RHAP: We Know Survivor - Survivor 50 Wish List | Season 46 with Taran Armstrong

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

Today, Mike and Taran Armstrong (@ArmstrongTaran) discuss Season 46.

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day or time for our big wrap-up ballot reveal the polls are open whatever you want to call it but i am very excited to announce that this saturday august 10th at 10 a.m eastern 7 a.m pacific which is the usual time that the video versions of these podcasts have dropped on youtube myself and rob sesardina will be coming to you live as we will review who has currently made the ballot so far, do our final round of wildcard picks, and most importantly, open the first round of voting to the fans. And yes, I said first round of voting, but more about that, as well as answers to I'm sure all the questions you have on Saturday, as well as answers to I'm sure all the questions you have on Saturday after this podcast is releasing on Thursday, later in the day on Thursday, or maybe even Friday, I'll release another call to action for any last wild cards you might have anybody who didn't make the short

list from the podcast that you want to see on the ballot. So make sure you're tuned into my social media. I'm putting it out on Twitter, on Reddit, on Facebook. Let your voice be heard. And maybe we'll talk about those picks with Rob on Saturday. So again, this Saturday, August 10th at 10 a.m. Eastern, 7 a.m. Pacific, Rob and I will be live going through the ballot, adding some names last minute and getting to finally open the polls for the vote. Until then, enjoy today's podcast as we talk Survivor 46 with Taron Armstrong. Hi, everybody, and welcome back to the Survivor 50 Wishlist podcast, an off-season series where we're trying to figure out who could and should come back for the upcoming returning season of Survivor 50.

And it has arrived, folks. We are at the end of the road. has arrived folks we are at the end of the road we are discussing up to the point of recording the last season of u.s survivor 2 air and it's a big one survivor 46 we've got a lot to get into it's a very entertaining cast but who among them will get picked to join the less than several choices we get to add on onto this short list we will see who won over a million hearts including ours and i did mention ours because it's not just me it's not me it's us and look if you've been following this series and you've seen me get together with so many illustrious survivor alumni and rhap podcas. To not include this guy would be a big

mistake. I am so excited to pull him away temporarily from all of his wall-to-wall coverage inside the Big Brother walls of Big Brother 26. Talk a little bit of a survivor. It is, of course, the great Taron Armstrong. Hello. Happy to be here. You know,

I think I made a little bit of a big mistake myself because Sam asked me what season I would want to talk about. And I was like, what's the easiest season to talk about? The most recent one, I just watched it, not realizing that then schedule-wise that would put me right in the middle of the Big Brother season. I mean, technically speaking, it is still the most recent Survivor season you watched, but quite removed from when the question was first asked you. So this will be truly your own memory test, Taren.

Let's say if you've been studying those days, all 26 of them. But this is an exciting opportunity not only to talk about this cast and get to see who's going to make our shortlist, but because you were doing a bit of coverage of, you know, other reality shows, getting to cover our neighbors to the North and the final season of big brother Canada, while we watched everyone else's games go South in survivor. We haven't really heard a lot of your opinions in a real,

in a public facing way about survivor 46. So put yourself back in the mindset of a young Taryn Armstrong back in the, the end of May, 2024. What were your thoughts on this absolute wackadoodle of a season we experienced this year? I really liked it. I thought it was a fun season.

Um, it felt like if it felt like it was, I think that a lot of people were feeling theor was feeling stale. That's the sort of vibe I was getting. I remember talking to Rob about it. Man, it's unfortunate because the new era

kind of came in hot. It felt like it was going well, but then it felt like the show was feeling a little stale, but then also the fans, I think, were just feeling a little bit like a little tired, a little bit like we're just seeing the same stuff over and over. So I think my favorite part about 46 was that it felt like the fan base was excited again for survivor after the little Bonu thing.

After that, the fan base was excited about survivor again. And, and even though, you know, after that, the fan base was excited about survivor again. Um, and, uh, and even though, you know, the ending, I think caused some controversy and some back and forth.

It was like impassioned sort of controversy discussion. And it wasn't about like, oh man, survivor stale. It was about like, oh man, I can't believe this happened on the show. Uh,

and so that was very fun. Yeah. I mean, it's been really interesting to look at like the sphere that survivor has existed and how that sphere has kind of expanded over the past year it truly does feel like survivor has kind of re-emerged into the popular zeitgeist i think part of the reason behind that is sort of this one-two punch of 45 and 46 and 46 especially i said it before i'll keep saying it it is maybe one of the memiest seasons of survivor ever and not just a big brother 25 meaning where people were sometimes in the storage room being like i don't understand what all these people are doing how are they so

absolute wild personalities but there are so many huge personalities and huge personality filled moments that have gone viral that have been some of the more talked about moments in the show in recent memory. And so, I mean, I joined the throng to say I was wildly entertained by this season. I think part of the reason why is to your point, I think if people feel that the new era is getting quote unquote stale in some way whether it be tone structure tasks etc i think what everyone can kind of say is that survivor 46 instilled a lot of old school elements into this new school survivor namely when it comes to conflict and animosity and it's so interesting especially going after 45 or especially after the show, you see that it is one big love fest for the most part that like these 18 strangers who were supposed to be put on a beach to compete against each other and bristle against one another due to their personality types have fallen into like pretty good lockstep with each other. And that was apparent from the jump that there are all of these big personalities that are pretty much cl decisions from an unprecedented streak of people going home with idols in their pocket and culminating in this theme of people turning on their number one allies and finishing with the biggest number one betrayal of them all

which is maria not voting for charlie in the end and arguably denying him a million dollars in the process. There was just so much baked into this season, in my opinion, and goes to show that from a structural perspective, which, Taryn, you always speak about as well in terms of game design with Big Brother. This was a season that didn't know it'd be 90 minutes. And so they planned for 60. And so you actually see from that like split tribal council at the final onward, from final 10 all the way to the finale, there are no twists. There's no journeys. There's no risking your vote. There's not even the like, hey, one tribe loses all their votes, and then they have to get them back.

It is as clean survivor as we have gotten in quite a few years. And I don't think there's necessarily a lack of causation there with people's enjoyment of the season. Yeah, yeah. And the lack of actual idle plays as well on top of that. Yeah, I hadn't even really noted the lack of twists,

but I think it definitely added to my enjoyment of the season that it just did feel like straight up survivor. And I, and I think also like to some degree, the extra time maybe forced them to explain a little more what was happening in the show or like, I like,

I like the 90 minute format generally, but I think sometimes when they are like, I would say in 45 where they had planned for 90 minutes, uh, I would say in 45, where they had planned for 90 minutes, I still felt like that wasn't always going to the best use. Because for me, my biggest complaint about Survivor in the modern era is that I want more explanation. I'm coming from a Big Brother perspective.

I have the live feeds. And so I really don't like it when I feel like things are happening that weren't explained to me. And that I don't trust will be explained to me ever. Because then I feel like I've lost I've lost the grounded feeling of like seeing these people play. And I feel like I'm watching more of a fantasy show where anything can happen at any time. 46 was a season that more so than most in the modern era allowed me to follow the line of strategy of like how these things actually happened. What people are, you know, have relationships with who and and it really worked for me.

