RHAP: We Know Survivor - Sam Phalen Post-Season Interview | Survivor 47

Episode Date: January 11, 2025

It’s time for a Survivor 47 post-season interview. Get a look behind the Survivor scenes and catch a fresh perspective from the castaways themselves. Today, Rob Cesternino (@RobCesternino) is joined by Sam Phalen to discuss his time in Fiji! Learn more about his strategic choices, alliances, relationships and much much more!

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Hey everybody, what's going on? Rob Sestranino back to kick off our Survivor 47 postseason series. Yes, and today we are getting things started off with our runner-up from Survivor 47, and that is Sam Phelan. Sam was a great player in Survivor 47, a lot of fun to watch, a great sport all the way through. Didn't say a bad word about anybody the whole way through, made it all the way to second place after an epic battle in the final for firemaking, the ultimate come from behind win. And today, we're going to talk to Sam to kick off our Survivor 47 postseason series. Now, if you're new to the podcast, if you're just joining us here for these postseason interviews that we work with the powers that be over at CBS, and we get to talk to the survivors for one hour. So that is the amount of time that

we have for these interviews. I like to think of it as a power hour. We're going to get the most out of that hour. And so if you're wondering why we are pressed for time, that is the time that we have access to ask Sam questions. This interview is also up on our YouTube channel. So you can go ahead and watch my conversation with Sam. This is the first of a few post-season interviews that we are going to be bringing you. So make sure you're subscribed to Rob has a podcast to make sure you don't miss any of them. Go to rob has a website.com slash subscribe. And so without further ado, let me bring in my conversation with Sam Phelan. Hey, Sam, what's going on?

Rob Sestrino, thrilled to have you here to talk a little bit more about your amazing game in Survivor 47. Oh, wow. A bell. A bell for my game. Wow. Rob, I'm stoked. Like I, you know, been listening forever.

Big fan of the deep dives big medium dives whatever one does power hour yeah power hour uh but yeah excited to shed a little bit of light on survivor 47 stuff that maybe uh you didn't get to see on tv okay well very excited to uh get into it and yet such an interesting journey and i feel like really like your story is almost like there's two parts, the part where your things are going well, and then the part where things are not going so well. And you're, you know, with tooth and nail getting to the final three. So why don't we start with in the beginning, when you get to Gata, you famously you want to set out to be a glue guy in the tribe. Well, where did that idea come from of, I want to be the glue guy in a tribe? I think for me, it kind of originated with the

idea that I understood how I was going to come across to people when I first stepped on the beach, right? You can't hide certain aspects of your personality or your physicality when you get on Survivor. You can't hide if you're relatively well-liked and likable and charming because you're trying to make friends. You can't hide if you're the tallest guy on the tribe or the tallest guy on the season, in my case. And so it really kind of started with how do I become middle of the road across the board to the people on my tribe to try and defy the big threat stamp that will likely get placed on me. And if I can become the person that everybody relies on, the person that they feel like they need for emotional support, physical support, whatever it might be, that's the easiest way to get inroads with a lot of

different alliances, which I viewed as like the glue guy of a sports team who you don't write home about. Like I don't write letters, write articles about the glue guy on the teams that I cover, but you also know how they function within a locker room to make, you know, everybody else's job a little bit easier. Yeah. How cognizant were you of the fact that, especially in the new era, like, you know, you play Survivor like in the first half of Survivor and you probably have a better shot at winning this thing where you're playing in the new era and the target on your back just from existing ends up being so huge. Yeah. I mean, I was super aware of it. It's

actually kind of formed my early game strategy, which the first thing that I wanted to do when I hit the beach was play with the women on my tribe. I was trying to, if possible, get me and three women on one page and really was trying to vote the guys out as often as I possibly could. Found it fitting that I ended up at the final five with four women. But it was sort of to try and defy everything about my archetype that you had come to know about the bro's bro who's going to bro out at the rewards, who's going to just be all about the guys and keeping the tribe strong. I really wanted to show the women in the game like, hey, that's not me. I don't want to do that. Like I'm here to play with you. And, um, so I'm very conscious of it.

Um, you know, not exactly the easiest thing. And that's also where like wolf and wolves clothing came from. Like, you're going to see me coming, but my hope is that I can, you know, smile and act a little goofy and pretend like I've, you know, never had fruit before, which we can get into just to, uh, to, you know, wait, this was fake. You fake the fruit. Have I had pineapple before in my life before survivor? Yes. I've had a piece of pineapple. Have I had watermelon before? Yes. I've had a piece of watermelon. Is it maybe once or twice? I don't eat them regularly, of course, but I was looking for anything that can make me seem like the goofy 24 year old kid that's just out there having fun. Like I was in my head, very serious and strategic and running through permutations of scenarios that I could

sort of, you know, puppeteer my way through the pre-merge. But I didn't want people to know that I was scheming because then you're the biggest guy on the tribe who has an idol, who's scheming, who's doing all of these things. I'm like, how do I just seem a little aloof? And like- Now I don't even know what's real. Were you really Mike TV? I was really Mike TV. But like really that's what I was trying to channel my whole time out there, Rob, was I have this boyish energy that I can really channel into. And it's the same kid that did musical theater and fell in love with Survivor when he was six years old. And that was the version of me that I really wanted to present to be out there to other people because I was trying to lower my obvious threat level that came with the fact that I knew the show really well and was a more physical player on the season. Sam, was this your first time applying for Survivor?

I applied when I was 18, the day after I turned 18. And I was probably the worst application of all time, did not know myself. And I kind of just put it off every year of waiting, being like, someday I'm going to do it, someday I'm going to do it. And I kind of just put it off every year of waiting, being like, someday I'm going to do it. Someday I'm going to do it. Waited for when it just felt like I had enough to pop and stand out in casting and enough going on in my life with life experience and some emotional intelligence to do well. And I just felt last fall like, yeah, this is the right time. Like, I feel like I can crush this now.

