Survivor 51: Episode 2 | He voted for himself!?

0:00 Welcome back to the nullified take channel on YouTube. We've got the TNT takes for you on Survivor 51, episode 2. I've got Andre back here with me. A big week for Survivor, Andre. Big week for Survivor. Big crossover week for Survivor. How do you feel about everything? I know the news have come out about Big Brother. I know we're starting about a completely different show here. People are saying best winner in many years. Best Yeah. Yeah. I mean, best game for sure. One of the best winners in recent seasons, of course. I can't think of I mean, there's been some pretty strong winners of Big Brother lately, actually, but just in terms of I think everybody likes Devin's and like what I'm a big fan of Deans. Like, I think I took it first in my draft, so I feel like a little bit vindicated there. Do I get extra points for him eventually winning

0:51 A different show? [laughter] Yeah. Edge of Extinction. he was on the edge of big brother having to get his first win and is now a more successful Big Brother player than he was ever a Survivor player which is pretty crazy to think but obviously we're happy for Rick Devin's. I saw all the clips on X and things like that with his family in the crowd as he was winning and things like that. So shout out to Rick Devin's. We're big Rick Devin's fans here on the podcast. So, I needed to start the podcast with that cuz it's such a high note for us Survivor fans to see, Rick finally pull it off. You may have to dip into watch the season. Maybe that maybe they're like threeh hour summary of the season. Maybe not one episode. I'll probably do that and I'm sure there is going to be some YouTube content creators that will create like a short of how Rick Devin's got to the win or you know explain D and

1:44 Rick's game together because I'm sure it was intertwined and that the a lot of credit should also go to D for making it to the final four as a big game player. But jumping into Survivor 51 episode 2, what was your overall thoughts of this episode? Did you did you like it? Did it have that old school feel still to you? like we said in the first episode, I think this has been the strongest start of a season for quite some time. Certainly probably even inclusive of 40 and 50. I think that it's probably been as strong as I can't think of a time where I've been this excited for Survivor that hasn't been an All-Star season. it's been incredible. like they have been giving the players room to play and room to strategize and room to cut off their

2:32 Thumbs and room to do things and that's refreshing and like even I'm not a big like challenge guy but the challenges have been very like fantastic as well but I'm sure we'll get into all of it. I've I'm a big fan so far. One of the one of the better episodes. I think I think the season started extremely strong and it was surprising that we went through a whole episode without a big twist coming in. They didn't have to get on a boat to go anywhere. two big tribes. It felt like there was more time as well. when you have three tribes and you've got to split your attention between three different tribe dynamics and what's going on in these tribes, it kind of takes away sometimes from I don't know like the extra deep analysis of strategy or what is happening in a camp.

3:19 And I felt like we had everything this episode. overall loved it to be honest. and it's a shame because I've had a lot of people reach out to me in the last week that said, "Hey Chris, it's great to see you're back. You're podcasting again. I've kind of fallen off Survivor. I'm not really watching it anymore, but you know, I'll tune in from time to time just to hear you and Andre talk, but they're like, we're out of it. And I feel like maybe fans should just hold on. I was there two, three seasons ago where I stopped watching Survivor. I didn't really watch 4849 Live. I went back to go watch it after the fact. and I get why so many people have been so frustrated with Survivor. the one big caution I will throw out there though Andre is that there's still a lot of players in the game. There is not that many days to

4:06 Play the game and I feel like we may start slow like last season and we may feel like the premerge is the best part of the season and then they're just going to speed it up and they're going to throw a lot of craziness in because the one thing that still is stuck in my head is permanent uncertainty and I'm worried about it's quite apt. I'm still uncertain about this season because I feel like Jeff could do anything. He could pull he could pull the carpet right underneath our feet when it comes to later in the game and he could like still supersonic this whole thing. Yeah. Well, you have to give them credit at least for the first couple of episodes that they are on the right track and saying, "Hey, look, maybe they've seen the error of their ways in the new era." So, it's like, okay, let's just rewind all that. And I think this is kind of like rebranding from Jeff, right? Where it's like, oh,

4:51 Permanent uncertainty. We're bringing back old twist. It's like you're doing back to basics essentially. Like if they can just redo what they do with token chains and be like look two crries idols and I'm sure there's going to be a couple of smaller twists on along the way and I know that what they're definitely going to be doing the coin flip. So we do know that is coming. but knowing that it's like okay well we know at least to expect that BS. So, let's just brace ourselves for that, but enjoy it while it lasts. While there is no twist, I feel. Yeah. Jay saying, "Survivor 51 shows you why you should trust your cast and not throw in BS twists every two seconds to manufacture chaos. He says Survivor's back. Annie agrees with you that the challenges have been better. I think they'll get rid of people by doing a couple of double travel councils in premerge and then merge at 14." I hope

5:41 It's premerge and not merge that they do a little bit of a speed up somewhere. That's me personally. I want to see good gameplay when it comes to the merge portion of the game. We start this episode with Lewis coming back into the camp. he spent some time on Exile Island. Andre, you said that was going to be something you would do because, you know, again, you become the star of the season and all that. I was worried about the fact that you would lose three days of strategizing, building some key connections here. And it definitely in the early parts of this episode felt like he is definitely playing from behind at this point because he's he hasn't fully found his people yet. He hasn't necessarily become the star of the season yet either. I don't feel like the edit kind of followed him too much beyond coming back into the tribe. I think time will tell between the two of us who had the correct read here. if he's someone

6:32 That goes before merge, maybe the right move isn't to go and exile yourself from the tribe. But if he does find his way back, then possibly you could be right. But at the end of the day, the problem with Survivor these days is that everybody expects you've got an advantage no matter what you tell them. And there is definitely a few people who were suspicious of him coming back saying he didn't get it. Yeah. Well, there was a big L from Kilby when Kilby Well, it was Kilby that was saying, "Hey, look, I know a lie when I see one." and he was completely wrong. So, edit-wise, I think that the real big loser here is Kilby because they wouldn't have shown it otherwise. with Lewis though, I still stand I mean, I still stand by because I think as soon as you see there's 21 people and that there's exile in play, you kind of know that you're going to go

7:18 Back to the tribe that has sort of the had the tribal council. you can kind of instead of going to unknown ground, you can kind of see where the chips lay and sort of what happened at the tribal council and sort of strategize yourself to be correctly placed and just zip it. Don't really it's like you know connect with people but strategically just you know just listen and just hear what happened and then sort of place yourself in. So, I think his I think his position relatively strong considering that he was exiled, but I feel like in this day and age like any like the losers are always going to want to, you know, bring in sort of the person to come in unless it was like a 91 vote. I think that either way he probably would have been in a pretty good position personally. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. And while we're on this tribe, Brady cuts off half of his finger.

8:09 What the hell? Like watch that. Yeah, it was it was pretty tough to watch. Like I mean they actually showed us a quarter of his thumb on the camera and you've got I think it was Pat who held his finger while he was busy, you know, losing his mind thinking he was going to get pulled from the game. The only thing he cared about was getting pulled from the game. So clearly the casting choice to get this guy on this season is right because we've had people quit for a lot less than this. I mean, he's lost him in this game and he still wants to play the game, but what a character. Like, I think Jay is the one who said here earlier that they should just trust their cast. And I think this is the first time in a while where I feel like the cast is a it almost there probably is a couple of duds because there's two big tribes of 10 now, eight and 10 or whatever or nine and nine. But for the most part, like

9:02 It's that diversity in cast that we're talking about. Like I don't feel like this guy that we've casted this what would he be the closest to like a like a Q? He's not a queue either. Like I feel like he's a unique Brady seems like a unique casting choice. There are a couple of characters on Australian Survivor I can compare him with. I don't know if the viewers would like you know a couple of the wrestler guys I think. Yeah. I don't know like in American Survivor. Yeah, he's I think he's unique. I think he's a brand new type of sort of archetype. It's like the biggest bro you can possibly imagine. Is he like a Is he like a more like is he Fabio if Fabio went on like a carnivore diet for a year and just had

9:48 Like a lot of protein or something? like is Fabio like the closest cuz Fabio I can remember him hurting and injuring himself and also Brady saying early in the season that he's going to play this strategy where he's going to play out being this big dumb goof a little bit. I'm pretty sure he said that in the first episode. It's going to be a part of his strategy. Yeah, I see I see Jay saying like a more refined Jonathan. I think Jonathan's a lot he's a very different character I feel though because Jonathan's like a little bit more stoic I would say whereas this guy's just like a little bit over the top where comes he's he is more like he's like a Jack Fabia right I think that's that's probably the best one. [laughter] Yeah character he's so loud as well. Is the only the only person I can think of did you ever watch the cartoon Johnny Bravo? He kind of reminds me of like a Johnny Bravo. Oh yeah. [laughter] Yes, definitely.

