RHAP: We Know Survivor - Kaôh F***ing Rong Rewatch Ep 8

Episode Date: June 25, 2026

Kaôh F***ing Rong Rewatch Ep 8 Survivor: Kaôh F***ing Rong heats up as Rob Cesternino and Chappell crack into episode 8’s wild gameplay and shifting alliances. This week’s Know-It-Alls episode zeroes in on the downfall of a cocky player, the rise of a new power player, and the messy, unpredictable energy that defines Survivor: Kaôh R?ng’s merge. Rob Cesternino and Chappell break down the episode where Nick’s arrogance and misplaced confidence get him booted—despite his belief that he’s running the show. The duo dive into Sydney’s breakout move, as she recognizes the growing threat from the men and forces a shift that puts her firmly in the driver’s seat. Meanwhile, Ty unwittingly stirs the pot at Tribal Council, spilling the secret of the super idol and confusing allies with his stray vote. Michelle’s perspective as a swing vote is explored, revealing the delicate balance between loyalty and seizing the right moment to act. The reward and immunity challenges bring both relief and tough decisions, as the heat and an ice cream feast set the stage for tension back at camp. Key moments and decisions include: – Sydney’s decisive flip that undermines the men’s alliance and re-centers the women’s game – Nick’s social and strategic errors, including talking down to key allies and overplaying his hand – Ty’s accidental chaos at Tribal, exposing the super idol and voting unpredictably – The camp’s reaction to the ice cream reward in brutal weather, plus challenge strategies that shape alliances – Michelle’s reluctant vote and what it means for her long-term position As Kaôh F*ing Rong deepens, will Sydney’s bold move put her on the path to victory, or has she upset the balance too soon? What impact will Ty’s Tribal misstep have on the fragile bonds left in the game? Don’t miss this episode as the alliances blur and every vote counts—tune in for all the strategic fallout from the Kaôh R?ng merge! Chapters: 0:00 The Mayo Jar Gets Voted Out 1:23 Nick’s Arrogance and Social Gameplay 3:45 Sydney Emerges, Pushes Back on Nick 4:45 Aubrey Isolated, Struggles at Bottom 5:54 Paranoia Over an All-Girls Alliance 6:13 Was Flipping a Good Move for Sydney? 8:07 Sympathy for Scott and Jason Revealed 10:28 Ty Accidentally Votes for Jason 11:52 Ty Reveals the Super Idol Secret 13:27 Ty’s Confusing Vote and Fallout 16:19 Aubrey’s Comeback After Neil’s Exit 19:49 Survivor Boot Edit: Seen vs. Ignored 22:39 Iconic Schoolyard Pick Reward Challenge 25:51 Ice Cream Reward, Neil Gets Snubbed 28:58 Immunity Challenge: Temptation and Endurance 32:43 Nick Blindsided, Unique Vote Split 35:00 Michelle’s Perspective as a Swing Vote 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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Save up to 52% with the code podcast at grooens. That's code podcast at g-r-un-s.c-o. Hey everybody, what's going on? We're talking Survivor, episode 8 of Co-Effing Wrong, and we are sad to see the mayo jar go out once again. And another great episode, so much going on here with Chappelle. Chappelle, how are you? Man, you know, honestly, Rob, I was having a pretty bad day. Like, today sucked so far.

And then I watched this episode of Co. wrong. And I said, honestly, the day's not as bad. You know, it really did brighten my day a little bit. It was some good TV, some questionable things happening strategy-wise. But I know I'm going to have a good time talking about it with you. So I'm ready. Tell me about it. What was it in particular that brightened your day? It's these characters. I think that, like, I know we talk about the mail jar going out here right now. But like, what else could you ask for this man? He's in full arrogant mo. He's like a villain. Like, I like, yeah, I'm taking advantage of these weak people. They can't do anything about it. I know I'm arrogant, but look at me, I'm pretty. Like, he's doing

his whole thing. And it's like, you couldn't script it better. Who better to go out in this moment than him? You know, it's like he knew. It's like they told him at the beginning of the day, hey, this is probably a boot episode. So you need to make the best of it. And he said, make the most of it, Nick. Let's do it. Yeah. Yeah. And he did. He really is on the lookout for a women's alliance. It seems like based off of the episode that that is his undoing. It's a real coming out party for Sydney who has just had it with. Nick? I don't even know if the

Women's Alliance is this is only undoing. The man is arrogant in all his conversations with people. I mean, yes, he pisses off Sydney looking for that, but also he pisses off Aubrey at one point. Even Julia and Michelle are like, I don't really like the way he talks to me. I guess watching the season

the first time, it did not occur to me. But how many mistakes he made. I don't know if Nick is an average survivor player. Like, when I'm talking about, like, skill level, everything is, Because he went to one tribal council and went home?

No, because he did everything to get himself voted out. Rob, at the challenge, Ty is like, I don't want the brains to win immunity. And Nick, unprovoked, says, yes, because all the brains are at the bottom. They're next on the chopping block. Now, Nick, what the hell is that going to do for you? How is that going to benefit you in this game to announce that all the brains are at the bottom? Just vote them out. You don't have to tell everybody about your diabolical plan.

You don't have to tell them. You don't have to tell them. why are you telling everybody all the business? And so when you get back to camp, Sidney heard you say this, Michelle heard you say this, and they're all thinking, this guy's a loose canon, and he thinks he's in charge. The brains obviously don't want to work with you anymore

because you just outlined how they're all at the bottom. You're talking to Aubrey, like she has no clue what's going going in the game either. I mean, to be fair, she doesn't at this point. But you don't got to talk to her like that. It's just socially, Nick just threw the social game out the window. Yeah, I think he comes across as sort of like he is a little bit like the dad to,

Julia and Michelle and when they're having their like game conversations and they go on the boat with Sydney and Thai then there's some talk about oh wait is there a girls alliance he's like hold on are you did you all do an alliance without talking to me first and the height difference doesn't check that doesn't help either right because he's always looking down on them right like almost like an authoritative figure and don't get me wrong Michelle Julia they might be able to play nice with that kind of stuff Sidney's not having that.

