Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - episode 3: what really happened

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

In this episode, we’re answering your questions and sharing our honest thoughts on Special Forces episode 3! From moments you didn’t see on camera to how we really felt, we’re giving you the full, unfiltered experience. Let us know what you think and tell us your favorite parts! So excited to be watching alongside all of you :) We’ll be doing this every week, so keep an eye on my Instagram for the question box with all your questions. See you for episode 4! Love you guys! Shawn & Andrew Branch Basics ▶ Use code EASTFAM for 15% off your first order — that’s 15% off at https://www.BranchBasics.com with code EASTFAM. Omaha Steaks ▶ get an extra $35 off when you use promo code EASTFAM at checkout. Beam Kids ▶ Head to https://www.shopbeam.com/couplethings and use code COUPLETHINGS to get up to 40% off while supplies last! Subscribe to our newsletter ▶ https://www.familymade.com/newsletter Follow our podcast Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/shawnandandrewpods/ Follow My Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjohnson Shop My LTK Page ▶ https://www.shopltk.com/explore/shawnjohnson Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow Andrew’s Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Andrew’s Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewdeast?lang=en Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up everybody? Welcome back to a couple things with Sean and Andrew. Are you ready to talk about episode three? I am. I am. But first, let's get into some life updates. I have a Lisp. Sean has a Lisp. Why do you have a Lisp? I got Envisaline today like literally 20 minutes ago. Why did you do that? I had no choice evidently from my dentist. I honestly, I can't notice a Lisp. It didn't sound like you have one, but you are talking weird with your bottom lip. That's the only difference. Yeah. But what I'm sure of, more than anything, is you're more beautiful today than you've ever been in your life. Thank you for me. Because of the embezzeline. No? No, just because you're you.

My, our dentist. He was also like a really good friend. So like we can joke around and like we know each other really well. He basically has been hinting at braces since I started going to him. And I'm always like, my teeth don't. bother me like they're imperfect but like my teeth are fine I've never had to do orthodontic work and this past visit he's like it's time I was like what do you mean he's like it's time we should do invisaline and I was like no it really doesn't bother me that much like I'm totally fine and he's

like I don't think you understand what I'm saying it's no longer an option and I said doc I like I don't really care like trying to like joke around with him and then he got serious he's like you can either do Invisaline now or you can push it five more years and I'll put metal braces on your face and I was like okay wow that took a turn

Got serious real quick Yeah and then he went down this rubble hole Like what will actually happen to my teeth If I don't do it and I was like oh okay And that how that conversation happened like last week So everything happened quick Yeah you know I had braces for eight years of my life How it is

I just wanted to do you? to the orthodontics for the first time and I keep saying this to them and they're like I don't know how that's even possible well you know the orthodonic technology has really come a long way I think it's really exciting times and in the orthodontry department orthodontistry I don't know what the word is orthodonics in orthodonics anyway but that was uh I've never told you this or maybe you've seen the pen but this was my first modeling gig I did not want to be a model and And that was actually my last modeling gig as well. For braces.

But yeah, for braces. After. After I got, yeah. I was on my local orthodontics. Wasn't it also your aunt? No. That was my dentist. Yeah.

Oh, wow. Sean and I have been traveling quite a bit doing really short one day trips for all this media that we have to do with the show. For this show. Yeah. And it's been fun. It has been really fun. I'm loving this show.

Like as a viewer. as a, like, purely just a consumer. I do want to note that, you know, does it seem self-indulgent that we're watching the show that we're on? Probably. I feel like us watching the show is a whole new experience of it

than us being on it. Like the different perspectives, the audio, the slow-mo, how they shot it, all the fancy effects. It's like, oh my gosh, it's a whole different experience. And we aren't watching it

to, like, watch ourselves because, like, you and I, we experienced it, you know. So, like, I don't need to watch myself go crawl through a tunnel. But we're watching it because, one, I didn't get to see Andrew do a lot of things. Right, right. So, like, I actually want to see you. And we didn't get to see all of our castmates do majority of the stuff. And we got to, like, debrief a lot of it with them, whether they were traumatized by it or, like, excited by it.

And so we're kind of piecing together like a full picture story of each individual person's journey. And it's really cool. Like I learned so much about Nick this episode. Yeah. And like we were close. Which has, has them been fun since we know these people to like reach out to them, interact with them differently and have a new, newfound appreciation for these new friends that we have. So no, I don't feel weird watching it just because. it's a totally different ball game than what it was like being there in person.

