RHAP: We Know Survivor - Survivor 50 Wish List | Season 43 with Chappell

Episode Date: August 5, 2024

Today, Mike and Chappell (@Chappells_Show) discuss Season  43.

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Companion, only in theaters january 31st hi everybody and welcome back to the survivor 50 Wishlist podcast, an offseason series where we're trying to figure out who could and should come back for the upcoming returning season of Survivor 50. Today, we're talking about beads, baby, you sussy bakas. It's time to take a deep dive and wrap our podcast tentacles around the season that featured an octopus at the center of it survivor 43 i'm excited to get into this one this is a very unique cast that again might get passed over when people typically talk about the new era but like all new era casts there are definitely some interesting people contained within and certainly some people that i think well for the sake of our list and maybe productions list in general could be in contention

for a second season of course i am not alone today i am joined by someone that i would call a lovable curmudgeon but i'll just stop at lovable it is chapelle hey no no you can call me whatever you want as long as you're calling me to talk about survivor 43 uh then i'll be here because uh this was my first choice when uh given the options of what to talk about which season you wanted to talk about which returnees i said 43 and i get the feeling there wasn't a lot of pushback i don't think a lot of people wanted this one with no offense to survivor 43 because we're about to get into again what i think is a very very solid cast her survivor 43 chappelle yeah that's the one that is the one uh because i remember like first first of all it's so recent right so i can really put myself in where i was

mentally watching this season uh and then uh obviously kind of the experience of the journey all the way to the alligator of it all and then the backlash afterwards it was a very uh contentious uh i was off season you know right after the show was over uh but as far as the cast goes i i felt like there were so many gamers on this cast that i could talk about they probably won't get their due because it's not the most well-received season and so if anybody's gonna give them those flowers it's me so that's what i'm coming here to do yeah so to that point look i think that everyone is entitled to their own opinion especially when it comes to things like ranking new era seasons but i think if you were to take a general census people would probably put 43 near

or at the bottom whether it was you know a little bit of an uninspiring pre-merge that we did see some power players rise, whether it was kind of this post-merge that was a little frantic, but just kind of had this overall narrative of Cody and Jesse basically controlling every vote, whether it's, you know, some characters were easy to glom on

to maybe not other ones, or maybe it was, to your point, one of the most surprising wins we have certainly had in recent memory and in quite some time that to your point pretty much lit the internet ablaze in the fall of 2022 43 though as we like to say here contains a lot within and for my money i think that penultimate episode of jesse betraying cody is not only up there with like one of the most brutal moves in survivor history it is a top tier episode of television and it probably boosts jesse onto a lot of people's uh you know short list for this

assignment that we're doing right now having to select who's coming back uh jesse made a very big name for himself in such a little time with that one appearance on 43. But I mean, the things he was able to do throughout the season made him very fun to watch. And then I think a lot of people were not happy when he didn't win. And so that might also leave a sour taste in people's mouths.

But as far as I'm concerned, once you get to the merge, you got some really interesting people playing very aggressively. And I like it. I like that there was was like it didn't feel like there was any straightforward votes where it was just like the majority is going to pick off people one by one. There was always something they were always protecting for knowledge is power, which we don't really see anymore in recent. I believe that's the last time we saw knowledge is power. I went out with James Jones. Yeah. And it was very it made the show very interesting.

It made a lot of the gameplay a little bit more fluid. There was advantages and idols being hot potatoed around so that people couldn't figure out who had the Knowledge is Power. There was a lot going on, and they were all playing to win. And so, yeah, as far as I was concerned, as far as cast people go, their show in their episodes, the season, didn't go as they wanted it to go for the most part. But everybody was doing their best and was playing hard.

And that makes them very fun to talk about as a cast. Absolutely. So, look, we're going to do as we always do, putting up to five people on our shortlist. But taking a step back, Chappelle, and talking about the meta, on our short list, but taking a step back, Chappelle, and talking about the meta, obviously it's always going to be tough to even pull people from the new era to fit a limited number of spots for however many new era people are going

to be occupying 50. Do you think to that point of the reception behind 43, it will be a season that production might largely disregard? Or do you think this might be like a, not to compare it to survivor one world, but sort of like what one world was at the time where it's like hey listen you may not love this season but there are cast members that we're gonna pull on to returning seasons yeah one world's a great example redemption island's another example where you think okay no one's coming from this but you get philip you get andrea you get you know the people from one

world obviously but there's a lot of returning seasons where uh or seasons that uh we bring back these i think even um uh which which one is it mike holloway season you know yeah we brought back uh like three or four people from worlds apart and they have people on the ballot for ones worlds apart too it looks nobody likes that season nobody does but at the same time you know the season doesn't is not necessarily indicative of the cast and the gameplay and the star power that they have. It's just the season that they ended up on, you know, the edit that they ended up getting, the story that production chose to tell. So I think for this cast, I think the further you move away from it, the more you'll be able to appreciate what each individual person was doing, as opposed to kind of grading them as a whole part of a season. I think individually they all

stand out in different ways. Well as we move further away from that time we were in back at the end of 2022 let's move towards our cast here and we'll start as we always do with our final three and what an interesting final three here Chappelle. We have

of course our second runner up and zero vote finalist of this season. One of the Mount Rushmore of Charlie Brown contestants in our boy Owen Knight. We have Cassidy. I believe she was the fox, right? That was her animal as she ended up rising to a little bit of power towards the end. Of course, wins final four. Immunity chooses not to send herself in, a decision that some jurors will not take lightly,

and as a result, loses a bit controversially to our eventual winner as we move from the Fox to the Alligabler. One of the most surprising victories in Survivor history. A guy that went from a pretty disastrous premiere where he actually steps forward at a certain point with an idol in his pocket and says hey you could i'm gonna play my shot in the dark uh just in case you all vote for me he's able to eventually find his way into a good social footing to the point that he is one of the people that is uh largely sort of like sitting shotgun during a lot of these big blindsides towards the end.

He holds, albeit for a short amount of time, the fastest fire making win record in terms of time. But when he gets to the end, it is this sort of enigmatic combo of the the persona he had built up to that point with his his bonds with the jurors, as well as the way that he expressed his game, which uh again about this ability to i had my move i pushed the le boot and then i slid back into the shadows and waited for you all to take each other out so when the time is right i struck i took out jesse the odds on favor to win and by the way i'm gonna donate all my money to charity uh in a an outcome that was incredibly surprising to the other two finalists. The surprises kept on coming when Gabler reveals that in the after show. So I think it's only proper, Chappelle, that we start with this guy.

Gabler, of course, also the second oldest person to ever win the game. Should Gabler come back, he would be 53 years old but do you think Gabler should come back that's a good question uh I think as far as I'm concerned gameplay wise I think that his game is underrated I think that uh you know like he wants you to yeah well I mean you know he says by design right I'm the alligator I up. I did my attack on Ellie and then I hid the rest of the way. And what he doesn't really talk about, and I think he does more in the final tribal council, but I think the subtext there is when he started to hide, he started to make really good relationships with everybody.

Nobody wanted Gabler out maybe because they didn't think he was too much of a threat, but they also knew that they could all work with him. You know, I think some people will say at the final tribal council, like, no, I always knew that Gabler was loyal to my group, even though he was loyal to all the groups he was in. You know, it's just that he was going wherever the power was going in a subtle way that didn't make him, you know, anybody's enemy. And so he played a great game.

He ends up winning seven to one. You know, this isn't like, so I'm like, oh, the jury was torn. We saw both sides. It was like either they hated Cassidy and Owen which we know they didn't hate them or you know there was something there that allowed them all to say okay Gabler brought something to the table that I'm willing to root for

to vote for and maybe him giving all the money away to a good cause is something that they could all support he does end up making that donation as well so true to his word but as far as I'm concerned I don't need to see the Gabler game again I think that he's won I think the story is there he was able to donate

all that money if he were to come back and say maybe oh well I'll play again but under the premise of I'm doing it for me you know I'm selfish now you know how do you do that like how does Mike Gabler who says I'm going to donate a million dollars to various

charities do a full heel turn and come back at a second season be like this time it's all going right into my pocket it's for the gabler dollars yeah no i think that that's i think that that is actually fair i think if you give a million dollars to charity treat yourself king you know if he wants to come back and win again and keep it i'd'd say that exact thing. One for you, one for me. Right, exactly. You want to make you I gave away a million dollars. What have y'all given away? You know, I think at that point, you know, we might be rooting for Gabler to win a second time.

