RHAP: We Know Survivor - Know-It-Alls: Survivor 50 Ep 8 Recap

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

Know-It-Alls: Survivor 50 Ep 8 Recap Survivor 50 heats up as Rob Cesternino returns for Know-It-Alls, breaking down one of the most action-packed episodes of the season. With the game thrown into chaos by a “buy one, get one” double boot twist, Rob dives deep into the aftermath as alliances fracture and big personalities—like Coach and Chrissy—find their Survivor fates hanging in the balance. Rob explores how strategic pairings and a shocking fake idol play upend the season’s tightly woven alliances. This week’s episode sees the castaways split into pairs with little warning, forcing them to think on their feet as they navigate a complicated web of shifting trust and hidden agendas. The Honor and Loyalty 5 alliance feels the heat, especially as Coach becomes a lightning rod for votes and Chrissy gets caught in the crossfire. Meanwhile, the so-called “middle” players—Rick, Aubrey, Christian, and Emily—scramble to avoid being singled out as threats, while Cirie quietly pulls the strings behind the scenes. The live Tribal Council explodes when Rick Devens stirs the pot with a fake idol, leaving everyone scrambling and shifting votes at the last minute. Plus, Cirie dominates the social game, orchestrating the vote while maintaining her spot at the center of every alliance. – Rob and his co-host dissect the fallout from the double boot twist and how it shakes up both tribal strategy and individual relationships. – Cirie cements herself as the key decision-maker, with everyone eager for her guidance and approval. – Rick Devens’ fake idol play at Tribal Council triggers chaos, close calls, and last-minute vote switches. – The struggle between sticking with old alliances versus seeking new lifeboats, as Joe and Tiffany form a surprising new partnership. – Discussion of how the “middle” is viewed as a threat, and what that really means in Survivor 50’s complex social landscape. With the Honor and Loyalty alliance cracked wide open and the “middle” under fire, who will survive the next vote, and will Cirie’s smooth gameplay carry her all the way to the end? Whose big moves put a target on their back, and who quietly gains power while chaos erupts at Tribal? Don’t miss the full breakdown as Rob tackles every idol play, alliance flip, and live Tribal twist from this wild Survivor 50 episode! Chapters: 0:00 Double Elimination Twist Revealed 6:00 Survivor Pairs: Advantage or Liability 12:07 Cirie Commands Tribal, Decides Vote 18:58 Chrissy Overshadowed by Coach Exit 23:35 Coach Sidelined, Votes Shift 31:10 Rick’s Fake Idol at Tribal 36:35 Tiffany Forms Alliance with Joe 43:01 Rizo Loops Joe Into Four Horsemen 46:11 Cirie, Ozzy, Rizo Control Middle 54:10 Fishy Award Goes to Cirie 1:00:24 Cirie’s Exile Island Coconut Quest 1:08:12 Survivor Predictions and Season Hype To pre-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!

We all love Survivor, and in my first ever book, The Tribe and I have spoken, I'll tell you how this little show evolved from that juggernaut first season on the beaches of Borneo all the way into its landmark 50th season. I'm like a storyteller. That's what I do. What role did the greatest players, the unforgettable moments, and Jeff Probst himself have in shaping what Survivor has become today? And what contribution did we play in building this worldwide tribe of Survivor fans? Love you, Bay.

For you future players, I've also included my ultimate survivor playbook to help you win the million dollars, unlike me. It's fine. You know what, dude, it's fun. This hardcover edition is filled with beautiful survivor illustrations in every chapter and is an amazing addition for every survivor collector. I'm a meat collector. Pre-orders are everything for a book launch, so to say thank you to everyone who pre-orders, you'll receive an exclusive digital bonus chapter called the Ultimate Rights. of passage, my personal tribute to all the players who have ever competed on the show, all 751. This is huge.

I needed this. Free order wherever books are sold in hardcover and as an audio book at rob hasabook.com. That's rob hasabook.com. Nicely done, Rob. They won the game a million times Well, actually, they didn't really win the game at all. Survivor No It O's. Hey, who asked for some more double trouble?

That's right. The Survivor Know It Alls are back after a jam-packed episode eight. Buy one, get one, as two Survivor players went out in a huge. huge twist to the game here with us. You asked for dynamic advantages and there's no one more dynamic than Stephen Fishback. Sixty three percent of you voted for him. Well, I understand to be part of a duo that can never be eliminated off your podcast feeds. Very fun episode. I loved it. I loved this season. I'm so hyped to talk about it with you, Rob. So many strategic permutations, such a sad loss. Yes, sad loss. Of course, we love

lost coach 4.0. I believe this could be it for coach. We'll put it all into context for you here tonight. Talk about the ramifications. What's going to happen next and everything from a big night of Survivor. Double exit interview coming your way as well. I will talk with both Chrissy and Coach, hopefully separately. Hopefully they won't make them do together. That'd be fun to do together. They used to do that back in the day. Christy can be like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I remember. I feel like there was one that Dan Lambo rest of the soul was also a double interview. And I talked to Purple Kelly and Nianca on the same call.

And then it's luckily, I don't think they were in the same room. And it's like, okay, okay, Purple Kelly put Nyanka back on the phone. But we will hopefully have separate exit reviews coming away. And then a jam-packed Thursday. Look for my podcast with Baby Andy. Then I'm also going to catch up with John and Alia. We're going to do a mid-season mailbag this week. So a jam-packed week here.

on the podcast. Stephen, how you doing tonight? I'm great. I mean, what a, what a season, truly. Like, whatever you think of the format twists and turns. Yeah. Such fun players, they're just bringing it so hard. It's just like, it's just a joy to watch. So effing hard. And so, yeah, let's jump right into it. And let's just talk about it was brought up at tribal council that Aubrey conjured the war dog about this is the theme. You never want to conjure the Wardog. Yes, well, it's a major contribution that Wardog brought to the survivor lore where he did say at that final tribal council in The Edge of Extinction. I also talk about it in the tribe and I have spoken that the theme is not on trial. You three are was the quote that Wardog said back then, but let's put the theme on

trial here for a minute. You come in, you seem pretty bullish about it. I'm sure there's a lot of people up in arms about yet another survivor twist. How are you feeling about this two for one shot tonight? I liked it. I thought it was very fun. I've also, as I've said before, I have given up that on the idea that Survivor is a game of 16 people played across 39 days with like maybe one advantage, you know, and they just create their like perfect

little social strategy. I think of the last time that happened. That was, well, it was great. That was gone. I loved it. It was wonderful. That was what I signed up for. I would never sign up for contemporary Survivor. I would never agree to this. However, as a viewer, I found it very fun. I liked it.

I think if they did it again, and obviously if they did it again, this would happen, the players should know what they're pairing up for. I in general like twists where the players can make strategic decisions based on a knowledge

of the consequences. But even so, I thought it was like a fun little wrinkle. Yeah. I thought that the strategic machinations of having to unrangle this, I thought were really, really interesting and compelling.

And so I thought that there was a lot to like here. I'm not going to complain about the twist. I'll echo what you're saying in terms of that should they have known ahead of time that they were going into pairs. But I think that that's reality TV, baby, where you sign up for things and then they love to pull the rug out from under you. I don't know necessarily what we would have seen be different. Perhaps Jonathan and Christian don't end up together. But I do feel like that for the most part, we saw maybe Joe and Tiffany don't end up on one team together where they thought it was just strictly

an athletic competition and that could be ultimately a game-changing duo as we move forward but I think that we would have had rather similar groupings. Yeah, well, I mean, I think in general, actually, I think a Jonathan and Christian pairing makes a lot of sense.

Like what you want in a twist like this is to be with someone from the other group. Like, that's your ideal. Not just someone who complements your strengths, which obviously is what Jonathan was thinking, like, I'm super strong, let me get someone super smart. But you want that mix of people.

