RHAP: We Know Survivor - Kaôh F***ing Rong Rewatch Ep 7

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

Kaôh F***ing Rong Rewatch Ep 7 It’s merge time on Survivor: Kaôh R?ng as Rob Cesternino and co-host Chappell break down the nonstop drama and brutal twists of episode seven in this recap. The Brains vs. Beauty vs. Brawn season hits a turning point when medical emergencies wreck carefully laid plans, sending shockwaves through alliances and putting player safety front and center. When Neil is suddenly pulled from the game by the medics, the expected fireworks at Tribal Council fizzle—but the fallout is anything but predictable. Rob and Chappell dive deep into the chaos of camp as infections run wild and players trade war stories about their wounds, with Dr. Rupert stepping in and changing the course of the game. The merge feast brings celebration and strategic maneuvering, as the Beauties find themselves in the swing position and both Brains and Brawn vie for their loyalty. Aubry appears doomed after her social missteps, but Neil’s medevac and his idol complicate everything, leading to a series of what-if scenarios and hard feelings. The hosts dig into the ripple effects—how Neil’s exit becomes a sliding doors moment for Aubry, the questionable strategies from both sides, and the relentless pace of health scares that push production’s limits. – The medevac sequence and Survivor’s cavalier attitude toward infections, capped by Neil’s shocking evacuation – The Beauties as a crucial swing vote, with Nick and Michele weighing their options between Brains and Brawn – Insight on Aubry’s vulnerable position and why her alliance choices almost send her home – The merge feast antics, hidden idol talk, and why Debbie’s recruitment strategy rubs her tribemates the wrong way – Reflections on Survivor history: past idol handoffs, scratched-out votes, and what happens when production bends medical rules Will Aubry’s luck finally run out, or does Neil’s sacrifice set her on an unexpected path to Survivor glory? Tune in for all the tense decisions, shifting alliances, and “what could have been” twists as Survivor: Kaôh R?ng hits its wildest turning point yet. Chapters: 0:00 Merge Episode Begins, No Merge Vote 1:00 Neil Medically Evacuated, Aubry in Trouble 3:00 Contestants Joke About Infections 5:00 Medical Triage at Immunity Challenge 7:00 Aubry Gets Antibiotics, Stays in Game 11:00 Neil’s Infection, Med Evac, and Jury 13:15 Neil’s Bitter Exit and Idol Legacy 16:00 Sliding Doors: Aubrey Spared, Not Voted Out 20:15 Neil Weighs Giving Idol to Aubry 22:00 The Julia Crossout Fallout 28:15 Aubry’s Iconic Oregon Trail Speech 33:40 Scott, Jason, Tai Share Idol Info 36:51 Mark the Chicken and Coconut Moment 39:00 Brains Tribe Desperate, Debbie Overplays 44:59 Balls on a Disc Immunity Challenge 47:19 Aubry’s POV: Neil’s Emotional Exit 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 Sistrina back. It's co-effing wrong. It's episode seven and it's merge time. That's the name of the episode and that's exactly what time it is. But no merge vote because Neil has been taken from us. That's it for Neil. And we really end on this cliffhanger of Aubrey's in Big Trouble, Mr. And we're back here with Chappelle.

Chappelle, how are you? I'm doing better than Neil, you know. But I am here. I am here and I am ready to talk about the merger of this season. You know, we do take an L here by losing Neil the way we do. But I think this episode was still very interesting, very fun. And I think we got a lot to talk about today. Yeah, I thought this was really, really good.

And no, it doesn't end in a vote. It's funny that we had only, and San Juan del Ser, season 29, it's not that much earlier before. We have a similar situation where we have, okay, it's going to be this big, dramatic vote, and we see how it's all going to work out, and then Julie McGee quits. And then this is like really exciting how it's all going to play out. There's this whole push-pull of we have its brawn versus the brains, and they're fighting for the beauty. and then ultimately we get that it looks like it's probably going to be Aubrey who gets voted out here

in the Nick and Michelle are ready to flip to work with the brawn because they kind of think that they're dumb and they're not going to be able to, like they'll be able to, they're smarter than them. And ultimately we get that this kind of was, I know you were looking to see if Neil was able to pass the idol to Aubrey but I'll say this he kind of did how so

he fell off the sword I mean don't get me wrong he is sacrificed so that Aubrey will go on to win Survivor 50 yes but he still could have gave her that idol that's all I was saying he could have but you

change one thing you start pulling at these threads of history now maybe she has a win survive for 50. But she might won this season. She might don't win this season, but she won two million.

But then she could have won winners at war, Rob. That's true. That's true. This all worked out perfectly. Neil fell on the sword. It took a long way

to get there, but it was a beautiful story. And it's honestly hard to watch. And not so much like that, it's like a heavy episode because it's really not. The thing that's hard to watch about it for me is that

they're so cavalier about these infections. They're bragging about them basically. Like, hey, Jeff, I got another one. I got one right here. Oh, well, you should see the one I got. Meanwhile, the, you know, the lawyers are like, Jeff, I'm sorry, we need to step in.

Like, you have to do something about this. Jeff's like, what? It's just a, okay, it's an infection. We had a doctor out here, Lansing them. They're fine. Peter did all that good work. These people are fine. The next day, Jeff shows up like,

so, yeah, I know I told y'all that it was thing was fine, but we had to bring in Dr. Rupert, of all people. Dr. Rupert, yeah, I don't even think it was the next day. I think it was at the challenge. Jeff was like, wow, it's like it's a badge of honor that you have that if you don't have one, you're not cool. Everybody was talking about it. But I listened to Neal's exit press and he was talking about how he knew that potentially the medical staff was going to be coming. I think they were looking at these infections.

And at first it seemed like all fun and games, Tides like, yeah, I climbed a mango tree, but, you know, I got some scratches. Aubrey's like, I got this big thing right here. He's like, yeah, meet Mount St. Neil and all this other stuff. They're nicknaming these infections. Everybody's having a good time. And then the next day, it's not as good, right? It's like the realization is starting to come on people's face.

