RHAP: We Know Survivor - Survivor 50 Postseason Listener Treemail-Bag

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

Survivor 50 Postseason Listener Treemail-Bag Rob Cesternino is joined by Brandon Donlon for a special postseason mailbag episode focusing on the dramatic end of Survivor 50. Right from the start, Rob and Brandon take on fan questions and dive into hot topics from this monumental season, shining a spotlight on the big decisions and surprises that capped off Survivor’s milestone year. The conversation kicks off with a look at the bizarre live finale moment—did Jeff Probst truly make a mistake, or was there more to it? Rob and Brandon peel back the curtain on the chaos surrounding the fire-making challenge and what might have gone wrong behind the scenes. They also unpack the ongoing controversy around betting markets like Kalshi and how leaks affected the Survivor 50 outcome, sharing not only their opinions but also direct quotes from Jeff Probst himself. The discussion highlights how returning players, celebrity cameos, and the unique challenges of the 26-day format shaped this season’s alliances and endgame moves. – Rob’s deep dive into the live finale mishap and Jeff Probst’s on-air reaction – The impact of betting markets on spoilers and gameplay, plus Jeff’s response – Revisiting the loved ones visit and why Australian Survivor’s FaceTime twist could make waves – The debate over Aubry vs. Michele’s Survivor legacies and what defines a Mount Rushmore player – Big questions about the future: Will Survivor last to season 60, and which returning player strategies still work in the “open era”? As Rob and Brandon review Survivor 50, they wrestle with what really cost Jonathan the win, how Aubry’s underdog story resonated with jurors, and whether the “middle game” is the only recipe for success now. Will new twists or a returnee-heavy cast shake up the next era even more? Dive in to see how Survivor 50’s biggest moments set the stage for what’s next on the island. Listen now for strategy talk, behind-the-scenes stories, and predictions on who might return—or finally claim the Sole Survivor title. Chapters: 0:00 Postseason mailbag kickoff with Brandon 1:16 Survivor 50 returnees vote and reveal 2:03 Celebrity presence at Survivor 50 finale 4:06 Season 51 trailer and preview speculation 7:41 Kalshi, prediction markets, and spoilers 13:33 Jeff Probst slams Survivor betting leaks 20:19 Finale live show error dissected 30:08 Family visit at Survivor 50 final three 37:04 Preparing for Survivor exit interviews 44:52 Aubry winning Koh Rong alternate timeline 51:44 Joe’s archetype and zero vote finalists 58:03 Jonathan’s social game and jury losses 1:09:10 Survivors most likely to return again 1:18:07 Survivor’s future: Season 60 and returnees 1:21:26 New era second-chance cast wish list 1:22:55 Rizo’s back-to-back performance ranked 1:30:26 Middle gameplay’s success in new era 1:37:09 Survivor legend coaches and missed twists 1:39:16 Celebrity impact on Survivor 50 viewership 1:40:28 Open era speculation and podcast wrap To order Rob’s book, The Tribe and I Have Spoken, visit www.robhasabook.com Never miss a minute of RHAP’s extensive Survivor coverage! LISTEN: Subscribe to the Survivor podcast feed WATCH:  Watch and subscribe to the podcast on YouTube SUPPORT:  Become a RHAP Patron for bonus content, access to Facebook and Discord groups plus more great perks!

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Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. Hey, what's going on? Rob Sisternino. And we're back here for a postseason mailbag. After the season is over, I said, hey, let's get the mailbag open. Let's see what the listeners have to say about everything. So here with me to go through all of your mailbag questions. We're back again with Brandon Donlin.

Brandon, how are you? When you say it like that, it feels like I'm kind of like Santa. Like I bring the big bag of stuff. Oh, ho, ho. The big bag of letters. Letters from home. Letters from the loved ones. Letters from loved ones.

I don't even have to pay. I do pay you $20 for the letters. Yeah, $20 per hundred. letters we get. That's the going right for letters. $20. Sure. Yeah. Bring it to bring me the letters and where and welcome to the mailbag Mr. Beast. No. He's not here. He's not here. We sent the link to him, but he has a little chaos. There'll be comfort, but there'll also be chaos here in the mailbag. Often. We, it's over. Season 50 is over. We, the, the announcement was during season, I think

47 that season 50 was. I think it was during season 46. I think it was in the spring. I think it was in the spring of 24, I think, was when they first announced. Jeff went to the beach drop in Los Angeles and was like, all right, all right. And that was the first thing that was in the hands of the fans that he said, all right, people, all right, that we're going to do, let's do a vote here. Who wants there to be returning players on season 50? And the crowd's like, yeah. And Jeff's like, all right, it's been decided here today.

These people just imagine they said no. And then it would have been season 50. It's all new people. all new people. Maybe it would have been celebrities. Maybe it would have been all celebrities if the people said, boo, returning players. And there were so many celebrities at the season 50 finale in which you were present.

Maybe some of them want to play. Perhaps. Yeah, I think they invited back a lot of the influencers that they had for that influencer game that they did briefly before the season. I saw my buddy Monet Exchange was in the audience. How was that interaction? Good. Yeah.

You guys chatted. A little briefly, briefly, yeah. Was there a group picture with you and Jam Jam and Monet? No. I don't know. I don't know if Jam Jam and Monet ever crossed paths, but, you know, I was Jam Jam was with the winners, not sitting where I was with a lot of the press people. Who had the better seat between the winners and the press people? Winners.

The winners had the better seat. They were, I mean, they were not like up close, close to the show. were sort of like a little bit in the second section, and the press was up in the back to the side on that second section. Not the worst seats, not nosebleeds. I've had worse seats at a finale. If you went to a concert and you got those seats, would you have been like, oh, these are okay seats?

Or would you have been disappointed with the seats? They were fine. They were fine seats. Yeah. You know? It's an $80 seat, maybe. I don't know. I didn't do the price.

pricing of like putting up the seats on the secondary market. Yeah, speaking of secondary market, there's so many markets. We've got a polymarket. Got to talk about the markets. Because I go to the markets. Yeah. How are you doing? Boston Market?

Yeah, Bob. Hey. I love Boston Market. They all closed and they had a good thing going. They were good. I'm fine. I mean, it's over. I'm thrilled that it's over.

You're happy that happened. Yeah. Don't smile because it's over. Cry because it has. I think that's the wrong way. I mean, I've heard it both ways. Yeah. Yeah. But it's, I'm really thrilled that we can now see.

And I've always said the best part about any finale. You can really yada yada yada most of the finale. The best part is the preview for the next one. And the next one looks exciting. So I'm in. I haven't done a real deep dive into. Should we do that of go frame by frame into the season 51 trailer? Are you worried that we spoil anything?

No, I don't think so. I think they throw a lot of stuff at you. I'll pull back the curtain here. I've been talking with Brandon. A lot of times that I think it's not easy to be Brandon because you have to get sort of like my off-the-wall pitches for things. And usually if I have an idea for a new thing I want to do, I'll go to Brandon first and I'll say,

here's what I want to do. And I had been kicking around that I want to do oops all Aubrey. I want to go back through the entire season and go through every scene that Aubrey was on the screen. And I haven't started working on that, but I could procrastinate doing that by doing the season 51. And you think that that's more, the Aubrey thing,

and maybe is more evergreen. And maybe we should get to the season 51 teaser sooner. Yeah, I mean, if you were going to see the spike on when people are watching that preview, like on YouTube, I think we're at the spike right now. I can knock that out tomorrow, you know. Yeah. We can get every frame of it.

And you don't know any of the people. Or you know some of the people, a couple of people. Right. But it wouldn't be with the intention. of spoiling, like, okay, this person isn't in this, like, I count 20 people, where's this person? I wouldn't do that, but I think I'm interested to see what types of things are they showing us? Yeah, this is the only thing I'll say about the previous, they show a shot of a helicopter landing.

And that's always in, they never do that just for nothing. You know what I mean? That's got to be something. Yep. Okay, so we could speculate on that. But yeah, so I go to Brandon and I will throw out here. Here's a crazy idea. Here's the thing I want to do.

And then they don't all see the light of day. It's like Shark Tank It's like I'm Mr. Wonderful And sometimes I say Not everybody thinks he's so wonderful From what I understand Yeah But I guess that's the most equitable comp to me

In terms of the Shark Tank Sharks I don't think I'm Mark Cuban I don't know anything about basketball Yeah You know I'm not Damon John Yeah sure Sure Mr. Wonderful

Yeah okay So I guess let's get into Our messages from the listeners Did anybody write in to say Hey like this is the mailbag Rob How are you? Did anybody say just like a check-in? Can I, can I, I'm going to pull back the curtain again is most of the, most of the questions

are about Survivor. Yeah. But we got a question, and you don't have to answer it. Okay. I'd almost prefer if you didn't. Yeah. But somebody earnestly sent in a question that said, do you like to fart? This is J. Chena 209.

And go find them once. So ask them what this is about because I don't have an answer. I mean, if I was going to earnestly answer that question, I think it's sort of, um, in In private, I think that like, okay, wow, that's a relief. But then I think that many times in, you know, in the company of others, I'm like, ooh, this is now an uncomfortable experience. What do I do here? Yeah.

I've never assigned liking far. Like, I don't think I've ever liked it. I think I'm net neutral. It's net neutral or bad, which I guess is what you're saying. Yeah. I never, I'm like, wow, that's great. No, no. Jay China 209, I hope that answers your question.

Okay. And next time, we'll stay on theme. Let's jump to... But I don't mind the screwball questions in the mailbag for future reference. Yeah, we should do... Let's do all screwball mailbag, Pennsylvania. It's a long summer. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a long summer. We talked about the polymarket of it all, but Cassandra Perigo wants to know. Can we talk about how Cal she called Aubrey correctly? right out of the gate. Yeah. So I had heard rumblings of Kalshi. And I had done an interview. I did a lot of press over the course of these last few months.

