RHAP: We Know Survivor - Why ___ Won and Others Lost: Survivor 49 Finale

Episode Date: December 20, 2025

Why ___ Won and Others Lost: Survivor 49 Finale Survivor 49 has crowned its winner, Savannah! We often hear from some people that the jury just votes for whoever they like best at the end. Throughout this season, it was clear Savannah did not fit that description. But the majority still voted for her! How did she overcome that part of her game and what other aspects balanced it out to get her the win? Why couldn’t Sophi and Sage convince the jury they were more deserving? And what caused Rizo and Kristina to be knocked out before Final Tribal Council? David Bloomberg and Jessica Lewis wrap up the season by answering all of this and much more! At RHAP, we know Survivor, and we know Why Savannah Won, and Sophi, Sage, Rizo, and Kristina Lost. To pre-order Rob’s book, The Tribe and I Have Spoken, visit www.robhasabook.com LISTEN: Subscribe to the Survivor podcast feed WATCH: Watch and subscribe to the podcast on YouTube SUPPORT: Become a RHAP Patron for bonus content, access to Facebook and Discord groups plus more great perks!

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Welcome back to the 10th anniversary season of Why Blank Lost, or as we call it this time every season, Y Blank One. I'm David Bloomberg, a.k.a. Rules God. And joining me, as always, is my co-host, Jessica Lewis, whose winner pick came, oh, so close. But, wah, wah, didn't quite make it. So close. Sophie. I'm so proud. of you. I'm proud of everyone, obviously, who made it this far in the game. But the fact that, like, I didn't completely damn you to being voted out like first or like second. And you almost pulled it out. You got a couple of votes. It was lovely. I'm so proud of that. So I can be proud of myself. But I was that much closer. Maybe that means 50's my season. Maybe that's what that means. I mean, I doubt it. But, you know, at least you won't automatically condemn someone to losing first.

right which is a good good thing maybe the butterfly effect is not going to be so real anymore we'll see you know the key point of course of all of this is your winner pick did not win so that's really what we take away from from all of it's it so i guess we're done is that it uh no no i think we may have one or two minutes or hours or days left um you know just a few things to discuss Yeah, a few things to discuss because Sophie is only one of five players we'll be talking about with much of the focus being on Savannah, who did win. And even with that many, we will still go through the podcast in our usual way by comparing how the final five each played, you know,

according to my rules for winning that I originally wrote way back after season one and have been updating ever since using all the non-spoiler. Well, okay, there's no not, there's no spoiler information now. Right. It's all out in the open. Now we can actually talk about things we couldn't talk about before. Right. Right. So that includes what we saw on TV, interviews, social media, and secret scenes. And of course, the newest published version of the rules is it Rob has website.com slash YX lost feet. Now, one thing I do want to remind everyone about before we get started is because we have to talk about five players, we unfortunately can't give each of them the time they deserve or else we'd be here for like seven or eight hours. which it might be a little long on the plus side hey they didn't get a whole podcast because they didn't lose earlier so sure that's very fair yeah good point good point uh but before we address

how the final five did in terms of the rules we always have some other things to discuss but with this being the finale where we talk about literally everyone who remained almost everything of importance will end up in our rules discussion somewhere which only leaves one thing Last week we brought back our Jeff Probst is wrong about blank segment, and now I'm forced to mention it again. I already did a video about this, actually, but Jeff opened the finale by talking about how everything was tribe strong in the pre-merge, and then those bonds were completely wiped away after the merge, and any alliances were only temporarily. No, no alliances were permanent, none at all. he apparently missed the whole Savannah Rizzo Sophie alliance sitting right right in front of him what happened to that

yeah um I I mean yes Sophie finally did it too late at final four firemaking but he recorded that you know this part before then and to make things worse he then repeated the same sentiment at the end of the show, even though there were several scenes on the show of Rizzo and Sophie talking about how solid they had been through the whole merge. Yeah. Jeff? No. Man, opened your eyes.

I think, though, that Jeff is really trying to kind of create a narrative about Survivor that he wants people to believe exists. And so it's like the more times you say it, then the more real it becomes in the eyes of the viewer. But I think we have seen a repeated occurrence here. And that is if you have a solid three, you're good, right? Like, you're going to be in a great spot. And I understand that survivor producers and creators love this idea of everybody just flipping on each other and voting out other people and having these alliances that are like good for this vote, gone for the next. they come back for another one.

No, that doesn't necessarily win you the game. Every game is fluid. Every game is different. You can't play all of them the same. But you also can't expect that alliances are just going to fall by the wayside and you won't have a strong three carry most of the game. Yeah. And he could have said that there was lots of, you know,

people flipping against each other without saying there were literally no alliances that held. Yeah. No, there was definitely one. And it still seems to beholding. They all love each other and they're talking about how much they enjoy each other. Yeah. So now there were, of course, some other things going on. And, you know, I'll put some of it in my TikTok and YouTube at David Bloomberg TV.

But before we get to how the final five did, we want to mention that the rules we're about to discuss come in a shorter and much more colorful version in poster form. Yes. And yes, you can go to rob has website.com slash yxlost feed, scroll down to the poster, click on it, and order it. Now, Jessica, tell us, is it still on sale? It is still on sale. So if you want to get it at the discounted price, 20% off, now's the time. I owe two people posters currently.

One just purchased today. The other one, I think maybe two days ago, so I apologize. I'm going to get that done for you. It's been a little bit hectic this week for me, but it is definitely. going to be on its way. So thank you so much for everyone who has ordered. The sale will be ending soon. So get it. Well, you can. And then spend $20 on it and still get it. Yeah. Yes. Either way. Right. You can still buy it. It's still there. And then, of course, you can also always get the poster on a T-shirt design or the checklist

on a T-shirt design. Which I am currently up to move this way, wearing today. you are not wearing this backwards though I know I did break a tradition here you did because I usually wear the Y blank loss checklist shirt backwards because it says why blank one but instead I thought it was appropriate to wear the villains always win shirt in honor of Savannah yes

so who is like a sweet villain yes sweet to most people we'll get into that yes oh we will we have lots to discuss yes but yes this is uh you know this i've been waiting for this moment to wear it's a 15 year old shirt but i've been waiting just for for savannah so that's fantastic excellent well we often hear from speaking of which we often hear from some people that the survivor jury just votes for whoever they like best at the end. And throughout this season, it was clear Savannah was

not like the best. And yet the majority still voted for her. Imagine that. How did she overcome that part of her game and what other aspects balanced it out and got her the win? Why couldn't Sophie and Sage convince the jury they were

more deserving? And what caused Rizzo and Christina to be knocked out before final tribal council? At our HAP, we know Survivor and we know Why Savannah won, and Sophie, Sage, Rizzo, and Christina lost. Now, the first and most important rule is, of course, to scheme and plot. I think all of our final five understood that this was important, but they had varying degrees of success.

The interesting thing is, I don't think our winner was the best at it on her own among the group. But each of these players had highs and lows here. Yes. Savannah immediately began the game by trying to figure out who she could work with. And the answer in her original Ouli tribe was, well, everyone. She connected with Nate, who liked Shannon and Rizzo. Those four talked amongst themselves about sticking together and, you know, keeping Sage and Joanne on the outs.

But Savannah also had an alliance with Shannon and Sage and pretended to be in an alliance with Jawan. So it seemed like she was aligned with everyone. Since original Uli never had to go to tribal counsel, her true intentions were never revealed. But then after the swap, she needed Jawan on her side. So she acted like he was in the tight core group while they voted out the non-Uli. And we also heard about how she did things like sending Jason on a wild goose chase to keep him thinking they wanted him to stay. So in the pre-merge, she was doing well sitting in the majority. Yes. And I think a lot of her strategizing felt like it was long-term thinking, right? It wasn't immediate right now. It was a combination of both that this is going to benefit me now, but I'm also going to need

this later. And I think that we saw that a lot with her where there was this like forward thinking idea. And I really appreciate the idea of that concept where you're not locking yourself in, even though we did see that she did that eventually. She really was kind of working through the permutations. And like, even though she had issues with Joanne, she still saw him strategically for a reason for her game and how she could utilize him. Same with Jason.

And so she was cognizant of those components, but being aware of the fact that this person is not necessarily with me, but I need them. And so I'm going to make them feel needed and utilize them to my benefit. Right, right. Exactly. So then the merge came and things quickly took a turn for the work. as Joanne and Sage flipped against her alliance.

From that point on, she had to rely not on a majority, but a minority of three against seven. And yet, those three worked their way down all the way to final four together. Yes, incredible. Yes, she acknowledged in Final Tribal Council that her primary role among the three was physical, but she was still scheming. As one key example, she took credit for planting seeds with Yellow Sophie to get her to flip and give them information about the other group's plans, which was critical.

Rizzo was doing quite a bit of the strategizing for Trace Lachase, but not all of it. And by the way, I'm just going to call them Trace Lachase, even though they didn't name their alliance to like the very end, we just back, you know, kind of, you know, retrofit that. Butterfly fact. Yeah.

Now, just to clarify, despite what Yellow Sophie said in a jury speaks kind of clip in the show, no, winning challenges is not a strategy. but, of course, winning it does give good players the freedom to maneuver a bit more because you don't have to worry about your own safety that particular day. And it seemed like Savannah took advantage of this in being able to talk to people who otherwise would have potentially been targeting her at that moment. The other interesting part about a strategy that she had tied to the immunity wins

was that she knew that if she protected herself, she was then going to be able to protect the people who are in her alliance. And so it was an interesting way to look at winning immunity. Yes, what you said is completely spot on. It gave her a chance to kind of relax and then have those discussions. But at the same time, it's a relief that then you can focus on the other two people, right? You need to protect them because you are protected. And so it gives you more opportunity to consider options because now instead of worrying about three people, worried about two people. Right.

And that's, when I say it's not a strategy, you can use, once you win, you can use strategy, but you can't go in there and say, okay, I've determined today I'm going to win the challenge. Sure, right. It's what you do with it. Exactly. Right. Yeah. Now, run her up, Sophie, remember her?

She had a different. Oh, yeah, my almost winner pick. Your non-winner pick. Oh, Sophie. So close. she had a different path to the final three as she of course had a lot of strategizing to do early on but from the beginning she linked up with jake and believed the two of them were running everything though of course jake also had his bromance alliance with alex and then the snake cut out

the middleman and the swap put her with so many of the original uli where she was quickly adopted yes this was when she locked in with rizzo and savannah but after the surprise flipped by Sage and Joanne, Sophie made sure she stayed in touch with those on the other side. And they tended to spill information to her that she could use with her actual allies. Yes. Christina told Dalton Ross, Sophie played the game that I wanted to play and I was trying to play. You have to have that one or two very trusted allies that you know for a fact they're not writing your name down.

And then just kind of like secretly work for information and use it to your advantage. Yes. And I want to give her so much. much credit for the responses that she would provide in those moments when people would come to her with information, which was shocking because everybody wanted to share everything with various people all of the time. Yes. I yes. Oh, God. But Sophie always reacted appropriately. She didn't show her hand. She didn't get too excited. She didn't ask too many questions. She knew exactly how to utilize that moment to her benefit. I am going to just be like a sponge and absorb as

much of this as I can. I'm going to act as if I'm very interested in everything. They're telling me that I'm going along with this. So they think Sophie's on my side. When in actuality, she's just taking all of the information and putting it together. And so with this tresleches, however you appropriately say that, she was that, she was that component of it where everyone was going to Sophie as opposed to Savannah where people weren't necessarily wanting to strategize with Savannah. So it ended up obviously helping the three of them. Yes. Now, Sophie talked about turning on Savannah and Rizzo at least as far back as episode eight and probably every episode after that. And each time something changed her mind and they got closer and closer to the end

when it would be impossible to get rid of them both. Indeed, just when we thought she wouldn't have the chance at all, she won the last immunity challenge and put them up against each other in firemaking with the hope that Rizzo would knock out. Savannah. Of course, he didn't, and she knew that meant trouble, and she was right. Yes, she was. And this is where I do think some of her strategizing might have fallen by the wayside, because I hate to even mention firemaking at this point, because I feel like we will be talking about it. However, the strategy component going into firemaking was one that I don't think she necessarily took the most advantage of leading up to. Savannah had a much different

view about Christine versus Sage, right? Because she knew that Christina could make fire. She knew that Sage couldn't. And so she was very aware of the fact that I will be sitting there having to make fire. And I don't want to be beaten in fire. And so she was looking at that decision strategically. And I just feel like that was a missed opportunity for Savannah. and well not for Savannah it for Sophie to kind of like step up in that moment and kind of fight back against that a little bit because they all knew that Christina was going to be good at firemaking component of it so she did fight back she tried to fight back and Savannah said I'm putting my foot down this is how I'm voting and then Rizzo didn't you know I mean they debated and Rizzo didn't want to go against her and that left Sophie kind of hanging I know and so but I but I so miss opportunity yes she tried but i just feel like maybe there could have been more of an ability to to push on that particular component because they still had at that point uh was it five they said i mean they still had five yeah that was the final five so it was the right it was the last

time they could you know vote someone out i mean the problem was not that she didn't push then it was that she didn't push much earlier but to get rid of Savannah and or Rizzo, you know, that, that, you know, she had these plans, and I just posted a video about this earlier today, both, I may have it in my notes later, too, that, you know, both Christina and Sophie said in the finale at the final five, something to the effect of, Savannah won immunity and ruined my plans to get rid of her now. Well, you shouldn't wait till the absolute last. challenge the last time you can vote her out when she is the challenge beast of the season

yes for sure so missed opportunities you know that's also why i'm not to i mean i don't think sophy could have kept christina i don't think there was anything she could have done but even aside from that and you know like you said you know we we may be i may have planned to talk about this later but I don't think she should have anyway because what were the odds Sophie was going to win the last oh and that's a very fair point that is a very fair point that we wouldn't have expected that yes right and so that's what Rizzo was thinking too was you know if the two people who were most likely to win seemed to be Savannah and Sage and you know in both those cases they didn't want to face Christi you know and that is that is a very

fair point. So I will recant my previous statement. So noted. Let the court reporter strike that. Yes, please. All right. Well, one thing I do want to mention here is that Savannah was clearly

not happy that Sophie put them in firemaking. So all three wouldn't get to the end together. They've since made up, obviously, and Savannah has said in her interview, that, you know, okay, yeah, I was just upset in the moment. But the thing is, also, it's really easy for her to say that because she believed she could beat them both at the end. Right.