Like, it starts with Ty getting pulled over. Like, Ty, come, let me just look at your thing on you like. They're like, all right, Ty, you good. They get to Aubrey. There's a big pause. And, Rob, you want to talk about, like, Lucky Breaks that she got. Aubrey could have got Medevict in this episode. She could have.

It's interesting. So many of them seem to have gotten these infections, like in a very similar spot, like this inner thigh. Like the Thai one makes sense because he climbed the tree. But Scott has the same thing. And then also Aubrey has it in basically the same place. And it's this really wild sequence that we, there's nothing else like it in survivor history where it's just like triage.

It's almost like only from earlier this season where we had all the medical evacuations of ones where Dr. Rupert is checking everybody's infection and getting like all Dr. Pimple Popper or like squeezing the things. And there's some people, this is their favorite episode. They love it so much. But for the most part, it's like, okay, we're squeezing it. It's firm. I don't know.

I don't know. Could be hard. Maybe we'll put you on antibiotics, but we're going to watch you. Jeff would just watch this happen. And I think at first he didn't. I don't think at first he was taking it. seriously. It really did feel like once Rupert came in, Dr. Rupert, M.D., once he came in, he's kind of like,

I don't know about these infections. Like, you could see the tone shift, even in the editing, like you get the music, the serious sounds. And it just, hey, Neil, why don't you just, why don't you walk over here? They didn't even look at Joe's finger. No, they had bigger fish to fry. There were other issues. And that's my, one of my other issues is that if this is the new era, none of these people are speaking up. Like, all right, show me your infections, huh? What?

What infection? What are you talking about? They know. No, we're not going to say, we're not, what? Infections? What are you talking about? You know, look no further than is that Jackson from 42 being like, what? I'm not having withdrawals.

Are you crazy? What are you talking about? Okay, so I fudged the numbers on how much medication I was taking and which medication. Like, you're not going to really. Yes, we are. We're taking you out of the game. So back then, I don't think they realized how serious this was until, Dr. Rupert showed up and really started cracking skulls.

They prescribe Aubrey antibiotics. I can't recall, I'm sure it's happened. I can't recall another survivor that it's ever been on, maybe not ever on the screen that they prescribe antibiotics to. I kind of would have thought if, and I didn't remember this detail, but I think if you would have asked me earlier this morning about like, can a survivor player go on antibiotics during the game?

I think I probably would have said, I think they would pull that person. I don't think that they would let them be on antibiotics and stay in the game. Yeah, but we watched it happen with Aubrey. And like you said, I have to believe it's happened before because to me, that's something that you give them antibiotics, you watch them, but, you know,

it's not something where I have to be concerned about them in the moment. You know, if you think the antibiotics will clear it up, then it's not dire. It just needs to be, you know, kind of treated. But you don't have to leave the game to get it. It's not going to be affecting you and child. or anything like that, you know.

And so maybe that's why. But, yeah, they did it so cavalier. Like, we're just going to give her antibiotics and watch. I was thinking, you know, I would really like to know who else in Survivor history has gotten, like, some type of medication from production, not, you know, through other means. Because I know that happens to. That happens to. Yeah. I wonder also if any part of, like, the decision making that they had to do in this spot is influenced by Caleb's already been medically evacuated.

Now Neil is going to be medically evacuated. It's day 19, and we're losing people at a clip that is it affecting the game. We know that they're going to have to do the thing later on in the season where we're going to have a challenge just to vote out somebody from the jury. I think we're sort of like teetering into like, are we going to have a final two in this season? Do you think that any part of them were like, eh, like we can't really lose? that many people. Yeah, that's a good point, right? Like in a typical situation, would they give them antibiotics?

Maybe not. But this time around, we lost Caleb. We're about to lose Neil. What if we were like, nope, Aubrey, you got to go to. You know, that really does affect the way the show is going. I don't know if you still have to vote out a juror at that point, like we will do later on with one of these jurors. But, yeah, I definitely think that there's something there where,

at what point are usually going to be like, dang, we messed this up and we really got them out here in conditions that are not livable. You know, the fact that they're getting infections doesn't seem to be a condition of the island. It just happens to be what's going on with this group of people. I know that we, you know, jokingly talked about maybe it was Peter Lansing those wounds for people. But even Dr. Rupert says it. He says, now I could lance these wounds for you, Aubrey. But then, listen, the infection is going to come out. But infection might come in too.

Like go in. Yeah. And poor Joe was over there like, huh? What are you talking about? Infection could come in. So you would say you shouldn't be lancing those things out here without any type of upkeep, right? So, yeah, I think that's probably a good point. I mean, how many people are you going to lose to Medevac in this season if you just...

And we're still going to lose Joe of doing nothing to do with these infections. I'm sorry to laugh. The Neil thing also, I totally forgot about this. I remember Neil had the bad knee, but Dr. Rupert is inspecting everybody, and he's like, oh, you want to see something really gross? Check out my back. And this was, I've never seen anything like this on a human body before what happened to Neil on his back.

Yeah, so somehow it was punctured. We're not quite sure how, but he got a cut on his back. But now it is, it looks nasty. And the craziest part about it looking. so nasty is that that still wasn't the reason why he was met of that. They take so much time and care on his back. Jeff's like, hey, go sit down

in a nice, clean, dry area. He goes over there. He's showing off his back. Like, yeah, you know, I'm thinking about naming the little guy. And, you know, you can kind of see everybody looking like, does he understand? It looked like he had a spider on his face, and nobody wanted to tell him. And so they're like, ah, Neil, why don't we just take

a look? But then very quickly they said, no, the back is good. Flip back over. Yeah, it's that leg. It's that thigh. Is that me? Yeah, very close to the joint. I think you're going to have to go. Yeah, they tell Neil that it's too close to the joint. He could, like, lose the ability to use the joint.

