RHAP: We Know Survivor - Why ___ Lost: Survivor 49 Ep 6

Episode Date: November 1, 2025

Why ___ Lost: Survivor 49 Ep 6 Jeff Probst said in Tribal Council, “There’s nothing wrong with playing Survivor hard as long as you’re playing well.” We saw Shannon playing hard. She thought she was doing it well, making her “authentic” connections. What was missing from her gameplay? And what did she do too much […]

Boarding for Flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games and with no wagering requirements. What you win is yours to keep groovy. Hey, I won! Boating will begin when passenger Fisher is done celebrating.

19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned by your gambling or that if someone close, you call 1866-3-3-1-2-600 or visit comixonterio.ca. You know, it's better than the one big thing? Two big things. Exactly. The new iPhone 17 Pro on TELUS's five-year rate plan price lock. Yep, it's the most powerful iPhone ever, plus more peace of mind with your bill over five years. This is big.

Get the new iPhone 17 Pro at TELUS.com slash iPhone 17 Pro on select plans. Conditions and exclusions apply. Now streaming on Paramount Plus. It's the epic return of Mayor of Kingstown. Warden? You know who I am. Starring Academy Award nominee Jeremy Renner. I swear in these walls. Emmy Award winner Edie Falco.

You're an ex-con who ran this place for years. And now, now you can't do that. And Bafto Award winner Lenny James. You're about to have a plague of outsiders descend on your town. Let me tell you this. It's got to be consequences. Mayor of Kingstown, new season now streaming on Paramount Plus. and you're feeling down.

David and Jessica will turn it around. They'll break down the rules and they'll show you how you're playing yourself and got voted out. This is why blank lost. And this is why blank lost. Oh, baby, this is why blank lost. Welcome back to the 10th anniversary season of Why Blank Lost. I'm David Bloomberg, and I was very happy about the outcome of this week's episode.

Joining me are two people, I have hugged genuinely at different times, but we didn't have to just stop and give handshakes. My co-hors, Bessica Lewis, and special returning guest and Survivor 44 runner-up, Heidi Ligaris, Greenblank. Yay. Yes, the genuine hugs are lovely. handshakes can be great too though in the appropriate setting both

both can work so I appreciate that we were able to see all of these things happening in this episode yes yeah for me thank you for having me I am excited to talk about the one today so let's get on it yes yes it's maybe a little more exciting

than some of the previous ones that said this week does make my fourth correct prediction in a row I don't even remember who I picked You went along with me You were like Well you keep anyone right

So I'll go with you Oh see there we are Perfect Now I'm currently riding high I am in third place Out of over a thousand people In the prediction thing on chat BCC Wow

I don't expect that to continue But for now I'll be happy about it I want to say something there At the beginning of the episode They showed like a really quick clip of Sage and Shannon. And funny enough, I was like, oh, one of them is going home.

So it's like, don't do that. Don't do that. Yeah. Sometimes I do give those hints for sure. Yeah. So Heidi, how have you been doing since we last saw you? I'm doing great. Back to my normal life, less survivor, more real life.

Very busy, very, very busy, work, family. I have some new works for people that follow me on social media. new things happening in social media for me just doing some traveling things completely separate from my survivor and personal work and it's kept me very busy but it's all very positive

so good good all right well I mentioned how glad I was to see Shannon voted out but happy or sad each week we still follow our usual methods of comparing the players game to a set of guiding rules for winning I wrote way back

after season one and have been updating ever since. We'll use all the non-spoiler information available to us from what we saw on TV, interviews, social media, and secret scenes. The newest published version of the rules can be found at rob has website.com slash yX lost feed and clicking on the link bubble for survivor rules. Before we address how Shannon did in terms of those rules, we always have some other things to discuss. and as much as I didn't love

the three tribes of four idea I still say this episode was more interesting than the previous two combined part of it was we got lucky and the one tribe that was likely to not go with the easy vote was also the one that lost the challenge which is good because until now this season it was pretty much always the tribe

that had the easier decision that lost the vote And so we got unlucky in that regard, but now we've had one episode of Lucky. Yeah, I mean, it was, it's one of those situations where you're like, oh, yay, now we're back to two tribes, which I prefer. And then Jeff's like, no, no, no, no. I'm only going to give you a little, a little bit of that because we're going to go back to three again. But it is always fascinating to see how the tribe dynamic switches up, depending on where people end up. And I really, what I really appreciated about this particular episode was, we got to hear a little bit more from like Nate, right?

Where Nate was talking about how he had been riding this high and then all of a sudden now he finds himself in a different place. Yeah. And he's able to give his perspective about how he's going to really need to step it up in a day in order to ingratiate himself. And I appreciate those components of swaps because you do get to hear from people that you might not have been hearing from because someone like Nate was on the top and everything was going great for him.

And so, yes, there's this idea of, well, it's unfair that he got swapped and now he doesn't find himself in that position. But he's looking at it as an opportunity and trying to figure out how best to put himself in a better position. So all of that I thought was nice because I feel like we learned more about players that we haven't been necessarily hearing from. So that's always a good thing to have

as part of a swap situation. I don't know if Jessica is telling us this like in the lawyer political way. So what does that mean? Did you like it or dislike it? Well, here's the thing. I have said on my soapbox that I much prefer two tribes. I just feel like you have more opportunity for groups to form and people to flip on each other within a bigger tribe.

So I'm much more in the realm of like, let's go back to two tribes and not three. So do I love three tribes? I don't. Do I love that, you know, Jeff is like, in a tribe of four, there's nowhere to hide? Yeah, Jeff, that's part of the reason why we don't love it because it makes it so obvious for who's in trouble and who's likely to go home, as opposed to there being an opportunity to shuffle things up a little bit. And when you have two larger tribes where people can kind of play the middle if they want,

because there might be a swing vote because you have more people. So I much more prefer the larger tribes because I don't like that there's nowhere to hide. I like that people can try to play both sides or that people can try to test the waters. And so with, you know, Jeff being like, you know what you can do with 12? Well, you could do a merge at 12, Jeff. You know, there's that too. There's other, there's, there's a, you could do two tribes of six if you wanted to. Like, we want to go back to six because six is better than four, even though six is still not great.

But yes, so that's, that's how I, how I feel about that. Yeah, I agree a lot with that. Last week, I hated what happened with Jason, right? I really wanted to see more of him. And he was just put into that position where I truly, I truly think he didn't have a whole lot of choices here. of how to convince he could have done a lot of things and I still think he would have gone home and that was just part of the game

which is very unfortunate because I really thought he was going to be a good player so I agree a lot I also think if you're in the production team though and by now you have to be prepared because you know this happened every time there's one tribe that's always weaker than all the others but they were probably trying to like figure it out

almost on the spot so I didn't mind so much going back to three but then and we got lucky with what we got at the end of this episode but you it's very difficult when you just have the position where there's three from you know they know each other well and one

that's on the outs very unlikely for that one to survive so David are you going to say something and I interrupt you there oh no you're fine Jessica you had said what you can do at 12 you can merge yeah but this is Jeff even if we merged it wouldn't have been a merge

It would have been emerged, where you can only vote for half the tribe. And then the next vote, you get split up and it can only vote with half the tribe. So a lot of us have been saying for the past number of years, we've been saying, hey, instead of pretend merging and not merging, how about do another tribe swap? So Jeff apparently heard us and said, okay, we'll do an extra tribe swap. but we didn't say do a tribe swap of three to you know three tribes of four we meant do a tribe swap of two tribes and you know for a couple of votes or a few votes and he did it for two votes and then just when it looked like things might get interesting with that swap he's like nope let's mix it up again now again we got lucky this one did get interesting but it could have easily gone the other one and had yet another episode of three people look at one going, bye, you know. So we got lucky. We have this episode, so that's good.

We have a lot more to talk about. Yes, for sure. I'm very curious if this speaks, and we didn't see that. I think it was just the broken relationship between Sage and Shannon. But I am very curious to see if this is going to play into like, oh, everyone's going to think Stephen had some sort of like amazing play for him to survive, right? In that situation, it'll be interesting to see what happens from here if it's going to be all about Sage and Shannon or if somehow it will get reflected on Stephen. If Stephen makes it to the end, I would use that though.

In like my speech, I will be like, listen, I got stuck here and I survived and I did this or whatever, right? So I hope it makes it there that he used this example in his speech at the end. Yeah. Now, the other person, the other guy in this tribe was my winner picked Jawan. And I really need Jawan to wake up and smell the coffee here. We talked last week about how he has provided information to his original tribe mate. He even rigged the rock draw last week to help keep them safe. And in his mind, the original Uli were a solid unit.

the problem is nobody else thinks that he was on the outs savannah wanted to vote him out but she noted that they've kept him in the dark about all of that and then this episode began by him talking about how if that swap tribe the first swap tribe went to tribal council again uh poor sophie would go my sophie my winner pick yeah well don't worry she was never in danger because all the other original uly knew she was on the bottom and he would have been the one voted out he just has not seen this at all you know he just continues to be targeted by different people so i'm fearful for your winner pick there yeah he's even in the second swap this week he still would have been in the dark yeah stage and stephen hadn't filled him in yeah you know we'll of course discuss some things about that when we get to the rules in a few minutes here but he needs to get with it i i i i I'm hoping that what happened this week will open his eyes, at least a little bit, maybe? Please, Joanne, please.

Listen, I'm okay with it, Joanne. Listen, I think you're lovely. But David chose you as his winner pick. And my winner pick, Sophie, without me, is really doing some amazing things. So I have to really, like, support my girl, Sophie. And he's not supporting my girl, Sophie. Joanne wanted Sophie out. So I feel for you, David.

Joanne's not doing great, but Sophie's doing great. And Sophie just found in this episode, she found the advantage. And I truly think... And didn't tell anyone. Yes. Thank you. And that's such a big one for her to also not tell anybody so powerful on that one. Yes.

That one has a lot of power. And she didn't tell anybody, which makes it even better. So she's positioned really well. Yeah. Yes. It is this concern that we've had where everyone wants to share all of the information with everyone. And we saw that too with even Rizzo was being told like, by the way, everybody knows about your idol. And he's like, oh, okay.

Yeah. So that's great. But she was so good about it, even though she realizes she's with Rizzo and she's with Savannah. And these are people she's close with. She's still like, nope, I'm not going to tell them. And I love that. I love that. There is so much power in silence.

because then you can have an opportunity to use that later and no one knows that you have it. Knowledge is power. It's in the name, right? Like, you know what nobody else does. As soon as you start telling people, well, then you lose all the power you have. Because I think we've seen that in previous seasons where they know someone has it and there's this idea they're going to start like the first time in the period. Handing things off, right. Like handing things to someone else so you don't know who necessarily has what you think they have.