I'm intrigued to see how this cast is going to reflect on the overall casting for 50. I mean, obviously, we're going to put ourselves in those shoes and put people on the shortlist in just a little bit. But I do feel like from, again, like a popularity perspective, some combination of 45 and 46 almost seems like the Kaguya to me of new era Survivor, where I feel like to your point, I think it revitalized a good amount of people's enthusiasm into the direction that Survivor was going, much like Kaguya-an did 10 years ago. And Kaguya-an had a large reflection on second chances, even on something like Game Changers, as an example, where that cast definitely lingered. And I think similarly, this is a cast that is full of powerhouse characters

and people that are just going to do whatever they want to in the pursuit of winning a million dollars. definitely linger i think similarly this is a cast that is full of powerhouse characters and people that are just going to do whatever they want to in the pursuit of winning a million dollars and i am intrigued to see just depending on what the theme is how much of 46 are they going to be looking at when it comes to filling their share of 50 yeah uh and and it's it's so difficult to predict obviously because there are you know this is the most recent season right now right but by the time 50 comes around uh it's gonna be a few seasons old um and you know 47 48 49 are all coming and so when i think back to like uh who was in 43 i i don't know which one was 43, the Gabler season. I don't know. Uh, Gabler.

Yeah. To some friends parlance. Um, so it's like, that kind of feels a little bit far removed at this point. So, uh, by the time 50 comes around,

how far removed will 46 feel? Um, and I think it's like still within range that it will feel like these are still fairly recent players. If anything, it's almost like in a decent sweet spot where they don't feel too recent. So I would expect that we see like a good amount of representation, especially some from some like,

I think very obvious dates. All right, well, let's getting into said faces and see which ones are obvious and maybe less so when it comes to picks. And we start as we always have with our final three, we have our second runner up zero vote finalist in Ben, our resident rock star.

We have our second place finisher, albeit a little controversial in Charlie, and we have our winner in the form of Kenzie. So allow me to get this out of the way. Every once in a while on these New Era podcasts, I talk about some New Era contestants that are not interested in playing Survivor.

Again, the vast majority of them do, but we've spoken about it with people like Danny McRae, we've talked about it with Emily, and the winner of our season is another one of them. At the time we are recording this, Kenzie has made it very clear, basically from the moment that that check cleared

that at this moment, this is something she does not want to do again. I think a lot of things that she ends up citing is some, frankly, very frightening instances that have happened in her real life of, you know, fans approaching her at work sort of

unprompted and i think it's sort of that invasion of private life that has unfortunately kind of come part and parcel with the genre since it's its roots that is something that really overwhelmed kensley in the moment she's also pregnant and while that's going on on top of now being really thrust into the public spotlight it's been something something that she is eager to step out of for a brief portion of time. So for the sake of this, Tara and I am going to take her for her word and say that I do not think we should consider Kenzie

when looking ahead for 50. I think so too. I think that I completely assumed that was the case based on what I'd seen from her. And it's very understandable from so many different angles between the way that, and, and,

and, and, you know, this is unfortunately not limited to survivor or, or Kenzie. Like this does happen fairly often with the brother players and, and all kinds of different reality show contestants.

And that's, I think, you hear it from the people, even like Kenzie. And I guess, I think Kenzie had a fairly positive edit. Maybe there's a little bit of like, oh, well, maybe Charlie should have won kind of stuff going on. But like, this can happen whether people hate you,

whether people love you. There is definitely an invasion of privacy that can happen whether people hate you, whether people love you. There is definitely an invasion of privacy that can happen. And, and it's, it's, it's very, it can be very uncomfortable. And then on top of that,

she's becoming a parent and obviously would want to focus on, on that and having to deal with all of this other stuff on top of it. I think, too, there is... I unfortunately saw a lot of people, a lot of fans who don't really understand the perspective of somebody who's like, whoa, this is a lot. Because it's like, what do you mean? You were on TV.

You won a million dollars. Don't you know what you're signing up for? Yeah, exactly. You signed up for this crowd, if you will. And I think I'm not going to be able to like explain it fully to those people in this moment. But like it is it's a lot more than I think you would expect. It's a lot easier said than done to just be like, oh, well, just don't use social media or whatever. As though social media isn't so extremely prevalent in our lives, in every portion of our lives.

And as though like, you know, it's as easy as just don't look at Twitter or don't look at these places and the psychological impact that something like that can have like, oh, there are places on the Internet I'm not allowed to look at for my own mental health is kind of like a weird thing right because the assumption is oh well these people are going to be saying shitty things about me and the fact that like that is an automatic guarantee it can be a really tough thing

to reconcile yeah and then and then that gets so much worse when it's like now all of a sudden in my real life I don't feel safe I don't feel like I have a space around me that is not going to potentially be invaded at any given moment. It can be really mentally taxing. And so I really wish Kenzie the best. Glad she got her check and that she's

going to get out of there and and you know live live her life all right well let's talk about somebody who did not get that check again uh to a lot of fanfare charlie davis so charlie i would say amongst a cast of comic characters was one of the more quite literal resident straight men though. He was very low key funny as well. I still love that alphabet game scene where he just like completely clowns on cue in that moment when he was trying to play his game. But Charlie was definitely personified as one of the more stable strategic

forces throughout the entire season, where he is someone who seemed to really be in lockstep with Maria until it got to a point where they basically turned on each other. When Maria tries to turn on Charlie, he has the protection of this army of goats as they've been talking about in postseason press that ends up running it all the way down to the final four. And

for various reasons, he ends up losing. Karen, we've got a blank space, baby. Are we writing Charlie's name in it? He's definitely a top contender, I think. The classic kind of, I mean one vote away kind of deal and

very memorable loss like having been betrayed by his closest ally in the jury vote and he was also like a main character of the season. I think there's also for what it's worth like at least top of head like I can't really

think of somebody who's like seriously competing for his archetype kind of spot which is a little weird to say given you know generic white guy but like the ones we've been talking about were really it seems to be like him Carson and Drew from season 45 but i would say that maybe it's due to recency bias or maybe

it's due to again this very separate storyline of like charlie needing this redemption in a manner of speaking he definitely has the strongest story to return out of the three of them yeah and again i thought about drew too but like the thing about drew for me is that he feels so different like uh like drew just has such a different energy than charlie i could absolutely imagine them both on a cast and not feeling like we have two of the same person uh by any means um and so uh so like like i just there aren't a lot of people weirdly in my in my mind that like give me charlie vibes uh so i i feel like he he definitely has a very strong chance in terms of story redemption archetype right now uh i you know main character energy i think it all kind of works for him and he's still very young so yes just graduated law

school as well basically right after the finale aired. So I will also be intrigued to see what Charlie would be perceived as if he played again in 50, because it will film only a year after the 46th finale aired. And we talked about this a bit with like Game Changers and Aubrey as well, right? Someone that was seen

as one of the big strategic power players ends up controversially losing there in second place and then comes back. And maybe on paper, the reputation precedes them. But Aubrey was able to make it all the way to fifth place, despite the fact that she had that working against her. And depending on who Charlie is up against as well, no matter what the theme might be, I think he has the chance. Again, his personality is pretty stable. Again, I don't think he's someone that necessarily pops out immediately as we gotta go

