RHAP: We Know Survivor - Kaôh F***ing Rong Rewatch Ep 5

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

Kaôh F***ing Rong Rewatch Ep 5 Survivor: Kaôh R?ng explodes with chaos as Rob Cesternino and Chappell bring you another unfiltered episode of Kaôh F**ing Rong*. The tribe swap creates shockwaves through the game, with injuries, dehydration, and a surprise visit to Exile Island pushing the castaways—and their alliances—to the breaking point. Julia’s exile tips the scales, Anna Khait’s game slips away, and every move suddenly matters more. Rob and Chappell break down exactly how the new tribe numbers leave some players powerless, questioning production’s decision to let the season get so brutally tough. Anna Khait’s quiet, swap-driven demise is unpacked as the hosts debate whether Tai played things right with his idol, especially under Scott’s influence to hold out for a super idol play. They tackle the messy Brains dynamics, with Peter’s arrogance and tone-deaf “no-brainer” talk, the shifting social weather, and the surprisingly fun teamwork (and drama) between Scott and Tai. On the other tribe, it’s a 2v2v2 stalemate—with Debbie’s hilarious confessionals and power plays making every scene unpredictable. Key points include: – Julia’s exile and its immediate impact on alliances and strategy – Tai’s dilemma over using his idol for Anna, and Scott’s push for big idol moves down the line – How Peter puts a massive target on his own back by alienating everyone – The return of old-school challenges and why fans miss them – Debbie’s unique confessional moments and her status as a recurring Survivor legend The swap shakes everything up: are new alliances for real, or is another blindside about to hit? Will Tai stick with Scott and Jason or take a new path? Find out where the power shifts—and who might be the next castaway to fall—on Kaôh F**ing Rong* with Rob Cesternino and Chappell! Don’t miss a second of Survivor’s wildest swap—listen now for all the blindsides, betrayals, and Survivor mayhem! Chapters: 0:00 Tribal Swap Shakes Up Game 1:05 Injuries and Exile Island Drama 2:22 Ko Rong’s Unexpected Hardships 2:48 Anna Khait’s Quiet Exit Explained 3:33 Tai’s Idol, Scott’s Strategy Debate 4:14 Should Tai Have Saved Anna? 7:18 Scott Pollard’s Strongest Episode Yet 10:00 New Tribes and Alliance Dynamics 11:10 Peter Alienates Allies with Arrogance 12:54 Anna Throws Tai Under the Bus 17:48 Debbie Delivers Iconic Confessionals 21:10 Brains vs. Beauties for Brawn 24:40 Nick or Michele in Real Danger 28:00 Idol Rules: Birth of Super Idol 32:32 Tai Denies Idol at Tribal Council 36:41 Anna Khait’s Post-Survivor Legacy 41:46 Previewing the Next Aubry Episode 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!

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free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hey y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair. Wayfair, every style, every home. Hey, everybody, what's going on? Rob, Sisterino, back to talk about. It's the swap of co-effing wrong. And we're here to talk about these new tribes here with Chappelle. Chappelle, how are you?

Rob, it's the swap. Yeah. That's a slop, right? Oh, yeah, the slop, sop, slop, soaps. You know, I got my... The Jacob Jones callback. Yeah, yeah. Rob, I'm in a good mood.

I'm in a good mood. Every time I'm talking about Karam, I'm very happy. Yeah. I'm talking about Karan, so, yeah. Well, this was a fun episode. We got the swap. There's a lot that I didn't remember from this episode, from this swap episode.

where one person is going to go to Exile Island, that is going to be Julia, and is going to really shape the way that the vote ends up going and some fun dynamics going on that I can't wait to talk to you about. How are you doing? I'm good. Rob, the most surprising thing

about this episode to me was that Peter Bagginstocks is still here. He's still here. I did this man make the merge? Close, almost. He's right there. How does he keep getting away? I think they needed him because we saw him being Dr. Peter earlier on in the episode.

And there's injuries in the season, I don't even remember. When I saw Joe's finger kind of doing the thing and he's like, yeah, I had to lance it and all this. I was like, this is why you get met of that? I was like, no, no, he had a stomach ache or something like that. I had to remind myself, this was a different injury. Yeah. What about Ty's, like huge gash on his leg from when he was climbing the tree? He tries to show it to Jeff.

I was like, I have a very bad infection. This is very serious. He's like, we don't need to see it. And Julia Sokolowski's on exile like, I'm dehydrated. I'm dying.

Just a two episodes ago, Jeff's like, and remember, keep hydrated. Yeah, tough season. Tough season. The production is not making it easy at all for them,

despite so many red flags that say you should probably step in and maybe just make sure these people aren't dying. No, no, it's a hard season. It's okay. It's the hardest season for no reason, actually. It's not like they made it hard because, oh, maybe the previous season was a little, you know, oh, it wasn't hard enough. Like, it wasn't like that was the gimmick of the season going again.

Like, this will be the hardest season of Survivor. I hope you all are ready. No, this is just a regular-ass season of Survivor that happened to be ridiculously hard. And production, just let it cook. Let it cook. That's what they did to them. They did. Yeah, they don't need no more heat.