Yeah, so love that she did not say anything, and I hope she doesn't say anything. Yeah, back with Leanna asking Xander, can I have your idol? And he says, no, but you can have this fake idol instead. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yes, yes. So this is why I'm so proud of her for not saying anything. Thank you, Sophie, for listening.

We love that. That's good. She may use it as to her advantage in the future, maybe telling someone I could see that. I don't know why. I could see that happening from her, but I love the fact that she kept a secret, at least for now. Don't tell anybody, people. Like, listen, I, interesting enough, I have to tell you this.

I have a 16-year-old who watches with me, and she loves it as much as I do. And she actually thinks the opposite way. So I think, I'm like, is this a generational thing? Because she's like, no, you want to share it because this is like the few opportunities you could actually gain trust. I'm like, no way. So it's very interesting to hear people from the other.

side of the coin thinking that it's good to share. It's like, if knowledge is power ends up being used against someone who has shared information about an idol, you can turn to your daughter and say, told you. There you go. Yes.

It's one of those rare parenting wins over a teenager. Oh my God. I was right. These little things, it's like I and then I won't shut up about it too. So, yeah. I don't know. Maybe you've actually been on the show before.

Yeah. This idea that you might have some inner knowledge and of the workings of how the game goes. Right, right, exactly. All right. Well, I know that we're going to have plenty to talk about when it comes to Shannon. So that is all that I had. Do either of you have anything or anyone else you want to discuss before we get to the rules for her? Oh, my God.

I have so much. I have so much to say, but it's going to come through, you know, organically, hopefully. If not, I'll throw it in organically. We'll just get a list at the end. There were, of course, some other things going on, and I'll be putting some of that in my TikTok and YouTube at David Bloomberg TV. But before we get to how Shannon did, we want to mention that the rules we were about to discuss also come in a shorter

and much more colorful version as a poster. Go to rob his website.com slash yxlost feed. scroll down, click it, and order it. In addition to the poster, you can also get the rules in t-shirt form with the poster on a t-shirt or with the checklist on a t-shirt. I say, or should really be and. You should add everything to your... All of it. All of it.

Yes. So again, that's rob has a website.com slash yX lost feed. Well, Jeff said in tribal council, there's nothing wrong with playing Survivor hard as long as you're playing well. And we saw Shannon playing hard. She thought she was doing it well, making all her authentic connections, seeing how people lit up when she wanted to talk strategy, et cetera. Meanwhile, there are some, including our boss Rob, who suggested that Sage voted out Shannon because he didn't like her or she didn't like her, which is, you know, which is the real reason. Was it strategy or was it emotion? or are they intertwined like Shannon herself was?

At RHAP, we know Survivor, and we know why Shannon lost. The first and most important rule is, of course, the Schema-Platt. It's safe to say that Shannon certainly understood this. From the very beginning, she made alliances, including some we didn't see. When it all shook out at Uli, she was in the Corps 4 with Savannah, Nate, and Rizzo, being particularly tight with Savannah had appeared. While she said in interviews that she felt close to, and like Joanne, she also knew those two were on the outs.

But then in the first swap, the only original Ouli person she ended up with in a majority Hina tribe was Sage, which was a problem when it looked like things would break down along tribal lines. So as Shannon told Mike Bloom, it became more about self-preservation in that moment. And she started telling the original Hina member she would be open to voting out Sage, which of course got back to Sage. We'll talk more about that aspect in to. But I do want to say that from one standpoint, that is what she should be doing. We got mad at Matt just a few weeks ago for not doing it to Jason. So she was right to try to get him better with those players in case they did go to tribal counsel. The problem was in how she did

it along with everything else she was doing, which again, we'll mostly get to in the second rule. But sticking with this rule, one part of what she did wrong when it came to Sage was failing to check in properly. Shannon told Rob that she was keeping her distance from Sage at the first Swap Tribe for strategic reasons and thought it was understood they'd still be good. But now she sees that was a mistake and it was. We've talked about this before. It's mentioned specifically in this rule. You can't assume that just because you said at one point that you were allies with someone that they'll stay with you. if you don't talk to them.

And too often keeping your distance for what you believe are strategic reasons makes them think you're keeping your distance for other reasons. And I'm curious if Shannon didn't fall into this place with Sage, because when you look at her exit press, she talked a lot about how she felt even pregame that Sage was going to be a significant component to her game.

And she's very much in the, how I, the, I don't even know how to describe it, but the, the, the feelings that she has about people and the connection that she thinks she has. So perhaps she sought, Sage is feeling the same thing. So I don't necessarily need to talk to Sage because Sage is going to be part of this greater existence that we've created together. And so, because she thought that she and Sage were on the same page, but like, we're not going to check in. each other. We're not going to talk to each other as much because we don't want anyone to believe that we are as close as we actually are, whereas that doesn't appear to be at all worse than it was. And so I'm just, I'm wondering if that, that part of who Shannon is negatively affected her ability to actually follow this rule the way that she should have because she was

feeling a particular way about Sage. I have so much to say about that, Jessica. So if Shannon is listening to this, and this is how you live your life. I don't think she will be. Well, I mean, maybe someone will send it to her. I don't think you should assume, even if you have this special chemistry with people, partners, whatever,

kids, I don't care. Don't ever assume they know what you're thinking. Not your marriage. If you have a boyfriend or girlfriend, not in the game. Because truly, like, you never know what the other people, the other perception.

how they're perceiving you, perhaps. So to me, it's so important to have actual verbal communication to express yourself because I, and I'm with you. I think she was assuming she was good with social, and the way she was thinking, right?

Like, let's hold hands. And like, especially not in Survivor, okay? Because they have their own agenda and they are going to portray like they're on your agenda, which is not like your own. Exactly right. And everyone should be doing that in Survivor, to be honest, right? So if you are playing the game the right way, I don't care if you're trying to be yourself and all

of that. You still try to make the other person happy. That's how you gain allies and that's how you play the game. So never make assumptions to that point, Jessica. I truly think that she was doing that and it backfire her, right? Because I actually just listen to a very short clip about her exit interview, one of the many, right? And she was saying that she didn't realize it was, it was that way with Sage, which makes me think what you're saying is 100% accurate. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, you mentioned an important word that we're going to hear a lot of, and say a lot of later, a perception. You know, don't assume what other people's perceptions are. We'll get to a lot of that later. But yes, it is so important to not only know what you're perceiving about someone else, but put yourself into their headspace about what they think of you. So, yeah, we'll get to definitely more of that too. And I think that word is important for the scheming and plotting, though,

because you can scheme and plot all you want, but you need to understand how you are being perceived within the game. So it doesn't backfire you. And I actually think she did a lot of things right in terms of making real connections with people. She talked about, you know, the connection with Christina even, right? You mentioned some of the other original members of her tribe. But so I think that was good. She probably needed to code, like, code switch a little bit about herself and tone it down a little bit.

But that's a different rule. But from the, from the scheming and plotting, I think, you know, like there was. were a couple of aspects that she did well. It's just combined with other things, you know, it kind of fell through a little bit. Yeah, well, I'll respond to that and rule two. How's that? Now, as time went on in the first swap tribe,

Sage fell further and further away from her. And, you know, like we talked about, Shannon thought she had Sage completely on her side, especially once they got to the second swap, saying things along the way like, I love Sage. and she feels like someone I can trust. And I don't think anyone has any idea how close we are.

The problem was, even Sage did not believe that they were that close. So it's kind of an issue there. And we've talked a lot about this season, about people being outplayed. And this was just another situation where that happened. Shannon was absolutely blindsided to the point she didn't even bring her shot in the dark die with her. And a large part of this was because she

convinced herself that she was doing so well and in such a great position. But both Sage and Stephen deserve Emmys for their acting with Shannon and making her feel so comfortable because they completely outplayed her. Okay, hold on. I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know about Sage. She went like, it was not visible to Shannon but she clearly had all the facial emotions. But she always waited until it was, it was always behind her back. It really was. Yeah. Like even the,

even when, when, when Shannon was doing the kissy, kissy thing. And Shannon or Sage responded back to her a couple times before Shannon turned around and then we got the, uh, from,

uh, sage there. So I did love that Sage actually acknowledged this too in one of her confessionals where she's, she said that Shannon likes to feel like she's in charge and like she's making the decisions. So I'm, I'm going to let her feel that way. And it was, and it really was what we saw. Every time Sage was with Shannon, it was very supportive of whatever idea Shannon was expressing. It was very much like, oh, you want to hold hands, we'll hold hands. It was

hugging even though she didn't want to hug. And she really did a fantastic job of letting Shannon feel like she was completely in charge so much so that Shannon referred to herself as like the what was like the confident lucky girl like I'm the I'm the luckiest most confident person going into tribal council and that really is props to sage and then also Stephen for making her feel so good but really sage recognizing who Shannon was and then leaning into it so much was fantastic it was just fantastic television. It was fantastic gameplay. It was everything that we love about Survivor because

that's what we want to see. We want to see that can I being like, oh, I'm going to get you. And everyone was trying to get everybody, which was so much fun too, because they were like, oh, I want to target Juan. Oh, I want to target Stephen. I want to target Shannon. So all in all just she really was outplayed, even though she was

trying really hard to scheme and plot and to do well in the game. the Shannon way but then that was recognized by other people as the Shannon way and they just they they let her run with it and it worked against her it's interesting I think if I'm a casting producer and I'm I get to see these ladies while they're doing their casting process and you see Shannon and I don't know their upbringings I don't know Shannon's upbringing or sage right but you see Shannon it's all flowery and yogi and meditation and happy and then you see sage that comes completely to me at least through the TV that we've seen very the opposite. I'm a strong female. I mean, she talked a little bit about it in her confessional too, like, oh, this young

girl who loves everyone and I'm going to eat her up, whatever it was the way that she said it. I'm sure they had so much fun to put these two ladies together because they can probably see this a mile away, right? So it's very interesting to see the juxtaposition of both of them together and somehow they keep grabbing the same.

same buff, you know, and stuck together throughout this. So it's been really great television because they had those two together. I'm not going to love you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we can move on to the second rule where we're going to have a lot to talk about. It says not to scheme and plot too much and to keep your scheming secret. And as, as I mentioned in the first rule, here's where we saw a lot of Shannon's problems.

This rule was even discussed in tribal council. You know, Jeff said, there's nothing wrong with playing Survivor hard as long as you're playing well. He added directing it at Shannon. You can play hard and covert, and that's fine because nobody knows. But if you're playing hard and everybody sees that, then you're playing poorly and that's a problem. Sage said, in a tribal council of four people, you have to play hard to an extent, but you also don't want to play too hard or the target shifts to your back. It's hard to find that balance.