for Charlie right now on the beach like he seems like a good guy to partner up with just gotta watch out down the line uh and both ways the last person we'll speak about here in the final three is Ben uh I I love Ben Ben was someone that clearly

struggled a lot out there from a cognitive perspective with panic attacks seemingly like waking him up pretty much every night where he, you know, we open the season with someone not sleeping for a week and we basically close it out with Ben not sleeping for a week. I do feel like his

storyline kind of got concluded with that surprise win in the final immunity challenge where he once again didn't get sleep but was like the only person surprisingly to not falter at this big new final immunity challenge i mean listen i think ben's presence would be welcome again i love this cast and i would honestly not be terribly surprised if like we see i don't know maybe 16 out of these 18 people come back in some way shape or form depending on what the theme is and how much production loves this season but for me especially when we have to winnow it down to a short list it does feel like Ben's relatively

quiet edit and the fact that it does feel his story concluded within the season puts him relatively low on the list for me of chances to return. I completely agree. I think, um, like when I'm thinking about possible returning players, I think about like, how compelling are they? How likable are they?

And I think Ben is a really likable and compelling guy. Given that fact, he got a really quiet edit, which tells me like, he's a really likable compelling guy and yet that was the best they felt they could do with him tells me they're probably not that interested in bringing him back yeah and i encourage people to check out his deep dive with rob as well if you want a bit more perspective as to maybe some of the stuff that didn't make the edit and the game that was being played outside of the led zeppelin

lyrics being quoted uh so be sure to check that out but unfortunately ben i know you'll be saying that does not rock to the verdict that we have have carried out for you but check out his band they're currently on tour let's move into this jury taran because we got a lot to talk about within this group. We have a group of three Nami that went from surprisingly running the tribe, one of the most dominant tribes in Survivor history in the pre-merge, to going out one, two, three

because everyone pretty much targeted each other in our first juror, Soda, our actor-turned-big social threat in Tevin, and the first, I should actually say the second of many people to go out with an idol in their pocket in uh one of our like golden boys macgyvers of the season in hunter then we get one of our yanu three out here in the form of the first person to find the idol certainly a personality in her own right between her friendship-turned-rivalry with Q in Tiffany.

We have one of the most outspoken people of the cast, if not in recent Survivor history, going from outcast of Nami to cast out with an idol in her pocket in Venus. We have the enigmatic character that is Quintavious Q Burdette. We have, some of you have heard this before, in a new era season, the odds-on threat to win who gets voted out at the beginning of a finale

in Maria, who leaves a little bit, despite going out on a big positive fanfare, perhaps leaves a little bit of a different note due to her jury vote for Kenzie. And of course, we have our fallen angel. And if I'm describing Q as an enigma, Liz is just like an absolute riddle rumored billionaire she who is of uh one of the most iconic meltdowns in survivor history

forever cementing applebees as like uh it's something that will be forever linked with the show but karen i have to start a discussion of the jury here with someone like Q. When I came into this entire experiment, for me, especially looking at new era seasons, no matter what the format was going to be, there was always going to be a Mount Rushmore to me of new era players that will at least get asked to come back, whether or not they say yes.

And for me, that would be Shan, it would be Carolyn, it would be carolyn it would be jesse and it would be q because i mean i'm just gonna throw it to you here because i want to hear your thoughts on this man yeah i mean q is the biggest no-brainer i think of the modern era i think there's nobody who is more of a lock in terms of getting the ask than Q. I think like you, you mentioned a couple and I, and I don't disagree, but Q is the most recent right now.

And such a compelling character. He is, is this very, I think unique combination of extremely funny character. Like he, he has like every angle of what you want where like he's very unintentionally funny because you can laugh at him a lot but at the same time he is very intentionally funny as well uh so like you know he's doing the q skirt he's you know doing these like big you know strategic things but then you can skirt. He's, you know, doing these like big, you know, strategic things. But then you can also kind of feel like,

well, what are you doing, Q? Why are you threatening to quit the game? So you have both angles. You have both of those things in terms of character. But then also, he's a very active strategic player who has some decent ideas

and, you know, maybe actually had a shot to do some interesting things in the game while also being a complete disaster strategically. So he has both of those things. He has literally everything that you want. Usually it takes four different characters, four different players, to

add up to a queue. But he's all of them combined. And on top of that, he's super good looking and still very young and still like I would imagine the biggest difficulty is like, is he willing to do it again? He certainly seemed passionate about it, but I know he's like got like billions of dollars or whatever stuff, you know, I don't think he needs it. But like, it seems like the biggest no brainer of all.

I don't think he needs it, but like, uh, I, it seems like the biggest no brainer of all. Yeah. I mean, it'd be interesting because Q was someone that went public after Sia has decided to step away from giving out seasonal fan favorite prizes to say, I'm doing the Q money. Now fans can tell me who to give the money to, but the thing is ordinarily that'd be like, okay,

now that means that Q wouldn't compete on a season. Cause now he's going to like sit back and dole out the out the funds you know be a little bit of a donor from that perspective i don't think so i think q would go on survivor again and ask fans please vote for me to give myself twenty thousand dollars i mean how funny would that be he is just just an absolute incredible character like you said he really is everything in the survivor alphabet contained in one letter and you brought up a great point as well and that obviously q has a lot of funny moments i think he is such a great confessionalist so animated such an interesting way of saying things obviously leaving with a bunch of catchphrases

big mistake y'all can cancel christmas. But there are also these moments like him, you know, feeling like he struggled for the umpteen time in a challenge and standing by himself saying, why must my road be the hardest? And like him reflecting back on his Friday night lights moment, complete with the sound effects and everything.

I don't think he was playing that up. And yeah, what's interesting is it really did seem like for the first half of the game, Q was in one of the best spots. It seemed like from the Yannou perspective, everyone was feeding information to him. He was the one that was making the decisions.

And then literally all it took was getting some food in him after Mergatory. And this man just went off in a complete other direction where like he built the six, but then is immediately targeting people from the six he's doing the q skirt he's playing games of hide and seek he's actually using that as a test he is making a big gesture to quit during tribal council which just completely flummoxes and frustrates everybody and taryn you talk about big brother a show that is different in structure in that

there are usually only two targets in a given week of big brother q loki made the end game like a season of big brother he was the pawn star where every week it was all right this time i think we're gonna vote q out finally but for some reason somebody said no we can pick him up we can get rid of him another time to the point where he was being used as a tool to let people get voted out with idols in their pocket only for Q to get voted out with an idol in his Q skirt. It is just an incredible storytelling. I think that also gives him

a lot of a second chance narrative as well. I will be intrigued to see. I mean, we saw Coach, for example, like once he kind of realized what people were kind of glimpsing from his character, he kind of doubled down on that to the point of maybe artificiality. I would be intrigued to see how much of that is going to be on Q's mind going into a second season. Is he going to come in with like big mistake merch from the beginning and think more about that than the money,

even though he claims he doesn't need the money anyway but no matter what it's a slam dunk piece of casting for me yeah and I think personally I think Q is more self aware than Coach was so I think that will help

and I think he's just an editor's dream because you can make you can literally make Q anything you want him to be. Uh, and that's what editors want. And I don't want to say editors, I mean, producers, but like, uh, that's, that's what you want in a character because they want to be able to tell whatever story they want to tell. Um, and it's so easy to be like, he's a mastermind. No, he sucks at the game.

