RHAP: We Know Survivor - Know-It-Alls: Survivor 50 Ep 12
Episode Date: May 14, 2026Know-It-Alls: Survivor 50 Ep 12 Survivor Know-It-Alls is back, as Rob Cesternino and Stephen Fishbach break down every dramatic turn from Survivor 50. The penultimate episode features a jaw-dropping d...ouble Tribal Council that shakes up the endgame. After weeks of dominance, Cirie’s run comes to a heartbreaking end, prompting an in-depth look at what went wrong for one of the greatest to never win. Meanwhile, Rick Devens’ elimination brings a mix of emotion and celebration, as players grapple with loyalty, risky moves, and the growing shadow of the fire-making challenge. Rob and Stephen dig into the strategic fallout from pivotal immunity wins, including Tiffany’s critical arch puzzle victory that changes the trajectory for several alliances. They retrace the votes at final seven and six, unpacking why Cirie’s grip faltered and how Aubry and Rizo maneuvered behind the scenes. The discussion explores why keeping big targets like Rick Devens can be a lifeline—or a fatal mistake—and why the social dynamics between old-school and new-school players continue to set this season apart. Key points explored include: – Cirie’s exit and whether this truly cements her status as Survivor’s “greatest to never win” – The moment Tiffany’s challenge win flips the endgame and sets up a bitter battle for the finale spots – Aubry’s strategic read on jury threats and how she positions herself for the final vote – Rizo’s idol-holding streak and its impact on the shifting alliances – Joe’s changing legacy, from celebrated hero to outsider Will Aubry’s under-the-radar style be the winning blueprint, or does Tiffany or Jonathan have enough momentum to take it all? Survivor Know-It-Alls pulls apart every scenario and questions who has the best path to the final three. Don’t miss this week’s episode as Rob and Stephen debate the moves that shaped Survivor 50’s endgame and preview the unpredictable finale ahead! To order Rob’s book, The Tribe and I Have Spoken, visit www.robhasabook.com To order Stephen’s novel Escape!, visit stephenfishbach.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!
Transcript
Discussion (0)
The smartest guys around
We're about to break it down
Like they won
The game a million times
Surviver, no way
Take the part off.
That's it.
Stephen.
It's over.
Survivor 50 is officially over.
It was inconceivable.
How is that the puzzle?
How is that the puzzle that they had for this?
It's not even a survivor word.
Yeah, that's a Princess Bride word.
Like, that's a very strange choice
to just go like fun movie reference.
Yeah, yeah.
Forget about it.
Forget about it.
That's the next one.
Hey, like, boy, I think that this could be it for Surrey.
Kyle, let's get the, like, we need the 13 letter word.
Like, oh, go.
Let's roll with inconceivable here.
Yeah.
What are some other big movie words they could have done?
Has happened.
Yeah, and it was also,
in other news, Rick Devons also tonight.
So two,
Huge fan favorites go out here at the final six, seven here, and we're not happy.
We're not happy about this.
What a bleak day for Survivor.
Surrey, I mean, what can you say?
Rob, what could you say?
I guess what I could say is that Surrey, truly the knowingest know-it-all who now has in five times, four out of the five times was right there, like in the four.
final days of Survivor.
And ultimately, this could have been, and I think that this might be more of an
interesting off-season podcast of maybe playing her best game.
Yes.
I think we say that every single time.
But, no, but this was so masterful.
And against a very tough field.
Yeah.
She dominated this game most of the way through.
And then these last couple of votes didn't go her way.
I really, I can't wait to talk about this with.
you because I think that more things went wrong for Surrey at the final seven than the final six,
and I'd love to break that down here with you. But we're in mourning tonight, and it's such a sad
night for Survivor, and I hope that really this only cements Surrey's legacy. And I think that
that's just part of her story as she's the greatest to never win, and that she's so celebrated.
and I do feel like that her goodbye from the show
seemed like that it was,
the show did not present it nearly as sad and tragic
as even Ozzie's boot from last week.
I know, I was really surprised by that.
I felt like that was a real miss from the show
because I have seen since even before the season
that she has been the number one rooting interest
for every fan I've spoken to.
And everybody has been so excited for her.
And then across this season,
she has been so ever,
powerlessly dominant.
In this way, you know, Joe called it, you know, Joe said something about how like gracefully, you know, she's kind of like manipulated the whole season.
And I think that's, that's been there so much.
And every vote, it seemed to come down to what Surrey wanted.
She would spin people in circles when they weren't going her way.
And, you know, in some ways was screwed over by this twist at the final nine where she like, you know, even like, like couldn't mind meld or mind control Ozzy on a different beach, but did her best through the, you know,
through the tool of Jonathan,
but played such a dominant, masterful game,
was in every conversation,
always knew what was happening.
And even today knew exactly what was happening,
with her ouster.
Truly one of the best games we've seen from anybody ever
in the history of Survivor,
but obviously not a winning game here.
And I agree, how could you not give her
the swelling music and the orchestrations?
Maybe the music swell.
They invented new music for her
at her final six ouster in game games.
Changers, and I think that that was almost presented as more of an epic send-off in Survivor Game Changers
than it was here in Survivor 50 under very similar circumstances at the Final Six.
And also that Aubrey is there. And I love the poetry of Surrey with Aubrey. Like, we got to stop
meeting like this. Once again, Ceri's game comes to an end here at the final six. In Game Changers,
she was working with Aubrey.
Here, it's Aubrey who undermines Surrey and is set up,
and I'm sure you'll want to talk about this,
a queen slayer here as we see Aubrey get a lot of the credit
for what goes on with Surrey.
But I think this is going to be a hard pill for people to swallow
because I really feel like that so much of Survivor 50
was presented as, okay, this one is Surrey's game.
Yeah, I think that's exactly right.
And I mean, I'd love to talk about, you know, does Aubrey deserve credit for this?
Whatever deserve means.
We'll get there.
Let's just stick with us talking about Surrey and her.
No, no, no.
But I do think that like this is, yes, like so much has been about Surrey.
And I do feel like the fan, I mean, I've often said that like nobody, I'm sure other
people have often said this too, no survivor contested has the universal love that Surrey does.
Like across all, you know, fandoms of the show.
You know, there's people who love Joe, people who love.
Rick. They hate the other one.
People like me. People like Savage. You know, hate the other one.
Everybody loves Surrey, for the most part.
And I think that, yeah, it's been, and seeing her play, this epic game in this epic season
has been so gratifying in one of the real joys of this iconic season.
So, and yes, I think for her to go out kind of in this sort of, yeah, like, okay, like,
see you later way. We kind of felt like not up to the momentousness of it.
But still, like, such an incredible game. And like, being voted out here doesn't take away
from like, what an amazing game she played.
Yeah. Jeff, again, has Surrey say, hey, do you want to say it?
I believe that this was the same thing that happened in Survivor Game Changers also.
I think that they really just ran it back where that Surrey, and that was so unprecedented
that it was an advantage get and they didn't know what to do and they didn't know what to
say.
And Surrey in that moment also talks about how grateful she is, how much Survivor has given to
her.
We saw a flashback to that moment at the beginning of this season.
then once again, Jeff here does the same thing of allows Surrey.
I guess this is the ultimate compliment that you give to a survivor player is that you let
them say the tribe has spoken.
The ultimate compliment is getting to sit in Jeff's chair.
Sure.
Sure.
And Surrey, you know, totally graceful in terms of how she receives this.
Stephen, do you think she knew?
Oh, yeah.
I mean, she said she knew, right?
When she was sitting with Tiffany, she says, you know, Tiffany's like, you know, she says to Tiffany,
like, it's me.
Like, it was going to be you.
Now it's me.
Yeah.
And I need to, like, come up with this plan to get Aubrey out.
I'm sure she knew she was going.
Yeah.
You don't think that she had thought that she had flipped it and that she thought that again,
it's too late to play the shot in the dark.
I believe Rick plays the shot in the dark at the final seven, which is the final night to play
the shot in the dark.
Did Rizzo play his idol, by the way?
I was so distracted with Surrey.
No.
No, Rizzo held it.
Really?
Yeah, two seasons in a row holding onto it all the way.
Enough is enough.
Enough is enough for Rizzo.
Just play the idol.
Come on.
This was great.
I feel like this.
This guy never plays the idol.
Yeah.
It's very funny that Tiffany of all people was the one after, you know, Tiffany coming from
season 46 where they're like, their whole thing is we got to blindside the person with
the idol.
She's like, no, we have to blindside the person with the idol.
And so, yeah.
But nobody else really seemed to care.
Yeah.
Steven, is this it for Surrey, do you think?
No.
She said coming back this season, this was going to be the final time she played Survivor.
It's so easy to say that going into the season when you still have it all ahead of you.
Yeah.
I think that Surrey, in thinking about this before we came on, she really missed the opportunity
to play with like a bunch of nobody's.