It's like all of them had just finished studying this rule. And it was particularly weird to hear it from Jeff, who is usually all about big moves and play as hard as you can. But all of it was true and all of it applied directly to Shannon. She just had no idea. She didn't realize it at all because she was playing hard, but she wasn't playing well. And she wasn't playing covert. And that was her main problem. Sage saw it.

Stephen saw it. And then Stephen made sure everybody else saw it. on the first tribe swap and siege made sure you want saw it on the second tribe swap yeah i do think it's fascinating that there's there's such a hard balance to try to find where shannon really thought she was being genuine and she was trying to make those connections and learn as much as she could about people but it was like just a little too over the top right where it's like you have to you have to do that you have to create those bonds you have to have to have those connections, but you can't do it so overtly that then other people see it and realize exactly

what you're doing. And perhaps because there was some discussion about was this sincere versus was it strategy. And Shannon is very much like, no, it was sincere. But again, we go back to that perception, right? If people perceive it as not being sincere and perceive it more as she's just trying to like reel this person in and she's going to use whatever she can to try to do that, then you become the target because all of a sudden people are on to you and they're realizing what they think you're doing, even if you are really like, well, I just want to try to make a bond with somebody. But it's a very hard balance to find. Shannon thought she was doing it impeccably well when in actuality it was on blast for everyone and it gave everyone something to point to. Like,

oh, do you see what she's doing here? Do you see the conversation she's having here? so yeah unfortunately she did not find that balance which is a very tricky balance to find she overdid it 100% uh the connection to your point if that connection is quiet right it feels almost more quaint and like authentic versus i'm talking to everyone because we're all in the same kumbaya with the same feelings where you don't really know if everyone is feeling that way you're just overdoing it, almost overcompensating for everyone else, not just yourself. And that was the over-scheming. I mean, I do think she had some authentic aspects of it.

But when you start, I don't think if you start saying it too loud and too often, it becomes less believable, right? It's like, oh, guys, I'm always right. I'm always right. And you oversay it, it's like you're absolutely not always right because you're overcompensating for it. Except me. Exactly. Exactly, David. No, but I truly think that this one was one.

She started doing some scheming and plotting, and then she overdid it. She definitely went too much on it. And it was clear. It was easy for us to see it over the TV. So I think she fell on this one too much. And when you start saying things like, I'm so confident. And I'm like, you know, I'm so great. like because you know there's something happening there.

When you start saying those things in Survivor, it's when you actually fall. So I think it's like I very few people can survive those moments and she really didn't because she over did it. Yeah. Yeah. I have a whole long list here of multiple problems that Shannon had with this rule. Now, the most obvious was that she was being well, the most obvious. She was talking. She was talking strategy with people in full view of others.

We saw Sage even mention one time how she could see their lips moving and she knew what Shannon was talking about. And she would go to different people and talk to them and then move on to the next and so on. And it was probably okay at first, but it didn't take long for people like Stephen and Alex to notice. I mentioned last week it was like a sitcom because Shannon would go talk to. someone and then she'd move on and then Stephen would swoop in and tell the person which Shannon was actually doing so they'd have a full picture of what was going on and none of them said oh no she's not like that you know they were like oh the closest was it was christina saying well you know i have an emotional connection to her and but then realizing she might

have to put that aside to go along with what her allies were telling her right on yeah and i do think that those are the moments that really need to be played up when you are playing the game of Survivor, that if you see something in someone, you need to plant that seed to the next person. So you're not necessarily telling them what to think. You're just pointing it out, going, isn't that interesting that this is what she's doing? And what is she doing with you? Because then you get their wheels turning. So you're not going at them saying, this is what she's doing. You're letting them see it themselves. And then they will start noticing it as the game moves forward. So I love that Stephen did that

And that he really he saw something and wanted to bring it to everyone's attention Without telling them this is what's happening It's more of a they make the realization on their own And then everyone was realizing it and then questioning Shannon So I'm not surprised that everyone started to say Hmm Shannon Playing a little bit hard here Yeah I think that's also what Sage has been doing

With someone like Joanne right like she's being like just I don't think she's completely said we're going against Shannon from the get-go, right? But she started like throwing a little bit of, you know, beans here and there. And she finally was able to get her out. So I agree. I think that's one of those things that's like you cannot just tell people what to do like completely from the get-go. You just got to like let them think they're the ones making the decisions, right? Yes.

Yes. Now, a second problem that she had here was overthinking things, which, you know, she was doing even as she told us, I'm doing my best not to overthink the situation. We saw last week that she couldn't even wait for the sun to come up before proposing a merge alliance with Stephen that would involve two members from each original tribe. Based on her interview,

she really did think this was going to happen, which was the main reason she wanted to keep Stephen this week. I'm not even going to say it was a bad idea per se, but you need to have buy-in from everybody involved, I'll get an alliance like that. And she had no idea what was happening on the other tribe. So how could you plan to make use of, for example, Sophie with an eye in this alliance? You make alliances with people you know you can work with.

You could promise to bring someone in that like she knew she was tight with. But even with one of them, there was no real way to know what that person's mindset would be. and Stephen is smart enough to recognize all of this and see as he told us she's playing so hard. Yeah. Yeah. And she'd never even met Sophie with an eye. Right. So you're like, you're hooking yourself to someone

you've never even spoken to. And so I do think that that is really like you are thinking too highly of the game that you're playing at that point if you are creating alliances with people you've never even spoken to. It's kind of interesting. to me how if you do the math on the numbers like they were they had older members up until this episode that's is that right like six of them yes um so if you know that the original hina tribe is starting to lose some of the numbers you got to start thinking is coming for yours too it's very unlikely to get into the merge with all six of you right um so i think she could she should have seen it a little

bit coming that should have she shouldn't be like oh i can just relax i'm all safe you know right right right now the third problem here is relates to what we've all you know both of you have already mentioned which is perception and shannon had no understanding of how she was perceived by no it's makes me sad because she was all so happy he's like anyway um plus her own perceptions of others were off. And she made assumptions based on a small sliver of what she saw and believed. We saw or we discussed some of this last week. But as a few examples, she said that when she proposed her

222 plan to Stephen, quote, naturally, Stephen likes this idea because it's a great idea. When she talked to other players, she told us they'd just been waiting for her to open up strategic discussions with them as if they'd been like sitting around and she would. is their savior. Yes. Then there was the way she didn't see Sage strategizing, so she assumed that meant she wasn't.

Plus, we found out from her interviews that she, of course, had no idea. Sage understood where she was in the original tribe, telling Mike Bloom, I now recognize that Sage definitely caught on to the fact that we four were so, so close. Yeah. But of course, she didn't see it at the time. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that this is, again, it goes to what the.

other players are doing versus what she's doing and they are, you know, recognizing things that she's, she seems to be oblivious to. We've said this multiple times. If someone is not strategizing with you, that means they're strategizing with other people. And every conversation that she had with Sage was very much Sage just reassuring Shannon. Yes, Shannon. That's what we're doing. That's what we're going to do.

Sage was never coming to her with new information or new requests or ideas. was always like, yes, Shannon, that's a great idea. I can't wait to do this, Shannon, yes. So you can't just assume that Sage isn't having conversations with other people because, yeah, she was. She was just a little less obvious about it. I think we're sneaking into the next rule. I don't know if we're officially in Rule 3.

I have so many more things to say about this rule. He's a list. Yeah, and I'm saying that because to your point, did we ever hear like, okay uh sage what do you think or right say's telling her a little bit of her opinion it was all about Shannon's opinion so it's like yeah and I'm gonna say I'm breaking breaking here to the next one but I will we can stay here it's like she was never flexible in terms of the opinions right it was always like Shannon's opinion and that's a big problem it's true with the game of survivor yeah yeah so you know as far as more for

For this rule, in Shannon's mind, both at the time and apparently still today, she was, and this is something, I think Heidi, you just, you brought this up a little while ago, the authenticity that, you know, she believed she was being 100% authentic in her connections. Or it might have been Jessica talking about this. Or maybe both of you. I should take, I should take notes as we go. indeed you know she said that time and time again i'm being 100% authentic and but when you appear to get that close to someone and then you stab them in the back they are not going to perceive it as authentic and she admits that was part of her gameplay she told mike bloom i really gave it my all strategically and really tried to control the game the best i could and then i also genuinely wanted to be an emotional safe space for people out there as well and just really care about them on a human level.

She wanted to have her cake and eat it too. And it can't be both. If you're going to go on about your authentic connections, you can't turn around and talk to other people about wanting to vote them out. It's a double whammy that not only tells people you're over scheming, but that you're playing with their emotions as well. Like we saw each day. Shannon didn't have my back.

Shannon's been playing a dirty game. She is very snaky. She's very disingenuous, but tries to lead with this front of authenticity. Yeah, that's a very, like, heavy, like, commentary to make about Shannon and what Sage was seeing her game every single day and what it existed up. So, yeah, I think that's coming from Sage, that's saying a lot about how Shannon was acting on the island and how she

as being perceived on the island. That's such a hard, this is a hard game. And for those that have played the game, we understand you do connect with people in some way or shape, right? There is something super special about spending 24-7 with someone or multiple people there. You don't eat. You got to help each other and you truly have to help each other to make the life easier living there.

So I do think there is something about the special. connection you make with some of them. But then when you overdo it and over express it externally, right? It becomes like, it's too much. And not everyone is going to feel that way. People, they are uncomfortable. People, they are tired. People, they aren't hungry.

So when you start saying how wonderful this life is and the beautiful of, you know, being in this, because it is beautiful, by the way, Fiji is incredibly beautiful. But sometimes you're like, I just want to complain about how hard we have her here. And then when you see those people having this crazy, beautiful connection, they start saying it. You may get annoyed, okay? Because you're like, I want a freaking sandwich. I want a grilled cheese. And this person is here just talking nonstop about how butterflies and, like, you know, air and meditation.

And I just want to complain for a moment and just say how sucky it is sometimes to be here with no food. So you've got to be aware that not everyone's going to have this crazy, beautiful connection with the land 100% 24-7. So, yeah, I do think it's beautiful to have some personal connections, but be aware, not everyone's going to have the same beautiful emotion connection with everyone else. It's real life, too, where not everyone's going to connect to that level. And when you overdo it, people will get annoyed. I think I would have been annoyed, by the way. And I was there, and I was there really trying to, for example, she was with Nate and you, I love that episode because I actually can't really, maybe that shows my age, but I love the, oh my God, how many times are they going to say this is a vibe or whatever it was right at the beginning? Like, this is a vibe or, and I'm with Nate.