Uh, he's a really, really funny guy. No, you're just laughing at him. Like you can do whatever you want with with you and i think that's uh that's you know they're gonna they love that we have a wealth of choices in front of us taryn do you want to move up or down from q here i'll follow your lead all right well let's talk about maria here because i've talked about this before with bringing back people like shannon ric, with bringing back people like Jesse and Cody. I honestly feel like they'd be living, leaving money on the table if they did not at least consider bringing back Charlie and Maria, because there is so much to pick up from there.

They were the strongest pair in the game. so much to pick up from there they were the strongest pair in the game they were the ones who were glimpsing at rome on fire all around them being like why is everyone turning on their number one ally somehow maria and charlie are the only ones that understand that you need numbers to get to the end only for inevitably the sickness to get to them at a certain point they have that awesome scene where they're like both sitting on the boat and like shaking hands and talking about how how tough it is that they have to get rid of everybody else while they're also in confessionals saying they have to get rid of each other and it ends amicably in the moment at the final five then maria uh for a variety of reasons chooses to vote for kenzie instead which again makes the vote five two three the rumor is that ben would have voted for charlie

at least in a tie, meaning that that seems to be one of the key votes that Charlie lost on that would have given him the win. And Charlie and Maria have both communicated that in the months following the season, and especially, I think, in reengaging in some of the things that happened there towards the end, that they are cordial with one another. But I do not necessarily think

that uh the uncle charlie family moniker is being doled out anymore outside of that i think maria is somebody that was a sizable character too you know she is the oldest person on this season but i think again much like we've seen a bunch in this new era was kind of able to subvert that i was able to be again the person to beat towards the end. And some would argue were it not for a little bit of a bending of the rules and the challenge where she goes out, she would have made it to Final Four Firemaking, where she probably wins that.

And who knows? You know, that's the fun thing about this season as well, is I feel like even the most perfect players were messy. We can never forget Maria deciding that Q and Liz should do a game of rock, paper, scissors to figure out who should go on reward, despite the fact that Q had just memorably gone to Applebee's. And so I do think that Maria brings a lot by herself as a character, but I also feel like there's just so much appeal in bringing her back alongside Charlie and seeing what phase two of that relationship looks like.

Yeah, I don't disagree. I think that my initial instinct when thinking about Maria was how I felt about her edit in the season. Because again, like I I'm trying to get into the headspace of like the producers and how they feel about these people. And when I feel like they're underusing somebody in a season, that's not the best sign for me that they're looking to bring them back.

And I personally felt like Maria was underused throughout season 46. you know, when she has the late surge in the edit, it wasn't super convincing to me because I felt like she had been so under the radar for so much of the season, them giving the spotlight to Charlie over her for so long that when she started to step into the spotlight, I was like, this feels a little bit like a misdirect to me. And I think it was.

And so, you know, the question in my mind then is, did they just feel like she wasn't compelling enough to be showing throughout that portion for them in terms of the story they wanted to tell? Or was it intentional to make sure that we were on Charlie's side at the end of the season because Charlie makes it further? So, like, you know, if that's the case, I think there's plenty of you know, there's probably plenty of room that the producers see with Maria as a character. And then you do have, as you pointed out, the compelling story of if you bring them both back, like, how does that work? Like, do we get some some drama there? Are they going to work together, pretend to work together, target each other? There's all kinds of different storylines you can go there.

And so, I don't know. I don't know that I think of Survivor as a show that tends to do rivalries all that much. Yeah, I mean, we did a little bit of a deep dive into the casting, surprisingly, of Heroes vs. Villains with Stephen Fischbach. And there were some there,

right? Colby and Jerry, you know, if Sierra from token machines was supposed to make the season her and Tyson, you know, it, it seems like there is a little bit of it. So I think it also,

again, depends on how much are they trying to bring new era into this? Like if it's specifically half and half, and they're only limited to like 10 new era players at most. Yeah. It might not necessarily make the cut. If they end up casting limited to like 10 new era players at most yeah it might not necessarily make the cut if they end up casting closer to like 12 13 14 new era people there might be some room to address that but i also say on top of me saying in previous podcasts oh they

should bring shannon ricard back oh they should bring jesse and cody back you know one of these pairs wouldn't necessarily make it on there unless it was a rivals theme season yeah and I do think there are a lot of options to choose from when it comes to these like front runners that got voted out in the finale as you said where it feels like

like that's a character that they basically try to build up every season at this point and so so that's another like kind of point against her i think um i think she's definitely an option but she's probably not super high if i'm trying to like predict this uh here let's talk about liz one of the most unique people that has ever played survivor and i'm just speaking about her list of allergies of course liz comes in and is relatively quiet basically in the first part of the game nami is

not going to tribal council and she is just kind of being shown as somebody that's a bit of the quirkier personality where she is telling everybody about the fact that she makes so much money at home which she later reveals was a guise to get her dragged to the end as a goat, where then she can kind of go mask off at the final tribal council and be like, look at my bank statements. I'm a single mom.

Of course, I'm not a millionaire. She nearly gets there, but finishes just short. And again, it's probably most remembered for that Applebee's tirade of tearing into q something that went viral on tiktok certainly something that is one of the most well-remembered parts of this season and i go back and forth because like i would always want more liz wilcox on my screen because again i never know what she's going to do at any point in time on the other hand we have talked in this process about certain characters that could kind of be left in that season as like you had your

time in the spotlight and it was absolutely wonderful but i am good with where we finished it there and i feel like liz might be that for me with her uh tragically losing fire making due to the extended ligaments in her arms yeah so the thing for me is and maybe you can help me with this if i'm thinking about like who is the character that they're casting for this season who is the like goof the one that's going to give them some goofiness the one where they can put like uh a different job title under their lower third every time they show up on the screen or a different wealth level, maybe. Who is going to like hopefully give them some some drama potentially. And Liz also was like somebody who's actively playing the game as well, which, again, I think is always helpful.

And so for me and again, i'm just i'm trying to go vibes based here yeah i i can't really think of a new era player that fits that archetype better than liz yeah i mean i think carolyn is probably the next best in that here's someone who has has this quirky personality you know makes a lot of soundbites happen, but even more so than Liz, I think was one of the main movers and shakers of the season. I see. I almost,

I think, I think Carolyn didn't ping for me because in my head, she's more player. Like she's definitely a big character. And I do, I think you're right. If somebody is to take Liz's spot, it's probably Carolyn. Yeah.

