Australian Survivor: BvW Episodes 13 - 14 Recap

0:00 Welcome back to the nullifier take where we've got the tnt takes for you on australian survivor blood versus water and we're looking at this week episode 13 and episode 14 and i am joined here by a man who you know as a wood chopper champion a world champion that is and one of the strong men for australian survivor last season gerald thank you for making it to the podcast especially with everything that's been going on over in queensland close to kilroy you've just explained to me you guys have been hit pretty hard i really appreciate you taking the time to make this happen and jump on a call with us i'm hoping we still have gerald there you guys can see he's on the screen we've had some technical difficulties just before going live so i'm not too sure if he's still in the actual on the podcast or not i'll have to check to make sure that he's there but i've just spoken to jaral before going live and he has had quite a lot of issues there's been flooding all over queensland apparently kilroy where he lives has been hit pretty hard by that as well so we're very appreciative that he's been able to make it to the show and it does look like we've lost him there i'm hoping you can jump back on while we're live and we can go from there chris dixon and jenny welcome to the live it's good to have you guys here especially chris i haven't seen you

1:20 For a while i thought you were taking a break from jumping on some of these podcasts but really appreciate you jumping on as well and yeah flutter and send at the moment thankfully not in wa yeah was safe for now jenny welcome to the live stream as well what did you guys think of this week's episode i think it was pretty jimmy welcome to the live stream really happy to have you here as well what did you guys think of this week's episode i think it was a very good episode very interesting we've got jerrell coming back in now we're chad was asking if i just took a screenshot of you just to pretend like you were actually going to make it on the on the show because you were frozen on the screen that was probably what it was you know i couldn't talk so i saved myself from digging myself any holes now gerald we're very we're very thankful i was just telling chat everything that's been going on over in kilroy we're very thankful to have you with us today and taking the time while there's been you know a lot of flooding happening on that side and you know obviously it would have affected a lot of people around that area so we really appreciate you coming on the show to talk about this season you know obviously last season you were a part of it this season you're getting the opportunity to sit back and watch other people go through the craziness

2:40 Of australian survivor what has it been like to be a fan this time and not a player oh look what a season it's been an absolute cracker so far it's oh watching this season hindsight is 2020. i tell you what watching it after having been out there and being able to watch a fresh season of survivor and see new guys oops we're gonna we're gonna have some issues again here tonight with him so i don't know how often we're gonna actually have them on here and also jake is not with us tonight sadly couldn't make it i think it would have been 2 a.m in the morning for him to jump on if he did make it so not the not the idealist of times for him to jump in on this but i think it's like again it's been a great i guess week for us here with australian survivor with the merge happening a lot of excitement seeing people play together that didn't play together for such a long period of time you know mark and sam obviously the biggest storyline of the week you don't know anything about walk in there the same as what we did i don't know if we've got gerald on here or not he might still be having some real connection issues here can you hear me

4:07 I do think we still have some issues with him but like i said i really want to get gerald's views on the whole dynamic between playing this game as an individual versus playing it with a loved one and seeing a lot of the issues that you know sam and mark went through having very different game plans this week i think was probably the biggest talking point of the week and i'm really excited to get him oh god this is going to be as big as the train wreck as brains versus brawn yeah let's see what happens let's see if we can get him back on i don't know what connection he's on over there at the moment yeah hopefully the connection doesn't prove otherwise the alternative is that we reschedule this for another time and i try and get him back on because i really want to hear from gerald it's been a long time in the making to get him on the show as well after mispronouncing his name 20 to 25 times in the original season that he played in to actually have him on the show has been pretty good i couldn't make it for the interview that he did with riley last season sadly so i've been looking forward to talking to him here this season what has been the biggest talking points for you guys this week i'm sort of wondering for me i think i had the top five out for you guys this week also probably a good time to let you guys know that i have officially received the buff that i'm going to be giving away as

5:27 Soon as we had 500 subscribers here on the channel it's the merge buff for last season as you can see still has packaging and everything it hasn't been used yet so hoping we can get there pretty soon i know we're closing in on 300 subscribers i'm just getting a message now from at the same time the 60k reward that khan one was a very interesting one marcus i do agree with that it was interesting to see that much money being given away it was very interesting to see that much money getting being given away you know and just a normal challenge i think for me so what did you guys think about that you know if you were out there would you have oh we've got we've got you back i'm back i have learned 200 meters to mum and dads to steal their wi-fi and okay well hopefully fingers crossed this time we don't lose you the connection already looks a lot better oh well that's a plus you know what i'm just assisting you and you're we're chopping training for wimbledon in two months or a month and a half six months glorious getting you to run around in the house but i appreciate you coming back and making it happen because i know everybody in the live stream is really excited to have you here

6:47 And hear your takes on the season you started talking about the anxiety you know obviously that probably hasn't helped tonight struggling to get on the podcast is probably added to your anxiety but you know you've talked about the fact that you know it's added to your anxiety now watching this season play out having been on the show before and knowing a lot of the behind the scenes and probably knowing that a lot of things get edited out what has it been like to be a fan this season and watch the show oh absolutely awesome hey it is an absolute cracker and hindsight is 20. being able to watch all them other guys walking there the same as we did not knowing what they were walking into except for a few then mark and sam and sandra as well who it really stands out that they've been there and you can really tell that yeah now once i've been there you can tell that they know and the information that they have and the situational awareness around everything is just second to none compared to everyone else and it stands out so much after you've been there who's impressed you mentioned a couple of people you know that have played the game before like mark sam andy you know sandra all going back to play the game again who's impressed you from the newbies that have

8:07 Played this season that you thought man these guys or girls they're really getting it very quickly and they haven't got that experience of having played before oh i think that after his stumble dave has really stood out he's picked up his composure stepped back and played from the middle still being strong in challenges and he's going along really well yeah he's got a nickname i mean you know normally the players that are some of the greats in the game they get nicknames when they're on the show and you know everybody's calling him juicy dave i don't think anybody really knows the full story behind that yet no not everyone there's only a selection that know that story i think and we'll keep that under our hands it's a it's a it's a trade secret it's being held tightly secret even more so as a secret than the coca-cola recipe on how to make coke you know nobody's gonna expect anybody's one of those inside jokes just it's a running joke and everyone looking at me outside has no idea yeah i mean you know you've played this game before and dave is a great example of someone that got dragged into this thing that wasn't i don't think he was a fan necessarily off the show his daughter brianna was the fan and she dragged him and to go play this game with her and now he's playing the game on

9:27 His own and having to learn how to play the game so i do agree very impressive for someone that had not that much of a background or a history with the show to be able to make it as deep into the game as he's been able to make it here but you know looking at your own case if you were out there to play a season such as this how difficult do you think it would be you know compared to having played your own season where you only had to worry about yourself you know you made bonds on the game there but it's not the same as blood when you're out there oh no blood versus water is just a minefield it is like stepping into the middle of a war zone from day one because you've got someone else out there that's trying to have your back but by trying to have your back they're putting a target on your back and it just yeah i've got to be honest with you obviously as a as a long time big fan of survivor having watched over 50 seasons of the us survivors of africa you know australian survivor i've always wanted to play the game but the one season i've always said like i mean if the call comes you probably take it but the one season i wouldn't want to play as blood versus water it's like the worst theme because i know my brother my sister i know what they're like you know my sister would outplay me and win the game and my brother would just

10:47 Get my head on the chopping block because he'd be too outspoken and wouldn't know when to shut up absolutely and you know the funniest thing is i've had this conversation with my sister gina on multiple occasions watching this season about how me and her ended up on this season whatever they end up like and she keeps bringing up about wender in school and her first day in high school and she rolled into her mathematics class with a certain mathematics teacher that i had and she walks into a classroom and sits down and he starts reading off the role and of course gets to her dead last because of their last name always lost for everything and he reads he's like gina ewells you're a gerald's sister aren't you're sitting outside yeah you know i think it like again it just brings that extra complexity and like for me you know it was interesting seeing people like we saw two people vote out family in the season already you know you had yeah you know kj voting out sophie which i was surprised at because they look very tight in real life and you had nina vote out sandra which i was less surprised because i mean you expect that from that family they're american you know so americans are a little bit more corporate in their mindset and now they do business but i was really shocked that we saw that in such quick succession you know if you were out there would you have been able to write

12:08 Your sister like i mean i know it's hard not having played the game to sit here in the side and i wouldn't want to be in their position but would you be able to do that how difficult do you think that would be for people to go up against their family and write their names down oh no it's got to be hard because it's basically voting someone out of your alliance even though they're not necessarily in it and someone that you know should have your back but i mean it's such a situational thing hey you're just gonna wait until you're in that moment and see what the time brings and it is just one of the toughest things that you would have to deal with in this game is whether to vote out someone that you think or have you back or not it's like a normal game except amplified to 10 it's nuts yeah i mean i think you probably have that conversation with your partner whoever's going out there with you and you say listen if it comes down to do you give me permission or something like that and if they're smart they say no i don't give you permission to vote me out under any circumstances but listen gerald obviously in your season we had the merge episode happen and we had kez voted out and there was a bit of betrayal that happened there was a bit of a heated moment obviously for you guys losing a valuable