And I was doing press with going into season 50. And there was an interview that I did. And the reporter wanted to ask me about, hey, can I ask you about the Kalshi odds? Actually, you know what? I don't want to know. I really did a good job of staying. not knowing about the big odds market as much as possible. And I thought that Jeff had a really great quote.

And some people might say maybe a rare W for JP of he really came down hard on Cal Sheet. And I really, I loved what he said about how that it's, it's not right. And I don't have the direct quote in front of me of what Jeff Probst said about that. Maybe I can bring that up real quick, but I really have to echo what Jeff Probst had to say about how. It's, I think he might have used the word criminal to talk, to describe what they did. And I think a lot of what goes on on these prediction markets is, you know, in the category of criminal and insider trading. And it's, I think it's not a positive thing in any way, shape, or form. I understand that you can have betting on sports, and even that, you know, sort of like

gets borderline into are any of the players, the officials or powers that be involved in any sort of untoward behavior in these prediction markets. I think it's actually good also in terms of election polling, where sometimes these prediction markets are more accurate than what the pollsters are doing, and you can have a better sense of who is ahead or losing in some of these other things. But they're all in the category of things that have not happened yet. Things that are going to happen. There is an event that's coming up and we'll see what the results are.

And it's insane to have a betting market on a thing that already happened. And I don't know this. And I don't know if you know this. But what is another, is there another thing that people are betting on that has already happened. I don't even know what the most equitable comp to this is. It would be almost like if there was like a movie of like, you know, is this character going to die in the next Spider-Man movie? You know, is Spider-Man going to die? Is, you know, so-and-so going to get married at the end of it? So I think it would be like betting on movies.

That's basically the same thing. And I don't think we, I'm sure that there are probably places where you could do that. But yeah, it's wild. And, you know, I think we see this taken advantage of quite a bit also in terms of with current events where there's betting on the things that are happening in the news and there's insider trading that happens in that. But there's just, I don't know if there's any way to regulate this. I mean, I think that like on a simple thing like this, I mean, how many people are betting

on Survivor on Calci? they should just stop doing it because it's bad publicity for Kalshi that people, you have Jeff Probst in the media talking about how crooked it is for Kalshi to have this. And I think that Kalshi, it could be wrong, but I think Kalshi put out some statement that we're like, we hear you, but we're not going to stop doing this. I don't know if it was a representative of Kalshi or Kalshi itself as the entity. But in my perspective, I didn't know what Kalshi was until this popped up.

Like I guess people are using it for sports, I guess, or whatever. People are using it for a lot of things. I mean, it's, I do think that it is interesting. And I don't think that necessarily that you need, the whole thing needs to go away. But I really think it should be limited to things that are, you know, in the category of future events, particularly in the realm of sporting, you know,

I think predictions are, are interesting here. But in terms of where there's so much insider trading, I think that it should be limited to how much you can bet on this, because I think there's a lot of profiteering that goes on, on Kalshi. And so let me just give you, I want to give you one of Jeff's quotes about this, where Jeff told variety about this,

that it's about the Aubrey being, I think, a 91% favorite to win. from earlier on in the season, Jeff says clearly if 90% of the people are voting for somebody, there's a leak. But to look at us, the producers, as though we have a problem, is the mirror pointing in the wrong direction, that they're the ones with the problem, not us.

We went and made our show in a vacuum. We kept it very tightly contained. But if you're foolish and naive enough to not think that somebody might leak it, that's your problem. If the idea is that Survivor needs to do a better job managing our spoilers, you just don't know anything about humans.

That's ridiculous. You're telling me that there's a way I can make money by sharing the information I have and I might not ever get caught. Of course people are going to do that. And if I found out somebody on our show bet on this, they'd be fired. Yeah.

What is interesting about this particular season is, and you have been around much longer than I have in this world. And my season was spoiled like this. That there was, I think that there was a prediction market where back in Survivor the Amazon, I don't know where you could bet on this, but there was some kind of betting on this. And Jenna and Matt were heavy favorites from the jump. And people were spoiled on that.

And I remember that my family had a friend that, believe it or not. And so one of my brother, my brother has a million close friends from when he was in kindergarten. And that one of the dads of one of my brother's friends came to a viewing party at the house. And he was like, hey, like, let's. let's put money on this. Let's let's bet on like who the winner is and we'll make, we'll make money. And I was like, no. How about we're not going to do that?

And I feel like that man. Maybe he asked my dad. And my dad was like, no, we're not doing that. And it was like an audacious ask then and it's audacious now. And I will say, somebody else I know messaged me during the traders when, and the polymarket odds on the traders were, and I did look at this, were who's going to win the traders, Rob Rausch or I think Candace were the two, and I think that Rob Rauch was the heavy favorite to win the traders. And this person said, hey, like, let's, like, tell me what's going to happen

and we'll make money on this. And I was like, no, why? I don't want to, I don't want to do this. I love a blind, I love that I know who the blind item is about. It makes it more fun. What I was going to say is the All-Star seasons I know are habitually spoiled much more regularly than the normal person season. So I am curious now with this, you know, with Cal She now coming to prominence, are we going to see that for 51? It's 51, the day that it's open, are we going to see a 90%? I feel like that there's so much about this. And I don't want to get out of soapbox about this, but I feel like, is there any, like, who's the head of Cal She? Is there any sort of like board of directors?

Is there anybody that we could talk to there? Yeah. It's just like these things that pop up. It's like, well, there's nothing to anybody could do about it. That's just Cal She. Who's running Cali? Who's running Polly Market? Not for anything.

All season long, I would get messages, and if Sam would get messages that there were folks who were just clicking on the podcast, probably not listeners of ours, who were just commenting the winner. People knew it months ago, citing the Cali, whatever. And I had messages from people saying, like, this sucks. It's like, I did nothing to, we put in on the back end, every phrase you could think of to try to prevent that from happening and then still it happens to people. Yeah. You know, I had thought

earlier in the season, though, I did think I had gotten spoiled where I, Nicole and I did our winner picks for the season and we picked Tiffany. We both, Nicole, I both picked Tiffany and then it got posted and the Survivor Fact Checker

and posted. And there were multiple comments on the, a tweet that was Rob and Nicole have both picked Tiffany. And there were multiple comments that said, should have picked Genevieve. And I really felt like, I think I got spoiled.

I think I'm spoiled now that the winner is Genevieve, and I'm spoiled, and that just I got like two or three, very confident, unrelated, bad pick. Genevieve was the pick. And I do kind of love it when that happens. I do love when I feel like,

I've been spoiled, and then it turns out that I was not spoiled. And that was, you know, really, and I thought that Genevieve had a really good edit to start. Like, it was like a bizarreo of like, oh, I felt like Aubrey's going to be out soon, and Genevieve is going to be the winner. Look at this winner edit for Genevieve. Those are just Genevieve's fans who were just commenting on that thing. They were just like, hey, idiot, you made the wrong pick. Yeah, which is very funny. Yeah.

But they really, that in a. talk about that in a bigger sense, they need to do something about Kalshi, Polymarket. I think there's a lot of bad that comes out of that. And also, they need to do something about it. And I was glad to see that Jeff lent it his voice to that because I feel like that if Jeff is like making it a personal mission to come down on these prediction markets for Survivor, like, hey, we want to opt out. we don't want our thing to be part of this,

then I think that the more, I don't know if they respond to any pressure at all about this, but I think that what Jeff did was the right thing to do. Yeah, I mean, it's a big company, like they're advertising in like Times Square. They have a billboard. It's a big operation, but it just doesn't compute to me that if you want your thing pulled out,

they wouldn't put your thing out. Yeah, and if, like, I think that there's, there is some utility of like 57% of people think that Nick, the Knicks are going to win this. game, okay, yeah, fine. That's what it should be for. Sure, sure. Norma, 2580, on the topic of Jeff wants to know, did you get to talk to Jeff the other day? No, I did not see Jeff in person at the finale. He did not do red carpet or come through the press line. There was a lot of press at the season 50 finale. So Jeff or, you know, Mark Burnett was

there. I did see somebody interviewing Mark Burnett, but Jeff did not come through the press line. So I did not get to see him or have any interaction. I went to the after party after the show. And he was not there either. And you didn't talk to Mark Burnett either. Did not talk to Mark Burnett. I did walk past him, but he did not make any overture to connect with me. that would be a good, would Mark Burnett remember me? Would be, would be. I was going to ask you the same question. I suspect not, but, you know, we did, we, you know, he was very involved with the show at that particular point in time.

Remember is different though than recognize. Like, he definitely remembers you, but does he recognize you if you are in the supermarket is a different question? Probably not. I don't, I really don't think that if I had to run in with Mark Burnett, that he would, like, maybe, there would be some deep-seated memory at some point. Yeah, he's a, he's, there's, you know, I've met a lot of the people

from the program, but he's the last, he's the crown jewel. He's the person that I have a meet that I would have liked to have met. And I saw, I think you got a picture with Adam Klein. So he was somewhere, he was floating around. Yeah, he was there.

Bailey wants to know, as a fellow wrestling fan, was it a work, is often cited for situations that seem genuine, but leave the audience wondering. And I believe this is supposed to be said in the Hulk Hogan voice because there's brother at the end of it. Was Jeff's mistake a work brother? I guess that's that's kind of penner. But was Jeff's mistake a work? So I would say that I think there's zero percent chance.

And I'd love to get your thought on this. But I do not think at all that this was an inside job that why would Jeff do it this particular way? to like I've seen some questions about like so many things had to have gone wrong for this to have happened, but I do not see any way that this was something that Jeff wanted to have happened. Do you see any world where this was a, they did this on purpose? I did. And I don't think I do now, but I did. And I did for days.