But, but I, And I think you're right. If somebody is to take Liz's spot, it's probably Carolyn. Yeah. But I definitely saw her as more intertwined with the main story and the main gameplay. But I think you've convinced me that Liz is not quite maybe as obvious a choice if they are looking for that specific spot. Let's move to the other side of q here we gotta talk about venus uh v nice as it were but it was not necessarily a nice time for her out there from the beginning venus felt like she was not vibing with the nami tribe at certain points thought that she was purposely being kind of held at arm's length by the rest of her group so when she

finally gets the chance to play at the merge unfortunately that reputation kind of held at arm's length by the rest of her group. So when she finally gets the chance to play at the merge, unfortunately, that reputation kind of carries over into this new group of people where she gets targeted in these first couple of votes. But she does get picked up as kind of a person by some of these bigger players as things go down the stretch. But regardless of the position that she was in, Venus was always going to let us and the players

know how she felt about them. Again, I think a lot of the aspects of this old school survivor that people are talking about is really represented in somebody like Venus, both on and off screen. I do feel like Venus yet again is one of these lightning in a bottle cast members that I think, especially again in a modern day where people might

unfairly in my opinion, but still kind of decry like the two nicey nice stuff going on from the new era in particular. I mean, this was the season that brought back Spicy Jeff and it felt like Venus is kind of the whole spice cabinet in the stuff that she was saying about people both to their faces in confessional and online as well honestly i think the only thing that might not put venus in consideration would be that

she was quite open at points on social media and and messy. And there might be some worry as to like, okay, are you going to spill some stuff? Are you going to indicate too much on social media because of your penchant to kind of just like reflexively react to things. But listen, we've had previous survivor players post pretty flagrantly on social media during their season and get called back for subsequent seasons.

So I don't think it's necessarily anything to completely count out Venus from coming back a second time. Yeah, I do think you're right to flag it. tight-fisted about wanting to control the narrative more, wanting to limit the amount of press that people are able to do, and wanting to keep things under wraps as much as possible. I'm sure they are very aware of how

much more mess can come from an all-star season. There's prior relationships. things get really weird sometimes and you know i i do think that they might fear somebody like venus who's willing to just like spill things because it's one thing to be messy online it's another to just like say things that they might not want to be said right online this is two different kinds of things um i hope that is not i i do not like this policy that they seem to have developed uh i hope that does not impact

her chances because i think she would be very fun on an all-star season um and she also seems to for what it's worth get along with a ton of alumni uh so, you know, we may even see a slightly different Venus. The only other I think potential negative that I saw, again, if I'm looking at the edit, it felt like they weren't sure what to do with her once her feuds ended. She kind

of fades into the background after like Tevin leaves, essentially. Maybe after Hunter leaves. I mean, that wouldn't be much. But like, I remember her kind of being absent for a couple of episodes. I mean, even her boot episode kind of felt like,

whoops, she's gone. And so that's maybe a little concerning if you're a producer and you're thinking about like, if I want Venus on the cast, are we going to be able to get consistent content from her, from art? And And again when I say that. I'm trying to get into their heads. I think Venus is great content always.

But if they're not doing something with the player. It indicates to me that they may not think. Of that player as much. In a future season. Yeah I mean I think what Venus and Q would do as well. Is like this is by far the most chaotic. Season of the new era. Just with again. what Venus and Q would do as well is like this is by far the most chaotic season of the new era just with again

everything that was happening in every single episode and the unpredictability of it and I do think two of the agents behind that were people like Q and Venus that you just never knew what they were going to say and how they were going to react in any portion of time and you do bring up an interesting point in that yeah Venus has

been going to these events during the course of her season and does seem to get on well with a lot of other new era people as well. So it would be interesting to see her come in and possibly have more friends than you may think, considering the contentiousness

which her season happened. Or could it just be an opportunity for her to start new rivalries? Who's to say? Who's to say? I want to keep moving down here and talk tiff with you taryn for someone who gets into tips to tiff herself because i've said it so much now that it doesn't even feel like she's underrated feels like she's just rated but i love tiffany i've loved tiffany ever since i got the chance to talk with the cast out there.

And she and I were just vibing. I love, I love her boldness. The fact that she told me in our interview that her hot take was that she doesn't know why people don't know how to shut the F up and shouldn't tell anyone about their advantages only for her to find the first idol in the game. And then basically immediately tell Q and Kenzie about it.

But again, it's the fact that she's willing to make these big and bold claims and sit on that confidence. And to your point about the Q edit, sometimes be wrong about it, but that's what we love about Survivor players is the ability to swing with the bad and not necessarily wait for the perfect pitch

at the perfect time. Tiffany, I think, is also a pretty underrated personality i think in a cast that is full of big characters and a lot of comic moments i mean tiff is the person who brought us a stop making the block hot as she's trying to encourage banu from having yet another meltdown at tribal council she's the one who has that reaction when banu does the million hearts quote of like if he wants to win a million hearts he can volunteer like tiffany had i think a little bit of that that frankness to her and uh you know of veracity that i really enjoy in survivor player she obviously has the ability to find idols she has the risky behavior to also sit

on said idols to her detriment and again she has the capacity to not only build up bonds but clearly not be afraid to speak her mind when she feels those bonds get crossed as we show with like her and q being thick as thieves but then getting to the point where the two of them are getting in arguments at opposite sides of the line right before a reward challenge like i think tiffany brings so much and i maybe i'm just willing into existence i could see this where maybe from a producer's perspective, she's not like her, the top characters that come to mind when you think of the season. But I think she would be a really good returnee. I do, too. I think Tiffany should be a top choice.

I worry that she's not. I think, you know, as you said, underrated personality. And I think that's probably the problem i think that she has a ton of personality she was a great character uh on the season um but she's a great character who i think gets a little lost in the shuffle on a season with q and liz and penis um and so uh i think for that reason it might be harder to like pinpoint tiffany from that when you're thinking of good characters luckily she was also really great strategically but i do think she faces a lot of competition in that spot this kind of like mid-jury really promising player spot

that i think a lot of seasons have a tiffany yeah I mean specifically the place she goes out final eight that's like where Shan goes out where high goes out where Franny goes out and yeah it's it's it's a it's a lot of competition there and so she has recency which which is helpful

but with that recency comes a season where there are so many other big characters and i think that hurts her um i think she would be such a great pick to bring back uh and i and i hope that they are considering her um and uh i yeah i'm just i'm worried they may not completely agree let's talk about hunter so hunter is is somebody who was definitely talked about, especially in comparison to someone like Jonathan, as one of the best challenge beasts of the new era.