And that's not something that they're going to let him take the chance, even though Neil feels like that he can stay in the game. And this is tough to watch for Neil. This is a gut punch, like a repeated gut punch for Neil. He's going, it was his dream to come out here. He comes out here. It doesn't get a lot of air time, ultimately gets pulled from the game against his will. And then Jeff tells him like, hey, Neil, don't worry, okay?

You're going to be out of the game. You're going to go get patched up, but you're going to come back and you're going to be a juror. And you're going to have a say in who it won't be you, but you will have a say in who will win this game. Your job here is not done. Your job here's not done. You still have more work to do. It's a big responsibility. lost, Neil.

At least you made jury, as Abby Maria once said. You know? Yep. Yep. Can't wait to see what he says on the jury. Yep. Neil has kind of a spicy line

that he says to everybody when they're like, okay, we'll let you go say goodbye to everybody. Yeah. And I believe it's something to the effect of, all right, all y'all, you all, consider yourselves lucky. They're taking me up the game.

So that was there. The seeds of Neal were there. I love it. I've, I've turned on Neal again. I'm back. I'm back at the Neal party. Like, I'm back. I'm a fan.

I'm a fan. I'm a stand. A dirty, dirty stand. This man is a freaky frog. He's so funny. And unintentionally, unintentionally funny. I don't think his jokes are funny. I think he is as a character is funny.

But yeah, like, it's an absurd ride that he's on. And on top of that, he's medevact from this game. and we don't even get the Neo will be back to be in the next, In Avengers in game. Like, we don't get that. We just saw that happen for Caleb. He wasn't a game changer. The show doesn't even pretend

that he is. They don't even be like, and Neil once it was like, why didn't he get a card? I mean, he kind of changed the game more than Caleb. He's the first person ever be voted out of the jury. Like, he kind of like, he has like more of a claim of fame of changing things, then with all due respect to be a small cowboy.

He has a thing. He has a thing. So, yeah, this was tough because I did listen to the Exapress, and he was talking about how he got to Ponderos. He had to spend the night or two in the hospital for the infection and stuff. But when he got back to Ponderosa, he said, I was working out. I was ready. You know, this is fresh off the heels.

Like, they know Survivor Cambodia is going to happen, right? They know a second chance season is coming. And so now second chance is kind of in the, in the universe, right? We're speaking about it a lot more. Even I remember in the podcast conversations, after this, it was, oh, Survivors, what if we did a Survivor third times a charm?

You know, like, that's when everybody starts, like, fantasy casting again. It brought more life into talking about, okay, well, what if we saw these other people come back? Neil is never in that conversation. And they would do game changers. The four people from this season would come back immediately. Neil was not in that conversation.

I remember his Ponderosa video. He's like, in the Ponderosa video, he's in the gym at Pondas. Andorosa, like working out for his return to Survivor. He did, like, a mile or two the next day after coming out of the hospital. I was, like, very impressed with the amount of work he was putting into it, and they can see him. I know what he was thinking. Like, producers are going to see me.

I'm in fighting trim. Jeff literally told him, Neil, you did nothing wrong. There was nothing you can do about this. It just happened. You know, he didn't overexert himself for salt and pepper. So he's probably thinking, hey, Jeff's in on it. Everybody can see I'm fit. I was going to survive this round.

He knows it was Aubrey and not him. And so he's like, I'm a natural. Bring me back. I think maybe Michelle ended up voting him out of the jury and his future attempts at being on Survivor. I think he's more memorable for what Michelle did. Oh, for, I mean, he could have, maybe he got like a really scathing jury speech.

I mean, you can imagine him having one. Yeah, I guess so. He could have gone like real scorched earth on Michelle at the Final Tropical Council. Yeah, I mean, he kind of tried to do it anyway. Like, I think that, you think, anyway, we'll do that. We'll save it for when it's time. But I think that speech was a little seed of what we could have got from Mio.

Yeah. All right, well, let's talk about it from the Aubrey perspective. And then we'll go through and talk about it. There was so much in this episode. But the Aubrey perspective is so wild here because what a sliding doors moment where she's going to be the person voted out. We see it basically plain as day where that, the Braun tribe, it says it's going to be either Aubrey or Neal, and Kyle Jason is able to

clock early on this episode, or really Sydney is able to clock early in this episode that Neil has the idol. They're not going to put the votes on Neil. He's going to, they're going to put the votes on Aubrey and get him to flush his idol. And there's this courtship that goes back and forth of the brawn is courting the beauties and that we hear it a lot from. Nick is really the narrator for a lot of. of this. But we hear from Kyle

Jason that like, hey, the Homecoming Queen is not going home with the nerds. It's going with the jocks and we're shoving nerds into lockers, he says. It's a good quote. It's not fun, but it is a good quote. Yeah, it's a

good quote. Because that's really what it is. I think narratively this season does work in a lot of ways because of that. You know, David versus Goliath, I think that season is another season that really works narratively because, you know, the David's able to do things that you would expect someone who is a David versus a Goliath would be, right?

Like the odds are against them, but they still find a way. And so this time around, it's like Brains, Beauty and Braun, but we find the beauty in a swing position where do they go to the prom with the head quarterback or do they go to the prom with the valedictorian? Yeah. That's how Nick puts it. That's a lot more artful way of saying it. Yeah.

