Survivor 50 | Episode 5 | Recap

0:00 [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Welcome back to the channel.

0:54 The Nullified Take here to talk about episode five Survivor 50. I'm joined by Andre, my co-host again. Andre, it's freezing. It's changing over here in Australia. It's getting cold. >> I need a jacket. If only Angelina was here to help you out and give you a nice warm jacket to stay warm on the podcast. >> [laughter] >> I think I got it here. I took it off a What a What a great episode. I Like I'm still extremely high on Survivor 50. I'm enjoying it. Where are you sitting? Are you still in on this season? Are you still enjoying what we what we are sort of seeing from an edit perspective? I know there's been a lot of conversations this week about female characters on Survivor 50 being under edited, apparently. Yeah, I'm still very high on it. I understand the criticism about that, and I wish I had seen more of, say, Genevieve, for example, this episode.

1:49 But I think it's a good return to form after the whole I don't even remember his name, Zach Brown, was it? from last week. I think that Look, I mean, we know we're going to get Mr. Beast. We know we're probably going to get Jimmy Fallon a little bit later on. Let's just say Let's just all agree to pretend that never existed, never will exist. Let's just focus on the game. Let's focus on the players. Let's focus on the story. And any It's the It's a the boomerang idol. It's not the Billy Eilish boomerang idol. Let's just pretend none of that exists and just take Survivor 50 for its merit because it's shaping up to be a hell of a season. probably the best season since God maybe too early to say, but probably it's going to be better than Winners at War, I feel. just the way that it's going right now. So, very high on it. You can probably tell. Well, and it pains me to say this because everybody knows I love the outcome of Winners at War.

2:43 I love who won that season. I think he's the goat. but one of the things that Winners at War still has against it in my mind is the Edge of Extinction, which I've never been a fan of. A lot of the edit was sort of taking us away from the main game into the Edge of Extinction. A lot of this fire tokens. There was a lot of things that were happening outside of the actual game that was influencing the game with things coming back into the game. There was definitely There were There's holes we can poke into Survivor season 40 with Winners at War, but I still enjoyed the season as a whole. I do agree with you. It's definitely going to be the best season since season 40. I mean, there's not that much competition. I think since 37. I think it's the spiritual successor to David vs. Goliath. Like if we got this season after David Goliath, then I would be happy. That's like That's like To me, there's It's like It's like the third movie in a trilogy.

3:33 There's kind of like the terrible first movie, which is South Pacific, then David vs. Goliath, and then this one. That would make a really good trilogy of films, I would think. Yeah, but in all fairness to the new era players that have played this season, we have had some bangers. We've had Dee really pulling her weight this season. We've had Charlie and Rozo. The showdown of those two going up against each other, which has been satisfying to watch. I think Jonathan has added I know a lot of people are like up and down like they're saying, "Did we need to see the scene between him and you know, Devens this week specifically?" Could we have seen at least one confessional from Tiffany, who's still only got two confessionals this whole season compared to Zach Brown's four confessionals in the one episode that he was on, right? So, there's some fair criticism here, but for me personally, I am enjoying the season, and I've got a pretty hot take.

4:26 I was thinking about this. I think it's a hot take. Maybe no one else has called this out. I feel like the season is being edited like Australian Survivor. Like if you look at That's a cold take, yeah, to say. It is a statement. I'm not online. Well, I don't know. I don't Well, to me, it's a cold take. Maybe others will have a sort of different opinion, but, you know, fair criticisms, Tiffany. Some of the women aren't being edited that well. I'm holding out judgment just for now, just because Tiffany might not be a consequential player, and they do tend to edit consequential players. We have seen a good edit on Genevieve, generally speaking, and Aubry, to be honest. But I have heard things online about Aubry sort of from Angelina, actually, about how kind of some of the things that are actually happening is I would undermine Aubry as a player, and makes them maybe look more of a better player in retrospect.

5:17 But we can talk about that later. Yeah, I do think some of the criticism that is coming from Angelina in her off-season content, which I still like Angelina. I think there is a little bit of bitterness in there. I think there is a little bit of I didn't have a good season. I want to throw some shade on the way out. Like I don't know how much of it I fully trust. I mean, she's saying Emily Flippen is the mastermind, not Christian, on that tribe. And I don't agree with that. And maybe she's right. She actually played the game, but we'll have more people coming out on exit press who will have a say about who actually played the best game. I'm not going to take Angelina's word for the fact that Emily is this mastermind cuz to me she comes across as a chaotic player in both her seasons that she played. But I want to flip back on this whole cold take that I had, you know, not a hot take with Australian Survivor edit. I love it. I personally love it. I don't want to see all the sob stories from people who don't matter at the end and who isn't going to play a big game or, you know, that they're not going to go deep in the game.

6:11 So, I'm okay with the fact that certain people are dominating the edit. I don't know if Christian and Ozzy necessarily needed to be twice as edited as everybody else in this season, but there's really a gap. It was worth it for the Cochran callback, to be honest. It was [laughter] definitely a good callback. they're all edited We could get Cochran on our screens. Like, you know, I'm all in on the Cochran train, but, you know, Christian and Ozzy, it's just such a big storyline this season, and yeah, we're going to go into the Ozzy game and stuff like that. But yeah, there's a big gap between 35 and 34 confessionals to the next best person on the show, I think is Emily at 19. So, there is a female in the top three edited people. >> And all of these people have gone to every single Tribal Council except for one of the Tribal Councils that they were forced not to go to. So, you can kind of understand it. It actually has been And this is going back to the Australian Survivor type of callback, where what tends to happen is people that like in this season of Australian Survivor, there was somebody that went to pretty much every single Tribal Council.

7:13 And he wasn't He was a pretty To me, he was a pretty vanilla character, right? But he got a ton of confessionals, and he was a huge character despite being super boring, only because he had to go to every single Tribal Council, and he was very consequential in the pre-merge. So, it's like a very similar type of thing. Like Emily Flippen isn't a Oh, she might be a power player if you to believe Angelina, but she's not She hasn't been Christian. She hasn't been Ozzy, right? But she has gotten all these confessionals because she's just been, you know, pretty important to the storyline. you know, she's been a supplementary player, you know, at worst. and at best, like in that episode, she was a star. Yeah. She's added something. Even if her gameplay in our eyes hasn't been that great yet because she's been chaotic. It's added to the TV show. It's added to the drama of the show. I think it's good. >> Emilys.

8:03 There's chaotic Emily, and there's the Emily that we saw this episode that's really able to go back into the background. We saw that in her first season, too. Yeah. Where she started off like super crazy, and then once she had Caleb on her in her corner, then she was able to sort of dissolve back and then go into the merge with pretty decent numbers. So I just want to look at this and think to myself, is this a fair criticism that the women have all been under edited or not? And I can understand where people come from. A lot of people look through the lens of gender when they watch the game to see who's getting a fair And it's because historically, Survivor hasn't always known how to edit a great female winner. We know that. I mean, it's happened many a seasons. But Christian 35, Ozzy 34, Emily the third highest on 19 at that point. Then we have Genevieve next. So, you've got two women in the top four at 17.

8:53 She's had a really big one. Obviously, this was the first episode where she got shaded. She didn't get a single confessional, which I don't know what that means for her game heading into the merge. and Rick Devens is tied with her for fourth, right? And then I guess you can look at Rozo being in there as well. But Rick Devens and Rozo, again, big characters, big players. Who's the other women that have had good edits? You've got Cirie and Dee, two other strong women that are sitting around 13, I think, confessionals. And Oh, I guess Dee hasn't actually She's been under edited cuz she's had a confessional every single episode, but she's had six. It feels like Dee's had a lot more content than probably he has had at this stage. She hasn't been edited. >> She hasn't even gone to This is the only time she's gone to Tribal, right? So, it's kind of like That's actually For me, that's a good edit. I'm actually surprised Stephanie wasn't even in the top. Like considering her as a player, she's been to a lot of Tribal Councils.

9:45 I feel like she's been pretty important. She's an old-school player. She's important to the fans. So, why hasn't she been edited that much, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's where I can see the criticism coming in, because Stephanie, I think she deserves a big credit. And I and I think one of the things we need to do is like let's hold our judgment on the season until we get to the merge. There's 17 players that are going to go to the merge. That is a full cast of a normal season of say 18 players. Like in a normal season you've got 17 players going into a merge. And to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if the final five was like Devens, Christian, Ozzy, Cirie, and then like what Emily? I like I could definitely see that as a final five. Like we've seen this time and time again, especially in like even Australian Survivor, where you have like you know in Samoa you've got the Samoa, Cook Islands, where the people that have had the experience of going to Tribal Council just demolishes the entire cast.