I mean, when I looked at these pairs, I immediately thought the two pairs that are the most likely targets are Rick and Aubrey and Coach and Chrissy, because they were the two pairs that kind of were just from one grouping and therefore would have less support, you know? So I actually think, like,

we might have seen a lot of similar pairs. We probably wouldn't have seen those two pairs actually. Like, it would probably, like, honestly, like, if those two groupings had slipped. to coach if that was the case, if she knew. Oh, no, no. I think she was probably the biggest loser from having to be paired with somebody because

we saw coach did have a lot of heat on him. And she was keenly aware of that all through this episode. I don't know necessarily if you would have seen a pair like a Christian and Jonathan come together. Because I think that you would have if Christian said, hey, or Jonathan said, I want to work with Christian, I think coach loses his mind of like, hey, what do you do it? Right. He's like, right. We're trying to help Christian out.

Can I just take a moment? and sidebar. They're like always against the people playing the middle. We got to get out the people playing the middle. Like let's get rid of those those middle people.

Those devious middle people. Yeah. Who's the other side? If it's like, if it's, if the alliance is, you know, Joe coach. This podcast is sponsored by Quince. Quince cuts out the middleman

between you and high quality fashion. Check out. Chrissy wants to cut out the middleman. Yeah. Just like quince. They're going to cut out the annoying middleman. I'm sorry, but what were you saying? But that just seemed to be a theme of even, even Tiffany was like, we got to get rid of those people in the middle.

And it's like, who is, if they're the middle, who's the other side? Like, what's the, what are they the middle between? There's like this big alliance of, you know, from Chrissy and Coach's perspective and Joe's perspective, the alliance is like Jonathan, Joe, coach, Chrissy, Ozzie, Surrey. And then on the other side, it's, or in the middle, it's Rick, Aubrey, Emily. Christian, is the other side just Tiffany? Is it just Tiffany who's the other side of this middle? Just Tiffany, yeah. Yeah.

This is a great point. I think there's something in our society that the people, the middle has a bad rap. You say like, hey, I'm in the middle. And everybody's like, hey, pick aside your privilege. What do you mean? You're in the middle. They cut out the middle man. I say, hey, like we should have a talk.

And they'll say, I'll have my people reach out to you. We don't want to talk to your people. We want to talk to you. Everybody hates the middle people. Yeah, my middle people are much better than me. We need the middle people. Yeah, yeah. We're losing our society because we hate the middle.

Yeah, but truly, what are they in the middle of? I guess they're just like not with, like, what's, anyway, but like getting back to the meat of this. Well, you know, just to set the stage a little bit. I think what we got was in the beginning of this episode, which I think that this was unclear prior to tonight's episode, that we had, And I did a whole video, like, breaking down the two sides. And I think I saw the sides cleanly as they were tonight. But going into the last episode, you had the honor and loyalty five, which the was talked about in the episode, which was coach, Chrissy, Jonathan, Stephanie, and Joe. That was a five.

But they seemed to believe that they also had the Rizzo, Surrey, Ozzie, three was also with them. They thought. Well, not even necessarily Rizzo, though. Although Rizzo is one of the. Four horsemen. Brought into the four horsemen in the alliance. But it seems like they're more Surrey and Ozzy, not realizing that there's a...

They didn't realize that Rizzo was actually, like, they thought they had Rizzo on the side, and they thought they had Surrey and Ozzy. So I think that they thought that they had eight, and there was only five people outside of that alliance, and that was Tiffany and then Emily, Aubrey, Christian, and Rick. So those were the people that were... They just mean nerds.

They just say what you mean. They don't want the nerds around. Nerds, nerds, nerds. Yeah, they want to be. Put them in a locker, go back, go get out of the... That's why they can't say nerds anymore. So they have to call them the middle. The middle.

I think you're right. I think it's like a euphemism. Yeah. They can't say nerd anymore on TV. But they call them the middle. And so that's where we come into where this episode was set up. And then so we have this twist, which then allows there to be two people who get taken out. Steven, if it was not for this twist, the two, the double the fun twist.

Does it have a name, by the way? Oh, no, I don't know. What's the episode name? Yeah. Yeah, I love that. That's great. Yeah. Old school callback right there?

Yep. And so if this didn't happen, would either coach or Christy have gone home on this vote? I think there's a high chance that coach goes home, right? Coach was a target, it seemed like after last week. Although, again, like, was it there? I actually, I mean, like, it did also seem like Aubrey was in a lot of danger. It seemed like Rick was in a lot of danger.

And, I mean, I'm excited to talk. about it, but I think that that that idol play may have been definitive. I suspect that neither coach nor Chrissy would have gone home. I think that the two people winning the immunity also, I think changed the calculus a little bit where I think there were going to be votes going for Tiffany on this one. I do wonder, and really we'll talk about Surrey and what her decision is and ultimately how she shapes this vote. I do wonder. if she would have wanted to make this move this early. It's still only the final 13.

But as Surrey talked about it, it was a two for one here from the other side. I suspect that Surrey would not have wanted to upset the side. They were in a nice spot in the real middle. And I wonder if she would have been as likely to do it as then, hey, take out coach, take out Chrissy. and now I piss off four people on that side, as opposed to that now I'm going to take out two from that side,

and then really, as Christian referred to it, talking about blowing up the death start, not helping the reputation of people calling that side, the nerds to describe it that way, but I digress. And then ultimately, now you only have three people who are mad, and Joe's kind of already been brought over and sort of like you sort of like greased the, I don't know what you would grease there,

but basically you brought Joe in already. So I think that there's less collateral damage. So I do think that this twist ultimately help upset what might have been a little bit more of a steamroll for that side. It does seem like Surrey is the ultimate decision maker with everything. Like what a scene where like all these plots are happening. And then Surrey walks it like literally everybody goes over to her and she just says like, okay, here's what we're going to do. And like they're all like, gotcha. That's what we're going to.

Oh, how stupid of me to have thought otherwise, Queen Seri. Like, can we just talk, like, this is, I mean, it's really mind-blowing. Just both how good she is and how much esteem and respect everybody gives her. Like, this is the person who is the most devious person on this beach. And, like, gets everybody just, like, it's constantly deferring to her. They're all going to her. And it's not, like, in the past where we've seen, like, a Boston Rob or even, you know, a coach in South Pacific where you see.

one person who really is ruling the roost with an iron fist of like, if you cross me, you're dead. I feel like that maybe not since Kim Spradlin, have we seen somebody just sort of like dominate just from, I want to be in her warmth. I want to just be around her and I want her to be happy with what I'm doing. And so let's just run everything back to her and let her make the decision. Yeah, that's a great comparison and a great kind of, I think, like the emotional heart of it, which is just like I want. And like the fact that she is surrounding. renowned to be a strategist. And every single one of these people thinks that they have the special relationship with her, right? Like, maybe we think that Ozzie and Rizzo really have that. But, right,

I mean, Christian and Emily and she, you know, and Rick thought that they were in a forsome with her. They probably still think that that persists. You know, Aubrey knows her from game changers. And so, like, everybody's got this special relationship with Surrey. Maybe coach feels something from Heroes vs. Villains. Yeah. And you sort of wonder, maybe is Stephanie who feels like, okay, I know. Of course, definitely, yes. Surrey from Heroes versus Villains, is she going to come running back to Surrey now that Troj and Chrissy are out of it?

So she got so much even stronger after tonight. I don't think that anybody looks at Surrey as being the president. I think they all are mad at Rick Devons and Christian, ultimately. And so Surrey is looking like she's in a really great position. Let's get into this tribal council, which unfolded. And we saw where Rick and Aubrey were in trouble. Let's talk about this first. I want to ask you, would Rick and Aubrey have gone home had it not been for Rick pulling out the fake idol? I don't know. I don't. My gut is no. Because like that, but also like I don't know because if you look at the actual votes, you know, Joe is really, obviously Chrissy and coach would vote that way. Although, you know, ultimately, Chrissy voted a different way.