And I mean, it's essentially what it is, right? But like you said earlier, Nick and Michelle kind of lands. on I think we can outsmart the bronze and so we don't really have to worry about them as much like and then Michelle even says no one's going to vote for Scott to win this game no one's going to vote for Jason no in this game we would have to be concerned

about someone like Aubrey and she's right yeah so they have a really good read of it it seems like it's Michelle and Nick who are the decision maker they're not really including Julia or Ty I mean tie is already locked in with Scott Julia seems fond of Scott so it seems like that there's not too much friction

to keep the beauties together. But the beauties do hold all the power here. Yeah. Nick is the one who really caught, like you said, narrates this episode, but he's the one who points out that it's so clear that Ty and Scott are a thing, right? Like, he's found his new beast mode. And when it comes to Julia, he says, I'm reading that maybe she, like, got saved by Scott last round

because, yeah, why did y'all, why are y'all moving like this? Like, you know, so I think from Nick and Michelle, point of view, y'all don't even have these people y'all think y'all have. Debbie is saying, no, we have tie. You know, oh, no, I think we can get Michelle to. Oh, no, we can get Julia, but we have tie. We can probably get this. No, you can't. You can't get any of those people.

So not only are you kind of like pushing people away with the way you're handling them, also, you don't really have the persuasive tactics that you think. And so Nick's like, I, never mind. We're just, Gordion how to go with the other side. And he likes Aubrey a lot. He says, I would love to play with Aubrey the in the game, but it seems like she's going to take the L here for sure. I want to go back to you listen to the exit interview with Neil. And I'm sure we asked Neil about whether or not he was thinking about giving the idol to Aubrey, right?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, of course. He said that, you know, in the, he said a lot of things. Okay, let me see if I can break it down. So he said in the moment, the night. the night before that we knew that potentially somebody would be going home

to do a medevac because we knew the doctors were coming. Me and Aubrey were sitting on the beach and I told her I had an idol and she was like, hey, it's probably going to be me or you but if it's got to be me or you, I'm willing to slit your throat.

He's like, oh, well, I didn't like to hear that. And so when he's going out, Aubrey said to him. That's what he said. That she told him to his face that if it's me or you, I'm picking me, basically. And so a part of him felt a way about that statement. And so not great on Aubrey to kind of put an exclamation point on like, look,

it's every man for itself, especially when you need this man to do something for you. I have to be honest, that does not really sound like Aubrey. It actually does to me, honestly. Because Aubrey doesn't really mince words. You know, she's, to me, she's like the person who would tell you something. like that. I just takes me back to her and Genevieve on the beach, right? Genevieve's like, Aubrey, I really want to work with you. I really do. And Aubrey's like, no, you know, like, she's giving her like to, I don't know. And but, but in her defense,

I do think it's absurd for Neil to not, to be offended by something like that, right? Like, it's one of, it's either you or her. She got, she can't pick her. She's not going to be like, all right, vote me out. Keep your idol. I hope you win the game. Once your medevact, throw her a bone. That's how I feel. So the way you're talking about it, and I don't want to make sure that I'm getting this correctly, because I did not listen to Neil's exit interview.

You make it sound like that the challenge was the day before people got medically evacuated. That's what he makes it sound like. He said that Mia Aubrey talked, and they were already sussed that the doctors were coming. And so with that, knowing that, I told her about the idol, and because I told her about the idol, she then told me that she would be willing, his exact words were to slit my throat.

You, the interviewer that you are, said, what do you mean by that? And he's like, and he says, well, you know, you say, dude, what do you mean by that? Is it she wants to slit your throat like she's targeting you, did you all have a falling out, or is she just choosing her over you? And he said, it's a little bit more of that.

She's just choosing her over me, but you still don't want to hear it. Then he goes on to say, and in a way, I did kind of pass her the idol because I gave her my sports jacket. And there was stuff in the pockets of my sports jacket. Yeah, exactly. I gave her my sports jacket and there was stuff in the sports jacket. It might have looked like she had an idol. And that's almost as good as having an idol, right?

And to that I said, what? Neil? What did you mean by that, Neil? Yeah. And then he goes on. even further to say what I think he really wants to say, which is, I don't have anything else from my experience except for an infection. I wanted something to take home. And it was that idol. And I have that. And I think that in the moment, that's probably what he's thinking.

But also, once we know what happens with Neil and his time on the jury, I think it's all he has. It's his Gigi's pizza. Yeah. But I love that his legacy is that he's saying, saved Aubrey that he didn't have to give her the idol. But he saved her. He could have actually saved Aubrey, but he did not. He just, he died for Aubrey's sins because Aubrey should not be at the bottom of this tribe. If Aubrey wasn't playing reckless last round, I think she might have even had a little bit more runway, but she comes in this round with so many enemies.

She just voted against Scott and Julia up and left them both in the game. The Julia crossout was not ideal. Scott seemed really pissed about it. Honestly, it was less of a big deal than I remembered. I thought that people were either going to be talking about it the whole episode. It really was not talked about too much outside of the opening minutes of the episode. But you have to think it was on the mind of Scott. He's not thinking I can now work with Aubrey.

There's no world where that's a thing, right? But had you just double down and said, okay, Scott, we're with you. Maybe there is an illusion that, okay, Scott's like, okay, it can't be Aubrey because Aubrey's with us. Let's just put the vote on Neil and somebody else at the bottom. Maybe Debbie, you know, Aubrey, because Joe is not on the bottom with Aubrey. Joe is not. Aubrey played herself into a corner.

Joe has managed to dodge these bullets. I just don't know if it was Ty. Like, who deceived Joe and Aubrey and Peter to make them think that they had the votes to, we talked about this in the last episode that, what did they think was going to happen? How did they ever think that this plan was viable? I don't know. It's like there's a seventh person on this tribe that's voting,

this fourth person in their voting block, because I'm like, the numbers don't add up. Maybe they thought that Scott was going to not want to go to rocks for Julia? Is that possible? They put a lot of faith in that. Yeah. A lot of faith in that. And I just don't know why they would, you know?

don't get like, I just don't know. I don't know. And then to go as far as write her name down and scratch it out. But I did learn this because I listened to the ex-abress. I also listened to this week in Survivor History. Yes. Aubrey's not the first person to scratch out a name. Do you know the first time a name got scratched out in Survivor history?