Like, when you overdo it, then not everyone is going to be in that vibe, by the way. Right, right. I love that clip so much because I'm, I'm sure I was in his shoes at some point where I'm like, oh, my God, these people are truly much younger than me, but you know what? I'm going to connect with them. But I'm not going to be saying it 20 times, right? So anyway, I could talk so much about it because I love Nate, by the way. It was funny, too. That seemed to be a that tribe thing because like when Rizzo swapped over, he said to someone on the other tribe, I don't remember who.

He said, oh, yes, this is cinema. and they were like, yeah, it's like a movie or something like that. You know, they totally didn't get that this was something, right, you know, they took it very literally in that moment there. I just want all the Marvel people

to come together already. Can we just do this? Like, come on. They keep talking about it. I know. It's like this, it's like this little like, like little Easter eggs. Like, oh, you are Marvel?

I love Marvel. I'm like this huge. And then you've got Nate and it's just like, come on already. Like just let's talk. talk about Marvel with Nate and the Marvel fanatics that are out there. I want that to happen so bad. And I think they keep giving us snippets of it.

Like, oh, we love marble together or whatever. I'm like, I really hope this is going to be a big thing when they all merge, you know, at some point. Because it's like, I'll just talk about it. I can't wait. Yeah. Going back to Shannon, there were so many. Sorry, we went on no tag in there. No, that's okay.

I was the one who brought up cinema on movies. So there were so many instances of Sage in particular talking about Shannon's gameplay. She told us she shot herself in the foot at this point. I think she'll be familiar with the term karma given her spiritual practices. And it feels like that's on the horizon. And she said, I'm going for Shannon because she's been playing both sides very hard. And Shannon's been throwing me under the bus for the last couple days. And now 24 hours later, we have.

Shannon's new turn belief of, I want to work with you, Sage, and so much more. But that last one is key. It's not just that she was overplaying. It's that her behavior made it obvious she couldn't be trusted going forward. Right.

She pretended to be with Sage on original Ouley, then tried to get her voted out on the first swap tribe, then went back to pretending to be close to her. And Sage knew once they got back to the merge, Shannon could easily just get back together with her original Uli allies and dump sage by the side of the road again. And, you know, she was certainly able to explain that to Joanne, who Shannon was currently targeting.

Even Joanne, who was, as I said earlier in the podcast, in the dark about so much. Well, she is targeting you. She is literally targeting you. So with the way she was behaving, she looked like a fair weather friend. yeah I see what you did there yes yes I was like

I was like okay are they going to remember her last name you know oh yes yes so so yes hopefully hopefully everyone watching got that the fair weather part

yes it is really on the nose for that to be her last name by the way yes it is very much on the nose. Yes. That's very and all very accurate explanations and

descriptions of what was what was happening. Yes. Well, the third rule tells players to be flexible. Heidi, how do you think Shannon did in terms of this role, especially since you already dipped your toe in here? This is a tough one. I think this is one of those

that, between this one on number four, but this is one of those that I think she felt short. And I alluded to that in many of my comments. I was just actually reading their titles or occupations, the way they're listed. And Shannon says wellness specialist. And then Sage says clinical social worker, right? And as I think through it, and I don't know exactly what that means for their real lives.

But I think when you go into the game of Survivor, everyone comes from different sites, different parts of the country, different upbringings and I said this earlier but I'll say it again right if I don't Shannon comes across to me like she is she maybe hasn't had it that tough in terms of like roughing it in life it's all full and even if it did she is coming across as like it's all butterflies and happy and wellness and we're here and present which by the way it's a beautiful thing I mean that's a beautiful thing in real life I think it's beautiful for her but she has to understand not everyone comes from that. Some people come from hustle. Some people come from struggles, right? And when you go there, you have to go in the game being yourself, but you have to understand

the flexibilities behind how you have to act there to listen and see where everyone else is coming from. There are differences. So I think that's the beauty of the game. Everyone is going to have their own special story behind the scenes. So I think it's super important to have some some flexibilities within your games to listen to other people's differences and understand that. And she was completely all about all the butterflies. Listen, the game is not going to be butterflies. You're going to have to backstap. And she tried to use her strength.

By all means, use your strength and what you know to use it for your game and plot and scheme. But you've got to be flexible within that because not everyone is going to be the same way that you are. So I truly think the lack of flexibility with who she was was what was hurting her, right? Because be your authentic self. I'm not saying change necessarily who you are, but you got to be flexible to understand all their people's life and stories and what they like or dislike in order to find a common place there for the game. And the lack of flexibility on that and her game and scheme around that, that it was all about herself. and the meditation and the breathing and all of that I truly think it hurt her game

and strategy behind the game. I don't know if you were going that way or not. No, but I think that's an interesting way to view it because she certainly wasn't flexible in getting away from who Shannon was. But she did at least seem flexible in I want to target other people for Shannon, right? So she was like, so she was willing to consider

I want to take out Sage or I want to take out Joanne. I want to work with Kina and not just stick with Uli. and so there did seem to be like her desire to be flexible within the game as to who she was going to play the game with. But it was all locked into what Shannon wants as opposed to what's best for other people. And so she wasn't taking into consideration those people around her. She was just kind of assuming like we talked about already with Sage. Sage never said, what about me?

Like do you want to do you want to know what I'm thinking? I want to know my opinion. Shannon was just like, okay, good, Sage is with me. Tadda, we're done. And so I think that, yes, there's like this weird dynamic with her where she wasn't taking into consideration anyone else in that moment. And so she wasn't thinking about that person. It was very Shannon specific.

Yeah, and another example is when Stephen and Jawan were like nerding out their connection and they show a quick clip of the girls saying, like, what are they talking about? they're probably just nerding out. Guess what? I would be nerding out with them. Like I would find anything in myself to nerd out with the boys too, right? So it just speaks to the fact that they were, I mean, they were almost like,

I just let them nerd out. That's not my thing kind of situation. Guess what? You got to be flexible to be nerding out with the boys too kind of situation, right? So I think she lacked a lot of flexibilities within who she was being for the game, even if she was trying to be herself, right? Yeah. And, you know, Heidi, you bring up a very interesting point.

I had not thought of it that way. I was thinking of this, you know, in more of the usual way, I guess, which is, you know, I thought that she tried to follow this rule. She said in episode one, a big part of my game is being adaptable. And she told Mike Bloom, I knew it was going to be important for me to have options moving forward and my goal was to honestly lock it in with sage and then kind of play both sides from there but i knew it was going to be a little tricky just because i felt like i had to play so hard with all the different tribe swaps and different dynamics and also managing the social connections

that i already had from earlier in the game too but of course even looking at it from this perspective the thing is she didn't have to play that hard and as we spent time discussing she shouldn't have at least not in the way she did it she put herself into the situation where she wanted to be super flexible but made it so there were a number of people she had to double cross in order to move forward which takes us back to what I was saying about how Sage couldn't trust her because she'd already seen Shannon drop her and try to pick her back up once and knew she would do it again so she was inflexible in both ways the way I was thinking and the way you were thinking I think you. Thank you. I like that when you're saying that. Now, flexibility is it's so important for the game, which is why you guys made it a rule, right? But it's not just flexible of your strategy. It's also about personality, about listening to other people. I think flexibility, it's so important, but there's so many facets behind the word flexibility, right? So this one was one that, at least from what we saw,

So it was very much, you know, Shannon's way or no way and unfortunately backfire her. Ended up being no way. Yeah. So the fourth rule tells players not to let their emotions control them. And I think this is an interesting question. We know she was trying to control people using emotions, which we've already discussed somewhat in rule two and will again in rule five. But Jessica, do you think she was controlled by her emotions? Well, I agree.

This is, I struggle with this, right? Because she is someone who expressed even in tribal counsel how things were being manifested around her and that, and she had such a deep connection with, with the, you know, the space and the energy. And she's very much that person. And so I don't know if it was allowing her emotions to control her. I think it was more of her personality and who she is that was kind of controlling what she was doing and why she was acting the way that she was and how she was putting herself

out there and claiming to be her most authentic self. So it's an interesting mix because she is someone who is very spiritual. She's someone who is very much interested in speaking about God. And so that portion of her, I think, certainly affected how she played this game. And so I don't know if it was necessarily controlling her, but it was part of who she was. And so, So it was like she couldn't get away from that in the decisions that she was making. And so she's this weird mix because she wanted to be both, right? She wanted to be that authentic person. But then at the same time, and she would acknowledge this.

She's like, but I also want to run the game. And so it's like you're trying to find that middle ground. So I don't think she necessarily allowed it to control the gameplay. She wanted to control the game itself, but this was a part of who she was. And unfortunately, that part of who she was affected how other people saw her and affected how other people felt about her. And so it unfortunately backfired, right? Because she wanted to be able to do both. Like, I want to be this spiritual guide, if you will.

But I also want to control the game at the same time. So I know that doesn't really answer the question you asked me because I do think she's such a mixed bag because there's so many things happening that are almost contradictory. to each other. But Shannon was trying to intertwine and put it all together in this game. And it certainly didn't work out. If you think about it, she talked about her perhaps religion. I think at some point she mentioned the Bible and things like that. And those are things that go, the game of Survivor essentially goes against so much of what's

written of what's right in this world. So I have to imagine in her head, in her game, it's a battle of, Do I be the right good person? But I also am playing survival, so I got to backstop people. So I'm sure in the back of her mind, it's a struggle of I want to do what's right and I want to be myself and be bubbly and do the right thing. But then this game is pushing me to do. Sometimes it pushes you to do things you don't want to do, right? I mean, you have to vote people out, although she wasn't in tribal council much at all before, right?

Right. So, but in general, this is a game that is a lot about backstabbing. So I am sure this was a really tough one for her because it's like, you know, all my connections with this world in the positive way versus they, I have to backstop people to win the game. So it's, I don't know if I would say this was like the weakest part of her or not, but I'm sure there were a lot of struggles in her mind for this one because. it's such a very complete two different worlds there right having the religion on the right thing to do versus playing survivor to win which entails a whole lot of backstabbing yes yes yeah i'm going to say for this one i don't think she was controlled by her emotions there i'm surprised all right i think that was part of the problem that sage saw because she had these supposedly authentic relationships that like you mentioned, she kept saying

authentic, authentic, authentic. And if you keep saying that, the less people believe it. But then she was not affected by them when deciding to tell others like she would vote out Sage or wanting to vote out to Lawn this week. Yeah.