Let him get something for himself. But I don't think I need the Gabler story told anymore, especially if his gameplay is going to be similar. Like one thing his gameplay did was it left a lot to be desired as far as showmanship. You know, I think that the show didn't give us an edit that really let you appreciate some of his more subtle moves. We all got the whole Ellie move. He was talking about the final tribal council. We heard about it. We heard

about it since the moment they looked in his bag. He was coming for her. But after he did that, it wasn't a lot like the else that he could hang his hat on as far as big moves go. So, you know, if he's going to be playing a subtle game, I don't necessarily need it. I want a little bit more flashy gameplay from my Survivor 50.

Yeah, I mean, it'd be interesting if he came back in and kind of played, to your point, more of the pre-merge Gabler game, which wasn't, I would say, flashy and more messy. This was the man that was throwing whole-ass palm fronds onto people as blankets, just waking them up in the middle of the night. And again,

that's what made his win so surprising is that he got so much of like the Dodo. We have to count them out at it in the first half of the game that a lot of us did. And probably the jury did as well at a certain point until it all ended up coming back around and people say, okay, I guess we're voting for Gabler to win a million dollars.

I do agree that if it is just going to be the same game again, it would have to be shown honestly in a better light, just because, again, I think something that did leave this victory, leaving us feeling wanting was the fact that we got a couple of things of hiding in plain sight. But listen, I don't think we necessarily need to be force fed a narrative, but even just like a little tablespoon of it would be fantastic to have every couple of episodes or so i i do i could see gabler get get brought back

i mean gabler is certainly a unique winner again second oldest winner and also the oldest person who has won in quite some time somebody who oftentimes I think still is kind of referenced both on the show, how his name was mentioned, and the meme of him doing all those shout-outs like he's in the Big Brother diary room on eviction night ended up getting mentioned in 46. I also think that, as talked about in the Triple H podcast with Ben Dreebergen probably not returning to the show, I think Gabler kind of covers a very similar type of demographic

as well that a person like ben had ordinarily occupied but i i wonder like if you're gabler i'm sure he would want to come back but realistically speaking is there any chance he gets far because it's it's like the double-edged sword or even sort of like the two-pronged approach of either people will say okay your claim that you're gonna play selfishly is bullshit we're not gonna gonna let you get to the end because now we know what you could do with the money and b your game is for us to underestimate you ergo we cannot underestimate you we have to get rid of you right away if it's effective then they will underestimate him and he will they will not get rid of him they will look at his first game and they will hear what the people

online were saying how everybody was outraged how did Gabler win this is the most surprising victory ever these people are going to come in and say he won but did he win you know it wasn't it was the jury bitter you know I think we could let them stick around for a little bit longer and I think that might be their downfall but uh i think that uh as far as giving us something new i don't know if that's there i don't know if we're gonna get anything from gabler that i didn't get the first time he won the money he had a great showing he didn't get one vote against him uh until the final tribal council you know um that's it that's it so i mean what else could he want to do does he want to come back and be a challenge beast does he want to just come back and prove it to himself that he does deserve that title?

I think winning seven to one, I really think there's anything anybody can convince me that I don't deserve the title at that point. But if he wants to come back, I'm sure we'd have him back. It's just for me, I don't necessarily need to see it. Yeah, that's a good point about how we know we talk about people like Natalie and like Natalie and Michelle and Sophie on Winners at War being like, I want to play on this season to also remind the audience that I deserved my win. I don't think Gabler is necessarily the type of person to do that. Hell, maybe he does want to do that to prove it to the haters and surprise me in that regard. But I do think that there might be more mileage in talking about the returning

possibilities of our other two members of the final three let's start with cassidy here because i think until charlie showed around uh with his lovely coif hair i think a lot of people were saying that cassidy was one of the most robbed second place finishers in quite some time on survivor chapelle is that enough of a narrative for you to buoy her onto the ballot? I think the narrative is fair. Like as far as like if we're using that to kind of push her story into the next season, why does she come back? It's because she was robbed and she needs to reclaim what is hers.

I think watching her gameplay, I actually don't feel like she was robbed. I feel like maybe they're there. You know maybe the jury perceived her game a little bit differently. We see that a lot of the jury was like, why didn't you put yourself into fire? It's like, because she didn't feel like she needed to. Well, if she felt like she needed to, then she would have known that she was not the front runner. They're saying you should have done that to help you win. What she was saying is, I didn't think I needed to. And I think that there's a disconnect there. You know, if you need to put yourself in fire, that means you're missing something.

They're looking for one other thing to put, you know, to put your name on so they can vote for you. And she didn't really quite get to that point where she was able to secure those votes, but she won a bunch of immunities. I think she won at least two. She won a final immunity for sure. She won, I think she won three. Yeah, she won three. Yeah, she won i think she won three yeah she won three yeah she was

three immunities she was always in the majority always on the right side of the vote throughout the game uh and so you know there's a lot of positives to say about cassidy but uh you know unless there's something that she really feels like she could have done differently you know like the spencer uh narrative where he's saying the first time I played, I didn't really make any social connections. So now I'm going to let my robot wall down and I'm going to start letting people in. I can make genuine bonds with

people. Cassidy didn't seem to have an issue making bonds with people. She was working well with people in the game. There wasn't a lot of people saying negative things about Cassidy. So I don't really know if it was just that something is missing for her game or if she just got beat. And so I don't know. Maybe people would love to see Cassidy come back I know she has a huge fan base and she was on uh season of the challenge as well yeah so let's talk about that because I do feel like and maybe it was sort of like shoehorned into that narrative but it felt

like a lot of her story on the challenge USA season two was related to that i mean she brings up that meta of like i lost when you know i and i that put me into a really odd place and that i felt that i deserved to win so this is kind of like my second chance to prove that i can have it and she does put up a very formidable showing she wins a good number of eliminations before she's taken out shortly before the final there and so i do wonder again, this would not be the case for everybody because not everyone is as reality obsessed as you and I to have watched both of those shows. But for me, I'm like, I wonder if that narrative was already then satisfied on another show, right?

It's almost for a reason why I wouldn't necessarily put Chris Underwood back on because we kind of already saw that demon get chased off his back. He proved that he is a worthy winner in so many ways. So from my perspective, I could see like, OK, maybe I don't necessarily need to see that quote unquote redemption side of things or a second chance for Cassidy. But I cannot obscure the fact that to your point, there are a lot of people that are still fairly fired up about the outcome. I do think her return would be pretty welcome to the show,

even if, to your point, is there really anything she can change up outside of like, maybe she ends up becoming a bit more of a bold player. Maybe she is somebody that is going to be much more aggressively making big moves rather than from what we saw even in the post-merge, a bit more reactionary. You know, like when she finds out that Carla is targeting her, she adjusts. See, and I would love to see Cassidy maybe hang out in the challenge area. You know, I like that she's a great individual competitor.

Like you talked about, she won some challenges in the Challenge USA. She won some individual immunities in this season. And I think that once you establish yourself as a competition beast or a challenge beast on the show, the challenge, I think that that starts to build, you know, your your your resume up to the point where people are afraid of you or people want to work with you more. You know, she came in essentially like, oh, this is Cassidy from Survivor. Let's see if we can work with her. People didn't want to. They wanted to get her out. She seemed like a layup, an easy target. And she was just beating them left and right. She got back to play. People are not going to be as eager to throw themselves in a one on one against Cassidy. They're not going to be so willing to get voted in against Cassidy either. So I think that although she might not have much more to bring to Survivor, she definitely could have a place on the challenge if that's where people would rather see her.

