RHAP: We Know Survivor - Why ___ Won (And the Others Lost) Survivor 48

Episode Date: May 24, 2025

Why ___ Won (And the Others Lost) Survivor 48 Kyle didn’t have a great start in Survivor 48. But he had one heck of a finish! His game was taking shape even before the game began, because a lot of his pregame ideas ended up as strategies he used. In the Finale, he was up […]

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Groceries that over-deliver. If you lost Survivor and you're feeling down, David and Jessica will turn it around. They'll break down the rules and they'll show you how. You blamed yourself and got voted out. This is why Blank lost. And this is why Bl blank lost. This is why blank lost. Baby, this is why blank lost.

This is why blank lost. This is why blank lost. This is why blank lost. I'm David Bloomberg. Welcome back to Why Blank Lost, or as we call it every time this season, Why Bl won? Joining me is my co-host Jessica Lewis, whose name I fully expect to hear Jeff say on Wednesday morning as part of the Survivor 50 cast release. Oh, yes, of course. Of course it'll be said on Wednesday morning, along with all of those other

survivors who are fully expecting their names to be said, but won't be. Although I don't think I really expected it to be said anyway. I do feel for some particular individuals that we know have been cut, which I'm still scratching my head about. So come the 28th, I know some of them have mentioned needing therapy. I understand. So I'll be supporting you from afar. I promise you that. But yeah, it'll be an interesting announcement. And I kind of feel bad for Survivor 49 because it's like, they're gonna get like, just rolled over, right?

Because everyone's gonna be talking about 50. So sorry, 49ers. That's just what it's gonna be. And here we are starting with 50, even though it's about 48. I know. I know. I wanted to mention it because when your name is announced,

I will, of course, make you my winner pick. Because sometimes my pregame winner predictions actually do pretty well. Like Eva coming in second place while yours was out in episode one. Oh, OK. So this is how it's going to be for the next few hours. I see.

I see. OK, that's fine. Be that way. And you know what? I own it. I own it. Because everyone knows's fine. Be that way. And you know what? I own it. I own it. Because everyone knows I'm terrible at winner picks. And everyone knows that the butterfly effect happens.

Look what I did to poor Camilla. I decided she was going to be the final winner. And what happened? She couldn't start a fire in the final four. I mean, I was debating picking Camilla as my winner pick originally way back when. And I also said in our pregame podcast that if Camilla or Kyle could make it to the merge, I thought they had a good shot of going far. And look at you. Yes. And you know, you talked about last week's prediction that you made.

Now, I was by no means the only person to predict Kyle would win in the final three against Joe and Eva. But hey, I also said it last week. So congratulations to Kyle. Yes. And congrats. That's said it last week. So congratulations to Kyle. Yes, and congrats. That's what we should be saying. Congratulations to Kyle. Congratulations to all of the final five,

but congrats to Kyle. And I will fully admit as well, I wasn't sure about Kyle in the pregame when we were first making all of our predictions. I had some real concerns because I felt like he wasn't going to come at it hard enough. I was worried. I'm like, I feel like he's being a little too reserved. And I was very concerned about how that was going to play out. It actually worked out just incredibly

well for him because he did manage to like keep himself reserved considering everything that was going on. So yeah, playing the middle for him worked out fantastically well. So yeah, I don't know what I'm talking about. Sorry listeners, I just don't. For prediction. Apparently. For predictions. For predictions, okay, thanks. Looking back at you for prediction.

Now, although we have a winner and four other players to talk about, we will still go through the rest of the podcast in our usual way by comparing how the final five each played as compared 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. Not that anything at this point is a spoiler, but from what we saw on TV, interviews, social

media and secret scenes, the newest published version of the rules can be found at robhazwebsite.com slash yxlostfeed. Now, one thing I want to remind everyone about before we get started is that because we have five players, we unfortunately can't give all of them the time they deserve or else we'd be here for like eight hours. Um, I think that's probably a bit too long. Uh, on the plus side, the reason they didn't get a whole podcast devoted to them is because they didn't lose earlier. Yeah, and that is a fair point. But we will give them the time that they deserve to reflect

on the larger components of their game, the things that they did well, might have needed to do a little better, and why ultimately Kyle ended up bringing home the win. That's right. But before we address how the Final Five did in terms of the rules, we always have some other things to discuss. Now, I was planning to talk about Final Tribal Council because when I watched live, I was disappointed and felt it was missing

a lot of information. It was a continuation of the poor edit this season. While I was certainly not alone in feeling this way, there were also a lot of other people I saw who really enjoyed it. And While I was certainly not alone in feeling this way, there were also a lot of other people I saw who really enjoyed it. And so I was confused. I wanted to understand why. So I asked on Blue Sky and I got a lot of good answers that gave me other perspectives. So I watched it a third time. I think the biggest issue I had was that it didn't show the things I expected to be there. Like David closing the loop and coming hard at Joe for proclaiming honesty and

then voting him out. Yeah. Even more of Kyle explaining his overall game. I was just expecting more of everything, but looking back again, I realized that while it would have been nice, it wasn't necessary. Final Trap gave each of them a chance to speak and showed the key points they had or didn't have, which of course we'll be discussing in a little while here. So thank you to everyone who replied with their thoughts. Yeah, I went back and I watched again because I felt much the same. Like I didn't feel like Mitch was saying

where Mitch at the very end was like, oh, they all came so hard. And everyone was like a hundred percent. I'm like, did I just miss something? Like what, what like, but I do think that it was a very interesting dynamic and what we saw happening in Final Tribal where I feel like out of the three of them,

Eva came at it the hardest and I feel like based upon her exit press, she felt like she needed to. Whereas I think Kyle fell into that same, I don't need to prove anything to you, I can just talk to you about what I did and that's going to be enough to carry the day. Like that's all I need to do. I don't need to sit here and try to convince you. I'm just going to tell you. And it really fit into what we've seen Kyle do the entire season. So I really did appreciate that when I went back and watched it again.

Like, oh, that makes sense. Like, he was very much like an attorney in a lot of the arguments he made. Like, I can just lay out the facts and tell you what you might not know, but I'm going to support it with some evidence and some proof to then show you that I should win the game. And then Joe, I do think that Joe just kind of, I love the guy, but he just, he didn't,

he just kind of came at it from the wrong angle, I think, where it was more of a personal win for him as opposed to like a game win. Like I should. I'm the best player here as opposed to I'm the best person. That's really kind of what it felt like. So I think overall it was it was a very interesting season for sure. We have some issues with the editing, which we've discussed, and I'm and I imagine that we will be discussing that throughout this podcast. But I you know, I think I think Kyle's a great winner.

And I think that we will have much to say about everyone who is in the final five. Yeah, I do think in that final tribal council, you know, like the David thing not coming up. I wonder if Shaheed and filled in David about more of the reasons that it happened and also took credit for that, like we saw him do in interviews last week. So maybe David. Well, part of me says maybe David didn't blame Joe so much by then. But in his pre final tribal council jury confessional, he said Joe might get his vote if he fesses up to gameplay that involved breaking promises.

