Survivor 50 Episode 12 Was Absolutely brutal

0:00 Welcome back to the Nullified Take channel app. The TNT Takes for you on Survivor 50, episode 12. As you can see, we're doing things a little bit differently here this week. I am just here in my studio, or I should say my house, solo. I don't have Andre with me. There will be no live podcast this week because unfortunately, I do have some personal commitments, so I can't make the normal time slot. And we couldn't really find another spot this weekend that would work really well. So, I thought I'd just do something that I haven't done in quite a while and jump on here just sort of share my raw thoughts about the episode and then put it out there for everybody to enjoy. please still engage with the content. Leave comments below if you agree or disagree with me on this takes that I've got here. It'll be a bit more raw, a little bit more unedited. So, hopefully you enjoy this kind of content.

0:52 Survivor 50, episode 12 was a tough episode. I'm going to be honest, it was a very tough episode to watch. Losing both Rick Devens and also Cirie consecutively here in this episode doesn't leave that many likable people in my mind this season that I'm rooting for. Tiff's been great. She's been a bit of an under-edited character for most of the season, but clearly a challenge beast and it was fun to see her win this specific immunity challenge here, even though it was at the detriment of someone like a Cirie for her to win it. it was good to see her get one over the boys who wanted to vote her out here. They clearly seeing her as some sort of a social strategic threat still in the game, which is one of the reasons they wanted to vote her out before Cirie. And obviously, you know, let's Where do we start?

1:44 Let's start with Rick Devens. Rick Devens has been such a great player to watch this season. I've really enjoyed it. I know that for some fans, he's a bit polarizing. Not everybody likes the showboating and the flair that he plays the game with, but for me he made Survivor 50 entertaining and I enjoyed seeing the antics that he would get up to every single week. I think he's one of those players that will leave this game this season with his head held high and probably he did himself more favors than any harm for a third return to the game. I would not be shocked to see him come back and play Survivor 50 again, especially now that Jeff has confirmed that there will be more returning seasons in the future. obviously early on in the episode he tried everything in his power to get that idol. He went out idol hunting. It didn't go so well for him. Didn't find anything in this episode, so it was hilarious seeing Jonathan tail him around the beach.

2:38 I love that we saw this emotional content from him as well this episode where, you know, emotionally he broke down. It shows you how much the game means to him and how desperately he wanted to get to the end of the season. And it was such a deep comment that he made that the stars feel different while they're out there in Survivor and it just shows you how much he loves this game and being out there and how much he appreciated that this is an opportunity that's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that he was given twice. And I don't think there was much that Devens could have done in this moment. He was enemy number one for quite a few weeks now. all I can say is I applaud you Devens and I want to see you come back and play the game again. Then obviously we also had the likes of Cirie and Aubry going head-to-head or at least that's what the edit kind of made us feel like in this episode that it was this big battle between the heavyweights.

3:30 I think it was interesting that they mentioned how or Aubry mentioned how long she's played the game like 140 plus days. Shows that she's clearly someone that's great at this game and that it's baffling to me that people are underestimating her so much at this stage. I think that Jonathan believes he can beat her at the end. I think Joe thinks he can beat her at the end. I don't know why Joe thinks that. so seeing her in this position going against someone like Cirie who she respects, and then winning out against Cirie, I think the edit is telling us that we're looking at the winner of the season. My money all of my money at the moment is on Aubry if she makes the final. I think she'll have the respect of the jury if she gets there. Jonathan continues to talk about moves that he's making in the game where Aubry is kind of under mining him and saying that it's not his move, the Ozzy move wasn't his move, it was my move, it was my information that I gave to Rezo and Joe that made them want to turn against Ozzy in that moment or at least that's what she's selling and I think that's going to be her pitch at the final.

4:29 And then she's also going to pitch the fact that she went against Cirie, but Cirie played masterfully this episode. Like even up until the end trying to pin this information about Tiffany being the target on Aubry to try and switch that vote was masterfully done. The only thing the only blind spot she had this season, you know, if we had to point something out was Rezo. I don't think she thought that Rezo was going to backstab her in this moment in the game. And I know that fans are going to be divided about that move. I'd love to know what the community thinks about Rezo betraying his allies back-to-back here. First with Ozzy, now with Cirie. Was it a good move for Rezo? Was it not a good move for Rezo? I think Andrea and I spoke about it a little bit on the podcast and we had some differences of an opinion. I feel like, you know, Rezo's playing to win this game, but I don't know if he can win this game.

5:20 I don't know if there's anybody he could sit against in the end to win it, but you know, do you rather just go to the end with like a Cirie or an Ozzy so you can feel like you can hold your head high that you lost against some of the best or do you take them out and hope that the jury will respect your game? From some of the exit press that we've seen this season, I don't think Rezo's game is highly respected and I think that he's really good at the front of the cameras and he's really good at articulating how much of a he is, the fact that he's got the guts not to play his idol, but I kind of feel like the idol's been a non-factor in a lot of people's minds because even I can't remember who said this episode it was like Joe or someone or I think it was Aubry who said, "I'd love to sit next to Cirie. Cirie doesn't get any votes at the end." So, I feel like Cirie could be the goat that gets dragged to the end that ultimately doesn't get any votes at this moment. But, Cirie going down was definitely emotional.