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Well, let's talk about a fellow challenge beast, if you will. Doesn't exactly reach the heights of Cassie, but wins are respectable to individual immunities and certainly reaches the water level in challenges, considering that he is one of the people to break last gasp let's talk about owen here our aforementioned lovable curmudgeon of course we love owen a previous guest of course on the wishlist podcast and someone that frustratingly so to his many points uh seemed to just never really get in to the main vein of the game especially when this post-merge to your point was a little all over the place but was chiefly run by jesse cody with a little bit of gabler on the side as as kind of a central group and other

people kind of joining at certain points owen was somebody who started the merge you know losing two of what he thought were his closest allies in ellie and janine left out of a good amount of votes he does have a nice triumphant move uh at the james vote where him and noel are able to pull off this fun move where she uses the vote steal on him to make it look like he's going so james doesn't play his knowledge is power and so as a result James then gets voted out with it in his pocket but it unfortunately didn't create a lot of momentum for Owen from then on out and sadly he is shut out by the jury I love Owen I think Owen is a very fun character and obviously should get a shot at a season where he gets a chance to maybe be tapped in a bit more

to the main group and be a bit more of a mover and a shaker. But Chappelle, this is where the new era gets hard because you look at sort of the storyline of Owen and I'll be cards up here. Are Owen and Jake occupying the same slot here? That's a good point. I mean, we,

you, everybody was making the charlie brown uh comparison to owen and then when jake popped up it was immediately shoved like like just shifted to jake uh i think that um i think that jake season might have a little bit more representation once once all the votes come out and so that might leave jake on an island by himself and not the one that i'm talking about i think that that Owen might actually be the one who, since 43 is not so well received, he might have that spot. If you want 43 representation, I think that Owen would be a great spot to start at. He was very authentic

on the show. We saw all of his woes. The same thing with Jake, where we heard the story about, man, I just keep missing the mark. I keep trying to make moves happen and they're not happening. You know, I'm trying to kick the football. He's getting snatched away. But we saw him win a couple of key challenge wins. But we also saw a very emotional player, too. You know, whenever things were bothering him, we saw the Owen blow ups.

We saw the fights. He wasn't a boring player by any means. And so I think that, you know, I think that there are a couple people who might be fighting for that position of the Charlie Brown of the season. But I think that Owen has a good claim for it, especially going so far.

I just do. I do think that you're right, though. I mean, if you want to have a toss up between Jake and Owen, I think that's a good debate to have.

Yeah, because I mean, I think, you know, Chappelle, I've actually had a little bit of a shower thought recently about maybe are there two types of returnees in Survivor where there are plot returnees and character returnees?

Where are there people that are brought back for what happened in their first season and maybe what they need to redeem themselves upon or something that they are going to try to repeat on a future season? Or do we bring them back because they're a fun person to have on the show? And sometimes in the rare category, there's both. There's like bringing back three umpteenth times, unfortunately, because the plot always exists there and that she always finds a way to somehow get out of the game. But there's also character in there and that she's a fantastic confessionalist. Someone like Cassidy, for instance, again, certainly has her fun moments in terms of confessional and personality. But I do think it's a bit more of like a plot returnee of, OK, she ends up getting, quote unquote, robbed by this jury vote.

Let's give her another chance. Oh, and I would say maybe a bit more of a character returnee. To your point, I think both him and Jake, again, have this interesting opportunity where honestly, Tim and Jake, again, have this interesting opportunity where honestly, maybe the most emotionality we got out of this season was either Owen with his continual anger about his situation or Jesse as he really weighed back and forth about the morals of the game versus having to do

what he needs to do for his family. And so Owen is someone who also, you know, is incredibly self-deprecating. And see the one that says in the first couple episodes about how his pee looks like boy on cubes because he's so dehydrated as he's like carrying the big pot of water back so i think he'd be a very fun person to bring back so i would definitely consider him for the short list here i just wonder in the grander scheme of things is there only one charlie brown allotted for a survivor 50 yeah and i think that that'll

probably i mean i hate to say it but yeah now that you pointed out i think that that'll probably be the question everybody's asking right it's like do we need jake and owen uh i think that uh owen's uh flaws in the game are a little less in self-inflicted you know i think that owen is actively being left out of votes whereas jake is maybe flubbing some of them, you know, making some moves that are ill-advised. And so although that might make Owen a slightly better player in different ways, but not necessarily better TV. You know, maybe people want to see, you know, some of the wackier moments that come along with some of the votes that Jake's assigned to, you know, assigned to as opposed to Owen, who can be a little bit more measured in the game. So it's very funny to put them up against each other, but I think it'd be crazy to leave him off the ballot,

at least coming from this season. All right, well, let's move into our jury here. And the cast of characters continues working our way up. I mean, talk about somebody who unfortunately had so many tough things not go their way in this season. Janine, the person who goes out with her whole idol freaking getting stolen out from under her nose without realizing it we have the godfather himself james jones we have a meat shield turned newfound paralympian in ryan madrano we had a paralympian yeah going in and coming out in the form of Noel Lambert,

our first amputee since Kelly Bruno. We had our resident teenager of the season in pet cremator Sammy Leotti. We've got one of the first contestants that was residing in Hawaii at the time of filming in the form of Cody. We have our fifth place finisher here and one of the biggest strategic horses, certainly in the pre- Cody, we have our fifth place finisher here.

And one of the biggest strategic forces, certainly in the pre-merge in Carla. And of course we need to start with who, in my opinion, I think would be the number one lock to bring back from this season. Jesse Lopez. Give me your thoughts, Chappelle. Jesse cool.

He cool or whatever. I don't know. I don't know i don't know i'm looking at it i'm like do we have many jesse types i think so i think we might have to he might be fighting for his final dollar no i'm joking just i think jesse he will get rid of you those are fighting words listen i'm not crazy enough to fake marry him on the island dwight you know uh so i don't trust this man i've seen his work now you know. But I think that if anybody like if you told everybody beforehand, there is a Survivor 50. I think they would have all tried to play like Jesse. Survivor 50 is coming and it's an all star season and you need to get on. How do you stand out? And I think that there were a lot of things that went his way.

He was handed an idol that he just happened to get in his hands right before he voted someone out, you know. And then but I think that there are moments where Jesse stood apart because he was able to keep those secrets. You know, he was able to really form these separate plots as a part of the major alliance, but also within that alliance to pick off some of his bigger threats, including his number one allies, whenever that came up. And so I don't know. I think Omer played a really amazing great game in 42.

I think Mary Ann played an amazing 42 and then Jesse showed up and everybody's like, well, damn, you know, what are we going to do here? So I think if if he wants to come back, I don't think there's any world where Jesse doesn't get voted back on into the Survivor 50. Not from RHAP, at least because he's getting it. Yeah, absolutely. And also, again, I was really hooked by his personal story as well, you know, that this was a guy that kind of came from the wrong side of the track and was able to find his way in this world. It's not too dissimilar from the situation he found himself in on the island where he found himself at the center of basically every vote every time that he was voting and he was the one making decisions but he had to make these really surgically precise cuts that sometimes came at the cost of getting rid of a NECA who was close to him getting rid of a Dwight who was close to him getting rid of a Noel who was close to him and most prominently getting rid of a Cody who was close to him I said this before and I will

say it again and I say it lovingly i know he doesn't like this adjective but jesse is to me the most vicious player in survivor history again this is a guy who got janine's idol from dwight voted out dwight did not tell janine and held on to the idol so that he was guaranteed to play it at the final five to make sure he made it to the final four this is a guy who again had his closest allies idol in his hands and decided to use it on owen and then vote out his closest ally it's absolutely wild what this guy was pulling off and the fact that things kept coming back to him time and time again, I think spoke to the, the reputation he had built up for himself as well.

And of course, again, the partnership that he was maintaining with Cody. And again, we talk about narrative. God, there is so much that is there, right?

