Shannon Guss Weighs In on Survivor 50 So Far | Survivor Global

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[00:02:00] Share of a lifetime. Hello everyone and welcome to RHAP's coverage of Survivor 50 for Survivor Global on a special podcast. I'm your host Shannon Guss here to weigh in on Survivor 50. How many episodes are we in? I should know. Nine? I'm going to guess nine. If you've seen it. Christian just went home. I hope you've seen it. So I'm here to weigh in for the first time on Survivor 50 after being on maternity leave. I have many, many thoughts.

[00:02:27] We're going to look back at the season at large to where we are now and to talk about it. I have a wonderful co-host who I always love talking about Survivor with. It is Chappelle. Chappelle, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me, Shannon. I'm very happy to have you back on the mic talking about this show. We just wrapped our coverage of Survivor AU and that was so much fun. I loved hearing you talk with the mic and so I was extremely jealous that we had not got your opinions about this season of Survivor US.

[00:02:53] And so I am happy that I am the chosen recap uncle to be able to hear and break everything down with you and get your opinions about some of the things that have been going on. Yeah. I mean, look, AU was fantastic. For anyone who hasn't watched the latest season of Australian Survivor, it was really, really good. It was, I won't spoil AU, but in many ways, like so opposite to what is happening here. I feel like this is like the character season, but the strategy is very limited. Whereas like the strategy in that season was phenomenal. I mean, what's happening in 50, we can talk about it.

[00:03:21] Like it's not that interesting strategically to me. Like I think probably the most interesting vote in this season of 50, now I'm coming in already as a Debbie Downer, but like probably doesn't crack the top 10 of the interesting AU votes that we had. So I wanted to prioritize AU, obviously like that's my beat. I was listening to you guys and we did some check-ins there, but now that that's over, we're here to talk about 50 and I will come in. Okay. Look, I don't want to kind of fully as Debbie Downer. We're going to talk about the good and the bad, but this podcast, Genesis Chappelle, a couple of days ago, I texted you and I said, I think I'm ready to call it. I think 50 is bad.

[00:03:51] And we, we talked about it a bit. We were chatting about it. And, um, and then we're like, maybe we should talk about this on the podcast. So we're here to talk about the, you know, the twists, the big moments, the characters, but, uh, maybe we can try to convince each other about where this season is at. Yeah. The overarching question is, is this season good or bad? Right. It's a very binary question. You know, obviously there's a lot of nuance to it and I hopefully, hopefully y'all fill our comment section with, you know, your opinions about, you know, the nuance of this, you know,

[00:04:19] because we're, we're going to try to narrow this down to yes or no. And I think that the, the question is good, but Shannon and I are very obviously on opposite ends of this. And I think that we kind of landed on, you know, it depends on what you're looking for in a season, in the twist, in characters and strategy. But for me, it's the boot order, Shannon, the boot order has to serve me for me to enjoy a season of survivor. A lot of times.

[00:04:45] And I personally with, uh, you know, recent events, notwithstanding, uh, I've been very happy with the boot order, uh, this season and to see, you know, my fave and yours. And a lot of the people listening to this face to read kind of at the center of making a lot of this stuff happen. I've been very much enjoying the seasons. I think like the boot order is part of it, but it's actually not all part of it because when we came in and we saw this cast for 50, like I was pretty critical of it. I think that the cast has exceeded my expectations.

[00:05:14] Like everyone's kind of there to do something interesting. Like they're really giving it their all. And the boot order is not amazing for me and we'll talk about it, but it's not just that. Like for me, it really is how overproduced the season is. And I think what it was, was like, firstly, the tough thing with 50 is like, it's never mid like it's either incredible or not or terrible. And there's no middle ground. And the stakes are so, so high because it's doing this with returnees that you care about. So there's that aspect.

[00:05:43] And then I think like, I was enjoying it so much. Like episode two of this season, like gave me life. I watched that episode the day I came home from the hospital from having my baby and it was the best part of my week. No, um, me, it was up there. It was really, that episode was, episode two was so like, and that I was really enjoying it and I am still enjoying huge parts of it. Like last week alone, that scene where Sari comes back from exile Island. I watched that too many times to count. Like that scene alone gives me life. Like watching Sari every week gives me life.

[00:06:11] Like so much of what these characters are doing, which we're talking about are amazing. But I think something in my soul died the night of the blood moon. Because in all honesty, like Camilla and Colby and Genevieve, none of them were like hugely my rooting interest. Like, of course, I'm like always kind of rooting for Genevieve. She's like, but she wasn't like my top person. And Camilla, I wish the best for Camilla. Interesting in like a new era, second chance. I didn't kind of need to see her back immediately on this, especially not with like three 48ers.

[00:06:39] And Colby, like actually, I, Colby exceeded my expectations on the season, but I like, I was actually harsher on casting him to begin with. Um, so like, it wasn't that it screwed over the three of them, but it was that anyone could be disrespected to that level of like overproduced bad TV. There's nothing they can do. They get completely swapped, screwed all of them. Their hands are tied behind their back and they just shot like fish in a barrel. And I thought it's not, it didn't happen. It could have been so much worse. It could have happened to Suri. And in the future, it will.

[00:07:08] And it stopped me from being as invested because I'm like at a point, this will come for my faves. And with Christian in, we can talk about it. It kind of did. And it's painful to watch. And I think once the blood moon happened, like something inside me shifted that I've never been able to get past in the season because I know what they're doing and it's hard to trust. It's really hard to trust a season that's making this many bad decisions and it's almost getting lucky with the good stuff. And that's all cast based. Yeah. The editing has been very weird.

[00:07:36] People talked about how it's unbalanced and very clearly it is, especially at the, at the, you know, I guess the detriment to the women mostly. And so with the blood moon, we losing two of the women in this season, it does feel like their story wasn't really explored too much because they were going to go out like this, especially Camilla. Right. I think Genevieve had a little bit more of a story because she did find an idols that she could not use, which is crazy that she had to give them away and that the one person

[00:08:04] who does need them is the person who had to give all of hers away. Um, so yeah, I think that that's very disappointing when watching. Um, but like to me, the twist itself, like, yeah, it would have swapped through basically anybody, you know, it could have been anybody. And it just like, it's almost like the roulette wheel start is like landed on those three people. And now all of a sudden they're just out of the game. Um, like you said, Colby gets a little bit more of a glowing kind of edit, I guess for Colby, the bar was already in hell, but, um, yeah, for Genevieve and Camilla, it does feel

[00:08:32] like we were robbed of seeing some of the magic that made them want to get put back on the show as well. Uh, but I didn't really, I didn't take the blood move as hard, but to your point, had it been one of my faves, my big rooting interest, oh, I would have been devastated. Exactly. But that's, but that's the thing. And then I see people so much is like, people just don't like when their favorites get screwed. I'm like, none of the people were technically like my favorites and I, and I don't like that. But the thing is actually like none of them deserved. It was just so disrespectful. It felt so disrespectful to Colby. I'm like, this is like a Mount Rushmore name.

[00:09:00] Like if you were to, if you were to quiz a casual quiz, my dad, the first person he says the guy who was on Curb Your Enthusiasm, like Colby is up there more than a Tony and a Sandra for the real casuals, you know, like Colby Hatch and Johnny Fairplay in Boston, Rob. Yeah. Like probably. And this man is doing better than we thought he was like, he, he's coming in apparently he's like the head of the snake. And I actually liked it. He was trying to like wield that power a little bit. I was like, okay, Colby, like we didn't get to see it because it didn't matter because he's going to get screwed. So we'll talk about the boot order, but this was something on AU where we felt like, you

[00:09:29] know, you have favorites and maybe they do it to themselves. And then it's like, it's sad, but it's earned. And part of Survivor is being hurt by Survivor. I've said it so many times this year. I can handle it. You know, I'm not going to love a season where the boot order is worse and we're left with the worst cast, but if they do it to themselves, I can handle it. But I don't want the show to do it to them. I don't want to feel like people have no room to move. I end up feeling so sad about it. Colby doesn't even have a shot on the dark, which is kind of a funny thing to put in the same sentence, given the different eras those things are from.

[00:09:56] But like, and then I felt that with Christian this week is I was like, once they didn't let him bluff, he's just standing there getting pants by Jonathan. Like, you know, he's like putting his head in the toilet while his hands are tied behind his back. And I just, I don't think that's great TV and we can talk about it, but I think a lot of the twists are so limiting and the format of the new era with the smaller votes and everything like is so limiting. And it just doesn't give the scope for someone like a Christian or Devin who are trying to be really creative and innovative. And this cast is trying to be really creative and innovative. And there's no space for that in what they're doing.

[00:10:26] So that like, that's what is killing me with production, I think. Yeah, I think that, you know, Terrence made this point on Big Brother before too, that a lot of times the twists don't enhance the game. They just kind of limit the gameplay. They make people play a lot tighter. Everything's a lot less interesting when the twists are driving the game. And in these moments, you kind of question, like you said, it's very disrespectful. You question why you would bring back these legendary players to put them in situations that don't allow them to do the things that they're legendary for, right?

[00:10:56] These like, you give them more space to get more votes, to rally more people, give them chances to play a social game, a political game, a strategic game, even a physical game. But when you're limiting them to like, all right, let's put you back on tiny, tiny tribes. It's like, that doesn't give anybody any wiggle room to work any magic. Don't get me wrong. Some people are able to for sure. But if I'm a legend of the game, yeah, yeah. But if I'm a legend of the game, like, don't bring me back. So where the, I feel like I couldn't even leave it all out there.

[00:11:25] You know, I couldn't give it my all because I was limited by the parameters that you set forward. So I totally agree with that. But like I said, the blood moon to me, I think it probably would hit harder for sure. Like, I'm not trying to be a hypocrite. Like I completely acknowledge my bias that it would hit harder if it was somebody that I did not really want to see go or that I was really rooting for. But at the same time, it was so ho-hum, you know, like it was supposed to be this big thing and it ended up being a lot of lore. Yeah. Right.

[00:11:55] And it was just three swap screws, uh, as a big twist. It was actually not that historic at all. It was just, it wasn't even like something that you was just, it was just three swap screws in one episode, which you say it like it, it obviously stifles gameplay. And I feel like so many of these twists firstly, like really make people rely on pre-gaming. Like you should be pre-gaming if they're going to quote unquote merge you.

[00:12:20] And then the next day have you in tiny little tribes of people you barely know. And the Billie Eilish boomerang idol also did that with the pre-gaming. Like you would think that like, okay, you need to have these connections on the other side. So it's like, why are we really encouraging the pre-gaming? And yeah, it stifles gameplay because you want to be more conservative, but you also want to be like really congenial. Like when you see Camilla, she did like one vote that left out a couple of people, which you should be able to do on Survivor. You know, like it is obviously like being congenial is like you're having a comprehensive

[00:12:50] social game. Like that's a virtue, of course, but the show shouldn't want that. The show should want the people like that was some of the best stuff like D and Jonathan fighting. Like it should want the drama. It should want these big votes with you. If you have two sides and these lines and people are left out, the show should want that. But it does not at all encourage that because what the players should be doing is, you know, having only friends, never having any enemies. Like Genevieve had like one ops and like, sure, you can go for one ops. They might have an idol, whatever it is. But like you can't, you can't just have like one negative person because it's not even

[00:13:20] a series of decisions that will lead to you going out. What will happen is like if you just pull a rock with that person, that's enough. You can't have any, you can't, shouldn't leave anyone out of votes. Who knows if they just have the numbers next time. You shouldn't have one person who you're against because they could have all the power next time. And it's not even going to be, okay, well then did you blindside them wrong or whatever? Like a series of decisions that could lead to your demise. It could literally be one negative relationship and a rock draw. So everyone should just be friends with each other. And I don't know that the show knows that that's what it's encouraging.

[00:13:47] Um, so, so many questions. Did I expect to come on in for 12 minutes? Just random. Yeah. Kind of. I did. Kind of. I did. Yeah. That was the point. We came here to vibe. We came here to vibe, but I will say this that again, I'm not, I'm not so mad at the season as a whole because you're, you're right. The, we were all critical of the cast, but it wasn't that we were critical of the people on the cast. These, all these people have been good TV in their own right to whatever you want, whatever you look for in a survivor player. Right. There are people on here who are known for drama. There are people who on here who won their season.

[00:14:16] There are people on here who are known for chaos. Uh, you know, we got all, all into the spectrum on this cast. It's just, it wasn't a cohesive cast, but seeing them on the Island together has been very fun. You know, this idea that Ceri's, uh, top two Alliance members are Ozzy, somebody she's known her whole life and Rizzo, somebody who she's never seen play survivor before ever. You know, like to me, that's very interesting. And I've been enjoying, you know, what it looks like when we have one of the most ambitious

[00:14:45] crossover events in survivor history. Yeah. I mean, look, the character moments have surprised me. Like, did I think I needed like the South Pacific redux? No, like not one part of me as a survivor fan for any moment was like, where, where would that go with coach and Ozzy? Like these two captains that came in and I loved it. Like I was loving so much of that stuff. Um, people, again, I was critical of them casting, like, again, Colby, we didn't see it, but like he was trying to play this new era game. Um, and apparently doing well at it, like coach and your mileage may vary on coach.

[00:15:14] I actually like enjoy coach. Like I'm the kind of person who's, I don't want to be as harsh from people just trying to make TV, you know, it's up to the editors. Um, if they want to put that in and obviously like some of it hits more than others, but like a lot of the stick for coach actually does hit for me. I know that she's trying to make TV on a TV show. I think there are worse crimes. And also like the best part of coach is like, he has no idea what actually makes him the most entertaining. Like, obviously he came in the preseason interview. It's like, coach is quite self-aware now. Like you might have a chance.

[00:15:41] And immediately it's immediately like crying about how Ozzy says he doesn't have integrity. It's like, oh, you were, you can't help being who you are. There's such a wonder, you know, either people change or quickly change back. Like 11 can't change in spots and coach cannot either. And that's so entertaining. So like these characters, a lot of the time, I think I'm enjoying a lot more than I thought, but I will say it's still a disparate cast. Boot order still matters in these returning seasons. I think anytime you have a returning season, that's not like pretty much.

[00:16:07] The Kyrus vs. Zulens is great, but like you got to keep it, I think, like tight on theme. Like second chances is great because it's, it's not disparate. Like it's one time versus we know. And I think that if you have the whole scope of the season, like multi-time players and like, obviously you're going to care more about people you've known maybe possibly for decades or, you know, you've played multiple times. Like you put investment into these disparate casts and then the boot order matters. And we were talking about this. My brother came up with this thing where he was like, I feel like where we're at is we

[00:16:37] currently have like our top, like where we were at as fans, my brother and I, and everyone's going to be different on this, but like we have our top two cases in Duel or No Deal. We have Serene Christian at the time. And then we've lost like a lot of cases. And now we have like a lot of bottom cases still in the game. And that is, that is true for me. And it makes me upset that I haven't been ordering all returnee casts as Duel or No Deal cases. In the future, I'm going to be doing this because it really, I think it helps me track where I'm at. But at the moment I'm all in on my million only case.

