RHAP: We Know Survivor - Adam Klein Talks Survivor 50 Ep 5

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

Adam Klein Talks Survivor 50 Ep 5 Rob Cesternino welcomes Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X winner Adam Klein for a deep dive recap of a wild episode and its many twists. Rob and Adam break down the ever-shifting alliances, the record-breaking 17-person merge, and the creative gameplay that’s shaping this monumental season. The pair tackle big pregame questions and dissect the evolving reputations of returning legends and new-school favorites alike, zeroing in on game-changing moments you won’t want to miss. This jam-packed episode explores the fallout as tribes scramble toward the historic merge, with Rob and Adam analyzing decisions around split votes, emerging power pairs, and the ripple effects of premerge social dynamics. The pair spotlight Angelina’s early exit, the rise of the “Honor and Integrity” alliance (with Coach, Colby, Joe, Stephenie, Genevieve, and Chrissy), and the strategic chess match between the so-called “nerd” alliance of Christian, Rick Devens, Emily, and possibly Ozzy. Adam shares behind-the-scenes insight on players like Kamilla and Rizo, including how pregame rumors and “Zoom alliances” shape trust well before castaways hit the beach. The conversation explores why players like Rizo might be seen as perfect final three goats, the impact of open wounds from prior seasons on Charlie and others, and whether Cirie and Dee have the social savvy to dominate the endgame. Angelina’s journey from underestimated player to gracious, memorable exit The Honor & Integrity vs. Nerd alliance tug-of-war and where swing votes may fall The strategic use (and skepticism) of fake idols at Tribal Council (Could the “Adam Klein idol” finally pay off?) Adam’s perspective on how past cuts and betrayals fuel this season’s gameplay, from Charlie’s Maria fixation to Christian’s calculated split from Mike The unpredictable merge vote: will it be mergatory, a straight 17-person brawl, or a wild shake-up with celebrities and MrBeast? As Survivor 50 barrels toward the merge, Rob and Adam ask: can anyone outmaneuver Dee’s alliance-building or Rizo’s unfiltered gameplay? Will open wounds dictate who survives another tribal, or will new bonds rewrite the narrative? Don’t miss the full breakdown of every alliance flip, idol fake-out, and social masterstroke! 00:00 Adam Klein Talks Survivor 50 00:10 Angelina Pre-Game Targeting Revealed 00:46 Merge Format Speculation Intensifies 01:12 Survivor Celebrity Idols Critiqued 01:48 Charlie’s Baggage Impacts Game 02:14 Maria’s Jury Vote Debated 02:38 Honor vs Nerd Alliance Defined 03:01 Kamilla and Dee Alliance Strength 03:21 Christian Breaks Up Mike White 03:46 Rizo’s Endgame Jury Prospects 04:01 Survivor Themes for Future Seasons 04:40 Angelina’s Exit: Jacket Redemption 05:06 Dee’s Shift on Charlie Explained 05:50 Survivor Coaches: Casting Reflections 06:09 Adam Klein Present and Future To pre-order Rob’s book, The Tribe and I Have Spoken, visit www.robhasabook.com Never miss a minute of RHAP’s extensive Survivor coverage! LISTEN: Subscribe to the Survivor podcast feed WATCH:  Watch and subscribe to the podcast on YouTube SUPPORT:  Become a RHAP Patron for bonus content, access to Facebook and Discord groups plus more great perks!

Hey, everybody, what's going on? Rob Sesterino back with you. And we have such a treat for everybody here today because a great friend of mine, a great friend of the pod is here, great friend of the show. Here is the great winner of Survivor Millennials versus Gen X. Here he is, two-time Survivor. It's Adam Klein. Thanks, Rob.

That was a very great introduction. I really appreciate that. Yes. How are you? I'm always happy to be here. I'm doing so much better than I was last year. Good. I'm happy to hear that.

Yeah. Well, we saw you back in the fall and we were together on stage in New York City during Survivor 49. And we had a very nice time that night. And I'm happy that you were up to talk about this monumental season, Survivor. or 50, can you believe it? Yeah, I, I was, I gotta be honest, I was nervous that night. I've, my confidence was at an all-time low. I just wasn't feeling myself, and it shouldn't make me nervous to go on stage and talk about

Survivor. I like going on stage. I have a lot of history speaking in front of crowds. I love Survivor. I'm good at talking about Survivor. I should not have been nervous. I had a great time with you. And it really helped remind me that I'm capable and that I have a lot to offer.

And I just want to thank you for including me and that and asking me to co-host the live No It All's with you. Because it did something. Good. Well, I'm happy to hear that. I didn't know what came out of it ultimately. but I definitely expressed to me that night that you were, you know, not your normal self. And I'm very happy to hear that you had a positive experience with us. And it was a really great show.

It was. It was. And I think people had a really good time. I met the Riz God that night. And now we get to talk about him as, you know, on track to be one of the best to ever play, maybe. Maybe. Perhaps. I know what he's gunning for. So we'll go. Well, I hope so for him.

We'll see what happens next. But yeah, I thought this was a good spot, especially to talk to you because I feel like that you are, you know, so observant with all these things that I felt like that we really could talk about the entire pre-merge now because we're going to get next week. Maybe merge, merger. Who knows? Something crazy is going to happen? How is this the end of the pre-merge? I can't even believe. I thought for sure just like that.

I mean, it's funny that they showed in the edit them saying, well, we were wrong every other week about there being a double elimination. Like we've been talking about this for two weeks or whatever. I would have thought the same thing out there. I would have been like there's no way we're going to get through a 24 player season in 26 days and still only vote out one person like every few days. Like that's crazy. The end of this is going to be so hyper speed.

But merging with 17 people, I think the most ever is 13, right? Yeah, except if you count like any of these sort of like edge of extinction-ish type of thing, but I guess they did merge with a certain number at that point, even though they were more eligible players to come back. I don't feel like that we're too far off of the pace. So we typically come in at the new era with 13 at coming into this. So we're four off the pace right now. So really if we do double.

13, but there's also been 12. There's also been 11, right? Yeah. 13 has always been the most, and now we're raising that by four people. Yeah. So I think that it's not as bad as it seems. I think that we can do a few different things here. So this is going to be episode six that's coming up.

You have 13 episodes. So if you have double tribals most of the rest of the way or almost every episode the rest of the way, and then also you end up maybe starting the finale with six instead of five, like I don't think it's quite as crazy as it's going to be. And I really felt like... What does that look like to go into a merge and have double tribals every time? Does that mean we're splitting into two or three groups every single time? No, I don't think that that will...

I think we'll certainly do it once, for sure, where we'll definitely split everybody up coming up after the first tribal council after the merge. That seems like that's what we'll normally do. But I think with the 90-minute episodes, I think we might just have the, because I felt like in the 60-minute episodes, I think that was the final seven and eight in your season, I believe it was. It was that I know Sunday and was Will and Sunday.

Yeah, so eight and seven, it was high for speed. Those episodes, yeah, the one-hour episodes were two tropical. That always felt rushed, I feel like, that they would do it, you know, a fair amount. I remember Andrea and Reynolds, I think, went out in a, Andrew, I think twice went out in a double tribal council one hour episode. But I think that with the 90 minutes, I think it's a good use of the time. Yeah, I mean, if that's how they do it, they do two episodes in one episode, kind of. Yeah, I don't trust that.

Do you trust that? I think that they like to split up into smaller groups and keep mixing it up. I think they just might do that every time. Maybe we might do that. I don't think that we'll do it as much. I could see it maybe once and maybe, maybe again. But I do think that we're to, I think it's actually kind of. to smart the way that they did it because I really thought they were going to do a lot in the

pre-merge. I thought it would be a lot of where what we saw last night, only the first tribe that wins is immune. Two tribes are going to tribal council. But what's great about doing it to do it post-merge, we don't need to see the camp life of the three different tribes. So rather than having to see what's happening at every single camp and then see two different scrambles, we basically see one scene of camp life in the post merge where we don't need to spend time with all three tribes. So I think it's actually a more economical use of the time to have double tribal council episodes in the post merge. It's also better for the players' experience because if they did it the way that most people

were imagining, then most people would have gone home pre-merge and been out early and go home and they're upset. This way, there's still 17 people out of 24 that get to make the merge and you know, and we got to spend more time with these characters and certainly it's not enough

with these people that we've waited to come back and we certainly didn't get to see everything we hoped we'd see but I think that

it was better to sort of kick the can down the road have more players to later on into the game maybe hopefully it'll also mean

less post-merged journeys where we're doing things where people are losing their vote and instead of like having to

fill that extra 30 minutes with little games where somebody lost their vote or how are we going to figure this out, or have like a two segment challenge, we can ultimately just have two votes in one 90-minute episode. And it's definitely a hell of a lot better than the edge of extinction.

Better than the edge, which they did not bring back for this season, and you were happy. Praise B. Yes. The edge is the worst. Yeah. It's the worst.

All right, so tell me just overall, what's been your feelings about survival? Because I don't think I've seen you, you know, posting too much about the season and forgive me if I missed it. No, no, no. I don't really, like, tweet anymore or X or whatever the hell. I don't know. But I still watch. Like, I'm still religiously watching and keeping up to date and everything. My content has been mainly Angelina focused.

I'm just a big Angelina stand from day one. Yeah, you knew Angelina from before she even played. Angelina started watching Survivor at my watch parties. So she was my student body president at Stanford University. We were friends at Stanford. We served on the same nonprofit board after we graduated. She was two years older than me. Stanford, but somehow, I mean, she knew everybody. Like, this is what, and this is why I had really,

like, high hopes for her going into this season, because I know that a lot of people view Angelina as sort of like this meme character or whatever that, like, does all the negotiations and the, you know, the rice stuff and the jacket stuff and all of that. But like, the Angelina that I know was student body president at Stanford University knows everybody is like so well connected and friends with everyone and so like invested in people's story and such a good listener and just so energetic and enthusiastic and such a good friend. And so and extraordinarily smart. Right. And I think because she has this sort of over the top personality that people can sort of laugh and discount her a little bit, but I thought that that would give her a good edge going into the game to potentially do quite well.

And I'm just disappointed that we didn't get to see more of her. I was thinking about this earlier today. I really was surprised that more people didn't want to work with Angelina. You heard Mike talk about this last week where that he said, hey, look, we all know Angelina's not going to win. She's not really looked at as somebody who is a strategic powerhouse. maybe that people are sleeping on her to some degree. She has almost no connections left in the game with Mike White being taken out last week.

I was a little bit more surprised that more people weren't looking at Angelina as a piece that they could pick up and move forward with. Yeah, I don't, I think, and I don't know how much I'm supposed to be getting into or whatever, but I remember talking to Angelina before she went out, and she was aware that people like Colby and Stephanie were targeting her before the game started. She talked about this in her preseason interviews. Yeah. Okay, so that's out there. Right.

So she knew that there was misinformation flying around about her, that she somehow had said that like she's going after the, old schoolers or something like that. It wasn't true. I mean, I was talking to Andrew. She had no targets. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.

I mean, when she heard that maybe certain people were targeting her, of course, then it's like, well, maybe do I have to go after them or at least like I got to try to smooth this out or whatever? And then she ends up on a tribe with those people, which isn't great. And they seem to have quite a few connections. There's talk of this Zoom alliance or whatever. So I don't know how much that factored into day one and her starting tribe. But I don't think it was certainly the best draw.