10:44 Jay saying, "I think Lewis will be fine after such a crazy first tribal. I think the attention will be on Devin and Brady over Lewis." Even next episode preview shows that Brady wants to go after Devin. And big talking point while we're on this tribe is this whole Devin coming back in the game saying, you know, I'm changing the game. You know, I'm going to be this honest person. I'm going to be straightforward about everything that I do. And it's all good. people are going to be happy. But in Survivor, we talked about this last episode, you can only trust someone when they've voted with you. Really, you can't How do you trust someone if they haven't voted with you? So, do you think that Devin is long for this game at the moment? Like, I mean, even his closest ally ends up not telling him that they got an idol in the game. So, it clearly shows that loose lips do sink

11:31 Ships in this game and she doesn't feel like she can trust them. Yeah, she is. He's not long for this game because it's like you have you have to lie in survivor because you're going to have allies and I think it's even Patt was saying look how can I trust like you're not going to blow my maybe it wasn't Pat maybe it was forgot who it was maybe it was Jelly or something. I think that it's really important for you to even if you're not going to lie for people it was like look I'm not going to say anything just you saying nothing is going to give away the game. So, can you imagine somebody's planning a blind side and it's like, "Hey, Devin, like, you know, you gonna vote for me?" It's like, "I will I'm gonna vote for you, but I'm can't tell if anybody else is going to vote for you." It's like, I mean, you can't like clearly they're going to vote for me.

12:16 So, it's like you can't work around that. So, I think he's I think he's pretty much screwed. I think it's kind of going to be a cautionary tale of like how not to play this game. But, hey, I could be wrong. Maybe weaponized what is it? weaponize honesty is gonna pay off him, which I highly doubt it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree with you. Khalen saying, "Hello from New Brunswick, Canada." Khalen, welcome to the live. let's see what else we have here. Excited to hear you both. There is a lot to digest this episode. I agree. tell me, Colleen, what was your favorite moment in the episode? Very curious to know. and Jay as well, let us know what's your favorite moment in the episode. We'll talk about that a little

13:02 Bit as well. But, very interesting point of the game. Obviously, Jelly finds that immunity idol and I feel like Jelly kind of gets it like when she got the idol and she was so excited to see a traditional idol in the game. She gets it. She gets that the beware advantage is BS and she was kind of like we as the fans were living through her in that moment to see the excitement of getting a traditional idol first up in the game. She seems like a good game player as well. The only thing that I'm worried about with Jelly is I still am off the old school belief personally Andre and I feel like you might not be the same as me but correct me if I'm wrong. If I find an idol, I'm not telling anyone about it. And especially not on day one.

13:51 Yeah. Yeah. No, it's kind of like I think it was a ste it's kind of like the Steven Fistback thing where you sort of use an idol to sort of gain like followers or alliance members, which I don't know if I agree with that. Like if you're gonna if you're going to have a you if you have a good social game, you probably don't need that. You don't need that to sol solidify alliances. So it's like different seasons are different, right? There are some thematic seasons where they say, "Hey, like the people that win are the people that were able to keep the secret, right?" Like, I think the best one that comes to mind is Marianne, right? Where she kept it, was it she kept the she was the only one that kept the secret the entire season and she won because she's like, "By the way, I had this one secret." So, I think that Exactly. Yeah. Well, I don't think Jelly needed to tell Pat like and if she told Pat in seven days, that would have been fine, too.

14:39 It's like, I just found this Pat. It's like, okay, great. you know, and then it would have the same effect. then again, you know, Patt is she comes across I don't want to say she's naive, but she comes across as a little bit too trusting. I feel Yeah. so I feel like I feel like she probably could have gotten Pat anyway, but this kind of solified it. This made her look good. You see, my problem with this is that I think human nature tells you that we love to spill the beans on good secrets. Like, we love to talk about it. Like if someone tells us something juicy and they're like, "Please don't tell anyone about it." Chances are you're going to find someone to go and say, "Hey, just keep this between us, but I found out this has happened." Right? So, I don't like it in a tribe of 10 or nine especially. Like,

15:24 I understand why they've sometimes done that in the smaller tribes because maybe that's how you get I still don't like it. But maybe in a tribe of six, you can kind of force people to come over to your site because they're like, I don't want to go up against the idol. So, I'd rather be with this person than against them. But in a tribe of not, to your point, nine or 10 people, surely your social game should be strong enough where you're not the bottom person in that bigger tribe. Right. So, I would definitely want to keep hold of that information for as long as I can because now you never know. Like, it's always going to be a blind side. If you want to take someone out with a with an idol, you have to blindside them. And the beauty of the traditional idol is, Andre is that you're not getting forced to talk about goats on astro turf or do silly phrases and things like that will throw your game away. You can

16:11 Actually keep it a secret. So, I don't know. I'm old school in this sense. Tell me in the live chat what you guys think. Are you proke keeping the secret? What would you tell people? Unless you have a really tight alliance. Like that's the only exception. Like if it's like a JT and Steven or if it's like a Devin's and Christian, right? If it's two people that are inseparable, then yeah, sure. Give it tell your alliance member that you know that they're never going to tell anyone else or at least well they will never regardless. But I mean there's no reason to sort of say it to anybody ever. just zip it up and then only use it only use that either information or use the power when you need to because it gives you optionality in the game. You don't need to give away your optionality immediately.

16:56 Yeah, totally agree. Jay here says I think that Jelly maybe did tell Demon but probably didn't show it or wait she say she doesn't trust him yet to tell him about the idol. I can't remember. She definitely the way that the show was edited, she said, "I don't know if I can trust him because he like she's like he's definitely my ride or die who's one of my close allies, but I don't know if I can be on board with the way that he's playing this game, weaponizing honesty." And the problem is she thinks that, you know, and I would think the exact same thing in her situation, Andre. She's like, if I tell this guy at any moment, he could just be like, "Hey guys, she's got an idol because I'm playing this game straight forward." And he could throw her under the bus. So, I think her read is correct at not telling Devin. I wouldn't want to play with someone that's going to be that honest at all times. And I think he's a bit I like Devin. He seems like a

17:46 Good-hearted person and I would probably get along with him in real life really well, Andre. But it's just you can't play Survivor that way. [laughter] Like the show's been on for 51 seasons, 50 seasons, and you're trying to reinvent the wheel. But the game is about lying, deceiving, deception, outwitting, outlasting, outplaying your competition, and you're not going to change it in 51. And I think that's going to be the moral of the story here. I want to play a devil's advocate here because it made me think about Z. He referred to himself as devilish Devin, right? What if him saying it's weaponized honesty is him lying about being honest? Because every has he only said weaponized honesty to other people? like is he like or has he been saying it inside the confessionals? I don't remember. I can't remember either to be honest.

18:38 I just think that he the way he was talking to Brady and them in the beginning of the episode from memory. He was trying to make it sound like you guys can trust my word. When I'm telling you I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it basically is the way he was. So I do think he is trying to dis maybe if he's playing that angle, I would like it. I don't think he is. But if he's building some early social currency by being very honest and following through with that so that he can lie in the future and people think he's honest, that would be brilliant. Like I hope that is the kind of 4D chess that he's playing this game with. I just don't know if that is. And I don't know if the evidence is there to show us except for the fact that he called himself devilish deon and I don't know why he called himself that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean there's I can't think of any example of this in Survivor but there is a big the one of the greatest

19:26 Of all times in Big Brother that the first the first episode or the first week it's Dan he was on the wrong side of the numbers but he was like look I'm going to I'm honest I'm I do whatever I say I'm going to do and then everybody sort of got lulled into a false sense of security and then he basically was the mo basically the biggest liar in the history of the of the show. Yeah. So I could I could see that happening. I could see be like, "Oh, by the way, episode four, you know, Devin comes out and be like, I've been lying to everybody and I've been lying to the audience. I'm actually all that was BS. I'm actually lying the entire time." I would respect that. I would like to see something like that. It's something a little bit different that we haven't seen before. It's kind of like the whole like, "What if Philip was pretending to be crazy at the very end?" He's like, "Oh, by the way, I wasn't crazy." That's

20:15 Kind of like the level that I would like to see the 40 chest. I don't give them his enough credit yet, but we'll see. They'll be good. They'll be good. Good TV at least. I've got a question on that because you talking about Dan and obviously it's like a different era of reality TV when social media wasn't a big thing. We now have people who are so worried about being social media influencers, so worried about brand deals and doing the right thing. Do you think it's the big reason why we haven't seen that level of gameplay recently? Obviously, there's a combination here of Jeff not liking villains and he wants people to be friendly and play Kumbaya because he wants kids to watch the show and watch it with their families and things like that.

21:02 I do get a feeling like he's moved away from that a little bit this season because we are getting characters that are kind of villainous in the things that they're doing and it's giving me a very old school survivor feel which is why I'm so happy so early on this season. But like I'm just a bit worried like with Devin. Like De Devin seems like a guy that probably cares about what people think about him. So I don't know if he would do that. Like Dan did it because this was preocial media pre Dan. Like that now he's got a good following. He's I think he's a Twitch gamer and stuff like that. He and people respect him just because of his game. But does Dan do that in today's society when he's still trying to make a name for himself? like that. That's the question because I feel like the backlash would be so much more. We as reality TV fans, we want to see blood. We want to see villainous play, but I feel like we're

21:52 In such a different time now and we just don't get to see it as much because people care about the image. Yeah. And I mean, in the last, say, 1015 years of CBS reality TV at the very least, there hasn't been that many sort of I can't think of really like evil villains. I've seen like villains that like, you know, they're a little bit villainous or they're a little bit like kooky like Q or like Shan was a little bit villainous maybe. I think probably the biggest villains of the new era were relatively early on in the new era as well. Like I can't in the entire new era, who's the biggest villain really like I can't really even think of anybody like Sha Shan's the only one that I could think of because actually she was playing quite villainous I feel and then they kind of like stopped that for some reason. So, I mean, even like late in the season, I unless you could I and I don't think that show was trying to do

22:42 This, but like you know, season 48 what's his Joe like I don't think they were trying to portray him as villainous. I thought he's quite villainous personally because he's a hypocritical character, but that's not villainous, right? That's just him being hypocritical. so, yeah. And even like coach when coach came back, he wasn't really a villain either. He actually played like pretty not heroically in 50, but he was not like the crazy villainous guy that we saw in South Pacific. So I hopefully they've changed it and be like look we coaches he was always the hero. Co coach's mind was always the hero even in South we finally saw him who he was. Yeah. [laughter] Even Angelina was not her villains either. Crazy.