And then Cedric also said he voted for Joe in part because quote, he owned everything. And then the thing that Mitch said that you mentioned. So what did Joe own? What did he say that killed him? Things were clearly cut out as they always are. But I guess in the end it didn't really matter that much. Well, and I am curious about David because I don't feel like David's approach to Survivor was

what we've seen most people who play Survivor do. He wasn't there because he wanted to win Survivor, he was there because he wanted to compete and he wanted to like win challenges. And that's great. That's fine. So I think that that's probably why we saw him doing what he was doing at many of the tribal councils, thinking that he was somehow going to be making a point when he just left us all scratching our heads. Like, why is he standing up? What is happening right now?

Like he he thought that he was going to be like the center of attention for particular things, which is why I think we also saw the knock knock joke. Like, what are you doing? Like, this is a game for a million dollars. It is literally not about you right now. It's about the people who are sitting in those three spots. And the look on Jeff's face and the players faces when he did the knock knock thing. I think he saw in his mind it was going to be like this big like,

oh, look at David moment. And everyone was going to be talking about David. And we are, but just from a different. Yeah. Yeah. Vantage point. Yeah. Yeah. Instead of stuff like that and another David thing later, I would have liked to hear more of what Kyle said, not so much for myself, but for the many others out there who don't necessarily listen to podcasts or or, you know, get that full experience.

Because Mike Bloom's parade interviews had a poll at the end of each of them asking people if they agreed with Kyle's win or thought Joe should have won. And when I was looking at those late Thursday night, the Joe Truthers had like 60% of the vote. And these are people who actually went to these pages. So they went to look at interviews. They were not random people walking down the street. So that's a majority of that sample who did not really understand why Kyle won and Joe lost. And, you know, I'd like to think all those people are listening right now, but we know they're not. And, you know, if that many people don't understand, while it ensures job security for us on this podcast, it tells

me the editing failed. Yeah. So, now... Well, and I can say too that there were quite a few comments that I came across in my reviewing so many exit interviews in preparation for this that really spoke ill of Camilla and Kyle and their lying and how Joe should have won because he didn't lie and they were the biggest liar. And it was really kind of ugly.

And I was thinking to myself, well, this is a game for a million dollars. And you have to outplay outlast. But sometimes that includes lying as part of scheming and plotting. I would say always, if you're going to win. Yes, and so I was really kind of taken aback that there were so many people who were angry at the fact that somebody who lied won the game.

That happens all the time in Survivor. Literally all the time, it has never not happened. time in Survivor. Literally all the time. Like it has never not happened. Right. So I, yeah, I got into plenty of those conversations too, and then wished I hadn't. You know, one thing about Joe, I will mention, and I think

that, I think Rob has hinted at this. I don't remember if he has, maybe not. I can't remember for sure where all I saw it. That there's some speculation about that, you know, that revelation we'll be finding out Wednesday that Joe could be headed back out for survivor 50. So it's possible they didn't want to show him getting totally creamed in tribal council.

It's, you know what? I've heard the same rumors, I've seen the same predictions that he is someone we will be seeing again. He is the type of player that Jeff Probst loves. And we know this and we saw how significant that relationship was throughout the season between he and Eva. And so I wouldn't be surprised if we do see

Joe being mentioned for Survivor 50. And I certainly don't want to not commend Joe, because I do think that Joe played a great game for the type of game he wanted to play. And and so I do think that that is something to be like, appreciated. Like he walked in saying, I don't want to have to lie and cheat and steal, but I'm going to see what happens. Like I'm going to read the room when I get there and I'm going to figure it out. And if this is something I can do, I just want to be me. And I thought that was really interesting that he was like, this is who I am. I don't want to pretend to be

somebody I'm not. And it will be easier for me to just be myself. And that's what he did. And so that I do think is very commendable that you can go on to a game show, a game show like this, right? And actually still be yourself and have that component where you want to have integrity and loyalty and not lie and not do those things.

But then you have to realize the end, maybe that's why he didn't win. Yes. Because you didn't do those things. But then you have to realize the end, maybe that's why he didn't win. Yes. Because you didn't do those things, right? Yes. That sounds a lot like a lot of the conversations I had online.

Yeah. So yeah, I would have liked to see more final tribal council. And like I hinted at a minute ago, we could have cut out some things like David's idiotic comments about gender-based milk drinking in the reunion. But you know, we've talked about the editing problems for a good portion of the season. I'm hoping producers have heard the overall complaints about editing this season will

improve. I'm not saying I'd bet on it, but I'm hoping. Yeah. Now, the weird thing is, even with those problems, I enjoyed the season more than many others did even as I sometimes didn't really enjoy the TV product. I know that sounds weird, but for weeks now, we have talked about we knew there was this scheming going on. Don't get mad because we're not, you know, that nobody's doing anything. And I think a lot of people who didn't enjoy the season

were mad because nothing was happening. But we knew that there was something happening. I would have liked it better if they had shown it, but maybe just knowing it helped me enjoy the season some. Well, and I think that you, as someone who does what you do, right, comes at this from a little bit of a different place than the casual viewer. The survivor of old was the survivor where crazy things

were happening and people were burning people's hats. I mean, stuff was like just out of control with some of the seasons and as a viewer. Oh, that was like just out of control with some of the seasons. And as a viewer, oh, that was so much fun, right? Because you're like watching like really people dumping rice into the fire and like people almost getting into physical altercations and so much of Jeff had to get involved in like random tribal councils happening at challenges because it was like scary stuff going on. And, and there, and there was always like these really big characters who were creating storylines and things. And I feel like this particular season

presented a much different issue for editing because you really did see a theme take over. And it wasn't about one person. It was really about this group of people who were like, we are going to be loyal and strong and stay together until the end. And that brings us back to like Pagong aim, which is not very exciting for people to watch. Right.

But we know that it happens in survivor most, but that's like most people, but we know that it happens in survivor, but someone who's the casual viewer is just like, come on, what are we doing? Like, this is boring. I want to see people fighting and going after each other. But if you're in the majority, there's no reason to do that until you absolutely need to, and so it, it, it came from a different place. I think I'm not saying the editing was great.

There were a lot of issues with the editing, but I think that we were dealing with a different type of thing here where it was a, it was almost like a group thing as opposed to an individual, uh, person that they were necessarily focusing on. It was, it was just a different vantage point that we haven't really seen in a long time. And I don't think the viewers really appreciated it very much. Yeah. Yeah. Now the viewers didn't appreciate that, but speaking of appreciation, can you imagine playing and winning Survivor

and then coming back and having to sit there while a bunch of people yell that you aren't doing anything and are a terrible player? Mm-hmm, oh, it would be terrible. You know, my head would explode. I definitely would not have handled it as well as I've seen Kyle and some of the others, you know, deal with it.