I just, I don't understand with a live production. how many people that has to go through for that to have happened. Because he's reading it, like, Jeff, I believe is reading a teleprompter. So it's like, is the teleprompter incorrect? No, I see, if I had to guess, and I went back and I watched these two segments before we did this because I wanted to talk about this. So they did this segment where they had the pre-jury out in the commercial break going prior to deciding who was going to make the fire. and they gave them all the corona. And then there was, and then we went back and we watched the segment of Jonathan and Rizzo

practicing the fire. And then I think that it was just like the stage direction, which was wrong. I don't think that they were supposed to do a live segment there or they got something in the wrong order of what they did. Because then, like, why would you, why would you set this up where the jury would be there and bring out Rizzo prior to that happening. It seems like that there's so many people that would have to like have, like, wait, what's happening?

What are we doing? Because the segment starts and he's like, all right, let's bring out Rizzo. Like, they have the jurors all sitting there. And I think that they had this schedule. And I know that Jeff was like locked in on, he wanted to talk to Rizzo. to bring him out. And it was the type of thing that you would do in the same way that when somebody gets big gets eliminated, like in the same way that they, let's bring out Tiffany after that. I think they just had this slotted into the wrong part of the schedule. And this was supposed to

be after the next act break. And for some reason, you know, and Jeff's not sitting there watching the episode. He's probably seen the episode 20 times from all of the notes that he's giving, but he's probably backstage doing whatever and that whoever is running the live show is like saying, okay, next up is going to be blah, blah, blah. Yeah, that was the next thing, but they did it at the wrong commercial break.

And so I think that they just brought everybody out one segment too early. And I think that Jeff was very much in the zone of that he really wanted to, from my perspective, I feel like that Jeff really wanted to get in his zinger on Rizgod about how, hey, hey Rizzo, remember when you told Colby that it's not that important to worry about camp life? Well, I would say that fire is part of the camp life, wouldn't you say?

And do you think that that has anything to do with you not winning in the fire? I'm just saying, food for thought. All right. And it's like, he wanted to get that shot in on, like, he had like that prepared line that he wanted to get in so bad. And to me, it was not dissimilar to when George Costanza had the great line of that when he was eating the shrimp to say to the guy, oh, yeah? Well, the jerk store called and they're running out of you.

And it was, he just, like, I think he was, like, really, like, locked in on, I got to say to Rizzo, like, hey, you said camp life's not that important. Well, you lost because of that. and after that happens, like, the, it's, it's so weird. It's like, the air gets sucked out of the room. And, and Jeff's standing there, and he's like, wait, what happens? Why is everybody being weird now? And it's like, it's so interesting, right?

Because nobody says anything at first. Jeff's like, why is everybody, like, why is everybody being, what happened? What am I missing? And then, you know, Rizzo and then, sorry, he says, oh, like, fire didn't happen yet. And Jeff's still like, okay, all right, well, we're going to go to commercial, we'll come back. And I think that, you know, it doesn't dawn on Jeff until, and there's a bunch of videos filming this where it doesn't happen until after the, in the commercial break, Jeff starts to piece it together of what happens. I think there's no chance that this was any sort of inside job. Not everything is a conspiracy.

This was just somebody made a mistake. And I don't even think it was Jeff who made the mistake. I think it was whoever was saying, okay, this is the next thing that's coming up and they know what all the segments are going to be. And Jeff is just like on autopilot of that point of this is like what we're going to come in and I'm going to talk to Rizzo about the,

he said camp life wasn't important and he lost in the fire. And then they just did it in the wrong spot. It's almost easier to explain that it is, it was an inside job than it is to figure out where the mistake had to have happened. I understand like where it, I don't think it was his mistake. I think it was just, it just seems crazy on the first time you're doing this live thing in X amount of years for

there to be a mistake. But that's a showbiz, baby. That's showbiz, baby. And, you know, it's been seven years since we've done this type of live finale. It's not like we're doing these two times a year. So I think that it's entirely possible that the person who is managing the floor in that spot is not the same person that did it the last time they had the live finale. And so it's also entirely possible, you know,

this is not the normal survivor crew. From what I understand, you know, that the people who are working in Fiji are not necessarily the people who are working the live reunion show. And so there are people who, you know, may not know survivor. You know, these may be people that are just working in live television

that are just like going down, their rundown, and they just missed what, pointing the show we're at. If you had to assign an emotion to Jeff after that, do you think Jeff is mad? Do you think he's upset? Like, what do you think his thinking is before he comes back on and then qualifies it with the joke? What's that interim feeling? I think that he's probably embarrassed if I had to guess at first because did I just make a mistake?

I'm sort of the utmost professional. and I really try to like make this as great of an experience for everybody as possible. And I thought that he handled it really, really well. I think that Jeff is at his best when he is having to be forced to be off script. And I think that when he is reacting to a moment, I think that that's really he's a lot better at that than when he is like really trying to hammer his talking points. So I thought that he did handle it very well. I do think that they probably should not keep it in the archived version on Paramount Plus.

So if I'm a first time watcher a year from now, I don't know if you should spoil that person. Yeah, I see that. The two things that when I'm seeing it in the room and I'm at a viewing party, my first suspicion is, is this like a pseudo event? Like, is this plan? But I think seeing rewatching Jeff and seeing Jeff's reaction, to me, I thought he looked mad. and then seeing Rizzo backstage look very bummed out about it. I was like, there's no, like, if you were going to fake it, you'd have to let, like,

and also what's the reason to fake it? What's the, you know, as Jeff is like, people are saying, well, it's just because they don't want to do it more live reunion shows. Like, Jeff could just not do live, more live reunion shows. He didn't have to have there be some sort of a kerfuffle to not have to do a live reunion show again. He didn't have to do this. We haven't seen the results of the voting. Yeah, what did the fans vote?

Well, I think that, you know what, I would guess the votes were so heavily, this was the one vote they didn't tell. I would have to think the answer was like 99 to 1 that people said live reunion show. And it was so overwhelming and they don't want to do more live reunion shows that they have not released the outcome of that vote. And I think that, which I also, if people think that, oh, the rest of the voting numbers were Fugazi. I think the fact that they didn't tell you the voting results for the live reunion show, I think makes me feel like that everything was legit. And they don't want to tell you that it was 97.8% to 2%. Yeah. And Jeff would say it's close, but it wasn't close.

It was 98%. That's very, very funny. How about from B. Lorry wants to know, did we like the family visit in the last episode? The family visit at the final three, I thought, was neither here nor there. I think it didn't really add too much to it. So I would say it was a miss in terms of what they did. It was not really something that impacted anything. I'm not sure necessarily if anybody pulled any added motivation from having their loved

ones there in Australian Survivor that they do tend to have, okay, the loved ones are going to watch you compete in the final immunity challenge. I think that that would have been pretty interesting to have the loved ones there while they're trying to do some motion. I think that that would have been pretty distracting for everybody to do that. We did get that back in Survivor Kagyan, that they did bring the loved ones out for the Final Four challenge, not the Final Three challenge, but in Survivor Kagyon, we had everybody from the final four, their loved ones, watched them do that. They also did in Survivor Worlds

Apart. I think Mike Holloway won a reward where his mom came to visit. There was no loved ones visit in Survivor 29. And I don't believe that there was one in Survivor Co wrong either. I could be off on that. But really, and I attribute this to Jeremy Collins, that Jeremy Collins in Survivor's Second Chance, the loved ones visit with Vass. I think that that was such a big moment that I think that that really made the loved ones visit a staple into the 30s. And then the loved ones visit, you know, after the thing with Dawn and Brenda and Karam Owen, we don't really, we have two loved versus two blood versus water seasons. And then ultimately just we try, like the loved ones visit kind of goes away for a little bit. And then it comes back in a big way in second chance.

And then all through the 30s, you get this big loved ones visit. culminating in everybody's loved ones coming out in winners at war. So yeah, I think that this was not it. I think it's harder to figure out where to do the loved ones visit in the 26 day game. It's also that you're losing people left and right. It takes so long to get people to Fiji. I think it's harder to figure this out in where you're having these tribal councils where you're losing two people a day. And, you know, it's like people have to leave three days earlier. to get to Fiji. So it's a hard thing to triangulate.

It is a hard thing to triangulate, but I don't see a reason to not do it. I think we should try to triangulate. Well, here's what I would say. And they've done this on Australian Survivor. Just do FaceTime. I know it's not the same. But I think you've seen an Australian survivor

that it's a big, big reaction from the contestants. And so I think that there's so many logistics at play. I really, I do try to be a realist and a pragmatist in how do you make this work in a way that gives you at least close to the same thing where if we're going to just bring out the final three this late in the game and have their loved ones there. And it was and it was a nothing. I think if somebody won a phone call, like that was a reward of, okay, and then the person who's going to win the reward today is going to get a face time with, and maybe it could be not just on a phone, maybe

it could be like on a big iPad. Imagine that. Like a really like a iPad pro. Okay. So yeah. Yeah. And people are seeing their babies and it's like it's it's an emotional moment. And then also we have the camera at the person's house also filming them. So I think that you would get a lot out of that. Jonathan would be like MC Popsicle, you're muted. You got to unmute. And they leave that. And that'd be funny for everybody. I like it. I thought it was in nothing and I was at a viewing party. I left to go to the food cart outside, and then I came back and it was done. So I haven't seen it.

But I do like the quote, my hot, tall-ass wife or whatever Joe said. I think that's very fun. Yeah. Is it my tall-ass-hot wife? My hot-ta... I think it was my tall-ass-hot wife. I don't think he said my hot-ass tall wife.

My hot-ass, yeah, I guess that's a... Yeah, it's like a puzzle, kind of. You got to put it in the right... Yeah. How tall is Joe's wife? Do we get a sense? I mean, taller than him. No, and he's tall.

He's taller than both of us. So I, what, if he's taller, if I'm, I don't want to speak for you. How tall is tall ass? I think, I think you and I are 510. What do you, 511? Yeah. I think Joe is probably 6-2. I think it's like, what, 6-4?

6-4. Wow. Right? Am I wrong to think that the wife is taller than, I don't know what I would do. I don't feel like that Joe was, I just talked to Joe, I have to go back and take a look at the footage of was Joe that much taller than me? I think I got

frame mugged by Joe. I think he was taller than me. Okay. I felt that. But maybe he just has a bigger present. Maybe he just has something. But yeah, she's in the sixes, for sure. She's taller than your boy. Okay. How about that? So I'm sure it was, yeah, I like the FaceTime idea.

