RHAP: We Know Survivor - How Season 50’s Win Ended the New Era

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

How Season 50’s Win Ended the New Era Survivor 50 wraps up with a whirlwind of emotions, strategy, and shocking moments, as Rob Cesternino delivers his unfiltered reactions the day after the finale. Rob is solo in Los Angeles, fresh from the taping and book signing, digging into Aubry’s historic win and what it really means for the future of Survivor. In this special recap, Rob unpacks the Mount Rushmore debate, pivotal endgame decisions, and how Survivor is shifting from the “big moves” era to what might soon be the “big swing” era. Rob recaps the pulse of the finale, starting with Aubry’s roller-coaster journey—from early doubts and illness to several game-changing moments, like snagging the idol from Rick or Christian and flipping the script on Genevieve during the blood moon. He breaks down how Aubry’s victory fits into the new era’s playbook, which rewards players who hang back, strike at the end, and win over the jury with a compelling story. Rob also shares exclusive details from his exit interviews with the final five, including Jonathan’s struggles with perception and heartbreak over losing, plus a look at Rizo’s (Rizgod’s) resilience after his exit in the now-infamous, accidentally spoiled fire-making challenge. Key moments include: – Aubry’s journey from “over it” to finding joy and making crucial moves in Survivor 50 – The Mount Rushmore of Survivor debate and how Aubry’s win complicates the shortlist – Jeff Probst’s perspective on Survivor as an “impossible” game and why under-the-radar play has been thriving – The proposed shift from “big moves” to “big swings” with more Rick Devens-style gameplay in future seasons – Jonathan’s challenges in winning hearts—and what could change for him in another shot As Survivor enters its open era, Rob explores whether the next generation of winners can break the mold or if savvy, subtle play will keep taking the crown. Will the show’s push for bolder moves change Survivor forever, or will players like Aubry still find ways to outwit and outlast? Tune in for all the insights, drama, and debate—plus Rob’s take on how Survivor 50’s ending sets up a whole new chapter! Chapters: 0:00 Surviving Survivor 50 Finale Aftermath 1:00 Aubry’s Journey: From Underdog to Winner 3:30 Debating Aubry’s Mount Rushmore Status 6:00 New Era Strategy: Laying Low to Win 8:10 Comparing Aubry, Marianne, Gabler, and Erica 10:00 Modern Versus Classic Survivor Wins 12:00 Survivor’s Shift Toward Big Swing Moves 15:00 Rick Devens: The New Survivor Archetype 18:00 Jonathan’s Struggle with Jury Perception 22:00 The Challenge for Physical Survivor Players 26:20 Rizo and Joe: Handling Survivor Losses 30:00 Jeff’s Live Finale Flub Analyzed 33:00 Did Survivor 50 Deliver for Fans? 34:50 Looking Ahead to Survivor 51 and Open Era 35:57 Survivor Book Plug and Season Wrap To 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!

what's going on, Rob Cesterino, and I'm here, I'm still on the road. I'm in beautiful Los Angeles, and it's the day after the Survivor 50 finale, and I'm still in town for another day because I have a book signing tonight at the Grove, and Dr. Christian Kubicki is going to be there with me, but I kind of had a free afternoon, and I have just had a lot of thoughts about Survivor 50, and I thought that while I'm still here, in the hotel room. I have all my stuff. I thought that since I couldn't get on a podcast to talk about it last night, I wanted to record my thoughts about Survivor 50 and Aubrey's Win and what does it all mean and where are we going. And so this might be a little bit of stream of consciousness, but I thought this would be a fun way to record my thoughts. I've gotten a lot of nice feedback

about doing these types of solo videos and thought I'd keep it going here on the day after the Survivor finale. I was at the taping last night. I did the red carpet. I got a lot of fun stuff before the show and also after the red car, after the finale on the red carpet. I also did some really interesting exit interviews with everybody in the final five this morning. I didn't talk to Jonathan last night, but he was one of the people that I talked to this morning. And I thought that everybody was actually really coherent. I kind of thought that maybe everybody was going to be a little shot from being up so early and the finale going late. But everybody had some really interesting interviews. And I think that there was all sorts of different stuff. And so I'd love to talk about