You know, don't get me wrong. That's perfectly in accordance with this rule. And she would be doing the right thing in that regard. But it goes back to what we discussed in rule too. You can't give the appearance of caring so much and then turn on them because

then it looks like you were just pretending which makes it even worse. Even if turning on them is the right thing to do strategically, you have now put yourself into a worse position because it looks like you're this person who's using emotion

and manipulating them and digging into their heart and, you know, everything else. Yeah. Well, I'm more comment and maybe I'm reflecting myself into this comment because when she got voted out she kept her composure right like she's like

guys I still love you and the whole sage I'm going to give you a handshake not hug you because it's not going to be authentic or whatever right I think she she stayed true to who she is I think at least who I think she is and listen if I was in that situation I would have been like screw you and you and you

And you don't want to give me a hug, screw you too. So I think I would have lost it just based on the game of what was happening. So she probably controlled her emotions at the end and just stay true to who she was the entire time, which is quite interesting. I would love to have a conversation with her and be like, were you not even a little bit mad about it? Because I am so competitive. If they kick me out, that way, I would have been pissed, right? So I'm very curious about that one there. I think in some of her interviews she said, you know, she was in shock.

And I think that's more what it showed that she was, this was so far out of the realm of possibility in her mind. Right. Right. And when it happened, it's like, and I've heard this from a lot of players before. Like it went blank. I don't even remember it. She didn't say this, but I've heard other people, you know. Like I think, I think Kelly.

when she said, what the hell guys? She didn't even remember saying that. I think it was her. And the same thing happens with other people. Like they, they just black out and they don't even remember. And so I remember a similar situation

where she just clicked into her normal mode. Yeah. I love you. I love you. I love you. Without even being able to truly process. Right. So I don't know in that moment.

I don't know if she's like controlling her emotions or not. or the complete opposite. So I question that because when I saw her living that way, I'm like, I'm shocked. Like that's how she reacted. Like, really? Like, wow. Like, did she have a competitive,

at least a tiny little bit to be pissed? I don't know. But I think you're right. Like, maybe it's the shock of it. You just cannot really process what's literally happening on the spot. And when you're in tribal council, your heart is beating so hard. And when you start seeing your name,

it goes double heart. well fast. And trust me, I know that because I got what it, you know, my name kept coming up and my heart was just like eating myself. Anyway, so I went on a tangent there.

But in true honesty, when we talk about my emotions, I keep thinking to that moment, like I totally would have not reacted that way. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well,

the fifth rule reminds players they need to pretend to be nice and play the social game. I've mentioned on previous podcasts and my videos on social, on social media, the idea that Shannon was seen as being performative. And some people have responded and commented to say, they didn't think that was the case. It's just who she is and how she acts. Now, mind you, the people who are commenting that don't actually know her.

They're just other viewers of the show like us. So it's their interpretation. And the fact is, none of us can 100% know what's going on inside her head. but we can judge by her actions compared to what she says one of those actions which we discussed at length earlier was to pretend to be super close to sage while simultaneously encouraging other people to vote her out right yes and there's no debate about that it she was being performative in the way she acted with sage there's you cannot argue that if you say one thing to one person and you say another to another, you are being

performative. It's right there in the definition. Yeah. She was putting on a show that they were together when they weren't. And then this was the same show she put on with Juan in this episode. Now, as I said earlier, it's not

bad from a game perspective to try to make a person feel comfortable as part of your strategy. It's a good thing to do. And it's not even bad in this rule, which literally says pretend to be nice right but the thing is you have to be successful at yeah to go back to one of the things jeff said at tribal council you can play hard and covert and that's fine because nobody knows

but if you're playing hard and everybody sees that then you're playing poorly and that's a problem she was playing people hard in terms of this rule too and they saw yeah and i think part of the issue that she was having is that and Heidi you probably know this as well like there's always going to be that one person, right, that you're playing the game with. You're like, I really need that person's got to go. And so you might be a little more, I don't know, opinionated about that person. You might want people to consider that person a little bit more. You might be mentioning that person's name a little bit more. But the problem with Shannon was she was doing that with multiple people. And when you start doing it with multiple people, you have to imagine at

some point, those people are going to come back together and they're going to be having conversations. You know, Joanne even said, there's only four of us. And when you see two people walk away, you can, you can pretty much surmise or assume that we're one of the people they're discussing, you know, because we're the other half. And so she didn't realize that even if you're pretending to be nice to this person to their face, but then to this person over here, you are throwing them under the bus. In these small groups like this, when people have to try to try to, pick a name and they have to try to talk about who they think needs to go home,

they're going to start comparing notes and all of a sudden it's like, wait a second, wait, wait, wait, wait. So she's, she's and that's exactly what Sage did. She's like, listen, Joanne, she tried to vote me out. Like she was telling everybody about me and Joanne was like, what? I mean, he was completely

like blown away that she was doing this, but it then gave him pause and it makes you realize, no, what Sage is telling me is probably more likely true because if she was doing it to Sage, now she's doing it to me. And I think that's really where Shannon struggled with the pretend to be nice component. You can pretend to be nice.

But when you're pretending with everybody and you're also targeting everybody, then the ruse is up. And people are going to be on to you and they're going to be talking about you and you find yourself getting voted out. I think she, so unlike both of the comments, and maybe you agree with me. I actually think she didn't break this one too badly. I mean this rule compared to some of the other ones we have discussed and one that's coming up right I think this she was playing nice she really was I truly think she was being nice and she tried to play the game along with it

so I don't think this particular rule and I'm pretty sure I've never said this in this podcast but I think she followed this one pretty easily most of the time we find faults for all the rules this one she play nice she tried to play with strategy and scheme of plot and all that. The lack of the other rules is where really she fell off the wagon, right? But this one, I think she was, I mean, I really think she came across as being a nice girl, even from that post interviews and all of that.

So for me, this one didn't apply as much for her to go home. But that's a first one for me, because I always find floss within all the rules with, you know, for this podcast. Yeah, I mean, I think that just a lot of it goes. back to the topic we've discussed, that as Shannon told us, a big part of her strategy was for people to think she was making authentic connections with them because they were authentic connections. And similarly, she told Mike Bloom, over the course of several answers, which I'm combining together, being sincere was the strategy. I wanted to learn on my social skills and my social

ability to connect with people. So for me, actually using this time to get to know people, to talk about Christina's Irish twins and her mom or Stephen and Space and his girlfriend, Kelsey, or Savannah's boyfriend, or Nate's daughters, or Rizzo's relationship with his brother, Joanne's grandmother just passed in the past year. So these conversations, you're playing the game. And she's right. You are playing the game. As we've discussed before, everything you do in the game is playing the game. And almost everything is fair in love, war, and survivor. But that doesn't mean you'll get away with it.

Exactly. And the last thing she mentioned was the one that really struck me. The fact she had conversations with Joanne and gave him emotional support over his grandmother passing away and then wanted to blindside him. Is it fair? Absolutely. Is it within the game? Sure.

Is he going to see it that way when he finds out? well no right but that's what this rule is about can you read the rule word by word real quick David well I mean the title is pretend to be nice and play

the social game so she was pretending to be nice but the problem of the social game was it comes back it can come back to bite you if you overdo it so in a way kind of looped back to the second rule

yes you know but it's the second rule as it applies to the social game. Exactly. We don't have a pretend to be nice, but don't pretend to be too nice rule. It all gets lumped into this one because it's so rare. Right. And, you know,

in some ways Shannon seemed to understand this. She also told Mike, I have a lot of compassion for the fact that people are like she's being performative or it's not authentic because it's the lens of a game of Survivor where everything's the game. Now, that sounds great when she says that. If she had realized that in the game, she might have done better.

But then she continued to Mike, what matters to me is that I was authentic to myself. And that's why I immediately go, and we're out. That is not what matters in the game. She later added, I was misunderstood by people on the cast. Okay, maybe. But that makes it sound, and maybe this was intentional. maybe not, but it makes it sound like she's blaming them

when she is the fault. She is the one who took the actions that made them perceive her the way that she was acting. If she was misunderstood, it's because of the mixed signals that she was giving them. Yeah. Yeah, interesting.

Very interesting. Now, you asked about this rule and you asked me to read out the title. Yes. And, you know, uh, well actually before i get to that sorry i had one more thing earlier we talked about how sage and stephen outplayed shannon in the first rule and really they get it here too because as much

as shannon thought she was making all of these sincere connections so she could vote people out sage told us it's time i got to put the schmooze on even though i hate the schmuse you have to do it in survivor and she did it so well that shannon bought it although you know i do have to say it goes back to Heidi what you were saying she wasn't really paying attention to what other people were saying and doing it was it was you know her paying more attention to herself but you know she did this

Shannon bought it and then she turned around and give us her true feelings through facial expressions she has so much potential for a gazillion memes here okay I'm already that I just posted for those

of you on audio I posted a gift that I made of of Sage you know giving the the look after the kissy face stuff yeah that one

so I recently started uploading gifts to tenor and this one is by far the most popular so it's just already in the week

that it's been up there it's fantastic it is and she did it so many times and they're playing with it too right I feel like in every episode maybe at least the last three episodes

episodes it has been a lot about her facial expressions get them to me and i would be so scared to do it i would be like so scared to do it because what if in my head it would be like what if you know like Shannon is seeing me doing it right so well so where she goes from like smiling to like disgust it right so it's very yes now getting back to what i was starting to say there the title of the rule so i mentioned it uh and you asked about it but For Shannon, I need to add in the subtitle of the rule, which is to keep your politics and controversial beliefs to yourself. Oh, right.

I forgot about that. There is. That's where she fell through. Let's go. So coming into the game, I figured this would be a huge issue for her giving her absolutely insane pregame interview. I thought for sure she'd be voted out first. To her credit, she toned it.

way down from that discussion to the game itself. The most we saw her doing early on was sharing some of her beliefs and doing yoga breathing stuff. Now, I personally would be eye rolling if I were there, but others seem to be willing to mostly go along with it in order to keep her as an ally. As the days went on, the weirdness factor increased. We saw her last week talking about Jesus getting high on God. And then this week, she said she had. memories of being in the womb.

Oh, I forgot about that. Which is simply a biological impossibility. And then she added that she was conceptualizing vision while there, which adds another layer of the word salad gobbly gook we talked about previously.

Those words all have meaning. They don't have meaning when they're strung together that way, talking about a fetus. Okay? Was it the reason she was voted out? No. But as Stephen even said to her face, it was crazy.