[00:17:05] Like I have Serene there and I have the banker calling being like, will you take a Rick Devins win? Right. And I don't like, should I deal or no deal? Like, I don't, you know what I mean? Like, and that's, but I've lost a lot of my top cases, Chappelle. So that's going to like, that's going to impact how people feel about the season. Right. And you and I famously, we disagree about Winners at War as far as how good that season is. And I like, you are a pro Winners at War person. I am very anti, it's like, it is a season of television. I do not see myself watching again.

[00:17:34] And, you know, there are Survivor seasons that are way worse than Winners at War that I have actually watched again. And I'm like, it's been several years and I've yet to go back and like go through Winners at War and be like, let me see if I can find the joy in this. But it's largely because of the boot order. It is all of my deal or no deal cases just falling, like just dropping like flies for, I want to say at least six episodes in a row. I was losing top cases.

[00:17:59] And then I'm left with the Ben Drebergen case, the Nick Wilson case, the Denise case. And I'm just like, what am I going to do with these damn cases? And then the Tony case. Was that a good deal in the end? The Tony case was like the best possible deal. No, it wasn't easy to me. Honestly, the Natalie Anderson case, I would have taken the Natalie Anderson case, you know. Maybe it's worth a little bit less money. Right. But that's the thing, too. All of the all of my cases were over there sitting on the edge.

[00:18:27] And as a as a diehard fan of this show, it's so it's so hard for me to be like, OK, but what if one of my good cases comes back and then we just like steal the season? I don't know. That's the deal on Odeal. So exactly. But that's the edge of extinction. Right. Like, that's the whole point. And so, yeah. You can get my million dollar case back. Like, what do we just and I could just have it outrage. Imagine the outrage if they allow to do that. It would fundamentally break the show. Right. Well, I mean, which we did during the edge of extinction. We've literally had these conversations before. Right.

[00:18:57] And so I couldn't even put my heart behind. OK, I'm supportive of something like that happening. Right. Like the idea that Tyson came back, it was like the silver lining. I was like, wait, it's like I'm like like wiping tears from my eyes. I wait, Tyson can win this. And then I'm like, oh, no, you can't. You know, it got to the point where I didn't even know what I was rooting for anymore. So all my cases were gone. My big cases were gone. And so I really did not enjoy a large portion of that season here. I love these cases. I love these cases. We got the Sari case.

[00:19:26] You know, that's the billion dollar case. God doesn't allow me to have nice things. And so that billion dollar case. Right. Like that's that case so big that they don't even bring it out. That's like the the secret bonus case that you don't even know exists. It just to me. Yeah, it's so that's bankrupt to show like that. Like what actually happened. Yeah, that's that's David. That's David destroying Dondi. Right. Like this is like if you get the Sari case, like what do we do next season? How do we do next season? That's why I'm not taking the deal. Because I'm like, yeah, that's still out there. I got to take it.

[00:19:56] I got to take the deal. So but then, of course, like I am a big Aubrey fan. Been enjoying her. What do you think about Aubrey's story throughout this season so far? I like I defended Aubrey like that. She should have won her wrong with my dying breath. And like I still think that that's like a really good example of like crazy juries. It's nothing against Michelle. It's against Scott and Jason. You trust them to make the right decision. So I've always been like a huge Aubrey fan. She's been like pretty dour on the season.

[00:20:23] Like, you know, people can like feel their emotions, but wasn't she crying when they like brought out Zach Brown? Like what is happening, Aubrey? Like I feel like she's not having fun and I'm not having that much fun watching her. Although that one little clip where she and Coach is dancing is one of the best parts of this season. I mean, like I didn't know that I needed to see Aubrey again. And I don't think she's changed like right now. Because again, Aubrey's come back every single time that's been available to her since she played in Korong. And she hasn't changed my mind on that. So she's not like a high case for me.

[00:20:51] And you know what's the tough thing about the Dillon Odeal version of Survivor? You can see what the cases are when they're debating between it. Like episode three, you've got like my top three case in queue versus like Stephanie. And it's like, okay, what choice are we making? And everyone in that alliance that went down, it's like, you know, that Stephanie's right there. Like for my personal case, right there. Every time. It's like, damn it, you've taken a really good case from me. And there was another case. And that's just unfortunate.

[00:21:18] And when I lost my Christian case, my number two case, now I'm all in on Suri. I lost a lot of good cases in a row. Like I feel like for my boot of the world, there was like, so Q was like the beginning of the ending. I was heartbroken. And then we lost like Mike White and Angelina and Charlie. Like those are like four of my top six cases probably. And at that point I'm like, well, the board's looking pretty bad compared to winners at war. When is a war? Obviously we lost a lot of the legends early. There were a lot of legends to choose from though. Right.

[00:21:47] It was really hard to swing, swing and miss at a legend. I think the winners at war cast is a lot better than this cast generally. Like, you know, we were left with a lot of the bottom cases at the end. I mean, maybe higher on someone like Denise than you are. But again, obviously I'm way higher on Tony. Like Tony was my David. This will break John D case. It was impossible. Like that Tony was going undrafted. And like as a huge Tony fan, like it was a fever dream. He was my Suri case. He was my like David case. And he won.

[00:22:15] And I got the best possible deal. And I had Jeremy who was like maybe my second case. Me and Sandra's there, Papi's there. But like possibly top two. And they were tearing it up. And like I was pretty good with my top two cases. I wasn't as low on it as you. But this brings me to now. So like if Suri pulls a Tony and wins, the season is different, obviously. Like obviously if Suri wins, I mean, anything was worth it. I've been saying for ages they should be doing a bad Redemption Island type season for Suri to win for ages. Fields versus the Fields. It should be Suri.

[00:22:45] Possibly some of the Fields family. We can play. Okay. I'll definitely play. Yeah. I am. Yeah. We could get Izzy. We could get Lisa. We could get Ozzy and Rizzo. Apparently. We could get all of these people. And we could have a Fields and they could be against the Fields. We could just find the dumbest morons ever. She doesn't even need it, to be honest. Everyone's a moron compared to Suri. But for her to get her win, a Redemption, like whatever. Like anything would be worth it, obviously. For my top case, like I hate to be results oriented, but that would hugely change the season.

[00:23:13] It would also change like these twists for me, even though it's not as enjoyable week to week. Like if Suri wins, God damn has she earned it. She's, you know, like Blood Moon, like she had the extra vote. She was good with everyone. Like she actually can never go then. Like she's beyond the twist. And that Tony was as well. Like there were dumb twists of winners at war. And Tony beat the twist. Like someone didn't come off the edge and win. Like he beat the edge. That's how well he did. He beat extortion. So he kind of minimized the negatives of that season. Suri would do the same thing. Like obviously that would change if I got my billion dollar case.

[00:23:42] However, I refuse to believe Chappelle. I refuse to believe that she's winning. She's not. It's not. I can't. It's not. I will not be hurt by this stupid show again. I will not be there like, you know, seven times more shame on me at a point. Like I can't. I'm not letting the show hurt me again. I have to remain positive because in episode eight of this season, the double the fun, double the demise episode. Shannon, that's arguably the best episode of Suri on Survivor ever.

[00:24:11] You think it was the Eric episode? Yeah, because that was an ensemble cast. That was, you know, that was partly Natalie. That was the part, you know, like it was Amanda doing her thing. We all know real ones. No. Okay. Who was the mastermind behind that? But it was very much spread across. Yeah. Yeah. It was spread across the table for everybody to get some bites. Episode eight. Was the Suri show. The Serena's aunt, as I've been calling it.

[00:24:41] She goes away to Exile Island. Some place that she. Yeah. So she's been going. She went away to Exile Island. A place that she has been multiple times. So I was like, okay, she can do this. She's done most Exile. You know, I'm walking. I'm walking with her all through this journey. She gets there. They got 2000 coconuts. The fact that they even took the time to put 2000 coconuts on that beach is actually crazy. So disrespectful, by the way. I was like, how much she's been through? You give her the. I mean, they were. They were closing up on it a lot. So they would kind of. You would think it's like it's this one. But yeah. Don't make sure we look through coconuts.

[00:25:10] What are you doing? Right. And while this is happening. Yeah. Her, her strategic ally, Ozzy has now taken the reins of their game. And he is like, we're about to do something that's really bad for us. Let's do that. And they're like, seemingly everybody's kind of on board for it. Sari wins immunity. That's what I've been calling this episode. Cause as far as I was concerned, she did, she was immune and she won a challenge, you know, individually. So in my mind, this was an individual immunity challenge. Can't make it.

[00:25:39] You can't make me change my mind. Uh, she does, she does find the coconut here. And then she comes back and she completely alters the course of the game. We are given it that this is the Sari move. She comes in, looks around and says, no, we're not doing that. And everybody's like, you're right. We're not doing that. And we even get Ozzy and confessional being like, who am I to have strategy? When Sari is the strategy, what was I do? No, it was like his murder's permit. You know what I mean?

[00:26:09] Like he wasn't allowed to like get in the car without the chaperone yet. And unfortunately like he was gone. So he's like trying to drive and he's like hitting some mailboxes. And like, he wasn't. Tears in his eyes. Yeah. I'm not ready for this. I'm not ready. His apprenticeship had not been completed. Now Ozzy has been playing the game for decades. One season after Sari's start, he's still on the learner's permit, Ozzy. I think Ozzy's like my winner, by the way, but I still. I love him. No, I definitely enjoy him a lot more when he has a Cerebro. Of course.

[00:26:39] He's like, yeah, I can find the cases a little bit. But yeah. Look, this scene, as I said, where she comes back from exile, I have watched multiple times. It's so good. It's so good. She comes back and literally it says, Therese back. Yay. And then everyone's like, yay. Like everyone's cheering. It's like, it's actually comical. It's actually like the, everyone should be saying where's Poochie when Poochie's not on screen. I'll survive. And they all have like identical confessionals. Kristen's like, thank God Sari's back.

[00:27:08] Ozzy's like, thank God Sari's back. I've been hitting all these mailboxes. And then Aubrey's like, thank God Sari's back. And then she's like also talking to Chrissy. Like she's so good at Crossy Out. Here's the thing with Sari. Firstly, I said to Peter last week, I'm like, I think I'm underrating Sari. He's like, I'm sure that's not true. I think so. I think you have to give her more. I think so too. I think I agree. I think she's better because the other thing about her, she makes it look too easy. And then people don't recognize it.

[00:27:38] Like because she's pendulum strategy across three different alliances. She took out D, shook out in the Blood Marine, shook out the Honor Integrity Alliance. She's now taking out Christian. Not being targeted as the center of everything. Like it's really hard to pendulum swing because you're voting up people, obviously in an alliance. You have to go back and work with that alliance. And there are two ways until now to do that. One, badly. You know, you think about WooWoo, like I'll just do that. You know, the thing that actually Rob says, you know, invented. No, it's really hard to do that. Like people have tried and failed because it's like a very high level of strategy.

[00:28:07] Then you talk about the people who are doing it well, like Rob, as an example, like Cody did in Kageyan. And it's done very well, but it's really obvious. Like this person is swinging back and forth. Like Sari isn't swinging. She's floating like a butterfly for real. Like the fact that when you watch it on screen, I don't think people are even noticing what she's doing. It's so seamless and so intuitive and so subtle, so implicit.

[00:28:30] That I think that if you need kind of explicit strategy explained to you, then like you might struggle to see it. That's how perfectly seamless it is. Like is this her best game ever? Such an interesting question. And the bar is in space. Like we're comparing this to like Micronesia and that has like Flash and we still have a few weeks left, obviously. Like Micronesia to me, like she pretty much won that season. Let's be quite honest. She made it to the final three. Let's cover this.

[00:29:00] Yeah, let's see. She kind of won. And with Micronesia, like obviously it has the Eric movement. It has the Aussie movement. It has this Flash. This is so individual and everyone is so much below her, I think. You know, like the next two people for me are like the Aussies and the Rizzos who she's like leading. Yeah. So I just, I think maybe it is her best game. Is it a best game of reality TV? Could we compare it to like a Traders? The Traders one. I don't know.

[00:29:28] Traders, like, I mean, no notes on this so far and Traders is perfect. So that's a really tough question. But like the fact that we've been having this conversation, like this woman, she was born to play this game. And thank God she's played it so many times because what a waste if she'd never found Survivor. We'd be, you know, it'd be like having, I don't know. Yeah. I'm honest. Like you never get the Michael Jordan. You never get messy. Yeah. You never get these people who are at the top. Yeah, exactly. No Beyonce ever exists. Exactly. You know, you can't.

[00:29:58] And then it's like, how could we have missed that? How could we miss out on something like that? This is how she played Big Brother, though. You know, it was like her. She was the power structure of the house. It was wherever Sari is going. That's what we're doing. And she used to do that multiple times a day. And Big Brother is just such a long drag. I mean, Shannon, you even watched that season. And it was like, OK, what do Sari and Izzy want to do today? What does Sari, Izzy and Jared want to do? OK, well, this is where Sari wants to go now. Here are the people she wants to work with. OK, here are the people she doesn't want to work with.

[00:30:26] Oh, wait, it's only Monday. She has to do this all the way to Eviction Night on Thursday. And then she has to do it again. And we saw this woman work and work and work. But to see it kind of happening in an accelerated pace on Survivor, it is very impressive. And I just like I said, maybe this isn't her best game. I think it's too early to tell. But as far as best episode, you cannot tell me. There is not a more Sari-centric episode with such a positive outline as episode eight, double the fun, double the demise. Like even the three, two, one vote is not a Sari episode.

[00:30:56] That's Sari's strategic, like, you know, like Masterstroke. But it wasn't the Sari in a nutshell episode. This is the Sari. If you want to show who Sari is as a Survivor player, you show her this. Well, I think we could get more. And this is what I'm saying. I don't think that Sari is going to win. Like, I don't think she has a winner edit. I think that you people confuse the winner edit. I don't know. It's hard for me because I'm trying not to get hurt. Like, obviously, like. I don't trust the show, so I don't trust that she's not going to get screwed over in some incredibly stupid way

[00:31:26] by some sort of advantage get-in that is sponsored by some sort of celebrity that is so irritating to me that I don't want to open my heart. But I'm like, I don't think this is a winner edit. I think Sari is incredible. I think we should be seeing more of this. This is what I'm saying. It's like, is it a winner edit just because everyone's like, thank God Sari is here? Or is every person in confessional saying, thank God Sari is here? That's the storyline. They got to show it. Like, she's incredible. She doesn't have that many confessionals. My brother sent me the time confessionals today, and she has now the most, like the second most in the game,

[00:31:55] but there's like a few around that 10-minute mark. I mean, is someone dominating to win like this? Like, I would think would get even more, but we can talk about it the way they, actually, I didn't even think to talk about the edit of the women, but we can't talk about that. Yeah, the way they might edit like a woman dominating compared to like a Boston Rob would probably be quite different. I don't think this is a winner edit. Like, I think this is Sari is incredible. I think he's, yeah, about to be like screwed by a twist. It's so, so stupid. We can't even imagine what it is. Like, I'd hate to try and brainstorm it with you.

