RHAP: We Know Survivor - The Best Things About Survivor 49

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

The Best Things About Survivor 49 Survivor 49 takes center stage as Rob Cesternino and Mike Bloom dig into the twists, cast shake-ups, and most memorable moments from a season that refused to play it safe. With a focus on what really worked in Survivor 49, Rob and Mike look back at the season’s biggest format shifts, including the return of two-tribe swaps, the end of “mergatory,” and smarter journey twists that gave players more choices and fewer automatic penalties. This is the episode for fans interested in re-examining the wild moves and standout personalities that defined Survivor’s 49th outing. Rob and Mike start by revisiting the game’s structural changes, pointing out the excitement—and occasional frustration—surrounding the double tribe swaps, more fluid gameplay, and meaningful opportunities for castaways to interact. They take a closer look at the cast’s breakout stars, especially Rizzo, Sage, Jawan, Savannah, Soph, and Kristina, discussing how their alliances, rivalries, and emotional moments shaped the season’s narrative. The hosts break down Rizzo’s clever idol maneuvers, Sage’s surprising strategic game, the legendary Sage-Shannon handshake standoff, and the snake bite incident, each giving Survivor 49 its unpredictable flavor. Along the way, Rob and Mike highlight confessional gold, wild challenge wins, and the messiest Tribal Councils—exploring the unique tone and gameplay choices that separated this season from the rest. – Two-tribe swaps and bold format changes set the tone for an unpredictable merge – Rizzo’s idol play—fake and real—sparked chaos and kept everyone guessing – Sage’s rivalry with Shannon produced one of the season’s most talked-about confrontations – The emotional beats: Jawan’s journey from outsider to power player and Kristina’s heartfelt challenge moment – Uli tribe’s strong edit and core alliance, shifting post-merge dynamics, and underdog breakthroughs Will the twists and cast chemistry of Survivor 49 inspire future format experiments, or do the highs and lows serve as a cautionary tale? Can Rizzo’s inventive approach or Sage’s emotional gameplay become the new Survivor blueprint? To pre-order Rob’s book, The Tribe and I Have Spoken, visit www.robhasabook.com Chapters: 0:00 Holiday Spirit and Survivor Reflections 6:09 Highlighting Survivor 49’s Format Changes 14:34 Swaps Reshape Tribe Dynamics 18:48 Mergatory Finally Removed This Season 24:43 Journeys Mechanic: New Direction 34:03 Uli Tribe’s Standout Cast Members 44:09 Sage and Jawan’s Power Shift 54:06 Savannah’s Tenacity and Confidence 1:05:13 Blue Sophi’s Underrated Strategic Moves 1:13:54 Rizzo’s Puzzle Comeback Victory 1:15:12 Real Danger: Jake’s Snake Bite 1:21:05 Sage Versus Shannon Showdown 1:25:40 Blindside Chaos at Tribal Council 1:36:05 Survivor 49’s Unusual Place in History 1:40:03 Finale Predictions and Jury Dynamics Never miss a minute of RHAP’s extensive Survivor coverage! LISTEN: Subscribe to the Survivor podcast feed WATCH:  Watch and subscribe to the podcast on YouTube SUPPORT:  Become a RHAP Patron for bonus content, access to Facebook and Discord groups plus more great perks!

Canada's Wonderland is bringing the holiday magic this season with Winterfest on select nights now through January 3rd. Step into a winter wonderland filled with millions of dazzling lights, festive shows, rides, and holiday treats. Plus, Coca-Cola is back with Canada's kindest community, celebrating acts of kindness nationwide with a chance at 100,000 donation for the winning community and a 2026 holiday caravan stop. Learn more at canadaswunderland.com. Hey everybody, what's going on? Rob Sesternino back here with a little treat here at the end of the season. And this is how I'm looking at this podcast. It's the time of year when we count our blessings.

And so I thought it would be in this season, it would be the time to take a look back at the, I would say, maybe ghosts of Survivor past, or Survivor present even, as we take a look at what from Survivor 49 belongs on our nice list and here with us a guy who's always on the nice list, sometimes the naughty list too. It's Mike Bloom. Mostly the naughty list, Rob, incredibly generous with that assessment. Yes, and who would have thought that Jep's got us into the Christmas Carol's spirit early with his very passionate rendition of his Charles Dickens impression in the last episode. I wasn't even thinking of that, Mike.

So I'm excited to get on here tonight and Monday night before the finale. I feel like that this is typically a spot when we like the podcast. So I thought this would be a fun time to chat and look in the rearview mirror at Survivor 49. A season that I think there was a lot of hand-wringing, myself included, all through the fall about what is missing from Survivor 49. But why don't we end on a positive note? Yeah, I think this was a really great idea that you brought to me

because I personally think that every single season of Survivor has something interesting to talk about. You can give me one of the objectively worst seasons of the show to exist across 25 seasons. And there will be at least one nugget that we can chew on just a little bit, whether it's something that reflects the time, you know, reflects a big character moment, a big move, et cetera.

And I also am always obsessed with the idea of like how scenes are looked at in hindsight versus in the moment. You know, I think honestly, 44 is a great example of this, where I think certainly at the time, there was a lot of acclaim around 44, Jeff himself calling it, you know, one of the most exciting seasons they've ever had. And like, not to broad brush too much, but I do think that 44 is looked upon less favorably than it certainly was in the beginning of a 2020. So sometimes we see the reverse happen.

And, you know, I'm really intrigued to see, granted, we're not all the way done with 49. We have a whole three hour finale and after show to get into to see how this whole thing ends. But I do think it is valuable to look back across the past 12 weeks of this and point out, yeah, maybe some obviously some misgivings. I think a lot of us had with some of the stuff in this season, but also pointing out that I don't think that should obfuscate some very fun things that also happened over the past

12 weeks. It's a little surreal to start to think about Survivor 49 in the past tense because that it was such an anomaly of a season where there was so much focus on Survivor 50 between it was sandwiched between, you know, 48 ending and then the announcement of here's who's going to be on 50. Get ready. And then we waited. And then it was like 50's coming up. But first, 49. And so it's sort of just been in like limbo the whole time of its existence. Ironically enough, the first season the new air to not have mergatory. It has been in purgatory, basically. Yeah, it's just a weird season. And so when we are trying to now put it into perspective and take a look back, I think it's going to be an interesting conversation. And I say that in terms of like looking back is

something that I did so much in the writing of this wonderful book, The Tribe and I have spoken, which we really went through. And it's seasons one through 48. I locked the book right before we learned anything about season 49. So it's really, it's, this is really the story of the first 48 seasons of Survivor. And it's going to be interesting. this is to have thought about what might have been in the book about Survivor 49. I was going to be a supplementary appendix about 49 and 50. I think that there is talk about a supplementary appendix about Survivor 50. I don't know if Survivor 49 got the green light, but that is something that we were talking

about as people are getting ready to pre-order at rob as a book.com. There we go. Yes, please. Stocking stuffers. Or I guess preemptive stock. You could stuff a stocking really any type. in the year it could be May. We're sending out a postcard to people who are looking for one to give the book as a gift at rob is a book.com. There we go. But that's it will be available everywhere

May 5th. There we go. And it's something you could, you know what actually, if you get the postcard and it's, you know, you're gathered around with your family, all your loved ones around the holiday table, get up with the postcard like Rizzo at tribal council and like saunter over and be like, can I make a speech first? But actually give them a real postcard. Do not give them a fake postcard and say that they didn't actually order the book. Yeah, that will not be received well by the onlookers. Okay.

Mike, we talked about how do we structure this conversation and we thought that it made sense to talk about it in three parts of the things that worked from the format, the things that worked from the cast

and the things that worked in terms of the moments. There we go. And I will also say, just as a cautionary warning here. Listen, I think it would be impossible to advise the Survivor fan base at large to like exist in a lens without snark. That's like David Kinney being lactose intolerant.

Like it's just inherent within the DNA of the Survivor Internet base at large. But this is a snark free zone. I would say in this time. It is. I mean, we have a little snarl. But good vibes only relatively speaking. Yeah. Like, again, I posted a, I made a post on Instagram

of like, hey, what did you think were the things? And I didn't want people to be like the old guys from the Muppets like, what was the best part? It's ending. What was the best part? 9.30 p.m. every Wednesday. So, all right. Yeah, there were things

and I'm sure that we will touch upon many of them that people did not love about the season. But the idea of this podcast is talking about But what was the, were the things that actually over 12 weeks were the things that did work here? All right. So we decided to separate this into three categories. Like the, uh, the days of your, Rob, we're separating this assessment into three categories.

Uh, but instead of out, wait out, play out last, we are going with, uh, we assigned them sort of like body parts, I suppose. You did. Mike Blund did. Say, I'm using the royal we here. I tried to do my best Stephen Ram and assign some sort of anatomical metaphor to So we're talking about the skeleton, which is the structure of the season. I think production decisions, yeah, creating the format, et cetera. Then we have what I deem are the muscles, which is the cast.

Maybe some of them did not have a great amount of muscles to the chagridden survivor internet. But talking about the people that actually have been filling our screens for the better part of three months, then finally the organs, the moments, the things that keep us living week after week. L-I-V-I-N. all right so should we start with the bones you and i came in with sort of like preordained lists here that i think we could appropriate between these and i really want to thank people on instagram who gave me a good sense of i got you know a lot of responses to my story today asking people to let me know what were the things that worked from survivor for and had a lot of repeat answers so i got a good

sense of what at least the people on instagram were feeling about things so yeah when we talk about the structure of the season. I feel like, I guess we could just like go back and forth and throw things right. I think one of the things that people highlighted that they really liked was at one point this season, Mike, believe it or not, in the year of our Lord 2025, we had two tribes on Survivor. Yeah. I mean, this is wild just to say as a statement.

Like, if you went back five years ago and you'd say that like the idea of. of two tribes in a Survivor season for two episodes was met with near universal acclaim. They would look at you like you had three eyeballs. But the fact of the matter is we were sort of in a proverbial desert at this point when it came to starting tribe format. And unlike Sue Hawke, we were given a glass of water in the form of this. And it tasted so, so good because I think it speaks to a larger point about 49 in particular bringing in some of these elements that we saw before 41.

I think certainly at this point, and I've spoken about it at length on podcasts, and I do feel like a lot of the comments that have been attributed to 49 from a structural perspective are sort of emblematic of the new era in general, of like, of course we have a disaster tribe, you know? Like, of course we're going to have these random journeys that people go out to.

Of course we're going to have sob stories, et cetera, et cetera. But I will say 49, more than a lot of seasons, prior to it, didn't make measured steps to Zig when the other players thought they were going to Zag. And that is a great example of it, the swap two, two tribes. Of course, having two swaps in general, something that we haven't seen in a long time. I'm trying to think maybe Ghost Island was the last time we had two swaps in a season. So even that type of stuff, it's clear that production wanted to pull this out to, again, keep the players on their toes, considering we were nine seasons into the new era but it also maybe wishful thinking could forecast some stuff that's

coming on 50 at least if not 51 the two tribes the swap to two tribes from three tribes was received so well by me i was so excited about it i will say that it did give us a couple of the duddiest episodes so i'm so disappointed that like i wish it could have been that we got two tribes and they were just like dynamite episodes and we could have been like, you see, two tribes is awesome. But the two tribe, the episodes that we happen to get with the two tribes, I believe it was the mat boot followed by the Jason boot, was just very anticlimactic.