Who? It's happened twice prior to this that Jordan Caylish was able to flag up. Yes. What do you find? Apparently it happened in Borneo because, insert name here, was trying to vote for Suhawk and she wasn't eligible. to be voted for or something like that, so she had to cross it out. So that doesn't matter.

And then Hayden Moss apparently voted for... All at the Brad Culpepper? Yeah. And the way this came up is because you pointed out that this week in Survivor history, Twitter introduced GIFs. You now can use those on Twitter. And the first Survivor Jif you see is Hayden Moss, which is scratched out Brad Culpeper vote.

Wow, I don't remember that being a rollout on Twitter of, that you could do a gift. Yeah, look at that. So thanks to you and the history of Twitter. Yeah. I found that out. And so, yeah, this was not good. This was not good.

And now Aubrey just like stumbles on to the bottom of the pecking order here. But thank God for, or infection for what happens in you, because Aubrey gets to live another day. But Aubrey has the beautiful confessional at the end of the episode where the famous Oregon Trail confessional. And to me, it has an added meaning knowing the journey that she's going to go on, where she talks about how you have to ford every river, you have to cock every wagon, you have to go up the hills and down the hills, and sometimes you get dysentery and die.

You have to pave your own way. Yeah, the path for you is not the path for everybody, right? Some people get to come in, dominate their first season of Survivor, and win the season of Survivor, and then that's it. That's their story. Some people play multiple times, and then they finally get to the mountaintop. Some people will play six, seven times and never get there. And that's okay.

And their legend will be written by the people who watch their journey, but it's all about the journey, right? It's all about how you got there. You're doing a series right now where you're talking about who the goat of Survivor is, right? And all of those people have different paths. You got a two-time winner who did it their first time. out, a two-time winner who took a few times, two-time winner who got one internationally, one person who only won once, and then a person who has never won. And all of those people

are in the same conversation. So yeah, sometimes you get dysentery and you die. You know, it used to be that we talk about, it's bad to be Aubrey's friend on Survivor. The bad things happen to people who were Aubrey's allies on Survivor. And we see it with Neil. we'll see it with Joe. We'll see it when she comes back in Survivor Game Changers with Malcolm and with JT. and unlucky things happen to Aubrey's friends. Survivor 50 kind of flipped that around. Bad things happen to Aubrey's enemies.

Somehow like the karma flipped. Aubrey is a very lucky player. She's a good player, but she's very lucky. And luck is such a big part of Survivor. You know, just in this season alone, look how things are happening just because of infections. We've never seen anything like this before. And all of a sudden, the first time Aubrey plays, people are getting medevac left and right. Not her.

She comes down. Yeah, but she dodges all of that, right? And because of these other medevacs, she's able to go so far into the games. She comes back and plays again. She, Surrey gets Sarimageddon down right next to her. Yeah. And she's like, whoa, that's crazy. You know, like these things are happening right next to Aubrey.

And she's dodging. Luck is such a big part of her journey. I mean, even if you look at season 50, so many things had to happen for Aubrey to end up in a spot where she could win like that. And it happened and she won. And that's the beauty of this game, right? Like, you can't predict it.

They cut her from season 50 and added her back in. If she hadn't done talking with Teabird with you, she might not have even done 50. Remember, she was like, I actually never thought about playing Survivor again. But now as you mentioned it, I could do that. I can see myself doing that. It's pretty amazing. So,

yeah. Aubrey also seemed a little hot with Neil about that she was really upset that he didn't give her the idol. She's just saying, you son of a bitch. Just that son of that, that S.O.B. Neil, that you ice cream scooping mother flopper. You know, she was. You little puppy. Just little puppy. Suckling at the damn teeth.

No, she wasn't loving it. But I think she was more just kind of like, it felt like in the moment that everything was going wrong for her. We're talking about how lucky she is. But in the moment, Aubrey feels like the most unlucky person. She feels like she's even more unlucky than Neil. Because the way she's talking about, she's like, Neal's evacuated.

And now I've lost my number one ally. I'm at the bottom of the tribe. I watch the idol get carted off with him. Where else can I go? What else can I do? What else do I have? And yet she doesn't even realize how lucky she is. Neil says it kind of tongue and cheek like, y'all about count your blessings.

But at the same time, no, seriously, count your blessings. Because without Neil going out like this, we probably never see Aubrey play again. Yeah. So it's amazing. It's amazing. And this is just like one part of the journey. Yeah. And he's on a fun of the world to watch.

For Aubrey. Yeah. But I like that. I like the stories of Survivor that aren't as clean cut, right? the ones that you come in, oh, you saw them play a good game. That's cool or whatever. But more entertaining is like the Tyson route, right? Oh, kind of the goofball, don't really know what's going on.

Oh, he really don't know what's going on. Then all of a sudden, you're like, oh, Tyson, Tyson's really good at Survivor. Where did that come from? And then you find yourself at Winners and War being like, can Tyson win Survivor again? Can this is going to happen? You kind of get hype about it. You know, I think the journey is very fun for a lot of the players. And for Aubrey, yeah, mapping her role to victory in Survivor 50, it starts with stuff like

This was really epic how everything comes together with these three tribes or the two tribes now going into the merge. And we pick things up in this episode from the aftermath of Aubrey voting for Julia and then crossing it out. And Scott is pissed. He's going to write down Aubrey and Joe on his paper and just keep crossing them out until he gets to what he, wants to vote for. She really made a lifelong enemy with Scott here. And again, I don't really know what they were telling him because he's so offended that they did not vote with him to vote out Peter. So they must have been saying, yeah, we're going to vote out Peter. We're going to vote. Peter. Scott, there's no way Scott thought that, you know, he, that, like, there's no way that

they, they thought Scott was with them, not the way that they were, not the way he's acting right now. He kind of even berates Joe, which is pretty cool to see because Joe been berating other people up to this point. And so Scott's, kind of like, no, Joe, you don't get to come over here with that nonsense. You voted incorrectly and we're not going to let it go. Yep. And we're going to see Scott get back together with Jason and that they're back, thick as thieves.

