RHAP: We Know Survivor - Survivor B&B: S48 Preview

Episode Date: February 23, 2025

With a new Survivor season upon us, it’s time for Mike Bloom and Liana Boraas to re-open the RHAP B&B! On the B&B, Mike and Liana are inspired by the lighter side of Survivor, featuring a series of segments and games based on what’s happening on Survivor that week. This week, Mike and Liana are back together to preview Survivor 48!

Mike and Leona gather playin' some games You better pray to your mama that they're not super lame And if that all sounds cool I can tell you the name It's the R-H-A-P-B-N-B Mike and Leona gather playin' some games You better pray to your mama that they're not super lame And if that all sounds cool, I can tell you the name It's the R.H.A.P.

You can stay for free Hi everybody and welcome to the R.H.A.P. B&B or the preseason of Survivor 48 We are here unlike the ancient civilian of the Aizadega, we are present in the moment to talk about Survivor 48 on the horizon in less than several, just a handful of days. And we're back for yet another season to break it down in the only way we know how to do, which is the silliest,

most confounding way to do so. And I say we because I am joined as always by my co-host, co-owner of the BNB, putting the mate in Survivor 48. It's Liana Boris. Thank you, Mike. I'm happy to be here. I'm so excited for Giga Chad season. This is just going to be an absolute blast.

I don't know what to make of this cast. I've listened to all of your interviews. I've heard all of the recaps. I'm still trying to figure out how I think these players are going to play. But I think there's no better way to get into all of that than with the expert himself, Mike Bloom. As the expert in the room with us right now, I was about to say like because I sat down with these players and again, I had tested this before.

And I think now you can certainly see from the amount of laughs I had in these interviews. I had a very fun time talking with these people, but I will admit I am in total agreement and that I sort of left saying and maybe this is a bit of the meta of the new era as well, where I'm like, there are people who would do well on paper. But the thing about the new era is that like in some seasons, the most dominant people go is that like in some seasons,

the most dominant people go on to win. In some seasons, yeah, this prevailing narrative of like the most middle person ends up winning. It really is sort of like the box of chocolates of like, you never know what you're gonna get in a typical season of the new era, especially in a cast like this, which as I've said before,

does feel like it's probably breaking the most stereotypical conventions assigned to the new era, where you are bringing on people who are not necessarily died in the wall day one, knows the third boot of Survivor, Vanuatu types of fans. And then also, admittedly, from physicality standpoint, I think a lot of people in response to the interviews talk about how this had a bit more of an old school feeling to it. Do you agree with that?

I think you hit the nail on the head of in terms of things that I've been feeling about this cast. The old school feel I get more in the sense that it's a very masculine energy cast. Okay, I don't mean to get like super viney. Big BDE vibes on Survivor 48. As the scientist. Survivor 48 inches, am I right?

Ayo, Chris Underwood should have been cast here. No, I think, look, the, obviously, as you said, the physicality, so there's bigger dudes in general, which adds to it, but I think also you have a lot of the women on the cast who have been in male-dominated professions, who kind of bringing a lot of that, I don't know, baggage maybe with them, right? And as someone who is an engineer, like I get it, you know, you have that sort of those experiences shape who you are,

and they shape how you're going to view the game. And where you have a social experiment, obviously, those things impact you so much more as you're creating this new sort of little fake society. So to have, you know, a lot of that coming into the season, I think that's going to shape it. I think also the age, you know, we've talked about it. Oh, it's an older cast. But and I was I was telling me about this. I was like big big cast in clusters like it felt like, OK,

we cast the 20 year old season. Now we're casting the 30 year old season, right? Where we're still not getting a diversity in ages per se. It's just they've shifted the median age up about 10 years. Like, that's really all it seems to be. So I don't know how that is also going to impact the season. Yeah, because I mean, also, you look at the people that are in their 20s. And I mean, the youngest is Eva, who's getting her Ph.D. right now.

So it feels like we are not necessarily bringing in anyone who's kind of of that, especially in the early 40s, this mold of like, I'm a student fresh out of college or like I'm still in high school and I think that I'm going to take survivor on like my academic pursuits. Like everyone does seem to be at least fairly along in their careers. And my hope is that that gives them like a state of confidence in who they are. Listen, this cast also has loads of confidence as well, suffice it to say, which I think is going to be nothing but fantastic entertainment because unfortunately, that's going to lead to some of the most eviscerating blind sides out there.

But to your point, I think that Survivor Faxchekra might have said that this is like the fourth oldest cast on average or something like that, which is interesting. Well, because there's only three cast members that are in their twenties. Everyone else is thirty and beyond. But again, you talk about old school was definitely not the case even going back to season one. Right. Yeah. Well, and I think that that that's going to play a big role. It's also going to play into how people are interacting with one another as well. Right. So even sort of the the cool aunts of the world, they're still not that auntie of the right.

Like, it's like you're just 10 years older than me. You know, it's not like that big of a gap. Giving Lexi love. Yeah, it's good. Yeah. Exactly. Back in my day. But the other thing about this cast that I notice is if you think about Survivor and sort of those three points of the triangle, I guess, of strength, strategy, and social,

where's the strategy? And I don't mean that in a bad way. I see this as a strength social group, right? Like they're that line of the triangle. They're that side of the triangle. Because when I listen to a lot of the interviews, of course, social as per usual always comes up, but there didn't seem to be a lot of getting

into the nitty gritty of the strategy. And again, I don't say that as a bad thing. And I think also in the new era of Survivor, it's so crapshooty that you almost can't even plan for some of these, like minutiae when it comes to getting into exactly how vote breakdowns are going to go. So I don't, again, don't think it's a bad thing, just something that I noticed when thinking about what is it in general that stands out about the characteristics of this cast? Yeah, I think even those that might come from the more like stereotypically

brainy professions, right? You would imagine like, oh, you're going to be super analytical. And you look at people like Kevin and Camilla, who again, come from these careers. That's like, oh, yeah, you're going to by far be the person or Stephanie to approach this with like the clearest head for the numbers. But they're matching it with like these very fun, outgoing, pseudo chaotic personalities that's like, oh, it'll be really interesting to see how these two sides kind of vibe together or will they not at all?

Yes, exactly. I think Camilla is a perfect example of that, because even listening to her interview and I totally related to her on so many different levels where she talks about, you know, I always consider myself like I'm very logical. I'm very, you know, it turns out, no, I'm actually quite emotional, you know, and that like, that's fantastic. So she is bringing that energy into the cast. I think, um, who else was I thinking of? Oh, like Justin, for example, you know, he has this very like analytical lawyery background, but then what does he find is his true passion in life, right? It's pizza.

Yeah, it's pizza. It's interacting with customers and doing all of that wonderful people-y, socially stuff, not so much that strategic, lawyer-y, cutting edge kind of thing. So I think that that's really fun. I really like that. And I do think that that's probably another reason why it feels like a deviation from the traditional new era energies. And I'm also intrigued to see because they watched the entirety of season 46. I believe they ended

up flying out about like a month after season 46 and ended. Obviously there was a lot on their minds when they talked with me about it, but I also wonder as well because that to your point was very much what you were speaking about, right? It was a very personality and especially conflict and relationship driven season rather than necessarily, all right, let's break down the numbers, you know, that's much more of a survivor 47. And so I wonder how much of that is going to influence their game, either one way or the other, either they feel like, this is going to give me the freedom to like, maybe be a little bit more emotional and try to pursue, you know, what my heart is telling me over my head. Or I might have them swing in the exact opposite of like these friggin maroons.

What were they doing? They were, you know, acting too much on their impulses. I got to make sure I come in with a clear head and all these things. Mm hmm. Well, and I think along with forty six, like the impact of forty six, a lot of them talked about forty four. Yeah. I think along with 46, like the impact of 46, a lot of them talked about 44. And I think that that's another very personality with the Tika 3 sort of driven. And yes, of course, their strategy wrapped into that.

But you know, when they talked about the players and I let you know, the I'm so happy you asked the same questions for everybody, because we get this really nice barometer of like how people are thinking and when the players that they related to. It was a lot of so like strong social charismatic players and so again I think that plays into the social element of it all now whether or not they're going to think okay but not like too social like not to bond you know what I mean like we're not trying to win a million hearts out here we could see that definitely have an impact Maybe people pull back a little bit, but they just have such strong personalities. How can they you know?

Yeah before we move on to 48 I would be remiss not to discuss Leona because we are talking on Sunday February at 23rd And a little less than 12 hours ago at the time we are recording this. There was some big news that came out about Survivor 50 where they had this big beach drop event and screening of the premiere of Survivor 48 last night. I had the great pleasure of going meeting so many fun people there, including alumni, including current contestants as well. But Jeff dropped this big bomb that Survivor 50 is in the hands of the fans,

at least from a very large, significant perspective in that the fans are going to be in charge of through a series of popular votes, determining some very key elements in the season. For instance, the first four categories that we are voting on this Wednesday night after the premiere of Survivor 48 include the colors of the tribe buffs, include whether or not the game will start with rice or no rice. And then, you know, two fairly significant ones, but no offense to the food staples and

the colors of the buffs in the form of whether Final Four Firemaking will exist in this season and whether we will get a live after show like we have in the new era in Fiji or if we're going to get the old school quote unquote reunion in LA. So obviously, you know, I wrote about this for Parade. I did a reality flash about it. But Liana, I want to give you the opportunity to give your thoughts about not only the entire fan voting mechanism, but some of the stuff that's been up for grabs metaphorically in this first batch.