I think that's a lot of fun. Do that. But do you think there's an impulse to not take things that Australian Survivor has done because Australia, Survivor has done that thing. Jeff says they don't even watch Australian Survivors, so how would they know what they did? Somebody's got to know, right?

I don't think he watches it. I don't think they didn't invent FaceTime. It's like you could, I mean, say, hey, we invented that when we had AOL Instant Messenger in season two. Remember that, Colby? High Baby. Yeah. That's what Keith said to his wife.

Yeah. Peas was his wife, right? Peas. Where's Peas? Where's P's? Get around talking with T-Bird. Yeah. But, yeah, I think, listen, we've had AOL instant messenger.

You know, you can have a FaceTime with somebody. What if the reward challenges, one of your loved ones is here. We pulled from sticks. One of you guys, we flew out. And the reward challenges, whoever wins gets to spend time with that person. It's just, it's, it'll be like, we flew Aubrey's mom. Yeah. But it's the final six.

It's like, you know, if Joe wins, he's got to hang out with all this. I'm trying to yes and that. Okay. Like, yeah, whoever wins gets to hang out with Joe's tall-ass hot wife. And then Jonathan wins a reward. Joe's like, hey, I don't like this. I'm not crazy about this, I got to say. But that's what we should be doing.

You have to innovate the social, like, we have to make fights happen. That's what the rewards used to be before they were all what they are now. Yeah. Let's see here. Lar, Lars Sue wants to know. She's always wondered about how you prepare for exit interviews. Do you write down questions as you watch? Yeah.

This is a great question. And I would say I tend to the next morning, you know, as I, because I don't know who's getting voted out when I'm watching the episode. But in the morning, leading up to the exit interview, I tend to have my exit interview at around 11 Eastern is when I do it. And at some point, like over the course of the hour that leads up to when I do the exit interview, I start to like make a list of questions of things that I want to know and things that I want to like get a little bit more information on. It does tend to be things that are from the most recent episode. I tend to want to try to ask questions that I've been wondering the answers to, things that

people that aren't just like yes or no questions where people can be able to give us a little bit more of a sense into what are the things that they did in the season that don't make sense what is your note-taking method are you writing down are you i padding what are you on the phone this is interesting uh for this for the eggs interview or for the episodes i think all of the above yeah i'm so i'm so envious of people and so from what i understand this is what stephen does of that he watches the episodes and writes down his takes as the episode is going on. And I wish I had that. I wish I was able to...

I'm shocked to learn that you don't do that. So my notes are probably most like if I was a court stenographer and I was, if you missed the episode and I was writing a recap for a person who missed the episode, that I would, like, you would get my notes and they would be like night time after tribal council. Everybody, everybody is upset. Tiffany is mad. Tiffany isn't talking to Jonathan. Tiffany is mad at Aubrey. Joe says that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Tiffany in confessional tells us that she's had it. You know, it is very much a readout of what has happened in the episode. And then I will go over that because I feel like that then I review what happened. And then my takes, I feel like I don't need to remember my takes.

Like I sort of like, I have the, because that if I just had the takes, I feel like I would need to go back to the what happened again. And I'm like, okay, well, hold on. Let me just make sure that that's what actually happened. And so my notes are always just what. And then if I ever need to on the podcast to go over. what happened in what order, I have that more so than

this is what I felt watching the episode. And you don't have it, when you're talking to something, you don't have it in front of you. You have it all up in the nog. In the case of Survivor, I'm rarely working off of my notes, but in the case of Big Brother, where I'm recapping a Big Brother episode, I am very much going back to the notes of like,

okay, and then this happened, and then this happened, Okay, and then we got this scene, whereas I just don't think that's how a Survivor episode is structured. I just, it's a, you have a healthy brain. It's like an impressive thing to do, I think. Because I feel like for anything to just have it all, and not forget it.

With Survivor, it's, it's, it's, I've been doing this for so long. It's, it's different than the way I cover almost any other show. I've never done one Survivor recap on Rob's podcast in my career that's been, all right, the episode starts and Tiffany is mad. Tiffany is mad and she's hot with Aubrey and Joe and everybody.

Next scene, we got to, it's going to be talking about what are we going to do next, okay? And I've never once in my life done a sequential, like, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened. To me, it's just like the least interesting way to talk about Survivor. I know I have done that on many other shows that I've covered, but I just feel. like in terms of Survivor, I want to talk about the big things that happened. And not necessarily the order in which we got there.

Yeah. And a lot of people go beat by beat. So if you want to listen to beat by beat, that is available to you. Yeah. There's so much of that out there. So to me, it's like, yeah, I watched the episode. I saw everything that happened. I don't need

you to retell me what happened in the episode. Sure. I watched it. And now you're listening to it. Yeah. But in terms of doing a podcast, I think that that's the less fun way to do a podcast. Yeah, absolutely. That was a very interesting question also.

I've wondered that. Laura Jane Loflin wants to know, if Aubrey wins Co-Rong, do we see her four times or does she fade away in a canon? Isn't that a fun question? So I don't think she fades away. I think that we end up so let's, she's probably, she doesn't come back for Co-wrong. I wouldn't, I'm sorry, she doesn't come back for game changers, I wouldn't think, right? Even though that- We wouldn't think, but we don't know.

We don't know. We don't know, for sure. We, so, yeah, so Natalie Anderson was in the mix for game changers. And then, ultimately, I think that she got, was it a concussion was, was the issue that- Yes, I think right beforehand. Yes, but, I mean, but Tony is there and Sandra is there. But I don't think that necessarily they bring back Aubrey right off of her win in Survivor-Co. I don't know necessarily if they bring back Michelle for Survivor Coral.

So I do wonder who would be in the Aubrey spot in Survivor Game Changers. Well, it would have to be. I don't have a better option than Michelle. I would, you'd think it if the, if the result is as controversial that time, then it was the timeline that we lived through. But I don't think it would be controversial if Aubrey was the winner. and I was talking with this with Chappelle on Club Condo, that there was, like, I think that Michelle started to gain popularity

after she won. I think that during the course of the season, Michelle was very under-edited. There were not, like, if there were any Michelle truthers in Survivor Co-Rong, they tended to be the people who were, I have seen the Ejik. And Ejik is telling me this is the, the winner and you all are sleeping on this person who's the winner. It wasn't necessarily like

there was so much Michelle content in Co-Rong that people were like, hey, and she, towards the end, her personality starts to come out. She has the, like, uh, bro, I know, and sounds like a bunch of malarkey to me. She, she, she kicks the puzzle. Her personality comes out at the end of the season, but it's a little bit of a slow burn for Michelle. And Michelle, I think, really starts to build popularity as being this under-edited winner and why didn't we see more about her and, of course, on the challenge and ultimately in winners at war, I think Michelle steadily builds popularity. I don't know if Michelle was immediately popular after Survivor call wrong or a production favorite where that they wanted her back automatically for Survivor Game Changers.

I was Michelle Truther from episode one, and this just feels like in a perfect place to say that. Can I give a hypothetical? Is game changers, is the existence of game changers made because of Aubrey? Is Aubrey the impetus for game changers? Is that why they do something so soon? No, I don't think so. Because they were trying to, I think that second chance was such a big phenomenon, that they had such success with Survivor Second Chance. I think that they were trying to go back to the well very soon and do another big All-Star season after that.

that they were chasing the high of Survivor's second chance. And so I don't know necessarily who that other woman is that they bring back for game changers. Now, also, we have to figure out in the edge of extinction. Now, Aubrey is not going to come back for the edge of extinction. We're not going to bring back a winner there in that spot. I do think that there is a couple of other survivor women that are talked about potentially in that spot. But I'm not sure who ultimately gets that call. That's the Chrissy spot. That's where Chrissy, I thought.

Oh. When that was rumored, Chrissy made the most sentence for... Yeah, that is interesting. Okay. So then we don't have Chrissy in season 50, probably not. Although we do have Aubrey and Rick from the Edge of Extinction.

But then, so now Aubrey ends up now, she's definitely coming back for winners at war. And who's getting... She's taking Michelle's spot. Michelle's gone. Mm-hmm. And who knows? Who knows what happened?

I mean, Aubrey's had such a weird survivor journey where she's placed in every place you could be. Like, Winners at War could have been one of the three places that she previously was, whether she's out early, a jury member, or gets the end. So I think Aubrey plays twice. I think she probably doesn't do as well as Michelle ends up doing in Winners at War. I think that's fair. I think that's fair to say.

You know, she might be ultimately, like, due for her dud on Winners at War. Yeah. Yeah. I would see that. And then I don't know who her, and granted, that group is, they all know each other because they were all hanging around at the same time. But I don't know who her group is. Is she with the Jeremy's and the Adams or is she, like, there's no Cochran.

You know what I mean? There's no people that are like an equitable comp in terms of how she would have won. Yeah. And I don't know necessarily because I think that her having difficulty ultimately is what makes her into the person that she is who's able to win in season 50. and so I don't know necessarily what. I think she's sort of like coming off of Colong with like a little bit of an air of invincibility.

Tyson used to always tell me about how, you know, you always want to play against people who won on their first time because they don't know what it's like to have not had success. And so, you know, Aubrey's coming in and probably, hey, I'm back for another magic carpet ride and then probably maybe meet some difficulty along the way. She did get along with Tony, I think, in Game Changers.

she doesn't have a relationship with Sarah because that she doesn't play in Survivor Game Changers. So it's kind of hard to predict, but if she's on that tribe with the, like in Michelle's exact spot, I think that she probably is more of an Adam ally. And I don't know. It's hard to imagine how it plays out.

It's a fun thought experiment. Yeah. I really like that. And then is Michelle back on another season? So Michelle has game changers, edge of extinction 50. It's really hard to sell because then there's Michelle, because I think that Michelle really builds her brand on the challenge. I think it's Michelle goes into, goes away from Survivor and becomes more popular.