Sidney, she's not having that. And honestly, Aubrey's probably not having that either. We saw how Aubrey was with Peter Bagginsstas. You think she's going to take that from Nick too? And so, yeah, he does this, but Sidney had to call him out. Aubrey is just at the bottom. And this is almost very much like Survivor 50, where Aubrey is here at the merge. And nobody's talking to her.

She's at the bottom. She has to get rid of the idol. And it's not looking too good for Aubrey. She's going to work her way back. But she's not in a position of power here. at the start. This is really all Sydney's move. Yeah, she's at, Aubrey's so far at the bottom right now, right?

They're going to split the vote on her. But then also just like, emotionally, she's at the bottom too. Like, she's at the end of her, of her wits. She, as the captain for the challenge, and she picks an awful team for the challenge. You know, and so she's like, I can't do anything right here at all. So she is blessed by the idea that they want to split,

and she's not the primary target. Yeah. And for Sydney, she's in a good spot. She's with Jason and Scott and it had been sort of a quietish run so far. But I don't know whether it was just the heat or Nick something that he did. She just had it. She's that she's not going to take any more from Nick. She's going to check him. Yeah. So he goes, Sidney is off having a conversation with Julia Nibb. I think they looked like they went kayaking or something. Julia, blah, blah, blah. And so Jason, Scott and Nick are sitting around talking about, is there a Girls Alliance? Nick's like, they're not going to do that without running it past me. Let me go talk

to them. He goes over, talks to Julia, but Sidney watches the whole thing. And because he's going to Julia to ask this question, it does look like there's mistrust with Sydney, right? Because if you thought Sydney had the answer to your question, why not just ask her? So she's kind of like, what's going on? What's the issue? Scott and Jason are like, oh, no, no, we weren't talking about the girls aligned like that Nick thought there was but he just checked it's cool but that was enough suspicion to get Sidney looking at them because the goal here is to go down to the final seven and if they do

it'll be three girls versus four guys if they do make it to the final seven so although they weren't thinking about the girls of lines by the end of the episode I mean this sounds like that's what they're gonna do Sydney spotted it she said I was like oh that's what she said when she saw it and she didn't like me when Nick was checking her. Don't check me, boo.

Don't check me, boo. You know, I don't need you checking up on me. I'm grown. If you got a question for me, you could come ask me. The best person to discuss me with is me. Yeah. I re-listen to the Survivor Know It All's. And a lot of the conversation that night with Stephen was about,

was this the right move for Sydney? We know how it's going. We know where it comes down to. She's got a pretty good chance to win. at the end. Did you think this was a great move for Sydney? No. No.

Despite Stephen being high on Perkissette that night. Oh, you watched the show. Yeah. Yeah. Happy 100th anniversary to you and Stephen, by the way. Thank you. Rob, have we done more than 100 podcasts together? I would think so.

I mean, we did like 150. Just about suits. Oh, yeah. I forgot. Damn, I forgot it was that long of a show. Yeah. What is our anniversary? You don't talk about that enough.

buy me things. No, I'm joking. But yeah, so I don't think this is, I think this is early. I think it's a pinch early because I don't know why you have to do this right this second. You have to imagine that Joe is not a part of any guy's alliance, right? So he's just there as a placeholder. This seven, tie, Julia, Michelle, Nick, Scott, Jason, Sidney. That's the brawn and the beauties. If you, wait, just one round, right? Take out Debbie here. You got Aubrey. She's not going to go running to the, to the boys anytime soon if Sydney is, you know, offering to save her.

Obviously, Michelle and Julia can be swayed to vote out Nick. So why not just wait one more round? Take out Debbie here. Take out, then take out Nick. And then at that point is you and the girls have the upper hand on Scott and Jason by so much that what are they really going to do. I mean, like, Ty Scott and Jason can't outnumber. you, Julia, Michelle, and Aubrey and Ty. You know, so I just feel like one extra boat is probably ideal.

It's going to be good for Sydney ultimately. But I think that as you look at it down the stretch, I feel like that there's a point when if Joe Del Campo doesn't get medevaced, I don't think that Sydney is there at the final four. Or it seems like that Joe and Ty and Aubrey are going to the final three, not Sydney, where it feels like that Sydney, and I was feeling it that night of that, like, but she was with Scott and Jason. And Michelle even said Scott and Jason can't win.

So wasn't that her best move to stick with them? Well, you know, this episode was also the redemption of those two people as far as like socially, right? We had to paint them as threats because, you know, Michelle last episode said they're not threats. But in this episode, we found out about Scott's, his mom, I think, who has a degenerative illness. Yes. And we found out about Jason's daughter who has autism and how much they need the money. So the sympathetic story is there. Cindy says, hell, even I'd give them the money.

So I don't know if they necessarily can count them out based on what the show is showing us. But I definitely think that's just like, if you wait it just a little bit longer, you really do limit the amount of options they have. If you took out Debbie here, I mean, you know, you can weaken the perceived girls alliance. But I think that allows you to be like, all right, now we can get Nick and nobody. would be mad about it, you know. I also think when you talk about these people, like, you have to let them be them. Sydney is not a passenger. She was never going to just go for the ride with Scott and Jason.