So first to talk about the fan voting mechanism, whenever I hear fan votes, I just think of Big Brother and the have not punishments. You know, do you want to give them licorice and mice or mice? But I don't know. Is this finally the season that fans want where they fill it full of cats? Just a house full of cats. That's all I wanted. Replace a voted out contestants with a Labrador retriever.

I'm telling you. That was listen, that's something you've been stumping for for a long time. That's your that's your get rid of Final Four fire making. Brother, listen to her. I know. Please let that be the vote. That's what I want to vote on. No. So whenever I think about it, you know, I always think it kind of like the goofy Big Brother kind of stuff.

But really, this is kind of awesome. Right. Like what other show really gives the fans the opportunity to speak back? They don't have to. They don't have to. They don't have to let us do that. They don't have to listen to anything we have to say. They can Jeff can sit in his little Jeffy throne and go like nanny nanny boo boo. I don't care what you think. Is that where he took the cushion from from Survivor 46 is from the Jeffy throne?

Yeah, the Jeffy throne. Yeah. And he almost let Rome sit there too. But you know, that's not not yet. Not yet. You would survive the bow. Maybe you could have sat on the Jeffy throne next Yeah. And he almost let Rome sit there, too. But, you know, that's not not yet. Not if you would survive the bow, maybe you could have sat on the Jeffy throne next tribal council. Well, Jeffy throne. So like, look, I consider this to be an opportunity where like,

who knows what's going to happen to show someone the 50th fucking seasons, man, like, let's just try something fun. Let's do it now in terms of things that we're voting for, it really runs the gambit. I mean, it's tribe flags, which, again, personally, no offense. Don't really care. But would love if it was like black, gray and white. There's some troll like that's our. Wow. The really bias against those of us that are colorblind.

They're like, I don't know what tribe this is. We're going full monochrome. It's all variants of blue. No. So like that's opportunity to troll. All right. That's our Boaty McBoat face. Like, let's have fun with that. Let's do some nonsense with that one. Yeah. Name the first tribe, Trivy McTribe.

Yes, it's Trivy McTribe face, just like the Jeffy throne. So that like that's the opportunity to goof around and have fun. Then there's the rice element, which has sort of always gone back to me at a fundamental level of the question of how much do we care that they're starving? Personally, I don't care that they're starving. The casuals really care that they're starving. So that's gonna be interesting

to see how that vote turns out. Then obviously the big, the big um in the room, which to me is the final four fire making. It's been contentious. A lot of people don't like it. A lot of people don't like it. A lot of people kind of like it. So that one is going to be very interesting and seems like the one that's impacting the strategy the most.

Now, the little worm in the back of my head. Oh, yeah, I know. Oh, well, I mean, RFK put it in there. It's part of the new standard for all scientists, apparently. Oh, do you think maybe Jennifer Lanzetti from KoRong was like ahead of the times like RFK was watching KoRong and he's like, that's a great idea. It's a great idea. We shall be doing that. So my only concern is if we do vote to successfully eliminate the final four

fire making, it's going to get replaced with something worse. Oh, that's actually that's a perfect negotiation tactic of like, oh, you thought you liked this. Just wait until we get rid of this and put something else in its place. Exactly. Just wait until we flip a coin. It's the Final Four flipping coin challenge. Right. So like that's that's just the trust issues that I have. So that's that's the other concern. And then the final one, I'm actually very surprised they're letting us vote on this,

because I always thought it was a budgetary issue that they like didn't want to come back and film a reunion. But for 50, they can make it happen. So that one, I do feel very strongly that they will want to do one in LA after the fact, because even the casuals seem to be on board with not doing a reunion directly after so who knows how all these votes are going to go? I love that they span so many different things and the fact that we might get more categories to vote on. We we definitely will. And so I'm I'm really excited to see what they are, because as you mentioned,

I talked about this on the reality flash as well. Like these, at least from our perspective, seem like kind of layups. Now, to your point, Final Four fire making, like, I'm not entirely sure what the general census of the entirety of the Survivor fandom is, because as Jeff even pointed out himself, it does lead to exciting moments. And there might be some people that are like, yeah, we don't need a straightforward vote if we can get an exciting fire making challenge, even though some people might disagree. But I'm intrigued to see, honestly, how far they are going to go for it. You know, are they going to ask

if we do two tribes or three? Are they going to ask if we're going to do 26 days or 39 days? Are they going to ask if we're going to do a final two or a final three? Like I was very surprised what was already on the table in this first batch. Is that the largest extent to which they'll go or is there going to be even more stuff to really put it in the hands of the fans? We will see. But I think for me, it's also clear that like what Jeff had espoused to a lot of press throughout these interviews leading up to this announcement was like him talking about wanting this season to be a celebration of the show. 50 seasons unheard of, especially in the spectrum of reality television. And so he really wanted it to be like an honoring of 25 years of this product. And so I know he wanted to get the

fans involved in some way. I would imagine this pretty much counts out any sort of fan vote for the cast. I don't think they wanted to do that again for various reasons. And in fact, Jeff, you know, gave a bit of an update on casting last night. He said he was looking for all types of players from all eras, which I think is, is, you know, music to people's ears for those that were like, oh, they're only going to cast from the new era. But I think that this is kind of a way for them to shoot for that happy medium of like, well, we're going to have people be able to contribute to the season, but not in a way that makes it feel like it's entirely out of our hands in a manner of speaking.

Like we're still contributing what they can change. And so I do think it's an exciting opportunity on paper, on parchment. I'm really intrigued to see what ends up playing out. And also the idea of like it being so up in the air for the players as well. Like they can do as much census taking as they want to. But like when they're sitting out there,

they're not gonna know if there's Final Four fire making or not apparently until the penultimate day. And so it must be maddening as a player to have to plan for so many different scenarios. But at the same time, they're returning players and therefore would probably be more adept in theory to thinking through all those possibilities. Yeah, exactly. You want to challenge people, right? So, all right, you've been able to play this game once again. We're adding an additional rule. You know what I mean?

Like this is this is normal. Right. This is what happens. And you are strong. Hopefully they are going to cast people who are strong enough to be able to handle no matter anything that they throw at them. So for me, I'm excited. I do. Yeah. I like. OK. That's still 50, though. Like, I'm OK. All right. Forty eight. Bring it back.

Bring it back. I do want to bring up something about 48 before we get into, you know, our usual preseason fair here, because I don't know, Liana, how much research have you done about the tribal council of survivor 48? Well, I heard what you and Rob had talked about at the ends of your very last summary pod about. I was going to say, I'm pretty sure it's the winter, Leanna, like unless you're down under. Yeah, it's all it's all I want.

I just want warm. But yeah, you talked about the end of this SIVA. SIVA? SIVA? Yeah, SIVA. Yeah. So the the universe thing. All right. So let me see if I can bring this up. I'll bring up the tweet that I put out, because again, I had the great pleasure of getting to go out on the set.

So I got to experience this tribal council firsthand. So let's bring up what I tweeted out. Here are some of the photos of this set, because it is incredibly unique, because, look, we have had a lot of different themes from tribal council as well, from harkening to cultural elements when the show still moved around to like, oh, here's a shipwreck, you know,

here's all these other different things that we're kind of bringing in. But never before have they created like an outright narrative for a tribal council. So for those of you that missed it or might not remember, the art department came up with this completely fictional ancient tribe called the Isodega and tribal council is like I would call it the ruins because they're honestly in pretty good shape.

But like this is where the Isod a day, the tribe leaders would meet back in the day. And so it's essentially like the players are kind of going to the former I as a day, the American Legion, you know, like their old stomping grounds where they used to get together and shoot the shit and make important decisions to make their own important decisions as well. And the main thing that represents this aesthetic is like, I call them onion bulbs, like there's this or like the macarons dynamic to it.

And that also translates to the triplag as well. If you see them like they're not banner flags, they are these two onion bulb shapes on top of each other. So listen, I've talked about this many times before. It's basically the entire ethos of our entire podcast here. Like I love when Survivor gets silly. I love when Survivor just try shit. And like this is a consummate example of this.

I'm so here for this made up civilization thing that they've just created. I like to think that one day in the future, when archaeologists are digging up Fiji, once it's been destroyed from, I don't know, a tsunami or something, they're like, oh, yes, where do we put this? This new civilization that arose around 2024. Yeah. So you think like it would legitimately be like, oh, my God. So they like came in wet, like they were around enough to kill us. But then they're gone. No records. We've watched previous episodes of Survivor because they'll be like, Oh, my God. So they like came in wet like they were around enough to kill us. But then they're gone. No records. We've watched previous episodes of Survivor because they'll be like

in this misogyny of this place. Like, yeah, never heard of the eyes of Daga prior. They seem to worship onions. Onions must represent something. They love the movie Shrek as well, I'm sure. Who doesn't? Well, so maybe it's not about the age thing. Like maybe that was the eyes of Daker, like a trifle of millennials. And like we finally got the thought exercise.

It's like, what if you just had a society entirely consisting of millennials? And of course, they died out immediately. Yeah, exactly. What are we supposed to fend for ourselves? Yeah, because they gave up all their avocado toast to buy these houses. And it turns out that they couldn't do anything after that. Yeah. And we just tried to barter memes. It turns out they're not worth anything. I was today years old when I realized that we couldn't have our own

self-sustaining society. I can has self-sustaining society. Only 90s kids would remember when millennials tried to start their own society only to die out immediately. Their mascot was the Kool-Aid man. I don't really get it. Yeah, they all got a Tamagotchi that didn't necessarily work at all. Exactly.