Yeah. And so without the cachet of being the winner, then does she still get on the challenge? Does she still have the same career, trajectory on the challenge. I think that that's such a big puzzle. I do think that she I think even after Survivor the first time, I do think that she is great at like showcasing who she is that everybody loves when she's on the island off the island. And I do wonder if that online popularity propels her to another returnee spot on Survivor, whether it's Edge of Extinction or game changers or a late cut for 50. Maybe she's in it for 50. Maybe it's a late cut for 50.

Maybe she ends up in the spot on Survivor 50. Yeah. What a weird, what a weird timeline we hope of in. Yep. And I think that what's interesting about them, and I talked about, I did a podcast in my hotel room after, and I made the case about Aubrey being on the Mount Rushmore. And I said, hey, you know, she has a win. She has a finals appearance, final five.

Like, why not Aubrey for the Mount Rushmore of Survivor? Because I think all the people that were talking about that are on the Mount Rushmore, they have a win, they have a finals appearance where they, where a second final appearance. Some of them won it. Some of them didn't. And why not Aubrey? And people said in the comments, well, what about Michelle and Natalie Anderson? Now, Natalie Anderson, I put in a little bit of a different tier because at least, you know, Natalie Anderson is also a first boot in that same season and comes back in on the edge. And I know the theme is not on trial. The player is. But in terms of Michelle and Aubrey, here they are again in Survivor history. They are always connected. They are always

interlocked of you have the four people in the Mount Rushmore and then right underneath you have Aubrey and Michelle they both have a win and they both have another finals appearance. Michelle's never been voted out of the game. So that's just like look at this again. Yeah. Their web connects us all. It's an interesting, the Aubrey on the Mount Rushmore is interesting. I wonder if it penalizes her that she has some kind of, well maybe this is wrong.

Yeah. She has some kind of character development where she opens weak quote unquote, whereas the four people on the Mount Rushmore were pretty solid their whole way through. Like, does that penalize a survivor. I think that Sandra does have a little bit more of the playing under, especially earlier in her survivor career. And then she has like come in and been a little bit more of a force later on in her survivor career.

So I think that Aubrey, I was just like making a devil's advocate case for Aubrey on the I don't think that Aubrey or Michelle is actually on the Mount Rushmore of Survivor, but I just think that in terms of the lock solid argument that you could make for the four people that I do think are on the Mount Rushmore Survivor. They think that Aubrey and Michelle have a resume that rivals both of the resumes of the play or the resumes of the people who are on the Mount Rushmore. What member of the Survivor 50 Final Three would you like a question about, whether that That's Joe, Jonathan, or Aubrey. How about Joe? I loved this question. This is one of my favorite questions, maybe my favorite.

From John Scholl, who says, what do you think of Joe's exit press, where he says that he felt like venting to friends when those people thought they were babysitting him? Is the Joe type player, the new mom archetype, who has trouble winning? Is Joe Dawn? Yeah.

So the Joe discourse is really interesting. I thought that Joe did such a great job after the final tribal council where Joe, who's now a two-time survivor finalist, losing finalist, came in and where there's so much discourse about Jonathan. I thought he really just handled himself in such a classy way and really just took the whole zero-vote finalist thing with Grace. and is Joe where, and I've talked about this most recently with Lisa Welchell about the mom archetype, and is Joe the dad archetype where if Joe is like his path to the end is one of being a protector, he's a caretaker, he is looking out for his people, but then ultimately he can't then betray anybody. the people who he turns on is like, oh wow, you're a real hypocrite, Joe, of you said that you were about honor and loyalty, and then you betrayed me. It's the same sort of thing that has certainly hurt coach in his past.

And so I don't think that Joe was necessarily even trying, he didn't seem to, from what we saw, get too hung up on the honor and loyalty type of thing. But yeah, I think it's hard for Joe to, play a cutthroat game and also be seen as the person who is the honor bound caretaker of the group. It does feel like a big, it's a difference to me from the mom archetype for your leases and your dons

who I do perceive to, and I'm not with Joe on the island, I'm watching him and I could be wrong, but I perceive them to be playing more than I perceive Joe to be playing. I think Joe's thing is the protector, whatever, whatever, It just seems like he's doing a different thing when he's on the island than the women who are at the end, you know, whatever you would call it. Like you get that rhetoric of, I trusted you and you hurt me where I don't see that for Joe. Yeah.

I think that with Joe, I think there's some similarities. And I'm just trying to think back to Joe's game where the people he turned his back on, the Davids, the Shaheen's. They don't end up voting for him in the end. end up going for Kyle in that final tribal council. It's, but it's not necessarily like, it's still not the same, that people aren't standing there and raking Joe over the coals being like, how dare you, Joe, how could you, where do you get off? We took, and I think that with the, with the Lisa and with the Dawn thing, there was like,

almost like, hey, we took care of you and you, and you betrayed us. where it's that Joe took care of them, but then ultimately turned on some of them. They don't love it, but they're not indignant about it. They're not necessarily, they don't necessarily love it, but they're not furious with Joe. Yeah, it's a very, very interesting question. And maybe that speaks to the double standard.

Yeah, absolutely. It's just, I think it's more of a, it's a bigger subject than I have the expertise to answer. But it is an interesting. I always thought that mom, the mom thing was so interesting in the survivor moms. I talked about it in casting. I think it's such an interesting, you know, dichotomy, if you will. Yeah. I think it is hard, though, in this game, for anybody, and I don't know if it's necessarily

like a mom thing, but anybody who it's seen as, hey, we are carrying this person, I'm trying to think of, if that player has really ever won the game, where does the jury ever reward the person that they felt like, okay, this person was at times just, we dragged this person to the end and then they voted for them. Yeah. This person demonstrated like a real,

whether it's emotional or physical weakness, and we brought them to the end and we voted for them. Because I think that in the case of where we have, like the tough moms. I think Christy is maybe the exception to the rule. But when we talk about Maria, when we talk about Julie in your season, like these are women that they were on a trajectory that if they got to the end, they would have won.

So it's not like a mom cannot win, but it does seem as though that there is that with these moms where, hey, we had to carry you. How could you have to turn your back on us when we did this thing? Yeah, it's interesting of even just in the past week, the discourse of the Aubrey and Jonathan is like, Jonathan is, and there's a question about it that we'll get to is, you know, is unsure why he lost. And really to boil it down is like, it's just people who they vote for who they like the most. But I think that can't be the hundred percent of the puzzle when there is like a respect element as well, where you have a person who is dragging somebody to the end that they wouldn't respect as much because they're doing the work to sustain that person. they're not going to give them the money if they can avoid it. Right, right.

I mean, it's not to say that that person could not get jury votes, but if that person then betray, you are carrying this person and then they betray you, that person will not, you will not get that person to vote. This episode is brought to you by FedEx. These days, the power move isn't having a big metallic credit card to drop on the check at a corporate lunch. The real power move is leveling up your business with FedEx intelligence and accessing one of the biggest data networks powered by one of the biggest delivery networks.

Level up your business with FedEx, the new power move. Let's jump into from deep fried couch on blue sky, their question about Jonathan, which is, is Jonathan's fatal flaw that he is unwilling or unable to connect with people completely different from him? are celebrations in the face of an impending juror proof that he still doesn't get it. I want to say before I T to you, I didn't find the celebrating after the challenge to mean people have really stuck on the celebrating. That doesn't. Who cares? Like that didn't affect anybody's jury vote that was sitting there. I think we've seen some pretty amazing celebrations of different players. I don't think we've ever like penalized somebody for a celebration.

It wasn't like a, you know, in your face, everybody. I mean, Marissa. The worm was a choice, certainly, but I don't know if necessarily anybody's like, I can't believe Jonathan. How could he have done the worm in front of everybody? We didn't like that. There are things that you can penalize Jonathan for. I don't think it's this that people have gotten on and the licking the rice out of the thing. That doesn't affect a single jury vote, and I've seen it all over.

People are so concerned about the rights. Yeah. Who cares? Yeah, I don't think that that would cost Jonathan a jury vote. I think that maybe it speaks to a maybe Jonathan not necessarily reading the room in terms of how he's seen by the other players. So maybe that's more of a symptom than the actual fact of why people didn't vote for Jonathan. I think that ultimately for Jonathan, as you alluded, to. And, you know, Jonathan is going through it. And, and you know what, I have a lot of empathy for

Jonathan because he's really having a hard time with this. And I know he was really upset. And, you know, I think that he was speaking his mind and he was trying to process, why did this happen? Why didn't I win the game? because I think that he went back and he said, okay, I'm going to, I want to learn to be better at everything that you can do to win Survivor. And I think that all of the things that were the tangible things that you can work on in terms of the things, a lot of things that he was already good at of, hey, I'm going to work on puzzles. I'm going to work on running. I'm going to work on swimming. I'm going to do everything in my power to, you know, I'm going to study under Boston Rob on the strategy of the game. I'm going to work on all sorts of things that help you

maybe in the votes, maybe in the challenges. He did work on all those things. He did try to play a different game, but ultimately, and this is true from Survivor from the jump, of that probably the most underrated thing in Survivor is the social game. And that just is not the area in which Jonathan is a superstar. And that you see many people who don't even really know how to play Survivor, like a Parvety, like a Tyson. And they become all-time greats once, and these people with incredible social games,

but once they learn the strategy stuff, they become like all-time great players, people who are challenged threats, who are super likable, and then they learn the show. I think that Jonathan, I think he did know the show decently well in Survivor 402. I think that Omer and Marianne have said that actually Jonathan was kind of underrated in terms of his strategy. You didn't really see it in Survivor 42. But he got better at that, and he got better at the challenges. But it's the social game.

That is, it's also the hardest thing to get better at. And so I want to make sure, I want to answer the question as, can you read it one more time? Yeah. So is, I'm going to ignore the question too, but is Jonathan's fatal flaw that he is unwilling or unable to connect with people completely different than him? I don't think that's a fair question. I think that Jonathan, he, from Jonathan's perspective, he was working with Surrey also. I mean, he was working with Chrissy.