Yeah, they cooked them. Anyway, also cooked in this episode, Anna Kate. Quiet exit for Anna Kate. Quiet exit for Anna. Well, you know, that's the thing about Anna Kate. Famously, a great sport, gracious loser. Things don't go her way. She's just like, okay, I'll get him next time. Yeah, or something like that. Yeah. She's swapped screwed here, which is a tough break, right? I think when people think about going out on Survivor, they don't think about the situation where they're put in where it's just, like, so the numbers don't work for you now, what are you going to do? And there's really no option except throw your ally under the bus and hope it ain't you. In hindsight, we watched these five episodes. She was actually halfway decent at Survivor.

I mean, she really did not do much wrong. The Brains try, I mean, the beauty trap was pretty cut, like cut and dry. It was three guys, three girls. And then she tried to bring over a guy to work out with the girls. She did that with Ty. It seems like he had a pretty decent relationship with her. At least he talks very highly of her. I mean, if you want to give her Julia, Michelle, like, credit for being able to get Ty to kind of leave the mail jar and that side to come over with them.

It probably doesn't, it doesn't hurt that Caleb gets Medevac as well because, you know, Ty did have, you know, Caleb and Nick at one point if it was divided by gender. But with Caleb going out, yeah, she did solid. I mean, what else could you ask for? You know, one of the things I think that also hurts her in this season ends up being the super idol, because we see where Ty reveals that he has the idol and he shows it to Scott Pollard. And Ty is willing to, that somehow Peter Baganstas has pissed off Ty. Ty doesn't not like him. He's not a nice guy like Scott, okay? I don't want to be around Peter.

He's mean. and so that Ty is willing to play the idol for Anna Kate, but Scott knows there's a super idol, and Scott really talks Thai out of playing the super idol or the other idol for Anna Kate so that it can be used as a super idol later, which ultimately Ty does not use on Scott. Well, how do you feel about that,

that Ty was willing to let Anna Kate go right here? Because I don't know how I feel about the decision. I mean, Ty gets to the end. Ty's going to make friends really wherever he goes. So I think it ends up being okay. I think it was kind of a waste to use the idol on Anna. So I thought about it. But if they used the idol on Anna at this point, right?

Julia comes back and they have the numbers at that point. True. You kind of just run the game to the merge. Ty gets to the end, but he has no chance of winning. And so, you know, maybe there is an alternate route where he keeps some of his allies along. He doesn't get in bed with Scott. Jason because that's going to be to me that's part of the reason why he doesn't get any votes you know tie is like I want to hang out with the cool people with the nice people they're they're really friendly

and I love them and then he's like hey you're not nice I don't love you anymore get out of here and he jumps over to these guys he's like they're nice it's like oh they're mean tied now you're being mean it's like well I got to get rid of them too I think he's a little flip-floppy after the merge and maybe if he kept his numbers strong here he could have been a part of like a dominant alliance and then maybe one out okay so you say that he should use the idol He should save Anna Kate. I don't know. Because, you know, again, using your idol on somebody,

it's so early in the game, right? It's so early. But they would have such a commanding lead over the other tribes if they brought in Julia right here. Like, it would just be a no-brainer. They could lose the next challenge. They'd be fine.

Maybe he could have just save Scott. Yeah. Could he just, like, save Scott? I mean, we could talk about that when we get there, but that is interesting. You know, Scott Pollard, I thought, was really an interesting player in this episode. I don't know if he got the fishy, but I was listening to the know-it-alls. And Stephen was also high on Scott Pollard. I think this is Scott Pollard's

best episode of the season so far. He's an interesting person. I couldn't help but think as he was in the challenge, he's partnered up with Aubrey. And him and Aubrey kind of have a pretty good relationship that they end up on the same swap tribe. And I was thinking like, wow, I see this giant man running through the water. And I was like, wow, this is like proto-Johnathan. Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. But Jonathan doesn't really have a partner in crime like Scott does. Scott linking up with Jason, I think the two of them become, what, bigger than some of their parts or whatever the saying is. Yeah, more than, or maybe it's less than the some of the parts because that when they're separated,

we said this the other day about how either of them on their own, like, are fine. It's the two of them together. That's a problem. Yeah. Movement by themselves, force when they're together. And when they're together,

it is bad, right? And, like, they're able to kind of, like, feed off of each other. It probably didn't help that they were together in Ponderosa. Who knows how they would vote it if they were separate? I even think after Scott gets voted out, I think that Jason kind of has a, so,

I could be misremembering this, but I think that he kind of has like a social game after Scott gets voted out. He definitely gets a more sympathetic edit. So I know, I remember this much that we start to hear more about his daughter and, you know, kind of him being the family man. And I think that is very much overshadowed by him

and Scott being Beavis and Butthead. Yeah. But we have this funny bromance with Scott and Ty. That's Ty superpower, okay? He loves a bromance. Yeah, I can't trust you. Ty don't like, y'all don't trust you. So, yeah, Scott comes in.

He's just like, oh, my God, look at Ty's so weird. I can just toss him up a tree. And Ty's like, he's got size 18 feet. This man, it's crazy big, man. And so, yeah, they linked up immediately. Yeah, he, like, picks Ty up and puts him in a tree so you can go get the mangoes. Yeah. See, this is what teamwork is.

