Pod Meets Twirl'd: Survivor 5006 with Rob Cesternino

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to pod Beats Twirl, the podcast that once chronicled
two guys who had never seen Dancing with the Stars,
but watched a season and somehow walked away experts. From there,
we ventured into Traders, a show that I'm pretty sure
that I could win if I got on it, but
Ryder had never seen before. And now we turned to
Survivor season fifty, the big One. This time the roles

(00:30):
are reversed, where I have seen exactly one season, the
very first one with the naked guy, and Ryder Strong
has watched four years. We are Wilfredell, who prefers his
wilderness with room service, and Ryder Strong, who will hike
any mountain but hates the beach. Two best friends, one
devoted to the comforts of civilization, one who would never
leave the woods if he could. Both reality competition scholars

(00:53):
join us as we dive into alliances, blindsides, firemaking, sand
related to misery, and twenty five years of television history
culminating in a single massive season. This is pod meets Twirled,
seeking community and oh, our dear listeners. For half of
you out there, you won't care for the other half,
You're like, oh God, please tell me Will's not running

(01:15):
the show this week. Oh yes, he is, right or
Strong is taking a much needed vacation. He was starting
to speak in tongues and say strange things, so we
sent him.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
To a beach.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
And now I am here talking about Survivor. Yes, I
don't necessarily get it, and a lot of people are
having trouble with that. But hey, here we are, so
we're going to get into it. But you know, before
we do a couple things. First of all, I've been
reading a lot of your comments, which I think are
absolutely wonderful because of all the things that I love
more in the world, there is nothing more than fandom.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
I love fandom, I love nerdom. I'm a big nerd,
So I totally get it. And for the people out
there who are like, well, you're never going to get this,
you are ruining Survivor for me, that's true. Uh. I'm
working on getting it. And I'm hoping that the person
that Rider is insisting that I do this episode with
because he's like, you're not flying solo, bro, It's not
going to happen. I promise you that I'm not leaving

(02:08):
the most important season of Survivor in your hands. You
need a guide, you need a guru, you need a
Yoda or even a gro gu to help you determine
what Survivor fifty is all about, and just Survivor in general,
because clearly I am not getting it and I need
some help. So this week I'm being joined by somebody
who we are not only going to talk about Survivor

(02:30):
from beginning to end and Survivor season fifty, and of
course do a nice recap of last night's episode, well
it's actually a couple of nights ago with the way
that we're actually releasing these but last night for when
we saw it. But also somebody who can talk to
me a little bit about this show that I know
I could win if I got on it, traders, So
please help me. Welcome my partner in crime for this week,

(02:53):
Rob Cisternino.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
I will hey, how are you? I'm doing great?

Speaker 3 (02:59):
How are you?

Speaker 2 (02:59):
I'm good?

Speaker 1 (03:00):
I apologize that you're stuck with me and only me
this week.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
Yeah, well that's okay, that right is not so jealous
so jealous.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
He's also the big, huge Survivor fan, and I am learning.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
I get that.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
I get that, But I'm here to be a bridge
for you to get the Survivor.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Okay, I'm trying. I swear I'm trying.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
Yeah, left and right.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Well, we could talk about this on the show, but
I feel like I talked to a lot.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
I mean, I don't know if you know my background
at all, but I was on Survivor in the very
early days. I was on Survivor back in two thousand
and three. Was when I played Survivor.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Oh so that's what season three, season four or something
like that, season six, six already sometime later, probably not
unlike you and Ryder, I got into podcasting and podcasting
about the show.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
But I did this. I started in twenty.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
Ten, so I've spent the last sixteen years podcast cast
thing about savar. So I do kind of like the
unofficial official Survivor podcast. Okay, we talk about and what
I do. It's like the ESPN of reality TV. So
we're like interviewing the players and like really in the
weeds on all of the reality shows, including The Traders,

(04:19):
which oh, okay, so we're gonna start with Traders. I
guess I know that's your I've been listening to and
trying to get called. I know that Traders is more
your jam than it is than Rider.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
Well, it's just because so Traders is my jam, Survivors Riders.
Traders is my jam because I know I can win
one hundred percent sure, as every person who watches television,
who watches anything goes, oh, I could easily win that
I sit there, aren't sure, knowing full well that I couldn't,
but it's a lot of fun to imagine that I could.
So let's let's start there. How did you first get
the call about being on Traders?

Speaker 3 (04:51):
So I got a call from a person who casts
the show, uh like one of the executives at Peacock,
and was asking me about my interest in the show
and it had been sometime since I competed on a
reality TV show.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
And then they it went.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
Pretty well and yeah, and then you know, I went
through the regular casting conversations. And it's a lot different
than when you first get cast on Survivor, because when
you do Survivor, you're one of hundreds of people they're
talking to when thousands of people apply, and it's very
much like they are like sifting through, Okay, we're going

(05:32):
to find these people. I think with Traders, they know
what they want, they know who they want and they
reach out to you and they say, hey, do you
want to do this? And then you say yes, and
then you know you're kind of just like they're making
sure you don't have anything crazy in your background or
anything like that, and then you're on the show.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Well, it's because it was amazing.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
The first of all, again, not being a Survivor a ficionado,
I did not know who you were at the time,
And the second you walked on to screen, everybody else
in the cast is like, oh God, it's Ro. It's Rob.
He's a gamer. He's going to exactly how to play
this game. And then from that moment on, you were
kind of a marked man where everybody was like, if
we don't get him out right now, he's gonna win.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
So what was that like my.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
Threat level comes from that. I talk about these shows
more so of like what my accomplishments actually have been
on Survivor. I've never won Survivor. I haven't even played
Survivor in twenty years, and so there were some people
who were in the castle who were talking about my
background a lot to the other folks, and I think

(06:32):
it sort of started to snowball a little bit.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
But I do know the show particularly well.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
I'm not great at playing it myself, but I do
know a lot about it.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
Well, I mean, you say you're not great at playing it,
but you were walking around My wife and I were watching,
and you're walking around going like, oh, I think it's
a murder and plain slight. I think that's like you
were calling these things as they were happening, so you
obviously have to have some sort of an instinct for
these I mean, I mean, what would you even describe
shows like this to be survive?

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Are they?

Speaker 1 (07:01):
They're not backstabbing shows. That's not the right way to
put it, but it's how would you describe it?

Speaker 3 (07:05):
Yeah, we call it social strategy games reality television where
you know there's strategy, but it's also about your relationships.
And I feel like I wasn't necessarily great at knowing
who the traders were.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
I didn't really.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
I'm not a vibes person, and some people are like, Okay,
I can tell the vibes are off with that person,
But I feel like, if you put me in a situation,
I'm gonna tell like that doesn't make sense, and so like,
I think I'll like logic it out eventually, but I'm
not somebody who can just like read people like incredibly
well and know who's lying.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
Okay that way, And I guess that's kind of an
important thing on Traders, I would imagine me Moore.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, I guess you do need both.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
Whereas writer again trying to explain to me certain things
where he's like, no, that's the joy of something like
Survivor is there's more so in Survivor than Traders. There's
very physical challenges. There are some in Traders, but Survivor
really fits. So it's like you might want to vote
off the big, huge Jonathan the giant right off the bat,
but you know for a fact that he's going to

(08:06):
help your tribe lifting heavy objects essentially. So it's that
balance he's telling me of all this, you know, kind
of you've got to have the social structure, but you've
also sometimes has to have the physicality until you get
to the individual challenges and then it's kind of every
person for themselves. And so I'm trying to wrap my
head around all that stuff. But I see beautiful castle

(08:26):
and what lovely food in the morning, and I think
Traders is more for me.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Well, it's interesting.

Speaker 3 (08:32):
I've been following along a little bit with your journeys
with these shows, and I think it's interesting that you
have really connected more with the actual survival elements, and
it's you know, it's hard because I think that with
Survivor in its fiftieth season, that so many of the
people who have watched the show over the years, they

(08:52):
sort of like, Okay, they take that stuff for granted,
and they aren't really as focused on that and they
are more interested in the game and obviously these returning
players in this season, but I also talk to a
lot of people who are sort of a little bit
more of and I hope.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
That doesn't come across as offensive.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
No, they call them they casual viewers, like, Hey, I
look at Survivor, but it's not the most important thing
to me. I'm on my phone, maybe i might not
watch a season, and I'm sort of like in and
out with Survivor. And I do feel like that for
the people who are more of the casual viewers of Survivor,
that is a really important part of the show, and

(09:32):
so that they get a lot of feedback from the
show from the people on the internet who are very
active and have opinions about everything, and they're like, we
need less of that stuff. But for the person who
is probably the bigger percentage of the audience, where you know,
this is a show where we just had like this
big fan vote, and the fan vote has been probably

(09:53):
a little bit more siding with that casual audience because
it's so massive. But the people who are writing the
most commentary about the show is probably a more vocal minority.
And so for Survivor, I think they get overwhelmed with
what do we do? We want to keep the most
our most vocal fans happy, but also we sometimes are

(10:15):
losing the fans who are a little bit more not
as like living and dying with Survivor.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
Right, Well, this is clear. It's one of the things
writer and I keep going back and forth on and again.
It's it's just unfortunate for me more than anything else,
and that this is probably not the best first season
to come in on because it's by the fans for
the fans. There's all these kind of it seems you know,
in what what Because I like comedy. In my head,
it's like one inside joke after another where if I

(10:43):
didn't see Survivor, I don't understand what's happening, and so
I get that this is probably just for me exactly
the wrong season to come in on. But at the
same time, so you were one of the ogs, then
do you, as and I imagine you're still a Survivor fan,
do you miss showing the survival aspect of the show.