I do hope everyone who watched the season learns from this. So a few seasons from now, if the same thing happens, you and I don't have to sit here and say, hey, remember what happened in season 48? Just because we don't see them playing doesn't mean they're just sitting there. Let's have a reminder. It seems to be this amnesia that happens every, every few years. Well, and Mitch even talked about it in his exit press that, and we've talked about it at Nauseam, how difficult it is to actually show through an edit somebody's social game. You just, you can't necessarily show that component as much as someone who is winning challenges or finding idols and playing idols or doing all of, you know, having secret advantages

and these things. A social game is probably one of the most difficult things to pull off and also probably one of the most difficult things to pull off and also probably one of the most difficult things to show through an edit. And so I think that that was something that Mitch spoke to a lot. And we heard everyone talk about how they loved Mitch and how Mitch got along with everybody and Mitch didn't had no blood on his hands and didn't hurt people. And so you don't necessarily you see it, but you don't see it. Like you're just kind of like, oh, Mitch is Mitch is talking to everybody. Mitch is funny. Mitch is getting along. And viewers are not then equating that to a social game

that is helping get him through the game and getting him to the end where that group of six is trying to get to. And so and more importantly, with Mitch, and we'll talk about it later, they cut out very important things that demonstrating why he chose not to make the moves he did. Yes, very important things. Mm hmm. Yes. Before yelling at him, you know, about it. And it's like, yeah, maybe take a breath. So, so anyway, that's about all I have, because I know we'll have a lot to discuss. Yes, we have so much to discuss.

Do you have anything else you want to hit before that? No, we can just get right into this because we have a lot of people to talk about. Okay, well, we say get right into it. But of course, first, we need to remind everybody that the rules we're about to discuss come in a shorter and much more colorful version in poster form. Go to robhazwebsite.com slash yxlossb, scroll down to the poster and click on it. In addition-

I'm sorry. Yes? My, Hannah, you should, my daughter, my daughter is currently crawling on the floor behind me. Yeah. Because she didn't to interrupt the podcast. I just want you to know this is how dedicated my family is to my podcast.

Well good. And congratulations to Hannah for her college graduation. Yes, I'm just gonna walk this time. You're just gonna walk by, okay. He's saying congratulations for your college graduation. Oh, thank you, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. She scared me because all of a sudden I'm like, Congratulations for your college graduation. She scared me because all of a sudden I'm like, what is that on the floor? And it was my daughter's. But anywho, back to the things people can buy. Yes, in addition to the poster, you can scroll down and get a t-shirt with the poster design on it or the t-shirts that we are both wearing.

You wearing it the right way around. Y blank lost. Me wearing it backwards in honor of the winner because it says Y blank one on the back. So again, that is robhezlwebsite.com slash yxlostfeed for all of that. YXLostFeed for all of that. chat with them throughout your experience to feel like you're actually at the casino. The excitement doesn't stop there. With over 3,000 games to choose from including fan favorites like Cash Eruption, UFC Goldblitz and more. Make deposits instantly to jump in on the fun and make same day withdrawals if you win. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today.

You don't want to miss out. Visit betmgm.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager, Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. agreement with iGaming Ontario. Kyle had perhaps one of the worst starts in Survivor. Between not doing well in the first challenge and losing to an injured person by breaking the water jug in the supply challenge. But once he got to camp and got rolling, his game started to take shape. Really, as we'll see, it took shape even before the game started because a lot of his pregame ideas came into play. Meanwhile, he was up against the strong duo of Eva and Joe.

He had a secret partner, Camilla, and Mitch had been doing much more than we saw on TV. How did each of them do in terms of following my rules? Did some of them get far in spite of breaking them? Or were there other reasons they got to the points they did? Get ready to go because we have five players to talk about. And at RHAP, we know Survivor and we know why Kyle won and Eva, Joe, Camilla and Mitch lost.

That's right. Well, the first and most important rule, and the longest one we're going to discuss, is, of course, to scheme and plot. Sorry, Joe, the first rule is not to be honest and loyal. Now, Kyle may have been a big part of Joe's honorable alliance, but behind it all, he knew what he really needed to do. He played his part to Joe and Eva's face and even made really close relationships with them. But he always thought

in the back of his mind about how he would need to betray them somehow. Now, the most interesting part of this to me was that while we have all associated this plan of a solid loyal alliance with Joe. Going back and looking at my pregame notes about Kyle, I found he had already been thinking about this very thing going in, and I had forgotten. He said in his pregame interview, when seasons 45 and 46 were being played, even 44, they all acted like it was this voting block sort of game, but it wasn't. You have the Reba four, you have the Tika three, you have Charlie and Maria.

Or if you don't want to do Charlie and Maria, you have the goat four. Those are not voting blocks. Those are people who actually trust each other. Mm hmm. And of course, this is something we have talked about frequently here. So when he saw and was part of a big core alliance, I bet he was very happy about how it fit into his plan. Yes, and also very happy considering how he started the game.

As you mentioned, that's the that's going to be the worst feeling ever to be like my first impression to my tribe is going to be that I lost our ability to have all of the essentials that we need to really like start camp life. I'm like, hi, everyone. Yeah, I lost. And by the way, the other person I was up against has an injured shoulder. And like we've all seen, I mean, like everything about that is like terrible.

And so that had to have been such a just. Horrible moment for him to come and say, hi, yeah, so here's what happened. But then still have the ability to find himself in the majority to maintain that position. And that was something that he talked about in a lot of his exit press was how he was able to continue to be in that place despite things that had happened and that people were not targeting him for various reasons. So he really did find a great balance to enjoy what a majority alliance is going to provide to you, but also hide him in a way so people

weren't focusing on Kyle. So he really did do this incredibly well considering how terrible it was the way he started. Yeah, I mean, he immediately made the effort to getting good with his tribe mates that led to bonding with Camilla, bringing in David and Chrissy thanks to Camilla throwing charity under the bus. And of course, that was the beginning of a beautiful secret alliance friendship with Camilla that went all the way through the game as player after player sudden post game

interviews, they didn't know about it, even including original tribe mates, Charity and Chrissy. And Joe told Mike Bloom, I'm going to flat out say no, I did not know that, that the depth of their relationship, Eva flat out told Mike, anyone who claims they knew Kyle and Camilla were as close as they actually were, they're lying. She added that he would spend all his time with her and then run off for a few seconds to secretly catch Camilla, then come immediately back. And then, you know, Eva, Kyle, and Camilla all said in interviews that we saw on TV, probably over 90% of the conversations the two

of them had, which is a total reverse. Usually we say, oh, you only saw 10%. No, we saw the opposite here because they had so few, but they were so important. Yes. And, you know, meanwhile, back at the starting tribe, I mentioned Kyle also had David and that was his more public number one. So he was good to go even if they would have gone to tribal council early, but of course they didn't. And he and Camilla ended up on a swap tribe with the whole California girls alliance,

whom they outsmarted through their acting and planning and sharing information in a way that was so secret. Their alliance remained hidden even after they pulled off the Thomas vote. Which still stuns me that they were able to pull, because you would think that's going to shine a very, very big red flag on everything that they're doing. But even Kyle and his exit press

was talking about how nobody picked up on it. He came back from travel councils like, yeah, I played my idol. Like someone went through my bag and just, and they were just like, oh, okay. And that was it. And I and I do think that there is something to be said about the approach that Kyle and Camilla took in regards to

not making everything big and dramatic. Right. It was very much just like almost a natural response to what was happening around them. That's the way they presented it. Like, oh, this is this is a situation that I'm in. This is how I'm going to present it happening around them. That's the way they presented it. Like, oh, this is a situation that I'm in. This is how I'm going to present it to my tribal. I had to do this because of that. Not I'm doing this because I want to make this move. It was actually like, oh, I was just responding.