10:42 You know it is an All-Stars season, so people have experience, but there's kind of like that muscle memory that you can get by going to the first like what in Christian's case eight Tribal Councils or something in a row. He's been battle tested. Like he's probably gone to like the same amount of Tribal Councils that Michelle did when she won her season. Like [laughter] Like he has a lot of experience. I want to say hello to Christian in the live. Christian's also saying I think it's going to be level two winners at war. Do the edit, but the edit is similar to Survivor China in Christian's mind. It's too long ago for me to remember how the edit was in Survivor China and if it was I remember like I remember there were a few people that were I remember like Aaron was screwed and I remember like Todd and Amanda and James were pretty big characters. Courtney as well. And it's like obviously they you know those are the pretty much the final four or whatever.

11:34 I don't quite remember who the final four were, but you can sort of see that coming in. But personally I think that's what makes like I've been critical of Australian Survivors at times with its edit just over-editing certain players and it's just it's too obvious one of these players are going to win. I'm not on the same boat as you. I don't think like if Christian wins this season he is going to rank as one of the best winners that we've ever seen play Survivor because he's too visible. Yeah, he's too he's too out in the front taking hits, making moves. Like I just don't see how that kind of game wins this season with the caliber of players that we still have in the game. But if he does like I'm here for it. Like it'll be one of the best seasons like a Exactly. It's not impossible. It's not It's not impossible, but Tony played a big game in Winners at War, but people didn't realize how big of a game he was playing.

12:27 He was kind of sitting back for a large portion of the early game and then started speeding up at the end when he needed to make moves, right? So And the rest of the class Yeah, the rest of the class the class that are not on Christian's tribe, pre-merge, right? You're just going to have going to go out to the merge and say hey Christian absolutely ran this tribe. He made all the moves. Ozzy Better Ozzy who's got a on his shoulder is not going to be honest about that. Who's Stephanie going to tell like Colby? No, Colby coach. I still think I think you're underestimating the Colby coach Joe alliance. Like if you're if you're asking me put a house money on who's going deep in this game at the moment. I'm putting my eggs in that basket. I reckon and I don't know if that's what the fans want, but I think Colby coach and Joe because they're always getting also consistent content and they're building that team still on the side, but they're not as out in the front as Christian Rick Devens >> they're the second big alliance that gets killed post-merge.

13:32 Like I can see like the old schoolers plus Jonathan, like all those people that allied with them. And I think I think Devens is going to go back to sort of like the I don't even know what to call them, but like the Cirie Devens Ozzy like that sort of co- not Sorry, not Ozzy Christian and Emily. I think that's going to be the major alliance that comes to the end. Cuz I can definitely see like you know >> an old school alliance pulling together. So and it's interesting like I love the fact that we're 14 minutes into this and we haven't spoken about a single thing that actually happened in the episode, [laughter] but just our fan theories. But this is what the podcast is about, right? I can see like you know one thing that stood out for me in this specific episode that was very telling was Cirie not telling Devens that the tides were shifting because I thought Cirie and Devens had a thing coming into this alliance, right? I thought they spoke about the idol.

14:24 Cirie felt really good with Devens. Devens was out in the cold on this boat, right? So Cirie shifted over to D, Kamala and Rizo. And that relationship piece between Rizo and Colby that was shown early. I think you're underestimating the old school alliance. I think Cirie could easily work with coach, Colby and Joe. I think Ozzy could easily work there. I think the Ozzy rivalry with coach is going to come to a head and they're going to find some common ground. Like I see a whole group of old school players getting together after the merge. And the middle schoolers like your Devens, your Christians and things like that. The reason that we saw the idol being planted at Tribal Council. Like I think there's going to be some action, but something's going to be interesting. I'm on like I think these are the two big factions that we seeing coming into the into the merge and we've been told the story of Christian's faction and the story of coach's faction.

15:16 The old school versus new school. And that I think we're both in agreement that's going to come to a head, but we probably think that the opposing sides are going to win the war in this one. It's Yeah, and I think it reflects our who we drafted as well like to be honest. I mean >> [laughter] >> yeah, it would be cool to see the old schoolers sort of win out, but I think it will come down to the people in the middle. So you've got Ozzy's probably going to be sort of in between. I don't know where Cirie and Ozzy are going to be. >> So where's D leaning? Where's D leaning? Where's Rizo, Kamala and that faction? Tiff I don't know. This is the problem cuz Tiff was also in that group, but we just don't know anything about Tiff's game. We're kind of the floaters in the middle. Yeah, the floaters in the middle. It's like I think they get a fracture and so like you're probably going to see Rizo probably vibe pretty well with the new schoolers. I would think I would hope. Maybe D comes with a her and then maybe they come with like Tiffany and Tiffany might be sort of like she might get idoled out.

16:13 And this is probably why we're not seeing much of Tiffany. She probably gets idoled out in this war about the sort of and she's just like a she's holding on to D because D is the one that's holding on to Rizo and Rizo is kind of like shady as to be a bit of a power player, to be honest. But you know we haven't really had the chance to see Rizo interact with say Christian, right? So when those two come together it'll be interesting to see how they interact. Do they hate each other or they really like each other? Who knows? Yeah. hello Wally. Welcome to the live stream. We've just been talking about what potentially could happen going into the merge. Where are people sitting? Where could the allegiances be heading into this merge of 17 players, which is crazy. Before we actually get into the episode and talk about some of these highlights of this episode. What's your theory in regards to a 17 player merge? Do you think we're going to get that split tribes going to Tribal Council every single time?

17:04 So it's a it's at the macro level it looks like it's a merge. At the micro level you're splitting into two groups are going into separate Tribal Councils and we're voting two people out for the next five rounds or something to just sort of make up some space or get rid of some players. This is I think we're going to go into overdrive, right? There's way too many players left. Yeah, I think I was telling you yesterday that's kind of like One World what One World should have been. Where it's like essentially 17 18 people on a beach or whatever and then like they'll like randomize up the who goes to Tribal Council. That might put a little bit too much of variance inside the game, which not the biggest fan of. I would prefer if they would just be like they go to Tribal Council, they vote off somebody and then Jeff says by the way we're going to vote off another second person. I think that'll be cooler cuz then you can sort of see like you see you still see people think on their feet, but at least they could like you could open up to live tribals and I know a lot of people don't like live tribals, but I mean that opens up that possibility.

18:03 Whereas I feel like if you randomize it up, you could get somebody that's completely screwed in that situation where all the numbers are on the other side. And we've seen that quite a bit, but I guess if you're a good Survivor player you have to be adaptable as well. But I think it just rewards safe gameplay there where a season like this I want people to take really take risks. Totally agree with you. So let's talk about the episode a little bit here. Ozzy coming back to tribe after Tribal coming back to the tribe absolutely losing his marbles. Very upset about the fact that he wasn't in on the boat. Flip-flops back and forth quite a bit about do I take Christian out in this move? Do I not take Christian out in this move? Classic Ozzy. Like you've called it before. Like Ozzy's going to Ozzy out on the beach. Like was there anything surprising about this? Where do you think Ozzy sits in this game right now? Cuz I'm really confused about anything about Ozzy.

18:54 Like maybe he is because he's holding out to get to the merge and hoping to link up with some of these old schoolers and try and work with them. I actually just don't understand his game at all because the only thing we've seen about Ozzy is he's going to play a different game and he keeps playing the same game he's played many times out on the island. Yeah, I was I felt like I was watching South Pacific. Like this was South Pacific 2.0. You know it's the Whitney Is it Whitney that was or Elyse that was voted off? Yeah, it was Elyse that was voted off. Exactly the same situation. Exactly the same sort of reaction in the moment. Then it was kind of like you brought in sort of the element from Cochran sort of later on the season sort of betraying Ozzy as well, which was kind of like merged into one. So that was kind of like the exact situation. And it just felt like very PTSD from Ozzy. It's like oh my god, this happened again.

19:44 I promised this wouldn't happen and it did happen. So I can understand where Ozzy's coming from cuz you have the scar tissue from 13 years ago. I think it was 14 years ago. He's been living that the entire time and this happened again. But what I really liked about it was in the morning he did like a 180. It's like, "Look, that was me last night. I was acting emotional. I was being Ozzy. That's fine. You know, I'm 45-year-old Ozzy. You know, I'm a little bit more mature more mature. I can hug it out with Christian." But then he goes out and he does sort of kind of almost threatens Christian say, "If you don't give me your shot in the dark," which I guess the shot in the dark this season is the fire token of the season. you know, just give it to me and I thought that was maybe a little bit too much from Ozzy. I think he was being acting a bit of an but the way that Christian played it felt pretty good.

20:39 But Ozzy here, great player and a great character, not so great player. >> [laughter] >> He's just yeah, it's you cast Ozzy, you kind of know what you're going to get. And I'm just glad that we're getting this side of Ozzy because it's more interesting. I don't want a watered-down Ozzy. I want I want the true the true guy that can swim really fast and You don't want Game Changers Ozzy. You don't want Game Changers Ozzy cuz I don't even remember one thing that he did on that season. So this is a superior Ozzy. South Pacific Ozzy is the best Ozzy in my opinion. So I want to see I want to see more of that. And you know, especially if you've got South Pacific Coach out there as well, which it's shaping up to be, this is going to be a pretty going to be a pretty big head-to-head and I feel like Ozzy's going to if he's in the middle, he's probably going to be against Coach, to be honest. >> Yes. Yeah, definitely. And I think that this season almost should have been called Ghost Island season 2.