13:28 Alliance member but she got voted out because she had an idol and in this episode you know we see a little bit more of people knowing where idols are at we know jordy knows where mark's idol is at we see him explain to josh later on that mark has got an idol and also we see khan with an idol and winning the sixty thousand dollar reward which just continues to amplify this target on his back what did you think of khan playing as hard as he did it for that sixty thousand dollars you know obviously it's tough to say no to money when it's on the table and there's 13 players still left in the game can't blame him too much for it but you know strategically do where did khan go wrong because he sat on that idol for so long oh mate first of all that challenge with that money reward nuts having to challenge what that turned out with a monetary reward in the middle of survivor that is just mental especially that amount is just monumental yeah but oh look khan did amazing in the challenge well he absolutely killed it like that challenge was brutal and he aced against some really tough competitors that are out there to win and they're trying their absolute hardest and some of them are seasoned

14:48 Athletes like you've got to take your hat off to him for him to be able to do that but the thing about that challenge is it was worse placed in the season for the players then the car wasn't out being right there at merge that was that's a really tricky situation i know going into merge when we merged in my season that first challenge after merge i actually dropped out of it first because i obviously i need to really sit back here and not make myself look like that big target it's right out of the gates because you're coming in with so many people that you don't know again that might have heard something it's like their very first challenge of the season all over again when no one knows who's going through or who's going where and you're looking for those threats and you've got to be so careful but i can't get 60 000 bucks do you sit back and just let it slip between your fingers oh it's tough i think he played it well but he just couldn't see the situation that was around him to be able to play the idol he should have played it especially after winning it straight up and knowing he'd been a target for a while but again it's 20

16:08 20 and it's really easy for us to sit back and watch it especially myself after being up there being able to see what's going on there and those situations around it and the conversations that are happening with people yeah it just it enlightens you so much just what's going on listen i know like i mean on this podcast whenever i speak to any of my co-hosts we always say we can only judge you based on the edit we can't judge you as a person and we can't judge what we don't know and there's a lot that we don't know and on all of these episodes you know and i think khan felt a certain level of safety within his alliance with sam you know he in that previous episode gave her the immunity necklace as a show of trust i mean which i thought was a crazy move to begin with you know but yeah he ended up doing that which i don't know if i could have had the courage to do that but he was kind of cornered a little bit and bad on jlp by the way for cornering him and making him stick to that promise when you know sam fell out she didn't really even accept that deal to begin with that was great on jlp i reckon that was great if someone makes a promise you make them stick to it right whether they did it or not if they say it out loud if it happened on tv it happened that was the one thing that we all always talked about remembered if it happens on tv it happens if it didn't

17:28 It didn't so for it to be able to come on tv how to jrp you push that sucker home yeah no that's fair i mean did the jlp ever do anything like that to you or your alliance while you were out there where he was being a bit cheeky and pushed you guys in the corner there was little tidbits but not as much as that i don't think anyone in airs not while i was there was certain instances afterwards with hayley in that immunity challenge and saying she was going to give up and stuff like that but no one really went out and stepped down enough to say something that was going to dig himself enough of a whole we've had that well especially in my life we've had that conversation so many times that don't step out and say something that's gonna dig yourself a hole because we're gonna end up in a world of turn yeah you've got to play the game and you've got to play the man and jlp himself and try and maneuver around it because he's going to try and make a good tv show at the end of the day so i do agree with you well done there chris dixon in the chat asks if you knew who khan was before he played the game because apparently khan is very famous in australia obviously has played i think it was masterchef right masterchef yeah i knew i mean not personally but i certainly

18:48 Knew who he was so it was interesting seeing him go out there it wasn't it certainly wasn't somewhere i was expecting khan to pop up i didn't really think that he would go down that track after watching him on masterchef before yeah it wasn't really the direction i saw his tv personality going in but he stepped up to the plate he's had a cracker run through this game even though he was first into jury villa what a stellar run he had up to that point start five cents we had all them tribals ducked and weaved his way out without even playing that white letter all of them votes right i agree i agree as a fan i like fans always have their favorites right they can't help but say oh you know i like to shout for this or that person last season i was a bit of a george fanboy i couldn't help it because he brought so much drama to the show and i really enjoyed it this season i really like khan and chrissy both of them i think chrissy is still in the game now khan also just brought so much to the show and it's interesting you mentioned that you didn't think he was gonna have a trajectory as a tv personality into the show because i had no preconceived ideas of him i've never watched masterchef in australia at all so you know for me he was brand new on my screen as a survivor place i only judge them based on what i saw

20:08 On this show i've got a question for you though because it's kind of relevant to this whole thing and what khan did next you know what's next for gerald would you put your hand up for the challenge australia if you were asked to go out there have you got any interest to participate in another reality tv show that's got to do with athleticism for instance yeah right survivor again or the challenge or any of those sort of tv shows or games challenges where you can really push yourself right up my alley any day of the week i would have a crack at any of those and i think that'd be a great thing to do i actually seen a new one that was casting not so long ago that i was really having an arrow whether to throw my name in the ring for called the bridge there's one coming out in the states and it's a cross between survivor and kind of like a building challenge of 30 days in the tasmanian wilderness 12 people with a monetary reward at the end they've got to build a bridge 300 meters across this lake at the same time play through smaller challenges and vote people out like survivor it's that would have been an interesting one actually now that you mention it i've seen something similar to that pop up in the uk i think it was the first time they had a reality

21:28 Show like that where they had to build something to the middle of the lake was in the uk and it might be an offshoot or something that they're doing based on that show but the reason i bring up the challenge because on this podcast we do a lot of challenge content i don't know if you even know what the challenge is if you've seen that before at all yeah i know that there's a season or two out there in the states that they've been through and i've certainly been interested but i haven't watched it yet i have to admit that but yeah i've seen snippets on the net and yeah i'll point you in the right direction we'll chat offline about i'll point you in the right direction in regards to what you need to look out for if you ever if you ever wanted to go that way i wouldn't be surprised to see some former australian survivors be on the challenge australia because the way that they sort of pitched it was that it's former reality tv stars from australia that will compete in it i don't know if they're casting for that has started yet or anything but i'm putting it on your radar i wouldn't mind seeing you on that jimmy here is saying that he would like to see you on the amazing race is that something you would do yeah no funny the amazing race so i actually got cast or almost cast for our season of survivor 12 months before our season

22:49 Actually happened and it all got cancelled because of cover and about six months after it got cancelled the casting was actually up for the amazing race australia the season that has been where it was completely around australia yeah and me and my sister actually put in for that because i didn't know what was going on survivor and just all been cared a whole lot we didn't know anything didn't know what was happening didn't know what was happening again and we actually cast for that and got to the first round of interviews there and yeah so that would also be a bit of a challenge i guess or a different direction but i don't i don't think it's as much of a push as some libraries one of those real tests on your body mind and your general personal beliefs and i really like that yeah i love the psychology behind survivor i mean the khan dilemma should i go for the 60 000 should i not go for it you know you've got marcusy in the chat set that's more than what the runner up will ever get so why not go for it if you're in that much i don't know what the runner-up gets you know i'm not going to put it on this morning australia gets [Music] so yeah there you go so that's more than anyone else gets on this show

24:09 Except for the winner so truth be told if any of us were out there we would have been gunning for it as well you know so hats off to come forward for winning this challenge like you said against some seasoned people some of the interesting things that happened here was that in this merge geordie lets it slip to sam that mark's got an idol before mark gets the opportunity to talk to sam about it and i found it quite strange that mark didn't tell her earlier and kept her sort of on a string now i know that sam has brought up her own post on instagram explaining that a lot of the disagreements between them that's just what happens in a marriage you know a lot of people obviously they go to the extreme when they watch these shows because they really want to i don't know people i don't know what they see in this but people were saying things they shouldn't be saying online you know obviously sam and mark are very happy they've got a kid together it just so happened he didn't tell her immediately and they weren't always on the same page here what did you think of this you know i guess it was a big talking point this week the whole relationship between mark and sam getting together at the merge and having very different plans on how they wanted to run this game yeah look going into that merge they were completely separated it was two completely different games with completely different people in completely different directions and that clashed head-on and it's so hard when them two opposing sides

25:29 Came together that had their own alliances those alliances they know each other they don't want a mesh the same thing happened on my season when we merged and all of us from the brains 2.0 tribe plus flick and maybe danny and chelsea we're gonna stick strong and we didn't want anything to do with the former braves because we didn't know them we knew our lives and when it happened and it's so hard to make that mess because if you get to be seen to make in that match and talking to them you're colluding with the enemy and all of a sudden your name's on the chopping block so you've got to really tread lightly around all that stuff but you can see in mark and sam that they've been on there before and they are really trying to read the situation around them and doing a cracking job and it really stands out that they have been there and the amount of gameplay that they're doing around everyone else and compared everyone else is second to none it's at the moment it's interesting you bring that up because it's one of the reasons why i don't i'm not a fan of bringing previous players in with new players

26:49 At all it's not it's not something i in general enjoy watching i'm very happy that sam and mark is on there because i actually did enjoy them even in their original season when they went out pretty early but i've always felt that you know returning players have got such an advantage it's why i personally don't like fans versus favorites as well because the favorites will always dominate the fans but they've just got that experience you know which is interesting to see and i know you probably don't have visibility of this on your screen currently but myself and jake we've been doing a little bit of points that we've been giving to players each week in regards to how they're tracking and who we think the best players are and to give you an idea here mark has got a total of 30 points out of a possible 40. sam has got 20 out of 40 which is the second player so he's literally just a third ahead of them yeah so the closest home player the closest current player that is still in the game right now is jesse to those two jesse is 10 out of 40 and then followed by josh which is i think 9 out of 40.