Again, between him weighing his morals as to like, I don't really want to do this i'd like these people but i have to if i need to bring home this money for my family that will obviously continue into a second season whether it's i got so close i was the one to win it all and i lost out due to fire making that is appeal whether it's like okay i learned last time that one big mistake can screw you over even though again i think it was less so a mistake and more so just like he had two forks in the road

of go to the end with cody or don't go to the end with cody and he chose the latter i i think there's a lot of appeal there as well to me jesse checks all the boxes of what you want in a new era returnee i think the one exception is like i don't know if he's the most outlandish personality, but he's still captivating me this season. The show even gave him some good character moments as far as personality goes. I remember when he was talking about the heist, you

know, and he needed Gabler to be his fall guy and he needed, you know, it was a, well, Gabler was his plan B, his backup plan. I think Sammy was the fall guy you know he had it all laid out and they kind of went through it like Ocean's Eleven style and let us know what Jesse was thinking so they were able

to be creative with Jesse's gameplay because it was it was subtle but it was also in a very weird way it was very complex and so when you start telling the story you're like oh wow I hope that works out and then a lot of times it just did you know that you talk about him using Cody cody's idol on owen and then uh that was to make carla use her idol and then vote out cody his number it's it it was a huge move and he did it at

the right time he did it with just enough time to where oh he only has to make it through one or two more votes you know in order to in order to lock this thing up. And it just, it was a very respectable and fun game to watch. I would worry if I was him about coming back on to a second season, because not to jinx it, but if you watch 43 and

think, oh yeah, I'll let Jesse get to around final seven, final eight, and he'll be like, and then we'll get rid of him, you're probably crazy. You probably should rethink that, because I think the target on him would be massive. I mean, the good news is he can say, look, I didn't win any challenges. I didn't win fire making. Like if you let me near the end game,

you could take me out right there. And that would be their mistake. But, and also maybe the hope would be that he'd probably be surrounded by other people who also has the reputation precede them. And maybe, again, his personality is able to have him slip under the radar also should mention from a production perspective especially i mean jeff probes at the time called jesse's blind side of cody a hall of fame move i don't know how that doesn't guarantee your returnee spot yeah he's gonna get the call

the the the move with cody was it was so cutthroat because he was sitting right next to c Cody you know this wasn't uh I'm sitting around like I'm looking trying to figure out who did this he looks directly like he had to make the move in front of him and I think that's a lot of a lot of times we don't see those betrayals happen so outright in front of people I think we see it in the voting booth you know you do a vote and then I have to figure out wait who flipped you know but him taking that idol and Cody watching his idol get played. He's like, hey, that's mine. Well, as Jesse plays it to save the person that Cody voted for. It is very cutthroat. And I don't think I can I can't think of a nastier move, you know, just a move that was just so grimy, but also so effective. And he did it to somebody who I think could respect the move. I think Cody, the way he received it, it was very like he's definitely sent him off with some FU Jesses, you know, in his in his exit confessional.

Yeah, he got the double bird. He did. And Jesse earned both of those birds, you know, and probably a couple more. But I think Cody was one of the people who could probably look at Jesse and say that was a game move and I'll get over it. If Jesse had made it to the end, I have a hard time believing that he couldn't have gotten the majority of the votes and won. All right, well, let's move one step to his right and talk about the person that went out right before him, in Carla. Carla is so interesting, Chappelle.

Yeah. Really like a tale of two seasons for Carla, where she is like the person on Coco in the pre-merge. The idols this season were through the bead collection where you had to coerce your tribe members to give over these random beads that they were each allotted. And like, this was tailor-made for Carla. She was such a social force on that pre-merge tribe.

She was always in the know. Everyone was gravitating towards her. Her, Cassidy, andames pretty much controlled that tribe throughout the couple votes that they went to when it gets to the merge maybe it's a little shakier right uh she ends up kind of begrudgingly going forward with getting rid of james during the whole split vote thing then she eventually ends up turning on cassidy towards the end something that does end up having you know everyone basically turn on her at final five as she is one of these some you've heard this before new era odds on threats who gets taken out

at the final five and poor carla by the end like despite the fact that she's won a couple of immunity challenges like she is just a mess physically she's got bandaged legs bandaged hands and so she sent a little hobbling out of the game and you know it was not i think carla would say this herself the most positive way for her to leave the game of course one of her infamous final conversations with cassie where she basically says like listen if you get rid of me there's a chance that the jury might not vote in your favor and certainly you know she has her reasons for why she ultimately voted for Gabler. But I do feel for one reason or another,

some of her game is kind of broad brushed with the label of what those last couple episodes were. To your point, being forced to waste her idol due to being spooked by what Jessie did and then getting voted out and having her jury vote, which I think maybe unfairly encompasses what was a solid game up to that point uh yeah so her her number one alliance is almost completely here you know it's

her uh cassidy and james uh with the exception of lindsey who they vote out pre-merge that's those are all the people that she was working with oh and jesse obviously um so she has she had a solid alliance going in uh and she's in a power position. Remember, we just talked about how Jesse makes it to the end, he probably wins, and they still went after Carla before Jesse. She was the number one threat on the board. Strategically, they knew she

was well insulated when she had her big alliance. The Coco alliance was who everybody wanted to beat. But, you know, her and Jesse worked pretty well together. Her and James worked pretty well together. Her and James worked pretty well together. Her and Cassidy worked in lockstep together a lot of times. But they weren't looking at Cassidy as the number one threat. It was always Carla.

And so it was either some of the way about the relationship she had or the way she was carrying herself in the game that let these people know that she was not one to be reckoned with. She had, like you said, a ton of injuries and was still fighting through the injuries. In fact, when she was injured, she might've done her best work. I think I remember her like hand bloody and like, it's about to look like her hand was about to fall off and she's doing the

puzzle and wins the puzzle. You know, she's, she's on one knee at one point, you know, I think she has a walking stick by the end of it that Cody made for as they vote out Cody, you know? And so there's, there's a lot to say about Carla's game but it was also very flashy um strategic and I think that if I have to pick another person who you could pretty much lock them in I think that you don't get a lot of Carla like players I think that she was new um this is a fresh new archetype that people could explore if they can find another Carla but it'd probably

be difficult to do that so I think that you got to bring Carla back just for the simple fact of we were blessed to have her on our screens while we did. She didn't win, but she put up a damn good showing. Yeah. And not to mention, I think to your point, she's incredibly unique as a character. I mean, she quotes one of the episode titles. What about the big girls during the first immunity challenge that she wins? And I think she was someone that came in basically saying, I am in the middle of so many different Venn diagrams in terms of my background, my ethnicity, my sexuality, etc. There's nobody else like me. And I think using that, she was able to really captivate a lot of people from multiple backgrounds. And I think, again, there is this aspect to my game absolutely petered out out flamed out towards the end now i'm coming back looking

to maintain an entire momentum over 26 30 39 days she's also a very fun confessionalist as well especially when she is like marinating in her successes as well so i i do think and it's interesting again because i would imagine to be honest given the reception behind gabler's win i think if you ask certain subsections of the internet they would be like we never want to see Carla again but I really do think there's a good amount of appeal to seeing her back again yeah and I think if they leave out that uh that confessional or that uh I'm sorry that conversation between Cassidy and Carla where Carla says you know if I go out people might not people might think that you were riding James in my coattails

and you don't have any real moves. And what it would be awful if I made it to the if you made it to the end and no one gave you any credit. And then when Cassidy makes it to the end and nobody gives him any credit, you look at that conversation Carla had and say, oh, well, is Carla part of the problem? Does she poison the jury? You know, we'll see a little bit of that in Survivor 46 with a couple of other players, Maria and Charlie and how to kind of how that went down. And so because of that, I do think people had a sour taste in their mouths from Carla, but I think that that's a small change. That's a small change in the edit.

That really did color the way people were looking at her in the season. Cause prior to that, she was ferocious in the game. And I think that people were dishonest if they don't think she was and that she didn't deserve a time to play again let me talk about maybe a bit more of a wild card returning choice chappelle at least from our corner because again i think largely rhap fans the survivor fan bases is very strategy forward in terms of people that we want to see come back so you might be surprised when i say i think there is a very healthy chance we see

cody assenmacher on our screens again again we talk about the unique personality this guy despite the fact that he's from iowa and moved to hawaii very much embodies that mahalo energy he is so laid back i mean got living tattooed on his ass that just kind of shows how much of a little bit of a wackadoo character he is, but not like so brazenly cartoony as maybe some of the other wackadoos we speak about in the new era. He was someone that was certainly crafty. He was

the first one that had to encounter the B challenge and utilize Jesse's help to help get everything in time. So he had his vote in time for his first tribal council. He was athletic enough to win some know some immunity challenges and that all culminated in him getting blindsided at the final six and it's really interesting because again this is all about narrative i think the way the story was being

told to us we might have said in that moment jesse what are you doing if you go to the end with cody you clearly win because you're shown as having more strategic content we're getting to know you more than Cody but I think the reason why Jesse does what he does is because he felt there was no other opportunity to take out Cody Cody would assume that that idol would be returned to him proper for final five the last time idols could be used he'll probably use it and then final four given his background he probably stands a fair chance of either winning or winning fire making and then he's sitting in the final three and from what we've kind of heard from people from survivor 43 cody because i think he was a bit more of a personality forward type than jesse was kind of seen a bit more as the one that was making the moves and so again jesse had to make this decision based on the perceptions that he

was given that if there was a time to get rid of cody it had to be now but i think honestly the primary reason why cody would come back is yes he does have some character to him but again going back to plot returnees would the producers feel like they're leaving money on the table by not having jesse and cody come back together and seeing what happens in part two. Yeah. I mean, that's a great question. You know, you went in the remix. Yeah. You know what? Honestly, it's, it's like, uh, I'm torn because you would want there to be some type of tension. You know, can I work with Jesse this time? He, he, he voted me out last time.