(11:03):
Do you think they should show more of it or
are you kind of pass that and you're more into
the gameplay.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
I'm much more into the game in terms of for
my viewing experience because I think that we've you know,
we've seen people fish, we've seen like we've seen people
have to start the fire.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
Now you do get some novel.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
Things like in this season when we saw Christjian use
two pairs of glasses to start a fire, and that's
a bit of a throwback.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
We haven't seen people do that.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
And I think in a character like Ozzy this season,
where we saw in the most recent episode where he's
really in the water, and that's really but it's part
of his character more of like this is who he is,
where he tells us like getting back to nature is
heaven for him, and that's always been part of Ozzy's
story where he's a little bit like they used to

(11:49):
describe him as like Mowgli from the Jungle Book, that
he was just a concerted guy who came out there
and then had just took to the elements so much,
and so there is a really deep, rich character backstory
for all of this. I've been thinking about what you've
been saying with that it's a hard first season to watch,
and I do wonder if maybe because all of the

(12:11):
shows are on streaming and available to for anybody to
jump in, whereas when in the era of like over
the air broadcasting, that there were people who were, Okay,
I'm going to watch Survivor this season, and they had
no way to go back and watch the old stuff.
Where I wonder if by design it's like, hey, all right, well,
if you want to like get started with Survivor, all

(12:32):
that stuff's on paramount plus, like this is for the
people who are coming in who want to explore where
the game is at.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
Now, Yeah, I do. I feel like I'm starting with
Return of the Jedi, and.

Speaker 3 (12:45):
So you're starting with episode nine exactly.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
It's like I'm supposed to know what the Force is,
I'm supposed to know all this stuff. So yes, you're right,
I should go back and do a little bit more
of my due diligence.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
Wait, you make a fair point too, You why like,
why should you have you should be able to also
enjoy it.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
It's like it's hard for it's hard for the show
to have both things.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
It is and I understand that. And then there's things,
you know, like in the episode we just saw, which
we'll get into. You know, they're eating and it's something
that's sponsored by Applebee's, which is a cool way to
get into sponsorship. But all the things going through my
head are like, how long has it been since you've eaten?
Is going from no food or just coconuts to double
cheeseburgers a bad idea because it's like, how is your

(13:29):
stomach dealing with all this stuff that's kind of happening?

Speaker 2 (13:32):
And I guess I don't.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
Because this is what Rider keeps saying to me. He's like,
you just have to understand that they're suffering, and it's like, okay,
I want to see a little bit of the suffering,
so I understand that they're suffering. And I so again
because to me, holding you look and you go, oh,
I could hold onto those things. Well, It's a lot
different if you're trying to balance yourself on something and
you haven't eaten in nine days and you're sleep deprived
and I'm watching you know, we again, we'll talk about

(13:57):
it Exile Island. So he says they you know, Ozzie
ends up going to exile and he brings Rizzohythim and
I'm like, oh, okay, so they're going to keep cutting to that,
and that's going to be a whole storyline. I'm like, oh, oh,
they just kind of did. They'll cut to him for
thirty seconds, but they they're just kind of off this episode,
so I'm not used to what's kind of going on.

(14:32):
So basic questions to get them out of my head,
how often do you eat so in the new Era?

Speaker 3 (14:37):
And I think that this is I'm happy to, you know,
explain as at least the Survivor.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
Lord talk to me as if I'm a three year
old when it comes to the Survivor.

Speaker 3 (14:46):
Yes, because this means a lot to the Survivor fans
that you and Ryder are talking about the show. I
don't want you to give up on I'm the completest.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
I will never give up on the show. I am
in one hundred percent, and I will criticize so I.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
Can give just a little bit more of like the
history of the show, because this is a you know,
a twenty five year journey for Survivor. So after COVID,
Survivor came back with a new format that they called
the New Era, Survivor used to be thirty nine days
really since it started, and so the season were thirty
nine days and it was very it was structured all

(15:22):
a certain way. After COVID, they had like a bubble
that they had everybody come in, so you'd come to
Fiji and then you had to quarantine for two weeks.
And so because of that, they cut the production cycle
down from thirty nine days to twenty six days. And
for that they said, hey, we kind of like this idea.
It's going to be fast paced. We're not going to
give them any supplies. It's they have to earn everything.

(15:45):
So I think on its surface, you probably would say, like, oh, well,
I think maybe.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
That's more interesting that they don't get anything. I really
want to see that.

Speaker 3 (15:53):
But the game has moved so fast that the players
and you saw Rizzo talk about this a little bit
with Colby, Like.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
I didn't come out here to camp. We don't do
that anymore.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
So I think that there's a mentality of the players
now of like, hey, that we're only here for twenty
six days, Like let's just sleep on the ground, Let's
not worry about building a shelter, let's not worry about
let's just starve. And I think Survivor wants them to
go out and fish and go out and look for food.
But historically they used to give them rice, and so

(16:23):
survivors would have rice. But survivors then would then eat
all the rice and then go to Jeff, do we
have no more rights?

Speaker 2 (16:32):
And then he would say, well, you.

Speaker 3 (16:33):
Have to give me something, you have to give me,
give me your trade. But they would just eat meat meat.

Speaker 2 (16:38):
And then you know, later on they'd worry about like, Jeff,
we have nothing. Can you bring something and beg for more?

Speaker 3 (16:44):
So the show took the rice away, said you have
to earn everything. That's why they take away their flint now,
because they try to make it more and more that
you have.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
To they don't give you anything.

Speaker 3 (16:56):
So I know that Ryder talked with Sophie Blairy. She'd
said that she had eaten for eleven days. It seems
like a lot of these players that come out there specifically,
I think there's an age divide also where the younger
people who come in, and that's always been a theme
on Survivor, going back to the infancy of the show,
or how the older folks and the younger folks are

(17:18):
getting along. But it seems like that the gen Z
players who come in, they'd rather just like starve and
do nothing, then put the energy into Hey, I'm going
to provide and look for crabs and look for fish.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
And then this season you have a player like Ozzie, who.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
Historically has been one of the greatest fishermen in the
history of the show. He's here and he's able to
provide for his tribe even when they were a disaster
and weren't getting anything to eat.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
That's amazing.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
So just curiously, as not only a fan but one
of the ogs, do you prefer old school or new school?

Speaker 3 (17:52):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Yeah, and I think you would too.

Speaker 3 (17:54):
I think that for the most part, it was talked
about in the show, the difference between old school players
and new school players, and the show is so meta
now it really is often the snake eating its own tail,
where in Survivor in the very beginning, it was really
a show about We're going to take sixteen Americans from
all walks of life and what are people willing to

(18:16):
do to win this million dollar prize?

Speaker 2 (18:18):
And it was.

Speaker 3 (18:18):
Really the idea was a little bit more of this
is a social experiment and what's gonna happen when we
put these people out there. Now, Survivor is so meta
where everybody who's on the show is a gigantic fan
of the show, so everybody's mind is going a million
miles an hour. It would be absurd in this new

(18:39):
era for somebody to be cast on the show that
hasn't watched at least thirty five seasons of the show.
So everybody who comes in is playing because they do.
They don't want the players to have to be learning
the rules as they go because they feel like that
really stagnates the gameplay. So they want everybody going fast, fast, fast.

(18:59):
On day one, it's like, hey, it's it's you know,
it's dangerous, fun, go go go. The game starts as
soon as you land on the beach. So if there
are players who are sort of like, wait, how do
I play the idol? How do I how does this work?
That they feel like it'll it would be too slow.
And you also get so much of the show loves
to talk about the show that the show loves. Oh
my god, Jeff, I've been watching since I was two

(19:21):
years old. It's a little bit sort of like that
they have cultivated this environment, like on the Price is Right,
when people come down like they're wearing this shirt, you know,
like pick me to play Plinko. That's like the atmosphere
that they've really cultivated on Survivor. Where Survivor in the
old days, it was people who really for I don't

(19:42):
know how they necessarily got the people, but a lot
of them have never even seen Survivor.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
They don't even know what it is.

Speaker 3 (19:48):
And now they're sort of like having to forge this
society together. And also that there were stronger bonds that
were harder to be broken where everybody is, you know,
the new era is a little bit more like they
play like a board game where it's not so much
these deep betrayals and bonds that get made. It's a
little bit like, Okay, well I'm playing this card on

(20:10):
you because I know you have this and it's like,
oh you got me, and it's it's not necessarily like
the life and death emotional bonds that.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
Really were part of the Older School.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
And I think that's something else about the Old School
versus the New School. I think that the characters were
much bigger and broader in the Old Survivor as opposed
to the game players are much faster and more savvy
in the New Era. So you do have a much
faster and more accelerated gameplay in the New Era, but

(20:45):
people are just making moves for the sake of that, Okay,
well this person is a threat, so I have to
take them out or this person has an advantage, as
opposed to really getting very invested in more of the
characters across the thirty nine day just a battle of wills,
which was the Old School Survivor.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
Well it is.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
It was interesting to hear the kind of the definition
between the two. I forget who said it in this episode,
Yeah right, where she's like, you know, old school, whoever
you were friends with, you kind of wanted to stick
with them forever. That was kind of what it was
as you formed a group and there was kind of
an honor among that group, and you stuck there. And
she's like, in the New School, players they just don't
work like you work with this person. One week, you
work with this person, the next week you work with

(21:26):
your enemy. Here you do which, again, you're right, seems
to be a more fluid way of kind of playing
what essentially is a much faster paced game than it
was back in the day. But I guess the question
I would ask you is, so they come to you
and they say you can do another season of Traders,
so you can do another season of Survivor, which one
do you take?

Speaker 3 (21:43):
That would be a hard question to answer, And for me,
Survivor would be going home and it would be like
a sort of when I played Survivor when I was
twenty four years old, and so that now like half
of my life is gone by since I played Survivor.
I don't know what would be different if I played

(22:04):
Traders again, where people would, you know, go like, I'd
have to get very very fortunate with a lot of
things on the Traders, where I think that Survivor is
less luck based, and I feel like that maybe I
could maybe forge a path in Survivor, and I think
that there would be like my heart would say to
do Survivor. But I really loved getting to play The

(22:27):
Traders like it was such a fun, fun experience, and
you know, I would be very excited to get the
chance to do either of those opportunities.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
Now, did you when you were watching your season of
The Traders, were you watching Rob just like he's a sociopath,
he's perfect for this. I mean, it was like amazing
watching what he was doing on that show.