[00:32:24] We could never come up with it. No, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. No, no. Because Mr. Beast is showing up next, this week, and we don't even know what the super beware, super beware advantage with the beast face on it is going to mean. I don't want to talk about that. But I, yeah, I would. It's been against my will, by the way. I've never sought out any information about Jimmy, and yet here we are, him in my life. That's it. I think this edit is probably more akin to Sophie Clark and Winners at War. You know, like, Sophie does not win, and she's not. But, like, there were definitely moments where I was like,

[00:32:53] is Sophie the greatest player of all time? You know, I was like, is Sophie that girl? And, of course, Sophie is, right? But we saw a very different side of her in South Pacific, right? A very specific, well-thought-out strategy that worked. She stuck to her plan. She executed it. She won. But seeing her in Winners at War exact so much control over the social dynamics of the group and just, like, being the epicenter of all the things that were going on. Tony had to get Sophie out of the mix in order to run the game.

[00:33:21] And it was a credible move, right? It was the best move of the season for sure. It's up there. One, it's up there, right? But it has to happen because Sophie was about to run this game like the Navy. And I think that Sari is getting that similar edit. Like, we cannot allow her to win because that would be not Sari-like. You know, like, the idea of Sari is, like, even bolstered by the idea that she just cannot win. But at the same time, it feels like we have to give this lady her flowers because look at the material.

[00:33:51] We have so much concrete evidence of the things that she's doing. This isn't just, like, the show freaking biting a bunch of people saying nice things about Sari. No, this is you cut to whoever and having people being like, no, I love her. No, I love her every time. How can they edit that out? Yeah. You have to give us the content, you know? What's happening? Can't edit out those hot eyes. Like, that's what it is. You can't. That's just how we're walking around. And so, yeah. So, I'm very happy that we got that much. But I have to ask you about your second case, Shannon. Oh, wait.

[00:34:21] I have more on Sari. Of course. Well, how can we just do this? Can we just talk about Sari? There's a couple of things that irritate me, which is the tagline of this podcast. One, when people are like, well, they're just keeping her in because they know she can't win at the end. Firstly, or she can't get to the end. Firstly, she did get to the end. She did get to the end. Technically, like, she would have got to the end, like, multiple times. Like, even in Panama, she's pretty much at the end. Like, in Micronesia, she got to the final three. They all thought they were getting breakfast. I can't have this already. She never.

[00:34:50] She got there. Okay? The game changed. That's like, if you're running a hundred meter race, really short race. And then you get there. And then the finish line is accidentally 10 meters further. That's not the race she was running. She made it to the end. Secondly, it doesn't matter if she can't get to the end, quote unquote. She did, though. But it doesn't matter because she's screwing you now. Like, that's why. Like, this was like, oh, well, she can't. Even, like, with people like Rizzo, as an example, or whatever. It's like, they can't win at the end.

[00:35:20] I always think, or, like, Xander was a good one. It's like, well, he might screw you over because he's going to win challenges. Like, so it's the re. And Jenna was right, by the way. Like, Justice for Jenna. She was right. Yes, because it doesn't matter if you feel like, well, I'll just take three out at five or at five or whatever. We can talk about it. That's not how this works. I bet a lot of people regret it now because, like, Christian, you know what I mean? I don't know if he regrets it. I mean, he made mistakes, like, obviously, telling her about Ozzy. But, like, she outplayed him. She will outplay all of you. It's about being outplayed. It's like, even if someone else beats her, you might lose.

[00:35:48] If you end up on the wrong side of her, which Christian did, like, momentarily here due to his own mistake, she will outplay you. Like, why take the risk? So I can't take that, like, well, we can beat her at the end. It's like, you might not get to the end because she's that good. Another thing I wanted to say about Seri, it hurts my heart because I had a baby. Not that part. That was good. But I couldn't cover the season. So there's been no chizzy. And Seri probably, almost definitely, would have won the chizzy. Should we? Should she win?

[00:36:18] Did she win? I think you have to. She would have got a lot of points. I can tell you why I would have been giving her points. Like, should we be giving her the chizzy mug? Did she kind of win? Did she kind of win in the background? She's getting points in a lot of episodes, right? Like, so there's no world where she doesn't get at least... Last week's three. Last week's three. Blood Moon's three. Because I thought, like, Blood Moon, like, she's, like, the one person who's never going to go even on the rock floor. That, to me, is three. Devote. I don't know. The premier? Deprived.

[00:36:47] The premier, I actually would have given three points to Kyle. I would have given a point to Seri. You know, her biggest... I would have given points. In those early votes, I'm giving you... Yeah, we can talk about Kyle. I actually would have given... What Kyle did in that premiere was one of the most impressive things I've ever seen. Yeah. But yeah, no, she's getting... She's getting, like, she's getting a lot of points. I think Seri probably won the chizzy. Like, so we should send her a mug? I wish it's a new mug. Yeah, we should send her a mug. We should wait for the season to end. But then we should send her a mug. She won the chizzy. For sure. Yeah. So from the fields is... To Mama Fields. Yeah. Yeah. I agree.

[00:37:19] But I do want to talk about... I do want to talk about your second case. Okay. Because... We can do that now. Because... Sorry forever. I know that... I know that you and I were both emotionally invested in Seri's success, as you should be. But I think you and I both... Pretty high on our emotional investment into Christian, specifically. Yes. Like, I am a Christian fan. But I am a fan of Christian as a human. And also a Survivor player. You know, like, that's almost second. So he comes in, and I'm very happy to see him in this position.

[00:37:48] Christian is a... One-time player, he was a legend to me, as far as Survivor goes, right? Like, he dominated that season. As far as, like, screen time and confessional. Like, he was such a big star in that season. But then, at the same time, like, he gave us so much. He's good in confessionals. He's good at challenges. He's good at the strategy. He's very social. I mean, like, this is what you're looking for in a Survivor player. Like, if you build one... You know, they used to say, oh, Kobe was, like, built in the Survivor factory. Because it was, like, the archetype for what you thought would do well in Survivor.

[00:38:16] This, like, charismatic pretty man who can win challenges. And we learned so much, like, so many seasons in that that's not... That's actually not what you're looking for in Survivor. You're looking for somebody who can do a lot of things really well, right? Or do... And the things that they can do, they, like, excel at them and exceed expectations. And Christian does that in so many different ways. I've been so much enjoying Christian at the very beginning of the season. And then we got kind of quieter around the merge. And I started to think, oh, no. It's coming. And then once I was able to kind of look at the alliance structure, you know,

[00:38:46] how he's in the middle, even though it's really the bottom. I was like, oh, okay. It doesn't look great. Rick Devens has a fake idol. So... And so I started to speculate. I was like, is this the week Christian goes? But Shannon, I cannot stress enough how I hated... Hated the way Christian goes home in this episode. The season is bad and then you feel bad. This episode was the worst episode of the season. I hated it so much. I was not having fun at all. This was not it. This was not it.

[00:39:15] This was Rob and Ian getting killed out of the traitors within the first, you know, two weeks of the show this season. Like, that's how it felt. Like, I don't... My heart. Shannon. So, yeah. How was this from your perspective? I mean, yeah. Again, put me under the line of like, I think the season might be bad. Christian, you know, I wanted him to make his own mistakes.

[00:39:42] If he goes, and in ways he did, because he goes to Sari and tells her Ozzy, and he admitted that was obviously a huge mistake. Like, he did it to himself and I'm heartbroken to lose him, but he did it to himself. You know, and that's the agency we give people on Survivor. But voting against yourself is against the core tenets of Survivor. Like, I'm against that anyway. But it was that they didn't let him bluff. Watching him come back and have to read a note and not have anywhere to move. Again, it was the same as the Blood Moon where I felt that they tied up these people

[00:40:11] with their hands behind their back and just punched them in the face repeatedly. And I don't like seeing it happen, especially to Christian. Because my thing is like, if there's no journey, Christian seems like he was going. If there's no journey. And we don't know. But, you know, definitely they were like targeting that note alliance. So, it didn't look great. And he seems like he could have been the target. Obviously, he does. It cements it when, like, he comes back and reads the note.

[00:40:38] But if he goes on the journey knowing he's in trouble and what he should be afforded, the very least is the bluff. To come back and be like, I have nothing. And then they're like, I don't know. Do they want to split on what becomes him and Devins? Knowing that they both could have something. Like, let them be scared. Or let them take the risk. Let him be outplayed on his bluff. But to not give him the opportunity. Like, what are we doing? The best and most interesting parts of these journeys are pretty much people coming back and lying or choosing. Like, there's so much agency. What should I do? What should I say?

[00:41:08] How will I pull it off? And then there's the agency back. Do people believe it? Do they read through it? This is what Survivor is. Coming back and lying and bluffing and making those decisions. And then the interplay and the push and pull of whether people buy it or whether people still take the risk or whether people don't care and they still put it on you or they can split on you or whatever it is. That Survivor. Taking that from him was painful. And I think if he can come back and bluff, I don't know that he does go home. You know, I don't know that they take that risk. I think maybe it is Emily.

[00:41:36] So that is the thing that really, really pained me about the Swiss. And then like losing Christian generally. Like, I love Christian. He absolutely came in as my second case. And like, no one's touching the first. And I, it was more than that in the season. Like, he was even better than I thought he could be. And it's funny when you have these people who are like people you consider like friends in your life or, you know, and you like them as podcasters and as humans and as like members of this community. And then you see them on TV. It's like, oh, you're a TV character.

[00:42:05] And not only are you a TV character, you're like one of the best TV characters probably in this franchise. And that's why I fell in love with you to begin with. And I forgot that because I got to know you as a person. And for Christian, like, I think he had it all as a character. Like, again, some of those moments are my favorite moments of the whole season. I loved watching him tear it up with Rick Devins. I loved the personal stuff. I mean, this man went out when he had a six-week-old baby. And I now have an eight-week-old baby. Like, the amount, like two days before I gave birth, I watched him call Michael his due north. And that has stuck with me. And all of that has stuck with me.

[00:42:34] Him saying to Michael in this episode, you know, it's not like what you do when you fail. It's like what you do, you know, how basically you handle that. Like, that's like my mantra of parenting. Like, that spoke to me so, so much because that is true. It's like, I say that to Rory all the time. I'm like, I can't promise I won't make mistakes. But I'll always promise to try my best and learn from my mistakes. Like, I feel I felt that so much from him. Like, those moments where you feel like you're failing. I feel like he had, like, the meaning.

[00:43:03] I feel like he was, like, he had the beautiful stuff. And he was also having so much fun. There was an episode where he, like, pooped his pants. Like, what? And then he was like, like, there was so many things. It was better as a character than I ever could have imagined. It meant so much to me through this, like, very murky postpartum period. And I did not want to see it end at all. But I really didn't want to see it end like this. Yeah, I totally agree.

[00:43:28] I think that while Sari had one of the best episodes of all time for her and, like, for me, for Survivor, Christian had, like, the worst episode that he ever experienced. And it's not even close. Right? Like, this awful, awful thing that happened. Right? Like, we watched the slow-moving train wreck throughout the entire episode. And it's, like, it's coming for him. The monster was coming for Christian. There was nothing we could do but sit there and watch it just, like, the walls closing in.

[00:43:52] And every time you thought there might be a way he could get out, there, like, you could, there was never a way. Right? Like, so Jeff does this wager where it's not a wager at all. It's just, like, okay. Yeah, thank you. It's not a wager. Thank you. It's just, like, right. They weren't wagering anything. It was driving me crazy. I was, like, did I miss something? There was nothing there. It was just, like, oh, do you want to do something fun? It was a reward challenge. No, it was a reward challenge. It was a challenge. But it wasn't a bet. You got to wager anything. But it wasn't a bet. You didn't wager anything. They didn't wager anything. So, like, okay.

[00:44:22] I was so confused. I was, like, if they take the bet, they don't get rice. But if they take the bet and they lose, they don't get rice. It's not a bet. They don't get rice. There's nothing here. There's nothing here. People were, like, no, but if they lose, they lose the rice. I'm, like, they weren't going to get the rice. They're not going to get the rice. I don't understand what's going on. Yeah, there's not. There's no bet. There's no bet. Thank you. That really bothered me as well. Yeah. Yeah. So, to me, like, yeah. That moment, you know, obviously, like, we could talk about the Jeff stuff. But I think for me, in that moment, I thought, Christian, okay. He's good at endurance. This might be okay. All right. No.

[00:44:52] He doesn't win this. Okay. Cool. Oh, wait. He wins rock, paper, scissors. Okay. He's getting a journey. Let's get him an idol. Let's get him an extra bow. Let's get him something we can work with, okay? Because we know they're probably going to try to split or something like that on him and Devin's. We got to get Christian some extra. Oh, look. We get to the journey. It's a puzzle. Perfect. He loves puzzles. And then we cut to Christian saying, I like puzzles. I'm like, yes. Yes, you do. You beautiful human. He's about to kill the puzzle because that's what he does. And then he's watching through the puzzle. And I'm like, wait.

[00:45:22] Is he not going to complete the puzzle? And then my dreams of watching Christian go really far into this game. Just like get thrown into the ocean, dragged down into the ocean floor like this damn puzzle. And I think, well, okay. He's already got a vote for himself. Well, no, I know. I think, okay. We don't know what this letter says, but it's probably going to lose his vote or something like that. I don't know. But it's going to be tough. We get back to camp.

[00:45:47] And he has the humiliation ritual of reading the damn disadvantage to everybody and finding out in front of everybody that he has a vote. He has to vote for himself. He doesn't have like a penalty vote, right? Like in Big Brother, sometimes they'll say like, if you break the rules, we'll put a vote. You already have one vote against you. That's that's that sounds fine. But to actually force me to physically write my name down so you can get the shot. It wasn't worth it.

[00:46:16] Survivor, was it really worth it? So you could say that you had somebody vote themselves out of the game. Literally was all of this. Worth that one moment of Christian writing his name down to because to me, Shannon, it was not. It wasn't worth it. It wasn't. It wasn't an interesting twist. I don't think. Right. Like even. Even the advantage of what it would have been, Christian, you get to put a vote into the urn for somebody else early.

[00:46:45] If you win, I was like, why would I want to vote before I know where all the votes are going? What? What? What is that? Exactly. That that actually could be bad, like having to call your shot on a vote and it was an extra vote. And then there was an extra thing that they didn't read out because he never won. That was like you could bank your vote. So then because that becomes your vote, you can then bank your vote, which I also think is pretty minor compared. Like if there even is an advantage, that one aspect, I do agree.