27:48 With how the points have been distributed so it just gives you a really good indication as to how much myself and jake at this point have believed that mark and sam it's going to be either one of them ultimately that will probably win this season just based on the way things have been going and also the edit plays into that massively obviously definitely and i think those stats really support the way that you can see it panning out in the game according to that like mark is 200 above jesse and that is exactly what it looks like and that's exactly what it should be because he's got 100 more knowledge and so does sam and sam's 100 above jesse and i mean it's a it's dead in the water to me at the moment the gameplay and what they're seeing and you can see it sam's a perfect example going through the game you could just see her sitting back and she knew every situation as it was happening she's been there that many times like i've only been there once and i could see it happening i can only imagine how much you can read the situation when you've been there five times like that's just nuts yeah like when you're like a boston rob or a sandra and you've been there that many

29:09 Times you know sandra was dead woman walking when she came in the season they were never going to be on the game i was surprised she got as far as what she did without people voting around especially with returning players who knew who she was yeah i was watching from the start and i was like she's gotta be first boot like for sure everyone's just gonna turn around and beat her and always i thought she did awesome to get to where she did in the game without being voted out to be able to swing a couple of them votes back around how did you feel about how did you feel like firstly what was your take on nina her daughter this season and how she played and then secondly you know jlp sort of putting her in the cast for the next all-stars too already by saying we'll see you back yeah well that's it nina is really that enigma hey she's not a newbie that hasn't played but she has all the information about her disposal and that is key she sat back and she said sandra sitting there the whole time for all these 20 years pointing out every little tidbit in every episode because sam's already knew and it showed it showed so much she had almost as much situational awareness is what sandra did and what mark and sam does even though she hadn't been there and it really tells and it's the small things hey that

30:29 You pick up on once you've been there and little cues that happened from jlp from other players from all kinds of things that stand out so much once you know what they are now while we're talking about this how much do you think this boys alliance has sandra to credit for galvanizing them because she gave them advice to say you know as soon as the strong don't stick together the weak will always outnumber you and they will vote you out one by one and i think it scared the boys that much out there that they've decided to create this first ever australian you know alpha male alliance that have sort of come together here and they've been sticking strong do you think that you know what sandra said they really took that on board and do you agree with that strategy i mean you've been a bit of a an alpha guy yourself you've been there with people like emmett and simon and all of you guys struggled last season to really get a footing in the game and to make it all the way to the end do you think that you know having sandra out there has helped them and has pushed them in that direction and made them aware that they need to stick together oh 100 and i think the information really resonated with them guys especially with having mark there as well to be able to pick up on those tidbits we're talking about and reinforce it through everyone else in that

31:49 Alliance to be able to push that point home that we need to really stick strong if we stick strong we go on top six nothing anyone can do to stop us and that was the same plan that i was running with myself and cares emmett flick and we were that's that strong alliance we had that power where we were there if george hadn't flipped on us it would have been the same sort of thing it just wasn't six or six guys but that extra information that sandra gave them and everyone knowing sandra's history once it had obviously been to explain to the people that didn't know who she was when they walked on i think everyone was like we probably need to listen here because we're gonna get something out of this it's really gonna help us even though it's not necessarily directed at us if we listen enough we're gonna hear something yeah now one of the interesting things here for me in this week is that obviously mark in this conversation he wins out against sam tries really hard to keep khan in the game she tries to keep her alliance members there and we get her explaining afterwards that she basically has lost all agency in the game now and mark is really the person who's controlling their fate in the game how much does this hurt you know we've

33:09 Spoken a lot about mark i think mark is in the driver's seat i don't think anybody disputes that this is a great direction for him to go and to potentially win this season how much is this now affecting salmon what do you think sam's game plan needs to be moving forward so that she could also gain a little bit of agency and potentially respect if she does sit next to mark in the end yeah look sam is in a really precarious situation here she was in a really strong position moving into merch and mark has played his position really well where he's ended up in that strong majority and they're going to stay together now and he's had to use that majority to leverage himself further in the game whether it was sam's detriment or not which i think at the moment it probably is i think that sam is really going to be in trouble here because as we were just saying i think that six male alliance is really tight and they're gonna find it really hard to bring sam into the fold at the moment as we've seen with ben not talking to sam much throughout their mother votes and josh the same and i think that's going to keep pushing forward hey so for sam

34:29 Right now i think that she's got to really try and play almost the george character and trying to infiltrate that i think is about her only move at the minute if she doesn't i think she's in a lot of trouble at the minute but yeah i was just gonna ask i was yeah i was just gonna ask obviously george didn't have his sister in the game there with him that anything he would have done in the game would have negatively affected her do you think that's gonna keep sam potentially loyal to mark and going down his direction just because she doesn't want to hurt him i mean they do share a bank account at the end of the day yeah look i think that they're going to be trying to work together at some point but i think that anything that she does at this point that isn't in the best interest of that whole male alliance is gonna be to mark's detriment as well as her own which i think leaves her in a really bad position leaves her right on the bottom of that six-man alliance and there's not much of her alliance left either with mel going and khan going i think it's struggle street over there for the poor old sam yeah and it's interesting because sam's closest alliance member is jessie and jesse's brother jordy is so ingrained

35:49 Within that boy's alliance as well that you know she looks at mark for potentially trying to do something different and he doesn't want to do it then she runs off to jesse to say mark's not listening to me but then jesse also calms her down because it's also jesse's interest for her to work with his brother geordi so she really doesn't have almost i feel like any options now unless she completely turns her back on her closest alliance member and also her husband in the game which i wouldn't want to be sam in this game i think the chips have fallen really badly for her but she would probably be very happy if mark i feel like if mark or her wins it's a win for both of them and that's how they came into the season thinking if either one of us wins it's really a win for both and i think that there is a good chance like you said if they stay strong that they can get there the one issue though gerald that i see potentially for mark i've given mark a lot of points i've been very high in his game throughout the whole season but i've been really worried about mark's awareness when it comes to jordy because he trusts geordi a little bit too much in the game jordy has shown that he wants to betray mark he knows about the idol he's told joss about that mark is now not aware that information is leaking you know what yeah i think jordy is the snake in the grass is what i'm trying to get at i feel like he's the true george this season but he's a responsibility well i don't know about it yeah i don't know about a true george he's more of a george minor i think

37:10 But yeah he's definitely playing that same sort of agent that's sort of trying to dribble that information across the lines and see where it ends up see what he can push forward and what other moves he can force out of the other side that are gonna benefit him and it's a really precarious situation to be him for himself as well because like george if you get found out but again if you play it right it can take you far but you've got to make sure that no one knows and that's the that's the biggest part hey yeah the interesting thing for me this week was seeing jordy i guess disclose this information to josh and josh talking to jordan afterwards and saying like listen we need to stay with mark because you know mark is a loyal guy we don't fully trust geordi and if he can do this to mark he can do this to any of us so it does look like josh seems to be a very stand-up and loyal guy someone that wants to work with his alliance what have you thought of josh's gameplay because to me it looks like josh has probably had more agency than what we as viewers have seen i think he's one of those guys that probably after the season will tell us a lot about how you ran the pre-merged section of the game but we never saw it on the camera yeah a

38:30 Hundred percent so josh's game through here he's been a lot more vocal than what we've seen a hundred percent and there was people on our season that were the same and it happens every time in every season that you can see it but we never actually physically see it and i think it's a shame and you know khan would be able to tell us about this i really think that survivor should be more like masterchef like here on survivor we have 24 episodes and we're trying to cram three full days into every single episode and that is just it makes me so sad because when you see it on so much important information and no one even realizes what happened i keep saying i've said it so many times that only i've seen the 30 most enjoyable moments are and most memorable moments that happened out there i actually probably seen two that i would have named out of 30 on our season and it's rough and masterchef though like 18 episodes 82 episodes or something why couldn't we do that why don't we why don't we even make it a 48 episode show where we have every day as an episode all right that'd