23:27 True. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, something to ponder upon. Like if you're listening to this later or in the live, let us know in the comments section below what your thoughts are on why we don't get to see as much villainous players play Survivor anymore. My theory is that twofold, the production team's not looking or the casting team's not looking for villainous players as much anymore. And then secondly, which I don't know how we'll talk about this in a moment with Rob's thing coming up here in the comment as well, but like [laughter] it definitely was the moment. I mean, the thumbnail literally said he tried to vote for himself. That's the thumbnail for our episode this week. it was the moment for me of the show as well, but they just don't cast people like that anymore. And I think it's because of social media and casting pretty much not looking for it. But, Jay said here his favorite moment or probably the biggest moment of the show is Rob trying to vote himself out. I was

24:18 So confused with Rob this episode because you and I talked about Rob and he you know they do psych tests before people go out there. Andre like what is going on here? Like how did he get through? Is it food deprivation that is doing this to him right now? And he's just looking for that easy way out of the game and he's like ah this way I can look like a hero because I've saved someone in the game who really wants to be here. I'm struggling, but instead of quitting, I'll try and see if I can self-evict and go against the grain here so I can have an easy way out and gonna have burger and ponderosa tonight. I think he wanted to make kind of I feel like he kind of wanted to make history there or do something crazy or do some sort of I'm still not quite following the logic. So, the my reader situation was like he wanted to quit. He missed his family. He's like, "Oh,

25:08 I'm going to do something." And it just something seemed to click with him and Eric like he was mortal enemies with Eric until I guess the yes anding and then they became like besties or something and then he was like look I'll save you or something to Eric like he had a conversation with Eric and he's like oh by the way I'm going to like put your full trust in me and then I'll do something crazy and he just didn't tell anybody what he was going to do. So he didn't really know anything. He didn't know what he was doing at the end of the day. But I think his plan was that he thought that everybody was going to vote for Eric and then there would and then he and then Shan in the dark would be used I guess and then therefore there would be no there would be no votes for anybody if he played his immunity idol on Eric and then he voted for himself. I think that's what he was trying to get at. I mean, that plan has so many flaws on so many levels that

25:58 There's no way that he could have thought that I would have worked unless he was like severely sleep or food deprived or crazy. Yeah, it was so weird. And I mean, at the end of the day, you say that he built this connection with Eric, but he does end up voting for Eric in the end. He votes with Anaka and Aie for Eric when his plan doesn't come through. So he kind of like retreats. And through all of this, he gave valuable information away to Eric by saying he's got the idol. So, I'm very curious to see how he's going to play the game in the next round. Like, Eric's maybe going to come out saying, "Hey, well, he told me he's got an idol. the guy's clearly crazy. I don't know what he was trying to do there to get me to waste my shot in the dark." like Rod's going to have to now, like,

26:45 Do you think he's going to play to stay or do you think he's just going to give up? Like, where does this guy go? I don't know if we can predict what Rob's going to do next after this, but it was so crazy to see like did the did they clearly the guy is not a I [clears throat] don't think he's a big fan of the show otherwise he would have known he can't vote for himself. Did they just give him Survivor 50? Did they just give him Survivor 50 and he's like oh well Rick Devin's became the first person to vote for not Rick Devin sorry Christian became the first person to vote for himself in the game. I want to be the second. Right. I can't believe for 50 seasons. I did I did see a post and it was that they were already on the island before the episode where Christian voted himself. So he didn't see the Christian episode which but I mean by the way like

27:30 If you're going to say hey Christian can vote for himself and then somebody actually tries to vote for themselves. You can't just say, "Look, it's against the rules because you broke the rule last season." Like, it's I mean, I unless it's like codified sort of with the legal authorities or whatever because it's like I guess a game show that they need to have the rules sort of upfront. Hasn't Jeff always been of the opinion it's like as soon as because once you ring a bell, you can't really unring it. Once that has happened, if you're Jeff, do you just say, "Hey, Rob, just you I guess you could do that now because we did that last season." Like, would that have made better TV? I feel like rather than him in some way that but I think they don't want to open Surely they don't want to open the can of worms here where it gives people.

28:17 That's the thing. I know. I know. I mean, yeah. Yeah. But it's like I mean it's like do they want to like if you open if you open that can of worms and there's people in the future who want to quit the show. Do they just start voting for themselves in the future? It's like is that the direction? Let them let them. Okay. Like what's the what's the downside? And then if it go if it goes to then they can reinstate the rule and say look you cannot vote for yourself because they did that with game changers. They did the instant fire making. They basically for oh no the rocks. They said, "Look, I if there's only one vote, we'll go straight to rocks instead of having a revote." And that and then they realized their mistake and they instantly removed it. Just let Rod do it for one season. Like have it available for one season. This is

29:07 Perfect opportunity. You didn't tell Rob. I guess maybe there's unfairness there because you might have said that upfront to the players saying, "Hey, look, you can't vote for yourself." And then Rob just wasn't paying attention. That's certainly a possibility, too. But I think it would be in better TV just to see Rob for himself. That would have been hilarious. Crazy moment in the episode. especially with them having to break the fourth wall there with the producer having to tell him, "Hey, you can't do this." And just to see the sheer shock on Rob's face when he's like, "Oh no, I fought this whole thing through. Now I can't do it." And I just want to see what he does going forward. I want to see if he can pull it back. I feel like he's a very charismatic guy, but he was clearly losing it throughout the episode because he was he was barking at people in the challenge. They didn't do well.

29:52 Like there was there was this conflict happening from his side. You could tell like I definitely think there's some food deprivation. There's some things happening there. Maybe him missing his family and just not liking like he said he's a city boy. He's used to the comfort of his own home. He's out there having to rough it. And I don't think he's ever had to do something like this in his life. And he was looking for that for that easy way out. But very interesting time. Colleen said that her favorite moment was I think the immunity challenge. the hard rain, the rough seat, the amazing whale, the camera work. Incredible. Wow. Well, that was that was tough. Especially playing with their injuries. that was a major Australian survivor vibe to it in my opinion. Like a 200 pound I know 200 pound 100 like 8 90 kilos.

30:40 Yeah. of whale. That's pretty intense. It's like their whole human that you need to sort of like push over. it was it was a great challenge. Very memorable. Do you think that do you think that they that they that they could change the scale of the challenge because of the tribe dynamics because they now have more people in the tribe that can push that thing over? That gives them more room to I guess improve on the scale of some of these challenges because there's only that much you can do with a tribe of six. And then the tribe becomes 5 43 very quickly. Like you kind of limit yourself. You kind of doing challenges. And what you could what you it's less effort for production. so you can use that extra effort to make the scale of the challenges bigger because instead of having three lanes, you just instead of three little whales, you can make two big whales. And that's a lot more oppressive. It's I mean there is I

31:32 Mean it's early on and I think that like survival has always been like this but early on the challenges tend to be quite physical and then it eventually becomes more puzzle and so you know like balance based so it's kind of like good for that balance so if you're going to go hard early go really hard and have like a really tough challenge you know like the one that Jonathan carried everybody like at least have one of those this that season it becomes a lot more memorable you remember like it becomes more iconic So, I think that this one has been Yeah. pretty good. I was a little bit concerned about the like people going over the wheel because it reminded me of when George fell on Australian Survivor over the wheel and then almost broke his neck and I was like afraid that people going to break their neck, but I think they were a little bit better. It was in the open water.

