RHAP: We Know Survivor - Is Sandra Diaz-Twine the Survivor GOAT?

Episode Date: June 14, 2026

Is Sandra Diaz-Twine the Survivor GOAT? What happens when a two-time Survivor champion gets underestimated again and again, yet finds her way to the end? On this special “Who’s the GOAT?” episode of Survivor coverage, host Rob Cesternino is joined by Survivor analyst Mike Bloom for a heated exploration of Sandra Diaz-Twine’s complex legacy. With Survivor at a historic moment, Rob and Mike dig into what really makes someone the greatest of all time — and whether Sandra’s unique journey across seasons cements her as the GOAT. Right from the start, Rob defends Sandra’s title with the argument that her “perfectly imperfect” gameplay is her strength, not her weakness. He breaks down how Sandra’s reputation as non-threatening let her fly under the radar, while Mike pushes back, questioning whether her lack of control and challenge prowess should count against her. They analyze Sandra’s infamous “anybody but me” strategy and talk about her adaptability at camp, her fiery attitude at Tribal Council, and her knack for surviving even when her allies fell away. Key moments discussed include Sandra’s pivotal moves in Pearl Islands and Heroes vs. Villains, her massive swing (and miss) against Denise in Winners at War, and the ongoing debate: Does Survivor reward flashy strategists, steady survivors, or something in between? Key moments: – Rob argues Sandra’s weaknesses actually shielded her and let her advance through tough votes – Mike examines whether relying on bigger targets like Russell or Fairplay is a benefit or a crutch – Discussion of Sandra’s historic losses of close allies, yet her consistent endgame presence – The Denise idol move in Winners at War and how it changed Sandra’s modern legacy – Debate over whether survival and “threat management” trump winning challenges and making big moves Will Sandra’s under-the-radar, resilient game stand the test of time as Survivor’s best template for winning? Or do other legendary players like Tony or Parvati have the edge with flashier resumes? Tune in as Rob and Mike weigh strategy, luck, and legacy in the ongoing search for the real Survivor GOAT! Chapters: 0:00 Sandra Diaz-Twine: Survivor GOAT Debate 2:10 Sandra as Polarizing Survivor Winner 4:15 Building the Ideal Survivor Player 8:18 Sandra’s Imperfect Path to Greatness 12:10 “Anybody But Me” Strategy Explained 15:00 Sandra’s Pre-Merge Challenge Struggles 18:59 Target Grows As Two-Time Winner 24:53 How Players Underestimate Sandra 26:27 Sandra Survives Without Dictating Votes 31:48 Denise Vote: Sandra’s Bold Move 38:24 Sandra’s Perception Versus Reality 44:53 Sandra’s Game Inspires New Era 51:14 Would Sandra Beat Different Finalists? 54:25 Sandra versus Tony and Parvati 1:00:00 Sandra’s Lasting Survivor Legacy 1:10:09 Rob Reflects on Sandra’s Humility 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!

Hey everybody, what's going on? Rob Cestradino, we are back. We're talking about who's the goat, who's the greatest survivor player of all time? And today, we are going to have a discussion about is the greatest player of all time? Sandra Diaz Twine. And here to talk about it. If the queen does stay queen, here he is. Give it up from Mike.

Bloom. Thrill to be here, Rob. I know last week I got the great pleasure of vehemently defending Tony's two-time winning honor, but now Rob, you get to say I can get loud to what the F in this week's podcast. WTF, and so we will be talking about it. I will be telling you why I think that Sandra is the goat. Mike will be tasked to give you the devil's advocate. Maybe why Sandra might not be the goat.

AKA, I don't know about that. I don't know about that. but we are going to talk about that here today. Mike, how you doing? I'm doing well. It's been a busy first week of June. I feel like the concept of off-season is becoming more and more of a mythical creature.

But what I will say is I enjoy the ability to stay kind of firmly swimming in the survivor waters. And especially with 50 being such a celebrational time, I think this is a, you know, we're only two people in out of five. At this point, maybe even more, because we are continuing to get suggestions as to should so and so be included

should so and so be included. But it's been a lot of fun to be able to talk through the legacies of some of these people. And I think we've got some good reception from our Tony podcast and hopefully the good times will keep on rolling

as the walls get reversed here. Yeah. All right. Well, yeah, we're having a lot of fun here. Also, Chappelle and I are well underway with our Survivor Co-Rong rewatch. And so be sure to check that out. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, here on R-H-A-P.

But Mike, look, today we're going to talk about Sandra. And Sandra has always been such a polarizing figure. Really, maybe not so polarizing prior to Heroes v. Villains. But after Heroes v. Villains, especially, especially when she became the two-time winner of Survivor, the first and only two-time winner at that point in Survivor's history, that there was discourse of should Parvety have won, Heroes versus Villains, is Sandra even that good? She's the two-time winner, and it really has been a debate that has gone on for quite some time,

and then ultimately she comes back and then has kind of like a second act in her survivor career of her game changers and winners at war run where we see a different side of Sandra. But I really am looking forward to this task today of explaining. why I do think Sandra is the goat. Yeah, I mean, as you mentioned, I think of perhaps all of these players, this is one of the most hotly contested subjects, considering that this is the discussion that has been had in the survivor community for the better part of 16 years, where, yes, I certainly think in seasons past,

there were a lot of debates as to, does the best player win, is so-and-so a better player than the person that they won over? But yeah, this became a much larger part of the conversation of like, okay, Sandra is certifiably, the check was cleared multiple times over. She is the first two-time winner in American Survivor history. Does that automatically make her the best player of all time? And now I think it's even more interesting discussion considering that we now have two other people who have also won two times.

So, Mike, I'd love to start this discussion. And maybe we could put Sandra just like, on the back burner. Put her off to the side for a minute. I want to have to do an exercise with you. That's where it always goes wrong, Rob. The minute we underestimate her, the minute she's sitting in the final two or final three. But I think let's get, that's our main course.

And I want to just do a quick exercise that I want to work with you on the exercise of let's go into, let's build a player here for Survivor. And what I want to do is sort of like build the perfect

survivor player. And so if we're going to build this perfect survivor player. I want to ask you some attributes that we should have. Okay, what do we start with in terms of their temperament? What kind of temperament ideally would this person have? So this is something that we got into a little bit with the Tony discussion, right? And I don't necessarily think, you know, there is a one-size-fits-all type of personality. This, to me, kind of goes hand-in-hand with a social game part of it.

So what I would say in terms of temperament is to go back to the first thing I said, I think they could have the capacity to get loud to what the F, but I think they need to have a personality that allows them to seem sociable and likable to a majority of people around them. They may not be able to please everybody, but if they get along with most personalities, that is a winning quality. Okay. What kind of athlete, athletic specimen should we have in this perfect survivor,

player. I mean, you're picking at one of my biggest spoiler alert arguments in the anti-colum with the lovely Sandra is that I do think when it comes to either the perfect player for this exercise or the greatest player, I do think, you know, if you're trying to like create a D&D character, I don't want any dub stats. I don't want to necessarily, you know, put all into a couple of baskets at the expense of others. And so I do think, honestly, challengeability is something that should have a specific level that they should be operating at. We did not talk about this last time, but something that should be mentioned about someone like Tony

as an example that I neglected to bring up is the fact that he didn't win any challenges in his first season, but in his second win, he did win for individual immunity challenges. Not to say you need to be a record-breaking all-time challenge performer, but I do think having the ability to hold your own, especially from an individual challenge perspective, is a facet that I would want to have in the perfect player. What about in terms of, for lack of a better term, what about book smarts?