That's the only thing. And I just hope that they're not going to throw away the baby with the bathwater and say like, see, two tribes, not that cool. it's that this ain't it because the appeal of those two episodes was just the NUVO concept of these people interacting with each other like that was what was

trying to keep them afloat because otherwise yeah Rob the random draw kind of screwed up the dynamics of this whole thing where even if new Hina hadn't lost both challenges like on the other side of things it clearly would have been Shannon who was on the bottom anyway that would have been going

on the new Kella tribe so I think they got really unlucky with this random draw. I mean, certainly Matt and Jason did. You know, I talked about this at the time. Like, I know they're never going to bring this back, but some sort of form of like a schoolyard pick could have been interesting to not only have players show their cards a bit,

but tried it even up the dynamics a little bit. It was a weird season to do it where that you had like, it was just so many weird things going on of that you had, we went from three tribes to two tribes, but it had been just a clear disaster tribe. And so really what they did in Survivor Philippines was Malcolm went to one tribe, Denise went to the other tribe, and then those other tribes that they still had their dysfunction. And then Malcolm and Denise were just there. And so it was just basically that there was another person there for however that tribe was going to ultimately start to have, start to deal with its own issues.

It was a foster child, yeah. Yeah. So I do wonder, like, had we sort of like, okay, you had the full compliment of Hina, the full compliment of Uli, and so, you know, Sof goes to Uli and Alex goes to Hina. And then I don't get the sense that either of them would have been the first person voted off if they went to a tribal council. Yeah, I mean, what I will say, one of the reasons I guess why I'm glad we did do it the way we did is because another thing that I think worked down. out well in Survivor 49 is the maximization of cross-pollination we got

between people. I remember a podcast you did at some point with Christian where he understandably lambasted the fact that like in the typical near era season where it's three tribes for six episodes with no swaps there are very few opportunities to interact with one another.

It really is just challenges and journeys whenever they might come about. And so when you get to immerse, there's going to be a very understandable set of initial dynamics where it's like, Like, well, I only really know the people I'm living with. So I'm not going to try to rock the boat too much early on. It's us versus you. Whereas, yes, the initial days of the post merge was presented as Hina versus Uli.

But we almost immediately started mixing those colors together. And, you know, it's only because like, if this hadn't happened, Sophie wouldn't have gotten with Rizzo and Savannah and formed this apparently ironclad trio. Sage wouldn't have gotten with Joanne and Stephen and formed this bottoms up alliance that swung the entirety of the post-merge. And so I am grateful that they had all these opportunities. Yeah, the second swap was maybe a little too cute by half of like, okay, did we have to go back to three tribes just this one time?

You couldn't resist the temptation of going back to three tribes and just go from two down to one. But I do think that they really created a lot of opportunities for these people to interact with one another. And I think that might be one of the key reasons why the back half of the season was as fluid as it was. I will say that I feel like to go from three to two makes less sense than to start with two and then go to three. I think that if you're going to potentially, if you're open to it, Survivor, start with two and then go to three if you really want to have three tribes. You like mitosis better than meiosis. I think so because it worked out where then whatever group had the majority of people from. their old tribe, we were going to get some peganging going on, whereas I felt like that

to have it then be a mix up. It's really hard to get more of a majority there in the, to go to like three tribes of five. Yeah, I guess that's true. I mean, yeah, I guess going from two directly to three. I mean, we saw it. Or at least that you could have people like necessarily on the same page. Like we saw Millennials versus Gen X, like a great example of this, where You had two tribes of 10, and then we went to, I guess it was, I don't know, do we do three tribes of six or whatever it was. We did. No, it was like three.

It was like six, five and five. That's exactly. Yeah. And in all three post-swap tribal councils, the side with the fewer numbers ended up getting out somebody from the side with bigger numbers. Yeah. And I think that's also a big point in terms of timing. Like, I think about things like Cambodia and Ghost Island.

where they immediately went to three tribes after like two episodes. Millennials versus Gen X, they let those dynamic stew. They let that stew cook for four episodes. I like you said about the stew. Thank you, Zander. You totally undersold the stew. And then they ended up dissolving it.

And that's when the dynamics really came out. Because now people have had enough time to build specific one-on-one relationships to be like, all right, we don't need to necessarily be Millennial Strong or Gen X strong. I feel this way about this person that has been simmering for quite some time. Okay, so look, we're not going to quibble too much. We have to get it to add a boy podcast that two tribes this season. We love that you did it.

Yeah, I think also it's just the greater numbers as well. You know, we saw in the first three episodes how easy it is to gamify a six person tribe. You got to have a four and then you have the three and the four. And that's it. And yes, maybe a secret bite ended up screwing up like the final configuration of Keller. That's what wound up bearing out at the end of the day. And so at least having seven people in a tribe was fairly interesting because it's like, okay, there's more people to work with than usual, but still the numbers are small enough

where you feel like you could swing over one or two people and that could potentially shake things up. It didn't this time, but on paper it certainly could. All right. Another structural format thing, Mike, people loved it that we did not have mergatory. We won. So the evolution of Mergatory has been fascinating where for the first six seasons,

they really went with the full effort that we saw in 41, which is let's randomly divide them into, push a big ass boulder. If you push the big ass boulder a little slower than the other group, you were up for elimination, you were the only ones that could be voted for. They earn a buff. You don't get to adorn yourself with anything.

You have to earn that by surviving the vote. Then we have like 47 and 48, which is ironically enough, the mergatory of mergatory, where they still called it mergatory, but they had like an individual immunity challenge. So it was just that the group that won the big boulder pushing challenge competed for individual immunity. And that was their prize.

And got to eat. So they still had that group eating, but it still was for all intents and purposes emerge. We have dropped all guys at this point, much like Jeff did in the beginning of season 41. We are officially just going with a straightforward merge. congratulations everyone pull out these black buffs and they still do again the typical configuration but we are doing away with something that at the point that we arrived at season 49 with was

absolutely pointless and was just like you know unnecessary verbiage so mike i know you had an article that came out today on parade dot com where you talked to jeff about some of the things from survivor 49 and whether or not they were going to stick yeah so uh you not to spoil my own work too much but I would say if you're looking at my particular piece with Jeff looking for any possible speculation as to what might be coming in the Ghost of Survivor Future, our princess might be in another castle. Jeff was quite mum about whether or not some of the changes

that he made would show up in a season 50 or season 51. The tinfoil buff wearing person in me, Rob, is still thinking that, like, I don't know, I think just, I just think back to Winners at War, they kind of reverse engineered, how do we, keep the winners in the game, not only to keep some of our big characters on screen, but also to give them an incentive to want to do it. And they're like, let's try out this concept the previous year and see how it might work.

And either it worked incredibly well or incredibly disastrous. Like, I think the commonly held belief is that Edge of Extinction was soft launch. The beta version existed in season 38 to be used in season 40. I think there's a non-zero chance that some of this stuff we saw in this season, things like going from three tribes to two, maybe back to three tribes. Like, yeah, that felt a little squished. Would it feel a little less squished in a cast of 24 people instead of 18? Hmm.

Yeah, I guess so. I mean, but this is not like a new idea that we're trying out here. Like, well, what if we just had a merge? What if we, like, we know how that works. It's fine. I mean, the question is, did they know how it works, though? Because, again, it's been a long time, Rob. It's been six years since they've done any sort of version of that.

from their, you know, real-time filming perspective. Yeah. So I hope that, like, I understand that they really, I think that they have these concepts of like, okay, this is what the new era is, and it's about earn, you have to earn everything, and it's about small tribes, and there's nowhere to hide, and dangerous fun.

And I think that they sort of like, this is, these are these ideas that we're, but, you know, also like, Let's do some trial and error here and see what's working. We have to be able to adjust on the fly. So I'm glad you're bringing that up because this is a quote that Jeff says to me in my interview about that idea exactly. So I did ask him, why did you bring a lot of this newer stuff in for the new era, which again, had a pretty similar structure and format over the past eight seasons.

And Jeff said, the game design choices we make for any season are really just about tiny adjustments designed to disrupt assumptions. any time players start believing they know the rhythm of the game, which you might expect in the ninth iteration of the new era, you have to ship things just enough to catch them off guard and force them to recalibrate. So it is interesting that they waited all the way until the ninth iteration of this.

You know, was it because they knew 50 was going to be so different that they decided like, all right, this is going to be kind of a different new era season? Because as you said, like they shook some stuff up between 42 and 43. You know, they certainly looked at that hourglass and said, we're not doing this anymore. But then they kind of stuck in this holding pattern from 43 through 48. Yeah. And then only decided the last second, we should shake things up a little bit again.

Okay. Look, we welcome it. Yeah. And it doesn't mean you can't ever do these things, but just have everything be so samey same is the opposite of what Jeff is saying. Right. And so I do wonder, again, not to prognosticate too much because Jeff quite literally sent me to exile island for the for the mere comment. of that. I do think that it's maybe something they should keep in mind for 51 moving forward. Can you expand on what you're referencing, Mike? Sure. So I asked Jeff whether or not some of these

changes would apply to 51. I mean, I asked him, you know, is 51 moving forward going to look a lot like the new era? I imagine that 26 days are here to stay just for logistical purposes. I think so. And so I am curious. I think we really all are as to what 51 is going to look like. You know, will it resemble the bones of the new era, or will it be like 41 was, kind of starting over again and trying something new? And I was met with a bit of a spicy Jeff quote, I say lovingly. He says, hang on a second here, Bloom. Let me make sure I read your question correctly. We're discussing the finale of Survivor 49, about to launch into Survivor 50, and you want to know about Survivor 51,

somebody needs a beware advantage or a trip to Exile Island. I mean, you announced Survivor 50 during Survivor 46. Like, it was like, whoa, since when do we talk about seasons that are in the future? Hello. I mean, as we know, Jeff does have an odd chronology of things, hence the Since When. Yeah. Okay. Well, look, I guess it goes to show that everything is on the table for Survivor 51.

And it was better than the answer. it's like, why would we do anything different than in Survive for 51? Mike, it's the new era. It's going to, you know what it's going to be. That's the thing is that my hope is that they approach 51 with an open mind. And not only an open mind for 51, but for 52, but for 53. Like, yes, Survivor struck to a general structure in its first seven seasons, essentially. But there were some variables that they threw in there, whether it was, hey, divided into men and women.

hey, these certain people pick the tribes, et cetera, et cetera. There were, as Jeff said, small adjustments to each and every season to recalibrate things to make sure players stayed on their toes. And so I hope they can capture that magic again, which we got sort of a scotia of here in season 49 as well. Mike, anything else about the format of season 49 you want to highlight? Yes, something big I want to talk about that I feel like it's a little low key. but I think cumulatively speaks to something much larger.

I feel like this is the season where they finally got the journeys right. Now look, I think that is from certain people's perspective, a bit of a lower bar, damning with fate praise. But I think that the concept of a journey was, again, a big, bright, shiny new concept that was brought in in 41.