But if you're Sophie, you have to try to get the biggest threat out. The issue isn't that she did it in Final Four. It's like I said, it's that she didn't do it earlier. Yes, 100%. Yeah, I mean, she's at that point, You absolutely have to be making individualized decisions that can lead you to a potential win. But yes, she should have been thinking about that a little bit sooner than she was. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what.

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get 15% off your entire first order at happy mammoth.com with code next chapter at checkout. Visit happy mammoth.com today and get your old self back naturally. Now our third place, uh, finisher is the one who really needed to take action against Savannah and Rizzo earlier. And the thing is, she deserves credit for clocking Savannah as being very dangerous very early in the game. Remember that she told Shannon she was worried about Savannah way back when. And of course, Sage also pulled off some good moves early,

such as realizing where she stood in the tribe, forming bonds with other people who saw what Shannon was doing in the first swap tribe and creating a story about what happened to explain them voting out Shannon in the second swap tribe. I mean, heck, she even wove in there that Shannon was the one who revealed Rizzo had the idol so that she got that information out there without getting the blame for. Yes, she definitely did a great job in kind of structuring the delivery of information as well and the receipt of it. There were times, though, that I questioned why she was necessarily sharing some of the information she was sharing with people around her. but again, this seems to be a very share-heavy season.

Oh, my. Yes. Yes. I'll have, yeah, I'll have plenty more to say in a couple of minutes, as a matter of fact. And, well, you know, we can keep moving, moving on here. Once the merge hit, things went awry. We kept hearing how she wanted to get rid of Savannah and Rizzo, or at least Rizzo's idol, but then that wouldn't be the decision that was made.

Even as she would say things like telling Christina an episode. that it was the last time to confidently get one of them out while they still had the numbers. And they just kept falling for distractions instead. It's hard to pinpoint blame on one particular person. Sage, however, seems to have been the primary player in at least some of those decisions, such as targeting Yellow Sophie and Stephen, at the very least. And she participated in the decisions to go after people like MC and Alex. as time went on she would say things like

the plan has always for me been Savannah and we are getting down to really critical numbers if we don't break up this trio we are screwed but each time she said those things it came shortly after they did have a chance to break up the trio or get rid of Savannah but they went a different direction yes and she made an interesting point

about choosing Sophie versus Savannah and that, you know, in that in the vote out and that it was about Joanne, essentially that that's what we all kind of believed it to be. It was about Juan. But she had indicated that she had a conversation with Sophie where Sophie led her to believe that she wanted to sit next to, I want to say Sophie, it's a yellow Sophie, that she wanted to sit next to Savannah. Yellow Sophie wanted to sit next to Savannah. Yellow Sophie wanted to sit next to Savannah in the final three because she wanted to have like the most challenging

final three and wanted to actually beat the best and so she really wanted to be sitting next to Savannah so she saw that as a moment as like oh well she wants to keep Savannah around so your response to that is then vote out Sophie and not Savannah not the one

that you know like to me like that well that didn't make sense and also we saw Sophie very clearly saying she wanted Savannah out right now Sophie flip very quickly so it may have been she said it one day and then the next day she was back to Savannah so I mean it's hard to say with that situation but right yeah when and this is where the the spilling of all the information comes in because when sage was actually trying to work on getting Savannah out she told everything

to yellow Sophie which help lead to her closest ally getting blindsided I mentioned in why Juan lost that there was no really no reason Sage should have trusted Sophie at this point. Sophie had good reasons to go with the other side instead, not the least of which was she didn't feel like she could trust Stephen and Christina after they showed their cards with their surprise earlier at the MC vote. To quote myself, that in particular is a big reason I don't understand how Sage could be so sure Sophie was with her. I still don't understand that. Yeah. No, a lot of it seems like almost circular where the arguments are trying to justify the result as opposed to results being like the reason why you're making this decision. It's like, yeah, it didn't make, it doesn't jive, doesn't jive at all.

Now, the next vote, they did have the chance to get rid of Savannah and took out Sophie instead. This is the one you mentioned. Once again, people propped up someone other than the person who was already all the way at the top. In final tribal council, Sage said Savannah was available, but she took out Sophie because she was playing a phenomenal strategic game. Except there's one problem. She wasn't. We've talked about this before. She wasn't.

She was a challenge threat. It was not a social threat. She was not a strategic threat. and that's exactly when Sage should have taken out. Savannah instead. So what she claimed in Final Tribal Council is her biggest move was also her wrongest move. Wrongest?

Yes. Yeah, no, this is one that's going to continue to be a head scratcher, especially since leading into that when Savannah is not the one voted out. And she's, Sage is telling Sophie, you just gave. Savannah a million dollars, you know, she just won a million dollars. So you, you see it, Sage, you know that this is what is the end result of that decision. And yet, and yet, the next vote, you're like, oh, that thing I said, forget about it. It's fine.

That million dollars, what are we talking about? I would rather go this direction on this vote, which is just. Even on top of that, it was even more frustrating because Sage told Mike Bloom after the Jawan Blindside, I was like, this is Savannah's game at this point. Yeah. She's going to have a very strong chance at winning. So I have to do anything I can to give myself even just a 1% increased chance of winning. Like getting Stephen out because his entire strategic game was not as portrayed this season.

Your reaction was perfect. It was mine too. It was like, wait, what? Wait, I'm confused. You know Savannah is going to win. and therefore your next logical step is get Stephen out no no it should be Savannah is going to win yet Savannah out right and then we'll work on Stephen later that logic just off to the side 90 degree turn I don't know where that went well but all of it though because you prior she's talking to Sophie and and then it's like I and I appreciate Savannah's support of Joanne I do are not stages there's too many asses I appreciate Sage's support of Joanne, but she also lost sight in that moment of what the game really is about,

which is where I have to give credit back to Savannah because I feel like Savannah never lost sight of what the game was about. And that was winning, period. And she was unapologetic about that idea because that's why she was coming onto the show was to win. Sage let other things get in the way and, up making decisions that ultimately really did cost her a potential win and also just really did thrust Savannah right where she was saying

Savannah was going to be and that's in that seat winning a million dollars. Yeah, yeah. Moving on to Rizzo, he never got a chance to argue his case to the jury, but his situation would have been potentially the most interesting, I think. There's been a big debate over the past few weeks about whether Rizzo would be the Xander of the season getting to the end because people didn't see him as a threat. Now that was through his own doing

as he hid his strategic moves and then further covered them up with his Riz God type of persona. But each vote, he pushed people into taking out other players in a way that helped him. He was probably the biggest strategic mover and shaker of the season.

We saw him lie through his teeth and embellish other stories to get the other side to turn on Alex in large part because he saw that Alex was in a good position and Rizzo wanted to be the one in the best position. Later, he got that same group to turn on the supposed common enemy, yellow Sophie. I do love this strategic idea of the planting of seeds to other people because it, they're not, it's not flashy, it's not big, it's not in your face.

It's nothing that's going to make someone feel like they're being told what to do. it feels more like a conversation. And so I really love the way that he approached all of these conversations by just casually mentioning things and then making the other person think about it. And at the same time, building up the other person, we talked about this and how his approach was, well, this person's really going to be, they're going to be a threat to you. Like, I mean, look at what, look at you. This is about you.

It's not about me. This is about you. And I really love that because in those moments, then, that player he's talking to starts looking at things more selfishly, right? Like, oh my God, this is about me. I have to have to protect myself. This person is a threat to me. And I just feel like it's definitely, it shifts that narrative and also it shifts the mindset

that people have going into that vote. So they're not necessarily thinking, well, Rizzo's coming up with all of this stuff. They're petting themselves on the backhand and giving themselves credit and not realizing that Rizzo is actually the reason why they're thinking that way. Yeah, it reminds me of. a doctor who episode David Tennant was the doctor and he gets very mad

at a prime minister of England who did something bad and so he he tells her I can bring you down with just a few words and he walks over to her closest aid and he says doesn't the prime minister

look tired and from there it cascades you know to to bringing down her government just all he didn't say get rid of the prime minister he just made a little suggestion now he's also an alien time lord so he may have put some oomph behind that suggestion but you know something else might be there yeah yeah but you know still it just reminded me of that you know a little bit of oh well you know this is interesting here right you just make someone look at

something differently by making a mere suggestion but it's really the way that you want them to see it and it gives them onus and ownership over it in a different way. Yeah. Yeah. And as I've said here previously,

his strategy of pushing someone else as the bigger threat turned into this recurring theme and just really just kept working even though it shouldn't have. Right. That's the thing. Like nobody caught on

that this is what was going on. Yeah. And considering they were all sharing information. meanwhile he was hiding what he did walking a tightrope with the special corollary in Rule 1 which says players can't keep their scheming too hidden or they risk the jury believing that they didn't do anything and indeed Rizzo told Mike Bloom

I think the jury almost discredited almost all of our games because they thought we got there because they self-imploded when the reality is we caused the majority to self-implode now I come down somewhere in the middle. Yes, he definitely pushed them. We just talked about that. But as I said previously, they were the ones who made the bad move.

They have to, as you said, take ownership. Rizzo told Dalton Ross, Trace Lachase was able to come back from a 7-3 deficit because of my relationship with Chowan. I had a great relationship with Sage, and Sage was kind of the key factor because Sage was willing to work with us and kind of flip back and forth with certain votes.

So like I said, they made the decisions, but Rizzo definitely planted ideas in their heads. Yes, he did. But still, he's right that without him doing the pushing, the ball wouldn't have started rolling downhill. He just, you know, the thing is with this type of play, like I said, with the corollary, he would have had to explain it all to the jury

if he'd made final three, which would have been tricky if Savannah had been there with him, which was something he realized, the end of the game. I mean, it could have been tricky even without her because, as we'll talk about in greater detail as we move forward here, it can be very difficult to change the way a jury has been thinking about you for a while now. And if they've been thinking he hasn't been doing much strategically for him to come in

and say, hey, remember when they made that decision, that was me. Remember when they made that decision? That was me. But like you said, even those people don't necessarily recognize that he was the one pushing them. So that was a, that would have been a tough final tribal council for him. I wish we had seen it. Just see what happened. Yes. And I, I wish we had seen it even more now watching his exit interviews because like he was, he was entertaining in the first interviews that we heard of him pregame. But the way he explained his game in the exit interviews, and who knows, maybe it's

after he's watched the show, he's had all of this time to think about it. He's not hungry and tired and on an island. And so maybe it wouldn't have come across in such an eloquent and detailed way. But he really did express it, both with like a passion, but like a reason. Like he was like, this is why I was doing it. And I knew what I was doing. And this was why I was doing it. This was the decision I made.

And I was really quite taken aback that. I would have loved to have heard him try to make those arguments. again, depending on circumstances, situation, tiredness, hunger, all of those things. It would have been really incredible to see. I mean, we may still have another chance. We'll see. We might.

Interesting. You should mention that. So finally, here we have Christina, who did the least scheming and plotting of this group and indeed probably of pretty much anyone post-merged. And when she tried, it often went awry. she told us flat out in episode 10 i am too trusting and she was and that's something you just can't be in this game we saw it in action such as just one of the most glaring examples in episode nine

when she acknowledged to us that she hadn't worked with blue sophy but then told her the whole split vote player oh my god you just oh that moment made me cringe yeah which of course sophie immediately told Savannah and you know sage mentioned it in her interview with Mike Bloom talking about how all the information got back to Rizzo because Christina would tell Sophie as Sage said I don't know how you don't know Blue Sophie was absolutely part of that trio but of course we just discussed how Sage trusted yellow Sophie with lots of information shouldn't have and that was somebody put something in the water because they were all just like loose

lips over there. Some glass houses there. What is that? Rocks? Yeah, that's right. Those in glass houses should not draw rocks. I believe that's the saying, yes.

That's exactly what it is. We also heard from Stephen that sometimes Christina would get sloppy and reveal information that she shouldn't have. In her interview, she called it a conversation of mom brain and lack of food and sleep. But whatever the cause, as Stephen told Mike Bloom, there were definitely moments where we'd have a plan.

Then you'd do the speed dating. You go pair off and talk. And then people would come to me afterwards and they would say, hey, Christina just said the most interesting thing. She kind of implied that maybe there's an idol in play or something. And I would have to kind of do damage control. Yeah. Yeah.