We'll get to there, though. We have fall break coming up with the kids. I know. We're going to Disney World. We're going to Orlando, baby. And this is the longest trip we've ever taken to Disney. We have done Disney four times with the kids, which is insane to say. You keep saying Disney, we're going to Orlando because this trip, what I'm most excited about with it is all of the other things we're going to do in the

city. I just say Disney as like the city. I refer to it as a city. It is Orlando. I know. Because we're doing so much stuff. And we're going to go with cousins. So it's going to be a blast. And we're going with our neighbors. Like it's a, it's a long trip. We're going to go to some. I can't give you my whereabouts. That was hilarious to watch you do that. We have a lot of fun activities. We'll tell you about after. We'll tell you everything. Because like it's jam packed way outside of Disney. We're doing. things we've never done before with the kids also you're saying whereabouts i i liked it whereabouts yeah you should say that word more thank i'm into it um my teeth align very differently also i don't know watch out everybody your boy has more free time he's a doctor i'm gonna be starting some more fun projects because now i have school behind me and i'm so proud of you thanks this happened last week yep last wednesday we were we were

In a really big meeting all day with Vanderbilt. Which we're so excited about. We're going to tell you about that later. Can't tell you. Yeah. So many things. So many big things happening. We were in this big meeting all day.

And Andrew casually has to say, like, I have to sneak out for an hour to go give my oral dissertation on my PhD. And it was so cool because so many of people in that room we were with, I would say we look up to. Yeah. Like they're mentors and we get a lot of wisdom from them. and to see them like speak into you just so much like they were so proud and they were so encouraging you're like okay so you left i mean candis put her arm around me and was like hyping me up

i know that was that was one of my favorite moments of the day and so then you leave i still do the meeting stuff and then i'm refreshing my phone like every minute waiting for a text message from you that never came excuse me i want to tell you in person But I was like, it's going over. I thought it was just an hour, like, whatever. And then all of a sudden you walk back into the room. And I was like, hold up. And everyone stops.

And they look at you. And they're like, so? And you're like, how fast? Yeah. I was so freaking proud of you. I am so freaking proud of you. Well, it was fun because I did my undergrad and graduate degree at Vanderbilt. We're sitting there with like all of the head honchos of Vandy, who are all PhDs.

Yeah. Yeah. The athletic director. and these are also people I've known for like 15 years so I really admire and look up to them they've seen me grow and change a lot and so then to get like a round of applause from them was really special and as a fun it was like a boardroom of 15 people it was amazing it was really fun but I also just personally feel really pleased with it because my grandpa called papa James East was a PhD was big into academics

which I was way more into athletics and academics before, I don't know, four or five years ago when I really got into like reading books. And then it was passion for like digging into all these books and presidential biographies that I was like, wait, it would be so nice to have not just, you know, a couple weeks spent on reading a book, but a full curriculum that lasts months and years on one topic. And then I was thinking about how we're writing a book, which we also just finished that manuscript last week. crazy we're looking at cover art options you can follow us on instagram we're doing some like polls to get your guys as thoughts on titles covers etc but uh as we publish more podcasts and books

i was like man i really do want to have this certification and this endorsement to bring more academic rigor and like thoughtfulness to some of our stuff that we're publishing just for me to personally feel better about it because we have a lot of people live there listening to what we have to say. And I view that as a real responsibility. So that was really fun. But yeah, like the process was delightful. I learned a bunch. We'll make a main channel YouTube video. You weren't stressed at all ever about it. I mean, I was I was trying to grind on this schoolwork while we were in Paris during the Olympics doing all this stuff. Well, we were in Singapore and you couldn't get Wi-Fi and you're getting kicked out of hotels. But I was able to knock it out in

just under two years. I'll do it. We'll do a main channel YouTube video on. it but um it was a really fun process that i'm glad to have behind me it so you like do this final step of defending your presentation or defending your dissertation through a presentation and then they deliberate you have to leave the room and then you come back and they're like congratulations doctor east what did you get that on camera i did okay good yeah and that was just a fun moment so now i have more free time graduation i think i'll walk next may if you want to go yeah are you kidding yeah so your entire family wants to go okay that would be fun that would actually be a fun event that would be a good time so now I have free time though and now we got to figure out how to fill it

oh boy we have a lot of fun projects if anybody knows Andrew free time and Andrew don't mix it's gonna be good it's gonna be good we have a lot of projects we're really excited there's a lot coming out and we're really excited about it yeah or finishing up the house we have a lot of travel coming up yeah a book a book tour side note i want to do live streams since the next episode will be halfway through the season yep i think we do a halfway through the season live stream and then an after the season live stream like watch it live no like people ask us questions okay because i feel like we should just have a q and a i think a live stream would be a fun format. There's a ton of people. Honestly, I cannot believe how many people

love these weekly recaps. I know. People are bought in. So, anyway, that brings us to episode three. Episode three. This one was an interesting episode. Yeah. Because it wasn't as action-packed. I didn't think. We're talking, uh, ladder walk. Casualty carry and ladder walk. Yeah. And let's just start with casualty carry. That was like the very first challenge that you saw us do. We had the gurney. We were in teams of three or four. Yep.