Players are going to be sent off to go do something to possibly earn an advantage or lose their vote. And I feel like as we were getting into 48 especially, maybe the plot had been lost a bit. You know, I think it really culminated in, sorry, Justin POPI turnout, if you don't want to listen to a bad memory rehash for the umpteen time, the dice, where it was just these players could not choose whether or not to play and they had to sacrifice their vote over a game of luck. and it wound up, you know, with a couple of people at least losing outright. And so I was a little nervous going into 49. It's like, are we going to keep going down that path?

But no, let's recount some of the journeys. Yeah, let's go through them. All right. So the first one, I don't know if this counts, but the fight for supplies between Rizzo and Alex. We might talk about this in terms of our organ section, our moment section, but very fun. That was fire. That was fire.

But that's not a journey. And to me, that's sort of the fight for supplies. that's the same thing as like a continuation of what we saw with Asia and TK and then Kyle and Kevin last season. So I feel like that to me, not a journey. All right. Well, let's go to the next episode where we do have a regular, degular journey. No, not so regular degular.

So this was Joanne versus Matt versus Jake. And I truly do mean versus. This was not a thing where they said their pleasantries and went off into their separate corners they actually mingled with one another this was a challenge perhaps most importantly they did not risk and or lose their votes their votes were totally safe but it brought in this brand new advantage into the game and there was a choice that they got to to go between but essentially we all knew what everyone was going to choose right it was tribal warfare this was the first shot across the bow in the hina uli war that dictated at least some of the part of this season the ability

to assign a disadvantage to another tribe in the next challenge. You know, again, there could be small tweaks that remain. You know, I would have liked to see these guys actively target each other more. It just seemed more like a free-for-all and whoever has the most coconuts wins. But I think it's a fun of the game. Yeah, but I think the concept at least of like, again, it's weird. It's this everything is relative to be to think, wow, there could be a journey where everyone stays together and nobody loses their vote.

Yeah, but Mike, I think that there was too much made of that that nobody lost their vote because that Joanne had the option that he could have taken the votes of the players that were there on the journey with him. But don't forget, he had a choice. Do I want to take a tribe advantage or which ends up being like disadvantaging one of the other teams? Or do I want to take, did he get a vote? Did he get an extra vote and then the other players would lose their vote?

Is that what it was? He is that he would steal one of the votes of either Jake or Matt. So somebody would have lost their vote. Yes, they would have. But, I mean, at least this presented another option, right? And I think I would imagine the second option is what they really wanted to go. I mean, either way, this was done to stir up bad blood, which again, the cross mingling, this is what we want, ideally.

Then three episodes later, we get Nate and MC. Now, maybe it was Nate versus MC in a certain risk. but this is the challenge that they had to complete together with the sandbags that then turned into technically a race for an advantage. I thought this was a fun scene. I think it was a really fun highlight for Nate in particular as he pulls some subtle maneuvers to trick MC into thinking they did not have enough time so she doesn't look for it anymore or even trying little maneuvers like, hey, MC, what if we carry 99% of the bags?

And then on the last bag, we all decide to take off into the jungle. Yeah, this was good, a good use of the journey. And I think that this was another case where Nate, I think, was probably like a little too good at just keeping things nice and steady and not with a lot of disruption. And I think that with like if Rizzo went on this journey with MC, like I think that there probably would have been more likely to have been chaos as opposed to Nate who ends up convincing MC that it's not worth it. let's not even go after the advantage in this spot and again i like that because it allows them to directly interact with each other and that's a relationship you're building as well right like do you choose to build something out of spite by being like hey you screwing me over or do you say hey a merge might be coming up let me get to know you and see oh you can burp the alphabet that's

interesting so work with me at the merge so again i i liked it as an opportunity to have these players work with each other and against each other and i'll still say that i am a true third that this is where I think knowledge's power would have been given out had they found an advantage here in this spot. I completely agree because that was odd.

You know, because there's the assumption that knowledge's power was hidden at all three camps and Sophie was just the first to find it. So Sof was with the group that they won a reward and I think that it was just like, oh, this tribe as part of also winning a reward got an advantage

hidden at their camp. So it's a kid. into the idle nullifier that was inside the fish in Survivor 42. That's my supposition based on absolutely nothing. And then the last journey, which again was a little bit more on the, you know,

I would say not on the stale side, but certainly a bit more static, which ironically enough involved the most movement was what we saw in the episode two weeks ago, which was Stephen's strenuous journey. I at least like the fact that, like, it was a pretty gargantuan effort to run around the entire,

circumference of the island to get back into one spot. I never thought it was necessarily in doubt but I thought it did lead to like an interesting moment from Stephen. And what I liked about this journey that they did in this spot was that they build it as this strenuous journey

where you had the person who needed the advantage the most was the only person who was incentivized to go after it. I had been talking about this. I talked to Shaheen on Thursday and I didn't even remember that Eva went on this journey like they drew no no that I think that was different I think that

there were two different times where Eva left camp to go get an advantage and one of them she just like played like a game of like I don't know if it was like a shell game or like it was it was stacking the the tower the tiers I believe and it was if you got past a certain tier you are you are you talking about her sneaking out at night she had two different times this that what you're talking about was the was the journey she went on and then she could the first one was the chris noble like yes okay you could risk your vote and pick one of these two and then you got it back okay now risk it and you get an idol so you had a person who was in the majority who already had a bunch of advantages going on a journey and then ultimately not even wanting to play for so the idea like

the let's just that one word strenuous did add a lot i felt like to the journey there where at least okay, now the person who is at the bottom who needs it the most is going to be the person who's going to try to go for it. And we'll see what future players do if somebody from the majority will go because we don't want the person on the bottom to get it. Yeah, Survivor one word. I do wonder if maybe in the future they should like make tree mail for journeys. If journeys are going to be a permanent thing, like then maybe give a little bit more of a tease,

even if it is just one word because, yeah, we saw in this case that like, It had six out of seven people immediately noping out of it, despite the fact that they all complain right afterwards. Oh, man, we should have let Stephen go. Like, where was this five minutes ago, people? Yeah. So I would say overall, again, people might feel like it is an incredibly low pull to step over, unlike the, you know, the net they were stepping over in the most recent reward challenge

to talk about the fact that these were better journeys than previous seasons. they did show improvement. And again, this does make me intrigues. I imagine journeys are going to be a pretty big concept. Yeah, we're definitely going to have journeys since $5.50 for sure. Honestly, again, it's just for me the idea that they are not automatically sacrificing their votes the moment they sit in that boat does mean a lot to me, considering what we've beholden over the past several seasons. Wow, the holidays got here fast. If you're scrambling for last minute gifts or trying to make your home ready for guests. Wayfair is going to save you a ton of stress.

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This is an interesting cast, and I think it is a very, like, cast of haves and have-nots. We had superstars in this cast, and then we had a lot of casting decisions that I felt like didn't work out. And I think that this is a really interesting season where, you, you know, you. You have so much of the stars of the season all grouped in one tribe where it's just so interesting in that one Uli tribe really has, like, if we're going to like give you like, okay, here are the people that are getting the most screen time, I would say five of the six people who are end up being the faces of the season. are here in this one tribe, then the sixth person who's the face of the season

ends up being swapped to this tribe and ends up spending most of her time there. Yeah, it is really interesting because I would imagine they didn't necessarily bank on this. You know, they use certain pieces of criteria when they group these tribes of six together. But this was just kind of low-key magic, I think, especially when they-

Exactly, especially. when in those first three episodes, they didn't go to tribal council. So it was plenty of time for kind of, listen, this was a season that was, had a low key undercurrent of resentment and pettiness. And that sort of percolating on this tribe in particular in those early days. And I think my math is wrong in there. So that with all due respect to Nate and to Shannon, like four of the six stars of the season are there on the Ouli tribe.

And then Sof ends up getting swapped there. So. But you could say that Shannon and Nate's boots are incredibly important to the season. because I think they really kickstart a lot of what's to come in the back house. They were big characters to the show, certainly, but it was a season where almost like an Australian Survivor season, where we really spent so much time with our big stars, not to say that the other characters didn't get any airtime.

I mean, that they did, but that their stories ultimately just ended up being not nearly as impactful as the people who were sort of, these main characters of the show. Yeah, because the dynamics centered entirely around them, right? So the post-merge starts with Jo-Wan and Sage flipping on their old tribe, and then they are sort of in the power position vacillating between their original tribe and their new group of people until Joanne is blindsided by his old tribe as well.

And Sophie S becomes the new Sophie B as sort of like the hanger on of this Uli alliance. And obviously we can talk about the fact that the trio absolutely have main character energy considering that they have been the quote unquote underdogs of the post merge, though they now make up the majority of the final five, which is wild. So yeah, it is really interesting that I think we very rarely have. I mean, I guess I'm trying to think maybe 44 is the last time, right? We're like the three amigos were these stars of the post merge of that season. Yeah, they certainly were.

But you also had, you know, Franny was a. also a big character there in 44. Kane is very famous. But yeah, you know, 44 is probably a good example of that also where, you know, it was just so much about the Tika 3 and then everybody else ends up, especially after the, you know, green and orange war. It really turns out to be just the story of those three characters. And for what it's worth, Joanne's been the only, besides Nate, the only, the only

that's been voted out in the past like month or so so like the fact that three of them are making up the final five and i don't necessarily expect an all uly final three but it would be pretty incredible can we talk about each of those uh main characters like in a little bit more detail because i think that each of them have very interesting things they were all like three dimensional characters that really i don't know necessarily if they have um too many people that were exactly like them in Survivor history. I would agree. It's interesting because going in, I think I certainly made a lot of comparisons to previous players just based on those initial vibes. I know a lot of, you know, the fans did

upon initial views. Certainly it's been talked about with one particular person, but I do agree that by and large, these people do sort of exist as independent entities. They are not necessarily the new blank. Okay. Which one do you want to talk about first? I mean, let's start, I guess, with these Uli's, you know, while we're on the hot conversation. Yeah, of course. I mean, they're almost all Ulies. Which Uli do you want to talk about first? How about Jo-Wan?

All right, so we can talk about Joanne at first because Joanne was such an odd storyline. This is a guy who starts off the season, right? He gets the Tevin Davis Memorial Award for opening monologue where he compares Survivor to a horror movie. And for a while, he just seems kind of aimless in the game. He's a director without a vision, essentially, where he was on the bottom of Uli, probably didn't know that he would be going. He was still on the bottom in his swap tribe, but was seen as the swing vote, doesn't do anything,

doesn't realize how much he is pissing off the people that would have voted him off in the first place. And then this is one of those examples of like, I don't know, maybe you should have gone rid of Joad in the premurge because the first thing he does in the post verge is flip the script on his old tribe. And then to have him rise to that position and have him get taken out by those old tribe members, it's this really weird back and forth between him and the other Ulies that made for, again, I really can't put my finger on like what type of story it was, but it was surprisingly eventful. Well, the Jawan story is one where he is just like discounted. And then he ends up having like this rise and flies too close to the sun.

before ultimately, like, being, like, taken back down to Earth. Shannon, I think, really did a lot to make all of this happen, where that Shannon, if we go back, she's part of the core four over at Uli with Nate and Rizzo and Savannah, like, that's the four. And then she ends up getting swapped with Sage. And the storyline of Shannon and Sage is one of the things we should also mention here, one of the highlights of the season, I guess we'll talk about, next and really spend some more time on that.