They still managed to kill them all. Oh, my God. But yeah, but I will also say like, you don't you'll get I think a glimpse of it probably in some overhead shots. The voting booth has two giant eyes painted on it as well. So like there's also this idea of how you're kind of stepping into the mouth of one of these onions when you're casting a vote. Yeah, that's great. You're being yeah, you're just it's a Latini, I guess, in a sense.

You got to like step in the line. Yeah, the cable wonders energy. Yeah, it look it's goofy. It's silly. I'm curious as to how much it's actually going to impact the show or if this is just going to be this thing that we're going to you know, we're like you and I are going to be like 10 years from now. You remember that time when Survivor made their own. I mean, imagine if Jeff's opening monologue was like, all right.

Once upon a time, there was the eyes of Degas or you know what they could do. They should bring back the Lord challenge, right? I mean, Jeff, you tell stories that was not about him being the waterboy of the Wichita basketball team, but instead of yes, these are the ancient cultures. What if he did that for one of these challenges of like, here's a story I'm completely making up, like if they really use that to the point where at the final tribal council, it's not out without play out last. It's like how did you embody the facets of the eyes of Dega the most that you are you a million dollars? Yes, exactly. I mean,

everyone creates like they create their own criteria for however they want to evaluate it. And maybe this will inspire them. Yeah, exactly. So it's not going to be about like, what would you do with the money? It's like, but how do you think you represent this ancient civilization of millennials the best? Yeah, exactly. How are you the one you know, people think about that when they're voting, we think about who they want to represent their season. Now it's about representing the broader tribe.

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month. Level up from bill payer to reward slayer. Terms and conditions apply. All right. Well, let's move away from this tribe. That's old news, Liana. We got to get to the new news here. Let's talk about these players and the only way we know how to do on the BNB. We got together or actually we got together separately.

I don't know if that's the thing. But we we decided to come up with a list of superlatives because they always say survivors like high school to assign to these players. And through that, we'll kind of like filter Liana, especially some of your thoughts on these people as you got to experience them. So the first superlative, most likely to get a personal segment. Now, this is maybe even more of a layup than the would you rather have the live reunion in LA or the after show in Fiji, because there are, I would say, two, with no offense to

everyone else and their stories, two very clear examples, in my opinion, of people who are going to get stories about them. Wait, who? Who are the two obvious ones? I started writing down, I got a list of like seven. Oh, interesting. Well, I think, you know, Mitch and Eva are both kind of making survivor history in their own ways. Mitch is the first contestant with a speech impediment, and Eva is the first openly autistic contestant in the show's history. I got to imagine we're getting both of their stories as soon as the premiere. Like, I would not be surprised if they're opening. Confessionals are about that,

concerning the fact that they are doing what 700 plus contestants have not done prior. Yeah, OK. Yeah, that totally makes sense. They were both on my list. I think Mitch, especially because not that Eva's is not, you know, we talk, people talk about invisible and invisible, you know, disabilities. And I think Mitch's is just vis, is more visible, right? You're going to hear it from the moment that he opens his mouth. And I loved in his interview with you about how he talked about like, look, this is just

something about me. I'm just going to say it right off the bat when I talk to to people and then if they want to know more, like I'm happy to discuss with them. And I think that that is so important because I think it's you know, obviously people can have preconceived notions about what they want in an alliance partner and how they're prejudging someone. And I think Mitch just coming on being like, yes, who I am, that it doesn't change anything, right? Like it really genuinely doesn't. And so I'm happy that he's going to immediately get out and discuss that because he was so fun to me in the interview that you had with him.

I love that one of his preparation steps was drinking coconut water. I don't know why, but that like really did it for me. They're going to talk about mining the well that is Libby from Survivor Ghost Island for information. That too, going over all the hypothetical questions with Libby. Like, what did you do in this circumstance? I mean, listen, you know, like with no offense to Libby, it's a bit of an any port in a storm. Like if I had a survivor player who was in a friend of a friend,

I would absolutely plumb them for as much information as possible. The Libby honestly might know more about like how to compete on what fight to survive than on Survivor at this point. Look, but still, I think any information that you can learn going into the show, especially just about like the difference in the perception of what you see on television versus what's actually happening in real life.

So having that inside information, I think is really valuable. Talk for Eva. Oh yeah, Eva. So I'm really interested in her, which by the way, I hope she's still in her NSF fellowship. My heart goes out to her. Anyway, no, she was super fascinating.

I love an engineering grad student. Yeah, Leona. She's an engineering PhD. I really love that. She is one of the younger contestants on the show, which for this age range could ostracize her a little bit. But it does seem like she's had a number of different experiences throughout life in terms of integrating into different groups, especially with the men.

She talks about being on the men's hockey team and things like that. So, again, I think that kind of fits with the general energy of the cast. Yeah. What other people did you have in line here? Who was in your several? Yes. Oh, my gosh. In my several. So, a couple other people I you have in line here? Who was in your several? Yes, oh my gosh, in my several. So a couple other people I had, Joe. I think Joe is someone who in general,

I think is gonna go on a screen time, but especially the fact that the story of his sister being the bigger fan and then losing her, that is such a heart wrenching story. They're gonna have to tell that story. I think Chrissy is someone else who is going to get her background charity as well. They both had these sort of very interesting stories of their

background and their career and like how they ended up where they ended up. I think that those are very interesting stories to me. So yeah, there's a there's a ton of people who have you know, the the thing right like some interesting. While we're talking about Joe, I would be remiss, Leanna, to not ask your thoughts on Diggler. Oh, my God. When he said I so I'm on a plane. OK, I listened to all of these while traveling.

So you know, stuff going on. She'd be walking around and I was like, Oh, what did I did? He did he say who? So I had to pause, go back, rewind, be like, yes, he did say Diggler. And then I was like, is that and then you said Gabler. I was like, oh, OK, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's fantastic. I love the fact that I won the draft with Diggler. Like that makes me so happy.

I absolutely adore it. And I love Joe as well. Again, you could tell this is a guy that wears his heart on his sleeve. And authenticity is like everything I want in a survivor contested. Because again, as we talked about, like, you know, trying to figure out your emotions in the moment of this very calculated game. That's what the show is about since day dot. And so I absolutely loved getting the chance to talk with Joe and Diggler was just the cherry on top.

I would say the two major things I remember taking away from my Survivor 48 interviews before I like kind of re-litigated and re-listened to them was Diggler and of course, Bianca's boss in Rob's Sex Dreams. Oh, of course, of course. That was, yeah, definitely a notable moment for me, though, of also from the Joe interview. Like, not only did you love talking to him, he loved talking to you. And I love the fact that he was like, you should go on Oprah, which I didn't understand. I was like, you should be a guest on Oprah. No, I think a contributor to Oprah.

I I think he asked me to stage a coup against Oprah. I think he wanted me to go in there and say, no, no, no, Oprah. It's my turn. My show now. But I'm, no, no, Oprah. It's my turn. My show now. But I'm still going to call it Oprah. So then they turn on the TV. It's going to be this space. Yeah, I'm excited for the revival of O magazine.

It's like all of Mike's favorite things. Yeah, exactly. Like, oh, oh, interesting. Old school Simpsons. I didn't realize Oprah Oprah is really into the Simpsons now. Yeah, I didn't realize Oprah. Oprah's really into the Simpsons now. Yeah, I didn't realize that. Oh, that's the new Oprah. Listen, let me just put this out right now. I I very much enjoy my name.

If I if I was given the ultimatum of like you could take over Oprah, but you'd have to change your name to Oprah. I I would go to the courthouse like I would change my name to Oprah if needed. I mean, honestly, I don't blame you. It's quite the empire. You get to take over. So so, yeah, all right. Well, well, I'll just call you Oprah from here on out.

Then we can see how that fits. And if you really want to move forward with it. I mean, with no offense to Bryant and Gumbel, I think it is probably the better journalist that I would want to take the name of. Is this like a situation where do you remember was it Subway or is like if you name your baby Subway, you get like a like a lifetime supply of Subway? Am I making that up? That feels like more so I don't know, sympathy of like, oh, for your decisions, this is the least we can do. Poor thing. We're giving you I don't know if you want free subway, though.

OK, so because that's the other thing I was thinking, like maybe I know you're saying, well, if I'm going to get the Oprah, I'm in the air to the Oprah throne. I'll change my name to Oprah. But maybe this is a manifestation situation that you should change your name to Oprah first and then the Oprah will come to you. You know what I mean? And then I think what I would do is I would go on the show and I'd be like, I'm Oprah Bloom. And I'm like, and now it's my show.

I do. Your first mistake was letting me in the door. Squatter's rights. Exactly. This is mine now. And I'm taking this. All right, Oprah. All right. Well, let's let's move on here to a contestant that may not get enough airtime to perhaps have a segment on Oprah, most likely to get a purple edit.

Now, this is interesting because to your point, Leona, a lot of personalities popped on this cast. Was there someone that stuck out to you, though, or perhaps did not? No, OK, this is someone who stuck out to me, but I'm just nervous that the show, unless they play a big role in strategy, I'm nervous that the show will under edit them as a consequence of all these other big personalities and that is Thomas.