We saw three saying that same thing about Amanda. Like she chose poverty over me what's going on you know and so maybe Cody does come in with the narrative of yeah Jesse and I worked closely together but I'm watching him this time you know and then that's an interesting story to tell and it just

when I got 43 as my selection the first person who popped in my head was Cody because I thought dang do I put Cody on? He does fall victim to one of Jesse's many schemes on here, but he was such a big character and he was a strategic force. I think going into the season, a lot of people only saw him

as a crazy character. The ass tattoo definitely had people thinking that way. Mike, I feel like you and I are kind of in the Cody boat, right? Whenever we're about to do something, people are like, oh God, this is about to be wacky like we can't take them seriously exactly we vibe with him man and this man is ultimate vibes of like okay these two are these guys are shenanigans let's not necessarily like we we love when what they have to say but to quote

uh you know the the late Logan Roy you're not serious people we are unserious people right and uh and I think Cody falls in that category the unserious person, right? And I think Cody falls in that category, the unserious person, at first glance. But I think that we see him very early on making moves. He was in control of the pre-merge on his tribe, along with Jesse. They had NECA in their alliance. They swapped out NECA for Dwight

at a certain point. But he was the one who designed Justine Brennan's exit. You know, he says, oh, wait, you're a salesperson that's enough to get you voted out even though he works in elevator sales whatever that means so yeah cody from beginning to the end delivered and uh again he didn't he didn't win he didn't even make the the final episode however i think that being that he was such a star throughout the entire season it'd be hard to leave him off the ballot.

Not to mention he is part of a move that is still talked about to this day. Right? Like, yeah, I love Eric Reichenbach, but the tide that lifted that freaking boat to put him on another fan versus favorite season is what he does in that penultimate episode. And so many people talk about Jesse and Cody. And so I do think as much as it's felt disaster for his game, him being linked to that massive betrayal really increases his chances of

returning. Oh, absolutely. It's one of those moments where it's a star making moment for both of them. You know, Jesse gets the credit for the move as we will see the black widow brigade get credit for Eric Reichenbach. But at the same time, we talk about Eric Reichenbach probably more than we talk about the black

widows, you know, because he was the victim. He's the face of it. And I think Cody, in a way, is the face of that betrayal. And it goes to show you, too, that your number one ally in a lot of seasons, you can hand them your idol and not have to worry about it. But in a new era, that's a little bit more dangerous. We'll see in 43 and even later on in 46, too. All right. Let's talk about Sammy here, because Chappelle throughout this process, and especially as we got into the era of Survivor, where they're casting like 19, 20, 21 year old, it's like the Simpsons meme with the sheep

as like they get progressively cuter and we feel like Survivor producers are saying like, screw off, Will Wall, up yours, Michael Yerger. Sammy is our new hotness. He was only 19 when he played, though he did lie about his age. He was certainly an agent of chaos in the beginning, though maybe like Carly, it falls a little bit off towards the end.

He actually probably has one of the more whimper over bang exits in the post-merge of Survivor 43, where it's just a pile on vote where he plays his shot in the dark and like basically everything kind of converges onto him. So what do you think, Chappelle? place is shot in the dark and like basically everything kind of converges onto him so what do you think chapelle do we think we want to see a 21 year old sammy leotti should we uh reincarnate his game much like the the pets that he is uh bringing into the afterlife i will plant my flag sammy is the teenager that we needed he is the one you know so will wall

gave it a good shot michael yerger good showing sammy is the one sammy is the one we were promised i think that sammy's game is so fun he does not ever like the will wall struggle was that he because like i need to take control of something i need to do something here because no one's going to take me seriously sammy starts flipping and flopping right around the merge and he just never stops they all vote him out because he's so erratic they're like we can't trust him he's burned everybody in his play to play the shot in the dark it wasn't like a normal shot in the dark play where it's like everybody is whispering no you're fine don't play a shot in the dark we're gonna vote for somebody else sammy comes in and

announces i'm playing my shot in the dark so we can come up with another plan right now but i'm playing it anyway because i can already tell my back is against the wall y'all aren't trusting the kid anymore but i he was he did such a good job and I don't think if Sammy makes it to the end people are questioning is Sammy old enough or mature enough to get the money now that might be a question that they should be asking because a 19 year old that's a wild thing to give somebody yeah what was his final words that he wanted to talk about getting a Tesla with the money yeah he said I really like Teslas my mom's not a fan of that and so maybe giving me a million dollars is not the right thing to do and to which point he's probably correct but at the same time

i think that if he gets to the end and says i'm 22 blah blah blah uh and then after they give him the money he reveals he's 19 people would be shocked i think he can't he carried himself pretty well in the game uh we didn't see any confessionals about people saying i don't think he's not i don't think he's 19 uh and he was in control of a lot of, you know, some of the bigger moments in the season because they don't happen if Sammy isn't flipping and flopping all over the place. He he helped make the season. It's a lot worse if Sammy's not there. So if I have to have one teenager turned survivor player, it's Sammy. Yeah. And I think he could sort of represent that dynamic as well.

Now, it's tough because like he's 21 now as it's sort of like the child actor growing up is he comparable to someone like xander who was like two years older than him than he played but like also the fact of the matter is we might be looking at 47 48 49 might have teenagers on that season that would kind of set the season ablaze and probably get cast over sammy but he does feel like the placeholder young contestant that production would want to see back. This Patrick Mahomes lookalike might find himself in the Survivor Super Bowl at 50. He's the one. I'm telling you, I've seen these other teenagers play and they wish they could do what Sammy does. And he does it well when he's doing it well.

Eventually he does run out of runway, but it was a very fun game to watch. And I think he's also a great character you know i think that uh he put up a valiant effort in his first time out on survivor and if he were to come back again i could see him doing better let's talk about noel here because noel is is just such a triumph of a presence on survivor just watching what she was able to do again like jumping off that box uh you know with her prosthetic not in of course the challenge that she wins epically that in the episode that she ends up getting voted out in right where like she comes from behind to win that trip to the sanctuary where good things happen uh and i would say from a strategic perspective while maybe she is not nearly up there as the other two vests that she was working with for a brief period of time.

Again, I'll go back to that move at the Split Tribal Council where her and Owen conduct this plan where she uses this vote steal that she got from Shipwale Island to steal his vote to feign that Owen was going home and there was nothing anyone could do about it. So James felt safe enough before he ended up getting blindsided so there's like a spark to Noelle that we saw even outside of the impressive challenge feats that she is a part of of course again she is somebody that like Ryan will serve on the Olympic team at the Paralympics this year in Paris best of luck to her and Ryan do you think Noelle is somebody that production would want to see come back for another lap around the track, if you will? Noelle being an Olympian automatically just makes her so

much fun of a person to think about on Survivor. She's done it already. She's now going back, like you said, going to Paris. So if she comes back, Olympic gold medalist Noelle from Survivor 43 who wants a second shot at this. I don't think Survivor is going to deny her. I just don't know if she's at the top

of their list. She had a, you know, like of all the flashy things that we've talked about throughout this post-merge game, I mean, every character that we've talked about thus far, we've had just crazy things to say about them. Jessie, Carlos, Cody, Sammy. You get to Noelle and it's a little

less flashy, but she even, like you said, she even had that moment with James Jones. There's also the fact that ever since she hits the merge, people keep saying, how do we get Noel out? You know, like, that's the recurring theme. Jesse says it several times. Like, she had Dwight as a number one, but