[00:47:11] Like putting in a vote before all of the before you've had a chance to do that. That's an active disadvantage. Banking your vote, maybe a tiny advantage. I don't think it matters that much. Voting against yourself, you lose your vote and you have a vote. So that's like the double negative. And then being unable to bluff so that you're just like the world's easiest target is by far like the big like it was completely unbalanced in terms of the disadvantage. I mean, I don't think it's a fun twist. I know that Jeff like loves Christian or who Vicky, he would call him.

[00:47:37] I hope that Jeff feels bad that he had two last namers go on these twists. Like as he snuffed Colby's torch and Colby was apparently doing well. I thought, I hope you're upset about this, Jeff. Like I hope you're as upset as I was during advantage getting like, and, but Jeff saying this is one of the best seasons of all time. So I guess maybe it doesn't like matter to him, but yeah, I mean, this was like a really painful way to go because again, I really don't like seeing anyone, especially my favorites have no room to move. Let them try and wriggle.

[00:48:06] And if they can't wriggle, then it's on them. And if they can, that's interesting to watch, but like, don't, you can't give them nothing. But I think what's an interesting thing to like, look back at Christian now that this is like his boot episode that we happen to be talking. Do we think like as a character, I think, I think Christian's mentioned himself as like one of the greats, like really like one of the greats, like two seasons of that, especially those first few episodes. It's hard to like, even think back and remember like how many moments, like, you know, in terms of like when he's, when he's talking to Emily, you know, and like telling her to

[00:48:35] stop so many fun, so many fun things as a player. How do you feel he played this season? Do you think that this was a good showing? Cause I think there's been some debate about, cause like as a player, yeah. How, how he was. I mean, I mean, what are we looking at as far as like his, like, let's say his strategic ability or let's start with the social, right? Christian comes in and he's pretty, he's pretty good. Like he's not in any danger at any point in the pre-merge.

[00:49:04] So socially, I think I could say he's probably fine. If not, you know, above average, he's fine. He works his way into a line structure that suits him. He has a couple of shooters. Um, but strategically, yeah, maybe there were some mistakes made, you know, I think that him kind of misreading the Ozzy situation and being like, oh, let's blindside Ozzy. That'll, that'll be fine. I think he was the middle. That was a good, but then immediately he was bad. He went to disagree with that. Yeah, exactly.

[00:49:34] So it was like you blindside Ozzy. That's not great. And you, the flip side of that is like, you see Rizzo, uh, episodes later being like, we cannot blindside Joe. He won't come back to us. It was like, yes, that's how Christian should have been looking at Ozzy, but he made, it was a misread, right? But he was not at, he's no longer like, uh, he's not at that point, like out of power, right? Christian is still able to maintain his position, uh, in the game. So I wouldn't say he played a bad game just off of the strength of positioning alliances. But yeah, I have questions about some of the votes he did.

[00:50:04] I know he has his own reasons for the Mike and Angelina stuff. Uh, you know, maybe that's not great for him, but I don't know if you can say that's a net negative voting out Mike White. What do you think? I actually was never on board with the Mike White decision. I mean, obviously I'm not looking at the stuff as closely when I'm not podcasting, but I thought like, man, Emily is not a good ally, not on purpose. Like she clearly stayed loyal to him. Like, it's not about that. This woman pretty much got devoted out. Like she brought in an ally from pregame that she played the game with and accidentally got

[00:50:33] her voted out. Like it wasn't anything that she was doing on purpose to make her a bad ally, but I wouldn't want to work with her. Like it was, it was like 15 strikes and you're out at a point. It's really hard to think about like what the show, what, what the landscape would look like if Mike White and Angelina are still in. It's like an incredibly different game. So do we know it would have gone better? I don't know. But at that time I felt like, yeah, cut Emily. What is she doing? And I understand he was like, we will be a real big target of David versus Goliath. And Christian is always playing against what's going to be like a big reputation and like

[00:51:02] his archetype that he just looks so, so intelligent. And he can't hide that because he's like what people would draw in the dictionary. If it was like, draw like a smart nerd, like they, they would draw Christian. So like, he's always going to seem like too smart for his own good. He's always playing against that. But I was never on board with the Mike White decision. That was the best vote of the season though. That was like the one, like really interesting. I thought like the three, two, one, like the way he did it and the decision between Mike White and Emily, I thought was really interesting.

[00:51:29] So yeah, I mean, I don't think I agree with that decision, but I have to credit the fact that he was, you know, in positions of power to make these decisions and like how much game he has to play because the new era is not created equal. I encourage everyone to just go to the Wikipedia page of the voting charts of this. And then like compared to the Australian Survivor season and just look at the pre-merges, like the pre-merges of Australian Survivor. And even though there was like kind of a wonky, you know, in terms of people going to tribal council, even in that, there's so much game being played.

[00:51:57] And then you go to the US Survivor one and the 51 and it's just like blank spaces because people aren't voting. People are so like, so few people are voting all the time, but Christian was voting. Like he had to survive so much and he did. He was making calls, which is rare. Like that in itself is like, he played a pretty good game. I think Christian again wants to innovate. He and Rick Devons are trying to have fun with his idol, but this is not a format that will enable you to do that because it is so limited. So was it a fantastic game?

[00:52:24] Like I don't, I'm not going to say it was a bad game. He got outplayed by Sarri. Everyone is right. Who am I going to? Exactly. And what an honor. He made a key mistake. He until then had been Sarri's number three. What an honor. So I think socially, there's a lot there. I think that in the pre-emerge and how much he had to survive, there's a lot there. I mean, he's probably been to more tribe. He probably in the pre-emerge went to more tribal councils and some people still have now. I haven't done the math. So I'm not going to throw all of that out.

[00:52:53] Like with like the bathwater of this vote, but yeah, so I think, I think it actually, it was a good game with some key missteps and being outplayed by like, you know, one of the, one of the best players of all time, again, sounds under 80, but that's right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it was a bad game. I don't think it was a bad game. Like, uh, I think that we've, we're so far removed from bad gameplay for a lot of these people. Uh, you know, like bad gameplay is the stuff we saw in, you know, the early seasons of

[00:53:20] Survivor and the first, let's say the first 30 seasons where people would be on the bottom of alliance structure and then against all logic, they would stay loyal to that alliance structure. Right. Or like, oh yeah, I, I'm just willing to go down the ship. I'm loyal. All right. Like hopefully this person chooses me. Christian was, uh, yeah. Agency. Yeah. Agency throughout the game to make decisions that he made. And from his point of view, they looked good. And it's not like, again, the Mike white decision. I think you could really, you know, like really split hairs with that decision because he knows Mike white as well. He knows Mike white.

[00:53:49] He's known Mike white for years. And he also knows that the first time they played together, Mike white wasn't going to let a Christian sniff that money. And so, you know, it's not like it's a binary decision between woman. I'm good. I'm aligned with versus man. I'm aligned with it with Emily and Mike. Like it's woman that I, you know, have grown to trust a lot. Whereas Mike, I've been proven that I cannot trust him in the game of survivor in the past. And now I have to kind of reconcile with those wounds that I have and expect for Mike to do something that's against his best, against his best interest.

[00:54:18] Honestly, Mike white taking Christian to the end to me would be a mistake. Yeah. But the end was so far away. Like I actually thought he got a little bit caught up in like, not really knowing like those relationships. He was on the white loader. So I know he has like an out of game relationship with Mike white. Um, or had an, uh, an out of game relationship. Um, yeah. And I think he got a little bit like Emily is my friend in the real world, but like Emily was a bad ally on survivor, not on purpose.

[00:54:43] Whereas Mike white, I feel like he's like, Mike is a, you know, he, he was looking too much at like what Mike had been to him in the game. But ironically, Mike has become a good friend to him in the world. Like Mike white in David versus life. Isn't necessarily going to be the same person he was to him on 50 because their relationship has grown since I felt like he put too much stock in Emily's real life relationship with him and not enough stock in what had become his real life relationship with Mike white, not knowing those relationships, but that's how I saw it. Um, I don't think Mike white was coming for Christian anytime soon.

[00:55:11] So yeah, for me, I think you have to juxtapose that with Christian being like, like I'm good with Mike and Angelina. And then you get the confessionals from Mike white being like, and now I'm about to manipulate Christian. Right. And Mike white kind of showing a peek at the wolfy side of him to Christian. It did make the alarms, like the alarm bells go off. This wasn't Christian being like, Oh, Mike white has shown me nothing but loyalty. He's shown me. He's always been on board with me. He's been on the level, blah, blah, blah. There's no reason for me to vote him out.

[00:55:38] It looks like he's like, we we've turned a corner in our friendship and as allies, we will go far in this game. He saw Mike white basically being like, Hey, it's me, Mike white, the big bad wolf. And he's like, wait, what, huh? What, what do you, where'd you come from? And then that's when he starts to look at Mike white as somebody he needs to get rid of. Obviously the, uh, Angelina and Mike white and Christian Alliance would put a big target on him. So, you know, to kind of minimize that, I can see that as well. And there was the Aussie connection, which I, by the way, I disagree that Aussie was looking for a cameo on white Lotus.

[00:56:07] Like Aussie wanted like an Alex style role. Yeah. Like that, like he was like, specifically the, yeah, the Alex role, right? Like in that very specific brand of television. Literally, I can kind of imagine him in that role. In the Alex role. Yeah. Yeah. Like maybe, maybe if Alec was there, that other guy that was there, that could have been Aussie in a different world. I see it and I wish to unsee it, but, um, yeah, I mean, look, I, I, that's what I'm saying. This was by far the most interesting.

[00:56:34] I thought, um, like other than everything Ciri's doing, which is fascinating strategically. Um, this was like the most interesting, like actual vote. Unfortunately it came after 40 minutes of Zach Brown, but it actually was the best vote of the season. Um, I see it both ways. Like, I think it's like, it's such a tough decision that I think you can't call either terrible, but it wasn't the way that I would have leaned. It's maybe like a 60, 40. And I just thought like, Emily, please stop. Cut her now. That's how I felt at the time, even though she was loyal to him, but like at what costs, um, again, it wasn't anything she was trying to do.

[00:57:04] So I kind of felt like I would have been interested to see him go down with the David versus Goliath crew. But again, that doesn't make for a bad game. I don't think anything until now makes for a bad game. And then you can look at like what he and Devin's did. And I thought that was really Devin's led with the, um, the South Africa style, um, fake idol tribal. Well, not even Pelesa. We had like a bunch of people like Shona and Seamus, both of them in the same season did hide a fake idol. I saw Devin's, um, talked about this, I think on Instagram where he said that he, he had seen that season, but he'd forgotten that happened.

[00:57:32] So it like, kind of like implicitly put it into his mind, um, that he had, that I think that he had done that. Um, like they just want to have fun. And I think that, you know, it was an interesting idea just to have it. You never have to use it. And that's what Christian was part of. You can't blame Christian for the, how it went with Rick Devin's. And with Devin's like, he obviously created a target when I don't think he needed to. Um, when he, he got out the idol, I actually liked his lies. Like, oh, I like, I thought that there was things that are interesting. What, what, and I haven't listened to enough content. I'm sure there's been talked about the death.

[00:58:02] What celebrity is he using for his fake idol? Like they can't just be a fake idol. Like, is this the Adam Scott tribal idol? Oh my God. Uh, oh yeah. Is everyone talking about this? Cause I'm too much of a big idol this season. Cause I. I don't think anybody was like you, your fake idol needs an identity. Of course it needs a thing. Everything has a thing. So we can't just have a tribal idol. Does everything have a thing? It has to be like the Megan Mullaly tribal idol. Yeah. But it's like, it's a, it's a Ceres extra vote as gifted by Ozzy.

[00:58:26] Uh, so graciously does it have, is it like the, the Mayim Bialik extra vote? What celebrity got cut out of being just like a little extra vote. It's like, you're kind of like a B-lebrity. Like a C-lebrity. It's like the Kathy Griffin. Yeah. Like, yeah. Like there's an extra vote. Really? Am I not famous enough? Like. It's not famous enough. So, so not everybody has an identity. But that's the point. You have to be the Zach Brown so much more famous than you. I'm not a country music fan, but I looked it up at the time and I was like, how famous

[00:58:56] is Zach Brown? That's his name, right? Zach Brown? Yeah. Zach Brown. Yeah. He has way fewer Instagram followers in Boston. Like, I just think that if you're going to be a celebrity on the show, like you should be like way more famous in Boston. You gotta be more famous than all the players, right? Like at least with, with the exception of Mike White, like you have to at least be famous because you have to be a celebrity. He's not more famous than Mike White. Me too. Like Mike White is a better celebrity ambassador than Zach Brown is. One hundred percent. Zach Brown's like I've always wanted to play.

[00:59:26] I'm like, where's your application? Mike White is right there. Like Mike White is very, very famous. That's what I said. And I tweeted that. I don't know if people got it. I'm like, there's only one, there's only one colored last name celebrity that I'm watching this for. It was Mike White. And Zach, I always wanted to do it. Why isn't Mike White just coming in for a reward? All my takes are so old, by the way. I haven't talked about this. Thank you for allowing me to give all the takes about all these. Yeah, there is no way that Zach Brown should just be able to do that. Apply for the show.

[00:59:54] We had like Jimmy Johnson, right? Right. Jimmy Johnson. No, massive celebrity. We've had celebrities play. So. Yeah. Let them play. Let them play. Yeah. Play. Let them play. Why don't even just spearfishing as a reward? Sorry. I got, I got, I did not, I didn't expect to go on the tangent of Zach Brown. No, no. You're talking about the fake idol, right? Yeah. No. But he must've given it a name. He had to have given it a celebrity name. I don't think you have to. I don't think you have to. You have to. You have to. I don't think you have to. I mean, now. You have to.

[01:00:23] In retrospect, you have to. You have to. In retrospect, you do have to. Especially because it was meant to be the innovative thing. An extra vote is an extra vote. Like no celebrity came up with it. But it's like, you can imagine. No. Megan Mullaly and Nick Offerman called Jeff and said, we want to hire something at Tribal. Jeff said, I don't want to hire them at Tribal. I've said before, I don't want to hire a Tribal. They said, Jeff, please. He said, okay, Nick Offerman and Megan Mullaly. I can't say no to you. He said, Nick Offerman and Megan Mullaly, Tribal either. Because it's a new and innovative thing. Of course you have to give it a celebrity name. It has to have two celebrities. I don't really need to give it a celebrity name. Because if they didn't give it a celebrity name,

[01:00:53] that's like a real tell. I'm telling you, the extra vote didn't get a celebrity name. The extra vote's not new. That's not a new twist. Oh, okay. I guess. So would Christians like earn vote be the Jimmy Fallon earn vote? It was. Yeah. Like, like specifically branded as that, the Jimmy Fallon earn vote? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's taking a lot of heat for something he clearly did not come up with. No, no, no. He deserves that.