32:20 It was deeper. It was more challenge. It was deeper into the ocean. I feel like there was a lot of ability for the fall to be cushioned. And one thing I will say, I think US Survivor is a lot more safety conscious compared to Australian Survivor. Like we've had some freakish accidents happen on Australian Survivor. and that sometimes is the price that you pay for some of the really tough challenging obstacles that they put in place. But I think that in the US that you can get sued for so many things, you don't want to be like even if they sign their life away in these waiverss before they play the game. I'm sure that if you're being ne negligent in the US, you get in trouble. So, they have to be extra careful there. So, but what a what a what an very

33:05 Impressive immunity challenge. Like you said, really fun one. Yellow almost still lost it in the end. Like it took them forever to land that last ball and it at one point looked like purple was going to come back from behind and win this thing. And luckily for Lewis I think early in the game here they won it because I don't know where he would have fit it. Like maybe we haven't seen enough yet of him trying to find his feet. But the last person in probably gives him a little bit more time in the game. This is like an extra three days or extra two days now. What's it every two days to go to tribal for him to be able to work his way into an alliance there. so very happy for him. Also wanted to talk a little bit about the fact that they did the reward challenge and the immunity challenge separately. I feel like we haven't seen that in a very long time as well. So, it does have that

33:54 School survivor theme to it because they've gotten lazy to the point where they do immunity and rewards together. I really like the fact that we had a different reward challenge. and it was a it was an interesting one because they blindfolded them and one person had to lead, the other person had to be dragged. we got a lot of people. I forgot who the guy was that dragged chat through the obstacle course many years ago, but I got a few Oh, yeah. [laughter] Yeah. Yes. I got a few flashbacks to be on his Who was it? It was Yeah, I forgot who it was, but I can see him. Yeah. Like Brady pulling whoever he was pulling and like there was a few people who were like dragging them through that. So, if you were in this challenge, would you have wanted to be blindfolded or being the one leading? I feel like I definitely would have wanted to be personally would have wanted to lead. I wouldn't want to be blindfolded because I've seen too many horrible

34:45 Injuries happening when people are blindfolded on Survivor. Oh yeah, they completely destroyed themselves in that challenge. You see red like rope marks on them going up against their sun their son sunburn. I think it really depends on who my who my partner is. If I'm partner with Brady, I want to be blindfolded, frankly. But if I'm partnered with, you know, someone small, I like I'll be more than happy to be the one to lead as well. But I mean, going back to Rob's point about how Rob was like saying, who was it to one of the girls to? Yeah. And he's like, "Well, what why the hell were you the one that was yinguing when was Eric was blindfolded?" Eric's like 210. He's like, "No, I'm not

35:30 210. What are you talking about?" Yeah. Did he have a good point? Like did he have a good point where he had a good point just Yeah. But was he delivering it? Yeah. Was he delivering it in the best way? Probably not. but yeah, definitely was some strange strategy happening. But the problem when you in a game like Survivor is that everybody there will have their own opinions and thoughts about things and sometimes you can't win every single argument and you can't win every single battle. So you can put your point out there and if people don't listen to it, you got to find a way to move on. Otherwise, you become the target. You become the person who's like the one that's swimming upstream when everybody else wants to go downstream. Even if you lose, sometimes you're going to have to lose some battles for people to be like, "Yeah, that didn't work. Maybe we should restrategize in the next challenge." And I think that Rob still needs to learn

36:18 That. And yeah, like I said, I think there's Rob targeted. Who's not parding Rob by the way? Like how you putting all these targets on your back and he didn't get one vote. He didn't get one whisper saying, "Hey, we should get rid of Rob." This season is interesting because I think it was in Brady's tribe where they were so fearful of Brady going home and they were like, "Oh no, we're going to be the disaster tribe who loses our biggest guy at the challenge." And I feel like there is a bit of an old school mentality. We've gone through some seasons where people couldn't care less about voting out their most physical beast alpha guy in the game. They'd be like, "Let's just get rid of them." But it feels to me like they understand we need someone to go up against AI. We need someone strong to go up like I don't know who else in Brady's tribe is actually like Brady is the only physical specimen I think in his tribe.

37:08 So probably even more so important to keep him because they've got both Devin well Devin seems to be pretty good physically. Eric physically good but he's not big. He's not big like I mean would Devin be able to take on Rob, you know? So, but it does seem to me like there is a there's like a nod to old school survivor where physical prow still mean meant something and you want to keep some of your stronger people in the game and maybe it is because some of these challenges are a lot more physical this season and it's a lot more taxing on all of the players. I don't know. I don't know what that what that reason is, but it is it is Yeah, it is. It's always how like old school it always like you know physical players would you usually just get a pass until merge and then it becomes significantly harder for

37:54 Physical players to get to the end because they become a threat all of a sudden like that was kind of like the balances were built in but the new era sort of screwed that up with all the swaps and stuff. So that balance was kind of like then they had to rework all of the every single one of the challenges. So now they're bringing back more physical challenges. I think that sort of reverted back to the meme there. Yeah. Khalen says that it definitely felt more like an Australian Survivor Challenge because they finally have a fit strong cast that can do it. Like I really hope that this like I'm always worried like you're more optimistic than me, Andre, when it comes to you're thinking that there is people behind the scenes putting pressure on Jeff to change things around, have a bit more of a diverse cast, have a bit more of a of

38:44 A of a pivot towards old school Survivor. I'm still worried that Jeff will be Jeff and he'll do whatever he wants to do, but I'm hoping that what Kleen is pointing out here with this cast being more fit and strong is something that we continue to see because we don't want to see no offense to Kilby. Kilby actually gave us a like in one of our shorts that we put out. so I don't know if he if he's watching this, but if he is watching this, Kilby, we're loving you on this season, so don't take this the wrong way. We just don't want to have put that into a short put the [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we like you. But it's like we don't want to see nine Kilbees on each tribe. Like Kilby has got his place in the tribe and he has a role to play there, but we don't want to see nine of them in both of both tribes.

39:30 Like and I think that we've gotten that right this season. And to Ken's point, that's why we're seeing a bit more diversity in the type of challenges that we're seeing as well. Jay saying, "Agreed. Separate reward and immunity challenges are fun." Brady was dragging Kilby. I guess that's who I couldn't remember who he was dragging. he was dragging Kilby through the course, but Kilby also just he seemed up for the ride. Like I feel like he prepared himself to be dragged like that from memory. He was kill the next chat. [laughter] but yeah, it was a it was a good oldfashioned one. But obviously we do with this specific challenge Andre see one of like your winner pick for the season after episode one. I don't know if that is still your winner pick after this episode because she kind of fell away a bit in the edit this week, but Kristin gets injured.

40:19 How bad do you think it is? What's your thoughts on this injury? Is it something that you think will come back to bite her? Because, you know, it's interesting whenever they show us injuries in the game, it feels like there's like we didn't we didn't actually see Col's injury last season and that's the one that got him out of the game, but we did see Kristin's injury this season. I kind of fell off on Chris in this episode just because of the medicinal herbal stuff to be honest. I'm sure it works. but it was just like I'm like maybe go see a doctor. Maybe go call in the medic or something like that. but yeah, it's a good it's a good point. I think that if we didn't see Kobe obviously went out I think before Merge, didn't he? So, the fact that we didn't see it makes me wonder, are we seeing more of Kristin for a reason? Is it because

41:06 She's making it far? And I hadn't thought about it at the time, but I now I'm thinking back going, she's a pretty big player because she hasn't really had any role in any of the votes ever. And we're seeing a lot of her. Like for example, Theenne An. I don't think we've seen any of her. Like zero of her whatsoever. I don't think there's been one confessional. I think that's it. And we didn't see her at all. I think even this episode either. Whereas we're Yeah. Yeah, you know, Chris isn't really that relevant, but we're seeing a lot of her, so maybe she's long for the game. Yeah, I feel like she's going deep this season and it could be the Tyson Apostle injury that she drags through the season and maybe people underestimate, but it's especially at a big tribe like this, you could probably hide a little bit with an injury, but

41:55 But now she'll have to compete in the next one because there are equal numbers to the opposing tribe, so you can't sit out. So, it's going to be interesting. I think for me Kristin at the moment is on the she's on the watch list as someone that can either go up or down at this stage. I agree with you. There's something about her edit where they also didn't need to show her specifically stating that she's been trying to get on the show for what 25 years now. Like she's been applying pretty much what since season 1 and she finally got on. She said that like three times already. It's like you're really pushing her story. Yeah. I mean it's a good story, right? It's a great story and it's and it's I mean knowing Jeff he would also put that out there to just let people know if you want to get on the show this is the kind of dedication that it will take to get here. Sometimes you might apply for 25 years before you

42:43 Actually get your shot and then you're here and you can play the game. Dreadful Ruby is saying that Jelly is her winner pick of the season so far. Jell's had a pretty good edit I think on both episodes. She's done well. She's now got the idol in the game. She's shown to, I think, correctly read that you shouldn't share the information with Devin this early in the game. And then she pivots to Pat trying to make an alliance member there. seems to be like consequence. Yeah. Who else in that tribe, Andre, have we seen at this stage be strategic? I don't know if we have seen anyone else really be strategic as of yet. Well, c certainly not Pat. She's been the opposite of I mean I guess well Devin hasn't de Devin's been strategically bad in my opinion but he's been strategic.