And this sort of ends like the run that Scott had of being pretty likable for the entire swap. Yeah. Yeah. I think he's still fineish on this episode. Yeah. But it is about to go downhill from here. And they bring in the mayo jar very quickly, you know,

that they have the Scott and Jason and Ty. And then also they're sharing a lot of information with Nick. Nick, who's narrating most of this, he says that maybe they had too much rum. Yeah, they come out and tell Nick about the idol for no reason. You know, like, don't get me wrong. It's how you forge bonds and all this other stuff, sure. You just met. You just met, right? Like, they, like, he, they just met him. They, they don't, like, they weren't swapped with him. They haven't formed some type of bond with him other than this. They just met this man. I get it. He's beautiful. But come on, like, stand up. This was, this is embarrassing. Yeah. But it goes back to what you're saying. Scott hasn't seen a lot of survivors. So I don't think he really understands a magnitude of what a secret idol will do for you.

So we see that Sydney before they go to the merge. She clocks that. Neil has the idol in his pocket. It's not Mount St. Neil. It's the idol that's in his pocket. And she tells Jason, she's like, check, get a load of this guy. He's got the idol. And Jason's like, we got to go after Neil immediately. But this season, there's a super idol.

And if you have two, then you could play it after the phone. And so they want to work with Todd. Scott immediately, like, clocks when Ty has the idol, are like, oh, okay, I have we have this idol and then also Jason has an idol. So this is a big deal. But Jason, when he finds out that Neil has the idol, is like, we got to take out Neil. Yeah. They're not threatened by Ty.

They think Ty's going to let us do whatever we want. If we want to use the idol with Ty, he's just going to do it. Neil's not going to play ball with us. And so they might as well just get him and his idol out. I think there might have been an opportunity there to do something. But to me, the more fascinating thing is Neil allegedly walking around with this idol in his pocket, like that, because you would think that that be something that you did not do, right?

And you wouldn't walk around with a visible bulge in your pocket. Yeah, it's rare. Unless you're trying to make people think you have the idol, you typically would not walk around with the idol in your pocket. And Neil says he did not have the idol in his pocket at any point of the game. Did he call it his family jewels at one point? Yeah, because he was not talking about his pocket. Neil says it's canon that Neil's idol was not in his pocket.

He's like, all I have to do is reach into my family jewels and pull this little thing out. Yeah. It was in his coin purse. Not his wallet. And so that's why that seat is so funny to me because Sidney equalized. She's looking for it. She finds the ball. She says, that's probably an idol.

I know what one looks like. Jason says, I know that's an idol because I have one. I'm like, Jason, close. You probably do have whatever that Neal has, but that is not, that's not, that's not the idol. That is not an idol in his pocket. He is happy to see you. The idol is somewhere else.

See, I thought he has cargo pants on. I thought that you can see that he has the idol in there. You're saying that, no. Neo said that I did not have the idol in my pocket. But in the episode, because Exit Press, we know, it's not canon. But in the episode, he said, I will reach it to my family jewels and rob, I've never heard of anybody referring to the cargo pants pocket as a family jewels.

Sorry. The man said in the episode, the stuff, the junk was in his junk. And so he says in his exepress with you that he had like yarn and stuff like that in his pocket because you never know when you're going to need something like that. Maybe to fashion a fake idol or something like that. So they found the fake stuff that was in his sport coat. The stuff that he told Aubrey would be, oh, it's kind of like an idol. Put the idol in there and fool. You know, so yeah, very funny to me that all of this drama behind Neil having an idol was really Neil having an idol in his crotch and not in his pocket.

We get some Mark the Chicken action in this episode. We haven't seen too much of, I don't even think it's officially named Mark, but I had a couple of moments that are sort of like burned in my brain that were sound clips where Ty is fussing with the chicken. Oh my God, look at a chicken. And Joe is opining that the chicken is actually doing better than he is in the game, that he would rather be in the position of the chicken, which is then jumping up and eating Ty's coconut from him. No, no, no. No!

Oh! Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the chicken will make it to the final trouble counsel, if I'm not mistaken. Joe will not. No. No. We had our merge feast here, which was also kind of a banger. And Nick is narrating so well.

And Debbie is... Now, I think that Debbie goes on to say she was faking being drunk here. Oh. Did she come off drunk to you? When she's talking about how she has a, like talking about Nick's. good looks is that not on par for what we've been seeing Debbie saying

yeah but publicly it did seem a little bit but I don't know if that's in her exit interview or somewhere down the road maybe even talking with T-bird that she does say like that she's like turning she like pretends to drink oh yeah she's talking about how listen Nick you're you're adorable

and I want to cuddle with you but I'm happily married so back off I didn't know this. That's what she said. I didn't know she was married either. But she's like, nah, you know, this is all fun in the games. So Debbie's about the shenanigans. I'll give me that.

Yeah. But there's so many fun ways that the differences between the brawn and the brain are described in this episode. Nick has a really good one. He talks about how the brawn, they have big personalities. They're sort of extroverts. That's what brawn are. The brains, they like to hide in the shadows. they don't want to show, you know,

tell you what they're really up to. I mean, if anything, he's definitely depicting Aubrey, right? I feel like that's probably Aubrey, the player a little bit more. She's got a little bit more, you know, standoffish when it comes to the social settings, but she's willing and dealing in the background for sure.

And that looks like it's appealing to Nick. Like, he doesn't seem like he's immediately drawn to the brawn. It's just that when he assesses the situation, it looks like the brawl would be easier to beat. Yeah. And the brains are desperate. You know, they have their four, and they're really, Debbie especially, is going on offense to try to pull people in. It's not going great.

No, it's not. She goes to Ty, and she's like, all right, Ty, I like you and I want you. So we're in an alliance now. How you feel about that? He's like, ah! She's like, yeah. So it's got me. I think we can get Michelle to.

