RHAP: We Know Survivor - Why ___ Won (And the Others Lost) Survivor 47

Episode Date: December 21, 2024

The Survivor 47 Final 4 could be broken down into two pairs. Two of them were threats to win, two weren’t. Two claimed to be underdogs who stuck around due to their own gameplay while two didn’t have the same claim. In the end, it came down to a decision between Rachel and Sam. They fought it out in Final Tribal Council, but the real battle took place over the course of weeks leading up to that. David Bloomberg and Jessica Lewis look at what each of the Final 4 did right to get this far into the game and how one of them rose above the others. At RHAP, we know Survivor, and we know Why Rachel Won, and Sam, Sue, and Teeny Lost.

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this is why blank lost baby this is why blank lost Welcome back to Why Blank Lost, or as we call it this time every season, Why Blank Won. Yay! I'm David Bloomberg, and joining me as always is my co-host, Jessica Lewis, who may not have won four individual immunity challenges but is still in the survivor history books it's really funny I wish I was in the survivor history books for a game like Rachel played but unfortunately mine is associated to a rock so you know at least I at least I have something right there's a thing that does exist in as far as i

know you're the you know last rock draw uh i think we really turned people off from it this is a terrible idea and it really is a terrible idea so yes i mean yes seeing you crying there probably did you know make people realize, we don't want to do this. Yeah, no, I would much rather be looking at my survivor game going, God, I was such a badass like Rachel was like, that was just incredible. But, you know, enough about me. Let's just talk about her and and all of the incredible things she did and everyone else who almost got there.

Yes. Didn't quite got there. Yes. Didn't quite make it. Yes. Yeah. I think it was a great finale. Oh gosh. It was so good. I was worried going in because they had literally no votes.

I mean, you know, no, no people were being voted out. Oh yes. And I, so I have to applaud survivor production for managing to turn what ended up as a seven to one vote into pretty compelling television that. Yes.

At least seemed like it could go another way. I mean, I was pretty sure it wasn't, but they still did a good job with it. And, you know, people were you could tell people talking on on social media on Blue Sky like, oh, my gosh, is Sam is sam you know winning this fight with this final tribal council and stuff like that so he really did a great job yeah now a lot of people were predicting that rachel would win and that sam would need to find a way to get her out if he wanted to have a real chance but the questions we have to answer revolve around well why that was the case uh to figure that out we'll compare all of their games 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 information available to us from what we saw on tv interviews social media and secret scenes and of course the newest version can be found at rob has website.com slash yx lost feed and then you scroll and click on the bubble for the survivor rules. Now, one thing I want to remind everyone about before we get started is that because we have to talk about four different players, we unfortunately can't give all of them the time they deserve or else we'd be here for like over five hours, which is not ideal. I can't do that. I have a family holiday party tomorrow.

I think that's tomorrow. I mean, I understand, but I still have a house to clean and things that need to be done. But this clean house obviously takes. This certainly takes priority right now. So, well, yes, yes. And the listeners appreciate that. Now on the plus side for those players, well, they didn yes. And the listeners appreciate that. Um, now on the plus side

for those players, well, they didn't get a whole podcast devoted to them because they didn't lose earlier. Um, fair, very fair. Before we address how the final four did in terms of the rules, we always have some other things to discuss from the episode. And I have two things that i want to mention first regarding final tribal council it was so refreshing to see a jury who wanted to hear what the finalists had to say about their game and didn't put artificial limits on how they could say it or how much time they had you know one thing we complained about last season was the ridiculous 30 second clocks that stopped players from actually being able to explain what they did in the game yes not to mention that this jury asked questions about

the game instead of things like what will you do with the money uh so babe even jumped in to be like uh i would like to also hear from Sue, like, let's give her a chance to answer this question too, which I thought was really nice as well, because I did feel like she was getting a little bit left behind and it was nice that someone said, Hey,

let's, let's get her into the, the, the discussion here. I applaud the jury. So yes, the jury did a great job. I,

I will say too what was so lovely about the whole structure of it was i i feel like even though jeff was going to each player individually on the jury and and and giving them an opportunity to speak, it just felt different. It didn't necessarily feel forced. I feel like in seasons past, it's almost felt a little, I don't know, not even like scripted, but it was almost like the juries

that we've seen of late felt like they had to present a particular way. Like we have to be like rough and we need to really like try to put people in their place. And this group just was like, I want to have a nice discussion and I want to talk about things and I want to learn some things. And I, and I think that might stem from the fact that people on the jury really were curious because they were really trying to make a decision. I don't think anyone necessarily walked in there and said, I know who I'm voting for and I know what is going to be.

I think they came in with an idea for sure, but I think they were also willing to listen. Oh yes, they were definitely willing to listen. So you're saying that this jury was this guy and the juries you don't like are

this guy. You with the cookies again. How many of these cookies do you have well i didn't bring them out last time so only you got to see them last time oh that's you didn't show them to everyone ah i see i how many do i have now those two and you know what i'm not gonna be around longer. I'll tell you that much. I like that. The angry one is cute though. And the angry one is cute. Yeah. So now the other thing that I wanted to discuss, buckle up people is fire making. Oh, yeah. Well, not so much.

Everyone knows how much we love that. Yeah. Not so much. I want to discuss it, but I feel like we have to. Now, we'll, of course, discuss how Rachel handled her decision when we get to rule seven. But I want to talk about fire making in general and also address some specific questions that came up regarding teeny against Sam. For the first part, we need to bring back our semi regular segment. Jeff Probst is wrong about blank, we need to bring back our semi-regular segment. Jeff Probst is wrong about blank because we have to discuss what he said in his on fire podcast about why Final Four firemaking will never go away. I really didn't want to do this over again. I swear, I swear I did not, because it sounds like we're just complaining about something that we now know is a permanent part of the game but then jeff just had to say something yes um you know he said that he put

final four fire making in because he felt there was a hole in the game in that the last trinket uh that can save a person is an idol that expires at final five so nothing but winning the immunity challenge can keep you safe at final four. Oh my gosh. Is that so terrible? Yes. He said,

so once you get to four players, there wasn't anything left in the game that could save you other than winning individual immunity. And then Jeff continued by saying there were several seasons in a row where a very dominant player would get voted out at final four. And to Jeff quote, it didn't feel fundamentally fair but there was a place where there was no possible protection okay jeff jeff are you listening this thing on yeah there is something that can save you you in the game and it's totally fair it's called playing the game strategizing socializing there's a whole reason or there's a reason that i have a whole rule telling players not to be too

much of a threat it is part of the game but of course it's a part of the game jeff doesn't like he wants everyone to be out there and be big threats. Yeah. Now, this is interesting because I can certainly look back at my own season and how things kind of played out and everyone wanting to get David out. And then when the opportunity came and then he wasn't voted out and then it was, you know, and Brett went home instead. And those decisions can be made and people can almost make the wrong decision. Right. Because he David wasn't voted out and he was given another shot to potentially win in the end.

And he did end up getting voted out next. But it's one of those circumstances that I do think becomes lost because there's too much emphasis now on fire making challenge as opposed to how I can scheme and plot and relationship building that's going to help me get to the final three. Instead of who am I going to sit next to and make a fire? And did I practice fire? And can I make a fire in the fastest? And that to me is not survivor. Yes. You need to know how to survive to play survivor, but that's not what the game of survivor is all about. It's not about making a fire. Right. Yeah. Now there, there was a point where Jeff got honest about the reason. Uh, and that was when he switched from discussing

gameplay to a storytelling perspective. And he said it wasn't dramatic when someone like that got voted out. And let's face it, that's the real answer. It has nothing to do with the game of Survivor. It's all about the TV show of Survivor. And I understand he is making a TV show. I just wish he would admit that upfront instead of trying to make these really bad game related excuses. That's interesting.

Yeah. But even aside from that, there can be other ways to handle it without showing us the same thing over and over again. So, yeah. Yeah. I will say, I mean, the fire making was exciting yes it was an exciting

showdown even i can't deny that um you know and so yeah but again you know like we say doesn't mean it should be part of the game. And I was so happy to see the jury completely disregard the outcome in deciding the winner. Because that's exactly. Well, you won't let me talk about it right now. Okay. Well, that's exactly what a few of us were saying should happen in a discussion

on blue sky before the finale. You know, Jeff may push fire making but that doesn't mean the jury has to cave in and give a special reward to the person who wins this jury as we will discuss considered a lot of different factors but fire making thankfully wasn't one of them sorry yeah no that's that's. Yeah. We don't like fire making. No. In this particular fire making, we saw that Teenie was way ahead and it looked like they were going to easily win. But then the wind kept blowing their fire away from the rope.

And Sam eventually got his fire going and blew it up big enough to overtake Teenie and win. Now, some questions came up about this now a few of them i've already answered um in in short videos but a few things have been confirmed since then and i know not everyone who listens to the podcast watches my youtube shorts at david bloomberg, but they should. But anyway, what happened here? One of the questions was, well, whether teeny was just unlucky with the wind. Like, was it just a bad pick? Was it just a bad spot?

And that is possible and may contribute. But even on the night of the episode, I rewatched, I looked at fire making closely and I posted a photo on social media. That while teeny built their fire directly under the rope, which Jeff even mentioned, it seemed from watching that Sam built his fire a little behind it. It seemed from watching that Sam built his fire a little behind it, such that the wind would blow the flame towards the rope instead of away from it. And indeed, Sam confirmed this in his interview with Dalton Ross. Yeah, that is definitely a smart move for sure. Yeah, especially since he was behind. And if he had noticed it, which he said he didn't even he he was focusing on his own, but if he had noticed it, it would have been like,

oh, I could move it over here and do this. So no, it was not all luck. A number of us also noticed that Sam added more husk or what is, what does Jeff call it? Hessian or whatever, to build up his fire quickly near the end. And it's a risk because as Jeff always says, it burns hot quickly. And if you run out and the fire dies and well, you're screwed. It was worth the risk for Sam because he was already behind.

He needed that big burst of heat and he got it right when he needed it. Yes. Yeah. And I, I did think that it was rather funny that teeny looked over at Rachel and said, what do I, what do I do now? Yeah. Yes. Keep adding sticks. This crazy idea when you're making a fire, right? Well, okay. So it's, it's funny you say that because a lot of people online had other ideas because another question was, could teeny have gotten up and worked the fire from the other side or tried to block the wind or something like that? I checked it with, you know, in almost real time with a former survivor player who did fire making and they said they were not told of any rules to prohibit it. Similarly, Nick Iadanza from Australian Survivor posted, you know, about the same thing on social media.

I was also asked if Teenie could have tried like moving, pulling the fire backwards so the flame would blow towards the rope. And I'm sure they could have, but it's fire. It's hot. You're grabbing it with your bare hands. I don't recommend it. Even trying to use sticks,

I don't think would have worked very well. And the other thing is, that structure is, it's not exactly very stable. It's a pile of sticks. So I feel like it would have fallen. And that wouldn't have left much fire at that point. You know, in retrospect, should Teenie have tried it?

I guess. But at the time, they had this huge roaring fire and was just kind of waiting for the wind to die down. Then that didn't happen. I just think they picked the wrong seat. I don't know who picked first, but. Teeny did. Okay. Well, Teeny picked the wrong seat then.

Yeah. Well, I think it's more than that. Like I said, I mean, there were these other things going on. Oh, sure. But, you know, Teenie did tell Mike Bloom, I really wish I had Twitter out there in that moment to tell me about the standing up. I should have thought to stand up and block it.

Now, first of all, Teenie, come on. You're on Blue Sky. You know it's Blue Sky now, not Twitter. But, yes, it is a lot easier for us. Staying mean over social media choices. No, they use both. They're on both. But yes, it's a lot easier for us at home to think about it

rather than the person doing it in the literal heat of the moment. Sure. Yeah. And I do think that Sam even spoke to this, and you've already mentioned it, that he didn't even necessarily notice what was happening because he was so focused on what was going on. And I do think that there's a lot to be said about sitting in that moment. So many things going through your head and trying to figure out what you're going to do.