What do we, like a perceived, like obvious intelligence that you see them and you just go right away. Okay, this person is very sharp. Ooh, because that is such an interesting question because I feel like nowadays that is such a trope that could be used. against somebody, right? We certainly have seen people with that perceived bookishness go on to win in the form of John Cochran. But I also do feel like nowadays, with the casting

that exists within Survivor, the waters have become a little bit more muddied, or at least the pool has been deepened, where now it is it like, here's Ryan's shoulders and a bunch of you know, buff hot men. It's more so kind of casting the net wide in terms of that archetype, which does make them

seem less threatening. I don't necessarily need to look at a player as being, you know, an accountant in terms of knowing where all the numbers are and what they need to do to figure something out. It is a good skill to have. But I think because Survivor is such an innately personal, social day-to-day game, I think I would value honestly street smarts above book smarts. You can study up on everything that you want to, but I think the ability to have that application is honestly more essential than having the smarts in general. All right. Well, you didn't walk into exactly what I was hoping you would.

But I do feel like in a lot of ways, I feel like you're helping to illuminate my point in that I think that the most perfect survivor that you could possibly imagine probably does not appear the same as Sandra Diaz Twine. And I think that what makes Sandra the goat of Survivor is that she is, perfectly imperfect. And I think that the very things that hold back the players who just get clocked immediately as the threats, the people we have to deal with, the people we can't let them get to the end, we got to do something about these players.

I think that's Sandra, that her imperfections are a feature, not a bug. and I think that that is why that she is able to capitalize on the perceptions that people have about her to become survivors' most dangerous player. And that is the reason why I believe she's been able to win two times and is such a model prototype for what the ideal survivor player is. Yeah, I mean, you got to do this great panel at Tribeca Festival, point now the previous week. And you brought up a very interesting point when you were asked about like, what is Outweight Outplay Outlast mean in the modern days? Yeah, and you emphasize that

Outlast is really one of the most like new era coded concepts where it's maybe it's less so about you need to have your hands around this game at all times or you need this big room on your resume. Sometimes, especially with some of the stuff being thrown of you as of late, it's more so like make it to another day for lack of a better term, as long as it's not. not me. And so I think from that capacity, from a pure survivability perspective, Sandra does possess that. Now, something I'm intrigued to hear about from you, Rob, is that I personally, from the corner of, again, maybe not completely reflective of my opinions of Sandra, but from this role that I've been thrust into, how would you feel if I said that I feel like

the least impressive performances that Sandra has had in terms of a skill set in her survivor career are from the two seasons she won. The least impressive skills. Yeah, well, I almost, I think that what she did that was so impressive in winners at war and at, and in game changers, I think that was very impressive to the viewer. But I think that she ultimately got away from the thing that makes her the greatest of all time. I think that Sandra in those other two seasons, and I actually feel like in Winners at War,

she actually had a really good chance. I had things not gone awry there with Denise in that one particular vote. I think that she has actually set up particularly well. But I think that there ends up being this pushback of like, well, I have to show people what it is that I am capable of doing. And I think that she ends up taking on a role that isn't necessarily the classic Sandra that I do believe personifies the goat. What are those facets? Does it come down to, as you

mentioned, like threat management and ability to feel underestimated, not need to necessarily be that person dictating the votes? So I almost feel like that I don't believe that Sandra went before she played Survivor. I don't believe that she sat and thought about, you know what's going to be the ideal strategy for me? I don't think that Sandra is somebody who spends a lot of time planning out what's going to happen. I think Sandra is probably one of the preeminent survivors at being able to live in the moment of that she's concerned with what's happening now.

She never gets too far ahead of herself. She's not out there thinking of, okay, that I'm going to do this, then I'm going to do this, then I'm going to do this. Her strategy, we all know anybody but me, is just about how do I get through today? How do I get through this one vote and advance to the next round of Survivor? And we have seen so many survivor players over the course of the years who get really caught up in, okay, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this, and then they have blinders on, and they're just not focused enough on the present moment of Survivor.

And I think that's one of Sandra's greatest strengths in the game. And so I don't know if she necessarily is the master at perceiving this person is the biggest threat. Thus, I am going to eliminate them. That her game is not really one of agency. Her game is one of surviving and authenticity. and it's just where if somebody else is driving. And again, I don't even think that this is necessarily what she wants to do. I don't think that she comes in and this is my plan.

I'm going to go and sit in the end with Russell. In that season, in here in Pearl Islands, that that is not even what she wanted. But yet that she is a master of ultimately, when we're talking about if the objective is winning the game that she is built to survive and advance and go to the end and win this game. In the case of game changers, I think she does go to like an obscene amount of tribal councils also. And if you were going to call out a flaw anywhere, you know, her lack of challengeability, which I do think becomes a strength post-merge could lead her to potentially scenarios.

where she goes to pre-merged tribal councils, and I think that that does play out in Survivor Game Changers. I don't have it open in front of me of how many times she does go to a pre-merged tribal council, but I think she must be a five or six. Yeah, I'm pretty sure she goes to tribal in every episode except for the Beesmo a Cowboy boot. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so she does end up getting unlucky that she's not matched up with people who can carry her where in a perfect world, that she gets to sit out of challenges. We have the Sandra Bench, that's really is like, oh, that's the best case scenario for her as a player. Game changes just happened to be the time where she had to go to so many of those drop-up councils.

And she probably had to take the reins more so than you would want for Sandra, for her to have her most successful chances to win. Yeah, that's really the thing I want to hone in on. I mean, as I mentioned before, you know, I personally believe that the goat survivor player is somebody who, again, I don't need to necessarily have a record-breaking challenge performer in that category, but someone who is, you know, if they need to rely on it, or if they need to win something to stymie or help a plan that they are trying to help along, they certainly could. We see this in the case of Tony winning, I think, in a case where, like, if he hadn't done the

extortion advantage, then Jeremy would have won, and that could have shot his whole Sophie plan to Sunshine there. think for Sandride is a bit of a mark against her that she doesn't necessarily have those abilities to be able to rely on. And in fact, I would say like, as we talk about all of her subsequent heroes versus villains performances, it is interesting that like, yes, you could argue that all three times a swap works out in a weird way and she ends up going. But I looked at like her performance on Australian Survivor as an example. And yes, it sucks that she had done a few things and put herself in a power position that easily got swapped.