21:33 You know, cuz they're fighting the ghosts of their past in the season constantly is constantly the ghosts of their past coming back to haunt them in the game. And I'm here for it. I love the overall the overarching story lines that are sort of coming into the season and the way that the production team and the editing team is sort of giving us those flashbacks, which just sort of you know, they're going back into the archives to refresh our memories of seasons that we've seen in the past, which is so much fun >> Yeah. And it's actually to act to I know you're watching Australian Survivor to echo Australian Survivor, that's been constant theme. It's like there's one player which I can say who the player is. It's Mark. he's one of the only returning players. he keeps on talking about the ghost of jungle. And then the ghost of jungle of his previous season is always in his ear sort of whispering in his ear. And it's like, you know, it's the same type of concept. I think it's just American Survivor is doing the redemption team a lot better than the Australian version.

22:26 Because the Australian version only has like four returnees. So Yeah. So most of the people are playing yeah. Exactly. >> the players in Australian Survivor doesn't have the baggage there. But yeah, it's an interesting it's an interesting season. And what I like about it from an Australian from a sorry, Survivor US perspective is that for all those people that are newer school fans who only got into the show say season 41 onwards. And there are a lot of them. Like we like to Cover excuse my language. Yeah, we like to talk the new era. But there's a lot of people who really like the new era because that's all they know. They came on board after COVID or you know, and started watching the show. And all the seasons can be slow. Yeah. Exactly. And but what Survivor's doing with this content is they're actually selling I think their older seasons to the newer fans. Like now when you watch it, you're like, "Oh, who's Cochran? I need to go back and watch this. I want to see what happened there." Or you know, I really I really enjoy how they're doing it this season.

23:19 I think >> Ozzy. Like I want to see every Ozzy season. Like literally your partner who watches shoutout to her watching a lot of or listening to a lot of our podcast, you know, every time in the beginning when she was saying, "I could I don't even know who Ozzy is." Like you know, yeah, exactly. So and I think it's cool because now there's something for you to go like, "Let's go watch Ozzy's first season." Cuz I think Ozzy 1.0 was the best Ozzy we ever saw play the game, right? Cuz we won't spoil it for her. But like that Ozzy was in a very legitimate position to potentially win the game. And every single time Ozzy's come back since then, his game has gone backwards. Like he's one of those players that if he if he played one time, Andre, and never came back, we would have talked about him as one of the best to never win, I feel like. Yeah, like he would have been up there, right? Up until Dom, I think he was the closest to win without actually winning, which was And he's done that twice as well, by the way, which is >> so likable that season as well.

24:13 Yeah, I mean, I did show her the mutiny. So I think that's kind of like the perfect end when you show the mutiny and you're just like, "I want to know what happens here." Yeah. >> [snorts] >> Exactly. Exactly. Such a good season and yeah, mutiny, what a twist. What a twist. But let's talk about episode 5 a little bit further. So obviously Christian does end up giving his shot in the dark. I was very fearful for him going into Tribal Council this episode because it looked like if there was ever an episode where, you know, Survivor does this a lot. The Q was kind of a victim of that earlier in this season where they build up your edit so much, you get so much content and then they take you down by the knees before you get to the merge. And I thought Christian could go down this path because he's been running the narrative. He took out Mike. Angelina clearly very close to Mike in the in real life, you know, could have easily flip-flopped here and worked with the other side to take out Christian.

25:07 But it And I think this is where Angelina gave a lot of credit to Emily. We didn't see it on the episode, but apparently she felt good with Emily. Emily was the one who kept her calm and was also the reason why she didn't play the shot in the dark cuz she thought Emily had her back going into this episode. So we didn't see any of that dynamic, which I'm a it's a shame we didn't see it because it probably would have given away too much of where the vote was going to go. And I know that Survivor sometimes on purpose don't show every single thing cuz there needs to be a little bit of a suspense. Did you legitimately feel in this moment when Christian went to Tribal Council that he could go home? Cuz I had that feeling that he it's it could go either way here. I wasn't sure where Ozzy was going to go. Yeah, I definitely thought he was in trouble mainly because he was on my team. But the editing was pretty good to make it seem like that he was really in really in trouble. but as soon as the votes read, I realized I don't think Christian ever was in trouble.

26:01 So I think they pulled one over on me. just because I you know, I feel like it would make really good TV where it's like you I think most people are probably rooting for Christian. They're like, "Oh, you know, I want Christian to win. I want Christian to go far." to put sort of in the you know, the hero's journey to put somebody into like a position where they could be voted off, you know, it's great TV. but I realized, you know, they were probably just over-editing that. They were kind of saying, "Okay, well, I don't think he was ever going to go home because it seemed like he had Emily on lock. It seemed like he probably had Stephanie on lock despite Stephanie saying, "Hey, you know, I like I could go either way or I could go I could you know, you know, do be do cut turncoat." I don't think that's Stephanie's game. I think if Stephanie knows that she is locked in with a three, she's not going to stray from that.

26:55 And I don't think she's that close. I think they could they're making her seem closer to Ozzy than she actually is, in my opinion. but you know, I could be wrong. and I play I don't know >> connection? Could it be that old school connection that I've been talking about? Like where there is just the cuz remember the last time and this is why it's stuck in my head. The last time that we had old school players come back to play the game and Winners at War, they got outplayed badly. So this is something that must be in the heads of these players that are coming back where they're like, "We're not going to go down like Parvati and Boston Rob in Winners at War. We're going to we're going to make sure that our legacy legacies in this game don't get tarnished, basically." And I feel like I've heard rumors like listening to some of the interviews. I don't know if you've cuz I don't know if you're listening to exit interviews. I'm finding it interesting this season, so I'm listening to a couple. >> This week I did, yeah. Yeah. So there's a there's been a lot of rumblings around a pre-season old school alliance.

27:51 There was obviously alliances that like there's a lot of pre-gaming happening in these kind of seasons. And obviously the Christian Emily Devens one is also a pre-season alliance that obviously came together in the show, which I just wish that the show actually leans into it a little bit more and explain it a little bit a little bit better to fans. Like They did the poker alliance. Remember that? Exactly. Exactly. So just lean into it. It sounds like there's a big faction of old school players that also aligned prior to the season. So you're talking about your Colbys, your Coachs, your Joes, your Jonathans as a Jonathan apparently is part of the old school faction. He met with Boston Rob, right? Yeah, so obviously would have gotten some connections through that. Then you've got Ozzy and Cirie and Steph, all old school players. So that's why I'm thinking that could be a legitimate faction and we could see things happening. >> And Coach.

28:42 And they could be things happening at merge that we might not make sense to us. Like Stephanie's gameplay al- almost to a certain degree also in this tribe hasn't Like she's done the best that she could. She hasn't had agency, but she's stayed off the radar. But we haven't heard much about her thoughts. Like why is she sticking with Ozzy and not going against him? Why does she work with Christian at times? I don't know. I She's one of those players that even though she's gotten content, I don't feel to your point earlier in the podcast, maybe a bit under-edited. I think they're going to take I don't know if you much watch much Traitors, but I think they're going to go down sort of the route rather than old school new school. Seems like they're doing sort of the honor integrity alliance and sort of the gamers. I think that's the that's probably why they're not leaning too much into like, "Oh, old school new school." I think they're doing the sort of the loyalty integrity sort of like crew because you have people like Jonathan who are technically new school, but they lean more towards the sort of the Coach side of things.

29:40 Whereas you might have someone that might be a little bit I have trying to think off the top of my head who Like I guess it's Cirie is old school technically, but she seems to be playing really well like the Devons and the Christians and the Emilys of the world. She's adapting to the new-school game at >> Yeah. I think she sees and this is another reason why I think I have that faction sort of playing like, you know, winning out in the end just because I just don't see and I think that, you know, she's the she's the kingmaker in this season in a in a very similar way that she was the kingmaker in pretty much all her seasons, right? I think that she's going to go on that side and I think that whoever her and say Ozzy pick, I think they're going to be the faction that wins and I for now I just don't think it's the sort of the loyalty and integrity alliance. But I could be wrong. I love it. So what is better I want to ask you this question what is better for the 50s era of Survivor if the gamers the fast and loose sort of gamers win the season or if old-school and integrity wins season 50.

30:46 Which >> I think old-school I think old-school and integrity would better because there's going to be a pushback and it's going to be like a real actual legitimate discussion that we have within the community. Whereas if the gamers win it's just going to be the continuation of the 40s which I don't think anybody really wants. You kind of want something a little bit different. >> Yeah. I actually totally agree with you and that's why I'm asking the question. I am all for variety in gameplay and like for me I think I can't I can't actually take any this is not my take it's someone else's take that I listen to throughout the week after I watched the episode, but they were saying that, you know, the reason Rizo is more likable this season than last season is because and it sounds like it's like for me I wasn't the like Rizo wasn't an unlikable character. I just thought he was a non-entity for me in the previous season. He was just one of many game bots in that season.