And it sure didn't help matters. Yeah. And I do think that this is where we were very concerned pregame what effect, if any, this was going to have. And I do agree she did tone it down. But also, I think she was feeling very comfortable because the longer the game went on and the more that people supported her and the way that she wanted to play the game where they were doing the meditation. and the breathing. And so in her mind, she's probably thinking, wow, they're really, like, they're buying into this

or they're believing this and they're supporting the things that I am, that I am expressing. And so much so that it was an entire section at tribal council where even Sage was like, oh, yes, I was really hoping that I was going to have someone who was going to be meditating and helping me breathe. And, and to-da, here she is. And I know Sage was just doing that because she felt like she had to keep this facade going, but it is, I do think that that's what we ended up seeing where

Shannon was just becoming more and more comfortable because she was believing that everyone else was supporting this, this vision of, of the survivor life that she was creating and wanting to exist in. And yeah, it did a little bit of a backfire here. Jessica, did you have someone to do meditation and yoga and all of that in your season? No, we did not. we tried was too old for that kind of stuff the closest we had was ken can was was more of the um you know wanting to kind of enjoy the the space and where we were at and kind of talk through things and i had to remind him sometimes like no we need to actually focus on the game right now but no there wasn't any anything of the sort going on yeah i i wonder if it's also a generational thing which

is like the people that are in their 20s now are more into that than what we were in our 20s or whatever. I don't know, right? But it does seem to be a common threat or thing every year. There's always at least a person in the tribe or perhaps

in the season that goes into that. And it was like Shannon was that person for this season times potentially 25, right? Like she was like very vocal about it. I mean, I had that in my season as well. Like we had the yogi was like my friend Jamie and my friend who was not my friend

in the game by the way. Or my friend Danny, right? Like he's all about the breathing and I, and even we, long story short, I do think this is a new wave of players. But then it was so visible for Shannon to the next level. And I am so glad, David, that you mentioned the caption because I I asked you to read it and I didn't, when I asked you that, I didn't even realize the caption said that. And I, I would take everything back. She followed the rule, but then the caption was like where she fell off for this one. Yeah. I mean, to your point, Heidi, I think it's a casting thing.

I think the casting has found, oh, we should throw one of these types of people in there. It makes things, you know, they'll never win, but, you know, it's someone who's, you know, fun to watch, you know, fun for some people. Good television. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like almost every early season of the traders for every country, they threw a psychic in because they knew the psychic would fall on their face. Yeah. And now they don't have them so much. I mean, mostly because if you're someone who claims to be psychic and you go on a show and you can't read anybody and tell what the who the traders are, for example, that's not good advertising for your business. No, it's really not.

So if you're someone who does that, you should stay away from the traders. But I think they just throw those people on. I think it's more of that than it is. I mean, there have always been people like this. Going back to the 60s, you know, our children and everything else. I was born in the 60s. I am not a child of the 60s, just to make that. So the very late 60s, by the way.

There's always going to be people like that in any given generation. Yeah. I think it's just a matter of casting. Coach, that's true. That's true. Now, coach, again, he's the person who would never admit this, but he, of course, used that for strategy. But it was coach. There was Holy Peter, who was voted out first, you know, way back in, was it Marquesas.

We talked about him before. where he was the one who opened up by saying, I do meditation and I meditate upon our five holes in our body. And this and that, you know, and everyone else was like, yeah, we're going to make a hole in the tribe where you used to be sitting.

So, you know, so those people have always been there. It's just a matter of how well they do. I do think you're right that, you know, I don't remember now who said it. That,

that, you know, she felt much more comfortable. Like you don't just randomly bring up, hey, I have memories from the womb. Yeah, right? In regular conversation. I mean, she might.

I mean, this is the woman who, you know, made her own AI Jesus and started following it. Oh, my God, he did. So, but yeah, you, in a game, you have to be comfortable with people in order to bring that up. So she certainly felt comfortable enough.

I agree. Yeah, even if those particularly nutty things weren't the reason she was sent packing. The way she talked about her religious beliefs still play a role. She told my gloom, God's my favorite topic. God's going to continue to be my favorite topic. And I'm like, okay, fine for you, I guess. But that doesn't mean people necessarily want to hear about it on Survivor.

Yeah, right. Especially when it seems like she's using it as a way to get close to people in game turn. Yes, yes. We talked earlier in the season about people using religion as part. of their strategy you just mentioned coach and then refusing to admit they were doing it and indeed while she was happy to say she talked about religion in the game and she was happy to say she used it to form these so-called authentic connections and she was happy to say her strategy was to make those connections she didn't connect the dots and say she was using religion in a strategic

way but she was just follow those three things that she said and some people in the game may not be very fond of that. Right. Indeed, that was a big part, I think, of Sage describing her beliefs becoming more performative. Yeah. Yeah. There was one episode, and I can't remember a couple, like a couple weeks ago, they were all, they were showing, the shot was everyone like doing the meditation with the eyes closed. And there was one person that the eyes was open and just looking around.

And I can't remember if it was like Stephen or Alex, maybe it was Alex just like. okay it's very interesting because not everyone necessarily they don't have to be in that mental space to do that all the time with a group right do I think it's good for you and good in there yes I think it's but that doesn't mean I think it's good for everyone or everyone's going to have the same connection as everyone else right so it's quite interesting right like and I do think

she's gold for TV she was gold for Survivor I'm sure when Jeff met her he's like this girl we have to put her on the show and then we have to put someone who's the opposite right so I said this earlier they saw Sage and they saw Shannon they're like these two together gold

yeah all right well the six rules against being too much of a threat Shannon is not the typical player you might point to and say she's a threat but she certainly was for the three other players on her tribe of course she was in a

immediate threat to Joanne and we spent a lot of time talking about how Sage knew she couldn't trust Shannon because of the way Shannon had pretended to be with her and then actually been against her and then pretended to be with her again anyone who would do that is a danger to your game and even though she wanted to work with Stephen going forward he couldn't trust that was real because of what he saw of her overplaying so that made her a threat to him as well yeah and this is something that we've talked about quite a bit where you become a threat to whoever you are targeting. And so if that person can rally the troops, then you end up finding yourself in a situation where multiple people are going to be then targeting you because you're threatening

one person who is able to rally troops versus Shannon who might not be able to rally the troops even though she thinks she's going to. So it is an interesting way to view being a threat. And this is why when you say someone's name, it becomes such a scary potential because you could, and Sage actually said this, you know, then the target can be put back on you because now you're talking about somebody else. And you know, you have to find that balance. And Shannon certainly wasn't able to do so. And I think it was just because she was targeting so many people that no one was able to then really support her in the way that you need to have the support in order to go after anyone because you need the numbers.

I muted myself because the dog was barking his, you know, his face out. I agree. I didn't think about it that way, but the threat putting someone else's name makes you also, you know, potentially be a threat and they could be a threat for you. So it's so scary to say any names and she threw quite a few names out, right? Yeah. So that was definitely a scary thing that back. fire because of course sage could use that to her advantage to then put it a push joan against her and then ended up voting for her so absolutely i am 100% there with that comment well we could go to the seventh rule and i think we can move through this quickly unless one of you has something uh you know a different perspective than me uh it covers idols and advantages and game mechanics and i mean i mentioned earlier that she left the shot in the dark at camp because she was completely fooled i do think it was funny um jessica

I meant to mention this earlier, where you were talking about how Sage was being performative at, well, herself, at making Shannon feel comfortable at tribal council. If they had known she left the shot in the dark back at camp, that would have been funny because they could have been like just, we don't need to pretend anymore. We're voting you out. Right, right. But, you know, but yeah, there's not even a debate. Like we've had a debate should Matt have played it? Should Jason have played it? There's no debate here.

She was completely fool. either of you think of anything else in this particular can you remind me something so did she say somewhere that she didn't bring the shot in the dark yeah she said it in her interviews yeah oh so not in the show but afterwards okay because I was like I don't remember that but yeah okay people who's listening watching and you play survivor never ever ever leave any of your goodies and your currency

behind for tribal council I have they not been watching for you know 25 years that's a big no no independently you need it or not how comfortable you feel or not I think you gotta carry it with you and bring it to tribal council

always I think that's a foolish maybe it should be like very visible in the rule here where like if you have an advantage it doesn't matter how comfortable you are bringing it there's I cannot tell you how many times I have seen this backfiring in some way or shape. And not only bring it to tribal council, by the way, bring your bag with all your things. You don't know if there's going to be a swap.

You're going to go to a different island where you're going to need it. I mean, people have gone home because they forgot their bags and their stuff was in camp when you were doing a challenge. Because after they challenged, they took you to some sort of weird twist where you go somewhere else and then you don't have your bag. Like this one, by the way, blows my mind. Every time, whether it's a shot in the dark, I know many of you out there think is not useful in a situation like this. It could be because you don't know in the tribal council people are like showing their cards and then you have to react on the spot, right?

So for me, it's not so much about Shannon. It's more about for anyone who's listening and you do this in the future, like always carry your currency. You never know what you're going to need it. Really. Right. Yeah. All right. We can move to. Oh, one more thing, David, about the previous one.

I brought it down and I totally forgot about the thread. And it's not even about Shannon, but it blows my mind. When everything you do in Survivor has a meaning, your words have a meaning, your actions have a meaning. And I know I'm not talking about Jo-Wan here, but I'm going to say it because I could see how Shannon is so, I mean, Savannah is so annoyed by the actions of J-Wan, right? like carrying the wood in her bag or taking the wrong bag and just the little things matter so even though you don't

you think sometimes the big things are the threats right like you think I'm going to do this and it's going to be it's going to backfire because I did it like be very mindful in this game that every little action if you're extra or you are not extra like every little thing matters so you really have to find a balance within this game

of like making not be a threat. Even if you're just carrying wood to help the whole tribe, guess why? You put it in someone else's back by mistake and you got her back dirty, it's going to anoint someone. So it's very interesting how sometimes the

things you don't think of in this game could become a threat for your game, just like I mentioned from Juan and Savannah, which I'm sure we'll talk about that in the near future depending on who wins. I know I'm talking about your winner pick here, David, but it's my

mine when they are because I know the little things matter, right? Yeah. All right. Well, Appendix AAA discusses players keeping their end goals in mind when voting. And we talk about voting out the week, then the strong, then the week than the strong. The players know the merge is near. So we're starting to shift from voting out the week to voting out the strong. As far as we know, Shannon wasn't particularly strong to a worrisome degree in the challenge

area. But that doesn't matter as much. What does is that she had a strong. alliance waiting for her as soon as the tribes came back together and that alliance did not include any of the other three people uh in her current tribe sure she told stephen that she trusted him more than joan and wanted to work with him and that alliance she proposed but how could he believe that when she saw how she works plus she even said in interviews that her end goal was yeah maybe i want to use that alliance, but my end goal is to get back together with my Uli people again.