But then Shannon wants to vote out Jawan when we get that second swap. And I think that that's really what radicalizes Jawan the most of like, wait, she was trying to take out me. And then he joins forces with Sage and who says like, hey, come with me to the Hina side. Yeah. And that's it. It was like Jawan is like locked in. because I think that Jawan was somebody who I think ultimately,

I think he wanted to be a part of Uli. They just kind of never gave him an in. Yeah, exactly. And so he felt like he had an in with the other side. The only issue is then he felt like he had an in back with the Oli people, right? Him and Sage decided to vote out MC. Then they vote out Alex. And by the time that happens,

now the perception has been built up so much of like, yeah, Jawan just kind of been flipping back and forth. and is the power player right now, which again is wild considering that he was discounted and on the outs of the majority for the first half of the game. But his game was like secondary to that I just thought he was such a rich character to have on the show that he was so sensitive and he was dealing with a lot, but he was also funny and he had like really great reactions to things. and he just had like even in just like one word reactions to things that were hilarious.

So I thought Joanne was a really, really strong casting choice that I can't think of another player that he exactly reminds me of. I would agree with that. And I think he was someone who has an incredibly open heart. Again, I know people sometimes feel a certain way about, you know, when we get the umpteen story of someone who went through struggles growing up and is trying to, you know, work through them on the island. But I thought there was a really nice emotional moment where Joanne has offered the ability to go on the fried chicken reward after he hadn't won something

and he had a really difficult time accepting that. And it's just because as he grew up, he was sort of the de facto caretaker of his siblings. And so he doesn't do well with receiving gifts. Happy early Christmas, Joad. I hope it goes okay for you. Hopefully everyone is able to get some of the nice white elephants. But I think that it's those types of moments I think good emotional storytelling where it's like, we are learning about Joanne through something that happened in the game. It feels more organic. It feels more essential to who they are and basing the decisions they make on the island because of that. And I definitely got the sense that Joanne, when we did our exit interviews with him, that he was dealing with a lot of like conflicting

feelings about him. And I felt like that he was struggling with the discourse around him, especially in terms of not wanting to vote with MC when they went to the split tribal council and just I really hope that Jawan is doing okay and he doesn't lose that spark that we got to see in terms of like that lightness about him of like that personality that's so fun well with the spark you make fire

yeah and he was struggling with that for sure that's also true as well maybe he would have struggled with that spark on day 25 let's talk about his partner in crime for a lot of this game in Sage, who again was such an interesting character. I was not expecting this game from Sage. I really thought that Sage was going to be comic relief who ends up sort of like being an early merge boot.

We heard about farting and the pimples and poop and peeing. And it was like, okay, this is getting a little one note. But then she ends up having this storyline with Shannon where we really see the world through Sage's lens for a couple of episodes, and I thought it was one of the best storylines of the new era. Sage is like the Adam Sandler movie Click, where it's like, okay, I does an Adam Sandler flick. I know what I'm getting into.

There's going to be toilet humor. There's going to be inappropriate immature scenes. Like, I'll have a good time, but I won't really think deeply about anything. and not to say too much about click, but like, it gets real. Wow. And it gets serious. And that's kind of like- I have to watch it again.

Yeah, I mean, listen, don't back-clink, click, click, click. You're missing the whole message there. But that's sort of a sage's journey. We're not even from an emotional perspective, but like the court jester kind of becomes the princess regent halfway through the game where she had been counted out. The Shannon story is a great example of this, right? We're like, we do see Shannon treating her a certain way. We get confessionals from Shannon B.

like, oh, Sage, you know, she's so great that I get to guide her throughout the game and just talk about bodily functions all day and not need to worry about anything she's doing. And Sage executes the first, quote unquote, big move of the game in really turning everything onto Shannon. And she's not done there. And I think people realize over the course of the postmerge specifically that like, Sage is actually really good at lying and has created this fantastic smoke screen that's probably just you know methane from her farts she is

really good at lying but she also is like hey I'm real I'm you know I'm keeping it 100 I can't deal with Shannon that she's so vague I'm real but she also like was very deceptive in the game yeah that's the thing as well is that I think she we were able to sort of track in real

time probably the way that people were perceiving her which is kind of waking up and seeing that she is the wolf that she claims to be. I mean, it should be mentioned that, like, before Joanne left, Sage and Jawan, every round, not only kind of knew where the votes were going,

but also simultaneously low-key dictated those votes, right, wherever they went. That says a lot. Now, look, you could say even last round, like Sage dictated where the votes went because they could have gone with the Stephen plan and voted for Sophie, but she chose not to. She clearly has an endgame plan

in mind. We'll see if that end game plan manifest but I think it's a really good point you bring up in that like she does this all like she has done this mask off routine but without necessarily taking off the clown makeup you know like she still has these big reactions she still has these funny moments that are sort of peppered in in all of this so it's not even like a christie bennett like oh you all thought i was nothing but look at me now i'm the true mastermind of the season she still is stage. And I think what's so interesting about her gameplay as well, sometimes frustratingly so, is a lot of it is baked into what she feels. We dealt with this a lot in Carolyn about

utilizing emotions as an asset, rather it being seen as a liability. And so her like turning on Sophie, for instance, is a great example of that where she has been Savannah, Savannah, Savannah, Savannah. And then all of a sudden, Sophie turns on her and she's like, all right, I got a new enemy in my sights. It's what have you done for me lately? And lately you have burned made. Yeah. She's going to be such an interesting person to watch in the finale also because I can't really pinpoint how this story ends for her. I haven't thought of her as the winner of the season, even though Stephen has spent a lot of time thinking about Sage as the winner. But I also, I don't see her going out at five or four. It's going to be interesting to see her potentially in the final

tribal council we know she has a joan vote she does have a joan vote yeah because you also wonder like okay yes she played a large role in people like alex going sophy going stephen going are they going to respect that or are they going to be rather unhappy that they made this tight bond with sage only for her to turn things around on them instantaneously i could see a world where sage goes out as like a version of the prototypical new era fifth boot, which is a fifth place, which is you are a big threat to win and like all the other options are sort of taken. So let's take you out right now before you get to fire. I've been feeling Christina is the boot at five. I think that people look at Christina and they look over to the juries and well, she has a lot of friends on the jury.

That is true. Though I don't know, I feel like the thing that's stuck in my crawl was the steven messy, sloppy perception last time. Like is that pervading out to the rest of the cast? Because if so, that might be someone you would want to bring into fire. Certainly. And I think that typically that's somebody you want to bring into the final three, I just feel like that typically that person doesn't have like a couple of built-in jury votes that you would think that Christina might have. It's true. I mean, also, though, you look at the challenges of it all. And like, Sage was up there with Savannah last week, right? Like, it was between the two of them. Not to say that the final challenge is going to be anything

endurance related, but on a neutral field, I probably put my money more on. sage than Christina to win a final challenge. So we'll see how that shakes out. Let's talk about Rizzo. And Rizzo, of course, has been such a big figure and such a breakout character. And I think that there was a lot of hype around Rizzo before this season even started. I'm like, okay, what is this guy even? But I will say, I do feel like that the hype has been warranted on the RZG.

Riz God, baby. Yeah, I think one of the biggest storyline out of the season is the rise of the Riz God. And it's been really fun from my perspective to just track his Q rating, not Q-Burdet rating among the

Survivor. Because, you know, as a timeline, I interviewed Rizzo before obviously the cast was released and he told me, hey, I have this persona that I'm going to bring in the confessionals, the man, the myth, the legend, R-I-Z-G-O-D-R-Gad, baby and then the preview came out and i knew what he was doing but nobody else did and so it was just you know waves upon waves of just who the hell is this guy worst casting choice ever so cringe

why we're bringing you know gen z players onto the season when they call themselves the ris god but honestly from that first episode and we go back again to that that journey or sorry not the journey, the fight for supplies, that is sort of emblematic of Rizzo in general, where whether it's due to his size or his age or just like the way he comes across is like this more informal, you know, lingo slewing kid, you catch him at a moment where he feels down and out. He might overtake you when your back is turned. Well, I see that that, go ahead. I think that that fight for supplies was a great microcosm of his journey on the show, even though I said it was, that's not a journey of his ride in Survivor 49 in that he goes out there and maybe is miscast in this spot,

but falls behind, never gives up, keeps going, faces adversity, has to do a little bit of like an underhanded move to cheat off of Alex's puzzle before then he goes and then digs up the shipwheel and it comes back from insurmountable odds. Yeah. And I think that he has been able to showcase a good amount of skills, especially when he was back to against the corner after that NAVE vote. And it's through one of the most unique yet baffling ways to wield this immunity idol that we've seen in Survivor in quite some time where we've had so much narrative

as of late about flushing the idol. And, you know, you look at like Survivor 41, for instance, where like some of the idols had to be used immediately because it's like, okay, we know that everyone has them. Rizzo, everyone knows he had an idol. By the merge, everyone knew he had one because he obviously found it, told Uli, Sage told everyone on her tribe, the information got out. And so it became essentially public knowledge. And this man, we are approaching the eighth round of the post merge, and he still has not played it. and he's barely received any votes. And so he has sort of made the idol into his character.

You know, this is where the Riz God kind of sneaks out. He said he wanted to reserve this for the confessional, but he does do a little bit showboating around it. Of course, we talk so much, and I'm assuming we'll talk about this in the moment section about him playing his own fake idol, just for apparently shits and giggles. Obviously, there was sort of the confusion on mass last time

where he gets up, says, okay, whose vote was blocked? Jeff, I just wanted you to take another look at this because it's going back in my pocket for another round. But like, between the fact that he was able to help get his alliance out of such a sticky situation and the idle stuff he was pulling

and the low-key gloating and confessional, I don't know, dare I say, Rizzle Hans? It seems like it's going over with some of the jury members as well as a Rizzle Hans type, move, except that he has not lost the audience at all, where I feel like that for the most part, I think he's being received very well, even if the audience that's going to vote for the winner of the game, maybe isn't receiving him as well. Yeah, and I just love the passion that

he has for it. Not to say that like every survivor cast has to be full of these super duper fans who live and breed this game, but like you could tell when he does things like talk to Jeff about the fact that he salivates at sitting at tribal council and he feels like this is where the game truly begins, or even just like those, those tear-inducing moments, both in the premiere and in this most recent episode, when he talks about coming from humble beginnings and, like, clearly being here means something to him. He feels like he is representing something larger than himself. And he also hopes to become something larger than himself as well. And the way that he has used the hidden immunity idol has been so inventive. And the fact that the other side,

And again, I don't know how much of it is that he accounted for everything and how much of it that he just got lucky that the other side was always so disorganized and craven at times to never call his bluff. But he had figured this out and then he just pressed that advantage round after round after round. And no one in the new era has wielded the hidden immunity idol like he has. It is very difficult for this group to be able to split votes. I think it also got compounded with Savannah winning immunity a number of times also. And then when their backs were against the wall, that the other side ended up going with safer, with more risk-averse ideas and ended up allowing him to just skate through. Yeah, I think that Rizzo, even if, listen, the supposition has to put out about, is this another Xander situation, right?