I'm sure that it was very frustrating, but all happening so very fast. So, yeah, after the fact, stand up, block the wind, do all of these things at the, at the time you're just like, what's happening? Why is it not burning the rope? It's literally right there. I think Nick Iodanza also suggested things like, uh, as much as like wear your loosest clothes, wear a jacket, open the, you know, open it up to help block the

wind thing, you know, plan. I mean, players, right. That's right. Players will know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's an interesting component that apparently is never going away. Yes. Um, before we move on, I have the small tangent I want to mention because I've been holding onto it all season long, uh, way back in our preview podcast, I said we should have a special code phrase so that not only can people from RHAP recognize each other without outing themselves, but specifically those who listen to this podcast. Oh, so when they're on the show.

Yes, yes. Yes, I recall, okay. Okay, so Eric on Instagram suggested something at the time. And like I said, I've been holding on to it. Now seems like the right time to mention it. So any future Y Blank Lost listener should say to the other players, I'm not a big fan of the Final Four Firemaking Challenge. And then any other listeners should be on the lookout for this and should reply,

but it's better than a rock draw. Listeners should be on the lookout for this and should reply, but it's better than a rock draw. But what if only one half is stated, then that person is. Well, if only the first half is stated, then nobody knows it was a code phrase and you just go on your merry way with your discussion. Interesting. And so, but if both halves, then you can connect and create an alliance and, you know, and then we'll talk about you on Y Blank 1 because you created such a good alliance. I love this. It's an interesting plan.

At least it's better than, what was it, the bunny was in the mailbox or something yes yeah exactly goats on astroturf i don't know all right well do you have anything or anyone else that you want to discuss before we get to the rules no i really would just like to say that this was a very exciting final episode considering that it was just waiting for the final event to happen. Right. But overall, really incredibly amazing group of people to watch in the final four.

So I just thoroughly enjoyed it. And we have a lot of talking to do. So let's talk about all of those amazing people. Now, before we get to how the final four did, I, we want to mention of course that the rules we're about to discuss come in a shorter and much more colorful version in poster form yes i do i believe it's still on sale right it is still on sale and i have been

madly mailing them out all right so it's still on sale now as we're recording this by the time the earliest anyone will see this is december 21st i don't think you're going to get it in time for christmas if you order now but you can get it by the end of hanukkah if you order it right now uh that's the advantage of having the longer holiday um and eight days of presents isn't that part of the two yeah oh i'm jealous uh so again they're on sale for 20 off only 16 and plus shipping go to rob his website.com slash yx lost feed scroll down to the poster click on it order it jessica will get it to you as soon as share it with your friends because i am finding that we have bulk orders happening and people are sharing them

with their watch groups. Yes. So this is very exciting. I love that we are part of that. Yeah. So thank you everyone who is doing that. And thank you for everyone who's just ordering. Right. And if you want it, so it's something you can wear around, you can scroll down and order the poster on a t-shirt or checklist on a t-shirt like I'm wearing, except I'm wearing it backwards. So those I, you know,

we don't control the shipping on those, but order them as soon as you can. So, so yeah, again, robhaswebsite.com slash YX lost feed and you'll be set. Yes. All of your survivor needs. You can prepare to get out there and then you'll know the code words. It'll be great. Yes,

exactly. There's so many things I want to do and see like Like redoing the basement without having to do it all myself. Or doing absolutely nothing. With a spectacular waterfall view, of course. So, I'm starting here. Investing with RBC. When it comes to reaching your goals, personalized advice and performance matter. And now, you can get $300 when you invest with RBC.

Offer ends March 3rd, 2025. Terms and conditions apply. Invest with RBC today. Well, the final four could reasonably be broken down into two pairs. Two of them were threats to win at the end. Two of them really weren't. Two of them claimed to be underdogs who stuck around due to their own gameplay, while two of them really were under. Two of them claimed to be underdogs who stuck around due to their own gameplay, while two of them really were underdogs, but didn't really have the same level of gameplay. In the end, it came down to a decision between Rachel and Sam. They fought it out in final tribal council, but the real battle took place over the course of weeks leading up to that.

What did each of the final four do correctly to get this far into the game? And how did one of them rise above the others? At RHAP, we know Survivor, and we know why Rachel won and Sam, Sue, and Teenie lost. Yes. Well, we start with the first and most important rule Which is to scheme and plot Rachel, of course, understood the need to do this And began early on as she was in a tight duo with Annika While also believing she was good with Sierra and Sam And that was going fine until the second got a vote

When she and Annika were blindsided But she still regrouped with Sierra and Sam to head into the merge And then Sierra were blindsided, but she still regrouped with Sierra and Sam to head into the merge. And then Sierra was blindsided and Rachel felt basically alone. We'll talk more about how she reacted to that in rule three, but she rebounded again and ended up with a very tight ally in Caroline. Plus of course, Sue. And then they got into a trio with Andy and Teenie. And she got into a trio together. There were five of the underdogs and she was the linchpin of it. Now, I noted at the time she was in a key spot.

She had two on each side and she could choose her path to the end. It didn't exactly go as planned. Thanks to Operation Italy with Andy on one side, flipping and taking out Caroline on the other side. could choose her path to the end it didn't exactly go as planned thanks to operation italy with andy on one side flipping and taking out caroline on the other side but then other parts of rachel's game kicked in even if we say that rachel was protected by uh challenge wins and her idol at this point we have to remember it's it's not about the idol or winning immunity. It's what you do with it. We'll talk more about that later as well. But the fact is she used what she had to mold her strategy around. I mean, how many people had idols last season, went home with them in their pockets?

Yeah. You know, Rachel could have held on to hers and hoped for the best but instead she worked to find out what was going to happen part of this rule talks about using sneakiness to find out information and she did exactly that hiding behind a bush in the dark to listen in on sam genevieve andy and teeny and she did a hell of an acting job to make everyone believe she was headed out and there was nothing she could do about it. As Andy told Dalton Ross, we were feeling pretty secure as a group that she didn't have an idol the way that she reacted when she lost the immunity challenge. Sam, myself, and Rachel were sitting there and she was crying these tears of frustration. And she had this big, very defeated atmosphere, a very defeated mood at

camp during the entire scramble. And we made the read that she didn't have the idol. Yes. And what I really liked so much is that everything that she did during that moment was a choice as far as her response and what she was hoping to come from it. The whole like eulogy funeral analogy that they kept kind of using. She allowed other people to highlight her game for her because she had convinced them all that she was going home. And so if she's going home, well, certainly we can speak highly of Rachel and her gameplay and how great she

was. And it's so sad that she's going home, but oh, well, she can't do anything about it now. So, and that was all a decision that she made. She, she knew enough to let that narrative unfold and allow people to talk about it so much so that she knew to get them talking about it in tribal council where she mentioned it to Jeff that, oh, all

day felt like my funeral and everybody kept telling me everything about my game. And and then, of course, that leads to the next question of, well, let's talk about that. And what did you learn? And that's just like a different level of gameplay because you are now playing the players, but you're also playing the jury at the same time. Just incredible, absolutely incredible strategy. She was thinking just beyond where so many people who have played this game were thinking so many levels and just really, really incredibly impressive.

Yeah. And in addition to that, even before that, we saw parts of the conversations that where she got information from Andy about what he was planning to do and how he had played the game. What we didn't see was that, as she said in her interviews, she laid the guilt onto Andy and pressured him to tell her the truth by saying she and Sue wouldn't give him their jury votes if he lied to her again. He thought he was just telling the truth to someone who was going to the jury anyway. But she used that to inform her decision to use the idol and do everything else that you mentioned. Yes. And I do think that this goes back to something that we have said time and time again. Don't tell everyone about your idol. It's, you know, no one can keep a secret. And this is why keeping that secret

can be game-changing, really, because if no one expects you have any way to save yourself and you can hide that, keep it a secret, and then also utilize those players to divulge so much information that it changes who you want to vote out. So it goes from, I think, was it supposed to be Sam and it went to Andy? Yes. And then you also have the players speaking highly of you to the jury at the same time.

All of that is next level. And so I do think that this just supports that idea. You don't need to tell everybody everything. There are certainly times that't need to tell everybody everything there are there are certainly times that you need to share that information but keeping it a secret it's very similar to Marianne right where Marianne didn't tell anybody and it was like people can keep secrets this is amazing right and so now we have Rachel that we can add to that club yes yes now moving to Sam he was of course on the opposite side of rachel in their original god of tribe making her think that he was with them until he voted out annika like we mentioned um because unbeknownst to them he'd been working to pull in andy as an ally slash vote

but as i mentioned they seemingly came back together at the merge though i think at least part of that was him working to make r believe they were still with her when they were actually supposed to be closer to Andy, which didn't exactly go as planned and led to Andy flipping. We talked a lot about that in the Why Sierra Lost podcast, but basically, as Sam told Mike Bloom, the mistake that I made was not checking in regularly with Andy throughout those periods of time and maybe method acting a little bit too seriously. So, you know, Sam, like Rachel, found himself strategically on the bottom at that point. But he was also thought of as somewhat neutralized because they took out his partner in crime. So he didn't have to fight for his life immediately, which gave him some time to maneuver from the bottom. He tried to make a move to save Saul, but all that did was cause a bigger break with Rachel, who, of course, had told him what was happening and asked him not to blow it up,

which he immediately did. So he was trying, but not getting very far. Yes. And I think what was interesting about Sam's decisions was really that idea of always wanting to keep somebody else the highlight, right? He didn't want to be the person everyone was looking at. And he was trying to make serious inroads with Saul and was finally getting to a point where he had Saul, where he thought Saul was going to be and wanting to play the game with him. And then all of a sudden they wanted to vote Saul out. So I do think that he is someone who, when he, when he calls himself scrappy, that really

is what he was, what he was doing. He was looking at the circumstances and trying to determine how can I keep my threat level down as much as I can, but still have agency and still be making decisions and helping other people make those decisions that are going to be beneficial to me, but also the focus will be on someone else. So I think overall, he was a very well-rounded game and just making those decisions that were necessary, but also not highlighting him as much. It was not necessarily under the radar, but it certainly wasn't a Genevieve,

right? That everyone was looking at. Right. And, you know, part of it was he joined forces with Genevieve and kind of de facto Kyle as well, you know, as the big threat compared to the underdogs. Right. After Kyle was voted out and it seemed like curtains for him and Genevieve, Operation Italy was born. Now, what we saw indicated it was pretty much all Andy's idea. And I do not want in any way to minimize that. But Sam explained in interviews that he had been working on an idea with Genevieve to make the fake idol and find a way to split the vote. He wisely chose Andy as the one he wanted to bring in on this. And at the same time, Andy came in with his own idea that, as Sam said in interviews, was on the exact same page as them.

Yes, yes. All just incredible. I just I love Operation Italy was so good. I mean, much like Rachel doing the most with the items she had, Sam also maneuvered or also said he maneuvered with what he had. For example, he could have been the one to make and claim to have the fake idol, but instead he had Genevieve do it. It really didn't occur to me in the moment,

but he later said that he did it because it would make her the primary target afterwards. Yes. Which he helped along by telling Teenie it was fake, you know, later. Yes, and this is what I was saying, where he's always keeping someone, like, ahead of him, so he's never the person you're necessarily looking

at. Right. He, you know, he told Dalton Ross, Operation Italy not only gave me insulation, it gave me power to decide the fate of my co- conspirators. He also said that Caroline asked him in final tribal council if he was saying Genevieve and Andy didn't deserve credit. And he had a good reply saying they absolutely do. But you can't write down either one of their names tonight. Ah, that's a

good answer. It is because, you know, we we saw very recently where someone was upset that a finalist was taking credit for moves that they felt were their own. Yes. And in this way, Sam gives the credit to all three of them, but points out, I'm the only one you can vote for right now. Yes. And that makes the people in the jury who are part of it feel good and so you're doing some great jury management at that point gaining favor but still saying now everybody can look at me before you want you to look at me but now i want you to look at me yeah all right well we could switch gears and we have sue who played the game very differently from Rachel and Sam and well, almost everyone else in the pregame. She said, we all know alliances are only temporary, so I'm not expecting much from anyone.