He was working with Stephanie. He was working with coach. He was working with Surrey. He was working with Joe. He was working with Rizzo. He was working with Aubrey. I don't know if you could say that he is, I mean, he was, you know, he was working with Ozzy.

He ends up turning on Ozzie. So I think that he was certainly open to working with Christian and then Christian point blank lied to him on the duos when Christian said, okay, I'm voting for Rick Devons. And then ultimately, then they voted out coach and Chrissy. And Jonathan was like, okay, well, now I know that Christian is a liar. He lied to my face. So I think that Jonathan was open to working with just about anybody.

So I reject the premise of that question. I just think that Jonathan's intangibles, I think that he did not. really fully get how the juries vote. And I think that Jonathan wanted to point to a scoreboard, not necessarily a resume, but it's like, hey, I beat you at this. Dee, I tricked you. I blindsided you. I did look at all of the things that I did where Aubrey, I think, really had a lot

of wind at her back of like, hey, I am the underdog from a, from the, from the, from the optics of it of here is, you know, a woman who wins the last challenge, who's taking out the guys and ultimately, you know, winning the final four challenge and they were going to vote her out. Listen, that Jenna Maraska has, you know, a lot of this of like, hey, the guys were going to vote her out, but they couldn't. And when you could sit there as the person in the final three to say, they wanted, they didn't want me here. I'm the person who's like for anybody who is, you know, not happy with this final three. I'm the spoiler here.

Not like on Kalshi, but I guess it's true in both cases. That I'm the person who's not supposed to be here. Look at me. And then also, look at my body at work. Look at my story. So Aubrey just had so much going for her. And I think that Aubrey had this really great social game that people felt like, wow, Aubrey's so real.

Aubrey is, she wasn't fake with us. She really, like, told it like it was. she navigated the middle. Boy, there were so many times when she could have been the person who went home and she didn't. How is she still there? So I think that Aubrey just had a lot going for her. So I don't think that Jonathan was a total disaster in the final. It wasn't that Aubrey won 11 to 0 where that people were like, like, Jonathan didn't get laughed off the stage in terms of.

But I just think that he was trying to make a point of, hey, look at what, look at what, look at what I did. Look at the points that I scored. And that ultimately wasn't enough for, I think that the swing voters on this final three were Rick and Christian and Emily. And I think that they were ultimately the deciders. I think that there was just some baked in votes for Jonathan, which he had his base of coach and Chrissy and Stephanie. And then you had people who were really fighting for Aubrey, the Tiffany's, and the D's. And then it seemed like that Surrey came down pretty strongly for Aubrey. And then I think that they had Ozzy in tow.

So that was seven basically decided right there. And then you had, I'm trying to think about, I feel like I'm missing somebody. Who am I missing? I have three for Jonathan, four that were strongly for Aubrey. Emily Rick Christian Who are we missing I'm just doing Rizzo Tiff Sari

Rick Devons No Rizzo Rizzo Rizzi the other person And then I think that Rizzo could have You know could have been a swing A swing voter but ultimately he goes Aubrey Is this though not reminiscent of Boston Rob the second time losing at the end

Like pissing off a juror number one And then losing despite playing strategically. And I know that Rob is Jonathan's mentor, and he does end up getting him to second place in the same way that Rob was, when he comes back for his second time, also getting three votes exactly like Rob does

when he plays for a second time. But I think that that was just different. I don't think that there were a ton of, maybe in the case of D, I don't know if there were so many anti-Johnathan votes. I feel like that there were more pro-Aubrie votes. Oh, that's interesting. As opposed to that I think that Amber gets votes that are just anti-rob votes.

I think that Lex and Tom, like they're anti-Rob votes more so than, with all due respect to Amber. That, I don't know, like maybe other than D, I don't know if there's anybody that was against Jonathan as much as they're pro-auber. Well, through that lens then, Jonathan played better than Boston Rob did the second time. Like, there's no anti-Johnathan vote. Well, but Rob dominated that game in a way that Jonathan did not. That Jonathan, I don't want to take anything away from the game that Jonathan played. But Boston Rob was just that every single thing that happened in the game was Robb's decision with Amber's input. And ultimately, everybody looked at Rob as response.

for what happened to them. Alicia also was an anti-Rob vote in that father. I think that Sheehan is the one vote for Amber. That's the pro-amber vote on the Survivor All-Stars, four to three vote for Amber. But in this case, I think that people voted for Aubrey. This is my last Jonathan question is. This is from Sarah.

What will Jonathan learn? And she says if, but I do believe it's a win. When Jonathan's there the third time, what does he have to do to, what's the prep look like before next time that ensures a win? So, first off, do you think we will get Jonathan 3.0? Unequivocally. I think from this, and this is one of the questions, but from this group, I think you have Rizzo Jonathan, Tiff, Genevieve, Rick Devinz. I think those are the five that I would expect to see. I would love it.

I think Q's going to the castle. Q's my pick for the next run at the castle. Yeah, but I think he will, listen, traders isn't going anywhere. He's got all the time in the world to go to the traders. I think that they should bring Q back. And I do feel like where I've talked about captain seasons coming back in the 50s. I think that they should do that.

I think that Jonathan in a captain season is, is maybe, like, and that is how Boston Rob ultimately won in a captain season. I don't know necessarily that that is the best, the best path for Jonathan to come back and ultimately get a win in a captain season. Because he's just, he's so visible already based off of his stature. And then there's so much focus on him that everybody's going to be looking at him. Like, I think that really a full all-star season, I think is the best return path. for Jonathan.

And I think that he, like, in the beginning of the game, when he was, like, letting, like, where he was content to let coach drive, like, I think that that would be the better path for him. Because I think that when he is seen as the person who is left as the person who is calling the shots to some degree, I think that it's easy for people to look at him as the bully. And then that's unfair to Jonathan, but that's just, I think, how he is, where I think that he has to go so far above and beyond what everybody else does because of his stature that I think that he is, it's so easy to paint him as, oh, you know, he was the bully who was, you know, steamrolling all of us and didn't let us have our say. So I think that he has to really

offload so much of the responsibility but also be seen as the person who, you know, whether it's he wins his challenges or is seen as sort of somebody who was helping there to steer things. And I think that's really, just focus on the social game so much more.

And I think it's easier said than done. But I think that that's where I think he needs to focus. Yeah, you said on the No-Itals episode with Stephen. It's like hang out with Michelle, which is like genuine. It's like you like hanging out with these people who are this magnetic. Well, there's a few different ways to do the social game. And I think that in the case of Michelle, Michelle's just, Michelle's fun. Michelle's having fun. And when you're around Michelle, you're having fun too. And I think that's one way to have the social game. And that may not be Jonathan. But there's other ways to do the social game. And there's,

there's a way to do the social game of you make everybody else there feel seen. And that's, I think, something that I think anybody can do, where you can put your time and interest into making the other players feel like, you know, you really do care about them. And I'm not saying that Jonathan didn't do that, but I think that he could do that more. And he could make that more of a focus. And I do think that Jonathan has a kind heart.

I really, I really do. I think that he is somebody, and he is able to win certain people over in his survivor experience. And so the things that he is doing to win over some of the people, that he needs to figure out a way to do that more. And in the way that he shows such like respect and deference to some of these women who are, you know, the misdemeanor, Miss Stephanie, Miss Chrissy, you know, that they love him.

And I think that he has to find a way to, how does he do that for the women that are younger than him? You know, how does he bring that same level of respect to everybody? And I think that that's probably the thing that I would have him work on the most. Like, he's going to be good at the challenges no matter what. He's going to be a great swimmer, no matter what. You got that already. You don't need to practice that anymore. Miss D, like Miss D, like Misty Giles.

Mm-hmm. I had nothing for that. Jack Perk 91 wants to know. Do you think Survivor 50 will age well over time? I do. I think that from what I've heard anecdotally, from people who've binged the season, they've enjoyed it more in terms of going back and watching it.

So I do think that the people who are sort of just like, blowing through it and aren't necessarily going, like waiting week to week to see what happens. I do think that they're probably going to enjoy it more. What do you think? Yeah, I think so. I think it is in terms of the full all-star seasons. I enjoyed this significantly more than Winners at War, which I know you talked to Stephen about yesterday.

I don't know if life as we were all living it impacted how much we enjoyed Winners of War. I think it certainly did for me, but there is, and again, I'm reheating your nachos, there's a, there's a bad vibe about it. Yeah. It just feels like dark and not as, like, I like fun more than I like dark in this context. Yeah, I mean, it's bleak towards the end. There's, you know, the scenes where that they're just like, they're just like, not talking to Jeremy.

And Jeremy is like hot and Jeremy is feeling like, hey, well, Ben and Denise and like, why are you, why are you freezing me out like this in terms of how, like, the, the game play, I think, and I think that this is one of the things that speaks to in the new era where I think that this is more of a feature than a bug of 26-day game, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, it's fast, as opposed to in the 39-day game, hey, everybody, we're voting out Jeremy, there's nothing he can do, nobody talked to him for three days, and, you know, it gets a little bit more mean-spirited, and that's just not what they want to make the show about. And in that same vein, I think, you know, game changers, given events that happen in game changers, I think that has a dark cloud.

I think All-Stars has a dark cloud for similar, you know, many of the same themes of incidents. So I think this and heroes and villains, I think, are both fun. Like, we'll take it. Look, this is how they're designing the game of that you are not going after people or voting them out because you personally dislike anybody. That is almost a relic of the old era. It almost never happens. Maybe outside of Rome and Survivor 47, that almost, and stop me if there's other people that you could think of, that almost nobody gets voted out on Survivor because this

person is getting on our nerves. Every person that gets voted out, it's like, oh, well, you know, they weren't in my alliance, or they had an advantage, or we thought they had an advantage, or, you know, they, you They were going to play their shot in the dark. It's always that there's a motive that is different than this person is bothering us. And I think that that is a conscious decision the show has made for better or for worse. It doesn't always make for better television, but that it's a less of a focus on a, we have a conflict. And the solution to our conflict is we are voting this person out.