And I don't like, I'm not here to like, like, you know, make excuses or whatever. I just say, you know, I do genuinely think it was a bit of a tough spot. There's probably more she could have done to get out of that. But I think it was a tough spot. And then with the redraw, I understand. I understand Christians' position here because if this, it reminded me of how I viewed my relationship with Boston Rob on winners at war, whereas like if we publicly stick together, vote after vote after vote, and then go into a swap or go into a merge, it's a big target. Like on Selle, if I would have stuck with Rob and Parv and Ethan and Denise, vote after vote after vote, the concern is that we're the majority on the minority tribe and then everybody just picks us off, especially because they're made it very clear they're trying to get rid of Rob and they would go after anyone that's close with him. So what I'm thinking that Christian is thinking is that if I stick with Angelina and Mike, who everybody already thinks were together,

And now I prove it with this swap draw and we get out of this swap alive together. You go into a 17 person merge or really any person merge and there's three of them and they voted together every time. They are going to be picked off. So I understand it's a difficult spot. Yeah. And I understand maybe wanting to remove yourself. from that. But, yeah, just not a good position for any of them to get swapped together this early in the game, I think.

You know, I'd love to go back to the idea of the pregame alliance. And I'd love to know from your experience going back into winners at war. Like, there's always going to be rumors. And in season 40, it was like, oh, there's the poker alliance. That's the thing. We got to watch out for that. We have to break that up. Is there anything that you can do to try to, like in the case of season 40, from my understanding, the poker alliance, which I believe was what, Rob Tyson, Kim, Jeremy was not.

It wasn't really a thing. But it was weaponized by people of like, hey, we have to go after them. They have to, you know, that's actually, that's a thing. So is there any way to sort of like a weaponize? pregame alliances against the people who are making them. Yes, but they have to be known in public. Yeah. And the reason the poker alliance thing worked as a way to target these people

was because it was on television. Yeah. And they joked about it. And everybody, we all knew it. We'd all seen it, right? You also saw the clip beforehand. Yeah, of course. I mean, they said, should we all make an alliance

and we go back and play the game? But it was said in jest. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? But that's a very random clip. Like, were people, like, sending that clip around? Hey, everybody just watch it. Let's check out this.

Okay, maybe I shouldn't speak for everyone. Yeah. I knew of it. Yeah. I know everything. I'm a know-in-all. You know what I? Like, that to me is, like, was one of the pieces of tape that you study, right?

Any time, and for years, any time groups of winners gathered together, anybody who was thinking that there might be a winter season, which was most of us, we were thinking about that. I mean, come on. Sandra picked up the phone like day one after I won. And she was like, you know, us first time winners,

we need to stick together, right? Because you have people, they, she said that. She was like, people played their second time. Like, they won their second time. They don't really count, you know? And then if you won your third time,

Come on. And if you won your fourth time, you're Boston Robin, you're really not that good. Like, she said that to me. And I was like, yes,

I want in on the Sandra train. So like the game began years before, years before I won. Let's be real. Even if they weren't thinking you came in late to the party. Yeah,

but not too. I mean, I had plenty. Yeah. I had plenty. I should have been able to work it a little bit better. But yeah, there's no doubt that like, so but to answer your question, can you weaponize this?

I mean, yeah. I mean, maybe that's, maybe that's something Angelina could have done and maybe she did. And if she did, we probably don't see it because they don't want to acknowledge the existence of pregame alliances on Survivor. Even though, like, of course these people talk. I don't know why we're still pretending like, like that's not a thing. I mean, I get it. They want to show it. If they can't show it, then it's like not great storytelling or whatever.

So they do what they need to do. But like, I don't know. I say just own it. Just acknowledge it. So maybe if she did say, hey, these people have a pregame alliance. But maybe she was talking to people that were in it. And she didn't know or whatever. Again, it's just speculation.

I don't know. Yeah, she was out numbered by the people that she would have wanted to say or in this alliance. So she did not really have a good counter move to that. If they were on other tribes, you would think that maybe she might have been able to get the word out there. Right. Yeah. And then you swap onto people where you sort of,

your options are limited because you're with Mike, you're with Christian, Christians with Emily, and there's not a whole, or Mike's with Ozzy. Like the alliance was sort of, created for Angelina. And what is she supposed to do at that point?

Like try to align with Steph who she thinks they're going to try to vote out. I just don't really know. What would you do in that spot? How do you maneuver when you have like a real life friend here who's saying, Christian is my guy and will never betray us? what other move is there? So this is Angelina at last week's vote. How does she proceed?

Is that the question? Yeah. I'm just like, like, I think I feel like, you know, well, maybe we didn't see much of her because she didn't play much of a game. I don't know. I do think that the edit feels a bit unbalanced. I would have loved to see more of Angelina. And there's definitely a lot of women that are not getting screen time on this season. And she talked about that today. Mm-hmm.

I've been rightfully so, right? Like, it's pretty egregious. The only thing I'll say is that the season's not over. I think you have to like, okay, if there are going to be, you know, if there are going to be, you know, women who end up going for maybe. And at the end of this, I think then we can make the final conclusion. And I think in the case of Angelina, I would have loved to have seen more Angelina. But as for some other people that have had low screen time so far, it doesn't mean that necessarily that it will be. low screen time by the end of the season.

Like if you look at like Genevieve in her first season, kind of quiet in the beginning and then loud towards the end. And I think that that is the case often. And with 24 people cast, we don't really know what the formula is going to look like. But so far, not great. But- do you think Mr. Beast and Jimmy Fallon are going to get?

Well, I'm not sure if Jimmy Fallon's going to actually be there. I don't think so. Yeah. We need to talk about Billy Eilish, by the way. Sure. Should we talk about this? It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing that they put a Billy Elish idol on the show and couldn't get Billy Eilish to agree to like say something, anything?

Like, what is the point? Yeah. Does she even know? She's got to know. It's unclear. Jeff did give an interview where he said that they showed her a bunch of advantages and she said, I like boomerang. And why do you think he had to do an interview explaining this?

Yeah. Because they're embarrassed probably that she hasn't said anything. And I think there's, okay, I don't even know if I should get into this. this, but it'll be fun to talk about. And look, Jeff has gone on his podcast and talked about me a few times. So, so maybe like, I, I think Jeff is really actually a very sensitive soul. I think you know this. Yeah.

Like, did you even like me, Rob? You know, and I can say that, not unlike all humans. Of course. Yeah. Of course. And I think that Jeff has not gotten his due flowers. Is that the right term? Do whatever.

He hasn't gotten the praise that he deserves for what he has created, how well he does his job. I mean, he is the best host on television bar none, like by far. And he stopped getting like the Emmys. stop, he doesn't get a whole lot of like recognition from other celebrities, I think. And I think that's given him a little bit of a chip on his shoulder. And, uh, and I think it's why he like, like wants and craves the attention so much from the celebrities that do like survivor, that do give him praise, that do are invested in what he's doing.

because this is everything to him. And he's given it his whole life. And he's so good at it. And so when they say, we love you, he's like, let's get you on Survivor, right? And let's make this, let's bring that in. But I think it's about how that makes him feel more than it is about like, I don't know, the fans or.

the show or what i don't know my am i like going crazy here is it i have a little bit of a different read on it where i think that um jeff you're right i do believe deserves more flowers in terms of i i think that the the fact that jeff has been i think the driving force in keeping this thing that we all know in love deeply and being a caretet to this thing, which I don't think that there's another person that could have kept survivor alive and thriving for now 26 years going. And he has been the caretaker of this institution, and we don't always agree with what he wants to do with the show, but we can't ever impugn the passion that he has for what he does.

And I think it's admirable that he still is as passionate about doing this thing for 26 years and has not. And while maybe he has thought about doing other things, for one reason or another, he has stayed with Survivor and kept it and kept the energy going. I think that he may look at some to some of these celebrities as, hey, this is a means to an end of this person is popular. This person has a million followers. if this person tells their followers to watch Survivor, that's only going to increase the cultural footprint of Survivor. And then I think that you're right that Jeff, I think probably feel some type of way when this,

like a new thing comes along. And everybody's like, ooh, shiny new thing. This is great. Oh, this is the greatest thing ever. And Jeff is probably a little bit like, hey, well, what about this? This has been on. This is an institution here.

Do you have any idea what we've done? Do you have any idea of what we've become, what we're doing over here? And I bet you're old news. You know, we don't really care about this. This is, uh, but I think that the celebrities afford the show the opportunity to say, hey, we're hot.

We're, we're relevant. And I think it brings in, in their mind, hopefully new eyeballs to this thing. And I think that they're always chasing the, hey, new people, new people, new people, check this. out. Like, hey, uh, Gen Z, don't you want to watch Survivor? But I think it comes at the expense of, you think this is a calculated move by the show rather than like Jeff thinking, I want to get my celebrity friends, like, involved in this because it feels good. Do you think that Billy Eilish is one of Jeff's friends? I think, I think maybe he, he would like that, maybe. I think this is what,

I think this is, I don't think that Jeff wants to hang out with Billy Eilish. Maybe not. Maybe not. Look, I, I don't nothing. I've, I've, Jeff has never called me outside of the show. I've never talked to him outside of show. Like, I know nothing. But when I see him like sort of, you know, get upset with people who go on other shows, right? Or who don't show the utmost, like, loyalty to survivor that if they ever say anything even negative or whatever, I think it's easier to punch down on. those survivor contestants

that he feels like has betrayed the show in some way or betrayed him in some way than to say, hey, what the heck? Why haven't I gotten an Emmy in 15? I don't think you could say that. That's my point. You can't say that. So it's easier to say, okay,

like my own people could be the most loyal. These are my people, my survivors, I put you on the show. Yeah, I'm trying not to push back too much of this. because I don't think it's necessarily the same thing of like, hey, I don't like that Carolyn went on the traders and I should get an Emmy.

Like, I don't know if it's necessarily like one in the same. Like, I feel like it's maybe. Maybe I'm over. Maybe there's like nine steps that are also like in between it. But I think that Survivor does feel a little slighted in terms of that they should be more celebrated and decorated by on awards. Yes. and maybe part of why they get upset with people who are doing other things are that, hey,

you are helping other people get those accolades. But I think that probably in the case- And traders getting Emmys for casting when they're just casting the people that have been cast on other shows. Yeah, I think they feel like, hey, listen, I would say that I could tell you that I think I would feel the same exact way. If people were taking, like, you know, we have a network, we have a ton of podcasters, and if there was like some new podcast network came along and was like, hey, this podcaster is like a hot podcaster on RHAP, I'm going to offer them more money to go podcast for me. I'll tell you, I would be real freaking pissed about that.

And especially to like not get like a heads up that, hey, that happened. And I just see, like, the news of, like, hey, great news, you know. Pooya is working for, like, XYZ podcast. They're like, what the hell? Yeah, it's, it's, you know, anyway, I feel bad that I've, I feel like I've derailed our season 50 conversation a little bit. No, I think it's, I think it, listen, we, that the, the show. We love him more than anything. Like, Survivor contestants, we love.

Jeff Probst. And it kind of hurts when he doesn't love us back. Yeah. Well, I think that it is, and this is, I think, such an interesting meta discussion.