prior to that, she had Ellie as a number one. You know, she just keeps these number ones. She just keeps circling them out. was the number one she just blindsided at her first tribal council basically yeah you know she did she's gonna keep switching in all of her number ones at different points and they say well we just can't get her and because she's a fighter and you know we've got some really iconic challenge wins as well the one that you were talking about earlier where she hops across the balance beam essentially on one foot because it's hard to get across on her prosthetic. And then she comes, she catches up to everybody and like the, the beanbag throwing portion of it. And she ends

up winning from behind. Jeff calls it one of the biggest comebacks of all time. You know, you have a highlight reel like that. Then I think that it's very easy to pitch your case. If you want to be on Survivor 50. Let's briefly dote upon the other three members of this trade. I don't mean that to necessarily put down Ryan, James or Janine. But if I would quickly talk about their chances of getting back on. Ryan, I think especially has a story now. And he stood out enough to at least get a little bit of CM money. But I feel like his edit was so quiet and it did seem like his game was largely associated

around like being that alpha male provider and less about the gaminess that I don't, yes, that can be a unique way to bring somebody back, but I don't know if that's somebody they want to necessarily bring back for 50. James, I love James. I especially love James on podcasts. I think James has such a great way of talking about the game

and bringing these new perspectives in. But again, I think especially compared to his other two allies on Coco, I think he would probably be number three to return out of that alliance just from a character perspective. And Janine, again, I feel like she's a little bit more of a plot returnee than a character returnee, where she just has, you know, this storyline where, you know, like a gash on her face. There just seems to be misery kind of following her everywhere between having Ellie get taken out at the merch,

then losing Dwight and her idol to then getting voted out herself and then watching Jesse play her idol at the final five. herself and then watching jesse play her idol at the final five there there was unfortunately a lot to janine that unfortunately went wrong that i could see on the surface would make for a fun returnee but i i feel like especially across the new era there are other people that can kind of fill that hole uh where janine maybe doesn't necessarily make up for that in terms of the character type she brings yeah she's charlie brown too, too. You know, she's Charlie XCX Brown. You know, it's just like, she comes into the merge. Yeah, she comes into the merge

and she just, she can never get anything going, even in the pre-merge, honestly. The stuff with Gabler and Ellie and going through it back. Janine is trying to bounce back from that and getting blindsided left and right. You know, at some point,

she's just begging, please just let me in on the plan, please uh and so i don't think she did enough to where people are going to be clamoring for her to come back but i think if she comes back she has a good story to tell um same thing with james jones he's just the the the fallen person from that alliance they get him out relatively early um the show shows us like he kind of started feeling himself we see that him and owen get into it a couple of times. Oh, yeah. But we do. Yeah. But we do love a character.

And James is definitely that, you know, he has some strategic chops we saw in the game. But ultimately, as a survivor character, I'd love to see him play again if possible. I just don't know if he's who people are going to go to initially. But I'd love to see James on. And then Ryan, to your point. Yeah, he was big on the providing portion. We got a lot of fishing and stuff from Ryan. But I think you can get that from a lot of different players in the new era now.

You know, a lot of players that are like, oh, yeah, I went out to the ocean and I really enjoyed it. But they can also bring the strategic element that I think Ryan wasn't really involved in. And so I highly doubt I'd see these three back, but any of them would be great on TV again. And I think if I had to pick one of the three, it'd probably beames johns i would agree with that and yeah for for ryan's archetype it's safe to say there are plenty of fish in the sea let's keep fishing chapelle let's talk about our pre-merge here now i have said this in a previous new era podcast especially that i feel like from 41 through 46 it's going to be very tough for a pre-merger to make it onto the ballot, maybe let alone onto the season, just because, again, the cast and especially those that make the jury can be such powerhouse characters and players. But let's still entertain the options here.

So working our way up, we have our Rainbow Queen first boot in Mariah. We have the aforementioned Justine Brennan. We have Nneka, who ends up getting taken out by her closest allies due to unfortunately not doing terribly well in the challenges. We have Lindsay, who is seemingly in the inn in Coco, where it's like the women and James, but she gets so

at least from our perspective, riled up with paranoia that her own alliance takes her out. We have Gio, who after surviving that first vote, is so overly confident only to get blindsided right before a mergatory. We have our mergatory boot in Ellie, who was a huge character this season, someone who was this early power player on Baka, but then her and Gabler go from tight allies

who bond over their mutual quote-unquote love of metal to basically oil and water to the point where Gabler is going to go after Ellie immediately and it causes her to be the mercenary boot and then someone who is of course near and dear to both of our hearts Chappelle in the form of Dwight Moore who experienced an on-island divorce an on-island robbery in the form of Janine's idol and so much more what do you want to touch upon from this group i do love dwight i do love dwight uh and you know it's gonna be hard for dwight to make any one of these casts and because he is a pre-merger but i mean not well not a pre-merger but he's a free jury uh but that said he he probably should have made the jury i

think this is when i started to really see the flaw with Dwight going out in the spot that he went out in because I'm like, he was right there. He should have been on the jury. And I think we'd be having a different conversation. And this was also that weird challenge where they partnered up and he didn't even make it. No, I think maybe he did make it to the final stage of that last challenge.

I'm pretty sure it was like him, Cody, maybe. Gabler, definitely, because he was the one that won it and like one other guy maybe and owen i think yeah so at least dwight had a chance to like fully compete in his final immunity challenge but i think that yeah i think dwight was a fun character i just don't think that you know i think and he gets lost in the cast i think that you know he becomes one of jesse's early victims and um and you know and i guess even his uh his vote out is kind of entertaining but you know i think the the bigger story from his vote out is that uh uh janine's idol who will go home in his pocket or not you know and then jesse will run off and take

that to the end wasn't that such a fun week in survivor history where we're really going down a certain path and dwight is roll back the tape swite was incredibly good at double talk in the exit press that he conducted with a bunch of us uh say not saying explicitly like oh jesse held on to the idol but he also didn't explicitly say yep i was voted out with it in my sock uh he more so referenced details that basically led up to that moment it just goes to show the the trickiness that this guy would bring as a habitual storyteller on blood on the clock tower. Yeah. You can't trust them.

You can't trust anything. Dwight says, if he comes back to play again, he is immediately a target. Cause I said so. So Dwight, if you come back for survivor 50, you know,

keep your guard up because they come in for you. I can't wait to bring in like the, the stock photo of you of like, there's this guy Chappelle who put everyone against me in pre game. The lion says, he says that was too dangerous. This is why is why i'm going out oh if that's what i'm doing let me go talk about jesse a little bit more i can i can sway things your power man so one of the other pre-mergers that i really want to talk about here is ellie because i think out of the seven again she is the biggest character she undergoes basically a several episode arc of again the

mover and the shaker who seemingly decides the Mariah boot in the first episode to basically having everyone turn on her at Mergitory due to Gabler spreading all this stuff. A lot of like shaking up pressure basically from the two of them throughout the pre-merge where they don't go to tribal council again after this first vote. And it just leads to so much conflict between the two i think on paper ellie would be someone that would be really fun to see back because again we saw evidence of her finding herself in a power position having the wherewithal and again she was a therapist right like she had the acumen to be able to connect with people on so many levels that she felt really good with a lot of different people and then it just wound up with like the one person she really didn't got out ahead of her and led the charge and turned everybody against her in

the moment the unfortunate news chapelle is that i'm not sure if you remember and i'm going to shock you when i say that there was somebody from this season that was maybe unfairly maligned by the fan base at the time. And that was Ellie. If you were online at the time, Ellie did receive a fair amount of criticism during her time on the show. And she was not having a great time by the end of the experience. She is somebody who doesn't really have much of a social media presence, but from what I've been told, has kind of largely left the show behind at this point kind of moved on with her life so and maybe this is making a huge assumption and maybe if people can uh dispute me in the comments and say that no ellie really does want to play again if asked i would reconsider and

maybe even give her a wild card spot but i do think chapelle she is a rare new era returnee who would not want to return again that's incredible because i was coming in here to say that ellie played a wacky game you know in the time that she was there i mean for her to be a pre-merger um the game that her and janine were trying to pull off was just so funny to me you know they go through gabler's bag there's one point where they're trying to convince gabler that his idol doesn't work so he won't play it so like uh and i think owen says he's not an idiot you know he knows they were trying to actively pull off advantage gaslighting right of like oh this is good for the traffic council no it isn't it's not good don't play it and we see them celebrating like oh my god he's totally gonna