And I think that maybe the closest she comes to that is in Micronesia in her second time that she plays in fans versus favorites.
You know, Rob gets his win in Redemption Island to take nothing away from what Rob did there.
But that she just ends up playing, especially in these last couple of times out, against really top tier competition.
And nobody's going to go to the end with her.
And so there just becomes such a problem.
And she's so good at the middle of the game.
but her fatal flaw tends to be
that the skills that are required
to sort of like bludgeon your way
to the end of the game,
i.e. winning a challenge,
i.e. making the fire at Final Four,
that's just like the one fatal flaw in her game.
I've been saying that consistently
that I didn't think Sri was going to make to the end.
And we talked about this at your book event
last week. You know, someone asked a question
about Ceri's end game.
And I said there's, I, you ask, like,
do you think it's possible, you know,
that she gets to the end. I said, I don't think so.
I mean, honestly, I was surprised that
Ozzy was
willing to take her to the end. And I do
think, I really think losing Ozzy is
the game losing thing that happens for her.
She puts so many eggs in that basket.
He truly did seem to be committed to taking her
to the end. And
I don't think with Tiff and Ozzy here
at the final seven slash six,
I don't think she's going home in this spot.
Losing Ozzy was a big
blow to her game. I don't think
that that was necessarily the
fatal flaw. And I'd love to talk a little bit more about what I think ultimately went wrong for her.
We will have exit interviews, double exit interviews this week. We'll talk with Rick Devons and
Surrey on the podcast. I'll also talk with Drew Baciel coming up on Thursday. So a really big week
as we careen into the finale in just seven days where we will find out the winner of Survivor 50.
Stephen.
Corrine, she was on, she was on,
um,
Kareen was on season 26,
I think.
Yeah.
Not this season.
Yes.
Stephen.
I want to go back to the final seven.
I made a video this week where I talked about here's the final path.
Wait,
Rob,
can I cut you off here?
I'm so sorry.
We haven't been talking for like 10 minutes here.
I haven't even congratulated you.
The big news coming out of today is that Rob Sester Nino is a best selling author.
Holy cow.
Today.
Game recognized game that just two bestselling authors here as the tribe and I have spoken available in hardcover and the audiobook and Kindle has now become a national bestselling book.
An instant national bestseller. USA Today, national bestselling author, Rob Sesternino.
Here's to us, Rob, us and Terran. Here's to the three of us.
Who's the third?
And Taryn?
Taryn.
Yes.
Yes.
Okay.
The big three.
Yes.
So thank you so much to everybody.
And I've had such a nice week meeting everybody in terms of the book.
But enough about me.
Let's get back to what I think went wrong for Surrey.
And I made a video this week.
And I talked about here's the path to the end of the game for all of the players that are left.
And I started with Surrey, who I felt like had the best chance to win the game.
And what I thought was one of the kids.
keys for Surrey to win this game was no matter what at the final seven, Rick Devin's can't go home.
And really-
You said that previously?
I made a video yesterday talking about this.
And the way I looked at it was this, was that if Rick Devin's stays in the game, Ozzie's gone, but the big shield in front of Surrey can still be Rick Devin's.
And in Rick Devin's, as long as Rick Devin's is in the game, Joe is still going to be like, we got to get out Rick Devin's.
We need to get, like everybody's focused about on Rick Devin's and what he's going to do.
And people are talking about and we see Surrey talking about in the episode, hey, Rick Devin's, he could get to the end.
He could win the game.
And that's a problem for everybody else on this island except for Surrey.
Because Sirree, Rick Devin could win every immunity from here to the end of the game and play seven idols the rest of the way.
Surrey's still going to beat Rick Devons in the final three in the jury vote.
So I felt like that a really important thing for Surrey was that, hey, Jonathan can't lead the charge of get out Rick Devin's here because then it makes it very easy for the other people to gang up on the most obvious pair that's left in the game, Surrey and Tiffany.
I was very worried about that for Surrey.
And the episode comes on.
and now we're talking about, hey, let's, Rick Devons is the obvious target, but Tiffany's like,
hey, I got it.
Let's blindside Rizzo.
And Tiffany is talking to Jonathan, like, hey, he's going to play his idol.
Now he's going to be, we're going to let him just move on and get through the final seven.
And now he's automatically in the final six.
We're giving him a free ticket.
And Tiffany gets Jonathan on board.
And they bring this plan to Surrey.
And she's like, no.
We can't lose Rizzo.
We got to get rid of Rick Devons.
And I was like, I don't like this.
Surrey, you of all people needed to keep Rick Devin's.
And she was the one pushing to send him out.
That read to me, though, so much like classic decoy boot.
Everyone's voting Rick.
Nobody's not voting Rick.
You know, yeah, like we're talking about Rizzo here, blah,
like, we're all voting, Rick.
You know, that train, to me, seemed like it was so,
it was, you know, you got the, Joe, Joe was driving that train.
There was no way Joe was getting off the, the Rick Debbins path.
I just never for a second thought this vote was going any other way.
I just, to me, that it seemed like that Surrey wanted Rick Devin's to go out.
And we have, it's a six-zero vote for Rick Devin's at the final seven.
And when you're this far into the game and you have a unanimous vote,
You know that it's a 6-0 vote for Rick Devin's.
And forget Rick Devin's now.
Three people out of the six have made the wrong decision.
There's three people here.
At least two people here who've made the wrong decision.
And I fear that that was ultimately Surrey and Tiffany who should have voted with Rick Devin's.
I kind of think you're right here.
I wonder if Surrey thinks she's got this solid thing with Rizzo.
She's got the solid thing with Tiffany.
if she can get to six with them,
she's got three people here,
and then she can maybe like push it over the edge.
You know, maybe she thinks Rizzo is more loyalty,
loyal to her than he is.
Like maybe that's her thought going into the tribal council.
She doesn't know his backstory fully.
He's been totally loyal to this point.
Totally loyal.
He's been her informant.
She covers for him when she gets information,
you know, about the plan to blindside Tiffany.
She claims it was Aubrey who told her that
as a way to pay a target on Aubrey.
I wonder if she, you know, Rizzo like reads as this like goofy kid.
I wonder if Sari thinks like I've got this kid wrapped around my finger.
Like he's going to like roll with me to the end.
And I've got Tiffany here too.
At the worst, I'm getting a tie situation.
Yeah.
I think just going back to and maybe I'm biased because of my experience in the last year,
Surrey has never won Survivor.
She has won the traders.
And I think that Sari was playing this.
season like it was the traitors. And I think that Ceri was looking to, she looked at these people.
And I think she was looking at who are the people that I can easily manipulate?
These are the people that I need to keep closest with me. The people that I can do my mind
trick on and I need to keep them around as long as possible. And I need that and that's Joe.
and that turns out to be Jonathan that we see at the final six.
Unfortunately, Aubrey is not one of these people.
She may think Rizzo is one of these people,
but he's ultimately not.
And I think she knows Rick Devons is not one of these people.
I feel like that Rick is going to do whatever he wants to do.
And Rick wrote down Surrey's name at the last tribal council.
And I think that that ticked off Surrey.
And she comes back.
and Rick is like, oh my God, I'm sorry about everything.
And what did she say?
Like that and $2 will get you a bag of chips?
A bag of chips or something like that.
She was, I think at that point.
What chips are those?
$2.
Rick Devin's, I think was dead to Surrey.
And she's like, okay, Rick, you wrote my name down.
You got to go.
But I think that she still needed him because that that would have been,
that would have been another car for Joe to Chase.
And that they would not have all been able to get back on the same page.
And I think that like the traders,
Aubrey was the person who I think is like laying in the weeds who had sussed out.
The person here who is running everything is surrey.
And I don't think that any of the other,
she's able to then convince enough other people to get on that train.
And I just don't think that that happens if Rick is still around.
I don't necessarily, I mean, I think you're probably right.
I just think like the amount of capital.
that Surrey would have had to expend in order to save Rick
might have been disproportionate.
Tiffany wants to do it.
Tiffany wants to vote at Rizzo.
Jonathan seems like he's up for it.
And now...
Yeah, but is Jonathan up for it?
Like, Joe obviously was going to be like very against it.
Rizzo's going to be against it.
I mean, I guess like, you know,
Aubrey's probably against it here.
I think that like, you know, the next week,
like Joe's going to be pissed at her.
Like, why did you, you know, why did you play?
I mean, maybe you're right.
Maybe, maybe it's,
It's more, like, to me, like, Surrey's game here relies on, like, kind of like leading the sheep to the slaughter, right?
You don't want the sheep to wake up when you're leading them to the slaughter.
And I kind of thought that, you know, going against the tide of this, like, effort to, like, oust Rick.
I mean, I hear you that, like, Rick was a huge distraction for her.
This is why Tony kept Spencer till, now Raymond, till the very end of Kagan was like, he's like, as long as Spencer is in this game,
everyone's focused on him
and they're not thinking about me as much.