I think too many of us, he is father. And I think that in your family, you have, people have, like, tense relationships with their dads where, and he is dad to 751 of us.

And it's like, you like, you like him better. than us and you weren't there when I was a kid and now you're trying to be nice but where were you when I was going through a hard time and you know people have strained relationships and and probably in fairness to Jeff not to be a huge Jeff apologist here but if you're just I pit that's freaking hard that you have 751 people that want so much from you and it's like hey like this is just my job like uh like i didn't know i had to be like caretaker to all these people and not to say that the

show couldn't be do a better job of taking care of some of the contestants but i do think that part of it's also like probably hard on jeff yeah and then and then he's human and he has certain people that he connects with and feels closer to and and establishes bond and then there's jealousy and then it's like you like my brother and not me what's up to that yeah i only have two kids and it's freaking hard. Imagine 751. I'm like, Dad, how come Dominic got to go to the thing and I didn't

get, and Dominic had ice cream and I didn't. Right. Like, I feel that too. Like, even with like all the events for season 50, I'm jealous and bitter too. I didn't get to go to anything for season 40, right? Like, we were on the biggest season

of all time at that time they said or whatever and then they have this big career and they only invite half of the people to the premiere, I never even heard about it. You know what I mean? And I already felt like I was last on the list and I'd go on the show. It's just like, dang, man. Like, what the heck?

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You'll find the same regular prices online as in-store. Many promotions are available both in-store and online, though some may vary. Okay, well, let me go back to Survivor 50. And that was, that's super interesting, always relevant to, you know, the meta talk about Survivor. I would love to get your thoughts on Charlie. And I think that Charlie, to me, is somebody who, I'm. I think that is probably an Adam Klein type. Is that fair to say?

For sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Or Adam is a Charlie type. I don't know. How relevant am I at this point? Well, I don't think you can be a Charlie type. I think it goes by whoever came first.

Yeah. Whoever came first. Okay, fair enough. Right. Now, you have a beautiful story of a win, a unanimous win. That is not the story that Charlie ends up having. and it was such a big storyline here of that Charlie

what really felt some type of way about Rizzo, who didn't vote for his number one, even though he really did. That's like the great, like, Shakespearean part of it. It is. The fact that he did actually, like, vote for his number one, and he was lying about that in the game

because Savannah was in the game and they didn't want to be seen as too close with him. And even after she was voted out, he still has to keep up that lie because if he's already said it to other people, then he has to continue that going. I totally like understand why Rizzo would continue to lie about that, but it's just hilarious that that then becomes the thing that whatever, sorry, keep going.

Yeah, no, they want to get your perspective on all of it. I have, I mean, I have a few things to say about Charlie. I mean, first of all, I think that he didn't intend for this to be his whole story. That's my guess. Of course not. Right. I think he thought that this would be a fun bit. that would be played while Rizzo was voted out.

And it would be a part of the Rizzo vote out. Not his whole story. He wasn't expecting to only go to one tribal council and get voted out here. And so I'm sure that like there's a little bit of hamming this up that is happening here. That's my guess. Also, he may have talked about it five times

and they aired four of the times he talked. he talked about. I think it's a good point where I think that for Charlie that maybe this is like a more sexy way to talk about, hey, I want to vote Rizzo out who it happens to be like there's probably- Because of pre-game alliances or something that they can't air, right? Maybe because of pre-game alliances, but also maybe because he's the only person that was from the original Vatu tribe and Charlie is there with four people from his original tribe. And so rather than like, that's kind of boring of like, well, he's the only person from the Red tribe. So we're going to vote him out. I don't know him.

He was on Survivor 49. I like all these other people. I know them. We don't know him. He was on the other truck. Yeah. But, oh, he told me he didn't vote for his number one. And that's now, now we got something.

So I think it was a bit, personally. But in every good bit is a little bit of truth. And I do think that Charlie brought baggage. into the game, right? He, I think people are over emphasizing the degree to which this is true because again, I think it was a bit and I'm sure he talked about other things and the producers just latched on to this is the funniest thing that they had for him. But there's no doubt that he's holding some trauma from the way that his season ended.

And I do think that when you enter a new situation, holding, the baggage of your previous situation, it affects the way that people interact with you. I think that I try to be really conscious of this in my life now, having been through something that was extraordinarily difficult in my divorce and feeling hurt and betrayed and abandoned and all of the things. And then having to engage with my friends and potential future partners or whatever it might be,

like I felt when I was first going through my separation and divorce, like I was a burden on my friends. Like I wasn't fun to be around because I was so in my head. I wasn't present. I was living in the past and the future and still am in some. ways much, much better. But like it impact and then and then you're self conscious about how you're

coming across in the now because I feel like I'm, I'm, I'm being a suck on the people that I'm around and then and all of that like sort of cycles. And I don't, again, I think I'm psychoanalyzing a little bit too much and putting a little too much of my own stuff onto other people. But I do think that there's a little bit of like, okay, if, if I come into this game and I'm looking out for the things that hurt me last time, you may miss things because it's not going to happen the same way. Just because somebody is an older woman doesn't mean they're going to treat you the same way or just because this person voted for somebody that's not his best friend doesn't mean that's how he's going to vote on the jury this time. It has nothing to do with you, right?

And so when you come back too soon and you haven't processed these things, and I think we can say the same for Aubrey in Edge of Extinction, right, it can negatively impact your relationships in the way that you play the game. And I think that there's probably some truth to that in how Charlie was presenting and being received. Thank you for sharing that. It's very brave for you to talk about your personal life in such a way. And I just- I'm an open book. I appreciate it, you know, people coming on the podcast and not being, you know, so guarded and being able to open themselves up to, you know, having that type of conversation.

So I just want to say, I really appreciate that. How does a player move forward? knowing that they have that kind of baggage where you said that, you know, if you don't acknowledge it, you'll miss stuff. But how do you know that you aren't missing the things? I mean, I think being present, being present and focusing on who is actually in front of you and not ascribing things that remind you of somebody else, because they are not that. person. And they should, and it makes sense why people, when they come in with baggage and they come in with walls, they may see somebody that reminds them of somebody who hurt them in the past and

think, I don't necessarily want to play with that person, right? But you close yourself off to potentially good people, to potentially good allies. And I think that if you, and this is not easy. Look, I've been struggling with this for the last year. How do you live in the present? I don't know the answer to that question. I've spent a lot of time at night, especially, thinking about what went wrong in the past and what I'm scared of in the future. But the more time that passes, the easier it becomes, and the more you surround yourself with people who do have good intentions for you and can show you that. And this is like what I was talking about with you inviting me to co-host the live know-it-alls in New York. It reminded me of who I was.

And it helped me get out of focusing on what's wrong with me and what I'm scared of in the future. And so you have, but you have to welcome those opportunities. You have to say, yes to people bringing you in, even if you feel like you're a burden or whatever. And I don't know exactly what that means in terms of Charlie in this game. Is there somebody that, you know, maybe it's, maybe it's Ceree, right? Maybe it's, maybe it's being more open with Ceree. Maybe he saw Ceree as like an older woman who's going to burn him and whatever. And he wouldn't maybe make the relationship with Ceree that Rizzo is building with her because

it might remind him too much. Well, he didn't want to go there with Christy. I think it's hard to not see Surrey as Surrey, but he didn't necessarily, you know, want to get too close with Chrissy. But he may have thought the same with Siri because, look, they had an alliance that didn't involve Surrey, right?

It was the original Kalu or whatever. So what's that? Charlie, Jonathan, Camilla, and D. Okay. So if you have your group, do you really want to get close to somebody like Surrey who you see as maybe on the way out the door similar to what he was saying about Chrissy.

He's like, I like Chrissy. So he wasn't even that he didn't like Chrissy. He was saying, I like Chrissy. I'm just not going to go out on a limb for her when the tide is turning against her. The same thing may have been happening here where he was like, I have my group. I don't want to get in trouble by making relationships with people that are outside of that group because people already see me as a strategist. I just played. People thought that I'm really think that I'm really good at the game. So I have to not do those things. Again, baggage, right?

I have to change the way that I play and not make relationships with everyone because then people will clock me and see me as a threat. And so he then maybe shifts gears, changes the way that he plays, and then doesn't build the relationships that he needs, and certainly not in time. That was one of the other things that people kept saying. He's coming to them too late. Yeah. You've used the word baggage. This episode was called Open Wounds. I think that it's been such a great theme for this season of these players dealing with the wounds and the scars from the battles that they went through earlier. Now, you came into season 40, the last returning player season with 19 other winners who some had lost before, but others were one-time winner.

and had games where you would think that they would not have had a lot of open wounds. But we saw in the case of Michelle, who talked about how she was perceived amongst others, that even amongst the winners, there are open wounds. Did you see a lot of these open wounds really playing a big part in season 40? 1,000 percent, yes. And it's not necessarily wounds of pain all the time. but maybe wounds of ego, right? Because you have people who have a reputation and they have something to lose.

People respect them. People root for them. People think that they are smart. And so they played safe. I had the luxury of people not thinking that I was smart, which was great. So then I could go and be stupid and people were just like, that's just out of the case. Well, they thought I was messy at the very least. Yeah.

Messy, you know. Messy, I could see, but smart. I'd be surprised this when he just thought you weren't smart. Maybe, sure, fair enough. Okay. The point is, is that, like, when you have something to protect, it changes the way that you behave. So, you know, somebody like Jeremy, who also won unanimously, right? I think that that made him go into winners at war thinking that if I make it to the end,

I'm probably going to win. And it's probably why he was not as gung-ho about getting out Tony as he should have been, right? I don't think he fully realized that like he gets crushed by Tony at the end, right? Or that you have to like, I don't know. So there's little things like that that like, because somebody's so celebrated, they don't want to be seen as stupid. I think, like, Rob, I tried to, you know, encourage him to play a slightly different game and, like, take his foot off the gas and let me drive something that I thought would be better

for both of our games. But, like, he has a reputation as the godfather. And if he lets some kid tell him what to do, that's not great for his brand. Yeah. Maybe he wasn't thinking about that and he would have done it anyway. But I don't think he thinks about it. Hey, hey,

that's my brand. I think he cannot exist in a world where he's not the person driving the action. Like, I think that, yeah, I don't think he necessarily, and listen, he sees things that I could not possibly see,

but I just, I don't think he thinks about it like that's my brand. Yeah, I think that's fair. But the point The point is maybe lose than then give you

than do what you're saying. And that's what happened. That is what happened. That is what happened. I tried to tell him it's not going to work if you try to turn this on me. They're still going to vote out in old school. Or anyway, I feel like I talk about this

every time I go into a podcast. Yeah, but it's relevant. But yeah, I do think that everybody has wounds, baggage, whatever you want to call it, even if they win. And I genuinely was surprised at one of the tribal council and winners at war when people talked so much about how, like, Ben talked about like, or it wasn't just Ben, like, Kim, and all these people, they talked about, like, how they had, like, trust issues when they

went home or they couldn't need or they looked at their wife, like they were going to betray them or whatever. And I was like, to me, that never, I don't know, I, Survivor didn't give me. didn't give me wounds as much as my real life. Yes. But you started to say, I thought, that you were going to say what your baggage was that when you came back for Survivor 40? Oh, was I going to?