When we start talking to more and more of these people and we ask, why didn't you get rid of Rizzo? Why didn't you flush Rizzo's idol? The answer could very well be, well, because he wasn't a threat. We wanted to take him to the end. So go ahead, do whatever you wanted to do. At least he's making good TV if he's in a goat position. You know, at least he's doing something at tribal council to entertain us

and attempted to entertain the jury. But I feel like that the difference between Zander and Rizzo is that my understanding is, And again, I haven't heard this point blank, but I feel like it's been inferred that at the time that Xander played and six men in a row had one survivor and we came back and it was the first season of the diversity initiative and that we had, it was just kind of decided on, okay, listen, that this guy is not going to be the winner of our season. I think it was just sort of agreed upon. I don't think that the players in this season are saying, listen, we're all on the same page, right? Rizzo's not winning, right? I think that it has been more either by the way he carries himself or by some of his actions, that people are just not looking at him as a threat.

I don't think that anybody's made the decision. We will not vote for Rizzo. Yeah, I mean, you always kind of look at from an edit perspective, right? the SPV, as additions have said once upon the time, the second person point of view. We've obviously heard a lot about Savannah being a threat, but I feel like the past couple episodes from Sophie have been really the only time people have said like, yeah, Rizzo's a threat. And that's intriguing as well because I think if you were to make it to find on tribal council, I do not think he's dead in the water whatsoever.

All contrary, go back to that fire for supplies. The minute you discount Rizzo Belovic is the minute you sign your death warrant because I think He has been doing so many things behind the scenes and so many subtle pushes. Again, from our perspective, what he was able to do with the Alex vote by generously stretched truths. I think was a great example of like the power he low key wields. That is obviously much more substantial than the power he more high key wields with the thing around his neck.

Let's talk about Savannah also, who has been another person who has inspired a lot of discourse in this season. I just think that Savannah has had a tenaciousness that I feel like that we have seen few times before in the new era. I feel like that she has such an intensity, Mike. I thought that was on such great display during that last immunity challenge. During a couple of the immunity challenges where her opponents, whether it be Sophie or whether it be sage, that they are sort of like as they are getting tired, they're getting,

they're moving more. And Savannah is so still, is so locked in and can just be talking about how she's just telling herself that she sees the win. I really just admire that about her, about how she seems like she is so focused on having a singular purpose to get to the end. Yeah, I think intensity is a great word to describe her. I think confident is as well. Now, look, we do have this one moment that I think really exposes an incredibly raw nerve

with her when she is left out of the vote for the first and really only time in the game so far. And it really awakens her a lot of trauma that she experienced one of the reasons why she left news in the first place. But by and large, you talk about those challenge moments and, like, as they're struggling, she's like the energy vampire. You know, they look over to her and she's like, Captain America, I could do this all day. Like, I know you're going to drop first because I'm not going to let myself drop before you do.

And that is, I think, a lot of representation of kind of the energy that she is able to put forth is this air of confidence of like, even when her name is on the mouths of everyone, even when Rob, every tribal council that she has not been immune for, she has gotten votes for. she still knows regardless like yeah i'm going to make it to tomorrow i'm not worried and she's had this interesting journey where you know we've talked about it a lot on the podcast about how sage has not always been a fan christina certainly in the post merge has not been a fan but she's somebody who is i think very fun to watch on television i think she's great with the sound bite, which is understandable given that she knows how to how to cut one from her news reporting days. I think she is very blunt and direct, both two people's faces. And I wouldn't say behind people's backs. I don't know if confessionals count as that. I mean, I think certainly

something that people have spoken about is people feel one way or the other about the way that she has talked about Joanne. Very intrigued to get her thoughts about all of that as well. But even that moment with Christina, right, where Christina is trying to present herself as a number. And Savannah just looks her dead in the eye without blicky. It says, okay, well, who are you voting for? And Christina is caught completely off guard because I just don't think you expect that type of energy, right? Like these survivor guises of like, okay, well, we're all going to present these options to each other and be friendly with one another, you know, indirectly talk about working with each other, even if it is faulty business. But Savannah just cuts right to the point. And I think there's obviously some stuff that might bristle with people's personality, but there might be someone like Sage, honestly, who respects that I, that no BS idea.

Well, I just find it very refreshing to have here on Survivor because I do feel like that, especially in the new era, I think that most of the players are, you know, extremely like they seem like wonderful people, but they're largely conflict averse. Savannah, you cannot say that about her, that she is willing to meet conflict head on and have a confrontation if she needs to have it. And these are the types of people that we are used to seeing on reality TV. She is a warrior. Like she has lived her life on the battlefield. She has walked into having to do some very tense interviews with some very intimidating individuals. And so like, how does Christina compare to that?

You know, like she is ready for any and all conversation that might come her way. And so I love that. As you mentioned, and I don't think she's a villain. I think she is blunt. I think she's more like the Courtney Yates type of villain where like her villainry more so comes from the tone that maybe she takes. And it'll be interesting to see if that tone

will also be utilized in a final tribal council setting and if that will vibe with the jury. Because also you look at what she has been able to do and it is incredibly impressive that she has, despite being the odds on target that essentially everyone in the game except for two people have targeted at some point and has survived every single time, partially by immunities and partially due to surrounding herself

with people who want to keep her in the game. It is pretty remarkable. Yeah, I think Savannah and a final tribal council is going to be particularly compelling in terms of that she is such a great speaker. How does she handle that? And then also does she have a different side of herself, a vulnerability that she shows the jury where could she potentially win over some of the people that were not loving her as much. She also has the opportunity to potentially break the record for women's winning immunity challenges. If she gets both the final four and final five immunity win, she could also walk away

with that record. I mean, it is pretty wild that I'm fairly sure every single endurance challenge Savannah has participated in, she has won. Like, yes, I know that people joke about how many of these post-merged challenges just stand still and hold something in place. but like you're exercising so many different muscle groups that it is pretty wild that depending on how things now I do think that the final five challenge is going to be what it usually is which is like some sort of obstacle course into a puzzle but even then you know savanna

placed third in a previous version of that challenge alongside stephen and sophy yeah both of them are gone only three people have one immunity this season and two of them are gone in savannah sophy uh yellow sophy and stephen are the only people that have won immunity challenge challenges this season, which is wild because I think similar to maybe a Rachel Lamont that preseason you wouldn't necessarily imagine her being someone who was able to make her way to the final three due to challenge wins and, you know, an expert use of an idol. I don't think people necessarily thought Savannah would necessarily be a challenge beast, but she is, uh, you know, again, looking to tie or even beat a record. She's low key becoming one. Okay. Didn't have that on

my radar. And then, uh, blue Sophie. Sof, Sophie B. Yeah, let's talk about this because this is a very weird arc for Sophie where she is given a lot of screen time in the first three episodes because of the fact that she is going to tribal counsel basically every single day. So we see a lot from her perspective and we actually get a lot of really good insight as to how she wants to play, right, which is she wants to be everyone's best friend. She had a very adamant, purposeful way of pursuing this relationship with Jake.

She said he was a cut, a prime rib. I think that snake felt that way as well, which is why I bit him. And then even when those plans got a scoot, she is able to, you know, put some work in during this really interesting vote with her, Alex, and Jeremiah, where initially she wanted to turn the votes onto Alex,

but then she feared that Alex was going to use his idol. And so to avoid the blowback, she decides to vote for Jeremiah in case there's a one-one-one happening. Like, she is a very astutely aware person when it comes to dietic. dynamics and specifically where people are voting and how she can be able to exploit that. I think unfortunately, once she's sort of taken in by the Uli, she gets enveloped a little bit by the Rizzo and Savannah of it all, but much like we see a lot, Rob, with some of these

dominant alliances, then we get a little bit of content towards the end of like, okay, but are they having second thoughts about the alliance they swiped right on, you know, are they having commitment issues. Yeah, I think that she ultimately is a little bit of a victim of the success that the Savannah and Rizzo's side had, like, had the other side of the aisle been a little less inept in terms of take, like, they would have taken one of them out. Like, she was in a really good position to swing back. Even this week, I know that I was like, wait, why didn't you take Rizzo's idol? But just to talk it through from her perspective, she thinks Stephen has a steal of a vote,

a steal of a vote that can be played at that tribal council. She also, maybe this is due to the strength of her own game, she now knows that also, in addition to Rizzo and Zavana, Christina and Sage are also voting out Stephen at this tribal council. So she has the awareness to know, okay, I'm not getting votes at the tribal council. So, I mean, I don't think she ever thought about should I take Rizzo's idol and then get Rizzo voted out in terms of that that move, I think that still would have been like pretty interesting and I think would have potentially won her some allies. But in terms of like for the people

that are out there, everybody's saying Stephen is a big threat. She's going to take Stephen's advantage and then steal his vote. And then when he gets voted out, she's going to get the credit of being the person who did the knowledge's power move and stole the advantage from Stephen and took out Stephen, who was the biggest threat and then sets up this scenario where now she could potentially flip back and make a move to ultimately get to the final three that she wants. So from her perspective, based off of what she thought was happening, and again, Rizzo somehow like he was wrong about the vote steal, being a vote steal instead of a vote block, it kind of helps his game a lot because

that if she thinks like okay it's a vote block then there is no advantage to steal she has to ultimately steal Rizzo's idol and knows that she can't do that so really Rizzo being wrong about the vote steal really did help him. Would you say lack of knowledge is power? Yes

yes so she was somebody I really thought was a really really good player and maybe in a different season things end up working out for her. But I just feel like that she kind of, and this is going to sound mean, but kind of gets like into like

a little bit of like a little bit of a Mitch spot. Oh, I thought you're going to use the L word. I thought you're going to say Laurel. No, not necessarily. And maybe she was also feeling like okay, even if I took Rizzo's thing, Rizzo's not as seen

as big of a threat as Stephen is. But she sort of like has now hitched her wagon to this other side and now it's sort of like waiting for that door to open. And I'm not sure the door is going. There's not going to be that opportunity for her to ultimately get into the position she needs to be to win. There is one more opportunity for the door to open, in my opinion. And it's at five. Well, you know, I think if Savannah loses the immunity challenge, unless Rizzo plays an idol on her, like, then you do make the move.

Then you vote with Christina and Sage. Sure. But that's a big butt because I'm not talking about any of Sophie B's tweets. She's had the same boyfriend for 10 years or so, Rob. I just feel like that she's looking at a scenario potentially where Savannah's immune, Rizzo plays his idol, and she's like, well, I was really hoping to make a move at five. And now kind of missed my window. Exactly.