Somebody that just like was not necessarily presented as like this hulking giant physical superhero, but was just really good at these challenges. You know, he's the one who was able to pull off something with physics. He is a science teacher where they have to go over this like big rolling pin in the water. And he just comes up with the idea of like,

pull Tevin over and I'll just use the momentum to pull myself over as well. He is somebody that is really good at like those carnival game-esque endings to challenges where there's like landing sandbags. He, of course, was somebody who didn't necessarily 3d print puzzles but ran survivor games for his students so he had an entire warehouse basically his own challenge graveyard full of challenges he's done in the past that obviously gave him a lot of aptitude and

hell he also shows that despite yule saying that uh the get a grip challenge is why you don't see elephants running up trees despite being the biggest guy hunter crushed the competition in that type of challenge so even shows from like an individual perspective he is somebody that can surprise on top of that he is able to find the re-hidden idol and yes it does look foolish in the moment with him going out despite the fact that he was objectively told hey your closest ally left you're next he has said in post the fact that he was objectively told hey your closest ally left you're next he has said in postseason press that he was trying to like figure out the numbers and basically thought he could kind of skirt past it uh he didn't want to necessarily tyson and heroes versus villains himself out of the game by playing it unfortunately those numbers were not accurately

predicted and he ends up getting blindsided here i think my major reservation about hunter taryn because i do think he is someone that production would really keep in mind especially as a display as well of the meta aspects of someone that was able to benefit from getting involved with a form of survivor prior to coming on the show is honestly are him and jonathan competing for the same spot yep i think that's the biggest problem is that this, again, is an archetype that's facing some hefty competition. Is it

possible that both him and Jonathan get on the cast? Yeah, I think that's possible. If you do two tribes, do you want to put one of them on each tribe? Yeah, maybe. But I do think Jonathan is the stronger pick if you're thinking about production. Literally, yeah.

Viewpoint. Because, yeah, just visually, he fits that archetype a little better. You know, when Jonathan is literally carrying his tribe across the water or whatever, like that's a little more sort of like visually stimulating than like Hunter coming up with a clever way to solve the game the challenge um jonathan is also a more abrasive character who's going to give you more drama like hunter is a pretty laid-back chill kind of guy the only drama that came out of him was like pulled out of him by venus um and so uh as a character i don't think you're getting as much and i do think there's still an appeal there i think the reason why a lot of Hunter fans are Hunter fans is because he's laid back in not very high drama.

But when you're then choosing between him and Jonathan, if you are, I think that the producers are going to pick Jonathan most of the time. And so that's definitely going to be a big hurdle for him. Let's talk Tevin, shall we? You could tell that Survivor loves Tevin. I mean, the first thing we get in Survivor 46 is Tevin delivering a monologue about what Survivor is.

He is providing the thesis statement of the show. He is heard describing this instead of someone like Jeff, who ordinarily does the narration. Even in the On Fire podcast, you know, Jeff during 46 would go back to his casting notes on each of these people and had so many kind words for someone like

Tevin. And that, to me, buoys his chances of getting on this season. Because, look, he does finish in 10th place, which certainly there are people that we have put on this list who have finished that way or even before it. But I also would say, again, there are so many other huge chaotic personalities

that stand out in this cast. And despite Tevin being this incredibly animated person that was born for the stage, it does feel like his edit kind of gets tamped down a little bit. I mean, he has this big thing where he decides in the moment, alright, you know what? It's time for me to turn on Soda. Soda gotta go to

and it's time for me to take a drink of that delicious blindside beverage once that split tribal council happens. But I would say, like, if we're looking back on the course of the season, I love Tevin. I love talking with Tevin out there. He was my winner pick and he's incredibly memorable to me. council happens but i would say like if we're looking back on the course of the season i love tevin i love talking with tevin out there he was my winner pick and he's incredibly memorable to me i do wonder how memorable he would be to bring back but considering again how much the show

really loved the stuff that he was bringing i would not be surprised in the least if he ends up showing up on a returnee season i agree agree. I think, you know, like I think there are a lot of obvious drawbacks in terms of like his placement and how far he was sort of away from a lot of the episodes. But yeah, he's definitely somebody that I could see popping up for sure. I think he's an option for this season. Let's talk about his former partner in crime before they ended up turning adversaries, I suppose, in the form of Soda. Soda also has this really unique edit in that she is someone who is presented as, you know, a very animated person as well. And so her and Tevin, you know, despite becoming almost competitors later, are really in lockstep for the beginning there to the point where they alongside Hunter

kind of run the Nami tribe throughout the pre-merge. But then there's also this like pseudo rivalry between her and Venus, where there's the stuff involving Soda snatching the idol or, you know, nobody listening to Venus when her foot got run over by a card or venus accusing soda of voting against her at the mergatory tribal council like the two of them were never able to get on the same page and it culminates with venus being able to get the sigas

on her side to get rid of soda again i think, I think Soda is a really fun personality, and I would not be surprised if the show brought her back because she is somebody that clearly was doing a lot of wheeling and dealing. And I think one of the other reasons why she goes is that she was presented as somebody that could win the game. That's why Tevin targets her. But I do think that there are other people in the new era that I could see in this archetype above Soda who ends up becoming our first juror? Yeah, I think I think I would be a little surprised to see Soda, to be honest. I think it just in terms of how much screen time she had on the season, it felt like we got just enough to see that she was like a big figure as a target and not really enough to really understand who she is as a person and i think she even uh if i'm recalling correctly

had some complaints about her edit as well um which i think are perfectly valid thoughts and feelings to have and unfortunately i think production does not like when you complain about your edit. So I can't imagine that that has helped her, though I certainly wouldn't want to discourage people from complaining about their edit, because I think they should, regardless of how the fans may feel about it. I think edits are

a very bad thing, coming from a Big Brother perspective. But I think there are a few things working against her on top of her placement here. And so I would be a little surprised to see Soda. Well, not like incredibly surprised, but

maybe a little surprised. Let's move into this pre-jury group. And we have amongst us working our way down from the top. We talked about the Spice cabinet, but we've got a spicer himself in the form of tim we have our mergatory boot in the form of mariah gainer can't jump we have our first person voted out with an idol in her pocket in the form of gem we have of

course the one the only banu that whether uh you know you have your differing opinions on it was pretty much the show for episodes three and four. We have a guy that was medevaced for one of the most out of nowhere reasons ever in Randon who ended up pinching a nerve to the point that it required getting medevaced to get actual immediate treatment for. And then we have our first two boots here from Yanu,

the disaster tribe that were unfortunately kind of served up with how disastrous their time ended up being over the course of the season we have our ant queen jess taryn we gotta start with david freaking jolinski because it has been a long time and not since reem but you would are you even before that since Zayn Knight. Have we seen a first boot have such a name recognition impact on this season? As someone that was there for the infamous, I'm pretty sure, seven meets several Jeff moment. I had no idea of the continual afterlife that would have, even through to its offline days.

Yeah, I mean, I'll say straight up. I think there are two people in this list of players that i think are worth sort of like that that have an actual shot and i think the others probably don't and jelinski is one of them um i think that weirdly as the first boot i i think that they were very tickled by several. They used it in their episode titles. Jeff brought it back a few different times. On top of that, he's clearly like such a character and a huge fan of the show. Definitely would be willing to come back.

It's like my second shot, my several shots, whatever the case may be. It's a bit of a wild card pick uh like i mean is it not too dissimilar from david alexander showing up on big brother 22 yeah like uh exactly like i don't think the odds are high necessarily but like i do think i do think there's absolutely a chance that jelinski shows up on our screens at some point if if it's not 50, maybe another time. But like, yeah, I think there's definitely a shot. Yeah, because not only that, he goes out to say he flamed out would be an understatement.