39:50 Be a cracker but yeah well i reckon i reckon there's a lot of behind the scenes footage that they leave on the cutting floor that you know they could put on tin play you know on team play go see the extras there's a lot of in the us they put even that won't do it just this but i know that in the us they do put hidden scenes up for people to go watch so you see more things that happen on the island but i think that there's definitely a market there like the big fans of the show have been asking for it for a very long time i think where they probably will find it hard is that at the each at the end of each episode we expect a result we want to see a vote out you know and i think that's what makes it hard because i don't know how many people will want to see a whole episode just lead up to the reward challenge or a whole episode leading up from a reward challenge to an immunity challenge i think therein lies the issue that the producers have got on the show yeah exactly and you know it'd be great to have like unlike the lord of the rings trilogy one of them extended top movies where it's like double the length all the cut scenes that actually make a lot of sense in the whole storyline but you had no idea when they were cutting out you were like oh well let's see that's that episode went well that movie was great and then you see the whole lot i didn't even know that was missing but oh my god it makes everything make someone sense a light it's unreal but

41:10 You've also got to wonder gerald like how much does the edit need to show the winner in a positive light and does it take away from the winner and them deserving to win in the fans eyes by showing for instance in this season you know if josh was seen to be the true person pulling i'm not saying that he was like i think mark has done a lot as well and we spoke about that in the recaps everything that mark is doing well they're showing but you know josh probably is going to be one of those great players that's going to go away from here and people won't fully appreciate how much he did before the merge and how he galvanized the alliance as well how he you know when we saw nina talk about who's truly running that alliance she said josh is the person running it i want to be close to josh those are little snippets that we saw before the merge and we've got chris dixon here in the chat saying that josh reminds him of you the most this season which is to be a player that's got that doesn't have the full edit but is in the middle of the majority alliance so do you see that similarities when you look at joshua or who do you think playing the closest game on the edit that because obviously the edit and the way that the person plays two different things i guess yeah 100 and you know it's funny right before chris said that in the chat i was literally thinking about myself i'm like you know we're talking about this and this reminds me of a lot of myself but i hate to tip my

42:30 Own trumpet but i think it was a lot like that i believe personally and again this is very speculation because it didn't happen on tv but i believe i had a lot more say a lot more of what went on then what got shown and i think a lot of the other players also say i don't know how they found so much footage of gerald saying nothing because all he does is talk i think there are a lot of similarities between myself and josh and it's going to be really interesting to hear his take on it afterwards and i really look forward to being able to have some chats with him about what went on behind the scenes and what the real moves were in some of those days that we've seen because it's so interesting look even looking back at our season some of those votes in days and chats after challenges before immunity and all those discussions that were had i believe were the smallest little tidbits of the discussions that were had out of the whole hours of talking there might have only been five or ten minutes and chat about what got shown compared to three hours of chat about everything else that was happening in alliances and whatnot that we didn't see to make the whole story make so much more sense and what's

43:50 Happening behind the scenes makes so much more sense as to where people are sitting in those alliances where people are making moves where people are trying hard in challenges that if you knew those small little bits here and there it makes so much more sense in the big scheme of things rather than just having no idea and then all of a sudden someone's either gone or they're making a massive move on top of the whole alliance and tribe it makes so much more sense in the long run knowing those little bits and pieces that only you only know if you believe yeah no i agree with you and i think at the end of the day it's interesting because you get a lot of fans that get very vocal about these things online and will go off at people for making certain decisions without fully understanding the context you know obviously yeah i kind of alluded to it earlier you know sam and mark got a little bit of a mark probably more so got a little bit of flack this week for the fact that he did what was best for him in his game you know and made the moves that he needed to make to get which in my mind is going to take him to the end you know he made those moves there's other players obviously that sometimes get a little bit of heat as well as someone that has gone through a season you know having to deal with the fans you know they're very passionate they're either very much with you or again but you seem to be someone that takes

45:10 Everything in its stride and fans have really turned around on you because you can make light of any situation and you get involved i mean you even gave me a little bit of stick the other week from not including you in a fan casting which i love the back and forth there but how do you deal with fans or what's your advice to these players that are playing this season that might be feeling like they're not getting the love yeah look going into our season we were born by producers that survivor fans are full-on and as i said as a fan of the game i've watched a fair bit of australian survivor all of it leading up to our season and in the past when it was on and i've never really been into the social media fan side of survivor until about well when i was starting to get past 12 months before our season and they are full on and you really have to be able to exactly what you said make a lot of it have fun i love pouring your fans and just making light of it then someone will say something that's completely ridiculous and just a completely ungrounded accusation about what's going on out there i'm here to look at some of them like i'm not even sure how you got that

46:32 You know you're filling in those bits that we've never seen i'm not sure where you found that information what little piece of your mind had come out of but so you've got to just have fun with it have fun with the fans because at the end of like they're only sitting back and watching what gets shown to them and you've got to understand that and be able to have fun with it and know that if you give with most people if you give them a little snippet inside small little bites of what actually happened they can put two and two together and make five without actually saying anything so i think that's the best way i've found around everything that i just allude to things in a very roundabout together without me actually saying it which i think is the best bit rather than telling someone straight up because people hate being told like that they hate being told what they've seen or what they know or what they don't know so it's a lot more fun for both people i think to be able to put those pieces together yourself and build that mystery and the same thing happened there was a whole i don't know if you wish there was this whole fan

47:52 It was almost like a series that happened about where the jury villa was on one of my properties it was just the funniest thing and i just kept teasing it like i'd give a little bit of information i didn't say anything and i still haven't said yes or no but it was yeah just gold i love just watching people put pieces together and make a story out of it's an absolute cracker that's crazy that's great i didn't know that at all but it's on my instagram you'll have to watch it i'll have to go i'll have to go back and watch it is funny to hear that you know i think the big thing for me now obviously you know like i kind of doing the podcasting you kind of put yourself out there a little bit as well where some people will agree with your opinion some people will say you're completely off how can you shout for this person or you know i had a lot of people commenting in the beginning when i said mark's playing a good game now why do you say that you know like mark's not playing a good game where i was like i don't know if we're watching the same show here but you know you're entitled to your opinion at the end of the day and everyone sees different things especially if you haven't been on the show and you're looking for different cues as to myself or anyone else that's been on there talked to i have a lot of chats with some of the other guys that have been on there in my season and in past seasons and we all tend to see the same things that are going on because we've been there

49:12 And we know what we're looking at we know what's going to be shown to us i can really recite the episode once i've seen the first 10 minutes of it i can really tell you what's going to happen at the end of it yeah because i know what i'm looking for yeah exactly every time and people who haven't been there they don't know that formula so they're making their own assessments and they end up a completely different conclusion to what we do not saying whether i'm right or they're wrong or they're wrong and i'm right but it's just everyone comes to different conclusion and everyone's entitled to their opinion whether it's right wrong funny or nasty sometimes you're entitled to your opinion and power to you hey as long as you're having fun with it we all love this show we love the franchise and that's why we're here it's put us all together now while i've got you oh no i know we're going a little bit off topic and i'm gonna i'm gonna bring it back to the actual season as well but you know obviously i made that little video of international survivors team australia you know i'm putting a little bit of hype out there and trying to make this international crossover happen because it's something i really want to see you know i'm assuming you know you giving me stickers means that you're very interested and representing australia if a season like that ever did make its you know appearance

50:32 Yeah you know it was funny you put that out and it was actually two days before that i had an outlet there was such a laugh over it i'd love democracy that would be awesome to get to meet some of those other guys from different franchises and to know how much different they are and whether those formulas are the same i think that's one of the biggest things and then sandra along with a certain other unmentionable american that we don't talk about two of the only people that will be able to tell us how much different american survivors to we've got very opposing opinions about it like the american you haven't mentioned i think everybody knows who they are that person didn't have a very good view of australian has said a lot of bad things about the franchise but then sandra coming on having outlasted that person again in another season you know i think it's even more bragging right she's really been fighting for australian survivor and putting it in a good life because to be honest like listen i am like i don't know it's how can you say it like i actually do like that person

51:53 As a as a character on survivor i think they bring us like you need the villains you need the good guys you need and you know that type of yin and yang balance otherwise the season is just boring you know so yeah i wouldn't even be opposed to that person coming out and proving why they can do better than australia but i've got a feeling they would struggle because the australians again yeah why this is the one thing about australian survivor listen i'm south african born i've lived in new zealand for a long time now but i'm not biased when it like i love the franchise of african franchise but the challenges don't go it does not stack up to australian survivors challenges and it's not even close chappies would do well you know obviously he was one of my favorites last season i've spoken to him a few times as well he would do well in the australian environment because he's just an athlete but still you know i think there's a lot of u.s survivors legends that would have come over and do a season like australian survivor and would find it really difficult to struggle 100 i think a lot of them would struggle it's a completely different ballgame watching american survivor compared to ours the scale is just completely different it's a whole nother level and i think sandra will be able to attest to that as to how much bigger it is and again i haven't been to see the american side of it but from what you see on the edit map our scale is just phenomenal i remember walking