We'd have to grab the gurney, run into this like village area ruins, which we had no idea, like we didn't get to see it ahead of time. So we didn't know are you going right or left? And they just say you have to find your casualties and you have to get them out. and as you're in your groups you're trying to like strategize for like the 30 seconds you have before you run in it was me Andrew and Chanel who were in our like team and we felt really good about it like I that's a great team so they say go we have our burghans on which are 35 pounds we had the gurney which was probably 40 pounds

it wasn't like the the thing we carried them on yeah it was metal so i feel like it was i feel like it was like 60 yeah maybe it wasn't hard to carry that though like the stretch yeah yeah and since it was metal just to give you like a little detail bt s moment it was scalding hot super hot and the the handles they didn't have like pads no to have a soft space for your fingers so you're digging into the metal ledges and everyone had cut up fingers from that. Yeah. And because of the heat, gymnast, little obsession here with caluses and stuff, when you mix a hot metal bar with like bare hands and weight, nothing good happens. You just rip skin. Parents, if you've ever tried to get your kids to eat healthier, you know it can feel like a losing battle. Yeah, between picky eaters,

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That's shop, B-E-A-M dot com slash couple things. And don't forget to use code couple things for up to 40% off. Trust us, your kids will love it. And you'll feel better knowing they're getting everything they need. You just rip skit. And every single one of us had probably. five or six quarter size rips on our fingers in hands. It was awful. Okay. So you had to grab the gurney, you go running in, explosions are going off. You have to go find a guy. We find the guy.

You're getting yelled at you really don't know what success looks like, but you're stressed out. You don't know how long you're going to go. And you're in like the middle of this just heated environment where you, I don't know, you're just kind of winging it. It was also the first challenge I've seen on the show as far that I don't feel like truly captured it well. And I don't think there's any way to capture that well. But like they do such a good job of making you feel like you're in a like life or death situation. I don't know how they do it, but they do it.

Well, before you go out there. Yeah. In your team, Rudy stood up and gave this whole speech lecture on what urban warfare experience he had. And he was like, man, we had a guy lose these limbs. and then he saved all us fellow soldiers and you're like in the moment because they set this backdrop

and then they have this mission that you don't know about that you're just getting tossed into and you're like thinking about oh my gosh, pressure's on I got to save my fellow soldiers and not leave anything or anybody behind. Something that I think I'm just now clicking

that's just now clicking in my head is this idea of when you watch as a viewer you so quickly understand the whole assignment like you watch it once and you're like oh yeah they got to go get the guy they got to carry them through it and the narrator's doing it from the overhead shot and they show the line through the whatever but like if you understand us in our like where we were in that moment we yes have watched the show before but every challenge is different and we don't get a debrief of like let's walk through the course and this is where you're going to find him and you're going to turn the corner and there's going to be an explosion going off and you know you have you have literally no idea and because the show has no red tape meaning they can pretty much do whatever they want you have no idea what's coming around the corner you have no idea if they have hired 50 guys to jump out at you and start swinging yeah you don't know where the explosions are coming off you don't know how many casualties they're not giving us specifics they're just like

if you see a person and they happen to have a flag on them they're yours and you got to get them out so then you're like, is that one person? But the funny thing is, and this applies for episode four, which will debrief later, but like you feel like you have 100% of the information. Like, you feel like you're well prepared and you know what's going to come. And all these conversations, like, so what you don't see is people going team by team and you're standing there in this little square altogether and everyone's kind of chit chattering like, oh, what do you think it could be? Oh, yeah, well, we're going to be, you're going to have to do this, that and the other. Based off the debrief that like Rudy just said of his past experience.

So you feel like you have 100% of information. And then as soon as the event starts, I have like 0%. And with how vague they are and with how few things, pieces of information they give you, for example, with the casualty carry, we didn't know if we're carrying this casualty

for the next two hours or the next five minutes. or also we didn't know what the casualty was they said make sure you don't leave any apparel or or bags behind and so then we have gurney and then we're like okay well maybe maybe it will be a casualty this is all after we get called up and like you're sprinting into this yeah by the way so after the second day we went to about at 1145 that's when teresa and eva left after boxing then they woke us up at 6 this whole started like 7 30 so it's still like bright and early Bright and early.