some of the things that I feel like I took away from everybody in talking to them today. So let me start with Aubrey. And for Aubrey, what an interesting ride it's been. I think the thing that I've talked about the most with Aubrey so far is I just love the story of Aubrey, where She was this person who in Survivor Call Wrong, we all know the story that she came up just short. She was the you should have won person. And then over the years, people really started to fall in love with Michelle and said, no, no, Michelle should have won.

Aubrey sucked. And she was just chewed up and spit out by the Survivor machine. And I really thought that Aubrey was just, I don't want this to come across sounding mean, but it might be just like a, somebody who was like a relic from an era of Survivor. She played three times so quickly in the 30s. And I just thought that she was just a flash from that era.

And so when she came back from For Survivor 50, I really was kind of saying, okay, well, what are we going to get from Aubrey? And I kind of felt like, especially after the edge of extinction, I just felt like that Aubrey was kind of over it. And that was a little bit of the Aubrey that I felt like that we saw, all early on where it seemed like that does she even want to be there? And we saw that manifest itself in sort of the awkward scenes with Genevieve and I talked with Aubrey about some of that.

She said that she was actually sick during that point in the game. And she came in and then she really started to find herself. I think back to when she got the idol from Rick or Christian, whoever you may ask about that. And she felt like, wow, this is like a real turning point. And I think she had a couple of those turning points in the game where obviously there was that. Then there was the Blood Moon where she was able to flip the script on Genevieve. And then coming out of that where she played her idol and that was another big turning point. I really think that when she ate the grub at the auction too, I thought that that was Aubrey having fun for maybe the first time in Survivor 50 publicly where she was really. starting to be embraced. And obviously, the Ozzy vote and then culminating in everything that we saw

towards the end of the game for Aubrey. So she had such an interesting run. I think there's going to be a lot of hand-wringing and consternation about Aubrey's win and how big of a win it is. I mean, listen, if I really wanted to, like, let's make the case for Aubrey on the Mount Rushmore of Survivor, because my criteria, I just got to ask this on, I was on Monday, it's been a crazy week. I was in New York on Monday to go to CBS mornings, and I was on the morning show. And when I came out, they had me do a social media clip,

and they said, who's on the Mount Rushmore of Survivor? And I think that this is pretty settled. You know, it's kind of easy. It was up until this point of, you know, you have four people who really define the show. I said, no particular order, it's Rob, it's Sandra, it's Tony, and Parvety. And all of them, they have a win. They have at least one win, and Tony and Sandra have two.

And they also have been to a final tribal council and lost. They've gotten to the end twice. And when we talk about Surrey, I said, Surrey has her own thing that's right next to the Mount Rushmore. People in the comments said, she's the statue of liberty next door to the Mount Rushmore. And I think that that's fair. Surrey has, you know, for all of her incredible gameplay and maneuvering, she has never made it to a final tribal council.

So if that's the criteria of you have at least a win and maybe a second final three appearance, that was the criteria. Well, hold on a second. Here comes Aubrey now, who not only has a win, has another you should have won. And now I think that the Mount Rushmore question just became a lot more complicated of Should Aubrey be in the Mount Rushmore? And now, don't get this twisted. I don't think that Aubrey is on the Mount Rushmore of Survivor now after this,

but I can't really logic out why. I thought I had sort of like sound logic of why it was those four. But even by my own criteria, wait, hold on a second. We have to talk about Aubrey, who also in addition to a win of, A losing finals appearance also has a final five appearance in Survivor Game Changers. So Aubrey is doing a lot of things right. I think that the thing that we go back to with this win here in Survivor 50, it wasn't a dominant win in Survivor 50 where we didn't have a game where she dominated.