Somebody did something to me. And I really thought it was so, it was just so eloquent, the way that they were able to really pull it off because nothing was big and flashy, even though it was big and flashy, because they were still making moves but they were doing it in such an underhanded way that no one was aware that they were actually doing it. This is really quite incredible to see.

Yeah, because once they got to the merge, Kyle was, of course, part of the strong five or six alliance. But he was so much more than that, which was the real key to his game. We heard through the season that there was the main group and there was everyone else on the bottom. Mm hmm. There's my hand. But Kyle always kept lines of communication open. You know, while we saw Joe and David talking about how they didn't want to play a game

of backstabbing and scheming, Kyle told us the foundation of the game he was playing with Camilla was deception. He was in such a solid position that he could afford to wait. And as he said in the confessional, play in the margins. As he told Mike Bloom, his game was nuanced. He wasn't out there making big moves. And so many of the things he said throughout the season showed that. Like he said, everything in Survivor is about timing.

You see players who make big moves all the time, and they're booted out right after that. Some players never make a move and regret it for the rest of their lives. He understood all of that. Yes. I love his use of the term like little pushes. And I think that that's always a great way to play this game is planting seeds of information, pushing people in a particular direction,

because then it really does deflect off of you or people aren't necessarily looking at you. They might feel they're coming up with things on their own and then they might be the ones that end up becoming responsible for something and then potentially being kicked out of the game because of it. Whereas you have the other two individuals,

Kamala and Kyle, who are actually behind the move, but they're not the ones who are being blamed for it. But then they can get credit for it at the end, which is what makes survivor so complicated, right? Because you don't want to be blamed for it, but then you want get credit for it at the end, which is what makes survivors so complicated, right? Because you don't want to be blamed for it, but then you want credit for it when it actually matters. And they were able to find that balance.

Right. And you mentioned those little pushes and he said he talked about in Final Tribal Council that he didn't only stay in the middle, but he fiercely protected that middle. that he didn't only stay in the middle, but he fiercely protected that middle. Because when his his previous number one, David, tried to go after his secret number one, Kyle got his allies to change the vote and then help get rid of David to prevent future problems. So that goes along with what he said. I rode the middle when people tried to push me out of it.

I pushed them out. Media cut to David. Now, as the game went on, Kyle knew he had to make some sort of a move to show the jury that he wasn't just being dragged along as Joe's loyal ally, going back to what you were saying about don't want to be blamed, but do you want to get credited? Yes.

And as he was trying to figure this out, he reasoned that he had already burned so many jurors and he didn't want to go directly at Joe. And, you know, plus, let's face it, he and Camilla and Shaheen all came to the same correct conclusion that it was better to face Joe and Eve at the end than it was to get rid of them. And this was, of course, where the idea came to undermine the duo and get rid of Shaheen, accomplishing multiple goals at once. And of course, we saw his plan work. It had several components.

They all came together perfectly. In addition to the corroboration with the apparently unaffiliated Camilla, Kyle told Gordon Holmes that Joe didn't specifically ask Shaheen about the supposed idol because Kyle had told him if he did, Shaheen would play the idol, Eva would play hers, Joe was immune, so the vote would ricochet onto Kyle.

And so he basically begged Joe not to say anything. And also basically told him, and even if you ask him, he's going to say no, right? It doesn't even he's going to say no and then play it right. Right. He's certainly not going to admit to it. Yes. Right. Now, the timing was perfect, despite what some people complained about as they watched Shaheen said in the finale that Kyle probably played the most strategic game.

He aligned with the right people at the right time and was willing to turn on them when he had to and not a moment too early. Camilla said Kyle was a good liar and a good strategist. Meanwhile Joe talked in the final four tribal council about how Kyle is honest and a man of his word. It was all set up perfectly for the big reveal at final tribal council when Eva claimed credit for the move and Camilla through the alley-oop pass so that Kyle could execute the perfect slam dunk.

And I just want to jump in here for one second because there was some commentary by Eva that she didn't get to continue her thought on this particular circumstance and wanted to add more to it. And I don't necessarily. Feel that what she wanted to add would have changed things at all because she now she was focusing on how she was managing Joe. She wasn't focusing on how she was managing that particular move. And she started out with the Shaheen vote.

Like this is what we decided to do. We needed to target Shaheen. And so I, I think that her, her desire to minimize this particular move, uh, I think it falls flat really, because I do think that this was such a structured and like layered move that Camilla and Kyle came up with and had to really, it could have blown up anywhere. And they did such a great job of managing information through Joe and how they were sharing information that it really, because I think as viewers, all of us were saying

the same thing. Why didn't he just go and ask Shaheen? Be like, is this really what happened? Is this what you did? But Kyle had thought about that and Kyle had planted that seed with Joe about this is why you don't want to ask Shaheen outright what he's going to do, because this is what's going to happen. And someone like Joe, if they truly believe that you are loyal to them

and that you are with them and you are that close, you're going to believe Kyle because you're going to be like, well, Kyle's been like my number one and he's been with me this whole time. And we have shared so many intimate moments and information that, wow, I'm gonna do what he says. And Kyle was just stringing him along for this particular move. So I do think that it was a brilliant, brilliant move

and executed perfectly. Yes, yes. Now I was gonna move to Eva executed perfectly. Yes. Yes. Now I was going to move to Eva next anyway. You've already started us there and said some of the things I was going to say. So you know, now her strategy to me overall, besides whatever point she was going to make there, I feel like her strategy is a bit more difficult to discern. We know she went into the game planning to hide how smart she was.

And apparently she pulled that off because a few others said later they thought she was just a jock. And the thing is though, I'm just not sure what all that accomplished in terms of the game. It seems like she said, she acted like she just followed Joe,

but was really an equal partner in the strategic decisions. But again, I don't know exactly how that demonstrates anything because, as we'll discuss in a few minutes, I wouldn't say Joe exactly played a strategically genius game either. Now, maybe she was doing more, but she told Dalton Ross, they really, they didn't really show my strategy, but that gave the audience the chance to watch me in Final Tribal as if they were a jury member Because they did not see my strategy throughout the game So it was very cool for them to be like, oh wow, actually my eyes are open to what Eva was doing Again, maybe there was more but my problem was that even after watching that Final Tribal Council three times

My eyes were not opened and I wish she had talked about it more. Or maybe being the equal partner thing was the main part of it and I just don't see it as being as much of a wow as she does. Well, and I think that her emphasis on the dynamic duo that she kept referencing and how they were like one of the most incredible duos ever in Survivor. I you can't you can't make that point or argue that point to a group of individuals who know this game like Shaheen does. Right. Like you might be able to get away with that with a star who's who's

just basically crammed and doesn't necessarily remember all of the dynamic duos that have existed throughout Survivor. And there have been quite a few. And not that I want to discredit the relationship that Joe and Eva had, but when you have the other half of that duo sitting there saying, well, we didn't do this because we wanted to do this as a game. Like we did this because we just, you know, we connected with each other. And then we became like close with each other.