We are all going to lie to each other. But then her alliances were permanent and she gave and got everything from her allies and didn't lie. Yeah, didn't want to lie. Was incredibly loyal. Yes. In her post-game interviews, Sue claimed credit for several of the moves that it looked like other people had made. She told Mike Bloom she wanted TK out and they got him out.

She wanted Kyle out and they got him out. out and they got him out. She wanted Kyle out and they got him out. The thing is that in both cases, it wasn't like she was the driving strategic force that accomplished it. Yeah. Yeah. Even especially when it came to Kyle, she had wanted him out for more than just that vote before it actually happened. So it's it's hard to credit her with the move that everyone wanted when they finally got to that point. Yeah. And I do think for Sue, the biggest part of her strategic gameplay really stemmed from Caroline. She had created an alliance with Caroline. Caroline has been described as, she is an analyst, right? And so she looked at this game in a very analytical way

and kind of worked through the permutations. Now, Sue did say that they worked through these things together and I'm not discrediting that at all. But I think that if you find a great partner who's your ride or die, that can definitely help you in the strategic part of this game

because Caroline seemed to be doing most of the talking to the people and even though she and sue were coming together and they were coming up with ideas and talking through things caroline was then the one going out and like putting in the legwork for it and everyone knew that sue was was present and was was accounted for essentially and was there, but it was different because she wasn't the one that was necessarily the driving force, as you said. So great for her to decide, I want to work with Caroline.

And she also had the relationship with Gabe where they were doing some strategic talking as well. But again, it always seemed like someone else was the one that was moving things forward. Though she was certainly involved in those conversations, I think it was very much, I'll do whatever you need me to do. And that's what Sue was ultimately doing. Yeah.

Now, the biggest question mark when it comes to Sue is her saying that voting out Andy was her choice. This came out in interviews. She said she was writing down his name no matter what. We've all given the credit to Rachel for realizing what a threat Andy was. And Rachel herself has stuck with that in interviews as well. Right, right. has stuck with that in interviews as well right right i suspect that what happened was another case of the situation coinciding with what sue wanted rather than her driving it if if rachel

had decided she wanted sam out i think she could have done what players did when it came to kyle previously and just said okay sue, Sue, I know you want Andy out. We need to get Sam this time for whatever reasons, and then we'll get Andy next time, I promise. Right. But she didn't need to. So there was no reason to even have that debate with Sue. Right. Yeah. No, it is. It is a question. I am I am curious about that as well. But it does. We're getting differing curious about that as well but it does we're getting differing yes stories on that one so that'll be one that might be left unsolved yeah no i think i've solved it i i've that's it david has spoken yes uh now sue also in in talking in in her interviews she told gordon holmes something that we of course

discuss quite frequently here which is that the players who make the big moves go home and you already mentioned how she was there and accounted for but she let other people go out and do the work and so she said she played under the radar was in on the discussions but let other people go out and do the work. And so she said she played under the radar, was in on the discussions, but let other people do the dirty work. And I agree with that idea to a point, because as Andy found out, and as the corollary within this rule notes, you can't be so under the radar that nobody knows what you did at the end. Even now, after all the interviews, I can't really point to much and say, Sue did that. It seemed like she went along with the plans and she was a loyal vote and she provided information, but I wouldn't exactly call her

a schemer, which also explains why the jury didn't see much reason to give her a vote. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I do think that it makes a really big difference of who you tie yourself to in this game. And if you tie yourself to people in this game who are the likes of Caroline or Gabe, you might end up having to take a step back. And it might not even have been a choice that she necessarily wanted to make. It could have just been the effect of the three people where you have some that are just more, I mean, Gabe was much more boisterous than Caroline. Caroline recognized that saying Gabe's got to go because we've been playing the same

game. However, he's been more upfront about it and people can see him more. So he has to go. And I think that then you have the same thing with Sue falling behind Caroline, because though they were probably discussing all of these things together, Caroline was more in the forefront.

And then so that's thrusting Sue behind Caroline. And so the fact that Caroline went home, it could have ultimately been a benefit to Sue if she had then said, okay, now look at everything I'm going to do on my own without these people. And unfortunately we just didn't see that from Sue. Yeah. Now,

one thing I did appreciate in final tribal council was that as much as Sue was loyal and against lying, except when it came to her age, she recognized. Wait, what? She's not 45? I know. It's shocking. Crazy. Wait, let me be shocked. Yes. Yes. I mean, I picked up on it right away where she said, I want to tell you I'm actually 59. And then like half a minute later said, I'm against lying. And the funny thing was when my son who watches Survivor watched Survivor, because he watches it on delay, he texted me and said, I can't believe Sue just said she's against lying.

And then, you know, 30 seconds after she told everyone she lied. So yes, like like father like son um pick and choose what lies matter right right yeah but even so when it came to lying in general strategic lying she she said she recognized that of course it exists in the game and genevieve asked her do you view lying and deception as negative traits in someone's survivor game? Sue replied that she expected that. She's not dumb and doesn't judge anybody. She just has to judge herself. Too often, we see that the people who are all about loyalty and not lying get mad or offended when others actually play the game. So Sue's attitude about that was refreshing, that she was just holding herself to that standard,

not trying to say it should impact anybody else. And I do appreciate that very much because there is a lot to be said about being a loyal person in this game. And I do think that that can resonate with people in a way and you can connect with someone and sitting on a jury maybe you're looking at that and going wow she was so loyal to me and and that means the most because loyalty really does matter in this game so to her credit she was probably the most

loyal person out there because she really was like I'm never going to write Caroline's name down and I'm not going to vote out Gabe. And then when she ended up becoming close with Rachel, there were certain things that she just kind of said, that's it. I'm not, I'm not crossing over. I've drawn the line in the sand and this is what I'm doing. So I certainly can appreciate that about her. But unfortunately, if there aren't enough people who feel that loyalty is that significant in this type of a game, it's not going to win you very many points. Right. And generally speaking, there aren't. Yeah. Yeah. It's a very rare trait for sure. All right. Well, finally, in this rule, we have teeny from the moment after they helped vote out Asia.

It seemed like that brought a curse. And they were left out of a number of the votes afterwards, starting with their number one at the time, Kishan. It got to the point where it was this recurring theme. And Tini eventually ended up admitting in tribal council that there were a number of votes where they didn't know what was going on. Terrible, terrible move. Yes.

Teenie would believe the false stories like Genevieve finding an idol under a slice of pizza, but then not believe the truth. Like Genevieve's idol was fake or Sam hasn't practiced making fire. Right. They just kept getting so spun around in the game. And, you know, earlier today, I posted a YouTube short of Teenie hacking away at the rope part of the final immunity challenge and not getting anywhere and eventually saying out loud, I'm

so confused. And I really felt like this was a good metaphor for the strategic part of their game overall. Yeah. like this was a good metaphor for the strategic part of their game overall yeah yes i i do feel for teeny because there is only so much that you can control in this game and they found themselves in a situation where it was like the rug got ripped out yes from from under them right and you have to recover from that and i do think that teeny's plan for this game was to win people over yes with their personality right and to then see your number one go that way and you've worked so hard on that person i'm not surprised that teeny then found themselves in this kind of whirlwind right

and I do think that after that it really was just spiraling because that's a lot to recover from and it's a lot to come back from they tried certainly tried but it there's so many strategic components that go into this that are beyond just creating relationships and creating those relationships and turning them into a strategic component of your game and I just felt like they were missing that extra little nugget they needed to get there yes yes all right well we can move on to the second rule which says not to scheme and plot too much and to keep your scheming secret rachel of course had the obvious duo with annika originally but she made it through that because annika was the bigger target other than that we discussed her strategies

and moves in the first rule and i can't think of anything she did that caused a problem in this rule can you not really rachel really was very and i i certainly don't want to jump ahead to rule three because i think that that can i'm not but i think that can explain why there wasn't a lot of strategic issues because she was reacting to what was going on because she had to right right? So I really don't think that there was anything in this rule where it caused a moment of, oh gosh, because she adapted to everything that did happen. Yeah. Yeah, and I think another thing that helped Rachel

when they got to merge was that even though some players worried a bit about the Gada tribe members being an obvious group, it again wasn't focused on her. Instead, it went to Sam and Sierra because other tribes had seen those two as being so obviously close that they originally thought they were a couple. We talked about it a few times here about just how obvious it must have been if it could be seen by other tribes in just a few minutes of interaction. And we discussed in Why Sierra Lost how she said she tried to work separately from Sam at the merge, but it just didn't hold.

And everybody saw it a mile away. Much like Rachel with Annika, Sam wasn't the one who paid the price as the others took out Sierra as a way to cause the biggest rift, which worked in terms of sending Sam and Rachel off in different directions. Yes. And then clearly, I don't know if this was your movement into Sam in this particular rule, but obvious duo, that's going to be a bit of an issue for Sam. Right, exactly. But he also had a few other instances of over scheming. A good example is when he blew up the solve vote right after Rachel asked him not to. I think he had a good reason. Yeah, but I do appreciate the reason that he provided.

I do. But I it was the move was doomed to fail. I don't disagree. I don't disagree. doomed to fail. I don't disagree. I don't disagree. Not only did it not work, but he pissed off Rachel and essentially ensured they couldn't work together again. Yeah. And then there was, of course, the bigger problem in this rule when he flat out told Rachel she was the target at final six. And he even told us in confessional at the time, I was direct with Rachel about where my vote was going. And you're always hesitant in survivor to let your target know that they're your target it could backfire on you oh my gosh it's so crazy yes yeah he knew better but they all did it anyway because as we already discussed her acting

convinced them when they really should have put more consideration into the possibility she could have an idol, which, you know, we talked about that at length last week and why Andy and Genevieve lost. Again, it turned out not to backfire directly on him, but it certainly didn't help his position. Sure. So next we move to Sue and the immediate thought might be that since she didn't scheme and plot enough there's no way she did it too much but we have that pesky portion we've mentioned and you just mentioned again obvious duo obvious duo yeah uh while she and gabe hid their alliance very well for a while the fact that she and caroline were together was a well-known fact going back to the early two days. As TK told Mike Bloom, Sue and Caroline are a pair.

They've told us they were a pair. Sue literally said, I will never write Caroline's name down to us. So we already knew they were a pair, which is the most dangerous thing in the game of Survivor. Sorry, that was the end of TK's quote. But as dangerous as it is, she, again, never paid the price for it, even as she moved from obvious duo to obvious duo to obvious duo. Because in every case, she was simply not the member of the duo, the Tweedly Dee, you might say,

who the others were worried about. Yeah. And I think it's interesting because we've talked about situations like this where if you can't get the number one, you cut off the head of the individual who's like, there's some, I don't know. You cut off the lieutenant. You take out the lieutenant. Right, you take out the lieutenant right you take out the lieutenant and so but i do think that there was this idea that sue wasn't even necessarily the lieutenant they knew that they if they had caroline they had sue when it came to votes and so if you were working with caroline that was a

benefit to you right because i have caroline and i know i to have Sue. So I don't need to worry about that. And Sue isn't necessarily strategizing in a way that's worrying me. Caroline's worrying me. I'll deal with Caroline when I need to. Gabe is worrying me. I'll deal with Gabe when I have to. But they saw Sue in a different light. She was a loyal individual.

They knew they could count on her for a vote. And it was a different type of lieutenant. It wasn't on her for a vote and it just it was a different type of lieutenant it wasn't the lieutenant that you needed to necessarily worry about or need to take out in order to hurt would that be like the colonel general i don't know the general i mean the other thing is there just wasn't a situation where that person was immune and therefore they had to take out the lieutenant. Right. Because that's where it often happens is the one person's immune for one

reason or another. But in this case, Gabe was available. Take Gabe out. Caroline was available. In that case, Caroline was already the second choice. So take Caroline out. Right. And then, you know, there was never another opportunity.

And of course, who would want to take Sue out at that point? Well, and that's true too. Yeah. So now as for Teenie, there were certainly times when they said too much and even got a reputation for doing it. As Sam said last week, you know, when he wanted something to spread through the tribe, he told Teenie. Yes. This reminds me of an old joke.