I don't know, but I certainly can. Yeah. I mean, for me, it was, you know, I had spent a lot of time after season. in 33 trying to be understood. Like, people would post something on Reddit and have a total misunderstanding of something that happened or whatever. And I would try to explain it, right? And it worked to a degree.

Like, at the time, then you would see the things that I said get reparited by other people on social media. There's still a small temptation to do that when I see things that are just like totally wrong. But I don't. And then maybe this is to your point of, like, like why I'm not posting as much. I just don't engage anymore.

Yeah. And then the misinformation does spread more and it is bothersome. And so I've always wanted to be, to feel understood. You don't have to like me, but I take great pride in my ability to express myself and to be clear and communicative. And so if I feel misunderstood, it feels like. a knock on on myself like well i clearly haven't done a good enough job explaining myself and and i think you know you can only control so much right and people are going to think what they think and do what they do and you can't control it and trust me i've tried uh uh every

Like you could try everything. You can do everything. And it's still, it's like if somebody is made up their mind about you and decided something, there just may not be anything that you can do about that. And so that's something that I've had to continue to grow on and come to terms with. And I think that's probably the baggage that I brought into season 40. I don't know if that like necessarily impacted my game necessarily. necessarily. But it's something that I've grappled with, for sure. It's something that I struggle

with also. And I would say that, you know, my traders experience, I did find it very fulfilling, just overall where, and I wonder if maybe this might not have been the case had I actually stayed on the show longer, where I went on the show, I did the thing, I had fun, I was disappointed. but then I came back and then my show came on and it was all in one night and then I got to talk about it a lot, right? Like I really got like, let me get to talk about like everything that happened and let me explain what I was thinking every single step of the way. And, you know, I am very fortunate that, you know, I have this platform that I was able to do it. And then also that show is not as, you know, restricted. with what people who are, you know, talking about,

especially once they're out of the game, you know? Right. And so I was really afforded this opportunity to be able to. But if I was somebody who was on the traders longer or in Survivor 50, I know I would struggle with people making assumptions about what I was doing. No, no, no. That's not actually what happened. I was trying to do this, but it looked like they made it look like this was going to happen.

And so... Yeah, that's what I feel for Charlie here, because I have to imagine that this whole Maria thing was not his whole game. And that's all we saw. Yeah. Oh, he did not say that in his press

that he's done today. He did not say what? That, well, I really didn't really care about that. I was really just like, you know, playing it up for the cameras. It wasn't really... But he did say, hey, I'm okay. Yeah.

But it wasn't his own, the only part of his game. no doubt, but it's the most fun part for the audience, for the editors to latch on to. I meant to ask Charlie, and I forgot to, do you think that Maria has reached out? What do you think Maria's reaction has been to this Charlie's storyline? She can't love it. Oh, really? I feel like she's like, oh, I bet she's like, I live rent-free in Charlie's head.

Do you think she likes this? I think so, yes. I don't know. I would guess that her reaction would be, I am not the only person in the history of survivor who has voted for somebody that I was close to, who have not voted for somebody that I was close to in the game. Like, why is this all coming on to me?

I think the fact that it was like the deciding vote made a big difference, right? But like, that would be my guess as to her reaction be like, why are they talking about this? Try this on. You are such a student of the game. I believe that Maria's vote for Kenzie is the most controversial jury vote

in the history of Survivor. Agreed. And I think Maria's response would be why? I would say Maria. I think that the reason that we would say that it was so controversial was because you and Charlie were so close throughout the season. He was Uncle Charlie. And I think that Maria's reasons that she gave about the jury vote was that, no, I saw the light

in Kenzie's eyes when she made the fire. That was the reason that I really, that it was Kenzie's firemaking ability. But then when you talk to people who were there, it's like, actually, it took kind of like a really long time to get the fire going to be. I do think that there's a little bit of misunderstanding. about the fire in the eyes because it's not it's not it wasn't necessarily about the fire making ability but it was a i was my understanding that it was i don't think so i think it was about i see myself i see someone who is working hard who has their own business who's a woman i think that

probably plays into it um who uh is about to like get married and have kids very very is someone who is, you know, in law school and single and, like, has his whole life out of it and is not even thinking about family or anything right now. And this is someone who takes mothership very importantly to her, right? And so I think it's more than just, oh, you did a good job making the fire. I think it's, I see myself in you. And I want you to have a million dollars over this kid. I'm not sure if there's one moment in Survivor 46 where we see. see a conversation between Maria and Kenzie on the screen during the entire show. I'm sure there must be at least a scene with their in together. In the challenge with her and Liz. Sure. Yeah. They had to like it took Liz helping Kenzie to beat her in the challenge.

But also, I think on top of it, I think it was the one time that the Survivor after show actually worked to great effect where you also got to see the moment that Charles. found out and he was so gracious in that moment that hey charlie by the way uh guess who didn't vote for you so brutal remember so i think that that's probably the reason why and i think you could go through the history of the show i'd love to know what people think is the second place of what's the second most controversial jury vote in the history of the show because i think a lot of them are pretty cut and dry And that if they weren't cut and dry, that they weren't necessarily deciding votes. That's the key.

That's the key, I think. I think that's why we talk about this one so much. It was both things. It did make the difference. Yeah. And we're all pretty clear that Ben votes for Charlie in a tie. I think he said that, yeah. Has that been confirmed?

Yeah. I believe so. Right. Yeah. So if that's the case. then, yeah, that was the decision maker. But yeah, interesting that they are giving so much airtime to previous stories on the show. I love the edit of Cochran and Christian in this episode.

But I think the reason why I think Maria probably likes it, I think that probably that the chances of Maria returning is probably higher than it's been the last couple of years. wouldn't it have been with Charlie though well now you gotta bring them both back now we gotta see what happens and Rizzo can you get Maria on the podcast

I'm not sure we can okay worth a shot it's worth a shot and I think I do believe I believe that there was some attempt in the past but I don't believe that it came to be okay well yeah

if that lends more probably more to my thinking that she's not loving it. All right. If she loved it, she'd probably want to come talk about it with you. Maybe, but that was, we'd ask before this happened. Oh, well, try again. Okay, we'll try again.

Okay. She's happy now. Yeah, she might want to do an emergency pod this week. Do it. You get so much, so many eyeballs. Brandon, are you listening to this? I don't think we could get her to do a deep dive after the season. I don't think that, but we'll see.

come on for an emergency podcast. 15 minutes. Yeah. Okay, 15 minutes. Okay. So talk to me about we have this other tribe that we haven't talked too much about the with the the Genevieve and Aubrey of it all and the coach Colby Joe alliance coming together. You must have feelings about this honor and loyalty alliance, right? Yeah.

I mean, uh, I, I would like to think that this is the alliance that I would be included in. Of course. Over the NIRN alliance. I mean,

I think. What would your nickname be? Uh, can you help me with this? I mean, I don't think I can give it to myself. I need, I need it to be bestowed upon me.

Mm-hmm. I have to put it into coach GPP. That would be so good. Remember Rupert bot? Yes, of course. How could I forget? Rupert bot was, AI on Twitter.

Yeah. I don't know what that was. That was like some version of AI. It was like the very infancy of AI. Yeah. It would be incredible. Now, we need a coach AI. That's such a good idea.

Yeah. Okay, so who do we already have the stone? Stone Bell Monk was one. I looked this up, by the way. And Google did not find. Anything about the Stone Bell Monk? No. Yes, the Stonebell Monk and the Oakbound Warrior.

Yes. Joe seemed really excited to be the Stone Bell Monk. And what do you think? How did Colby? What do you think Colby's reaction was? I'm the Oakbound what? How good were Jeff's impressions, by the way? Me, come on. Strong.

I appreciate that it was worth a shot. That's what I have to say. Come on. See, this is why he hates us survivor players. Why? Give him his flowers. I'm saying I love that he did it. I thought that that was, I loved, I loved that.

If I was going to rank them, if I was, I thought Jonathan was the best. I thought that, um, Christians was good. Christian was good for off the cuff. Like, I think that he, uh, they were all men. Yeah. They were all men. You should he have to, I can you. I think that Jeff would have gotten some flat.

I know that I hesitate to do impressions of women. I think that there's definitely, there's definitely some baggage that comes along with, like, if I do an impression that's not a white man, I'm like, I do say a little bit, like, should I be doing this? Fair enough. It doesn't mean I always don't.

It doesn't mean I always, I always don't. That I will do, you know. What's the riskiest? impression you've ever done. Hmm, what's the riskiest impression that I've ever done? Also, you still need to give me a name. I, uh, I wasn't sure if it was going to be okay to do a jam jam

impression in the trader's reunion. I wasn't sure. Can I tell you? Can I say what I was going to say. Like, I thought about if they asked me about jam jam, what I was going to say was that, that they were going to say like, okay, Rob C, you said, you said, that Jam Jam was throwing you under the bus in the castle.

And what I had thought about doing this, and I ultimately chickened out. I was there, and the whole time, Jam Jam was telling everybody, oh, my God, everybody, Rob C has the best podcast that you should listen to. Rob has a podcast. And then also his book, he wrote the book on Survivor called The Tribe and I Have Spoken. I was like, why are you telling everybody this? Jam Jam? Come on.

I don't, like, don't stop telling everybody that. And I said, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. And I decided you will never do that impression. I just did. Look, I think that everybody in the podcast world knows it's in good fun. I've known Jam Jam for a long time. I just thought that.

Yeah, you guys are best friend. I wasn't sure. I thought we had a good conversation after. all that. And I wasn't sure necessarily how it would be received. And I wasn't sure if I should, I felt a little weird about putting words in his mouth of giving out my plugs in the castle.

But I felt like that it probably would have made the air and it would have been a pretty sneaky way to get my plugs into the trader's reunion. That's, I think, you know, sometimes when you're not sure, err on the side of caution. I err on the side of caution, but I'll tell you. now. I'll tell you. Is there ever, has there ever been an Adam impression? Is this something that, that anyone has

ever done? Sure. What does, what does that look like? So, I mean, I do have a, uh, Adam Klein puppet here. And, and, you want to ask puppet Adam Adam, anything? Yeah. Let's see. you know, you, so you won by crying, right? Adam, in the game of Survivor, we have emotions. People are feeling things. And so if I cry, it's because of how much I feel.

What do we think about? I was so, I want to ask the audience. as Jeff doing an impression of Christian to Christian? Yeah, I mean, that was brave. I mean, I put you on the spot. I sort of made you do it a little bit. But it's brave that you win for it. I'm proud of you. Yeah. It was worth a shot, right?

We're not always. Not always. Like you said about Jeff, I'm proud of you for trying. For trying. For trying. Yeah. Oh, man. But I'll say I love giving survivor impressions. I love it. And sometimes I hear them in my head and it's like... Your planner is unbelievable.

Yeah. And I've honed it for years and years. I used to do it in the very beginning and it wasn't very good. And really the issue with doing these survivor impressions is I have to do it for a while before it's good. It's really, it's not the type of thing where I'm going to do it immediately and it's going to be good. And so I need to do it. And sometimes I will, like, I will, like, do off podcast. I will, like, when I was cultivating.