Where are you at, Alicia? See, this, why couldn't you just let Scott just toss you up into trees? Just let him pick you off. She doesn't weigh that much more than Ty. They could. Does she weigh more than Ty? They might be the same weight. at best, but you're right.

This is all he wanted, which is a little sidekick he can just like, like, walk around with, like a little, like, mini-me type figure. Yeah, yeah. So it's very fun to see Ty and Scott Pollard together. Do you think Ty and Scott

Bond, if it's Jason there with him as well, right? Like, is Ty just, he needs, like, Scott just needs a number two? Or if Jason is there, are they, like, still pulling in Ty as their third? Like, I feel like, he makes this bond because he doesn't have a Jason, not necessarily. Right.

So, yeah, I think it probably becomes like third wheel type of energy when Jason ends up coming back. I wanted to be like a two Christmases situation, right? Where so like Jason comes back and Ty's there and Ty's like, hey, Scott, best friend. He's like, ah, you know, Jason's here. What are you doing? He's like, hey, man, who's your new guy? Oh, nobody.

He's nobody. You don't have to worry about him. I would love to see a dynamic like that, but that's not what we get. It's not what we get, but we'll see them all get together. in a couple of weeks. So let's talk about the two different tribes for people who did not just watch the episode where the two tribes end up being,

the tribe that we spend the most time with is the new beauty tribe, the new yellow tribe, right? Where it's three, two, and one. It's three brains where Aubrey, Joe, and Peter go. Then we also have Anna and Ty, And then we have Scott Pollard. And the wrinkle here is, which is an interesting one,

that Julius Sokolowski goes to Exile Island and that the person who gets voted out, then we will have, they will be replaced by the person who went to Exile Island. Right, right. And so this makes no sense to keep a beauty around because by bringing in a beauty, then Ty and Anna will then have three.

Peter, I'm sorry, Peter would be gone at that point. And then it would be Aubrey and Joe and Scott with Ty and Anna right there, I'm assuming, because it does feel like Aubrey and Joe are like, do we really need Peter? You know, he's here, but is he really a brain? There's some interesting things going on there, though, where that we see for the first time that Joe and Aubrey kind of have a relationship, and they're going to be close allies through the rest of the game, and we didn't really see them interact too much on the original

Brains tribe, but they're here. And then also Peter is the third brain, and they're barely tolerating him still. Because Peter thinks he's in charge. Peter's still dictating the rules. He's still talking about the plan in front of everything. This man has learned nothing from being blindsided at all and being on the bottom for two votes. Because I think there's even a moment.

I mean, the thing that he does that pisses off Ty is where he's like, yeah, so obviously we're voting out of beauty this time because it makes sense for the numbers. Ty's like, I don't want to hear that. Nobody wants to hear you telling us the pecking order. That's really what pissed off Ty. He just came out and flat said, like I heard it's one of you two who's getting voted out tonight.

Yeah, and Todd's like, who told you that? And who left you in charge? And so, you know, everybody's kind of going to Aubrey and Jolie and like, can you believe this guy? Y'all like him? And Aubrey's like, no, we don't like him. Yeah. So we're trying to figure out what to do with him. But it wouldn't make sense to vote out Peter here just so Julia can come in.

And then Ty, Anna, and Julia can make all the decisions for the tribe at that point. At that point, Aubrey and Joe are at the bottom. And they're just going to take Scott and just eliminate both the brains. So there's no point at eating each other right now. It really seems like that Joe and Peter really don't get along. I think Aubrey tolerates Peter because we see some moments where Aubrey, Peter, and Scott are in the shelter together. I don't know if Aubrey tolerates Peter because I think she was the loudest detractor last, what was it, the last episode where she's like, can we just vote him out now? Because I think that's when he was telling her what was the plan.

She said he had no EQ. Yeah, and Aubrey does not like to be told the plan, okay? She needs to be in on it. She's a brain too. You know? And so, yeah, Peter is just like, I think he thinks he's fine. He's like, it's just us, the three best brains. And they're like, yeah, I can't wait to vote you out.

Yeah. But they know they need to get rid of one of the beauties. That's the only thing that's working in Peter's favor. Yeah, it's a no-brainer. And the problem is Peter is talking about it. Like, it's a no-brainer. And nobody wants to hear his opinion about this. You just keep it to yourself, vote on a beauty.

And just try to be likable. If you're voting out of beauty, you should be at least trying to make yourself the most likable brain amongst the brains, right? Because obviously the beauties are not going to take this kindly. They're going to try to strike back at one point. Why don't you make it Aubrey and Joe that they're after? No, he decides to put a big old bull's eye on himself. Yeah, he doesn't even consider flipping on the brains. No. He's like, nope, everything's fine. Everything's fine. Like, Peter, you're at the bottom. What's the worst that can happen here? Just go. What do you flip right now? Let's say he goes with Ty, Anna, and Sky. He's like, okay, who do you want, Aubrey or Joe? I'm sure they go with it. They're like, all right, fine. You know, but instead he's like, well, so it's one of the first. It's one of it.