You know, you think, oh, yesterday was hard. Today's going to be a day off. This was the water day before this started. Because I remember when we arrived to the location, we were all like constantly filling up our water. Where they forced us, your water had to be flushed with the top. And if you weren't filled at the top with water, then you would get a beasting or penalty. But Sean and I are with Chanel as a team. we were about middle of the pack to go like second or third you hear as you're standing there

some of the explosions going off and then what we started doing by day three was like we had a stop watch and we would start saying okay this is taking about 25 30 minutes yeah so then we knew after the first team went the second team now we have a little better idea of of the time allotment but you still don't know if those people are done or if they've moved on something else like you have no idea and the other team when they finish you don't see them so like they just call you up we run up cue gives us the gurney yep he starts yelling at us and you're like in the heat of the moment it's like go go go go and you're like oh god so we go into this like village area they're all connected buildings and i started looking do you remember yeah i got deviated because

they said you got to make sure you don't leave anything behind yeah so i start clearing this this building room by room by room, Q starts yelling at me. I know. What the F are you doing? He was yelling at me too. You got to follow the path. It's right there.

And I was like, okay. You didn't say stay on the path. Yeah, you didn't say stay on the path. I'm trying to like do a diligent job. Same. So then we turn that first right corner. And we see the guy.

We see this guy sitting there in full helmet, goggles, a weight vest. And it's, to my surprise, an actual person. Actual guy. Not a mannequin.

Yeah, that poor volunteer. So then. you have to check to make sure it's like American, which I think he had an American flag on. He had a flag on him. But not everything was so clearly American. So I was thinking like if it's an American-made brand, if there is, if he speaks English,

like what are the identifiers? Because that was part of the rules is like make sure it's a friendly. It's your guy. So we put the gurney down. We had to carry the body. This guy, you guys, I've had friends ask me.

Because Andrew and I work out a lot. We lift a lot of weights. Like we're strong. I would say we were very, we were very strong for the pack, you know? In case you're wondering, I could deadlift like 405 20 times if you asked me to. I could power clean 315, whatever. I played football. I weighed 25 pounds.

I felt prepared. I just want to give people reference. Like, I'm not a little pansy boy, you know? So we've had friends actually ask us after watching this episode. They're like, why did you guys struggle so much to carry this guy? Bro. Like one man. And I don't know what they did.

I don't know what they did to this guy. I don't know what he was wearing underneath his uniform. This was the heaviest man I've ever tried to carry in my entire life. It had to have been 400 pounds we were carrying. I would say he weighed about 260 pounds all in with his whole kit. Big guy, tall guy. The gurney weighed, let's just call it 60 to 70. So, like, we're talking 350 pounds.

And he had to have had a weight, like a 60 pound weight vest on. it was Andrew and I alone could not carry this person That's probably right Given the rules that we were told Which was like you know this guy's hurt Take care of them

And what I was also shocked by was The uneven footing was brutal So you're like turning these corners Through this village like imagine going through a hallway And then you have to carry this eight foot long gurney And your fingers are getting ripped And you're stepping on rock So you're like tripping everywhere

And we're wearing the backpacks. And we have the backpack on, backpacks on. And you can only carry it with one arm. Because you had a walkie-talkie. Part of it was you had to make constant communication or seek constant communication with Foxy, who is like you're a heli pickup,

helicopter pickup. So we're going through this thing. You're stressed because you're like, is this an actual American? You're stressed because the context of getting yelled at an explosion. You're stressed because you're trying to like not get injured by rolling your ankle,

tripping and falling and then like bashing your knee on the rock. It was so uneven. Yeah. And so we start carrying them through. I remember there was one where we make it out of the first building. And I was like, okay, we must. No. We must be done.

Dude. And then it's not over. So you just keep going. Probably 400 yards. It was probably a lap around a track is how far we had to carry him. The full thing? Yeah. Oh, I would say a lease set.

We were carrying it for like 15 minutes. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe do you let. With uneven service. I would say a half a mile. Yeah. So let's just call it two laps.

But then, so as this is happening, again, we've got like the 30. pounds on our back trying to carry this guy using the walkie-talkie Chanel she was a beast like she tried she wasn't giving up but like she's also not used to like lifting heavy weights so like this was a really really difficult challenge for her and she kept needing to take a break and so again uneven sides we were just screaming at each other she kept yelling I can't do it she might have been crying I don't remember but like she stressed and come on lift it yeah because you're trying to make it through there and it's not like we were trying to hyper up we were just trying to get this thing over I was in so much pain

trying to carry that much heavy weight like with one arm on the side was like whatever so at one point our team was struggling in the sense of like we weren't progressing fast enough and so they told us to like ditch our bags because between Chanel and I trying to like lift it with you it was just a lot because the bags make it even more clunkier you're like flipping around you're already walking backward you're tripping over stones by the the way, Q, when he told us to drop her bags, it was so nonchalant and felt very friendly. He was like, go ahead and drop your bags. I mean, you guys were all right.