6:11 It was definitely hard to see 20 years of Survivor play get their torch snuffed. I mean, Jeff's got the respect for her and sort of saying, "Do you want to snuff your own torch? Do you want to do the honors?" Sort of shows the amount of respect that he has for Cirie and how grateful he was that she came out to play the game again. It's sad to think that this might be the last time we see her play and it was interesting to hear Aubry say that Cirie is the best to ever play. She's better than Tony. She's better than Sandra. And I'd love to know what people think out there. You know, this is the age-old conversation that we've had for such a long time. Does the play the best player always win Survivor? And I think at one point the Survivor fandom was adamant especially when Natalie White won against Russell that the best player always wins Survivor.

7:04 Doesn't look like Aubry agrees with that sentiment because if she's saying that Cirie is the best to ever play and Cirie hasn't won once she's better than two players that has won it twice. In her mind, the best player doesn't always win, which makes sense because Aubry also lost. She also got second place in her season against Michelle when a lot of people back in the day thought that Aubry played a more strategic game. I think I was one of those to be honest. And she didn't necessarily get the respect at the end of it. There were some people that were better. The social game is very important though. Threat management is very important. The problem for Cirie coming into this season is that she had such a reputation, such a legacy on her back that for her even to get as deep as she did, you have to give her credit for that. Because I think in any scenario where Cirie ends up in an end game, even if she's played a mediocre game, which she didn't by the way, people will vote for her to win the game based on reputation.

8:04 And that's what makes some of these returning seasons very fun to watch that no one comes in on equal footing when they play these seasons. And Cirie was definitely one of the highest targets early on, survived with the help of Ozzy, found her people, got deep into the season, showed us how masterful she is at playing this non-bombastic game, but stealth, social, behind-the-scenes manipulating people, moving people around. It was great to see Cirie play this season again. It's sad to see her go in this moment. That leaves us with a couple of players left in the game now. We've got Aubry, Jonathan, Cif, Rizo, Joe left in the game. For a lot of people this will feel like an underwhelming final five, and I will say it is kind of underwhelming with the caliber of players that we saw come back to play this season.

8:56 Rizo's got an idol. Yeah, I don't even think he needs to play it at final five. I don't know if anybody will vote for him, to be honest. I don't think people see him as a threat, but it'll be interesting to see if he does play it. I really just can't see anybody else than Aubry win this season right now. Like the whole edit just makes sense why they gave her so much content early in the season when she wasn't really the main character, even when she wasn't enjoying it and the content wasn't necessarily fun to watch to see her be miserable out there. But the edit is kind of showing that she's been playing the slow game, where she's had a slow start, didn't have the people around her, and then somehow found her way always in the middle of these split decisions and these critical votes, where have think she's going to climb it and I think she's going to be better at articulating it than a Jonathan will be in this case and Jonathan lost a lot of his allies along the way as well.

9:47 Aubry can pitch that she was alone assassin or mercenary for hire this season. She didn't have anybody that was a ride or die in the season. So she didn't have to betray or backstab anyone really to that level. I don't think anybody's going to look at Aubry and say, "I feel sort of you did me dirty by voting me out of the game." And I think that's going to be something that will give her a massive leg up in this game. >> [snorts] >> So for me at this moment, if I had to rank I'd say Aubry's number one. The edit's telling me she's winning this. Joe potentially could get to the end with Aubry and then Joe might make it to the end again. I don't think he's winning anything, but could be Joe, Jonathan Aubry maybe a Rizo. The edit's telling me Tiffany doesn't have a chance and probably loses the next immunity. And then people vote her out because she's a threat in this game.

10:38 I'd like to know what you guys think. Do you agree with me? Do you disagree? What your thoughts on the season? Do you think that the season is still ranking very high? Does a season have to have a great final five, great final three for it to be entertaining and for it to be a top tier season of all time? Or have we had enough of Survivor 50, enough content with some of these great players coming back that people will remember the season? In my opinion from all of the new era seasons, it's been the best by far. There's obviously still been a lot of shenanigans by Jeff getting involved and manipulating the flow of the game and throwing twists and things like that in there, but overall I feel like it's been one of the strongest seasons and I really hope that Jeff is listening to some of the fan outcry about certain things. It sounds like there's going to be two tribes in the next season. It sounds like these smaller tribes are going away where people don't have the ability to and be strategic as much.

11:31 But yeah, that was sort of my takes for this episode. I wanted to get my thoughts out there. I wanted to share it with you. Maybe I'll do one or two more short-form videos like this again in the future where I just sort of ramble about my thoughts about Survivor and whatever I'm seeing. Maybe we'll talk about some of the news and things like that coming out from Jeff about future seasons and things like that. But, if you like the content, please hit subscribe, put a like on it, comment below. We will be back next week and we'll do a proper recap of everything. I know Andrea is going to be devastated that he doesn't get to talk about Cirie. So, we might dive into the whole Cirie and Rick Devens blindside or not blindside, but votes this week. We might dabble in a little bit of both to just catch up. But, I wanted to get something out there so you guys know what's happening. Can't do it this week, unfortunately, but we'll be back next week. Grab your torches, head back to camp, and we'll catch you guys next week.

12:24 Bye.