y'all. I mean, because Ty and Scott are close. Maybe Scott Pollard is really anti having another beauty come in for some reason. But if it's like, hey, let's get rid of Aubrey. Let's get rid of Joe. That I don't know why they wouldn't do that. I think it's Peter. I think he's a problem. I think once he starts talking about how, okay, because he starts off the episode basically saying, I don't have to do anything and I can make the merge. It's the brains to the end. And we'll be, we'll be fine because we're going to kick out the beauty and then we'll just kick out everybody else and everything will be fine. It's like, no, Peter, you're at the bottom. These brains, you don't need to be with them. You need to be looking at other, like, greener pastures. But the problem is that he pisses off

Tyre and everybody so quickly just being so arrogant about his position in the game that I don't think it ever crosses his mind to be like, so what if we did a thing? You know, like, go to Scott and be like, I'm kind of a brawn, you know, like, don't you think I'm kind of a braunt? Go to Anna. It's like, I'm beautiful on the inside and out. outside too, you know? Like, I don't know. We have nice smiles. We have nice smiles.

He was just talking about how nice his smile was. I'm just saying, use what you got, sir. Do you think that Anna maybe screw this up from the start by throwing tie under the bus where if they were like, hey, we're a duo, we're a united front, then maybe you have to work with that as opposed to. Okay, so which one of them do we want to get rid of? I don't know, Rob, because I read the tribe and I have spoken. And I'm pretty sure, like, there's some sage wisdom in there about throwing your ally under the bus if you're swapped screwed.

Isn't that a thing? Yeah. Yeah, I was trying to think it through. I guess they don't know necessarily that there's a fracture among the brains. Right, right. But I think if you just pay attention, then you could see it. Right. I just, I find it hard to believe that Joe and Aubrey are really faking this friendship with Peter Well.

I don't think Joe fakes it. Right, exactly. And honestly, I don't think Aubrey does either. She does not seem like the type. Aubrey, we, not the Aubrey I know, she's, I could, you got to be able to catch an eye roll or something or a deep side. There's something there that should tell you, maybe, maybe we got a little room to play. But you're right.

Anna, if anything, she kind of says in her final words, maybe she played too hard, too fast. And I think that's the thing, too. She does come off threatening, you know, Peter is talking about how like she's got brains, but she's also like, she's beautiful, but she's also like a gamer. Well, they shouldn't know you're a gamer. you just met them, you know? Like, so maybe that's what it is. She's not able to manage her threat level.

And so it's just so painfully obvious that it needs to be hurt. Yeah. And she was throwing tie under the bus pretty hard. She was, which makes her, like, obviously it shows, like, does she wants to survive, which also goes to say that, okay, then that means she's playing hard. I did like her laying down confessional. I love when Survivor does these weird ass confessional spots.

She's laying down talking about how strategic she is. It's like, get up, you know, like, what producer laid next to her with the camera? They're not doing that anymore. That's not, that is not in the new era. We're not, we're not trying. It's not a show about, hey, there are some attractive people on television. We're not really talking about that anymore. But I always like the weird confessional spots.

Even, like, I think about you sitting next to that log, all hung over, you know, or drunk. You know, like, that, it's just like, why are you down there? And the producers just went with it. Yeah. I wonder if it's in the 26-day game. we got to get all these confessionals quick. We don't have time to frame them. I've never really been a person who cared about the game being longer.

But it is annoying that you take off all little cool nuances just because we limit the days. And so now you're going to have to pass the... We got to go. We got to go. We got to go, Joe. We got to go. Yeah. We got a move. Yeah.

Caching, caching. Yeah, we had an all-time Debbie quote in this episode where she said, ding, ka-ching, ka-ching, uh, yeah, here it is. Ding, ka-ching, she's really been on one the last couple of episodes.

She's so good. From the very first minute of the show that we see, Debbie, where she's talking about all her occupations, but also how puzzles lay down like her, laid down for her like lovers. They did tonight. They did tonight.

The fish lay right on down. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The puzzles lay down for me like lovers. The puzzles isn't even the most interesting part of that factoid we got from Debbie. Yeah. Debbie's got a lot of lovers out here, man.

A lot of lovers, yeah. She's a lover, not a fighter. Maybe a fighter. She told Sidney, I was ripped two weeks ago, you know? So Debbie's all things. She can be everything. I was talking to Stephen about Debbie on the know-it-alls. And we're talking about, like, what an all-time legend.

You know, Debbie is going to play so many more times. She's going to, like, she was a jugger. not at this point in Survivor History. Do you think she loses any of that magic in game changes? Or is she still a juggernaut and we just never go back to returning players? You know what? I wonder if there was a world where maybe you could have seen a Debbie 3.0, that she goes back to back.

And I think that the second time she is certainly not the same. There's not a joy outside. like when Cochran shows up, maybe in the very beginning of Game Changers. But I don't know if that was a turnoff for production or if that there was just an overall that, you know, a fatigue of Debbie. But it does feel like that you could have maybe seen her again. Could you squint and see Debbie on Survivor 50? You're going to bring her back with Aubrey?