43:33 Brady not so much. He again strategically bad. who else is there? Like there's Maggie. We have Louis hasn't had time yet. Lewis hasn't had time. Yeah. so I feel like I mean not a bad pick from Dreadful Ruby here early on with Jelly. I can Jenna's been very strategic. I feel but she fell away in the edit this episode. Did we see her even once in this episode? No, she had the winner quote. She had a winner quote. She's like, "I survived. I will be like she's she had like that whole like that quote that you pick out and it's like if you look back at it then that's when they win." You show them that quote. It's very reminiscent of like those really early quotes that it's like I think there Sandra had one and there's a few Australian survivors had

44:20 One as well. So, I think that just her surviving, I'll beat the survivor, whatever, that's going to be that put her up in the radar for me. But I think Jay made a really good point in the comments where you know, after Aubry's edit you know, you can't really count, but I feel like Aubry's edit wasn't a small edit. I think Aubrey had an awkward edit at the Yeah, she was like very combative against Well, you know who has got the awkward edit this season? our main man, Eric, who survived. You know, you and I called it. You and I called it here, Andre. We said last week that Eric is not going to be the first person out. It's too obvious. The editor is pointing towards him being the first person. It's too obvious. And I said, would Eric be the phoenix that rises from the ashes, the guy who in the beginning doesn't have a good start to the game,

45:12 But find his feet? And I think he may have found some people. He may have found some people he can play the game with now. And even though Sharonda doesn't like him that much, she's like, "I'd rather play with Eric because at least I know where his head's at. I know where I realized I realized who Eric reminds me of. Eric reminds me of Andy from Rachel's season, 47 or something. He's exactly the Andy edit, right? Andy like completely breaks down at the very beginning, cries all the time. He ends up like final five, final four. So I feel like Andy was even worse than Eric. I feel like he was even worse than Eric to be honest because he was he was like I don't he had like a nervous breakdown in the beginning of the game and he was like so needy with everybody in the beginning of the game. I don't feel like Eric has been needy. I just

45:59 Think Eric is he's not very socially aware like he doesn't know how he comes across and that he's annoying the people around him a little bit with his stories and the improv that he was doing which to me the improv was actually pretty like if like clearly he's just not with his people there. If I was on the on the tribe there I would have laughed at it. Come on. It was good. Yeah, I thought it was good. It deserved a bit of an applause. You're out there playing Yeah. You're out there, Andre, playing a game for a million dollars. You're bored out of your mind. Like, let someone entertain you a little bit while you're there. Like, I don't understand why people are so annoyed with Eric. That's why I think Eric will end up playing very well and be very socially good, even though he hasn't been socially good because what is annoying at the very beginning becomes very interesting later on. I think Johnny Fairplay said it best where it's

46:45 Like look we don't do anything like for most of the day all we like so we need that entertainment and we need somebody to come in and actually like change it up a little bit and maybe he might get grading maybe he has the same stories or something like that but I feel like someone with the energy of Eric hopefully his energy doesn't go down I think that he'll do quite well for sure because he because he can he can stay positive as people you know get down in that dark place like Rob and they want to self evict themsel out of the He's at least a bit of a bright spark. But I do think Eric has got some I don't find him annoying. I don't find him annoying. I find him endearing. You know, he goes out, he tries to catch fierce. He tries to like insane. But Andre, let's play devil's Let's play devil's advocate here. We only have to see him for like how many minutes on our screen every week, like maybe 5 to 10

47:31 Minutes max. Like if we look at the actual Eric clips, these guys have got to put up with him for 24/7. And I bet you he doesn't stop. I bet you it's like 100% of the time you get Eric. And but for me personally, that's the kind of personality if you're playing Survivor Andre, you want that person. You want that person who's louder than you. You want that person who's maybe going to annoy people more than you. It's like in some ways like a Philip Shepherd kind of role. Like if you the Boston Rob, you drag that person with you towards the end and you probably win the game because I don't think Eric is going to win the game if he gets to the end. It's early to call that. It's very early to call that, especially because we just saw Aubrey annoy people, be a bit socially awkward in the beginning of the game as well. They didn't really annoy, but she was socially awkward in the game, and she ended up winning it. So, there's it's a long game still to be played, but I feel like if you find someone in the game

48:19 That is a that's a it's a higher blade of grass in the field, you want to play with them so they can get chopped before you, right? It's the classic meat shield strategy or what do you call this? a not a meat shield because he's not really meat like according to Rob he's trying to something pounds but it might be like better maybe a better analogy is like Rizzo in season 50 where Rizzo was very annoying early on to Colby and he and Kobe was like I can't stand this kid and after like two episodes like I really like Rizzo Rzzy's Rizzo is amazing maybe that same thing's gonna happen to Eric where it's like ah everyone loves Eric like he's so endearing between you and me I feel like I feel like I like Eric but I do feel like it's a bit of like an insult to Risk Godard because I do think that kid's got some charm [laughter] and I do not think Eric has got the same game that Risk God's got when it comes to the social side and being able to

49:10 Work really like Risk God's the kind of guy he's got the ability to annoy people. I agree with you on that. But then kind of like how Tony used to create issues for himself in the day and then in the night time he would go and think how do I fix it the next day. Rizzo reminds me of that like he socially will cause trouble but then he's got the skills to come back and rectify it afterwards because he is socially aware. I don't think Eric is socially aware. That's the biggest difference. But I say Eric doesn't have the Eric doesn't have the ability to fix any of his mistakes. I don't think so. let's see what people are saying here. Jay says, "I think it's good that you know had a cool down episode after such a big premiere episode. Dreadful Ruby saying 50 was also a result of wanting to showcase players who didn't last which only matters with returnees. It's true. Jay says that's why I said early on because

49:56 Aubry said it was small early on and he was ultimately quite likable. yeah, he became a really big likable character and became a big player as the season went on strategically driving some votes as well. Jay saying unself-aware people on Survivor are so funny sometimes. Exactly. Well, coach isn't self-aware. Like, that's one of the reasons coach is funny because he's not self-aware either. And we love it. I like I know a lot of people didn't like Philip Shepherd. I like Philip Shepherd. He wasn't always very self-aware either. I like Philip. We kind of like Andy, too. Sharonda's reaction was funny. She's my winner pick. Here we go. We've got two winner picks in the live here. Andre, we've got Jelly and Sharonda as the first two. What do you think of Sharonda as a winner pick?

50:43 So well the context is right like so what happened? So it was it Anna and Alexis were talking and then and then Alexis went to Sharonda. I feel like Sharonda's pretty well placed that people come to her and say hey you know they're targeting you by the way. plus it looks like Lenia and Sharonda are relatively close. Obviously there's a helicopter alliance. I think she's pretty well insulated in the tribe. So Kristin is with Sharonda as well. Yeah, I think the most interesting thing of the episode I do think Shiron is a strong player. There's absolutely nothing at this stage that's telling me that Jay, you made a bad pick for your winner pick because we haven't seen Sharonda misstep in the game and she's got allies. She's got people who want to play with her.

51:32 She's coming across as like very capable as well. Like I bet you when it comes to the physical part, the immunity, individual immunity part, she's going to win some stuff. So I like that pick a lot and she seems levelheaded and socially aware like so I mean that's like literally the opposite of Eric. so it's definitely a good pick. The one thing that was interesting though is what is it with these people that they want to work together but they don't work together like Ori and Sharonda. They're supposed to be a tight thing as well. Ori's like no I'm doing me this episode. I'm voting Eric. And he did. He ended up voting in the opposite direction. And I thought AI and Sharonda supposed to be tied like make it make sense to me here what happened because AI I had high hopes for him but I think if you're not voting with your strongest alliance then you're

52:22 Not useful to them and I think AI did himself some damage. What's the point of an alliance at that stage? What's the point of an alliance? So I feel like Ori's gone down in my winner pick estimations at this point. He went in the wrong direction this episode in my mind but make it make sense to me. Did you understand follow what was happening? Is it a manufactured alliance from production? Are they showing the helicopter alliance? Are they showing these tight duos and they're not actually in reality that tight? Is that is are they trying to pull a story that maybe will play off like in the future? Maybe postmerge when they all come back together maybe and it's sort of setting that up or is it or is it M and them actually going against each other? Maybe there's the other side of the equation where they have set the tone for the culture of the season that hey

53:10 You can you can vote opposite directions but you're going to have each other's back. It's kind of like and it kind of reminds me of like some gameplay that we sort of seen in the past where you've got the heads of two separate alliances and then in like in reality they're actually feeding themselves feeding each other information. Maybe they're trying to do something like that. I think the Cookout is very famously won in Big Brother that did that strategy really well. I think Matt Rogers did that quite well with David and Australian Survivor. Maybe that's the maybe that's a strategy where you know they're publicly either together or against each other, but then they're acting opposite u on the DL. Maybe that's what's happening. I'd like to see that. That's immersion gameplay. You bring up a you bring up a good point because the storytellers of Survivor, it is it is a

54:03 TV show that needs to have like a cohesive narrative from the beginning to the end. Like if you watch Survivor 50 from beginning to end backwards, now that you know who won the season, Aubry's win makes complete sense because it was a season of redemption, people coming back to play the game. Legends of the game that maybe just haven't quite done it yet except for I guess I'm not sure where D and the other winner got a name now falls into that whole the whole thing because they have won it. But it made sense. Yeah, Savannah. But from the beginning, Aubry's storyline was like, I'm doing it right this time. I'm coming for revenge, right? And I'm I learned from Michelle. That was like the overarching theme of 50. The overarching theme of this season is open era. And in open era, anything goes. Like you can vote with me today. You can vote against me

54:49 Today, but we can still work tomorrow because it is the open era. We don't have a rule set that's going to keep us. It's permanent uncertainty, baby. So, it's like that is the storyline that they're trying to tell us in Survivor 51. So maybe that is why we're seeing this where in previous seasons we've heard of people getting voted out of the game and saying actually I had such a big relationship with this person in the game. you guys just never saw that because yes, we were voting opposite, but we're actually quite tied, you know, so that maybe they've chosen to lift the veil a little bit this season and show that to us because to your point, it might come back later on because sometimes we get people getting to the merge and we're like, why are they working together or why are they not working together? Because we saw them talk pre-Merge, but they never really link back up. Like last season, it was Tiffany and Aubrey, I think, was like a big relationship that we saw in the