Like, oh, would have been nice if you had an idol in your pocket, especially if apparently you knew that his idol also expired at five. But I will say that I think Sophie does play an underrated role in the success of this trio so far. I go back to like the Jawan vote, for instance, which to me was like the biggest representation of that trio taking power that they really hadn't had in a major way for the first time in the post merge, where if you recall, like the Hina side thought they had Sophie, both Sophie's on their side. That's why they split the votes. between Rizzo and Savannah. And so, you know,

Sage says when she gets back, you know, from that tribal council, just fuming AF, she's like, you know, she feels most betrayed by both sophies for, you know,

leading her along thinking that they had something going only to pull the rug at the last second. She was a really sharky player. I think that she did her best work, probably pre-swap. But then she did a really good job of making her threat level, super small. I just don't know if she has the resume to be able to impress anybody if she gets to the

final three. Yeah, I mean, this could be one of those rare instances of Sophie. If she makes it the final tribal council, she will have gone to every single one except for one. And maybe that also goes to show the prowess of Denise Stapley's game and that like that was not the only reason why people voted for her. You know, it's a huge accomplishment in Survivor that she went a remarkable number of times and barely got her name written down. Right? I'm pretty. sure that she got her name written down at the Annie Tribal Council, but that was it until this most recent episode. But you can't necessarily hang your entire hat on that, especially if you are sitting next to people that have much bigger and more illustrious hat, like Nate's

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but maybe we will come about that as we discuss what Mike described as the organs of this season. The moments. What were the moments from Survivor 49 that made the nice list? I don't want to necessarily go in chronological order here, but I really do think the standout moment of the first episode is that fight for supplies.

And as you mentioned, when Nicole spit in Jeremiah's face, face. Yes, exactly. And then when Nicole spit up, I will say, I rewatched the premiere shortly before this podcast.

How was it? It's actually, it's actually a pretty fun episode. I think there's also a lot of stuff that's really interestingly tease. Like, you go back to Joanne's speech where he talks about the scary movie

and he's like, the first actor running from the monster and the second act you are the monster, like kind of low key this season, no, that like the first act was pretty straightforward. It's a two-act structure. That's exactly it.

I think they were trying to hint that from the very beginning. And, you know, they were introducing a lot of those dynamics early on, hinting towards a lot of stuff that would come. But that Rizzo versus Alex Piper Supplies, I really enjoyed just because

it was an unexpected outcome to say the least. Right? Like Alex had done basically the entirety of the challenge except for dig up a key. And Rizzo was stuck at square one. And not only that, but he didn't have all the

coconuts. And not only that, but he couldn't do puzzles. And he still pulled ahead in one. Mike, it speaks to, it's a metaphor for the whole like Uli versus Hina of it all. Whereas they have seven people. They have seven. They have three. How did they blow this?

By again, thinking smarter or not harder, cheating off of Alex's puzzle and finding the right spot to dig. And maybe Alex is getting too much in his own head, right? Getting out ahead of himself thinking, well, it's got to be somewhere else instead of digging down further. Yeah. Okay. Mike, a very popular entry for people of things that they liked about the season, people liked the snake bite, the dry bite. I mean, it's weird to say that, right?

But like, I very much understand using the term like around it because here's the thing. Surely there has been a lot said in discourse about, well, survivors too easy. go back to the old days when they really had to survive and not to say that the goalpost certainly have moved since the early days, but this was one of those incredibly dangerous brazen reminders

that they are out there in the middle of nowhere. And like, we could joke about stuff now and speak about things in a light light, I should say, because Jake is okay. He's okay. He's all good. He's all good. Everything's copacetic. He will

strip to see another day. But like, it is objectively wild that this man was bitten by an incredibly venomous snake that nobody, including a crew of 400 people nestled within, you know, a number of native Fijians had ever encountered in their life. Like, this was astounding. And look, I know people had a lot to say understandably so about like the Jeff, you know, trying to bring us in on the situation and looking in the camera while every, well, Jake was being tended to on his deathbed.

But like, I don't know, not to say that I, I love these moments, but I think back to like the Co-Rong, you know, Caleb Metavac where like the fourth wall just shattered. It melted in the heat of Co-Rong. And it just provided an opportunity to look at the number of people and the specific groups of people that make this show float that we don't even think about. Like, we got to see the medical team triage this man

in what they thought was a life or death situation. And it was so different to anything we had experienced, but, like, I was immigrated by it. I thought it was really well done. I didn't have an issue with Jeff talking to the cameras while everything was going on. Like, obviously, Jeff knows the severity of the situation and is able to get a sense from the doctors that everything is going to be fine. Otherwise, I don't think that he's going to necessarily stop down and be recording, you know, confessionals while. somebody's life is truly in danger. So I think that Jeff probably felt good enough about the situation.

It was just so different and something that was so novel to see on Survivor and such a break from what we've been used to. And so I feel like that it was just something that was memorable. And I think that ultimately that's good. And I think it was such a shock. Not only obviously to his system, but think about those first three episodes. They were so Jake centric. This guy was the biggest character.

he was the shoe bandit. He was in the best position because he was this physical beast on this ailing tribe. They had to rely on him and not only that, but he was sort of courting two partners at once in his bromance with Alex,

but his sibling-like relationship with Sophie. And like the keystone of this crumbling arch all of a sudden gets taken out by something that is unfortunately so out of his control, but like I cannot imagine what the rest of the season would look like. I just say the thing.

I can't even imagine. imagine what the season looks like with Jake moving forward in it because I feel like he's so tied to Sophie and to Alex. I can't imagine him interacting with the Hina people. I can't imagine him interacting with Rizzo and Savannah and Nate and Jawan. So he just was like in a completely different show. Yeah. I mean, considering as well that he was Mr. like honesty and loyalty to me in the crazy season like i wonder how he would do where loyalty was on kind of a weekly basis in this post merge you know like would he want to be as fluid as the rest of these people or would he sort of be this this the rock stuck in the river of like well you all can vote the way i'm voting but i i promise

i gave my word to this person that i'm voting this way tonight and that's what i'm doing okay mike this is something i actually didn't know where to put this in terms of it being the format moments are cast. I think it might actually, it's definitely not cast. It's probably more of the format, but the shipwreck at tribal council was the best tribal councils that they've had in the new era and maybe

ever. Rob, this is saying a lot, folks, because Mr. Cisternino, no less than two years ago, hopped onto a podcast and said, well, this show could keep the same tribal council setting. It sounds like you're saying that for this. It wouldn't change anything. It's just like, even I have to say that's really impressive and what it's just a waste

that they're going to just like take it and throw it in the garbage because now we have to make a whole new tribal council for season 50. Yeah, I will say season 50 is incredibly different but 49 was just freaking awesome. I mean it's also like me as a person who is I hate waste that as somebody who's like I'm like nobody's going to eat this. What are we doing? We're going to throw this out

like to build this whole shipwreck for 13 episodes of television and throw it in the garbage I will never understand hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars get spent on this and for what I mean it was insane like the scale of it the scope of it I know I've spoken before about it with you and it's amazing like the and just the detail that would put in all the skeletons with knives in their backs and sitting in cages you know you kind of wish they're encouraged than more backstabbing gameplay

maybe we saw that towards the back half of the season. But, like, also it's a little old school as well, right? You think about seasons like Cook Islands 1 and game changers that sort of call to these nautical themes that we haven't seen in some time. I mean, it was just an unbelievable set to step foot on. You talk about these, like, great Jawan reactions. And certainly him jaw a gape rocking into tribal council

for the first time, kind of said it all. Mm-hmm. Yep. Okay. Mike, what's another moment you have? I mean, moment is going to be a very operative term because we have to talk about the Sage Shannon storyline because this was, again, a really... I think you could start with the moment

where Shannon gets voted out. I think that's really... Because people said the handshake situation was a moment. Yeah, it was surprisingly polarizing. You know, I think some people felt like just put your niceties on, give her a hug. Even if you don't mean it, don't leave her feeling that way. You just blindsided her.

But I think it's a little bit of like the Savannah discourse we were getting into, right? We're like, stage felt like in that moment, she cannot be inauthentic. You know, if anything, it would be a disrespect to Shannon to hug her because then she wouldn't be showing how she truly felt about her. And it also felt like, you know, this is very a therapist talk from Sage as well, right, being like, I'm just not ready for that yet. We'll have a conversation about this after. And it was obviously a big surprise to Shannon, maybe not a big surprise to us, considering we had heard and seen everything that Sage had said and done in front of Shannon leading up to that point.

Again, these wild moments were like, Shannon makes kissy faces towards Sage and Sage wretches. She was at Keller Beach, so maybe she was trying to pull in Nicole there, like behind her back. Sage was just like unquestionably upfront about the way she felt about

Shannon. Nowher was that better represented than certainly some stuff we've talked about as well as to like, do people hate the good game attitude that a lot of players walk out with? no matter how you feel about it, this was not a good game attitude. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I mean, Rizzo was literally when Stephen got phone out, Gigi. Yeah, and Sage was, that was another one where Sage just, like, immediately jumped to her rationalization, like, preemptive goodbye messages of like, sorry, I thought I couldn't beat you, so I had to vote you out. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So that whole back and forth with Shannon and Sage, and just the way that Sage had, like, clocked some of the things that Shannon was doing and the way it worked that the editors did to depict. all that was just, I thought, really, really just felt old school to me. That's the thing is that she was remarkably candid in confessionals.

And, you know, Chavanna did this a little bit with Joanne as well when she's like, does he think I'm stupid? He's clearly sitting in the shelter spy. I mean, you know, stage makes such suppositions as like Shannon's losing religion performatively. She's globbing onto personal details that she associates with and taking them to an 11. And like, I don't know. I like the ability for survivor characters to talk. that way. And granted, again, there's a, there's a line behind everything. We don't want anyone to make

like incredibly problematic statements, uh, without any sort of fear of recourse. But like, I like the idea of them just being open and honest about the way they felt about people and making these assessments and just talking to us like they are their friends or even themselves about the way they blatantly feel about others. Yeah. Okay. Mike, what are the other moments from 49? I mean, it's, it's a smaller moment. I mean, I actually feel like thinking, about it, Rob, maybe the merge episode might be my favorite episode of the season. Okay, when we were in San Francisco. Yeah, because not only was it, you know, a fantastic time, a thousand people got to watch

this. I think there was obviously a lot of fervor behind it because, yes, the Shannon boot was a big deal, but like this felt like, okay, things were finally shaking up. This felt like for the first time, like a lot of these other merge votes, mergatory votes have just been, okay, like, who's just one person that's kind of expendable? You know, throw the anchor overboard as long as it's not me. This was like a concentrated power shift. This was one group of people being left out of the vote by a few people who made the choice flip over. And I think while the outcome was maybe easily rendered, you know, easily predictable, I really like showing the steps that it took to get there. You know, like having Sage and Joanne from the beginning talk about

the fake plot they're putting out there as to what happened with Shannon. To have them in these talks with the Uleys and cut to them being like, I'm not doing any of that shit. I thought it was just a really cool way to track through the anatomy of a blindside. And then we get one of the most Savannah and the Savage moments, which is her diving for that key in front of MC.

Yeah, that was another thing that was on the list. People really like that moment where I don't even know what she was going to do with it. She didn't even know where the box was. I mean, could she have just like sat on the lock? You know, like because if MC didn't unlock the aisle in time, she would have lost her vote. like there is maybe a bit of a strategy

to just guarding that thing until the sunsets. But I think that's just another character moment for Savannah that just speaks to like the tenacity that she has. Like does she know where the lock is? No, but is she going to try to steal the key from you? Yes. Exactly. She's like, oh, I'm being presented with this thing.