Right. And they are fully expecting her to go to the ride to seven. And I'm thinking that they think, well, we have Thai as well, right? So even at seven, at worst, it's Scott, Jason, Sydney, and Ty. And then she's the one on the odd side out of that. Now, I don't know if she's realized that yet, but she knows she needs to be at least taking out Nick, because he seems like he's firmly aligned with them as well. Yeah.

It just seemed like that part of her motivation, the only thing we saw about her wanting to flip on these guys where she's been sort of like rock solid with them since Jump was that we see Jason telling that story about his daughter and how the money would be very meaningful for his family. And she says the thing that you mentioned of that she would give him the money also. And maybe she's feeling like, hey, well, maybe I need to start going out on my own.

Yeah. I think between that and Nick just putting a big old target on his back, you know, it was so easy to do. I think it's probably harder to get Jason. Well, you would think it would be harder to get Jason out here. But some reason, Ty voted for Jason. And for the life for me, Rob, I don't know what that was. I don't know how this happened.

Yeah. So it's one of those things where you kind of like, wait, what happened? And then you see the votes at the end and you see that Ty voted for Jason. And so I did listen to the exit interview today with Nick. And Nick gave some clarity on that where there was some talk, I guess, of that the plan prior to it being vote out Nick was that I guess there was some momentum of getting votes together from the brains to vote out Jason. And I guess somebody had told Ty that's what the plan was. and then I guess nobody went back and told Ty, hey, that's not what the plan is.

What? How did this happen? How did this happen? We see him in the immunity challenge, and it was a fun immunity challenge. We can talk about it in greater detail, but he seemed like he really spent himself to win immunity in this episode.

And then he goes to tribal council. he ends up spilling the tea about the super idol. Not everybody knew about that. He kind of unprompted just reveals about how the idols is a super idol and you could use two of them and put it together. And even Jeff is like, wow, I think look at Julia's reaction. I don't think she knew about that. He's like, oh, well, people talk, you know.

Maybe, maybe not. I'm not sure. And then he gets the vote for Jason, who is one of his allies. Yeah, this is just crazy to me This doesn't make any sense to me at all Because if you had the momentum To get out Jason, why didn't y'all just vote out Jason? What did Nick do that?

It was so damn bad that all of a sudden Jason is more attractive to keep around, you know? Did they have the votes? I would wonder. Maybe if they had, okay, so the votes to take out Jason Were the beauty's gonna go along with that? I don't know. The three, how many brains are there?

Three left? Three brains. and Ty will be four. Three brains and Ty, that's four. And we have, what, 11? Yeah, Jason, Scott, and Sydney would be the three Braun. And then Julia, Michelle, and Nick would be the three. I guess we have 10 because it was five and five at the challenge.

So, yeah, I don't think Sydney was going to go with that. So... You don't need her. You only need Debbie, Joe, Aubrey and Ty. Debbie, Joe, Aubrey... Because they're splitting the vote on Aubrey and Debbie. And Ty knows it. Well, does Ty know that?

we don't know what Ty knows and what he doesn't know. Yeah, you know, I thought Ty was pretty good with Scott. You know, I thought that was a thing. So for Ty to be willing to even betray Scott here to vote out Scott's number one ally, it is fascinating. And we never see Scott,

Ty's point of view on the vote at all. We don't really hear from Ty strategically until we get to the tribal council and he just completely tells everybody unprovoked that there is a super idol out there. He says it like, yeah, well, you know, We've heard that there's a super idol in the game. Who did you hear that from, Ty?

But, you know, I thought everybody told you. Everybody knew. Well, Julie does know. Well, I thought she did. But maybe they're lying to me. Maybe they made that up. Maybe that's not a thing. Ty, what?

It reminded me of those early seasons of Survivor, maybe like season one where they're like, we heard a rumor that the other tribe has. It's like, who is starting these rumors? Yeah. Who is we? We heard it from who? Yeah. We heard that was a super idol?

Like, did somebody whisper it? The production leaked? Huge is true. Right, right, exactly. Where did this news come from? Yeah. So, yeah, I don't, I'm not quite sure what the hell is happening here. Yeah.

And neither is Ty. No, he's lost as well. You wonder why Ty really doesn't stand a chance at the end of the game. This is the start of, you know, the deficits, right? Because Ty seems like a social enough player to where if you get to the end, he can have a sympathetic story. He could, you know, he's very likable. I mean, the guy loves everybody. Yeah.

You would think this person would be really hard to be in the final tribal council. It turns out it's not that hard. You know, there's really two ties that we see on Survivor. We see the tie who is lovable, resourceful. He's climbing trees. He's finding idols. He knows what plants to eat. He takes care of the chicken.

There is that version of Thai. Then there's a version of Thai that's very confused. Doesn't know where he is. Doesn't know what's going on. That might be crying at some point. and I think this is the first time we see that version of Ty. There's a third version of Ty coming up as well because he's going to break bad soon.

Somehow, the person that he just voted out, Jason, is going to win Ty over to the point where I think Ty is the one who puts out the fire one time on everybody else. He's got a... Yeah, evil tie is on the horizon, Rob. So there's so many layers to this, man. It's starting to be more confused about how he didn't get the call for 50. Yeah, I mean...

Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't make it. Or maybe he didn't want to play again. Honestly, Ty goes through a lot in a short amount of time. I think both of his time playing the game were kind of rough. You know, the Brad Cole Pepper moment is kind of sticking out to me a little bit as a TV moment that I'm sure Ty doesn't want to relive. Obviously, the rest of this game is about to get really hairy for him to. Maybe there's a word where Ty's just like, you know what, I'm good.