It's very old, as you'll hear in a moment. You know, the three fastest way to spread information, telephone, telegraph, tell a Tini. You know, most listeners at this point are like, what the hell is a telegraph? So, you know, now it's, you know, tell Twitter. But. Blue sky. Yes. telegraph so you know now it's now it's uh you know tell twitter but uh blue sky yes well it's still for spreading misinformation it's still all right we'll we'll stick with twitter on this one okay but this started all the way back when rome showed teeny the idol clue do

you remember this teeny immediately showed kishan where it was hidden and rome busted them and we thought rome was gonna lose his mind and he didn't yes so i will say there was a very interesting component to this that i learned and i i think it came from one of teeny's interviews or she might have um it might have been on. Was it on TikTok? Maybe I don't know. There was there was something posted on TikTok about this particular component. And it was something about how Teenie had told Jeff Probst that they were a gossip. And this was something that they really enjoyed doing was gossiping so i do think

that this might have been an issue for teeny prior to even playing the game and then it blew up while they were playing the game yeah i didn't see that in particular but teeny did say in tribal council, yeah, this will surprise none of my friends at home. Yes. So now my initial inclination was to say this never really affected Teenie, but the more I thought about it, I do think it did just not in as direct a fashion as we're used to. Because what did we say in rule one about teeny that they often didn't know what was happening right well i have to strongly suspect that a big reason for that was if you're planning a surprise blindside telling teeny would not be the way to go because of that reputation. Very fair and valid point. So I think that helped keep them out of the loop all the time.

Yeah. Yeah. That's very, very true. Mm-hmm. So. All right. Well, we could go to the third rule, which tells players to be flexible. I know you were chomping at the bit to get through this one earlier.

I was, and I was trying really hard to be good. And you were. But this was a key rule for both Rachel and Sam. chomping at the bit to get to this one earlier. I was, and I was trying really hard to be good. And you were, but this was a key rule for both Rachel and Sam. In a way, a lot of final tribal council was the two of them arguing over who had to be more flexible than the other. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Rachel came into the game with a plan to make friends and gain trust and be in the middle for physicality and brains and social games.

So she wouldn't be seen as a threat. As we'll see when we get to the sixth rule, that that last part didn't happen. And overall, she didn't end up playing the game she intended. But she told Gordon Holmes she knew coming in that she'd have to be adaptable. And she was, you know, I absolutely agree with that. Yeah. After Annika and Sierra were voted out, she realized her plan to play a strategic and social game where she was controlling people wasn't happening, at least in that moment. So as she said in her on fire interview, she was lying in the dirt after the Sierra vote thinking nothing she's done to that point has worked.

So she might as well switch it up. And a huge part of that was deciding to work with Caroline, someone who had previously been on opposite sides because each saw the other as a threat. When she came together with the underdogs alliance, she had her two trios to give her different paths to the end. And when that didn't work out the way she thought she played a game, she probably never expected to by winning challenges and using her idol. She was never locked into just one way of thinking, but rather was able to change up when the circumstances required. Very impressive that she was able to keep it all in check because I know that a lot of times when individuals are coming out to play Survivor, we've talked about

this a lot, they have their idea in their head about what their game is going to look like and how they're going to play and what they're going to do. And she, as you indicated, this was not the game that she ever thought she would be playing. But as soon as she was presented with this, you are not going to be in charge the way that you wanted to be moment. She adjusted and she continued to do that throughout her whole game. So I almost feel like it was better for her to have that happen so soon in her game, as opposed to teeny where it really threw teeny for a loop right and suddenly their

game was was this whirlwind and nothing was really lining up for them rachel on the other hand looked at this and said okay what do i need to do to make this better for myself and where do I go from here so that way I have some agency in this game and then I can I can keep being involved in decisions but not necessarily be the shining light so I think the the approach was much different and really almost calculated in a way that you just don't often see players being able to do where every situation she is maneuvering and changing and coming up with, if I do this, what is that person going to do kind of thought process and really working through all the permutations.

Yeah. Now your friend, Adam Klein was on the RHAP after show recap and fabulous. Yes. Among other really great things that he said, he noted that it's not necessarily about controlling the game from start to finish, but ensuring you are in the best position in case things go wrong. And I would say that is exactly where Rachel put herself,

especially after the solve vote. I mentioned before that she gave herself different options. And even when things went awry from those, she still had other possibilities. She's a poker player, so I'll use a comparison from one time of my own playing that I remember. Because I was in this tournament, and I was all in against a guy who had a pair of kings.

And I had ace-king suited, and had options for a flush draw and a straight draw. Both of those missed, but the last card was an ace. My opponent literally started to stand up and celebrate because I missed the draws that he was looking for. I didn't hit a flush. I didn't hit a straight. And then in mid celebration, I could still picture this in my mind. He realized I still beat him because my pair of aces was better than his pair of kings. And he collapsed to the table. Yeah. And with Rachel, things didn't go exactly the way she planned.

You know, instead of choosing between her alliance with Andy and teeny and her alliance with Caroline and Sue, Andy turned on her and voted out Caroline taking a piece from each trio, but she still had that. Yes. Yeah. Great analogy. Thank you.

I hope you want a lot of money on that one. I believe I did actually. Yeah. That's so good um unless you're the irs and then no i didn't win anything no money what are we talking about huh who actually that was so long ago that i you know it doesn't matter it's who yeah right Rachel uh yes well Sam let's let's move on to Sam yeah uh like I said he also had to be flexible as he played from his own bottom position he said in the pregame I want to keep my allies as long as possible I want to stay insulated for as long as possible but neither of those two insulated for as long as possible. But neither

of those two things happened at the merge. He lost his tightest ally when another ally turned on him and he lost all his insulation without anyone around him. As we discussed earlier, he was okay for a while because

they focused on other more threatening players at the time, but he had to scramble to try to make something happen. One day that was working against Genevieve's play to take out Saul. One day that was joining up with Genevieve. And then he was just, in the words of other players, scrappy as he kept sticking around. Yeah. Yeah.

I really am impressed with his ability. It's much different than Rachel, where I feel like Rachel's felt more calculated, but I, again, I know you just said it and I said it previously, and I know he's talked about it. It really was scrappy.

It was like anything I can do. And you've already talked about the Saul component where he immediately went to Saul and went hey guess what they're voting you out even though I was just told not to tell you that right that was a an immediate like knee-jerk reaction to the situation and I feel like a lot of the things that Sam was doing though there was reason for it it was more reactionary and and and hopeful like i hope this works as opposed to rachel seemed to be more working through everything if she was going to be doing something he was more like this is what i'm doing and i really hope it works when i'm doing this thing yeah and then we get to sue who was not exactly the most flexible person.

You know, Gabe immediately pulled Sue aside to make her his number one. She also connected with Caroline, who said Sue was the main person she wanted to work with. And when they were both gone, she became extremely loyal to Rachel. While all of this helped her to get to final three, it wasn't going to win her the game because at no point did she consider really distinguishing herself from them. We already talked about that some. She was a great, loyal ally, but she wasn't thinking about ways to rise above them. As Caroline told Mike Bloom, Sue was so loyal that she never had to worry about being turned down.

Quote, so much so that she told everyone she will never write my name down. And Sue herself told Mike, I had Caroline's back 100%. I had Gabe's back 100%. I had Rachel's back 100%. I would ride or die with them. That is not flexibility. That's not flexibility at all. No, no.

And I do think that people saw that. And this is why she became really a number to whomever was working with her or working with Caroline. They knew if you can gain the trust of Sue, you're going to have Sue's vote. And that's that. There was no, hmm, will she, will she not? I don't know. It was very locked in. So yeah, there was really not much flexibility at all there.

Yeah. Now, Teenie, I think is a bit tougher to categorize here. They were flexible pretty early when trying to maintain a relationship with Asia while also being part of a different alliance. But of course, that didn't end up working out. We discussed how Tini kept getting blindsided or left out of plans, which makes it difficult to be truly flexible because part of being flexible is having your

finger on the pulse of what's happening. And how would you know if you're siding with the right people? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And I do think that, again, this goes back to the idea of what type of game each person wants to play. And Teenie's idea of playing this game was really going to be based upon those social connections, which I know we're getting to. We're going to be talking about that rule. So I'm not jumping ahead. All right. I know we're getting to, we're going to be talking about that rule. So I'm not jumping ahead. All right.

But that isn't something that necessarily lends to you being flexible, right? If you want to be friends with everyone, you just want to be friends with everyone. And then you want to hope that those friendships will develop into, well, this person will now work with me and not vote me out. And we will have some type of an ability to play this game together. But that's based on friendship, not necessarily a flexible way of approaching the game and reacting to what's happening around you. Because really, so much was happening around Teenie that Teenie was unaware was happening. that Teenie was unaware was happening. So I do think that that certainly caused an issue for them to be flexible at all

when their focal point really wasn't that type of gameplay. Right, right. Now, there was, of course, one instance where Teenie was immediately flexible, and that was jumping over to Andy, Sam, and Genevieve within minutes after Operation Italy succeeded. Oh, yes. I have to admit, it happened so fast that my head kind of spun. But, you know, there was Teenie on the beach talking to the three who just pulled it off and saying, now we need to take out Rachel. But then after that didn't work, Teenie flipped back again to be with Rachel and Sue as they tried to take out

Sam. So there was this flexibility at the end. It, it just didn't really work. Yeah. And I think that might also just have been like survival mode kind of kicking in. Right. At that point. Yeah. All right. Well the fourth rule tells players not to let their emotions control them. And I would say we had two players who did very well here and two players who played very emotionally i bet you can guess which is which i'm gonna go with uh rachel and sam did not play

emotionally and teeny and sue did play emotionally you get an a plus look at me yes thank you yeah let's start with the two who did well who happened to be first and second place we already talked about how both of them took a lot of strategic hits along the way and found themselves at the bottom either of them could have reacted to that by giving up or getting mad, but neither allowed themselves that luxury. In both cases, it fired them up to stick around and work to get into better situations. Yes. Rachel, for example, put aside her anger at Sam and Sierra when they blindsided Annika and cautiously worked with them at the merge. She put aside the previous times when Andy did her wrong and worked with him

until he did it again. She decided who to vote out based on their threat level to her in the game rather than what they'd done or said previously. And she even joined in the vote against Saul shortly after he saved her because although she felt like she owed him she wanted to show her new allies they could count on her rather than going down with the sinking ship yeah yeah and the only thing that she ended up following up with and I don't even know if this is necessarily an emotional play for her, but more playing the emotions of other people was telling Andy that about the, we're not going to give you our jury vote.

If you, I would say that was playing on his, that was playing, playing on his emotion. So she was doing that too. So she certainly utilized that component of the game very well, but yeah, it was not an emotional player herself yes and then you know sam was similarly able to quickly put things aside at least outwardly uh right after the sierra blind side when he was likely to have been the angriest he'd been in the game he held it in to the point that saul talked about how he liked sam's attitude and even said he's not getting emotional. He's not getting pissed.

Right. And then he had to hold on to that calm exterior when it became obvious that he had become one of the prime threat targets. Not to mention the times Teenie got upset at him. But he took it all very well. Yes. Yeah, he certainly had a very good kind of evenness about him, regardless of what was going on. He was very good at reading the room. And I think he was also someone who was playing with how he went to Saul in order to try to make things happen relative to the Saul vote. So I do think that he was taking a similar position or approach as Rachel was in trying to get other people's emotions involved in the game,

as opposed to his own. Yes. Now Sue, on the other hand, played pretty emotionally. We saw it outwardly with everything she said about Kyle, although she said in interviews that that was mostly her purposely overdoing it to get other people on her side. You don't do it in confessionals then. Exactly.

That was part of the issue was she was also saying it in confession. So, you know, obviously there was some of that emotion there. Yes. you know, obviously there was some of that emotion there. Yes. But even aside from that, playing with solid loyalty is by its very nature, an emotional game because you aren't using logic. You aren't using strategy. You're just attaching yourself to someone you like and working with them.