Right. Yeah. Well, and I, Sage was talking about that, how she felt like she wasn't one of the, like, top Ouli people, which I don't know if I necessarily got that impression, but maybe that stemmed from Shannon kind of pushing in that direction. So it would have been interesting just to see the dynamic of them. coming back together, like who really was on the bottom of that potential Ouli 6?

Now it is going to seeing the ripple effect of this. You know, Shannon was, or Sage was worried what it would appear when they got back together if that they find out she was the one kind of leading the charge here to get rid of Shannon.

What if any effect that will have on her? And if she already felt like she was on the outs with Oolie, this might put her even more on the outs with Oolie, but I guess we'll wait and see. I do think, I do think Sage at some point, a few weeks back, did talk about how she feels a bit on the outs, right? Because, like, there were the four always together and she was a bit, like, on the outs. And it's interesting.

I talked about how all of them had survived up until now. So Sage will have to come up with some sort of argument coming back. Luckily, she has Joanne there with her. And it's like, Shana was, you know, trying to connect potentially with Stephen and back. fire, you know, like just go against the Uli tribe. So I think they have a way to come back and have the story because Seish and Jewan

will probably have the same story together because they know they're going to have to come up and tell everyone else what happened. But for Shano's point, it's so interesting to see her because she felt like she was running the tribe with all, you know, all the things that she was doing originally, all the meditations and everything else.

She felt comfortable, right, up until that point. And the game, does turn punches at you by splitting multiple times. But it's so interesting to see how Shannon went from potentially thinking she was at the top running the show, potentially

with Savannah, right? And then she's the first one to go home from the Uli tribe. So it's so interesting to see the journey that you go through. Never feel comfortable because you could be the first one out for the tribe. Less a journey and more a cliff.

You know, And yeah, that is the main point of this appendix for players to look ahead and determine their best path forward. So you brought up something that Rob and Stephen debated on No-it-alls about whether it was strategically the best move for Sage because she's going to have to go back to her tribe mates and explain this. I don't think there's much of a debate there. I think it 100% was. She was on the outs with her original tribe. And Shannon showed that just as easily as she suddenly claimed to be super close to Sage, she could have abandoned her at Merge.

And you know, I mentioned earlier that Rob said, I know it all that Sage voted out Shannon because she didn't like her. And he's not the only one who has said that. And I have to absolutely disagree with anyone who says that, including the boss. You know, we spent a lot of time in the second rule talking about all of the reason Sage saw that Shannon would not stand by her as they move forward. And the point is, even if she loved Shannon as a person, which she didn't in the game, it wouldn't have been the correct move to keep her.

Yes, Sage complained to us about Shannon a lot. But if you look back at those, most of them were complaining about her strategic behavior, pretending to be a seal but really being a shark being inauthentic in her gaming bringing up her name to vote out going after joan etc i i think that you know these looks of her eye rolling and everything else uh you know and then that that lasting image of her refusing to hug shannon on the way out i think that may confuse the issue it leaves that idea that this was personal and emotional. But she wasn't even refusing it, at least what she said, because she disliked her.

She said it wouldn't feel genuine to do so. So, no, I do not think it was emotional at all. I think Sage made the right strategic decision. Yeah. No, I agree with that. I do think that that's, you know, when merge happens, a lot of things can happen, right? And if you already feel like you're in a bad place coming in to emerge and that there's some way that you can ingratiate yourself to other people, Sage has now ingratiated herself to both Joanne and Stephen.

And so that's definitely helpful to her, considering Shannon was offering Sage up as a potential loadout. And so you've corrected a space for yourself with other people that you might not have had that space with before. And someone like Shannon, if you feel like you are expendable, then you've actually beat her to the punch, right? And you've eliminated her from spreading your name further down once you get to emerge to those people that you might not have had an interaction with yet. So I do agree that this was the best move for Sage to do. I agree. I don't think she necessarily disliked her as a person, but she clearly was annoyed as heck from her. And if you are, I do think there's an aspect of, and I talked about Joana and Savannah, which, by the way, is kind of a similar situation from annoyance. You want to kick people out that are annoying the heck out of you.

You want to also survive there and not be annoyed every time. And then it puts you in this mental state that you don't want to be in. So maybe it is a good thing for Sage to like kick Shannon out and do anything that she could to vote her out because now she could be a much better mental state emotionally where she can control her. herself, right? Going back to rule number four. Now it's putting Sage in a state where she can potentially control her emotions better for her game. Right.

Now that Shannon is out. Whether she dislike her or not, I think that's slightly different than being annoyed by all the actions behind the game, right? So. Yeah. Yeah. Now, you know,

the other thing you brought up, which Sage knows, she told us that when the other Uli members see Shannon is gone, it could blow up her spot. But she didn't. have a spot in that group to begin with. It might make them want to target her more instead of being an afterthought, but the best she could have hoped for otherwise was for them to use her as a number before tossing

her aside. And or even if there's a mergerary type of situation where like only half the tribe are eligible to be voted out, if she were one of them, she could have been offered up as a sacrifice. We've seen that happen before. Yes. Yes. You know, the original only could have been like, well, we don't want a war. So we'll let you vote out Sage. Yeah. Yes.

Yeah, that's a really great point. We have seen. I don't think she heard her position here at all. Now, maybe we'll be discussing why Sage lost next week and we'll have to re-address that. But either way, I think she was going into Merge in a bad spot. So you can't blow up a spot that's already

bad. Now, one comment, though, about Sage. And it just hit me while we're talking. Her not given a hug to Shannon was probably an authentic moment for Sage, right? Like I just don't want to fake it for her

because she's out of the game. But I don't know how Jawan and Steven are going to perceive the moment because they're still in the game. So it's very interesting because it could easily backfire that real moment there, right, that she was giving to Shannon.

Jawan and Steven could come back and be like, like, oh my gosh, Sage is heartless within the game and come back and be like, did you know that Sage didn't, you know, Hulk's channel, even though Shannon was so sweet with everyone, right? Like, that real

moment there at the very end could potentially backfire her. And I actually appreciate as a viewer. I love the moment because she's like, I like it. I really do. It's good TV. But it could actually, those two just couple sentences there could have

heard her game. If Jo-Wan and Steve, even go back and start telling people that's what happened. We're going to see if even plays anything within the game. Maybe not. But it's very interesting. That real moment may actually backfire her a little bit within the game. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Well, it is about time to wrap things up here. So, Heidi, what are your final thoughts on Shannon? On the personal side, I, and as a viewer, right, I love Shannon for the game. It was extra and sometimes it was great to see the extra people because, and it was the combination, really, not just Shannon.

It was the combination between Shannon and Sage. I actually had to Google it today to see if they were still friends or if they actually gave a hug. And I did read that they, Sage went to Boston and they kind of hug it out legit, authentically. So that made my heart warm and happy because I was really hoping that outside the game, this wasn't like, you know, something that were hurt with each other. I would love to meet Shannon face to face to see if what we got as a viewer

is what she is in real life I hope more people have a little bit more Shannon in them I hope I have some Shannon in me in the real life and I hope I actually attempt to have a little Shannon in me so from a personal side I really love seeing her in the game I think her you know I kind of knew from the get-go She wasn't going to win because of that because I think you need less Shannon to win the game and have the strategic parts of winning the game.

But I really love her journey and it's really, it was fun to see how she was managing that. But I really think she, from the get-go, that wasn't going to take her to the end. I do think it's incredible that at the very start of meeting Shannon, when she had to provide three words to describe, herself, she said, free, passionate, I make things happen, faithful, spunky, confident, and love of life. That's way more than three words, right? And I think it's fascinating that Heidi just said, we got too much of Shannon, right? That's basically what I think is a really great representation of what we have here. We have a whole lot of Shannon happening. And she recognized that in herself just by providing that answer. Shannon is certain.

someone who comes into a space and wants you to know who she is. She wants you to know all about Shannon. And she doesn't spend enough time getting to know the other people around her. She falls into this, this is about me. And if you want to come along with my journey, great. And she was, I think, hoping that that's what was happening. But unfortunately, didn't spend enough time realizing that that's not what was happening. She was being outplayed by everyone.

around her. And if you are in the game of Survivor and it feels like everyone is kind of going along with you, maybe they're not really going along with you. Red flag. And that is a, yes, that's a huge red flag because they weren't even questioning her. She would say, this is what I want to do. And it was like, oh, okay, yeah, we can do that, Shannon. And when you get that confident and you're so confident you are actually expressing it, she said one of the things that she said about herself, which I thought was fascinating, was that she had lucky girl syndrome. That's what she was describing it as. And if you feel that you are in that space, then it might not be luck.

It might be other people just telling you what you need to hear in order to keep the game moving in the direction they want versus the direction you want. And so while I can appreciate Shannon wanting to be sincere, wanting to be authentic, I think, Heidi, you said it great. It was too much, Shannon. It was too much. You have to find that balance. You need to be able to understand who you are, what you're bringing to the game.

All of those things become part of your game. But you need to be able to give just enough that you are not finding yourself trying to control the game in a way that puts you in a bad position. And unfortunately, that's what we saw with Shannon. And she found herself voted out, I think, because of it. in tribal council Shannon repeatedly talked about keeping her heart open but a big problem was that while she may have thought it was coming across as being open others saw it as being closed off cold hard because it was being used as a weapon indeed the difference in perception was one of her biggest problems she thought she could make authentic connections as a part of strategy but she took it to far. You can't connect with and support someone about their grandmother who recently passed away and then turn around and try to blindside them and not expect there to be repercussion. We've seen it before. By trying to play both as a warm, loving person and also

cold and strategic, everything you do is going to look completely inauthentic, no matter what you may claim is in your head. It's like if you take a glass, and you heat it up, and then you plunge it into cold water. It's going to shatter, just like her game did. And remember, I got my degree in ceramic engineering and did actual research on glass. So I know what I'm talking about here. It was only a matter of time before players started picking up on what she was doing, because she was not hiding it well at all.

It all goes back to what Jeff said in Tribal Council. You can play hard and covert, and that's fine because nobody knows. but if you're playing hard and everybody sees that, then you're playing poorly and that's a problem. Sage, who knew her the longest, saw it quickly. Then Stephen, who brought in Alex and MC and even Christina. Finally, Joanne was added to the mix such that literally everybody saw it. Once they did, they knew there was no way they could trust her going forward.