55:34 First swap trial. We never saw we didn't see anything of it later on in the game. So yeah, it's maybe it's a red herring to a certain degree. Yeah. well, it's an interesting point about theming because it's like the theming was set out by Jeff at the very beginning. He's like this is what to expect this season, but they don't know how the season's going to go. So my question is they set up a theme. This is kind of like the issue that they always had with themes where they would have like brains versus brawn versus beauty or whatever and then they'll set up a theme and then but it wouldn't really affect how the season really ended up going, right? Yeah. so are they trying to shoehorn and edit into that theme or should they just let Yeah. Or maybe they should just let the theme sort of happen naturally and then edit based on what ended up happening. I think that's how traditionally Survivor has kind of worked where it's like you kind of set up themes and like I think

56:25 That the really good one with season 50 about redemption how we you know you see what happens but it's like they edit it in a way that theme makes sense and it's not Jeff saying this theme is about peing late and you know struggling in the beginning but really finding your own when it come and then you know mirroring the past you know he didn't say that it was you could you could feel the theme implicitly there. so I'm wondering are they which way are they going? Are they saying, "Hey, the theme is uncertainty by the way. This is we're going to just show uncertain stuff." Or is there a deeper theme there? Like what's the deeper theme that we haven't sort of picked up on until we see the ending? Yeah. But I kind of I kind of like it. Like I think Jeff has said this in the past on his own podcast that they

57:12 Like to do edits in a who done it kind of fashion so that when you look back at it makes it should make sense, but it shouldn't always make sense in the moment. And I kind of like that way of storytelling sometimes because there's times I like it and there's times I don't like it. Andre, the times I don't like it is when we don't get to fully see the picture as to how a vote came together because you and I as students of the game, people who appreciate the strategy of the game, we want to look at an episode and say we learned something from this. And sometimes the edit can be done in such a way that when someone gets voted out, it doesn't make any sense. But I do think they've kind of fixed that edit in recent seasons in Survivor. Like if you looked at this episode ultimately, we haven't spoken about Anna, but she does go home in a 6-4 split vote. we

57:58 Can look back at this episode and say we saw it come together. We saw where Anna made the mistake. And the mistake was she threw too many people's names out there. One of those people caught wind of it. Walked in on a conversation where they were talking about, you know, or pretended to talk about popcorn, which in any normal situation that would be fine, but yes, very sloppy instead [laughter] of owning it. But we saw we saw it come together. We saw Anna be sloppy in this moment and get caught out and that's how she went home. At least this I feel like I don't know if I'm going in circles here, but I feel like the storytelling has gotten a lot better when it comes to voteouts where in the past sometimes I think I know why. Yeah, I've got a theory. Theory is two tribes longer episodes, two tribes. You can make a more cohesive story there because there's less relationships you need to track essentially or I guess it's the same, but less major story lines and relationships pertaining to

58:50 It. So, it's a lot cleaner. You don't have to show the an or you don't have to show Christian if you don't need to because they're not relevant to the story yet. So what you do is you streamline it. You streamline it to two major stories compared to like before in the new era it's like three or four stories and it's just messy because it's like and then you have a swap and then it was just incoherent. This one is coherent. There's no other relationships you need to think about. Even with 50 there were hundreds of relationships you need to keep track. This one's clean. It's like, you know, how Eric's relationship with Rob, you know, Alexis's and Anna's relationship, you know, you could see that work out really well. You can see how Lenia and Sharonda sort of spoke to it. It was clean. It was really easy to understand and really good storytelling in my opinion.

59:39 Yeah. I really hope that there are content creators out there. I haven't listened to too much other content creators this season, but like you Rob as a podcast and these big entities that they're really getting the message across to Jeff that this is what we like to see. We like to see this kind of survivor. We like the two tribes. We like the slower pace like this episode. I couldn't I can't think of a specific moment that it became the Jeff show. Can you think of a Jeff moment this episode where Jeff was like the star of the show? Thank god no. Like that's the Yeah, I was very concerned on the first episode because there were two moments.

1:00:25 There was the first moment that could sort of wasn't I actually I realized the very first part of episode one was him just reenacting the first season. I was like, "Okay, that I realized after we did the podcast." Yeah, that was that was great. Yeah. him like sandbagging on the spans was like, "Jeff, shut the hell up." Like, "Please, we don't want to hear any of this stuff." So, yeah. So, I think like hopefully that's like that's his soap box. He gets he got that soap box in episode one. We don't see him again. We don't see him again. Please, no more. No more no more Jeff going on adventures. No more Jeff, you know, doing We need doing the problem. The problem that we have is that all these big and I and I'm and again I'm just I'm throwing a theory out there because I haven't listened to any of them. So I don't want to say that they're doing it

1:01:14 Definitely. But if you're a big content creator in the survivor space, you care about potentially going back on the show and playing again. You care about getting interviews on your channel, things like that. Us being small, we can just call it how we see it and we can be real about it, right? Because we don't have to care. Like you and I are never going to play Survivor CBS. the chances of us interviewing players that are in season very rare. Like we might be able to get people after the fact to come on if they ever wanted to come and have a chat with us. But also we're in a different time zone so it's very hard. So we can just be very fa fair and critical about what we see as fans of the show. But I really do hope that they do bring up some of these things. Someone needs to be in Jeff's ear. Jeff, less is more in your case. Like don't be the center of the show. Yeah.

1:01:59 Go back to basics. Have the two tribes like and things like that. I'm really hoping that your theory is right that someone Do we think it's the fans though? Do we think it's the fans? Like the fans have been very vocal for the last I would say five years since co really doesn't listen anything. So the network is my point. No, I think it's the definitely to I think your theory of someone in the network being in Jeff's ear is the most credible one. I think there's been some I did I did some I did some research. This is the first season where Sky Dance has taken over from CBS and Paramount. My theory, and obviously there's no public information about it, my theory is that if you look at the ethos of Sky Dance is do what's double down on what's working, right? What has worked for Survivor in the past and that's ethos.

1:02:45 It's like what works for what got to Survivor being a juggernaut. It's been this do more of that, Jeff. We don't care about your stupid stuff where you know your new era stuff. Just do this. Just do the same thing. And you know, they re they also did the same thing with Big Brother, right? Where they just renew Big Brother Big Brother for two more seasons. It's working. They know what's working. I think I think there's clear changes in the waters here. And then Big Brother was the first step. This is the second step. Yeah. Because ultimately Jeff is the big dog in Survivor CBS, but he's not the big dog when it comes to Skyance and when it comes to Paramount and like you know like whoever is the bigger cor corporate you know company behind this thing that actually brings it back every single season and only renew two seasons at a time which is still great. Like a show that is this far down can have cuz do we have season 23 and 20 sorry 20 54 and 53?

1:03:40 Have they already announced that or not? I wouldn't know. I only I only heard up to 52. but I'm sure like I don't see I know that obviously it's like it's have a look for us quickly if you if you don't mind and then what I'll do is I'll quickly read a couple of comments out here as well because we have fallen behind on some of the comments here. Camila saying Rob trying to vote for himself and Anna still going home was wild. That tribal council was chaos and a good episode. Camila, we did dive into this in the beginning of the podcast. I totally agree. Wild moment. Can't believe that he tried to vote for himself. Both me and Andre were confused. We still don't know what he was trying to achieve by doing this. I think the most intriguing part of the rest of the season is going to be we'll be on the Rob watch to see if he can recover from this. Like does he actually come back and try and play the game now? Because I do think Rob's got skills. I still think he's got skills, but will he just flame out? Is he just a

1:04:32 Big character early in the game? Andrea, [laughter] the fact that he can be a complete and do all of this and still not receive one bird is it's pretty good. Like it's gonna it's going to bode well for Rob. Yeah, he might become a target now. Like I mean Eric might bring out some of the fact that he said he has an idol and things like that. Who knows? Carlen says, "Pantless Pat Kennedy is my winner pick. Her edit has been really good. she has had something funny or important pointed out in both episodes so far." So, we've got a couple of different winner picks here. We've got in the in the audience, we've got Jelly. We've got Was it? Who was the other person? It was Jelly. It was Sharonda. And then Pandalist Pat. So far, I think you're a little bit lower on Pantalless Pad at this stage. Andre, you said that you're not too sure what she's

1:05:21 Doing as a I think she's a I think she's a classic social player. I think she's a social player. Yeah. Is what I'm getting from her at this point. see her I when I see her I she look she's a splitting image of the winner of Survivor South Africa. Which one? the one before I know which one you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. She looks exactly the same. What is her name now? Nicole. Nicole. Yeah, she looks exactly like Nicole. But definitely a very different player though. Nicole wasn't Nicole wasn't the biggest Survivor fan. I don't think she didn't come in as like a I'm a Survivor game bot. I know all the strategy. But she was a great social player. That's what Nicole wants. She again actually. Yeah. I mean, if Patt is a good social player, maybe there can be some like there can be some like you obviously physical differences aside.

