it's not you, it's me.
[01:15:00] If they all, and then you're saying, if they're incentivizing different ways, if Kirby's incentivized to turn on Ferris and even more, he's incentivized to turn back. It was just that insane incentive to the point where the break
[01:15:03] had happened and it was going to happen for so many different reasons.
[01:15:06] But I hope you like my spreadsheet.
[01:15:07] This is the way you're paying me for it. That is not how people feel about the sign first, Nale. Even I know that. Well, but the idea that they could have done, they could have done like five more seasons. Like friends, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Shannon. So what else is coming up for you? I mean, this was a marathon week for you with the with Omar and Zach, the all the exit
[01:16:22] interviews.
[01:16:23] I only ended up listening to the all up because we had to come on the podcast.
[01:16:28] Yeah. game. Yeah. But it was just your bridge to me. Anyway, I had a good time with it. You were messaging with Mike Bloom in real time. Yeah. And he was explaining like what's happening. Yeah. Yeah. And he was saying like punt. And I was like, all right. And he could have been lying to but he probably wasn't. I mean, yeah, and what
[01:19:00] would be the upside in lying to
[01:19:02] you about the football game in a
[01:19:03] text message? What was the upside
[01:19:05] last time? Who lied to you?
[01:20:06] I'm not fine. No, no, I've worked really hard. I'm not really on it. I don't care. It's like the worst reaction to
[01:20:11] that. I did a whole. That's it for me. I'm done. Yes. All right.
[01:20:21] Shannon, well, great job once again, I mean, what are we? What are you saying? I mean, worth what, three-eighths of the way there. So, I mean, we're almost halfway. Like, so, yeah, I, like, I really, I get up, I exercise in the morning, so it's great to be able to, you know, have this, I don't have another show that I'm watching, so this is great.
[01:21:41] We'll check in sometimes.
[01:21:42] Yeah, maybe we'll do another one,
[01:21:44] and then maybe after the finale, so, look,
[01:21:47] I'm not going anywhere.