I don't know if Sandra really, I think the game that Sandra dominated the most might have been game changers to talk about. like what a throwback for game changers. And that could be a fun season to go back and watch between the Ozzie and Aubrey and Surrey of it all. But also Sandra dominates the first half of Survivor Game Changers. That might have been her most dominant appearance. But, you know, the other three all had a little bit more dominant controlling games. But Aubrey's game in 50 is interesting.

And it wasn't at no point a game that she dominated. and probably a game that she didn't really control until very, very late in the game. But I do think that Aubrey's game was a bit of like the perfect prototypical new era game. And I think that there are obviously good things for Aubrey about that, but I think things that maybe Survivor is looking to maybe move past as we head into the open era.

And I'd like to tie that in a little bit to what I'm going to say about Aubrey. Aubrey, I talked about this a couple of weeks ago where Aubrey, I think, played the prototypical new era game in that she played a game that I was very much like the games that we saw from Marianne and Erica and Gabler, especially like that first half of the new era where you had people who were not really in the center of things, people who were a little. little bit on the outs, people who easily could have gone home at the merge in their season, certainly is the case with Erica and Marianne and Gapler. And then there are people who say their biggest moves for right at the end and had final tribal council appearances where they really,

they knew who they were, they knew their story, and they were able to really sell the jury. and in the case of Aubrey, much like in the case of Marianne and Gabler and Erica, honestly too, with if you look at, you know, Erica's seri was Ricard. You have with Marianne,

her serri was Omer. And then Gabler is able to take out Jesse in the fire. Those three seasons that started the new era, I think that all of them are really, really similar to the game that we saw

from Aubrey, who at the middle of the game was just in a position where she was just on the outs. She did a really great job to stay in the middle, not get too close with any group. And while she was always a viable person to go home, really on any of the votes in the post-merge, she does a great job of doing just enough to stay out of it and ends up being able to drive some of those late boats to get out some of the bigger threats in the game when we start to see Christian and then Rick or Ozzy also as well

and then ultimately Surrey and Tiffany, she really did a great job of understanding who were the biggest threats in her way and helping to engineer getting those threats out of the game. So I think that Aubrey really understood what the new era game was about. And it's interesting because I feel like in the back half of the new era, we started to see some more dominating new era wins happen. I think that D is the one where you start to look at where the shift starts to go, where she plays the more old school traditional game, where for us at home, it's easy to see, oh, she was part of the big alliance.

They controlled things the whole way through. I think that when we look back at games, when we're trying to decide how good of a win something was, it's easy to do it when the person who wins the game was always in a good position, where the person who wins the game was playing with the lead the whole way through. They had numbers. That's sort of for us to quantify.

Yes, they were never in trouble. They controlled things. The people they wanted to went home. And that's the easiest way to be able to tell. who is playing a dominating game. But ultimately a Survivor win is a Survivor win. And there is no real system to determine of how good one of these wins ultimately is.

To just go through in the new era, you have D, who ends up being part of this dominating game. And then you have Kenzie, who is a bit of a throwback to somebody who was kind of under the radar and somebody who was discounted, even though she was part of a tight alliance with Tiffany and Q, she ends up towards the end of the game. Once Tiffany is gone,

I think she's a little bit disregarded. Marianne has talked about this where she says the ideal position you want to be in New Era Survivor is you want to be around sixth in the pegging order in the final eight. And I think that Aubrey really was another great example of that. I'd love to catch up with Marianne more and talk about the similarities that she might see between her win and an Aubrey win. But then you also have some of the players who had more dominating games in the new era where I would put D in that category.

I think that Savannah was playing from the bottom but was part of a tight group. It's hard. You have Kyle who was a dominant player, but also played behind Joe, who was a dominant figure. It's really, we rank the new era winners. And D was the only person who was like the consensus number one, most dominating winner of the new era because it was just so clear to see where she was never on the bottom. She never was coming from a position where she wasn't controlling things.