go for it like stuff like that is that yeah it's a flawed survivor game but, oh my God, it's totally going to go for it. Like stuff like that. Yeah, it's a flawed Survivor game, but it's fun to watch. It's fun to see people make big swings and then sometimes the swings don't work out. And so Ellie's moment with Gabler lives on all the way to the end of the season. It is literally Gabler's like crowning achievement is I got out Ellie and then I hit again. And from there, people were like, oh yeah, good enough for me. So Ellie's tied to Gabler's like crowning achievement is I got out Ellie and then I hit again and from there people were like oh yeah good enough for me so Ellie's tied to Gabler in a way and I think that uh people are not fair to people like Ellie who come out and try to give us good TV good like

maybe not the best strategy but they try to make uh this whole thing entertaining for them and for us and had that worked we'd be talking about Ellie in a completely different light. Yeah, absolutely. Not to, again, broad brush any of the other people in this pre-merge. Again, I really thought there was a lot of appeal in people like Lindsay and Justine. Those that I think on paper were kind of primed to go far but got taken out for one reason or

another. Someone like Mariah who, again, just really stuck out from a personality perspective. Obviously quite a literal, colorful character like geo was like in a time where maybe the show wasn't necessarily characterizing people as quote-unquote villains maybe the closest to it besides like the whole james and owen altercation of just again someone that was very confident in his position in the game deceptively so again i i just think that you brought up a really good point earlier that like dwight is somebody that is very fun you know in a silo almost but when you put him

against the rest of this cast especially when it comes to the task of having to put only a select few on this list unfortunately they don't really measure up yeah uh the only one of the people you've named so far that i'd probably stump for. I mean, I have a little bit of a soft spot for Justine because I feel like, you know, what are you going to do? Cody just completely just made you a target for being a salesperson. There's been a billion salesmen

on salespeople on Survivor and you're the first one who I've ever heard that used as a selling point to vote them out. So, you know, I'll give her a little credit for that. But Lindsey, I think Lindsey has robbed. I think Lindsey gets a little bit further in the game and she does pretty good. I think she was in a great alliance

and I think that they say her paranoia took over, but I'd say that she was playing with some sharks. And I think that when it comes with Carla and James, they were looking for blood. They were looking for somebody that they could cut. They were trying to make a move and Lindsey just was sitting right there, like offering herself up on accident.

She's like, she, I think that she was in a great spot and had she been able to maintain that she would have gone far in the game. She's obviously a, a big fan of the show. She's athletic. She has some strategic chops.

We saw in the few episodes that she was on. And so if we had to pick one pre-merger to go on, I would pick Lindsay. Yeah. And she's a pediatric nurse as well. so unfortunately she knew blood all too well and that's what took her out of the game for those sharks well chapelle it's time for us to go shark hunting time for us we lavished a lot of praise onto the cast of survivor 43 but now we got to put our money where our mouth is much like gabler did with his winnings so give me

yeah let's do this I did this for a couple seasons why don't you give me your top five right now and we'll see if our lists match up at all okay well I've already took my hand a little bit so I have to put Carla on I just don't see any world where you just pass

her up she did such a good job whether they love her or hate her I think that even like we talk about survivor needing villains. So let her be the villain. I don't think she would have any issue with that at all. I think that she would relish it. And I think that she would wear it well because I think she kind of wore it in the season too. During the season, I think she didn't mind being cutthroat. And if that's what makes a villain, then I think Carla can live in that space and she would do well to play a second time.

And I have to say, Owen and like I said I know the vote's gonna come down to Owen and Jake probably you know in our minds if that's what we're looking at but for me it'll always be Owen he's such a fun player he was so rootable you know he talked about his past and you know how he felt like othered by the cast

in a lot of ways and how they reminded him of being othered when he was younger and growing up. Yeah. Adopted and the only Asian in his area, you know, and it's in his community. And so he's like, yeah, I felt that. And I think his story resonates. And so, oh, in the challenge piece, I would love to see it again. That would be so much fun. Then it gets a little bit more complicated because i i i'm i'm struggling with cassidy i am uh because i like i said i think she's just better suited on the challenge in general like i just think that's where you will want her um and i've already said that if i have to pick a teenager i'm going with sammy so i think i'll

yeah i'll go with sammy for that spot instead of Cassidy. As what's that number three? Yeah. So that was assuming that you had Jesse in as like, I didn't, I didn't say that. Okay. If you have Carla, Owen and Sammy,

that's three so far. Yeah. Carla, Owen and Sammy. Those are, those are three that pop out immediately. And I'm being weird about it, but yeah,

Jesse, of course we'll come back i think that's yeah i think that's safe to say you're trying to throw a pull up a blind side on his level i didn't want to see if like how long he gets through this without like you know throwing something through the window like chapelle really uh but yeah jesse comes back as well i mean who put up a better showing than jesse without winning i can't think of a person right now uh and then i think that's four. Like I said, at that point,

I think I'm kind of on the fence. I don't know if I should. Oh, I guess another thing that we really haven't talked about is that the majority of the women of this season go out pre-merge. And it really licks the jury segment a little bit, you know, one-sided, you know?

So it's like, we don't have a lot of the huge characters on the women's side. I would like we don't have a lot of the the huge characters on the women's side i would like to put in a couple more of them but i think they get overshadowed by some of the the flashy gameplay of the other people in the top five or in the top eight i guess i should say after noel goes um so yeah so i'm stuck i think i'm stuck at four mike yeah that's the thing is that really for me it's picking five out of the top eight and again i mean that no offense to gabler and people who finished nine through 18 but that's what it really comes down for me i can agree about

owen jesse carla i think those three we can officially lock in i think cody again is someone i could very easily see same yeah um and so I think we put him on there as well so that honestly leaves one spot up between Cassidy, Sammy, Noelle. Yeah I really wish Noelle was a bigger character because I wish I could say that like she's a lot

but I just don't think she is I think that there were a lot of character moments dealing with her and her prosthetic and you know some of the big challenge moments like you said but I don't think we got to know a lot of character moments dealing with her and her prosthetic and, you know, some of the big challenge moments, like you said, but I don't think we got to know a lot about Noel outside of that. You know, like I don't see, I don't see the thing that I latch onto for Noel, even though like, I think that as an Olympian,

we're blessed to even have her wanting to spend time with us on this show. Anyway, you know, if we can get her. And then, like I said, for Cassidy, I don't know what story we're trying to tell. If it's I'm the robbed goddess who should have won and I'm coming back and fine. I think Cassidy can do her. And then, like I said, for Cassidy, I don't know what story we're trying to tell. If it's I'm the robbed goddess who should have won and I'm coming back, then fine. I think Cassidy can do it. And then, like I said, if you have to put on a young lad from any of these seasons, I think Sammy's my number one pick. It's just a matter of deciding who gets that third spot.

Yeah. And it's tough. I think that's the question is, like, do we do we need a teenager? You know, like, do we think that the show wouldn't necessarily always go in that direction? Especially would it work for against that? They bring back like people from the old school days that are like in their 50s or 60s. Would it be fun to have them interact on the beach or would they more so say like, we don't necessarily need a teenager? So for me, it probably does come down to one of Cassidy or Noelle and I think like Noelle

is obviously a more unique cast member but Cassidy has that like huge narrative behind her so that's a toss-up this is a real toss-up much like Noelle with the sandbags yeah to me it's closer so Noelle versus Sammy I'd go with Sammy Sammy versus so noelle versus sammy i'd go with sammy sammy versus uh noelle versus cassidy i'd probably go with cassidy so i'm thinking that i think maybe cassidy we just have to give her the spot i think this would be her redemption art she made it to the finals and because i personally i know people have been talking about their criteria as far as what does they want to see like the the theme of season 50b second chances where you know uh why are we bringing back winners are we not bringing back winners honestly i've always

approached this like they lie this is only the new era none of you old so coming back sorry let it go wow leading them along for a full couple years yeah i just hey jeff said that to keep y'all from going on other shows if you fall for it then good luck you know uh i hope i hope they worked out for you have fun on don d but i think that um i think that they're gonna be leaning into the new era in which case uh some of the big names that we have from the new era are gonna have to fill in these spots and i think that cassidy has uh has stamped her ticket if she wants it i think that the cast will have her and listen i think there's a very good chance that even a season again like 43,

which is maybe not highly regarded by everybody, though I think we've made a case for a good amount of them in this podcast, that through the wild card, through the fan votes, I'm sure that there'll be people probably clamoring for Noel, people clamoring for Sammy. I mean, we shall see. So I would not be surprised if more people make it onto the list. But right now, Chappelle, we just went clean through the order two through six.