But there's a confessional from Jordy where he's listing out the reasons to get rid of Sandra. And one of them is that she is a challenge liability. And so I think that is something that I do agree that I think perhaps some unforced errors have led to Sandra's, you know, not such great success in her latter day seasons. But the premarge is always going to be a tough time for her. I would argue the premurge for any of these five players we're going to be talking about. Sandra is the most consistently vulnerable in a pre-merge scenario. Yes, she is. But I will say that let's talk about,

I want to talk about her lack of ability to win immunity challenges after the merge next. Yeah, it is a hole in her game in terms of being able to win challenges in the pre-merge. That being said, I think that she has in the past. identified this. She doesn't necessarily put herself into positions where she could be the person who's screwing up the challenge. She very willing, although she'll tell you that she can swim better than Johnny Fairplay. She will willingly sit out of the challenge.

She will often align with strong men in the premurge who will help with carrying her through some of these different premurge challenges. So the pre-merge challenge can be a liability, can cause her to go to tribal councils. It hasn't hurt her too much. You know, Game Changers is, it just got so, we have to go so many times to tribal council. Yeah, I mean, I certainly see that. I do look at game changers as an example where, yes, Sandra does go. She stays on the same beach, but now she's in a very disadvantageous position.

position. It should be said, though, and this is the same case with Australian Survivor as well. Like, she, it's not like it was only her and then a bunch of people on the opposite side. There are people around her. Listen, I think we'd all love to live in the universe where maybe Jeff Varner gets voted out there instead of Sandra. But there's a reason why, in my opinion, that in those scenarios, yes, the numbers don't work out in her favor, but Sandra is the first person targeted in both of those scenarios. And it comes from, as you mentioned before, that threat management perspective. I think that, again, we can talk about this with Sandra's two wins. I think she is a master of threat management in those regards, but I think something that takes away from it is the fact that that threat management,

it's weird because we sit there in the first five or six episodes of any given season being like, why is nobody going after Sandra yet? But then once a new group of players get brought in front of her, then they immediately say, oh, that's Sandra, we have to get rid of her. I don't think that's particularly a coincidence. Yeah. You know, by the time we get to Survivor Game Changer, She's already won twice.

She is the only two-time winner in the show. How many winner other winners are still... Is she the only winner left at that point? I think J.T. is gone. Tony is gone. Yeah, so at the second swap, yeah, she's the only winner left. She's the only winner left in the game. It just is kind of like an obvious vote there.

There's really nothing that she's able to do in that spot. I mean, I don't know any player in that position that would be able to get out of. of the scenario that she's in. There's a lot of swaps going on in game changers. It's, I mean, what else could you say? I mean, you could certainly, you know, see on clear display some of her other talents in this season.

She's not going to help you win a challenge. And eventually this just, you know, it came up snake eyes for her at this particular moment in Zyver Game Changers. I mean, it makes sense that Sandra is a paralegal because her question of choice every time she goes to a challenge is, may I approach the bench? Yeah. Just, I mean, that group that she's with, she's with Zeke and Sarah and Ozzie and Andrea and Ty, and they're like, what are we doing here? We're going to let Sandra get any further? I mean, and I think that is the question that we need to ask with her latter three performances is, yes, the circumstances work out how they do.

We can certainly talk about the winners at war its own solitary thing. That is a little bit more self-inflicted, obviously, than the other two seasons. But I guess the question is, was Sandra going to walk into any of those three seasons able to replicate her success? Or was this always going to be a manner of,

at the end of day, no matter who is sitting in front of her, eventually everyone would be like, well, we can all agree she's Sandra. She's got to go. Yeah, it becomes kind of a difficult thing to navigate where she's now so successful. I mean, we talked about Tony the other day. We've never had to watch Tony play

or only an Australian Survivor as a two-time winner. Once you reach that level, the burden it becomes on you becomes maybe insurmountable. I don't know if we'll ever have a three-time winner. I think that you end up having

a certain level of success, and people are just not going to let you play the game anymore. And so I'd love to talk more about Sandra and what she brings to the table more so than how has she been able to navigate with the anchor of being the two-time winner holding her back and making her an even bigger target in people's eyes. Because I think that it almost flies in the face of what made her the greatest player, in my

opinion, is that she is so perfectly imperfect. And she's rough around the edges. And I think that the queen's crown ultimately ends up being kind of a shiny object. And the Game Changers game ends up becoming, okay, well, now I have to play a different style of play. It's not going to work for me to just be the model of Sandra that was so successful. But I think that that model in particular of Sandra, the Sandra 1.0 and even 2.0 is, the model of what the perfect survivor ends up being. Because I think that people are, as you mentioned earlier,

that it's so easy to underestimate her. Many players have been doomed. They look at Sandra and they see her flaws. They see the game is flawed. And they want to take, they're not scared of her. that they don't see her as being sharp. They don't see her as being somebody who can win challenges, and they don't see her potential to win votes with the jury.

They see that she's fighting with people. They see a lack of a social game. And players historically had looked at her, and they see all of the things that she's not. And they don't see that for the sum of the parts, which ultimately ends up making her so dangerous. And the fact that she's not intimidated. Well, I want to say in two different ways,

that the concept of her as a player is not intimidating. And so people are not going to put together a big plan or waste a vote. There's an opportunity cost to vote out Sandra. We'll get her. That she's not a threat. she's not going to win the challenges. She doesn't have anything.

We'll get rid of her later. It helps her. It behooves her that she can't win these challenges in the post-merge game. But ultimately, that she just gets further and further along until the point where that people took her to the end. Jonny, that Lil took her to the end. Russell took her to, they wanted to sit with her at the end because they felt like that they, They could beat her. They wanted to, maybe in the case of Lil,

it was that I'd rather lose to her than Johnny Fairplay. But Russell went out of his way and felt like that he told Sandra that, you know, I'm going to go to the end with you because I can beat you. And Sandra said, I don't know about that. She gets people to do the thing. And we're going to talk about Surrey in a couple of weeks and think about Surrey. Nobody ever wanted to sit next to Surrey. She's too perfect.

Yeah, I mean, I think that that certainly speaks to the way she was being perceived out there, yet not that thin line, right, that you hope with every survivor player of like, I want to be underestimated, but I don't want to be counted out. I don't want to be so out of it that I'm looked at as a goat. I want actually have a fighting chance, but I don't want everyone else to know that. I think the question I have, though, is how was Sandra in those winning seasons able to utilize that positioning to her benefit? because I think a marker against Sandra's two winning seasons compared to the other people that we're going to talk to or talk about, especially from Tony's two wins, Poverty's two wins, Boston Rob's win,

and a lot of stuff that Cerey's been able to do, is the, I'm not even going to say lack of control. I would say lessened control compared to others during the post-merge. Pearl Islands, she loses Rupert, she loses Krista. And yes, that was a very tumultuous, fluidy type of post-merge, but I would argue that Sandra wasn't necessarily dictating or helping a lot of stuff until the final couple of votes. Heroes versus villains.

Infamously, she goes to the heroes and says, here's all the information I have. She says at the final tribal council, my goal was to get Russell out, and it wasn't something she was able to put the pieces together on. Do you think that her, you know, the fact that she was not able to necessarily take control of some of these moves in the most important portion of the game,

Does that serve as a mark against or compared to the other people we're talking about in this series? It's one of the most difficult things to untangle when we're ranking Survivor players. I know in the evolutionist strategy, I did this. And it's easy when we can go back and take a look at your Tom Westman's or Kim Spradlin's or even Boston Rob. It's like, hey, this is what I want to have happen. I'm going to pull the levers. I'm going to manipulate. and I'm going to make what I want to have happen happen.