It's one of those situations where like, I don't know if she's, necessarily even realized what she was doing as she was doing it because she seemed surprised when it was mentioned by people in their exit press and when she was asked about it that like well i mean it's just it just kind of happened sometimes and but you have to be aware of every i'm so sorry if you can hear my mom right now um it you have to be aware of those conversations you're having and the effect that they can have and i and i do think that being too trust and was probably a huge part of that.

But again, I don't know how she missed it. I don't know how she didn't see that that's what was ultimately going to happen with the information she was sharing. Yeah. And even aside from these two things we mentioned, Christina was one of the people who kept talking about getting out Savannah and Rizzo or his idol and then not doing it. The examples are too numerous to list in this podcast.

But we've talked about it several times in previous weeks. And then she even said in final five, oh, this is, I mentioned this, that she was upset because Savannah won immunity when she was going to be, quote, the easy vote. Right. Savannah was never the easy vote. No. Clearly. She was the correct vote a few times.

And if you could have got all of you gotten your acts together, it would have been easy. But you couldn't. You need to vote out challenge beasts when you can. As Rizzo said many times talking about other things, strike while the iron is hot. Yes. Christina and others didn't do that. She told Dalton Ross, she would have addressed that in her final tribal council speech saying it would have included words to the effect that my alliance right now,

they're making moves that are very questionable, but I'm still trying to make these moves to get these people out, to get Savannah and Rizzo out, and they're just not seeing it. But there's no way that would have convinced anyone to vote for her. I'm sorry. And all that's doing is pointing out to the. jury that you're not good at making a plan come into action. Yeah, first of all, you're blaming other players or you're not doing something. And most of those players would have been on the jury.

And you're saying, I did not have leadership in these moves. Yeah, like, oh, here's an idea. Oh, no one's listening. Okay. Never mind. It's all your fault. It's all your fault. You didn't do this.

I mentioned it. You know, there's a lot of things I've invented in this world, but I didn't make them. But I thought, isn't this a great idea? We should do this thing. I don't know how to make it, but someone else did. And now they've gotten a patent and it's their invention. So words and words. I think you should sue for, you know, them taking your idea that you never told me. I should. I'm telling you so many years ago, and I'm going to go off on a small little tangent. I was like, wouldn't it be amazing if you could make a washing machine that converts into a dryer? And this was before they existed.

This was way before they existed. And I was like, I'm going to be a millionaire. Well, I never made it because I'm not, I can't do that. I had a great idea. It was a great idea. And now, look at that. Being sold. So yes, I'm the idea person.

Okay. But you got to be able to do the next thing. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, we could move on to rule two, which says not to scheme and plot too much and to keep your scheming secret. other than for one finalist in particular,

I don't think we have nearly as much to say here as in rule one because while there was a lot of bad scheming and plotting that we discussed, there wasn't necessarily too much scheming and plot. And indeed, when it comes to Savannah, I think this rule helped her out because as Rob noted, both in his recap with Sam and I know it all, nobody felt betrayed by Savannah. Right.

She pretty well stuck to her word. everybody knew where her loyalties were which makes it a lot easier to not backstab someone. Yes. I mean, there may have been some other reasons other players weren't happy with her,

which we'll get into later, but this was not one of them. Yeah, I do think that this is a very interesting component to having this type of effect on people that you're playing the game with. If you don't have a good relationship with them, well, then it doesn't hurt so bad.

Yeah, it's not a backstab. right, it's kind of okay. But if you create really strong bonds with people and then you have to backstab them, it hurts a lot. This is why Survivor is hard. Yes. One of the many reasons.

Yeah. Now, I think that, you know, something similar can be said of Sophie that if anything, she was probably seen coming into final tribal council as not scheming and plotting enough. So we can quickly move on to the person. It did impact the most.

And that was Sage. Steven Stephen did an excellent job calling it out in his final tribal council question saying that after the merge they were in a seven person majority alliance and she voted out every person in that group except Jawan

and that pretty well sums it up and explains why they were not happy with her in the game and we're certainly not going to vote for her to win you know Sage responded that as an intelligence analyst you have to analyze who your allies

are and et cetera. Everyone she voted out leaked information or had the opportunity to do so. Except mission. Pardon? She was leaking information too. Well, yes, I know. And also what does it mean you had the opportunity

to do so? You knew something? I'm not sure. But it doesn't matter because that's not really true. And she even said previously that she voted out some of them because they were threatened. She didn't mention leaking information. Now, voting out someone because their threat is a legit reason, but she left the biggest

threat in. Yeah. And Sage said it wasn't flip-flopping. It was adapting. And since she was sitting there, she played a much more strategic game than people gave her credit for. Okay, but sitting there doesn't do any good when you're up against the biggest threat in the game because you took out all your allies.

Yes. Yeah. all very fair now it was interesting to me that Savannah defended Sage after the game telling Dalton Ross I was kind of surprised at how upset some of the jury members seemed to be with Sage

Survivor is a game of betrayal and of course people always have hurt feelings when they exit the game no matter when they leave the game and I think some people were really frustrated with some of Sage's decisions and she got the brunt of it for quite a while and it was hard to watch and hard to listen to to be honest but she handled it like a champ

now I don't think it was just hurt feelings some of it will discuss later but some of it was people who saw their games go from the high of being in a majority where they could take out the people they saw as the most threatening to them but they found themselves being taken out by one of their own supposed allies

who then left those most threatening people in the game yeah I feel like I can I really appreciated this moment with Stephen because it was the frustration that I feel so many of us watching, we're feeling. Like, what is happening? What is going on? And so this just shows you that our feelings in regards to that were actually legitimate and real because Stephen was like, what the hell?

How did we screw this up? Like, we had the majority. Seven, three, wow, we've got this on law. And the fact that you would let anything get in the way of the numbers that is not a good, strategic decision is certainly, certainly problematic. And I can understand why the people in the jury were frustrated because they should be sitting in those three seats, right? So yes, I can certainly understand the frustration that they felt here.

And I'm glad that Stephen vocalized that. Yeah. Now, moving to Rizzo, it may surprise some people, but I don't really think he did much wrong in this rule. It could be argued he overdid it with his idol, but we'll talk about that. more in the seventh rule. Otherwise, as we discussed in Rule 1, if anything, he did, he hid his strategizing too well. Yes, and that would have been a concern, but I would have loved to have seen it. Yeah, yeah. And for Christina, well, we already noted that she schemed

and plotted the least, so she certainly didn't overdo it. Exactly. Now, the third rule tells players to be flexible. We've talked about Trace Lace staying solid, but Savannah also said in her final tribal council closing statement, and then in some interviews, that she had an adaptable strategy. So how do you think she did in this rule? Well, I think this is interesting because I think she was adaptable in the sense of she needed to react to what was happening around her. So I would certainly give her credit for that. But I also feel like she was less adaptable with those people, that she formed those relationships with. I mean, she was very a solid lock with those three,

which is not a bad thing, not a bad thing at all. But you also need to be mindful of when you're moving forward with the final, or with two other people, that those two other people are also playing their own games too. And so I feel like she was taking things maybe a little too personal in regards to the three as opposed to just, well, oh, I can understand why someone would want to do that because it's better for their game as opposed to the three of us.

So I feel like in that, in that sense, she wasn't necessarily as flexible as she could have been, but she was, she really was kind of forced to have to switch up her game because of how things went from initially. Everything's great. She's, you know, no one's losing on her tribe.

She's got relationships with everything. Everything's wonderful. And that completely changed. And she really needed to say, okay, what do I do now? and she scooped up Sophie and she had Rizzo and she made that work. So in that regard, like in response to the game and what was happening around her and realizing I'm on the outs with a lot of these people,

I need to step it up and I need to do something different. I think she did great with that. Yeah, I think if she hadn't mentioned it, I don't know that I would have considered her to be very flexible for the reasons that you mentioned. You know, she was solid with her original Uli plus Sophie alliance. And like you said, got mad when Sophie broke it. But Savannah took it further back to earlier in the game after the Nate vote.

She said in Final Tribal Council that she did what it took to survive. And while she didn't have relationships with everyone, she made key relationships and, of course, won immunity. Now, just like I don't consider winning immunity to be strategy, I don't consider it to be part of flexibility. So I'm glad she explained it further in her interviews, such as saying it wasn't that the wins were part of being adaptable. it was that winning allowed her time to establish or reestablish some relationships while being safe. For example, she hadn't known she'd been making Sage upset. And when Sage told her, that gave her an opportunity to fix things a bit

so they could work together at times going forward. Yeah, absolutely. Now, as for the other two members of Grace Lachase, they had the same issue I mentioned about being so locked in with each other. Yes, Sophie talked about turning on them, but didn't actually do it until it was too late. So much talk. So much talk. She acted like she was flexible in talking to other players and getting information, as we discussed earlier.

But when it came time for the vote, she stayed solid. You would have thought the others would catch on and stop trusting her with their plans, but it just kept going. Yeah, weird, right? What's happening? Yes. Trust me, this time, I really mean it. Big old wink. Yeah.

And now, Rizzo, of course, had no real reason to turn on Savannah, just like Savannah had no reason to turn on him, at least till the end when he wanted to get to final tribal counsel without her. But he was flexible in another way, pretending to have the interests of others at heart, as you mentioned earlier. And putting forward new targets time after time to keep it off of himself and his allies. yeah yeah i agree all right well i want to skip to christina next because one thing we discussed about her in the first rule was the way she said she was trying to get people to do what she wanted

but they wouldn't so in every case she went along with them and yes you do need to be flexible in that way so you don't get singled out but at some point i think you need to put your foot down and say stop it well but she was claiming mean that she was trying to do that, right? Like that's what she said. Trying.

Right. Now, I don't think that she ever had the power or control to do that. So she wasn't being flexible out of a planned strategy, but basically out of necessity. Like, well, either I go along with them or I get hung out to dry. Yeah. Yeah. And she even said, well, at least it wasn't us, right? Yeah.

Yeah. All right. So going back to Sage for this rule, there were certainly times when she was too flexible, as we discussed in the second year. Before then, she showed how she was willing to let other players bury themselves by not stepping up when she otherwise might have. The way she handled Shannon is a perfect example. As she told us, Shannon loves to be the leader, and I love to let her be the leader. And I got to make Shannon feel really comfortable. Yeah. And I think with Sage, it was, the flexibility was a problem in that she was flexible. And she was flexible. And

she didn't need to be it was it was like she determined at this this point in time all of the plans that I had previously I'm just going to set those aside and I'm going to change my vote entirely to this person over here even though I've been saying all along this is what has to happen and so it there was like no there was no real like rhyme or reason like yes did she did she look at other options she did but she shouldn't have yes and on the flip side of that there were also times when Sage was definitely not flexible, which takes us nicely into the fourth rule, which tells players not to let their emotions control them. Oh, yes.

We're going to go out of order here because Sage gave us the most to discuss for this one. At her core, Sage understood the importance of this rule. She told Dalton Ross, like I said in my pregame interview, I will have real connections with people out there and they're not going to factor into my gameplay. And yet, that she followed that. We heard from several players like MC and Stephen that they had been close to Sage and were surprised when she voted them out. But she was making what she felt were the best strategic decisions, not allowing her emotional attachments to dictate them. But as I said, a week or two ago in discussing this rule, that doesn't mean they were the right decisions, but they weren't wrong because of this rule.

right and she also and this might weirdly be connected to scheming and plotting where she claimed that she wanted to be seen as an emotional player and that that's what people thought she was making her decisions based upon because in her head I think she believed that that was going to make her appear less of a threat if she was making emotional versus strategic but that was actually a strategic decision to appear more emotional yeah and as a matter of fact you know So if people believe you are playing emotionally, or at least using emotions, that puts you at risk. Yeah, for sure. You know, she told Dalton, I knew that would be mistaken as an emotional player. When people would come to me and have human moments, I'm just being a human with you, but it's not going to give you an advantage or a disadvantage. The only person that was able to bypass that was Jawan. But everybody else, I'm like, this is completely.

compartmentalize. In my everyday work, I have to compartmentalize. It's a very important skill in social work and individual therapy. So that was really easy for me to do. But I think it was very unexpected and maybe caused people to think like, oh, she just used me. And I agree. That was probably a bigger part of the reason many in the jury were upset with her. Much more upset than was shown on TV based on pretty much everyone's interviews. Yeah. Yeah. It's good to separate your emotions, but you can't act like you're emotional and then separate them or people will end up confused and upset. Yeah. And then if you try to justify it by saying, well, I was just, I was just pretending to be emotional about something. Well, then I can have

even more of an effect on that person because now they really do feel like, oh, well, then what was real? What connection did we make that was actually real and not just part of your ruse to appear to be emotional as opposed to actually being emotional. Yeah. And then we have the flip side because, of course, there was one particular situation where Sage did not take her own advice. We've talked about it here before, but we need to mention it again. This is, of course, the Sophie vote.

Mm-hmm. You know, she talked on multiple occasions about how mad she was. for example, I've been pitching Savannah since day one, but at this point I'm freaking pissed at Sophie. She mentioned that Sophie was smart and in tune, quote, and I could get some revenge. And in this game, when you piss me off, you go home. Well, as we discussed previously,

sure, she gave reasons that might seem to make sense from a strategic side, but it's really easy to talk yourself into believing you're voting someone out for a logical rationale when you're already mad at them. And those logical reasons also did not hold up, as I mentioned earlier, that, you know,

something she was saying about soap. Yeah. No, I agree. All right. Well, going back to our winner here, how do you think Savannah did in terms of controlling her emotions? Well,

Savannah's such an interesting, like, character and person, right? because she understands how she's being perceived, right? And she understands that people are not mostly. Well, I mean, like she realized that she wasn't really jiving with a lot of people that they didn't really necessarily like her in the way that they might have, you know, formed more of a friendship type of relationship over here. And that wasn't being reciprocated or felt by her.