And you were one and done, one and in. Yes, one and done. Yes, one and done. Okay, good for you. Let me go back to the very start of the game. And of course, Andy has the emotional moment on the mat. How big of a surprise was it to you that that all happened? I was very surprised because my read on the tribe at that point in time was not that Andy was on the bottom really at all. Now he was not in the four person alliance that had been established. We were 30 seconds into the game when I looked at the three girls

and we kind of locked in this foursome that we were planning on controlling the tribe with. But the plan had always kind of been John first, then Andy, John first, then Andy. That's what we had repeated to ourselves. And we get ready to lose that challenge. When we lose that challenge, you start thinking, all right, we got to go vote John. Then Andy has this moment that I thought all of us started to question a little bit. I thought Andy and I had gotten off pretty well as just like friends on the island. So to hear him say things like, I have one friend and it's John and these people don't like me, definitely caught a lot of us off guard and made us question, like, are we

doing the right thing here with the plan that we thought we were going to carry out? Yeah. And so how unsettled did the plan to vote out John get? So for me, not really at all, but I know that for Rachel and Annika specifically, very much. So I guess what's not shown is night one of the game, I had a conversation with Sierra because my goal was to get in with a four and then try and find a two or a three within that four to make sure I kept myself protected. My theory for pre-merge gameplay was always do a vote that puts you in the majority at the next vote. I don't want to do a vote that then puts me at the mercy of other people if I made the wrong decision. And so we had talked, Sierra and

I, night one about, all right, I know we have our four with Rachel and Annika, and this is good, but like, this is really the thing, you and me, let's do this. And so as we started to assess our options for what we were going to do at that first tribal council, I had expressed to Sierra, it's important that you and I find somebody, whoever we leave between John and Andy, needs to be a person that we can pick up to take Annika out next. And she sort of agreed with that idea that who we kept determined who had control. John and Annika had a very close relationship. It was very obvious that the two of them were talking and that if John needed somewhere to go in the tribe, he was going to go with Annika

first and foremost. Well, that leaves Sierra and I with a world where Andy is no longer on Gata at the mercy of Rachel and Annika to stick with us. So I knew Andy was probably the better option for us to keep. And it really got solidified throughout that afternoon because the first conversation Andy had when we get back after his meltdown is he talks to me and I say, hey man, you're not out yet. What do you want to do? And he said, I would love to get Annika. I went back and immediately told Annika, Andy's throwing your name out like crazy. So now I've got Annika seeing Andy melt down, knowing that Andy threw her name out and she's just dead set. Andy has to go. And I have Andy working to get Anika out. Eventually what it came down to for me is I had checked in with both John

and Andy about how they felt about other players on the tribe, specifically how they felt about Sierra. And Andy had said he liked Sierra. He could see a world where me, him and Sierra work together. Moving forward. John had said he got sketched out by Sierra and was trying to convince me and Andy to draw rocks with him at the first tribal council in order to surprise the girls in this masterful move.

I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to blindside my number one at the first tribal council. It became very clear by removing John, Andy would pop right over to Sierra and I, and then Sierra and I would have the control of which way we wanted to go for the rest of the pre-merge, really. We know that you had a very good relationship with Sierra out there. What was it about her that made you so quickly ID her as your number one? Well, first of all, it was easy because she just felt familiar. We did have a lot of the same interests. She was a ball girl for the Phillies. I grew up loving baseball. We just kind of got each other and communicated really well with each other. Didn't need a ton of reassurance, which was important to me. I could trust that she was going to go do her thing. I was going to go do my thing and that

we would be able to come together and get on the same page. But really, I was looking for a shield for myself. And I had just seen D-Win Survivor, and I had just seen Kenzie looking like she was in a really good spot as this mermaid dragon in Survivor 46. So to me, my thought was, is there a younger, overly social, clear social threat woman that I can bring in who will always have the spotlight on her instead of on me as a way of shielding myself. And so the two people that I clocked as being potential options for that were Tiana and Sierra. And then when we get to the merge, eventually Genevieve becomes the next best option for me in that regard. And so, yeah, that was my ideal social shield.

I talk about things that you can hide about yourself. I can't hide my physicality. To some degree, I can't hide my strategic brain as the game starts unfolding. And you can't hide how social you are, but you can always hide behind somebody who's doing a little bit more than you. So under the idea that people would have Dee and Kenzie top of mind, Sierra made perfect sense to be somebody who would get clipped before me if our duo got targeted. Now, you end up going on a hunt for the idol. You end up finding it.

You have a decision. keep going and, you know, potentially lose your vote for longer, but also then get the ability to have the IDLE be for more tribal councils. How did you make the decision to stop at just one? So it was two reasons for me that made it pretty clear. Number one is I find the IDLE on day four. So this is the afternoon after we've just voted out John. We are kind of under the idea that we're about to be the disaster tribe. We've just seen this happen over the last two seasons. The team that lost first kept losing. My idea was, look, if we are going to be the disaster tribe, I might not have a ton of time to search for this for another couple of days before we're going to a tribal council and I need to have this idol ready to roll. So that was one part of it. Part two is I didn't really want an idol. I really had no interest in having an idol. I said so before going out there.

The only thing that really changed that made me go look for it was I felt good about my spot in the tribe with the girls where I was at. And really all that could mess up my plan, which at that point was to take out Annika, was not knowing where the idol was. If Annika finds it, if Andy finds it and goes rogue, if all of this chaos starts to unfold because of the idol, my seat gets a little bit more hot. So finding the idol and keeping it for one tribal and just being able to burn it or have it have no power, but to at least have control of where that information was, was important to me. Would have loved if that didn't get out there to everybody. But once I found it with Anakai, I kind of did that intentionally. I love what Marianne said here with you on the

podcast of calling it The Bachelor. And that was sort of what the intent of it was, is this idea that Anika sees me find the idol. I kind of understood Anika was going to tell Rachel. And so instead of being shady and keeping the idol from everybody on the tribe, let's have special one-on-one moments where we're going to go get the key. We're going to unlock the box. And I really think it helped Anika, Rachel, and Sierra all feel like Sam's working with us. He's for us. And the fact that Andy had no idea when in reality, I was working with Andy at that point in the game, but it kept them sort of blind to that fact. Okay. How difficult was it to not eat the chicken? Very, very difficult. But you just have to remind yourself,

you're playing a social game that ultimately is about making other people feel comfortable and accepting people who maybe don't see things the same way as you. So as much as I would have loved to eat, because my body was like throwing up coconut on day three, like rejecting any sort of coconut flavored, anything that we had. So that chicken would have really, really love all fruits. Don't love all fruits. Correct. No. Hey, matter of fact, a lot of them, no good watermelon, coconut, big thumbs down for me. i uh so i wanted to but it was just not worth it sierra was like dead set we can't kill the chicken i didn't want to upset her so it was