53:13 In to some of those challenges that i did especially some of the earlier ones when you first seen it and you just walk in and you look up at the top of some of those challenges and you're like this is nuts the scale of this is just phenomenal yeah like they're three and four story high structures that they've built in days or whatever and we're expected to just tackle it side unseen is just mental and that's why i love it yeah it's crazy that's why i love it you know like i look at that and i'm like man i want to have a go at some of those obstacle courses because you know i do spot an obstacle course races normally when we can move around freely and i love doing that type of stuff so i mean this is kind of right up my alley but the problem is you know similar to someone like a jesse who wins the immunity the first immunity here his brother jordi they've been very dominant and doing well in the challenges i think that does create a big target when it comes to the individual portion of the game and we find out that their strategy is to use the boys alliance only as a meat shield but then they want to cut them and move away from them i'm a little bit worried for jordy and jesse and i know we've touched on it because i don't know where they're moving to i don't see any other options for them and who they could work with outside of that boys alliance a hundred percent with those guys hearing that i just i don't know whether they were just saying it to say it or whether they're actually playing

54:33 To because i think that they're doing that and moving away from that alliance at this point is suicide it's just absolute suicide like you're nuts and i had this conversation multiple times in our season once when haley came to me and flick and had this conversation with us about coming over to their alliance and i sat there with flick and we still had a majority at that point that was before chelsea went home which medically evacuated and i sat down with flick for an er and i'm like i just said to him look there's no way we can't as much as i would like to we're dead if we go over there and move away from our alliance we're two people sitting there as cannon fodder we're not in anywhere we're at the bottom of theirs we're gone from our alliance where do you go yeah and i was going to add i don't think there is anywhere for them to go outside of that alliance because sam tried to you know get a resistance and she or not sam also mel actually tried to get a few of these which we would call quote-unquote floaters sometimes in the game because they don't have like a solid alliance that is opposing the boys alliance she was trying to get a bunch of these girls together to vote against josh here because joss told mel that it's going to be one of them which again rookie mistake obviously to tell someone to their face i'm going to vote you out because what if they've got an idol

55:53 You know it's not that it basically shows he doesn't care and he's that he feels that comfortable in this position yeah but i think it's a crazy move and then she try to get a bunch of people together here which is the girls you know get shay and sam and kj and all of those girls to work together but clearly there's a bunch of them that don't trust each other don't that don't want to work together so there isn't really the table i feel like for this merge and if some of the fans are not going to enjoy this i feel like it's pretty much been set like i don't know how many how much movement there is outside of the geyser lines who only seem to be the real solid one that will stand together and try and keep together for the for the rest of the merge yeah 100 with those guys having such a strong alliance right now it doesn't leave much room for anyone to move and with the removal of khan and now mel it's made the numbers on that side small enough that they i don't think they can have a resurgence i think that everyone on that side of the alliance is all about cooked well i think that their goose is cooked and they're in trouble and you've got to be so careful when people know that they can get voted out that is when yeah and we almost come unstuck multiple times on brains 2.0

57:14 When we had rachel and georgia and laura in that minority and we were such a strong majority with myself and emmett cares big d was there at the start cara and george cara especially being part of our alliance then before they were really giving information over that we almost got blase about how we were doing it could have turned bad so easily we threw them challenges because we're trying to look after flick on the other side and make sure that she didn't get voted out because we knew that we had the numbers to just keep rolling through ours that we just had the cannon fodder there to go but oh it could have turned so bad so easily if there was actually an idol that got banned when we got down to smaller numbers i could have been gone a lot sooner and i was gonna i was gonna ask i know it's we've kind of moved on from this a little bit you know but obviously geordi he gives a little bit of information away about the idol and that mark's got an idol but i did praise him for holding on to the information as long as he did now you're someone that yeah also we're in a position where you found out that someone got an idol aka simon in your season and how difficult is it when you get this kind of information and you see someone getting an idol to keep it to yourself and

58:34 Sort of think of the best strategy or the move going forward like is the because out there i'm assuming you don't have much else to do but strategize and you know play the game is it a difficult thing because i thought jordi did really well obviously it's all coming you know loose at the seam now with him telling josh and it's not going his way but i thought he did well to hold on to that information until a point that he thought it could it could have gone either way it could have worked in his favor yeah definitely i think he had the option of trying to keep it to himself the whole time and possibly getting mark to play it to help him or doing what i did where i was in a really strong alliance at that point in the game when simon found that idle already with myself kez flick shannon benny was still there at that point and as well danny was even still in their alliance at that point even though he was flipping and flopping but i seen it and it was almost immediate i literally went and told flick cares shannon straight away i'm like simon's found an idol rap creek i said this was going to happen yesterday and it's happened and i made it my whole life's goal to tell everyone absolutely every person on that season knew that simon had idols except for simon didn't realize that everyone knew the diodus

59:56 Which i thought was played well but it's that option you can play it either way you can either try and use it to your advantage telling everyone or try and use to your advantage by not telling anyone it's one of those situational decisions that you have to make when you're there as to what you want to do with that idol do you want to flush it and get it out of the game or do you want to try and use it for yourself yeah and i think that's again it's a situational thing it depends where you're sitting in those alliances as well and i think that geordi obviously feel jessie and joey obviously feel like where they are in the game that they're not quite as safe sitting there with mark with the idol especially now with sam back as well yeah that they can keep that and use that towards them i think that they know that mark isn't going to use it for the mayor that they've merged and sam's there and they're like how can we try and swing this around and leverage on this a bit now that we know that he won't play it for me yeah it's interesting you mentioned that because you know i was wondering for the longest period of time jordy and jesse are both massive fans of the show i think they're the level of fan that i am and have watched all the us shows and all the australian survivor shows and sometimes when fans get out there and they play the game they just want to be remembered as big game players big movers and shakers i feel

1:01:16 Like they probably aren't a reasonably comfortable spot where they're at in the game currently but and again this is just how i'm seeing it via the edit it looks like they want to make the moves for the sake of making it and i think that it's really dangerous when you go into a season with a preempted plan i am going to be this type of player because you don't know how things are going to play out when you're there you don't know the personalities you're going to have to deal with you know when you go out on the season and i'm wondering if this is a case of both of them you know having that white on them as fans to make it an exciting season more so than playing the hand that they've been dealt definitely and that is exactly what happened to hayley pre-merge on our season same thing haley massive fan of the game massive fan like myself or george and she knew what she wanted to do when she went out there she knew she wanted to walk out there and make those big moves but she went at it too early and that's why she ended it up at redemption and it was cutting that line so close if it had been one vote before or one vote later she would have been gone home but she played it so well when she came back and was able to wiggle her way in there to be able to do it and the same with george really early on went in there when he found that first advantage

1:02:37 George was a massive fan of the game he knew there was going to be an advantage there same as what simon did on our tribe and they weren't looking for it to be able to play it and make a big move straight up first and i didn't want to do that compared to them i wanted to just to sit back and play that number three not one or two you want to be the next one down you want at least two shields in front of you at any time yes compared to stepping out trying to make them big moves straight up you want to be able to try and make big moves without anyone knowing that it was you not putting yourself out there and if you're going out there for the sake of making big moves to make big moves it's a recipe for going home as far as i'm concerned i agree and i think that they're sort of finding themselves in a position where they potentially are doing that mark has just brought out and i think you've just mentioned that and i wasn't aware of this he said wasn't simon also on the outs on day one due to the fact that he found the same advantage george found and that he wanted to use that at the first trouble to take six people out i think he just alluded to that is and we knew it and that was basically what galvanized my alliance right from the start but we found out we knew that simon had found that advantage and that was what we

1:03:57 Used to galvanize that he knows the game he found the advantage he's keeping it secret we're taking him out and we galvanize the whole alliance around that point and move forward from there through the whole game on that one single moment right at the start of the game wow that's why you've got to be so careful yeah that shows you how quickly alliance can be formed just against someone to galvanize like you said and i wanted to bring this up here jimmy is asking gerald you'll have to attend the hearts of reality in orlando one day contestants from survivor the amazing race big brother wwe wrestlers attend the three-day charity event it is a lot of fun now obviously there's a lot of u.s people that have started watching survivor australia australian survivor i should say on paramount plus firstly would you ever want to go to hearts of reality are you aware of it and then absolutely i would i would jump at a chance to go to somewhere like that i think it was very disappointing not only for myself but for the fans as well the fact that there was all the covered lockdowns when our season came out during our season and then from then on that we missed all of that fanfare and being able to connect with fans and whatnot because i as a wood chopper being able to go around to every single capital city