And, you know,
it's like a classic meat chill strategy.
I think you're right.
I mean, to me,
she's still recovering from losing Ozzy
where she put so many eggs
in the Aussie basket.
She, like, you know,
she sacrificed a lot of alliances to keep Aussie.
You know, she burned Steph because Steph wanted Ozzy out.
She burned Christian, who thought he was her ally
because, you know, Christian wanted Ozzy out.
And so, like, she took all of these,
like sort of like second tier alliances and ended them because she was trying to preserve
Ozzy.
And then for Ozzy to kind of like get waylaid in this like really unfortunate twist is just
like I think kind of was like killed her game.
I think so much of it was based on having Ozzy right there next to her.
She seemed to upset at the start of the episode where she was calling Ozzy some names
and talking about how upset she was with Ozzy when she found out.
what Ozzy was doing. And so she really seemed to be very upset. I wonder if she wasn't thinking
100% clearly about what comes next. And I think that this move to take out Rizzo. I think that they
could have pulled it on. If she has Tiffany and Jonathan on board, it seems like that like you could
have gotten Joe to write down a name that he doesn't want to write down if Tiffany and.
But Rizzo's her ally. Like Rizzo's her number one ally. But Rizzo was not a good ally. I mean, Rizzo
But she doesn't know that yet.
He's been a good ally.
I mean, like, you know, we know that Rizzo's not a good ally, but, like, Rizzo's been a good
ally, and Rick is a bad ally.
Rick is against her.
Like, you know, I think, like, you know, I agree with you.
Like, I see this, like, game state that you're creating where, like, Rick is a huge distraction
and Joe is focused on Rick.
But, like, and I think you're right.
That said, if Tiffany doesn't win immunity here, um, so he doesn't go home here either,
right?
Yeah, we're all going to get Tiffany out.
He goes home next.
Oh, I agree with that, but I don't think there's any world here where Rick is
is like somehow like, is Rick going to make it all the way to four?
Like, and like, you know, I think that this is.
There's not enough numbers for them.
Like, eventually her and Tiffany, her two, become like a, like a big enough group
where they can just bring on one other person and have more control in the vote.
I think that ultimately here to have just her and Tiffany at the final six,
it was a very bad spot for them to be in where the other four people could be working together.
But if she thinks is, I just don't see, I don't think there is a path for,
her. Like, if you assume that Rizzo is not loyal, because, you know, you're saying, like,
oh, Aubrey turned everybody around. I think everybody realizes Surrey's the biggest threat in this
game. You know, I think you see, Tiffany is unusually loyal. I think Tiffany, like, the fact that
Tiffany votes with Sari, like, that shows surprising loyalty. I don't think this was, like,
Aubrey masterfully convincing everyone that Sari was the hugest threat to win. Everybody knew,
like Rizzo knew, you know, you, you know, you see Rizzo going to like every, like,
Rizzo's the one who's the one who we see talking to Jonathan saying, we've got to get
Saria out now, now's the time.
You know, Joe says, like, obviously,
Surrey's the mastermind of this game.
I don't think this was, like, some, like, unique, like,
situation where, like, one, like,
brilliant strategist somehow wakes up and sees that
Surrey is running things. I think they all know
Surrey is running things, and it's just a question of
when they take her out.
I don't think there was a world where she's making it.
I really, I never thought there was a world where Shari was making it all the way
to the end.
It was a, there was a path.
It was a more narrow path.
With Ozzy?
No, I think even without Ozzy, I think that there was a path,
because I feel like that, that, that,
that as long as the other four people after the finals,
once you get down to six,
as long as the other four people
weren't going to necessarily get together,
then as long as Joe and Rick
were still in the game together,
there was no group of four
that could come together against Tiffany and Surrey.
Well, what's, like, play this out for me.
Like, let's say they get out Rizzo,
because I don't agree with you.
Let's say they take out Rizzo at the final seven.
Then who's, what's happening at the final six?
I think that, I think that,
I mean, I think that we have, maybe Rick is still with Tiffany and Surrey.
And then that, I mean, are Aubrey and Joe and Jonathan going to vote and go for a 3-3 tie here?
Or does Aubrey end up?
So you're saying Joe, Aubrey's not, I don't think Aubrey is going into a tie vote.
You think, you think they would vote out Joe over Rick here?
Like, there's no way that Tiffany is going to, Tiffany's going to vote out Rick, right?
Like, I don't think Surrey.
Why is Tiffany so dead set?
Like dead set on voting out Rick.
Because Rick is like, I think they're scared that Rick gets to the end and he's got
this huge resume.
Like if Rick can get to...
But if Rick can get to four, then he's going to beat anybody but Surrey, right?
Mm-hmm.
Because he's good at fire too.
Mm-hmm.
Listen, I can't worry about this for Tiffany.
You know, this was Tiffany's...
I'm following Tiffany's idea.
Okay, so what happens?
You know?
You're saying at six, at six, you're saying that Rick, Surrey and Tiffany and
Aubrey get together and vote out Joe?
Here's what I know that happened.
Okay, you get rid of Rizzo.
I'm telling you at the final four,
Joe and Rick are not getting on the same page
to vote out either Tiffany or Surrey.
I don't know what happens,
but I think that Tiffany and Surrey are safe.
But I don't think I don't think they get to the final four.
Like, I don't think they can get past six.
Like I certainly can't get past five.
We're getting past six here.
Wow.
No, no, how?
But this is, in six, your version of six is Surrey, Rick,
Tiffany.
and Aubrey are getting together to vote out Joe.
I just don't think they would do that.
Joe's not a threat to win.
Okay, fine.
But I don't know exactly how it's happening at six.
I'm telling you that Rick Devons and Joe aren't voting together at the final six to take
out Sirry or Tiffany, which they would need to.
I agree with you.
I think that everyone's voting together at the final six to vote out Rick.
Maybe they vote out seven.
Yeah.
All right.
So listen, I think that for Surrey, I think she needed to think a little bit more about, you know,
trying to keep the big targets in the game.
because eventually this, they just ran out of big targets to go after.
And she became the, in true new era of fashion,
she became the biggest target left on the board
and ultimately ends up being the person who gets voted out.
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Let's talk about Rick.
And Rick, I do feel like, and there's more to talk about with Surrey for sure.
But in terms of Rick, who we haven't talked about at all here, who also goes out in this episode, you know, it ends up being kind of just a ho-hum exit for Rick.
He has a great moment at tribal council.
But I think that his exit, I think, ends up being a, in true Rick Devon's fashion, a more joyful celebration of,
what Rick Devons meant to this season.
Yeah, it was so great.
I mean, it really was.
There was a very funny moment, though, where he's like having a, I mean, not funny,
a sad moment where he's having a breakdown in the hammock.
And it's like, Joe who's right there.
And he's like, hmm.
Rick's like, I don't know if I can do this, man.
And Joe's like, okay, get to know.
Like Joe of all people to be like, you know, it's probably like, yeah, high five.
Great.
Thrilled to hear it.
Yes, but very, very moving, you know, beautiful.
I like, the whole thing about like stars.
It just felt like very novelistic, you know, like,
I felt like a character in a novel who was about to die, you know, just like looking up at the stars and feeling like the souls of his, you know, lost friends and family looking down on him.
Yeah.
It was really beautiful, like, beautiful testament.
You know, we certainly saw him working his butt off to, like, make it.
You know, we saw him like getting up at the crack of dawn to go look for idols.
Very funny scene with Jonathan where he's looking for idols, but he can't see them because Jonathan's so big that he blocks out all the light.
And then, like, yeah, he just like he hustled and he didn't stop.
And he, you know, I felt like he handled it perfectly.
he wasn't like throwing out names willy-nilly,
but when Tiffany came to him with Rizzo's name,
he happily jumped on board.
And just generally, I thought, like,
it was a great send-off for him.
Yeah.
This game for Rick Devons here,
and I'm not sure we don't know if the players were not good at finding idols
or the idols were not hidden on the beach,
but this did not play to Rick Devin's hands.
Rick Devin's ends up coming across the fake idol at Tribal Council.
And then he ends up also of getting the idol from Mr. Beast.
But in the post-merge game, there have been, and correctly if I'm wrong, zero idols hidden on the beach back at camp, which is a major disadvantage to Rick Devons.
Yeah.
And Christian also sort of like painted him with the idol finder brush, which I actually think really hurt him, right?
Like the fact that Christian kind of like put the target on him saying that he was the one who found the idol that made its way to Aubrey.
Sure.
But I think that comes baked in with Rick Devans that he's an idol finder.
I know.
But like, truly the only idol he found.
was the one that was presented in a suitcase at tribal council,
you know, like, Rick didn't find any idols.
Three or four in his previous season, I think that he's already listed out of this
between the idol.
Yeah, no, I agree with you, but I just think that really hurt him.