okay so now the women are going off and talking and you said you wanted somebody that you feel comfortable okay sierra's gonna go do her thing you going to do your thing and it's going to be easy, but you get reported back to you from Andy that there's a name for the women's alliance and it seemed to bug you on the show. How big of a deal was that, that she didn't tell you the name of the women's alliance? It bugged me not because I was worried about our alliance moving forward, but because it was a practical thing that could cost us later on. Like if we're not sharing all of the information between us and we're giving information to other people, there's going to be a lot of opportunities for us to get sketched out by one

another. And if we're committed to doing this partnership and we're going to try and run the game, like we have to have those lines of communication. I kept feeling sometimes Sierra would get sloppy with things that she would say to Andy that she wouldn't necessarily run by me. And so it was I never had doubts that Sierra was with me. I never had doubts that she would turn against me. would turn against me uh it was more of just like a hey next time you do this we can't afford to uh accidentally say something to andy that we didn't anticipate uh andy hearing okay so

andy is going to be very much involved in voting out annika here you talked about well maybe i'll play the idol on andy uh maybe i'll maybe i'll do it that way. You ultimately end up deciding to just vote out Anika straight. How did you make that decision? Yeah. I mean, really, it came down to Andy, who I knew was going to be volatile at Emerge and potentially dangerous, or Anika, who I had perceived at the time to really be an imminent threat to my game. There was kind of a series of pieces of information that had come back to me from Sierra, from Andy, from different people who I trusted on the tribe that made me feel like Annika didn't

really have my best interest at heart. We had heard that on the journey, she sort of threw Sierra and I under the bus. Sierra kept telling me about how Anika and Rachel want to do this all girls thing at the merge. They want to do a girls thing. I don't know if they had realized, I'm not a girl. So I probably wasn't a part of that plan in the way that I was instructed about it. And so Andy, while I knew that he could potentially be dangerous for just being flip floppy, at least at the moment had demonstrated trust me of giving me all the information. So it was like imminent threat versus potential future problem. Sierra did get cold feet before that vote. But another thing that was really on my mind was what Jeff

says is never assume what's going to happen. Never assume that the format's going to stay the same. And so while we had an idea that we could merge the next day after this vote at 13, I didn't think it was a guarantee that we weren't going back to another pre-merge tribal council. And in a scenario where we vote Andy out and I'm left with the three girls, it doesn't matter if Sierra's with me. She's not drawing a rock for me before the merge. I'm going home. I thought that's what you wanted. You want it to be the one guy with the three women.

I would have loved to, if we had a little bit, if I thought we were not going to lose another challenge, like I would have loved to not lose and then kind of cast Andy out at the, uh, the merge. The plan was if we were going to go to another one to flip back and go with Rachel, with Sierra and I.

But what I kind of explained to Sierra was this idea of like, hey, if we take out Annika now, now there's Rachel over here, Andy over here, who very clearly don't get along right now and don't want to work with each other. That once again leaves us making the decision. And we want to make sure we're in a spot to make every decision for this group. Is this an inflection point that you've gone back and revisited about? What would the rest

of the game look like if we vote out Andy instead of Annika? Yeah, of course. I still kind of have no regrets about it because I kind of knew in the moment keeping Andy was bad for Sierra. I knew that in the moment. You should vote out Rachel. Well, Andy and I did talk about voting out Rachel. We did talk about voting out Rachel at that tribal council. Andy and I, to me, Andy was always going to have my back over Sierra's back. He really got sketched out by Sierra.

Rightfully so. I don't think she was always the most reassuring to him at times. And I knew it was probably bad for her to get rid of the trust of the girls and keep Andy, who was going to protect me. But for me, I was not really going to have a regret. I do feel like Annika would have had the girls back over mine in the long run, where Andy, I think I kept a manageable working relationship with. Let's talk about Mergatory and what that was all like. There is this mad hunt for the advantage that you almost ended up discovering with Genevieve and then

ultimately said, nah, just a buoy. I had seen other buoys in the water. There were other buoys. And I also want to point out the clue very clearly says somewhere on the island. I don't want to pull a Jelinski here and be like several means seven, Jeff, but the water is not on the island.

The water is the water. It's in the water. I think you have a point. And so Genevieve points out a buoy. I saw other buoys in like the other part of the ocean. I think you have a point. And so Genevieve points out a buoy. I saw other buoys in like the other part of the ocean for like where we come into camp. And I'm like, oh no, that's a production buoy. Like we're good. Like we're, we don't need, you know, we don't need to go check that out. So I was as shocked as everybody else on TV.

You're part of this winning group that ends up coming away and having the merge feast. And you must be feeling pretty good. What's going through your mind at this point? Yeah. The merge feast was... I really had one goal in mind. And it was deal with the chaos that was Rome. Rome had, that morning, pulled me aside and said, Hey, Kyle threw your name out. He threw your Antiana's name out. He's coming for you. And I had started to talk to people, got a lot of people from Lavo saying, this is what Rome does. Got up a lot of people from Tuku saying, that doesn't sound like Kyle. So I'm starting to put the pieces together where I'm thinking Rome's lying to me and he's actually the one coming after me. So we anticipated Rome was either targeting

Saul or myself. And the other thing that Lavo kept, they kept talking about this narrative that Rome had an idol. They were terrified that Rome had an idol because he spent all day, every day looking. And they just had this idea that it's not impossible that he has something. they just had this idea that it's not impossible that he has something. It also felt so obvious to me and a lot of other people that like Rome's going home. Surely Rome knows he's going home because we're all being pretty obvious about it. I clearly am not in Rome's brain that thought he was pulling off a master blindside that whole time. So my goal was how do I protect myself and protect Saul by finding another person that somebody can write down? It became a very sticky situation because Genevieve, Sierra,

Rachel are all there. Teenie's there. Sue is there. I know better than to throw out Caroline's name to Sue because I know they're like this. So I, in public, what about Tiana? And Sue goes, no, not Tiana. I go, well, what about Gabe? How do you feel about Gabe?

I know Tiana said at the social hour, she doesn't trust Gabe. We could throw Gabe's name. And Sue jumped out of her chair and was like, no, not Gabe. Absolutely not Gabe. I leaned over to Genevieve and say,

well, Sue and Gabe are working together. Huh? She comes back. Well, what about Andy? Well, I'm out of options now. Everybody on the board has been played. And you're asking me about Andy.