Yeah. But that was, you know, many steps down that road. You know, Joe is probably going to vote for that. Obviously, Jonathan does still vote for them. And then, you know, after Surrey comes back, I kind of think that they're safe. But, you know, Rick said he felt like the tide was turning away from them. And I really believe that so much of who gets voted out at tribal council is just the person that the wheel stops on. you know? And so like, you know, like an hour ago when Surrey came, they were safe.

But now suddenly the wheel is spinning again. And it could land on them. And they could be the ones in danger. I think that they were safe. I think that Rick might have been feeling a little nervous. And I think, you know, you get it. Like if you're Rick Devons and you have access to a hidden immunity idol, you're like, okay, this is feeling like it. I got to, I got to take it out and play it here. There's only five votes in the honor and loyalty five. I don't know who else was voting with them against Rick and Aubrey. As long as Ceree was still on board with, hey, we're voting for Coach and Chrissy. Ozzie and Risgod were going to be

voting with Ceree. Nobody, obviously, Rick and Aubrey weren't voting for themselves. Christian and Emily weren't going to let them go. That's already seven. You think that Tiffany also, while she had said originally she wanted more to vote with the middle, I don't think she's going to go

against the people that want to work with her. So I feel like that there's still eight votes that didn't change. that tribal council. I think the thing that changed perhaps by the fake idol being brought out was that Joe ultimately did vote with them and so did Stephanie. I think only Jonathan was the only person who actually still voted for Rick and Aubrey. Yeah, Jonathan voted for Rick and Aubrey. Chrissy voted for Rizzo and Emily. And PS, that's correct, by the way. Like, it was right for Chrissy to cast another vote there for that other group because

if Rick and Aubrey did play their idol, and there was an idol, and if coaches shot in the dark hit, that would be no votes. And so Chrissy's vote would have been the one that determined that he would go home. And Chrissy was in one of those situations in the final five of HHS,

where Devin Pinto played, he put one vote on Dr. Mike after Ben, they put all the votes onto Ben, who, and then ultimately, Devin Pinto put one vote on Dr. Mike and then ultimately Dr. Mike went home because of that.

Yeah. Wow. I don't remember that at all. But I guess that sticks with you. It happened and Chris was there. And so I was going to say that I think that it was more of that Chrissy and coach talked things through and then ultimately it was more of a shot in the dark insurance.

Let's just talk a little bit about Chrissy who I'll echo that Chrissy also kind of like Angelina did not get a big story here. Camilla also as well, probably three of the more underrated players where Tiffany has really kind of come into her own and she has had an arc in this season. Chrissy's arc was that she came back to Survivor. She was not loved in her original starting tribe by some of the people that she played with and then that coach took her aside and said that she was getting on people's

nerves. I did like the juxtaposition of that in this episode. It was Chrissy who had to pull coach aside to hey, coach, you know what? You're being a little bit too much for people. We're going to need you to really just tone it down. She became the dragon sitter in this episode, really, where she had to put him in the hammock. Coach, you're in timeout in this episode. And so she knew, she intuited that she was going. And we talked about if you were going to blow up, that side. Who is the right person to hit over there? And I had said, I thought that Chrissy was actually a really smart person for that, for the other people to take out, because I do think that she was the most strategic-minded person on that side in that honor and integrity five.

Well, I think Jonathan's playing a great game, yes, as I've said, as the internet contests, but I will stand by it. But yes, I mean, Chrissy is definitely the biggest loser of tonight, not just getting voted out, seemingly getting voted out, largely because of being connected to coach. And then, worst of all, pretend, potentially, I mean, getting voted out sucks. Worst of all, sort of getting voted out is like, eh, yada, yada. Like, okay, Chrissy's gone. And then, like, coach gets this, like, the heroic music and, like, everyone's like, we salute you, coach, you know, like, I am coach.

It was a little bit of insult to injury where a lot of Chrissy's storyline was overshadowed by coach. I think she was with coach the entire game. And then I didn't really understand the logic of like, okay, Chris and Chrissy and Coach, you're both voted out. All right, Chrissy, you're going to be voted out first. Like, why? I mean, it was the same thing as Colby.

We all know. You know what the logic is. It's the same reason. Because why? Like, just don't worry. Don't think. Alphabetical by last name. Perhaps.

Or alphabetical by first name. Who's played more times? Who's played more days? We give deference to that seniority. you know, like first one in, last one out, like, or first one out. Anyway, so Chrissy goes out and coach, you know, gets even overshadowed in her boot episode here by, of course,

that the headline is going to be that coach gets out. And I do want to talk about coach and what this means for his legacy and his, like, what his story ends up being here in the season. But I just want to give some deference to Chrissy, who I think was playing, one of the more strategic games out there, I don't know if she was going to be set up to win, but she really seemed to be having a really good view of the board.

Yeah. I mean, if her group kind of pans out, and then, you know, she's there at the end with coach and I don't know who. I mean, Jonathan, like maybe, I mean, I guess it's so hard to speculate about something like that. Mm-hmm. Okay. But, you know, Jonathan had a lot of bad blood. You get D there as the mayor of the jury.

Coach people are pissed at. Maybe Chrissy wins, you know, by default. Yeah. Okay. Let's bring Coach back into this because I had wondered coming out of the last episode, was there some method to his madness? And I think that that has always been the question that has followed Coach around through his survivor career of, is this intentional? Has he lost it? Is he, does he know what he's doing? What is the level of self-awareness for coach? And you saw in the beginning of the episode that he was referring to his, himself as a shield for his group. And I did think that that was making me think that he is maybe keenly aware of what he's

doing with the haikus. And there was some intentionality to it. It wasn't that coach had necessarily lost it. It was that he felt like, hey, let me try to take all the bullets from my side. Yeah, I mean, I almost felt like that was like an ex post faster justification, you know, where he ex post facto justification, where he was like saying, you know, oh, I made a huge mess of things, but that makes me a huge issue. Instacart makes grocery shopping easier.

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so they can get it right for you without having to ask. That way, you can get groceries just how you like. Download the Instacart app. and shop today. I do want to say, though, I think Coach was having more fun than we've ever seen him have on the show. I think he was having fun with, like,

the persona of Coach, you know, where in the past, sometimes it's felt like, really like, I am Coach, you know? And he was like, you know, he was like taking so much joy in the haikus and like, oh, yes, what a great haiku line. You know, we really saw him kind of marinating in the sort of pleasure of like this persona.

So I really had a lot of fun with Coach this season. I'm bummed that he's off my screen. I was hoping he'd be there all the way to the end because he was just such like a, I don't know, he always added, like, just a lot of, like, coachness, you know, in the way that I feel like you could add Keith Nailed. And, I mean, you know, again, rest of soul. But, like, you could have added Keith Nailed any season. And he would just be additive and fun and bring some, like, you know, his keithness to the season.

Like, I feel like you could, too, with coach. Just like, have him there. You know, just like being coach. The edit was generous to coach tonight in his final hour in Survivor 50. we saw haikus, we saw Coach Chi, we saw him singing, we saw, he gave speeches, multiple speeches, he gave multiple famous quotes in the episode. But I will say that strategically and in the gameplay, he was largely relegated to the sidelines in this episode that do you feel like that this is an unsatisfying end for coach?