Like this idea that Rick had mythical idol-finding powers
was this sort of nebulous threat that hung over everybody,
I think really contributed to his ouster.
He was strategically isolated, and there was nothing to really fear of it.
He wasn't like killing it in the immunity challenges,
although he did win for his first season, but like he wasn't this season.
And like, it was only this fear.
that like he's going to find something.
But he truly, he didn't find anything all season long.
Yeah, he found a fake idol.
So I think, yeah.
So I think that, you know, that reputation ended up really hurting him because that's the danger
of Rick here.
Yeah.
I, you know, again, I don't think that his reputation like really in this season was that
much different than his reputation coming into the season.
But I think that he just, the type of game that is, let's not in his,
Rick Devin's game. And Rick articulated this so well when he talked about how, you know, I came into
this game and I wanted to play this like different game and alliances and now, here I am back
being the old Rick Devin's. But that's who he meant to be. He's meant to be. And I love the line he said
with Mr. Beast when he said, I was born to flip this coin. And you really got to see, I think
it was a really beautiful thing for Rick that he got to be the truest form of Rick Devin's here in this
season. Yeah, that really was such a perfect iconic. I mean, he was ready to jump out of his seat as soon as this coin flip thing was announced. And to have this moment, to flip the coin for it to hit, obviously, if it hadn't hit, it would have been a less exciting moment. But, you know, for it to hit was just such a pure encapsulation of the fun and the risk-taking and the big swings that I think kind of have really swashbuckler. I love that.
Yeah. Do you think that we will see Rick Devin?
Return to Fiji and see the shooting stars once again.
I imagine so.
I mean, this has been a great, you know, certainly if nothing else, this has been a great advertisement for, I hope I see him in Scotland, you know, looking at the starry, the cloudy nights in Scotland.
Yeah.
Rick Devons would be a great faithful that he would come into the roundtable and he would come in with theories and that he has the opportunity to also fall very flat on his face where he's going to come in and play hard and throw out names.
and it could potentially be wrong,
could go either way for Rick Devin's,
but Rick Devinzis doesn't care about that.
Yeah, he's going to play hard,
he's going to have fun.
Like, he just brings joy to the whole proceedings.
He doesn't mind being against everybody,
because I think that's actually like a very underrated,
like, skill as a human and TV character.
Is that when everyone's against you,
it's, like, very demoralizing.
It's depressing, just as a human.
And you see people kind of, like,
wither in that.
You know, how many, like,
weepy confessionals have we had?
Have I had?
Just because, you know,
everybody's been against,
me or like, you know, been against them. And like, everyone's like, I can't do anything. My game
is absolutely hamstrung. Like, nobody's working with me. For Rick, he finds the fun in it. He finds the
humor. He's quick-witted. He's got singers. And so I think that's what, you know, that's a very
rare, wonderful quality as a human. Yeah, I'm really going to co-sign that Rick Devons for the
traders. And I think he's going to do really well because I think that he's going to come out and he's
going to throw names out. And I think it's kind of important for him to be wrong on the traders,
because I think that he has an opportunity to be a great candidate for something that I've been
talking about for some time of the intentional rap report of that if he comes into the roundtable and
is like throwing out names and then get somebody banished. And then the traders are not going to
murder him. They'll keep him around. You can't be too right and be a faithful. You got to be kind
of wrong if you want to succeed as a faithful. And I think that Rick could come out there and really
play hard and have fun and be really great at that. So really fun thing for Rick.
Yeah, great, great for Rick. All right. Let's talk about Aubrey here. And Aubrey has a very
interesting night once again. And Aubrey's been telling us in the shows for the last couple of
weeks about, hey, something's coming. I'm getting all my ducks in a row. Nobody sees what I'm doing,
but it's coming, you'll see,
and I'm sort of laying in the weeds,
and we get this first tonight at the Rick Debbins vote
where it's Aubrey is the one
who is hearing about this plan to vote out Rizzo,
and it's like, boy, Rizzo is really getting
on everybody's nerves.
Last time I didn't sit with the right people
in the final three.
But what if I did sit with Rizzo at the final three?
Yeah, I think that's right.
I mean, that's a great call.
You know, one of the most important things
is not whether people love how you played the game.
it's just like they dislike the people next to you more,
whether they personally dislike them,
whether they don't respect their games as much,
whether they just see them as this sort of goofy kid
who held an idol all season.
So I think that's like a good strategy for Aubrey.
Yeah. And Aubrey seems to have a little bit of a finger on the pulse
of what's going on.
Stephen, I know you have been a astute edit reader for many years.
That is it that Aubrey is seeing the board,
better than anybody else,
or are we seeing the board from Aubrey's POV?
And that's why it seems especially that Aubrey
is seeing what's happening better than anybody else.
Can I read you something I tweeted last week?
No?
Yeah, I think I know what it is
and I don't know if everybody wants to go there with you.
I just, I thought, well, if we are talking about edit here or not?
Well, I think that...
I think being...
Aubrey is getting editorial credit
for Ceres ouster,
and I think that's because
we're seeing Aubrey being built up
as a really big character
and a big player, right?
Like, so like, to me, that's like less about...
Like, you know,
that's always the case going into the finals
where, like, the people who are being built
into big characters and their stories
really being emphasized, they will get the credit,
the editorial credit for...
like the big moves of the season.
I watching the episode, we saw Aubrey,
the first person we saw say Surrey's name was Aubrey.
The then, but then, and it's to Rizzo,
but then it's Rizzo we see actually doing the legwork, right?
Rizzo who then goes to Jonathan.
And Rizzo's the one who kind of like actually marshals the vote.
And I just do not believe that Aubrey's the only person
on this tribe of six people who had the thought,
oh, let's get Surrey out.
You know, like we're at six.
One person is far and away the favorite to win.
everyone knows she's the favorite to win.
She's been running strategic circles around us.
There's literally six people.
One of them is immune.
One of them is me.
You know, like, so there's only four people you can talk about.
Like, I don't think there's only one person who's thinking Srifield's name.
And we're just seeing one.
Rizzo did do a lot.
Can I give like one?
I am getting like sort of a vibe.
And I don't want, I'm hesitant to say this because it's so damning.
But a little bit throughout this season, I felt like things have.
And then we have Aubrey taking credit for them.
You know, like where we, even after the Mr. Beast tribal council, you had Aubrey saying,
Rick did exactly what I needed him to do.
I'm like, what?
Like, that was Rick's move.
Like that wasn't the, it's a little bit giving like Christy from Australian Survivor season one where like no matter what happened.
She was like, these things happened.
And that's why I'm a mastermind.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, Aubrey is saying these things in the real time.
Whereas to go back to Australian Survivor, you know, it's one thing for somebody to just claim all
these things at the final tribal council, but at least like we have, we have the record in the
real time of, you know, what's happening. So I think that Aubrey also in this episode, I think that
Rizzo did a lot, but I think that Aubrey also was, you know, doing just as much as Rizzo was with
that, I believe that she was the one who was going to, uh, to, to, to Jonathan, to start to say about
how Rizzo was
right, that she's
the one telling that then they
break the news to Rizzo about
how it was Tiffany
who was saying all these things
about Rizzo. She seemed like
she's working on Joe really hard.
I'm sorry, I'm a little lost.
Aubrey, and let me just look
at my notes, so I want to make sure that I
am not giving any misinformation.
So at the
start of the second
tribal council,
Day 23.
Tiffany's with Jonathan and Aubrey,
and Tiffany is pissed off about Rizzo.
Aubrey tells us that Tiffany wants Rizzo out.
Aubrey is concerned about Tiffany in the end.
She gets the ball rolling to really get Tiffany out at the final six.
She says that Tiffany's Michelle Part 2.
And so she's really working on Tiffany,
and then it's Rizzo who tells Surrey about the plan.
which then ultimately is going to turn into a surrey plan.
Yeah.
That's, it's Tiffany's a story about, right, right, right.
It turns into a surrey plan, yeah.
And then similarly, I mean, I guess, you know,
we see Aubrey be the first person to mention Surrey.
And then it is Rizzo who kind of like is the one who then Marshall's.
And I think Aubrey does a great job of sending off.
And Rizzo's the one person who knows all of the information
where then Tiffany and Surrey start to deduce,
Oh, okay. Well, it was going to be you. I know it's going to be me now. But I can't tell anybody that Rizzo told me it was you. I'm going to, I know I can manipulate Jonathan. And this is the Surrey traders coming out. Like, okay, I'm going to go put poison in Jonathan's ear about Aubrey and say that I know about the plan because of Aubrey. And then Jonathan's like, oh, that Aubrey, we got to get rid of her. And but Aubrey does a good job of fending that off with Joe where she's like, Joe.
come on. I didn't do that. I swear to God.
Like, don't you see what Ceree's doing here? And Rizzo doesn't get anything.
He just keeps his mouth shut.