Hook in the mirror and just. I would do it, like, in the shower. I was, like, really working on it for a very long time. But there's, you have to do it a lot. And the evolution of strategy doing that with Josh really afforded a lot of opportunities to take chances and be able to read, like, a transcript of somebody talking in that voice. and the problem is, you know, in the, it's harder to just, like, in the new era, I've had very few impressions that I do of the survivor players. And I think it's because it is, it is riskier.

You do it the first time and the person you're on the podcast, well, that was horrible. And it's like, okay, well, I'm never doing that again. I'm never doing, you know. Your impression of me was perfect. It was spot on. You should do it in the shower and just keep working on it and keep doing it. Is there a particular word? Because I find like when I do Trump or Obama, like, there's a word that like gets you in there.

Often. Yeah. Yes. For you? Do you have that for everybody? No. I think so. Well, you know, a lot of times I end up doing them the most, not a plug here.

Oh my God. Rob, have you seen his cameos? But a lot of times I'll do them on cameo where, you know, like, you know, like, you. Well, Adam Klein is here to talk about everything going on. And he's got lots of insight to help you get cast on Survivor. You know how I got cast that they asked me. I didn't make it tape. That's how we did it and we liked it.

And frankly, I think it's, I'm very happy for you. And if somebody doesn't like what you do, that's bullocks. Bullocks. I knew the bullocks was coming. Well and ball. Start with well and with bullocks. That's how you do a penner impersonation. Well, listen, I could do a whole thing about like all of the different impressions.

But I think with with Penner that any time there's a word that starts with the letter P, it helps with like a, thanks for listening to my Pell rub. Yeah. And the slower you talk with Penner, I think it's the better. Where, hey, hey, look. Hey, Adam. Adam. Thanks. Thank you.

Thank you. for all of the praise that you had for me in Winners at War and thank you for saying that I was going to to be cream Jeremy in the finals. Not everybody thinks that, so I appreciate it. Excuse me, we're here to talk about Survivors 50. Okay, nobody wants to hear you talk on and on about... Yeah, okay.

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Where are we doing Blake Panca The ultimate soldier The Chicago All right The best of the best stories Now with even more from Hulu Amazing

Have it all with Blue on Disney Plus Adam I have for you A jam-packed Adam Klein mailbag We have to listen What questions do you have for Adam Klein? And they had so many.

Great. Yeah. So let me, let me pass for it. Let's go all. I don't know if we'll do them all. I don't know if we'll do them all because a lot of them that we had talked about. But I have to,

a whole sheet of paper that is, they are organized by category, this two-sided piece of paper. These are all questions for you about the fake idol at Tribal. Hmm. Okay. Okay. Wade Stevens wants to know, should you get partial credit for whatever success comes from the fake tribal idol?

No. Why not? Because I did not invent the tribal idol. Okay. How about this? Should you get credit if that there's some shenanigans attempted with the fake tribal idol and that somebody is like, I'm not buying it. Jeff said that they would never do that. Yeah, I mean, that's not, that's not, that would be as a result of like what I did. But Jeff did go on the record saying we're never doing that, even though he went on record in Game Changers saying that they might, right?

We change our minds. He's like Emily Flipping. Sometimes he changes what he wants to do. Here's what I think really happened is I think that they did want to do, tribal idol at some point. And you ruined it. And I ruined it. Yeah. Because now it looks like they're only doing it because I tried to do it. And now it's not like their thing or their idea. And certainly now, because I help people

with their audition videos, which is like the worst thing possibly do ever. I don't know. Now they don't want to probably acknowledge my existence at all. And that would feel like maybe doing that. I don't know. What if it happens organically where they didn't do it, other people did it? It's the best of both worlds. That's what's happening here. Yeah.

That's what's happening here. And so they can still say, you know, we're not hiding idols at tribal. But also, this is just a very different and creative idea. It's not about finding an idol, right? It's about finding a fake in front of everybody so that people think that you have an eye when in fact you don't. Yeah. Right.

Whether this is actually going to be able to do anything to change votes at tribal council, I think it's a big long shot. But is it worth a shot? Always. Yeah. I mean, my thought has been that one of these guys is in trouble. They stand up at the tribal council, go over like, bad news, everybody. You thought I was a passenger.

Now I'm the pilot. I've got the idol. I'm not going home tonight. Yes, I think that's exactly the idea. Now, like, is that going to actually get votes to change at tribal? I don't know. I would be surprised. We're all voting for Rick Devon saying he just pulled out an idol at tribal council.

Are we saying like, hold on, hold on. I'm going to read that letter. Let me see that piece of paper, Rick. He pulled it out. They all know about Bill. Isleish, right? That's spread around. So what idle mechanic is now being hidden at tribal council in a pretty strange spot that would not be on a piece of parchment, right? What does the parchment say? In front of the fire, but behind this little stoop, if you reach down on the floor. I don't know.

I think in the fog of war, I think it's going to be pretty convincing. I just wonder if anybody would have the presence. And we saw it in Australian Survivor versus the world. You know, when the fur is flying at tribal council, that Parvety was able to get away with a pretty good con where people were

not stopping down to read her note where even JLP, it said like, Parvety, could you read the next thing? And she just read the same thing over and over again. And people are like, oh my God, Parvety's got something. We're cooked. We're cooked.

Yeah, look, this is probably why I haven't done something like this, because maybe I'm too much of a pessimist. I would think that's not realistic. It's like, yeah, I mean, I don't think, I don't think I would fall for it. I don't think you would fall for it either. That's why I think I'm, and I, my mistake in Survivor is that I think that people think like me. And that's not a good way to play. Okay.

So yeah, maybe other people would would not think about that and think because they're not, I think about things like, okay, what does the note say that makes it hidden like on the floor next to the fire behind in this random spot? You're getting to the logistics. Yeah. Right. And most people probably don't think like that. So, yeah, look, if it can be played to save one of them, I will, I will eat the rock.

Okay, wow, like Francesca. Amy Cook says, should Christian and Debbins have called their idol the Adam Klein idol? No, no. That's giving me way too much credit. No, I appreciate that. I'm honored. I appreciate that. It wasn't even my idol.

It was the Palesa idol from Survivor South Africa. She's the one that actually got a real one. Okay. That's very, I do appreciate people. thinking about me. It's always nice to be to be thought of. And certainly, you know, I was like thinking of that moment when I watched it on the show. But it's not mine. This is a uniquely creative idea by them. It was Rick's idea, right? Rick's idea. Yeah, Rick instantly went there. Give me your percentage chance that this is going to pay off in some fruitful way. Okay, I guess

Let me start. Okay. This is a two part of question. Percentage chance. It is actually going to come up at a tribal council later on this season. 85%. 85%. Lock it in. Chekhov's idol.

Like maybe higher. Yeah. You don't give all this fanfare to planting it if it doesn't turn. I will say we saw Yao Man make a fake immunity idol that nobody found. You know, if these guys are doing it, Christians falling down, walking out of tribal. Like, you have to show it to us, but, you know, could either of them get blindsided and it never ends up happening. I think that there is a possibility. Okay.

And now, the chances that it bears fruit in a meaningful way where it saves one of their asses or their allies ass. Their allies, ass. Ass my ass. My ass. Petter getting bothered by me. I need to take some more shout. and work on that. Yeah.

I'm disappointed in my Trump performance. I'm rusty. I don't, I haven't done it much here in Mexico. They don't like it. So I apologize. That's okay. 10, 15%.

Yeah. If there's any complaint I get, Rob, Yeah, but that being said. Let me be very clear. Trump is not the only one that we can do. And yes, we can do more presidential impressions. And we should.

You should go on tour with Kevin. Have you thought about that? Yes. Yes. He does Kamala. No, it's so good. I got to see it in person in December. Oh, it was beautiful.

Yeah. It was beautiful. Okay. So then the percentage chance that it's going to bear fruit, what was your number there? That's only 15. Yeah, I don't like that. 95% chance it happens, but only 15 that bears fruit. Yes.

I don't think it'll work. Do we get at least a live tribal out of it? Yes. Okay. But I don't think it will change anything. Okay. All right. Let's...

I mean, I think people are too... smart for that. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit. Okay. All right. Let's take some other categories of questions. And this is one from Alexandra who says, Lions versus Hyenas part two, but it's honor and strategy. Ozzie in the middle sides with strategy this time. What do you think? Yeah, yeah. No, I was actually, I had in my notes to bring this up, this idea that like coming into the merge, we have honor and integrity, and then we have like the nerd alliance and that's going to be, I think, the driving force here. And now it's interesting you have Ozzy

maybe with the nerd side and maybe the start of Aubrey going with the honor and integrity side. So give me this breakdown because I didn't see it exactly the same way as you did but I feel like, okay, the honor and integrity, I think that's easier to put together.

I think that I differ from you in terms of how I see the two sides. I think that there's two sides and I think that there's a smaller group that's the swing. But tell me your view of this 17-person movement. Yes. The most obvious is coach,

Joe Colby. Yep. Then you have Chrissy. Yeah. She's not really honored integrity. Sure. She's aligned with. And Stephanie is going to come home.

Stephanie. Yep. And who else? Coach named one other person on that tribe. Genevieve has been aligned with that group the whole season. Is that who coach named in this episode? I believe so. Yes.

Yes. Okay. So that is six people there. Okay. And we may add more later. But let's start there. Yeah. On the nerd side, we have Christian, Rick Devons, Emily,

Ozzie, maybe. Mm-hmm. He could, he's with them now out of having been with them. Um, who else? Well, you haven't, uh, the, the, don't get, don't forget the women. Aubrey D. Camilla Tiffany.

No, I don't think Aubrey's with them. I think that's a separate. Well, okay. Camilla, he, and I think Aubrey's more with the honor of integrity. Okay. You think she's on the same side with Genevieve? No, but I think that she's starting to get pulled into that group. So we saw the Camilla.

So I think that the group that voted together last night. Okay, Camilla D. Surrey Rizzo. And then I think that, I think that... It's more likely to go with the nerds. Well, hear me out. I think that Tiffany, who was very close with Dee and Camilla, early on, comes home to that. And then Aubrey comes along with that.

So that gives them six. So tenuous. What's that? I think it's tenuous. Tenuous six. Much more tenuous. Than the honor and integrity group. Right.

I think. Right. Sounds way more loosey. But is there some common grounds where that the Christian Rick Emily group? And now Rick was getting pulled in with Jonathan after that last vote. Does he go to, does the honor and integrity group want Rick Devons? And then... They want Jonathan for sure.

They want Jonathan for sure. Does Rick, who voted for Rizzo, does he try to end up getting back absorbed? Does Ceri wants Christian and Rick and Emily back? I kind of felt like that that was a little to me. Rick is going to go with Christian and Emily. Yes, but where are they going? That Emily has a connection to D, but I really feel like that Christian, Rick, and Emily...

He is in a great spot here to D and company to decide how this is going to go. I think Ozzy... By the way, I think... Sorry. Yeah, I was going to say, I think that Ozzie goes to Camilla D. Ceri Rizzo. I think that Ozzie...

he will want to link back up with Surrey. And I think that he'll fit in better with that group with D and Aubrey and Tiffany. And I kind of feel like that that Christian Rick Emily, I think that they are going to be swing votes here. Oh. I guess both groups could look at them in the middle. I think that Christian, Rick, Emily are going to get targeted. Yeah.