31:36 Like calling him a game bot is not fair. He's got personality, but he was just a gamer amongst a bunch of other gamers. This season Rizo has he has a place. He's like a Cochran or something in the season and it's exciting to watch Rizo play the game because he's not one of 20 or 19 other players that are exactly like him, right? You know what I mean? You know what I mean? So suddenly he becomes interesting as a character in a season where he now has to play with some players like Cirie that who he got married to in this episode, right? So seeing that interaction it's fun. It's fun to watch people from different walks of life and who have got different views of how to play the game come together and I think to your point having a different kind of season where different type of gameplay wins, I think is good for the show and it's good to have that variety. Yeah, and it's good to see him dunk on a villain, right? Because like Charlie is clearly painted out to be a villain.

32:27 The island's not big enough for the two of us essentially. And then suddenly you kind of you kind of saw Charlie this season as sort of like a mustache-twirling like I'm going to get him out because he voted off, you know, his best mate which was a lie by the way, which is amazing. >> can we get Survivor Redemption Island season 52 Charlie and Rizo captains of their tribe? Can we can we can we make that happen? Can we can we get a rival season, right? Because there's like a ton of really great ri- like we're just making I thought I think it was a Johnny Fairplay was saying that for the rest of Charlie's life or rest of Rizo's life every is going to everybody's going to remember that rivalry, right? And it's just But it's good. I just love that stuff, yeah. Yeah. >> I think I think even though Charlie went out early this season obviously got outplayed and I think Charlie is a dangerous player.

33:17 Like I know Dee said he's the dumbest player on the show or on the season and it's typical Dee that's why we love her being back. She's got some sass to her confessionals, but you know, I think Charlie is a great player who obviously got sort of blinders on because of his previous season and now that this season played out the way it did. Like I want to see a third iteration of Charlie come back cuz I think he'll play very differently and I think he'll be a lot more aware. So, you know, he talked a lot about the awareness of being able to watch yourself play the show and maybe that's Rizo's biggest advantage and maybe that's the advantage of some of these players that have come into the show back-to-back in the past who've done extremely well. It's the unknown factor, but not just that the fact that they actually play loose and they don't take into consideration what fans thought of them or, you know, they get to play a different kind of game where they don't overanalyze their moves from the previous season.

34:08 So maybe that is Rizo's biggest strength in this season. Yeah, well can I have a hot take here? I think maybe Charlie was never a good player. And hear me out. I think the reason is because he was on 46 and what's 46 is Gabon. It's just full of crazy people, right? So maybe he just seemed like a good player cuz he was probably the only the only normal person there. It doesn't mean he's a good player, right? Like he was I don't know why Maria didn't vote for him, but there must have been some sort of reason that like why would you not vote for your best your biggest alliance in the in the game? It's like not to blame Charlie, but it's like it's incumbent to you to shape a jury that's going to vote for you and if he could if he had blinders on that he didn't know that Maria wasn't going to vote for him, then it's kind of like and this just goes into the PTSD of the whole situation.

34:59 We see that Charlie was a pretty sloppy player this season. I don't know if it was due to the PTSD or maybe he was always like this. Maybe on his season on 46 it doesn't really matter if you're talking to who was it? The rocket guy Ben was it? It doesn't matter if you're loose with Ben because clearly Ben's not a good player. Like he's not really good player. And like maybe Kenzie was just a really good player cuz Kenzie was able to manage Q. Kenzie was able to manage Banu. Kenzie was able to I mean Tiffany was quite good. She's a bit of social player. She was a bit of social player and again it's strategy. Like I feel like whenever when whenever these players lose in a final tribal council it normally shows a clear deficiency in their game plan, right? There's a there's a there's a lack of some social awareness there that has surfaced. Like, you know, have we ever thought of it like maybe outside of Dom who got second place who was just unlucky to go up against Wendell?

35:50 Yeah. >> Wendell was a good player, I feel. He was in Winners at War he was edited super badly, but he was a good player. Like if you remember Dom and Wen- Dom and Wendell, like Wendell clearly deserved to win in my opinion just because he was the one that was able to handle the Chris Noble situation. And I think Chris Noble was the was the was a vote was a sort of the Maria of the of that season. So I it's like you can see why sort of like why Wendell won, right? Yeah. >> I don't think Charlie I never thought Charlie should have won when I was watching it live and that maybe that's just a hot take on my part and everybody in retrospect like I know Charlie should have won. Kenzie should have won. Did you see Kenzie in the in the in the previous season? Yeah. I think Charlie has his fans out there for sure. There's people who love Charlie.

36:40 I'm similar to you. I was I always remember him as the Taylor Swift guy personally. But now he's going to be Rizo's rival which I think is good for him because I think Rizo is coming out of this season looking good. >> He's more likely to come back after this season because of that rivalry with Rizo. Like Fairplay said it best where Fairplay only works cuz there's a Rupert. Yeah, and I think Rizo's going to be relevant after the season. Like we're seeing Rizo again. So regardless of where he ends. So Lexa Power here back on the live says another 5 takes stream at normal time in the US. I haven't caught a live of you guys since I used to work the night shift. I agree about Charlie wasn't excited to see him return, but what a heartbreaking exit for Charlie had no desire to see any new players return though truly, but especially no one from 46 except for maybe Tiffany. And then says Charlie's exit was just so sad and Jeff turning Angelina's final tribal into like a joke just a mess.

37:35 No hate. I didn't need to see either of them play again. We do need to talk about Jeff's impersonations, but Lexa welcome back to the live. This is our normal streaming time for Survivor US content. So we started about 37 minutes ago. So in the future if you want to pop in and say hello, you know, no pressure. We'll be around. We're going to be talking about the season until it's conclusion. Yeah, so I just wanted to touch while we're still on the Rizo subject and this whole thing. I did give Rizo points this season on our fantasy draft for making a big move, but I also gave points to Dee cuz Dee probably was the one who actually started this whole thing and I think that a lot of people who lost sight of the fact that if there was no Dee open to work with sort of Rizo, no Dee noticing that there's a boys club starting to form between Charlie, Jonathan and the likes of Devons, Rizo would have not been able to do anything in this moment.

38:31 So I actually think the real power play here was Dee getting the girls together to work with Rizo. >> We're seeing many sides of or a second side of Dee, right? Cuz you coming into the season you thought you'd see one Dee, you know, you'd see the dominant player, but you're seeing a little bit more as a subtle Dee playing. She's doing she's playing a little bit more slowly. She's taking the I feel like the Savannah role here where she's sort of like morphed into the Savannah to the Rizo. So it's going to be quite interesting to see. Like I don't think she can stay under the radar for that long. Like she's too much of a powerful like, you know, well-known player, but yeah, it's pretty impressive that Dee was able to somehow sort of shift the target off herself. I think that Dee this season is proving why I know I've always said she's the best new era winner. I've always liked her win. I would I would put her up as a when you do those tiers, what's it like S tier and then underneath that it's like A tier or something like that.

39:26 I'd probably put her in like that A tier bracket for me personally. >> I'll put her in S tier. I think I think in terms of strong female strong female winners in the history of Survivor there's like there's Kim, there's Parvati, there's Dee. I mean maybe A after a season, but just the fact that she's able to survive this I mean, she's only been to one Tribal Council. You got to put Sandra there. Like you got to put Sandra in that top bracket even though Sandra her wins like I've never been a Sandra stan and I've never said that her games have been the most impressive, but the fact that she's won twice you got to put her into that conversation. >> Yeah. Her wins haven't been S tier, but her as a player and a character is S tier, I would say. Because her winning games were not impressive, but the time she didn't win or at least at least game change she did Sarah, yeah, you're right. Sarah's >> put her in there.

40:16 Sarah's on S tier, too, yeah. Yeah, so I don't know. Like I think I think for me because she's in the new era and I don't want to go we'll do a maybe you and I should go down and do like a ranking after the season of all of like our winners or players or something. We'll figure something out. It'll be a lot of fun to do. We haven't done content like that in a long time. But I would say for me she was somewhere in the A tier because of just being a new era winner, not knowing how to place her against some of the old school, but her game was impressive and I think after the season there's going to be no doubts. Like she's made the merge. She's lasting longer than any other winner and I don't think Dee's going home right at the merge. Like I think that she's still got some legs. Like if I had to predict right now, I'd say Dee is middle of the merge boot. She's going to be somewhere in the middle of the merge. She's going to get booted. But I don't think she's going to be the number one target. She's very I feel like she's very similar to Kim where Kim and her played almost an identical game.