We knew the rules were like, you can't leave your stuff behind. But it just, in the moment, it was literally the only option for us getting out. They just made it look on TV, like, we tapped out. Like, it was our idea. No. It was just the only way for us to, like, finish. But also, we were told to drop the bags. Did you ask to drop the bags?

What am I missing? No. I'm just saying, we, we would. would not have been able to finish if we didn't drop the bags. I don't like it when you say stuff like that. On top of this, there was also a huge box that we were supposed to pick up as well that was over 100 pounds. Not sure how we were going to get all that out of there. And also, we didn't know there was a box.

We found the first guy who was American. We did. We didn't find it. We knew there was some piece of something we had to find. We were supposed to find anything American. Yeah. We found the first thing that was American. I thought we were good.

But you're still, like, you know, looking because I said, you don't know, you don't know how much is in there. So then we come across a second guy. Yeah. And I try to monkey carry this guy. Yeah. Like, what do you call it? Like fire. Firemen's carry him.

Like, throw him over my shoulder, cues yelling to me. No, he can walk. He's a walking casualty. I was like, how do we know this? Yeah. What the heck? So then we get him out. We finally finish our, you know, run.

Dying. This was one of the things that you could not, just like the relay race on day one. it was so much harder in person than what it looked like on TV where you're like oh you just had to carry a guy no it was so much harder so then we get like our we get reprimanded because we left our burghans and it was just a mess it was a hot mess so then we go sit with the teams who have finished and they're all same thing like white in the face just like what the frick just happened yeah it was everyone's hands are just just bloody disastrous mess messes i remember i had this weird dynamic on the show of like i didn't want to like come across like i don't know i was quiet a lot and i see everybody's hands are like bloody and blistered and bleeding and i'm like well i know how to fix this you know as the gymnast and i was like do i offer whatever so then i spent the next hour while other people are finished other teams are finishing their challenges like grip taping everybody which we talked about

the med box that was in the bunker, the athletic tape that you'd find in there was a hot commodity. They would only put like one roll in. And it was also a horrible tape. They put one roll on a day. And so people would use it all. People would take it. And so if you were able to get your hands on some athletic tape just to protect your fingers, you were in good shape. But it was, it was rude. I have never seen so many bad rips. Dude. Even in gymnastics. Like these were, these were bad rips. Everybody's hands were gone which it's it's amazing because usually i feel like if you're just doing an event that would rip your hands people would stop doing it or not take it so seriously but everyone is so bought in

that like your hand dripping was such a side issue that you weren't concerned with it it sucked but it was like okay tape and move on but you were just focused on the mission yeah that's how that's how like i don't know locked in and brainwashed everyone was yeah in the moment and then i I also, everyone failed. Every team failed. But I do feel like we heard other teams getting ripped, like yelling. I wish you guys could have been there, everyone, because it wasn't like a funny thing. It was actually a really serious thing, but it was kind of funny if you think about it.

This poor guy. A real human. The real guy being carried on the screen. He was the same guy for every team. And there were some teams that just like. weren't recognizing, you know, that it was a real man. No, people were suffering so hard. They had no choice.

They just, like, panicked. Just, like, dropping this guy, literally dropping him. You know, three or four feet from waist height, and this guy was just getting wrecked. And he's getting dropped near the explosions going off. And it was just like this poor guy. Yeah. I wish we knew who that was. Oh, my gosh.

You couldn't even see his face. He had all this equipment on. So we all get yelled out again because nobody passed this. challenge and then i remember from here we actually had to run a decent amount of ways back to the cars because the cars were like way back from the start so we probably ran close to a mile back to the cars and every time that we ran it was just like a frick moment because you would hear one of the ds who are in the most freak amazing shape i've ever seen guys in their age one of them did a marathon a day on cross-country skis for like a month yeah and in Antarctica yeah for fun yeah

and so you would hear one of the DS be like line up stay with me and you're like oh yeah come on yeah and they would just take off and you just have to follow me you don't know how long you're going for where you're going whatever so this is about a mile around we went back to the cars then we go back to um camp this is when we would have like lunch again very bland like boiled chicken style food yeah we that casualty carry took from about 745 to 1 and uh and imagine just sitting in the 115 degree heat for five hours having done that hard workout that you don't get a warm up in you already had the fran lung that we talked about last time where like your esophagus and like lungs are not ready to have that

respiratory rate. And so this is when first people started developing that the cough. The camp cough. Was this when Jesse left? Yeah. Jesse left. So we had lunch at one. Jesse left between two and three. And we left at three for the ladder walk. Oh yeah, because we went running out and he still wasn't back

from the med tent yet. But keep in mind the barracks. They had like a tarp down the middle of the cots. But then you're sleeping on dirt. Dirt. It was so dusty. As you're sleeping, there's dirt when you're out during the day. Obviously, there's cars around driving, so you're constantly breathing in dirt. And then when you do these workouts, like it just, I feel like compounds and gets super exaggerated where Jesse was the first one to develop this cough?