Oh, interesting. I think that there's a lot of other people on his tribe specifically that also come across as like, oh yeah, these are gonna be the people who are gonna be getting the confessionals and he maybe is a little bit more soft spoken just compared to the others. But to me, like, he might be one of my winner picks. So you know what I mean? Like it's, it could go either way. That's what I'm saying. If he's involved in the strategy, I think he's going to get

a great edit. If he isn't really so much, then I think that there's a universe where he could fall a little bit to the wayside. I could absolutely see that. I mean, I think he had so many great one liners in my interview with him, including like with the one of us others, he maybe gave like one of the best reasons of like, why will he be back on Survivor 50? He's like, I'm gay and I like to have a good time. Like if you want it, if you want Bravo references, bring me back to the show. So like I could see him get like two lines or gififfable moments an episode and people will like hyper fixate on it, you know, like he'll he'll become

the survivor fan base. What Becky from Big Brother 17 was to Andy here and I'm like, I'm obsessed with this guy who only says a couple of things every episode, but when he does, it's absolute gold. Yes, I love that for him. That would be so fun. And that's a great position to be in anyway. You just get to come in, drop your fun catchphrase and leave. Leave him wanting more. Absolutely. I went I went with maybe with a similar line of logic.

I went with Cedric because I think Cedric similarly is an incredibly like stable, contemplative, quieter force. Even the way that he speaks again was like a little bit more with the lilt than a lot of the more energetic people around him, especially on that tribe as well. I could see a situation where like, I don't know if he'll be in any immediate danger, but I do see an instance where like he will, especially with him kind of coming into your point earlier point from this perspective of like, yep, I just want to get along with people, you know, leave from behind T.

And then, you know, hopefully get my way to the end and win a million bucks. I could see that more backseat approach lend a way to not being shown as much in lieu of these more aggressive, forward facing strategies. Well, he also bring out Oprah Mike. So you're going out on Survivor, baby. I mean, that'd be fun if you said Oprah. And then in the time since I have enacted my plan, it's like, Hey, Cedric, here I am. It's the Oprah, the new Oprah.

Well, and look, the thing is, is, you know, we've talked a little bit in these previous seasons about like, who's the disaster tribe, right? Who's going to be the disaster tribe? And I'm not saying that there's going to be a disaster tribe, but if there's a disaster, I think it might be these guys. I think it might be Vula. Just as a consequence of like, they just seem like a little bit more chaotic. Like I'm just not 100% sure how all of these energies are going to be able to work together. So for me, Cedric, like could be in a little bit of danger. I don't know first boot energy for him, but but I do think that

he might get a little bit more screen time if they go to tribal a lot. So all right. Next up, talking about Survivor 46, you're most likely to flip on their number one ally and let's stick with Vula and maybe a contributor to all this chaos. I would say because I think that say is somebody who will act on her own impulses. You know, she is someone who is incredibly confident in the career that she has built herself. I mean, she had just quit her job before going out to survive her,

because she was like, yeah, I wasn't feeling it anymore. And I decided that I needed a change. I could absolutely see her as somebody who like will immediately get in with a group of people. You know, she is incredibly friendly. She talks about being able to make any awkward moment into something tangible. Then maybe the next day be like, I'm not feeling it anymore.

I think I'm ready to move on here. So say we all. Yeah, I could, I could say I could see that. No, I think I think part of it is also that she talks about being very reactive. So if there's a situation where her number one ally maybe doesn't tell her something, you know, then there's this sort of reactionary response to that. So I could definitely see that from a certain perspective. For me, the person that I thought, and I guess maybe for sort of similar reasons,

could be Star. And I think that was mainly just because she was difficult to read. Like, I think that she has very wild card energy. Very fun, very, very fun energy. I'm so excited. She's one of the people I'm probably the most excited to see her play just because I don't know what to expect.

But then I think on the same vein, that then could lead to her turning on a closest ally. I think also because a lot of people talked about being loyal and wanting to stick. We're creating a family. We're keeping the family. We're doing this whole, we're being on Dondi, we're keeping the family together, you know. So from that perspective, I was kind of looking for the few people that I thought like maybe would not play in that particular style. Yeah, and I think that Star is someone who's also very eager to play. You know,

it's always interesting when people come in with their fandom. There are some people that have been huge fans for years and so they're like, all right, I'm finally acting on this decades long dream, let me play hard fandom, there are some people that have been huge fans for years. And so they're like, all right, I'm finally acting on this decades long dream. Let me play hard. And there are some people like star that's like, yeah, I fell in love with this game like two years ago and like now I'm just ready to play. I'm just ready to hit the ground running. And it does seem like Star is definitely one of those people.

I mean, just her energy, right? It's kind of like bouncing in her seat, eager to jump at a moment's notice. And so I could imagine that would translate to the game as well. Yeah, yeah, definitely. All right. Let's do some branding here, Liana. Most likely to come out with some sort of like either a podcast or a merch line or like to immediately hit the ground running on their cameo. Who do you got from this cast?

Okay, I was thinking more on the entrepreneurial, like businessy sort of sense. And so Charity, who started her own personal fitness brand kind of thing, I was like, that's perfect. Plus I think she's already got some interesting catchphrases making a long story less long. I very much enjoyed as one of hers. She's the nickname queen as well.

I think that plays into it. There's like a branding element of that. So, you know, I don't know who the Tony the rat equivalent is gonna be on this season, but she could even like sell out like, hey, you wanna line up like, hey, like pass, let's get together. Let's all create our own merch line

where we each get a nickname or something cute like that. I can very much see that in her future. Like a brand of jerseys where they are like letterman jackets where they all have their nicknames on it. Exactly. Yes. So mine was pretty easy, even though I don't know how feasible this is. I said that Shaheen would come out with a line of fake beards. Oh my God. Yes. Or like grooming kits. Yes. OK. Or it could be like the mullet beard combo. Right. All right.

Both. So Liana finally happening. The infamous SD is in HD in front of our eyes. I got to get your thoughts on him now that he has become a reality. What was so funny to me is that even within this cast as well, they're like, yeah, that guy with a beard, like there's something about this man's energy that everybody just notices regardless of what group he's in. He could be in the 20 year old cast or the 30 year old cast. It doesn't matter. He stands out in some way.

Fascinating to me. So he's Persian. So obviously, Puy is like, well, he's mine. I'm drafting him. Right. And I'm like, okay, that's fine. Whatever. You can you can have your Persian king, whatever. Then I listened to the interview and I was like, I kind of want him on my team. I love him. I love his energy. I'm so so excited. When his the moment that won me over was his one of his fave moments being Ozzy bidding 420.

Yeah, it's done. It's done. That's amazing. I love those little obscure moments when like, yes, something that you care about. It means that to me it just shows like how much you appreciate the show for all its little goofy, silly nuances. Yeah, which is really fun because again, I think that especially from a speech and debate perspective, you would think that this guy has the more heady like, oh, when these big arguments ended up happening or like somebody talking in a final trouble counsel, but for him, it's like,

he's like, yeah, like I got a lot of ideas. I need a strategist. One of my favorite moments was when Ozzy bid 420 and like deep throated a bunch of ice cream out of the machine. Like, like he has such different vibes to him to the point where say is like, this guy's got to work at a surf shack.

Like, um, I'm really intrigued to see how people's expectations of Shaheen line up with the way he actually is on the beach. Yes, yes, exactly. And that's, you know, I would say that was Sue last season, right? Where Sue's the person who's getting all these comments about like, I want to work with her, I want to work with her. His obviously are a little bit different. Some are super interested in this guy. Some are like, oh, I'm a little suss of this guy, but you know, look, they're talking about him. All right.

The other one I had was Justin, like, just could easily come out with his own line of pizza accessories, right? Like Luigi's branded pizza cutter, Luigi's branded, I don't know, hair net because he has such long hair. Like I think that would be so, he can make his own line of restaurant supplies to be completely honest. Yeah, I like that. And I think for him, he can do some sort of name it,

like you get to build a pizza or name a pizza or so there's some other like pizza face. Yes, exactly. Or like some fan contest where you get to win and name a pizza. I don't know. There's some pizza related things happening with him. I forgot to talk about this when I met when I talked about Justin with Rob. But what I realized, because to your point about him kind of like leaving, you know,

his life of a law career behind to, for, you know, familial circumstances, but to follow up with pizza making. It honestly reminds me so much of Bob's Burgers, where Bob Belcher, like, and mentally is not under the most opulent circumstances. Like they're barely getting by. But like he has such love and care for what he does that on the surface. So many people would just shrug off as like, hey, you just make burgers for a living. But like for him, that is his life's calling.

And he obsesses over every second of it. That's how I felt about Justin. Like Justin loves talking about Luigi's loves talking about slinging pizzas for a living. And honestly, it's like incredibly admirable because to have jobs that other people would just completely shirk is like, yeah, that's grunt work. That's what teenagers do just to make $8 an hour. Like that is his passion at this point.

I could not agree more. I wrote down a quote from him and he said, I can tell you all the things, something, something, how we do our cutlets. He was like, let me tell you about how we prep our chicken. Like he was so excited to want to talk about it. And you don't have that kind of, you don't bring that energy or those sentences into a survivor interview if that is not important to you.

Like I'm not going to be out on the island with you talking about my science. I'm sorry, like it's just not going to happen. You know what I mean? But he's like there, he's talking about his cutlets. We love that. We love that for him. So he should. Yeah, he wears a shirt.

Hopefully he wears a shirt that says, like, ask me about my cutlets. Oh, my God. See, that can be or maybe that'll be his nickname. Cutlets, cutlets, it's cutlet. Well, let's talk about somebody who who might get cut by the elements of the game, most likely to have an advantage. Screw them over. So I had charity in here.