Right. That's interesting. Yeah, I know. Look, I mean, it's very much seemed like it was sort of a, you know, group.
I mean, again, like, I just can't believe that there was, this is not, not, like, one person somehow, like, getting this vote over the finish line.
You know, this was, like, I think this was, like, pretty clearly a group consensus.
But obviously, there's always stuff that, you know, that, that, uh, complicates it.
Let me go back to Aubrey for a second.
I just don't like when I feel like someone's getting, you know, someone's getting a lot of credit for things that like, I don't like being forced fed a narrative.
I get that.
But I was thinking about Aubrey and I thought about Marian.
You know, I think that Marianne is the new era winner that really was the proof of concept of the new era.
I think that Marianne came in and was this big character who came along and had this very interesting ride.
Tell me if this reminds you of anybody in this season.
Marianne is sort of depicted as somebody who maybe isn't in the best footing with her starting
tribe.
And she gets an idol early on.
And then she's in a little bit of trouble at the merge where maybe it looks like that
she's at the bottom.
She's really in hot water.
She ends up at a certain moment flushing her idol in front of everybody.
And Marianne is somebody who popularized.
the theory of you really want to be
at the final eight,
you kind of want to be sixth in the pecking order.
And that's really right where you want to be.
And then at the final six,
you take out the biggest threat in the game,
the strategic mastermind that everybody's looking at.
And then you get to the end
and you give one hell of a final tribal council speech.
And that is the Marianne path to victory.
And if anybody is really playing that Marianne game
of sort of like, hey, lay in the weeds,
stay close to the bottom, knock out the big target right at the end,
stand there at the end and give a moving,
really emotional speech about personal triumph at the end?
Could that not be Aubrey?
No, I've made the comparison, too, between Marianne's edit and Aubrey's edit.
You know, and people have said Aubrey seemed so mopey at the start
and she got so much negativity at the start.
So did Marianne.
Marianne had a whole episode about how annoying she was.
She had confessions from every single other tribe member
about how she was annoying them.
Not Mopee, but it was like negative, but negatively coded, right?
Not Mopee, but like, you know, she was being shown in a negative light.
And then she has this like big, big, you know, sort of like, yeah,
this sort of big explosive kind of endgame.
We certainly had a lot of confessions from Aubrey
explaining how she needs an explosive endgame,
how, you know, heard a lot about Michelle, a lot about Michelle.
Michelle, by the way, has had like a bigger edit than, you know,
Jenna Lewis has.
Like, we've seen more of Michelle.
And just to really flesh this out, the Survivor 42 of it all,
I mean, could Joe not be the Mike Turner sitting there with Marianne?
And is Risgod the new Romeo?
Yeah, no, I mean, I think, I mean, a Joe Rizzo, Aubrey, you know, Final Tribal, I think is a very, like,
because we've certainly seen adequate reason why people are not going to vote for Joe.
I honestly didn't like, Rizzo feels like he's played a good game.
again.
Rizzo's played a really good game.
I think that Rizzo's game is hurt because I think Aubrey correctly identifies the chat,
like Rizzo's flaws,
which is that people are going to see him as this sort of like kid
and not want to give this like somewhat cocky kid like a million bucks.
I think that's exactly right, you know.
And her going in as a mom, four-time player,
like now she's got like a big, you know, one big head that she's kind of, you know,
and maybe she tries to take credit for Ozzie too.
that's going to be enough sitting next to Rizzo.
Yeah.
To speak on Rizzo a little bit,
I don't know if it's necessarily
that people look at him as cocky.
We see that in the edit,
but I don't think that necessarily
is how he comes across.
Except when he like dangles the idol
in front of people and then doesn't play it.
People tend to not like that.
It was a thing in Survivor 49,
and it seems to be a thing here in Survivor 50.
But the thing that he doesn't do well,
and he's so astute and adept at playing the game.
and like knowing how the pieces work and he sees the board so well.
But he doesn't do, and this came back to in the beginning of the,
when he's like lecturing Colby on like, yeah, we don't really, you know, do work.
We just sleep on the ground.
We don't do anything.
Like the survivors, especially like the people who like are from like the old era.
But I think the new era players too, they just, they don't respect that a lot.
And I think that there's like these little like fundamentals of like being a team player around the camp that it really does mean a lot to people.
And he's just looked at as somebody who is a little, I don't want to say spoiled, but just that he's sort of just like on scholarship to some degree of he's just here and he's just doing the game stuff.
But he's not really participating in the day to day just sustaining of the camp.
I don't agree with, I think that's right that the non-doing camp stuff is definitely hurting him.
I do think they probably perceive him as cocky.
I mean, we saw a whole scene where he was talking about how great his game was in 49, right?
Like, he's definitely like a little bit, got some of the braggadocio.
And I think that's kind of, has been borne out by some of the exits we've seen.
It's just this sort of like, you know, and also, you know, I think that maybe being so tightly aligned with
Surrey is going to hurt him where some of his best work has been through the lens.
of this, you know, Seri's Wizard of Oz.
And I think, like, because it's with Surrey and Ozzy,
nobody's thinking of this kid who they never saw play before,
so they have no kind of outside conception of him.
They're not thinking of him as, like, this, like, big player in the game.
They're thinking of him as, like, this, like, random kid
who showed up on the beats that they never, they didn't know
who was, like, playing with these two legends and, like,
tagging along with the, with the big dogs.
But, like, they don't, I don't think they see him yet as a big dog himself.
And so they'll probably inherently give him less credit for what he did.
I mean, we've seen him in every, so many,
alliances. We've seen him like building votes. You know, holding onto his idol, there's obviously
like some question of like, if nobody's voting for you, doesn't matter. You know, the Xanderer of it all.
If nobody's voting for you, doesn't matter if you're holding onto your idol. But here we certainly
saw Tiffany coming for him. You know, we saw a lot of people pushing him to play his idol.
So I feel like that kind of increased to notch in my book where now there is pressure on him to play
his idol and he's still holding onto it, guaranteeing himself a place.
the final four.
I think he's playing a good game.
And like, you know, that's something he said a couple weeks ago at tribal council.
If you want to, at the Stephanie Tribal Council, you know, if you want to make a vote to happen, a vote happen, you make it happen.
And I feel like we have seen that from him.
You know, we've seen him managing Joe.
We've seen him, like, working beautifully, like, across all of the different alliances.
And I feel like his game gets a little bit of short shrift simply because it's just like under the shadow of how great game Ceri is playing.
but he has played a very good under the radar social game.
He's played a really good game for sure.
But he said it himself,
it doesn't matter if you're 6th or it doesn't matter if you're 4th.
It feels like that this is a game that as impressive as it's been,
it feels like at no point that this could have been a winning game for him.
Yeah, but I think that's all about perception.
I think, like, you know, Jeff had this line right, like a couple seasons ago.
Like there's someone who showed up on this beach and there was nothing that person could do to win.
And I think that might be Rizzo here.
Like, he's always going to be, you know,
I was in a podcast early, a couple days ago, and I was like, you know, he and Sam Phelan are the same age.
But like Sam reads 10 years older, like I was like a 35 year old.
And Rizzo reads 10 years younger as like a 15 year old.
I just think like with this older group of contestants, I think he's kind of almost drawing dead.
This was a tough road for him no matter what.
And maybe he's playing for the third time where we come back and we have the ultimate Rizgod redemption when he plays for the third time.
And Jeff said it won't be too long before you see returning.
players again.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, that's, I definitely think where they're going to bring
Rizzo back again.
The Tres Leche tour.
Yeah, the third, yeah, three times
Trace Leschés.
Yeah, nine lechets.
Nine lechets.
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Stephen, let's talk about Tiffany, who we saw in a little bit of sharper focus of that Aubrey called her, that she could be like the Michelle, that she's beloved.
Everybody really enjoys her company.
We see her winning immunity at the final six, which really could have been like four.
in a row for her, had it not been for, you know, her picking up her foot too late in the challenge
last week. I mean, that, like, think about, like, a millisecond away from we would be on just,
like, all-time Tiffany immunity run. Instead, she wins immunity here at the final six. I love this
for Tiffany personally. You know, it's so fun to have the returning players be back because there's so
much legacy and lore around all of everything that happens. And so it just in the, in the, in the
challenges tonight. So you had Joe doing the challenge at the final seven. He wins. I mean,
the same challenge he wins in Survivor 40. Remember the fly lands on his head in slow motion?
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So this is Joe's challenge. And then here in Survivor 40s, uh, we have in at the
final six, the arch puzzle. And, and now we, and we know, Joe had this also in Survivor 40. This was
the got fun betrallet, uh, that this was when Joe, so we know Joe is going to struggle with this
challenge and here's Tiffany also who this is part of her legacy also because if you remember back
in Survivor 46 that there was a two hour second episode and they just voted out Jolinsky and they
had to do the big arch puzzle and this was the one that her tribe was just a disaster and they
couldn't get it going and they did the arch puzzle forever it looked like maybe they would
never finish and so for Tiffany to win the arch puzzle
as an individual immunity after it was such a struggle for her in Survivor 46.