And that is a very valid and interesting way to watch a person play Survivor. But ultimately, it's not the only way to play the game. And it's a very high variance way to play Survivor of if everything goes according to plan, then you've got a really good shot to win the game. It's not always going to work. And I think that what Sandra had proved is that, yeah, is she controlling the votes?

No. Is what she wants to have happening? No. But she survives. She ultimately thrives. And so what's the better skill set to have? Like, would you rather have like, okay, I want to dictate everything that's going to go on, but it's a 50-50 chance of if it works.

works great, but if not, I'm totally effed. Or that, hey, things are going to go haywire. Things are not going to go well, but you're going to be okay. And it's, there's like a reassurance of that, you know, Mike, that the bird lands on a branch. and the bird doesn't necessarily know if the branch is going to hold it or not, but the bird is secure because even if the branch breaks, the bird's going to be okay. Bird's going to fly, okay?

And that's Sandra where she doesn't necessarily have or need the safety net that so many of these other players do that are going up there and taking the big swings, because even when it takes, doesn't go well. Even when she ends up, you know, going for something, she's willing to reverse course, I guess I'm stuck with Russell. Like, I'm stuck with Russell. And she can turn around and she can accept it. She doesn't have to like it. But she finds a way through the hard times. And there is a perseverance to Sandra that they're just, that these home run hitters that you talk about, they call their shots, they're going out there and this is the plan, this is the big move,

this is the person I need to take out. Sure, like, if it works, great. And if it doesn't, you're screwed. Sandra is basically your all-weather survivor player of no matter what ends up happening, she's able to figure out a way to maneuver through and get by. I mean, it's a, God, this is going to be so weird to pull out of baseball reference, but it's like comparing like Murakami to Kevin McGonigal this season of like, these are two rookies, one hits a bunch of big bombs, but sometimes they strike out. The other one gets on base a lot. They're not going to hit it out of the park, but they're...

You know, maybe the more timeless baseball reference is that we're talking like Moneyball, where that when the Yankees were like, we're paying big money, we need Jason Giambi, we need our sluggers, we need people that are going to, yeah, they're going to, you know, hit 40 home runs. And they're going to strike out 200 times. And Billy Beansley, just give me people that get on base. That's really, as long as they're not making it out, I don't care if they walk, I don't care if they get hit by the pitch.

I don't care if they, you know, hit slow grounders and they just beat them out in the infield doesn't matter because they're not making it out. And that is when we look at Sandra's track record, especially over those first two seasons, that she's just the player that it doesn't look pretty. it's not impressive to watch most of the time, but she doesn't do the one thing that we judge survivor players on is that she doesn't get voted out.

So to that point, I do see what you're talking about here, but what I think that is going to really bring this argument home is the fact that I don't think any of us are disputing like Sandra is an incredible player. There is a reason why we're talking about her right now. I do think the fact that she has won twice is absolutely no coincidence.

I think the question is, is she the best among them? And I think when you look at the other people that we're talking about, they have this variability where they also have the capacity to fly. There's no ostriches among this group. They, yes, are able to build their nest, but they also have the ability to take off the branch if they need to. The issue I see with Sandra is that, yes, I think that she doesn't necessarily need to be the person that is calling the shots,

but when we see one very large example of her trying to sort of fit herself into the mold that we have seen with some of these other players, it goes catastrophically wrong. Rob, how am I supposed to digest this Denise move in winners at war when it comes to taking on the full meal of Sandra as a possible goat? Listen, it's a ambitious swing that she ends up taking. And I think that may be the fatal flaw that she ends up having here is that she does not see herself as the person that the other players, specifically Denise ends up seeing her as. So if I go back to that vote, let me just give the reminder there to everyone. everybody. Come on, Colby, give it to me. Yeah. Sandra

in Winters at War and I'm just trying to find the actual vote from that episode and I am struggling with that right at this moment. So what happens, Mike? She ends up giving

that she has an idol. Yes, that was given to her. It was offered to her from the edge. I believe that that she paid for with fire tokens. Yes, and then also Denise already had an idol. But Sandra did not know this.

So basically what happened was in the swap tribe, it was her, Tony, Kim, Jeremy, and Denise. And then basically they try to form this quote unquote Lions group saying like Tony, Sandra, Kim, and Jeremy, they're, you know, the best of the best. So Denise is an easy, odd one out. Not to mention that Kim, Sandra, and Tony all came from the same starting tribe. but Sandra wants to try to, you know,

make this lightning strike twice and get Tony out again. And so she sells her own, she tries to basically pay it forward and have Denise pay her by saying, I'll sell you my idol for two fire tokens. You use it, save yourself, and you vote out Tony. Yeah. And not only does this go wrong where, you know,

Denise plays an idol on Jeremy, plays an idol on herself, and votes out Sandra. But also, a thing that I forgot about until recently relitigating it is that Sandra asked for two fire tokens. Denise said, how about one now and one later?

And Sandra actually agreed to it. So she also left with 50% of what she was offering. Listen, she wasn't going to the edge. The fire tokens weren't doing her any good anyway. So that, look, Sandra knows her way around deals. I'm not going to quibble with that. Yeah, look.

If it worked, it looks really good. She had a bad read on Denise. And I think that ultimately, I think that Sandra was thinking, yeah, why would you get rid of me at this point? I mean, that Denise ultimately goes further into the game. I mean, yes, she was able to, as Jonathan coined it in season 50, she put a notch on her belt by getting rid of Sandra. And Denise, great job. you got out Sandra and you ended up leaving in the person who was going to win the entire game. And so I'm not sure necessarily if it was a good move for Denise.

I guess Sandra left herself open to that possibility. And that's probably the, you know, that's survivor baby of that you can't, you can lead the horse to water. You can't make them drink. And it ends up being just too juicy of a move for Denise to ultimately get Sandra out in, in this move when I guess looking back I think that voting out Tony

like Sandra did have it right you know Denise ultimately you got to you know what should she have done I mean Sandra's trying to keep Denise around

Denise is says no good deed goes unpunished it was a big swing I mean it definitely was a big swing and look it was fun to watch and I love Sanchez blowing off the edge because she doesn't necessarily need that BS.

She says, listen, I'm going to, when I do extract it, I'm going to be in the comfy in the bunker. I'm not going to be the one out there roughing it. I don't need to live more on Survivor if I can help it. And not for anything that, yeah, she ends up getting double crossed by Denise. But when we're talking about Tony, the greatest of all time, Sandra had him dead to rights twice, where that she gets him out in Survivor Game Changers. He would have been totally blindsided here. I remember in the real time,

I think we were looking at this as potentially an advantage get-in for Tony. I think we were thinking like, oh my God, like Tony, the King of idols. Yeah, because Kim also had an idol. Yeah, that he didn't have an idol. Kim had an idol, and then Denise and Sandra ultimately had one.

And I think we were thinking that maybe if Jeremy won individual immunity here, or there was like maybe a scenario where that he could... He may have had the safety without power at that point, I can't remember. That's right. That's right. So he had States with that power.