I've done my thing and I'm probably not going to win Survivor. Summer routines live or die by how easy they are. And honestly, if something takes too much effort, I'm out. That's why Grooons is my go-to. It's my one daily pack of gummies covering my greens, vitamins, and minerals. Plus, it has six grams of prebiotic fiber, which is more than two cups of broccoli. No mixing powders, no giant pills, no hassle. I just rip open the pack and I'm done.

They taste good and they make it easy to stay on top of my health, even when life gets busy. Save up to 52% with the code podcast at grooens.com. That's code podcast at g-r-un-s.co. Let's talk about somebody who did win Survivor very recently, and that was Aubrey. And here she is in this episode, trying to come all the way back from after Neil getting voted out. How do you think Aubrey is doing right now? But she's running around like Cochran's Dream Girl in this episode, you know. What does she mean by that?

I don't really know. It's like Cochran, he looks like his type is more like, you know, paranoid, cry, you know, very sad, weak. Maybe a little stressed out. You know, maybe that's what Cochran's putting on his dating profile. You know, those are the things that he's into. Yeah. I forget if it's this season or in Game Changers that they have Cochran in the audience and then they ask Aubrey about Cochran is right here.

Is it this season? I feel like it should be this season, right? I feel like it should be this one. Don't get me wrong. Cochran literally came onto Game Changers as a part of the show. And we didn't even get to see them link up. We missed that opportunity then. I know they're really good friends in real life.

But, you know, if you're Cochran now, you know, or at this present time when the show is being aired, I wonder how that feels to just get name dropped like that out of nowhere. He's like, what was I doing? I wouldn't bother nobody. And you know, Cochran, he's like a hermit. So he's like, in his house, in the dark eating pizza rolls all day, watching Survivor and heard Aubrey mention his type.

I bet he liked it. I'm sure he did. Yeah. I'm sure he liked about like, like, yeah, Aubrey, I could see that. I can see you going for something like that. Yeah. So Aubrey is working here, trying to not be the person to get voted out. I think that there's some doubt.

We talked about that Neil did a favor for Aubrey. He gave her the stuff that maybe people think she could have an idol. It's enough to cause a vote split. Do we owe Neil an apology? No, because you could have gave her the idol. Look at that, Neil. You could have just gave her the idol. You could have just gave her the idol.

What if he kept the stuff in his pocket as the souvenir? Yeah, why didn't you keep that stuff and give Aubrey the idol? That would be nice, especially because after this episode, people know about the super idol. It would be so easy for Aubrey to go over to tie and be like, hey, let's talk. But she can't have that conversation. He can only have that conversation with the Legion of Doom on the other side. And so, yeah, had Neil left this,

Aubrey might have a little bit more runway to work with. Yeah. And she is, we see her talking to Nick at one point. And Nick is not necessarily giving Aubrey too much hope. No. Well, he tells her like, it's Debbie. You should vote for Debbie. But he says it in the most condescending way.

He's like, you know, I know I sound arrogant. She says, you do. He's like, yeah, but I'm not going to stop. And then he's telling us in confessional, like, look, there's nothing she can do about it. I sent her weakness, and I'm going to take advantage of it. I'm going to exploit it. I was like, Nick, you sound awful.

Like, I just, like, I get it. You're in character, hopefully. But, like, I'm sure if you watched this back. I know, Rob, you've, like, famously waited on letting your kids watch your season of Survivor. Not that they would love it. I know they heard some of your hotter takes sometimes and they're not a fan. But Nick, one day, his family is going to watch this too. And, I mean, his immediate family already has, but, you know, hopefully he's able to tell them, like,

I was playing this up. This isn't really how I interact with humans. It's the type of thing where they do really bury you in your boot episode, where, when you go home, they really highlight all of your faults. And if you say anything that's even borderline, they're going to put it in the boot episode.

So is the goal to lean all the way in, or is the goal to be super cagey and just get no screen time? Hmm. Like, what's the, what's the strategy? Because you have, had the screen time, sir, and you leaned in. You were like, I'm throwing all, I'm throwing the balls at the wall, I'm just going to see what sticks.

You didn't really care what you were talking about. Making up stuff about the vagina monologues, you didn't even know what you're talking about. And, but like, it worked for you. But the downfall could have been swift and painful. So, I think there's a little bit of a difference of, I was just saying crazy stuff. It wasn't necessarily about, you know, the game or about any player in particular.

I think that's fine. I think you want to give the editors things to put into, to the show. I really think it's, your mileage may vary. Like, would you, would you rather be purple and be nothing?

Or would you rather be seen and hated? I think seen and hated is the move. Because even if it's like, listen, not hate it for doing dastardly things, not to evoke the name of Russell Hans too much. But, you know, Russell Hans, the reason why he's such a divisive character is because he did talk to the camera so much.

If Russell didn't say all the stuff that he was doing, I don't think it's easy to get behind him but because he's narrating the season. Yeah, it sounds awful when he's saying it, make no mistake, but you hear him hyping himself up. And so for the Russell fans, they're like, look at him, he's so great, he's calling his shots.

He's saying he's doing all these things. And for the Russell detractors, and then he loses, you know? And so it kind of serves both purposes where he gets that big edit, but also that downfall is sweet as well. And you could get redeemed. There's like other, maybe a peer

you could make out of this. I think it is better to be seen and be hated as opposed to be nothing. Because there's nowhere else to go once you're nothing. Right. The upside of this, if Nick does go on to win this season, he's Brian Heideck, you know?