That was kind of cool to see.
Ultimately, we know this was a slow motion car wreck tonight where you knew that, hey,
the one thing that's really bad for Surrey is if Tiffany ends up winning immunity.
You had all the players conspiring sort of like in Survivor 46 against Maria,
where you had multiple people ganging up to try to make sure that Tiffany wasn't going to be the one
who won immunity.
And I thought that that was also pretty interesting.
Did you have any thoughts on that in terms of people trying to help each other with the word scramble?
This didn't, excuse me, this didn't bother me to the same degree that the Marine did one.
Because in that one I think, like, didn't like Liz actually go and get puzzle pieces?
Yeah, that was, that really bothered me.
Who did, became a mom two times over.
And on Mother's Day this past weekend, baby number two for Kenzie.
Yeah.
But I thought this was fine.
And it also, particularly fun because it didn't worry out for them.
because it blew up in their faces, you know?
Probably if any of them had just kind of focused on their own thing
instead of, you know, trying to help out Joe and Jonathan with this spelling puzzle,
it would have worked out a lot better for them.
Yeah, and it was kind of unlucky for Surrey and Tiffany that they seemed to be on the ends
and then all the people who were working together were in the middle,
but ultimately it does work out for Tiffany where she ends up winning immunity.
And then ultimately, she comes through this.
She has lost Surrey now in the game that, do you?
you think, is there a path here for Tiffany or is she out at five? I mean, I, again, like,
I think, first of all, I think Tiffany's played, like, what a game. Like, what a comeback for Tiffany,
you know, who literally there was like a social media uprising because she was so underedited
in the beginning has, like, kind of like, arisen to become. She had less confessionals than
Zach Brown. Yeah. Um, has arisen to become like one of the big characters of the season.
In some ways, seems to actually be playing the game that, like, the story is telling us and
Aubrey's playing where she kind of like became this like big power player.
But I do think she might be being under the radar mugged by Aubrey where she just was a little
bit.
Sorry, I was really excited about that.
That was just a little bit.
Yeah.
The, you know, where she managed, she was like the under the radar player, but then she,
her star rose a little too soon, right?
Like, and so much of these games, as Cochran famously said is timing.
Aubrey said it's right.
And like, yeah, yeah.
And like, just be, you don't want to be the threat at the final six.
You want to be the threat at the final four.
And I think that she, she's just like a little bit too much, too hot.
Like, you know, but very fun.
And I think, you know, absolutely, speaking of returnees,
I think merits another run from her as well.
Yeah, absolutely.
Tiffany was my winner pick.
I feel like a little vindicated that I don't know if she's going to go the distance,
but I feel like that she's right there and super close.
and I just feel like that Aubrey has her too much in her sights.
Like I just don't see how she, unless she wins immunity,
I'm not sure, like I think that she could have to comp out to get to the end
where if she wins immunity at five and then gets to four
and then at four we'll have to see if it's going to be a firemaking challenge or not.
It does feel, though, that she has, like, inherited the seri aura
where if she gets to the end,
I do think that Tiffany beats anybody out of anybody who's last.
in the game.
Yeah, and she could, right?
Like, she could win out with her.
I would say, I think it'll be close between her and Jonathan.
I think that Jonathan is the other person who has a lot of win equity still left.
And I think that that would be a real dividing line of that you'd really have like coming back to like the mayor of Ponderosa angle with D really stopping for Tiffany and trying to really whip up the votes for Tiffany.
whereas you'd have like the coach and Chrissy and Stephanies of the world
really trying to whip up the votes for Jonathan.
So that really would be a pretty interesting showdown in the final tribal council.
Yeah, I was curious.
I mean, like, from my, you know, watching the season,
I've said consistently that I think Jonathan's playing a really strong game.
It was interesting to hear Surrey say, oh, he's like super, you know,
he's someone I can just like manipulate really easily.
I mean, in some ways to me, that's always seemed like a strength of Jonathan's is like,
he's doing the legwork, right?
Like, almost more than anyone this season.
Yeah, exactly.
Like, we see him, like, building consensus, going to these people.
You know, even this week when, when Tiffany proposes Rizzo to Jonathan,
Jonathan's like, we got to run this by Ceres.
You know, he wants to make sure all the key stakeholders have signed the documents
and given the thumbs up and then, like, send the vote through.
And I do feel like that's a very classic old school type of game.
the person who was like bringing all the allies together to build a consensus vote.
I've really liked the way he's played throughout.
But it was interesting to me to hear kind of serene egg him.
Yeah.
I think that, you know, the edit has certainly favored Aubrey in terms of what we've seen.
But I think that in this video, I mean, I thought that Jonathan had the second best chance to win the game.
And I think that if we're just looking at the players and pieces that are on the board,
I do think that Jonathan has the best chance to get to the final three.
unless that there is this uprising where people can turn,
like you need at some point to turn Joe against Jonathan.
I feel like that Tiffany is the likely person to go out at five.
And then when you get down to four,
I don't really see the scenario where they get Jonathan out,
where even if it's a vote,
I can't imagine that Rizzo and Joe are both going to be against Jonathan.
So Aubrey seems to have had a pretty good relationship with Jonathan
so it's hard for me to see the path to take Jonathan out of the game.
But at four, I think you just vote for the person who you think is the biggest threat to win, right?
Or, you know, you just don't vote.
You don't take them to the end, right?
Do you think Joe would vote against Jonathan?
I feel like, is Joe really going to throw his game away?
Well, so five, we agree that Tiffany, so there's no vote at four, right?
Or there might be a vote of four.
There might be a vote of four.
I don't think there's going to be a vote of four.
Maybe there's a vote of four.
What do you think?
is there going to be voted for?
That's apparently it's one of the three things left for the fans to...
Based on how the fans have voted,
I think that there will be fire at Final Four.
I think that, like, in our world,
people do not like Fire at the Final Four.
I do think that it plays to, like,
oh, they should...
If you can't make fire, you don't deserve to win the game.
I think that there are a lot of people
who watch the show and have that point of view.
I wonder, could there be...
What if potentially, and I've talked about Survivor 4,
to a lot earlier in this podcast.
Could Jonathan lose in fire again?
Could we see potentially that's what I was just going to say.
Like Jonathan lost fire.
Maybe Joe beats Joe beats Jonathan.
Yeah.
I mean, like that's totally Mike Turner beat him.
Wouldn't that be, you know.
To a firefighter again?
Yeah, there's really the history, you know, come in full circle.
So I.
We might be Spire 42 rewatch this summer.
Yeah.
It's really very thematically appropriate.
Yeah.
So I think that that's, you know,
an interesting scenario for,
Jonathan where
I said he was the player
that had the second best chance to win
and I think that like this was I think
if you were looking for a Jonathan
win I think that this was a really
good night for Jonathan
just looking at the pieces that are left in the game
yeah but if you look at the jury
I mean I don't know like it's hard to say it depends on who's up against
it was Jonathan Joan in that
seri said hey I can manipulate
Jonathan and then you saw Jonathan really
hook line and sinker take the
Yeah, go for it. Maybe if you're Jonathan and you're sitting there, Mr. Rob, Mr. Stephen,
I was just telling Miss Surrey that I believed her, but I really didn't. I really knew we were
really always voting out, Surrey. And, you know, to that, we say, perhaps, we don't know. We can only
That's my feeling. Like, would it be insane to see a conversation with any two players or one's
like, no, it's not Aubrey's fault. You're responsible. You know, we're voting you out. Like,
that would be crazy. I think that Jonathan, um, and,
Jonathan is talking to Joe about Aubrey.
And if he really, it's one thing if he was telling Surrey,
okay, you're right.
Aubrey's got to go.
But then it seemed like that he was trying to talk to Joe
about the thing that Aubrey is the rat
and is trying to, and that they should get rid of Aubrey.
It did seem like he really did believe that.
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't think there's any world where they're voting out
Aubrey over Surrey here.
I think that's just like, I mean, like,
I feel like that's a story that's being told.
I think that that was too late at the final six.
I think that the, I think that the, the, the, the move needed to be at the final six.
I thought that Surrey had a valiant effort at the final six.
And I thought that that was brilliant to try to turn things back around on Aubrey,
some real survivor jujitsu that was happening.
Ultimately, it just, she's going to come up short.
She doesn't have the numbers anymore.
Yeah.
Should we talk about Joe?
Yeah.
Let's talk about Joe.
Yeah.
Love Joe.
Joe's so interesting, Steve.
I made a video talking about this also this week where that Joe is such an interesting figure in
Survivor history where that Joe is the prototypical Survivor hero.
He's a firefighter.
He's a family man.
He works hard.
He's a provider.