And Andy and I had discussed this strategy ahead of the merge of pretending like Andy was on the bottom of gotta to make gotta feel less solid. So it just felt natural to be like, all right, if it's Andy, it's Andy. Uh, and probably a mistake there is not running that information back to Andy immediately. I just hadn't realized at that point, how talkative this particular group of survivors were that they were going to immediately go blab to Andy and try and throw me under the bus to him, which I know continued to sort of sketch him out the more I wasn't telling him. Yeah. And the whole first part of that conversation, we don't see in the show.

We see where basically Andy's name gets thrown out and you accept that. But I always felt like that you got kind of unlucky with the people that were there, maybe like in another world, Rachel isn't on the winning side. I was hoping to throw Rachel's name out. I wanted Rachel gone very, very badly at that point in the game. Rachel was the only person that also knew about the idol that I had. Now, the idol had no power and Sierra and I knew that, but Rachel and Annika did not know that it was a temporary idol. So Rachel is under the idea at the merge that I have a full powered idol. And I was still kind of keeping Rachel at an arm's length of, I feel like you trust me, but I feel like you won't fully trust me because I just blindsided you. So why would you, therefore I can't trust you

and was sorting, trying to keep her on the outside. The idea that she knew I had this full idol was uncomfortable for me. And if she got removed from the game by a Rome idol or a, uh, unfortunate swap to an all two coup group at the final 12, that would have been just fine with me. Um, and I would have been happy to not get blood on my hands while Rachel leaves the game. That way I could potentially down the line, take this idol and use it with Sierra

as like a full powered idol at our own discretion and not necessarily have Rachel there to verify or invalidate that information. So speaking of Rachel getting swapped, she goes over and has the very unlucky draw. She's with all of Tuku and then she gets saved. You're sitting there on the jury bench. What did you hypothesize happened that night?

I did believe it was Saul. There was a outside chance it was Genevieve, but Saul was the one that made the most sense. I did believe it was Saul. There was a outside chance it was Genevieve, but Saul was the one that made the most sense. I felt like Andy or Sierra or Teenie would have told me. Teenie, I think, would have made an announcement to the group at that point in time of like, hey, I found this. Should we save Rachel with it? I feel like Andy and Sierra would have trusted me

with that information individually. And Saul was just the one person that was not around camp a lot. He was the one person who that day as we're playing baseball and having fun and napping was off like sick in the woods. It made sense that he would have had time to do something. So that was where my majority hypothesis was leaning. majority hypothesis was leaning okay so you're probably still feeling pretty good and that you are working towards voting out one of the two coups uh that you feel like okay red and yellow are coming together uh you have the auction uh you eat a uh disgusting beetle i did two of you think did you think that you would uh have been good at something like that yeah weirdly like you know i i guess i'm not known as like a

super adventurous eater so like maybe not but i think you have to have like a little bit of psycho to do something like that you have to just have a little crazy and you got that dog in you yeah i mean i i don't even know if it's dog. It's like rabid dog. It's like, you know, you get amped up enough, you want to smack your own head and just like kind of like lock out. I've got that sort of part of my personality

that I can channel. So that's where I was going. I was like black it out and just, you know, go crazy, which is also probably why I over-celebrate after eating the grubs. Yeah, but you end up getting hosed to the option it out and just, you know, go crazy, which is also probably why I over-celebrate after, uh, after eating the grubs. Yeah. Um, but you end up getting hosed to the option that you lose your vote. Yeah. Ate all those grubs just to lose my vote. So my only goal was don't lose your vote. Jeff is like, Sam's trying to, he's trying to give away his money. I'm like, Jeff, if Kyle

doesn't eat the meat, can I have the, can I pay? I don't even want it. I just want to pay. I don't want to lose my vote. Still, it was dead set on me. It had a target on my back. Yeah. Well, that's not the only thing that's coming your way, because the votes are going to be coming your way. And it ends up where that they do a split vote against you and Sierra. And ultimately, on the tiebreak, I was very surprised they vote out Sierra.

Now, first, we saw Rachel had the presence to play the shot in the dark. Did you suspect that anything was off that night? Yeah, I think we all started to feel weird in like the hour leading up to Tribal. Caroline had a conversation with Sierra and I that just didn't seem right. The way that Caroline and Gabe were interacting was not how they should have been interacting. If they were two people who were writing each other's names down, something started to smell a little. And then as we were going through tribal council, the answers that Gabe and other people are giving was just like, I don't know what's going on,

but I'm not a part of it. Like, I feel, I feel horrible right now about wherever this has happened, whatever's happening. I really- You couldn't relate to the 1918 armistice? I could not. No, that didn't have that one in my, in my bag. I thought for sure I was going home, to be frank. Like when the votes came out for me, I was not surprised. Um, on the revote, I still thought they were going to vote me out. Gabe had talked a lot about that day about we're taking the biggest threat in the game out of the game right now. This is going to be a like game changing move. Uh, and so I, I was very shocked to still have life in the game after that one. Yeah. Did anybody tell you after the fact of why they went with sierra instead of you man

basically everybody tries to claim it as like hey i was looking out for you man i really wanted to i felt good about you and i wanted to keep you and i learned to believe nobody essentially that they're all lying to try and keep me in their good graces. Uh, I really think it came down to see, they did correctly read the fact that Sierra was the glue that was keeping Rachel and I together. Rachel and I were sort of each at an arm's length from one another, not wanting to trust one another, but forced to play nice by Sierra loving both of us.

And as soon as Sierra was removed, it became very easy for Rachel and I to be like, Hey man, good luck. You know, the only thing that like would have been difficult is I wanted Rachel out of the game and Sierra wasn't going to let me take Rachel out of the game without being very upset with me. So once Sierra was gone, it became kind of like, all right, I have no connection to Rachel anymore and we'll see each other on the other side. Okay. So, after the Sierra vote, you all have to go into pairs, and then you're competing, and then there's the group of people that end up losing their votes. I do think, I think you kind of also got hosed, the bag ripped. Yeah. Oh, I was livid. I was so mad, not to even just potentially lose my vote. I was dying for a Survivor Classic immunity challenge, particularly pain tolerance and endurance. That felt up my alley because again, psycho, go into that rabid mode of just

my feet can bleed and I'm good. I'm hanging up on that thing. My favorite moment in survival. I don't think you got that one. You're too big for doing that one. Gabe won it. I got little feet, Rob. Okay.