It's this person will win. This person has an advantage. This person, like, I need to score points with the jury. Like, those are the reasons that people get voted out in Survivor's new era. We'll see what happens in the open era. Not for anything. Emily was almost one of those folks as well. Like, Emily was going to, you know, the first round that I go.

If Anna Rose hangs around, then Emily's gone, which, you know, thank God that Anna Rose had to go. Kitty Caracine wants to know, do you think Survivor has juice to make it to season 60? Of course. And how many seasons is right? Yeah. How many seasons is right before the next returnee season? So I definitely feel like that we're going to get to season 60 on Survivor. I mean, barring any sort of like unforeseen disasters that I definitely feel like that they've got five more years in the tank of Survivor.

So I think that if everything stays according to plan, you know, I think my bigger question is like, what does CBS look like in five years? I think that the IP of Survivor, I think, might be in a healthier place than linear television might end up being. And so does it become a paramount exclusive or, you know, is what happens with? Paramount and HBO merging or Paramount and Warner

merging. And so those are sort of like the bigger questions, I think, as far as the health of Survivor goes. But I think Survivor 60, I think I would say, I think I'd say like a Kalshi-esque 91%, I would say, for Survivor 60.

And then in terms of when is the next returnee season, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if we And this is not me with any sort of knowledge. I wouldn't be surprised if we heard about any sort of returnies being in the mix for season 52. And if not 52, I would think by 54. I think that I would be very surprised if we rolled out four new player seasons in the

next two years. I would agree with that. I would say conservatively nothing for 52. I think they're there now. I think they're, you know, and I, not that I'm the authority on this, but I haven't seen anybody's text as green. But I think 53 and 54, almost assuredly so. And I do think if you're going to bring 50, 50 people back, the mechanism to do that is

captains rather than mixing them in with a group of people that are then playing for their second time, which is, I imagine the thing that we're going to get is a second chance. I don't think, I think that feels safe. I think if we're going to bring back folks from 50 Well let me ask you that in terms of second chance Like the way that we did Bring back 12 people from the new era for season

Do we have enough people to do a survivor second chance? Did we sort of shoot our proverbial cast list? Oh no, I don't think there's I think they could do two second chances in a row if they wanted to Give me Give me 18 people like Give me a bunch of people for the second chance season For the new era? You're bringing the old era too.

Second chances. Survivor's second chances too. I'm surprised that you think there's, I think there's 50 people you could slide. Give me the kid. Just give me some. Let's run through. I think you throw in like Andy's almost on season 50. I think you give Andy a spot.

I think if we're going to do it for 53, you save six spots for 51 and 52. Okay. So they're there. Yeah. So we're going to get a lot of people from 51 and 52. We're going to get that. Throw Andy in there. Throw Homer in there.

Go Caleb in there. Throw Kelly in there. Throw Sophie Ballardy in there. Throw Frannie in there. Throw say in there. Throw Thomas in there. Throw who am I forgetting? Who's on, I mean, throw season 41.

Throw Leanna. Sure. I love Leanna. 42. Mike Turner. I would love to see Mike Turner again. Tiffany Seeley, I think, is an interesting bring back. Owen is a clear bring back.

You still have Jesse. You still have character. If you want them, their second chance. Yeah, I think you could do it. You know, I just wanted to the thought experiment. I had like, off the top of my head, I thought maybe we might be, like, have a little bit thin in terms of specifically second chances where we're not bringing back anybody of the people that we brought in for season 50?

Yeah, I think that we clear that pretty easily. And that's just the new era. And then we have, you know, the repository of the 40 seasons pre that. Yeah, I think you still have Davey and a few other folks that still didn't get the second chance. Dot Mabate. Yeah. Don't put Davey through this again. If we're going to, if they call Davey, put Davey on the show.

Don't let Davey get snaked at the 11th hour. Don't snake Davey. Yeah. For the ninth time. Yeah. We have a couple more here that I can run through very quickly. Ethan Marks wants to know how does Rizzo's back-to-back run compared to Amanda's and Russell's? So I think that the best thing for Rizzo was him not winning in the fire.

I think that that really was, you know, so many things went right for Rizzo in terms of all this, where, you know, if Rizzo ends up making the fire, it's twice in a row. Let's say he's the greatest fire maker ever. He wins the fire twice. It could end up being a two-time survivor loser. It's like entirely on the table that he ends up being saved. And I said this about teeny, that it's a better ending to the story

to end up being the fire-making loser than to go to the final three and not win. Because you can always be the aisle I could have won. I would have been the winner. And Rizzo gets to say that twice, as opposed to,

he easily could have been Joe and been the two-time survivor loser. So I think that that ends up working out really well in his favor. In the case of Amanda, in the case of Russell, that they have the like, oh, they can't win.

They're just, they're bad at the final tribal council, that they have, we go through all of the things of them as the, that, that, you know, some people refer to Russell as the Rob God. People wanted to see Amanda again, but, you know, you're not talking about Amanda as, oh my God, she should have, like, she could have been the winner. She could have, you think about, well, Amanda's a really flawed player. And so I think that losing in the finals really highlights the flaws of a person where, being the person who ends up coming up just short is the, ah, what could have been? They almost had it. So I think Amanda won challenges in a way that Rizzo didn't. Russell, he dominated strategically also in a way that Rizzo didn't.

Rizzo didn't dominate the game, certainly in season 15. I think he is one of the most shrewd strategic players that we've seen, certainly in the new era. He really has a great understanding of the game, what the players are doing, how to use the advantages, how to use the idols. So I think that that's really his superpower. But he does have, and it's interesting because he plays basketball,

like he has athletic ability, but he's been a non-factor in almost every single challenge that he's ever participated in. other than the fight for supplies where he ended up cheating off of Alex. And so it's hard. He's like has this superpower, but he is a little bit of like an incomplete player in terms of somebody who we're talking about as somebody who's just a, somebody who dominates the show. I think that his third time, I think the most interesting scenario for a third time for him is, is him as a captain of new people.

I think that's just interesting. There hasn't been a captain in one of these seasons that is like Rizzo, when you can kind of overlap the captains of your are kind of similar archetypes. And I'm excited for when that happens. Yeah. So if I was going to rank the three of them in terms of players, Rizzo, Russell, and Amanda, can I get a Samoa Russell? I don't know you're ordering it for me I don't have Samoa Russell but I think that

it quantifies the two things I think you have to average them yeah I think that like you know Russell Russell he pisses off Laura Morette so badly that I think that I think that Samoa Russell could have won a season he did not win with with that particular group that he so um I and so certainly, uh, Rizzo, I think could, could win a season and Amanda, you would think could, could win a season. I'd have to go back and watch some of those final travel councils, but she was part of a group. I think that Amanda really in, in, uh, her alliance with Todd and Courtney in China, like,

it's probably not unlike Rizzo in Survivor 49, where that is, is she more of the, is Amanda more of the Savannah and Rizzo is the Todd and this is not really a Courtney Yeah, that's an interesting they don't have a Courtney. The Trace Leachase has no Courtney. Sage is more of the Courtney.

Sage is unequivocally the Courtney. Yeah. That's an interesting thought experiment. I think you're talking to me into Rizzo being the best player of those three. I think that he just has an understanding of the game

more so than the other. It's that Russell and Amanda both won a lot of immunities down the stretch, and he does not have that gear. And I feel like that he needs to, you know, especially if he comes back as a three-time player, he needs to find a way to make the fire. He needs to find a way to win the final immunity. I don't think anybody's going to take him to the finals.

So I think that there is a hole in his game. And maybe that he needs to, like, Surrey found an Ozzy of somebody who is going to take him to the end, maybe that's what he needs. But I think that he is not somebody who's ultimately a triple threat in the way that you could talk about a Parvety or a Rob or Russell

or a Malcolm in his prime of somebody who can just do it all. Sure. I see that. It's a very interesting thought experiment. I like the trace, Lechase, and the China final trace. Kim and Jeremy, like these are the people that, you know, in all three aspects of the game, the social, the strategic and the challenges that they, those are players that can really do it all.

Right. And but none of those three are like that. No, no, those three. So it's like, okay, I'm trying to like, of the three, the flaws, trying to rank the, in terms of what it would take to win a season. I think that maybe Rizzo might be the closest of those three. Because at least I've seen the other two in final tribal councils, and I've seen them lose twice in final tribal councils. And I think that Rizzo would be good in a final tribal council.

I don't know if he would win, but I think he would be good in the final trial council. I was trying to connect the dots of, is everybody missing the thing the other two have? But Russell's missing social. Rizzo's missing the physical, quote-un-un-quote. quote. Is Amanda lacking strategy? That is not my perception. I mean, I think so. I think that she really leans on Todd. I mean, she's best when she's

working with Todd. She's best when she's working with Surrey. I think that that is kind of the thing of like sort of like she sort of like knows that JT, it's a bad idea to send Russell the letter, but she doesn't stop him. Yes. That's true. So does Amanda have like a big strategic move that she makes? She plays the idol herself. I got it. You're gonna get voted out today.

Play the idol for yourself. I mean, that's like... I guess, yeah, I mean, okay. Maybe you're, yeah, I guess the strategy. Combine the three of them is one hell of a player. Say that again? Combine the three of them

would be one hell of a player. Maybe we'll see it. They're the captains. Isn't that a fun captain season? Russell and a man, I mean, two out of three is not bad with that. Yeah, I don't think, I don't want, no Russell.

I don't want Russell to see this or come after me. Riz God, I'm coming for you. I'm the Riz God. Russell, do we know what show Russell ended up on? No. He said he was doing a show. Unclear. At this hour, unclear.

Is he doing the bed rot challenge? No, what the fuck was my call for the bed rot challenge? Yeah. Come on. I'm going to podcast the bed rot challenge. Literally right before you got here, Sam said that. And I said, I will do it, but if I can do it from my bet. But you can all see.