And it wasn't about strategy necessarily. I mean, Joe was literally saying this in the final tribal council. And Eva's trying to argue that they're the greatest duo to ever play the game. And you're like, well, wait a second. Like, that's not what he's saying. He's saying that, like, we both played a game, but we played it together. And she's acting as if this was their strategy all along was to be this great duo. But unfortunately, that strategy, I think is really what brought them both to a demise because everyone was looking at them going, Oh, well, they're just

one person then like that's just they're just together. And we have to sit next to both of them because they're literally one person and they can't separate themselves from each other. And so if anything, the votes will be split or one will get credit for what the other one did. So that's why we have to sit next to both of them. And so that dynamic duo that she's arguing was the great strategy really actually, I think, caused their demise. I mean, it did both. It helped them move forward and prevented them from winning. I do think one part of what Eva and Joe did was a good strategy for their circumstances.

As she told us at the merge, she and Joe, she knew she and Joe were a threat, so they needed strong, like-minded individuals so they could run the game. And indeed, it kept them safe all the way through. And it made even more sense for Eva in particular to try to push the idea of honesty and loyalty because she has said she can't pick up on lies like other people. Yeah. So if that was her strategy, it was a good one to move them

forward in parts of the game that are often dangerous for people who are seen as big threats. But what we saw from Eva through the game and even in final tribal council was talking about how her plan was to get her whole alliance through. Like that's why she didn't use her safety without power, for example. That was why she said in episode 11, my game has not shifted to a me, which is one reason I said in that moment that I knew she wouldn't win Because while players often need a we to get to the end like Kyle He knew he needed a group of individuals Chrissy was right from the as she said from the jury only one person can win so you need to distinguish Yourself yes from the jury, only one person can win. So you need to distinguish yourself from the we.

And I didn't see Eva do that from a strategic standpoint. And that's when Joe tried to explain the relationship that they had created and how they were each gonna speak separately about their games. But yes, Eva kept going back to it being she and Joe. And so this, and again, I'm just going to flip this back over to Kyle and Camilla for a minute and just, and also Mitch as well. Everybody knew they needed to sit next to both of them.

And they all knew that for the same reasons, because there was no separating the we. And if, and, and I think that from a strategic standpoint every other player was in the right in thinking I need to go to the end of both of them because of that inability to separate. And so I you know I think that that's that'll there's a lot of things we can discuss about Mitch I think in regard to that too and why people didn't split them up and the various things that they did. But yes, I mean, her idea that that was the strategy certainly wasn't going to be a winning one for her.

Yeah. So we can move to the other part of the Wii, Joe. And I think most people already know a lot of what I'm going to say. But it's still my job to say it. During the season, Joe said, everybody plays this game differently. There are players who have made it to the end with a tight alliance that didn't get crazy lying and cheating and stealing. It can happen. And I absolutely agreed with that. You can indeed get to the end that way. Just like Kyle talked about solid alliances in his pregame interview. But there is a difference between getting to the end alliances in his pregame interview. But there is a difference between getting to the end and winning and winning or losing is what we talk about here.

This is something that, you know, I told you, I had some of those online conversations just like you saw before. Like, look, his strategy got him to the end. Yeah, but he didn't win. He didn't even get second place. You know, so. Okay. You know, you could you could applaud it, but not if the goal is to win the game.

Yes. And he also said in the finale that he wanted to play an honest, loyal game and he refused to do certain things that would compromise the man he is. He wasn't willing to stab someone in the back or build a resume just to impress the jury. The problem is that if you want to win, you should really be doing all of those things. You have to impress the jury. They're the ones who are making the decision. And we've talked about this a lot with Survivor

is the jury wants to see that resume. They want to hear what you've done. Now, yes, we can give him all of the credit in the world for creating a group of people and helping carry that group through the game, 100%. But you have to be mindful of the people in that group and what they're doing. And everyone was willing to work with Eva and Joe because they knew that strategically, those two were not a threat to them.

And they could come up with that perfect timing to make a move in order to undermine that duo. I mean, these were the thoughts that Shaheen was having that Kyle and Camilla were having and that just goes to show that that this idea of yes, you can bring a group 100% but there is going to be someone within that group that is not thinking we that is thinking me and Knows that I have to win this game and Kyle was doing that Kyle was looking for that one thing that he could say to the jury Hey Jerry, this is what you don't know and this is the move that I and Camilla did together to undermine the two sitting next to me and

Unfortunately, Joe just wasn't thinking that way. He was thinking everyone was going to be in this mindset of, well, look, but we all got to the end together, but we can all win as Chrissy pointed out. And I think that yes, props to him for creating that group, but he needed to do something more than just getting his group to the end. He needed to distinguish himself from the group. Yeah, and you could tell that Joe has seen the criticism

because he said in his interviews, for example, telling my bloom, I just want Survivor fans to be OK with letting someone play the game the way that they want. If their game is just lying, that's the difference. I'm OK with that. That's your game. And if I don't want to do that, it doesn't make me better or worse. It's just my path. Now, I agree. Survivor fans should be okay with letting someone play the way they want. Like, I'm perfectly okay with Joe playing that way until I hit the record button here. And we get to this podcast, we have to explain why he lost. Because that is one of the main reasons.

It's not like I'm mad at him. Like I'm out here going, oh, Joe, I can't stand you. Right. Some people are. Don't get me wrong about various players. But I'm not mad at him. I don't think he's a bad person. To the contrary, I think he's a good person.

Right. But it is a key reason he lost the game and we cannot ignore that. Right, and I agree wholeheartedly. I think Joe is a great person. I think Joe was someone who probably would have been a great person to play this game with. I mean, I can relate very much to a Ken in my existence, my played survivor.

Ken is a great human being. He's so kind and he will do anything to take care of the people who he surrounds himself with. But that's the person you want to bring to the end with you, right? Because they aren't looking at this game from a strategic standpoint. And even when I tried to push Ken in that direction, like Ken, we have to talk about the game right now. That's not where his his mind was falling. And so and it was the same thing in the final tribal with Ken.

And so yes, you can 100% play this game with integrity and honesty and loyalty, but you have to have that strategic component as well that separates you from the group and gives the jury what they're looking for. They want to reward the best player. They don't want to reward the best person. And they can do both. Not every jury, but usually. Not every jury.

And this jury certainly did. Right, I mean, if they want to reward both, they can. If they make a determination, it's a popularity contest, that's up to them as well. But this particular group wanted that move. They wanted that thing that separated the winner from Joe and Eva. Yeah, I do think that even while he, you know, that thing that separated the winner from Joe and Eva.