41:11 And then Kim sort of makes it maybe mid merge and she puts up a valiant fight. She's the only one that sees through Tony's BS. Who's going to be the Tony to Dee? I'm not I'm not sure. Maybe it's going to be like someone like Christian or something like that. But time will tell. I feel like their trajectories are very similar. She's a very similar player, for sure. Yeah. Lexi is saying I'm such a hater on the new era players because I just don't love the new era, but if Rizo and even Dee can help Cirie win, they can stay. Dee worries me because she's coming for Cirie. I think we spoke about that in one of our previous recaps here on the channel, but both Andre and I and I believe Andre is still on the same page as me believe that we're seeing Dee's story of not taking the shot against Cirie before the merge and probably Cirie taking out Dee at some point. I think that's what potentially here will happen. But I know Cirie likes playing with strong women.

42:02 So she could become comfortable with Dee and I think that Dee has a lot there's a side of Dee that reminds me of Parvati. Always has. Like they're not exactly the same player, but I think that Cirie could see a little bit of that in Dee. Maybe like a Parvati kind of counterpart, which could be dangerous. But you know, my hope here is that she does put a lot of her trust into the likes of a Rizo. I hope Rizo doesn't break her heart and go back to Colby cuz that could potentially happen here as well. But talking about Rizo, like how much has Rizo's stocks in your mind gone up for a potential win here this season cuz he's been very much edited every single episode. He's one of the narrators of the season. do you feel like he's got a real shot at this at this stage because he's now Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Before I was like, yeah, maybe.

42:52 Like probably not, but a maybe. Now it's like he's probably top five contender for me, to be honest. It's clear that they're Yeah, cuz it's like I was a little bit concerned that okay, maybe his maybe his role in the season is to be to be cut by Charlie. I thought that might have been a possibility. In retrospect, they were clearly just saying, "Look, this is just an like a something that he needs to overcome." so I think I would I would like Rizo to win. I think that would be like a pretty cool that would be kind of like almost like a Cochran type of win. but I think it'll be quite nice just to say like even season 49 can hang out with the with the old schoolers and you know, him interacting with Cirie, him interacting with Colby. Like that is a true like passing of the torch type of moment to have some of the one of the goat players, one of the goat characters sort of pass the torch on to him.

43:47 I think that will sort of give him the stripes and the stars and the stripes to say, you know, you can hang out with the rest of those people and it will come full circle, right? Because what he's the same age as Colby was in the Australian Outback and if he can actually win this season, then it's like he's not just a kid. He's basically Colby. He's a maybe not a one day Colby, but same age, same type of sort of like placement. It's kind of like full circle moment there. Yeah. No, I've been loving like I said, Rizo for me has gone up. Like I was hot and cold on him in his own season. I didn't like he was just okay. This season I'm really enjoying cuz he came in with a best of target on his back being the unknown factor. He's had to play a very different game. Like it was interesting the montage where he was talking to everybody in his tribe about this is how I play it. I held onto my idol for so many you know, tribals and him being so forthcoming with everything. I thought that they were setting it up as to this is why he loses because he's been telling people too much about that game which could be his downfall.

44:43 On that, he did make a reference to Russell Hantz. Is he the Russell Hantz of the season? Maybe not as obviously as bad as Russell is, but will he play a similar game as Russell, right? Will he play a similar game where he like might screw over Coach later on? Will he play a game where he has the idol, he aggressively uses the idol? It's a possibility. Is it Is it the story of how Rizo loses? Like that could be a pretty interesting I think I think I was going to say to you I think Rizo has got longevity in the game and I see him going deep this season. Like potentially a top five, top six similar to you. I don't see him winning though. Because for me I think it's very difficult to see a 25 year old kid win this season when he's playing with people that are like in their late 40s, mid 40s, 50s. Like this is a different crowd compared to like if this was a new era season, I think he would be more relatable and people would be like, "Yes, we'll give the kid 25 this 25 year old.

45:37 We'll give him a million dollars for this." >> Spencer was never going to win. Yeah. Yeah. I could see him getting to the end, but potentially someone else winning the money because they'll be like, "Okay, well this is this person's third or fourth time playing the game and you know, they've got it's later in life for them." Like I just think that they're not going to connect with him on that same level. But maybe the whole story about people not liking Rizo at first and then turning around on him is going to be a theme where he gets to the end and people like, "You know what? We didn't like you that much in the beginning or we thought you were a kid and you were a bit immature, but now we actually really like you." So it could go either way really at this Sorry, go ahead. >> What before that what if Colby brings Rizo to the final the final two or final three and then Rizo wins over Colby and just a mirror to his first season. That would be pretty interesting. surprised to hear you guys are so low on Sandra's Heroes vs. Villains game. It's my favorite.

46:27 Just love Sandra. She had some fun lives this season on IG, too. I'm not like I don't think she for me Parvati and Russell controlled a lot more of the strategy that season, but I think >> a better game. 100% but I think you have to acknowledge that Sandra played the best game that she could play that season. Like And she won. And she won. >> and she won. Yeah. She won and that's all you need, right? It's like, "Okay, Parvati played a better game, but Sandra won. So by definition Sandra played a better game, right?" Yeah. Cuz the biggest thing that I always remember from that season is Sandra trying to take out Parvati and Russell every single episode and trying to get the numbers and never being able to do so, but them not never clocking onto the fact that she was trying to snipe them. So I don't know. Like it's an interesting season. I actually do I give Sandra her flowers. Like she is a top tier player like she's a top tier player, top tier winner. She's you can't have a two time winner not be at the top somewhere, but it doesn't need to be that we think that she played the best game.

47:23 Because Survivor is a complex thing. Ultimately what we think doesn't matter. It's what the you know, the jury thinks at the end of the day who actually wins. Lexi here says I wouldn't mind Cirie sitting next to Dee in the final three because I don't see Dee winning again, but I just want the best path for Cirie every week. can see Rizo going to the end and not winning. He's on the same returnee path that Stephanie and Russell Hantz were when they were losing finalists returning their next season. And then BBG here says I can see Rizo losing fire again. That would be actually quite poetic especially after that confessional about not coming to play camp. I want Cirie to Eric >> [laughter] >> And then BBG saying I don't think Parvati played a better game. Russell controlled the strategy and Sandra had the better jury management. I agree with that take personally. Well, I mean we can definitely discuss this till the end of time, I think.

48:15 I think everybody has their opinion, right? and I don't think there's in what How long has it been? 15 years or whatever? 16 years? I don't think anybody has settled on an answer to this. It's kind of It's going to be the biggest debate of all time in the Survivor world. Yeah. That's why Heroes vs. Villains is always going to be a top three season for me. It's just because there were so many good storylines that season. And this season I think a season is only as good as its storylines and we've got a bunch of them that are being set up as we're going into the merge here. Just trying to think if there's anyone that we kind of missed out on. Oh yeah, the lie that Rizo told about Kyle with Kamila was a fun moment. And it's one of the reasons why I like Rizo. Rizo plays with house money. Like he's he's kind of in that same league as like Devons and Christian. I feel like he's that kind of player. He just he tries things. He throws things at the wall and sees what sticks and even though Kamila doesn't fully know if she can trust him or believe him, she's kind of choosing to believe him for now.

49:13 Yeah. >> Was Kamila really the swing vote here or was she presented as a swing vote to make the tribe a little bit more interesting? Cuz Yeah. If she was a swing vote, great. That's like an accurate portrayal. But if she wasn't actually the swing vote, but they portrayed her as a swing vote, could this be a thing where she's like a longer term player? But why would she have Why would they have hidden Kamila so like early on? Is it just because she didn't go to tribal or she wasn't that interesting? Or is it going back to Adeline's point about oh, they're not giving sort of Kamilla her flowers? Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree with you. I think that I had that same thinking after the episode where I was like, I don't know if Kamilla really was this the swing vote cuz I think Kamilla was always going to go wherever D was going to go and I think that those two are working very closely together. We saw that alliance from pre the swap and Cirie being a part of that being three females and that to take the control like I don't think Rizo's just I think Rizo's being over shown as the mastermind personally in this move.

50:13 Like I think they were over but you got to ask yourself why are they doing that? And again, that comes down to Rizo probably going deep in the game and having a big story line beyond just getting to the merge. >> Yeah, and I think for me here just based on this episode, maybe it's just the way the episode went. But I feel like Rizo has leapfrogged Devens on the power rankings because Woody, yeah. Devens had a pretty bad episode I feel. Like he was still present, but I mean, I guess they didn't really clown on him too much. They said, "Look, Devens is being like he's trying to go with the numbers." And then I really like the call back to his first season about him being a passenger. I thought that was like, you know, chef's kiss. but like I don't know what to make of Devens now. It's like is are they just putting his story on the back burner until he re he gets back with them and he gets back with Cirie and Christian and the crew?