1:06:10 Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that maybe that's the upside, right? Yeah. 100%. Woolly, you're just in time, mate. I hope you're enjoying the coverage so far here. I knew Anna would have went home when she threw Sharonda's name out. Okay. some other reason I can't. There we go. I knew Anna would have. Yeah. So, when Jeff makes it about himself, it's insufferable. Totally agree. Two tribes are way more exciting to watch than three. And I love Jelly. She has a good personality. So, another endorsement here for Jelly. I do like Jelly as well. I think she's a good Winnipeg. Do you have anyone else in mind that you think we should keep an eye on that hasn't been mentioned here by the live audience? Like, if we had to go a little bit wider than this? Yeah. Well, not as a winner pick, but we actually haven't mentioned my favorite player by name yet this entire episode. And my favorite player so far

1:07:03 Has been Carter. I think this guy is comedy gold. He has he's like the type of humor where if you if you see some of the shots they put in and some of his quotes are the funniest stuff you've ever seen in your entire life. He's hilarious. I love him. He's like the coming relief and he's very underrated as a character. I feel I feel like I don't know if they're just they're just they're just making him like just the dumbest version of JT you possibly can or I was going to say he's like the JT substitute for the season or something [laughter] only incredibly stupid and funny. I just love it. And he's so self unaware as well. I think he was he the one that was talking about the crabs and it's like he was completely unaware. [laughter]

1:07:50 They're on to us. They're on to us. It's like the worst thing to say in Survivor when there's other people around you and you're like, "I think they're on to us." Like, well, it's the worst thing. He's definitely unaware. And like immediately, this is like half the reason that they ended up switching the vote and voting Anna out. Like, I think Eric would have actually vote. Yeah. If it wasn't Carter saying that, and it's about the crabs. Like, what the hell? It was It was a great moment in the show. I do agree. Carter's Carter is a fun character to watch this season. I'm just don't think if there's anybody else on the radar that we haven't spoken about. I think one person I will mention as well. And someone that I still think has legs in this game is Mike Pinsky. Someone came on to I think it was either messaged me on Instagram or on the YouTube podcast that

1:08:37 We did last week and they said that the person who could be the host that Jeff was talking about was actually Mike. And we didn't give Mike his flowers. So Mike is the blondish guy. He's also kind of a bit of a We kind of miss him as well. He's a kind of a bit of a stocky guy as well. Like they've got a stronger guy in that tribe. The one that's friends with Domabate, I think it is. And Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think Mike is another guy that he's getting a little bit of content every single episode. Just enough for us to know who he is. And I think he was shown again to be in the know with some of the alliances this episode. He's a bit lowkey under the radar at the moment. Definitely can't put him out as a winner pick yet, but I do think he's got legs in the game as well. And he just hasn't given us much from a personality. He hasn't given us much from a personality standpoint. And

1:09:22 You do need to be on these shows. You have to be a bit of a character as well. And I don't know if he's got he's a character. He Well, yeah. He seems like that level-headed guy that's very low-key and eventually will win. like kind of like a ule kind of like a oh obviously he hasn't shown that prowess like kind of like the archetype of like the Brian Haidek from very early on where it's like look he's very like doesn't really say much but eventually his character will come out and he's kind of like yeah this is the moment this is the moment I was I was thinking about Jay thank you this is why I love doing live the live audience is like great because we put all our heads together and remember these moments in the episode, but there was a moment in the episode when Jelly and Pat were talking after Jelly told Pat about the idol. They were like, "Who are we going to work with in the game?" And I think Patt and Jelly both like Mike as another person come in. So, I think

1:10:15 He potentially could have that lowkey winner edit to him because other people are talking positively about him. And if you think about this, Andre, if you and I were to play this game, we probably would want someone like a mic in our tribe. someone who's stable, doesn't cause waves, maybe just this good old solid alliance member, you know. So, I do think he's got some legs in the game. I think that like him and say Sharonda are kind of like two sides of the same coin. where Sharonda she hasn't neither we don't know anything about Mike or Sharonda as people, right? But Sharonda was shown because she was consequential because she want you know she was consequential for everything. Mike wasn't consequential but they still kind of showed him. So that could be quite interesting. Whereas like there's definitely people that haven't

1:11:03 Got we haven't seen them at all. Like I think there are like three or four people already that I can sort of say look that they're not going to win. Like there's no way they're probably just going to be taken out in the coin flip or the double or whatever. and I can sort of see them right now. But I still like on the table there's probably still maybe 13 14 people that are still in the mix in my opinion. Yeah. we also need to talk about the Iranian alliance I feel like in the game like you've got Alexis and was it didn't last long did it [laughter] was it no wasn't Alexis and was it Anna I thought it was I thought I think it was Alexis and correct me if I'm wrong my reading was you might be right it was Alexis and Anna and then

1:11:48 Immediately Alexis goes and rats out Anna [laughter] yeah well that again shows you it's kind similar to the whole alliance between Eric and Rob that sometimes it doesn't matter where you're from, you're still two different individuals, like you know, so you might still Yeah, I think you're right. So, scratch that. I don't know if there's anybody else that we've missed that we haven't spoken about, but to your point, there's a lot of people who are just not getting any content. We have seen a little bit of content from Christian as well. He gets a confessional, an episode. It's the tiny guy with the glasses and the purple. It was not memorable at all. I remember he had I took note that oh he's talking right now. I have no idea what he said. Like he's definitely not memorable for me right now. Yeah. Nothing. Why are they giving him content? Like maybe just because I don't know. So we know who he is. He's setting him up in his character. He probably

1:12:38 Won't win. Like he's not driving the strategy, but probably in some ways he's at least visible. And visibility give you some leagues in the game. So we'll see what happens later on. Jay saying, "If Shirona doesn't win, I think I want Mike to win." Colleen is giving us some tea here that I didn't know about. Patt is a Navy military attorney. She is super fit. If they do an Australian survivor type endurance challenge, she should do well. She is also in an alliance of five and Jelly is her number one. what do you guys think of next week's preview? Possibly mutiny. One person from the opposite tribe visiting the other tribe. Yeah, interesting. They were mentioning mutiny. It feels too early for a mutiny. It's too early. I feel like it's I think it's a it's a raid. It's like a Pearl Islands type of raid where they take some of the stuff.

1:13:23 That's my theory. It's like, oh, I'm going to take your fire or I'll take your top or whatever. That was my take, but I don't know. It could be anything. Yeah. one last observation before we finish things wrap things up here. we spoke about it a little bit about, you know, the season feeling old school and there being this old school, I don't know, feel to the whole season. Do you think that if Survival was to go out and say we're going back old school, old school season, like it would drive numbers back? Do you think that because why are we using it in the edit? Like if Jeff believes that old school is not a thing and people just want crazy amounts of twists and for people to run on this hamster wheel, it feels like they're really leaning into like, oh, this is a this is going back to the single digits. This is oh, this is old school survivor mutiny is

1:14:12 Going to happen. Like we're throwing all these things out clearly for a reason and we're putting it in the preview because we believe that it's going to bring numbers. So it's kind of like are they testing the waters with this season Andre by saying old school giving an old school idol to see how people are reacting so they maybe in the future can go and say let's do an old school theme season actually people clearly want that. Yeah. So I actually it's not old school per se. I mean, I guess it kind of is old school now, but I would say it's kind of like Samoa era because the only season that really had an uptick in ratings was Samoa because of Russell because it was a big it was a big boisterous you know, big character driven. This came off the heels of a real old school season which was token chains, right? I think my theory is they're going back and look what worked in Samur and they're trying to replicate

1:15:03 It. That's my take. it's a weird one, but that's going back to our like our discussion on like villains, like who's the biggest villain of all time in Survival. So when we when we throw Samoa out there, people like to hate on Russell and I understand why because Russell doesn't do himself any favors with the stuff that he does outside of the game in his own channel and stuff like he if Russell disappeared for like a few years people will if he did if he did after the whole I guess what was it the Australian Survivor the last one he probably would have been locked to be back two or three times or at least by now like I think it's he's done himself no favors outside of the But we need if we're trying to replicate Samoa in this era, we need

1:15:50 Someone to carry this season. Like we need a big character to come out of this season. Do we currently when we look at the table, it's a great cast. There's some great players. That's big shoes to fall. Like the season itself sort of sl There's a there's a certain bold man with an idol that is trying to vote for himself, but for all the wrong reasons, Andre. Like I mean this guy could be done in the next two or three episodes. He could be going home. Like do we have that level of a player that's going to come from this season? We don't otherwise the marketing would say this is because they the Samoa marketing was like, you know, it's Russell's Island, you know, Russell, you know, it's like this is the biggest villain of all time. They really hyped up Russell. We're not going to have another Russell. Yeah. Yeah. Russell's one in a million. You're never going to have another Russell or another like Tony or whatever, you know? It's like it's very like these are very in a bottle.

1:16:43 Lighting in a bottle. Yeah. And they come they these characters do come around like once every 10 or 10 15 seasons, but they're super rare. So my thought is that look, they'll try, but they can't they can't manufacture that. But my point is try to set up circumstances and a season and the rules and the structure of the season to allow for that. And when you have three little se like there could have been a Russell in the new era. we just didn't know it because they probably were voted off first or third because, you know, they were in the disaster tribe. I think Q is the closest that we've gotten to like a big character from that era that kind of carried his season in a in a big way from a character standpoint, but again chaotic like Russell was a big character, chaotic, but he was strategic

1:17:33 And he and he did run his the seasons that he won to a big large degree. He just didn't have the social game. That's all. Yeah, we can all agree. But the weird thing is the weird thing is I don't want to make this Russell podcast, but Russell did have a social game because people did want to work with him, but he just didn't know how to get people to vote for him at the end. He didn't know how to eat humble pie at the end. He was pretty I mean, I feel like a few ch things changed in Simo. I think he could have won like that version of Russell. but I was thinking like we could like I think we can all agree that generally speaking, casting is better now. But yeah, Carolyn was pretty big. I Yeah, I think so. I think she That's why like let's just Can we just for one second? I'm having so much fun here. I know I know we're Risk Godard's big as well, but I love that we're dragging out the podcast a little bit now, but it I love doing this and I love talking about this is the kind of stuff that's [laughter] give people what they want. How the hell did Carolyn not make it on to season 50?