It's a good, I got a mattress topper. It's crazy. Wow. This is our last question. Heather Mathis wants to know. Is the middle gameplay the only recipe for success in the new era? The middle has been very successful. It's been really the only person, I think, who sort of played from the top in the new era.

And one is D. And everybody else, I think. So you had Erica, Mary Ann. I would say that they were more in the middle. Gabbler, I mean, ultimately is from the bottom. And then bottom middle. And then Jam Jam. I'm not going to say it.

He sort of like, but him and Carolyn Carson are sort of like, they are playing the middle. And then D obviously is part of the majority alliance. Kenzie is an interesting one. but she kind of gets after Tiffany gets voted out I mean she's like the next to go she's from the bottom but ultimately is part of a group with Liz and Ben and Charlie

and is literally like part of the middle and then you have in the case of Rachel who she has like an interesting ride where she's kind of at the bottom then she's in the middle

then she's in a group of five but then she's like the person that's going to go home she's on the bottom so I don't know if there's one way that people have always played in the new era. I think it's too hard to define. Here's the thing. It's too hard. There's just, there's too much variance in the new era.

And there's very few times that a person, it's almost impossible. And D is the only person really to have done it to have been in, at the top from wire to wire. Like in terms of like the race to get to the end, almost nobody has been in a very solid position the whole way through.

And D, there was one, if Cotora and Jake get their act together, that D would have been taken out as the biggest threat at the final five. Yeah. What I, is exactly what I was going to say is there's so much like the difference and I, we were just talking

about here's those villains and this is like this is great for what this is but there's so much more randomness that is entered now in the new era that this is the random version of that thing I really love a lot which is it just makes it the middle is the safest place to be

because you're not too much of anything that prohibits you from getting targeted in one of the random Mario Party rounds that we now are accustomed to so I do I agree with that I think that's the safest place to be whether everybody's done or not is I think harder to pinpoint

And this is true in Survivor, but I think it's also true in, and I know that I have a huge sports buff in Brandon here, so he knows this. But in terms of where, you know, in all these professional sports leagues where it's like, hey, let's get more teams into the playoffs. Let's make the playoffs shorter that people don't like it when the prohibitive favorite is going to end up winning. That's boring. The person who it looked like was going to win the whole time won, and people will complain that's boring. That's why they make that change? They want excitement. They want it to be, you know, anything could happen.

You got to watch. But that's really the reason. Like, that's what they cite as they don't want, I know the Chiefs win the Super Bowl. Like, they don't want the Chiefs to keep winning. Is the reason why they want to format. Well, I think that ultimately with professional sports leagues is that they want more money.

And, but really, it's, there is, if there were less teams that were in the playoffs, like, you know, the team that played the best during the season is probably going to be the more likely to win. And so the more teams you have into the playoffs, specifically in baseball, it's just whoever's hot at the right time. And you end up with World Series winners, maybe not the Dodgers in the last couple of years, but it's just, you know, whatever team got hot at the right month.

I mean, that's sort of like the way that the new era works. I was trying to make a, can we end on my sports analogy? I was trying to make a sports analogy the other day of Survivor and just professional football to name any sport. or the best, Tom Brady is not Tom Brady because of how he manages players that are less good than he is. Where that's like a big part of Survivor. That's actually, I think, a bad example. I think that Tom Brady actually is very good at raising the floor of the other people that he's with.

But I guess that's the wrong example because he is what people say is the best ever. Like that's the wrong example. Well, I think that happens to be one of the things that Tom Brady is a really great leader. and as much as it pains me to say nice things about Tom Brady that he actually, I think, is known for, you know, that they'll be like a nobody like that gets onto the team and he'll go up and introduce like, hi, hey, my name is Tom, nice to meet you. You know, he doesn't carry himself,

but it also demands excellence from everybody that's around him. Sure. But that's not like a stat line is how good you are comparative to the people that you're playing with that are less good, which I think in like Survivor, people cite that as a, like even just in the online discourse, they are a great player because like Q to Banu, for example. Like Q shows how good of a player he could be because of how he manages Banu, if that makes sense. Maybe I'm losing you with the analogy.

The analogy was half-baked. But I was just, I think it's an interesting thing, a difference between professional sports and what this is. Yeah, I think in sort of like a bigger tribe, maybe that's more of a thing. And I think that Boston Rob, I think that as a leader really showed that in Survivor Redemption Island, where he had his core group and really had them buying into everything that he was saying about. And he had this great track record and this resume coming off of Heroes versus Villains. Hey, if they would have listened to me, then they didn't listen and then look what happened. And so they were like, he had like everybody could see that like, if we just listen to Rob, we're going to dominate the other group.

We're going to do great. And so I think that that leadership style or being the leader, I think is kind of non-existent in the new era where that in the smaller groups, I think you don't really want to be seen as that person. And I think that Q was unafraid. I think one of the reason why Q was great, I think he was unafraid to sort of take on that role in being seen as the leader of his group. That's interesting.

A horrible survivor season idea. A la Boston Rob training Jonathan, as we tell the cast three months before that they're on Survivor 53. But you pair them all with a Survivor legend for the three months, where they get trained. In whatever way, training makes sense for the person that they are paired with.

Like, you have Sandra's person, you have Parvey's person. Granted, the pre-gaming would be rampant among the legends. But it's interesting to see who's play style. And this is the season where nobody's seen the show before. Yeah. This is the season where we get all the new people.

Yeah, it's sort of like the voice. I like this. I mean, I kind of feel like that this is what the island of the idols should have been. Like maybe you get like four players and they come back and it's a 16 person cast. And so that they all have, I mean, this is basically like Big Brother 14, right? And they have their players and they're sort of like the coach. And they don't come into the game. Like it's like a like a person that they're trying to coach up their team.

Maybe they have like a time when they come and see what's going on with the tribe. It's good. Yeah. It's really good. Maybe it's three tribes. Yeah. We didn't. I thought when season 50 is announced, the one thing I would have bet money on is we have

players that are not participating in season 50. Your legends, they're on location. doing something. The Zach Brown reward, but for that. And I can't believe we didn't do that. It seems crazy to none of done that. Yeah, it seems like that was a missed opportunity to do that. I think there was also a missed opportunity in terms of like the challenges were just very

vanilla generic challenges from the new era. We didn't do anything really special for the challenges. But I think in terms of the celebrities, I think that they were, they were when they drew it up, how are we like expanding the footprint of Survivor? How are we getting the famous people to tell other people to watch? Survivor. I mean, did ultimately a lot of people were talking about Survivor? I mean, did it work?

I mean, was there more hubbub about the season because of that Billy Elish and Mr. B. I mean, I know the fans didn't love it, but would you say, was it a success in, like, did that help the media frenzy around the show?

Yeah, it's like, is all press truly good press? Is like, do you want people talking about how they disliked it? Was that? I would say not. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, I mean, your mileage may vary. I did not find the celebrity involvement to be as offensive as other people did. I thought it was net neutral. I think some of the things they brought with them are worse, but they didn't think. Like, it's not Jimmy Fallon's. Yeah, I think ultimately it did not really get too many other eyeballs on the show, but hard to say. I mean, it was the most watch season in years. So they did do something right, but I think that probably it without the celebrities, I think that just as many people watch the show. Maybe five less people watch. I think we create a lot of fun moments that Survivor fans will remember if we do this similar thing, but we invite the legends of yours.

You've all seen the clip of Rupert on Survivor Israel. Who hasn't? Who hasn't? Who hasn't? I've made the same joke that I'm not going to make right now. High school was a lonely time for your boy. I've seen a lot of it. And I think doing more of that, I think, is an interesting.

interesting thing. Let's do that in the 50s. All right. So we'll take a look at what's going to go on in the open era and maybe have some more speculation about what the open era could be about. I'll take a look at the trailer. I'm also going to go back and do a All-Obrie rewatch and share my findings with you here on the podcast. We announced today Love Island is coming in a big way to RHAP as Kirsten McKinness is going to be bringing you Love Island Daily, your daily one-stop recap from every day of Love Island. So if you miss an episode, Kirsten's going to have the short-ish Cliff Notes recap. Is Cliff Notes super dated? Do young people know what Cliff Notes are?

I know what Cliff Notes is, but I think by your children, Cliff Notes is out. The TikTokification of recap. Yeah, nobody's doing Clifference is. six-day version of the recap, just the quick update on what happened every day on Love Island. Plus, I don't think I've announced this yet. I, too, will watch Love Island and do a check-in every week of Love Island coming this summer. And then also, we have announced that Chappelle and I, or this, I guess this is probably the proper announcement because I only announced it on the slop the other day on Patreon

that Chappelle and I are going to do a rewatch of a Survivor season here in June. and so that is going to be one of the seasons that Aubrey Brocko was on. What season of Survivor should we rewatch? Do you want to see Co-Rong Game Changers or The Edge of Extinction? You can vote. It's in the hands of the fans. Go to Rob has a website.com slash Aubrey rewatch for that. We got a wand off coming up on Friday.

And did you know, hey, it's a Survivor offseason. If you want more Survivor. You know I wrote a book. Rob has a book.com. check out The Tribe and I have spoken in hardcover and in audiobook where you could hear all of my survivor impressions. Yeah, you need that. It enhances, it enhances the whole thing. It's enhanced.

All right. He's going to be a captain. Season 54. Who's on the captain now? Don't put me with Phil. He loves that movie. Yeah. He knows Captain Philip, kind of.

Yep. All right. Different one. Thank you so much, everybody. We are going to have so much more for you. So I hope you enjoyed the Survivor 50 Mailbag. Thank you so much, Brandon, and we'll talk to you soon. Take care of a good one. Hi. I'm always looking for those tips and tricks to help optimize my life. Ways to save money, travel better, and make life a little easier. That's why I love all the hacks. The podcast hosted by Chris Hutchins, that's all about practical tips you can actually use. Every episode breaks down

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