Rachel played such a great game, but it was a hard game to define also where, and listen, I'm starting to, I can tell I'm starting to lose the thread here. But let me just keep this on Aubrey, because she, in my mind, I thought that she understood the assignment of the way that you want to end up coming into this new era game where the more you do right in the new era, the easier it is for people to see that and to ultimately get you out of the game. And, you know, Surrey, I think, did such a great job in this season and maybe played the best game of the whole season. but the problem for Surrey was that at the end of the day, everybody remembered, oh, wait, this is Surrey,

but she was doing all of the things right in the new era of getting these other people to be seen as the person responsible more for making these moves. And she was doing a really great job of staying underneath the radar. The problem was that this was Surrey in her fifth time playing the game here in the U.S. And I think that if this was Surrey on her first time, I think that she probably does go on to win this season.

But Aubrey understood all of that. I think that that was, you know, there was luck. But I think that Aubrey also, as she talked about in her interviews with me, a lot of what she did also was understanding all of this. And I think that she did a really great job coming into season 50 and seeing the game for how it was and not a version of the game that we've seen in the past. but as far as Aubrey goes, congratulations to her. She did a really great job.

I thought that Jeff said some interesting things this week. Of course, Jeff said a lot of interesting things this week. But there was a event on Tuesday night where Survivor had a lot of TV reporters and they brought the whole cast out for this, you know, for your consideration event. And I saw a clip of Jeff talking this week. And Jeff talked about how this is,

this is the game where the better you are at the game, the more that people are going to want to take you out. And so he talked about, you know, that the people who win deserve it because the game is impossible to win. And he said, and that's by design, that they make the game so it's impossible to win. So that you feel like that you can plan it out,

but you really can't because you can't ever see what's coming. And that if you get there, it's a miracle because the game is just basically impossible because the more you do right, the more people want to take you out and it's just an impossible game to win. Those were his words in terms of that. And I really do think that in conjunction with, you know, when we're talking about the way that the game has been designed

in the new era, I do think that the producers maybe see this as potentially a problem where the ideal way to play this new era game has been for you to sort of lay in the weeds, sort of stay out of trouble, don't be the biggest threat, especially coming out of an era we talked about where the era that Aubrey was born into, the big moves era, this has been in the new era,

an era of sort of wait, wait, wait, wait, and at the end, one big move, and then ultimately tell your story about how you were waiting to make the big move and then you ultimately did. But this season, season 50, has also been a season about celebrating Rick Devons. And I just think that this idea of

the game is impossible, you're all going to lose, why are you playing so tight, why are you nervous, what are you scared of, you're not going to win anyway, you might as well do the move that is going to be the most fun. And I wonder if that Rick Devin's ties in a lot, not Rick Devin's personally,

and I'm sure we will see him in the 50s, but I wonder if this idea of the open era might be a little bit of an idea of, rather than a big moves era, could we be heading into Survivor's Big Swing era where that we are looking for to push more people from playing, the under the radar, I'm just going to wait to make my move right at the end into, hey, the game's

impossible. You have no idea what's going to come. You can't plan. All you can do is just go and try to make the most exciting moves and or television possible. And you want to be a Rick Devons. I've talked about this a lot over the course of the season where I feel like, and I don't think that Survivor is anti-Joe by any stretch of the imagination, but I think that there was really a, I'm surprised that Rick Devin's got a coin, but maybe he should have got a spirit of Survivor or trophy also last night, where Rick Devin's is the type of player. We're really pushing for people to emulate. And I do think that in the way we chased Russell clones after Russell played in season 19, and then we went for trying to find the next Russell,

and then we looked for Tony clones as well. We've looked for Cochran clones along the way. I do think that maybe we might be looking for more Rick Devon's types along the way. And I think that that might be a little bit of the open era. You can't at all predict what's going to happen. And so the only thing that you can do is flip the coin and do any sort of, wild and crazy things that you can do

because you may only get one chance to play this game and don't you want to be a legend of Survivor? And so I think that instead of necessarily like we're pushing people towards the types of big moves that Tony once made, I do think that maybe we might be pushing people more towards making the types of big swings. And Survivor sort of recognizes that while season 50

we had Aubrey played this game, which was really, I think a great game that was indicative of the era we came out of. I think that Survivor is trying to push the players towards a new phase of the game where we end up seeing forget this under the radar type of play that's going to get you the win like Aubrey got. I think we want to see more and more players go towards the game that Rick Devons got. And yes, it's risky, but the whole game is risky.