Oh my God. You make it sound so awful. You're just attaching yourself to someone you like like the person like trying to flick them off yeah no they're good you know it's good you know but but yeah i mean even rachel noted at some point that she was a very emotional player yes yes no i i i wholeheartedly agree i and i and i i do think it's interesting because loyalty can be a good thing it can be a bad thing it can cause you to go to rocks so just saying sometimes loyalty doesn't necessarily help you in the game yeah but you know to to take uh us back to my why jessica lost podcast uh you know it wasn't so much about loyalty as it was about if i flip i'm dead in this game oh yeah i mean i had to be loyal to the people that i was with at that point because i was i was doomed if i if i

flipped so yes the loyalty definitely yeah Yeah, that was a logical loyalty, not an emotional loyalty. And this is what I'm saying is that loyalty has a place in this game. It just depends on the circumstances and what's going on. Yeah, Sue's was not, you know, Sue's was an emotional loyalty.

Right, and the fact that Sue is outwardly telling people, I will never vote Caroline. I will never write her name down. That's coming from a different place as well. And that's not how you play Survivor. You don't announce to everyone that you're never going to write someone's name down. Yes. And, you know, we talked previously about how Sue said she was really the decision maker about Andy going out when he did and putting

aside the debate here the thing is that she said in interviews she wanted him gone because he voted out Caroline so even then it wasn't strategic it was vengeance yeah you can't let revenge be your controlling factor in this game yeah Yeah. Yeah. So. So with that, we get to teeny. And I want to start with something they told Mike Bloom, referencing the idea early on that they'd play ruthlessly. And they said, the naivete that you see from me at some points throughout the season really shines through with me going into the game,

thinking that I would play any other way than extremely emotionally and sensitively. I feel like I kind of got locked into this really, really sensitive feeling throughout the game that was really, really hard to break out of. I think it was a great reason why I connected with so many people. And I think that's a great reason why I succeeded and made it as far as I did. But also, it blinded me at many points.

It screwed things up for me as well, too. And, you know, I would agree with all of that. As we discussed last week for Genevieve, emotions can connect you to people, but the downside is emotions can connect you to people. Yeah. The problem being, of course, that, you know, you then make less optimal game decisions because of it. Yeah. Yeah, and I do think that this is directly connected to Teenie's desire to play a social game. And with that, emotion becomes a component of the relationships that you're creating.

And if you are unable to separate the two and realize strategically what is good for me versus emotionally what am i doing what decision am i making is it game or is it friendship and i really do think that teeny just kind of blurred the lines there and it made it very difficult for teeny to focus on the strategic gameplay that needed to come from the decisions that they were making as opposed to i really like this person this person is very close to me and we saw that struggle with genevieve again and again and again in this game for teeny yeah i mean even even aside from specific game decisions we saw teeny getting emotional with others in the game. When Teenie asked Genevieve how she thought the jurors saw them, Genevieve gave an honest answer.

But Teenie got upset about it and said, Genevieve doesn't respect my game. She doesn't think I can beat Rachel. And I'm insulted by her words. Yeah. That was clearly an overreaction that had very little to do with what Genevieve actually said. And, you know, similarly, Teenie had a few overreactions to Sam, both with him around and with him not around. Well, and the decision that Sam made to take Andy.

Right. Oh, yeah. That was certainly. Yes. To Teenie's credit. They acknowledge this in tribal council. So, yeah, Teenie didn't even wait, they acknowledge this in tribal council. So, yeah, Teenie didn't even wait till postgame interviews in tribal council, acknowledged it and even owned up to it that it had a lot more to do with Teenie than it had to do with Saint. Yes. Yes, absolutely.

All right, we could go to the fifth rule, which reminds players they need to pretend to be nice and play the social game i think all of our final four did well here but interestingly rachel and sam were once again in a bit of a different category than sue and team because we the audience didn't really see it from the top two finishers and that led to a lot of viewers wondering what was happening. Now, this is a frequent situation when it comes to social games. They're difficult to show on TV, even with the extra half hour each week.

But by watching closely, we can usually figure it out. For Rachel, as an example, we can look to what happened with Saul saving her. He didn't do it out of the goodness of his heart. He did it because he wanted to work with her. And that was because of the feeling he was getting from her on the social side of things.

As he would later say in a jury confessional, Rachel makes people feel very comfortable. Like I said, it's difficult to show someone making another person feel comfortable on TV. The only way you can show it is by having someone else say it. But they did actually show it, I think, with the conversation that she was having with Andy, right? Even though that was a strategic game move for her, she was able to connect with him and and have him feel comfortable enough to open up to her and say things.

Now, again, he had his reasons for doing so. He thought she's going to be in the jury. She's going to help me. She'll go do some jury management for me at Ponderosa. Great. So everybody had their their own reasons for it. So everybody had their their own reasons for it. But in order to be able to even have that conversation with someone, there has to be a connection of some sort there. And as much as Andy was frustrating her in the beginning, she knew enough that she still needed Andy and she still was working on that relationship so much so that he was like, here's everything you need to know about me and my lovely, wonderful game causing her to then change the vote ultimately. So I think that that was a moment that at least did show that, that she was able to, to create such a bond with him despite everything that had happened. And still he wanted to share with her. Yeah.

Yeah. Now I think Sam's situation was similar. He said in the pregame that he thought his experience working with athletes would help because it's like being a professional ego stroker, making people feel good, building relationships to get information from them and capitalizing on it. And he thought he could fit in with a lot of different groups because not only did he play sports, but he was also a theater kid and he was in scholastic bowl and i think that all the things he predicted did come true uh we we didn't necessarily see them but we heard about them either from other players in the game or interviews and this spans everything from sam deciding to pull in andy to talking sports facts

with gabe to singing oliver songs with teeny like we heard about in interviews yes yeah i think that he found a way to connect with people and and i do think it's interesting that he was able to connect with people so much so that it was actually something that frustrated Teenie because. Yes. Seems, you know, Sam's that guy. He's that guy that in school everybody just thought was great and popular and involved. And, and, and I think that that was, you, you did see a bit of that out on the Island because he did have the ability to connect with people in a way and to create bonds with people and, and have a connection so close that people thought that he and Sierra were even closer than they were. Right. So I, you know, I, I do think that that's just a natural ability that

he has. Yeah. And you, and he started early by recognizing that Andy could be an asset and pulling him in rather than just tossing him aside. Yep. Even after they went their separate ways after the merge, Sam knew it was important to try to bring him back. He told Mike Bloom, I kind of perceived Andy as somebody

who really wanted to be valued and respected by his peers. And so it was important for me, for both personal and game reasons, to sort of navigate moving forward, keeping that line of communication open with Andy, but letting Andy know that I messed up. That was a mistake. I wasn't the ally or friend to him that I should have been at that stage in the game. And I was very intentional about that because you never know when you're going to need Andy to flip from a five person majority and help you flip the game. Yes, fair

point. Yeah. Now, of course, as I mentioned, Andy wasn't the only one Sam became close to. Teenie talked about him being charismatic. Rachel told Andy that Sam had better relationships. Rome told Mike Bloom, once I hit the beach, I was like, okay, Sam's clearly connected with everyone. Sue told Gordon Holmes that they were concerned about Sam because he's a good guy and especially had good relationships with the other guys. Now, I mentioned in the first rule that after the Sierra blindside, Sam found himself strategically on the bottom. But even when he was in that position, I don't think he was ever socially on the bottom. Oh, definitely. No. Yeah. I think he, he's a very interesting type of player because despite the fact that

everyone's looking at him as the guy that's got to go home, they're still like, I'll sit and have a beer with this guy though, even though we got to get rid of him. We got to get out of the game. Yeah. All right. Moving to Sue. I don't have a lot of specifics because I just don't think it was something the editors focused on. She seemed to be well-liked around camp. According to Kyle, she even followed this rule and pretended to be nice to him because he came out of the game without knowing about her rants against him.

Yeah. Which is rather fascinating that he somehow did not see that. So I do think that she probably, maybe she just ranted all of that in her confessionals. Maybe that's what happened. I mean, and when he was not around,

you know, so chopping coconut. So yeah, I mean, she chopping coconuts so yeah i mean she clearly sue did create very close relationships with people caroline gabe we've already talked about that and so i i don't think that there was any issue with her creating those bonds she did feel like caroline was kind of almost like a daughter to her so that's certainly helpful as well, that you can have that type of relationship or connection with someone. So I think overall, and there was someone else too, that was,

I think even Kyle and she had some conversations about being, you know, a mom and, and what that meant. So I think that there were moments that we saw where she was connecting with people on a social level. So I don't think there was any true issue here. Yeah. Now, teeny, of course was,

as we already talked about, pretty much loved by everyone in the game. Yes. They came into the game saying things like, I'm going to play this game by being every person's number one. And, you know, maybe from a social perspective,

they were, it is, you know, and it is about the social relationships you make. That's what Teenie was saying. Indeed, Teenie bonded with Keyshawn almost immediately and later would become soul mates with Saul. Oh, you did that. I did not. They did that. I'm just. Of course, it wasn't limited to just them. As Genevieve told Dalton Ross, Teenie was so magnetic teeny just in the descriptions where they would describe the smaller person with the short hair.

And like, I just feel like the physical descriptions were that of teeny. Okay. And so I feel like there's just something that kind of emanates off of, of teeny and they came into the game knowing that right that was going to be their goal i'm going to everyone will love me and and i will be liked and appreciated and friends with everyone unfortunately yes that was true but there's that strategic part right needs to come along with it which was lacking yeah there was you know there were a few things teeny did and one of teeny's biggest moves that they mentioned in interviews was using their social relationship with genevieve to get her to admit the idol was

fake oh yes you know teeny said that i think was an emotional response though of genevieve it was but it was also Teenie using yes you know that because Teenie said they developed special and intense relationships with everyone in the game and you know that's what they were most proud of it wasn't a specific game move but I guess I'd call it an overall game presence yes like you know like I said everyone loved Teenie and Teenie used that to their advantage when they could. The problem was almost everyone, except Genevieve in that case, followed the fourth rule, as we discussed. So no matter how much they liked Teenie, that didn't mean they were necessarily going to work with Teenie. Right. Yes. OK, moving on, the sixth rule warns against being too much of a threat.

This is a particularly interesting rule for, again, the top two players. They were on the threat radar for a big chunk of the game, and yet they made it to the end. Neither of them wanted the other one in the final three, and both tried to get the other out but failed they even debated who the bigger threat was in final tribal council because at that point it went from being a negative to a positive it's funny because rachel was deemed to be a threat in the game before we the viewers really saw it we talked about it on the podcast, wondering why is the show having

people telling us that she was a threat without showing us that she was a threat. But much like we were just talking about with the social game, sometimes the only way you can show is to have other people tell. Yes. And if you'll recall last week, that was the final straw in making me predict Rachel would win because I just didn't see a reason we would have gotten those scenes at that point in the season unless they were important. Something that we talked about Erica as well. And I know that Erica and Rachel are much different survivor players, but that sometimes they will sneak hints into the edit to try to explain away things that the viewers might be confused about. And, and I know that that was a bit of a head scratching moment, but it was almost like Rachel was like a slow build with Rachel.

There were things happening and then they continue to happen. And they continue to happen. And then you're like,'re like oh my god what is happening like Rachel just was taking over and and I think that's like the perfect type of game to play right because it is something that people are noticing but they're like I don't know if we need to address that just yet but it's something put a pin in it we'll come back to that later and she was so good at continuing that put a pin in it we'll come back to it later until then she had an immunity necklace and then another one and then another one and then another one yeah and then an idol so yeah so she she certainly uh did a fantastic job of, of maintaining a very like good level until she couldn't anymore. But then she had all of the things she needed to stay safe.

Right. And I, there were some people who wanted her out at that early stage. If we go back back in time in episode seven, Gabe was talking about Rachel being personable, charismatic and smart. Caroline was saying she was the most dangerous player in the game. In episode eight, Gabe again talked about what a threatening player she was. And Caroline again said, I think she's the best player in this game right now.