Kim had an idol. Denise had an idol. And so we were concerned. San Sandra had an idol. Yeah. So I think, though, that's perfectly on display, the pure irony of where Sandra's journey had gotten her to that point, where for succeeding so much from being underestimated,

and people completely. misestimating not only where she stood in the competition, but how she felt about them, that they felt comfortable enough that she's going to want to work with me, only to realize that she'll swear on her kids that she's going to screw you and Burton. Sandra did the exact same thing to Nise here.

I think that Sandra, for someone who, again, puts forward this whole strategy of self-sufficiency, independence, as long as it's not me, I'll dump out the fish, I'll blame it on my closest ally. It's fine as long as you don't write down Sandra's name. here she is putting herself out there incredibly so sticking her neck out unnecessarily to be like I want this thing to happen to the cost of my own game and that feels like again her inability to carry forward with that I think could be a mark against her considering that we have seen other players

be able to do that to make those risks you know looking at what tony has been able to do over the course of his two wins yeah and succeed yes it is one of the only blemishes on sandra's record but it is a large blemish at that. I'll say that maybe this is a thing that Sandra needs to work on for future Survivor Play. I think that she has a bit of body of work dysmorphia.

And I think that she maybe sees her perception of herself being a little bit more like the original versions of Sandra. And maybe she doesn't necessarily look at herself in the way that the other

other players see her as, oh, this is this very scary two-time winner of the game. And so maybe in that moment, she just was not thinking about how Denise was perceiving her, especially in all-winners season, that maybe that she wasn't thinking of herself as the big, scary monster that Denise needed to worry about in this spot. And I don't know if Denise and Tony even had a relationship at that point. I think that Denise had been on the other tribe and then Tony and Sandra had played together. So, you know, listen, that she had a bad read on Denise.

I think that when we talk about all of these players that are up for consideration, I think they all have at least one time, one thing that they wish they would have had back where it doesn't end up going that great. I mean, we haven't gotten to poverty. She gets voted out in this same episode here. in Winners at War. And so Sandra took this swing.

She is trying to set herself up here in the all-winter season. I think if it works, I think she ultimately has a decent shot to get at it. But I think that this was just a little bit of not necessarily adapting how she sees herself with where her resume ended up taking her. So I want to transition here because there is the, as long as it's not me, but I think Sandra is also able to benefit in her first two seasons from as long as it's not that guy. Because I don't think it's a coincidence that in both of her winning seasons, there was this villainous, megalomaniacal hyper strategist who she had her game largely associated with,

who she often had a cantankerous relationship with, but still these men felt like they could utilize her moving forward in the form of Johnny Fairplay, in the form of Russell Hans, both third-place finishers in their own right. You spoke before about how Russell in particular was one of the most vocal people to say, like, I'm keeping Sandra in the game because I know that I can take her to the end and I can beat her, which is one of the many things he would get wrong in proper jury assessment. I guess the question I have here, Rob, is, do you think that in a season that did not possess that specific type of player, would Sandra be able to replicate this success?

How much was she able to benefit from the fact that she was able to allow these guys to kind of commit self-sabotage, that there were these types of people that she was able to really supplicate herself in front of seemingly? Not just that. I'll also say that she ends up beating Lil in the Final Tribal Council, who is a player who was voted out,

who ends up coming back into the game. And I think that that also helped Sandra's case in Survivor Pearl Islands. but I think it is a testament to Sandra and the type of game that she played and that she won when she won, going back until, as they call it, the single digies, back in season seven of Survivor, that the way Sandra won was not necessarily the way people won the show. she ends up being, is she the first player to have won the game without winning individual immunity? I'm trying to think Tina never won individual immunity.

I think she did win it. I think she won the perch. She won the perch. She won the perch. And she was a pretty tough lady, Tina Wesson. And I think that Sandra ends up being the first winner to end up winning without having won a challenge.

and I think that she ends up, her game ends up being more of the model for where Survivor ultimately ends up going than it even was at the time that she played. Russell famously said that when Jeff pointed out that Sandra won twice, he said, if she can win twice, then that means the game is flawed. I think that the Sandra model has become even more of the way that the game is played in the new era. And so when you say that, well, potentially she needs an antagonist like a Russell or a Johnny Fairplay to really thrive. But I think that even though Aubrey said Surrey was the greatest, not Sandra or Tony, I think that the game that Aubrey played that we just saw in Survivor 50 had a lot of the same DNA that the game that the classic Sandra game ends up being, where that she didn't necessarily have the warm and fuzzy social relationships. When things were on her mind, she kind of said what she thought along the way.

She was on the bottom. She wasn't necessarily perceived as somebody who was directing things and people didn't really see her as somebody that they needed to worry about. Ultimately, that Aubrey does end up winning some motion at the end of this game, but she's able to stand there and she kept it real. She has a great story. And I feel like that the Sandra style of gameplay is all over the new era. Yeah, I mean, I think, again, in a mindset especially where so much is being,

thrown your way, I think it's incredibly tough. That's why we really pride people like D and Kyle, because it's such an unconventional game in this day and age, though you have to wonder how much of that is just spurred upon the ideas that production is putting forward of like, you never know what day will come, so therefore you have to go with more of this Sandra motto. So maybe it may not necessarily be a prevalent strategy across all of Survivor as much as maybe modern-day circumstances. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And I think that... I know that this is talking about the actual person of who is the greatest of all time. But I think that Sandra, the idea, is actually the most powerful thing. And Sandra, the idea is the perfect way to be playing Survivor, where that you are just completely adaptable and the... ability to just land on your feet no matter what ends up happening and to have this ability where so much a survivor is taking out the threats. I made a video this past week where I tried to go through and clock everybody's winning percentage over the course of the game. And as you got more likely to win the game, the players are so smart that they are able to also deduce,

oh, okay, so this person is now the most likely player to win the game. And so now we have to make sure that they aren't the person who ends up going home. So while Sandra the person has collected trophies and accolades and ends up becoming a much more menacing threat because of what she's done in the past, it's this idea of being a Sandra that I think is the most powerful thing, where that being perfectly imperfect where people look at you and they aren't threatened by you and that they aren't afraid to continue to let you progress on your journey. Because once everybody decides, hey, you got to go, there's very little you're able to do at that point. And the thing also about Sandra, and I think also Michelle has this a lot,

where that they are not intimidating in terms of a body of work. But if you are to ever imply that they are not intimidating, they will defend themselves with a ferocity that you will wish that you did not ever cross them. And I think that that's a really powerful thing, especially at the tribal councils, where we see that the jury looks at that, and that person is not a pushover. They're not going to take any crap from people. And so the fact that they often are not the person who is being seen as the decider, and then they're also speaking truth to power often,

it becomes a thing where that part of their game really does, even though it is not what you would typically imagine of a person being this perfect, charismatic, likable, gets along with everybody, that that feciness, even though that they have a game and a resume that may not necessarily be the type of thing, that you can defend greatly, they are very protective over their reputation

and they're not going to take any crap from people. And it ends up being this type of thing where it's like, okay, but they didn't do anything. But if you say that they didn't do anything, it's a bad move for you. Well, first off, just to correct the record, Tina did not win an individual immunity challenge. She won an individual reward challenge,

but now I'm remembering Keith actually very pivotally won that she could have won it yeah that was the big great move on her part she purposely threw it to keith to make sure that he was in the clear for the whole five five type but regardless of that i think as you talk about that i want to make a point around who sandra sat at the end with because again i think when we look at some of these other people on this list we see scenarios where they were able to succeed and mostly win from sort of hand-picked end games, that they were able to pick out the people that they wanted to sit at the end with, and they were able to systematically eliminate everyone who wasn't on the big, guess who

board, until they hopefully walked away the champion. That was not necessarily the case with Sandra. How do you react to the argument that in both of Sandra's wins, it was less so a David Murphy Spencer Bledso-esque, full-throated, yes, you should win, versus more so an idea of you are the lesser or least of two or three evils? I doesn't bother me that much. You know, I think that she is great at making relationships. People have to ultimately vote for her. And I think that she would do well in some of these other final tribal council scenarios as well.