So it's the six of us. We're in the lines. We got the numbers, you know, so welcome to the team. Yeah. You don't have to worry about anything. We have an alliance now. We're all good. I like you.

I like you. You're lucky. You're lucky. I picked you up off the street. You know, talking about like, I don't know about this. And especially because we know that Ty and Scott are tight. And it looks like it's obvious to everybody else because other people are talking about it. Debbie seems to be the only one.

Aubrey says, who's handling this. Not finessey. She's doing this in a way that's not finessey. No. Debbie Fennetti is talking to Aubrey and Debbie is excited to see Aubrey and she talks

about their alliance and how good they are together. She says that we are like salt and pepper. We are like Ebony and Ivory, she said. Light skin Arbri's already here, huh? She got here way before season 50. I knew

she was coming this season but I didn't know when she could go pop in. Light skin Arbery, that's my girl, you know? Love me, Lightske and Aubrey. Salt and Pepper did get Caleb out of the game. So, you know. Maybe that's who they are here. Yeah, it was so wild that that was how she said like,

hey, we go together. We're like Ebony and Ivory. Yeah, Ebony and Ivory, Salt and Pepper. You know, what other 90s rap group? Yeah. Go Debbie. Go Debbie. So, let's see.

Debbie, yeah, she's on offense. She wants to go to Michelle also. We see that Debbie and Michelle are talking with Aubrey. And Debbie is saying like, hey, this is what we need you guys, but we got this. We just need to get to six. I don't think Michelle likes Debbie too much. She knew last episode Debbie was one of her few options, but now that she has more options, She's like, I don't think I'm doing the deputy thing.

Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about the Julia and Michelle with Scott and Jason? It was not really something that I think in the real time. I knew that they were closer as the season went on. But it does seem like that they do vibe better with Scott and Jason than they do with the brains. Julia is with Scott and Jason for sure. I think Michelle is kind of still just like, she's Michelle. She gets along with everybody.

It's what she does. And so she's like, I could go with Debbie or I could go with Scott and Jason, but she's also telling us all the reasons why they are not good at the game, right? So she tells us about Debbie and how she's coming on so strong, but she says, Jason's a jerk. No one's going to vote for him. And Scott is rich. No one's going to vote for him.

So she's making her decisions kind of based on who she thinks she can beat or how far she's going to go in the game, whereas it looks like the bond Julia formed with Scott during the swap is really what brought that side together. Yeah. So there's this big tug of war for really all of the beauty and Scott and Jason are ultimately winning. Not a lot of Sydney in this episode. We don't really see her part in all of this.

No, no, no, no. She's still with the brawn right now, but that probably is about to turn. But yeah, she's like, I think she saw the Neal thing, right? And once she sees Neal has an idol for Sidney, it makes total sense to be on this split plan, right? we'll put some votes on Neal, put some votes on Aubrey. Aubrey is more threatening in the game to Sydney than Neil is. And so she's fine if Aubrey goes here. And hopefully they can get Neal's idol out at the same exact time.

Yeah, but this was a really well-depic. I mean, this was a 42-minute episode, but I guess with no tribal council, we really had a lot of time to give us delay the land at the post-merge. Yeah, I hadn't even thought about it, really. I mean, and they only do one challenge here, right? They only do the hold your balls on the disc challenge. And so because of that, you know, we didn't spend a lot of time just kind of like sitting around watching people do stuff.

Like we got to see what everybody was thinking at the merge. So it was a very active merge. We saw pretty much where everybody stood not so much from their own point of view, but we got a good lay of the land of like how it lands on, okay, it's going to be Aubrey or Neal. Because there were definitely other options out there. But all signs and all roads led right back to those two. Was there a better way the brains could have approached this? Okay, so you got to take Aubrey out the equation, right?

I feel like she's burnt Scott altogether, so she's all in with whoever anti-Scott. So I think that going to Nick is the right move, but Nick's not going to work with, I don't know. I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so. I just feel like that Debbie was not great to pull people in. It seems like that Michelle didn't really love Neil, that wasn't really weird. Like, there's just no inroads there. Yeah, this was not the social kind of standing that you would want to have coming into a merge.

Because they're down in numbers. So you would think, you know, these sides would want to pick them up. But like, no, they're all, they've all merged into kind of like one healthy group. And then the brains are like, wait, how are we on the outside of this? You should want to work with us. Yeah, you pissed off the brawn. Yeah. They pissed off the brawn and the brains.

I mean, the bra and a beauty at the same exact time by voting for Julia and writing her, crossing her name out, Julia, you've pushed her away. You know, so if she has any sway over Thai and Michelle, they're not coming with you. You know, they're really in a tight spot. And honestly, they would have been worse off if Peter was here too. And this dynamic was also playing out on that other tribe that Michelle was on, where that Jason and Sydney were trying to pick up Nick and Michelle and also Debbie and Neil were trying to pick up Nick and Michelle.

Mm-hmm. And if you had any question of where they're going to end up going, it does feel like there's a lot of anti-social energy coming from the brain. Yeah, they weren't good at this. Yeah, they weren't good at the socializing part. Yeah. I mean, it's, personality-wise, it's a very, that's a reason why they play so many times,

you know, Aubrey and Debbie play back-to-back. I think because they are, you know, big characters. Now, we do get that challenge that you mentioned, the balls on a disc. Jeff's feeling it also. Oh, yeah, he loves feeling the balls on the disc. Hey, him saying balls and disc over and over again in different iterations. You never want to see your balls touch like that.

You never want that to happen. Like, okay, Jeff. I think he said that balls were going in opposite directions, and he said, you never want that. You hate to, hate to, hey, you get like the cut to tie. Yeah. Yeah, this is Jeff, freaky Jeff, freaky frog Jeff back in the day. He don't really, do we do the balls on a disc anymore? I want to see they've done it in the new era.