I think she's the most dangerous. I want her gone. Genevieve added, I would take out Rachel. She's a strategic thinker. She's social. I see that as a huge threat. Now, of course, after that, Caroline and Rachel decide to work together instead of against each other. So a lot of that threat talk did disappear, like you mentioned. Yeah. Then it returned with a vengeance, as Genevieve told Teenie in episode 12. If Rachel goes out, everyone's chances of winning get better. I think everybody actually likes her the most. She's playing the game that I wish I played. She's very calculated, organized, and controlled. Rachel has been tactical about everything,

like flawlessly. Then in episode 13, Teenie said Rachel was the biggest challenge and fire threat. When Andy thought he was voting her out, he said in that voting confessional, you're an incredible all-around player entirely deserving of your threat level. And then Sam told Rachel at final five, after she won the immunity challenge, that he tried to tell them all at final nine that she was going to win if they didn't vote her out. And finally, in a jury confessional andy said rachel established herself as the threat of threats yeah she really did perfect incredible game yeah yeah but the problem of course with everyone talking about a specific person as a threat is that if you don't

get them out you've pretty much coronated them already. Yes. You know, Rachel pointed this out in final tribal council, noting that Sam had stated publicly that she was the biggest threat and then he didn't get her out. To be fair, he didn't really have an opportunity because she kept winning challenges or used her idol, which was the counterpoint he was trying to make. But it didn't really hold up. trying to make, but it didn't really hold up. As Adam Klein pointed out in the RJP after show podcast and others in blue sky discussions did as well. It was similar to Adam himself and David Wright in your season. You already mentioned it. We we've talked about it before. Everyone kept saying they needed to get David out out but then not doing it yeah at

least not doing it until the last minute which was exactly what adam needed but there was no last minute reprieve for sam right yeah and i i mean i think sam's sam's an interesting individual in regards to this particular rule as well, because he's not, he's certainly not Rachel. Rachel is, is on blast towards the end, right? With everything that she's been doing. But I think that there was a lot to be said about the underdog component that, that Sam was bringing to the table and his ability to maneuver and find his way through the game and work with the people he needed to work with and then there was operation italy so there was all of that as well and so i

think that he was more of a quiet threat but still someone who once you heard him and i know we haven't talked about it yet but in his final tribal like just going through stuff and you're like, wow, wait a second. This is, this is impressive. And it was, it was calculated, but quiet and not necessarily under the radar, but enough that you saw it. So you knew something was there. So I just, I really appreciated the approach that he took because it certainly wasn't a Rachel. Right. But I would say he wasn't so much a quiet threat. I think he was more. More of the obvious stereotypical type of threat that you see on Survivor. And, you know, Adam also said about Sam that Sam was trying to make the case he was the underdog, but he was actually chose. He was actually seen as a threat, but others chose to vote someone else out instead of him, because although he was a threat, they weren't as worried about him.

Well, right. And that's what makes it so strange, right? Because they see him as a threat, but he's not a Rachel threat. You know, he's not someone who is like, I don't have the immunity necklace around my neck. We got to get him out right now. Like, this is our only chance. That's what Rachel was doing. Rachel was like literally on blast. Sam was able to kind of sit back just a little bit and not have to necessarily

rely upon the immunity necklace to keep him. He would figure out another way, but people were still talking about him like, this guy's got to go. He needs, he needs to get taken out of this game, but he's not the one we're looking at just yet. We can get to him and then you can't anymore. Right? Like that's it. Like now he's in, he's in the final three. Yeah. And, but the thing is about, because they kept letting him pass,

as Adam said, Sam didn't get the credit for making his way forward. The credit was given to those who made the decision. Yes. Yes. And this is the problem with that type of game. One hundred percent. Yeah. You know, so like Rachel chose to vote out Andy instead of him when she played her idol.

OK, she gets the credit for making that decision. Rachel and Sue decide to vote out Genevieve instead of him. Now, he made the case that he changed the result by revealing Genevieve had a fake idol. But Sue and Rachel argued in final tribal council that it didn't matter and they were going to do that anyway. Right. I'm not sure I 100 percent believe that, but at least that was what they said. Another problem is, quite frankly, and this is where I get to the stereotypical part. He doesn't look like an underdog. He looks like an athlete. He's a charismatic guy with lots of friends who is

also apparently asked to move desks at school. You know, it's it's hard to play yourself up. Yeah. Or down as an underdog in a situation like that. I hate to even bring it up, but we always say perception is reality. Yes. And that's what makes Sam so very interesting because to look at Sam, he has a presence. He is, he's someone who you would notice immediately. And, but also part of his game was to minimize his threat level as much as he could. He he recognizes like this is who I am.

I get it. Like I I know what I look like. I know what I what I present and how I present. And these are all things he's very aware of, which is why he always wanted to keep somebody in front of him who was a higher more obvious threat so he could keep moving forward without necessarily being the person that they were focusing on and so yeah well he didn't necessarily get the credit for these things it just makes his game so interesting because there is that underlying component where he's part of his strategy was to maintain his threat level in order to do that he needed to keep bigger threats in front of him.

Right. And he pulled it off. Yeah. Now, part of the reason that Sam was identified as a threat early on was what I just mentioned, kind of the stereotypical threat-looking guy. Sure. And then he was lumped into that threat group while the underdogs wanted them gone. Just as many of us wondered why other players saw Rachel as a threat.

Many also wondered what made Sam a threat because after the merge hit, there wasn't really anything terribly obvious. Right. You know, Caroline told Gordon Holmes though, Sam was viewed as a threat because he played a great game on Gata and came into the merge hot. He's charismatic and magnetic person. And she added he had a great mind for the game. Plus, she noted it's easier to get other people on board to vote someone out if you call them a threat. So part of it was, in fact, manipulating perceptions. Yeah, yeah no that's good

but even dalton ross asked genevieve the same question why do people think sam is a big threat and she said caroline described it as his threat aura and it's these intangibles that don't really translate to tv but when you speak to sam and you hear how he thinks about the game, she said, if someone is a black belt, I know they could kick my ass. I don't need them to do it. That's kind of the vibe with Sam where you're like, you're so capable.

I don't need to see it to feel it and be afraid of it. So that's how I would describe Sam, threat aura. Yeah, I like that. That's a great analogy. And again, that's something that's hard to put describe Sam threat aura. Yeah. I like that. That's a great analogy. And again, that's something that's hard to put on TV. Yeah, sure. You know, and so that's why there are a bunch of people. Why are people saying that Sam's a threat?

Well, okay. Threat aura. Yeah. And it's also one of these things where, you know, we can ask the question. It makes sense to ask the question. Why are they saying what's going on? But the people who argue against it, it's like just maybe the people who are actually out there might have an idea about it and just wait to find out, you know? Yeah.

All right. Well, as for Sue and Teenie, let's just say neither of them ever had to worry about being too much of a threat. They did fine in this role. Excellent. Excellent job. Uh, that was true in terms of anyone coming after them to vote them out and also true when it was time to decide who to bring to the end. Yes. I don't really have much to add. Yeah. Uh, now the the seventh rule as we move on covers idols and advantages and game mechanics we have more to discuss here than usual especially when it comes to rachel sam tried to make the case in uh final tribal council that rachel was lucky in terms of getting her idol and some other things. And of course that was a good argument for him to attend.

Some fans fans have said it too, but for those who make that claim, the most important thing to remember is it wasn't all luck, but rather often how she dealt with it. And we talked about this some earlier on. And you know, the other thing is, okay, we joked about it here on the podcast, but Rachel had to deal with bad luck, too. Like the random draw where it was just her and all the two crew going to tribal council. Yeah.

That led to one of the times where people have said she was lucky because Saul saved her. But that wasn't just luck. It was, as I mentioned in Rule 5, that he wanted to work with her because of who she was. Similarly, she found her idol in her French fries, but she wisely figured out when she didn't need to use that idol by playing her shot in the dark, and then later used her own knowledge that she was safe to help guide the narrative and get information out of other players when they thought they were sending her packing. Yeah.

As I said last week, as you said earlier today, this is why you keep your idol a secret. Yes. keep your idol a secret. Yes. Now, the funny thing is I posted the clip to TikTok from last week of me saying that and a little bit more. And as far as I know, that was the most popular podcast clip I've ever posted there, hitting over 50,000 views last night. Look at you. Lots of people agree with us about keeping an idol secret. Keep it a secret. There are those very rare occasions where it makes sense to share that information, but keep it a secret. Nobody needs to know about it because then you can pull a Rachel. Yes.

Now, Rachel herself also rebutted those who would say it was luck in her interviews. She correctly noted that if she didn't have the idol, she would have played it differently. But with that idol, she was able to play a certain way. And also knowing that she had it, she was able to push harder on Andy and the way we discussed back in the first getting him to tell her the truth, which led to him giving her too much information. Yeah. But I think the more impressive feat was what you already brought up. Using her knowledge she was safe to get everybody to eulogize her

in front of the jury. Yes. And then, of course, sticking around after her own supposed funeral with all the others who just told the jury why she was so amazing and should win. Came back, didn't leave. Remember me? You were all talking to me the last time we were here.

It was great. Yeah. Now, of course, using her idol wasn't the only thing that Rachel did right in this room. We know the block of vote she got didn't really end up mattering. But she realized that, too. She knew that the block of vote wasn't going to be much of anything. Right. But the reason she wanted to go was important. She volunteered. She even said at the time, I don't really want it to go, but I want to stop Sam or Genevieve from getting to go get whatever goodies are out there. And by luck of the draw, in that case, she did get to go.

Right. So, you know. Well, and this again goes back to her kind of working through all the permutations of the game, right? Right. She is not so focused on this idea that I don't want to go on this journey because I know that it can be terrible for me. She's looking at, no, no, but wait, I don't want them to go either. So if they go, that could be a problem for me. And so she, again, is just working through all of the variables and trying to come up with a decision that's going to be best for her game. So I do think that she was

working through all of the game mechanics all of the time. Right. Yeah. And part of that was fire making. Now, we already talked a lot about it earlier, so I won't spend too much more time here. However, she handled it pretty much perfectly. She knew she didn't need to put herself into fire making. Right.

Now, I would argue that nobody should need to put themselves into fire making because they allow people in the back. Yes. Jurors should not give a shit about it. But even aside from that, she even said there was nothing for her to prove in that regard. She already won the challenge. And in her case, she won three others. She had nothing to gain and everything to lose. Yes. And I and I i agree i support that decision i think more survivors should take that approach if you win that last challenge you have already won your spot in the final three leave it alone right now some said rachel should have had sue make fire against sam

and we even debated it a little bit last week. But the thing is, Sue is definitely the person Rachel wanted with her in final three, because Sue, sorry, just wasn't any competition at all. You know, I mean, yes, it's true that Tini probably wasn't much more competition, but they were incrementally a little bit more. And, you know, said they had practiced fire a lot before coming out. Plus, this way, Rachel could be seen to reward Sue's loyalty. So I think her choice absolutely made sense. And then what Sue was saying, too, was that she never really practiced making fire. She just knew how to keep the fire going because they just kept big logs on it with embers.

So it wasn't like she was making the fire every single day. She's like, we basically made it once and I kept it going. Yeah. So. And you're not allowed to drag a big log onto the, you know, into tribal council for the fireman. No, you can't. It doesn't work that way. Like I have my embers already burning. Can I put them over by the rope,

please? I brought them along. I brought my log with me. They said there's no rules. So here it is. That's right. That's right. Like I set my coat on fire back there. Can we just use this? I mean, there's no rules. Let's do that. Now, finally, back there can we just use this i mean there's no rules let's do that now finally i of course need to mention one earlier out of the box thinking moment from rachel as she tried to steal rice from the challenge uh yes you know she got busted of course but i think the attempt should still be recognized as an earlier indicator that she was someone who could be creative in her thinking. Yes. And I, I still find it fascinating that Jeff threw her under the bus.

Gotta. Gotta. Gotta. All right. Well, moving to Sam, he didn't have nearly as much to contend with, but he did find the gotta title early on and figure out how to deal with it because all of his supposed allies except Andy knew what was going on

he found the beware advantage with Annika and knew he had to tell his own tied ally Sierra and also figured that Annika would tell Rachel and he was correct about all of that and then each person ended up with one piece of the story he got the box with Annika would tell Rachel, and he was correct about all of that. And then each person ended up with one piece of the story, as he got the box with Annika, he got the key with Rachel, and then he got the idol itself with Sierra.