But I also think that she. Even though she was aware of how she was being perceived and how that was affecting other people's emotions towards her, right? Like how they were responding to her. It didn't stop her from like being very like in your face about some things and really like being very just just more like I'm not going to beat around the bush. Like this is what we're doing. Like what is like the moment with Christina right where she was like, who are you voting for? And that's not an emotional thing that she was doing. but she was not recognizing the emotions of others in those moments.

And I'm just curious if it was because she felt like she was on the out, so it didn't necessarily matter if I hurt their feelings because they don't really care about my feelings. So it was kind of an interesting dynamic to watch because it gave her, I think, more of an ability to say more things to people because she didn't necessarily care if she was hurting them, which we've already discussed a little bit, right? But at the same time, you run the risk of then not having the relationships that you necessarily need. And so you have to then rely upon like an immunity win in order to stay in the game because you don't have the connections with the people around you.

And so she was kind of like this, it was a very mixed bag in regards to her emotional gameplay and what she was doing versus the recognition of how it was affecting other people's emotions as well. Okay. Be careful when you say mixed bag. because, you know, we saw Savannah getting mad at Juana multiple times early in the game for taking her a bag and putting sticks in it. The sticks in the bag. You know, and taking her water bottle and so on.

But, you know, even when she was mad at him, each time she said something bad about him and talked about wanting to vote him out, it was privately. She even had an early confessional about him having no idea how she really felt. She never had a chance to vote him out Uh, so I, I guess we can't fully say that, you know, whether she was going to let her emotions control her game, but just by managing to hide it, she did a good job there. Sure. 100% yes. In those regards, yes. So what do you think about Rizzo in this role?

Oh, gosh, Rizzo didn't have any issue with like, I don't think like emotional, I mean, he was very strategic in the decisions he made. I think that he was very much like game oriented. This is what I'm doing. And he, it was different because Savannah might not have recognized the way that she was presenting herself that was going to affect the emotions of these other individuals. Whereas Riza was like, I'm going to affect their strategic gameplay right now. Like that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make them do things in this game that I want them to do. And so it was, it was coming at people differently than the way Savannah necessarily was. So I don't think he had any issue at all with anything being connected, emotion. except he really was locked in with Savannah,

but he also recognized what that was going to become, right? That one of them was going to potentially have to take the other one out. And he seemed willing to do that. And it wasn't going to affect the decision that he made in as to how the game was going to be played. Yeah, I agree. I think he kept his emotions in check. I mean, even after Joanne and Sage blindsided him at the merge and sent Nate packing, Rizzo stayed calm and was willing to.

to talk to Joanne and others. He even told Savannah, we cannot be bitter. We cannot be mad. And that was how he played all season. He knew it was a game. He knew he'd be making moves and so would others. So he didn't take anything personally. No.

All right. So finally, what did you think of Christina here? I think Christina struggled a bit here as far as, you know, the emotional component is concerned with the game. because I do think that she, she's on like the opposite spectrum of Savannah, right, where she's making the social connections with people on an emotional level. And I know we're probably going to be discussing her question that she did ask. Oh, yes.

But clearly for her, those connections and bonds were very important. And so I do think that that got in the way of her being forceful when she needed to, as we've already discussed with particular decisions. Like, hey, this is what needs to happen right now. I don't, it might upset you. It might hurt your feelings. But this is what I've got to do in order for our games, like in order to move forward. So I do think that that was an issue.

And then I think we saw a little bit as well between her and Sage where things got contentious because it ultimately fell to either of them, right? Like it was going to be Christine that was going to be Sage. and there were some things that were being said. They were airing a lot of dirty laundry at tribal council as to why they were saying certain things. And so I think that for Christina, this game took more of an emotional toll on her. And so I do think that she did allow her emotions

to be seen more in the forefront and affect her ability to actually be strategic in those moments she needed to be. See, that's interesting that you point all that out. had not thought of it that way, I was, I mean, you're right, but I was looking at some other times when she did do the right thing despite her emotional attachments. Like when she was, you know, really friendly, really close with Shannon. But her alliance came and told her, Shannon's scheming way too hard. You need to put that aside. And she did. And that's true. You know, a similar thing.

happened with Stephen, where she was super close with him and then Sage convinced her to no, we've got to go against Stephen. Now, at the same time, you could say that goes back to her not putting her foot down, but whatever it was, she

made the decision that went and be like, we have the majority, what are we doing? Yeah. But, you know, she put aside her emotions. So yes, she was emotional in the game, but at least some of her decisions did keep that separate.

Yes, and I will give her credit for that, too, because she was separating it out a bit. But it's just, I feel like all of these players are so different in the way that they approached the game because it was so very individualistic for each of them. Yeah. Okay, we can go to the fifth rule, which reminds players they need to pretend to be nice and play the social game. And it's funny to me that out of the whole final five, maybe even extending significantly back before then. The person who did the worst in this rule was our winner, Savannah, which, by the way,

shows, as I mentioned in the intro to the rules part, that despite what some people like to say, everyone does not just vote for the person they like the best at the final tribal council. So there. Yes. Now, and but we should add a little like asterisk next to this because we have talked about this particular component. If it comes down to a decision of this, person or that person and who do I like more because they're so close they're so even that's where this really can have a tipping point I like this person but you have to get super yeah down to yes right level whereas other people have been out there saying nope it just matters if you're well like they just vote for the person they like nothing else matters and I'm over here all the time

both of us are saying no that's just not that's just not true that's why we have a whole podcast on yes yes um now I don't want to make it sound like her social game was so terrible. You know, Sage told Mike Bloom, from the moment she talked, when we got on the original Oolie Beach, I was like,

oh crap, she's going to win. Everybody was like, and she mimed goo goo-goo eyes was the way it was said. Anytime she would talk. But as time went on and more of Savannah's personality came out, it wasn't seen as what I would exactly, call nice.

For example, sometimes she would stare at people and say things like, I've got you. And the thing was, I can't even make the face that it, you know, was appropriate there because the eyes were very intense. Yes, they were so intense and it was

more scary than than trusting. And of course, there was the time that she tried to steal the key to the idol from M.C. and then turned around immediately and said, I want to work with you. Yeah. No.

Yeah. MC told us. Thank you. Yeah, I don't trust Savannah. She's just so intense. There's a gleam in her eyes that's just so evil. I don't believe her at all. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, oh, gosh. Where are we right now? So I know we're talking about Savannah and it's just the, it's incredible to me that. socially she was you could even you could tell in the final tribal council they're like they just don't like her like you could you could just tell by the way some of them some but but most of them i would i would say it was like that was the that was the more heavy side of things where you could

you could feel that that was that was something that existed and so but i also have to mention that I think she just found herself in a situation where it's almost freeing and liberating in a way. If you know that people don't, and I'm not saying you do this when you play Survivor necessarily, but if you know that this person doesn't like you, it does give you a little bit more of an ability to push, right? Because you're like, well, I'm not going to hurt your feelings. And we've talked about this with her. And I feel like she saw where she was at in this tribe, realize I've got two people and I've I've got two people. Literally, I've got two. And I need to fight my way through the rest of this with

those two people because I don't have the social capital I need. But she was also unapologetic for it. Like she sat in that final tribal council and was like, yeah, guess what? Like this is, I'm doing this for me that maybe you don't like that. Too bad. So sad. Like this is what I'm doing. And so I really appreciate the fact that she recognized it and owned it. And then I was like, I'm still going to kick all your asses in the end it's fine. And I so like there's there's like this mixed thing about it where like not very many people could necessarily pull this off. And and I think that we've we've seen a few other players who have kind of fallen in this category. You're like how the hell did this person win when they like Sandra is yelling at people, right? Tony was like making llama noises at people.

Like and they still end up winning and it's because they're so good at rounding out the rest of their games. And I think Savannah is just one of those people. Yeah. I mean, throughout the game, we heard from various players that Savannah did not succeed in pretending to be nice. Sage said, Savannah is so freaking mean. And later told Blue Sophie, Savannah was making digs on her. Stephen said, Savannah is rubbing some people the wrong way. Stephen told Gordon Holmes, Savannah came off much like she is in the edit. She was playing hard and sometimes you'd walk away from a conversation with her and feel like she got things from you, but gave nothing back.

M. Ski told Rob there were times when Savannah gave off mean girl vibes. Christina talked about her being a bit of a mean girl sometimes, and so on. Now, for her part, Savannah told Mike Bloom, I get that I'm a very direct person. And I think that comes from my experience in the workplace, working in the news industry. Dude, you're on a deadline. If you need to know something, I'm going to ask you now. And I think about multiple newsrooms that I've worked in, and they're all like this. It's like, hey, I need this.

get this bleep done i'm going to be blunt i'm going to be direct because we're on a time crunch and in my own personal life that direct approach in the workplace has worked really really well i learned it does not necessarily work as well in survivor yes that is a very valid point now in a way savannah reminds me of an old co-worker and friend of mine uh she had worked at a highfalutin private chicago law firm and they didn't pussyfoot around there. Much like Savannah said, if they wanted something, they just bluntly asked for it. And if the work was not up to their standards, they said so. My friend moved from that law firm to where I worked. And people were not at all used to it and quite taken aback when she talked to them

like that. Once I became her friend, I told her what the problem was and that she needed to soften up the way she talked to people because many of them really didn't like her at all. And I think my advice worked at least a bit, much like with Savannah. She still had some people who didn't like her. And Savannah said in her interviews that she didn't need everybody's vote at the end, just enough. And she won. Meanwhile, you know, meanwhile, my friend worked her way to become my boss for a while till she didn't pretend to be nice to her boss and openly called her the Wicked Witch of

the West to other people. And then she wasn't there anymore. Luckily, for Savannah, she didn't quite go that far. Um, but, you know, yeah, I mean, it's, it's like you said, she was free with certain people to say what she wanted or act how she wanted, because she was already like, I'm not getting your vote. So it doesn't matter. Why spend my energy on you? Yeah. It's a little liberating.

Yeah. Now, moving to Sophie, she came into the game saying she was going to be everybody's best friend. And she showed that from the start. Like when Jeremiah asked her if she believed in astrology. She said no, but added she'd love to hear about it, which seemed to come to her way easier than it would to me in that situation, you know, I would have not, yeah. No, you would have said all of the problems that you think exist with it. Yes, yes. And that just continued in the game for her.

Savannah told Mike Bloom, she just had this aura of just happiness about her. And she really does bring this feeling of comfort to me, at least. And I think a lot of people, she's just so naturally charismatic. Yeah. And I think that Sophie is someone who immediately ingratiated herself to whoever she was talking to. Savannah fell for her like immediately. She said, you know, this is the type of person I would be friends with at home. We would be best friends.

And I think what was so lovely about Sophie is every relationship she created, it felt genuine for the person that she was talking to. And she made that person feel seen and feel heard. And there was one moment with Nate where Nate really like felt like Sophie's like my daughter kind of, you know, like it was it was the way that she was speaking to him and that they weren't connecting. And that can certainly carry you through this game, which is why we then saw so many people having diarrhea of the mouth and telling Sophie everything because.

Sophie was so great at making them feel important and significant and kind of minimizing herself in the process because they didn't see her as a concern. They're like, oh, she's going to listen to me and I can talk to her. Meanwhile, she's running around telling Rizzo and Savannah everything that she just learned and hovering it up so nicely and nobody was suspecting it, which is still shocking and crazy to me. Yeah, I mean, she even said in her final tribal council discussions that she was the social. part of her trio and people were more open to talking to her later she added that the three of them couldn't have taken over a seven if she hadn't had her social connections and i think she's right yeah talked some about it earlier with christina divulging all the secrets to sophy and that not only spoke to the bad judgment of christina but a very good social game for sophy and she told

Mike Bloom that after the Nate vote, Savannah and Rizzo were on the outs, but quote, nobody actually didn't want to work with me. And so that was when I started playing double agent. The other side was feeding the information constantly. And that's what we were going to, that's what we were using to make our moves to turn people against each other. Had I not gotten information, I think we would have been toast. And it wasn't just Christina giving her information.

Because she also said something we didn't see. there was a secret alliance with her, Sage, Joanne, and Alex, where she got information and passed it along, which helped them throw Alex under the bus, all because of her social game. Yeah. She really was kind of like the glue that brought everyone together and then was able to spread the wealth to the two people

that she was the closest with. Yeah. All right. Switching to Sage, we have a very interesting person in situation. because by her own admission, Sage is not naturally a very social person. For example, she said in a tribal council, a large group of people is my horror movie. And when she saw, yeah. And when she saw how Shannon was faking her behavior to make people feel better,

she said she can't do that. Later adding, she would try and I got to put the schmooze on, even though I hate the schmooze, you have to do it in Survivor. In her mid-season entertainment weekly interview, Sage expanded on a lot of this, saying, I'm already aware that the social side of the game would be harder for me.

Small talk makes me anxious. But of course, one thing we did see her talk about was bodily functions. She noted in that interview, talking about poop and blackheads might seem socially inept, but it's calculated.