It's a good conference. Yeah, but whether you love Brian Heideck or not, for a long time, you know, you've been in these streets. Somebody does. His mom. I'm sure. Right? But for a long time, people talked about him like he was like a top three or five winner right like you have to really look at his game and be like this guy's doing some weird stuff and he almost loses to him you know it's really close right i'm just saying and so um to that point because he gassed himself up so much it did make a lot of the stuff he looked like he was doing like a lot more impressive and so i think there is something there where you got to be your own biggest cheerleader you got to do it you got to if you can and all right

Let's look at what's of these challenges in this episode. I think this is another good challenge episode. The challenges are just so different from what we're used to in the new era. I don't want to sound too much like a broken record. But we get a reward challenge. And it's the challenge where we have, we don't do this for whatever reason in the new era. Maybe it's too much touching at the end for the new era where that there are these platforms and you have to move the platform and somebody has to go across it.

It was a schoolyard pick, and one of the rare times when the schoolyard pick actually matters. You brought it up that Aubrey was one of the captains. She goes up against Julia. This was a bad draft for Aubrey. She did not draft a good team. She, do they draft before they know what the challenge is, or did they hear the challenge and pick the team? You're looking at what the challenges. Did Aubrey draft her friends here?

Is that the explanation for? So the winning tribe is, the winning team is Scott, Julie, Debbie, Nick, and Ty. So Aubrey ends up drafted. We don't know what order. Michelle, Sydney, Joe, Jason, and herself. Is that five? Yeah, that's five. So no, she did not choose a friend of her friends.

Aubrey doesn't have any friends in this tribe. Right? Currently, we are being talking about. that the brains are so far at the bottom. They're her only friends or her alliance. Debbie, Joe, Aubrey. She chooses Joe, but I mean, Debbie's on the other team. Yeah.

Yeah. I wonder, and Jeff commented that Julia picked the two strongest guys and the two smallest people. I don't know if that was necessarily the ticket. I think it did help at the very end that Ty was able to climb on Scott's back. But if I had to guess how the draft went, I think Julia had the first pick.

And I'm not sure who was a snake, draft, probably not. I think Julia went Scott one and Aubrey went Jason two. Which is crazy. I think, okay, here's why I asked if they'd already known kind of what the challenge was before they drafted it because Aubrey is a fan. I don't know how big of a fan she is at this point. I don't know it's like super duper fan or whatever, but we've seen this challenge before. This is the, this is Micronesia, right? Yeah. I picture James Clement carrying Eliza or Parvety, you know, on the stick by himself. Remember, they used to try to get them to walk across, but they just broke the challenge, right? And so at the very least, you know you need a super strong man if you're going to do something like

that. They don't actually try to do that here. I don't know if they were told, like, hey, you have to walk across the platforms. Because I don't think we've ever seen anybody actually win the challenge in this way. It's always been get up on top, hold on really tight, and then just let the strong people carry you across. So when you see it, my first thought is James Clement. You need somebody like strong. And to me, Nick and allowing Nick, and allowing Nick, and Scott to be on the same team is a mistake. That's the only way I could see how this happened. And I think Aubrey probably picks Sydney fourth,

where Julia takes Nick three, if I had to guess how the draft went. Exactly. Yeah, she chose Nick over Jason. And I think, I think, I'm sorry, she chose Jason over Nick. And I think you're right. I think that might be the game-changing mistake.

But I think also you're probably looking at it, like, is Nick that much stronger than Jason? I think height-wise, yeah, obviously he has an advantage there, but maybe she was thinking, like, it's a coin toss between the two of them in actual physical strength. Scott is the cheat code here for sure.

Scott was the cheat code, and Julia is able to do a good job of walking across. And then the reward was ice cream, and was this, they're playing in Neil's face? I have so much to say about this. First of all, yeah, this is definitely a shot to Neil. They hate this, man.

I'm convinced, because why would you, like, You brought in ice cream. I bet it wasn't even three, three sons. What was it? Two twins. Yeah, I bet it wasn't even three twins. And then Rob, I don't eat ice cream, okay?

That's not my, it's not my jam. I'm not a big, you know, it's not for me. But I'd have to imagine that in a thousand degree weather, dairy? Is that what we're doing? It's a odd survivor reward. I can't ever remember another time where there was a ice cream parlor of, hey, root beer floats, Sundays. I'm sure it probably happened another time, but this is an unusual survivor reward for sure. I really want to know how many times this has come up because, like you said, it is unusual.

oh, one world. One world, they had an ice cream Sunday and floats reward, apparently. Not that that is a good season to point to, but it happens and it's weird, especially in this season where people have been dying, Kim, from just like, you know, heat exhaustion. It just, to me, there's got to be a better way. Even if you gave them popsicles, at least they're just cold in water and juice. You know, like this is dairy. It doesn't make any sense to me. Also, like I said, I don't eat ice cream. so I would just be sitting there lost. There would be no point in me even doing this. Yeah. So I thought it was interesting, though. Anything that's different than what we have now? I'm like, oh, wow, that's good. I like that.

I feel like you could do different without potentially killing these people. Right, because I just don't think having ice cream and milk on your stomach in the heat is ideal. But I could be wrong. I'm not assigned. It didn't seem like anybody had an issue. I mean, we're going to see somebody end up having to leave the game because of an issue at a reward. but everybody seemed like they're okay here. Maybe this was the beginning of the end.

Although Joe didn't go to the reward. Maybe we... He didn't go to the reward. He didn't go to the reward. He was his final destination. He should have been there. Oh, it was coming back around for him. He should have been there.

Yeah, it was coming back around for it. He dodged the heat stroke and the in the Caleb episode. He dodged the ice cream here. But it's coming. He's coming. Okay. And then we have our immunity challenge.

And then it's the immunity challenge where the players are, you know, holding their hands behind their head, the famous Christian challenge. And we get this in Survivor San Juan del, Sir, famously, where Jeff is going to bring out a bunch of rewards. It's interesting. This one, Jeff did something that I can't really ever recall.