Speaker 3 (22:49):
Oh, he was absolutely incredible watching the show back when
I was there, I did not get that from him.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
He was so great about him?

Speaker 3 (22:58):
Was that when I was there, he seemed like totally
not interested at all. He seemed like almost like he
didn't want to be there. He was eating cookies in
the kitchen and like the asking for drinks, and he
was just not putting out the vibe at all that
he was playing a game or at all being strategic. Now,
I was there in the very beginning, and I think

(23:20):
that he was very smart to let Canvas really do
a lot of the work early.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
On and let her be out in front.

Speaker 3 (23:26):
I think that one of the things that I say
about The Traders is you never really want to be
like the alpha trader. You kind of want to be
the second most important trader, and so you sort of
like let somebody be out in front, like doing all
the things, and then you sort of want to like
lay back, and then when that person inevitably gets caught,
be the trader who also is like it was you

(23:47):
the whole time?

Speaker 2 (23:48):
Will we know it so hard?

Speaker 3 (23:50):
Yeah, I think that's really the way you want to
be approaching the traders, if you never want to be
like the top dog trader.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah, no, that makes sense. Okay, I'm just filing all
this way for the sure when I'm someday in the castle,
I won't be you would oh god, I would jump.
Oh I do it in a second. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:05):
Would you be a faithfuler a trader? You know?

Speaker 1 (24:08):
I think I'd like to play as a faithful to
be honest with you, That's what I thought. Yeah, I
think there would be something fun about the who done it?
About trying to figure out who it was. There's also
I think it's harder to play as a trader. I
thought it would be harder to or excuse me, harder
to play as a faithful I thought it was going
to be harder to play as a trader, But the
more I was watching, it's like, no, I think it's
much harder to play as as a faithful, So, yeah,

(24:30):
there's something kind of interesting about that, But I.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
Would it flips.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
I think it's in the beginning it's harder to play
as a faithful because you are really just working off
of nothing.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
You're going off the vibes.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
You know, the game is designed that the faithful are
probably going to be wrong at least six or seven
times over the course of the season. It's easy in
the beginning to be the trader just sitting back, go
up in the turret, pick out at person. But at
some point it flips where it's insanely hard to.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
Be a trader.

Speaker 3 (24:57):
At the end of the game, when you get down
to like five people and now it's like everybody's looking
at everybody, you really have to work so hard.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
And it's also a war.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
Of attrition where that if you're a trader, you're on
a schedule that's so much harder than everybody else because
it's late nights at the castle, and then you spend
like an extra couple of hours going up to the
turret and filming whatever other trader business you have to do,
and then you have to show up the next day
and not act like you're more tired than everybody else.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
God, I didn't even think about that.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
Logistically, just the shooting schedule of being a trader, of course,
is going to be a lot harder than being a
faithful And I think it's.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
Doubly hard for and probably like maybe triply hard for
the women for like, say like Candace and Lisa, and
I like to cite Canvas because she her makeup was
on point, always.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
Outfits or were great.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
If Kansas showed up at the castle one day looking
like hell, that you would say like, oh, Kansas, what
the hell?

Speaker 2 (25:56):
What happened to you? Where? You know? Rob? I do
think I had an advantage.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
Where he probably just like splashed the water on his face,
showed up.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
He didn't have to do all that.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
But Canvas was probably waking up, you know, an hour
or two early to do hair and makeup before she
showed up at the castle after a night of being
a trader.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
And so you're on less sleep than everybody else.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
And so I think that after a shooting schedule of
a couple of weeks, I think that really does start
to pile up.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
God, I didn't even think about that. That's so absolutely true. Okay,
So what we got to hop into our episode of
Survivor recap, but before we do, because you are, as
you said, you're essentially we have to put quotes around it,
but we don't. You're You're the.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
Official podcast of Survivor.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
I'm just calling it.

Speaker 3 (26:41):
It was an official podcast of Survivor, but they stopped
doing it.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
They did You're the You're the official podcast of Survivor.
So I imagine you've spoken to most of the contestants,
You've watched the shows, You've seen everything that's happened. Who's
your favorite Survivor of all time?

Speaker 3 (26:53):
Oh? That's really really tough, you know. I would say
my favorite Survivor that I've got to watch was Tony.
And Tony is a player I don't know if I
want to spoil too many of the seasons, Okay, he
was just a character that I've described.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
As a unicorn.

Speaker 3 (27:11):
We're usually in Survivor you have players who are great
characters or great players, and a lot of times the
best players aren't always the most interesting characters. They want
things very orderly and they keep the game from getting
too chaotic. Tony and I think that his first season
Survivor Kagi on, which had a theme. I really think

(27:31):
that Survivor needs more themes where I think it's a
great hook to get people in. That theme was Brains
versus Beauty versus Braun. So there was one tribe that
was Brains, one tribe that was Braun, and one tripe
that was beauty. And it was a really interesting season,
great cast, lots of blindsides and chaotic gameplay, and Tony
was the king of playing this really super chaotic game

(27:55):
that was also very interesting strategically, and I didn't agree
with a lot of the moves that he made, but
it was one of the most action packed seasons that
you could have hoped for.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
Which which tribe was he on? Was he Brain, Braun
or Ben? He was bron Okay, so.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
He's actually a New York I sorry, New Jersey police officer.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
Oh okay, it looks kind of like a Vin Diesel.
Is a little bit like a mini Vin Diesel. Okay.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
So I'm gonna have to go back and start watching
all these because it's pretty important I think for me.

Speaker 3 (28:23):
I think it would be interesting if you checked out
one of the older seasons that you to see if
you might have like a little bit more of a
connection with jumping in and not having to have known
the backstory on people.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
That makes sense. All right, Well, let's get into our episode.
So this was day twelve on the on the island.

(28:58):
Day twelve of twenty fours were also we're halfway from
twenty six, so we're essentially by the end of this episode,
we're halfway through our time on the island, and we
are at the Seala tribe the morning after they voted
Charlie out. Jonathan was blindsided, but kind of handled it
pretty well. I thought, frankly, this was not Ozzy last week,
who was like, Wow, you really screwed me over. This

(29:22):
was He kind of took it on the chin a
little bit. What did you think about that?

Speaker 3 (29:25):
Yeah, you can't really in Survivor when you come back
from a blindside tribal council that act like hey, I'm
mad at you.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
I'm mad at you because now you're on the bottom.

Speaker 3 (29:36):
Now you have to go instantly from playing from a
position of strength, which Jonathan thought he was into now
having to kiss ass being on the bottom of things,
and so you saw deconnecting with him and so he
felt like, Okay, well let me just see if I
can like piece things back together and they're not just
gonna pick me off next.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
That's really it's the constant. I don't know how you
sleep with stuff like that, just wondering who's coming for you.
But then we see boats showing up for every single
tribe and we hear apparently again I apologize for being
such a neophyte, but this is a big day on Survivor.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
This is merge Day.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
Merge day, yes, not swap Day, which was a couple
of weeks ago, right, and this is this is the
merge where now all the Survivor tribes come together and
the game becomes individual.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
Okay, so the thing that that I'm I'm still trying
to piece together. So it was merge day, but they're
still kind of battling as individual tribes.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
And then they're not on the jury. Yeah, I know,
it's it's it's.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
The not being on the jury is like, that's still
that's been a part of the things. The jury is
only so many people, and they've merged with more people
than there are on the jury.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
So that's not that, you know, unusual in terms of
the Survivor.

Speaker 3 (30:49):
But what is unusual, and they've done this a lot
in the New Era, it's like, hey, you're merged, and
now you're going to vote separately. Well, no, the idea
was that you said we're merged, you said were we're
We're back. All is one, And for whatever reason, they
love to in that they had I'll give you some
more back. So in the New Era, that was season

(31:11):
so after they came back from COVID, they they sort
of tried to do like a little bit of a
reboot of the show. A lot of people discovered Survivor
during COVID, and so there was a lot of hype
for Survivor to come back. It had taken a year off,
and they ended up developing this game which was.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
Based off of the idea.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
Jeff had this whole other idea for the game, which
was around this idea of fire tokens of like almost
it was gonna be kind of like a board game.
And Mike White of this season of the White Lotus
that Jeff would bounce a lot of ideas off of him,
and Jeff went through his whole whiteboard pitch to Mike White,
and Mike White said, but is it that fun? And

(31:50):
Jeff's like, you're right, and he threw out the whole thing,
and so they came up to say, it's a dangerous fun.

Speaker 2 (31:54):
And part of the idea of dangerous fun was, hey,
small tribes, nowhere to hide.

Speaker 3 (31:59):
Everything has got to be in a small group, where
in old school Survivor often there would be tribes of ten,
and so as long as you weren't like really causing
a scene, you could sort of be under the radar.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
Right skate through and skate through.

Speaker 3 (32:11):
And they really wanted to throw that out. We don't
want people skating by. So they were never gonna let
you have a vote with seventeen people. So they came
up with this idea to now, oh what if we
put them into groups of five, and so we'll have
now in these small groups, you know, there's really gonna
be nowhere to hide and really tense votes that happen.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
And so we got this big twist for this episode,
which I'm sure we'll talk about. And is that now
is this par for the course?

Speaker 1 (32:37):
So are they get every week going to vote as
three separate groups of five or now I'd.

Speaker 3 (32:42):
Be surprised next week if they do a vote of fourteen.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
I think that that seems like a big vote for Survivor.

Speaker 3 (32:49):
I don't know if we'll put them into two groups
of seven potentially, but I think that the Survivor fans,
especially the hard course of our fans, like, well, let's say, hey,
can we just let them play survive at some point
and not stop putting them because when you do these
random groupings that there are going to be people, there's
so much variance there. You're going to see people who
were playing pretty good games get picked off just because

(33:11):
they got unlucky with this tribe grouping that they got
put in.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
Okay, yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
I mean, is there a possibility that this exile thing becomes,
you know, something they do every week to exile to
people next week and then there's two teams of six?