I think that they have their allies are, it's too, everything you just described is way too tenuous. Yeah. Like even Ozzy. Ozzy doesn't need to stick with them anymore. And what was I, what was I just about to say that, oh, I think D, this is kind of changing topics a little bit, but there was something about the way that D pulled an alliance together in this episode

that was like, that made me think that she could pull an alliance together on any tribe at any time. I'm like, she might be,

and maybe this is hyperbole, but she might be one of the best alliance builders in Survivor history. Because she knows she's so good at feeling what is going to be strong.

And making that connection with Rizzo, I believe that he really wants to work with her. I believe that Sari really wants to work with her. I believe that Camilla really wants to work with her. Maybe that's not going to pan out. But it feels like she can feel the vibe and just have it be relaxed and natural. And just like, this is our crew. I think she's easily one of the strongest winners of the new era, if not the strongest.

Yes. She has a really good feel for it. Yeah. I think I would just would like to see her pull together like a group here at the, like we saw that in her original starting tribe in season 45, she was able to pull together a group. She had other people from the other side feeling good about her in Kelly and Emily and Katura, the people that really wanted to work with her also. It seems like she was a little bit on the back foot on her starting tribe here in this season where her name was coming up. And then we could see her with Rizzo put together this group. So I think I'd like to see it coming into the merge before. I think it is premature to say what I said. But I think there's the makings of. Sure. She has a gift.

That's all time great. But do you think we will get a 17-person vote in this next episode? no chance I would love it actually I would love to see that it would be exciting but I suspect that it's mergatory

or it's at the merge there's gotta be you think so yeah I mean that's certainly on the table because they flip the Mr. Beast coin yeah I hope we better not break the hourglass right but no it's the merge if it is any time for

some shenanigans in Survivor in the new era. It's this vote. So, yeah, is this for Mr. Beast going to show up? I don't believe so. I think that we would have seen him in the preview.

I would have seen him in the preview. Yeah. But we didn't, like, we didn't get word of like, oh, you people are losing your vote, or these people can't vote,

or that's the same thing. But these people are going to go over here and then. I'm too much hated to think that this is just going to be a simple vote. Yeah, I don't think so. I'd be surprised. Or it's like, oh, you could only vote for these six people

out of all this. And so we'll see how it ultimately plays out. Did you see, I made a video about this, about the ominous end to the next time on Survivor next week? Oh, something about Jeff. Jeff said that something's going to happen tonight that's going to change the game forever. Mr. Beast.

It's not that they would show him, I think. And they showed like a really, creepy view of Jeff like in red. He's going to do the challenge. He's going to do the, maybe that's going to change it. So, um, not sure. Okay. Jim Fallon.

Phallon. Billy Elish. Maybe. They're all coming out. They're all going to unite like the super friends. They all are going to go fishing. Yeah. Okay. Um, I want, I want to see Mr. Beast go fishing.

Yes. On Survivor. not on Survivor. Yeah. All right. How about a question about Kelukhianu says, can nerds work with players like Ozzie?

What did you think about this Christian versus Ozzy back and forth from this episode? Can they work together? Yes. I think it's strange that now all of a sudden, Emily and Ozzie seem to be like best friends. when didn't we get like two episodes at the beginning of Emily just saying, can we please vote out Ozzy?

Emily changes her mind. You know, but I do think that. Yes, I think so. Emily, she worked very well with Caleb in season 45 and ultimately, you know, didn't go to bat for him all the way. But I think that Emily works well with somebody who's kind of not really like an Emily flipping. Yeah, for sure.

Well, who's like Emily Flippin? It's fair. There's no buddy. Yeah. Like, unique. So, yeah, no, she's a, she, she is clever. I don't think that she spilled the beans about what Christian told her accidentally. Not, not for a second, do I think that.

Okay, so when Ozzy came back to camp, you feel like that that was intentional? A thousand percent, yes. Okay. That's interesting because I had asked. I think Stephen, no, I had, I had wondered, and I had asked Stephen that question on the know-it-alls, I think, on Sunday. And he said he did not think that that was the case. And I don't know Emily well enough to know if it was or not. I don't either. This is just everything I say on here is there's a total guess. Speculation, yeah. Yeah, but that's why we're here, right? Strong opinions and say whatever the hell we think. And there's no consequences for it.

Yeah. No consequences for you. Yeah, I mean, your Jam Jam impersonation is definitely going to get you in hot water. But me, I'm going to be fine. Sorry, the point... You're canceled too. Oh, man. No, I think it was intentional because I think it gets... If she doesn't say anything, it's now a secret that she has kept.

If she does say anything, it falls all the way on Christmas. Christian and she can still go back to Christian and say, oh, whoops? Mm-hmm. What did I do? Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, it's not going to burn her. Christian's not turning on her.

Yeah. So I don't think she had a lot to lose with sharing that information. Yeah. I thought that the Ozzy scene in the episode, I thought it was very interesting where we saw a very classic emotional Ozzy. But then we saw Ozzy meditate and Ozzy talk about how that he was able to like calm his mind and meditation. And we saw him then be a lot more grounded, Ozzy. And I thought that that was interesting to see Ozzy,

who has been able to describe himself in those ways and to know, like, hey, that is part of me where I am going to lash out, but I also know how to control it. Yeah, I think you're definitely seeing growth, maturity. And I like that he still cares. He seems to still really care. And that's where I have to give some credit to casting because they get a lot of crap, rightfully so. You should have been on.

that was a terrible decision. So while I crap on them, I will also say that they see things that we don't, and they have more information than we do in casting. And I think you talk to somebody like Colby, and it's clear that, like, yes, he was a big star then and he went on to do other things and host other things, and he, you know, maybe didn't have, like,

the best showing the last time around. but he clearly is in it. He wants it, right? And I do think that that matters. And hopefully, for the sake of the show, they're right about all of that. And all these people they put on there. They made a big bet on Risgot coming back.

They bumped people from the show and they brought back a guy who finished playing nine days ago. that who could have fallen flat on his face. And they, they've, they're, I don't want to say like, it's, it's all come up aces, but he's delivering. He's bringing something to the season. And that was a gamble that you, you know, could have, I think that the people who got bumped

know who they are, but it would not have been anybody you would have been disappointed to see. And they pulled the plug on somebody to bring back. a guy nine days later who just who really could have come out and just nobody knows him could have just been a total flop first boot and I think one of the things they value the most is how badly do you want it and I think Rizzo made it very clear during the filming of 49 that one of his motivations if not his primary motivation I don't know was to become a legend and that requires getting invited back for season 50.

I mean, they dangled 50 as a carrot in front of 49 people. I think you're saying on season 40. What's that? I think you're going to say on season 40. They dangled what on season 40? You come back for season 50. No, they did not. Not even close.

They didn't even call me, though. Or they might have called a couple people. But they didn't bring back anybody from season 40. Yeah, I think it was just Rob, Parv, and me that got the calls. You got a call for season 50. Oh, of course, Rob. Yes. Does.

Yeah. You're joking. Of course I'm joking. But you believed me for like half a second, which I'm flattered. Well, you know, I'm trying to, like, triangulate when Jeff said he was mad at you. Years ago. It's been years. Yeah, years.

so yeah that was season 45 back when Rick Devins was hosting the on fire podcast yeah I remember that Rick but Rick didn't say anything Rick didn't exactly my point yeah maybe they cut it out Rick was like hey you know

look you go you I know the gig you go on the Jeff Pops podcast your job is not to disagree. I know the gig. They should have had Emily flipping on. She would push back. She would have disagreed. Yeah.

Okay. That is not the role. It's too bad. It's not great for a podcast. Shouldn't be to disagree. But then again, I shouldn't really comment because I kind of stopped listening after the third time I got publicly roasted.

Yeah. We got to listen. got to keep listening. I don't know what they're going to say. No, I think for my own my own well-being, I needed to stop listening. Okay. This is from... That's father.

That's... Father. That's... That's so disappointed. Yeah. And no way to call him up and say, you want to talk about this? So that's our... That's it. Okay. What it will ever be. Cameron Haas wants to know.

Adam's seeing any similarities between the gameplay and Survivor 40 and 50? That's such a broad question. I'm trying to give a specific answer. I mean, for sure. Yeah, I can give you a finer point question. One of the biggest things is, one of the biggest things is hiding pregame alliances in the edit, I would say. Okay.

Did you have any pregame alliances in season 40? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Michelle was like family. Like I viewed her like family. Right. And the whole design going into the game and probably part of the reason why you didn't see it. Okay, this is here. Here's here's something that I noticed. Episode one, you see conversations on the beach. They are not scripted, but they have already happened. And these are players playing ball with production. where they are choosing to on camera cement an alliance that has already been discussed after death. I can't remember exactly if we would have talked to episode one, I would have said, this conversation has already happened. This conversation has already happened.

Even Ozzy and coach, do we really think that that was the first time they ever spoke about the jury votes and whatever since the last time? I don't think so. Yeah. But they both know that they're there. But the key thing really, you know, set the whole thing off. Oh, no, I don't, that wasn't preordained at all. Talking about the conversation they had when they first walk up. Okay, sure.

And they forgive each other and that whole thing. I'm certain they had had that conversation. I'm not certain. I feel pretty confident that had that conversation. That's your opinion. That's my opinion. Emily and Rick Devons, Emily and Christian, they all connect. in the first episode.

No way they connected in the first episode. They connected before the first episode. And this is what I didn't do well. I was not a good, I was not a good steward of the show in establishing the strategy on camera, right? Because I was so motivated to win and, like, that was it. And I was like, we've already discussed everything that we're going to. So for Michelle and I, for example, it was divide and conquer. I'm going to go with one group.

You are going to go with another. And at the first vote, I knew where every single vote was going from not only my side, but the other side as well because the other side on purpose had Michelle so that we could know everything. And so that people did not think that we were working together. But we never went to each other in real life on camera and said, here's what we're going to do. let's divide and conquer. Maybe if we had, it would have been aired. Right.

So Michelle knowingly went with Jeremy and Natalie, knowing that one of them was going to, that Natalie was going to get blindsided? I didn't tell her the full information, but she said, this is how the vote split is happening. And we work together to make sure that the men were going to vote for me and the women were going to vote for Denise.

so that there would be, because I knew who was out of the vote. Yeah. And so that way there's two votes on Denise and only one on me, right? But, and, and she said, you're going home. And I said, no, I'm not. And, and, and, and that, and, and she was like, well, what's happening? That should have been in the show. Right.

And, and, and, and I was like, like, like, if you really want to know, I'll tell you, but you, I don't think you need. need to know and it might be better if you don't. And she wasn't like, hey, you left me out of the vote? She wasn't mad or anything after. She knew. She knew she was getting left out of the vote. Like now, in real time, this is all my point of view, right? In real time, do I actually think that I maybe misread that situation a little bit?

And that maybe there was a little bit of like, okay, we're doing this, but you have all the information. I don't. They see me as voting for them. That's hurting my game. And maybe she wasn't as gung-ho about this idea as I was. But we still were doing it. You know what I mean? So I was getting information.

The idea was, yeah, divide. I thought that it would take a level of strategy to win season 40 that had never been seen before. I thought that it was going to require. And in some ways it did. It was pretty traditional. It was here's my group and we're going to vote together. I'm with Sarah. Everybody knows it.