Yeah, I do think that even while he, you know, tried to stick with his honor and loyalty mantra, Joe somewhat understood he needed to play the game. He knew they needed to move forward as a group, like we talked about with Eva, and that meant voting out other people. I think some lines got a little blurry there because like he said, oh, we have the six, which included Mitch and Camilla. But the supposed plan was to see what

happens at four when he knew darn well the plan at four was to dump Mitch and Camilla. Right. So, you know, no matter what you proclaim, you can't really play an honest game as well. I have to say, as someone said in a conversation I was having, it's like playing poker. And every time you get your cards, you turn them face up. You're not going to win that way.

You cannot play a poker game that way, and you can't play survivor that way. And cannot play a poker game that way and you can't play survivor that way. And that's a fair analogy. But I also think that part of Joe's reasoning or justification for this thought process here, as far as, well, we know that Mitch and Camilla, we're going to, we're going to dump them once we get down to six and then five. In his world, he was just, he was being honest with the people he was playing with. Right. So it wasn't that that's that rationalization that people

use if you were being truly honest, you would have said Mitch and Camilla, we're going to get to six and then we're going to vote you out. Yeah. And he was being honest with the four. So I feel like in his world he could try to justify like, no, no, look, I was being honest because I was being honest with the four. So I feel like in his world he could try to justify like, no, no, look, I was being honest because I was being honest with the four because we all knew we were going to get to four. So I, it's, it is very interesting. People can justify all sorts of dishonesty in the world. I know. And this is what I'm saying. You know, that, and even when they were

voting out Mitch, well, I told Mitch we were going to vote him out. Like we told him, like I, I, we didn't, we didn't try to pretend. We sat down, we had a conversation and we told them we were going to vote him out. And so I do think that there's part of Joe that thought that, well, they'll understand because they see what's happening and we're just going to let them know that this is what's happening when we get there. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Now, moving outside the final three,

we get to the best liar of the season, Camilla. And while someone like Joe would look at that as an insult, I have no doubt that Camilla would consider it a compliment. Yes. She even said in the finale that she'd been lying all game. You can lie and deceive, you just can't get caught. And she said in interviews that it was part of her plan coming to play. Another part that I noticed right away in her pregame interview with Mike was her saying, I don't need big moves.

I need to make smart moves because big moves get you. People have big move, and then they do it too early and they get sent home. And more importantly than making me happy, which should be what most survivor players strive to do. But that sentiment lined up perfectly with Kyle's thoughts as well, which we talked about earlier. So it's no wonder they worked so well together.

Yeah, yeah. She was so impressive because she wanted to play a different game than she ended up playing too, which I think speaks volumes to her understanding of the game. We'll have that. Well, we'll definitely talk about that in the third role. I guarantee that one. Yeah. But I appreciate the fact that she recognized that and then figured out how to make the game work for her. And I do think that Camilla should certainly be revered for her willingness to do things in this game and wanting to make moves, but understanding when they needed to be done and how they needed to be done. There were so many nuanced things that she worked through in making those decisions

that it, I think constraint is a very difficult thing to have in a game like Survivor. Like you to be patient. And she actually, I believe in her pregame interviews said that that's, that was going to be her, like kryptonite was her, her inability to be patient. And boy did she so show some serious patience throughout this game. Very much so. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, she had a number of fun moves throughout the game, starting with throwing charity under the bus early and using that to create her initial alliance. Then of course was the first round of acting when she and Kyle pretended for, you know, days to not be working with each other and independently worked on the California girls to figure out who to target, who was lying, et cetera. Camilla explained to Rob how she and Kyle continued to fool people after voting out Thomas. We already talked about that.

You mentioned what Kyle had said. People bought it. After the merge, Camilla came up with the idea of framing Shaheen as having a secret idol, which didn't work at the time, but of course it paid off later. Breaking news, a brand new game is now live at Bet365. Introducing Prize Matcher, a daily game that's never ordinary. All you have to do is match as many tiles as you can, and the more you match, the better. We also have top table games like our incredible super spin roulette, blackjack, and a huge selection of slots.

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secondary to the one she had with Kyle. But we found out later that she had one with Shaheen she had one with Mitch. And despite the way things were portrayed, they tried working with people like Starr and Merritt, but as Camilla, yeah, as Camilla told Mike Bloom, they could not trust Starr at all. They even set up a trap. Now there were two times this happened. So I'm going to talk first about the Camilla one because Camilla leaked

information to star. It immediately circled around and got back to Kyle through Joe and Eva. And Camilla noted to Mike Bloom, she genuinely believed that she's working with Joe and Eva, she's not going to make this move against them. So everybody's getting mad at people like Camilla and Kyle. And being like, why won't you join with Star? But the fact of the matter was the situation was exactly reversed. Star was never going

to make the move and was lying that she was going to and was trying to trap them. And they caught her. And, and then they also couldn't really work with Mary because she said that Mary would cling to anyone who wanted her meaning she would have dumped them in a moment. Yeah. And I think that this goes back to why their secret alliance was so fantastic, because they had the ability to do this because they knew that Camille and Kyle weren't seen as a duo at all.

And so information that is being shared with one is not necessarily going to be shared with the other. And so the fact that they were able to figure this out because of their secret relationship, I just think is fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, I think Camilla wrapped up her game well when she said in the finale that people saw Joe and Eva as the big duo in the game, but they're a duo that's just sitting there while she and Kyle were a duo who was working the game hard.

Yeah, part of that involved lying whenever it was necessary, just as she planned. She told Dalton Ross that unfortunately with the whole honor and integrity thing, it was hard to do and she felt stifled. But quote, thankfully Kyle wanted to play survivor. So I got to do that with him. That's so good. Yeah. Now moving along to Mitch,

we have a situation that as I indicated a minute ago, follows along with Camilla, what Camilla was saying about trying to work with Starr and Mary. As recently as the post finale know it alls, Rob was still saying Mitch should have gone with the rock draw date because they were clearly a top of four and a bottom four. Hmm.

I don't say this often, but sorry, Rob, you were wrong. And he learned that in the interview with Mitch, uh, you know, not to pat ourselves on the back, but we've been ringing this bell for a while now. We didn't have all the specifics because of the poor edit, but we knew Mitch had been scheming with other players like Camilla and Shaheen and maybe Kyle. He trusted them. He did not trust Mary and Star, who had just tried to vote him out. But it turned out to be even more than that. As he explained in interviews how he presented some ideas for a final three to Star. And within 10 minutes,

Eva was telling him how Star just came by and told her all about what he'd said. Yeah. So remember when he said, wow, what a joke? Of course I don't want to work with you, Star. That was in direct response to this. It was made to look like something else. Yeah.

So he did want to make a move. But Star, again, was the one who ratted everything out and ruined it. You know, we mentioned Camilla saying a few minutes ago that it made it clear to her and it also made it clear to him that Star still believed she was playing with Joe and Eva, which further explains, as he noted in interviews, why she didn't play her shot in the dark when Mitch literally told her to. So I'm just going to say that after all of this, I presume everyone who complained about Mitch not making a move there and not trusting Star will be sending him apology notes.

I would hope so, but I do think that it's, the problem for Mitch too is the commentary that was included in the show as well, where he was like, I should have made a move. And you know, everybody who was on that Mitch train was like, see, I told you, even he said he should have made a move. But this game requires you to make moves with people because you can't do it by yourself, which is what we saw with this particular group understanding.