1:18:29 It's ridiculous. think she was one of the biggest I think Jeff was a little bit salty that she went on to the traitor. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think that's what it was. It's funny. It's funny. I was listening to who was it that I think it was Wes Bergman who was on a podcast with Devin from the challenge and Paulie and I saw a clip of him coming up where he was talking about Jeff being bitter and sour for players playing the challenge and going and doing other things and he was just like you need to get over it because we live in a we live in a time where there's these crossovers happening and we've literally just had a survivor player go to big brother win big brother and I feel like we should

1:19:16 See like I've always wanted to see a crossover season Andre like I want to see big brother let's get there's some challenges I would love to see play Survivor I'd love to see Wes Bergman play Survivor he's a strategic mastermind like I'd love to see Johnny Banalas he's a big character like why like why does Jeff Ha's elitist attitude to players that have played other reality TV shows because I feel like a crossover season has happened in almost every other franchise out there except for Survivor. It's like he feels Survivor is purely lead and above it. Mark my words, I think in the next two years, I think there's going to be a crossover. I don't know if it's going to be Big Brother. I don't know if it's going to be Survivor, but I'm pretty sure there's going to be if it's not a full crossover season, there's going to be more intermingling now after Devin and D. I mean, they kind of have flirted

1:20:03 With in the past like Beast Mode Cowboy was originally from Big Brother. Hayden was also from Big Brother. I feel like Hayden was a very good Nelly Anderson the Amazing Race. Yeah. From Amazing Race. Yeah. I think that there's always And you think that Sky Dance would see that and be like I have yet to see the Big Brother ratings. I'm sure the Big Brother ratings are good. I'll check that afterwards. I feel but if the ratings are good, I think they're going to definitely do it. I Sky Dance is going to be like I look, we saw the ratings. Get more of this on it. There's been a lot of survivors that have come to Big Brother because of that and they could probably do vice versa. Dreadful Ruby. I actually do enjoy their podcast as well because I feel like they don't take themselves too seriously and they've got a very

1:20:49 Contrarian view of the challenge like in some ways which is kind of weird because they're insiders that have played the challenge before but they're also not afraid to have some stabs at the direction of the challenge and the production team protecting sometimes some of their vets and things like that. So a lot like I don't know it's an interesting podcast. I do enjoy watching some of it as well. And Wes was phenomenal on this last podcast. So for anyone who does like Wes, he's got a real beef at the moment with Chris Underwood. [laughter] It happened last week and it's and I'm really enjoying it. He basically said, Andre, that he's glad that the Chris Underwood experiment is over and that Chris Underwood is now done with reality TV because he's a boring character that has not delivered anything in three seasons that he's been on TV. and

1:21:36 The thing is Chris Underwood had a stab at him before he came out to say that because Wes is normally he doesn't just fire shots and he and he got in the DMs and he said to him, "Hey, how disrespectful do you think it is that you said you're retired me because I like he retired on his own accord. He was the one who said he was going to retire and Chris Underwood's like, "Oh, it's probably like a 7.5 out of 10." And he's like, "Okay, bet. I'm going to hit you with a 7.5 as well." And that's what he came out with about Chris Underwood being boring. So, there's a lot of drama happening at the moment. I love Chris Underwood as well, by the way, Mary. probably for different reasons than you if I look at Probably for different reasons, I would hope. Yeah. [laughter] But I do think I do think he's not as boring as Wes is saying. And I love this kind of I love this drama, Andre, the crossover drama. There's something about returning seasons. And also, if Survivor wants to get more ratings, there are still people in the

1:22:25 Challenge world that have never watched Survivor. There are still people in the big brother. There's sometimes like you and I, we kind of go all in on Survivor. I know you watch a bit more reality TV than me, but a lot of people choose their show and they don't go and watch other shows. So, if you want to get more viewers into your show, get a bit of a crossover season going. So, I hope you're right. I hope we do see a Big Brother versus Survivor on that. I'm looking at the I know it's not a Big Brother podcast, but I'm looking at the ratings for season 26, 27, 28 of Big Brother. And this year, the Big Brother ratings were up by 8%. Because Deian Devans was on the season. So like it only makes sense. Like I think people are going to see that like Sky Dance are going to see that and be like, "All right, at least next Big Brother is going to be probably like a Survivor versus Big Brother season probably." You'd think so, right?

1:23:13 Like it makes sense. you know, they could they could do in your all new cars, but that's boring, you know. Yeah. Let's see a little bit of like and I think that maybe, you know, with this success, there's going to be a little more pressure on the Survivor team to sort of start casting. And like I'm not saying that every season should be there. So, one every five seasons, put on an all-star or do a crossover, do Australia versus the world type of season. do different themes and just see what works, you know, and then you have every have three seasons in a row of new players because people love but then have every other I think Survivor like sometimes I feel like Jeff has this view of we're too big to fail and that's why he has shots at his fans. That's why he has and it's fair but I mean they've been the number one reality TV show when it comes to

1:24:00 Sheer just the amount of eyeballs that watch the show for so many years. I think they still what do they get like 4.5 million people to 5 million people an episode watch it like live. Yeah. Well, I mean so I'm looking at Big Brother gets 4 million. So I can't imag Yeah. Well, what is what is Survive Live? check the ratings. I'd be very interested because I feel like I feel like it's around the five million people watching. Interesting. So 4.3 million live viewers. So and then it gets so it's actually up in the key demos which is pretty interesting. so something is hap some I think whatever they're doing is working I feel but I mean big brother

1:24:45 And Survivor are very sort of in sympatico when it comes to ratings now which is surprising. I just feel like maybe Survivor probably has more delayed viewers than Big Brother, but I think it's pretty it's pretty similar. It's like it's probably a 30% difference more or less. So, you know, if they can just because it's interesting when you look at the challenge, like a lot of people were very opposed to CBS cast members joining the challenge and they were like, "No, this needs to be you know, they come from the MTV background and they had like Real World and I forgot the other show. There was like two main shows back in the day, Road Rules, that Real World and Road Rules were the two people who casted into the challenge and they wanted to stay pure on that side. But

1:25:30 You can see that what they were doing when they started pivoting towards I think the early 30s, season 30s, is that they actually extended the longevity of that show. Like I would argue if they didn't do that, if they didn't bring people in from CBS, I would never have watched The Challenge if it wasn't for people from Big Brother going over and playing it that I saw on Big Brother. Like I knew Paulie was a wrecking ball on Big Brother and I was like, "This is going to be funny to watch. I want to see him play because he's a wrecking ball, right?" And then I watched the show and I beca I fell in love with the challenge. I was like ah there's these great characters like CT and the like Bananas and you know like Jordan and Cararia and like I got hooked into it and I went back and watched all the seasons. So I think that the challenge if they didn't do it back then potentially wouldn't have survived the fall of MTV because MTV is gone now when it comes to shows they've now who owns the challenge

1:26:21 Sky Dance. So they've now put it on right okay obviously. So, the things are coming closer together. Everything's coming closer together. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they're going to do some sort of They're probably going to do at least Survivor Big Brother and possibly the challenge if they're all under the same umbrella. Like, it don't even make sense. To be honest, they've got big characters in the challenge that I would love to see play. Like, if you got a season with like some of the big characters coming over and playing, like strategic characters, it would be a fun season to watch. The reason I bring this up is because when you're saying that lightning in a bottle only comes ever so often like I would say you've got your Russell Hans, your Tony Blackhor, you've got your poverties, your SE, your Boston Robs, the same level that those players are. You've got Bananas, you've got CT, you've got Kam Maria, you know, you've got players like Jordan. Like there's some big players as well.

1:27:08 Yeah. And Big Brother in the last couple. Yeah. I mean, the one of the Drew from Big Brother could be he had an interview with Rob this morning say, "I'd love to be on Survivor." Like, there's defin there's heaps of cars that you can get from Big Brother as well. They're going to bring in a lot of the Big Brother play watches. Yeah. All right. Well, I think that's it here for this episode. Everybody in the live, thank you so much for jumping in. If you are new to the channel and you're watching this at a later stage, please subscribe to the channel. That's how we know you like the content. please let us know what your thoughts are. We've got a couple of names that were thrown out here by our live audience. I think all good names as to potentially who could win this season. Who's your winner pick? we've got Jelly, we've got Sharonda, and who was the other ones? Jelly, Sharonda, I think, Pat. Those are our three at the moment,

1:27:59 I think, that are getting the votes potentially to win the season. Drew in the comments. [laughter] No. What's that? No one wants Drew. No one wants Drew in the comments. Was Drew [laughter] Was he that bad? H it's you need to be his cup of tea. I feel [laughter] I think he's very he was very divisive. He's kind of like very he's like more of an unlikable RZ god I feel. Fair enough. Fair enough. Didn't I see clips of him calling out Rizgod? Like he's like, "Oh, you know, I'm the big brother RZ god." Or something like that. Like I'm pretty sure I saw clips online. Something like that. You either love him or you hate him. It's like And I think that a lot of people here hate him. [laughter] Yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough. Well, thank you everybody for being in the live. We'll be back next week to talk about episode three here on the channel.

1:28:44 And grab your torches, head back to camp. We'll catch you guys next time. Bye. See you.