[01:01:20] Celebrity, stop calling Survivor and trying to push your image onto the show. Tyler Perry did it. Yeah. Tyler Perry did do it. I don't think Jimmy Fallon did it. I believe that as much as I believe about the fan votes. 63%. By the way, I was never allowed to vote. You voted for this. They never let me vote in Australia. You voted for this. It's fine. Those results, you know, those results were going as they were coming through just like right into like a shredder and the trash. Right. Because who gives a dab? They don't do what they want to do. Well, okay.

[01:01:50] Yeah. I think that they gave it a celebrity name. I really want to know. I don't think so. They had to. But before your question and remember it, keep the question in mind. Do you blame Christian at all for what happened with Rick Devins and like the target that is on Rick Devins? Like that puts it all on their back with what happened? No. No. I don't blame Christian at all for this. You blame Rick Devins? I think the target was always going to be on them. Like I think prior to knowing, like they were, they were in the, they were next on the hit list. Yeah, exactly. They were swinging, right? They were swinging. Right.

[01:02:19] Like we all saw it coming. We all saw it coming. But the thing as well with, I don't even, I don't know how much they believe this idol because they didn't flush the idol. Like they secondary split on Devins with the quote unquote idol. Like if they were really worried about the idol, you'd think that they would be like, all right, we'll play it or go home. But they didn't. So I don't even know how much they believe it. But if they do, I guess he's bought himself some implicit immunity. But again, they could have split. So it's not even implicit immunity. Yeah. I think he bought himself a little wiggle room. You know why they don't believe it? Why? Because it doesn't have a celebrity name.

[01:02:49] It doesn't have a celebrity name. Okay. You're making points. You're making points. You're making points. I do. I do think there's too many. It's too ambiguous, right? I don't think anybody knows for sure. I mean, except Emily Flippen, who Devins told, who has not kept one secret throughout the entire season. Put her out. That's what I'm saying. You bought her out. No. So he told her. But it's not from her. The crazy thing is that Dee was scuppered by Emily. Like it wasn't even like she's like, oh, and I told Jonathan.

[01:03:18] But like that was like a side point to the fact that Emily had already. What did she do with you? I mean, do I love Emily? She's high up on the board. But like, what is she doing? Who among this cast has subverted your expectations in a good way? Yeah. Like and not and not and not the people who are gone. I don't want to hear that Kobe did way better than you expected. Okay. We've been through that. I'll talk about other people left. Who are you most impressed with? Not named Sari. Firstly, it's both ways.

[01:03:47] Like, I feel like Emily has been episode one of 40, 45 Emily. Yeah. Like you spent that whole season being like, I'm more than that person and like building herself up. And now she's just like broken herself right down. She wanted to do that. She said in the preseason, she said, I didn't like the edit that I got. It's like kind of like, oh, I'm brash. And my personality is a little bit like front facing and people don't love me too much.

[01:04:14] But I had to like minimize myself and make myself small in order to be a good survivor player. And that's not what I want to put out into the world. She's like, I can just be me and still do well in this game. And I'm like, okay, interesting. Interesting thesis. Let's see what happens here. And she does it so earnestly too. She's just asking questions and being, what do you, what Emily, what, what is happening? Like, so, so Emily has been your surprise.

[01:04:43] No, well, I've actually, I don't even know if I've Mandela affected Christian's confessional about Emily when she was giving information to Ozzy, but I do kind of feel like the, like in my head, I'm always like, Emily, why? And that's like a new kind of like go-to quote that I have, which was really, really fun. I feel like the Emily Ozzy stuff, like he mentioned it, which was good, but like a lot of these stories don't end up panning out. Oh, I guess we still have Emily and Ozzy there, but like, it's kind of just like, it was so weird.

[01:05:11] It was like, she was fully against him and then she was fully with him. And now she's like against him. So that's like a bit of a, maybe just a tough story to tell me. That's just that relationship. I do feel like a lot of these, these relationships kind of end up being like the storytelling, which has been largely very good because the characters are great, like is then ruined by the, like where it goes from a twist perspective. Like the Genevieve Aubrey thing was like such a huge story ladder. Then it was just like, oh, they get into this like unfortunate, like swap. It wasn't like so earned.

[01:05:38] And I think there's a few examples of that, but in terms of like, would you actually ask of the players who've surprised me for good and bad, maybe? Well, you said what, only people who were still in the game or? Yeah. Only people left. Cause I want to kind of know what we're, what we're leading to as far as like, are these people's legacies? I think a lot of people went out of the game. We, we get it. Well, I have a couple, I have a couple for people. Okay. Go for it. As I said, three cheesy points and that premiere that he got many back from. So upsetting.

[01:06:05] Um, Kyle has personally tried and I take it very personally, um, to prove me wrong for the way that I analyze 48 at every turn and boy has he, you know? And like, I didn't get it while I was watching it as much that how sparkly he is. My God, like sparkly guy. Not only did he win the season when I didn't think he would win, then he came back on the season and he was a late draft pick that I got. I was like, he's never going to win.

[01:06:33] He's never going to do well because he won last week as we drafted it. And they went out to Fiji. He had won the week before he was DOA and he gets there and he isn't just like accepted. Like he was their King. It was kind of weird. The Kyle cult that they had, like, they were all so like, he left and they're like, I love you so much Kyle and even later, like Rizzo lies to him in the middle of being like, Kyle told Kyle's like an old brother to me and he told me to work with you. And she's like, that could not be true because he was there for two days. It was like, he was using it. Yeah.

[01:07:02] All of them were like, I would die for Kyle. I would die for Kyle. I was the most impressive thing I've ever seen. Like it genuinely was, was I'm like, he's one of the greatest players of all time. Even in the next episode, genuinely, like even in, you know, I just, I just did the new year rankings. Like he, he's a winner. He's higher up. He's so good. Like the next episode, they're all just like, and it was a sad way to go out, but it wasn't just that they were, he was their King. He was beating them.

[01:07:31] Like it was, it was we in all of them across, across Alliance lines, genuinely. So I'm glad that two months later, I've had the chance to say this because I wanted to go on the record to say, Kyle, stop proving me wrong. It's annoying and it makes me look bad. Who else? Look, I think I would, if I have a Winnipeg right now, it's Aussie. Which is actually crazy. I think Aussie is going to have a Mateo type thing. I know Mateo didn't win. I was like, do you, do you remember Mateo?

[01:08:00] But it is, it's like the Frankenstein's monster apprentice style, like Aussie, you know, hasn't got his like his proper license yet to strategize, but he's going to get it enough to cut Suri. He's going to put himself in fire against Suri. He doesn't need to, but I mean, actually, to be fair, I actually think like Suri has aligned herself with Rizzo, who is like, in Tori, like really bad at challenges and fire. Yeah. Much worse than her. She made a fire in AU versus the world. I know the people on this feed. I know people on this feed. No.

[01:08:29] The rest of these people who didn't watch. Yeah. The rest of the people who didn't watch AU versus the world, they're like, Suri can't win. She can't make a fire. She did lose two fire challenges on that season. But she made the fire is the point. Like we saw the fire get made. It used to be, can she make a fire? Now it's no, no, no. I have seen her make the fire. Now, can she do it faster than this, than this young lad? I think Ozzy has to put himself in fire against Suri to take her out. I think that's the best bet there for Ozzy. I don't know, man. I think it's so funny though.

[01:08:59] How far we've come in Survivor History where Ozzy looks like a legitimate winner pick. He is my winner pick currently. I mean, look, people ask, how can Suri get to the end? Is she going to win the challenge? Like probably not. I mean, she did. She, I mean, she won't touchy subjects. People forget, but I don't think they're going to do touchy subjects as the final four challenge. I don't, I mean, maybe I would have voted for that. Yeah. If I could, if I got a VPN, I could have, but it wouldn't have mattered. It would have gone right in the shredder. Um, yeah. I mean, she could win fire. She could beat Rizzo in fire and she could get taken because she did. She made it to the end.

[01:09:28] People forget she was in final travel council. Um, so Ozzy could win. I mean, who else has really surprised me? I mean, Rizzo. Rizzo is fun. Like I have fun with Rizzo. Um, you know, I'm a sucker for the, I guess the archetype that I would be, which is like this, like super fan who feels like they've won a contest. Like the Adam Klein at windows at war super fan who's there, like quoting things. It is, it's pretty self-identifying. Um, and he had so much reverence.

[01:09:57] Like I love the way, I love the way that firstly, everyone who just like immediately sees Rizzo, they think he's an idiot. Like we all did when we heard R-I-Z-G-O-D, Riz God, baby. And then like in the first episode of 49, I was like, all right, you know, like I got it. And it takes that one conversation for people to get it. And like Colby came around and, you know, everyone came around on Rizzo. It's really fun. Of course that he's working with Sari. But I also just really love that reverence type super fan player. It was funny because everyone's making fun of when he told coach that he changed his life and then Emily made the face.

[01:10:26] I teared up at that. I teared up when he said that. At the face? I know, I teared up at Rizzo saying that. I thought it was meaningful and emotional. It really got me. Coach has that effect on people. You know, like that's the, that's the weird thing about it is that I can't even say it's tongue in cheek. Cause you know, to me, it definitely feels like some shit I would say that like, I don't really mean like, oh yeah, you changed my life. You're an icon. Like, yeah, coach is an icon. He did not change my life. But that's a through line throughout coach's seasons.

[01:10:53] Even Steven Fishback, JT, they spoke very highly of coach. You know, it wasn't, they weren't even working with him directly. You know, obviously they had like, they were aligned with coach as everybody else was aligned with them, but they took him out so early in the game. But we saw like, when, when coach comes back with, from the martyr approach or whatever, Steven is like, oh my God, coach, are you okay? It's like, yeah, he's fine. That's coach. You know? And so for Rizzo to say that he affected him on that level, I was not surprised. I totally agree with you though. I love Rizzo.

[01:11:21] I think that for me, I always root for a super fan. I always do. Oh, I always, because I am that. I am a super fan too, right? I probably don't look the archetype, but I definitely got that same vibe to where you put me around these people. Huh? You podcast about Survivor. Like no one here deny that you're a super fan. Yeah. What I'm saying is that like, I don't necessarily see myself in Rizzo. Yeah, exactly. I've always said you're too cool for this podcast and they, you know, you shouldn't really be hanging out. But you know, when, when I started podcasting, I did feel like the Make-A-Wish kid.

[01:11:50] I felt like, oh my God, how did I end up here with all the people that I listened to on the podcast? This is crazy. And they keep allowing me to say things and no one's told me to shut up. This is wild. I was there in your first audition. And I was like, even then, like, are y'all crazy? Like, this is crazy. I said, don't hire this man. And no one's with me. Dude, listen, I was like, I'm coming in for blood. And like, cause I thought I was on borrowed time. You did? You were fighting with Bryce? I mean, yeah. Among us. Were you? Yeah, it was. Yes.

[01:12:19] I think he was saying like, I have wounds to pick. And then you were just like yelling at us. And I was like, this man needs to be on the podcast. We can, we can tear it up. Right. But in my mind, I was like, well, that was fun. They'll never call me back. And so I definitely understand the idea of like, I am such a big fan of these people that, you know, like I wouldn't know how to act. But to see him assimilate and then not only assimilate, but become one of the power players. The relationship between him and coach is interesting. But when you see stuff like coach being pulled to the side by Rizzo and being told we don't

[01:12:48] win survivor at tribal council, we don't slay dragons at tribal council. We slay them at camp or whatever. Yeah, exactly. It was Tyson all over again. And this is Rizzo, a man he's never seen play survivor. They think they think Rizzo's 16. And he's like, coach, what have we learned? How do we play the game? I was like, how do you not love this? This man who's a fan like Shannon, these are the conversations you would be like. You always talk about how you can work for a production because you would be like, no, this is dumb. This twist is dumb.

[01:13:18] You would be telling them, no, I'm not doing this. Like if you were a survivor player, you're like, no, none of this makes sense. Don't make big moves. Right. These are the, this is the type of advice you give to people when you've seen them play the game and you kind of know they're the back of the baseball car, you know who they are. Rizzo is now giving coach that advice. It's so fun. If you don't think this is fun, I'm sorry. You're not watching it the same way I am. Yeah. No, Rizzo, Rizzo has been good value. I mean, what a crazy couple of months of his life. Like, yeah. You know, this is the thing in Judaism, Dayeno, like it would be enough.

[01:13:47] Like if he just played 49, like Dayeno, if he made it to the end, Dayeno, then he gets cast on 50. Then he gets, then he's in a relationship with Sari. Sari, he's in a throuple with Sari and Ozzy. Like this is, Sari and Ozzy. Like, you know, like these are people who played like probably when he was a very small child. Yeah. This is a mad lib. These are random words and phrases put together. If you were to tell him in like, I don't know, like before, when did he get cast on 49? Like before he's even been cast in 49.

[01:14:15] It's like in like within six months, you will be in a throuple on Survivor in a landmark returning season with Sari and Ozzy. No one could believe that. No, like that genuinely sounds like winning the lottery. Right. It's correct. He's no, and he's, and he's playing well, like in terms of like Sari's apprentices, like why are you doing better than Ozzy? Ozzy, you've been playing this game for 20 years. Right. The question is, is he better than Ozzy, right?

[01:14:42] Like will these people, is there any world where these people will vote for Rizzo? And why do you think that is? What's your opinion about his win equity? I think because he's 16, it's really hard for people to do that. That's why I'm so high on like the Matt Haywoods of the world or Marianne even. It's really hard to respect these like young people, especially because it's a lot of like, it is actually a lot of older parents who do enjoy Rizzo seemingly. But I just think it's hard to give, and it does happen, we get these young winners, but I think you're up against, you're up against it in terms of like respect from the jury.

[01:15:12] I just think he's a little bit more unserious. Although the way that they looked at, like they specifically looked at Rizzo in 49 with more of his like showmanship that he hasn't had as much of here, that doesn't seem to be around the season. So I don't think that he's even earning any of that. I just think it's a really tough archetype. But yeah, I mean, I guess if he's against like a Joe and a Jonathan. Yes. Yes. I don't know where y'all, I feel like people have overinflated Jonathan's game at this point. What is your opinion about Jonathan right now?

[01:15:43] Um, fine. That's where I am too. And I've been getting the sense that people are like, no, he's playing a really good guy. I was like, I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think so. We get a lot of Jonathan. We get a lot of Jonathan, but I don't know. We get a lot of him explaining what he's doing. It's kind of like the opposite of Sarie. Like Sarie, you just kind of like, we've seen some of it. Yeah. And like, they probably have a similar amount of confessionals. And like Jonathan, I feel like we're getting like all of it. And then some, like even the shot in the dark thing, like he took the shot in the dark. Christian couldn't even vote. And then he gave it back.