The first. Just wait. Yeah. Yeah. Just wait. As the workouts got harder and harder, which they do. It became like pneumonia for, I can't say. Yeah.

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someone left it gets really somber yeah and uh and then we got in the car for this ladder walk that was a long drive long but it was kind of nice it's probably two hours long yeah and uh and we go to the village that was yeah two hours away yeah and we we pulled up on um some like apartment buildings that were under construction then we had to wait there for a long time forever this was kind of nice it's you're in the mindset to like do stuff you know you're like on edge so you don't know when or how long it's going to be and they don't tell you how long but this was kind of a nice period of time because we had exerted ourselves so much yeah that morning with the casualty carry which sounds hilarious because we're talking about 15 20 minutes or whatever was

brutal and now we're just like chilling not chilling in the sense of like giggling we're literally like smashed in the back of a car for like four hours also this was when we started i think i first started seeing the human side of billy because there was a bunch of kids playing which was kind of a problem because the production was stressed about having them around local kids yeah uh and so billy started playing with them and we're just watching this from the cars uh which was really cool to see and then they they put us in cars by the team that we were with. So we were still you, me and Chanel. Yeah. And keep in mind, we ate at one. We probably didn't finish this till nine, but we didn't eat that entire time. Yeah.

I remember the food was such an issue for you, but you are such a large person. It was actually hard. This is when we started game planning sniping bars. Yeah. So they would have a little snack bag that if you asked specifically correctly for the snack bag, they would give you. If you said the wrong word. I'm like, hey, do you have any fruit and they only had bars, then they wouldn't give you it? If you had, if you said, do you have any lunch and they only had bars, they wouldn't give you it? I don't think they were gamifying it. I think it was just, well, you're the food guy. I think it was just like a, if we were going nine hours at a time without any food, they had, they, the production crew who had the snacks on them and they were like plain just bars.

I think because they weren't allowed to interact with us at all a lot of them didn't know is it okay if I... Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like they were nervous for their own rules. Very, very, very.

We got a quick walkthrough on the harness situation I remember that day. We had to, we would like get grabbed out of our car for a split second and put a harness and a helmet on and then we just had to sit

in our harness and helmet for like hours while we waited. And I'm stash and bars trying to get it all in. And then they call our number. This one, we had like no clue what was going on none it was really confusing because you couldn't see anything couldn't hear anything we knew we had a harness on so it's like am i repelling am i climbing

am i we're around very average buildings i was so confused why we had a harness on because there was nothing of great height around us you know like is there like a really deep basement that we don't know about i don't know and the way we probably went closer to the end on this one The way they had a position in the car was we could see nothing. So, like, I was so confused. They tapped on our window. We had to get out, sprint, follow Billy. We're, like, taking a knee by the side of this building.

And then all of a sudden, you're running from one building to another. And you're like, what the heck is happening? He's saying stay low, stay quiet. We come around to that building that across the street was the open field. And then there was, like, this ladder climbing up. Ladder up the side of the building, which you see, which was, that was fine to climb up. It was a little awkward because there was nothing anchoring the bottom. You had to race up the ladder, race up three stories.

Yeah, you get to dab at the ladder. Rudy's there, he's yelling at you. All of a sudden, you're running upstairs. And then you're doing the town cruise, like, jumping over buildings. At dinner, Rudy told us that that was one of the sketchiest things that they did because because you're jumping from building to building and, like, you couldn't see certain places had drop. down to the bottom so they ended up putting barbed wire there did you notice that to prevent people from jumping off bad places and then Rudy was also stressed like trying to lead the pack

to make sure that you were just like right on him oh because in folder transparency that whole challenge felt so boring to me I agree it felt like wow wow so we get on the rooftop we're like whatever four stories up jumping over these walls Tom Cruise style like Sean said and then you get to this ladder Chanel went first in our group they showed none of this They showed a quick clip of Chanel, but then nothing of us. I wonder why, Andrew. Which, by the way, we're getting all this footage that we'll do, I think, a full reveal of, like, Sean and Andrew on the show, YouTube video of. So Chanel goes.