I need to have a group of people in order to do these things that I need to have done. And yes, Mitch tried, he tried to take those stragglers, if you will, the ones that he thought were on the bottom and do something with it. But if they are not willing to make that move with you, well, then you can't make a move by yourself. And it has to be a very frustrating position for someone like Mitch to be in,

because then to get to five and have him be told, well, everybody loves you, so no one wants to sit next to you. And for his response to be, I should have made a move, I'm sure was just out of complete frustration where like I wanted to, but I couldn't because of everything that was happening with Sarah and Mary. Exactly. And as you mentioned, of course, things still didn't end up working out for Mitch. But we have talked about this as the season has progressed. Sometimes it happens. You believe you're in on the plan and people lead you along.

How many times this season have I referenced back to Survivor 44's Jamie and Lauren? Yeah. And the funny thing is that Jeff even said in the reunion, viewers will love how hard Mitch played the game. Because he was playing hard. Unfortunately, it appears Jeff said something different in the editing room, which was throw out anything

dealing with Mitch playing the game. So we didn't really see it. And a lot of people had that confused look that I just tried to imitate there of how hard Mitch played the game. What are you talking about? Well, Jeff thought we didn't. Yeah. and it's unfortunate because it must be very frustrating for Mitch. And it is frustrating as someone who's been out there and known that certain things have happened and then just have them not be shown is very, very aggravating because as you've indicated, not everybody listens to these podcasts and reads the exit interviews.

And so they'll be left with this representation of Mitch from the show itself, as opposed to what was actually going on throughout the season. Yes. Now, like I mentioned, there were hints we could dig up. And some of those were proven correct. Like Shaheen told Mike Bloom, you see Mitch say, I thought that at six we would make a move. Well, that's my gameplay. I made him feel like if you wait, we'll make a move together. But I made a lot of people feel that way. So Mitch did get caught by Shaheen's trickery there.

We saw that after the final five challenge, Mitch talked about how for the first time he, Kyle and Camilla were on the right side of the numbers. And that showed two things. One that he had indeed been playing the game with those two and had been making plans and do that they had been fooling or, you know, something we'll hear more about from Kyle later on. Kyle had a great quote that we'll get to. Or at least they had him as a secondary option while they played the middle, you know, they had him there. But they

decided to go with their primary option. And you know, because as we've talked about, they determined it was better to go with Joe and Eva. Yeah, always good to have options and survivor. Yes. Now Mitch further explained to Dalton Ross that he'd known since charity was voted out that he had to make other relationships and he did, including the ones we just talked about and even with Joe.

But as he added, unfortunately, that wasn't really shown out there. He wanted to find a way to make moves. But as you indicated, if he tried just for the sake of doing it, he would have been a goner. So he played a low key game to get to six and see about someone flipping, which they did. They flipped against Shaheen, but he still had to break that foursome who all wanted to go to the end together for different

reasons. Yeah. To do that, he would have needed to win immunity. And he just didn't, I don't think he quite realized how much Kyle and Camilla wanted to go to the end with Joe and Eva. Oh, I don't think so either, because I do think, again, this is that like, overarching theme that we saw throughout the season was how no one's going to beat Joe in the end and Joe is great and Joe is fantastic. But that's why Eva needed to come with Joe. And I think that's the part that was being left out of that is I think if Joe is sitting there without Eva, we have a much different type of final tribal council.

Potentially, potentially. I mean, I don't know. I think, and we'll talk about this more as we go on. I think just the two of them and the independently lost their luster as things went on and people started to realize, oh, maybe they're not such big threats, you know? Oh, and I don't think that that's incorrect.

I do think that they lost their luster, but I do also think that if Joe was sitting there without Eva, which then changes the trajectory of the game, but also the distribution of votes, if we've got a Mitch, Joe and like Kyle sitting there at the end, what's that going to look like? What that you know, what that would feel like. And so I do think that that idea of Joe winning the game

was a very real concern, because as you're out there and you're seeing how people are responding to Joe, well, everybody likes Joe. And also Joe has all these challenge wins and he's been running the show kind of in a weird way because everyone's doing what Joe wants. And so you can get caught up in that portion of it. But then you really have to take a step back and look at, well, where's it all going to come to in a final three and the permutations of that, which everyone was doing because they were all talking about what does a final three look like and what is everyone saying about Mitch? No one wants to sit next to Mitch in the end. So I think that speaks volumes of how different things could have looked for Mitch if he had been able to break up

that duo. But as you've already indicated, everyone had their reasons to be sitting next to both of them and not just one of them. Yes, which we will get to because, OK, that was rule one. That was a lot. I guarantee that will be the longest rule we discuss, because after all, there's a reason I always say rule one is the most important. So we can move on to the second, which says not to scheme a plot too much and to keep your scheming secret. With so much honesty in this game, in this season, there wasn't nearly as much worry about violating this rule.

But there were some instances and also some very good play in terms of following it. Of course, the best example of following this rule was the Kyle and Camilla alliance. We already discussed it a lot in Rule 1, so I'm not sure there's a whole lot more to say, but I wanted to recognize the way they accomplished a minor miracle in keeping their scheming so secret. Yes, that was a very, very big miracle. Yes. I think some people, not necessarily on 49

and not on 50, because it's returning player, but I think starting with 51, we're going to start seeing some players trying to recreate it and fail. Oh, yeah, because this this feels almost impossible. I mean, this is why you say in rule two, like you don't have a duo that everybody knows about, everybody can see, and everybody is very aware of, which is why the Joe and Eva thing just shocked all of us because it was so very, very out there and apparent for everyone to see.

But yeah, the fact that they were able to pull this off is really, really incredible. Very incredible survivor. Yeah, and Kyle, obviously his work with Camilla was the one that we saw the most of, but he had many relationships that we didn't really get to see. His problem was he kept voting them off, like Cedric and Christie and David. And that made him woe up a little bit because he knew if he kept putting people like that on the jury, he'd never win. So

as he told Mike Bloom, it's one thing to make big moves, but are you going to make a big move and put someone in the jury who's not going to vote for you? Absolutely not. You play to win. You don't play for enjoyment. Thank you, Kyle. Once again, something I love to hear because it's, it's so true. Yes. Yeah. 100% is. Yes, now for Eva, we have a very different situation and you've already hinted at it there. From the very beginning, she was too obvious in her relationships. Remember when she gave Joe the bracelet for his daughter

in front of everyone on the tribe? Yes. Or when she and David hit it off a little too obviously right away on the swap tribe. The thing is, that's just who Eva is. I don't think it was something she could necessarily change for the game. And in the end, it didn't come back to bite her the way that I and many others thought it would because nobody ended up targeting the obvious allies.