51:07 Because that's I have my eye on that on that storyline, too. For sure. For sure. And I love it because obviously Devens is a part of your fantasy team. So you're locked in on him. What is Devens doing? The Devens watch. I did appreciate Devens turning around to Rizo afterwards and saying well played, you know, like he respects good gameplay. Yeah, and it's like those moments are really endearing and I think that Rizo will appreciate it. I think it's good for Devens game. He's not he's not solid in that moment that he was left out of the vote. I want to read a couple more comments here. so Alexa's saying, "Funny how we all disagree on who played the best game, but Sandra and Poverty are both on Survivor Mount Rushmore for everyone, but not Russell." I think Russell similar to Ozzy if Russell only played the two seasons that he played and never came back, we would have we would have discussed him at Mount Rushmore.

51:57 That season that he came back after that didn't look good and then Australian Survivor looked even worse for him when he came back. So he's only done damage to his You need a win to be on the Rushmore, to be honest. >> I agree. >> And as soon as Tony won, I don't think he had a chance, to be honest. I think I think and this is maybe a hot take, maybe not. Like I think Russell is in the Mount Rushmore potentially and I haven't given this enough thought, right? Of non-winners. Like people who haven't won, but he's so good. Like I've always said this, if you had a like, you know, and you get FIFA and you can play FIFA soccer games and stuff on PlayStation and you can build your own ultimate teams with like card decks and people have got 99 in pace, so many in dexterity. Like if we had a card game of Survivor, Russell would be like 99 in strategy, like 50 below in social. Zero in social. Zero in social. Zero in social.

52:48 So like he's just so one-sided, but I mean you can't you can't ignore the fact that he was a great strategic mastermind of the seasons that he played. It's but the stuff that he goes on about outside of the game just makes him less and less likable. But if we're just talking about his game itself, you know. >> He's probably on a character Mount Rushmore in terms of like people that like consequential characters, but not as players. Like you can't say that. >> Yeah. We still remember him. He's still memorable. Alexa says, "We could we could be seeing a 41 type edit decoy male winner Xander, Christian with all the screen time, women with smaller edits in the background pre-merge edit focusing on advantages." I've got a feeling personally if this if this becomes true, my money is on Colby winning the season. Like I still have some money on Colby winning the season cuz he's getting the confessionals every single episode.

53:42 He's relevant still in the storyline. And for some other reason I could see him just being that under edited like even though he's getting the edit, he's not he's not seen as like strategic or at the crux there. They're just showing his social game and how well he's getting along with everyone. And I could again see that this episode with Coach giving him the Oakbound Warrior nickname and then to Joe the Stonebound Warrior nickname, right? A little bit of a Coach throwback to giving nicknames to his allies. Yeah, I feel like if a woman wins though, I what does that look like? Like if a Genevieve wins, I would expect this edit from Genevieve. If Aubry wins, I expect this edit from Aubry. I mean, I don't think Stephanie's going to win with the edit she's had. if Cirie wins, I feel like this is the edit that we'll get. Like there's not an under edited Cirie I don't feel.

54:32 I think she's been pretty present. So I think it lines up. It's just if a Tiff I like I Tiff ain't going to win. Like it's just like we can forget that. Like if a D wins, like this is the edit that we'll get. Like we haven't really seen her because she's hasn't been relevant. And as soon as she become relevant, she Emily's not winning cuz Emily's being portrayed as chaotic. Yeah. I mean, D is I'd say the most likely the most likely female winners at this stage would be probably Aubry, Genevieve depending on who wins that battle between the two of them. Cirie definitely up there. Will anyone let D win twice? Like if D gets to the final, she could potentially sneak it. >> If D gets to the finals, I think they would have to respect that. Like that would be impressive if she was able to get to the end. Like we immediately see her I wouldn't say she manipulated Rizo, but she got Rizo on her side immediately.

55:23 Like that was very impressive. And she was able to corral the numbers with like with the four and Kamilla and I think what Cirie was part of it. She was able to get Cirie on board. Like that's Yeah. Or Cirie was able to get D on board, you know? Like think about that. That's crazy. Yeah. Alexa's saying, "Interesting about Colby. I could maybe see Coach winning. I need more from Colby to consider him a winner contender." I totally agree with you. I think Coach probably is more likely at this point cuz everybody's loving Coach this season and they just want to play with Coach. The legend of Coach. I think people could vote for Coach in a Coach, Colby, Joe final scenario. Like it could go either way cuz Colby's also loved and well respected and socially very strong. So I don't know where it's going to go between those two. It will be between Coach and Colby for sure. But I think just from a an aspect of who's maybe like an under the radar kind of winner, I feel like Colby is just getting enough content for us to know he's still there, but he's not necessarily driving anything.

56:19 Yeah, what did you make of Coach's confessional about keeping the dragon slayer down? I felt like he was very Yeah, he was very like almost too self-aware there. Which is kind of like you're almost looking at the South Pacific Coach where he's like he's a little bit more self-aware. He's a really good player. He realizes playing a character. And I think this is one of the first times that we actually see on screen Coach being that self-aware, which I found quite fascinating. Is this the beginning of the end for Coach or is this the beginning of him sort of dominating the game because he could be set up to actually dominate this game if his alliance wins out like you think that it's going to it's going to happen. that could be a pretty interesting season. It could be South Pacific though again, which is like the cult of Coach. Yeah, very easily. I love this from Coach.

57:10 I mean, Coach is saying that this is the first time he's playing as Benjamin, right? He's playing as he's playing as his true self, right? He's >> [laughter] >> Coach and Ozzy are the same person. Coach is a better player than Ozzy. Let's be let's be real about that. But I mean, but to your point, Coach is a very intelligent person, right? And he's done he's done the whole play up a character thing already for TV. I don't think he's thinking about another returnee season after this. I think this is truly his farewell to Survivor, you know, his sayonara. And I think he wants to if there's one season he would want to win, it's going to be this season. And if he has to play down the character inside of him, then he's going to do it this season. Could be could it be like because obviously he played with Boston Rob in South Pacific. He clearly played a Boston Rob type of game. Is this his version of Redemption Island?

58:00 Where he just dominates. Cuz you know, they're setting him up to be like, you know, everybody wants to be in alliance with Coach. surprisingly actually. I know that you know, he was number one on your draft, but I didn't think that it would work on All-Stars. But I guess if you got Colby and Joe on your on all on an All-Stars season, then I guess you could see that work and maybe like Jonathan, who knows. Yeah, I think Jonathan could fall into that. Lexi is saying, "I think the merge could really mix up the winner contenders. We've got to see who takes control and decide the merge vote." I could see Coach going all Gabler and winning over the men. And I think potentially this is the reason why we're seeing a lot of men being over edited compared to the women in that narrative being out there. So potentially this could be a season that gets dominated by a lot of these men forming together, which I know there will be a pocket of fans that would hate it like if that happened on online.

58:52 >> That would be very yeah, controversial. Controversial like if something like that happened. But for me, it's like again, like I said, I'm okay with it happening from time to time. Similar to when we've got a we should celebrate both even >> Yeah, when black when the black widow alliance is there, let's celebrate it. Like it's awesome. The women took control of the game and they won this. Like let's keep it moving. Like next season, there's a new opportunity for a different alliance to take control. BBG is saying, "I think the winner is coming from Carl's tribe because of their focus on one of them winning. So Colby, Genevieve, Aubry, Rizo or Stephanie. My original pick was Q. Sadly." yeah, it could also just be a red herring. They could have just thrown it in there to throw us off the trail of who's actually going to win. But I know they've done it in the past and we've seen winners when you know when the game when that's happened on the show. I can't recall it but I'm pretty sure it's happened. This is like a known editing trick that they do on Survivor.

59:44 Okay, so Lexi here says I don't put too much stock into winner quotes anymore. Remember Cody and 43 had a great winner's quote about having spent the money already and he ended up being a decoy winner. Narrator, I wish they brought Rocksroy back. I liked Rocksroy as well. and Jonathan running immense slides would have been fun. it could be a red herring but just felt they spent more time on the mid-back than they really needed to. and that could just be because Carl I think is a really well-liked winner and someone that they wanted to give a proper farewell to. Who knows? I also think that they deliberately and I feel like this is a very deliberate thing where they wanted to make the first half of the season deliberately slow so we can get the maximum exposure to all of the characters. So they didn't really want to they really wanted to develop that tribe a little bit more they take that opportunity. Because that most of those people haven't even go on to tribal council.

1:00:35 So you know you're a well half of those haven't gone to tribal council. So it was a good way to sort of to develop that as well because they know that the well maybe not maybe from this season on that the characters are really the stars of the show right? It isn't it shouldn't be Jeff right? >> [laughter] >> Yeah. Well talking about Jeff not being the star of the show were you pro the impersonations or against the impersonations I liked it but I've got another hot take. I think that Rodney was a much better impersonator than getting Rodney back to do the impersonations. He was very good yeah. I liked that I didn't like >> [laughter] >> I did not see you pulling out Rodney's name on this podcast. Rodney yeah Rodney is actually one of my low-key favorites actually favorite >> I like them as well. I know I'm glad I'm glad to know you and I have got the same hot take around Rodney. Like you know we should we should get him back.