People often confuse quirkiness with stupidity. If people think I'm in part, or dumb, they won't see me as a strategic threat. She also said, I can't do small talk, but if you want to tell me about your passions or the things you're ashamed to admit, I'm your person. Those connections are real for me, but they don't necessarily dictate my gameplay. Now, we of course discussed in a previous rule already about the dangers of that in survivor, of being so open for people to talk about their passions, talk about the things they're

shame to admit and then she turns around and votes them out. Yes. And I think that there's some of her actual work related stuff that comes into play here because she's a therapist, right? And so she's very accustomed to having those deep, heavy conversations or people are admitting to her things that they would probably never tell anyone else. Right. So she's very cognizant of that part of her existence and sometimes it can be hard to bring that over into like game mode where this is where now you're you're going to make it that deep of a connection but I also think she it took you struggle to remove yourself from the game right so so this is who she is this is what she does and so yes people are connecting with her even though she's appearing a little more quirky and a little

more funny but she's still making those connections with people emotionally because that's who she is and that's what she does. And so, yes, it does hurt more when they see her turn on them because they're very confused about what just happened. She, on the other hand, might be thinking, well, I'm not going as deep with them as I normally would because I'm talking about blackheads and poop. But that's not what they are providing back to you. They're not reciprocating with blackheads and poop. They're actually like sharing parts of themselves and feeling like they have a really close relationship with her, and so it hurts more.

I mean, blackheads were parts of herself. That is fair. So is the poop. I mean, if we're going to be honest. All right, well, Rizzo was almost the opposite of Sedge. In Nate's words to Dalton Ross, Rizzo is incredibly charming. Savannah told Mike Bloom, he's literally the best.

He is just so full of joy and full of positive energy. One of the things I knew I wanted to look for when I was establishing an ally and alliance out there was someone who would genuinely make me laugh and have a good time. And for those of us who didn't get mad at him for saying Riz God a lot, I think we saw that.

He had an exceptional social game going, remaining friendly with people, even when they were on opposite sides of the game. He seemed to have relationships with pretty much everyone. Yeah, he really did make bonds that allowed people to feel comfortable talking to him. And the fact that he could,

could approach them with like these ideas about other players and be like, hey, what about so and so over here? You know, they're doing this thing. And that, the fact that they're willing to listen and think about what he's offering up as his bit of advice to them just shows that there was more there than just his strategic gameplay. There has to be a foundation that you have a relationship with this person if you expect them to hear you and listen to you and then respond to a what you're telling them. So he certainly was making the inroads he needed in order to then play a strategic game that he did.

Yeah. All right. Well, we can continue on with Christina because obviously her game was primarily social. Yes. And she talked in interviews about how much she values it, which of course was also the reason for her final tribal council question, which I'll have plenty more to say about later.

but the problem was in this group playing an almost purely social game wasn't going to work even if she had made it to the end it was not going to get her the win yeah yeah I mean unfortunately we saw the effects of the social game that she was playing

and the decisions that it ended up leading to were not the greatest for her in the end yeah okay so moving to the sixth rule it warns against being too much of a threat. Savannah, clearly the biggest threat of the season. Oh, wait, what? Savannah, who? Are we going to vote? Oh, sorry. Let me remind you of her. It's the one that we're, you know, people were always talking about. Right. They were always trying to vote out that one. Yeah. Well, saying they were trying to vote

out. Not actually. Oh, that's fair, fair, fair. Yeah, because by all rights, there is no way she should have made it to final three. No. No. Yeah. We've already discussed how others should have gotten rid of her when they could. To add another quote back in episode seven, Sage won and Savannah gone saying she's a phenomenal game player.

Look out for Savannah. But then, of course, we know what happened or rather didn't happen. Yeah. I don't get it. Yes, huge threat, huge threat, huge threat. I mean, what else can we say? Just huge threat all around. Yeah, and we could say, Savannah did not follow this rule and do a good job of hiding her threat level.

Between her challenge wins and some aspects of her social game, people just didn't want her there. However, other aspects of her gameplay and the strategy of her allies offset that and acted as a shield. She won enough challenges so people couldn't get her whenever they wanted. Right. And her alliance deflected attention away from her when she was vulnerable. And speaking of winning challenges, Rob mentioned unknow-it-alls that Savannah had must-win immunity challenge wins

and that's more impressive than just winning whenever. The problem is, and I talked about this earlier, you can't just will yourself to win. She often didn't know they were must-win and that people were planning on turning on her in those specific moments. So I can't say she gained some special power when she needed it,

I just think that's reaching a bit too far. But there is something to be said about having a must-win mentality when you're going into a challenge because if you do realize that you are going to be the person who's getting voted out, yeah, it does something to you mentally and physically

where you're like, well, now I have to win. So I'm certain. In certain ones, like, for example, I'll just pick one randomly, holding your hand up with a bucket over your head. you know like that yeah that was a must win yes exactly except uh but it was an hour in 42 minutes okay what you want for me i an hour in 43 apparently apparently my damn pinky stupid pinky all i do is wiggle my pinky it's all it took anyway i mean there are certain ones like endurance

you may be able to wheel yourself through but if you're in an obstacle course or making a puzzle Sure, sure. I'm sorry, you can't will yourself through those. You either can do them or you can't. Right. And I would like to just stop here for one moment and just say something about this. I do think that there should be more challenges that are like willing yourself to do it as opposed to, you know, what you just mentioned running through an hospital force or something. At least two that occurred to me right off the bat, maybe more.

I mean, I know there are a lot more obstacle courses. Yeah, but there's a difference between having to hold your leg against something before it drops because that's also muscle, right? That's like I'm, I haven't eaten and my muscles cramping and my foot stops working and of course it's going to fall as opposed to like, I have to stand on this block and keep my hand on something longer than that person over there and willing yourself to do it mentally because that's a mental component in addition to physical, yes, but I just, I wish that there was more like mental willpower type of challenges that they put people through because I feel like

that might even the playing field just a smidge because if you can be mentally strong, that's a whole different like ball game as far as I'm concerned. So that's just my two sense on that. I mean, the problem is they can't have a Christian ubiquity length challenge again. you know it throws off their whole I know and that's when willpower really comes into play is when it goes that long but you were okay

you would remember the challenge wasn't the one that went like wasn't it like 12 hours or something like when they were in the water holding on the poles and finally somebody like quit um yeah like that they can't do that anymore

their schedule is too boom boom you know on those I that's so much more enjoyable as far as I'm concerned not that my opinion matters in this regard CBS will continue to do the game show thing that they're doing but I am so much respect for watching someone like just like do that that willpower like I'm going to stay here until I can't anymore kind of headspace I think that's really impressive yeah all right well I Anyway, getting back to Savannah. Sorry. Oh, that's fine. You know, her winning challenges at certain points did mess with other players. We've talked about it already. But that was mostly their own fault.

Christina said in the final five, Savannah winning immunity ruined our plans. She was going to be the easy vote. I mentioned that earlier. Sophie said, Savannah winning immunity ruined our plans. I was ready to make a big move. Again, maybe you all should be. Damn it, Savannah. You're ruining everyone.

a plan. I know, the nerve. But this was not just some random possibility. She's the challenge competitor of the season. Again, this is why you need to vote someone like that out when you have the opportunity. That is part of what made her such a threat. Oh, look, she's the challenge threat. Oh, she didn't win this one. Well, let's let her have a pass. What? We'll get her next time. It's fine it's fine crazy on the other hand Sophie and Christina were not

seen as threats to win indeed we heard from Sage that she wanted to go to final three with those two I do think some people thought Sage herself might be something of a threat to win but Savannah certainly wasn't one of them and she even told Rizzo do you think Sage is

going to out talk you any lingering thoughts about that were quickly dashed at final tribal council when, according to interviews, it was very, very clear the jury was pissed at her. Yeah, they were. They were.

But that we go back to, we've already talked about why they were not at her, the emotional component as well. But yes. Yeah, I'm not a threat to win. Right. Now, however, there was one aspect in which Christina was too much of a threat

and that was in fire making. Oh, here we go. Yes. The others had seen her all season long being the master of fire. So when they reached Final Five, especially without Savannah being available to vote out, who was the biggest threat?

Well, we've talked about this already. Savannah pushed Christina hard. She didn't want to end up firemaking against her and she eventually wore down her allies to go along. I think it does make some sense. Christina was not going to win the game. But that wouldn't matter to someone who got knocked out by her before they had a chance to win.

Right. Right. So this is a very interesting way to utilize the fire decision in a strategic manner, which is another reason why we need to get rid of fire making, because it shouldn't come down to who can make a better fire. Yes, it's survivor. You need to be able to survive 100%. But this is also a social game, and it should come down to who are you going to vote out? Because that's the whole point of survivor voting out people. Yes. Now, I do have a piece of advice to all future firemasters, presuming that

Final Four Firemaking sticks around. I think wasn't it one of the things that was voted on for 50? Whether or not to keep firemaking? I think it was. I mean, maybe if they get rid of it in 50, he'll get rid of it. No, you know what? No, no, no. I don't think it was. It was something we wanted. It was something we wanted, and I think Jeff

Probes laughed at us. And I was like, no. okay well either way someone can hear this out but either way if there is firemaking a piece of advice to all future firemasters maybe keep it a little more hidden don't make it so obvious there you're a wizard at that sort of thing it's like spark spark boom every time oh yeah you know try to hide it just a little bit just like any other threat level yeah mm-hmm agreed now finally for Rizzo, we talked over the past few weeks and then earlier in this podcast about how he was not seen as a big threat to win. And that was because he did such a good job of hiding all of his strategy behind the goofier

Rizgod persona, though it was not named Rizgod until he was voted out. Yes, he had a known idol. But after the first couple times of not playing it, the other players sort of lost interest in it, even though they shouldn't have. As Stephen said in his interviews with Mike Bloom, After Rizzo pretended to play it, several tribals in a row and didn't actually play it, I was kind of like, I'm not threatened by this anymore. If he's going to play it, he's going to play it.

We're just going to make our plans around him. I didn't think landing with the jury the way he thought it was. Looking over at their reactions, they were kind of rolling their eyes a little bit. It is interesting, though. I'm sorry, go ahead. That's okay. I just think it's interesting the way that he looked at the, he kind of equated it to, I created an immunity idol for myself.

Like I was basically winning immunity, if you will, because of the way that I was acting with this idol, that people weren't even considering me as part of the vote. So it was really coming with an additional added bonus because he didn't even have to play it because they weren't even considering him. Well, right. And we can move into Rule 7 on that because it covers idols

and advantages and game mechanics. and, yes, I think it makes the most sense to start out with the man, the myth, the legend, R-I-Z-G-O-D. And we begin with him finding the idol and telling everyone in his tribe. Now, this seemed like a mistake to start.

And I think for many players, it would be. He didn't seem to care. He talked in his interviews about wanting to use the idol as this offensive weapon. And, of course, you can't do that if your idol isn't public. He told Mike Bloom,

I grew up on idols making statements. And then in the new era, people just go home with it in their pockets where they just say, I don't want to go home here, Jeff. And I love MC and Alex, but we saw it on my season. They just played it defensively because they didn't want to go home with it in their pocket. But I came here to win. I knew the value that the idol had. And that part about playing to win, the way he emphasized it, played a big role.

He said multiple times that if he didn't win, it didn't matter when he went home. So he was willing to take risks, and that included a holding on to the idol. Now, we've talked about this before. I understand that there is that mentality playing to win. Mm-hmm. But, and this didn't come up for him. And it's sort of the opposite. Like, there is a middle ground between playing it just in case, when there's really no just in case necessary.

Right. This is fair. And playing it or not playing it because you want to take it to the end. and that is I still think I still maintain the same thing we've talked about for years now which is if you have any suspicion at all you play it because yes you do want to win but if you're voted out with it in your pocket

then it doesn't do you any good but the approach that he took is is so interesting because it wasn't just I have an idol and whether or not I'm going to play it people just began to believe he wouldn't but they still didn't like hold his feet to the fire right they weren't like well we're just going to write your name down riso like i don't know why they didn't just go you know what riso this this these tactics that you're taking with this idol we're just we're writing your name down that's it period done force him to have to like

play it because the what the approach they took they were immediately like well rizzo's got an idol so we can't vote for him what why are you just no you can still vote for him and then he has to play the idol and if he doesn't he goes home right so it's amazing to me that they just kind of like rolled over on him he addressed that in at least one of his interviews and i i don't remember which one where he said that he would tell people well if if you vote for me i'm just going to play the idol and i'm sending you home well but but but and i understand that but there's something called like I don't know, splitting the vote. I don't think they had enough people at that point.

By the time they realized what he was doing, they lost the ability to split the vote. Because he had a solid three. And once they were below six, you know, they could have done it at seven. They could have done it at seven. Could have done it at six. And they didn't.

And once they realized what he was doing, they couldn't do it anymore. Because doing it at five, splitting the vote is meaningless. Yeah. and you're taking a risk. And as he described the people there as risk averse. Yes.

And I think there is something to that. You know, but they didn't want to push it, especially if you have the mindset of Stephen of, he's not going to play it, then fine, we'll work around it. Now,

the way to work around it would have been to like, I don't know, vote out Savannah or Sophie at one of those points, but they didn't. So it wasn't really working around it. It was working against themselves like they did so often. Yes. Yep. Absolutely.