He does all the things that you would expect from a hero on Survivor.
But in this season, in this Clash of Styles versus Rick Devin's, he's really been painted and put into
this corner where that Rick Devin's is.
is the person who epitomize. Now, that's how you do it on Survivor. And Joe is kind of being a hero-mogged
by Rick Devins, who's getting this wonderful edit and this story about how Rick Devin's
is laying it all in the line and is going for it and is having fun. And Joe's been kind of a
sour puss in this season where he's not having fun coming back and playing Survivor again.
Yeah, it's so over the top. What's so funny is that, I mean, so much of Survivor 48 was all about
how amazing Joe was and what a great guy.
I mean, it was truly like Survivor Joe, right?
And that's what we all objected to at the time
was it just felt like this one character
and his amazing virtues
was just being relentlessly beat over our heads.
And, you know, then I do think, sorry,
I have not rewatched this season,
but I do wonder if it will benefit from rewatched.
But anyway, it's so interesting to see him
just like have such a much more negative,
like almost uniformly negative edit this season
where we've seen so many people complaining about Joe
and how he plays the game.
like, Sarie, you know, complaining about how she's sick and tired of having to babysit Joe.
You know, she among many others.
So I feel bad for him.
Like, how, like, how, what a bummer to constantly be like, you know, have that.
He's having a tough ride with this season.
But it's so funny, Stephen, because a year ago, we would sit here on this podcast and I don't
know if we were in agreement or not, but I know how I felt.
I was like, hey, if Joe gets to the end, he's winning.
Joe cannot get to the, like, listen, that Kyle, if Kyle wants to win, he's got to vote out
Joe.
that Joe is 100% winning this game if he gets to the end and then he didn't.
And now I kind of feel the exact opposite.
I feel like Joe is 100% losing this game if he gets to the end.
Is Joe going to win?
Is Joe going to win?
That would be something.
Yeah.
Honestly, Joe win would be sort of like bleakly satisfying.
Yeah, it would be interesting.
But Joe has a chance to do that not since, you know, Amanda Kimmel and Russell Hans
has a chance to be a two-time losing finalist.
Yeah, I got to say, though, I mean, Rizzo back-to-back season, I mean, so Russell did back-to-back season runs.
This was obviously not back-to-back for Joe.
Amanda Chubbub, did back-to-back season runs.
Rizzo getting to four back-to-back or five, you know, I mean, he's getting to four.
He's getting to four back-to-back, right?
So that's pretty freaking impressive.
Nine days off in between.
Yeah, that's something.
Like, you know, three cheers for Rizzo.
Yeah.
Hey, pip-oray!
Hip-oray for the Riz God.
Okay.
Yeah.
Stephen, are you ready to hand out any awards here tonight?
I've got this Emmy here for astounding.
Let's do it.
Let me give you your intro.
Okay, here we go.
All right, Stephen, presented by national bestselling author, Stephen Fishback.
Two national bestselling author, Rob Cestradino, or with national bestselling author.
Rob Zavina.
So let's talk about it, Rob.
I've got two choices for you.
So you were a two-time now.
I said two times.
I've got two X.
That's amazing.
Multi-bestselling author, Stephen Fishback.
So I have two options for you.
I think I know which way you're going to go.
And I really am ringing my hands about it.
On the one hand, on the one hand with that I'm ringing,
we have Aubrey.
I feel like this episode really supported
an Aubrey Fisie. We certainly have
Aubrey being the person to
throw out
Surrey's name here. We have
a little bit of her kind of like bringing that home.
She's the decoy target.
She ultimately wins in this little battle with
Surrey. And so in
Ceres the biggest player of the season. So like you can
certainly see. I mean, and you're honestly, you
kind of like went a little bit ways
further to convincing me that it should be Aubrey
in terms of like her
the other stuff with Tiffany
that you mentioned previously. Yeah, whatever
it was.
It sounded good.
So I do feel like we've got, yeah.
This is going viral on Instagram.
I do think Aubrey has a lot.
You know, Aubrey is presented to us here as the person who initiated the
serri vote.
And I think that would, you know, justify getting a fishy.
I want to go with a potential dark horse.
I'm going to present to you a potential dark horse candidate and get your perspective.
I'm a little, I'm still a little, like I kind of gave last week's fishy to Aubrey,
partially because she hadn't had one,
where I did think it was really between her and Jonathan.
And I kind of regretted that because I felt like Jonathan was the one
who really kind of whipped the votes to get Ozzy out.
Aubrey at the start of this episode says,
like, hey, I was the one who got Ozzy out.
This was my information.
This was my move.
Jonathan also, like, you know, taking credit for that move.
Here, I'm wondering if it's really Rizzo's move, you know, to get Surrey out.
He's the one who ultimately betrays Surrey.
He's the one we see, you know, talking to Jonathan
and potentially, like, building the social forces.
that ultimately lead to Ceres ouster.
I don't really believe that any one person would be like the one to be like,
oh, Ceri, like, this is a lightning bolt moment of like, yes, we could vote for Ceri.
Like, I truly think that they probably all are having this thought.
Rizzo doesn't play his idol again in spite of like actually getting a lot of social pressure to play it,
which I think is becoming more and more impressive.
Like, he's guaranteed himself a spot in the final four.
I don't know if I've given Rizzo offici yet the season, maybe earlier.
I'm not sure.
but he's played a really good social game
and he's managed to last
both of his allies
in Ceres, Wizard of Oz
and somehow is right there at the end.
I feel like maybe the Charlie episode
he might have gotten the fishy
earlier in the season.
Oh, probably did. You're absolutely right.
You're absolutely right.
So if the choices between Aubrey and Rizzo
that I think that it's fair
what you're saying that the Ceri move
to take out Ceri at the final six
could have co-ownership,
But I think in this night of Survivor, in these 90 minutes, I think that you saw in the first hour that Aubrey seems to have identified that if I keep Rizzo around, that is maybe a winning combination for me when I get to the final three.
And the fishy is really about two things.
It's about, sure, who made the move of the night, but also who best improved their position overall towards winning the game.
So if you're saying, hey, it's a tie between Aubrey and Rizzo for this move to take out Surrey,
the person who I think really improved their chances to win the game the most tonight,
I think is Aubrey.
And that's why I think Aubrey deserves a fishyy.
All right, you heard it here.
I co-signed that.
I think that's persuasively argued.
Fishy for Aubrey here's second fishy.
I just have a little bit of resistance to what I feel like is a story that I'm being kind of, you know, force-fed.
but I, yeah, exactly,
which has nothing to do with Aubrey, by the way.
Like, I think Aubrey's like playing a really good game,
and she's playing the only game she could.
You know, she started off on a really rocky footing.
She has kind of like picked up allies where she could.
She's like integrated herself into this group when out of the gate,
she was like initially the, you know, universal target, right?
Genevieve had managed to marshal everybody against her.
She got a few lucky breaks with like the Blood Moon
that ousted Genevieve when she flipped to the group with Rick and Christian.
But she's really like managed to integrate herself, like pick up allies along the way,
and be a part of these key decisive moves.
And now, I think to your point, is thinking about her final three.
She's not what's the only move I can make right now.
She's thinking like, how do I set up an actual win?
Because that's where I fell short before.
So I think you're right that Aubrey deserves the fishy here.
And I think in a 24-person season where these votes are happening kind of haphazard,
where I think that the top line thought is like, wait, hold on, who's the biggest threat here?
I think that she's really positioned herself, and I can't say if it was completely by design that
this was the game she was trying to play.
But I think that she is set up exceptionally well where she's just not at the top of the mind
for anybody in terms of like, okay, who do we need to get out next?
And eventually, there's just going to run out of people.
and the person who can then make a compelling pitch
for why they should win
is going to be the person who wins a 24-person season.
Yeah.
Rob, do you think there's anything to starting tribes here?
We have two people left from original Kalo,
which is Tiffany and Jonathan.
We have two people left from original Vatu,
which are Rizzo and Aubrey.
And then we have Joe.
The only person left from SELA,
does that make Joe the swing vote
between these two original...
You go back to like the episode two,
when everybody there is like,
oh my God, Joe.
he's like getting in our way.
He's being so annoying.
He's not playing the game.
We wanted to play.
Well, guess what?
Everybody at Sela, you're all gone.
Joe is the only person left.
How about that?
It's truly it was like this like stacked strategic tribe.
Yeah.
Christian, Emily, Ozzie, Surrey, Rick Devons, only Joe is left.
How about that?
Yeah.
Good for Joe.
Crazy.
Good for Joe.
He's like, hey, listen, you idiots, I'm going to be the only person left at the final five.
You're all going to be gone.
Trust me. Don't tell me what I'm doing.
Okay. I'll teach you all how to play Survivor.
Surrey and Christian and Ozzie and Rick Devons and Emily and Savannah.
Okay. Listen, I know what's going on.