He brought out all the food, and he said, this is it. This is the food. If you want it, you have to jump off right now. We're not doing it later. I'm not spreading it out. Like, I'm not going to keep coming back out with, like, oh, here's a pizza. It's all here right now if you want it. Did you like this?

It was efficient. I feel like that he doesn't like it. And I'm trying to go back to like in where we are in time-wise. I don't remember if they had that challenge in Worlds Apart. But I think in Survite, even though it was great in San Juan Del Sur, I feel like that maybe he doesn't necessarily like being like, what do you have? What are the specials? could you get me some hmm

do you have any boba tea right I think he was like I think he just slept like here it is I'm not making nine trips this is it yeah

you're right I think is that San Juan del Sierra where Natalie's like oh yeah here's I want fried chicken and I want this and I want that

and da da da da da and Jeff's like I gotta go get them I got to go get the stuff you know the kitchen staff is like hey we're not we're not doing that Jeff's definitely

It's hot. It's hot outside, Rob. I think that you do it like this, and then they know that there's nothing else to wait out for them. Like, win the challenge or sit out, but you don't get to stick around and me have to come out. And maybe it's just too hot for them to even think it's going to go that long. I mean, this challenge goes about 50 minutes, I'd say.

Yeah. And it does get a lot of people to drop. We end up where we have the moment that you mentioned with Nick, but it ends ultimately with Thai, versus Sydney. And Sydney is locked the F in. She's not dropping. She's not moving. She's not dropping. It's not even bothering her. At least it looks that way. But Ty is, he's so he's such a fun character, right? He's talking about how, you know, he's been through a harder stuff than this. He can, he can handle this. But he's also a little chatty too. You know, I think the chatty

people are always, it's a sign of like, it's a sign of weakness for sure in these immunity challenges because it's like you need the other person to kind of lose focus. Your focus is clearly you're not locked in, right? So you're trying to talk your way out of thinking about the pain. Christian Hubicki famously just talks for a billion years. But Alec was over there just stoic and quiet, right? But I think the talking really starts to get into your head, and it's just like it takes you out of that happy place that you go to.

And so although Sydney wasn't writhing around, when she did start to move, Ty was right there to be like, I see you moving. I see, I'm getting into you. And I think that was just a little bit of doubt that she needed to creep in. My favorite thing was that Ty ends up praying to Buddha. He did, yeah. Just started praying. I love when people pray on Survivor.

It's always entertaining to me. Because he's saying, I just need to get through one second at a time. Just if I could take this one second at a time, then it's like accomplishment over an accomplishment over the accomplishment. And it was just enough for him to do his little prayers each time and to get him through. And it worked. You know, Sydney goes down, Ty goes down. And they basically just like lay on top of each other until they can gather themselves. If I did this challenge, Rob, I would not be able to move the rest of the day.

between the ice cream and the challenge we've lost you yeah pretty much just throw some shrimp at me as well if you just want to kill me this is it so tie ends up getting his first individual immunity here

after he wins this challenge and I'd love to talk about the vote it was such an interesting vote that ends up coming up and it was one of these like interesting vote totals where this ends up being

what, six to two to one to one here of six votes for Nick, two votes for Aubrey from Jason and Scott, one vote for Debbie from Nick and one vote for Jason from Ty. Yeah, those three guys that they thought were in an alliance that were checking up on the girls' alliance, Nick, Jason, and Scott, they all follow through with the split vote between Aubrey and Debbie. all the women and Joe decided, hey, we're voting out Nick here. And Ty, for some reason, votes for Jason. And I still, 10 years later, do not know why. Yeah, I don't know if Ty knows why.

I think it's going to come up at the start of the next episode. I'm sure the guys will get an explanation. And maybe that's why Ty is going to go full dark tie, right? I think maybe they go to Ty and they're like, they didn't tell you either. He's like, you know what you're right? They didn't tell me either. What is that about? I'm not even quite sure.

I guess they thought he was probably too close to Scott. You know, maybe that's what they're thinking, like, he'll blow up the spot here. But I still think that if you let Debbie go here, you can get a lot more buy-in on voting out Nick the next round. Mm-hmm. You don't have to lot of all these people. Yeah. I'm trying to remember what happens next. Do we lose Scott or Debbie?

Do you remember? This feels like Debbie is. It feels like her time. Um, yeah, this feels like Debbie is on the way out. I'm not quite sure why I feel like, because I think Scott and Jason make it a little bit farther, right, with the super idol of it all. Uh, because that's a big moment in the game where, and I think Debbie's not present for that. Okay. Uh, I'm interested to see how it plays out. Was there anything else from this episode that caught your attention?

Hmm. Um, yeah, we haven't talked about the winner of the season, almost at all. Yeah. What's Michelle up to? You know, Michelle, we get to see her perspective as kind of like the swing vote here on this one, where Michelle, we know that she has a good relationship with the women, obviously, with Julia. But she's had it up and down road with Nick. She tells us that she doesn't necessarily want to vote Nick out. Yeah, he's annoying.

I forget exactly what word she says to disqual. describe him, but she feels like that she could still keep him around for longer. She didn't necessarily love the idea of getting rid of Nick. Then why did she do it? I think she felt like there was more to gain than by losing him. You know, Sydney is taking out Nick here because Nick is not one of Sydney's numbers, right? Sidney can always go back to Jason and to Scott and be like, it wasn't you, right? So at least, you know, I wasn't going to target you.