This is a guy who quits the sweat task over like, again, maybe a basic misdefinition of a word slash like it was just too much of a struggle. He was the one who gets sent to on a journey. And then in a game of basically bluffing decides the only way to win is not to bluff and loses his vote in the process there was even more stuff that happened that didn't make the episodes like he cut up his feet he found out he was allergic to coconut he lost his water bottle like the first tribal council was just absolutely wild and so i think if they were especially able to do like a returning season

that was pre-merge versus post-merge, like he would be a shoe in on the pre-merge tribe for me, just because there was so much potential there. And I mean, he's bound to do better, right? Or has the path that Francesca laid an outcome that has to be repeated? I don't think it matters.

I think that's the beauty of bringing Jelinski back. He is the monster. And we know the monsters always return in monster movies somehow. I'm going to take a bold guess and say the other person that you think would be considered by production would be Bono. Yes. I think Bono is the other option. Yeah, for many reasons. would be banu yes i think banu is the other option yeah for many reasons again i think there were a lot of understandable comments about how much time this guy was taking up that despite the

fact that we like 90 minute episodes in general you felt those 90 minute episodes when we kept going back to banu i mean again i very much understand what people are coming from in terms of like banu overkill and the edit he did so many freaking funny things in my opinion whether it was like him counting all the reasons why he's strong and then what does it make holds out a fist whether it's him going through the five stages of grief when he's going of like you know asking kenzie to look for an idol begging on his knees to tiffany fuming at his tribe in private he was just such an absolutely wild character and the even wilder thing is that it seems like he'd want to come back and do it again which again is is pretty pretty out there considering that this is a guy that had to be coached on how to not even lie but like obscure information when asked a question

at tribal council you would think that he'd be someone to say i tried survivor once not the game for me all the power to those people who think it is i'm gonna go do my other type of stuff bonnie out but it seems like for whatever reason he wants to come back and do it and i go back and forth you know i could see this show and especially with his story as well and where he came from if they could say like well listen we we loved what he brought we gotta give him another chance i could also see a world though where they say yeah i mean he wasn't a very good player and we want to bring back a good amount of wild cards but not dump out the entire wild card bucket with somebody like bonnie yeah i i think i think he would be a

lock to come back if not for the fact that he was so disastrous at actually playing the game that like you know even somebody like say philip uh who is i think the classic kind of like bring philip back you know we want more philip uh like philip made it to the finals you know what i mean like and then philip came back and then was again like heavily involved in the strategy bonnie was just such a fish out of water when it came to the strategy. People were trying to fill up him, but it couldn't. Yeah, I mean, Q quite literally did. He told it to his face, you're my fill up.

But it didn't work, because he was too Banu-y. And so, I think if you are looking at this from a producer's perspective, it's like you run the risk of if you bring back Banu, just the same exact thing happening, and that's bad TV. And so I think that's the risk there, the danger, and perhaps why we might not see Banu back. Yeah, and I know that Jeff, I think, has been quoted a couple of times saying like he doesn't necessarily think entirely about placement when it comes to returnees however again we don't know what the

theme is for survivor 50 but i would imagine they'd be a little more hard pressed to like bring back a what 14th place 15th place finisher over somebody who like I mean even look at somebody from 41 like Nasir who again brings that like infectious energy and positivity without the abject mess and the fact that he made the jury I think that could be a reason why Banu unfortunately does not get the nod here

I don't believe Jeff for a second I think placement absolutely matters and I guess I would say more so than placement screen time matters. And I think that if you're bringing back people, you want the audience to remember them. You want them to be excited about seeing them again.

You don't want the audience to feel like, wait, who is that? And I think that's why screen time matters. Screen time also matters because it's an indication of how production feels about that player in the first place. So, yeah, I would say if Jeff is saying,

you know, placement doesn't matter because Bonner got more screen time than half this cast. I agree with him, but if Jeff is saying placement doesn't matter, therefore like Mariah will be able to be on this gas. I'm like, unfortunately I love Mariah,

but like, yeah, I don't think quite as much. Yeah. I, and with, with no offense against a sort of like broad brush you know tim mariah randon jess i do think for various reasons they wouldn't be heavily considered i would say that i'd be interested in seeing jem come back i think jem was uh kind of an indicator that like it wasn't just yanu that were the messes but kind of everyone had a messy moment on this season and jim was also pretty damn ferocious the very frank conversations that

her and tim had where tim's like oh how's that women's alliance coming along and jim's like oh yeah how's your final two with ben and the fact of the matter is she is somebody who found an idol and purposely led her tribe on like a three day wild goose chase, digging for nothing and getting bit up by ants just for entertainment's sake, only to get voted out with said idol in her pocket. I think Jem has a lot of untapped potential and uncut Jem, if you will. This is sure. So I think I think she would be a great pick.

But I think, you know, it just it's it's tough because I would imagine that especially if you're like a casual audience member, you're probably going to have a hard time remembering. She wasn't on the season very long. And so that's maybe going to be a tough one. But again, with a more recent season, you know, a little bit more of a shot. I wouldn't be I wouldn't be super shocked to see Jett. All right. Taryn, we got a big series of decisions to make here. Because I think, talk about a very heavy amount of people

that we would not be shocked to see back that could or should deserve a chance. But we have to get it down to five. Banu, again, making the fist. Let's start with like, who's your chalk number one either from like a practical perspective or desire perspective that you want to put on there q q always q i i would add charlie onto that uh i think that charlie is somebody who again that narrative really proceeds overall and i still do think that it'll be fresh in the minds of viewers as to how

it all ended for him and so I do think Charlie would be another pretty big lock from the season yeah I think Charlie's my number two so then it gets a little bit thornier because I think you brought up some really good pros and cons for each specifically from the mind of like who production

would want to bring back you know I do think to me it would probably be some combination of like i actually i would probably put venus on there as like kind of a chalk again i think that's one of the larger senses as to to an earlier point how much are they going to factor in stuff outside of the show into a casting pick but if they don't necessarily consider it i do think she is somebody that would be heavily considered i'd be willing to put venus in there yeah uh good so we won't incur her wrath as well it also works doubly but then i'm thinking about like there's a tier of, to me, Maria, Tiffany, Hunter, Kevin.

Like two out of those four, I think. And maybe a little bit of Liz as well. So again, it's a really tough job. But are you leaning any certain way out of those five I just mentioned? I think I'd cut Hunter. I think Jonathan just has too much of a lock. And again, maybe,

maybe something's wrong with Jonathan. Maybe he doesn't want to do it or maybe they pick both. But, but I, yeah, I feel like I'd probably cut Hunter from the list. Yeah. I would agree with that,

that he unfortunately might be a bit typed out by it. So I might, it's tough. Cause again, out by it so i might it's tough because again i think tevin is someone that that has a good chance of showing up but does would he have a chance of showing up more than maria and tiffany is the question hmm it is a good question um i do the heaven probably brings an energy that is somewhat unique. Uh, like I'm trying to think of like who,

who brings that? Like, certainly there are plenty of different kinds of narrators that the show has, but Tevin has like super big narrator energy where like, even when he's not the narrator of the season, he's still the narrator of the season. Um,