You know, she was someone that was very much like, I'm going to take every opportunity that is given to me. But also from that perspective, I also put down Kyle because Kyle was Kyle was somebody who was also like, yeah, I'm just going to keep looking for stuff. And I could just imagine a scenario where he's like, yep beware advantage. Perfect. It's in my hands. Oh No, I have to do this now. I'm the most average guy or so I claim How am I gonna be the one to do this ridiculous thing and get away with it? Okay, that's so funny I had Kyle on my list too

But for a different reason because I usually try to pick my faves. So then that way when something bad happens to them, I'm like, well, at least I predicted this correctly. And Kyle was someone who really stood out to me and some of the nuances of his answers. Like one of the things that he said, and this is unrelated to being screwed over, right? This is I'm just talking about in general, but he talks about how in his, you know, you asked how do you prepare, right? And a lot of people, oh, talk about grip strength, I worked out, I made a fire, blah, blah, blah.

His answer or part of his answer was, I would think when I was in my job, how would I approach this in the game of Survivor when dealing with work stuff? And it was like practicing how to handle social situations or social nuances within the context of the game, but doing it IRL. Love, love, love, loved that answer. That's so fascinates me. So when he gets screwed over for some reason, perhaps of his own devising, he could do it to himself, perhaps.

At least now I'll feel better. Because that's the thing. He also thinks he's like, look, you can play hard the entire time. And that also might screw him over if he's trying to constantly play hard, right? So dominate the game, boy, but like I'm nervous for you. Well, who did you have besides Kyle for your list that most likely to get screwed over by an advantage? Yeah, the other person that I picked was Kevin.

And I don't know why. Kevin just gives me that energy of like sort of scrambling around maybe a bit and like ultimately ends up either finding the Bewared Vantage and getting screwed over or like misusing it in some way through a social advantage. Like, I don't know. I'm just I'm excited for him. I'm a little nervous for him because that was just sort of the energy that I felt when I listened to his interview. Yeah, Wayne told the Bewared V advantage says you can't go to the bathroom for the next 24 hours. He's like, no Yeah, yeah his story though also about sneaking down and watching TV I like I relate to that so

Like you also watch Survivor Australia with on mute Not survivor, but I would like try to sneak down. And I remember being very close to the TV because you couldn't have the volume on. So, you know, our retinas permanently damaged, but our love for TV is very strong. And also maybe forecasting how nowadays there are certain alumni of Survivor Australia that we want to put on mute as well on social media. Yeah, exactly. Block, block, block, block, block. Oh, chickens here.

All right. So let's let's we mentioned Survivor 50 before Liana, much like Kevin. We're going back to the well. Let's talk about who among this cast already project for me is most likely to come back for Survivor 50. Oh, my gosh. I I did love this question, because to me, when you asked it to everybody, because there were like two answers, right? It was either you fell in the camp of, this is what

I'm going to give you my genuine answer, this is what I'm going to do to get on 50, or the more interesting camp to me, which was like, I'm playing for the here and now. Like I'm playing to do this for now. So that just in general, before I give my answer, I thought that that was a very sort of fascinating response to see the divide between the two different sort of styles of players, perhaps. So in terms of the person who I think could be brought back, I mean, this, it's so tough to know, like, Q, I would never have guessed would have been the character that he was. You know what I mean? But I think I have to go with Bianca. Oh, purely for her out of pocket comments. Right.

Like this is the type of person that there's more to this well than we're going to get in one season. I need to know all the wacky weird things that she thinks. I yes, I love getting to have that because yeah, on the surface surface like this is another OK PR consultant. You would imagine honestly, that's like a very honed in crafted responses. And here she comes being like. We should eat the fish raw. Why can't we eat the fish raw? And it made such an enjoyable time for me that, again,

is another example of like you are more than your career. Like your career can certainly inform the way that you behave, especially if it is your life's passions. We were talking about with Justin, but like there's also a personality that exists outside of that. And Bianca is like a consummate example of that. Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly. And you know, she just the impulsivity applying on the whim, getting it on her first try. Like there's something about this woman that I'm very excited to get to know more about.

And potentially depending on how much we get to see and how far she gets, like this could carry over into 50. So I ended up going with David because again, I think that David is perhaps again, an example of how unconventional this cast is in comparison to the New Year, considering that when he applied, he did not know Jeff's last name.

But like the thing is, is that David is more than his physicality because you would say on paper like, yeah, but we have all these other, you know, big beefcakes, especially if you look past the new era of people that we could bring back. But David has the personality to match. Like despite the fact that he doesn't necessarily know the show, that does not shake his confidence whatsoever.

In fact, it emboldens it to that point about that question I asked about 50 is like, yeah, how many challenges, how many immunity challenges have people won in previous seasons? Five? I'm going to win six, I'll win seven, and then I'll be back here. Like that, that's what makes me so excited for, is that he will not necessarily be one of these people who doesn't know the show that well, and as a result decides to, like, sit back and let people who are more in the know

dictate his game and just kind of follow along. He is still coming through being like, I think I've got this. I think I can figure out how to do this. And I think that's gonna make for a really entertaining character. And this is me also trying to get in the heads of production, but when I see a pattern,

the pattern being we're mostly casting people who, even if they're new fans, they're still like pretty rabid fans, okay? So there's this pattern of casting these big fans and then David pops up and you're just kinda like, okay, there's something about this man, right? That production went against what their pattern has been. And maybe that was intentional, right? They were like, okay, there's something about this man, right? That production went against what their pattern has been. And maybe that was intentional, right?

They were like, OK, we're overcasting these like super duper uber goober fans. I want to ask somebody different. Goober fans. I think that's a new term. I know. So like maybe that's the reason. OK, and David just happened to be the one that was going to fulfill that criteria. But then the other part of me is like, there's something about him. There's something about David, the spinoff from the season. So that is what...

There's a person named Mary on the season. That's what I'm saying. It's the sequel. So I'm intrigued. There's more than just chocolate milk about this man. And I think we saw a snippet of it in your interview, but I think we're going to see more out on the island. So I love this back. All right. Next up and speaking of other recent news, it has been confirmed this week, the newest host of On Fire, with apologies to Rome, who tried to manifest it. We have a woman fest in the form of Rachel.

The most recent winner is going to be joining Jeff and Jay Wolf. So who is going to be jockeying to fill her seat from Survivor 48? I had a couple here and they're both from the same tribe. I'm deciding between Mary and Stephanie. Mary has a very different energy, I think, for a podcast, but people talked about it. Rob even did a, like, some of the quotes that she had

in my interview were like something straight out of a self-help book or like a philosophical manifest of like these absolute nuggets of wisdom that were just firmly ensconced in a sitting sweaty in the jungles of Fiji talking for half an hour about what she's going to do in the game. I think she is so like incredibly well crafted in the way she speaks and the way she thinks that I think if she does well, could pretend into like a really fascinating person to just talk to on a podcast. Stephanie, I think again, has this really interesting dichotomy where like she does have a mind for numbers. She was running a Monte Carlo simulation about the

the shot in the dark and coming up with all these hot takes. But like has this really fun pseudo goofy personality that a lot of people were picking up on as well. And like clearly loves to gab about her love of Survivor and reality TV alike. And so like she would also be a great personality for a podcast as well. It's actually so funny. Those are the two that I had on my list. And I think that it's picking up the same thing. Stephanie is the other one. You know, beard man aside, right? Stephanie was kind of the other one who got a lot of comments about her, like whether positively or

negatively. So that to me shows that there is something about her that really stands out. So I think that she could bring a lot of different perspectives like all wrapped into one person to the podcast. Mary also simply because I just I enjoyed her energy and I also wrote down some of those quotes, Mike, right? Learning how to say no to others so she can say yes to herself. Boom. That's amazing. That's my new mantra. I'm going to write that down. I'm putting it on my mirror every morning. I can look at it and say that to myself. I'm learning to say no to others. I can say yes to myself. So I think that that she could be very, very, very fun on the podcast.

I mean, look, at the end of the day, it's probably going to be a winner or someone in the final three, I would imagine. So the other answer would just be the winner. Just going with the chalk option of like, yeah, you pretty much like not only have you won a million dollars, we're not giving away any prizes except for a spot on on fire the next season. Exactly. It's what you really, really want. Exactly. I want to know what you're playing for.

The title of Soul Survivor, a million dollars, but most importantly, the third chair on on fire. That's a that's one of the things we're going to get to vote on, Mike. Yeah. Oh, my God. What if that was it? What if it's like you can't vote the cast on? You can vote who's going to occupy. And then is that like, let me go full chaos.

And we're like, all right. Put like put David on. Just see how David responds to all this. Yeah, right. Exactly. Or it's like voting for 50 and like 49 just get screwed over that none of them get to be the host. We get to just vote from someone in survivor history to be the host for 50. Last but certainly not least, in honor of the beloved

baby, Andy, who is most likely to have some issues on the mat in the first episode, but go on to rise like a phoenix from the ashes. Liana, I admittedly pleaded the fifth on this one because I was able to be there for the first few days, so I did not want to try to show my hand one way or the other. But I'm very intrigued as to see who you said. I have no idea. It's funny because this is one of the ones I gave Mike.

I was like, yeah, we should do a superlative for this. And then I'm like looking through the cast. I'm like, I have no freaking clue. Maybe like I'm trying to think of someone who maybe like the outdoors isn't necessarily their vibe. That could be someone that we could see. I feel like there was someone who had talked about that. And Kevin, Kevin had said that the outdoors was his biggest weakness.