She's very opportunistic. I think she's like, you give me this thing. I'm going to do something with it. I'm not going to just like let it sit idly by. You know, this is not my org. I'm not going to put this to waste, Rob, much like you would say. yes all right i would say that we had some big tribal council moments also in this season let's go back to the juan tribal council where this was where juan and sage had this whole

plan where they wanted rizzo to flush his idol they also wanted christina to flush her idol which i think that maybe that might in hindsight i think that that might have been trying to do too much to try to get all the idols flushed in the one tribal council but again they were in the power position they thought they could get it done yeah and then yellow sophie goes back and tells rizzo and savannah

the plan and so we get this moment where christina stands up and she's going to play her idol on stephen and then joan is like come on rizzo you got to play the idol play it play it play it buddy it's your line yeah you got to do it and then

Rizzo gets up there and then plays the fake idol and while it was confusing we were all Juan in that moment of like wait no play the real one what are you doing I mean it is incredibly

unprecedented you know on the B&B this week we played a game of Only Connect where you are being assigned like a number of things in a category and you have to guess what the category is and the category was played a fake idol and it was like J. Starrett Jamie Dugan from China

obviously Randy Bailey Eliza Orleans this is really the first time that like someone purposely played a fake idol that they had made you know they were not duped by this whatsoever and I loved this is why I love the show airing on a weekly

basis that's why I kind of love the fact that it didn't drop on a binge is like I love everything we tried to chew over in the subsequent six days it's like okay so was Rizzo trying to check Sophie to see that she was going to vote with them okay, was he actually trying to make people believe

that he had a fake the entire time and was lying about it? No, it was literally for the lulls. He wanted to, he wanted to do it initially to play it alongside Christina. Like he wanted to do what like Luke and Parvety did in AU versus the world of like, we're going to play this together.

Let's turn our keys at the same time, but one key's made out of silly putty. But then once he started played, he's like, I, again, make haste, not waste. Like, I can't sit on this thing again. and Jawan ends up getting voted out and Jawan's exit is also a really fun moment in the show. Then even this past week where there's been so much discourse about

the knowledge's power being used incorrectly that we did get a very memorable tribal council in terms of both the knowledge's power being misplayed and then on top of all that, then Rizzo not playing his idol, but then the vote being Stephen when I would have been anything it was going to be Sophie. This was, I think, just in the course of like a 10-minute period,

one of the biggest roller coaster of a tribal council we've experienced in some time where, I mean, I tweeted out the Vince McMahon meme, and it felt like it of like, okay, we knew Sophie was going to play knowledge of power and those of us that were pretty wise as to like the mechanics of Stevens' block a vote, knew it wasn't going to work. They obviously didn't. So we have this organic reaction in the moment. of, you know, the Trisleche's alliance realizing that their plan is not exactly coming to fruition.

And so we're under the belief. We're in Stevens court, right? We're like, okay, this is going to be an easy three, two votes to take out SOF. And then all of a sudden, Rizzo gets up. And he says in the voting booth, I need to play my idol. And he for some reason doesn't. And then, but now it makes sense in hindsight because apparently they knew it was going to be unanimous votes. And so he sits back down and we're like, ah, you fool, you should have.

used it this time. You wait one round too long. Now Sof is God. But no, Stephen has voted out unanimously. This was just such a wild outcome. I do not know how we got here. You know, something that I don't know if this theory

holds, but it feels like that a lot of times we get the information from the perspective of the person that is going to get voted out. And in this episode, like with the Jawan episode last time, We really, it was almost like we got pretty close to, like, the information that Stephen knew in terms of, like, what we were going to expect to have happened.

And so we like Stephen. We're very blindsided at this tribal council. Yeah. I guess we were serving Steven Hughes. I think they did an okay job of building some sort of rationale as to why Christina and stage flipped. You know, I think the missing piece of the puzzle is like, okay, we know what Steven's perception is as a jury threat. what are Rizzo and Stokes perceptions as jury threats? You know, why did one outweigh the other?

But I think in the moment, we were being given the typical survivor, you know, B story BS of like, okay, well, it's clearly going to be this, but they're going to try to like throw something fluffy our way to make it think it might be a different thing. No, no, no, that was the A story, that they legitimately ended up going with the Stephen Boe. And that's the other thing that I think, yes, this is organs, but I guess I'm speaking towards an organ system in general, like on paper,

this was an incredibly unpredictable post-merge. Like every episode you walk in, you know, after the Nate boot, which again was a bit more forecasted, like even if we knew it was a split tribal council, even if you knew the group of five that was going to tribal council in that episode, did you think MC would get voted off

over Rizzo over Sophie S? Did you think that everyone would come back together to vote out Alex of all people? Did you think that Joanne, who had been in the poll position for the past, episodes, all of a sudden has the other Uli's taking control and taking him out? Did we think that all of a sudden, after Sophie S being the most pivotal swing vote of that Joanne vote, everyone unanimously turns on her?

Like, it feels like much like production did, the voting expectations kind of zig where we thought they would zag going into Wednesday night. I think it's going to be an interesting season to get the perspective of somebody who might be a little bit more casual or offline survivor viewer who did not know that people from Survivor 49 are coming back for Survivor 50. And if somebody like was just going in with to this season completely, you know, not knowing any expectations, I think that they probably had a more enjoyable ride in terms of watching Survivor 49, especially in this second half of the season.

I completely agree. I mean, let's let's just call it out. I think that people were somehow informed about the two people that were picked from Survivor 49 to Survivor 50, I would wager to say it's severely hampered their enjoyment of the season. And maybe just in terms of like limiting the number of outcomes a lot of times of between like, well, I don't think that this is going to happen because that dot, dot, that. But I think that's one of the appeals that comes in rewatching seasons. You know, Marlanza always says that like you need to watch every season twice because there's

the in the moment fresh new eyes perspective of like we don't know what's going to happen. And then there's a perspective of, okay, now knowing what is going to have. happen. What are the things the editors put in there leading up to forecast that final outcome? And I think this would be a very good example of that. Honestly, Rob, it's weird to sort of make this comparison. But like, I do see some similar DNA between Survivor 49 and the recently wrapped Big Brother 27. Interesting. Okay. So let me just think this through. Not a one-to-one comparison. We don't need to go through being like, who's the Keanu, who's the Ava Pearl, et cetera.

Who's the, who's the Vince and Morgan? Oh, boy. Well, I guess we'll find that an exit press. But I think that's, okay, so this was the survivor or the Big Brother

27th, I guess are Rizzo and Savannah, the Vince and Morgan and then who's the Ashley? Maybe so. I mean, that, yeah, I mean, it could be the case because, I mean, I think more so what I was attributing to

is the fact that, like, there was a lot of talk in Big Brother 27 as to like, this is entertaining, but who's playing well? Like people are making moves, but none of these are for their optimal efforts. And I feel like that's been a lot of discussion in particular over the past week, right, about the moves that So and Christina and Sage have made. As you mentioned, I think they have had their own rationale as to why they were doing what they're doing.

But I feel like this entire post merge, right? It's like, why is it X taking a shot at the trio? Why is so and so turning on this? reminds me a lot of the discussions we had every week throughout the season. And again, much like Big Brother 27, it led to a lot of weird power shifts and unpredictable things. And much like Big Brother

27, maybe there is that Vincent Morgan comparison where this group takes hold of the end game and somehow is able to control it. Now, the question is, will that spoiler come in, maybe not literally, and be able to take it from them? Okay. Mike, any other

moments you want to highlight from 49? I do think actually the more I think about it this might be more of a Big Brother coded season than you realize because I do think like some of the personalities felt they kind of had that that vibrancy that typically comes with your Big Brother Cassie Well Sage was somebody who

you know in the preseason she told us about she applied to be on Big Brother I could see it Yeah I mean I will say without saying too much she was certainly not the only one She was certainly not the only one who got far in casting Oh interesting. So I think that maybe that energy was brought in in more

ways the one, but even look at like those first few votes, right? Doesn't it remind you of like, just got to vote with the house? You know, these people are on the outs, the easy thing to do. And then you kind of sleep halfway through the season. And then you wake up halfway through and you start playing Big Brother. I sadly vote to evict trashy Annie. Exactly. And like maybe Annie does have that sort of like first boot a big brother coach.

She was second boot. But like the older woman, who's an off beach? She's got that Angie Rockstar energy tour. Yeah, I can see it. So, yeah, I think that I've gotten. more even higher on the season talking about this with you again it certainly has its flaws we are not here to come in and say that this is a perfect season of survivor but i think we still think to the initial thesis of like there is more good here that i think a lot of people have been discussing

over the past few months season 49 i think was unlucky in terms of like where it got sandwiched in terms of the survivor timeline, where they teased us with 50, people wanted Survivor 50, and then it's like, okay, well, we can't have Survivor 50 yet, but here's the opening act. And people are like, boo, when does the show start? We want to see them. We came to see Survivor 50. We didn't want to see the opening act. And so the opening act was here.

It was a slow start to the season, admittedly. I don't know if 90 minutes necessarily served this season. I think that had this been a 60 minute season. I think it really could, would have been fine. I don't know if you would have lost a lot. And I think sometimes when there's not as much going on, I think that 90 minutes can be a detriment. Yeah, I do agree that I think, again,

when you fill it with like boys on the bench and Stephen doing his Jeff impression, Like, I really do feel like those moments worked out for him on the island. You know, Jeff said to me preseason that this was a very funny humor-filled cast. And I certainly see that. Yeah, very quirky. And that quirk certainly translates to the camera, maybe not in the way that they intended. I also forgot to mention a standout moment as well. Christina talking about her mother at that Final Eight challenge just because of how visceral it was.

And it didn't feel like, again, like any sort of, oh my God. do we have to lean on this story all the time? Like, it felt like a very emotionally rooted moment where Christina felt like a very low person. She had just been blindsided. She was on the bottom. She was one of like only two people left out of the vote. And it made her really want to try to, you know,

lean on her usual support system that she tragically lost a few years ago. And I think it manifested in this incredibly human moment where she like, low-key rages out, not unlike Banu, perhaps. at, you know, the man upstairs being like, it's not fair. And I don't know. It felt so refreshingly cathartic to me of like someone externalizing a lot of their grief. I have not lost a parent, Rob. I know that you certainly have.

And I think that's something that I think a lot of people feel even years later. And I think in that moment, Christina was just so raw to let all those feelings out that was spurred on by her position in the game. I know that really resonated with a lot of people who have had a loss like that. So I had been a little bit down on overall the idea of, hey, forget that the prize is the experience. Yeah. This is, you see that? I didn't like that as much in terms of like a direction or a North Star for the show.

but in terms of it being like a visceral moment like I love that she was able to have a connection with her mom and that a lot of people were able to get something out of that moment. But going back to your original point, I think 90 minutes, sometimes it's not even the length as much as like what you do with it. Because I think back to like those first few episodes in the three tribe phase where like we barely saw any of what Hina was doing. Now maybe in retrospect it's because those dynamics don't really end up bearing out. We only have one Hina person in the finale. But I would have liked to see a bit more of that, especially when a lot of the Kela stuff was kind of samey, samey, right?