I mean, I don't know necessarily who you want to put her up against in different scenarios. But, I mean, she beat the people that she was next to. She have beaten Jerry if it was like her, Jerry, and Russell in the final three of Harris versus villains. Yeah, I think that that's a fair question. I think that in the same way that Parvety kind of got the, okay, you're associated with Russell. Is Sandra able to beat that drum a little bit more of that she was against Russell and that did they look at Jerry at all as being like along for the ride with Russell? I think that Jerry does have Colby there, who is a, you know, long-time buddy. The conventional wisdom is that Jerry had the votes there, but I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, that's a tough situation, right? And again, I think a bit of the mark against her is the fact that these are situations where, you know, and also you don't know how much these final immunity challenges weighed on these outcomes, right? Like, if Johnny Fairplay wins, Grimm have been wrong here, he would have gotten rid of Sandra at three. He would have gone to the end with Lil. Mm-hmm.

And so if he wins that immunity challenge, Sandra's gone. Maybe if Jerry is one second closer on that blindfold challenge in Heroes versus Villains, maybe Sandra goes there. Sandra has claimed to me that apparently everyone in the Final Four

approached you're saying, you're in my final three. But you don't necessarily know if Russell felt like, okay, I definitely have to bring Parvety there if Jerry is no longer an option. And maybe she doesn't end up winning some of these final three scenarios in terms of the matchup, but I think it speaks to her power in terms of when if she's in the final four and

everybody who's there wants to take her, you have these other scenarios where you talk about some of these other players who needed everything to go their way. They need to win the final five, the final four immunity. You know, they need to make the fire. they need everything to go right in order to win. And what I love about Sandra and what I love about her, especially just as an idea, is that she can thrive when things did not go her way.

And it's almost more powerful. Would you rather have won the challenge and then have to be able to be the person to make the move? Or would you rather know that no matter who won the challenge, you're going to get to the end? Yeah, I mean, it's a valuable question to have of opening herself up to multiple scenarios, which I think is also endemic of Sandra's game

considering the number of times, and it's not a massive amount that she's been blindsided in the various post-merge that she's played in. But I think, again, compared to the other people that we're speaking about over the course of this,

again, she loses Rupert, she loses Krista in Pearl Islands, Heroes versus Villains. She has an entire sequence where her entire alliance gets wiped out. There's a scenario, Rob, where it's her versus Courtney, at the final 11.

Russell is the one that's really saying Courtney has to go here. If Daniel and Parvety win out, Sandra is second member of the jury and she does not go on to win again. Is the fact that these other players did not necessarily run into as many scenarios where they were left on the outsor

or left a little bit on the back foot losing close allies? Does that work against Sandra in a major way here? Where the other people were comparing her to, they didn't have as many times where they lost their allies? Yeah, where they, from a post-merge perspective specifically,

they are not necessarily on the outs of the votes as much. Hmm. Well, some of them don't make it to the post-merge as many times as Sandra. So, I think it's just a different play style. I think that, you know, there's, that when we're talking about people,

that everything has to go their way versus people who, you know, Sandra being the exception where that she can thrive, when things are not going her way. It doesn't matter if she loses her allies. Yeah, that's a fair point. I guess what it comes down to is, as you mentioned before,

differentiated play styles, because I do think, compared to the other four people, Sandra's is one of the more unorthodox, and it is one of the more successful. Again, she's one of three people that have won twice. I think what makes the series so interesting is that we are really kind of obfuscating quantity in preference of quality.

And so I guess from that perspective, what makes you feel like Sandra as a two-time winner is better as an overall player than Tony and Parvety, if we're just comparing apples to apples? Well, I think that for Sandra, when we take a look at her body of work,

especially when it's a body of work that the first time, obviously, is against first-time players, and she ends up winning. And then also she comes back, a second time, with the reputation as a winner, it ends up is able to win a second time. The more times you play, especially the more times you win, the target just starts to become just too big.

And I think it's very hard for Sandra. It undercuts what her strengths are as a player, where that she has this ability to weaponize being underestimated. And now you've taken that away from her. and she's had to shift her playstyle to a being more of an aggressive player who needs things to break a certain way for her. And it's been something that's been difficult for her to overcome. And so I would like to try to separate that out when we talk about the Sandra as the greatest. But in terms of that Sandra in her prime at the top of her game, that she's,

She's been able to just have this ability to, and I don't even know if it's premeditated. That's what I think is the most beautiful thing about it. It's that she's able to just be Sandra. And this persona of Sandra, of the person who they just look at her and they don't see her for being the dangerous player that she is and that she's able to just continue

to just pass through round after round after round until ultimately they look up at the end. I just think that it's so impressive. And when we compare to other players, it took them longer to win. It took them longer to figure out what they had to do. More things had to go right. They really had to assert their will onto the game

and leave their mark, whereas that Sandra was just Sandra. She did not have. have to necessarily inflict her will onto the game. She does not insist herself upon the thing, Mike. Okay, Peter Griffin.

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Just style you love and quality of. you can trust. Visit wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. Well, I want to address this argument that I've seen you and other people make as well. Of like, Sandra was able to win against newbies and then she won as one of only four winners mixed in with people who did not win.

And to that I say, Heroes versus Villains was not Survivor All-Stars. Yes, there were four winners, but I would not say that Tom Westman or J.T. was voted out because they were a winner. Both of them survived multiple tribal councils. And in fact, I would also say that Sandra won became a two-time winner,

arguably maybe because she was up against another winner in the form of poverty. It was a bit of a Ken and Kodos. You have to vote for one of us thing because Russell was entirely discounted. And I would also say that, yes, the winners did have these million dollar checks attached to their name, but of those four winners,

Sandra far and away had the lowest profile. You hear what Parbity was perceived as when you listen to Randy Bailey in episode three. Tom Westman, one of the most dominant winners of all time up to that point. J.T. had the first perfect game in Survivor history and won the fan favorite at that. So even amidst that group, Sandra was able to benefit from this preseason perception from her previous win that she could parlay. people would argue could be a little less impressive than someone like the person she sat next to in poverty who was able to succeed in spite of the way people were looking at her

going back to her, you know, previous times out. Yeah. But Mike, I think you're making the point for me of the fact that she is not considered... She did the thing, and people were still not scared of her. I think that that is what is making her this amazing elite concept of a player, a player who continues to win and nobody is afraid, especially as Survivor becomes more and more of whack-a-mole of who's the biggest threat, that ideally you want a person who could be successful without being flashy,

a person who can get the W without anybody feeling like that they are this, you know, a perfect player that needs to be dealt with, she's able to move through the game. And even though she's not necessarily dictating the outcome, it ends up just being where that by sheer survival, she continues to move on and advance in the game. You mentioned this before, but at the end of last podcast,

I talked about how when it comes to assessing the goat, legacy, I think, should be incorporated. Yes, of course, we want to assess their body of work. But when it comes to figuring out who is the greatest player, I do think it should be factored in how much their presence and their journeys have informed the styles of a lot of players that come afterwards. I know you did it on this earlier, but let's formalize this here. What do you think is the legacy of Sandra?