You know I hate him. He can go. It seems like Michelle's alliance is always. okay with Nick going, so why wouldn't she be? I mean, Julia is going to vote for Nick. That's probably Michelle's closest ally aside from Nick. I just don't know why, you know, from like, honestly, Michelle's superpower is her social game, and it doesn't seem like it's working on Nick. It seems like Nick thinks he's just dragging her to the end. And so she's like, yeah, this guy's not really respecting me as a player. It's not like he loves me so much.

He's going to take me to the end and we're going to have like a hand-in-hand victory. She could tell he's looking at her like a pawn. So I imagine it's time for him to go just from her point of view. Nick misjudges Michelle quite a bit. In the exit interview, it comes up that he mentions that one of the reasons why he really wanted to keep Michelle around. He said, again, according to Nick, that Michelle was going to be the first person voted out of the beauty tribe. He said that she was on the outs. She was going to be voted out. He really vouched for her.

And the reason why he did that was that he had seen her audition video on YouTube prior to, to them playing on the season. And he said that he fundamentally mischaracterized who Michelle was. And I think that he felt like that Michelle, based off of what he got from, the audition video, with somebody that he could lead around like that. That's crazy. Does this happen often where people see your audition video before you go on the show? It seems so random.

I don't know. Like, Michelle is not like a super duper fan that I, I would imagine that she was trying to get Survivor casting to see her video for quite some time. So I don't know if he was just Googling Survivor audition videos and hers was unlisted, or what? Hmm, I wonder if we could find that. You know, it's funny that you mention that. I pick on Neil a lot for his ridiculous speech that he gives Michelle, but I think someone in the comment said that that speech was kind of like a callback to Michelle's audition video as well. So I don't know if she said that she was a bad bitch in the audition video,

but this is the second time I've heard somebody mention it. So maybe it is a thing. Well, I wonder if it was a thing that Nick saw, and then while Nick was at Ponderosa with Neil with a lot of time on their hands, that Nick relayed to Neil, that that was something she said in her video, and that Neil was working on that. So I have Googled Michelle Fitzgerald audition video, and she has both of them

up her first and second audition video on YouTube currently. Now, I cannot right now skim it to see if she calls herself a bad bitch or a puppy suckling on the teat. But she looks like she's in a bikini in the snow in the first one and then she's on the beach

in the second one. So yeah, I'm going to check these out for next episode to see if there's a mention or something like that or just try to get a feel for what the hell Nick and Neil had going on. Yeah. Well, I think that

Nick is probably annoyed that Michelle betrayed him after he felt like he was looking out for her. I think that Neil was probably not a fan of hers either. Right. But I'm trying to figure out why the audition tape, I guess,

is coming up so much, right? Like, when Nick mischaracterizing her, what does she do in the tape that made him feel like she was going to be easy to beat? That's kind of what I want to see. Maybe, or maybe felt like that she didn't know the game particularly well and that he was going to be able to drag her to the end. There are a lot of audition tapes on here from Co-Rong. Jennifer Lanzetti, Joe Del Campo, Liz Markham, Aubrey Braco, both of Michelle's, Nick Meyerano, I think he has two, and Anna Kate, now private. Now Private, yeah. Now Private.

Don't know why, but you can't see that one. Can't imagine what was. said. I mean, I really can't imagine what it said. I would love to know. It probably was, didn't fit her brand now. It's probably too normal. Yeah, too, uh, inclusive. You know, you know, things have changed now. Uh, yeah, I, I think I'm going to go back and watch all of these. Um, you know, it's not that many of them. Yeah. Uh, I mean, a lot for one season, though. I, I was, I'm very impressed that they were able to find these. We should try to watch the Ponderosa videos also. Are they still available? You know? I'm not sure.

To hide Ponderosa from us. Damn it. This is all your fault, Omer. We can't have nothing nice. Let me see. Survivor come wrong. But there used to be so many secret scenes also. And now we are clamoring for scraps here, okay?

Yeah. I'm going to try to do some supplementary research on here because I do see the vote-out videos. Sydney, Scott, Julia, Debbie. So, yeah, there are a few on here. I think we can find them, and maybe we can get some more information about what was going on. Oh, it looks like a...

I was going to say, I thought that was a fight, but that's a different Alicia from Survivor. But yeah, there's a few secret scenes on here a day after for Sydney. Definitely something I'll look into before we talk again. Yeah, this was an era where there was,

if you're a new listener, that on the Survivor Wiki, they have the unaired confessionals, which were basically like, they would drop like 15 secret scenes. It was almost like they would drop like almost the whole confessional for the players when they had like a really long answer in their interview questions.

And I think they stopped doing that around the edge of extinction when there was like a point where I think that they got Kelly Wentworth with a Frankenbite where they had her saying something like negative about Rick Devons. And then she went and got the clip. He's like, I didn't say that. Look, here's my interview. And I think that that pissed them off.

That they're like, you know what? Stop doing that. We're not giving out the full clip anymore. Forget it. They got called out on their ish. They got called out. And they said, no more. We're not doing that.

But really, there's so many secret scenes that were, everybody's talking. Yeah. We got to watch all of this. We have to do the deep dive. into the back lot of the coron, like kind of like the lost footage, I guess.

One thing I will say about Michelle before we wrap up is that Jeff calls it out. He says, Michelle, you played Survivor the most optimal way so far, not going to Tribal Council for 22 days. And I thought, she almost made it to the end of the new era without ever seeing Tribal Council. And that's just weird.

Yeah, yeah, 22 days, no tribal. And so we got to see how things work out when, you know, you get a lucky draw sometimes. Mm-hmm. Yep. Debbie had a confessional called weak and arrogant. Debbie finds Jason and Scott's decision to step down for food obnoxious and has lost respect for them. She laud Sidney's competitive spirit and recalls in the Digit Challenge where both women faced heat exhaustion. Her and Sydney are practically the same.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Debbie in her voting confessional to Nick says, sometimes arrogance is a weakness. And I thought, Debbie, say it again, slower. Just sometimes arrogance is a weakness. I just want to just make sure we know who this statement is coming from. This is Debbie we're talking about. Okay. All right.