So the only thing that would be the ideal way to play a risky game is to be a risky type of player because that's the one thing you can control is the type of game that you play. Are players going to buy into that? I'm not sure. But I do think that we are going to be trying to get Survivor is going to push for more Rick Devon's types, I think going into season 51 and beyond. And then just to talk about the rest of, of the final five.

So my conversation with Jonathan was so interesting this morning and Jonathan I really, from my perspective, was licking his wounds a little bit this morning. Jonathan, I think, I'm not sure exactly what Jonathan, what happened last night that really

left Jonathan feeling so raw. Because I would have to imagine that he thought that this was going to be the outcome for some time. The crowd in the room was very pro Tiffany in the final five, and I think that that was a real bummer for Jonathan. I saw some of Jonathan's other interviews that he did. He talked about how Surrey,

he felt like had a lot of control on the jury, and he felt like that he really did play the best game. And he talked about this with me, and I think with Dalton Ross and with Mike Bloom, what did I do wrong? Why didn't I win the game? I think that Jonathan is still trying to come to turn. with that. And I had a really interesting conversation with him. And in that talk, I think he's looking

for the answer for why he lost. And listen, Jonathan is polarizing. And I think he's polarizing for probably a lot of reasons that go beyond Survivor. But I think that deep down, Jonathan is a very sensitive person. And I think that he doesn't understand what it is about him that makes people just sometimes immediately not like him. And I started to talk about this with him a little bit. And it's interesting, I think, as well, because in Survivor, of course, we have seasons of Survivor, David versus Goliath. I think that Survivor is a game that's really built to celebrate really the underdog in a lot of ways in the modern era.

I think that in the older days era of Survivor, that it wasn't really the underdog who was the main character of, you know, there were underdog stories, certainly, but you saw a lot of Tom Westmans and Boston Robs and people who were. were sort of like not necessarily the underdog, only so when the entire group ends up realizing, okay, this is the person who's the favorite. But Jonathan, just by the nature of who he is and his size, that it's really hard for the other players

to ever see him as the underdog who you want a award with the wins. I mean, you even saw that in season 42 when his team would win challenges, and you saw people like, oh yeah, of course they win. They have Jonathan. So I do feel for Jonathan. I said to him this morning,

there's not a lot of ways that I see myself in you, but the one area that I do empathize with Jonathan, or I shouldn't say empathize, but the one place where I see myself, you know, as being similar to Jonathan is wanting to get better. How do I keep improving? proving. How do I fix this? And he asked me the question of, you know, Mr. Rob, how do I win the game? And I really, I don't have the right answer for Jonathan. I told him that I think what he needs to do is to be about the other people where I think that rather than any, and I think he really was trying to prove like, hey, I beat you strategically. I tricked you, D. I, I, I, he was citing the thing.

things that he did to out smart people. But I think that this might sound like, does he need to out heart people? I know that this was not a winning game for Joe in either of the two seasons that he played. But I do wonder if, and again, maybe this is like Pollyannaish and this could never work where it didn't work for Joe in season 48, but Joe was sitting next to Kyle. But if Jonathan is looked at as the person. who took care of people while he was out there. And again, I know this is like very old school survivor,

but I do think that the jury votes for the person that they love the most. And, you know, if Jonathan, I think, played a little bit more from the heart. And I know he's very polite. And, you know, he's obviously he did this with Chrissy and with Stephanie and with coach. They loved him.