And why does that make her the goat? I think the legacy of Sandra, obviously, there's a lot being the first two-time winner of Survivor. I think that that's probably like the top line of her Survivor Wiki. I'm going to keep that positive. I would hope so. Yeah, yeah. Don't bury the headline Survivor Wiki. Yeah, first two times, first two times whenever Survivor,

I think that's ultimately the legacy. I think that also being one of the faces of the island of the idols, I think also ends up being a big legacy point for Sandra. But I think that probably the other thing is that you say that she coined the anybody but me, which is absolutely such a valid strategy that we still talk about to this day of, you know, what does it matter if, you know, why should I lose the game trying to keep my allies in the game, especially as the game becomes more and more fluid, more and more of the squid gamification of Survivor continues to advance.

I think that the Sandra strategy is just as relevant as ever, especially as we have entered into this, whether it's the new era or the open era, that the players are obsessed with the threat levels of the other players. And I think that the Sandra play style of anybody but me, of not being flashy, of not necessarily being the person who wins the challenges, or dictates the big moves,

I think that just being obsessed with just getting to another day that I think continues to be the optimal strategy to play Survivor. Yeah, I mean, I could certainly see that. The argument that I guess I've been making throughout is that while that is a very prevalent strategy for Sandra, I don't necessarily think it's absent

from some of the other players that we are going to get into. So I think throughout this, Rob, you have made understandably some wonderful points. I think what I've been trying to knock home here from the unenviable position I've been into R2 against the first two-time winner in Survivor history is that these are great qualities of an all-time survivor player.

Are they the qualities of the greatest player in Survivor history? I think that if we are going to load into the simulator of this magical machine that can play out

these seasons hundreds and thousands of times, I do think... It's called brain steel, Rob. I do think that Sandra ends up getting a lot of wins because I think that more often than not, she's just a person who ends up lasting to the end. There's going to be times where she gets picked off early and not even just from a threat level perspective. I think there's going to be other times where she just is part of a tribe that's going to go to tribal council. People are

going to say, okay, she's looked at as weak. But don't let her hear you say that because she's going to get loud to. And I think that there is all. also a feistiness to her where it's like you don't want to piss her off. And I think that there's other people that are just going to be pushovers who are going to take it lying down a lot more than Sandra ever is. And I think that does help her getting through some of these thorny situations. But I think that she just has an innate ability to just become a consistent endgame figure in enough of these seasons.

And then when it comes down to even if we were. we're putting her into more of the modern era seasons where it's final threes and it's more of like how many times, Mike, is she going to not win the final four immunity challenge and be the person that players would take into the final four or into the final three by the winner of the final four immunity challenge? Well, ironically, again, you're saying that like, you know, she is the one in the simulation to win the most times, considering that I believe she is, um, the person who has had the oldest amount of success, right?

I feel like, you know, with the exception of Surrey, obviously, we're talking about Tony, poverty, Boston, Rob. They have all made it to the end game after she has. She has not made it considerably far since that second season. Yeah. I think that her play style is much more in line with the way that people play Survivor in the new era, especially when I'm talking about the classic playstyle of like,

if you were going to invent a new person who was, you know, not Nina Twine, but maybe we clone like a new younger Sandra and put her out there, I think that she would have an incredible chance to win in the new era. All right. Can I also add that another common denominator, everybody that we're going to talk about, is that they played on the traders. And let me just say that Sandra's play style of being the person, who she was a perfect faithful in the traders.

She did so much right. I mean, I think that just to take this Sandra playstyle of being the person who is just chronically underestimated that the traders, and you have poverty there as a trader who may have been somebody who was not looking for any more smoke, although they did come in beefing before peppermint ended up stepping in. But that wasn't even Sandra's traitor angel, that it was Fadra who is keeping Sandra safe. And Sandra befriended Fadra, knew Fadra was a traitor, sucked up to the right people, and she was right there at the end of the game.

Yeah, but I mean, first off, I think it's a bit of a false equivalency, considering that if we're compared to the other people, Rob and Parvety were traitors. Yeah, which is much easier to do. Or arguably harder to do. And I would also say that you're like... argue easier to do. You have the first-hand experience. Well, you know what?

The thing that appeals to me so much about Sandra is that Sandra in so many ways is the antithesis of me. And not that I, but, and not that I, we're both from, we're cut from the same cloth when it comes to our challenge ability, that neither of us are going to be a challenge dominant.

Although I have one individual immunity. That's a good thing too. Even in those single diggy seasons where the, the challenges were not ultra-physical, Sandra still was not able to take home a W. That's right. That's right. But the thing is the difference between Sandra and me. And Sandra is a two-time winner of Survivor. And I think that if me and her both showed up on a beach, I think more people

would be talking about, we got to get rid of Rob. We got to get rid of Rob. Oh, he's too smart. He's too smart. And we got to get rid of him. And what is it about Sandra? She's won. She's won twice. And people are not intimidated about her. And she does. And she moves. And she moves. through the game. And then eventually people will wake up and be like, what are we doing? She's won twice. She's Sandra. She's right there. We got to get rid of Sandra.

But the game will start. And more people will point to me. And say, we got to vote him. We got to get rid of him. We got to get rid of him. He's too, he's too smart. He's planning. He's strategizing. We got to get rid of him. Like, I'm not doing anything. And they say, no, no, no, no, no.

We can't trust him. And Sandra, they would flock to. They would go right to her. And so I am envious of that about her. And so I think it's incredible. I think it's an incredible skill set that she has. And so I really, I don't take it for granted. And I think that's why she is such a great.

And then just to speak to, I've talked a lot about Sandra as a concept, but I want to talk about Sandra as a person. And just to compare her to, many others of the survivors. And I've been around them all, not to humble brag too much, but that in terms of their, with the...

I want to say this precisely. There are many of the survivor grates that they will interact with people and they will let you be in their warmth. But you're not equals. You're not necessarily going up to them and feeling like, okay, they are interested in you necessarily.

Sandra, that is so humble. And yes, the queen stays queen. But in terms of that, Sandra will, and you see her friendships are that Sandra has a million friends in the survivor community. Some of them are winners. Some of them are the first boots. Some of them are people that they played, you know,

17 years ago and they got voted out third. I'm not talking about myself. She does not necessarily, you know, elevate herself over other people. She keeps it real. She's authentic. She cuts coupons. She's won $2 million playing Survivor.