Well, I wonder if like, you know, I mean, it's certainly the question, right? You're seeing him like just like literally being the hammock all day and therefore not on the beach kind of like steering votes. And you wonder if he had been there marshalling votes. I mean, the thing that we, it was basically the thing that we said last week, right? Like if there's a loud voice in the room, like, you know, as as frustrating as it is societally, like that voice can get heard. And we certainly saw it last week with coach in terms of how he steered the votes. Like he steered the votes just like through force of personality. And every. And every. And every. Even Ozzy at the start of this episode, it was like, I don't know why I voted for coach, the way coach wanted me to do. He just told me what to do. And I mean, there's something to that. If someone is in every group conversation saying, here's what we do, here's what we do, here's what we do. Like, you, on Survivor, you can't text. You know, you just like, you're kind of like stuck doing the thing the person is telling you to do. And for him to just be in the hammock really opened up this door for him to be voted out. Yeah. This was the equivalent of, okay, take his phone away. And now, you can't do any harm if he's in there. But, you know, hindsight is 20-20, and this is a completely results-oriented take. But I think you kind of have to, if you're in an alliance with coach, I think you have to kind of let coach be coach. And I get it from Chrissy's perspective. Like, obviously there was a lot of frustration with him last week. It seemed like it almost boiled over. Like this week, just like, let's be cool. Let's be invisible. But they weren't invisible. You know, that's the thing. Like, you can be invisible if you're invisible, you know. But coach was already

a target and coach is already coach. And I think the fact that this, this is one of the two pairings that are both from the same alliance made them inherently a target. So when you're in that position where you're already kind of a potential target, you just can't sit back. There's times to sit back and there's times to not sit back. And again, it is results already to thinking, but I do think this is maybe one of those times not to sit back. And I'm sure coach regrets that. And just looking back at this pairing of Coach and Christy, just as an alliance, I feel like if this was maybe doomed to failure from the start, because I think that just in terms of who these two people are,

in terms of how they approach the game and Survivor as a whole, you have Chrissy, who is like the ultimate pragmatist is purely logical, is like thinking about the numbers, always thinking ahead in terms of the game. And Coach is vibing. And Coach has a strategic side to him, but he wants to do the things that are sort of the unconventional and be big. and Chrissy wants to sort of be not in the middle of everything.

And so this was always going to be like a, not a duo that's going to fit together, hand in glove like a Stephen and JT. On the one hand, you could say maybe they complement each other's strengths, but I just think that their play style was so just like opposite in maybe a way that didn't quite work. Yeah, that's really a good point. I mean, you look at Rick and Aubrey conversely, and they obviously can seem to play very nicely together and probably presented a unified front.

I mean, we saw them presenting a unified front, like quite literally when they were talking with people. Yeah. So let's talk about going back to this live tribal council because I think that there's more to unpack here with, we knew Rick Devons when Jeff started talking to him, we saw that we got the edit. We also similarly in Survivor 48, we got this edit,

when I think that Joe was talking when this was happening and then we got as Joe was droning on. Yes. Like from Rick's perspective, we got this in Survivor 48 when it was actually from Joe's perspective. Joe's perspective, yep. He was considering like whether or not to flip against, maybe was Shaheen.

And we then see Rick is going to go and get up and do it. And so it ends up being quite a big moment. Rick seems to know exactly where it is. There's a myriad of responses from people where a few doubters, a few haters. Risgod comes over, congratulates Rick Devin's on finding idol number six. Is that right?

Can we fact-checked? But I wonder if they're counting. I don't know the actual numbers, but they also might be counting the one that they think Rick found that passed to Aubrey. So they might be thinking of that as... Okay, so some Kalish math from the Risgod. I honestly don't know what the actual number is, but I wonder if that's in that.

Did he find four idols in the Edge of Extinction? It was something crazy. Yeah. I don't know. We have to find out. Is he counting fake idols? I'm not sure exactly. But, yeah, he's impressed with Rick Devons.

And it seems like that at first, everybody is like on board. Oh, my God, he has an idol. What do we do? But there seems to be some questions about what, let's show us the idol. show us what you have, and Rick declines. Okay. Do you think that it was beginning to fall apart for Rick? No, I felt like Rick.

I actually thought Rick had it like perfectly in hand. He was like, I'm not, you know, his responses felt to me like he knew whether or not he planned them. You know, he was like, oh, you don't get to see any more than this. You know, he was like a little bit of a tease. He felt like it didn't seem like he was on the back foot. He felt very much in control of that moment. Yeah. I mean, one fear with something like that is that someone gets up and says,

great. He's got an idol. Let's stack votes on him. Make him play it. And either he does or coach goes home. And then suddenly they're really effed. Yeah. Could you in this situation, could Rick get up and say, hey, Jeff, can you hold this for me? Yeah. Could you like, I don't want to play it until after the votes. But Jeff, can you hold this for me? That would be fun. Like, can you just give Jeff anything, any old thing? Because I think the thing that really where it starts to fall apart is when they say show it to us and he doesn't have a great answer to why he can't show it to them right but it also is very chaotic you know and i don't think it's like it's not like they're in the middle of a um um it's not like they're in the middle of like a you know

a legal you know brief like it's like it's like a chaotic tribal council and he's like waving it around and they're all off whispering so i think in like maybe yeah if he's like you know what i'm going to give this to Jeff to hold because I don't know if somebody has knowledge is power and I don't want them to use it against me. Right, right. Could you do that? Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Just like give, put it in Jeff's, I mean, I feel like that wouldn't be, I don't think it would protect you from a knowledge as power. That doesn't seem like. Do I have an idol? No, Jeff does. I don't know. I don't know if we're giving Jeff like ownership because then can then Jeff play it on somebody else. That's like an atheist game of, of Cloud Tower. I think Jeff does not get to a.

How about this? Okay, could, how about this? Rick could say, you know what, I'm not showing if it's real or if it's fake because I don't want somebody to, if they have knowledge as power, to steal it from me. Yeah. Well, right. But then the premise of that is that maybe it's not an idol. Well, you know. But I'm protecting myself because I have to maybe make you think it's a fake idol because I don't want somebody to acknowledge is power me. Right, right. They don't know that knowledge's power was also only really.

as God would know, that the knowledge of power was in Survivor 49. But I do wonder if he could potentially use the threat of knowledge's power to maybe, like, maybe you want people thinking that your real idol is fake to protect you from somebody burning their knowledge's power on you. I just think the circumstance, like, what makes the tribal council play work is the fact that there's just chaos at tribal council, right? It's not the venue to like, like, rigorously analyze, like, the evidence. You know, there's chaos.

There's nerves. It's like a, you know, constructed scene. You know, you can't just, like, go, like, you can sort of, like, break off in this little, like, you know, room, but you can't kind of, like, go pull someone off for, like, an in-depth conversation. And so I think, like, you know, one thing that made Rick always such an incredible operator in, you know, Edge of Extinction was that he was just, like, able, he was so comfortable in that chaos. He was able to, like, create these explosive moments at tribal council. And then, like, yeah, I kind of. And then he would be able to, like, harness them. Yeah. And Mike keeps slipping.

Do you think any votes changed at this tribal council? I mean, yeah, I do think that Jonathan, I'm not Jonathan's vote, that Joe's vote changed. I think that, you know, probably Stephanie's vote probably changed. Like, my, I mean, I guess there's a world where, like, the vote was so buttoned up already, and these people were already voting where Ceree told them. So it's just like one of those things, I guess we just won't know until you do exits. But, but I don't know, what do you think? I think that maybe a couple of rats jumped ship, not to call the people.

rats, but I think that maybe that Stephanie and Joe didn't necessarily want to go down with the ship. They kind of read the writing on the wall, and especially with Rick Devons having his idol, that he maybe got a few people off of it where Jonathan stayed

the course on it. But the fact that coach played his shot in the dark makes me think that the edit didn't want to give away that Rick and Aubrey were going to be safe no matter what, and they wanted to really sell the spectacle.

Interesting. I have to give the producers and the editors credit because I could be mistaken, but I don't think I am. In the previously on for this week, I don't think that we saw... Oh, they didn't. Good call. No. And they set it up like two or three times over the course

of the season in the previously on Survivor that we saw Rick and Christian Hyde the Idol at Tribal Council. But tonight, on the night that we needed to know about it, they didn't give us that information. Yeah. So, I mean, I wonder, I mean, it also hopefully protects Rick next week, right? Where, like, now he gets to say, I've got this idol that I'm going to play, right?