[01:16:12] And like, are you giving Jonathan chizzy points for this episode? Like not me. Yeah. In the middle of chizzy points. Every episode. Sarie, Rizzo, Ozzy. Yeah. What is Jonathan doing? Like he was at, he was at the bottom of an alliance that is again being outplayed by Sarie. They lost their members. If he had been with coach or Chrissy had been with Jonathan, they probably like, if they were the two honor and integrity pair, which we can talk about to our destinies, he's going home. Like no one has that much agency other than the Super Wizard of Oz. So. Yeah.

[01:16:41] I was, I'm not a fan of so far, but the game I, you know, I think we're getting a lot more nuanced to his character than we did the first time. I think he was very much like, you know, the challenge guy. Right. And I think like now we're getting a lot more of like his strategic takes and this and other. I think it's fine. You know, like he's not a great spot and I don't think this is a winning game. But so I think so. Like Rizzo could beat somebody like that for sure. I think the thing with the super fan archetype. The banker is cold, Chappelle. Will you take a Rizzo victory? Absolutely. Rizzo? Yeah.

[01:17:10] It's not, it's not the biggest box, but at that point, the other box has got to be like, come on. What are the, what are even the other boxes? And we're looking at the Rizzo win as a real option. Yeah. Listen, I'm never, I'm clinging to that box of dear life. All in. Yeah. All in. But yeah, I think that for this particular archetype of human, like if you are the young super fan, I think that you have to sit next to people who play demonstrably bad games or

[01:17:39] like, or that they've shown some like level of incompetence. So you'll see like Todd Herzog, right? Like, I don't think Amanda played a bad game, but like the competence was really leaning on, on like, okay, this is Todd. Todd has been running things. He's like the clear mastermind of that three. You know, the, I mean, his second place goes to Courtney there, you know, not to say that, you know, Courtney didn't play a good game, but like, look at, look at his competition there. Right. He got Courtney and Amanda at the end. That's how he wins that game.

[01:18:06] I think Adam Klein is sitting next to Hannah and what's this man's name? The guy, the guy, Ken. Yes. He's in there, Hannah and Ken. And then they're like demonstrating how, you know, socially they have not been able to ingratiate themselves. And he's like the clear, like clear favor with that. Right. I don't think people go in looking to vote. Rizzo comes across as even younger than these people. And he's not younger than Todd was. Like Rizzo is older, but like Rizzo actually does come across like he is like, like he's younger. Right.

[01:18:35] Because he's so much the newbie as well. Like they literally, it even exaggerates it more. He has a very young energy. I think we've always said about Rizzo. I think Marianne is probably the best example for something that he could have. He would have to like exude to win the game. Right. It's not only am I sitting next to people who might not necessarily have the strongest game already, but they also aren't as socially ingrained in the tribe as I am. And they are not able to articulate themselves as well as I am.

[01:19:01] So if you put Rizzo next to Joe and Jonathan and both of them are like, well, I won three challenges to get here. Cool. But if Rizzo was like, okay, I didn't win any challenges, but I had to get out three and she was my number one. And then I had to figure out a way to get out Ozzy, you know, and then I like, so I made the decision to sit next to you two because I knew that you would, you would take out Ozzy and fire and I was never going to beat him in fire. You know, like if you could go in and articulate yourself, I do think there are people who would vote for Rizzo.

[01:19:27] So, um, and I think that it would still be a very fun season for our, our flagship season 50 here. Uh, this big moment, uh, in survivor history to go to like our recent new era standout, you know, and he can kind of be like the face of the new era going forward. Yeah. That would probably, um, that would probably like teach the wrong lessons. Cause I think so be like the new era. Like it would be, I also find it so funny.

[01:19:55] It's like old school versus new school, but like the, the old school Alliance at this point is like more, it's like two thirds, like Joe and Jonathan. Yeah. And the new school, at least game style is like completely led by Suri who is like the godmother of the new school, but she started playing a long time ago. You know what this is as well? It's just beach and shelter people. We've been saying this since Cambodia. Like that's always, that's always what I go to. But is it, but is it cause, cause like, cause who was really a shelter person in the new era? Apparently that's not a thing they do.

[01:20:24] No, but like in this season, like Stephanie and coach and Chrissy and Joe and Jonathan, like the shelter, like this was the integrity folks. They were always going to be building the shelter people. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that is a dichotomy as old as time. That's a dichotomy like back to when like Rob was like the young new era type super fan season six, you know, like I, yeah. I mean, I definitely think like there are scales and the scales have shifted over time, but it's been like obviously a really big theme of the season.

[01:20:54] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. A few, do you have more on that? No, keep going. Okay. There were a few things I wanted to talk about just in like looking at the whole season. Do you want to talk about the edit? Cause there was obviously that debate about women in the edit. And I never thought of the edit. Was it a debate? Cause I'm pretty sure we were all, I mean. People debate. People debate in the comments. To me, I'm like. What you think what happened is that they were like women are getting edited badly on the show and everyone was just like, yeah. No, I mean, like, I think it's pretty, it's pretty clear that women are being under edited.

[01:21:23] I think that people started to argue that like maybe it was somehow warranted. And I'm thinking. Yeah. That one's a hard one. Right. Cause then you say like, what are they doing that would need more editing time? Are they a big character? Would you need to show them? Were they doing anything that stands out? And that's always hard because then it's like, are you saying women are just like less entertaining than men? Cause like questions abound. And or are women cast worse than men? In some ways in this season, like they did do the kind of like almost homogenous, like

[01:21:53] big, like gregarious man archetype. And they're going to get more screen time compared to some of the women. And but then maybe that's an issue in casting. But I do think like it clearly is an issue. I mean, obviously like the history of editing on the show is like deplorable. So the show earns no goodwill. But I think you can see like, it's not even just in terms of like, are they just casting more brash men? And they can just tell those stories easier. Like again, to a degree.

[01:22:18] But then you also look at like, like a similar like level of character and the women lost out in the edit every time. Like, so Rhi has an episode where she gets zero confessionals. Coach is also a legend. Like let's put them in the same category of like great screen time, big legendary characters. Like let's just put them. Coach would never get zero confessionals. I don't think. And then you look at like Q and Angelina, two people I hugely enjoy. It was devastated to lose both. Angelina got like nothing. Q got to like show his character in the short time we had with him. And like, thank God for that.

[01:22:48] I wish we got more of Angelina. You look at like Jonathan, who I think is like not the best narrator. Try to put in like, I actually think Tiffany's been really fun. But say Tiffany is like one of the more, Tiffany and Jonathan are both more of like the questionable decisions from a casting perspective. Like Jonathan, Tiffany's made it up a bit now. But like has gotten, I think a lot more. I definitely at the time of this debate was having, you know, a lot more. I think that if you were to like categorize, like put everyone into tiers of like men and women of the same category of like quality of casting.

[01:23:19] Women are often like two tiers down in confessionals. And then, but then I think the thing that's sad about it is like, if it's one season where that's true and it's like, okay, well maybe like Christian is just bringing that much good TV. And I did want to see as much of Christian as we got. I loved it. You know, maybe like Evans is doing a lot and Koji is doing a lot. And like, this is just one of those seasons. You're like, all right, well, that happens from time to time. Like sometimes there'll be, you know, a lot of seasons where women do better. And I know like 49 was probably like the one season where that was true.

[01:23:46] But unfortunately that the history of the show doesn't afford that grace that this is like one season where men just kind of like were taking the reins. Because again, I think some of it isn't. And I think like someone like Sarri could even have more. I think there are players who could have, we could have seen like, even like D have one. There were a lot of times where questions, Angelina was the big one. Like questions actually should have been asked about the people on the season. And even if that weren't true, how can it be true of every season with the history being as terrible as it is?

[01:24:13] I shouldn't write notes on this, but my thoughts of it obviously months old. But that's just what I was thinking at the time where it's like, it's so clear because the history is like so terrible. And it matters so much because it matters how we tell these stories because, you know, obviously we only see as much as like they give us. And if they give us less, like of course people question that more. People need like their handheld often in the show or like we need to see what people are doing. Obviously, like it's not even a negative thing. It's just true. But so it is such a disservice to these people and their legacies to bring them

[01:24:43] back and then not show them. Because then when we talk about them as characters, as players, we're like, and then they didn't really do second anything in the second season. You know, like, like even if we look at Aubrey and Game Changers, she made it pretty far in that season. Doesn't she make it to the finale of that season? Something, something like that. And I was fourth, fifth. Yeah, she was. Yeah. Yeah. So but Aubrey game, you're like, oh, she was kind of like she was there.

[01:25:12] You know, like we don't get as much Aubrey as we would have like as they could describe her gameplay in that season, despite her going to the final five. Right. There's not a lot to say about it. And it is not a mark on her game. It's a mark on what you show from her game. Right. And you it's the editor's responsibility to tell a cohesive story. Jeff likes to say there is no winner edit. I push back against that completely. But whatever he I don't know, whatever he whatever he says goes, I guess it's his show. But I would definitely say that there are definitely seasons where you can watch and

[01:25:42] just tell by the amount of screen time and amount of confessionals you get that you are looking at somebody who the show wants to highlight. And normally, if they're spending that much time with a character, it's it's the winner, you know, or somebody who comes really close to winning. And so if you come close to winning, I'm expecting you to get a comparable amount of screen time, you know. But you're like dominating the confessionals to go out pre-merge. And then there'll be people who make it deep into the merge or at least to this point of the game where you very seem very little of, but they outlasted you.

[01:26:12] It's hard to reconcile. And so I totally get that. I think in season 48, it was the say show right at the pre-merge, which is like it's all say everything. Right. And so we get to the end and we're like, well, it went from being a say show to the Joe show. And so it's got to be Joe. You know, that was pretty much the analysis was because that's all we were showing. You were seeing everything Joe did. It was all in a positive light for a very long time. And so we look at everybody and be like, well, there's no possible way they could win the game because they're not showing the things that they're doing to win the game.

[01:26:42] Obviously, Kyle has like a late surge. But for a lot of that season, it was just the editing was very unbalanced when it came to a lot of characters. And so this is just to me very sad because you clamor to have some of these people play again. I love a returning player season, but they don't bring them back and then not show them. That's not fun. Yeah. I mean, and I think like the thing that's hard is that I think that like the detractors of this, like that there's an imbalance in gender in the edit would say like, well, you know, it's not wrong for these people to get content.

[01:27:11] And I think that that is true. Like, I'm not saying it's like every single time, like that it's just like men getting confessionals is bad. Again, I'm saying a lot of that is earned. In fact, some of the stuff that people are saying like, oh, well, like why was Colby the last one in the blood moon? Like they're making a TV show that tribal council was some of the only good stuff they had in that episode. And Colby is the biggest legend here. Like he should get his flowers. And even like coach versus Chrissy. But I don't know about that. Yeah. Like, I don't know about the coach versus Chrissy though. And that was kind of weird to me. Like, yeah, it's, I don't think so because I'm apologies to Chrissy, but like coach is coach.

[01:27:40] It doesn't, it's not saying anything about Chrissy, but like coach is coach. He's one of the biggest characters of the season. He's one of the biggest characters in Survivor history. They're going to focus on coach that he's going to be the main event. Right. But, but should he outplace her? Oh no. I mean, that's stupid. No one should outplace anyone, but she, I'm very, very worried about how this is going to affect the Vivertel by the way, which is in my life. I wait all day for the Vivertel to roll over to the next day. It's really, I think canonically she was 11th voted out. No, that's what Jeff said. They just died.

[01:28:09] That's not, well, that's actually not a gender problem. That's just the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Generally in terms of who gets the moment of their torch snuff last, like coach is coach. Like he should get that. And it's not for me. Like it's, if it was coach Sari, we change, you know what I mean? Right. Right. The order changes. I mean, if it's Chrissy Jonathan, even like, yeah. Yeah. But again, if she's the 11th person. They tied. They didn't say you tied. No one said tied.

[01:28:38] I mean, no, all of this is so like, even the blood wound people, they should all just be tied 15. That's not how this works. Well, that's so dumb. We've had plenty of double boot episodes where that is not the case, right? The grenade is the grenade. None of that should be true. But that was bad then. That was stupid then. If you were tied. Here we are. Here we are. Or if it's based on meaning, like, like order you dropped in the challenge. Fair. Legitimately differentiated in some way.

[01:29:07] If it's not, and it's just TV order. I mean, coach and Chrissy were a literal pair. So like, obviously they tied. Yeah. They tied. Well, they should have tied. But when we, when we go to snuff their torch, one of them is the 11th person voted out. And the next one is the 12th person voted out. Well, that's. And the next member of our jury. That's just the stupid thing. I don't know what to do with that. This is stupid thing. I don't know what to tell you, man. And if that was going to affect Survivordal, is that what's happening with Survivordal then? Is that how you pronounce Survivordal? I've never. I don't play that. I don't play it. Why not? It's so fun.

[01:29:36] Oh my God. You know I don't like games. Oh, Chappelle. I can tell that you're not someone who's feeding a baby for 10 hours a day. Yeah, you can tell. Yeah, you can tell. That's the patriarchy. Yeah. Because I literally wait for my puzzles to roll over and I get my minute cryptic and I get connections and I get Wordle and I have Survivordal and I wait for 2pm, which is when it rolls over and then I do my Survivordal and I'm really just, it's a great game. Anyway, what we said, but okay, the edit. Anyway, my point with the edit is like- Oh, I feel like there's enough on the edit. Yeah.

[01:30:05] It's not inherently bad when men get confessionals, but if you see a man compared to a woman who are the same caliber of character in some way that can be compared and women are always losing, something is wrong and it's been wrong through history. Anyway, enough on that. Should we talk about more of these twists? We mentioned Tied Destiny a little bit. They took that from Survivor South Africa. Yeah, we missed Tied Destiny. Tied Destiny for that season and LaRue took it from French Survivor actually and we said, don't do that. And he was like, I want to. And we're like, okay, well, I don't know. We're just consultants. We're saying no.

[01:30:34] I always think Tied Destiny is just fine. For me, firstly, it would be so interesting. And on Survivor South Africa, they picked Roths. In this, obviously, they chose what they assumed was like a 48-start challenge. If they were choosing the actual Tied Destiny, there would be so much agency here. We could do a three-hour podcast on just how people make that decision. It's like the layers of decision-making to choose a partner that you will have a Tied Destiny. What do they call it? Double duos? Tied Destiny with? Yeah, silly. There's analysis there, but they didn't choose it.

[01:31:03] So that kind of decision lacked meaning. But for me, firstly, every vote is a six-person vote on this freaking show. You can't. Even the 13 people vote are six-person. It was a six-person vote. Yeah. Yeah. But I also think it kind of just necessitates for me. It doesn't draw these binary lines. It often necessitates a bit of a compromise vote. Like, who can we kind of part with? But this vote just was, thankfully, just happened to have meaning because they ended up having like a full nerd pair and a full integrity pair. And so Rik could make that decision.