Speaker 2 (33:22):
I mean, is that a possibility or it's it's look,
I wouldn't take it off the table. And I do like.

Speaker 3 (33:28):
That they've had exile in this season, but it is
a rare thing for them to have Exile Island at
this point. It used to be a part of the
show in the earlier days where they would send one
person to Exile Island and they would really they would
really spend more time doing the type of thing that
I think you'd be interested in of like, Okay, I'm
here by myself on this island, right, and I'm sort

(33:49):
of like having to survive there. And they used to
hide the idol at Exile Island also, you'd go to
Exile Island, get a clue and be looking for the
idol there.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
Also.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
Now they've just sort of like used it as a
way to sort of isolate people, to get them out
of the main action.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
But I like that they're doing it with a buddy.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
Yeah, that was interesting to see, especially if it's you
have to pick that, you have to pick somebody and
they can't say no. That was interesting. Okay, So they're
all had a tavatu to become a collective tribe. It's
the largest merge in history. We talked about with seventeen.
They usually merged with about ten or thirteen people, but
some of them are the thing that amazes me is
they're introducing each other like they're introducing themselves, like we've

(34:28):
been on the same show for weeks. We all came
in together. But it's like, hey, Coach, it's nice to
meet you, and oh my god.

Speaker 3 (34:32):
So it's like so so Christian goes to Coach like hey, oh, coach,
Nice to meet you.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
He's joking.

Speaker 3 (34:38):
Obviously he knows he may not have ever met Coach
in person, but I think he's a little bit pretending, like, oh,
I know, what was your name again? Like so right,
So they know at least of each other because they're
fach other and maybe some of them like have seen
each other in the pregame and they obviously they flew
to Fiji together, but they didn't have the chance to
really talk because they've never been on this same beaches together.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
But yeah, these survivors are very familiar with each other.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
Okay, Well, the merge is certainly not getting in the
way of Genevieve and Aubrey's feud, which is this a
few this is where it's like, is this is from
a former season obviously, right, No, this is from now.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
They just don't like each other, Okay.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
I thought there was some backstory to the Oh okay, no,
just don't like each other fair enough.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:20):
I think that for whatever reason, Aubrey I think was
more of I was talking about with Traders. I think
Aubrey's a really big vibes person and for whatever reason,
she felt like that the vibes with Genevieve just were
not there.

Speaker 2 (35:33):
And then she was a little bit aloof with.

Speaker 3 (35:37):
Dealing with Genevieve, and I think that Genevieve is a
very shrewd player. Said hey, I'm not liking how this
is going, and then she then progressed to go all
in of like okay, well, Aubrey's obviously going to be
the person who's out, and then you know, it just
like kept, you know, feeding each other from both sides.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
It was pretty amazing because not to jump ahead, but
actually Bible Council, it was she Genevieve essentially says like
and then you've got people on the opposite polar ends
of the spectrum, meaning like we could never work together.
And it's like, wow, that was that was a big
shot in the dark. That's why I assumed this was
a feud that had gone back season. So yeah, I
don't think they ever met each They never met each other,
and they hate each other this much is kind of great.

(36:18):
Uh So the next morning, the merged tribe they receive
a note there is no merge fest or no excuse me,
no merge feast, yes, or or a fest or a
fest either one well, fest feast music festival.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
That last episode, I saw what two episodes ago they had.

Speaker 3 (36:33):
Co Can you explain this to me that Jeff said
that this uh speaker, Well, I'm sure we'll talk about Applebe's.
But Jeff said it was the best reward of the season.
It's like I thought Zach Brown was the best reward
of all time.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
Make it make sense? Is a great well.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
I also can't make sense that nobody with the Billie
Idish Isola is calling it the Billie Idol likes.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
Still don't get why nobody's put that together.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
I don't think they're allowed to. I think that for
whatever the actual reason, I think they have to say
the I have the Billie Irish. Oh yeah, I think
so too. They have to say trademark.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
Okay, So they learned that there is a twist hidden
in the jungle, and so people scatter and they're running
through everything. They even go through Christian, who's talking about
how he's got a you know, landmark tree. No landmark tree, No,
you got to somehow try to map the island out,
which is crazy, And after Rizzo walks right by it, Yeah,

(37:25):
finally Ozzie finds it.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
It was funny.

Speaker 3 (37:27):
So I just got back from Atlanta where I went
to there was another Survivor player, Ron Clark, who he
is actually a very famous outside of Survivor for his
teaching academy that he has in Atlanta, and he had
a big event there inviting about seventy different Survivor players.
So teaching Survivor, no no, no, no, no, no, no, he teaches.

(37:50):
He he has an academy that we're teach, educators, come
and learn and that.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
But he was on Survivor on season thirty eight.

Speaker 3 (37:59):
OK. He is a big Survivor fan. So he had
this like big event and there was a bunch of
the Survivor current and past players there and Rizzo was
there in the audience watching the episode and got to
see for the first time that because you don't you
don't he obviously nobody told him that. He Oh, yeah,
you walked right past the idol and that's that's a tough.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
Moment that he's like, ah, it was right there.

Speaker 1 (38:25):
Well, that's I mean, that's one of the things that
writer and I talk about, or have spoken about, is
the fact that that's gonna be a tough thing because
you're thinking the show is going one way, you're having
conversations with people, and then when you watch it back,
it's people talking about you in a way that it's like,
oh wow, they either just lied right to me or
they obviously don't like me and they're lying. That's got

(38:46):
to be pretty tough to sit there and listen to
what people really think about you.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
Sure, I mean that's reality TV, though so much of
it at all.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
I know you don't like that part of it, but
that's that's it.

Speaker 3 (38:56):
That's the begin And you know I certainly experienced that
with the Try Traders. Uh yeah, sure, when you know
in my Traders experience, I got murdered in plain sight
and I felt like, okay, I knew a murder on
plane side was happening. And then I went to bed
that night and I woke up the next morning they
said you're dead.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
You got murdered in planes.

Speaker 3 (39:15):
I'm like, how I didn't do anything? And I said, okay,
what what happened? And they said, oh, we can't tell you.
Why not, They said, but you'll see when it happened.
So I was like, I don't know what, but what
I do? They said, oh, well, you'll you'll see one day.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
Do they really do? The producers just come up to
you and just go by the way you were murdered.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
It's just like that.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
So you well, you think you're going to breakfast, and
then they bring you to.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
A different room. Oh god, where they sit there in
the chair.

Speaker 1 (39:44):
No salmon and a murder. That is a bad morning
on traders.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
It's like, well, and you know where the room is
for breakfast. It's like, why then, why are you taking
me here. It's a little bit like you know you're
getting you know you're going to the vet to.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
We're going to the dog park. And then it's like, Mark, No,
that sucks. So Ozzie chooses for Rizzo to go with him.
From a game standpoint, game playing standpoint, did you think
this was a good call to pull him out of
the game with him?

Speaker 3 (40:14):
It was interesting because it seemed like that Suri had
her two allies. She called it her polyamorous relationship that
she was cultivating, and so I think ultimately it was
good because it seemed like that he's shoring up another
different group that he could work with. So I think
it actually worked out good for Ozzy, and I actually
enjoy watching Rizzo, who we just saw play last season

(40:38):
with to see him from the New Guard anytime he's
with some of the older legends of the show. I
do think that it's like a fun buddy cop sort
of MASSI I can't see the rookie and the veteran.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
It did.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
It reminded me of Suri kind of wanting to work
with both of them. But it's like getting two cats
that don't like each other, so you have to cover
them in tuna fish and just put them in a
room and let them lick each other clean so they.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
Get to be friends. That person, is that what you
do will apparently this is what I've heard.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
You cover them in tuna juice and you put them
in a room and then they just lick each other clean,
and then they're friends.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
That's kind of what it seemed like.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
We're exiling you to become team Serree, which is what
it seems like, and then we get to see something
really interesting for me anyway, because I'm not used to this.
I'm sure everyone in Survivor is. But we're starting to
see our first ever individual immunity challenge, which so this
is my first one. And apparently sixty three percent of
the fans voted for new twists this season and today's

(41:32):
twist is described as a survivor blood Moon and three
players are going to be sent home. Has that ever
been done? Where three at one four?

Speaker 3 (41:41):
We've had double tribal counsels before, We've never had the
triple tribal council. Would you think about you know, Jeff
set this all up. Were you following the logic of
the blood Moon war?

Speaker 2 (41:53):
And why then? And then three people are getting voted
out to night?

Speaker 1 (41:56):
I didn't, And I guess it came back later at
tribal council where I guess they talk about video game,
So maybe it's a big thing in video I'm a
huge and you can see behind me, a huge fantasy fan.
These are all my fantasy novels. There's not a lot
of blood Moon stuff. Maybe it's a vampire thing or
a lichen thing.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (42:10):
Yeah, I don't know. I think it sounded ominous and
that's why they went with it. But yeah, we had
all the first ever three person of elimination episode, which
is a lot.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
I mean, you're getting three people out as you know that.
To me, it seems like now everybody's going to start
to scramble for positioning, especially now you've got immunity up
and so okay, so today's.

Speaker 3 (42:29):
Challenge better for you or worse that they did three
tribal councils.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
I don't think it mattered to me either way. If
I'm totally honest with you, I think it's going to
be I was. I was confused at this point of
Merge Day, and then it was still three separate tribes,
so that the confused me. To me, it just meant
Merge Day was like, oh, you're taking the three tribes
and you're just putting them on a beach together where
you're not actually a tribe together. And then they were
starting to talk about the jury and how the people

(42:54):
kicked out today weren't going to be part of the jury.
So then if you're kicked out from now on, you're
part of the j am. I getting that right, Okay,
So that makes sense so that it'll vote for the
winner at the end. Okay, So that okay, I get that.
But I guess this was a classic immunity challenge, one
that's been around for a while, where they're balancing on
the narrow footholds and you're this is the other thing

(43:16):
I would have liked. I would have liked some sort
of a time clock. I would like to have known.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
How long they were on there, how long.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
They had to go before they had to get to
the next one, which would have been better for me.
But hey, so they're balancing on the narrow footholds. Whoever,
so they're still in their three tribes. Yes, whoever lasts
longest amongst the tribe gets immunity from that tribe, and
then whoever lasts the longest amongst all of them not
only gets immunity for themselves, but they also win the

(43:44):
big prize for their whole tribe.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
Apple Bee's, which is Applebee's.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Jeff walks through the Applebee's menu like I'm sitting there
and he's a waiter describing to me everything at the
Applebee's menu.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
It's hey, beautiful.