1:05:17 Especially while our season was going on august september october is brisbane royal adelaide melbourne perth all of them are august september october which was right as their season was finishing it would have been awesome to be able to get out and connect with so many fans and all of it was just can so an opportunity like that to be able to attend somewhere like that and be able to connect with the fans that i didn't get to back then would be an absolute awesome experience chris dixon says instead of you being able to go to these live events you only had him in your dms talking to you the whole time yeah everyone else who was slipping into my dms if anyone thought about who slipped into my dms it was not this chris dixon just see you guys no i think i reached out i reached out to you in the beginning just to say good luck and then you know the way i like to do this i don't want to know too much or be a nuisance while the season's going on but then rather reach out when the season's finished but you know i know chris is a very big fan and he does talk to a lot of survivors so i'm not surprised by that he's probably going to try and get you to go to one of the perth events for survivor fans when he's got that back up and running so chris dixon does big live events in perth every time there's a season opener and also when it's the last one and i think they've had quite a few like david ganat and

1:06:37 Luke toki has been on some of those events as well so obviously there's a lot of players probably that you haven't even been able to meet in the bigger australian survivor family because of the fact that traveling's been hard especially getting into wa yeah you know it's funny since yeah because exactly that travelling has been so hard up until now i actually haven't got to see hardly anyone i got to see simon me and him went to lunch one day as well i think it's a long hard road back for someone to forgive me for all the grit that i threw at him throughout the season but yeah and i managed to see janelle and maddie dyson of the older season in australia absolute legend for matt it's but other than that if anyone's around on sunday we're actually having a watch party at the green hotel in esk with about half a dozen of this season survivors plus myself and hopefully andrew huckles that dave and brianna as well as ben and shay i think michelle's coming as well it's gonna be a cracker yeah you can plug it anytime on here please go and check that out you can plug the podcast with the current survivors if you don't mind at the same

1:07:57 Time and say that chris guy is not too bad to go on and have a chat if he ever reaches out to you guys you know like i do normally slip into the dms to try and see if i can get people to come in australian survivors i find it's harder not to crack and really get people to want to do these kind of things because again like you said it is a crazy fandom out there and they don't know how people are going to be or how they are going to be received if they do talk to fans out there but i've obviously been fortunate enough to have a few australian survivors come on now so i think slowly but surely they'll start trusting the podcast a little bit more as well as we've had people like dirty harry you know baiden gilbert pierre miranda quite a few people pia was one of my favorite interviews believe it or not because her edit again there was so many things that was just hidden and that yeah it was all left out yeah 100 and she's a excellent winner excellent person to talk to such a nice lady yeah and a lot of those guys that i've had conversations with are awesome people i haven't met a single bad person there's a reason that everyone was cast on survivor yeah and even just being out there it is such an awesome environment to be with that it's somewhere that you can go when you get on survivor you end up out there with 24 other people that are amazing people you can go your whole life with not meeting as many amazing people as what get cast there because

1:09:17 Everyone excels in their field at something that's why they're there and that's interesting yeah there's nowhere else you can go to for that to happen and you get put in that environment with nothing to talk about but yourself and them and to get to know them on a personal level and it's an absolutely awesome space to be in yeah kind of alluded to it you know like khan spoke about that i think a couple of episodes ago we got quite emotional and he said like in his everyday life he can't find people that he's grown as close to as he did out on survivor and i think ultimately it costed him his game because he trusted like obviously you it's probably so hard to differentiate between like listen mate this is a game afterwards we're going to be able to go sit down and have some drinks and talk about it but in the game i need to have my game face on and i think that people get the lines blurred because like you said everybody's charismatic everybody is successful in life and they people that you want to be associated with so and you're struggling with these people you're lying out there in the dirt and the cold keeping each other warm it's like a boot camp army type of experience you grow close very quickly out there a hundred percent and even with the people who aren't on your alliance like i got really emotional when i went to jury villa the next day and a few days afterwards it was really tough hey being away from those people i think i made closer connections with

1:10:38 The people on their season than what i've made with people i've been friends with for 10 years you go out there and there's no phones there's no distractions there's no going home at the end of the night there's nothing you're just there with you and them the game and nothing else and it's just living and getting to know each other and there's nowhere to run there's nowhere to hide the emotions and feelings of raw and everyone has struggles and you get to know that and everyone helps everyone through everything there was so many people and every on our season that at different points in the game their struggles would come to the forefront and you'd get to know why someone was there why they were fighting to keep going why they were struggling to keep going and it really moved you and it's just real pressure cooker of an environment that there was a lot of flack on our season when they bought out the family photos on day six you know when we had when we won that reward challenge at brawn and it heads up yeah even i just want to say hands up even me i was like wow day six this is so early why they're doing it already like me as a fan because obviously i don't get it i'm not actually struggling like you did yeah and you know i'm

1:11:58 Not a really emotional person normally i usually keep everything in check and i'm very cool-headed and straight down the line and we all just broke down every single one of us were crying i guess like kids or like adults i guess that you don't normally see that in real life anymore because those connections and that pressure cooker isn't there and i guess you kind of understand what it was like back 20 30 40 years ago or more going away from your family and going away to wherever it was whether it was moving to a foreign country to start a new life whether it was going to war whatever it was being away from those people that you love and not even being able to contact them if you want to that is the hardest part and they rolled out those photos and we're there with the people that are now our support group that we've only known for six days and it felt like we'd known each other for 20 years we were just one big family and everyone was supporting everyone and it is a really sobering moment to know that people can have connections like that in that sort of amount of time under the right circumstances and you know this is i know it's survivor related it's not necessarily this week's recap but it's such a valuable conversation

1:13:18 Because i think this is the side of it that fans don't always appreciate you know when it comes to you know people saying and myself included like why did george only get two votes why didn't he get a few more well you know betrayal out there is kind of gonna cut a lot deeper than what it's going to cut in real life you know i don't know if you watched all-stars of the original survivor when lex and boston rob and lex ended up going very hard on boston rob for betraying him and you know they had a real life friendship out of the game going in and then they played the game on all-stars and he betrayed him i think that betrayal in a game of such a survivor it's like yes we might think that certain people are overreacting watching the show but we're not there for the amount of time that you're sleeping next to this person or struggling with them out there so i think it does cut differently for someone that's out there and it's harder to appreciate you don't know what's happened on the edit and that certain people had a plan with what they did and in their mind that might be their best move it is really just the little environment or the ecosystem that you've created for yourself there that matters when you're in the game and that's really what ultimately that's why every jury's vote at the end should be respected because it is a microcosm of what happened in that season absolutely and it's really interesting being a watch being able to sit back and watch the fan breakdown on exactly on them jury votes

1:14:38 And on how they think the people are looking at a situation because as far as i know 99.9 of the time it is not what it looks like on the surface when you're out there especially as being on the jury and injury villa on my season as a fan and as someone who'd watched the game and i tried to analyze everything i also i had those feelings the whole time you get those personal relationships broken and stuff as well and they hurt but i tried to put that aside as much as possible and use a valid system of picking a winner or someone that i thought was moving ahead and playing the game better but every single person that was on the jury had their own reason for voting the way they did and they saw different things to have different weight than what everyone else did and it's really interesting that what has the most weight isn't necessarily the big moves we see on tv people think that voting you out is like you hear that all the time but if someone voted you out so you're sierra on them but i can tell you from

1:15:58 All the other people that are in jury and listening to what they said on my season being voted out was not a reason at all that someone dislikes someone else or anything because everyone knows and respects the game of the game and for what it is it was the more personal stuff that they sort of looked at in that way when it wasn't challenges or the big moves the personal stuff had a lot of weight and that was what we classified as gameplay and the social game was the smaller lies that people would tell that didn't actually have much meaning or weight that you would find out later stuff that was completely arbitrary in the in the grand scheme of things but they mean a lot to people and i think it really speaks to real life and it's as we said amplified out there that those small things those little whether it's white lies or whatever when you find them out they can be more damaging than a massive one because they're the stuff that doesn't matter that why did you need to lie about that because it didn't matter yeah that makes it feel like a question everything yeah exactly it's interesting

1:17:19 You mentioned it because i think that also season from season like what mattered in your season at the final jury might not matter this season or the season after that because the people change right so that's why different game styles and different people playing differently you know when the seasons that they play in because again you've got to adapt and part of being a great player is adapting to the people around you and being able to read what they value as you get to the end and i think in my mind that is why you know i've said it a few times quite boldly i know absolutely nothing off this season i don't like to be spoiled i was very wrong last season reading the edit because i thought like for the longest period of time i thought george is not going to get to the merge all right and then he got to the merger and i was like holy crap is he going to win this and then i started thinking he was going to win it because he just kept going but then also i saw haley as a threat you know and i saw her as a threat from the beginning but you don't always get these things right but this season i do feel like mark has got that respect from his tribe mates these little things that's being hinted where you know when alex i think it was alex wanted to go home and everybody's looking at mark for approval do we send them home and mark is like seen as this leader figure that's like silent but not imposing his wall on people and i think josh is more of the forefront leader in strategy and pushing but that is a great strategy for mark because he's got a shield in front of him that will be taken out before he is taken out and then when he gets to the end he potentially