They were going to vote for him over everybody else. But for the rest of the players that it seemed like that Jonathan was not that much of a viable option for too many of them to vote for. I talked about this a little bit with Rizzo. I think that the best combination for Jonathan was Jonathan and Rizzo and Joe in the final three to have the guys there. And I'm not sure if Joe ends up getting any support from the jury, but I still think that Jonathan's ceiling ends up being, I don't think that Ozzy was going to vote for Rizzo.

So I think he picks up another vote there. And then maybe Aubrey votes for Jonathan over Rizzo, perhaps. But I still only see him getting to five. I do think that Rizzo ends up beating Jonathan in that final three scenario. So I think that Jonathan's ceiling seemed capped at a certain point with this particular group. And I just wonder if it's just like a couple more personal relationships. I think it's going to be very hard for Jonathan to ever play the middle. And I do think that that might be something that's necessary to win in the new era survivor.

Now, maybe just like Aubrey, maybe the game of Survivor changes enough so that's when the next time Jonathan plays. And I do get the sense that you will see Jonathan again, that maybe the game meets Jonathan where he is also a little bit, where in the same way that Aubrey's game might have been a little bit more suited to playing in the new era as opposed to when she played in the 30s in more of the big moves era, that maybe Aubrey, I'm trying to avoid the sun here,

that maybe ultimately Jonathan ends up coming back in an era where the type of game that he plays is a little bit more rewarded. But I do think that for Jonathan, I just think it's like a little bit more about how does he win the hearts of the other players. I think that he was fighting a battle in the final three to try to like, but my, my strategic game was there. And it's one of the things that, you know, I've talked about for a long time on the podcast. And I certainly talk about in the book.

And it goes back to I have to always give Sophie Clark the credit. Christian brought it up at the Final Traubic Council of the story that, and, And Jonathan's story was I played a different game than season 42. I was much more strategic in this game where Aubrey has this growth arc over 10 years of how she's played this game for 140 days and she played the middle. And she had all these great relationships. And I think that for Jonathan, it's just going to be hard for him always to craft the story of why he, wins the game over these other players where I just think because of his size, I think that people look at him. And honestly, there were other reasons too. I think you saw Jonathan getting frustrated

with the jury members. I don't think that he should have been highlighting about how he intentionally made D angry and that was a move that he made. So not to say anything about Jonathan played a perfect game, but I just in terms of Jonathan, they asked me the question of what are the things that he needs to do to improve for a third time out. And you know, it's, honestly, it's, it's, it's hard to, uh, to figure that one out for him. In terms of like the big players that won and again, I don't want to oversimplify and say that all of Jonathan's issues has to do with how people perceive him because of his size. But I'm trying to think of off the top of my head, who is just the biggest like person who won the game of, you know, the game of, you know,

survivor in terms of just being, you know, tall and strong. I guess maybe Ben and obviously Ben had, you know, some extenuating circumstances where he really is seen as the underdog and he ends up finding all of these idols. You know, Kyle is somebody who is the big guy, but I think that he was the big guy playing behind another big guy in Joe in season 48. And so that was something I think that also ends up really helping Kyle in his season, where if Kyle plays in a completely different season, maybe that Kyle ends up being seen as the big guy

who everybody else is feeling like the David going up against. I really enjoyed the conversations I had with Joe over the last couple of days as well. I think that Joe seems like that he's honestly in a better place after losing this time around than he was after he lost in season 48. And it seemed like that over the course of the season that Joe was having a hard time with this,

but again, I don't know, maybe it's all talk. It didn't feel like it was. Joe really feels like that he's in a good place. And I think that he sort of like had a realization at some point of like, like honestly, who cares about all this? I got a lot of stuff going on in my world. You know, there's a lot of things that are both serious with the things that Joe is doing to work on legislation about obviously his most important cause that he talks

about how the domestic violence situation that ended the life of his sister. And he has things that he's going through working on with Tyler Perry and obviously his work life. And it feels like that Joe, it seems like that there's a shift where he's like, what am I,