They're going to play three times together? Yeah, why not? They're not friends. Yeah. Who's out? Chrissy? Jenna Lewis. I think that Jenna Lewis, at least you get some scope of going back to the, you know,

I hate to lose Jenna Lewis. I only kicked her out because of the way the show went for her, right? With her being the first boot, I'm saying, like, had you swapped out Debbie into that spot instead? Debbie's, probably not the first boot, which is really crazy to say, considering how big of her personality she is. She does a really good job of corralling numbers. We see it in this episode. We saw it on the brain's 1.0. And then she's, if I'm not mistaken,

she's in the majority for game changes as well. So I don't know if Debbie comes in and gets booted out so easily. If anything, I should probably be concerned about Aubrey at that point. When you're a mid-sized business, you need every competitive advantage you can get. Like an AI solution that works for you, not against you. SAP Grow is built with AI embedded at its core, working across every system.

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So think of Twizzlers as a little palette cleanser for whatever's queued up, which, by the way, should be coming very soon. Like any second now. Okay, Twizzlers, time to keep the fun going. Okay, should we talk about the Debbie tribe? Because the Debbie tribe is also interesting. It's 2V2V2 where just like the original Brains tribe, which is, I think, also the Blue Tribe.

This beach, they love having 2V2V2. And so you have here, it's Debbie and Neal versus Nick and Michelle. Nick and Michelle versus Jason and Sydney. Yeah, and this is fun, right? Because it's deadlocked. And so you have to see basically who's going to fold first, where these alliances are going to go. But even though it's deadlocked on this tribe,

there's still other things to consider. The Braun tribe doesn't exist, right? They're in the intentional mat-seeing spot. So everybody wants to pick them up to take the numbers away from the other group, right? So this is really brains versus beauty and whoever can get the bronze on their side. Debbie's working overtime. She goes to Sydney and it seems like she immediately gets Sydney together, which brings her in with Jason and Neil.

So that's a core four. But if I'm not mistaken, that four is like questionable because I don't think that's where we land at the end of the episode. Did the mayo jar ever link up with Jason as well? I think he's in the swing spot, right? Yeah, I think ultimately that Jason got pitched on an election. alliance with the beauties from the mayo jar and then we saw that Sydney got

pitched on an alliance with the brains we didn't really see maybe this is where Michelle is really pissing off Neil this is like the where he's learning that she's just a puppy on the teat

suckling yeah we never because this group doesn't go to travel council next week either we don't know how it would have went I do think though that the logic that was, hey, Julia is going to come in and replace one of the beauty tribe members, I think might have, like, we might have lost Michelle if we end up going to the tribe council. Like, talk about like butterfly effect.

If this tribe, this puzzle goes the other way, if Anna Kate and Peter are able to put together the puzzle over Debbie and Neil, I think it's probably Michelle who goes home. I think it's like, okay, well, let's take out, we lost one beauty woman instead of Anna. I think we lose Michelle because it's like, oh, we're not going to let there be Michelle and Julia and Nick beyond this tribe. That's true.

I mean, it's tough. Michelle does have a crazy social game, so maybe somehow she's able to outflank Nick there. But I would say that, yeah, she's probably most likely to go in this spot if something does go wrong. But, you know, this was the first episode we've heard from Michelle in a couple episodes. She had nothing to do with anything going on in the game.

But I think this is where the edgy people start to perk up a little bit. Because Michelle was telling us about how bad the swap was for her. And she showed us again about how the swap was for her. But we never see Michelle talk to anybody. Yeah, but we never see Michelle talk to anybody or do anything about it. We see, like, Sydney and Debbie. We see Nick and Jason. But we never see Michelle go to anybody and say, here's what I'm thinking.

And so I think this is where the edgy people were like, ha ha ha, there's our winner. Because we definitely got how Michelle sees it in this episode. Yeah, I missed it in the real time. I might have missed it tonight also. What, her two confessionals? Yes. Yeah, and they were two confessionals about the exact same thing.

It was, hey, I got swapscrewed, basically. This sucks. Then they go back to the tribe, and then she goes, damn, this sucks. I got swapsed group. And then the next time we hear Michelle mentioned, it's Nick talking about how he can manipulate her. So we never see Michelle.

Jell's actual actions, but we do hear from her. And I think it starts right here because these last two episodes, she has been silent. And so if they didn't give her any content in this episode, yeah, it would have been very weird for her to be the winner of the season. I do think that she would have been in trouble from this tribe if they went to tribal council. Because we know by the next episode, Debbie has a crush on Nick. I think that Jason is going to have a lot of sway in terms of also that we saw him bonding with Nick. I'm not sure that Neil is going to really want to, you know, vouch for Michelle here over the Mayo jar

if it comes down to which beauty goes home. No, they're probably thinking, let's keep the tribe strong and Nick's a big guy. So, you know, it'd be really hard for Michelle to kind of pitch her case here. I'm not going to count her out because I've seen her do some amazing things across several reality shows at this point. But it does look like if I had to bet against somebody in this spot, yeah, that puzzle goes the wrong way.

I'm thinking Michelle might be gone. But it's crazy because the Brains tribe, they had their two brains here on Neil and Debbie kind of like on the puzzle. I thought, that's cool, bet. Then I look at the other tribe and they got Anna K. on the puzzle. I was like, was Aubrey busy? You know, I just feel like if you're labeled a brain, use it. Yeah.