[01:31:32] And like, maybe if the integrity pair is a little bit lower stakes, like a Stephanie or Jonathan, like maybe she takes the hit at the nerd first. Maybe they're just like juicier nerd targets because she is swinging. But like, mostly I feel like if she was like, no, we're doing integrity today. Like she got her integrity pair. And it actually allowed these lines to be drawn a little bit because we happened to have pairs of both. And they were just getting hit of two people instead of one. But I do think like most of the time, it ends up being like a bit of just like a, just like what we can agree on. Did you like it? Yeah. It was fine.

[01:32:02] It was fine. Exactly. It was fine. Exactly. It was fine. It was fine. Yeah. Yeah. I thought, I thought, oh my God, is this the thing that's going to screw Seree over? No, she, she actually got individual immunity. Yeah. She actually got individual immunity for that too. So I'm fine with that. Yeah. No, I watched it and I was like, oh no, this is, this is interesting. It was fun, but it wasn't like nothing that I thought was crazy. Well, we probably never see it again. Right. Because this is the only time that we have such a huge cast at this point.

[01:32:27] Um, so, you know, go survivor for doing something that didn't destroy the show for me, you know, like, like I think the blood moon was really just like a nothing burger. This at least was an interesting conversation. Yeah. I mean, it's more just like, please stop with the twist. Yeah. I liked how they showed Christian saying, I don't think they like we, the fans voted for that specifically. Right. It's all going in the shredder, Christian. They do. There's no records on what we quote unquote voted for.

[01:32:56] I need to see the numbers. I would like to see that data. Yeah. As chaos cast would say, you know, I would like to see that. Like, yeah, I, um, I'm sure like you're in some sort of record. Did anyone, did you have to enter your email address to vote? I don't remember. I don't know if I, I might've, I might've opted out of the vote to just be like, you know what? Cause I didn't want to be blamed. I didn't want to be blamed. You know, I was like, uh, an extension is not, uh, is not, uh, to say that you are now above being blamed because I am being blamed as the fans.

[01:33:26] Cause I had, I voted. Maybe we wouldn't have some of this, uh, wacky shit going on. It really irks me how they're like, well, we're screwing you over now, but it's the fan fault. It's like, why do you take pleasure in this? Even the way they painted it. Right. It's like, do you want a dynamic season of survivor with twists and turns and fun gameplay or do you want dynamic strategy? Right. Or do you want classic Pugongings? It's like, okay. I vote for the twist. No, I don't. I want classic survivor. I don't want classic. No, you don't. Yeah.

[01:33:55] But we don't know. Cause even that's not classic, you know, that's got, that's got twists and turns. Uh, you know, this was just, this was like, they were like, do you want, do you want, uh, you know, the new era or do you want, or do you want Borneo? Yeah. Right. Yeah. I choose classic, but I didn't get to go to my point. I'm picking Borneo. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you want idols? Do you want like advantages as well? Or do you want no idols and no advantages and boring gameplay, Shannon?

[01:34:25] I mean, the votes were made for us. Man, the gameplay has been limited with this dynamic, quote unquote, dynamic, uh, format that we have. Speaking of idols, Billie Eilish, boomerang idol, obviously we're two months in on that. Um, they clearly did it because they loved everyone going home with the idol in 46. So they're trying to like manufacture that magic, which I think is like, sometimes that happens with, I mean, it happens often in, in, when you're producing, I think that you're like, that was great. How can we try and like create that? Then people will try to vote someone out without idols. Wait, wait.

[01:34:54] So you think they liked the Billie Eilish idol because it'll incentivize people to get voted out with the idol. Cause it's putting a target on their back. Yeah. Because then it, it should incentivize people to vote people out with idols. And they saw in 46 people kept going home with idols. And that was such a great organic moment. They thought like, how can we create that again? Um, in a weird way, I think that could be interesting if it ever happened like that. But instead, Shannon to me, I got, oh, Genevieve found two idols that she was not able to use. Oh, painful. It's also so painful that like Christian and Genevieve were like further screwed by twist

[01:35:22] when like they were the two that found the three. Really? They were wearing idols that they really could have used at some opportune times. And actually like, then they like ops had the idols at times. Um, tough. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because like, it feels like it should be fun, but it's so hard to game. Like there are other tribes, like how are you going to engineer people going home with an idol in their pocket? Like it really only could have been a social tool and maybe had some upside if it went south. Um, and I think that's the only way it could have been played.

[01:35:49] And in that way, I actually much prefer what we saw on Australian survivor of like the different tribe idols to like create those like cross tribal connection. If that's the best part of it, I would have just preferred that. Um, and miles had a great tweet about this, like in the moment, it wasn't so clear about how much it would kind of stagnate the idols in the season. And I'm sure a part of that is that like Ozzy and Rizzo were so much in control and they have the idols, but like, yeah, taking idols to the point where like, you're not incentivized to keep it a secret because you don't get to keep it now. They're public now.

[01:36:18] And they can't be views on anyone else. Again, not Australian survivor, but like some of the big moments are like, you're going to play the idol on some of the biggest moments in, in survivor history, you know, poverty playing idols on, on Jerry and Sandra. Like that makes idols dynamic. Like they're very stagnant right now. Like, again, like you only know who has, who has the idols and, um, they can't be played on anyone else. You can't buff with them. They're really like very defensive tools right now. And I don't think even in the moment any of us realized production certainly didn't

[01:36:46] realize like how stagnant that would make the idols on the season. If anything, you want to vote out the people who gave you the idol, as opposed to the people who are incentivized to vote you out. And because they also know you have it. Yeah. Well, and then everyone knows. And the thing is like, it's like, well then just hide from them the secret, but there's three of them. So like, eventually like they will find out what the mechanism was. Cause for a while they were just calling it the Billie Eilish idol, because I think that like the boomerang aspect was getting a little off, um, on purpose because you don't want someone to know you sent it with possibly an ulterior motive.

[01:37:15] Um, but yeah, I mean, you're going to find that out. And then, yeah, you kind of like shouldn't work with them. Like, I don't know, none of this, it kind of feels like it should have created these complex dynamics, but it was just too hard and vague. Again, you don't have that much power on that person going home with an idol. So you might as well just treat it as like, let's be friends. And if you happen to go home with an idol, like at least I'll get like something in my pocket. Um, it didn't work out. It might've been fun as like a one off idol on the season, but you can't do that because it has to be this like tribal thing because you have to send it to someone else. So how could they decide one tribe to have it?

[01:37:44] Maybe the kind of thing where like an Australian survivor where you like, you win a reward and you get like an additional thing, but then that's too many idols. It being the idol mechanism of the season, that was true of all the tribes didn't work. And there's no way for it to be an additional idol. So it probably should have been scrapped. I don't blame Billie Eilish. This woman has never watched Survivor. She's not- She'll never watch it. She's never acknowledged it. No. She doesn't know what is happening with this. Well, well her and, um, her friend was on, no, that was Chapel Rhone's friend. It was on Survivor, uh, 48. Um,

[01:38:14] Oh, who? Um, he was the music producer. Oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah. Yes. Him. He's a music producer. Thomas? Thomas. Thomas. Um, he, no, no, because he produces Olivia Rodrigo. I didn't know that he was a Chapel Rhone thing, by the way, and Chapel Rhone to me is Chappelle Rhone, but you did that. Yeah. Well, I mean, thank you. I got to, I got to get the name, the win on that one. Just a better. You know, I, I, I try to be, I try to be, um, you know,

[01:38:43] I was looking at the vote so far for these, uh, these in the hands of the fans. You know, we have a couple of votes left that we still haven't explored. Do you know what, you remember what they were? No. Well, we did a vote for the tribe colors. Obviously we landed on orange, teal and magenta, uh, rice. 60% verse, uh, voted for make the players earn the rice. Um, um, the vote reveal and reunion do it in Las Vegas ends up winning. As we know, uh, advantages, dynamic power,

[01:39:13] tribe switch. Yes. Immunity necklace, a decorative bird, uh, tribe supplies, make, make them earn their camps of lies twist. I love twist. Bring them on and idols. Yes. Uh, 80% said no. Now that said, we still have the final four challenge, uh, to vote on. Well, to get the results right in the shredder. Well, do you remember what our three options were? There were three options, three options for the final four challenge.

[01:39:41] Pinball was a challenge. Let me have a file. No, subjects. Uh, no pinball. Was it the obstacle and some motion? Yeah. Those are the big three. Which one do you think is going to win and be our final four challenge? And just a couple of. Billy Eilish life. and yeah. And who will we name it after? Yeah. Well, you, well, you won't have to name that. Why not? Where's Neil Patrick Harris? Right. Where is it? Nicole Brown. Yeah.

[01:40:11] The event. The survivor. Celebrity Brown. The survivor Browns. Yeah. The obstacle. The event. Nicole Brown. Pinball wizard. I can see it. Which, which one is pinball wizard? Is that the one where you run up and drop the thing and then you come down? Yeah. I think so. Like the plinko. Yeah. I think so. It's kind of like. I don't know that. Yeah. Big. That's what I thought of it. Full body's emotion. Uh, yeah. Look, I think Sari has a better chance. It's emotion.

[01:40:42] Right. And yeah. The last thing, final four fire making, keep it or lose it. And we don't know the results of that, but I'm, I think we know. I'm, I can't, I can't stomach it. I can't stomach it. Cause you know, it's gonna be like, the 80% said fire. They didn't. They didn't say that. They didn't. I will not be blamed for this. 99.6% of the fans said, keep the fire. Yeah. No, they didn't. No, they didn't. No, they didn't. Over a very special place is just quatsch

[01:41:11] like no other. Shop Apotheke and that not because thousands of customers give Shop Apotheke top-of-the-view and insgesamt millions of people on the mega service. Übrigens inklusive super uncomplicated Scan deines e-Rezepts. Just just just just keep it and just just all in should we ding-marry-kill the Jeffisms? Well, I mean,

[01:41:41] there's so many, but to me, the big one is definitely the the playing along with the challenge. What what else are you gonna put into running for the ding-marry-kill? The rap. Who? And the impressions. Yeah. Oh, okay. Well, because I'm married the impressions. The rap's gonna die. The rap's dead. And I'm gonna marry the impressions. I thought they were really funny. I thought it was good. I thought they I thought it was good.

[01:42:11] I think I'm gonna marry the challenge. I think it was I did. I thought that was so much fun. It was low stakes as we as we you and I both agree there was no wager. It was just it was just fun and games some some shenanigans. But I think it made a rather stale challenge so fun to watch, you know, endurance challenges especially on US Survivor are so boring. It's just we're just standing there. I think on AU we really they like there's a lot more

[01:42:41] strat chat and across you know, like they they do that kind of stuff on AU a lot more you can't you like although I kind of want to yada yada the challenges I'm afraid I might miss something that's actually you know, interesting as far as like conversation goes but I mean US Survivor I was like okay, maybe we're going to get Christian filibustering again you know, maybe something like that. No, we actually got a lot of entertaining content out of them trying to heckle Jeff Jeff having the shoe on the other foot you know, a lot of us are Monday morning

[01:43:10] Monday morning quarterback and all this stuff and talking about what we would have done should have done what these people could have done but we don't actually go out and do the thing and so we'll never really know I think Jeff is just like us. I mean, he's a lot closer to the action than we are but in a lot of ways we got to see clips of Jeff completely shaming people for how they did in the challenge only to basically lose to the majority of the people left in the game and he narrowly beat Sari like Sari almost beat Jeff yeah so yeah

[01:43:38] they beat him they beat Jeff and I'm like wow, this is crazy but I thought it was so much fun it was funny that it was seven and a half minutes I mean, look, mine would be 20 seconds but I enjoy all the montages other than when they showed that damn balance beam why is there always a balance beam for Sari show me the 3-2-1 the show doesn't understand why Sari is magic they're like what did she do she voted out Eric that speaks for itself and that balance beam my god in heaven I wish you never see it ever again I enjoy all

[01:44:08] the montages again like I enjoy the part of the season that is like the reverence for the show so I enjoyed that I kind of think like it was fine I'm not watching the show for this reason I enjoy the dynamics but I think the dynamics will play out themselves like as you're right if if Jeff isn't doing this like Christian is doing something entertaining Christian is filibustering like the most the best part of this was that apparently Christian was asking for the deep dives and I heard that was amazing you pointed that out to me I loved it that's what I'm here to see like while it was fine it didn't it wasn't like it was

[01:44:38] that's why it's like down to the middle one for me like it's pretty neutral but like later on we kind of get this glimpse of Joe speaking to his sister and ask if you give him strength as he wins the challenge that to me is why I'm watching that's much more interesting to me than Jeff playing the challenge but like I'd like to see that you can't ask these people for a reason let them stand there creating entertainment but it doesn't kill the show for me it's fine even the rap which is the one we're killing like it's fine like give me that

[01:45:14] yeah it's like it's like rap being history this sounds great I would I would love to see but it's not like I mean and I've listened to you rap Hamilton more times than I would like to admit and against my will just like everything I learned about Mr. Beast never asked for that but it's fine we'll still take it I would love to see Jeff have done the poverty hang on the pole challenge

[01:45:44] you know that's I think that's more entertainment than just this get him in his not even his swimwear right in his underwear out in the water get him to do one of these big obstacle courses like that maybe a hero's challenge against it could you ever see Jeff doing another challenge now do you think he has the like the bug oh god well don't do that well don't don't even put it out there we saw it was fine I don't hate it what if there was a real wager like if y'all beat me

[01:46:14] y'all lose then obviously you know like half of you whoever I beat will lose their vote yeah that's something like that I don't know that's awful it is awful but I just want to see Jeff do more stuff I think that was fun imagine if they made people lose their votes for losing against a challenger Jeff that would have made me angry I'm glad it wasn't a wager because that would have broken the game so he doesn't have a vote because she shouldn't be Jeff in a challenge like I wouldn't even be here to talk I'm at the level where I can at least be here to complain

[01:46:43] you know what I mean like I don't want to get a little bit past it where I'm just dead so but yeah I thought this was fine I thought it was simply fine you know what I liked about it I liked that it didn't take 40 minutes like Zac Brown I don't remember like a time before I was watching that Zac like in that moment god it went on and on he seems like a sweet guy it's not his fault it's production's fault they're making the decisions they're making the decisions of how much time we devote to Zac Brown

[01:47:13] it's not his fault he didn't ask for all that screen time but man I hated it just like I'm mad at Jimmy Fallon about this Christian thing I don't care I don't care I don't care I don't care I don't care you can't make me care it might be he shouldn't have made the call he didn't he made the call I don't want to tell you he didn't make the call he made the call he said Jeff I have that idea and Jeff said Jimmy I don't know if we can give you that he said damn it I'm Jimmy Fallon you are

[01:47:43] Jimmy Fallon even on his show with Christian he kind of indicated that's not what happened he's like yeah I have ideas you didn't watch it I can't because I want Christian because I'm like secretly hoping Christian will flip the table and he won't do it I'm like Christian we have to take our power back at some point we have to you know I'm not going to say we assault Jimmy Fallon but if he did I would look the other way no he didn't no one assaulted Jimmy Fallon we don't know