So because he's, like, from everybody else's perspective, he still is an idol that he held on to. I'm curious to see what Christian says. You know, we're presumably going to get a confessional from Christian at the start of this episode. And I hope it's like, oh, Rick nailed it. And it's not like, oh, Rick, you blew our thing. I thought that Christian's face, to me indicated. Now, I don't, Christian we know can act. So maybe he was acting like, oh, I don't like that this happened.

Yeah, right. But he did seem a little bit. Right. Wish we didn't save that for a bigger moment. Maybe you, like, went for it too soon. You didn't need it. But I will say some of the target on Rick was because of Christian, right? I mean, Christian earlier said, I want Rick to be the one to be perceived to have found

Aubrey's idol. because he has his reputation as an idol hound, and I don't want that stink on me. And that was part of why Rick was a target tonight. I don't want to be a pat myself on the back person. I rarely do it on the podcast, but I will have to say that I did not like Aubrey playing her idol at tribal council last week.

Aubrey herself, I think, realized that that was maybe something that was good for everybody else, but not for Aubrey in this spot. It would have really, especially that for people, who thought that Rick Devin sent her the Billy Elish Boomerang Idol, it would have been a perfect moment for her. That's true. This would have been the sweet time to burn that idol.

And so it really would have been an incredible use of that idol there for Aubrey. But she does is able to, by way of at least the parchment from that Billy Irish boomerang idol that was found, perhaps is saved in a way. Yeah. Yeah. No. I mean, it worked out very well for them. It was also just like great television.

I thought Rick pulled it off so beautifully. It was so fun. It was cinema. And it was great. And even like, you know, you have, because it's slightly confusing, you have people who are not in on it, basically validating it for you. You know, like, Tiffany, like, people who are like trying to catch up with the narrative you're selling are like explaining that narrative and therefore not questioning that narrative,

but that makes sense. You know, you have Tiffany saying, oh, he had a clue when he just found the, that he had the clue for, you know, like, and then by her saying it, it almost validates it for you, you know, because then you have like other voices in the room saying, oh, this is what's happening. You know, and I thought that was what Rick did so beautifully in terms of how he sold it, was he kind of like gave just enough that other people would kind of start to put the threads together, but not like, I have a clue that I found out this challenge that I've therefore going, you know, if he oversold it, it might feel like too much and therefore less credible.

And I will say that Aubrey playing the Billy Eilish Boomerang Idol at the previous tribal council did help, sell the plausibility that Rick Devons found something. It was a talking point from the start of the episode. Oh, you know, Rick Devons, he's always finding things. And now Aubrey perhaps has an idol back in play. And so that did in a way help sell this at the tribal council. Yeah. I want to talk about Joe. And Joe had sort of been on the sidelines, really, since the big feud with Rick Devons in episode number two, it does seem like there is no love lost between Joe and Rick Devin's. And so we saw Joe really put into the spotlight as he ends up being partners with Tiffany, who is firmly on the bottom, but they end up being partners in this challenge. And then we see

Joe go and have spaghetti and tiramisu with Tiffany. And he's locked in. And we know when Joe locks in with an ally, he means it. He's locked in. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great point. I'm sorry about this the uh yeah I mean great you know Jeremy Sue will bring so many people together and uh just just you know and Joe especially

that it is a very fun alliance and and yeah what a great second you know second life in the game for Tiffany yeah to kind of like have this one group that she sort of was with almost by proxy and then to suddenly find this other outlet which PS is like Stephen my winner pick

uh looks she's It looked like she was dead in the water here, but who's going for Tiffany? Who's, who's... Yeah, she's got... No. Can we also talk about it? I mean, I don't want to like get off Joe right away. No, we'll want any more to talk about with Joe.

Coach's conversation with Tiffany was so good. And I was thinking, like, when, when coach is like, I, you know, I wasn't pushing your name out there. And then she says, okay, so who was pushing my name? He's like... Yeah. You know. Yeah. Yeah, that's to me, when you don't have any answer, that's damning.

Yeah. Like, I can't tell you. Right. At least for that I said, I don't want to throw that person under the bus. But do you, when you're going into a conversation like that on one of these games, are you already? Because, like, I feel like I, you know, you think to yourself when you're watching this, you should have had an answer prepared for that. But when I think of me when I actually played this, now granted, I never won. I don't know if I had that

if I thought all, because like you're, you know, you're just kind of like putting out fires. You're like, I need to have a conversation with TIF. I need to like, you know, connect with her. And hey, it wasn't me. And it's like, okay, who was it? Like, I don't know if I would have planned that out in the advance of that conversation.

Like, who am I going to throw under the bus? Like, what is the story there? Like, do you, like, you're on the traders. Like, are you planning these conversations out? Like, how many steps? So I will say that the traders is a little different than Survivor. In that, in the traders,

you might have like downtime when you are not in the game. You know, in the traders, they take you away. You have time alone, and then you get dressed, and then you come back and you're back in the game. I found in those times that I was not in the game. I'm scribbling notes down.

I'm like, all right, here's like 12 things I'm going to do today. I have a whole to do list. I'm going to say this to this person. I'm going to this person. I think in the moment, though, I think it's much harder to do. That being said,

that coach and Chrissy came up with this idea, go talk to Tiffany. Like, I kind of feel like, and maybe this is, maybe I'll say that Chrissy bears some culpability here also. Like, okay, you're sending coach off to go talk to Tiffany. What is he going to tell her? Right.

Because she's going to, like, you know, and literally he said, because he said, just make sure she doesn't think you were the one pushing her name. Totally reasonable. I mean, like, again, like, I'm just not sure. It was D. Yeah.

Someone out of, yeah, exactly. It was so weird. She was scrambling. She was scrambling. Colby also before he left, said, make sure, take out Tiffany for me. Yeah. Those are his parting words. He was like, you must have really pissed him off.

I don't know what it was. Yeah. Yeah. So I think you need to come back into that. But as for Joe, Joe is feeling like he's in the honor and loyalty five and that. And that he must have been. looped in by coach about the four horsemen. Hey, a conversation that we did not see on the show that Rizzo is now in the four horsemen.

Because we saw Joe and Rizzo, who we've really never seen talking before. Right. Like having like a really deep conversation. And Joe is like saying to Rizzo like, hey, we can't we can't turn on coach. So Joe is, I think, really bought in that Rizzo is in the four horsemen. Yeah. By the way, I agree with. Joe there. I mean, I really

have so much respect. We see so much of Rizzo's strategic game. We see him in like everybody's ear. Having these very frank strategic conversations with all these people who apart from them, you know, they're twice his age. There's got to be some sort of, you know, intimidated. But for him, no intimidation factor. And doing

a great job. But Joe is correct. You do not turn on like your two best allies at this point. To go work with the side that has Rick Devin's your arch rival in the game. Yeah. Yeah. I think that looking at what we know, I do think that maybe Joe went to the wrong side.

It's great that he picked up Tiffany as a number. He didn't have to lose Tiffany. He could have still, again, and maybe, like, let's be fair to Joe, that Joe could be a pragmatist here himself and knowing that, okay, I could vote for Rick and Aubrey. I don't have the votes. They're not going home. And so I'm going to go with the side that has the numbers,

even though that's not what I want to do. maybe that's growth for Joe of, hey, I'm not, I'm going to swallow my pride a little bit here and I'm going to write down a name that is less palatable to me for the sake of going along to get along. But Rizzo's point, too, was that we can't do, like, we can't let Joe in after the fact, right? Like, then Joe is, then we're dead to him. Great job by Rizzo also, a real understanding of Joe. Yes, he said, look, we have to, and, yeah, we have to have, you know, looped him in before.

And so even if he's not totally on board with it, at least he knows where we are. And I think that's really, really strong from Rizzo. It was a thing that Christian could not fathom about Ozzy earlier in this season. He's like, okay, we'll tell Ozzy after the fact. He'll understand. And Rizzo at least has the presence to know that Joe is the same way. You can't tell Joe the next day. Like, okay, we couldn't tell you because we thought you'd be mad.