Plus, there was simply very little reason to go along with her plan this week and vote out, Juan. It would just give her time to solidify her position at the merge and push the other two aside. Sage and Stephen outplayed Shannon in both the strategic and social aspects of the game at the end. But more than that, she outplayed herself by not being able to see how she was being perceived by others. She thought that what went on inside her head was all she had to worry about but really she needed to consider what went on in everybody else's head yeah if she had thought about that or if she did think about that it didn't show in the way she was acting which meant they saw her as performative and fake and most importantly untrustworthy and that is why shannon

lost we are i try to give her some grace because i do think there's a lot of greatness there I have to say I do I I do not have any Shannon in me I don't want any Shannon so but that is not you know that that's separate from the game so you know now before we get to our predictions for the next episode I want to mention that next week we will have another popular returning guest Dr. Jeremy Faust who was recently a recipient of the 2025 National Academy's Eric and Wendy Schmidt Award for Excellence in Science Communication granted by the National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine. I feel very confident in saying it will be the first time RHAP has had a winner of that award on any of its podcasts. Yeah, I think that's a pretty confident statement to make. Excellent job, Dr. Barryme Fouse.

That's incredible. Love that. So now that is next week. now I do want to remind everyone that the rules we just talked about are available in poster form and, of course, poster on a T-shirt form and checklist on a T-shirt form. So again, just go to Rob has a website.com slash YX lost feed. And if you look at the bottom of Rule 5 there, if you squint your eyes and look at that, that's where you can see the part that we talked about, that parenthetical subtitle,

keep your politics and controversial beliefs to yourself. Mm-hmm. Yes. Oh, goodness. So next week, like what's, it sounds like they're all coming together, right? So this is happening. Well, wait, we didn't. We're not ready for that yet.

Oh, we're not ready for that yet? No, we have to. Well, Heidi, where can we find you online? Oh, we're doing this. I got you. I got you. No worries. So you will see for those that may be watching it's Heidi at Heidi La

that is on Instagram and also on TikTok, although I'm completely new on TikTok for the first time I'm taking it serious. And then I have my new page. It's all about adventures and travels, which is at Rhone Wild family. And that is my new adventure. So, yeah, more to be shared through that. So where is, where is at, I think I follow it, but I can't remember where because I, it's on Instagram or purely on Instagram.

Yeah, it's all about before, before. For anyone who knows me, I'm a big traveler person. I've been to all seven continents. And I never really cared to do social media for that. But lately, I started taking a serious lately as of like only two months. So this is brand new. And instead of being purely just Heidi's adventures and mixing what it is like to have teens in the mix where they are like, you know, they are sometimes very much just say yes to the adventures. And they go with me.

And sometimes they're completely like, I don't want you. to share anything about me because I'm a teenager. I have my own thing. So it's a lot about the dynamics of how to, you know, go into adventures with teenagers, right? So it's a family adventure there. Nice. Well, I am at Jessica Lewis, 89 on both Blue Sky and Twitter.

And I am also at Jessica Lewis, 6,789 on Instagram. I am not very social media savvy. If you hear anything right now, that's just my dog. I apologize. But as for someone like David Bloomberg, who is very much into the social media world, I know Heidi is now dipping her toe a little farther in. But David Bloomberg has been deeply in for quite some time so much so that he has a link tree that allows you to find all of the places in which you can see David Bloomberg content. So what about your link tree can you share with the listeners, David? well you can find all yeah you can find that at link tree slash david bloomberg or you can find me

directly at blue sky is at david bloomberg uh i encourage everyone to come to blue sky of course they just the other day they hit 40 million people there so come join it let's and even more um i have of course also been posting it around two or three reality tv short videos every day on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, where I am at David Bloomberg TV. Most of them are, of course, about Survivor 49. Plus, there are two seasons of the traders currently going on. There's Celebrity Traders UK and the Traders Canada season three. And for those, I am co-hosting the Tradar podcast for the Traders Canada.

There are two episodes of that out so far. And I was on the Trader podcast for discussion about the Celebrity Traders UK, episode seven a couple days ago and will be again for the finale this coming week so you can find the tradar which is t r a i d a r either wherever you get podcasts normally or on youtube and david you will be covering the u.s as well when it comes out my friend jam is in it so i am excited to watch it well there's also some guy named uh rob sister that's right oh my god you're crazy right yeah yeah Yeah, so, yes, it will be definitely interesting to watch that one. That, I think, starts in January, is usually when they start.

Yeah, that's awesome. All right, predictions. So, we know from the previews that we're hitting the merge. Yes. I saw a press photo. Oh. Thank you to Jeff from Throughdork Times for posting this on Blue Sky, that indicating at the very least it's what they're calling a two-part immunity challenge where half the players win a reward

challenge and then move forward and then half don't because heaven forbid they should give the merge feast anymore because you got to earn it right getting to the merge earns the merge but no not for jeff anymore so it appears that only one person will win immunity which is at least good that they won't narrow it down to just the half the tribe thing still the question is what remains or what happens when they all come together we can presume that the remaining original uly core are solid but they're down to four including your sophy jessica uh i'm just good that's how i'm going to call her from now on your sophy my sophy yeah uh meanwhile the original heena also have good reason to stick together giving them four

as well. And so I think the key people are Alex, Sage, and Joanne. Alex seems likely to stay with Stephen and therefore Hina, but he also has fellow surviving Kelly member, Sophie, who I'm sure will be trying to bring him over to the Ouli side. So you've got that. Then maybe the original Ouli core can convince Joanne. He's a part of them, even after helping to vote out Shannon. As we discussed, I'm sorry to say, he seems predisposed to believe it. I mean, they may even claim that they're great with having Sage back, too. I don't see her buying it unless she feels she's in danger otherwise.

Like, they could come after me, so I'm going to have to join them. I don't know. I just don't see Sage as being ready to jump back into their arms. Maybe, maybe, hopefully. She can open Joanne's eyes as well. And I don't know. I think it makes sense to take a strike at that original Uli group. And since Nate has been seen as the leader of the pack in some ways,

it wouldn't surprise me to see them taking a shot at him. So I guess that's going to be my pick. but I have a feeling I Yeah I just have a feeling I will not be getting to five correct predictions in a row here Okay yeah I completely disagree with you Me too I think there has been way too much

reference with Savannah And her dislike of Joanne I hate to say it David But I feel like That will be the sacrificial lamb Like that that that Savannah will say, hey, listen, I know that it's an Ulihina thing that's going on here and we're having some issues. But now she's going to recognize this is an individual game at this point.

And he has been frustrating her. And I do feel like he's frustrated other people because he's been a focal point for some other people as well. They've been questioning him acting a little sketchy at times. I think it's going to be Juan. I apologize, David. And here's my response to that. Which you have to see. For those of you on audio only,

I put the, I put the sage gif, disgusted face back. Yes. I don't know if I should give mine in terms because I won't be here next week with you, but I'm still going to give it to you. All right.

We'll talk about you. So I'm going to base it on slightly different than Jessica. We have four members. of Hina, the original original Hina, right? We have five from Uli and if Uli was smart they would like stick

together but they're broken Savannah to Jessica's point Savannah really wants to kick out Jawan so I truly think they shouldn't kick him out but I think Jawan it's going to be the sacrificial lamb next week because

of that whole threat of you know Savannah not being a line with the one's way. And I think Sage doesn't have an alliance or a connection, a true connection, outside her Uli tribe.

So that's why I think she's going to end voting with them with Savannah and Nate. And I think Nate last week talked about how Savannah was running that whole, you know, tribe now. So I think that Nate, Riso, Sage, and

Savannah are going to stick together and go against Jawan, even though I think it's going to be a mistake for them. But I truly think Jawan is going to be the one being hurt next week. Both of you against my winner's that's rough. Sorry.

Before I make my official predictions on chat PCC, I'll have to see if you've changed my mind. I'll have to consider this more. I just think I think the four Hina would potentially go with the Kelly or regional like Alex and Sophie get together, even if the

Uli are not together, right? Because Sage is going to be probably trying to figure herself out. So therefore Hina with the two Kelly will try to go for Uli because they have more members right. So they're just going to, Jan Juan is going to be the two

suffer because Savannah is going to start trash talking about it and the other tribe are going to see the breakthrough, right? So even if they stick together, the other four plus the to have more numbers than them. But if she, now think about it from your perspective. If you were on a tribe and you were gathering people to go after this other core group,

and one member of that core group started trash talking someone else, wouldn't you just go after the trash talker instead? Like, oh, they seem to be the leader. Let's go after them, not the person they're talking about. Well, I agree with that, except with the ascension that Savannah is really aligned with Sophie now, right? like so I don't think so she's got a core group right yeah yeah she comes with numbers and I don't think Sophie will go against savanna in this case which is the one that will probably start throwing Jovo's names there so I don't think that the four plus the original

two Kelly tribe will go after Savannah only because Sophie it's not going to allow it um so I don't know I so a prediction without knowing exactly what's going to happen but But yeah, that's kind of where I'm going. Okay. All right. Well, that's interesting. You may be convincing me, but I don't like it. I don't like it, but you may be convincing me. All right.

Well, as we wrap up, I want to encourage people to check out the R.JP patron program at Rob has a website.com slash patron and get access to all the special podcasts that are put out just for patrons, plus Facebook groups, Discord, early access to and discounts for live shows, all those different things. And most importantly, you can support shows like ours and everything on the network at rob has a website.com slash patron. And also make sure you're subscribed to all of the RHAP Survivor Podcasts by going to we knowsurvivor.com. You'll see all of your favorite survivor podcasts there from us, the know-it-all, the B&B, Survivor Global, and more. Yes, and we would like to thank everyone at RITAP, not just for the work that you do on this podcast.

But for the work that you do on all of the RHAP content that you just heard David speak of, there are so many things available to you. So thank you to Scott. Thank you to Jess for all of the work that you do with all of the behind the scenes work and to the entire team that works with them. Thank you to Will from America for the theme song that you created for this podcast that you hear in the audio version of Why Blank Lost. And thank you, Heidi, for joining us yet again.

This has been lovely. I always appreciate having you here. you come with great insight and it's been such a good time and I love the it's a little too much Shannon that was good thank you both yes yes thank you again Heidi uh from me as well uh like Jessica said it's always fun to have you here and yeah you know like you know there were definitely several rules where you came at it from a different way I had not thought of it that way so yes thank you very much thank you thank you I love it and I cannot wait for 50 also because I feel like 49 has been interesting but there's some weaknesses there too so I think it's been too long and

we've been waiting too long for a comeback season so I cannot wait also so maybe we'll talk about that you know not even next year I guess next year in 2026 right so yes yes yeah and then next week as I mentioned we will have Dr. Jeremy Faust on and so watch for that thank you Jessica of course again, as usual. I hope everyone had a good Halloween. I got a rock. You got a rock. And yeah, and we will see everyone in a little less than a week.

And you can find us on social media as well. Bye. Thank you. Bye. You played yourself and got voted out. This is why Blank lost. This is why Blank lost. Oh, baby, this is why Blank lost.