Also my favorite moment in survivor history is. Yeah. Cocantins doing the, the warrior versus the, the dragon slayer and screaming. And I'm like, this would be awesome. Like, how do we not do this? The coach token teens challenge. Yeah. Yeah. That was, I was really bummed to miss out on that. All right. So you have like an, um, uh, your own, uh, emotional moment, maybe the most emotional that you get in the course of the season. I feel when you end up talking about what it's like for you, you didn't want to be in this position where you had to scratch and claw. Can you tell me,

where does that come from? Huh? Yeah, I don't know. I think it comes from the vision of your own game that you sort of lay out for yourself before you get out there. Um, and I had had the benefit of playing whatever it was, 16 days of Survivor at that point, 15 days of Survivor being on top. And I had all of the information at Gata 100% of the time. Everybody trusted me. I hadn't made a wrong move. I felt like I'm good at this. We got this. And so I like to say that Survivor doesn't start until you get punched. It's like a boxing match, right? You can bob and weave and feel out your opponent and jab with the left a few times, and then you take your first blow. And that's a sobering sort of experience.

And I think it came out of that sober moment of realizing like, whoa, like I got rocked. And then I was so motivated, more motivated than ever to win immunity. Like you would have had to pull me off of that wall in coach Wade style if you let me get to that final stage, but it's things out of my control. It's relying on Andy as a, as a teammate and the bag ripping and all of these things that are out of my power, that are now taking my power away from me more, that started to feel very hopeless. And you add on to the fact that nobody's talking to me strategically that day. And I started to get this fear of being a player that gets dragged along through votes. And I think it's part of what influenced a lot of my decision making moving forward to play aggressively, even though I maybe was not in a position where you would think I'd

be playing aggressively, but to still try and like, take the game into my control. Okay, so this is when Genevieve says, Okay, I think we should get out Saul. And Rachel gets this information and you have a conversation. And this was a great read by you that you are, she's not trying to give you the information, but you are able to sort of like get it out of her. And she says like, don't, you can't vote for Saul. You can't vote the right way. Don't say anything, but that's not what you do. Yeah. So Saul was somebody who didn't have a ton of power, but was still always viewed as like a big fish because I think he had a lot of relationships. And so part of the reason I got this weird, ominous feeling about this vote is like,

nobody wants to say a name to me right now because everybody's afraid that Saul's going to find out. If you're pulling off a secret mission, you're swinging for a big guy like Saul and trying to take him out. What had happened behind the scenes of that day, I had spent a lot of time and capital working Saul to convince him not to take me out of the game. I went to Sue earlier and I said, hey, Sue, just give me a name. I'm a free agent. I'm a free vote, whatever you want. She had said, let me go talk to Saul. In my head, I go, Saul, why is Sue checking with Saul? Go check with Gabe. Yeah. Like, don't tell me you're going to go check with Saul. That makes no sense. I started to feel like Saul had a lot of influence over what was happening at this particular tribal council. And it felt like it was between Kyle and myself.

this particular tribal council. And it felt like it was between Kyle and myself. So what I did was I went to Saul and I gave him the Gada idol, showed him the beware advantage, showed him the key, showed him the map, showed him everything and said, Saul, keep me at this tribal council. If I'm here tomorrow, I'll give you the idol. To which he said to me, Sam, that doesn't make any sense. If you think you're going home, play the idol. I said, Saul, why would I play an idol and then go home tomorrow when I can have you as my ally and an idol between the two of us? And Saul said, that actually makes sense. Let me go get it done. He goes off and Saul is supposed to go check in with everybody, make sure everybody's voting Kyle and come back to me and let me know it's done. Well, as I'm waiting for Saul to get back to me

with the fact that it's done, that's when Rachel sits down and I kind of pull this read that Saul's going home. And you see it in the moment. It's one shot in the show where Saul says, hey, Sam, and I'm supposed to go talk to Saul. So Rachel says, don't vote for him and don't blow up my spot. And I'm supposed to go talk to Saul right now. So it's a split second decision. What are we going to do? And for me, it was really what I kept hearing Rachel's words of, but don't vote for him. And as somebody who was living in this fear of, I don't want to be dragged along. I want to find a group. I want to, I want to like get myself back in with a group of people and ride and take some power back.

I'm not in this plan if I'm not even allowed to vote with the plan. That's very clear that in the current hierarchy, I'm on the bottom. And chaos benefits those on the bottom. Chaos starts to make people look around and question, why are we doing this? Not everybody wants Saul out of the game, so why are we all voting for Saul? This doesn't make a lot of sense. Who's calling this shot? Who are the big threats in the game? Do we have to reassess the pecking order right now? And so in that split second decision, all of that sort of went in my mind and I'm like, all right, chaos it is. We're telling Saul.

I knew it would probably burn my bridge with Rachel, but it was like a last ditch effort to either save Saul or just like create some madness to allow myself another foothold to survive another day. So it's a new year. You know what that means? Setting big goals. Maybe you promised yourself you're going to hit the gym every day, or maybe you said you're going to learn to make fire with a flint for once or the classic save more money. But let's be honest, New Year's resolutions tend to fizzle out by February. Wouldn't it be great if at least one of those goals could be automatic? That's where Acorns comes in. Today's episode is sponsored by Acorns. You probably heard me talk about them before, and I'm excited to share how Acorns makes it easy to start automatically saving and investing your money. So it has a chance to grow