He chose to just get the one tribal council idol and then didn't even play it so he could maintain trust with Andy. And, of course, he held on to it and eventually gave it to Genevieve to turn into a fake idol, which he then later exposed. So he went through all these different permutations with this idol. And I think he handled each step very well. Yeah, I think he worked through all of the options. I love the fact that he brought so many people into the fold at the beginning, which I know we just said, don't tell people about your idol.

But there again, it depends on what's going on in the game and in that moment. And if you are in a tight group with these people and you're trying to formulate trust and an alliance and it's early in the game, then there is some benefit for sharing that information with people. And he didn't really have a choice because he found the clue. He found the clue with Anika. He knew Anika would tell Rachel. Yes.

And he couldn't have Anika and Rachel know and not his own number one. Yes. And this is why I was saying there's, there's moments in the game where it makes sense to tell people because of the circumstance. And then this particular circumstance, it really was in his best interest to share because he found it with person number one.

And then he's got person number two and three that he still has to be mindful of because he wants them all to trust him. So yes, there are those moments where you have to make those decisions. And I think Sam worked through all of those options very well. Yeah. And then Sue also had her idol and like rachel she kept it a secret even more secret than rachel technically because rachel eventually told sue caroline figured it out for

sue but other than that apparently sue promised her daughter before the game that she found an idol she would not tell anyone so good for her daughter and good job for Sue holding onto her idol all the way to final five without telling a soul. Yes. Now, of course, when she used it, it went out mostly with a whimper because it didn't actually do anything apparent. It did allow her to confidently plan to vote Genevieve, even though they didn't know for sure whether or not the idol was fake. But that was not something you could easily convey to the jury. And even if she did, it's not really a big win, you know? Yeah.

She just wasn't in a position where she ever needed to play it for herself. And when she could have used it to play for one of her tight allies they were just completely blindsided well but they also told her not to they did well gabe didn't but caroline did because she didn't think she was going to and then she was blindsided so right yeah yeah moving to teeny they didn't have idols to deal with but did have fire making now like a good super fan teeny practiced fire making before coming out but as we've so often heard and we definitely saw fire making at home is different from fire making in the challenge and it's not just about making the fire it's making the fire so it burns the rope, which we talked about earlier.

Yes. So I guess remember that everybody. And when you're practicing fire making your home, turn on a fan and try to burn a rope and try to block the wind. We also should talk about, wasn't she part of the amulet or whatever it was oh I forgot about the amulet because they just kind of blew it off yeah I mean it didn't matter in the long run I think the decision though that the group made regarding

the amulet was the best one because it was like just get rid of it as soon as possible right yeah I have totally forgotten about the amulet. If you hadn't mentioned it, it was just gone. Yeah. So that, good move there.

Yes. From Teenie and the others involved with the amulet. Okay, we can move on to Appendix A, which is about the players keeping their end goals in mind when voting. And we talk about voting out the weak and the strong and the weak and the strong. By Final Four, the immunity challenge winner was the only one with power and, of course, should be focused on getting rid of the strongest threat to their game. Rachel said in her interviews that by this point,

she felt like she had a very good chance of winning, but it still made sense to get rid of the person who was most likely to threaten that. So, of of course she wanted sam gone as we discussed teeny had said they practiced fire making before coming and of course it made sense to bring sue along as the lowest level threat so rachel made the perfect choices even if things didn't go as planned right agreed so that's about it for appendix a at this point but appendix b is going to be much bigger because it discusses the jury phase,

including preparing yourself for being in final three and also preparing the jury for wanting to vote for you and, of course, final tribal counsel. Yeah. Now, sorry to do this, but I'd like to quickly dispense with Sue, much like the jury did, because unfortunately for her,

she just wasn't really involved in the decision. She held on to her age lie all the way through the game and told Mike Bloom, I thought it would blow their minds when I told them I'm actually 59. They were shocked, but I don't feel anything registered. And that was hard because how do you plead your case? I think their minds that this is still Sue talking. I think their mindset was so focused on Rachel and Sam that it didn't really matter. And I think she's right on all counts. Yes, there were a few surprised faces, but the most obvious one was Sam and he wasn't

in the jury. Yeah, I think it made some of them impressed. But it wasn't enough to completely change up everything they thought about her game. Yeah. And I really do feel like Sue is not she's just we don't need three people in the in the final. We just don't it. I understand that occasionally the third person might get a vote, but it really comes down to two people more often than not. And I understand there's this idea that we've seen it, that person can be the deciding factor if there is a tie. But overall, Sue is lovely and she's very impressive. She's an incredible woman. But why do we have to have three people?

Well, Jeff, Jeff would argue. That if you had only two, it probably would have been Rachel versus Sue and it would have been a complete blowout. It wouldn't have been like Rachel versus Sam. Oh, no, I see. I see. That's what that's what Jeff's argument would be. Yeah, I see. Said the blind man.

Yes, I got it. I see. That's what Jeff's argument would be. Yeah. I see, said the blind man. Yes. I got it. So, yes, this brings us to Rachel versus Sam. I don't know that it really mattered, but I did notice that even before final tribal council, Rachel had been complimenting the jurors at least twice that we saw. Sorry. At least twice that we saw in earlier discussions. So I guess it, you know, can't hurt to compliment the jurors. It can only help.

Yes. No, and I, and you have to forgive me, my dog just busted down here and I was surprised. Yeah, I, I, so I kind of missed what you said at the beginning, but I do think that the jurors did a fantastic job in working through talking to both Sam and Rachel about the various parts of the game. And I really do want to say that I think that Sam and Rachel did a great job talking to each other during the final tribal, because it wasn't just about the questions that they were being asked they were responding to each other and they were acknowledging what each other said and and speaking directly to which i thought was great because we don't see that very often i mean sometimes people will make a snarky comment and be like that's not true but they were like actually interacting and working through things together. So just, I really enjoyed that component of it as well.

I thought that was a great part of the final tribal council. Yeah. And you know, even, even as final tribal council approached, Sam would later say he knew he was fighting an uphill battle. So he went in ready for combat and that's what you just described. Yes. I think, you know, the discussions and debates that you mentioned went back and forth with each making some good points and some good rebuttals. And along the way, you know, we've discussed the various things Rachel did. And she was saying. So I want to go through a few things. Rachel had some great points, like mentioning how every other player in the game talked about how great she was to the jury. We've mentioned this a few times.

Sam replied by claiming, well, he was doing it to make someone seem like a bigger threat to him. And Rachel noted something we've discussed, which is, well, okay, but then you have to take me out and you didn't. And then Sam, for his part, was correct to note that, well, sometimes people win immunity and you can't do anything about it. Right. And then he even noted that she called him a threat and tried to get rid of him through fire making, but he made it.

So I thought both of them did well in this back and forth. But I really do think it comes down to, as Rachel correctly noted, you can't spend days calling someone the biggest threat and change your tune at the end. The jury just is not going to buy it. Perception becomes reality at that point. It reality and i do appreciate the fact that she really leaned in on essentially like what's wrong with winning challenges what why is that why is that a bad thing that should be celebrated it should be a good thing and and yes she did find an idol in her french fries or i yeah i guess it was yeah was the clue to an idol so or an actual idol i don't remember if the idol was a clue just a clue so but i but i do think that she did really a really nice job pushing back on that just as

she pushed back on i don't need to make fire i've already won a challenge i don't need to make fire. I've already won a challenge. I don't need to win another challenge. And so I, I really think that she did such a good job of pushing back on that idea that she shouldn't get credit for the challenge wins because that's what got her there. But she, it's not like that was handed to her necessarily. She still had to fight to win all of those challenges. So I, I really appreciated her approach to that as well. Yeah. I mean, you know, there were, you know, Mike Holloway and Ben Dreeberg and taking stray bullets from Andy. Yes. Right. You know, but I think the jury voted correctly and that I don't think a juror should vote for someone to win or not win because they won

challenges and found idols. I don't think they should be either rewarded or penalized for it. I think it should all be about how you use it. Yeah. Win challenges or find idols and then just survive and not do anything strategically. Well, then I don't think you should win necessarily. anything strategically, well, then I don't think you should win necessarily. Did you challenges or find idols and use them to maneuver? That is what should be important. And we talked about that earlier. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Another point that Rachel explained was that her game wasn't working out the way she expected at one point and she couldn't get back or she couldn't get people to do her bidding so she had to adapt but even so she had the underdog alliance now this is where sam really went after the luck factor about the the fries else and you know rachel was tried saying, well, he wasn't as big a threat. So, you know, you,

it's different for him. But Sam came back with some Andy like statistics to show, well, actually people thought that I was a bigger threat and I voted correctly more than you did. And they voted more than you. And of course, of course they would vote for him more. She was immune half time but well and that is but but this is where you fall into that strange category of what necessarily matters more right right because yes he was voted for more but they couldn't vote for rachel if rachel hadn't won immunity she was going to get voted out right and i and i almost feel like that could backfire on sam because well sam you weren't immune and you didn't get voted out.

So if Rachel hadn't been immune, she would have been voted out. So I think that that is another way to look at it, that that argument, though, it sounds like a great argument and then it makes sense. I think the response to that is, but you didn't get voted out. Right. But then his appropriate response would be yes, because I followed rule six and I made sure that there were other people ahead of me. So she relied on immunity challenges. I relied on playing the game.

Yes. And this is why it was, it was such a great final tribal council because they were both arguing their games so eloquently. Right. It wasn't just about vote for me because I'm the best. It was, let me tell you all of the things that I did and all of the ways that I played this game

and how it worked for me. And it wasn't the game that she played or it wasn't the game that he played, but I still played this game this particular way. Right. And I just really loved that they both did that. And I think Sam came on stronger than she did,

but I think Sam needed to because of everything that had been said about Rachel up to that point. She was the larger threat. She was the more obvious choice. So Sam had to come in fighting. And I loved that he did

because you got to see a side of Sam that you didn't necessarily see throughout the game and then he's throwing facts and figures at you and you're like okay this is a thing and so I just appreciated that approach so much because he needed to do it he knew he needed to do it but then her responses to it was ownership of her game but the game that she played. So it just was a nice balance because they really were, even though they were coming at each other a bit,

they were still really focusing on what they did in their own game. Yeah. Yeah. After it was all said and done, you know, in the reunion, Rachel said, Sam had an incredible final tribal council and others agreed.

Now this did make some viewers angry that he didn't win, but the thing is final tribal council and others agreed. Now, this did make some viewers angry that he didn't win. But the thing is, final tribal council doesn't and shouldn't determine everything. Players should be judged on the entirety of their game. It would be like having a trial and then the jury just deciding guilt or innocence based on closing arguments. And while, of course, closing arguments are important, all the evidence leading up to it should be more important. Yes. Yes. Because what you say in closing argument is evidence. So. Right. And that's the same here. I think the jurors mostly had their minds made up ahead of time, or at least were leaning strongly towards Rachel because of what they had

seen out of her leading up to this point. While Sam did a good job, much of what he said just didn't change their minds. It was, it was well done, but not enough to change their minds. It did not like blow their minds to the point that they were like, well,

now I have to switch, you know? But I do, but it was nice to see a couple they were like, well, now I have to switch, you know? But I do, but it was nice to see a couple of them like struggle when they got up to vote because they were like, Oh goodness. He did give people something to think about. And I, and I, and I really think that that that's a great thing to be able to create in a final tribal,

because then you are putting people on pause and you're making them kind of work through things in their own head and what they remember and they can final tribal because then you are putting people on pause and you're making them kind of work through things in their own head and what they remember and they can reflect upon the game so overall just really just a great just a great final tribal council for rachel and sam and i i know we haven't really said i mean we kind of started with with sue but one thing i just want to add that that Sue continued to do. And I thought was not necessarily a great approach was the, I kicked all of your asses. Like she, like really like emphasizing that component and, and I, but Sam, she had to bring it full circle.

She said it in the pregame and then, you know, he did have to say it at the end. She did. You know know you want to gain favor you don't want to remind everybody that they suck so yeah yeah i know uh now i i do want to say one more thing about you know sam because i talked about their you know he didn't blow their minds so much that they changed their vote and this goes along with something I said before we got to the rules about how even his dramatic come-from-behind fire-making victory did not sway any jurors. Right.