[01:48:13] it's not the fans what what do you think of D D's great I love her I think she's like I think watching her play this season this was like solidified yeah she did 45 and that was good but to me this was like no look at D she has chops it wasn't Kyle like she wasn't God out there but and this is the thing that's with the New Year it's

[01:49:04] like if I had to bet on one as a player I always thought D played the best winning game those two were different and like I think that remains even truer now that I

[01:49:35] the gamer the I know I am here to compete I think D has a lot of that in her but Savannah for sure is

[01:50:06] got got got to I would love to have seen any of them play again even now now now that they all played twice I'm still kind time that

[01:50:36] Rizzo ended up getting to get past that and she's the winner so tough I'd much prefer to see her later and I I'm sure we still will and I Hamilton heads

[01:51:06] out there it wasn't me I just didn't deny it yeah I know how you think yeah it that's what

[01:51:36] I missed I feel like I'm hopefully coming in because have people been enjoying the season I've been too much of a casual I think people are enjoying it more make the

[01:52:05] season bad which twist didn't with the double trouble it was fine it was fine and fine is okay fine is not bad that's not the best case scenario oh I'm just saying we're not looking for the best case we're just making sure this isn't a bad case scenario and I wacky

[01:52:35] and twist field and crazy and that's what they're getting this isn't the edge of extinction so I mean that's I think pretty universally agreed on that that's a bad season right yeah right but I mean but that's what we're looking at when it comes to bad seasons to me this is middle of the road somewhere it's more entertaining than a season that gets a typical pagonging or one side versus the other and we all eat that one side and then we get a child of being kind of emerge at the end like this has been dynamic as Jeff would say I like dynamic

[01:53:06] I at me a bit when I was like this is kind of a trauma it's like he lost a million dollars on the betrayal of a friend I know that there are people out there like who lost handily and didn't get like a close friends

[01:53:36] vote and that ended that relationship like let alone like the winning vote anyway I've spoken a lot about the Maria Charlie stuff and like I think like yeah at the time oh okay I thought that the Maria vote was like the most important vote in Survivor History jury vote since Sioux Hawk I

[01:54:11] which again as a human I really feel for

[01:54:42] balance female side yeah about especially not that one I like looking at kind of how the traumas of these people's past like past games have kind of manifest themselves in this yeah because I think it's the point of the returning player season obviously you don't get that in every season where people are able to look back and say okay here's the thing that I want for redemption you know not to you know wink at AU one more time but you know we saw

[01:55:12] trauma that he has to navigate you know even some of these other people like even Savannah right a person who won the game is still looking like hey the final travel council was kind of rough what did I do wrong what can I change you know there's a war like they were winners who had their baggage and they brought it in and that's one of the things I found the best about that season was like they all had something new they were trying to earn yeah Aubrey Rick Devins like all of these people have a little bit of baggage that they're with and I like that the show was taking time to address those things I think the

[01:55:42] Charlie thing was way over the top I don't think it was necessarily Charlie I mean don't get me wrong he seems like a they put him on TV for a reason so he's an entertaining guy he's obviously a showman and he's leaning into this but I do think that it bothers me a little bit that his legacy will always be Maria and to me like and Charlie is more to me Charlie is a better game player and a better survivor character than just the Maria moment I think there were more egregious things that happened that we talked about this when we did the defining moments

[01:56:12] and I think I fought for that and it ended up being the I'm pissed moment I get it but I just think for me and like what I love about survivor is like someone making a really personal vote that there's like heartbreaking thing and it being like the deciding vote that's just survivor to me and it's hard to get that in the new era we talked about this a lot on Australian survivor where we did get a lot of it like that to me is like pure human dynamics someone goes in and they're hurt and maybe they shouldn't be hurt they were coming for you but like you can't I don't know you can't fight against those feelings when you're like in that

[01:56:42] position as a juror and you make a decision like that against a friend that's been like almost a defining relationship of the season and it's the deciding vote like that to me is the most just like pure survivor that I feel like we pretty much have got in the new era that was like the last time I remember being like and again the seasons I enjoy a lot in the new era 42 45 47 as well but 46 was so raw and real and like that was the time where I remember being like just flawed by by a decision and I like that it bled into the season

[01:57:11] because I do think it's survivor history at the very least and it is it is upsetting that it does it both Charlie and Maria's legacies get consumed in it but like at least it's a huge moment to be consumed in because right it was a big moment yeah is there anybody we under edited on this podcast and left out and didn't give their flowers to any words for Jenna Lewis Jenna she was right she was right about she was right I mean I hated that she said it I felt physical right because why would she say that yeah why would she say that like so and like the

[01:57:41] rest obviously I mean she was wrong to do it as a player because how is that going to go like the re like all the things you're saying is why it's not going to work but she was right in theory um who else who else from this cast I mean well we you've kind of talked about Q we got some shenanigans it was fun he was my top three case I love well to me that you I think yeah he was possibly the best casting of the new era so like for me of everyone

[01:58:11] Marianne I mean yeah I was like come on you you always Marianne Carolyn and Q are the other other Mount Rushmore and that fourth spot um I'll definitely give you Marianne and Q I'm I'm kind of like on the fence about Carolyn right now uh just like in general because it's been a few seasons since that no I yeah but that I'm talking about in Survivor so I think that I think that the Tika three doesn't age well uh and maybe it's just 44 but I

[01:58:41] think that you know like the I don't know because I thought people were higher on Jam Jam and uh and the whole Tika three is as whole and then I heard y'all talking about yeah it's like winner rankings and I was like yeah now Kyle is gonna go up because Kyle's a god to these people but he's also played again right and Jam Jam has not um um so yeah so I don't know so I I definitely will give you those two spots um yeah I just sit around I sit around and think about it maybe as the the big characters of the new era who are the players of the new era if you don't

[01:59:11] mind me asking like who are the characters back to my baby but who the who the the the play is um yeah the the like the the like if if we have like our Mount Rushmore of Survivor like overall right old era right up to up to 50 you know so Kyle is on the he's never too much to give Kyle his flowers um do it I'm not gonna stop you I love Kyle Kyle D you gotta look at the winners first right yeah because like what we have like Boston Rob Sandra Parvati

[01:59:41] um are you doing same new era players no I'm saying like like in comparison to like the old era players right like so we had Boston Rob Sandra Parvati who's in our fourth spot uh Kim sorry I mean I'm taking Sari over Kim for sure um right Tony you didn't say Tony Tony yeah so Boston Rob Sandra Parvati Tony right that's the big four right away from me I heard you no that's the big four no I'll give you that I'll give you that that's the big four uh I just literally was drawing a blank

[02:00:10] but um and then like Eli and then like Sari is like the patron saint of everybody who was good at Survivor but did not win um so like she can she can have that uh but like here okay give us like the big the big four of the of the last nine seasons do that on the spot that's impossible you ain't been talking about nothing else you got time let's do it uh we got there's only there's only nine winners to talk about and you just ranked them not too long ago only winners yeah well I mean I think you would like like you start with the winners and then we'll have to expand that so I

[02:00:39] think you just did this yeah D Kyle Marianne uh who are the winners yeah and then is it jam jam jam jam like I think I think it's jam jam like jam jam did the traders and like Kyle did this and like I feel like the the rankings maybe changed a little bit I didn't enjoy jam jam on the traders um other than like I guess like the stuff against Rob um but but he's entitled I shouldn't say that I guess not this is R.I.J.P. um yeah who's the fourth

[02:01:09] where we're putting Marianne yeah is it not Marianne I think it is to me I was like Marianne is completely underrated like what are they talking about I agree I very embarrassing very very suddenly I will tell you I watched whenever I watched the Marianne final travel council council speech when she reveals that she has the idol she's like this is the idol and this is a note it gets me every time it gets me every time because I was like it was in that moment they knew they fucked up I was like like oh yeah now y'all know but um yeah so we got that Mount Rushmore of winners but like are any of

[02:01:38] these players that we've seen come back and play again like re kind of like having a resurgence like what whose stock is now going up aside from Kyle obviously yeah yeah but I this is a great season for Rick Devin's I love Devin's people a lot of Devin's get so much hate like I enjoy Devin's so much he's just trying to have fun and it's fun for me like I'm having fun with him I honestly think he's a great time I drafted him you what I drafted Rick Devin's and very proudly yeah I don't know he I've learned much more about him as a

[02:02:08] player or as a character I've always I think he's like a pretty good player who I've always really enjoyed and like he is I will take the deal banker take the deal give me the Rick Devin's win give me the Ozzy win give me the Sari win I think I drafted Ozzy and Rick Devin's stop that now you're just bragging I'm just saying I mean or Rick Devin's I think Rick Devin's can win the season too you think so I would love Sari to win but yeah I could see Rick doing it do you do you think Tiffany is our like our sleeper pick

[02:02:38] you know though I mean because in all-star seasons we typically get that person she didn't get enough she's been fun though I was enjoying it like once we finally started hearing from her like she had a really good like continuous like reaction back from tribal stuff that I think has been enjoyable I love Rick Devin's I love what he and Christian were doing I had so much fun with it I love they were having fun and I was having fun watching them who's your winner pick that's the last question and we're done I mean I mean Sari is my winner pick I'm like you you're gonna get so hurt and I know I

[02:03:07] can't be hurt I can't be hurt you can come to me and I'll be like you moron how do you keep falling to this this is completely on you but I will also be there for you I can't I can't I have to allow myself to feel I think with I think with coach part of the journey is that coach is always going to fail at survivor that's just him and so like you know you have to take the good with the bad you have to take the awful awful days or you're like being like who is this jackass only to then watch him get voted out and be like that was the worst

[02:03:37] thing in the world I could watch that again like exactly it's fun because he's right you're like they're against him and then it's gonna like I actually think that was a great way for coach to go I guess just in tight it kind of was obscured by tired destiny I was also thinking the season it's just so wrong it's like watching like a dog walk on its hind legs when you see these old school players interact with these new era things but he's like coaches like I'll play my shot in the dark and I'm like it doesn't feel why do you have that yeah you shouldn't be allowed that exactly that's why coach is fun he's a

[02:04:06] foil like yeah I say I say all that to say I think part of the journey with Sari is going on the journey it's the rollercoaster it's watching her kind of be like at the bottom of the tribe if we're like we're talking about Panama or something like that or perceived to be like oh on the outs or something like that and then we get the story about she gets off the proverbial couch and then she goes on to do these amazing things and you're on there and you're with her on the journey and then like when she hurts you hurt when she cries you cry you go on that journey and so it's like if it means

[02:04:35] Sari is going to lose then effort that survivor that's what it's been but if she wins Shannon if she wins it's it's the best win of all time regardless of how it happens there could be three Marias on this tribe and it doesn't matter if they all vote for Sari it means nothing else yeah so I think I have to be able to go with it I think that Sari is my winner pick but like I take the I take the Aubrey case I take the Rick case

[02:05:04] I take the Tiffany case I take the the Ozzy case I take the Rizzo case I have five cases on the board Sari Shannon this season it's fine with me and that's outside of Sari yeah okay well we feel differently we have a very different Dondi Dondi board yeah you only have one case left it's Sari yeah I mean no I I'd be happy for like Rick Devins I think Rizzo's gone up in stock as well but yeah like most of my top cases you know like it's not a great it's not a great thing like Chrissy Teigen

[02:05:33] the banker is definitely you know got more cases than I do but I think I'm necessarily dislike most of these people you know like I like Joe I like it in the like you know I like him as a person but like in terms of like the player no Joe is dope Joe seems very very kind and very nice and he also gets a lot of hate from someone for someone who's just like kind of trying to um advocate play the game and be nice yeah yeah I get it but like I don't know I also think that kind

[02:06:02] of crazy just like yeah but look look people like coach do that to everybody right because when they what what happens is we get the scenes of coach being like and if you lie in this game yeah you know it's I guarantee you won't win the game like coach how dare you you know just decide that you know they were like they were like less great than the sum of their parts like it was like these people could all be fun but if they link up we're done like if they're all alone they could all be good but if they all get together then they're all down and then like that was happening and then we had an honor and integrity

[02:06:32] alliance but again as a foil we're okay um but yeah I probably should go Chappelle thank you so much for letting me just like brain dump two months of thoughts on the season I had a great time tell us where to find yourself look they know where to find me recap kickback.com is where I'm doing my thing uh talking about you know sometimes reality tv but mostly just whatever I want to talk about so I got a flavor of love content over there we're actually talking about VH1's charm school which if you were around at that

[02:07:01] time god bless you but Chantel and I are talking about it live uh Gia and I still have our Abbott Elementary coverage uh we are uh we still haven't recorded our season finale coverage yet but it's coming soon uh so tune in for that and uh Mari and I will be talking about the Michael Jackson movie uh Michael the biopic that has recently been released we'll be talking about that soon so we got a lot of content coming your way but Chantel of course I love talking about Survivor with you I love listening to you talk about Survivor and so it has been very uh boring around these

[02:07:31] streets to not have you talking about it constantly so I was very happy that I was selected to be in this role to get to chop it up with you and vibe about the season and hopefully you start feeling better because I know once the Ceree wins happens we will all rejoice in her power so I am very excited for the day that that comes and uh looking forward to hearing the rest of your takes later on well he won the chizzy okay so whatever happens we'll always and it was a fair and shocked fair and true give her the

[02:08:00] mug because it's done but yeah so much fun this is mostly for me right like it's great for my mental health I'm gonna talk about the show hopefully some people listen to it and enjoy it but like you know I want to talk about 50 I didn't get to you know to talk about 50 and maybe again every week probably would have been too much for my blood pressure but I think this was like a good spot to put it um follow me at Shannon Gates I'm hoping to do a gusting around soon we're really hoping to like get to that and actually go through the last two-ish months of our life um which has been a lot um a lot of it really good a lot of it

[02:08:30] really hard but a lot of it really good feeling great today I got a lot of sleep last night so um if any of the takes were bad that's like fully on me not on my baby please don't blame her please resent and hate about the baby um thank you so much your pal this has been great thank you to our team behind the scenes thank you to everyone for listening and when will I see you next time that's a good question I hope to do something maybe maybe after the finale talk about the last few weeks okay and then I gotta come to Australia yeah but you always say that and then you don't I'm working on it I'm working

[02:09:00] in um in the reunion of Australia yeah I literally said oh my god I've never considered this before but I should go to Australia that was the moment yeah I was hoping that people would think it because it looks like I won the draft I know and you're gonna win this one probably I hope so I mean I mean unless the rewins then which is better obviously but yeah I will take the Emily case that's the worst one my draft pick yeah yeah I think we can win the draft who that's

[02:09:30] that'll be interesting let's see yeah I look I love fun TV let's see let's see if we can make that happen all right well this was great again I'll see you guys next time thanks so much bye bye