You know, you have to. And Joe put up his fight about, hey, this is why we should not do this. I don't like this move that you're doing. But he still went along with it. And I think that for Joe, that's progress. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, good for Joe, good for Rizzo. Everybody's a winner here.

But that being said, I think that Joe's best chance to win the game was to be that person who sits at the end with, say, Jonathan and coach and to be the person who is maybe the most liked in the final three among the people who kind of in some ways made more enemies along the way. whereas it would be sort of like the inverted version of Survivor 48 where Joe was seen as the person who is pissing people off a little bit more along the way and Kyle was able to be seen as the more likable, palatable choice in that group. I think that that would have been a better switch for Joe to flip.

I think he's going to have a harder time finding his way to the final three in this side, but I mean, what's he going to do? Vote the wrong way at tribal council? Right. Yeah. I mean, there's no win here. Yeah. Well, right.

Yeah, exactly. So he gained an ally, which he really, I think that's an upgrade for him in terms of an alliance partner, Tiffany over coach. But who does Joe win against, like, left in this game? Like, truly, like, who does Joe win against in this game? I think it's really going to come down to, I mean, if he could somehow, we don't really know what the jury is going to think about Stephanie. Stephanie is the one person I was thinking of, too. I mean, I think, like, Tiffany's probably going to be more beloved by the jury for sure. Oh, yeah.

People didn't even want to write her name down at the last tribal council. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, flipping maybe. Like, I don't know. Like, we just, you know, maybe there are enough people. Like, she blew up their games. Yeah.

It's hard to say. You don't know necessarily, like, what the jury is going to think about Rick and Christian. Also, that you would think that the jury would award sort of, like, the big gameplay. But sometimes when it comes at the expense of, like, dunking on the people with fake idols. Right. don't know necessarily how the jury is going. The jury likes it when you have real idols. They don't like it when you trick them with fake idols.

Yeah. Right. That's a really good point. Yes. They don't like Rick Devin. The jury seemed to like Rick Devin's, but maybe not everybody on the jury. Yeah. You mean the jury of 30 at 9?

The jury of a bunch of people that were on the edge of extinction the whole time. Like watching Rick dunk on people. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

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Stephen, what happens next? Now, we're down to there are 11 people left after tonight. And so you have, on the one side, you have what's left of Joe and Stephanie and Jonathan. It seemed that maybe Joe has found a lifeboat, but Stephanie and Jonathan seem like maybe just a duo left. And they seem like that they're in a not so great position. You have three, Rizzo, and Ozzy still there as a three very much in the middle. and in control of everything. You still have Tiffany,

and then you have the four of Rick and Christian and Emily and Aubrey. Yes. I mean, I think the pressure is going to be on those four now simply because there is, I mean, like, there is less threat from anybody else, right?

Like, you kind of look at this Jonathan, Joe, Stephanie Alliance, and it looks basically hamstrung. You know, the new era thing is gone with like, you know, D. Camilla, Tiffany. And so like who are, Like, what's the biggest faction left? It really is that Christian, Emily, Aubrey.

So Rick thing, and like Rick's just like played this, like done this flamboyant thing. I think, too, they've just skated through the vote. I think there's going to be a lot of attention on them because even though they are the middle, they're now like a sizable faction. And I do worry for them. The question, though, is who does Surrey? Like, Surrey seems to be the decision maker. So looking at this board, who is Surrey?

who is Surrey most okay losing? I mean, I think Surrey probably wants to keep, we know she wants to keep around Ozzie and Rizzo. We know she wants to keep, you know, I assume she wants to keep around Aubrey, right? We assume she wants to keep around Stephanie, who she has a relationship with. So where are, like, I mean,

allegedly she's in an alliance with Rick and Christian and Emily. Like, we don't know how much she values that alliance necessarily, although I do think that's part of why they stayed today. But then, like, also, like, does she care about Jonathan? Yeah. So these dynamics in the post-merge are so fluid and so interesting. It's really like that we are sort of like in a three-tri season after the merge where you have the Rizzo, Ozzie, Surrey tribe. And people don't quite see it that way that Rizzo is with Ozzy and Surrey. And then there's also the, you know, Christian, Rick, Emily, and Aubrey tribe. And what's left of Joe, Stephanie, and Jonathan. I think that it was the, uh, Old Sela tribe plus Aubrey, the,

that, I wish there was a good name for them. I don't want to keep calling them nerds, but Surrey, the middle, the middle, the middle. The middle.

So the middle worked with Surrey, Rizzo, and Ozzy to take, to break up that honor and loyalty alliance. But now I kind of feel like that the Surrey Rizzo

Ozzy group is going to pick up what's left of the honor and loyalty alliance. Yes. Yes. And, and now have the numbers to take out the middle. Like I don't know if they're one, two, three, four.

But I think that the middle is due to take a hit. And I think that Rick would really put himself on the map in this episode. And I think that he could be a target. I think Emily could be the person of like, well, we know Emily doesn't have an idol. So I really think that somebody from that middle group is going to take a hit. And I don't think it'll be Aubrey because I think that Aubrey has kind of some protection from Surrey. And she's got, and Aubrey has a relationship with Tiffany as well. So I agree.

I mean, Sirie, I mean, so Rick has a maybe idol right now. And Surrey obviously had that more of a relationship with Rick, simply because they were on the new Sela, the swapsed together. I would be worried about Christian because Ozzy, you know, and he had that rivalry. And like, does Flippin have some good relationship with Ozzie that she kind of built in that swap tribe with Vatu? Remember, like, they weren't each other's number ones or something.

So honestly, like, to me, I think Christian is potentially in the most danger here. But this was sort of a low visibility episode for Christian. So maybe he's okay. And maybe it is Rick. But although Emily had a little bit of a visibility spike. So I don't know. I mean, I feel like just looking at the board, like Christian has fewer people standing up for him than anybody else. Although obviously we know that Joe and Rick have their rival reason.

But like I think Rick is tighter with Surrey because Joe hates, doesn't like, Rick or Christian seem like the most obvious next targets. It really does feel like that that duo has gone too far in the game. They're looked at as a known pair. And you have to think that in 11 where especially if you're like, oh, well, we got a flush Rick Devon's idol, it feels like that if that side only has four, let's just do the math on the numbers.

Can we do a vote split here? Not really, right? Because we have seven of people who are not in that group. and then we only have four in it. So you don't have enough to, you kind of needed one more person to do the vote split against them. I kind of would behoove them

if they just voted out, coach or Chrissy. And then they could have done the vote split against the middle. Yeah. So the middle has that going for them. Right. They can't be split on.

And Rick has a fake idol. So hopefully, you know, but again, fake idol, less useful than a real idol. Less useful than a real idol. But that just because a fake idol was, found tonight doesn't mean that the real idol can't be found, that the same things that apply to selling Rick Devin's fake idol, you wonder maybe could Rick Devin's go to work and find the real idol in the next episode? Gosh, that would be cool.

Yeah. Also, we're at 11. I don't think that we will do this in the next episode. Is it possible that at 10 we do a split travel council and do five and five? Yeah, that does seem likely. It seems like the pressure is going to get to Jeff. Like how many, how many votes? How many just straight up votes can I do in a row, too? I think we're still a little ahead of the pace. I think we need to do maybe at least two more episodes where two people go home. It's episode eight. And so I think we still have too many people. I have to run the numbers and think about how many people are typically left when we get through episode eight. Yeah. I think we're still a little ahead of the pace.

Yeah. Well, I do think it would be a bummer if, you know, if I, well, I'd be very sad to see Rick or Christian go home. Yeah, but what a run they've had so far. Truly, truly so fun. Okay. Steven. Yes, go ahead. No, no, no.

I was going to say. I got nothing. Are you ready to hand out the most coveted award in Survivor podcasting? Are you ready to hand out the highly coveted Fisci Award? Okay. Last week was controversial and that you landed on Jonathan. I feel like a less controversial fishy is coming up. Well, we got to talk about it.