Maybe Anna Kay is like, hey, I'm, I got to save my life here in the game. Maybe. And then Aubrey's, like, decently physical player when like when it comes to like the challenges as well. So maybe they thought she would be better served at different parts of the challenge. But I just thought it was weird that I was like, okay, clearly you put your brains on the puzzle and they did not. I don't normally spend too much time talking about the challenges, but this is a challenge. I feel like we haven't seen this in a while. I'd have to look on the wiki to see if we've even had this challenge in the new era.

But even the challenge felt very fresh compared to the types of challenges that we have in the premurge in the new era, right? This even go go out, get the fish, carry them back, do the fish puns. felt different than the types of, you know, relay race obstacle course that we get in the new era. Yeah, the new era is very much run, duck under the cargo net, into the mud, over the wall, over the little, the little A wall or whatever. Then you walk across the balance beam carrying something. Then you toss the sandbags at whatever you got to knock down. And then you go and then you do the puzzle at that point.

I could design these challenges, no, respect to Matt Van Wagman, but I could just, like, storyboard the challenges. I can't design them, but I definitely could kind of, you can kind of foresee where Survivor is going in the new era every time, where these challenges of all, I think, have been very different. You know, sometimes they're in the sand, dying from dehydration, sometimes they're in the water. They keep switching it up.

So this challenge was done exactly three times in Survivor history. Co-wrong, game changers, and winners at war. and then retired after season 40. Like so many other things did too, you know. But I would say this, Co-Rong really does feel like seeds of the new era because we got the answer to my question about that third, that third super idol.

And it's feeling very amulet, you know, shared secret type of vibe, right? Whereas like in the new era, we will see, okay, if one of you has a thing, it means this. If two of you have a thing, it means this. If three of you have a thing, it's even more powerful. You should vote each other out. This is kind of similar.

I don't know why this isn't the idol rule for all seasons. That it played to great effect here in Survivor Co. Wrong. And ultimately, that the rule is that there's these three hidden immunity idols. And if you put any two together, it becomes a super idol that can be played after the vote. To me, I feel like that this makes sense of that you could have this. in every season. And we were trying to remember. We didn't remember Neil's idol

until we remember that he left with an idol. And then we got this moment. I always feel like that the timing is always like, it's like classic survivor of like before the tribe swap in episode five. There's the other idol gets found right before we go to the tribe swap. Sometimes you get it with the merge, like with Hunter in season 46. We got Malcolm and Denise find an idol like this in Survivor,

Philippines, like right before we were about to swap, thank God we found the idol. Yeah, I think it's the idea that, okay, look, there's no point in faking it. Y'all know we're about to swap. We're about to look for the idol, just all hands on deck until we find it. It doesn't look like a scramble, but I feel like it's probably the energy behind it, right? If you got to live there, then you have to pretend to go get firewood and all this kind of stuff. We know we swapping. I'm not pretending no more.

Let me just go find it. Sometimes also I think it's like, okay, maybe Neil found the idol on day seven. And you're just seeing it now. We need to explain that Neil has an idol. I think a lot of that is probably true as well. But yeah, Neil found the idol here really did give me flashes of the new era because I thought about, like you were saying, what if the idols, the idol mechanism, the rule just in general is if you have more than one of them,

it's more powerful. That makes total sense as opposed to, you know, if you have one, it's this. But if you have two, it's this. And if you have three, it's like just make it, keep it simple, stupid. it, you know, just kind of like make it a blanket rule. And then you get to season 50, and it's almost impossible to have two idols because we say, okay, no, you got to get the idol and then give it to somebody else. And they can't transfer.

Yeah, and then they can't transfer it to play it for nobody else. Like, where's the fun in that? This was fun. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So there was a couple of wild things that got said in this episode. Neil said that Peter is a cancer on the tribe. Wild thing to say, especially about a surgeon.

Yeah. Like, his cancer is actually his arch nemesis, sir. How dare you? Peter had a quote also. He was talking about tribal council. He was getting ready for tribal council. He said, tribal council is like the prom. And he said, what do you say that, you know, everybody's going to get to feel something by the end of the night?

Is that what he said? I thought that's what he said. But I wasn't quite sure where he was going with that. I didn't write down the last part. of the quote. I thought I would remember it that I did not. No, I have nothing to add to that. It sounds like he had a more eventful prom than I did. Yeah. I'm trying to see. Let me see if I could look at Tribal Council, Prom.

If I could find my notes from the, from, oh, you know, I didn't do. Oh, here are my notes from March 16th, 2016. Archives. Yeah. I wrote a lot of, I wrote a lot of notes to myself in my Gmail drafts, and then I sent them to me. So here are my notes from that night. Why am I taking notes when we're watching this? I just pull up my notes from the original night.

So, yes. That's true. Yes. Tribal counsels like the prom. I want to see how it plays out. Okay, that's what he says. I didn't include the part about everybody feels something. We want to see how it plays out regardless.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. So that's, I'm trying to see anything else interesting from my notes. Yeah, I would love to know any hot takes that you had back then. But I write, I just write what happened. I don't really write my takes in my notes, unfortunately. Yeah, it's like a stream of consciousness.

Yeah. You just need to be, you just need to remind yourself of what was going on, and then you can make your commentary from there. Yep. So Michelle also went onto the wrong mat. Yeah, because, uh, muscle memory, right? Yeah. Yep.