Speaker 3 (43:58):
Product placement, Yeah, placement has historically always been a part
of Survivor, going back to the very beginning of the
show where Mark Burnett sold the show to CBS and
basically that.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
They wouldn't give him that much money.

Speaker 3 (44:13):
So Mark Burnett went to sponsors, and so you had
like Target and bud Light, and there was almost every
single reward challenge would be and then you'd see the
Survivors go Berserko for doritos.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
Oh, my gosh, smart, I mean smart.

Speaker 3 (44:27):
It was a really big part of the show in
the very early days, so we don't have too many
product placement challenges.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
But Jeff really will sell your thing.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
And how would I mean, my gud do you watch
him do something like that as somebody. If I was
somebody who owned.

Speaker 3 (44:43):
A business like that, I'd be like, get me on Survivor.
I want this guy to sell my product. I don't
know why though that Jeff, and he does. He puts
everything into it, but he turns into like a ninety
year old grandma talking about this.

Speaker 2 (44:55):
He's like, you're gonna have the burbing Street burger. I'm
gonna give you. You're gonna have bacon. You're gonna have
mayblewood smoked bacon. You're gonna love the apple wood smoked bacon.

Speaker 1 (45:09):
Oh god, it was really great, though he kept why
are you talking like this?

Speaker 2 (45:12):
Say what you want? Though.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
The man commits to every bit in the show. He
really does, which is pretty incredible.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
He puts it, he puts it all out there.

Speaker 3 (45:19):
I do want to add one thing about the challenges
and maybe why they don't give you as much of
the lapse time as they used to. And so one
of the things with Survivor where and I think that
this is like we see this across many things, like
like hey, used to go to a restaurant and it
was like one way forever, and now you go there
like it's not that good anymore. Like they're really like
put And so with Survivor, I think that they're under

(45:43):
such pressure to like, okay, twenty six days, we got
to keep things going. We've got three tribal councils to
get to here tonight. I think that the footholds used
to be bigger or or they would spend more time
on the foothold. So these endurance challenges in the old
days would go for five hours. Now I think that
they really designed them to go about fifteen to twenty minutes.

(46:04):
Like I don't know if they give you the lapse time,
because I think if you heard it, it might be unimpressive.
And if there's any of the survivors that are listening,
like hey, Stephanie la Grosse says like hey, Rob, hey listen, idiot,
I was up there for nine hours right exactly, that
they've made a lot of the challenges like the classic
Survivor challenges, they've made them similar but actually a lot

(46:28):
more difficult to do, So they go faster so.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
That they can get on with the rest of the day.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
That makes sense, especially if they're truncating the show by
two weeks. I mean that makes sense. I would just
slowly have the foothold start to heat up or spikes
something like that. So this is where I would go
with it.

Speaker 3 (46:44):
I know, Mikes that you would really love Australian Survivor.
They would do some endurance challenges that are really torturous.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
What is it with Australia? The whole country wants you dead?
Even the game shows want you dead. I don't. It's
really amazing. Then they're, by the way, beautiful placed people,
but man, it's like you wake up in the hotel
room next to a spider and a crab that's three
times the size of your bed. It's really strange. So

(47:20):
d ends up winning Immunity and Immunity is a very small,
tasteful necklace.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
They're very.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
Voted for very small, tasteful, really unassuming necklace. No, they
a giant eagle head kind of sure, almost Egyptian goddess
looking kind of necklace, which wins immunity, and she so
d wins immunity. Christian wins immunity, and then Stephanie wins immunity,

(47:51):
and she also lasts a longest, so she wins.

Speaker 2 (47:54):
Apple's for her group, which is great.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
And this is when I was like, Wow, they're really
totally forgetting about Ozzie and Rizzil. Apparently that's just I'm
never gonna see them again.

Speaker 3 (48:05):
You're not going to see them again. I think that
that was they were off on the road. Can I
give you some Applebee's lore?

Speaker 2 (48:10):
Please? Yes? Okay.

Speaker 3 (48:12):
So one of the most fun Survivor moments years happened
in Survivor forty six when there was this woman named
Liz who she had a lot of food allergies and
she could not eat a lot of the food that
was on the island that was there.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
So there was Q who was from earlier this season.

Speaker 3 (48:33):
He won a reward and it was Applebee's and he
got to take three people with him to Applebee's and Liz,
in addition to having these food allergies, it turns out
that she goes to Applebee's every week with her daughter
and she watches survivor. That's part of their ritual. And
she goes and eats the cheeseburger that they had, which

(48:57):
happens to be what she could eat, and it was
a total emotional.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
Thing for her.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
And they said, Q, pick three people, and he picked
three different people that were not Liz. And people said, hey,
i'll switch, I'll switch as a list. He said, no,
you cannot. You cannot give your spot to Liz. And
she had a all time historic survivor crash out was
just this and she Q.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
You blew up my old gape, extreamed at Q. Did
he do it on purpose to make her kind of
unbalanced in the moment?

Speaker 2 (49:32):
Or I don't think so. But he would not budge.
He was not She was not going to convince him
that she should go to Applebee's.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
Oh my god, Oh okay, I have to see that.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
And what a great commercial for Applebee's that was that
a grown woman just had like a total total breakdown
over not getting to go to Applebee's.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
How do you not make that a commercial for Applebee's.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
I mean, that would be the best commercial.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
But again my head went to you have not eaten
in days and now you're powering down blue romulin ale
drinks and you and you're the giant sharper.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
Please yes, does it?

Speaker 1 (50:10):
I have to imagine this, You've spoken all the survivors.
Doesn't this mess with your digestion in any way, shape
or form.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
Certainly can, And so I think what happens is that.

Speaker 3 (50:19):
So without getting into uh, you know, I don't get graphic,
but a lot of times the survivors are very backed up.
Your body when you are go into shock, Now your
body is going to like start like okay, I'm holding
everything in. And so the survivors having gone to the bathroom,
many of them for two weeks, Now, oh god, that

(50:40):
can't be healthy. And so it's you know, it's not ideal.
And so then and and you know, to give the
survivor producers the benefit of the doubt, perhaps you know
one of the reasons why they say, okay, twenty six days,
it's also maybe.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
Better for you than thirty nine.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 3 (50:57):
And so now you know you ingest and and you're
sort of you know, you're trying not to overdo it
because then if you overdo it, it can come back up.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
I was gonna say, you're gonna throw it all up.

Speaker 3 (51:07):
Yeah, yes, but then also a lot of times then
you see the survivors getting like incredible stomach pains and
then ultimately, uh, now that they had not gone in
a very long time, and now all of a sudden
they have there's an urgency.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
They stopped going.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
Well, Christian went in his pants in like the second episode.

Speaker 3 (51:27):
Yeah, yeah, that was I'm not sure exactly what the cause.
That to me seemed like a overdoing it with coconut.

Speaker 1 (51:34):
Right right, Well, it's a natural axative coat.

Speaker 3 (51:37):
Natural active, and so for the survivors here, it's like
a you know, a push pull of like how do I,
you know, put like can I how do I put
four thousand calories five thousand calories into my system to
last me through the next couple of days without now
overdoing it to the point where I'm in the fetal
position for earlier too.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
That's see, That's what I thought, is like you would
just oh got gastro intestinely anyway. Sorry, So the winning
team arrives at the Sanctuary for their Applebee's feast. That's
really great. This is, of course, after we get a
little bit of Ozzie and Rizzo on the island licking
the tuna fish off of each other just for the visual.
There you go. So they both, at least at this
point claim because this is the way this show works.

(52:18):
I'm starting to realize they're all just claims until you
back them up. Claim that they're in together with the
alliance with Suri. So as far as we know, at
least now their team siie is what I would say
at this point.

Speaker 2 (52:30):
So one of the.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
Losing groups is strategizing back of camp and that's just
when Aubrey and Genevieve were paired in the same group
and then going head to head Genevieve is this is
where now it's just kind of talking about that. Now,
this is where I have a problem with the show.
Where Survivor fans love the show, where the next hour

(52:53):
is now just cutting to people talking about who they're
going to vote for, and that's kind of the show
is it's just I'm gonna vote for this person.

Speaker 2 (52:59):
Well, let me go down and talk to this person.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
I'm going to vote for, And I get this is
the game play, this is what the Survivor fans want.
And this is where me, as a new fan coming in,
I'm kind of going, Okay, it's just talking heads kind
of in high school, talking about who they'reing to vote
for and who they're not going to vote for. And
this is why I'm trying to wrap my head around
it a little more and trying to get better with this.

Speaker 3 (53:18):
You know, it's again, it's hard for the producers because
it's like, hey, we want big explosive moments in the show,
and so we want there to be a lot of
you know, tribal councils and blind sides, and so you know,
they end up creating moments like this as far as
there not being anything having to do with like the

(53:38):
survival elements.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
It's really now it's like, hey, they're trying to get
through this day.

Speaker 3 (53:42):
That going back to that idea of you know, the
dangerous fun small groups of having to fight for your
life constantly, sure in the game, but it really ends
up being kind of a foregone conclusion in most of
these groups ultimately just based off of who had relationships
of whom coming in. So there's not as much intrigue

(54:03):
in these three votes as maybe you would.

Speaker 2 (54:06):
Have hoped, where there's a little bit more of a scramble.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
Sure did you were you able to kind of call
who was going to go home before or even got there.