She does a great job. And then I go. And this is, again, now we're starting to see human sides of the DS. And you're quickly learning, like, who, which DS you butt heads with in the most, like, challenging way because like they're trying to push you the most and who whatever so like Foxy very quickly became very goofy with Andrew and I and was just like joking around all the time so we're like laughing I'm like laughing with Foxy and he like says okay get over the wall go and I walk across the ladder and I'm walking across the ladder to DSQ and this is going to sound

dramatic and like I don't mean it to be that way and like whatever but like it was not hard for us. I am not afraid heights. I obviously my career was a beam. I remember thinking in myself, like, just go slow, just so you don't do anything stupid. Because like, in my mind, I was like, this is nothing. Yeah. I mean, the ladder did bend. There was wind, but all things considered, it was not that difficult. So I get across pretty quickly. And DSQ was kind of like, dang that was impressive how is that for you and he's like still serious and this is where I had the hardest time with the show because like yeah I'm such an adrenaline junkie that a lot of these were so exciting yeah but I didn't know can I say that yeah and so this is the first time with

Q I'm like okay well it's kind of like I'm a gymnet like whatever maybe I can be honest here and he's like how was that and I was like it's kind of fun and then he is snapped and I was like Oh, brick! Which we had just been joking with Foxy. So we were like in a fun play mode, like guard down. And he's like, you think this is a game? And he's like, you're going to get cocky on me?

Oh, you want to be cocky here? And I was like, oh. And then I was traumatized because like disrespecting people. I is like my worst fear. And I respect it. Like they respect the course and everything. But I was like, this is literally my career. Like it was nothing.

Whatever. Meanwhile, Foxy is still joke with me. on the other side. And Andrew's losing it, laughing. It probably took, like, 10 minutes for each person to go. Like, so Chanel went, Sean and I had, like, 10 minutes hang with Foxy. Sean went, I had another 10 minutes. They had to, like, reset the harnesses and stuff.

But then we had talked with Foxy about, like, a little competition. A little friendly competition about who could make it across the ladder the fastest. So Andrew's trying to, like, adjust his watch instead set a stop watch as you're going across. and I was like, I had already dealt with Q and you hadn't made it to Q yet and I'm like, you better button it up because we're gonna get like screamed at and I can just see you're just like giggling.

But I did hear you get yelled at yet I had already told Foxy I was gonna do competition so he was talking trash like are you gonna lose? Yeah. You made it across I think in just under 30 seconds. Yeah. So I which I think that's why they didn't show any of us

because we didn't make it look challenging which some people were heavier and that made the ladder been more, made it sketchier. It was 40 feet up. Some people were like traumatizingly scared of heights. Yes. We

yeah. We just kind of probably weren't the most interesting people to show. So I start my watch and I'm just moving across the ladder. I made across some 25 seconds. And I think I made one trash talk comment to you. And then DSQ was pissed. So we both got

yelled at. And then the work thing that could possibly happen. If Andrew and I get a case of the giggles, nothing good happens because if we start giggling, we can't turn it off. And so I think I posted on social media, there's this picture. We ended up

getting a case of the giggles, and I feared for my life. I was like, we are going to get in so much trouble. Because we also have poor Chanel there who has none of the, but yeah, she has no part in our shenanigans. And you're trying to just like

pray to God DSQ doesn't come over to see us just literally peeing ourselves like laughing yeah whatever I mean there's a lot of times

in this podcast where Sean will get the giggles and then I get the giggles and it just goes back and forth we'll just have to stop the episode but I didn't want to get Chanel in trouble or you know feel like we were disrespecting

the whole process so anyway we go down we had to wait for two more groups so we had like this little area outside the apartment building complex where we were kind of debriefing with everybody. That's where Nick started clowning.

We had some good laughs down there. But Sean the whole time was so stressed about laughing. She was trying not to laugh as everyone was having a good time because she felt like she had just disrespected people by laughing. And then all of a sudden, we get yelled at by Rudy and we had to sprint, like get everything ready, sprint, getting rank formation. And we got debriefed. We passed that one.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. yeah you mean chenelle passed that one which was we had a run again yes a long run this one was long too back to the car and then we got back to camp at like 10 o'clock yeah and that was a night that rudy shared his story and then we did the group share too yeah so it was really late rudy comes in and we're like oh crap we got to do another workout or something and it wasn't he just came in and a lot of this they will never show on

the show because it's a lot of personal things that have to do with, like, the DS and their actual backgrounds. But he came and showed a really personal story of his history, things that he's gone through and what he's learned and how he's trying to translate it to the course for us to experience. And so he shares some incredibly vulnerable things that, like, brought a lot of us to tears. And then he said, your homework and your assignment tonight is not a beasting. It's not a workout it's another challenge it's I want you guys to sit in a group like in a circle and I want you each to share something very vulnerable about each other like about yourselves and why you're doing the show yeah because he said the more you guys get to know your why from each other you can be better

teammates and support each other and it felt very awkward for all of us at first but very quickly it's like all these walls started melting down and people were were sharing such raw, vulnerable things more than they would probably share with family. And we probably sat there for an hour or two. Yeah. They, um, this was one of my favorite parts of the whole experience because it did feel awkward. And some people shared more than others. And some people felt more natural, like I think felt more comfortable opening up.