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pistachio or shake up your mood with an iced brown sugar oat shaken espresso. Whatever you choose, your espresso with an iced brown sugar oat shake and espresso. Whatever you choose, your espresso will be handcrafted with care at Starbucks. So you squeak by out of the salvo, and then it seems like, okay, now you kind of have Kyle as somebody that you're working with, and you've got Genevieve this relationship and there comes a point where then the worm is starting to turn against Gabe and you're feeling great about this now yeah I feel like I leveraged a lot of things over that day and used that chaos to my advantage to sort of direct everybody towards Gabe towards towards Genevieve, towards some of these other players in the game. I had a good relationship with Genevieve from the merge and removing Saul

from the game. Like once she took Saul out, I think it freed up a more open line of communication between her and I to really get tight. Kyle, same way. And I started to try and find who are the people that feel burned. Kyle was just targeted by his own group and had his name thrown out. Teenie was just left out of the Saul vote. Genevieve now feels kind of like an outsider because everybody's looking at Genevieve as the big threat. Andy, we know his story from Gata and how he had felt like an outsider. Well, now I've got five votes in a majority of nine where I can actually use this outsider group to propel myself forward in the game. My goal was to really protect Genevieve, who I felt like was my number one ally at that point

and biggest shield for myself, as well as elevate Gabe's threat level. The shot in the dark thing, saying, sure, Gabe convinced me, emphasizing the fact that I'm on the bottom. It was all very intentional on my part because I had been labeled with threat. And it's impossible, as Genevieve says in the show, to get that label off of you once it's on you. I felt like I needed to play very aggressively in order to make myself appear less threatening. Do things like emphasize publicly, I'm on the bottom. I don't want to give up my shot in the dark. Do things like emphasize publicly, I'm on the bottom. I don't want to give up my shot in the dark. Do things like be honest about, hey, I just told Saul I had an idol and he bought it and it was actually fake, but now I'm a ship without a captain right now and be my captain.

People were threatened by me and my aura, whatever, my threat aura, my threat potential as somebody who knew the game and was charismatic and had a lot of friends. And the thing that you add to that is mystery. If I'm an unknown entity to you on top of all of those things, of course, you're going to want me out. If I make my positioning and my intentions very clear, well, now you know how to prepare for me. And now you might look at a Genevieve who's mysterious. You might look at a Gabe who's got control of numbers and you might not look at Sam initially. I felt good about that vote and how I protected Genevieve, got some inroads with Andy

and Teenie, used the fact that I had tried to save Saul to, you know, grab teeny and be like, Hey, let's actually work together. And then of course we see the next round. It's sort of, they are like, wait, no,

no, no, you're still a threat. You still, you're, you're still over there. We're still over here. And it,

it got me one good round, but it put me immediately back in a spot where I was on the outside looking in. Yeah. And you and Kyle and Genevieve are now that ID'd as, okay, these are people that are threats. They're at the bottom. With all due respect to Kyle that, you know, Kyle doesn't win immunity. He gets voted out. I'd love to get to the next vote,

which I think that there's probably a lot more to get into. Of course, uh, operation Italy. Yes, exactly. I mean, the one thing I will say about the Kyle vote that never makes the show that I did do Rob,

I counted the votes in the urn. I went up to vote last. Rachel had said that she lost her vote. Uh, I wanted to know if Rachel had an advantage. And so when I went up to vote, I wanted to know if Rachel had an advantage. And so when I went up to vote, I counted how many votes were sitting in the urn, counted seven votes, knew, wow, she lied. She got something.

Cast my vote. Kyle went home, immediately reported back to Genevieve the information. Rachel has an advantage. I know it because I saw the votes with my own eyes. We immediately knew, all right, well, not only is it five to two, Rachel has something and we don't know what it is. And so desperate times called for desperate measures a little bit. That is when the idea of Operation Italy before it had a name came to fruition. Genevieve and I had been working on Teenie for a couple of days leading up to this.

We had tried to get Teenie to vote not against Kyle with us, vote with Kyle and us, and Teenie wouldn't do it. But we had sort of created this fake world for Teenie where me, Genevieve, and Teenie are a three. And Teenie is our spy on the inside. Teenie's our rat that's getting information. our spy on the inside. Teenie's our rat that's getting information. In reality, we were kind of using Teenie as our rat to plant information that we wanted in the majority five. And Kyle made a point to let everybody know that Teenie would talk, talk, talk, no matter who it was, no matter what information. So how can we use that by giving information to Teenie that we want spread? So how can we use that by giving information to Teeny that we want spread? That morning of the reward, I kind of woke up and I had this sort of idea that I said to Genevieve, I say, all right, this is going to sound crazy, but we need to pull a 3-2-2.

We have to use a fake idol of some sort. I don't think we're pulling two of them, but maybe we can pull one. We sort of have this debate of Genevieve really wanting to cash in on all of this goodwill we've built with Teenie. I didn't think Teenie was somebody we could pull at this point. I felt Teenie was very hard into that five, really wanted to do the final four women thing. That was kind of the vibe that I got. Andy, I thought was a better option.

My read on Andy was somebody who I knew was a super fan of the vibe that I got. Andy, I thought was a better option. My read on Andy was somebody who I knew was a super fan of the game. I knew cared about his legacy deeply. I knew had sort of a meta brain. Andy would think about and talk about the TV product that was Survivor while we were filming Survivor and playing the game. And I started to think, he's a guy who wants to do good television. He wants to make big moves. He wants to have a legacy. He also wants to be valued and appreciated and cared about by his allies. So I told Genevieve that I thought Andy was our best shot. Genevieve kind of reopens the door to work with Andy by apologizing to him that day. When I win the reward, it's like easy, no brainer. Take Genevieve, take Andy. That not only gives us time to plot something and try and pitch Andy

this idea of a 3-2-2 split, but also gives us the time to go over the details necessary to put it into action on this reward away from camp. Once we get on the reward, and I will say there was definitely an aspect of it too of Andy didn't get chosen. Andy didn't eat anything on the auction. Sierra had a chance to pick people to eat peanut butter, didn't give it to Andy. A lot of people had passed over Andy for these opportunities to give him something. And the one thing I had told him early in the game at GATA was, I will give you a reward if I win it. He had also talked about how important a loved one's letter moment would mean to him. So it was also a good thing to do just as a friend to Andy, to be a good friend to him and give him that moment. I thought that was a cool thing to do.

as a friend to Andy, to be a good friend to him and give him that moment that I thought that was a cool thing to do. We end up going and we're kind of tiptoeing around this idea of, hey, Rachel's the big threat, man. Like we might need to make a move. At what point Andy says, that's it. I'm flipping. And here's my plan. And he starts to lay out this sort of idea that goes exactly down the line of what Genevieve and I were trying to like put into action. And he goes off to go to the bathroom and we look at each other like, are we in the twilight zone right now? Like the hard part was supposed to be convincing Andy. Andy wasn't supposed to have the same idea. I guess this is great. I don't know. We spend all day doing all of the plotting between not being able to win the immunity challenge because it takes away the opportunity for them to split the vote between us. And so that was a throw.