I do have two options for you. I like to talk through it with you. You know, my, you know, our strategic brain trust here. But I'm glad I stood up for Jonathan. I backed down from David and now I'm always standing up. I'm even more convinced it should have been Riz God. Oh, no, no, no. I've gotten enough text messages.

You know, people in secret on social media, they're all like, Oh, you, how could you? Jonathan was wrong. In secret, people text you for giving Jonathan the fishy. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I've done some secret text. I just think that Rizzo had a better episode overall.

And not even Jonathan. Jonathan hasn't even texted me. Thank you, Mr. Stephen. Yeah. Okay, two options here. And the first is the one that you're not going to like, but I'm going to say it anyway. Yeah. Which is Rick Devons, because I was told in episode two or whenever it was, you know,

I think that Ray, that was. when they planted the idol at tribal council. And I was like, this is such a fun move. I love it. I want to potentially give them the fishy. And you said, premature. Okay. You can give them the fishy.

When it plays out at tribal council. Well, tonight that's what happened. Yeah. Spectacular play out at tribal council. We do think it shifted some votes. So there's a case to be made that Rick Devin's, it's a multi-episode fishy award. Yes. Of course, we all know

that's not going to Rick tonight, I'm sorry to say. And I assume you agree that it's going to ML8, no, to, to Surrey. To Surrey. I mean, what another master class from Surrey. There's chaos on the beach, all kinds of names being thrown out. Then like, Surrey descends, like Gandalf riding in

at the, you know, at the, what is it? The attend of two towers. I don't remember what the city is, you know. Minus Tirith or something. Yeah. All the forces of evil scatter. And she just like tells everybody exactly what to do. Everyone sort of goes to her at and end.

Surrey, what do we do here? Oz even as a confessional, like, oh, I was so muddle-brained to try to think for myself here. Like, what a fool I would see. you better, not listen to Sarie. Yes. Yeah. So I've been in the position where people have said like, oh, we're doing this because this is what we thought that you would want.

And I'm like, why do you think that that's what I would want? That is totally the opposite of what I would do. What are you thinking? And so I felt so seen when Sarie said, no, don't want it to middle. This is weird. They got two of them. Take up two. mom and dad.

To be fair. Very same. The idea like when... Yeah. There's like argument of like when am I going to, when are we going to get a chance to get two of them out at the same time? Could be also applied to Rick and Aubrey as well. You know, you could basically make the same case. When are you going to get a chance to get out two of them at the same time?

Rick and Aubrey think that they're with Surrey. And I guess so does coach and... Right. So to Coach and Chrissy. And this is, I think, also part of Surrey's thinking. When I talked to Colby that he told me that he told me that, that Surrey didn't, was wary of the coach and Colby group because that Colby said about Jenna Lewis or I'm sorry about Surrey, he said, yeah, I pre-gamed with her. And I said, really?

He's like, yeah. But then when Jenna Lewis tried to vote her out, she thought that I was just going back. He thought that Jenna Lewis was with me. And that when Jenna Lewis declared war on Surrey, she was like, you know what? That's it. I'm done with those people. And so Surrey was never really. wanting to work with the, you know, the alleged Zoom alliance at that point.

She thought that they sort of like had gone back on whatever they had told her. And so she always was wary of the old school people. What's amazing is that everybody, everybody thinks they're in with Surrey. They are all deferring to her. I mean, we even see her chatting with Chrissy, right? Yes. But that was, she was right. I mean, you have to wonder,

and again, like, this is someone who we've seen time and time again, mastermind these seasons, pull off some of the greatest blindsides, the most heartrending blindsides in the history of reality television. You know, masterminded that Eric Oster in Micronesia, you know, in her season of traitors, like left her allies just like jaw dropped with, with weeping with the betrayal of it.

And yet here everybody is, as many times have you seen her on television pulling this thing off, She's pulling it off again. It's so masterful. And she does it with such charm, you know? And nobody feels like they're being legislated to by Surrey. Everybody's like coming to her begging for her wisdom. Like she's like some sage on it, like descending from the mountain top.

So truly beyond fishy worthy. But nevertheless, going to receive a fishy. And if Surrey goes on to win the season, Jenna Lewis gets to do one of the all-time great. I told you. I told you, Sarah. Come on. You got it. I said.

Well, I wonder, though, like, really, like, if part of the appeal of Surrey as an ally is you don't think she's going to get over the finish line. Because there is that firemaking, because there is, like, she's not going to, like, beast her way. And, like, so you think, like, I can work with Surrey, and then at five, I can cut her pretty safely, you know, unless she's got, I mean, I guess an idol that gets her to four. But, you know, you don't think Surrey's going to be the one to do the firemaking. You don't think she's going to, like, win that final four immunity challenge. So I wonder if there's a little bit of safety in Surrey because you think as beloved as she, you have to know she wins if she gets to the end,

but you don't think she's going to get over the finish line to the end. Maybe it's that, you know, I don't want to take anything away from Surrey and how good she is and how good she makes me feel as an ally. I think there's also a part of it. I think that you're, you'd hate to lose. But if you're going to lose, like I feel like, okay, if I lose to Surrey, like,

I can kind of live with that. If I went all the way to the end with Surrey and lose to Surrey, like I think that that's better. Everybody will understand if that happens. Right. That's interesting. Right. Right.

That's interesting. Or like, like, you just feel right. And or even just like the altruistic nature like kicks in. Like, you know, I mean, I felt that for sure on my two seasons. I would love these guys to, you know, JT or Jeremy. Everybody will love me if I, you know, help Sarin. What a pleasure to. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, we saw that in Australian Survivor, you know, with Lisa. Sure. She was basically, that was her sort of MO. Sure. Surrey on Exile Island, we didn't really talk about that where Surrey very keenly realizes like,

yeah, you know what? I just saw my two allies go to Exile Island. I knew they're going to be immune. That seems like the best place for me to be. Also, Seri knows she's not going to win this giant double-decker immunity challenge, so nobody's going to be mad at me. so it really is the perfect spot for her to be. But then she has to turn over 2,000 coconuts here to get back.

And she has a really epic montage that really encapsulates her whole survivor journey. We see her. She's crying. It looks like that she's going through a real tough crucible to get through all of this, Stephen. What did you think of that? Yeah. I mean, it was great. I mean, there's a lot of speculation online.

like, why is Surrey crying? And I don't think any, I don't know if anybody guessed because she had to turn over a lot of coconuts. Do you, do you, do you, do you, did you like this as sort of a challenge? And did you like the stakes of it? Did you think it was enough? Did you think it was like a good amount of stakes? Yeah, I thought it was fine. I felt like that if they really wanted somebody to lose their vote and not get back,

I think the coconut would have been really much more on the outskirts and maybe turned over. So I think that this was certainly something that was meant to be doable. Yeah, I agree. And it wasn't even turned over, right? It looked like the Phoenix was Phoenix side up. So she was, you know, I mean, she didn't know that. And obviously she was doing the correct thing by like rolling over the coconut so that she could at least kind of have some kind of, you know, order to this task. Yeah.

And the cinematography was really epic on this. And getting the shot of, you know, I don't know if they had like a GoPro. on a coconut, be able to shoot the shot with Surrey in the distance, but that was all really well shot. And so, Surrey comes back. Yes. Did she get to take back the coconut? She did, which was- Yeah, she had the coconut, right?

Which was nice for her to be able to show people like, hey, this is what I had to do. So nobody's like, you're-fying. I feel like I would, like, cut the coconut off, the Phoenix off the Coke. Because the coconut's going to go rot at some point, but you cut the Coke-fee-in-is off and, like, frame it. It would look very nice. Maybe. I don't know how much memorabilia seri likes to collect, okay? But we'll see what happens next time.

Anything else from this episode tonight? Rob, if you're out there, you're, let's say you're Christian. Or who are you? Who is your avatar? Who are you most like in this group here? Well, on so many different levels have multitudes. But Rizgod. Okay, let's say you're Riz God.