So we're going to come back. Episode 9 is coming up. Ooh, what's episode 9 called? Episode 9 is called. now that I know the number I do remember who gets voted out next. It's psychological warfare. It's psychological warfare.

That sounds like a Debbie quote as well. Yes, and also I remember that this episode is, I remember the episode nine, it's because that we did the live know-it-alls next week. Oh, okay, so yeah, so you have a fond memory of this episode. Yes, I do. The ones that were the live shows for whatever, reason that they really stick out of my brain. This was from April 6th, 2016. The Jocks versus the

pretty people. Oh my God. I was happily watching this show as a wee lad and now I'm an old. Yes. With the final nine also, we are going into three beauty, three brains, three brawn left. Yeah, that should make things interesting, right? I think that's why the end game of Koran is so entertaining because it's not there's no pegangging to be found right like it gets very voting blocky throughout so yeah I can't wait

to see and they hadn't seen the voting blocks right because they were they hadn't seen that season yeah so they invented it not Stephen and crew yep and three brain three beauty three brawn also the same exact

situation in Survivor Kagyan I think Aubrey mentioned that it felt like the pretty people and the jocks were getting together and they were leaving the misfits out, but the misfits always come back to win the day. She's obviously wrong here. But Rob, is there room for a misfit tribe? Because in Big Brother, you get the offbeat tribe in what was that.

Big Brother, 14? 11. 11, yeah. Do we do this again in the new era? It's the open era. Yeah. But we bring back the old hit, but we spice it up. Four tribes.

Yes. Four tribes. Are we doing 24 people? again? Or was it four tribes of five? Oh yeah. Oh my god. I forgot about that. Brains versus Braun versus Offbeat. What's the between brains and off? Do they have a brains and offbeat? Yeah, I don't know. And then I don't think that, yeah, Offbeat don't really work with the alliteration either. Yeah. I don't think that it wasn't brains versus Beauty versus Braun. The Big Brother 11 clicks. It was like the jocks, the like the jocks, the hot people.

It was the jocks, the popular people, the offbeats, and the brains. The brains. The nerds. Yeah. The nerds. But the reason why I bring that up is because I do think this is the best version of Brains v. Beauty and Braun. It's when they're all on the same beach. Yes, it's fun when they're on separate beaches talking about their strengths. But in this episode, we saw what, you know, their perspective, right? Even last episode, when Jason's talking about pushing people in lockers and stuff like that,

like all the good metaphors come out when the people are together. When they're apart, it's not as cool. But now you see the high school dynamics coming out to play a little. little bit. And yeah, I think they did a good job of kind of creating a narrative around that. And I think they could do that again if they add it. Just add one more click to them. Has anybody ever said Survivors like a high school? Has anybody ever talked about that? Is it like a high school, Rob? I think people have talked about it a lot. I think in some ways that it can be like a high school. Okay, Rob. Tell us, why is Survivor like a high school?

I mean, this is Wells. There's the, there's the popular people. You want us to sit there. at their table, there's the people that are the ostracized, don't talk to them, they're not fitting in. I mean, look at Aubrey in this past season. Yeah, but how does somebody who's not fitting in win the game?

That they win the respect of the cool people. And sometimes the cool people, they get medevaced and get swapped screwed. And then, uh, it's like, hey, guess what? This is this person who we didn't give a chance to. They're not half bad. Right. Or you got to sit

next to the jocks that nobody likes, you know, or something like that. Maybe that's, maybe that's the goal, right? Like, I was like, I don't really, like, the popular people, they would have won regardless, but we didn't let them get here. So we only got to choose between the jocks and this offbeat girl, but we don't hate, we don't hate her. You know, we hate them. Okay. Maybe that's what it is. All right, we'll be back for episode number nine. Chappelle, what else is coming up for you? Uh, House of the Dragon has officially started and, uh, we are covering it on recap, kickback.com. Uh, it's chaotic. So, yeah, some good, good TV.

But, you know, some of the book readers are up in arms. And I'm like, yes, hate, hate, hate it. You know, I love when they're upset. No. But, yeah, come check us out talking about it on Recap Kickback. Mari has read all the books. And so she knows the things. And I am there trying to desperately rob to remember these people's names.

It's been two years. Why do you think I know these people's names? So do that. And then check out our coverage of interview with The Vampire as well on Recap Kickback. dot com. Chantelle and I just finished Charm School of our flavor of love

rewatch series. We have Matt Scott on as our special guest and so we're about to start our next iteration of the flavor of love cinematic universe. Rock of love.

Rob, do you remember Rock of Love? Sure. Brett Michaels. Yeah. Yeah, that's what we're talking about next. And so tune in.

Recap kickback.com. Are you a fan of that one? I was knee deep in VH1 reality at this time. This is probably the most reality TV I'm consuming. It's probably what?

2008. So yeah, I think this is this is where Chappelle is really cutting his teeth on a lot of the shows. And the reason why I'm here to talk about these shows decades later. Nice. All right. Thank you so much for joining us for Kaurong, episode 8. We'll be back for our episode nine. Coming up next time, take care of a good one. Bye. 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 check out all the hacks. The host is named Chris Hutchins. He's a financial optimizer. Not like Emily Flippin. He sold two companies. He traveled to over 60 countries, mostly for free, racked up millions of rewards points in every week. He breaks down exactly how he thinks about

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