1:01:26 I want to see him celebrate another season of it. >> player too. He was a very good player. He was surprised he was I he was edited very it's just a little Rodney lovefest I this day. >> [laughter] >> Well He's got some strange stuff going on in his personal life outside of the game so I don't know if we're going to see him back on the show but he was a character. Don't follow his Instagram guys. >> [laughter] >> more of this type of content from Jeff and less of the rap I would say. But I feel like maybe Jeff's going a little bit more senile these days. So just like just let him just let him just do his Jeff things. I can't I still want to see grumpy Jeff back. But I'll take this Jeff. This is this is fine. Just To be honest with you I found myself laughing out hard to that segment. I was like I was actually laughing at I thought it was fun. It was a like I wasn't at all >> [laughter] >> No but he was he was spot on with Christian.

1:02:23 He was spot on with Jonathan and Colby. Like I thought it was a fun little moment you know and I don't know what Like maybe it's just you know Jeff's worn me he's worn me down over the last like nine seasons. I'm just giving in to him now. I'm just like okay let Jeff's going to Jeff let him Jeff out there you Just do his senile stuff Jeff. Just Yeah let's get it out of the way you know it's your segment and then and we keep moving on with the game. trying to think if there's anything that we haven't spoken about before we go into the draft. I think we've covered all the Aubry and Genevieve at all like Were they even on this episode? I think Aubry got in like Genevieve didn't get a single confessional. I think Aubry had a confessional or two but and there was this like big you know I guess when you look at what happened in the previous episode they really spent a lot of time explaining the whole Genevieve versus Aubry rivalry and then that all ended up being nothing.

1:03:16 They were saying something like where Aubry was going on and on about how much she respected Genevieve but Genevieve didn't want to play with her which directly contradicted their original conversation where Aubry was the one that actually knocked back Genevieve in that. So what are they even trying like they're telling completely different things in the edit. and I think Angelina was saying that Angelina really wanted to work with Aubry but they didn't show any of that and actually Aubry knocked back Angelina. So that would actually directly contradict what they were what Aubry was saying about nobody wants to play with me when Angelina wanted to play with Aubry. So there's something weird going on with this Aubry situation. I don't know what to think. I don't know what they're trying to do with her as a character this season.

1:04:08 It's very strange. Yeah. I totally agree. I think that I've been of the opinion from the start that we're seeing Aubry portrayed in not such a great light. I know there's some podcasters who believe that Aubry is the one who's going to win the battle between the two of them. I'm leaning more towards Genevieve especially now that we're going into the merge. I was very fearful for Genevieve prior to that because that idol could have been something that would have idoled out Genevieve from that moment but I think that she's now got some allies again and will have some room to maneuver if she goes into the merge. But Aubry I just don't know about her. Like she's coming across she was the one like you said who didn't want to give anything to Genevieve when Genevieve clearly wanted to work with her. and she's the one doing the eye rolling. She's the one who's like I don't know. It's like she's not enjoying being out there. We're not seeing her in a positive light.

1:04:59 I feel like Well last season I will actually give an analogy. I think she's very similar to Sage last season. I liked Sage. I thought that Sage was a very good character and I felt she actually came off as quite likable. Yeah. Are they trying to do a Sage type of thing with Aubry? Like because Sage did the eye rolling. But I but I think no I don't think so. I don't think it's that simple. I think that last season with that Sage I forgot the girl who was she was against Shannon. That girl was clearly portrayed as being against her and that girl was clearly >> Genevieve though? I don't think so. I don't think I think Genevieve honestly wanted to work with Aubry and then since then she's just been loyal to her group. She's not going around spreading misinformation like that girl did in the previous season. Like I don't think it's like a like for like between the two seasons. Like I like Sage because Sage was clearly seeing through the BS that other girl was trying to you know play on her.

1:05:54 I don't think Genevieve's trying to like Genevieve's being very up front and honest about how she's playing who she's playing with. So I don't see it exactly the same way. I'm just looking through my notes to see if there's anything else that we missed on. I don't think so. Let's before we go into the actual fantasy and the points and all that kind of stuff top three winner picks right now. Who's that for you? >> Christian Rizo Ooh. I'm going to I'm going to do a very bold call here. I'm going to say D. I don't think maybe in the game it's possible for D but I feel like if she was going to win this is the way that she would win. I that's the that's the if I if turns out I'm right that's going to be like prescient but Christian number one for sure.

1:06:44 It's his story for me and then Rizo is I think he's a this is coming out episode and it's like this would be really good story. I don't really have I don't have Colby there yet though. Okay well for me I've got Colby. I've got Coach. And Colby Coach and then the third one like I want to put Rizo there. I just don't know if Rizo can win. But let's put Rizo there. I'll go Colby Coach and Rizo cuz I'm more leaning towards that old school one. I think Christian is the similar to Lexa here. I think it Christian's the decoy winner. I think he's I think he's a Tony. I think he's a Tony of the season. And you know what? I hope you're I actually hope you're right because I think that would be a more exciting season to watch. Like if he's out in the front like I like the the Tony kind of winners the winners that put it all on the line that I can go back on and say wow he was out in the front from the start pulling all the moves and no one could took take him out.

1:07:39 No one actually saw what he was doing. I like those kind of kind of wins. Let's see what BBG is saying. He's saying Colby Genevieve and Aubry. Okay so one of my three in there. It's a quite good theory though. Like either one whoever wins about Genevieve and Aubry is going to have a really good It's like we don't know who's going to win but whoever's going to win is probably likely going to win. Like I think that's actually good. I think for our draft if Aubry wins it would be the best cuz she wasn't picked. She fell to me in the last place. [laughter] Like I just love I love winning a show on someone that was like given to me as the very last pick. I just think there's something cool >> It reminds me of all the Cagayan drafts where everybody just let Tony go last and [laughter] then Tony ended up winning. Yeah Winners at War same thing. Nobody wanted to touch Tony going into Winners at War. So Lexa's saying winner picks is Coach Aubry and Cirie. I don't feel good about my Cirie pick but got to pick one.

1:08:29 Who I want. that's fair. >> she can win. I think she's she's in my contenders of who can win. Yeah. I think he's the Xander but maybe he's the Cochran. So Yeah so it could be Xander Christian or it could be Cochran. I like or Jeff could be Jesse. He could be Jesse from the new era. You think it's a fallen angel? Yeah I think so. I think he's a fallen I think he's a fallen angel. But I would I would love to be wrong about that. I'm enjoying Christian this season. He like I again he's not in my draft but at the end of the day I'm team good TV. Like whatever's going to make for good TV I'm going to support that. And I don't know if my winner picks like I think a Coach win would be fun. I do like a Colby win from the standpoint of him finally getting redemption after he didn't win originally you know so that would be fun as well.

1:09:21 >> The only trepidation I have about Coach possibly winning is it might be like watching the end game of South Pacific and it was like deadly boring. That's my only concern if he if he does very well because he's going to play the Boston Rob type of game and it's not going to be very interesting TV. So, that's my only concern about Coach. It's true. Okay, let's have a look here. Finally, we've got some movement on the draft and you don't lose any players this week. So, Angelina voted out and then Charlie following Angelina voted out here. So, we finally have players from both my team and the TNT community leaving which gives you a little bit of an opportunity here to make up some ground on the points situation. However, you are playing with a lot less players. So, the way that it works this season is that if you have a player survive the episode, they get a point.

1:10:13 For me, obviously, that's everybody except for Angelina. I also had again Coach Colby, Joe, and Aubry win immunity outright. So, that was three points each. Then Angelina had a minus five cuz she was voted out, but I did put a big move down for D cuz I believe personally I think D probably made the biggest move this episode going against their allies and pulling Rizz in even though the edit didn't give her all the credit, but it gave her some of the credit which is still good. Then in your team, we had Christian, Genevieve, and Devens all survive. We had Genevieve win outright. No loss of points this week for you. Christian, I put down as making a big move because I think giving his shot in the dark was a thing that ultimately kept him in the game and that's what the show wanted us to believe in any case.

1:11:04 It was a leap of faith, right, to do that Andre and it and it worked out in his in his favor. So, Are we giving out two big moves because there were two tribes went to tribal? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. That's fair cuz anybody that had a big move that ended up playing out at a tribal, I would go. So D big move, Christian big move, and then the other big move that I did give is in the TNT community because I also gave it to Rizz. It's not the only move, but you have to give Rizz some credit here as well. We didn't even talk about this whole Charlie situation coming up to him with the hammer in the morning or the boat. Like, why is Rizz sleeping in a boat, Andre? Like, he's not sleeping [laughter] with the rest of the tribe. He's pretty comfortable, actually. I think I would I would be sleeping in the boat as well. That seems that's a hack if you're ever on Survivor. Sleep in the boat. Yeah, people just come up to you and have conversation.