Now, in addition, we found out last week that Rizzo made a brilliant play earlier in the season by telling everyone from the start that his idol only went to final six. I ranted about this a bit last week, but I still can't believe they bought it. I know. He worked with Blue Sophie on it. And as he told Mike Bloom, if we go around telling people that my experience, idle expires at six. If one person says it, it's like, all right, whatever.

But if two people on the island say it, it's almost like a Bible. If more than one person is saying a lie, it has to be the truth. And even with this information, I still can't believe people fell for it. But you'd better believe nobody ever will again. Well, and that's the thing, is that we'll have to just kind of see what happens in 50, right? I mean, he could try it. again in 50 good luck yeah i mean those are people who've played before and right right some of whom have held idols before and will not fall for it now what i do think would be funny is if survivor

production started making them expire on random days so that you don't know if it's you know oh interesting interesting you know someone will be like oh this one expires at final seven oh yeah sure we've seen riso no really uh but at that point there's going to be like, show me the parchment. I'm not going to believe you show me. I want to see the parchment. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, I lost it. It fell in the fire. Now, the other main person who had a lot going on with this rule was your Sophie and knowledge is power.

Oh, God. The thing was, she had a lot of knowledge, but she didn't correctly use her power. She lost all of her power. Yeah. We discussed it last week. And then Sophie beat herself up at the beginning of the finale by saying a lot of things that, well, people like us were saying. Things like it was not epic. It was epic failure.

I embarrassed myself in front of the jury for no reason. Every part of me wishes I stole Rizzo's idol. All true, Sophie. As we discussed at more length last week, it would have given her the move she was trying to get by taking Stevens advantage even though she didn't need it. She should have just taken the item. Well, and here's the thing, and I know I mentioned this, I think it was last week as well. I don't appreciate the way that this particular advantage of Stevens had to be utilized because you affect the ability of someone like Sophie who has knowledge as power to even play it correctly.

She did not know that he had to play his before they went into tribal council. and her actual knowledge is power indicates that before the votes are cast, she has to ask these questions. So she's being told, you can't do this until we're in tribal council, right? He's being told you have to do this before you get into tribal council. So you are ultimately removing any ability she has to use knowledge as power by limiting when she can. Any ability she has in that particular tribal council.

She could have done it the tribal council before. Well, of course. Just like, you know, I mean, we, I, there's so many could have would have. Well, what I'm saying, she knew he had the intended. She chose to wait. Now, could she have known about this? No, but too bad. So sad.

I don't, I don't have the same reaction that you. I do because here's, here's the way I look at it. what did we give what did we just give riso credit for that he even though it might have been sophie's idea to say that the idol actually expired at six instead of five right because the players have all been informed of this rule that exists that it's only good till this point same with shot in the dark i forgot you can only use shot in the dark until what seven um so like players have these rules in their head that they've been told are the rule that exist, right?

And if you are going to introduce something into the game that has a very specific manner in which it needs to be played that can then negatively affect someone else's advantage in that way, I feel like that's a disconnect. I feel like there needs to be something that allows players to understand that though people might have advantages, those advantages might not be able to be played at the same time that you're playing yours,

it may be something that comes earlier. I mean, we ran into this many years ago. Surrey had the, where there was like a little notation on the bottom that, like, nobody paid attention to, right? Like, maybe put the notation in the bottom. Like, hey, by the way, something. If you're going to introduce these things into the game

that are going to affect people in this way, like Sophie felt terrible. Like, I'm an idiot. I didn't know, like, everyone, like, I screwed up. bad. She couldn't control that. But she could by taking Rizzo's idol. I don't care if she had got it.

No, no, no. I'm not saying. Here's the thing. I don't care if she had gotten Stevens' advantage. I agree. In my mind, it was still meaningless. I mean, we discussed that last week. It was meaningless because she wanted to do it to show I was the one who caused this to happen.

But even if she had gotten his advantage, she still wouldn't have been the one who caused it to happen because everybody voted Stephen. Right. And so I will, so I'll add this too. She should have taken Rizzo's Idol, period. Like, that's what she should have done. I'm not saying that what she should have done is try to take Stevens advantage earlier or whatnot.

She should have taken Rizzo's Idol in that moment. That would have been the better decision for her. I'm just on a soapbox about how they've introduced. Soapbox. A soapbox? A sof box. About how this particular advantage. affected another advantage.

I mean, you can say that you can follow that all the way back. It was it, was it fair when knowledge's power first appeared? If nobody knew knowledge's power was there. I guess that's fair. Well, it's just like, oh, oh, oh. And we could even get fire making in there. Fire making.

Chrissy. The idle nullifier. Excuse me in language. Remember the idle nullifier? Mm-hmm. No, all these things, the first time they appear. Now, someone has said, I did not fact. this. I have been told this is not the first time that there was an advantage that had to be played

before tribal council. Presuming that is true and that I have not been misinformed, that even adds to it. Then Sophie could have known. It seems like a very niche piece of knowledge, but presuming that's true, then yeah, it even adds to that that there was a way she could have known. But again, She eliminates all that by doing the right thing Because even Rizzo told Dalton Ross That Sophie should have taken his idol He said if you were going to throw Savannah and I And fire at final four

You might as well take my idol and send me packing at final six If you were going to flip regardless I would have been definitely upset But the right strategic move Yes agree Rizzo is Riz God Yes Now Savannah and Sage

didn't really have any significant dealings with idols or advantages. Christina, of course, had her own idol and she told those she believed were her tight allies. But then Sage told one of her allies who was not an ally because she wanted it flushed. And word got back to Trace Lace and Christina ended up playing it on Stephen for no purpose other than accidentally causing Jawan to be voted out because they knew she wouldn't use it on him. So he did impact things with the idol. not nearly in the way that she intended to. Yes, all very true.

Okay, moving to Appendix A, it discusses players keeping their end goals in mind when voting. We talk about voting out the weak, then the strong, then the weak, than the strong. At this final portion of the game, there's kind of a combination happening as players wanted to vote out those who were weak in terms of their alliances,

but strong in terms of being a threat to win. We saw Savannah wanting to go to the end with Trace Lachis and therefore take out. those who were not in their alliance. But of course, it's easy to want that when you believe you have the best chance in the group. Sophie and Rizzo finally realized they needed to try to take out the strongest threat there,

but it was too late and didn't work. And when it came to Christina, she fully met the conditions of the combination I mentioned. She was weak in allies, strong in threat to win firemaking. as we previously discussed. Rizzo said that while he felt he could win against either Christina or Sage at the end, it would be easier to beat Christina. But Savannah was right.

If you have two people you believe you can beat, you don't need to take the absolute easiest one if that person is also much more difficult to beat in another aspect. Plus, just her insisting on that, Savannah insisting on that and winning the debate. know to who had more control there. Yeah, and I really, again, I've already said it,

but I think this is a very impressive way as much as I can't stand firemaking to utilize the strategy around the firemaking because she understood, again, long-term thinking, how am I going to end up being in the final three? She's got to go, even though everyone was kind of scratching their heads at that moment, like, no, no, no, but she's not going to win. But if she's winning firemaking,

that means she's potentially taking, you out and so you're not sitting there. And so as much as I can't stand the firemaking, I appreciate Savannah's thought process on this for sure. Yeah. So all of this brings us to Appendix B, which deals with the jury and final tribal council. And I want to start out with something that a lot of us typically expect, but which came out into the open, thanks to Rizzo's interview with Mike Bloom. As he said, me getting to Ponderosa, I was able to paint the picture and really explained how I maneuvered behind the scenes. But the reality is I kind of went into the jury talking about my game, but I just gave

the credit all to Savannah. I was like, Savannah did that because I wanted her to win. Now, I know in the past we've heard of people telling the jury what a close ally did to help them out, I can't remember anyone actually lying to the jury, or at least admitting that they lied to the jury, and adding their own accomplishments. to those of an ally. Yeah, that's really damn dedicated right there to someone. I mean, that's crazy.

That's crazy. But also, to Savannah's credit, she formed such a close bond with Rizzo. And Rizzo formed such a close bond as Savannah that I feel like Savannah probably would have done the same thing with Rizzo. Because what does that then do to Rizzo? He gets to pat himself on the back and say, look, Savannah won was my game. though like I told the jury all of these things that she should get credit for but I was actually doing that so I kind of won but I just wasn't sitting in the final three so if I was sitting there you would have seen my game and wanted me to win so like you can feel like your game is the

winning game yeah maybe maybe she'll repay it uh you know in in in a few months maybe I don't know I got I've got a theory about oh okay um well in the reunion yellow Sophie said that Savannah was able to outlast when she was always an option. And this is something I said before the finale when some people in discussions were asking, well, what has Savannah really done and trying to suggest she wasn't going to win?

Pointed out, it's the jury's perception that matters. And they've been saying for a while, Savannah is a huge threat. Savannah is a huge threat. We have to get her out. And they didn't. It was already embedded in their minds. they basically pre-conditioned themselves by repeating it all season long.

It was highly unlikely. They were going to suddenly change their minds at final tribal council and say, oh, well, we just meant she was a threat to win challenges, not win the game. Right. What are we talking about? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Just so sad. Sophie, my girl. Sophie, so close. Yes. Now, Savannah did mostly well. and final tribal council, as they all appeared to do. Yes. But there was, of course, that question from Christina.

So I ask everyone to sit back and relax for a moment here because I want to talk about this. Christina asked her to name a family member for each of the jurors. And I know a number of people love this question for the drama it provided. I was not one of them. And I have strong feelings about it. Specifically, I hate it.

I really hate it. I've hated it since the first time it was ever asked. I know she was trying to make a point about Savannah's social game towards those who weren't in her alliance. But there were better ways to do it. What if you're just bad at remembering that sort of thing? Like I... Yes.

Me too. Yes. You could have a perfectly good social game without remembering names. Savannah had other issues. But personally, I cannot remember names for shit. even people I know well, it's just the way my brain works. Even in college, I lived on a dorm floor with the same guys all years, some for multiple years. And in the morning when I'd be walking to the shower at the other end of the hall,

they'd say, hi, David. And I'd say, hello, in response, because I could not pull their names out of my brain quickly enough. Mm-hmm. Yeah. More recently. Oh, listen. Yep. Yeah.

More recently, I played pickleball with essentially the same group of people every morning for a couple of years. And I still only remembered the names of a specific few people. And no way would I know anyone's spouse's name, even though I know there were others in the group who knew the names of spouses, kids, you name it. Savannah tried to show she still knew things about them, just not names. And I do something similar to what Savannah did, describing rather than naming. Like the other day, I saw some friends of my wife and they wanted me to tell her they said, hi. The problem was I had no memory of their names. Even though I've met them multiple times and had dinner with them and so on, I had to describe them. So I said, excuse me, I said, your friend

who loaned you those books when you were sick said, hi. She knew who I was talking about. She remembered the name. I did not. I said, oh, so does your other friend who has a really short haircut. Oh, she knew who I meant. Similarly, when my wife and I are out somewhere and someone comes up to me like I didn't expect them to be there and says hello I often can't remember their names in the moment so I introduce my wife I say oh hi this is my wife and I hope the other person will introduce themselves back so incidentally RHAP people if if you see me at an event and I've met you before but I don't remember your name please don't take it personally I I just it just it doesn't work uh in that way but

my point is everyone's brains are different yes my name doesn't connect names well my brain doesn't connect names well and i know i'm not alone savannah even told mike bloom i'm awful at names so i could be well fed on a beach resort vacation and still have a hard time remembering someone's mom's name yeah so because of this i don't like that christina used that as a gotcha moment it would be like saying here left-handed survivor player i want you to throw a ball righty at that target and then judge them negatively when they miss i i think it would have been better if christina had asked a question like tell us something we consider to be important about our real lives that would have gotten her point across just as well and it would have you know

shown that she valued the social game i don't consider that necessarily as important but at least it wouldn't have been like picking on this one specific area. It's the naming names thing that gets me. Now, all that said, I do have to admit, even I have to admit, that it was funny when Sophie was mouthing the names that Savannah couldn't remember because, hey, take advantage, whatever advantage the jury gives you. Yes. And I echo your sentiment wholeheartedly.

If there's one thing I have made very clear about myself is I am terrible at remembering people's names, but I am very good at remembering circumstances and things and details and facts. My job really kind of requires that, right, when I'm introducing information on all of these things. But I want to have a list of names in front of me to make sure that I have associated everybody correctly because I also have that disconnect in my head. I just for whatever reason. And I've tried the tricks of, you know, when they introduce themselves, repeat the name back to them. But I have the same trick with my husband, you know, or I'm like, oh, this is Aaron.

And I do the same type of thing because my brain just doesn't get there fasted up sometimes, regardless of how long I've known people. Birthdays are another thing. I'm terrible at remembering people's birthdays. And I, but, I mean, Savannah, not that she necessarily should have done this in the moment, but it's like, okay, well, would you like to go, you know, head to head with me? on a on a physical challenge right now like you're going to call me out on what i can't do let's call you out and what you can't do right i mean again everyone's strengths are different now i was a little

bit reminiscent at the moment though because i thought about borneo and when we saw this done as a challenge now there's something to be said again and i've already indicated this a bit that maybe challenges need to be expanded upon maybe we can't just have a challenge that's physical every single Maybe a memory challenge would be a good idea. Maybe something that would open up the ability to let other people have a shot at winning would be great. So I think perhaps Survivor needs to consider that element as well. Because we did see this as an actual challenge that was utilized. And it was knowing people well enough on your tribe to write things down about them.