They understood the mission. And the mission was to evaluate each finalist's overall game, not decide that they saw fire in Sam's eyes or something. And suddenly, you know, that meant they should only pay attention to that one tiny sliver of time. Right. Yeah. Yeah. No, they did a great job. Excellent job. Jerry did an excellent job. Uh, so yeah, it comes back to, you know, what I, what I said said that you know i i said this earlier i want to close on this too that i definitely enjoyed these jury questions more than last season uh yes asking

open-ended questions allowing the finalists to inform them about their game being you know rather than being like you have 30 seconds to tell me everything you did all season. Go. It was a much wiser way to dig into who deserved to win. Even though I don't think it ended up changing things, it allowed them to have the opportunity to. Right. And it just confirmed what they were thinking in their mind. And like I said, Sam gave them some things to think about and kind of mull over, which is great.

Because I think every person who is in this situation wants to know whoever I am choosing to win this game is the right choice because the winner reflects the season. Right. And you want the winner to represent the season in a way that people will appreciate and and understand and support. And so it's a big decision. You're, you're voting for someone to win a million dollars. So they, they better have earned it. Right. And I think that this jury really focused on that and, and really made everyone watching aware of what they're, what they were focusing on. Yeah. Yep. All right. Well, it is about time to wrap things up. So what are your final thoughts on Rachel, Sam, Sue, and Teenie? Well, I will keep mine brief because I'm sure yours are incredible. However, I will say to all

four of the final survivors from season 47, thank you for providing us an incredible season i know that we might have been harping a little bit on sue so we still love you we think you're fantastic we appreciate the game that you brought forth we have to evaluate each player in the season that we watch and doing the things that they do. You are loyal to a T. Everything about you is all about that loyalty. And I can appreciate that very much. So, Sue, keep being a badass.

Keep getting out there and being the strong woman that you are because you are incredibly impressive. So don't ever forget what you brought to this game. And that was a true authentic sue that we all got to see and appreciate so thank you for that teeny social butterfly this is just i i think that teeny will always have a special place in so many viewers hearts because teeny wants to be friends with everyone and really i think came into this game hoping to do just that and i think teeny really has outside of the game i think the relationships that teeny has formed will be everlasting because that's the type of person that they are. This means something to Teenie.

And I think that that's what we really got to see. Although there was some very obvious, I don't know what's going on. I'm really not sure what's happening anymore. Stems from her gossipy nature or the I want to be friends with everybody component. And forgetting about the strategy of it. Overall, I think Teenie was a joy to watch on screen and also really came into this game wanting people to learn who teeny was and really had an opportunity to do that so thank you teeny as for sam and rachel i love that we got to see people like go head to head in the final tribal council.

It was really a joy to watch. Both players came at this game in a different way. They were both seen as threats, but they were different types of threats. They were both people that needed to be reckoned with. They were both people that were being focused on. They were both people that everyone talked about, but they never got voted out. So it was fascinating to watch because you had one that was needing an immunity necklace. You had one that was needing to be scrappy, but they both figured out how to maneuver through this game and create

a game that was going to work for themselves. And I love that about each of them because it was so individualized. It was so individualistic. Rachel knew what she needed to do. Sam knew what he needed to do. And they made it happen. They went in there and they played the games. Rachel, very calculated, very cunning, very, I'm going to work through all the permutations and I'm going to figure out all of the ways that I can get to where I need to get to. And Sam, if there's a way it's got to be done,

he's going to get it done. And he figured out the way. And I love that, that they took those different approaches. Sam might not have worked through all of the permutations, but he figured out a way to get there. And so I just think both of them, great survivor players, great personalities, butterfly effect, I'll say it.

I'll say it, butterfly effect it butterfly effect i didn't necessarily think rachel was gonna win rachel won so i don't know rachel maybe i had something to do with it but i think you all are great rachel i truly believe has the type of survivor experience and game that every survivor wants to have. She lived that dream. She had that experience and just an incredible, almost perfect game. So kudos to you. Excellent winner.

Great representation for season 47. So, all right, David, tell them all. That was the short version. That was longer than mine. Listen, I'm sorry. I was the short version? That was longer than mine could be. That was the short version.

Listen, I'm sorry. I apologize. I don't apologize. So I thought it was good. Yeah, like you, I enjoyed watching all of the final four, mostly for different reasons. Teenie was the Charlie Brown of the season with almost nothing going right for them. They got so turned around.

It truly was like they tried to kick the football and spun in midair when it was pulled away. But they never stopped trying. Sue went out there and represented for the older crowd. You know, the 45-year-old crowd. Hi. Yeah. She showed she could do so many different things, just like a younger person.

just like a younger person. Unfortunately, the one thing she couldn't or wouldn't do was really strategize hard in a way that provides a chance to win the game. She thought her age reveal would hit hard and that she could argue she was part of the strategies and her loyalty should count for something, but none of those were valued by this jury. And reading players in the jury is one of the most important aspects of the game when you get

to this point. Sam put up a valiant fight. He went from being a top dog on Gata to being knocked down a few pegs at the merge and had to scramble just to stay alive in the game. But even as he wasn't in a good position, he was still seen as a threat to some of the others. While he had a great social game, this made it more difficult to get in good strategically. And when he finally found a home, it was in a minority with others who were considered threats and they were being targeted by the underdogs. Meanwhile, Rachel had a similar journey with a few important differences. She went from being labeled a threat to working with some of those

calling her that and even became part of that underdog alliance. Now, alliances are not named as often on Survivor as they are on Big Brother, but this one conveyed a meaning to it. They weren't just a group of people working together. They were those on the bottom fighting against the big threats. But Rachel was a wolf in underdogs clothing. Within that alliance, she had created multiple possible paths to the end. And even when it all blew up, she still had her options. Sure, some of those involved winning immunity and using her idol, but it was what she did when she had that power that mattered. Rachel said she had the most dominant game of the three finalists. She controlled both advantages and the idol in the post-merge. And it wasn't just luck, it was stealthiness.

And she had to play the idol in a large way that really impacted. In a jury confessional before final tribal council, Genevieve said Rachel wrapped her hands around the control and wouldn't let go. And I think that's an apt description. And also as Teenie would later tell Mike Bloom, it was a recognition of the game play, Rachel played by the jury. And part of that game was winning the battle of perceptions.

Rachel was an underdog who, as she said, became an overdog. Sam was trying to be the scrappy comeback kid, but he had been labeled as a threat while he and all the others said Rachel was the biggest threat at the end. And she used his own words against him. As I said, Sam had a great final tribal council, but the game isn't, or at least shouldn't be, and wasn't in this season, determined by one moment in time. Rachel built up her game and her image over the course of weeks. Even if Sam out-debated her at the end, he wasn't able to overcome everything she had planted firmly in the jury's mind beforehand. It was, as I said, a valiant effort, but it just wasn't going to work against this opponent. Both of them were great players, but Rachel made the moves that mattered in the end. And that is why Rachel won

and Sam, Sue, and Teenie lost. Lovely. Hey, you know what? What? We don't have to do predictions. I know, but I still want people to hang around. We've got a few things to tell everybody, of course. First, I want to remind everyone that the rules we just discussed are, as I mentioned before, available in poster form, still on sale. That's right. Let's just say we'll keep it on sale till the end of the year. That's great. I love this plan.

Okay. We'll keep it on sale till the end of the year. So you still have time. Also available are the poster on a t-shirt and the checklist on a t-shirt, not on sale, but, you know, still good things to buy. They're inexpensive enough anyway. Yeah. So again, yeah. Rob has a website.com slash YX lost feed. Uh, and in the meantime, people are interested in looking for us or finding us in various places.

So I'm at Jessica Lewis, 89 on both blue sky and Twitter. I am a little bit more quiet these days and I apologize for that, but you know, work-life balance. But I am also on Instagram, JessicaLewis6789. You can certainly find me there as well. I do still a lot of content from David Bloomberg because, ladies and gentlemen, David Bloomberg is a social media guru.

So much so he has a linked tree that leads you to all of the places that you can find him and all of the incredible content that he does create. And if you'll notice, Blue Sky has moved way up in the list. It's one of the first social media platforms that you list, but there are so many more, David, why don't you tell them all about where they can find you? Yes. As you mentioned, you can find all my accounts through my link tree at link tree slash David Bloomberg with a dot before the E in the URL. You could find me more directly on blue sky as at David Bloomberg or on

threads as at David Bloomberg TV. You know, we've been discussing this. A lot of people have of course been leaving Twitter and jumping to blue sky. So make sure to find me there. I'm encouraging it. I'm like moving conversations with people to blue sky because some of the people on Twitter are just jerks. I mean, some of the stuff, you know, I would post the same thing about like the fire making on blue sky and on Twitter and the, I got more views and likes on Twitter, but I got more real discussions on blue sky and the people on Twitter,

because it went into the algorithm and started going to everyone. Frankly, I got a lot of jerks responding to, I don't need that in my life. So, so blue sky is just better. I'm also on the video platforms, YouTube, Tik, TikTok, and Instagram is at David Bloomberg TV, where I've been posting two or more videos per day. And I encourage people especially to look at YouTube, where I already have over 42,000.

I'm approaching 43,000. Look at you. So, you know, right now, I will be of course posting clips from the Survivor finale, plus other shows like the House of Villains finale. I expect I'll have some from the Beast Games, which started the day after the Survivor finale. I was like,

really, Amazon? Give me a minute. And some Survivor flashbacks during the holidays and off season. So I'll keep going, you know, through that whole time. What I will not be doing is podcasting for two whole weeks, I think. Oh, my gosh. I know it's quite a break.

I don't know what I'll be doing. But then I will be appearing on the Tradar podcast because the Traders UK begins January 1 and I will be appearing on the Tradar podcast because the Traders UK begins January 1. And I will be a guest host on there, a co-host on there once a week. They have three episodes a week. And then I will be the primary host for at least the beginning of the Traders US podcast on the Tradar. Oh, that's so great. I love that. And that begins

eight days later. So watch for all of that coming up in a couple weeks. So yes, I'll have like a two-week off season. But again, still making videos. Love this.

Look at you, the guy who didn't want to do video podcasting is now everywhere uh so as we wrap up i want to encourage people to check out the rjp patron program at rob has website.com slash patron you can get access to all the special podcasts that are put out just for patrons plus the facebook groups and discord so again please support shows like ours and everything on the network by becoming a patron at robhazwebsite.com slash patron.

And of course, make sure, you know, for the next Survivor season that you're subscribed to all of the RHAP Survivor podcasts at weknowsurvivor.com. So that way you'll get all of the content that comes out from us, the Know It Alls, the B&B, Survivor International,

Purple Pants Podcast. So just all of it. Be ready for it. Subscribe now. You definitely should, because the individuals who make this all happen, we must thank as well, Scott St. Pierre, Jessica Sterling, who do all of the editing, producing,

relative to not just the Why Blank Loss podcast, but all of the content that you just heard David Bloomberg speaking of relative to RHAP. Thank you so much to the staff for all of the work that you do. Doug, your art is incredible. Thank you for what you see here on your screen. For those watching the video, that is from Doug. And thank you to Will from America for the theme song that you hear on just the audio version of this podcast.

We really, David and I couldn't do this without all of those people and more. So thank you to everyone for that. And thank you to our listeners, because this is another season that I've had an opportunity to sit here next to next to David Bloomberg. Although we are states apart from each other, we get to appear to be sitting next to each other. So David, this has been great. Uh, lovely. I think I'm going to get to sleep a little more now, but you know, I'll, I'll do what I can,

but yeah, so this is, it's, it's bittersweet. Yes. Yes. Thank you as always, Jessica, not just for another great episode, but for an awesome season. We will, as I mentioned, of course, be back for Survivor 48 in a couple months. And, you know, as I mentioned, you can catch me all over the place before then. Thank you to everyone again for all your support. Thank you to the people on social media who have nice discussions. You know, it's good to have a back and forth that makes you think about things in a different way sometimes. Yes, for sure. And I hope everyone, all the listeners, everyone else have great holidays,

a happy new year, and we will see you soon. Bye. Bye. This is why blind loves Baby, this is why blind loves