1:11:56 Similar to Cirie, like Cirie superpower just laying down and people coming to her telling her about their games, right? Yeah, I actually saw By the way, with Cirie, I see I think she's the only one in the game that knows about every single advantage in the game which is an interesting stat that I just heard about. Yeah, did you like her sharing the extra vote secret with Rizz? Yeah, I think she's playing a slightly different game this time than all her other I think she's very adaptable and she I think she realizes that for her to win, she needs people she needs to share information. She needs to have new people on her side. So, I think that was a very strong I don't think it's not it's not going to come and bite her, I don't think cuz I feel like I feel like it's an opportunity to sort of bring the Rizz and the Aussies and sort of the crew together now that it's emerged.

1:12:47 So, it seems like the theme for this episode was sharing information and information is power and we saw like how and it was a direct contrast with what Charlie did where Charlie was giving information, but way too late and then it made people turn on him. So, I really liked the way that Cirie did it. It was very subtle, but it was it worked really well compared to Charlie and even Rizz. I think it's showing what we mentioned earlier. Cirie's adapting well to the new school game and she's playing she's showing she can adapt from Well, I mean, she adapted extremely well even to Australian Survivor. In Australian Survivor, it was a lot more of a fast-paced game. Technically, a new schooler because she has played like last season, literally. Yeah, that's very true. So, obviously in the TNT community, everybody survived. Christian and Tiffany won outright immunity. Also, a minus five to them on the Charlie vote out.

1:13:40 I did put points though for Charlie getting caught in a lie because I believe because Rizz caught him out by him saying like, you know, he didn't really tell anyone about the votes or anything like that. I remember there was something there where he got kind of caught out. And also the fact that he got caught out for wanting to work with Rizz when he didn't really want to. Rizz also got caught in a lie by Kamilla when Rizz was talking about, by the way, Kyle said this and Kamilla was like, "No, he didn't." I can No, I considered it, but she didn't say definitively. She said, "It sounds strange. I don't know if it's true, but for now I'll believe him." Right? So, I don't feel she's reluctant. If she in the future comes around and says, "Absolutely, that must have been a lie." then I'll give her the points, but I don't think she's like locked in on it. So, cuz I considered it. We do have Rizz for three points on the big move.

1:14:34 So, where does that leave us at the end of this week? So, you've got a lot of ground to make up. You're still in third place with 49 points. You scored a total of four points this week. So, >> [laughter] >> No, actually, that can't be right. No, it can't be right, actually. No, that's got to be wrong. So, three I might have to fix this formula. Let me just have a quick look. It wasn't only one point for surviving, right? And winning immunity? And no one only Genevieve won immunity for me. So, that's three and then plus one Genevieve won outright. So, that's only four points because Christian didn't have anything happening with him this episode. >> see what's wrong. I see what's wrong. I might have still a minus five for you. So, you actually had nine points this episode. So, yeah, that goes up to 54 points for you in total. Still in the bottom spot for now.

1:15:27 And then in second place, we've got TNT community on 83 points. TNT community had 13 points this week. And then in first place, we've got myself on 93 points. 17 points from this week. So, still a lot of players, a lot of outright immunity wins within this tribe and then the one big move by D giving me some points. So, it's all to play for between TNT community and myself at this stage. Your best bet at this stage, Andre, is for us to start losing numbers drastically. You need us to start losing two players at a time each week now for the next three episodes at least. I just need I just need like a Christian, Genevieve, Devens final three. That's the only I think that's the only thing that could possibly save me. Yeah, it's been fun. It's been fun. Like, who would have thought that, you know, we would go this far in four episodes in a row you losing all of your players.

1:16:23 >> I was sweating when Christian was in trouble. >> [laughter] >> If the fan theories out there were right with Christian and potentially Genevieve gone this week, you would have been If Devens was your sole person in the game, it would have been like, "Geez." You'd have to pull out of the >> could have could have been voted off this week, too, but considering he was like an outsider. So, I was very I was very stressed. Yeah, let's see what people are saying here. Would Coach's habit of hugging people he just blindsided on the way out be more well received in 2026? In the 20s during South Pacific, the game was so much more serious. Now, it's all hugs and fun. Good question. I think probably it would. Wasn't it in the like the first episode when they voted off Jenna Lewis, somebody tried to hug her? Am I am I hallucinating that? And I don't think she took it kindly.

1:17:13 Yeah. But she's a she's an old school player. So, and I probably >> Well, there's a lot of old school players here, too, though. So, True. Who do you think will be the merge boot? Good question. Who do you have, Andre? Who's the merge boot? I think it's going to be two. I'll call it. There's going to be two boots at the merge. Well, I mean, I know that I had D going really far, but I think that it's either she gets voted off at the merge or she goes really far. I think if she can get through the merge, I think, you know, I think I think she's in the most trouble cuz she's just the biggest I think she's like they see the winner, they just get off the winner. Mhm. I'm going to say I think Tiffany I feel like Tiffany cuz she's had no edit. Yeah, Tiffany's had no I could see them like targeting like someone like Ozzy and Ozzy just playing an idol on himself or something like that.

1:18:09 Or like Genevieve What is it? Genevieve like going to like, "Oh, yeah, let's just get out Ozzy, you know, like and we'll try to blindside him." And then Ozzy somehow gets wind of it and then it ricochets back. Yeah, let's think about this. There's two main factions in the game. Who would Who would be the gamers' target? Aubry's going to go over to the gamers, going to play with them. They're probably going to go for Genevieve. She's got that target in mind. So, Genevieve is a potential person >> Genevieve is going to slot in with the I think they're going to they're going to put away their rivalry for like one round and then I think Genevieve is going to go with the gamers, but we don't have any evidence of that, right? Like because Genevieve and Rizz are really close. And then who does Rizz go with? Rizz is attached to Cirie. Cirie is attached to Ozzy. And they're kind of all attached somewhat to Christian. So, that's what my thought is. So, I don't know who they're going to vote >> we see I think we see some sort of outcome between Aubry and Genevieve.

1:19:03 Like, they put a lot of effort into explaining this storyline prior to the merge. They again showed us the back story of what happened between them. They're constantly keeping it front of mind. Yeah, this could be the showdown at the merge. So, I think Aubry, Genevieve good shout and then someone random that we just didn't expect like a Tiffany or like a D or something like that. Could it be the game is factory going behind either Aubry or Genevieve and then they need to bring over the loyalty integrity crew to be sort of like that block. Maybe that's what it could be. Cuz there's so many it's I think it's probably going to be the biggest tribal council in history, right? I can't think of one that's been bigger than this. So it's going to be absolutely insane. Or it could be like what you said where it's probably just going to be split down the middle and it's going to be too fat. Yeah.

1:19:53 And that makes it hard to predict who's going to go home cuz we don't even know who's going to be in those groups. Will he say I think TNT community got this. We just need Emily to stay to give us more points. I would love that final three Christian is still in trouble. I could see Ozzy idling him out. People hated the coach hugs and avoided him like the plague during so South Pacific, but it's a different era but it's old school players. I'll go with Tiffany given her tiny edit. I think the merge boot is D or Stephanie or Tiffany but I could also highly see it being Christian. This is just the thing is so many people left. Remember Marty going at the merge in Nicaragua so losing a narrator at the merge isn't unheard of. Christian has just pissed so many people off and Ozzy and Cirie have the advantages to whatever they want. If they come together and bring a few people in with them, it could definitely also be Genevieve at the merge hated is terrible.

1:20:45 Yeah, it's all over the place. There's so many people left in the game but this has been you know talking about potentially a record tribal council going into the merge. This has been our new record for the longest podcast we've done together Andre. And I was 20 minutes in. It was a lot [laughter] to talk about. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, if two people are going next week I think we'll be talking for a similar amount of time because there's a lot there's so much to talk about and it's the way they've crafted this season has been excellent. We saw a really great payoff with the Rizo and the Rizo story line. We got a nice bow around Ozzy. It was fantastic. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to next week. Absolutely love talking about Survivor with you. I'm so glad that we spoke about Survivor 50 and doing this podcast prior to the season and that you know we resurrected the Nullified Take podcast because I've been having a lot of fun talking to you about it every single week.

1:21:37 I've got no one else to talk like at least you can talk to your partner about Survivor. Like mine doesn't want to watch Survivor. It's like no I can't watch that show. >> [laughter] >> Tell her Rizo's doing really well. I have I have been telling her like hey Rizo's like doing it. So for those who don't know my girlfriend's Albanian Italian. So the Albanian side I was like you know the Albanian guy is doing extremely well. He's still in the game, you know, he's doing it for Albania. But yeah, it's been Mine is a real Christian stan so we're aligned there. >> [laughter] >> Exactly. Well, it's been a lot of fun. Everybody that gets to this point of the podcast that listened to all of this. If you want to support us hit subscribe, put a like, put comments below. I do read them even after the live. Thank you so much but for now grab your torches and head back to camp. I will see you guys next week and thanks to everybody in the live for jumping in and taking part of the conversation. I really enjoyed bringing up the comments.

1:22:27 For me a lot about the Nullified Take is what is the community say? What are they thinking? And that's why we've got the community in our draft this year competing against myself and Andre as well. Well, talk to you guys next time. Bye.