You both threw the immunity challenge. I can't speak for Genevieve. For me, I don't know. I was not trying to win the immunity challenge. I was hoping anybody but Rachel would win it, which maybe it actually worked out in our favor, the fact that she does win it and has her guard down a little bit more that day. But we knew that if Genevieve or I won the challenge, that the other one was probably kind of screwed on a vote of some kind. So a little bit of a prisoner's dilemma with Genevieve there. I mean, I do think Genevieve and I had the same idea, though, of like, yeah, hey, I can try.

I can win immunity. I can save myself and throw you under the bus and I can make it to the final six. That's not going to help either of us win the game in the spot that we're in. We had to be going for broke at that point. So we, we plot every little conversation that we have and we go back and really where I feel like my big move of the entire game came down to was the way that we handled the information of Operation Italy in what we leaked to everybody else, all of a sudden gave me the most power of anybody in the game at the final seven. I had the idea to make sure Genevieve had the fake idol. Let's keep all the majority votes of

every round on Genevieve instead of on me. That's great. Andy wants to claim that this thing is this big accident that didn't actually take any premeditation whatsoever, which is great because Teenie buys that. Now I have Andy's information that I can air out and throw him under the bus. And because Genevieve and I were acting in a way like Teenie was our third throughout this entire thing, we were able to pretend like we were mad at Teenie after the whole thing went wrong. We get back and Teenie says to Genevieve, why didn't you play the idol? And Genevieve goes, I thought you were voting with us. And I'm like, you thought she was playing the idol? Teenie says, yeah. I say, so you thought I was going home. Now I'm pissed at Teenie. Teenie says, well, yes, but also Andy said that he didn't want to vote Caroline. And then I'm like, so

then now I'm pretending to be pissed at Andy. We do this whole run around that all of a sudden brings teeny back to us and takes all power away from Rachel, who we were trying to depower and elevate her threat level. Um, so there was a lot, a lot, a lot of intricate details that went into that and how we strategically planned every conversation to sort of make sure for me, Genevieve's looking at Andy at some point, Andy's looking at Genevieve and everybody's still looking at Rachel, which kind of gives me a locked up spot in the final four and gives me equity to win the game. How do you think Operation Italy changed Survivor? I think Operation Italy will tell players in the future to

like rewards matter. I have seen you even talk on this podcast about like rewards. It's hard to strategize and actually have it matter, which is true if you're randomly selected to a group that doesn't want to work together. But it really was the time that we had at the sanctuary, overnight reward, hours and hours and hours of staying up all night to plan every little detail so that when we went back to camp, we were able to play our roles perfectly. Part of the reason I wanted Andy in on the plan as well was I knew he was capable of doing this thing because at GATA, seven days we went knowing that we were going to take out Annika if we ever lost the challenge again. And Andy had to play dead for seven days. Andy had to

not screw it up. And I was monitoring him very closely. And when we made it out of that, I was like, Hey, he's good, man. He, he had these girls fooled a hundred percent that he was just, you know, along for the ride. So you need people that are capable, but like with the time to thoroughly plan, if Rachel comes at you and she's aggressive about what happened, how do you respond? If Rachel comes up to you and she's gentle and caring, how do you respond? What's the most believable to make sure that we don't have to touch base ever again? And we didn't. Me, Genevieve, and Andy, I think, talked for all of five seconds back at camp the entire

next day. It was a lot of, I'd hear one thing from Andy. I'd go relay it to Genevieve. Genevieve would relay something back. But we never met together because we had so much time at the reward that we all just felt good and we acted it out. Yeah, I think that there will be more

Operation Italy's attempted in the future. And my prediction is that they will not be successful. That they will fail. I mean, it was... One person in the confessional will be really hyping up the next big you know survivor heist and the other people are going to be like mocking that person and then you're going to get like uh eric eric giving the necklace away i mean you like i said rewards matter matter matter but you also need people who have like interests aligned in

the same way and have everybody that's capable of not spilling the beans and playing their role in a non-suspicious way. And then, of course, there's two idols and a block of vote that you're fighting against in our case. And you never have all the information in Survivor. So there's a lot of ways that it can definitely blow up in your face. Okay, speaking of not having all the information, how big of a surprise was it for you that Rachel ends up playing an idol at the final six? Surprised? Yes. I wouldn't say I

was floored. I kind of got a weird vibe and like, I wasn't worried regardless. I knew that Sue was voting for Andy. So I knew that I wasn't going to go home if Rachel played an idol and I knew Rachel was blocking my vote. So I was kind of powerless anyway. So I was definitely surprised. I didn't expect it to be for her to have an idol and a block of votes, but there was something about the way that like Sue carried herself that day. That was in hindsight, a tell that made me a little bit like weirded out because we were all acting like Rachel was going home. Rachel was acting like Rachel was going home and Sue was acting like Andy was going home. And I was like, I don't, is Sue just not paying attention or is Sue know something that I don't know? I'm not sure. I, I guess I wrote it off in the moment as Sue's not paying attention,

which was the wrong read. Yeah. So for you and Genevieve, you're sort of now backed into the corner. You both make it to the final five, but you're armed with the knowledge of the idol that people are worried about that she has is a fake idol, is your idol that you had given her that she enhanced. But the idol that they're afraid of is fake. Was that a hard decision at all to tell people

that Genevieve had a fake idol? Yeah. I mean, it was emotionally very hard. It was the hardest thing I had to do in the game. I really, really connected with Genevieve in a really easy, natural, friendly way. To me, Genevieve was... She needed a little help at being vulnerable and opening up. And I just kind of pressed her enough and like was vulnerable myself enough that it kind of taught her like, oh, there are people that can be honest and be friends with me in this game. And I think that helped her. And for me, Genevieve was my buffer to not take myself too seriously. I was somebody that wanted to play this awesome strategic game. And I really took the lows pretty hard and was really trying to stay dialed into my objective. And when I started

hanging out and working with Genevieve, we were just able to laugh and have fun playing Survivor and try stuff and toss out some crazy ideas of things that have never been done in Survivor history that I would throw out. I'm like, what if we did this? And she'd be like, that'd be fun. And we would talk about it and decide not to do it and all kinds of things. And so she made it fun. And I just, I connected with her in a real way. I didn't want to do that because when you care for somebody out there and it's a relationship that means something to you, you know what you're taking away from them. But I do think she understood the idea that I think Genevieve beats everybody in the game, maybe unanimously. I think if she's sitting there at the end, she is the runaway winner. I don't think she knew that. One, Genevieve doesn't realize how

awesome she is ever. She's very self-deprecating and doesn't realize how much other people admire her. And two, I don't think she realized that I was aware of the fact that I couldn't beat her. So she didn't see it coming. But when I explained it, there was a secret scene out there that means a lot to me just because it is the moment of Genevieve and I being friends while also realizing it's a hard game. the moment of Genevieve and I being friends while also realizing it's a hard game. Yeah, she knew like, hey, my chance to win the game means you're not in the game tomorrow. And I have to do what I have to do for me at the end of the day. What was your ideal final three? I mean, I didn't really care as long as Genevieve and Rachel weren't there.