She, you could probably find her at Walmart on a, you know, a Sunday morning. She's, she does not in any way ever, she's not a gatekeeper in anything. And she keeps it real. And I think that's one of the reasons why that people gravitate to her. she can work with anybody and she's somebody who is just such a natural people person

it doesn't have to be all about her she's interested in the people she meets also I mean you could also argue that maybe one of the reasons why she's not a de facto first boot in some of those returning seasons is perhaps from some of those

out-of-the-game friendships yeah yeah well what's wrong with that well I mean more so that oh, you think that on paper she's such a massive target because of her presence.

And listen, again, if we talked about this last time, like I'm not discounting any pregame alliances or relationships that are made. But listen, we know that Sandra is incredibly well connected, understandly so,

because she is good people. But it probably helps if you're going into a situation where even if yes, you are looked at as the only two-time winner up to that point, you may have had some conversations with people that might help you along for the first few votes.

Yeah. Look, she really, in Game Changers, she was set up really, really well, and she just ran into a buzzsaw. Very true, very true. But here we all, Rob, you took a buzzsaw to all of my arguments here and proving why Sandra's the goat. You know, it's a tough spot with all these people.

Because there really is, and that's how we started doing this. There's a case to be made for and against every single person. And, you know, I think that either of us could have been on one side or the other and been trying to, you know, prove that somebody, it's splitting hairs, it really is. It's so subjective. Yeah, and I think as well with Sandra especially. And again, she can only kind of play in a realm of who she is as well.

That's going to be the case with all these people. But as we talked about before, I feel like so many points about her have been so contested. And so much of this is going to be subjective of how much do you incorporate things like challenge abilities into what makes. the greatest player of all time. I personally do. Some people might not, as you're mentioning here.

So Sandra, I feel like in particular, I think with her and Ceree, there's going to be perhaps some of the bigger points against, but I don't think it obfuscates the fact that there are pros to these arguments as well. Yeah. And I would say, and I thought about this a lot, in terms of I think that Sandra and Ceree have like a similar

arsenal of skill sets. And I think that Surrey, though, on paper, is so much more polished. Surrey is just that she smiles at you and you light up and that she's so warm. But I think that that warmth ultimately ends up being, not to do too much of the Surrey podcast now, that it ends up being a negative when we get to just that one spot that Surrey can't crack. where there's very few people in their right mind that say, that's who I want to go to the end with. And I think that Sandra's is so,

and I will keep coming back to this, so just that she's imperfectly perfect, where that people look at her and say, you know what, I could beat Sandra in the end. Cut to three weeks from now when you have to be on the proser side and refute the exact point you made. And look, and that'll be a challenge for another day. But, and I would say that, you know,

Cerea is so good in so many other areas that, you know, does that matter? But I think that in terms of Sandra's strengths, that I think that the fact that she can survive in advance and still you think you can beat her at the end is the trap that you fall into with Sandra. All right. Rob, shall we move on?

Should we see what's on the time? next week. What's coming up next? We're going to talk about Boston Rob, right? Yeah, that's the good. Again, we did not go with the B first, not the B on his little B hat. We're going with Robert himself here.

Fellow Island of the Idol's dead isn't alongside Sandrine. All right, Mike. So today you're on the, okay. You've been heads and I've been tails. Okay, so right. So Rob is heads, Mike is tails. We're going to flip the coin of who's making the case for Boston Rob.

Okay? All right. All right, you're ready? Here we go. All right. And the answer is, it's tails. Okay. All right.

Well, at least I'm not pissing off both people on the islands of the idols. Yeah. Over the course of this spot, that. This is tricky for me also because I'm going to get like a nuggie, I think. Yeah, I think we're just, You stand the worst off of bringing things back full circle to where they were 20 plus years ago. You guys have built so much great stuff over the past decades of like, we leave what happened in Panama in the past. This might drudge some stuff up with the discourse that might come out of our conversation next week.

This is, why did we do this? Why do we make this podcast? We're only 40% of the way in. We're questioning the very existence of this series. I love it. Yeah. Okay. Uh.

I mean, listen, you're listening. You're doing the end. I have to be the one that's arguing that the man who's won one out of five seasons is the one that should be found the goat here. So listen, I'm going to come in, Ardent, do some research. I'm ready to come in guns ablazing here. And hopefully by the end, people will feel as won over and they'll be wearing I Heart Robb t-shirts, much like a certain person is doing in Madison Square Garden back in the year 2004. Yeah.

Okay. All right. Mike, what else is coming up for you? Just a lot of stuff going on, parade, Survivor, and otherwise. Again, otherwise, just sitting back and do these weekly Survivor check-ins, but I'm sure lots of other stuff will come up in the meantime. We did a reality flash actually on the re-emergence of Big Brother Canada, which has been announced to come back for next season.

Yeah, I'm saying, excited about that. Rob, what's your reaction to the news? Yeah, look, we're excited as more Big Brother. Exactly. Come on. A little big brother never hurt nobody, especially increasingly so, especially with Canada, which has provided some of the most entertaining Big Brother we've had in recent years. Yeah. Let's see what happens. Exactly. Let's, I guess this could be expected more so than the unexpected that is to come our way. Would you rather not have it or would you rather have it where it's not exactly perfect? No, I've heard from people who would rather not have it than not have it exactly.

what I want. That's not how I am. Or do you respect the relationship you have with Marsha the Moose? I've always been. I'd rather have half a loaf of bread than not eat. Yeah. And I think that, again, as you mentioned,

we talked about this with Terran. Listen, low expectations are the key to happiness, as you'd love to say. And looking at the production company that is now responsible for Big Brother Canada, again, they pretty much cleaned house and moved on to an entire different company that has worked on Big Brother before,

Albania in a different variety. It may, you know, preclude things that people oftentimes associate with Big Brother, but there's scant details at this point. It's a bit incorrect to assume. So I think it makes sense that we sort of come in with open arms, open minds, until we hear more information as to what exactly it's going to be. But I mention this on the podcast. I'm just excited for the people who have spent the past couple of years wanting to be on this show and not having the ability to do so to just even have the opportunity to make their dreams come true. That does warm my heart.

Yeah, all right. So next week, we're talking about is Boston Rob the goat? We'll find out. And then in the meantime, check out all of our Survivor Co-Rong rewatch. Co-Effing Wrong. How's it holding up for you so far, Rob? You like it? Oh, we love it so much.

It's been really, really fun. And, you know, this was like a real era of Survivor. A real vibe. Yeah, I feel like people have been. talking about even watching like the 30 seasons and how the editing and Jeff's approach and his narration at tribal council like changed a lot in the past 10 years or so. And I think it's something that maybe you don't necessarily realize until you go back and watch a quote unquote old season. So and especially considering like how whack ado go wrong is from the very beginning. I have

not had the opportunity to listen yet, Rob, but I can imagine like upwards of 20 minutes in that first podcast dedicated to the brown trout of it all. A little bit, a little bit. All right, thank you so much for joining us, everybody. Looking forward to next time when we talk about it was Boston Rob the Goat. Take care of a good one. Bye.