So we have on the list with ages Cassidy Clark, 28, Owen Knight, 32, Jesse Lopez, also 32, Carla Cruz-Cadoy, 30, and Cody Asimovka, 37. Look at that. Yeah. Look, when Rob comes back for the wild card or whatever he does when he goes and y'all add all the rest of the people make sure y'all put in a good word for Sammy for me I think that he'd be fun to watch there you go that's the Chappelle recommendation and also Chappelle recommendation go after Dwight if you can

yeah Dwight yeah please and thank you quickly well last thing we always do on the Chappelle we've already kind of talked about with Cassidy whether she's kind of raised her stock and appearing on a show outside of Survivor who from this cast would you want to see in a show outside of survivor yeah yeah like i said i've said enough but cassidy on the challenge i think she's made for that show i think now that she's started to show that she is somebody to you know to be messed with uh on

on the challenge in those one-on-one competitions people are going to put some respect on her name uh very quickly um you know uh we if we weren't to get maybe like a cody or a sammy on this season i could see them doing the challenge uh maybe even maybe even noel you know uh it's just uh something that is competition based i see that she she rose to the occasion in a lot of ways where people probably would have counted her out uh with her prosthetic leg and there were moments where it was slipping off because it was so sweaty and stuff like that during the season. Like it was,

it was kind of gripping watching her play. And so I would love to see her do more challenges if that's what she wants to do. And then other shows, you know, the traders, I think Carla would be really good on the traders. Obviously Jesse,

another good one that would be fun on the traders. Yeah. I think there's a few of them that can find themselves in other, in other lanes. James, James Jones, great on the traders. Yeah, I think there's a few of them that can find themselves in other lanes. James, James Jones, great on the traders. I think there's a few of them that could go on to do big things even outside of the island. I would love to see James on the mole in particular.

I think James would be very fun. He'd be quite the voice in the crowd in a manner of speaking in terms of like asserting his dominance, calling people out, having suspicions, et cetera. I think he would be one of these very fun types to have on a show like that and his like absolute consternation imagine him and owen like freaking out that the pot gets drained for the umpteenth time because somebody took an exemption i think that would be so much fun and the interesting is like gabler looks like he belongs on toughest nails but he's like

a heart valve specialist so he doesn't exactly have like a Tough as Nails job though they did have one time like a nurse on the show so maybe they'd still sort of talk about it but it feels like he's he's kind of coded to be on that type of show yeah and I'd love to see Gabler on the mole you know I think

that that's another one where if he was the mole no one would suspect it or they'd suspect it and then they'd let it go you know that was kind of what they did in this season early on they're saying this man's cracked you know he's trying to where if he was the mole, no one would suspect it. Or they'd suspect it and then they'd let it go. That was kind of what they did in this season. Early on, they're saying, this man's cracked. He's trying to use his shot in the dark at the first tribal council. He gets to the merge and he instantly just completely outs Janine and

Ellie their whole thing. He's just like, yeah, she came after me, so that's who I want out. It was in front of everybody at the merge feast. And so I could see him being in these spots where he has to either prove that he's trustworthy and doing it very well as we saw in survivor or you know being somebody who was out here sabotaging people and they just don't see it because the alligator has gone back underwater last one i would bring up would be to see jesse on squid game the challenge like it feels like his arc was almost something out of a scripted show

right like i've gotta do these you know dirty deeds to get my family some money get that money baby and look listen his son has uh certainly had some experience with maybe a now disgraced youtuber and so i think it's now jesse's turn to get thrown into the lot with a bunch of random people to try to win a big lump sum of money. Yeah. Dondi, I think it'd be another good one for Jesse, you know, where it's like a, it's a lot more strategic than people probably would let on, you know, and then you start watching it.

You say, Oh, okay. Some people are willing to really do a lot to get to the end of this. Maybe what was that stupid show on Netflix greed or something like that? Yeah. Trust the trust, the trust, the trust, the story of greed or a game about greed. It's like, yeah, that's Jesse greedy as hell. what was that stupid show on Netflix? Greed? Or something like that. The Trust. The Trust. The Trust. The Story of Greed or a game about greed. Yeah, that's Jesse. Greedy as hell. And so, yeah, he's willing to cut everybody's throats

and get away with it. And they'd probably be willing to give him the money at the end. Or we sign him up to do just fire making until he wins one. We'll see. Just put him out on the island. You know what? It's just a live feed of a stationary camera filming him 24 hours a day as he tries to make a fire. It's like the ultimate Sisyphus for a modern day.

Mm hmm. Yeah. He says, look, he's not bad at fire. He was just worse than Gabler. But since Gabler, we've seen other people who are,

who would destroy Jesse and fire. Yeah. Heidi, what's he going to do against Heidi? You know? So I just think that Jesse has a lot of things that would lead me to want to see him on television again and he can just choose where that is well this was an absolute

fire podcast we've had some kindling to the shortlist in the form of putting on Cassidy Owen Jesse Carla and Cody to the wish list tomorrow season 44 one that is full of medivacs including the earliest one in the show's history

romance alliances of kooky characters running things behind the scenes and one of the most unique winners in the show's history i'll be joined by my partner on the bnb liana boris and it only makes sense given that is a very comical season to talk about the fun and games that exist within 44. Chappelle, is there anyone from 44 that would make your personal cast list of who you'd want to see on 50? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. So many, honestly.

Well, I said that, you know, I don't really think they're going to go pre-new era, and that's great for me because that means we can have winners on, and seeing Jam Jam again would just be perfect for me. I just I love Jam Jam so much. We will also see the first of two time player Bruce in that season. You mentioned him once, but Bruce as an all star just makes sense to me.

He just feels like one of those players, like the first three time player in the new era would be great for Bruce. But there's so many other great characters on that show you and Leon are going to have a great time or have had a great time recording that so that it can come out tomorrow or after this week I was about to say we're living in a loop right now but Chappelle believe it or not actually this podcast

is the beginning of the final week of these wishlist podcasts I do not believe it we are barreling down to the end and what a way to start this for anyone who had a case of the mondays i hope it was promptly cured by the podcast today that we did chapelle thank you so much and bringing your excellent self to these podcasts as per usual you have so much going out there you are uh as uh washed with trinkets as jesse is with idols in terms of podcasts what do you have to plug for everybody out there you are uh as uh washed with trinkets as jesse is with idols in terms of podcasts what

do you have to plug for everybody out there um i have a question did y'all did y'all put the war dog onto the ballot we have not put the war dog onto the ballot okay you know i have uh i had the inside track because i talked to him recently on my podcast recap kickback uh he came on to the the house of the dragon coverage that i do with mario forth over Uh, he was our dragon expert and I asked him during that podcast, would he come back for a survivor 50? And so he had some, uh, some interesting words.

You have to go check that out and recap kickback. Yeah. Go subscribe to the podcast, recap, kickback.com, go to youtube.com slash at recap, kickback to keep up with the entire recap, kickback playlist where we're talking about house of the dragon.

Right now we have Abbott elementary coverage on there. Uh, we've done some recent Olympics conversationsics conversations with latonya starks uh it's been a lot of fun uh and so people can check that out on my podcast recap kickback at recap kickback.com yeah and i believe at the time this is coming out it'll actually be the day after the house of the dragon season two finale and so suffice it to say uh that you and marie will have a lot to talk about and we voted into Khaleesi I believe that's Cassidy's handle on Instagram

as well so it's only appropriate well you can check back in with us tomorrow as our barreling towards the end continues with Survivor 44 I'll be joined by my second and third suge in the form of Liana Boris to break it all down

cannot wait thank you all so much for listening as per usual let us know who you would joined by my second and third stooge in the form of Liana Boris to break it all down. Cannot wait. Thank you all so much for listening. As per usual, let us know who you would want to see from Survivor 43 on the ballot in the comments. Until next time, everybody. Take care. Bye bye.