There's only so many dynamics you can show with five people, four people, three people. And there was some great personal drama going on with Uli. But they really kind of purpled an entire third of the cast, despite the fact that they had 30 more minutes of airtime. Yeah. All right. Well, I don't want to view it too much into what didn't we like from Survivor 49. We were on such a high note.

Yeah, well, we'll bring it back here. I am very excited to see what this finale brings. So I think for me, the big question I have going in is like, if there is a Rizzo versus Savannah finale in particular, how is it going to shake out? This is a dichotomy we see sometimes in Survivor when it comes to a duo. Now, granted, this is two-thirds of a trio, but this idea of like the person that was the more out-in-front face of the alliance,

right, who got targeted more. you know, arguably did the flasher things and winning immunity protecting themselves, but then you have someone that was like making the flashiness happen in tribal council and was working a lot of things behind the scenes and interpersonal relationships. And a lot is going to come down to as well as to like

how the jury made, I think a lot of these unseen bonds with people that often bears out in jury votes that were just not susceptible to. But I'm incredibly intrigued to see how that vote would break down should they get to it because we could be looking at another like five, three, hell, maybe even like a four, four. happens where just the jury is like evenly split on hey these two have played in lockstep from

day one to day 26 two completely different games this is the path that i take i just don't see it that way i really am starting to feel very much like the jury is not feeling rizzo for whatever reason because whether they didn't like the antics with the idol or he just reads as too young or they just don't respect him for whatever reason. I am really struggling to see a world where, unless Savannah and Sof both end up

on the jury, I don't see Rizzo coming up with four votes. Does he create at least a fun final tribal counselor? Do you think this is where he like crash and burns in the reality the situation against him. I think he'd be fun. I think I could listen to him talk on there and I just like I'm really

struggling to see where his votes are coming from. Maybe Nate has a feeling for him, but the people that might vote from potentially Joanne, but I think he needs... I don't know, Stephen, like, I seem to have a relationship with Rizzo. I feel like Stephen and Rizzo talked a lot.

Even though I think he might respect the fact that like Savannah beat him in the challenges and, you know, she outgunned him there. He needs Savannah and Sof on the jury. That's an interesting prospect. I think that's one of the big pieces that's missing from the end. And that doesn't seem to be on his mind. Yeah, that's a big piece I think is missing from the edit

that I'm really keen to find out from this trio, in particular Rizzo and Savannah. It's like, so if you at least we're getting some perspective into, I don't want to go to the finals with these two. Did they want to go to it with each other? You know, like would they,

are they eyeballing? Hey, I should take this other person out because they might be my biggest head. Or as you mentioned, I want my biggest supporter on the jury. It's a weird relationship, Rizzo and Savannah.

It's almost like that we know that they are like rider dies, but we have not ever seen like a personal moment between the two of them where we have no idea what their relationship is based on what do they have in common and it's kind of just weird sort of like like when did this build you know like obviously they got they got swapped over to heena 2.0 but they were there with Nate so like did it build then because like when they go into the merge there's perception of like these two are playing the game too hard so we need to target that was it that they were a trio with Nate and it's sort of like the Jake Alex Sophie situation where like Nate gets taken out as the

middleman and now Sophie and Savannah and Rizzo are like, I guess we better work with each other now. But you've never once heard either of them talk about getting the other one out. So they have this very functional working relationship, but based on we have no idea. I think it's as simple as I don't care who I go to the end with. If I'm sitting in one of those stumps on day 26, I'm winning this thing. Like that could just be the easiest piece of logic or we could just put another tally mark in the column of confusing decisions made by the cast of Survivor 49. Yeah. All right.

Mike, anything else, Survivor 49 you want to mention before we wrap things up? No, I love this experiment. I feel like we should, uh, you know, maybe unlike the new era format, we should be doing this every season. I think it's a good way to look over the past three months. Especially this season where I know there was a lot of negativity and look, I am not immune from being a part of that negativity throughout the season. I do feel...

And it is warranted in a certain regard, I would say. Yeah, I mean, there was, look. we have 25 years of this show here not everyone is going to be a bangor that's okay yeah exactly

so I'm intrigued to find out from people like if they somehow It's 50 seasons it's not 50 bangers okay yeah it's not listen some some are bangers some go a little limp

towards the end some are not able to finish to fruition though this one might but we got it Mike I just wanted to see if everyone was on the same page there much like some of those unanimous votes towards the end. So yeah, I'm intrigued

to see how this season appears on a binge, especially once we know the outcome. And I think, again, this is a very valuable exercise. Because I think we get so caught up in the week to week that we sometimes forget some of the earlier beats that came out in the story that can sometimes germinate into something much larger down the line.

Okay, Mike. All right, we had fun here tonight. Can I raise you another off-season podcast? Please. Maybe in the next a, you know, week or so, okay? Okay. All right. Tell me about this.

This was a controversial idea in our production meeting this morning. Okay. Oh, okay. Rank the new era winners, okay? We'll have nine winners from the new era. What do you think? Okay. I love it.

Listen, controversy breeds conversation, baby, strife and effect. Yeah, maybe we have like, maybe we come in and maybe there's like a couple people on the panel, okay? Yeah. And you have your rankings, you know, one to nine of the new era winners. And then we, and then we give our official new era winner ranking. I think even if the show continues with the same format in 51. Sam, can we let the fans vote also, the fan, a fan vote?

It's the fans. There we go. Sam has really thrown his hands up. His hands are in the air. I think Sam was like, yes, yes. It's pumping and cheering. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a very interesting exercise because I do feel like regardless of what season 51 plus looks like,

this does kind of feel like the end of an era, weirdly enough, because obviously 50 is going to be so different, that it does kind of feel like an interesting way to memorialize things and talk about, especially considering how similar of an experiment this has been, right? that with some minute differences, we have essentially kind of run the same experiment nine times in a row. This is kind of the biggest example of a neutral field.

Right. It's not like if Colby wins Survivor 50. I don't think are we going to call him like, okay, rank the 10 winners from the new era and Colby is like, it's weird to say that we, it's weird to say when we talk about like the 40s because technically winners at war counts,

but it feels so entirely different. Yeah, the new air. It's like when you say the millennium starts at year one, right? Because there was no year zero. Look, let's, I'm putting. Putting that out into the universe, you know, we're going to have, you know, some time next week where, you know, between the end of the finale and, well, Sam is like yelling in the, like. It's a very entertaining show. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry for coming up with ideas for podcasts. Okay. All right. Am I Scrooge? Am I scrooge of making the R.J.A.P. team work at the holidays?

I mean, listen, some people need to have podcasts to fill some of those colder hours. So let us warm your ears and your heart and perhaps your Twitter fingers by talking about how these winners would write. Because I think certainly in response to winners like, you know, I think for a while without saying too much through over the first five seasons, it was, oh yeah, it's D, you know, a runoff. But then there's been a lot of talk about like, okay, what about Rachel? What about Kyle? we don't know who's winning season 49 at this point yeah well it's like at 49 but then if but if D or Kyle win survivor 50 then we have to change the rankings yeah then we'll bring in like their original games original flavor D and Kyle uh so I think it's a valuable exercise but I'm

intrigued to hear from people if that's something they want in their stockings before 2025 closes out yeah it's like me you maybe one or two other people and and and potentially a fan vote and it's like the average it's like the when they used to do the old like uh happy hour you know ranking yeah like it's at stock watch yeah come on come all right all right by the way i had a question in the chat earlier about somebody uh asked about the shirt that i'm wearing somebody wanted to know uh is the rjp shirt modeled after dare yes this is another shirt from the brandon donlin collection here and let me move my microphone hooking you on podcast that's right that's right i would say could could dare sue but like is dare around

i don't know millennials kill dare yeah okay that's that rob's website dot com slash merch if you want to check that legalization of marijuana also when is the end of year brand steel mike and i are going to get together on, I believe, December 30th. Yeah, that's another thing that could certainly fill your podcast feed. We will be putting out a post, I think, sometime in the next couple of weeks, soliciting suggestions, though we have already put together a bit of a think tank to come up with a lot of stuff. Some of even heard this before, Rob, this was a weird year of things and people and events.

So sometimes we need the great. Who's a crazy year for me? Yeah, I mean, it feels like, and it's just getting crazier, Rob, 2026, look out. But much like this, the onus of this podcast. Like sometimes we need the reminder to look back at the very beginning to be like, oh, yeah, remember when that happened? Mm-hmm. Yep. So, all right, there you go. So, Mike, busy week. I know you have a lot of stuff coming up. What's on your plate? Yeah. So a lot of sumptuous feelings of survivor interviews. Of course, you and I, Rob, will be burning the midday oil as we'll be talking to all of the final five, the day after the finale, depending on what goes down, certainly a lot. to get into there.

Of course, if you missed it, our coverage of the Amazing Race 38th, which ended last week, actually doing a few postseason podcasts this week, if you're looking for more amazing race in your life. I mentioned before I got the chance to interview Jeff. Part of that interview went up today. I've got some more coming up on Wednesday,

where he talks about his favorite moment from this season, his favorite organ, perhaps, in the body of Survivor. Yes, I will say. It was one of the few mentioned in this very podcast. And also tomorrow, I have something very interesting. One of the questions I asked the Survivor players in the preseason, if you recall, was if you are a juror, what's the main piece of criteria you would be voting on? So tomorrow I'm releasing a compendium of the answers from those players,

which could be a really interesting window as to how the current jury members are going to vote or how they'll completely go against their own words. We'll look at how maybe some of the pre-mergers would have voted as well. so a nice time capsule or perhaps a look forward as to how the finale is going to end up, doing some reality flashed up as well, certainly looking to do like a 2025 and reality TV wrap up there. But otherwise, you can follow everything I'm doing at a Mike Bloom type. All right. Thank you all so much for joining us here. We had a great audience live. Lots of people watching this podcast live. So appreciate you. And thanks everybody also who is listening.

I know we've been having some issues with our podcast feeds also. So thank you for bearing with us As we try to get this sorted out, we do know about the issue and are trying to get things straightened out. Sometimes it's just that we know that there's an issue, that the company that we are using to do the thing is not fixing the issue fast enough. There we go. It's now operating under a 26-day schedule, Rob. It doesn't have the danger in it where it needs to move fast.

That's right. of course we'll have a very busy week we're doing our jp mafia on tuesday night so that's going to be another live event coming up and then on wednesday night we have a big survivor finale night including the first rjp watch party with chapelle during the episode so you can watch along with chapelle while the episode is going on and then i'll be live with sam phelan after the episode as stephen fishback will be with me on thursday yeah so it's going to me a big episode. We're going to get our first look at Survivor 50, and I would wager that we're going to

see at least one, if not both of the people chosen, for 49, for 50. So finally, the greatest kept secret in Survivor 50 will be out. All right. This is the knowledge of power, right? This was kept in the pocket for a while. Now it's finally gone public. All right. Thank you so much for

joining us. We'd love to hear your comments. If there was anything we missed of the great things from Survivor 49. Take care for a good one. Bye. Thank you.