And they've done this multiple times. And so that, I think, has been lost. like kind of forcing people to recognize the human element of the game, that it's not just physical, that it's not just who can hold, you know, this thing with their foot the longest or who has the most strength in their upper body to stand against a wall and press themselves there. There is a social part of this game that is being lost.

And so I can give Christina a little bit of credit for wanting to acknowledge that, that that's still a significant part of it. this game. But yes, I think the way that she went about it is not great because that is a disconnect that people can just have in their own heads and not have the memory ability to do that thing, which is remember people's spouses names and partners names and children's names. I've known people for years. I couldn't tell you what the name of their children are. I'm sorry for the friends of mine that are listening. Sorry. Yeah, I mean, I don't like, you know, when they had those challenges for that exact reason, you know, because it does, you know, it's like some people

say, Samotion is unfair to people, to lefties, because it's set up for righties. Well, okay, if you're going to say that Somotion is unfair to lefties for that reason, then it's the same thing. The way your brain works makes you a lefty or a righty. The way some of our brains work means you can't remember names. Now, and also how you're designed physically might affect your ability to actually do physical challenges. Right. So I guess, I guess I will backtrack a little. If it's one of many challenges, then yes, some things, some, you know, some things you're good at, some things you're not good at. So I guess in that aspect, it does, I could accept it more than as a, I'm going to judge your entire game based on this answer to your question. Right. And that's what I think

just needs to be interspersed a little bit, just a little bit more. But like, let's spread the wealth a little bit. It doesn't all have to be physical and then a puzzle and a puzzle's brain, but you've got all the physical stuff associated with it too. There are some other things that they could be doing as well. Now, getting back to Savannah, from her standpoint, she said in interviews that some aspects might have looked like a bad social game, but she knew she didn't need a unanimous vote at the end. And now, to me, that's a risk. And I think if you can just pretend to be nice to people, do it. But she said she connected with Alex and Stephen over work-related things and difficult

life moments and with Yellow Sophie about being oldest siblings and stuff like that. With her main point being similar to mine, as she told Mike Bloom, it goes to show like a connection that you have with someone can go beyond memorizing or remembering someone's name. It's much deeper and different for me. And I agree with that wholehearted. I do too, 100%. Now, another interesting question that came up was from Joanne, asking for their why. I was talking about this with Dr. Jeremy Faust, and we think alike, that it was a much better

version of the question Hugh asked a couple seasons ago that led to some jurors making a decision based on outside the game factors. Now, it's better because Joanne included in that question. that they should say whether or not it should matter. I'm still not thrilled ever with outside the game factors being brought up at all. Like, what are you going to do with the money, you know, et cetera? Because it still runs the risk of it being a repeat of what happened before. But I was happy that all three of them said it shouldn't impact their decision with,

I believe Savannah being the first to answer and starting that trend. However, I, if there were other players in that final, three, I could have seen some of them saying, yes, it matters. Yeah. Yeah. I do think that it was an interesting question because I do think that there is some significance in the answer as far as why are you playing this game? What is it necessarily for?

Because like Savannah's answer could have been seen as almost a selfish answer. But she explained that. She said even though people might think that sounds selfish. She explained why it wasn't. And so I do think that it gives people an opportunity to hear from you and what's like in your heart, which humanizes you a bit. And for Savannah, I was initially like, ooh, because you already are maybe not liked by people. And now you're like, yeah, and I'm doing this for me. Like, this is about me.

And people are going to be like, yeah, no, not going to well. But she explained it further. And then also did say, but that shouldn't affect your decision about why I should win or not win. So I think, though, personally, for me, if you're going to ask a question at the final travel council, you shouldn't then also put the asterisk next to it and say, but tell me if you think it should or should not affect my ability to vote for you or should it matter. because it should matter. Like what you're asking should matter. Yeah, you should pick a question that's going to matter no matter what,

which would in my mind preclude this question because it shouldn't matter. I mean, if I'm playing a game of monopoly against you, I don't, the goal is for each of us to win. If I'm playing poker against you, you know, which is probably a better thing, you know, because it's for money. I played poker against some people who I knew were playing with their, rent money. They shouldn't have been, but I'm not going to let them win just because they made that foolish decision. Right. You know, I don't care. I mean, their why is not my problem.

You know? I love that. So it's not my problem. I mean, it's true. And the same here. You know, people play Survivor. I know that we have seen Survivor and Rob has talked us about this a lot. migrate, you know, that Jeff wants it to be about the experience, but it's a game. Come down to it, it is a game. Right. Why are you playing to win? If you're not playing to win, well,

then we're going to point that out on this podcast and you can deal with that or not. Exactly. Probably if you're not playing to win, you're also not listening to this podcast. Also fair. Yeah. But yeah, to my mind,

like I said, your why is not my problem. and I'm not going to vote for someone because of it and I don't think that question really has a place being asked because then you can have bad outcomes like we saw a couple seasons ago, a few seasons ago. Yes. All right, well, moving on from that, I mentioned a few minutes ago that all three of the finalists

were shown having good final tribal councils. But earlier we talked about how the jury beat up on stage quite a bit more than we saw. on the flip side, Sophie apparently did even better than was shown. Oh, my girl, Sophie. Yes. In fact, Savannah said in interviews that she blew them out of the water and nailed her answers. It actually convinced Savannah that she lost until the votes were read.

Sophie told Mike Bloom, I explained, I always had knowledge in the game. I'm going to jump in here and say, yes, but not power. I had these, she continued, I had these relationships. where people were always giving me information. I think of a lot of the moves that Sav, Rizzo, and I did were able to be done because of the information I was able to get from the other side that a lot of times weren't shown.

And a big part of my game, too, was convincing Rizzo not to use the idol because there was many times that Rizzo almost did and I would convince him not to. Because ultimately, I knew that as long as he had an idol in the game, I had an idol in the game, because I could take it from him at any moment. That's great, but then you didn't.

Oh, gosh. Let's remind everybody again, that she didn't do that. She should have done. Yes. Now, from the sounds of it, she did as well as anyone could have in that situation. But the problem was so many jurors came into it

not having that impression of her. And much like we discussed about how Rizzo would have an uphill climb to explain his game, Sophie faced the same thing. She could explain it all, but they didn't see her doing those things. Right. Yeah. I agree with everything.

Okay. Well, although she didn't beat Savannah, Sophie said in interviews that she would have beaten Rizzo if he had won firemaking. While Rizzo said in his interviews that he would have won, each claim to have support for their position, but of course there's no way to know. Even for the jurors that Sophie said told her,

it doesn't mean it would have been, you know, whatever they're saying they would have chosen. It doesn't mean that would have been their decision in the moment because they would have had different information presented to them. That's why in the old reunions where Jeff would have people raise their hand, well, if this person were there,

would you have voted for them and they raised their head? You never know if that's true because those people have now watched the whole, the whole season play out. You're in a completely different mindset. You're well fed. You're arrested. It's, your your emotions are not as heightened so yes people can say whatever they want there's no way

to prove it either way right and i and did sophie say that someone actually told her oh yes that that they were going to vote for her and then like and then up not voting for her something along those lines i feel like somebody hugged her on the way out or something and oh that was christina had said, no, this was for Sage. This was for Sage. Oh, for Sage. For Sage, okay. Yeah, Christina said to say, when Christine was voted out, she told Sage, if you, if

you're at the end, I'll vote for you. And then she didn't because, again, in exchange, circumstances change. That's why I brought that point up for you. Yeah. See? I'm supporting you. Yeah. Well, thank you.

Now, speaking of Sage, I already mentioned she had a rougher final tribal council than we saw, which is, we didn't know. at the time, but this is what led to her emotional moment in the reunion because she was sitting there thinking they all hated her. Yeah. But even aside from what we didn't see, I mentioned she did pretty well, but I had some thoughts there also. We've talked many times about how it's a bit silly to hide your job and then try to drop a big final tribal council bomb unless it's like really something that impacted your game or someone's perception of you. Sage told everyone she had been in the military and intelligence as if it was going to

completely shock them. It really didn't seem like anyone cared. I can't imagine sitting there that I would have. She did try to work the intelligence analyst into part of some of her other answers. I even quoted one earlier, but it really didn't make a difference. Yeah, I mean, it was interesting. I feel like she could have done this in a different way that wasn't so like in your face. like I want to have this aha moment.

She could have led with this idea of her being perceived as an emotional player and that that was a strategic choice that she made. Right. And she came to realize that that was a good strategic move because of the work that she actually does. So she could have like mentioned it kind of like offhand, like I actually don't do that. I do this other thing, which led me to do this thing, right? So it's like you lead with the strategic part of your game and what you did. And then you're like, and it's, it stems from this.

So you minimize it where you're not like, ooh, look at me. I feel like she could have done that in that fashion. Yeah. Yeah, I think of more importance than her old job was that Christina told Rob, Sage didn't really own her game. That the jury told her what they saw, but it wasn't getting through. Right. We talked earlier about how she separated her emotions and voted people out

according to what she believed was the best strategy. But some of the jurors seemed to think that, first of all, it was not the best strategy, which I agree with. And second of all, they thought they were close to her and then she just cut them. I think there was this big disconnect there between what she thought was happening and what they felt happening. Yes. Yes. And I think it's a difference of your headspace, you're in that moment. She's clearly like in a much different way than everyone who's sitting there. and they've all had an opportunity to talk to each other at Ponderosa, right?

And to kind of like work through things. So everyone is coming at it from a different perspective and a different vantage point. She doesn't know what those conversations have entailed. And she can only assume. And then when it's being presented in a way that is like at her and kind of accusatory, then of course that's going to affect the way that she is then responding to the questions because she's more defensive than she necessarily needs to be because this is how it's being presented to her.

Yeah. Yeah. One thing that Sage said in some of her interviews struck me. And I wanted to mention that as well. We knew she wanted to go to the end with Blue Sophie and Christina. But she said if she couldn't do that, she wanted to go with two out of the three in the Trace-Laychase Alliance. She told Mike Bloom, my hope was by having two of them,

They feel conflicted on the jury. Like, we want to give it to both of them. So if I have three potentially, that I might be able to win by one freaking vote just because of conflict between do we vote for Sof or Savannah? Do we vote for Rizzo or Savannah? Do we vote for Sof or Rizzo? Now, I know this is something people often talk about, splitting the vote of two allies and getting in there to win.

But when has it actually happened? as far as I can remember never never ever we've seen situations where people who might have split the vote end up adding their votes to the eventual winner because they worried about this sort of thing happening like happened in winners at war yes I was just going to bring that up right there were people who are going to vote for Michelle and they were like oh no we want Michelle to get second but it's more important that you know we give Tony first because we don't want Natalie to get first. But I can't recall this actually occurring.

Right. And I mentioned it on Blue Sky. Nobody there, at least to this point, as said, oh, here's a situation. And user ET, probably not the real one, pointed out that with an eight person jury, you still need four votes to win. A three, three, two split means the person in third place, who is an ally of the person you're tied with cast the deciding vote so you still need half the jury yeah no not a great plan but an interesting thought an interesting thought but i i think we can

just say this is not going to stop thinking it's going to i i think i may even mention it not making fetch happen it's not going to yeah Now, moving outside those who actually made it to final three, Rizzo explained in interviews why he was putting on his antics at tribal councils. He said it, he took inspiration from Tony and Cagion and more recently Ferris from Australian Survivor, who I'm sure you know well. He believed players who were showmen at tribal council earned respect from the jury and showed that they were involved in the game, even though a lot of their activity was behind

the scenes like his. My problem here is, again, I see a disconnect. The way he was acting with the idol and everything else, it did not point to him as he said, quote, steering the votes. And we previously heard from Stephen that it seemed to be having the opposite effect. So I don't know what Rizzo thought he was going to accomplish. I don't think it had its intended effect.

No, I mean, I think this goes back to an issue that we've talked about previously when you're on the jury the only thing that you're seeing is tribal council and that's it and then you're hearing from people who come into ponderosa about things that are happening in the game so you're collecting bits of information but the only thing you see is the show if you will that's being put on at tribal and so i think in rizzo's mind he thought maybe that will make me more at the forefront because they they will see me they'll remember me from the tribal councils So then I might be the conversation topic after that because I'm the one that they're seeing so much of, then that's going to force them to talk about me. And so it's almost like a mental, what's the word I'm thinking of?

Like you're, it's like a, you're planting yourself in their head so they think about you, right? So it's not necessarily they're like, oh, Rizzo's doing so great at the game. It's like all you can think about is Rizzo because it's all you're seeing is Rizzo. That's all you're hearing is Rizzo. Yeah. I mean, I guess I, like I said, I just think there was a big disconnect there. Oh, I'm not saying there wasn't a disconnect, but I think maybe that's what was part of Rizzo's thinking is that if you are the most visible, you will be the most talked about. You will then be the most remembered.

Yeah. It's just the way he said it would connect back to him steering the ship. I don't see how it accomplished that. I understand. And then for Christina, she said in her interviews that she thinks if she'd made it to final three, she would have had a good chance because she had really good relationships with most people in the jury. Obviously, I can't say for sure. And there's always the possibility she's right.