what do I care about all of this? Not to say he doesn't care, but like why am I getting bent out of shape about all of this? I think that Joe seems like that he's in a pretty healthy place. And obviously Rizzo seems like that he's in a good place

about everything. I think that he was a little shooketh after everything happened with Jeff and the snafu, I should say, during the episode last night, and I think that he's over

that. Rizzo, I think, is going to be great. I mentioned this at the end of my interview with him today that, you know, sometimes I worry about the young play, maybe this is like the dad in me. Sometimes I worry about the young people that come through Survivor. I've been around this thing for basically half of my life, more so, actually, at this

point, because they're from when I was a fan. And I've seen people come through this, and it's the greatest thing that ever happens to them. And I've seen people come through this, and it's the worst thing that ever happened to him. And there were times where I'm like, boy, this is a lot real fast for Rizzo to be a young guy and to come through it. But he seems like he's got a good head on his shoulders and he has a really great family and support system around him. So I do not worry about the R-I-Z-G-O-D-R-G-O-D-R-G-G-G-G-G-G-D-Riz God baby. And I think that, you know, it's a foregone conclusion. We will see him at some point in the future. And so I guess the season 50 finale, I think we're probably going to remember Jeff and the flub of the going and revealing that Rizzo

had lost in the firemaking before it actually happened. And ultimately, I think it's, I feel like it's a positive. I know that people, there's some theories that like, did Jeff do it on purpose? I don't think that Jeff would ever do anything like this on purpose. I think that Jeff maybe doesn't love the live reunion show and didn't want to do more live reunion shows. I don't think that Jeff needed to have a moment like this to,

say that I don't want to do more live reunion shows. I think there's a lot of reasons why Jeff might like doing it in Fiji and just having it done and saving a lot of survivor money and not having the issues like this and everything that goes into doing the live reunion show. But I think that ultimately it ends up being a moment. I think we're all going to remember and it's spectacle. And I think that you need to give people reasons to, like I don't think you do things like this on purpose. But I think it ends up being someone of these like, communal moments that we're all going to remember forever. And I hope it doesn't overshadow Aubrey's win and Aubrey's Big Night.

But I think it's just going to be something that for the end of days, we'll talk about the time that Jeff gave away that Rizzo was going to be out in the Final Four Firemaking before we got to see it in the episode. And so I think we saw some survivor history on another survivor first, last night. So season 50 is in the books. Was it the season that we all wanted it to be? I'm not quite sure. I think that for most of us purists, we would have liked to have seen a cleaner game. I don't know necessarily how they could have done that with playing with 24 players in 26 days. I think in hindsight, could you have done 30 days and made that work? I think there was probably a way to do it

if you were married to having 24 players came back. I do think that everybody played hard, and I don't think that anybody really phoned it in for season 50. I think that Jeff was right about that. And while we can quibble with all of the production decisions along the way, the thing that I'm going to take away from all of this is just how excited everybody was and how much energy and enthusiasm there was in season 50.

And I really was hoping that we can carry that. forward into season 51. I think the jury is out as to whether or not the open era and season 51 is going to be able to deliver on that. I just hope that we are able to, you know, keep just some of this momentum going into season 51 because I really had the best time getting to talk about it with all of you. And so thank you so much for coming with me on this journey to talk about my thoughts after the season 50 finale. If you haven't checked it out yet, I wrote a book about Survivor.

It's not the obstacle is the way. It is called The Tribe and I have spoken, and it's all about my look at 25 plus years of Survivor History and Lore and Legacy and the evolution of the show, and there's a strategy guide in there too. It's available in hardcover and as an audiobook as well.

well. So if you're looking for some survival, now that season 50 is in the books, maybe you can pick up a book to replace Survivor for you this summer. We're going to have plenty more survivor content along the way as well. So we'll look for much more next week, including a WAND off, including a season 50 postseason mailbag. Thank you for watching this. And I can't wait to read what you have to say in the comments. Thanks a lot. Bye.