1:18:39 Will have all the respect you know and that's why i know some people think sam's going to win sam will have to change some things up for me to be able to be in that position and then there's a whole bunch of other players we haven't even spoken about tonight gerald like i do want you as just before we sort of close off here i don't want to take too much of your time i want you to touch base on some of the place we haven't spoken about who else has impressed you between the likes of shay kj chrissy any of those players that we haven't spoken about tonight yeah look shay as an absolute physical beast is killing it she is out there playing her absolute heart out in this game and phenomenal job i think she's ended up on the wrong side of the cards though which is unfortunate and her being such a physical beast like hayley she's very similar in her stature and the way she plays to what hayley was but i don't think she has quite the game know-how that the haley did being a massive fan who knew the game inside out and i think that really helped her but chris is funny she's come into this game as someone that didn't know anything about the game supposedly having not watched

1:19:59 The season and she's ended up in a position where she's had to take that step back once croc left and she didn't know that she had that back up and had that other person there that could push a point or that could help her fight the battle she's had to sit back and try and play more of a middle of the pack approach and realize that she couldn't be quite as vocal because she might be in a lot of strife if she does but so i think she's really adapted to her position and the game really well for not knowing anything about it going in also i think michelle and mel were people that have been sitting there they weren't really on the iata quite as much as what people sort of think they were and i don't think they were quite as much at the bottom as what people think they were a lot of the time i think they sort of sat back and assessed what was happening around them and tried to fit in somewhere in the middle of the pack on most of them votes and yeah i think they played a really good position so far through the game it's just a shame that the numbers again in sam's alliance after calm

1:21:19 Went home didn't end up on their side which has sent mel home and i think it'll in the end i think it'll have the same outcome from michelle sadly yeah it's interesting you mentioned that i'm wondering if michelle is kind of helped by the fact that mel has voted out in this first spot here because michelle does have a bit of a relationship with sam it might be someone where sam will say listen she's not if she's not a physical threat she's not gonna win any immunities in the near term let's target some other people outside of this i think sam's got a little bit of an eye on kj and kj is guilty by a association because she's sophie's sister sam seems to still think that kj will want to turn against her at some point so it'll be interesting to see how some of these outer players but i'm finding it very hard to read what they're doing out there what i feel like the edit has been a little bit lopsided in regards to some of these minor players where we just don't get enough to have a full understanding of what their gameplay has been a hundred percent it's really hard being able to even pinpoint where they're sitting in their alliances or in the tribe at some points and you don't even know if they've been having conversations with the other alliance because we just don't see enough you see one confessional every two or three episodes and you see some background footage of them behind someone else that's talking or during a challenge which is really tough to be able to read and make an assessment

1:22:39 And that's what i said after our season when i was trying to assess our season and everyone asked me about pre seasons pre-air season and it was really hard because i had a biased opinion of them from watching them in the past and then i was trying to make an assessment on them after knowing what i knew and i didn't want to talk about them because i realized how much we didn't see and it's the same on this season but i guess i'm sort of a little bit more happy to talk about this season because i didn't have a preconceived notion i went in knowing what i know about being there and being able to fill in those gaps myself yeah no i think it's i think there's a few interesting things that can happen moving forward here i'm still very invested especially in the next on survivor they kind of hinted at a potentially geordie jessie blind side that could happen and i know that australian survivor that they sometimes a little bit guilty giving fans too much information especially the super fans out there can put two and two together but they said they said that it's going to be a very big move one of the biggest moves that's going to happen this weekend you know so i'm sort of wondering if it's a josh or a geordie or jesse those are the three that i feel like if they were going to make a strike but i but then again that's against

1:24:00 That's against anything that mark should be pushing for at this stage that's exactly right i don't know whether it's going to be them or the other one that i've been thinking about over the last day or two is whether it could even be mark going to make a move against sam because she's still sitting on that other alliance as well and she's got those names there and those other guys are going to be looking at mark and being like why are you colluding with the other side all the time when she's still hanging around she was hanging around the car she's hanging around with mel she's hanging around with michelle she's still talking to kj yeah why are you there you're going to be the weakest link mark show us why you should be still on our alliance and but we'll see it's all speculation mark thinks if mark thinks he was hated this week on twitter watch him vote as well and the amount of was the fact that there was only two episodes that was a kick in the teeth yeah it was a blind side i didn't realize that i didn't i didn't realize until i got to eight o'clock and the episode hadn't started i'm sitting there watching

1:25:22 Whatever the god knows that was the survivor producers strike again girl they're giving you money it was like it was like our season finale what a blind side we'd all booked accommodation to have a finale party and then they announced that it wasn't going to be till the next week everyone suck what the hell yeah it's hilarious i guess it's not hilarious we're only seeing two episodes so it's gonna drag on for a little bit longer now as well i was hoping to get through this but we will have an overlap for quite a bit between survivor 42 and then obviously australian survivor survived footage as well absolutely that's something we haven't talked about is survivor 42 that's going to be interesting and the fact that they haven't got a ponderosa what the hell yeah it's gonna be interesting i don't know how they how they're doing that like i've been read about the ponderosa so they're saying after so there's no jury villa ponderosa at all no none apparently allegedly the talk around it is that there was a lot of trouble with trouble quote-unquote with filming in ponderosa in general so they've just annexed it all together yeah so chris dixon saying oh bleep i hadn't heard about that but yet so it seems like that's a little bit of information look it up give it up watch yes i'm sure it's out little it's out there

1:26:42 Let's go check it out yeah i'm sure on inside survivor that's where they'll be spilling the beans they've just spilled the beans on the potential cast for survivor second chance season as well and who potentially is going to be in that season that should be exciting as well i don't know if you noticed that at all yeah the yeah the south african one i was looking at today you know for someone that apparently doesn't watch the game and didn't know anything going into our season according to the fans i must look at a bit more hey [Laughter] yeah no definitely i think you know at the end of the day it's interesting following all of these different shows but you know i've had a lot of fun here talking to you about this season and i'd be more than interested to have you back at some point you know any fan casting in the future your name will be up there now is one of the first i want to get in trouble i don't want to get in trouble from the wood chopper especially a man who knows how to swing an axe speaking of accident we had to sit back and watch croco and mark try and tackle that wood chopping challenge did you see i saw that yeah i had some good yeah so i offered them some free lessons so we might even see that a wood chopping second chance episode maybe yeah it was a shout out to you know what that challenge

1:28:02 Where they did the wood chopping in your season was one of the best challenges i've seen in survivor even up to date because i like the fact that it had you have to choose either doing the we're chopping or doing the puzzle and like i want to see more of that creativity in future survivor seasons where you get two options because one of the things i slammed your season about it was brains versus brawn but it was really broad challenges for like 90 of the season well that's right that's what everyone said but you know i went through and i was counting them up because i was watching of course the fan interaction the whole way through our season and everyone's like oh it's another broad challenge and the same with the first one oh i was completely brawn based on what there was a puzzle there and no one did it well they did it and failed so they tried the woodshop and it didn't really go well but it was there and they didn't do it so that's not braun based and you know there was a lot of that mixing and matching of puzzles and like physical challenges together and i like that there was a lot of them and as we've seen the once they had the puzzles at the start if someone didn't quite get that puzzle right it was just a one-sided race hey like it was yeah there was no competition yeah very so i mean listen we're critical about the small stuff the one thing i guess i didn't bring up yet which would be interesting

1:29:22 To get your feedback on before we close off here is you know i feel like there's been less twists this season so far compared to your season your season had a couple of very crazy twists that i wasn't a fan of necessarily i sometimes feel like you bring too much of a luck element and take the skill out of the game for some of these twists you know obviously i don't want to talk too soon there's still quite a bit of this post-merge section available but we haven't seen three players win an immunity and solely decide who goes home yet which was one of the ones i think that might have been the twist i hated the most last season that three players had all the power to vote in a certain direction because if you're just the wrong person and you fall outside of those numbers you're gone and it wouldn't have been your fault your skill you might have been the top player in your alliance but your alliance just didn't have two out of three people there that could vote and people would take you out what is your view on the way that they've balanced this season out when it comes to twists and idols and things like i felt like it's been a little bit sort of time down a little bit it's not as much yeah so i think a lot of the so this might be delving into production side more than what most people would know but a lot of our seasons twist i believe revolved around people's injuries the first big twist where we ended up having

1:30:42 To vote between shannon or laura and it was could have gone to a fire challenge was right around georgia having her injury and her having 24 hours out of the game then the next big twist after that was right around chelsea going home and the same the twist where someone had to stay with the urns again right around chelsea going home we had to try and make up time to stretch out the days to make it 48 days they had to save someone somewhere and i think a lot of those probably wouldn't have been planned in the season if the injuries didn't happen the way they did and at the time that they did like chelsea going home when she did as we now know was right at redemption time and that's why redemption was why it was and when it was i believe because we had to take that period of time for backup if chelsea did go home they needed to be able to bring someone back into the game to make up for chelsea going yeah and when we were out there we could read that like i preempted