Speaker 3 (54:13):
It felt like, yeah, I mean, it seemed like that
Genevieve was sort of dead to rights. And with Genevieve
that she was with Aubrey, who with somebody who she
had not been working with, but also she was with
the guys who sent Aubrey the idol from the other group,
So out of anybody else in the game, it was
really like the worst.

Speaker 2 (54:32):
Possible draw that Genevieve could have gotten in this group.

Speaker 1 (54:34):
Yeah, that's really yeah, that's very interesting. So one of
the things that I have been seeing more and more
of on social media, and I kind of take anything.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
From social media the Internet with a grain of salt.

Speaker 1 (54:44):
But you keep seeing obviously reality TV you put quotes
around reality producers, editors, directors, they all want to push
in air, not push is the wrong word. They can
help to construct a narrative, and some characters the real people,
but characters on the show tend to get more screen
time than others. And some of the former contestants are

(55:05):
coming out kind of saying it might be a little
bit of a sexist kind of vibe, a little misogynistic.
It seems like it's more based on the men than
on the women, and some of the people on the
show are really not getting enough screen time.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
Do you agree with this?

Speaker 1 (55:20):
Can you see this as a kind of a legitimate
complaint by some of the contestants or is it more like, Hey,
they're gonna take the best stories they have of that
week and try to push that narrative.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
Yeah, so a couple of the contestants.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
Angelina really was the first person last week who said
it about the edit, but then a bunch of the
other women who have been under edited in this season
have talked about this, and it's something that the Survivor players.
You come out there and this was discussed a little
bit in the Charlie Troupal councilor like, hey, everybody's the
hero of their own story, and then you see the episodes.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
It's like, wait, hold on, I was the main character.
Where's all my stories?

Speaker 3 (55:55):
And so historically, while there have been some women who
have gotten a lot of airtime, there's many women who
are legends of the show. It does feel as though
Survivor will consistently give almost all of the men a
fair share of and there's certainly some exceptions, but sure
you know that it seems like that they do a

(56:17):
better job of telling the stories of the male characters
than some of the women who get left by. And
I think that if you go throughout the history of
the show, I think it's specifically a lot of the
younger women. I feel like that they struggle with having
to tell their story. And so in this season you
have one I think there's a lot of factors that

(56:37):
go into it, but in this season, you have one
tribe that has been to tribal council so much, and
really you see more people, see more of people when
they go to tribal councils, and some of the women
they haven't been to tribal councils at all, and so
they've had less screen time in the show.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
There are people that they count the confessionals.

Speaker 3 (56:56):
So the confessionals are sort of like the talking head
segments that they do, and so there are lots of
people who, for a variety of reasons, including trying to
predict who's gonna win the season, they count the confessionals
that players get, and so this is sort of like
the box score of who's getting the most screen time
in the show, And if you look at it, a
lot of the women have gotten less screen time and

(57:19):
talking heads than the male players, who they've done a
better job of telling their stories. So you've seen some
of the women speaking out, You've seen some of the
fans getting upset about, Hey, why is Survivor like this?
It's supposed to be that we're showing everybody equally. I
think the show has struggled with twenty four players. And

(57:41):
then also you have some of these players who are
really legendary talkers, like somebody I know, Coach is one
of your favorites and he's come back, and so.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
He's a character, is what he is? Yeah, Yeah, he's
going to talk and chew up a lot of screen time.
So it is hard.

Speaker 3 (57:59):
And the only thing that I can say is that,
you know, not everybody's story has been told yet. In
the case of Angelina and Camilla, I do think it's
a disappointment to not have seen more of what they
had going on. And for everybody else, you know, you
have to see that maybe we do get more of
their story going forward.

Speaker 1 (58:16):
They do seem to develop the men's stories more than
the women's stories. I mean, again, as somebody who doesn't
know the show at all, doesn't know the history at all.
I know a lot more of the men's names than
I do the women. Where it's like when I see
of course, when I see d or some of the
kind of the Suri, some of the ones that are
kind of the louder speakers, or for instance, this last
of this episode we're talking about, they did kind of
focus more on the Aubrey Genevieve Genevieve thing going on, right,

(58:38):
but it's like, ooh, the women are fighting right then
it's almost there's yeah, there's almost a there's almost a
version of that kind of going on. So yeah, it's
interesting to see. And again we all know that it's
reality TV. There's nothing's real quote unquote, I mean they
are they are still trying to push a narrative of
the show that they want to put out there. So

(58:58):
but it was it was interesting to see us. I
think somebody said, and it might have been I apologized
to the name that you said. Who was who came
the first one to come out and really talk about
it last week?

Speaker 2 (59:08):
Angelina?

Speaker 1 (59:09):
Angelina.

Speaker 3 (59:10):
You know, Survivor has struggled with this type of issue
all throughout the history of the show. And I will
say to the producer's credit. They do. They have tried
to improve things a lot, and it certainly is not perfect.
That Survivor had its own reckoning with race. Really after

(59:31):
twenty twenty, where after everything with George Floyd, a lot
of the black players and other minorities talked about, Hey,
you know, I was on a tribe and it was
really this was really unfair. I felt like that my
story wasn't really being told. And so Survivor really did
do a lot once it came back after COVID to
try to address that. And so Survivor is not perfect.

(59:55):
They have a lot of things that they can improve on.
I do feel like that they you care deeply about
trying to get it right, and I have no doubt
that they will.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
Be looking to improve this in the future. But for
the people who are out.

Speaker 3 (01:00:09):
There right now and feeling like their story is not
being told like it does kind of suck for those.

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
Players, Yeah, no, I get that there is you can
and again, being completely newbie to this world, you do
see that it seems at least like they're listening to
the fans, and they're listening CBS and the parent company
or listening to what everybody wants to see and the
problems that are happening, because the other one I saw
was that they thought that the was Zach Zach Brown, Yeah,

(01:00:36):
that he had so many he was on the island
so long, he did a full concert. That apparently for
at least from a couple of the articles I read today,
that they're planning on going back for some future episodes
and actually editing down.

Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
I don't know that. I think you don't think that's
I think that that might have been fake news.

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
I don't know. You think with the whole Mister Beast thing,
that's the one. I don't think so.

Speaker 3 (01:00:54):
I think that the shows they're largely edited. I don't
think that they're changing too much afterwards. There's so much
fan reaction to everything. I think that for the most part,
I think that unless something is like a big scandal,
I don't think that Survivor is changing too much based
off of how the fans are receiving it. Because again,
there's probably a big majority of fans who are silent,

(01:01:19):
who maybe had no issue with the Zach Brown of
it all. It's probably Zach Brown probably has a lot
of fans that we're excited to see him. Yeah, so
you know that the problem is that a lot of
the online Survivor fans you complain about everything, so it's
very hard to really for Survivor through discern. Okay, what
are the things we really need to look at because

(01:01:40):
that there's so many things that people are furious about
that they had three tribal councils in this episode and
their favorites went home.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Yeah, it is. It's one of the same.

Speaker 1 (01:01:48):
I've always said, just don't live your life based on
the comments on social media or run your business based
on the life of the social media is just it way.

Speaker 3 (01:01:54):
Very hard to get any sort of like actionable information
from the one star reviews when everything was like this sucks,
worst episode ever and the fans vote, and like they
went on IMDb and said the Zach Brown episode of
Survivor was the worst rated episode of Survivor.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
I've read that everywhere And was that true or no?
It was not the worst episode a Survivor of all time?

Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
Was it the worst rated episode? Because I read that
it is the worst rated episode of But interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:02:21):
I mean, there have been like many problematic episodes in
the history of Survivor over twenty five years, and many
boring episodes.

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
Also, it's fifty seasons.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
You can't do that and not have problematic episodes in
anything that you do. Sure, so all right, So anyway, yes,
we're seeing Aubrey and Genevieve. They're paired in the same group.
They're going ahead ahead. Genevieve is not going to vote
for Aubrey tonight because she could play her idol and
it would all backfire. Instead, she's going to go after
Devins and tries to convince Christian to vote for him too.
So this is just going back and forth. Another one

(01:02:53):
of the tribes is on a different island. They're also
prepping for the tribal tonight. Colby is a sitting duck
at this point.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
I love Colby. I love I do.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
He's injured though, and he has no vote. It's like,
my you know, even I know, I was like, oh,
this is not going well. He looks like the goat
that's just tethered to the thing in Jurassic Park for
the t Rex to come and eat.

Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
He didn't really have much of a play there.

Speaker 3 (01:03:18):
And you know, for Colby, I mean, he had such
a legacy where he was, you know, the biggest star
in Survivor in two thousand and one.

Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
He was so fair, remember.

Speaker 3 (01:03:29):
Him, Yes, Survivor the Australian Outback. People name their babies
Colby like he was in.

Speaker 2 (01:03:36):
You know, like put it. They put him in movies.
He used to do commercial He.

Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
Hosted Top Shot, which was which was a great show.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
Top Shot. He's on Curb your Enthusiasm.

Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
I mean he was just like like the biggest Survivor
star and then you know, here he is, and he's
coming back and he.

Speaker 2 (01:03:52):
Hurt his toe and he can't. It's just it was, yeah,
the walking wounded. Yea, Yes, it was really sad to
watch it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
You just you felt back. He was trying to trying
to play whatever he had, but he didn't. He really
didn't have anything to play. So it was more or
less just kind of like, I'm Colby, you don't want
you don't want to vote for me, I'm Colby.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
Yeah, but that was pretty much all you can do U.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
Then Coach kind of makes a fool of himself as
per Usion tells D that Emily is targeting her, which
is a lie, a lie.

Speaker 3 (01:04:19):
Also a very unbelievable lie, because D and Emily are
from the same original season They're both from Survivor forty
five and are actually friends in real life, so that
would be quite a betrayal if Emily was trying to
get the voted out for no reason.

Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
Yeah, it's like why I get I guess if you're
gonna lie, make it plausible.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
I don't think he thought it through.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
I think he's just like, yeah, he's throwing it out
and seeing what sticks. The winning team obviously gets back
to their camp before tribal, and it seems kind of

(01:04:59):
like an easy vote for them too, but you don't
know if it's going to be. You've got Camilla, Tiff,
and Jonathan if they stick together and vote out Chrissy easy.
But of course this I'm learning being Survivor is not
the way that it works. So Chrissy puts on the
ultimate ruse for Camilla and Tiff, complete with tears, and
in reality she's just trying to get Stephanie and Jonathan

(01:05:19):
together to vote out Camilla.

Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
I think that this was by far the most interesting
vote of the three of what was Jonathan going to do?

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
Because you had the Stephanie and Chrissy.

Speaker 3 (01:05:32):
Who were more affiliated with the old school players, and
then you had Tiffany and Camilla, who were from the
more recent player seasons that were okay, hey, like stick
with us from the last couple of seasons, and Jonathan
was really playing both sides. But Chrissy does a really
convincing job of making sure that Jonathan is going to

(01:05:52):
go with the old school players who sort of have
a little bit more of this like hey, as Serie said,
like honor, loyalty, when we are word is good, come
work with us, and that's a little bit more of
what Jonathan is about.

Speaker 1 (01:06:06):
Well, you can probably tell that's why I'm team Jonathan.
Yes see the pants, Yes, I've got my pants as
I always wear when.

Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
I'm doing I made those.

Speaker 3 (01:06:16):
When I heard that you bought the Jonathan pants, surprised,
you know, Christy kept saying like, hey, Jonathan were cut
from the same cloth.

Speaker 2 (01:06:25):
I'm like, yeah, that's how he gets his clothes, the
cloth from the pants.

Speaker 1 (01:06:29):
No, this is I think it was a shout out
to missus Jeremy Jeremy Pinter or missus Eric Matthews, who
are two fans of ours from pod Meats World and
uh from pod Meats World here that ended up finding
the pants and getting the link to rider.

Speaker 3 (01:06:42):
So well, next you need like the shirt that has
like nipple my one nipple shirt.

Speaker 2 (01:06:48):
Well, I mean a lot of Jackson wardrobe malfunctions.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
Sure, Well a lot of people look at Jonathan's body
and my body and they're like, ah, god, so similar.
So it could definitely happen that I'm gonna get nipple shirt.
But I was talking to Johnathan exactly zoom, very similar,
very similar. So now we're at the Red Moon, Blood
Moon Tribal Council, Blood Moon, we get into the first group.

(01:07:14):
I feel like they turn the music down a little
bit this week, which is good because it it does
get annoying.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
It it does.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
It just I always I feel like I'm on a
Disneyland ride. I do every time I hear it. They're
sitting there around the ruins and you just hear that
that same music.

Speaker 2 (01:07:29):
I'm like, I'm on a Disneyland ride.

Speaker 3 (01:07:30):
Well it's jarring when you're actually there because there is
no music.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
So yeah, it's just dead silence. Right.

Speaker 3 (01:07:36):
It's like if you go from like at home, you
have this one experience and then you're there and you
can hear a pin drop. So that's the part that's
really weird and you're to go and play Survivor.

Speaker 2 (01:07:47):
Now, is it true?

Speaker 1 (01:07:48):
Because I read that the all them grabbing the torches
and walking on the beaches, that's all they shoot that
and then they like put them into trucks and take
them to the actual vote in.

Speaker 3 (01:07:58):
Trucks probably boats in Okay set up in Fiji, but yeah,
like you would never they used to stay in like
the very beginning, like we hiked three miles to tribal council,
Like they would get lost. So they're like how you
like Jeff would be standing there all night, like, hey,
when are they getting here?

Speaker 1 (01:08:16):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:08:17):
Yeah, they were supposed to be here hours ago. What
happened will bring the rain and everything. So yeah, they
started like well they picked them up in a boat,
they take them to tribal council and they get out
and they walk up.

Speaker 1 (01:08:29):
I'm curious how far how far away is the crew,
Like if there's got to be a crew area where.

Speaker 2 (01:08:33):
Jeff hangs out, all this stuff is at a small boat,
I would played in Fiji.

Speaker 3 (01:08:37):
So I don't know necessarily what that layout is, but
there tends to be on the survivors have like a
certain area and there's like a sign post no no
players past this area, and then production will have like
a base there and they have their own base camp,
have a really nice set up in Fiji where the
crew has really nice accommodations. Jeff has good accommodations, so
the show's really comfortable in being in Fiji. It used

(01:08:59):
to to move all around the world, where I remember
lots lots of different locations, and then starting with season
thirty three, they landed in Fiji and they've been there
since that point.

Speaker 1 (01:09:10):
It does make more sense to just kind of have
a controlled area, especially and I hate to keep saying this,
but especially if kind of the survivor aspect of Survivor
is gone. It's more about the gameplay than you can
control it more in one area, much like the Hunger games.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
Yeah, it just makes sense.

Speaker 3 (01:09:24):
They don't have to like rebuild all all of the
challenges and props, and they are able to save a
lot of money.

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):
They filmed two seasons back to back.

Speaker 3 (01:09:33):
Also, a lot of the changes to Survivor have come
because they're trying the show's trying to save money and
make it more economical. Where there was a point where
it was such a phenomenon it would beat friends, you know,
three million people a week would watch Survivor. At a
certain point, Survivor will win its time slot, but it's
not like the juggernaut that it used to be. So
they've done all sorts of different things between cutting back

(01:09:55):
the days staying in Fiji. They filmed two seasons back
to back, so they've done a lot of things to
sort of like cut the amount of money that they spent.

Speaker 2 (01:10:03):
Me overhead as much as you can. Well that's smart.

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
So will I mean, everybody's kind of going back and forth.
Is it going to be Chrissy, is it going to
be Camilla? Who's going? And then I wasn't shocked. If
I'm on it, it was the biggest shock of the three,
but still wasn't like, oh my god. I kind of
figured that maybe Jonathan was gonna vote Camilla. How about you.

Speaker 2 (01:10:23):
No, I was not surprised, though.

Speaker 3 (01:10:24):
I actually was a little surprised that the vote was
Camilla and not Tiffany, because I thought that at least
Jonathan and Camilla had more of a relationship than we've
seen Jonathan with Tiffany, and I think that maybe the
Chrissy and Tiffany they were together on the last tribe,
maybe that there was a relationship there. But I was
not surprised that Jonathan went with Stephanie and went with Chrissy,

(01:10:45):
because it really does seem like that he's very much
aligned with he was working with coach earlier in the season,
that he would want to stick with the people who
were also with that Honor loyal team Honor.

Speaker 1 (01:10:57):
Yeah, that kind of thing, John and all that kind
of stuff. If memory serves, Tiffany's name wasn't even floated
at least that we ever saw. No, So yeah, amazing, amazing.
All right, So now we go to our second tribal council,
different music, same game. Geneva ends up playing her shot
in the Dark. I never can please very briefly walk
me through the shot in the Dark because I didn't

(01:11:18):
really understand everything shot on in the Dark.

Speaker 2 (01:11:20):
Everybody gets one. The idea is that hey, everybody gets
one of these. Everybody has one to start.

Speaker 3 (01:11:25):
Yeah, oh okay, and so you could have one time
when you get to play it where it's basically it's
like you're sort of you're hail Mary, where hey I
think I'm getting which is why Colby, because you need
a vote to do it. So it's like Hey, I
think I'm getting voted out tonight. So instead of actually
putting my one vote in, I'm playing the shot in
the dark, which it makes no sense because it's a
one in six shot.

Speaker 2 (01:11:46):
It literally is a die. It literally is I think.

Speaker 3 (01:11:50):
So it's like, oh, so you roll it, No, you
put it into a tube, and then you pull a
scroll out of the back.

Speaker 1 (01:11:57):
Okay, just like Vegas gotcha. Okay, so I did not
know that everybody got one. I thought you everybody in
one of these or something everybody gets start.

Speaker 3 (01:12:06):
The game with one, and it's basically your Hey, I'm
gonna I'm gonna lose, and.

Speaker 2 (01:12:11):
So it's a hail Mary, throw my hail Mary.

Speaker 3 (01:12:13):
And and then if Jeff, if you pull out the
one scroll that says safe, everybody goes crazy. It's like, ah,
I did like and so it's happened. People have got it,
has happened before.

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
Okay, okay, all right, interesting, So but not this time.
She is not safe. So any of the votes against
your will count. And well she's actually unanimously voted out.
But before she leaves, she gives her coat to her
nemesis Aubrey.

Speaker 2 (01:12:37):
So many coats I.

Speaker 1 (01:12:38):
Was gonna say, there seem to be this whole coat
thing seems to be. It's like a rite of passage.

Speaker 3 (01:12:43):
It's like toys for tots the Christmas time, like donate
your coats to cold survivors, donate your colts.

Speaker 1 (01:12:49):
I still don't know, because half the time they're cold,
half the time they're hot, and half the time they're standing.
One person's in shorts and t shirts sweating next to
a person who's in a sweater.

Speaker 2 (01:12:56):
So I don't know if they're hot and cold. It's
very interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:12:59):
And then we get to the third tribal Council. Coach
is all dressed up for the red wedding, and Colby
gives a very sentimental speech that leaves some of the
people in tears. I think he knows he doesn't literally
and figuratively have a leg to stand on because he's injured,
and he's just he doesn't have a vote, he's just
he's yeah, he's piggy on the island without the conch.

(01:13:20):
So this was a nice sendoff for survivor for Colby.

Speaker 3 (01:13:25):
You know, you sort of like that the idea of
Season fifty at being this celebration was supposed to be
where you were gonna have these like great iconic players
coming back for one last like Daffa the Cap curtain Ball,
and if Colby was going to get blindsided, you wouldn't
get that.

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
So in a way where it.

Speaker 3 (01:13:41):
Was such an obvious vote for Colby, he really was
able to get his flowers and have an emotional send
off after. You know, as a survivor re viewer, if
you started, you spent twenty five years watching Colby come
and play the show.

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):
This is his fourth time coming back.