So that was a funny moment in the episode. What do you think about the tribal council where ultimately Ty is denying he had the immunity idol at tribal council? He is, and this plays right into Scott's idea, right? Because Scott knows that there's only a few witnesses out here that know that Ty has this idol. One of the people is the late Anna Kate

and because she knows, so he has to get, get rid of her so that he can have Ty and that idol all to himself and obviously to Jason as well because they share the idol. Who's it in possession of? Is it Scott's idol or is it Jason's idol? Jason has the idol, right? All right, cool. They'll Rochambeau about that later on as well. But yeah, I think in this moment, Ty's saying that, but it's mostly theater. This is Scott knowing that Ty has it and if he wanted him to use it, they probably would be using it tonight. But he talked him out of it. He's going to try to use it later on. It's going to give us a good TV moment. So I'm very excited that he didn't play it.

Is there anything that Anna could have done to blow up Ty's spot? Or does she just assume that Ty is playing the idol for her at this tribal council? I think she's got the fake plan, right? I think the fake plan is there. He's playing the idol for her. He doesn't know, she doesn't know that Scott has gone behind her back and, like, kind of like, undercut her to cut her out of this deal. Could she go to Aubrey, Joe, and Peter and be like, Scott, Ty has an idol? and if we vote him out now,

we can get rid of the idol. But I think that's what she tries, honestly. I think that's, I mean, I don't know if she ever explicitly says he has an idol, but they definitely show her alluding to him potentially having one. Well, in the beginning of the episode, he's definitely telling them that she's definitely telling them that he has the idol. But then he says he's going to play it on her.

And she's like, I love this guy. What are you talking about? She's kind of like let it go. Right, but she probably shouldn't have. Maybe she should just lean in and just be like, yeah, I love this guy. Play your idol for me, a thousand percent. Play your idol for me.

He plays it for her. It's like, look, y'all, we can get them, you know? Or even, you know, slimyer. Ty, let me hold your idol in case they try to vote you out, you know? And then go to Aubrey and Peter and then be like, look, he's dead to rights. I have his idol and I'm going to play it. You know, I don't know if she has that in there. And I also don't know if Ty is that gullible.

But I don't know. I just don't really do there as much she could have done. Yeah. Chappelle, do you recall that Anna Kay was my season 32 winner pick? It sounds about right. I also kind of remember, did she come to Run It Up Reno? She did. She was, as a poker person, she came to Running Up Reno in season after season 32.

It was before people were leaving for Survivor Game Changers. And I did have the opportunity to spend, I spent some time with her then. she definitely she had some wacky uh takes about things Anna Kate did

she did she did damn I could not have seen that she had some interesting takes about things but she also like this is

so this is let me let me see like we're trying to have a mature conversation here not that's the say that you that you I'm just for the audience

okay she was somebody who I believe did visit the Capitol on January 6th but that I believe at this time in Survivors that

Donald Trump was not even the president the first time that it was not even he was not even the Republican nominee for president at this particular time is that you have to like hold these things in your hands in like this is this is the past this these other things that haven't happened yet but she was there and she was a quirky character um she had she had told Tyson and and myself

and boston rob about how she she really thought we needed to buy gold gold is going to be the currency that they you know that you needed to do that um she she really was was very much something we needed to not uh stay away from the tuesday tap water was something that she was talking about. Okay. Yeah. She had... I don't know. She was passionate. She had... She said, look, I have hot takes.

You know what? Honestly, I believe that. I believe that this is a very passionate woman about the things that she believes in. I think she's all in on whatever she believes at the moment, you know? And so I am not shocked to hear any of that stuff. especially that January 6th part. Yeah. So another winner picked down. But I honestly feel like she played a good game.

There wasn't anything she could do. She got screwed. Now, is the evolution of the game, let's say we take some vibes from season 50 and put it into Koran? Okay. What if we had Julia Sokolowski as the power broker? You know, and now she can go between both sides,

kind of like in the... Are both tribes voting somebody out? Sure, whatever. Okay. We're going to double tribal council. Yeah, whatever. Fine. So, all right, so let's just play it out.

Okay, so Julius Focolaski is the power broker. She's going to go and now she will, and she has immunity. Oh, so if that's the case, then the beauties just win the day, right? Not necessarily because now it's tribes of seven. So now Julia is immune, but Nick and Michelle aren't. Oh, yeah. Could Jason and Sidney and Neil and Debbie vote out Michelle or Nick? It's actually pretty interesting.

Yeah, and it also feels like Michelle still screwed, right? Like, because, yeah, no, that Julie doesn't have the power to swing the numbers completely. You know, she's just, she's one. She actually makes them a bigger target. I mean, that's essentially why they want her out now because the idea of her coming back into the game is too threatening to have, you know, the beauties just have such a demanding lead on. them. I mean, if it wasn't for Caleb getting Medevac, they would have their entire tribe would still be intact.