All right. Stephen, the world of Survivor is sad at this hour.
Rick Devons is gone.
Surrey is gone.
We need to heal the survivor world.
We need something to bring people together in this dark time.
And I think that there's only one thing that can heal the pain of Survivor Nation.
Is it your book?
Is it your book?
It's not my book.
It's not my book.
You thought it was going to be my book.
Well, I don't think you would ever pitch yourself that hard.
But I was like, where is he going like this?
I don't know.
I would not.
But I did want a book signing in Raleigh here with my great friend, Jesse Lopez.
And there was a question in the audience.
I said, Rob, can you please bring back the wand off?
And so for season 50, after the season is over, not this week, okay, the last week of May, it's official.
Get your wand off's ready.
Josh Wiggler is standing by, and we will to celebrate season 50 the last week of May,
I am green lighting a season 50 wand off.
Wow.
That's big.
Big.
That's big.
Okay?
Wow.
All right.
So that is coming up the week after the Survivor finale.
Also, we are going to be having a little bit of a different schedule.
I'm going out to be with the Glitterati and Hobnob on the red carpet at the Survivor 50 finale coming up next week.
Stephen is also traveling.
And so we will have a special Survivor Know It All's for you after the episode.
with some fill-in hosts.
I don't know.
Is this all locked in, Sam?
Can I announce where, what we're doing yet?
Okay.
Sam says, don't say yet.
Okay, so stay tuned for our coverage
of the Survivor 50 finale,
and you can send in your Wandoff to
Rob has a website.com slash wandoff.
And Stephen, you've been so kind to mention it,
but the book is, the tribe and I have spoken.
It is available at Robbisabook.com.
there is a pre-order bonus chapter.
People have been like, hey, hold on, the book is out.
Where's my pre-order bonus chapter?
Well, we are waiting until after Survivor 50 is over.
And on June 1st, if you have ordered or pre-ordered, the tribe and I have spoken,
you will receive the digital chapter of the ultimate rights of passage,
my tribute to 751 Survivor Players.
And that will be sent to you digitally.
Just register at Rob has a website.com slash pre-order perks.
a lot of questions about how do I get my pre-order perks?
Rob has a website.com slash pre-order perks.
And also in the audiobook, check out Stephen Fishback is reading the preface.
How about that?
Not just me, though.
You also read the rest of it.
I read the rest of it.
But Stephen will get you started, get you warmed up.
So a really nice treat over on Audible.
This week, we got a great lineup coming up to talk about all this.
Drew Bacil is joining me on Thursday.
our double-exit interview. And then Lisa Welchell is going to be my guest to catch up on all things.
And we'll talk to me. One of my favorite interviews was with Lisa Welchell. Well, she just hung up on me, basically.
Where I was like, you were at the finale for Philippines. And I was like, like, Skyping in through you.
And she was like, do I have to talk to him? And then just like disconnected her headset.
So, uh.
Dan limbo did you?
Yeah. She limbo to me.
Yeah. And then Brennan Lee Mulligan is going to.
join me on Tuesday.
That's crazy.
Does he listen to the podcast?
We will find out.
But a big Survivor fan, Brennan,
and so we'll talk to him on Tuesday.
I'm a big Brennan-Molligan fan.
That's crazy.
Well, you'll have to tune in.
Check out then everything else that's in our Survivor podcast feed over at
we know survivor.com for all that.
I will be live with the patrons on Friday a later time.
I've been bouncing around the times to accommodate more
patrons this season. So I will be back at 6 p.m. Eastern on Friday for the patron Q&A. Join me at
six as we talk about the final six. And then on Monday, Club Condo, I'm sure Chappelle is not okay
after Surrey got voted out, find out what else is going on in Club Condo coming up on Monday night.
And then, speaking of 6'7 on June 6 and 7 at the American Writers Festival, Steve, what's
on? Yeah, I'm going to be appearing at the American Writers Festival in Chicago. So if you are in
Chicago, you can come stop by on June 7th. I'll be in a panel discussion about suspense and humor,
which are two, you know, two themes that I'm very passionate about. So it's a phenomenal lineup.
Daniel Krauss, who just won the Pulitzer, is going to be there. Lauren Groff is going to be there.
And many other amazing writers. So if you live in Chicago and are interested in literary things,
especially June 7th, I would strongly recommend you come by
because I will be there only on June 7th.
Okay, good, because I don't want to counter-program you
because on June 6th, I am going to be at an event,
and I don't know if you can see me off on the side,
but I'm going to be with my great friend Jonathan Penner,
and we are going to be at the Tribeca Film Festival.
They are having a survivor panel with a ton of great survivor guests,
And so you can join me and Panner and a panel of both former Survivor players and celebrity Survivor Superfant.
Maybe I can't look.
I don't want to say that from Survivor 50.
You can go to Rob is a website.com slash Tribeca if you're in the New York City area for that one.
That's going to be on June 6th.
Okay.
And then over on ChatBCC, the chat PCC has really blown up this season with.
Wow, holy cow.
Seriously, he's got critical massed over.
there. Critical mass and has
join us there. That's
where all the survivors are
gossiping. They're spilling
the tea everywhere, Stephen.
And sometimes people
screenshot it and we're like, hey,
that was only for chatBCC.
You should be posting that out
on the rest of social media. That's only for
the glitterati at
the chat BCC.
Yeah.
Rob's website.com slash VIP chat.
if you want to be there for that talking with all the survivors about what's going on.
Anything else on your mind, Stephen?
No, just what a pleasure it is, how happy I am for you that your book hit bestseller status.
Yes, you see a nice message today.
Yeah, it was a lot of, it was all caps.
It was all, I don't even know if it was grammatical, but it was all caps and enthusiasm.
That's good.
We want to give a non-grammatical text today, Stephen.
Yeah.
But most of all, for a sad day for Survivor.
Really bummed about Rick, who is one of my dear friends and who,
Got a little overshadowed
Yeah, I know.
And like, you know, just like played a great game,
had a great time out there.
You know, I, I warned all my friends like,
oh, going back is going to be miserable.
You know, like, it's so tough.
Like, you know.
And he came back, he's like, he didn't tell me how he did,
but he's like, I had an amazing time.
And I was like, that's amazing.
It makes me so happy that you had a great time.
Like that was, that was so, such a relief and so wonderful.
And you can see why.
He just, like, played with all of his heart and all of his joy.
And I'm very sad to see Serigo, who,
it's been just so much fun watching.
I mean, as a Survivor fan,
I don't know if it gets better
than watching Surrey Worker Magic.
Read the micro expressions
on Stephanie LaGroes's face
and use them to formulate an entire strategy.
It's just like such,
it's like Survivor at its highest level.
This game, as it was like meant to be played,
we never get to see this level of gameplay
with new players,
you know, because you just don't have the experience
to like be that good.
And it was like,
I'm so sad that the season's ending,
you know and this has been like
it's been so, so great to watch
and like Surrey like what a let
like the best
the best to never win for sure but like
among you know in terms of like a single
episode of strategy possibly the best ever.
What's next for Surrey? What does she do
after this?
Yeah, I guess she's done
traders already. Yeah, traders
all stars for sure. Traders
all stars, yeah.
I know there was some talk about her on the amazing
race. I don't know
if that's the right venue for Surrey.
I feel like that's not like the Surrey.
Like, is there a strategy?
I mean, I guess I don't watch.
She's done big brother.
Stephen has...
The challenge?
Yeah, I don't think so.
Maybe, you know, Jared could do the challenges.
What about Surrey as the next host of Survivor?
What do you think of that?
I think that would be, she would really...
But her, like, genius is extracting information, which would be great, but like, it would
really, the players would really struggle with Surrey as a host.
He'd be like, oh, I saw you.
I saw that.
eyebrow raise. We all know what we all know what that means from Rob. Yeah. Yeah, I think she'd be
really good at tribal council. I'm not sure. She'd be a good host. She would be a really,
really good host. I think that I'm struggling to imagine her like going from the person of like
getting the person to walk across the balance beam like being the like being the like dig. But like I'm
sure she could do it. That's why she'd be a good host. A different take. You know, we don't want to
It would be a different take on it.
So I like that.
But we can't wait to see what comes next.
Looking forward to talking with Surrey and Rick on Thursday.
Stephen, great job by you.
I had such a fun time podcasting with you on the No-It-All.
This is our last time that we're going to be together in the regular season.
We'll get together after the winner is crowned.
But, Stephen, this was a delight.
It was a delight for me, too.
This was so fun.
I mean, this season has been great.
Talking about it with you has been great.
Such a bummer that it's over.
I was anticipating this for so long.
And now it's like in the, you know, and certainly, I honestly, I feel like with the ouster of Rick and Surrey, it's already over for me.
Like, I don't really care what happens next.
All right.
Well, whatever happens next, we will be there for you.
Take care of anybody.
Have a good one.
Bye.
Bye.
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