Yeah, I feel like we must. It's a staple. It's a ready set standstill challenge, so I'm sure they use them all. Cost $20 to produce at this point. They use the same apparatus. All right, dust off the balls and discs and see what happens for this one. Yeah, it was an easy-peasy challenge. Good job by Nick winning immunity here.

Nick will win immunity in this challenge, but then has still never been to Tribal Council? Yeah. I wonder how that's going to go. Yeah. Although his time is coming soon. It'll be there soon enough. He'll be there soon enough. But yeah, this was really fun to, even though there was no vote, fun episode.

Yeah, it was fun. I think they let the characters be. And the characters had a lot going on here. There were jockey infarposition. We saw some strategic conversation. We saw some new bonds forming. And then we even saw the downfall of Neil. And it was an emotional downfall, right?

And to me, Niels Mettivac is like the least emotional for the normal reasons. The normal reasons is you never want to see anybody's game in like this. They were so young. They were the best of us. They did. They almost had it. They would have won the whole thing. This time it was Aubrey being like, he took my damn idol.

What am I to do? Like to one person who really looked emotional about this was Aubrey. Yeah. It's just really interesting how Neil's exit is just completely. from Aubrey's POV. And I don't remember that. Like when Joe Dowdowell gets out, it's not like that one person like,

oh, Joe Dowdow, that was my guy. I can't believe. How are we going to move on without Joe? Mm-hmm. Yeah, this was her. But even then, it wasn't like she was like, damn, me and Neil, we were going to run this whole thing. Neil, I'm going to do it for you.

You know, this isn't Natalie losing Nadia and being like, you know, like I got to avenge you. Or avenge, yeah, or germ. me who she'd only know for a week. You know, this is, this is Aubrey losing her number one ally and being like, that son of a bitch, took the idol. He took the damn idol. What am I going to do?

I'm going to get dysentery. I'm going to die. You're going to get $2 million in a car. She could have got, she could have got, she could have been worse. This could have been worse. She was really close. To me, she's really close to get it medevact. I would love to hear kind of the

like the follow up to the season. I want to know how Aubrey's health was after the season. I know emotionally she's going to go through a lot because of how things end up. But being that halfway through the game, her health is really a concern of the producers and the doctors. I wonder if she had any lasting infections.

I know that a lot of people did. Yeah. Yeah, we talked about Liz and Peter had to go to the hospital. and I don't know, maybe maybe no that Peter's not around. Things are improving. Stop lancing these things.

Stop. Stop. Like, you know what? We're going to just like stop touching the thing. I think Dr. Rupert said that aloud so we would all know too. If I lance this, it will let the infection out,

but infection can get in. So you rewind the tape back to episode one when we're talking about lancing things on a deserted island. These are things you should remember that you probably shouldn't be doing on your own. But to me, I just think production should stand in at that point. Like, to step in. Hey, I'm recording you.

Hey, don't stop touching that. Stop touching your little infection. Stop that. Stop it. No, you can't lance that. Yeah. Or something. I don't know.

This is a crazy season for all of this to kind of hit a head right here, right here in the middle. And now it's about to just like take off at a break next B. Like, they're going to start running downhill soon. I kind of feel like this wouldn't bother me if they had like some antibiotic ointment and they could just put it on it

and then put a Band-Aid on it it wouldn't take me out of the show as a viewer. Me neither. And maybe they do now. Maybe they do. Yeah. Maybe they do now. Because I think, oh man, don't let me lie on Kobe. Did Kobe say he got sick in the game on Survivor 50?

I want to say, you know what, we're talking about antibiotics? I kind of feel like that maybe Colby had said in his exit interview that they had him on some kind of antibiotic. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. So I think maybe this is a thing now. Yeah.

I don't know if it was a thing before Coralong, but I think it's a thing now where if it's something that we can just throw a little flesh-colored band-aid on, you know, let's just do it and move on. Yeah. Now that, yeah, the more I think about it, yeah, I know they give them bandages now for sure, because there's one scene in Survivor 50 where something happens,

and I was like, oh, my God. And I was like, oh, it's just a bad day. It was like, okay. That was like a gash on somebody. I have to really think back to who it was. But yeah, I think Kowron taught them a lot of lessons, and we'll see maybe some changes for the better. Yep.

Anything else for you from episode seven? Hmm. No. I think this was fun. This is a good turning point in the season because if you're watching this, right, and you are becoming an Aubrey fan, this is the beginning of Aubrey's kind of like run

to history, right? Like, everything up to this now has been the bumpy roads. But to me, at this point, Aubrey's about to kind of take the game by, you know, by the wheel and just kind of drive this thing on to the end. And, you know, maybe I just don't remember

a call wrong accurately. But I remember in the real time thinking, like, dang, this sucks. But then after this being very impressed with whatever she's able to do. So we'll see. Yep. All right. We'll see when we get to episode eight,

things are really going to pick up in the back half of the season. We'll see. We'll see. Okay. All right, Chappelle, what's coming up for you? Recap Kickback. We are now talking about House of the Dragon.

That recap should be out by the time you hear that or hear this. But you also have heard the first couple of Recapacaps of interview with the vampire on RecapKickback. Go hit that subscribe button, YouTube.com slash at Recap Kickback. If you have, if you're listening to this 10 years from now, just going through old Korong podcast. Still, go click like. 20 years after Khorong. Yeah, 20 years later. 20 years greater.

What's it like in 2036? I don't know, but are we still talking about jiffs on Twitter? Probably not. So, yeah, check out Recap Kickback. Follow Recap Kickback on all social media platforms at Recap Kickback. And now end 2036. Yeah, for sure. By 2036, it should be a whole thing.

Hopefully it has more than 3,000 followers. All right. We shall see. Thank you so much for joining us. Looking forward to episode 8. Take care of a good one. I. A lot of folks listen to Rob, it's a podcast, because they want to get smarter about Survivor. But when you want to get smarter about your money or your time, you got to check out

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