So this is kind of the first chance you have to shed some blood on that side. Yeah. Could you do a reverse power broker where that you put people to exile and then have their tribes go to tribal council? I guess that's kind of like what was going to happen to Surrey where

she wasn't going to be able to vote. But you'd be safe, but your tribe, like in the pre-merge, you're safe, but your tribe is going to lose a number. Yeah, I feel like there's something there for sure, right? Like almost like a safety without power type vibe where if you're on the exile, then, you know, you're safe, but they could have used you. Yeah, I guess that's kind of what's going on here. This time she doesn't have a tribe, you know, she's just loyal to the numbers that she had.

I don't know. I feel like there's something here. And I think, honestly, I do think Co-Rong is probably the reason they start trying to work around this. Because you get the vibe that they didn't want to send her to exile, you know, if it wasn't for the Caleb Medevac, there is no exile in this season. Jeff really explains it. He's like, hey, we were going to do this, but now we have to do this because of the medical evacuation

in the new era. I think they would just do whatever they're going to do. No, no, we were always doing this. This was always doing this. Yeah. This was always the plan. We didn't change anything. No, no.

Do they? But they definitely don't. They definitely don't change anything. I've heard Jeff on record saying like, hey, there's nothing you can say to make us change anything, damn it. And that's fine. But I do think here, this is probably where

they're like, I don't like this. I don't think they love. this. I don't think they love Anna cake being swap screwed really, you know? Because I think it does kind of take the fun out of the game a little bit as a viewer, but then that's on somebody who would want to play. I would hate to go out there. This would probably be my

big, like, vote me out first. Don't ever put me in a situation where I feel like there's nothing I can do. Like, I don't like that. But give me out the game. Listen, she was doing the puzzle. She could have done the puzzle. Like, her fate was in her hands. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I guess.

Kind of. Yeah. Not like me. who I was sitting out of the challenge when they voted me out on Survivor All-Stars. And then you didn't even fight with Sue Hawke. Didn't even fight with Sue Hawke. Yeah. So, Sue Hawk is kind of like a proto-Debby. Oh, yeah.

There's no Debbie without Sue Hawke. There's no survivor without Sue Hawk. Make no mistake. Without her, this show last one season. We've got had a big episode coming up next time, Chappelle. Do you remember what... Oh, I can tell you what I think is the most famous thing from this next episode.

From this next episode? Is this, I don't need to be carried, bro? Is it that moment? Because that's, I feel like just emerge. Perhaps. I think it's early for I don't need to be carried, bro. Okay. Or maybe Michelle, maybe bro I know is later.

Bro, I know. Yeah. I feel like that's kind of emerged territory. What's going to happen in the next episode? What you got? Big Aubrey vote. Big Aubrey swing vote. Oh, no, I don't remember this at all. I'm very excited to see.

Yeah. All right. Well, we'll be on the lookout for that. One of the seminal moments in the early days of Aubrey's career. Let's find out when they decide they're going to bring her back. Because I think that right now, she's just a character. But we'll see when she starts to do. Not even the main character, really. Nope. She's just chilling. Her and Michelle have just been chilling so far this season. Not a lot to do. Yeah. They, you know, more for Aubrey to do so far. then Michelle, but for the most part, for them to go out to be the two biggest stars from this season, you wouldn't know it at this point. You kind of understand where Survivor, like, they were not thrilled with this season. They put it on the back burner. They said, okay, let's put another season in front of it because we don't know about this season. In their minds,

I think they might have thought, like, hey, we're building up these characters, they're getting taken out. We end up at the end of the game with three, you know, Ty is there, but he's there with three women that we're not really spending a lot of time with in Sydney and Michelle and Aubrey. And they ultimately end up being the stars as a season. We get a little bit more Sydney than the other two for sure, but Sydney doesn't even make it to that final travel counselor, to your point. So yeah, I think they invest a lot of time into some characters that get met of that, you know, even with

Joe, you know, we've been spending a decent amount of time. with Joseph's episode one. He's going to go out Medevict. Caleb was the star of the beauty tribe alongside Ty. He gets MetaVact. Yeah, it's not great. Yeah. Okay, so we'll talk about that.

Episode 6 is coming up next. This episode, we talked about the titles the whole way through. The title of his episode is The Devils you know. Yes. Okay. I don't know.

I don't know who said that. Did somebody say that? Yeah, I don't think. Must have said that. Okay. Yeah. We glossed over Sydney. She's a brain.

She went to Ivy League school. Yes. You Penn, I believe. Yeah. I was like, oh, okay. She's like, yeah, these people don't know how smart I am. I think this is another, this is more evidence of they just needed to put these people somewhere. Right.

Caleb, you're a beauty, but you could have been a brawn. You know, Sydney's a brawn. She could have been a brain. I think they were just shuffling the numbers and this is where we landed. Vibing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

All right. So that's what's coming up next. time, episode six. Chappelle, what's coming up for you? More of this, hopefully. I'm very much enjoying the Co-Rong rewatch. Over on my podcast, we started talking about interview with the vampire season three,

aka the vampire listat. And so the first two episodes should be out by the time you're hearing this. So make sure you go subscribe to recapkickback.com. For that, YouTube.com slash at Recap Kickback to see that. And then House of the Dragon is coming soon as well. And we'll be covering that too. So check that out over there.

All right. coming up on episode number six on co-effing wrong. We will see you on Friday for that one. Take care. We have a good one. Bye. A lot of folks listen to Rob, it's a podcast because they want to get smarter about Survivor.

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