OK, then I will go back to the well with Kevin. Yes, kryptonite, not outdoorsy, which actually that brings up another question I have for you more generally, which is prepping with fasting versus prepping with eating a lot and putting on a weight. Like, do we know what the ideal strategy is? Because it seemed like this cast had both. Yeah, and it usually is the case.

Like the one dichotomy I can usually think of is that Tyson has said, yeah, don't like stuff, stuff up as much as you can. And Jeremy has said, no, then like before going out for second chances, like I limited my diet to like just eating one peanut butter, jelly and sandwich a day. I have no idea what the final results are. I mean, I think, you know, charity could tell you firsthand, Lindsay, which as well, like, I think it depends on your body. Like, I don't think there is a one size, ironically enough, fits all for your pants size

for like what you choose to do prior to it. I think it depends on like how your own body metabolizes and how it could respond to that. I mean, I don't think it's ever a huge problem to get used to fasting. I wonder if Kyle is maybe to his point about again, being the best average guy like the happy medium, right? Where he said that he he built muscle, but he also purposely put on a couple pounds to have fat reserves that could wear away in the first couple of days.

I wonder if that's where you try to shoot of like don't go ham on milkshakes for an entire month prior, but like try to build up something on top of your natural muscles so that you will have something to kind of burn through and not immediately gas out. Yeah, I think Mitch did the same thing that was like, let me put on an extra like 10 pounds to just like give my body some extra fat reserves to burn off. You know, because this isn't 50. We're not getting rice. Maybe.

Maybe. If the plans vote for it. So we actually went through the vast majority of the Cassiano, but I'll give you an opportunity to give your quick thoughts about the couple that we did not necessarily mention. You talked about Camilla earlier, but this is where we want to shine the spotlight on her. Give me your thoughts. Mm hmm. Yeah, OK.

So I think she was maybe one of the people I related to like personally the most. I feel that her, at least with the stage that she's at in her life about learning to be herself and what it means to be herself instead of having whatever preconceived notions she wanted to be. Right. It's like, OK, this is the person that I envision myself to be. This is the person I see myself to be versus this is the person I actually am. And then coming to terms with those two different things is something that I've been to be. This is the person I see myself to be versus this is the person I actually am. And then coming to terms with those two different things is something that I've been through recently

and slash I'm going through at the same time. So from a personal perspective, I really like that. I also enjoyed that she's impatient with slow people who are slow, who walk slowly. That's great, we love that. She does, I know she even draws a comparison to Erica, but I can see it, right? Someone who looks young, who comes across as like this,

you know, tiny little lady, but who really has a lot of depth to her and someone who I could see playing quite well. I love the fact that she was vibing with Giga Chad because her and David running that tribe would be so fun to me. Manifested. I need it to happen. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I'm, you know, I'm really looking forward to her. And I think the last thing I'll say about her is her love of Stardew Valley. Someone else who's a Stardew Valley girlie, like that mourns my heart that she's out there on the island just like harvesting her crops, growing her little farm. That's so fun.

And she'll maybe have to pick a mate, right? Much like Sardew Valley does. Yeah, exactly. Is she gonna get married? Is she gonna have chickens? All very real possibilities of drawing a line. The natural steps in life, yes. First comes love, then comes marriage,

then comes chickens. Chickens, yeah, exactly. We all wanna coop. Well, let's stick with Siva. Siva, Caesar. Siva, let's talk about Chrissy. Any, Siza, Siza, Siva. Let's talk about Chrissy. Any thoughts about Chrissy, the oldest player on the season, the cool aunt, if you will.

Oh, yeah, she's a cool aunt. Yes, I she's another very old school energy. Right. Like, that's kind of what I get from her, especially the fact that she's was she the one who didn't like super fans practicing in your practicing your basement is cheating. Love that. I would love to see her meet hunter like what is her opinion about hunter because i'm one hand i'm like they're going to get along but he's practiced a lot of those puzzles that she can hate that um she uh you know

i don't know how much she retained about the show proper in terms of the mechanics and and that's why it's someone else who is maybe not like that. This is not to me like a very strategic cast, but I don't think that that's inherently a bad thing because I think that she'll fit in with with a lot of the other players. The she does seem like someone who is going to speak her mind, you know, is that going to get her into trouble? I'm excited for her to meet shush girl. That is an interaction I would love to see. So she just fascinates me from,

I want to see this person play the game. I agree. I'm really intrigued to see, I think she's gonna rely much less on her survivor history as again, maybe some of these other players of like, I remember in this one, this happened. So therefore I shouldn't do this. I mean, she'll remember maybe what Yaya did

But that's pretty much it so I think that she's gonna much more rely on like her life experience and like to your earlier point is this really interesting journey that she had where she talks about in her one minute video of like walking to the fire department asking for a hook for her purse and then like working her way up to a Leadership position and the person that people look to with their lives on the line. I could see something similar here where she just like comes in and ends up becoming this like kind of quiet leader of Siva where everyone feels like she's one of the most stable, reliable presences on the season. And I love the fact that she also mentioned when she was doing the kryptonite week,

like the weakness, strength conversation where her kryptonite, she's like, look, I talk, I might talk too much. And I can be an open book. And we've seen that get people in trouble, right? You say, Oh, I don't like this. And then that's like the one small reason why they vote you out. So she's aware of that. But I love the fact that she's going to be herself because that authenticity is really going to shine through and then might also allow her to create those connections and be a sort of that

like stable rock of the tribe that you mentioned. All right, Liana, any other thoughts about any of these specific tribe members from your perspective? I think we've talked about everybody. It's this cast, like I can see these individual players as individual units. And I feel like I understand the individual person

for the most part. Yeah. But when you put them all together, that was why even you and Rob were talking about, oh, who I think is gonna be paired with whom, no offense, but you guys didn't even have a very clear vision, right? Or you were disagreeing.

And I think that that's what makes it fun because it's this unknown, the unexpected, I'm expecting the unexpected, baby, about how these people are going to individually or like how individuals are going to come together to work as units. Right. And that's the like fascinating part. And I think that's going to make for a very fun pre merge. And then we get everybody together, hopefully a fun post merge.

Well, especially because if they start playing individualistically as well, like certainly the tribe game is a thing and challenge. Strength might be something that gets voted on, in which case some people might be in trouble more than others. But like these people also might just say, hey, that's fine. Like, we'll go to tribal council if we need to. In the meantime, I need to take out this person right now. And that always leads to great TV. Yes, exactly. And that's where the we can see some really strong loyal bonds form where it's about my group, right? Playing individually from the sense of like it's my family versus your family.

This is like the Mafia Wars season of Survivor. Who knows? All right. Well, Liana, we have given our thoughts. Yes. About the cast. But there is a very significant group of people whose thoughts have gone unsaid on Survivor 48 until now. Until now, until now. And look, now that we're going to be getting into voting for 50, I think it's more important than ever to tap into the casuals corner.

And this is going to put you, Mike, in the hot seat a little bit because you have been able to give your thoughts, listen to all the interviews. And now I'm going to ask you some questions about those casuals thoughts. So for you, those of you who are tuning in for the first time, this is the game we love to play on the B&B where I go into the Survivor Facebook page and I dig into what the other groups of the fandom are thinking about Survivor. And in particular for this episode, we're going to be talking about the cast previews. So Mike had mentioned in some of his interviews talking about these one-minute videos

that Survivor likes to put out about individual cast members, and they post them to the Facebook page and the comments run wild. So here's the way this game is going to work. I'm going to read you a comment, Mike, and you are going to try to guess whomps that comment is about. OK, OK. I'm actually intrigued. Again, not to do too much on 50 has the news of the fan vote reach them yet to the Survivor Facebook page post anything about it yet. So I put the game together yesterday. Okay. And then the announcement came out at like hours after I had finished. So I'm not 100% sure I can quickly check that I was gonna say if anything has come out yet. They're a little bit slow sometimes on the post,

and they have also been posting things twice. So it's a little bit chaotic over there as I was telling Mike. But yeah, that's sort of like when you forget if you locked your car or not. You're like, I'll just press the lock button again. It's like, did I post this video? Well, I'm supposed to post it again. Nothing about 50 has been posted. They're focusing solely on on 48 for the moment. So. Let's us focus on season 48.

Mike, here is your first comment. So, again, you're going to tell me which contestant this is about. OK. He seems the type to use. No worries a lot. Is the type that seems to use no worries. Well, first off, very millennial slash isodega coded. Like, I'm pretty sure I saw a meme that was like how each person would respond to like somebody saying they're sorry and millennials was no worries,

which like I'm very guilty of. No worries. I mean, listen, we we had the Lion King, like as part one of our pivotal childhood cultural moments, like first We're gonna put a kuna matata. No worries in there. I am going to say it's tough because like Justin has the look. I don't know if he has necessarily the temperament for it, I

think I will ultimately for it, I think I will ultimately. Who? I might go, maybe I'm just based on like say his assessment of Shaheen being this like surf shack guy. So maybe I don't know, maybe she was talking about Justin the more I think about it. I'm going to go with Uncle Shaheen here. OK, both of those would have been incorrect.