and so I do feel like he isn't competing as much for his spot uh but he is a bit further down the placement and the screen time uh list so um yeah i'm not quite sure that i mean jeff did say on his podcast if he could have a tevin every season he could that's that's that's pretty strong evidence to me yeah i think that's a pretty strong evidence to put him on as a spot here and so it's tough now we have to pick between maria and tiffany and you know is the storyline appeal of maria weighing out what you and i would like to see which would be a tiffany return here and all that is to say we do have this convention where by popular demand you know we'll certainly bring

in some wild cards i have a feeling at least one of these people is going to be a wild card but are you leaning in any particular direction at this moment man um i think i'm this might be personal preference I think I'm leaning a little Tiffany but yeah I don't know if I'm letting like my own desire to see Tiffany again and get in the

way of that you know what this is a wish list why don't we do one final time granting a wish here I am your genie Taryn Armstrong we'll put Tiffany on time granting a wish here? I am your genie, Taryn Armstrong. We'll put Tiffany on with the fifth spot here. Cause I also be intrigued to hear from people if they think Maria, I'm good to put Tiffany on the five with the,

you know, with the parentheses of, I would not be surprised at all if I come back in the next couple of days. And I also put Maria on and hell, I wouldn't be surprised if also I put Jelinski on as well. Yeah. I mean, I think there are just a lot of options and again with this being the most recent season right now

like I feel like there a lot of those options feel fairly realistic I still wouldn't count Liz out I definitely wouldn't count Maria out I wouldn't even count Hunter out and I can't even count Jelinski out so like yeah there's it's it's definitely a big big uh they're not hurting for choice with 46 absolutely it's a

bad problem to have that we had so many people to pick between and who knows we might have several on the list from this season after all last thing we like to do taron looking outside of survivor if there is someone from this season that you would want to see on another reality show, who would it be? I will just say, Jelinski is a Big Brother fan. He got to the show through Big Brother. Put Q on anything for me. It's almost like a cheat code for any answer about this season

is I'll just say Q. like a cheat code for any answer about this season is I'll just take Q. But you know, I wouldn't be mad to see Jelinski on something. But like, here's the thing. If Jelinski is on something, I want Q to be there too.

You know what I mean? That'd be interesting. I mean, I talked about this with Drag Race recently. I just feel like Paramount should be printing money if they do like in the nine months of the Big Brother offseason season do like a month-long season of big brother with only survivor contestants and like how much fun would that be like imagine jelinski leaning back full like cedric 21 year old energy talking about like all the alliances that he's made and the fact that he's getting clocked left and right that'd be that'd

be so incredible yeah yeah i mean he'd be doing the stacking hoh competition and just be like you know what not worth time yeah or like he would try to come up with a lie about whether someone's going to get put up and then he'll just stop conversation be like all right i'm just going to tell the truth right now i am going to put you up i do have the power actually yes he's gonna absolutely he him and quinn have the same hairstyle and probably the same amount of tight-lipped qualities when it comes to just blabbing about the power so it's something that'd be fun to see i've talked about this in other podcasts i would love to see like tiffany on something like the challenge i feel like she brings it physically and also has that perspective of drama and conflict where she is not afraid to speak her

mind i mean venus would be great as well i just feel like from a physical perspective i do fear for venus's medical bills if she like winds up in a hall brawl but also like put venus on any show venus on big brother i think is is a great choice yeah or venus on the Traders. I think Venus on the Traders would be very fun, considering that she is not afraid to call people out and also not afraid to hold personal grudges and have that carry over into strategy. I think her bristling with the Bravo Labs would be a very fun sight to see.

Yeah. All right. So that's all we wrote or spoke for today. The five people that we are adding, the final first round added to the shortlist here. With ages, we have our runner-up, Charlie Davis, 26. We have Chew Burdett, 30. Venus Vapa, 25.

Tiffany Irvin, 33. And Kevin Davis, 25. I'm sure there'll be more to come, but it won't be a long time before we re-engage with these choices. Terran, now I do believe it is time

to vote. At some point in the next couple days, I'll be getting together once again with Rob Sessarino. We are going to be revealing the full ballot. Out of all 46 seasons, we'll be going through who got added on through the shortlist pods as well as another round of wild cards by popular demand so make sure you tune into my

socials at a mike bloom type actually at the time you're listening to this it might already be up there i will put out a petition like i did for the first half of this experiment for anybody from seasons 23 through 46 that didn't initially make the ballot that you would want to see added as a wild card rob and i will throw them in there we'll review the whole ballot which is looking probably to get close to like 200 names and then the polls will be open as we engage in the first round of voting and yes i said first round but more on that with the next podcast in the meantime Taryn thank you this was this was awesome

to get the opportunity to engage in discussion about not only a season that you haven't really spoken about but also you as someone who has a lot of fascination and expertise on like reality TV production and the thinking of the men and women behind the curtain for you

to kind of get in those heads of what makes a returnee. It was a very welcome time and I'm thrilled that you got to join me today. Well, it's easy. I just think like what would a supervillain think? They say villains don't exist in Modern Survivor anymore, Taren. That's because it's the producers!

Well, you have your hands full, to say the least, going on in a Big Brother house, even if it doesn't have Q or Venus or Jelinski in it. Is there anything you want to plug right now to the listeners of RHAP who might not be tuned into the coverage? Plenty of Big Brother coverage going on right now.

It's always a fun time if you have not tapped into Big Brother before. It's a choose-your-own-adventure. You get to pick how invested you want to be. It's great. And you get to experience the real intrigue of Big Brother, especially if you've never actually watched it

or paid attention to the feeds. I'm talking about producers. I'm talking about edits. You will never be able to experience what it's like to be able to see what is happening via the raw footage versus how things are edited. It will give you an entirely new perspective on the other shows that you do watch, like Survivor, in terms of just how easy it is to manipulate an edit and make you feel a certain way about a person that you might otherwise feel the complete opposite about if you knew if you saw what

was actually happening um and so just getting to see that is really interesting and on top of that sometimes it's also a good show uh so that's that's fun too there we go so feel free to check it out if you were a survivor fan you didn't check out like when sari was actually in the house last season and now you want to check out big brother go ahead as karen again has daily coverage of it as our recurrence of daily podcast is starting to come to an end uh we've got the ballot reveal

coming up in the next couple days where again rob and myself will be reviewing who has been put on the short list so far and who we're adding before we finally release it to the public and it is in your hands i will do a bit of a blanket thank you on the next podcast but i just want to say now while we're doing the final seasonal reviews of these how much fun this has been to get to talk with you taryn and all the various guests about their survivor opinions their

perspectives on 700 players at this point and to to you all as well. I mean, listen, everyone certainly has opinions on players and who they want to see come back, but it has been such an incredible experience for me. I said it before, but this kind of feels like this is a culmination to me of nearly 25 years of fandom and something that I enjoy doing every single second of. And I can't wait to see how the ballot turns out, no matter what.

This has been such a fun experiment to look back in the history of survivor and truly think about if we got a chance to bring back these people no matter what the theme might be who would we look at it's it's been a nice stroll down memory lane including recent history and i'm excited to see how it's all going to shake out and we will start to see as again next podcast you'll hear from me is when I'll be talking with Rob to review the ballot and officially open the polls. Thank you all so much for listening until next time, everybody. Take care.

Bye-bye.