I think that just as she did with her final tribal counsel question, she overvalued those friendships and relationships. As I said earlier, this jury clearly wasn't just voting for the person they liked the most. They were voting according to gameplay and the person who was the biggest threat and made it through. Rizzo even told Mike Bloom, I think Nate, Alex, Stephen were all wanting to vote for the best player. I'm sorry, but that does not describe Christina. Even though we discussed earlier how she had tried to make certain moves, trying doesn't matter much if you're overruled by the other people.

Very, very fair. All right. Well, you've come to the end here. is about time to wrap things up. So what are your final thoughts on Savannah and the others in the final five? I have to start with three girls on a bench, three girls on a bench,

three girls in final tribal council. Thank you so much for that, ladies. That was lovely to see. And I do appreciate that they celebrated that moment as well. It was so great to see these three lovely ladies, Savannah, Sophie, and Sage sitting there and also watching their gameplay, throughout the entire season.

I do think just a little bit that we were somewhat spoiled. We can now talk about the fact that Savannah is, are we allowed to say it? Are we allowed to, oh yeah, it's official. Yeah. I don't know what you're talking about.

I just found out. What are we talking about? Savannah's on season 50. I know. I was shocked. So, so I, and I feel the same with Rizzo as well.

Like, because Rizzo is also going to be on season 50 and Sage acknowledged it in her exit press that, we knew that this was going to be the Savannah Rizzo show because they are coming back on 50 not to say that they shouldn't be coming back on 50 but we saw a lot of their game more so than other players necessarily that being said Savannah is an absolute challenge beast hands down no question she is so incredibly impressive and I love the fact that she recognized that about herself and also recognized her flaws as well and was still able to like balance it

all out. She knew that these people might not necessarily like her that much. She kind of leaned into that a little bit and then relied upon her challenges and also relied upon the social connections that she did make to help carry her through the game. Rizzo and Sophie loved Savannah and vice versa. And they were helping each other further each other in the game. So her social game, well, not that strong, it was strong where it mattered, right? She had the two people in her pocket that she needed. And so Savannah just killed it. She was great.

Sophie, you're my girl. You're my winner pick. And I was so close. You were so close. You were so close to finally correcting the narrative that exists around Jessica, that Jessica's winner pick will go home almost immediately. I will cause your downfall. Sophie, maybe I caused you to get second.

I mean, it's better than going home first, right? I will say that. Sophie has a great social game. She really is someone who just knew how to connect with everybody and knew how to find the relationships that matter and really ingratiate herself to those around her. So Sophie, I think you are fantastic. Love that you found people that needed you.

Love that you were adopted and you were able to maintain your position in this game, carry you all the way through. Sage, I know that people have talked a lot about your emotional reactions in the game, the decisions that you made. We now know that it was interesting. strategic decision that you made. So that was a very interesting thing to learn about you in the end. I'm sorry that it didn't work out for you in the way that you wanted.

And also, it's a little frustrating to be treated the way that you were in final travel counsel, but that comes with making those emotional connections with people. When you do have a true relationship, they're going to feel a little more hurt when they feel like they have been turned on by you in that way, especially in a game for a million dollars.

So that's tough. But Sage, you were fun to watch, incredibly impressive as well with the things that you were able to do. Rizzo, you are a Riz God. We've all acknowledged that. We know this about you. I was a little bit concerned about you at the beginning because I was like, wow, is he going to be too much, too over the top? But somehow you balanced it and made it work. And I will echo the sentiments of someone very close to us, and that would be Rob Sessor, Meno, who basically went on the record to say,

you know what, Rizzo, you did it and you did it well, and I think you're going to do it again. So I echo all of the sentiments you said there. And Christina, your social game was your key component of what you did. You made social connects, you made those relationships, but also it was kind of your downfall at the same time because you were so affected by those social relationships. He didn't actually utilize the relationships in the manner that you should have. Use the social connects you have to force the game to move in the direction. you want, not just to have people around you who you're playing with, but you are not

furthering your game playing with them. And so that's unfortunate that we didn't get to see you carry it all the way through. Clearly, you were making fire. So that was great. And you became a threat there. But the social component only will carry you so far. And I think it's interesting that we can see such a juxtaposition between Christina and Savannah. Because Savannah, who didn't have a great social game, but had two people that mattered. Christina had a great social game, had a lot of people that mattered, but it didn't carry the day. So overall, thank you for season 49. Thank you all did a fantastic job. It was super fun to watch. A little bit frustrating at times. I'm not going to lie, because I do think that we were looking for something in places

that it just didn't exist, but they were all playing their own games, very individualistic, doing their thing, and I know that David Bloomberg is going to have an incredible recitation about all of their games and all of the things that they do. So thank you so much to everyone. Congrats, Savannah. You deserve the win. It was absolutely incredible, amazing. Sophie, my girl, I mean, you were my winner pick, so I wish you had won, but I understand why you didn't. And so with that, I will turn it over to David Bloomberg, who will whisk us all into the world of David Bloomberg and everything that exists in his brain, and we will be odd, and we will just be floored by his

ability to break it all down for us in this final last step. You've set the bar really high there and now, you know, it's... You always do it, though. You know this. Well, I mentioned a couple times already that we often hear from some people that the survivor jury just votes

for whoever they like best at the end. Throughout this season, it was clear. Savannah was not the person they liked best. And yet the majority still voted for her. Obviously, you can't be so hated that it actively makes people not want to vote for you, but in most seasons these days, jurors want to vote for the people who played the best game. And of the final three, Savannah clearly did that. I'm not saying players can just ignore the social game. And Savannah

wouldn't say that either. She took a focused view of things, not expending energy on those she knew would never vote for her to win at the end anyway. And of course, she had an incredibly tight relationship with Rizzo and Blue Sophie. That alliance paid dividends as it was the only one that held firm in the post-merge. They took a three-person minority and turned it into a majority. Each of them played a role with Rizzo leading the strategy behind the scenes, Sophie bringing in loads of information that others foolishly told her, and Savannah being out front.

The thing about being out front is it can make you the biggest target. but also the one who gets the most credit if you can make it to the end. And there's really no way Savannah should have made it to the end. She was seen as the biggest threat for at least half the game. But she stayed safe by a combination of winning immunity, working with Rizzo and Sophie to keep the target off of her and on other people and bad moves by the opposition,

who kept saying they wanted her gone, but never acted on it. Although winning immunity challenges isn't a strategy. when she did it, it seemed to throw people off early in the merge. Like they weren't willing to split the vote to flush Rizzo's idol if she wasn't available to be the second person. And they kept pushing back the time when they planned to go against her, expecting her to magically lose immunity according to their calendar schedule rather than just getting rid of her when they should or could.

Both. Once Savannah wore the mantle of the biggest threat to win, that's stuck in players' heads. We've said before that once people begin thinking of someone in a particular way, it is very difficult to change their minds. This works both positively and negatively. If they think of an opponent as a big threat, and yet that person makes it all the way to the end,

they're thinking continues. You can't say they were a big threat the whole game and not give them the win, right? Similarly, if you think someone was not really playing the game and they make it to the end. It's easy to discount anything they may say at final tribal council. This worked to Savannah's advantage and Sophie's disadvantage in the end. Christina thought that if she got to the final three, she could win.

But what I just mentioned makes me highly doubt that. She was great socially, but strategically messy and not seen as someone who took a lead role. Her greatest strength was firemaking, and that got turned against her. Rizzo also believed he would win if he got to the end, and he might have. But the way people's minds work, as I just mentioned, it would have made it an uphill battle. It's a battle I would have enjoyed watching, but unfortunately, his flame flickered out just before. And then he handed over all the credit for his moves to Savannah. Sage did a lot of strategic work in the game, too much as a matter of fact.

she said in the reunion that she predicted Savannah would win very early on. But then when the opportunity presented itself, she and her allies just kept creating a circular firing squad and taking out each other instead. And while she spent most of the game separating her emotions from her strategic decisions, she let emotion get the best of her in what would have been the key time to get Savannah out. And then that very split of emotions and strategy came back to bite her in the form of some rather upset jurors who felt she had used their real emotional connections against them. By all accounts, Sophie had a great final tribal council and was able to explain the moves she made and how she helped the trio progress rather than just riding Rizzo and Savannah's coat tail.

but as I said the jury was already primed to think of her a certain way they couldn't give credit to both Sophie and Savannah and they'd spent the better part of 26 days giving it to Savannah Savannah Savannah herself of course made alliances early and stuck to them she maneuvered herself into a good position even though it should have been a bad one

surviving a flip against your alliance and a total blind side that put you in the extreme minority is impressive. Winning four immunity challenges is impressive, though not something I particularly care about in the day. Making it through the times when you don't have immunity is even more impressive, especially when almost everyone else keeps talking about how they want you out. Savannah overcame the flaws in her social game. She wasn't everybody's friends, but

she certainly had at least two of the right friends. Many of them saw her winning as a foregone conclusion if they didn't get her out. And they didn't get her out. So they had to make that conclusion real. And that is why Savannah won and

Sophie, Sage, Rizzo, and Christina lost. There we are. Oh my gosh It's over It's almost over The show is over But don't turn off yet

Because we want to remind everyone But the rules we just discussed Are now available in poster form That's right On a T-shirt form And checklist on a T-shirt form Get on that The poster

Get it while it's on sale That's right 20% Hurry up Don't do it Don't let it go off sale. Don't miss this deal. That's right.

Oh, and if you'd like to look at us on social media and things, you certainly can. I am at Jessica Lewis 89 on both Blue Sky and that thing called X. I'm also at Jessica Lewis 6-789 on Instagram. Now, I will say much of my Instagram content is stories that I steal from David Bloomberg. Because David Bloomberg is a social media guru. is constantly posting on so many platforms, so many that he needs a link tree in order to describe all of those platforms

that you can find him on. So David Bloomberg, where can everyone find you? So you can find those various accounts at Linktree slash David Bloomberg or directly on Blue Sky is at David Bloomberg. Talk about all sorts of things there. We'll continue talking about all sorts of things there,

even in the off-season. So come over to Blue Sky for all of your discussion. sessions. I've also been posting two or three reality TV short videos every day on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram where I'm at David Bloomberg TV. Now, most of them have been, of course, about Survivor 49 plus the Traders Canada season three. And I've even been posting some looking ahead to the Traders U.S., which some guy we know is on. Some guy. Some guy. Now, obviously, things will start to change in the coming days as we phase out Traders Canada season three.

I'll still have more Survivor 49 for a little while, but I'll be phasing in more of that Traders U.S. content and even some looks at Survivor 50 players during the break. And then very shortly, the Traders UK will start up and the Traders U.S. will start up. and I will not only have videos about those, but we'll be co-hosting the Tradar podcast. So that's T-R-A-I-D-A-R.

And we just finished up the Traders Canada with two podcasts for the finale and look for me, like I said, for the Traders U.S. and the Traders U.K. And videos. And I'm going to try something here. Oh, there's more? A special request of a few people.

Well, more than a few. I'm going to be doing many Y-blank losts on short video or the trader's U.S. And we'll see how those go. You. You are just growing your platform every day. Well, we'll see if it grows. We'll see if people like them. Well, you continue to do so.

You know, from the guy who was like, I don't want to do video podcast. Are you kidding me? Like how many years ago is that? Now it's like, look at you. You're like posting on everything video related. all David Bloomberg all day long. That's right. That's right.

That is my goal. Take over the world. All David, all day. Love that. Good for you. But as we wrap up, I also want to encourage people besides all David all day. You should also check out RHAP.

And you should join the patron program at robeswebbside.com slash patron. You can get access to all of the special podcasts that are put out just for patrons, plus Facebook groups and Discord. and discounts on, you know, they've announced three shows, three live shows for Survivor 50 already. Of course, patrons get first access to those and discounts. And most importantly, you support shows like ours and everything on the network by becoming a patron that Rob has a website.com slash patron. Also, make sure you're ready for Survivor 50 by subscribing to the RHAP Survivor Podcasts at we know Survivor.com. go there subscribe you will be ready all of them will come into your feet absolutely and we would like

to thank everyone from rjp especially scott and jess for the incredible work that you do leading the charge for all of the content behind the scenes the editing putting everything together not just for why blink loss but everything that david bloomberg was just speaking up you all do such amazing work we are so lucky to be part of this little family it's so lovely rob cistern you know you're pretty kickass i'm just going to throw that in there too And thank you, too, Will from America for the theme song that you did create for this particular podcast that you hear on the audio version. So thank you, Will from America. It is catchy, lovely.

It's great tune. You should definitely listen to it. Get it in your head. So, David, here we are. Another season down. Another season down. Done. Yes.

I'm stunned. I'm stunned. It does not seem like, you know, I mean, as we were approaching the family, I'm like, it's here already. I know. You know what? I'm happy. Yes. I'm happy. Yes.

I need some time. Well, yeah. Thank you not just for a great episode here, a long episode. This is debatable. I'm not sure if this is going to be the longest. We had one really long one earlier. So we'll see if this is it. We'll see.

I all rights. This should be the longest. It should be. But thank you for an awesome 10th anniversary season. Of course, we will continue our 10th anniversary. year with Survivor 50. I hope you and all our listeners have a great holiday season and New Year. Yes.

Happy holidays, everyone. Yes, we will be back in what will seem like a blink of an eye with Survivor 50 preview in just a couple months. Mm-hmm. So until then, find us on social media. Find me in my video sites and say hello wherever you would like. Until then. Bye.

Bye. Thank you. Thank you.