And I'm with Jeremy and everybody knows it. It was very out in the open. I thought it was going to require layers of hidden relationships. Because I was like, okay, everybody knows about Robin Amber. Everybody knows about me and Denise on purpose. I wanted people to be like, here's my public ally, right? Here's who everybody thinks I'm is my number one. And so there were groups that were obvious.

Yeah. Right. Ethan and parv and whatever. And so it's like how is anybody going to let those obvious pairs or groupings get to the end? They're not. And if so people know how close Michelle and I are, they won't let us get, they won't let us sniff final tribal because all the big dogs, Tony, Sandra, Jeremy, whatever. Parv, they're all going to get together and say,

we can't let game changers happen again. And we got to get rid of the hyenas or whatever. And the only reason that didn't happen earlier, I think, is because we hid that we were working together. You know what I mean? I would say... So that's what I thought it would take to win. Yeah.

What I've seen so far is I think that there is more of a reluctance for people to work with the players who are playing hard as opposed to the players who, all right, they don't have that much going on. And I think that we've seen across the season people gunning for the players or not necessarily feeling comfortable by the players who are playing a more fast-paced game

and there is more of a safety with, hey, you know what, I think I'd like to work with the players who aren't moving that fast. Maybe. I see it more as a reluctance to work with people who people know you're close to. I think that's what happened here with Christian, right? That if he sticks with Mike and Angelina,

then everybody knows who his alliance is. I do want to ask, though, why Mike? Why Mike and not Angelina? I think that when Mike brought up the specter of Gabby, I think that it did open some wounds for Christian, where I think that Christian was always, I believe that Christian probably ranked Mike White. He described Mike White is the most dangerous person on this island or any island.

And it's like, I think there's some dangerous islands. But Mike was really, really, really close with Christian and wasn't going to vote him out. And I think that that was kind of obvious, whereas Angelina certainly would have. So. But there are. Mike White got Christian voted out in David versus Goliath. And so that Christian can never forget that. Mike was going to gun for him any time soon in this season?

I think that's a misread if he thought that he was. I think he was going to eventually. I get wanting to break them up. I just don't understand he would go for Mike before Angelina went out. I said, the biggest reason why you would go out. early is because they want to weaken Mike White. And they want to keep Mike White in because they want to be on the freaking white locus or whatever.

And they are going to view you as a threat to getting close to Mike White. And so that was my fear for Angelina. And so to see Mike White be voted out before Angelina was very surprising to me. I think it would be not unlike. and maybe you tell me this is, Rob, you're way off on this. Like, if you played on another season with David Wright, where it's like, hey, David, we're working together. But you don't think at some point in the back was, like,

hey, this is the guy who got me out in, like, I would have won my season. I officiated his wedding. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Christian was in the White Lotus. Christian was in the White Lotus. Yeah, but he got a really small. Yeah.

Do you remember what his role was? I think it was more. Christian happened to be in Thailand when they were filming it. And it was like, hey, this will be, like, it wasn't like a written part that, uh, that Christian. But that I do think that this. I would be okay if David Wright voted me out at the final four. Okay. But, you know, there might be some part of him that's like, hey, nobody else realizes how

dangerous Adam is. And, and maybe felt like, okay, I have to, I have to, you know, break up the David versus Goliath three somehow. This is my shot. It would. And so you can understand why Mike's feelings are hurt. I thought it was not a great move for Christian. I thought it was also like, hey, I could do a three, two, one.

That's pretty cool. But I do think that the person... I think there's something that... Look, like I said at the very beginning of this, I understand the predicament that Christian was in, and I don't envy that spot. and I think that ultimately he probably is a little bit safer. It's not that he's safer now than he was before.

It's that he would have been royally screwed if he went into the merge with only him, Mike and Angelina left from that drive, I think. So I think it was a lose-lose, but I do, like, I don't know. He didn't feel that shook up about. it, which also would hurt me, right? Like, he felt shook up about what Mike said to him, but not about turning on him. Yeah. And so maybe that's part of the bad blood here, is it's like,

your- gaming this on me and something I said about Gabby. But you actually voted me out here, and we've been friends for seven years. I think that Christian has never shied away from talking about how good of a player Mike White is. And Mike White is like, I was working with you, but I think that Christian just felt like, but you're too dangerous. You turn the narrative against me once and you're capable of doing it again, and I can't leave that in the game. Well, one of the things that I saw somebody post something from Christian's preseason press was he's like, I've learned from my. Mike was. And I am going to control the narrative. And so I think what people might be

as disingenuous is him playing the narrative game. He is conscious of the way the show is being presented. And some might say hamming it up or playing to that or creating the story that works. And this is why I can understand Mike not believing this thing about Gabby as being like the reason why he targeted Mike. And to be honest, I don't really buy that either. Like, I get wanting to split them up. Yeah. But this thing about like, oh, he made an offhand comment about Gabby. And then it's like, that's what reminded me that Mike was so dangerous. I don't know. I'm not buying it.

I think he went into the game consciously saying, I am going to write my narrative. So he is thinking about that. Yeah. He's on tape saying that. You know what I mean? It's a tough situation for everybody that's involved there, because if he does ultimately vote out Emily, I think that there is probably Rick Devons.

He's like, dude, why did you do that? What's up with that? He's also coming out of this scenario now. He's in a five-person tribe with the David versus Goliath 3. And so they end up looking like... Well, sure, sure. Well, I think that there was Ozzy and Stephanie were closer than that we now know from this episode, where Stephanie told Ozzy about the Billy Elish Idol.

I think that there was, we think it was going to be hard. Stephen is not in their camp, clearly. And so I think, like, leaving. Why didn't you vote out Stephanie? He said that he felt like that she was the type of loyal player that he saw himself as. So, for what?

Loyal to who? Listen. Loyal to Colby. Loyal to. That it's a good idea. I'm just telling you. Nobody there wanted to vote out Stephanie. I mean, I think that's the play.

It would have been a good idea, but nobody wanted to do it. You know? I don't think Stephanie is going to be Christian's greatest ally. No, I don't think so. She, I think, was, you know, already if Ozzy was like, hey, I want to take out Christian, I think that she would have been on board to do it. Definitely.

Yeah. Here, let's move on to John Diaz wants to know whose game in 50 reminds you of your gameplay in 40? Whoever is trying to hide their alliances the most. Who would that be? I mean, that was really my strategy.

Like, I was going to like play this undercover game of like is anyone doing something like that? If they are, we're not seeing it, which is the point. Right? He's playing an undercover. game.

Who's got allies we don't know about? Allies that we don't know about. Chrissy? I don't know if she has any allies. And he says it seems like that she has you know, coach, Jonathan,

maybe Colby. She's in that group, right? And we don't know why. Right? We don't really know why. Yeah. We also haven't heard from Chrissy at all. Yeah. So,

I don't know I was just a guess how about Surrey well I mean I'm never going to make that comparison you can

oh no I was I was gonna say who has allies that a lot of people don't know about I was going to say that I thought you were comparing it to

it wasn't my first thought of you know who plays the most like you dang that would have That would have been a great compliment. We'll see.

By the end of the season, maybe we'll say that. I don't know. Maybe I don't know. Nobody. My first instinct does, that nobody comes immediately to mine. Okay. DJ Seth wants to know. Adam, being the same super duper fan archetype,

how do you see your gameplay compared and contrast it to Rizzo? Um, I think Rizzo puts on a little bit more of a show than I do. I think that he, and I don't know if it's intentional or not, but I think maybe, let's think about Rizzo and Camilla, right? Camilla knew he was lying or at least suspected that. And yet she aligns with him and votes with him anyway. I think maybe part of the reason that is is because she thinks she can beat him at the end. she thinks that he has this a little bit of bravado. And look, Rizzo is playing a very, very good game to come in.

So I don't want to diminish Rizzo at all. Like to come in, not know anybody, to be building alliances, to be coming back from when people don't seem to like him or whatever, he's doing a really good job. But I also think, and I don't know if this part is intentional, something that he probably hasn't learned from 49 yet because he hasn't had a chance to decompress and watch, is that I don't know.

if he was going to win at the end of 40. Yeah, this is a good point you're making. I think that maybe that where Charlie talked about how that he has not seen how he is playing and he's the hero of his own narrative,

I think that this could be his fatal flaw where Charlie said about Rizzo, we're all the hero of our own stories because going down, going through the game in your own head rather than watching yourself play and getting to see all the other stories, it colors things differently.

And do you think that there is maybe a desire for people to work with Rizzo because already he is, no matter what happens the rest of the season, he is a final three goat. He will not win a jury vote. These returning players will not vote for Rizgod to win against almost anybody in the final three. he's 26, he feels like he's maybe younger than that even. These are people with families, and that was a big deal in Winners at War where we're going to vote for people who have kids,

we're going to vote for people who have kids. If you're Surrey, wouldn't you love to sit next to Risgod in the final three? Three can sit next to anybody. So Shurree's only goal to get to the end of the game. It doesn't matter. But if you're D, maybe you're D and you're struggling with, boy, who am I going to sit next to that they're going to give me the jury vote? another winner to a million dollar a millionaire to to win again do you want to vote for the for

for de or do you want to vote for risgod at that point jury right so you might want to go and he was he had bad jury management in season 49 that the that the that the i don't know if he knows that he doesn't know that and that's the thing and so that's that's and this is your point that i'm that i am picking up on and running with it because he was not aware seemingly of how the jury was receiving him and where the great, it's great for getting camera time of, hey, I'm the dunking on Charlie, but when the people go out of the game and they go to the jury,

they don't love all of the trash talk. And like, hey, I'm not, you know, I thought I was going to play my idol, but I'm not going to. One of the things that you look for in a final three is you want people who know that they are going to beat you who are wrong. Yeah.

You need people who have an overinflated sense of their own game so that they think they will beat you at the end, so they want to go with you to the end when you know you're going to beat them. That is one of the absolute keys to this game. If you can know who you beat and know who thinks they beat you when they don't, you can master the end game of Survivor. Right? And so when Rizzo talks a big game in public,

what do you have left at the end? He's putting it all. He's like, I did all these great things in 49. I did this, I did this, I did this. And while everyone else is hearing is money bags because they're like, he's talking him, up now. Yeah.

So, and if he gets to the end, people are going to say, look, you were talking yourself up the whole time and people still wanted to go to the end with you. Why do you think that is? These players are so good. These players are such sharks. And I think that I really thought Rizzo was going to come in and get smoked. I wonder if that maybe that they're looking at him like, this guy finished playing his season nine days ago.

He's going to be gassed by the end. He wasn't. They like him. They like him. Oh, sure. Easy, easy guy to like. But he wasn't even a challenge beast in his original season. How's he going to be holding up when it's day 23 and he's played Survivor, you know,

50 out of the last 60 days? And he might just be looked at as somebody who is somebody that, hey, as long, you know, let's just keep him around. Well, I'm not worried about this guy. You want somebody who you can beat at the end, who you like to be around, who is loyal. And I think he's doing a really good job of selling himself. He rides for his people. Yes, yes.

I would trust him too, right? He feels like if you're in with him, you're in with him. It's exactly who you want to work with in Survivor. And I don't believe that all of that is coincidence. I think he knows what he's doing in some of those aspects. I just don't know if he actually can get the votes at the end. Maybe. Okay.