Speaker 1 (01:13:56):
Colby was the one in his very first season where
he easily could have won and gave it to the
woman right.

Speaker 2 (01:14:03):
Took Tina to the AA Tina. Yeah, so it was
but at that.

Speaker 3 (01:14:06):
Point in time, Savva was such a phenomenon and Colby
was the good guy, America's hero cowboy hat. I think
he thought that he had a big career coming in movies,
and I think.

Speaker 2 (01:14:19):
That he felt like I kinda did.

Speaker 3 (01:14:21):
I mean he did, I mean, he did have a career, certainly,
but I think he felt like, hey, maybe I'll win,
maybe I won't, but I think I'd rather do that
and be beloved than screw Tina, who he cared for.

Speaker 2 (01:14:34):
And they're still friends. To this day.

Speaker 3 (01:14:36):
Remember, win the million dollars and then at what cost
you know where I'll be. I'll be hated, but I
want a million dollars. I think that he really was
thinking about his image too along the way.

Speaker 1 (01:14:47):
Well it worked because you know, he's was beloved even
though yes, he was voted off the island, he's still
considered one of the most beloved survivors of all time.

Speaker 3 (01:14:57):
And I think he'll be you know, he actually was
before this season. Just to give the put the bow
on Colby. He had this great run and then he
came He played two more times and it was kind
of underwhelming. The last time he played that he was
really he seemed like he really wasn't that into it.
He was kind of like miserable the whole time. He
was called Superman in a fat suit by one of

(01:15:20):
the other contestints, where he was like this like young
Buck who was winning everything in his first time out,
and then he was kind of seeming like like over
it and was like a sad MOPI version of Colby.
To see him come back and have this run, and hey,
make sure you find the joy, everybody. That's that's the lesson.
Find the joy and so he I'm in the era

(01:15:41):
of reflection, and he came back with a different spirit
and seemed like he got a lot out of it,
Like it was a nice bookend to his story.

Speaker 2 (01:15:51):
Yeah, which is really great.

Speaker 1 (01:15:52):
And that's uh, that was our episode for the night.
I mean we I we don't usually get into what
happens next because that's the fun part of finding out
what happens next. But I would like to know. You're
in Vegas, they hand you chips. You've got to put
your thousand dollars chip on the person you think is
going to win this season. Oh, who do you think
is going to win Survivor fifty?

Speaker 2 (01:16:13):
I know you're not the biggest fan, but could it
be coach? I don't know. Do you think do you
think it's going to be coaching?

Speaker 3 (01:16:19):
Okay, I'll say I feel like somebody from the old
school I think is headed on the right. I think
that the new school is really on the back foot now.
I think Koree has a chance. Also with this Ozzy
and Riz God set up, does Ozzy have a shot
for once? I don't think so. Like it'll be interesting

(01:16:43):
for Ozzy. He he got he's been very close. He
got to the finals his very first season and lost
five to four. He also was one vote away from
winning in a season that he got voted out three times.

Speaker 2 (01:16:56):
That's a story for.

Speaker 3 (01:16:57):
Another day about how Ozzie got voted three times in
the season he almost won, And then it would be
I think that there's a chain. I think he's well liked,
but I don't know that if he goes to the
end with Siri, he will lose to Sori.

Speaker 2 (01:17:12):
Sori's beloved.

Speaker 1 (01:17:13):
So three is an icon and everybody, this is when
the jury who's going to start being picked next week?
None of these three people are on the jury, so
gonna be picked next week. They decide, they.

Speaker 3 (01:17:24):
Vote, The final three will sit there, they will make
their case of who will win. The jury will ask questions,
and then they will all vote for a winner of
Survivor fifty.

Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
Okay, well man, thank you so much, yes for joining
us while we're here. Now, you are unfortunately going to
be stuck for one more thing because I do every
week on our show, I do a little something called
Will's History, famous Survivors and stuff. I'm still working on
the song. Please don't hold it against me, but we're
going to do a very quick one this week because
it's a long episode because I wanted to talk to
you about why I'm wrong about not liking Survivor and

(01:17:54):
I'm getting there. I swear to God, I'm getting there.
But this week we've got Roy Sullivan, who is a
man who was struck by lifelightning seven times. Yes, the
US Park Rangers survived and astonishing seven lightning strikes between
nineteen forty two and nineteen seventy seven, a feat that
made him a legend among survival stories. His endurance and
luck earned him a place in the Guinness Book of
World's Records. I think I'd rather be there for hot

(01:18:14):
dog eating as opposed to most times struck by lightning.
But his story is really fascinating. Go check it out.
Just be careful, don't read it under a big tree,
because apparently even his story attracts lightning.

Speaker 2 (01:18:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:18:26):
I think if you get struck by lightning seven times,
you like it. Yeah, you're asking for it. At this point,
I'm gonna believe lightning strike victims normally, but like, something's
off here.

Speaker 1 (01:18:36):
Yeah, seven times, although apparently it's this. Somebody fact check
me on this because I could totally be wrong. But
apparently if you're struck by lightning once, you have a
better chance of being struck by lightning again than if
you've never been struck by lightning it again. I could
be making that up like a blood moon, but I
don't think I am.

Speaker 2 (01:18:55):
I think that's blood. Would you get three times?

Speaker 3 (01:18:58):
That's exactly the danger of a blood moon exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:19:02):
So can you tell us naming your podcast which everybody
knows anyway, but I want to shout it out anyway
and where everybody can listen to you.

Speaker 3 (01:19:08):
It's called Rob has a podcast you could search for
rhap and talking about Survivor and all of these reality
competition games, The Traders, Big Brother and so if there's
a show with strategy, we typically have a podcast about it.
I actually, how's this for some fanstalgia for you?

Speaker 2 (01:19:26):
Okay?

Speaker 3 (01:19:27):
I have recently wrote a book that is coming out
next month.

Speaker 2 (01:19:31):
It's called The Tribe and I have spoken.

Speaker 3 (01:19:33):
It's about the twenty five year Lauren legacy of Survivor.
And Rob has a book dot com. Maybe that listen
maybe for you one day? Maybe maybe I'll send one.

Speaker 2 (01:19:44):
For rider for now. Oh, that's that's so harsh.

Speaker 1 (01:19:47):
You know, we have a book coming out too, So
if you don't want to come yours, then that's fine.
We could trade. But apparently Rider is going to get one. Yes,
book Meets for all this coming out.

Speaker 3 (01:19:55):
Listen, I can't be like sitting here on my high horse.
I I do not have all of boy Meet's world
history at the ready.

Speaker 2 (01:20:04):
There you go, thank you very much. So no it is.

Speaker 1 (01:20:07):
This has been really cool. I again, I am trying.

Speaker 2 (01:20:10):
Yeah, I appreciate what you all are doing.

Speaker 3 (01:20:12):
That it really like as as somebody who talks about
survivoral all time. I love that you're bringing more of
an audience to the show, and I think that that's great.
And I think it's also hard to jump into something
with an existing fandom. I think it's very brave to
come in because that you really open yourself up to, like, oh,
you think you could just come in here and talk

(01:20:32):
about this show, don't you know?

Speaker 2 (01:20:33):
Blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Speaker 1 (01:20:35):
I kind of love that though, because I'm a mega
nerd so fandoms that nerdoms are two of my favorite
things in the world. And when a fandom gets mad
at me, it's joyous and I never ever ever do
it as like rage bait in any way, shape or form.
But it just shows a passion for something that people love.
I mean, I'm like that with fantasy novels, with Dungeon
and dragons. I'm like that with stuff in my life too,
So I completely and totally get it. There's never any

(01:20:57):
hard feelings. It's somebody quote unquote bashing something that brings
you joy. So I completely understand where the fans are
coming from. And all I can say is I'm working
on it. I'm getting there. I'm learning the characters, which
is an important thing. I mean, again, as a fantasy lover,
it's it's about world building. So I'm trying to understand
the building of the world.

Speaker 3 (01:21:15):
And I'm sure that you know this from everything that
you've done with the pod. It's also like this this
world building, it's also community building where it absolutely will
come in and it's like, oh yeah, that we have
our own language, and there's certain things that only that
only we know about. But it's the stuff that makes
us feel close and connected with the things that we
actually care about.

Speaker 2 (01:21:33):
So in some ways it is a little bit.

Speaker 3 (01:21:35):
Of a mote that anybody just can't jump in and
be a part of our thing.

Speaker 2 (01:21:40):
That's really sacred and precious to us.

Speaker 3 (01:21:42):
So the people who you know, fight through that to
sort of like get it, and then it's like, oh,
I'm part of this now. So it's you know, happens
with all sorts of these online fandoms, and so it's natural.

Speaker 1 (01:21:53):
Okay, I'm getting there. They've been usually very nice to me.
They just are kind of like, you don't get it,
and they're right, I don't get it, but I'm working
on it. And you've been a great teacher. So thank
you so much. Thank you for joining. And you're going
to have to come back when Riders here because he's
not going to be happy that he didn't get a
chance to talk to you. So please join us again
to help explain more stuff I would love to Okay, good, thank.

Speaker 2 (01:22:13):
You so much. All right, thank you so much. Well
bye bye man. That was cool.

Speaker 1 (01:22:17):
Yeah, I mean talking to somebody who's knowledgeable about a
world that I am still learning is just so helpful
and it's something that again is a nerd I love
to do.

Speaker 2 (01:22:26):
So.

Speaker 1 (01:22:27):
Unfortunately for all of us, Rider did not send me
the thing that he normally says to get rid of
the episode, you know, the outro he sent me the intro,
but he never sent me the outro, So I'm gonna
have to make one up, and mine's not going to
be nearly as poetic or awesome as Riders. So I'm
just going to say thank you everybody for joining us.
We've survived yet another tribal council. Our smoke hasn't been trapped,
is that what Indya always says. But we will be

(01:22:48):
here next time with loud beating drums behind us as
we write down somebody's name and find out if everybody
decided to write down the same name or they screwed
us at the last second. Thanks everybody, but the l

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