But by this point, we were already pretty close. Yeah. And it was amazingly not awkward. Yeah. Because of the last three days of the suffering that we talked about. about how quickly we're able to bond. I think that's what, and then Rudy leading the charge and sharing what he did really allowed everyone to be vulnerable,

which is kind of cool to see, like, one person like Rudy who just stepped out and says, hey, this is my background and this is part of why I am the way I am, let everybody to then do that same thing in different capacities. It's why we so heavily have talked about, no matter the headlines you read about individuals who are on the show, we actually got to learn and paint a backstory to how people have become who they have become

and made decisions that they've made and their downfalls and how they feel about it. And it's just like you get to see the full picture and get to know people so intimately that you see them for more than just a headline. You see them for like a human being. And it just, it did. It brought us all so drastically closer that night. Yeah. It's fascinating.

The way you said that made me think, like, the headlines usually capture whatever the outcome is of the controversy or the crazy thing somebody did. But the conversations that we had really allowed you to understand how someone would make that decision or do that lifestyle or whatever. And I'm not endorsing the outcome, but you do start to build an appreciation for, as we've talked about, is like, you know, everybody has redemptive traits. and I think that's important to realize I do this is one of the things I had I think one of two beefs I had with the production side of the show the second is to come

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Again, we did it in the barracks, and there's cameras that you see around. Yeah. But I thought that this was a... Rudy said it wasn't for them to watch. So he said, we're not sitting back watching you. Fair. Okay. But, yeah, I did notice that, too. I will say this is the episode where you got to see

a lot of the backstory with Nick Young and with Bree and Nick he was very raw with us and very vulnerable and shared so much and he was such like part of the family but there were aspects to his interview and to the story that you saw in episode 3 that we actually didn't get to know and it helped fill in pieces is that for us that, you know, we're helpful.

They make more sense, too, for, like, what you're going to see next week. And then Bree's story was really hard. Brie had a really hard time sharing her story. But it came out more and more. And I just remember watching episode three and I was weird texting. I was texting Brie and FaceTimed her. And I just want to say, I told her, I said, I just want to tell you, like, as a mother, like, it's heart shattering. for me to know as a mother that you went through this.

But as a mother to a little girl, I hope my daughter is now as strong as you have become. To have a voice and to be able to have gone through all of that and rebuild herself. Like I can only pray that Drew has that strength. In church, the sermon was about having authority that's rooted in suffering, meaning when people go through hard things

and then share that experience and wisdom what they learned with other people I think everybody benefits from that suffering because of the takeaways and like equipping yourself to be prepared for whatever and I feel like we understood the different people's suffering

Bree and Nix included and then everyone kind of benefited as a result in understanding each other I feel like I have a new perspective of how I'll navigate different situations based off some of the things that people shared so that was a really special time what was also interesting last thing about like

what we shared the whole point of it what Rudy had said is like the more we know about each other the more we can support each other it was actually really true because even moving on to further challenges it became so apparent of like oh I know who's gonna like

who's gonna struggle with this one so it's like all of the cast would say we have to make sure we help him or her today or vice versa but one thing they did that was super savage too i don't know if it was the next day or two days after that that's when they had us essentially leave a man behind and they forced us to do that which i'm curious how they paint that picture we'll tell you more about that yeah guys this was that was awful it was divisive. Anyway, maybe they share it.

If they don't, I may- Divisive, but also it made sense the way they set it up because they were like, we have to do this every day. Whatever. Oh. So that was episode three.

For those who have asked, were we even a part of that show. Yes, we were. They just didn't show much of us there. Because we were giggling the whole time. Which I'm fine with. People were having absolute life-changing meltdowns.

And we were just like, uh-huh. Yeah. Get ready for episode four. buckle up baby this is a rough one i think four five episode four five and eight wait four five six i mean it's gonna honestly no the rest of the episode should be really really good the rest of the episode should be really good dude oh my gosh oh gosh four five six seven and eight We should be nuts.

Anyway. When is... Can I see? Yeah. My opinion is next week, four. And... Just experientially, this next one did seem like the... Oh.

I know. Oh, no. I know. We're looking over our notes of my journaling of day-to-day. Four, five, and six. But I'd say four and six. But then seven, the workouts they had us do. Yeah.

Anyway, so stay tuned. We'll do a live stream. What? We'll do a live stream. Hopefully next week to answer your questions live. And thanks for watching. That's how we got. I'm Andrew.

I'm Sean. Until next time.