Adam, I have a question for you from R. Dub's wife wants to know, what themes, new or old, would you like to see in the 50s? Do you think that there is enough content for a first boot or a runner-up season? Do you want themes to come back? Sure. Come down for themes. seems to come back. I mean, this is totally selfish and biased, but the dream season, Millennials versus Gen Z. Wow. Come on. And not only that, again, selfish and biased, you bring back to the

whole millennial tribe. The whole millennial tribe. We're bringing back, okay, bringing back everybody. Everybody. Could you get everybody? Could you get everybody? Could you get all 10? No. No, I don't think I don't think you could. I think you could get nearly everybody. Nearly everybody. And then would the millennials be all like cranky

like Paul Walker about Gen Z? Can you give me a promo for Millennials versus Gen X? Can you complain about Gen Z a little bit? No, it's a fun group. We would be, we would be, you know. You're doing, you're doing. you're bombing your casting video right now. Wait, hold on a second.

No, no, no, no. Hold on. We don't need to shit on Gen Z. We were there. We got shit on by Gen X, right? Now, maybe some of them will, and that's not my role, right? That's why you have different people on the Milanian tribe. How interesting would it be to see some of these,

Michaela and Jay come back together? Sure. Taylor and Figgy, come back to you. Yeah, that'd be exciting. But who is the Gen Xer that was like, hey, millennials, they're just like us? Ken. He was like, I'm listening to Vinyl. I don't text the letter of you.

He said when everyone else was like, these kids, he's like, don't underestimate them. He said that. And he kind of chastised his tribe a little bit. I guess so. We can't underestimate these guys. and they want it just as badly. I'm here for it. I think they need themes in the 50s. I think it would be fun.

I don't think you just roll up with Survivor 51 and expect everybody to still be excited. I don't know. Put it out to the viewers. Put it in the hands of the fans. Put it in the hands. Should we have themes? They'll vote, yes. The millennial tribe, and this is nothing to do with me, but I think the millennial tribe is one of the best tribes

in the history of Survivor. It's a good tribe, okay? 18-year-old will, wall comes back and he's like been in the military, he's like got all these like degrees he's got kids. The pendulum's ready to swing the other way.

What what a story. Okay. So much. Jay, come on. I look, you sold me. Zeke, good story. Yeah. Anna, come on.

Yep. Matt 77. Michelle? Yeah. They're also good. Matt 77. 78181 says, give mother more confessions.

Yeah, any of them. All of the mothers. Give all the mothers more confessions. Okay. Anything else that's on your mind? Anything else that you want to say? Let's see. Let me look at my notes.

Look at your notes. Let's see. Oh, I think that, you know, again, it's such edits. stuff, but like the boat wake up scene, I think that happened after Charlie was already being targeted. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know if that's like the reason or whatever.

Let's see. Oh, oh, I want to talk about just briefly, like Angelina's exit was so good. Yeah, like the jacket giveaway. Full circle. Not only that, but it was gracious. It was positive. It was funny. Like, that's the Angelina that I know that fans.

don't always get to see. It reminded me a lot of like Jay's exit in Millennials Gen X, which I just say, you know, remember the night that the jacket happened when we were in Reno together? Wow, was that that night? Yes.

And she was there. I forgot that was that night. That's amazing. Yeah. That night, that day, whatever in Reno, know, it crushed my game in Winners at War because I really bonded and connected with Ben. Yeah. And then I was like so unwilling to like consider voting him out in Winners at War just like as a friend.

Because and because you teamed up to do this week in Survivor history. That's right. Yeah. And so you've always blamed Jordan Kalish for season 40. No, we ended up staying in the hotel room where we did that and like cried together and like really bonded. and connected. Yeah. That was my dream final three.

It was me, Ben, and Michelle. That's what I wanted. Let me see. Where are Chrissy and Tiffany? Oh, yeah. Why not Target Rick? I'd be more worried about his connections, like with Emily and Christian.

I think that maybe they looked at Rick and Surrey as a package deal, and it's sort of like that Rizzo was the low-hanging fruit Maybe, I don't know. We really haven't seen Surrey and Rick too much the last couple episodes together. I just probably would have been more threatened

by Rick than Charlie. Yeah. Oh, for it seems like the D really soured on Charlie. Why? She said he's playing dumb. Is it the back of the thing?

Talked about? The bad her baggage? No, no, no. His. Like how he, like, I wonder what he, how he was approaching people in the game that made them not feel as connected with him. I don't know.

I think that he just probably didn't put a lot of stock into the relationship once they ended up having the swap. But I thought that D and Charlie were on pretty good terms coming into the game. I think they both spoke highly of each other in the preseason. Yeah. So what happened there?

I don't know. Yeah. I'd be interested to ask Charlie. I think that, ultimately D really connects with people on like an emotional level. And I think that maybe Charlie connects on people on more of like a game logical level. And I think that maybe it just wasn't a good match between the two of them. Or is he holding on to stuff and not getting as emotionally bonded and connected because it doesn't want to get hurt again?

Maybe. Drama. All right. It always comes back. It always comes back. Yeah. What a delight to talk with you. What a wide-ranging, interesting conversation we had. Thanks to everybody who came along on this ride.

It was so fascinating. It went by so quick. Yeah, I hope we didn't get canceled. I mean, I always hope that. But why? Why should we get canceled? We talked about our feelings? I don't know.

I don't know. talking about divorce, talking about feelings, doing impressions. Impressions. Yeah. Not very good ones all the time. Okay.

What are you going to do? What are you going to do? We do the podcast for the people who like it, not for the people who don't like it. Fair. Yep. Okay. All right.

Adam, anything you want to tell people about, to check out? I still, much to Jeff and Jesse's chagrin. But for all shows. Not just Survivor. For all shows.

Yeah. I've had over 40 clients get on shows now. Over 12 shows. Like, I don't talk about this very. I'm trauma. The last time I did like a big look at these people I worked with. Then all hell broke loose. So I don't really like share that stuff.

And also because there is no. guarantee right it is hard it is hard to get on these shows did you get somebody on the show that like that they thought like kind of sucked is that why they got mad at you no no they have maybe i could see why i'd be like everybody that i've worked if you if you tricked them into putting somebody on who sucked or quit i never have that's not what i do yeah right my my job is not to come up with a line that you should say is to help you figure out what your essence is and lead with that and put it on display and speak your mind, right? And that is so individualized. It's why I really just do the individual stuff now because it's so much about I need to get to know you. I need to figure you out.

and talk things. And sometimes somebody will say something and I'll be like, but that's not your story, right? And they're like, yeah, I guess not. And I'm like, then why do you keep saying that? So it's hard. Like it's not about tricking anybody.

It's very self-reflective. And it's storytelling coaching, really, more than anything. It's about learning how to speak your mind and put your personality on display. And they love, the people that I've worked with. And I'm not, I haven't created them into anything. They're not good at this because of me or whatever. But everybody who's good at something and at an elite level still has a coach. There's still somebody that they work with to make them better,

even if they're already really, really good. Right. So look, like, but yeah, it's not just Survivor. I've had clients get on over a dozen different shows at this point. And I probably don't pat myself on the back enough for that. And I probably don't put it out there enough. But the reality is, it's like, I know I'm good at it. It's why I'm still doing it. I still like it. Yeah. And I live in Mexico now. Yeah. How's that? You recommend? I live as of like a week or two ago. I, I, I, I, I moved to Mexico City. So it's beautiful here. I speak Spanish.

I'm like I'm, I'm, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I'm, I, I, I'm, I, I'm, I, I'm, I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm in better shape than I've been in a long time. Physically? I'm just, yeah, physically. Do you have apps like Mike White? I'm working on it. Okay. It's my divorce revenge body. I don't know.

Yeah. They say that it's not about physical trainer. Yeah. Well, certainly it was my weight loss routine. Right after things really went sideways, I lost 15 pounds in a month. It was like survivor style. Wow. Yeah. But I've kept it off.

Yeah. People don't lose that in the whole new era. Do they not? Yeah. Like it was, I guess, more than Survivor than. Not healthy. It wasn't good. It was not like, it was like I couldn't eat. Okay. You know, but, but yeah. So I feel like I'm coming back to life a little bit, right? And I'm, I'm building my confidence back. And I'm, I'm, I feel. like they're you know i'm meeting people here i'm making friends people are welcoming me in they're

inviting me to things i'm going i'm right after this i'm going to a speed dating event that that some friends invited me to and they're like you should so you know i'm just like whatever like it's a whatever it's it's that they call it dating is how you say dating in spanish that's exactly right And I'm just, you know, I'm putting myself back out there because life doesn't end when bad things happen. Yeah. It's just an opportunity to start fresh. Adam. And get another go.

Hasn't that always been your story since we've known you? And maybe I got a little too complacent. Yeah. Right? Maybe I got, like, I thought that the rest of my life was going to be comfortable, right? I was like, I'm going to start to have kids. I'm going to get a house. I'm going to do all the things that like I said that I was going to do when I won Survivor. Like I was 25 when I won. And I was smart enough to know that I didn't need that money, not as a 25 year old. Right. And so I was like, this is for my future family. this is for the ability to like buy a house in the United States, which is like not easy to do. And I was ready for that.

I was ready for that part of my life. And it didn't happen the way that I imagined it. But I still want those things. I still want to have a family. I still eventually want to get a house or whatever. but I wasn't living just for me. I was following my wife to live on a cruise ship, to move to wherever she wanted to be for her career, right?

And I think maybe that wasn't that attractive. I don't know, right? It doesn't matter. The point is that like I'm doing some things for myself now. Right. And I'm very privileged and lucky to be in a place where I still believe that I can have that future. But in the meantime, I'm going to do some things for myself. Yeah. Hey, you got to only go day by day. Nobody knows this better than you. And I think it's don't worry about, you know, all of the things that I have to do this. I have to do this.

you know, just work on what's feeling good for now. And the rest of the stuff is going to figure itself out. Mm-hmm. And I do believe that. Like I do. Yeah. I do know that there's a lot more in front of me. And I'm trying not to live in that because that's been part of my problem.

It's like I think anxiety is just you're either living in the past or the future. And I'm really trying to just be in the present. Take the pressure off yourself. You know, you're on the perfect schedule for you. And, you know, you're just too smart to not figure this all out. I appreciate that. Yeah. Okay.

Well, thank you, Adam. What an incredible conversation. I appreciate you so much. I love having you here. I love you. I love you. I'll honor and grateful to invite me. Yeah.

Anytime. Thank you all so much for listening to this podcast. We're going to do the patron Q&A on Friday a little bit later on in the afternoon. Rachel Lamont also coming up this weekend and then Mary Holland's coming up next week. So lots of great stuff on the podcast. Adam, you're the best. Thank you so much. Take everybody.

Have a good one. Bye. I'm always looking for those tips and tricks to help optimize my life. Ways to save money, travel better and make life a little easier. That's why I love all the hacks. The podcast hosted by Chris Hutchins, that's all about practical tips you can actually use. Every episode breaks down strategies around personal finance, productivity, travel rewards, career growth, all the stuff I wish I learned earlier. What I like is that it's not hype or gimmicks.

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