1:32:02 The redemption twist because i said to me and george and flick had this conversation multiple times that if chelsea goes home there's not enough people left for jury someone has to come home so if they're gonna come back because that was after we'd already voted at baden if they're gonna come back it's gotta be redemption or some other twist like that and i think that's why a lot of those twists did happen i think it gave a skewed view on what the producers were trying to do i think they were trying to keep the game as normal as they could under the circumstances that were outside their control it's interesting you mentioned that because you know markers that say here you know still a lot of idols but less stupid twists so i think a lot of fans don't like some of the twists that were brought in i kind of you know would have thought that it's the idols are funny because i also seen this on our season yeah everyone's saying that there's too many idols i believe that there's only ever about three idols at once in play ever right yeah and most of the time there's only two usually one aside and then we had an extra one that was the one that was at the challenge which hayley got and

1:33:22 There was three because simon had two at that point and you know i spent a week or so looking for an idol back at brains 2.0 and couldn't find one and i certainly i literally me and emmett and cares searched the whole of brains trying to find one and we couldn't find one and everyone is saying that took us a week and everyone's saying oh there's too many they're everywhere but they're not they're only there when they get played and then they're put back into the game and if someone's looking someone's going to find it but if they're not there to find because someone's already got it's not there and we only see what we see on the edit we don't see everything else that's happening they look like they're falling out of the sky but it's only because we're watching a one er episode on tv i agree i agree and it's funny because you always get the fans asking why is that only why only certain players finding the idols why they're only showing some players looking for wise other people not looking for it but obviously everybody's looking for it at all times i love i love the comments from the fans that are always like oh they're planting them for certain people to find they're telling them where they are you know it seems like that but it's it looks kind of funny on the edit because you can go and search for an idol right but the rules around survivor again this production tool if it didn't happen on camera it never happened so if you go searching by yourself

1:34:43 Which you can do you're not allowed to go away with more than well you're not allowed to go away with more than just yourself without a camera crew but if you go away by yourself and you find an idol without a camera crew you have to come back and get a camera crew to follow you give them a bit of a wink and they'll follow you out to find the idol so you already know where it is and that's why it looks like a stitch up on tv sometimes because you're going out you're walking around the bush like oh fancy that there's an idol but you'd already found it 20 minutes before you had to go get a camera crew because if you don't find my camera it never happened yeah i've heard from some survivors of africa players who have found idols that's happened with them in their season where they found the idol where they had to go get a camera crew afterwards because obviously unlike the us there's less camera crew compared to probably how many they've got per person that can follow people around because there's different budgets being used as well so well especially at the start of the season where you've got two complete tribes like inaudible two complete charges and 12 people that are completely separated so you've got just a ridiculous amount of crew that are floating around everywhere there might be six camera crews per try but if there's like four groups of people talking with one or two in each and then one group of three or four

1:36:03 That's got two camera crews on it well that doesn't leave many for you to go and look for an idol even though there's a massive amount of people there which you've got a camera guy a sandy a producer for every one of those cameras there's a massive amount of people there trying to film that but you can only have so many people there on a certain amount of area before it's just ridiculous and every shot ends up with camera crews in it you know but when you get later into the game and emerge when all those resources is consolidating that's when it sort of changes a bit and it doesn't look quite as funny you don't get those anywhere near as many of them frank and bites put together confessionals or chats between players and alliances and stuff because they can get that information a lot better and capture it in a lot better ways because it's consolidated they've got the resources to be able to do it now one of the questions here for you know you mentioned that they brought some of these twists in potentially because some players got a medevac and they needed a certain amount of people at the end to vote in the jury or to make it an unequal number so they couldn't be a tie for instance especially when you've only got two people in the finale i know australian survivor have tried to do final three i think even your season there was people that said that the original plan was to have

1:37:23 A final three but then medivacs happened so they had to change the structure of what that would look like you know a few things they could potentially do as like a final three to help out in those situations where they need to or you know we've had in the past where people could vote out an additional jury member which i'm not a fan of at all i don't i don't ever want to see how i get to the jury spend that time there and being told to leave that again yeah because that happened in south africa in the last season producer for them and i said like listen my channel's name is the nullified take for a reason obviously the nullifier exists within survivor you know the survivor meta i guess when it comes to survivor why not have a nullifier at the end where you get an advantage going in somewhere if you win a challenge where you can nullify a juror's vote but at least they still make it to the end so they're still a part of the whole experience of being there to balance the numbers out what do you think of that you know if you had to choose between completely getting removed from a jury or having a twist that's like a nullifier at the final tribal council you know do you think that would be palatable or as a juror member that has been there like how yeah i mean i assume you feel like you've earned that vote you've got in there till the end you know yeah 100 i guess it's like any other twist there's going to be proponents for it and objectives against it no matter what but

1:38:43 That would be interesting because you'd have to have whoever was in that final two or three vote for who they thought was going to vote against them so they've got to try and work out how you're going to vote they've got to try and work that out so again it depends how good they are at reading the room and reading people's body language and i think that would be an interesting thing but in the right in the right hands i think it would be a really powerful tool but in the wrong hands i think it could be just completely pointless and chaos you know it's one of those things that it could be really good for the franchise or really bad and look really stupid you know yeah it goes away that's fair and australian survivor is not afraid of taking risks when it comes to these kinds of twists and things so i'm just like number one if we could avoid redemption rock because i'm not a fan of any getting voted out getting back in the game i'm not a fan of having to hang on those polls i don't ever want to have to end up on one of those 120 kilos i can tell you that's not something i would look forward to look painful definitely look painful listen to talk to you know i appreciate you taking the time to jump on you know deal with all the technical difficulties you had and get sorted you know i'm hoping

1:40:03 I helped you a little bit there with your training regime running up and down to get onto this podcast but you know it's been so fun like i would definitely more than be happy to have you back talk about one of the other seasons as well i've had the opportunity of having jack burger from the south african franchise talk about the australian franchise before it'll be pretty interesting maybe when south africa comes up i'll get you or someone one of the australian survivors to talk about the south african franchise and we can continue to promote this crossover that we want to see between the franchises yeah that'll be awesome yeah and that'll be awesome having the south africans have to try and make sense of my accent that would be absolutely awesome yeah i think i think they'll be fine i think they'll understand it's funny because you know the one player that you reminded me the most of when you were playing and i might i was the only one who made this comparison because most people said no you're like the johnny is though you know you're like you're like that you're that character i think i think you're the young version of tom you know for survivor africa with the big right like obviously he was in the farmers while you know i was like yeah you're like the australian tom you know i've got his last name but who played in survivor africa so i really do hope you get that opportunity to come back you know and play again i think you were a very unique personality on the show we've never had a gerald like on because some people said you know who do you compare to for this season

1:41:23 I think you are your own character which in itself hopefully will stand you in good stead when they start looking at an all-stars two season maybe in a couple of seasons from now so i'll have my fingers crossed a hundred percent and you know it'll be really interesting being able to go on an all-star season or something because it did give me a lot more rain to be able to play the game a lot differently i went into our season and once i got there knowing that no one else had played and trying to read that room like we talked about and really play the middle and keep in really good stead not tell those lies like i kept saying out there i want to be able to drop those truth bombs and use the truth as my biggest weapon and that helped me keep everyone on side but going into an all-star season where you know that other people know what's going on wow well what i'll say is get nina on speed dial you know she's the first one on the list jlp's already said she's coming back so everybody will probably approach we need to we need to make sure she goes to another slide before the season to make sure i get on that's evil yeah but for sure peter i didn't push you [Laughter] gerald really i appreciate it if you want to plug where that event is going to happen

1:42:43 Once more for fans that are listening and want to go yeah guys if any if any fans do want to turn up we're this sunday we're going to be at the grand hotel in esk in queensland 6 p.m there's going to be myself and a whole bunch of players from this season i'll hopefully enter you calls as well off our season so it's gonna be a cracker night watch sunday's episode and just have a general laugh it would be my shout the milks are on me so if anyone wants to come and have fun you're free oh man definitely i wish i was there like when this quarantined stuff gets you know sorted we'll definitely catch up one day i don't know if you i know you drink milk i don't know if you're a man that drinks beers or anything but i'll get you some milk or beer whatever you want one day finally get to meet in person it'll be fun yeah definitely we'll have a drink you'll have a nice stiff cold milk just before we go you guys please remember to subscribe and like this video if you like the content we are steadily moving to our next goal of 500 subscribers and when we get there i've got this beautiful merge buff of oh i've got one of them this season yeah there we go boy i've got one that's still got the tags on so you know yeah we're gonna make that one available to one of the listeners when we get to 500 subs so continue to support and like this podcast guys and we'll catch you next time bye