And they say, like, you got to split into pairs. Who are you picking here? Can't pick Risgod. No, now I can't pick Risgaud, but I probably wouldn't pick him. I would say, you know, Emily is not a bad pick for him where somebody that's like,

okay, somebody who's like has some physicality, he can solve a puzzle, not necessarily somebody goes, oh, look, they're a duo. Yeah, I think Jonathan's, I mean, like, you know, I'm doing the Christian. Stephanie, not a bad pick.

Yeah, Stephanie, yeah. Someone who's going to be like good in the challenge to like sort of counter, my weaknesses. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, fun to think through. All right.

Should we talk about what's coming up because, boy, things are really heating up, both in Survivor 50. Wow, well, look at that picture of you. You look so handsome there.

What a great picture. Holy cow. Maybe it's like Maple Leaf. The best in the business at objectifying and making you feel good. So please thank you for that.

So I'm going to be, so what are we promoting? Next week I'll be in Toronto. You can't get tickets. It is sold out, but just, I'm bragging. I'll be in Toronto next week. And Stephen is going to be holding it down on the know it all's over with Owen. I think Owen.

Yes. Yeah, Owen. Let's do Owen. So join us for that. I will have a live show for you from Toronto. I will on May 6th in conjunction with the tribe and I have spoken coming out. You can be in New York City with us. us. Our biggest live show ever is taking place on May 6th in New York City. You can come out and

get ticket information at Robiswebson.com slash events there. Okay. And then Stephen and I are going to be together on Saturday, May 2nd when I'm going on a little book tour for The Tribe and I have spoken. Join us at the Miracle Theater with East City Bookshop on Saturday, May 2nd. Can I just say I'm reading the book now that I've received it. It's so fun. I mean, what a delight. It's just like a joy. Favorite part of my day is like I, you know, I get to read a chapter of the book.

It's just like such a delight. It's like you're, you know, it's like it's lovely. I love it. Many have said the book peaks with a forward by Stephen Fishback. Forward, but not forearmed. Okay? I don't know. I can really nothing to say to that.

Check out also the events. in, I'm not sure which is already sold out, but I'm going to be in Boston, Raleigh and Los Angeles, Robbinswops.com slash events for information on the book tour. Let me see. Let me look in the private chat and see if I have any intel there. I don't know. Let's talk about what's coming up. I mentioned Andy Ruita is going to be my guest, then talk with John and Alia from Survivor Marquesas. And then we're going to do a mid-season mailbag. Brandon Donlin is going to be putting together your questions as we will answer our Survivor 50 mid-season check-in on the mailbag. So I'm excited to hear what you have to say and answer your questions plus everything else in our...

My survivor feet. Yes? Oh, okay, my questions. All right. Do you have questions? Do you want to send them in? No, no, no. I just thought, I'm glad you're excited to answer my question.

Yeah, okay. Yeah. By the way, I don't know if we have a card about this or not, but the tribe and I have spoken pre-orders are available and if you pre-order we will send you my digital bonus chapter of the ultimate rights of passage

Stephen in one sentence about every single player. That's crazy. You can go to robinsbook.com. Okay. Wow. All right. We'll have on Friday the patron Q&A as well

so be on a lookout for that. That's going to be a 3 p.m. Eastern And over on Patreon, Chappelle and I are talking about all the nonsense going on in the Survivor Multiverse every single week on Club Condo Mondays. And then I also talked about one of Stephen's favorites, a million-dollar secret is back.

I talked about the first three episodes of Million Dollar Secret season two. And Stephen, I interviewed the host of Million Dollar Secret. Oh, really? Peter Starfanowitz. So classy. He says so charming. He is so charming and classy on the podcast? Yes.

Even more so. He was really, because he had a great microphone. So his voice was really unethical. display. You know that he was the voice of Darth Mall in Star Wars episodes. Speaking of blowing up the Death Star, he was the voice of Darth Mall in episode one, 1999's The Phantom Menace. Really? Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. He's in a really interesting career. So check out my interview with Peter Saraphanowitz. You will love it. I don't remember Darth Mall speaking a lot. He didn't have a lot lines. I don't know if he did any of the animated. They have a new Darth Mall animated series,

but the kids still, they love Darth Mall. Yeah. I always wanted more from Darth Mall. We want more. Okay. Stephen has a book. It's called the tape with an exclamation point. You can still buy it. It's still for sale. It's still selling. It's please buy my book. People are still reading it. They're still buying it. They're still loving it. Yeah. I love all the messages, by the way, all the lovely, wonderful, enthusiastic messages I love. you know, please, I try to respond to everyone. It's been so, like, amazing to receive all the positivity. Yeah, okay.

And then over on ChatBCC, that's where all the survivors are just spilling all the tea. So you're going to want to see what they're saying. You can read it. Don't screenshot and post it anywhere else. Go to Robb's website.com slash VIP chat to join Chat BCC for free. Okay. Stephen, there you have it. Whoa, great podcast.

Yes. Great episode of Survivor. You know, great episodes. I know that we sort of like we're, we don't like it when they are going to do too many things to play with the game. But I think we're all in the Aubrey mode of like, you know, like, it's Survivor 50. They're going to do stuff. What do you expect? Yeah.

Yeah. This is what the fans voted for, Rob. They voted for people splitting into groups of two and, you know. Yeah, Jeff really threw the fans under the bus of like, hey, they voted for this. You said twists. When we asked them, do you want a regular twist,

some twist or dynamic twist, 63% said this is, this is exactly what they wanted. Yeah. Listen, I'm fine. I'm fine with it. I've like, you know,

on a season this fun with this many players, you know, who I love to watch, it's, anything you do, you're not going to, you're not going to make me grouchy. You know,

I just love this cast. I love the season. You know, If the cast was weaker, if it was like, you know, maybe I'd be like, I don't need to see this silly thing, but I'm just so great. I don't want to be negative. And just to belabor the point one more time, that the reason why this, I think, worked much better than the Blood Moon was that the fates of a lot of the players,

not the duel of the fates that Darth Moll was in, but the fates of the players were largely out of their hands where, you know, Genevieve, boy, I'm in a bad situation. What am I going to do? All I can do is play my shot in the dark. Whereas that the players who were matched up, they might have got an unlucky draw, but you can't say that for coach and Chrissy, this was like an untenable, unwinnable situation. Like, they could have played their way out of this one. And, you know, it did seem like the things that led to their ouster were big tribal dynamics

that had been building up all season rather than someone just kind of like drawing a bad rock and being like, oh, no, I'm in a, you know, there's four of them and one of me. nothing I can really do about it. And it was actually like an original twist. You know, like I think that was the exciting part too. Whereas the Blood Moon was like, we're doing the same thing we do all the time, but slightly more. And this is like totally different, which in a way that I really love.

By the way, we've been talking about like pairs, you know, ideas on Survivor. And I thought this was, I mean, I don't think you would do a whole season as pairs, but this was a really fun way to do it. And I would happily see this again. And it's the kind of thing that gets inside a player's head where in Survivor 51, when they are going to do this like multi-stage challenge, like pick your partner, it's going to, I think, lead to some turmoil where they don't have to necessarily vote again in pairs. There will be some fights that break out over who is going,

like, I don't think that they will submit to a rock draw. I think that the players will really argue about who has to be their partners. I don't know when they're leaving for Survivor 51, but I do hope that they will have at least seen this episode. Yeah, I definitely agree that moving forward people, it will be in people's sides. And that'll also make it more interesting and maybe better, you know, when these Swiss play out. Again, like, we both love twists where the players know the stakes so that they can make decisions and either, you know, have their brilliant strategic thinking pay off or be hoist by their own partards. We love it. Okay. Thank you so much for joining us. Looking forward to reading what you have to say in the comments. And then we'll have our double exit interviews coming up on Thursday. Take care everybody. A good one. Bye.