It was actually Kevin who got this bro. No worries. I could see that. Again, Kevin has this like really fun, positive, kind of wide eyed energy to everything. They'd be like, yeah, no, no, no worries. No worries. It's totally fine. Totally cool. He has the most infectious smile. Like I am obsessed with his little picture because I put together when I was going through all the preseason interviews,

I grabbed like pictures of everybody. You just look so happy. I want to listen. I would I would go into Abercrombie and Fitch if he I grab like pictures of everybody. You just look so happy. I want to listen. I would I would go into Abercrombie and Fitch if he was at the front of it. Like this, if this guy's any indication of what's in there, I'm headed in there. Telling me I can look like him. I love it. All right. Your next comment is

what is up with the muscle flexing doesn't mean you're going to be a good player. Oh, I mean, so the obvious pick here is David. And I'm trying to remember from the one minute videos like I it's almost 100 percent guarantee that David flexed in that video. The question is, did Joe I don't I think Joe is a very humble person that he wouldn't be like, he'd be like, yeah, like, I'm pretty strong, you know, like, I don't know if Joe would be like, and I'm this absolute chunk of muscle that exists out there.

So I will just go Occam's razor right here. I need a win. I will go with David. All right, that is good logic, but unfortunately incorrect. What? Chrissy flexes in her video. Wow. And they're like, how dare you?

How dare you flex? That does not mean you're going to be a good player. Not that I'm sure she's like, I'm going to play. Oh, easy. Yeah. Like of all people for Chrissy to be like, yeah, this is it. This is my game. Yeah. Like, what? OK, sure. All right. Here's maybe one of my favorite comments

from Casuals Corner. I hope your bangs can grow a little while you're out there. Oh, that's Mary. Yeah. Mary's baby bangs, baby. Not coming for Mary's hair. You know, it is interesting because a lot of people like to track the facial hair growth, of course, on the men. We haven't had like a day one to day 39 bang check. Also, I mean, first of all, I feel like not a lot of players

come in with bangs necessarily, because I feel like if you did come in with like the carpet bangs, you'd be looking like cousin it by day 26 or day 39. Yeah. And you want to be someone with long hair. You want to be able to pull that back. You know what I mean? Like you really don't want that getting in your face as someone who had bangs when she was younger, even a little bit of like getting in your, oh, it's so annoying. So I can imagine one why she would maybe go on the shorter side. Because if she does, if they do grow out, she's going to be fine. But just in general, why you wouldn't want to have them, you know,

the, the bobby pins get lost when I'm at home, right? Imagine I would lose them so hard on Survivor. Yeah, you'd be like, Jeff, I'll trade in my shot in the dark for a bobby pin right now. I need to pin these bangs back. Exactly. Can we trade our flint for some hair clips? Please use hair clips to start a fire. Just strike them at the right at the right time. Do you think that maybe the more spoiler minded

people like we're watching Mary social media like look at those bangs. What are the inches on that thing? How long did she last? You're seeing the comparison photo side by side with little rulers trying to measure how far they grew. Yeah. How big is that forehead? Except how much forehead space she has. It's measuring the more forehead or final forehead. It's giving vital for the final forehead. It's giving title for the final forehead.

I'm really feeling for her final forehead. Yeah, I love the final forehead fire making challenge. That's like such a mouthful. That's how you get rid of that hair. It just singed it off. Well, I've seen those like viral videos of like this guy uses unconventional methods to cut hair in the middle of Eastern Europe. It's like singeing it off. Just heat up that machete and just there you go. Easy haircut.

Let's talk about the next comment. His Achilles heel is his mouth. Oh, well, first off, that person needs to study anatomy because I don't think that's how that works. Or maybe he needs to go back and stop studying the Isadega and more so study other empires in ancient Greece. Yeah, exactly. I love that statue. Okay.

So his Achilles heel is his mouth. I mean, again, David was one of the most braggadocious in his confessional. Shaheen could be another one considering he does do a lot of talking in his one minute video. So you said he, right? That's the pronoun? I did, yeah. Okay, because otherwise you could say like that star in a nutshell. I will go with, you know, they say the definition of insanity is trying the same thing and expecting a different outcome. And I am far from sane. So I will go with David here.

Your insanity proves well, Mike Bloom. That is correct. There's a first time for everything. Yeah, and that's it. No, they, boy, the casuals had a lot of feelings about David. Oh, I'm sure. Because like, again, I think we probably unfairly attribute characters like David to like casual fodder, right? Yes. And I would say that he, yeah, he had a lot of comments, but very similar responses to him. So for example, oh boy, lol,

I wonder how long this guy will last. Awesome. A narcissist. LOL. Let's see who he charms and who he repels. LOL. LOL. Next item up for auction. Humble pie. If he even makes it there, I roll emoji.

So yeah, a lot of strong feelings about David. Very, very big reaction for him. I love a nice one-liner there. Like if you had did your usual, like which one of these did I write? That would have passed for a comment from you. You know, we're just the synergy. It's great. Your next comment is.

The snort laugh will not go far. Oh, that's Stephanie. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They really, really latched on to that one. OK, your next comment is don't be flicking your hair like Andy. That drove me absolutely nuts. Oh, OK. So hair seems to be the focus of a lot of this cast.

I don't know if Jam Jam and Kenzie inspire people to now make stylistic comments about these people. But so I've got a couple of options here. Obviously, a lot of the women are up for grabs right now. And I'm trying to remember if any of the women flick their hair over the course of this. Or it could just be aesthetically like Justin has long hair. Andy had long hair. Justin flick hair like Andy. Me thinks not.

I will say just because I can't remember anyone who would like maybe charity flick her hair. I will say Justin, though, of the surface level comparisons. Stay on the surface. No need to go deep. Yeah, that's correct. It's just Justin. So the caveman explanation really made sense. Yeah, I'm like, I could just imagine they I mean, I feel bad for Justin because like he talked about in my interview, right?

He's like, yeah, it kind of sucks. Like I got so much sand in my hair when I was out here. Like I got to tie it back. I'm going to trade in my flint for a fricking hairband. Jeff, that like I would feel terrible for him, like he'd have to flick it back because it's just sometimes a nuisance out there. But these poor casuals are watching him like a hawk, making sure that doesn't happen. Well, and they liked it.

We're not particularly fans of Andy's, so I'm sure. Yeah, I need to talk about it. It's a little Regina George ish and that like I can't keep talking, you know, like it's word vomit. I can't stop talking about it. It's a little Regina George-ish and that like I can't keep talking, you know, like it's word vomit. I can't stop talking about him. So now we're mixing our high school metaphor. We had she's all that. Now it's mean girls for Andy.

We're moving it all together. All right. You have two more comments left. Your second to last comment is a normal person. Refreshing. This feels I don't know who this is insulting. Like is it insulting to like the normal person or is it insulting to everyone else? There's a bunch that I was like I can't tell if this is an insult or not. So I'm going to imagine again going surface level here Kyle is the one who actively said as I mentioned before like I'm the most normal guy you'll ever meet so I think it's talking about Kyle. Okay. That is incorrect.

Really? In fact, it's Bianca. I mean, to their point, the way she comes across the interview versus my interview with her, it is like night and day. That's what I'm saying. It's perfect for the onion tribe. Like there's layers here. Okay, one minute video, you get a layer one.

The 15, 30 minute interview. Oh, boy, we're deep in the comment on like just go to this lake to find out all about her Boston Rob's sex dreams. Exactly. Read that fan fiction. OK, your last comment. Good luck. No, that's not the comment. I'm wishing you good luck on this last comment. Good luck. No, that's not the comment. I'm wishing you good luck on this last comment. It is hashtag ass man.

First off, how did they get my license plate that I stole from Kramer? OK, hashtag ass man. So I'm I'm just intrigued from this person's psychology perspective. Like, are they trying to bring the hashtags back to Survivor like they were? You know, maybe that should be something that Survivor 50 can vote on. Like, now we can put these really weird hashtags at the bottom of a hashtag Survivor breakdown, hashtag coffee is for closers. I remember that. That was one of the last ones they put there on the lower third.

So are they doing that or are they trying to say like, yeah, I'm trying to get a movement going right now. Like the hashtag ass man. And this also has a couple directions we can go. We could go quite early to the posterior and be like, are they checking out that badonk and thinking about like, wow, a lot going on. But no, this is Cedric.

Yeah. Again, like, listen, I as my as my interview was very clear, I was very much with the casuals from this. I I have so much appreciation for the professional career that this man has been able to get like obviously a lot of hard work But all I could think while I was sitting there was like but doctor. He's a but doctor, but he looked at butts for a living It's so funny because I was like, oh wait, why did they say that about Cedric? I was like, oh

Right That all makes sense Why did they say that about Cedric? I was like, oh, right. That all makes sense. Yeah. Plus, he wants to lead from behind like like it's my man. Come on, come on. I know that, you know, Rob was coming after me and being like, you little child is bad. I'm like, listen, the low hanging fruit sometimes tastes sweeter than what's up above in the canopy.

You know, I can only take what was given to me in that moment. Exactly. So hashtag ass man it is. There we go. Yeah, I I hope that I hope that carries through. I hope that one casual is able to get this movement going throughout. Proud of them. Yeah, we're going to. All right. I'll write that.

Hey, I don't know. Leave me alone. And we'll come back. It's fine. So, yeah, so look, that that does it for the casuals comments. You know, some people did like, you know, Kyle, this guy has something so far. He's my pick. He's calculating like, you know, other comments. People were interested. Those ones that stood out to me.