Really, once we got to the final eight, I felt okay. I felt like I could beat Kyle. I felt like I could beat Caroline. I felt like I could beat Andy, Teenie, Sue. I just wanted to get there. I've had this label of threat on me for so long. I keep getting votes at every tribal council and narrowly surviving. How do I get there? I would have rather to have sat next to Rachel than Genevieve because I thought I had a good case to make against Rachel and a fighter's chance. But the ideal world at that stage in the game would have been like go with Teenie and Sue or at the final six, go with Andy and Teenie or Andy and Sue or some combination of that. how, you know, Teenie had a lot of like strong feelings about you that Teenie ends up expressing at, you know, after the fire making challenge. Were you aware of how Teenie was feeling about you or was that a surprise when Teenie opens up at that tribal council?

It was, I was aware of it before fire. I think I found out about it first, the day of Operation Italy, when it kind of like came out to everybody else at camp. Teenie had said some more stuff to Andy that doesn't make the show. But then when Andy and I would go get our Operation Italy updates, he was like, yo, Teenie kind of hates you. I'm like, ooh, okay. I didn't know that. Thank you for that information. And our goal of who we were taking out instead of Rachel was going to be whoever we thought was most likely to stick with Rachel no matter what. And we were like, who's more likely to just follow Rachel no matter what happens, Caroline or Teenie?

We all kind of agreed it was Caroline. We thought Caroline was really in the Rachel alliance. But I had some fear that Teenie's just hatred of me at that time could be something that plays a factor and forces Teenie over to the other side. So we did talk about voting Teenie at that Operation Italy Tribal Council as a means of protecting against like just a rogue vote on me that we couldn't account for. At the final six before Andy goes home, Andy was really trying to rile up this idea of me, him and teeny working together once Rachel's gone. So before that tribal council, Andy kept coming up to us and he actually says to teeny at one point, uh, Hey, you two settle your beef. I kind of was like, we got beef and teeny comes clean at that moment. Actually,

I think feeling a little tipsy from the reward that she was on that day and said like, look, here's the situation. Here's what's going on. Was very vulnerable. And I think we were good from that point on, but still a very fitting end to our story to be one-on-one with each other and fire at the end of the game. Okay. Sam, with this time that we have left, I would love for you to tell us anything else that you feel like is important to know about your Survivor story that we might not have gotten. Man, let me run through my notes really quick. You know, I... Call this the two-minute drill.

Two-minute drill. I love that. And more than two minutes. I would just say, like, I had so, so, so much fun. I, I would just say like, I had so, so, so much fun. I'm really proud of, uh, the way that I played the game, not ever, not just like not giving up, but really being aggressive and trying to take the game into my own hands. Really feeling like I demonstrated some agency in the game that I made a lot of creative moves that I positioned myself late in the game to have legitimate chances of winning if a couple of things potentially bounce a different way. I think I kicked butt at Final Tribal Council. I do think that was... People got to not sell me

short. I don't think that was edited down to make it look closer. To me, at least. Jeff said it was close. It felt that close in the moment when we were doing it. So I really, really am proud, but I had the absolute time of my life. It was like the best. Super hard, but so, so, so fun. Yeah. And we talked about the fire and the final tribal council in the exit interview we did at the end of the season. If anybody is wondering why we didn't spend more time on that, that's available for people to check out too. What's next for you, Sam, after your survivor experience? Who knows, man, I can't get enough of this stuff. Like I am

obsessed with survivor forever and always. So seeking the next adventure at all times, probably going to enjoy some of the NFL offseason a little bit. New downtime? Well, yeah, for a little. Then we'll head over to the NFL Combine and the Senior Bowl, and I'll do my rounds. But I'm getting married in March. Oh, congratulations.

The highlight of 2025 for me is the wedding at the end of March. So, so excited for that. And, you know, I don't know. We'll see. I love Survivor, so excited for that. And, uh, you know, I don't know. We'll see. I, I, I love Survivor. So. Yeah. Okay. When you found it, you said you were six when you found it. How did that come up? Your parents watch it? Yeah. I watched it with my family growing up, uh, as little as I can remember. I, the first memory I have of Survivor is watching Ozzy lose. lose. And I did find a couple of fun similarities between,

you know, myself and, and Ozzie where I was like, I went in talking and casting and before the game about how my first memory is watching your favorite lose at final tribal council. And, you know, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions,

I also made my bold, my bold, uh, take or whatever with Mike Bloom beforehand, that the jury always gets it right and is never wrong if it isn't the consequences of my own actions, Rob. Yeah. Okay. Well, it was all incepted. You watched Ozzy growing up. I mean, Ozzy won more immunities than you did?

Correct. Yeah. I wish I had a little bit of that Ozzy flavor too. I think I made a little bit more strategic moves than Ozzy did. Maybe combine all of Aussie seasons. It balances out. Okay. Sam, where can people keep up with everything you're doing? Yeah. Follow me on Twitter, Sam underscore Phelan. I'm active, active, active on Twitter, perennially online with NFL, Survivor, reality television. I'm not just the Survivor guy. Survivor's number one forever and always, but I'll be tweeting about the traitors when it comes out. I'll be tweeting about Blood on the Clock Tower, whatever else niche thing that I'm getting super into. Seriously, I really love this part of it as well. I've been listening to you for the longest time

and I love the idea of being part of the RHAP and Survivor community. So this is really where I'm going to start having my fun. Okay, awesome. Well, this was great. So fun to have you here. Very fun to watch you play. Thanks, everybody, for checking out this interview with Sam. And we'll talk to you soon.

All right.