Yeah. Are there any like general comments about them or is this still like another like, yeah, we have these these opinions about these individuals. Yeah, it's still mostly the opinions about the individuals. You know, there's sort of the general vibe of like. It's survivors to woke kind of stuff like that that always is going to come up. I would say less though this year than I've seen in previous years. It does seem to be like individual comments about people. There was another one about say that I couldn't tell if it was an insult or a compliment was love that mindset holding grudges and

being vengeful, which I didn't know if that was sarcasm or not, which or they always love that mindset. You never know. You never know. Yeah, absolutely. So we're intrigued to see obviously how much these predictions will come to fruition. I will also introduce, as we usually do, Leon and I will write preseason predictions out as to how we think these people will do. I have nowhere to go but down because I was.

Like, stupidly astoundingly on the money for how season 47 would go. But also, like, I'm Marred anyway, because people will just say that because I was out there for the first tribal council that like, I know how everything is going to go. So I'm elated to be wrong here to have the reversion back to the mean of Liana being more correct about things that I am. To your point, like, this is this might be shaping up to be a very unpredictable season considering like we don't even know how these people are going to initially interact with each other. Oh my god, I have no idea. I tried to make my draft

board, right? And part of it is also trying to identify who I think the first boot is going to be, right? Because we have the grenade rule as part of the the R.H.A.P. draft. I'm like, I have no idea. I have no clue. So it's going to be a little bit of a crapshoot. But as Mike has nowhere to go but down, I have nowhere to go but up. So I'm pretty thrilled for how the season I think is going to go. I'm really looking forward to it.

And I can't believe it's just around the corner. All right. Well, the last thing we do on each and every BNB is that we highlight a charity, not the person or cause that is important. I'm so excited to say that every week as well, by the way. Get used to that, people. But yeah, an opportunity to kind of take a break from the silliness and highlight something that is going on in the outside world that should get your time attention if the funds if you can do so.

Leona, did you have any in mind? I had one if you did not. So I'm just going to generally talk about any sort of science foundation charity, because right now science is under attack. No, but like genuinely, I have a lot of friends who are losing their jobs or losing their positions being a scientific research, which is the fundamentals of also any research in the country. It's very important. So, like, for example, the American Heart Association, which funds a lot of grants because, you know, that's a area of research I'm involved in.

But if there's any sort of other charities that support a disease or something that, you know, you may have personally been affected to, I highly recommend this is a perfect opportunity to reach out and donate because funding is being pulled left and right from government institutions. And so we as scientists are going to be looking to some of these nonprofits to continue to fund the work that we do. So that's my general call to action. The other call to action I will add alongside that is the look while we have made a lot of jokes about voting on fire, incorporating a role into survivor 48 and 50. Of course, this year started off with absolute devastation in the form of the wildfires that have affected LA. And luckily,

while things are under control right now, there was absolute devastation that occurred across that city that obviously is something that has a lot of ties to Survivor as well might be the home of its season 50 reunion so there is still a lot of relief efforts that you can contribute to if you have the ways and means to do so I contribute to the California Community Foundation Wildlife Recovery Fund you can contribute to the California Fire Foundation there's a lot of different places you can give to if you see an individual will go fund me for someone who was affected by the fires, absolutely try to contribute in any way.

And of course, our hearts go out to those that were affected by those, because, you know, survivors of game where you were kind of like building everything from the ground up and nobody outside of the island deserves to undergo that form of devastation and the feeling of losing everything. So yeah, listen, it's a wild world out there, especially to start off 2025. And never have I been more grateful, Liana, to get this opportunity to kind of come on and goof off for an hour and a half every week about Survivor. I think especially with this cast, we're going to have a very fun time over the next few months. Mm-hmm. I'm really looking forward to it.

I think it's going to be an absolute blast. Of course, you we have 50 on the horizon, but the the 48 snack is going to be just what we need, I think, to get through these next couple of months. Yum, yum. I hope it's pizza bagels. Well, Justin's got one with your name on it, Oprah. Oh, wow. It's going to be very tough to spell on a pizza bagels, very small. But what's not very small, Lona, is a list of podcasts coming up from the two of us. Because what's interesting is that at the last time we recorded one, which at the end of

Survivor 47, we both had projects to tease. And now those projects are officially like public now and we can speak about them. So why don't you start? Why don't you plug what you have going on out there in the pod sphere? Yes. Oh my gosh. Yeah, that's actually so wild. That's really fun. I love that. So Drag Race is going on. Of course, we're having so much fun with the current season that's airing. But as Mike discussed, the Pugin Leona Lounge now officially exists

in the ether that is the universe. And I'm it's been such a fun, weird journey. If you just want a break from anything reality TV, anything just in general, it's just Pooja and I goofing off, having a good time talking about random nonsense. So I highly, highly, highly recommend you check it out. It's very fun. Yeah, it's a nice like hang show.

Hang with your friends. Hear about your week, hear about what's going on and just get an access as well to like granted your very online relationship considering that like that's how you met but like to see a bit more of like what happens outside of to your point having a show that you need to talk about. Exactly. It's the dynamic of what's going on behind the scenes. We do talk a little bit about reality tv, of course. How could you not? But um, but yeah, it is it's a very chill hang getaway of course, how could you not? But yeah, it's a very chill hang, getaway, vacation kind of show.

And so the show that I can plug is, of course, the Reality Flash, which is RHAP's own breaking news podcast in the world of reality TV. Listen, there's a lot of stuff out there. There's a lot of shows that seem to be even more so growing in size. And so whenever something comes out that you need to know about, I will be in your eyes and ears giving you what you need to know about who you need to know, when you need to know it, and why you need to know it. And I guess how you need to know it if I'm just gonna fill in all those questions.

Exactly. Yeah, get all the W's. Well, I would say for me, I will plug the Reality Flash as well. As someone who has stopped really being on social media for like mental health reasons Mm-hmm. Oh, it's the perfect way to keep up with everything because I like just I'm not seeing the tweets I'm not seeing this skits, right? So Mike Bloom, it's the one-stop shop. You get all your updates for reality TV So thank you, Liana. Yeah, and we got a pretty packed dance card, I would say, for this weekend. So get this. So we have Friday. I came out with sort of like this fun little hodgepodge potpourri of a bunch of random news tidbits from the reality TV universe,

including one involving a former returning player from a survivor. Then Saturday, there was the big news about Survivor 50 from Jeff that I did a quick reality flash about. And then today, probably at the time this is being released, there will be another reality flash because there was this like big expose that came out about the Bachelor Universe on Friday. Listen, we're very lucky to have Jeff Probst really front center and talking about all these things with Survivor 48 and 50 because this could be a lot worse when it comes to show runners allegedly. And so I'm going to be joined by Haley Strong to break down some of the allegations that have come out recently about them. So it really is a hodgepodge. Everything from like, you know, I did a preview of like the

challenge 41 speculated cast, everything from that to like maybe some controversial or like TMZ-laden moments that have happened to like some of these bigger pieces like the bachelor stuff we're gonna get into. Whatever you need to know about reality TV, go to therealityflash.com. And of course, from a survivor perspective, there's a lot.

As Liana talked about, my interviews are all out there in written form, audio form, in video form. If you wanna do like a quick crash course into who these people are, I have hours of entertainment for you all to check out and I'll keep on going. Obviously I had the great pleasure of getting to be out there

in the first few days. So I will give a lot of behind the scenes info both on social media and in article form about like stuff you may have missed that did not ultimately make the edit. I'll of course continue doing weekly exit press including with the first food from survivor 48 coming up on Thursday. And then of course when the weekend rolls around the BNB comes calling. We're going to be back every weekend with a guest talking through the most recent episode and playing some games around it and just having a generally malarkey filled time. So that being said, we are a community. I know we're past the community theme,

but if you have game ideas, we want to hear from you. No idea is too stupid for the BNB. People have been listening to this for a long time. No, that is abundantly clear. So you can reach out to us. You can email us actually, rhapbnb at gmail.com. So rhap the letter B, the letter N, the letter B at gmail.com. You can contact us on social media using hashtag rhapbnb. Honestly, any idea for a game that pops into your mind, even the smallest stuff, we can kind of warp and contort to fit into something gameable. And so who knows, you know, your suggestions might show up on a podcast,

including this upcoming week. So that's going to do it for our inaugural Survivor 48 episode here on the BNB. Again, I'm super excited to be back at this with you, Liana. It has been too, too long. We both launched our own individual podcasts in the meantime. But now we get to come back together for the good stuff, for the B&B. Just like Gail and Oprah. Yes, exactly. Me. Well, Gail's going to have a certain reaction when she sees me out there.

Unless do I replace Gail with a new Gail? Yeah, that's a good question. I think I think it's me. Liana, Liana, you want to be you want to be Gail? Can I be Gail? I think so. Yes. So everyone, everyone wants to advertise that Leona and I are the new Oprah and Gail. Let's just really start this movement going. That would be incredible.

That's what I'm saying. Dress for the job you want, not the job you have, Mike. All right. Well, I better get changed into a blue pantsuit right now. But that's good for this week on the BNB special thanks to the entire R.H.P. team behind the scenes for packaging this podcast for your eyes and ears and Wolf America for his fantastic theme song, which if you're listening to the audio version, we'll be opening and closing out the podcast. Of course, Leon and I will be back in just a week's time covering the jam pack to our premiere of Survivor 48.

Until then, everybody will check you out at your next game. B and B Mike and Leona gotta play in some games Gotta pray to your mama that they're not super lame And if that all sounds cool I can tell you the name It's the R-H-A-B-M-B You can stay for free you