Maybe they can thank Kyle and Camilla for voting out Thomas who was wanting to do that. Yeah. Well, but they, but- Go ahead. Well, I was gonna say, but it also did work against them because that's what we talked about already, that everyone wanted to sit next to both of them. And so that idea of a duo being a problem,

usually we see that you cut the head of the snake or you're going to go after their number two. And there's usually a reason for it. But what made this duo so not threatening was the fact that one, they were so obvious and everyone kind of knew what their plans were because the honesty, integrity, loyalty, and this was how they were playing the game. So they weren't being underhanded and conniving and shady and secret. So it made them so much less threatening because they were like an open book. Everybody knew what was going on with the two of them and everyone knew what it was going to be perceived as by the jury. And no one saw that as a concern because that, as Joe indicated, that relationship was not necessarily a strategic one. And it really wasn't. It was more of a,

we get along really well and I'm going to look out for her and we're going to get through this game together and we're going to get to the end. But that was it. They were going to get to the end because they were friendly with each other and they got along with each other, but it wasn't because of a strategic game mindset. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, Franny even noted in her podcast with Rob this week that this obvious duo was an exception that would have been broken up on any other season. But you needed besides things you talked about, you needed the specific

combination of people to make it work. Like I mentioned, Thomas getting voted out when he was the one who had made the early observations about wanting to split them up. And of course, we talked about even Joe's plan to surround themselves the way they did that work to their advantage. And that's especially true in terms of protecting them as an obvious duo. Yeah. Now, Joe had, you know, obviously some of those same issues. He also had a couple other times when he would do things that he shouldn't have under this rule.

Like when Mary told him she was voting for him. And he told us, well, I just have to stay calm. And then did the opposite. And he flat out told Kyle and Mitch, he had to write someone else's name down in case Mary had an idol. And just started going all over the place. And then later when Kyle and Camilla put their plan into play and Joe went back to Shaheen,

we already discussed last week or we already discussed earlier how Kyle had begged Joe not to mention the idol. But with the way Joe acted, if Shaheen actually did have an idol, he would have been 100% alerted to play. Yes. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Well, but that also speaks volumes of how well Kyle and Camilla knew the people they were playing this game with. They knew how Joe was going to respond, and they knew how to control the way he was going to react and what he would do.

So this really is just again, I know it's Kyle and Camilla, but just exceptional gameplay because you really do have to understand who you're playing this game with. And this is why the duo between Eva and Joe worked to benefit Kyle and Camilla in the end. Yeah. Now, one other issue with Joe was David's allegation that he did the unthinkable and broke his word. David told us before final tribal council that Joe broke a lot of promises and he needed to own up to it being part of his gameplay. Which, you know, we never saw addressed, as I mentioned before we got to the rules. But Joe did talk about it in interviews, for example, telling Mike Bloom, I will strongly disagree that my game was deception or that I lied.

Now, he noted in some of the interviews that sometimes things change and people change. And his justification, he didn't say it this way, but to me, it seemed like you get married, you make your wedding vows, and then you find out that your spouse is not holding up their wedding vows. Does that mean you're still bound to it? You know, that you can never move on from this person, even though they're doing terrible things? No, something has changed. No one would say you broke your wedding vows.

I mean, some people would, but, uh, you know, it's the same sort of thing. David was doing things that changed the relationship there. Yes. But it wasn't like- Didn't want any effect from it. Yes. Yes. Now moving to Camilla, we already know she did a lot of lying and enjoyed it. But as we mentioned earlier, she didn't get caught. However, there was one thing she said in the

finale that raised a lot of eyebrows. She told Kyle before the final immunity challenge that if she won, she was putting him in fire making. And then, of course, he won and put her in. Now, here's the thing. I know a lot of people reacted to this, and I did in the moment, too. But I'm about 99% certain he was going to do that no matter what. He is smart enough to have recognized the same thing, which is what Camilla said in

all her interviews as well. I still say she shouldn't have done it because it just didn't need to be said. Right. It could have triggered something in that one percent of situations. But again, I don't think it ended up changing anything. Well, I do think, though, if she hadn't have said anything to him, there is a world in which she could have tried to make him feel a particular way about putting her into fire. And then that gave him the go ahead,

even though they were likely both on the same page and both knew that they couldn't take the other one with them to the final three. You just don't wanna give them permission before it happens. Right, yeah. And she said, I liked her response in interviews. She said, I could have done that and he probably would have felt bad, but he'd have done it anyway. Oh, for sure. But at least she could have tried.

Right. Yes. Yeah. Now, as we get to Mitch, it might seem like there wasn't anything he, uh, you know, did wrong here, but there was one point that may have had repercussions throughout the game. We discussed earlier how Mitch was on the so-called bottom. But how did he end up there? Well, back in episode two, David said nobody trusted charity.

And even though he liked Mitch, he didn't trust Mitch because Mitch was working with charity. So Mitch was left out of that initial tribe alliance that Camilla helped form by throwing charity under the bus. As we talked about, once charity was gone, he was on the outside. He knew it. He had to push to make allies and stick around. And there's no way to know what would have happened if he hadn't been so clearly aligned with charity.

But that's a reason not to do it. You, you know, despite the truly obvious duo we saw this season, right, right. Still not something you should do. Yeah. And I think that's what makes this season a more difficult season to wrap your head around, because everyone watching it is like, but wait, this is such an obvious duo. Why is anyone allowing this to go on?

This is not the norm for Survivor. This is a very, as you've indicated, particular set of people coming together to play this game and realizing that that duo was actually going to benefit them in the end. And so that is not something that you would normally see in a game of Survivor ever. Yeah. All right.

Well, the third rule tells players to be flexible. How do you think Kyle did in this rule? I think Kyle was fantastic because he really, no matter what was thrust upon him, he figured out a way to respond,, he figured out a way to respond, but he figured out a way to respond that wasn't going to be obvious and easily detected and seen. And he had to deal with all of the information,

if you think about it, because Kyle found himself in a situation where he was in the majority, but he was in the majority, but he was friends and, and having relationships with everybody else and having a secret alliance with Camilla. And so he literally had all of the information and had to figure out how to utilize that information to his benefit, how to switch things up, how to switch votes, how to make them

focus on other people as opposed to, we don't wanna vote out Camilla, we wanna vote out somebody else and let's shift the focus over to that direction. So he really was so fantastic at taking all of the information and figuring out how to respond to it appropriately and how best to use it to further his own game.

Yeah, I mean, we heard a lot from Kyle about how he rode the middle. And the thing is, that wasn't just something that started at the merge. It was from the beginning. Back in episode three, he talked to David about how Mitch had opened up to him strategically. And so he wanted to go with a Mitch-David-Charity-Kyle alliance. Of course, we just talked about how David didn't want to work with Charity and Mitch, but that's part of what riding the middle means for Kyle. Because of course, he was also in the anti-Charity alliance with David, Chrissy, and Camilla.

And that sort of thing continued for him throughout the game. As he told Mike Bloom, I was in the majority alliance, but everybody in the minority also thought I was with them. And this is the quote I love. And the way that I kind of viewed my role was I told everybody to get in the Trojan horse. And I'm like, it's coming, it's coming, it's coming. But I'd slowly open the door and go, maybe tomorrow, because I kind of like the position I was in. I

left my options opened all the way to the very end. And I'm proud of it. And that really does explain a lot of what we saw. People would get revved up, we're going to make the move, we're going to make the move. And then they didn't make the move because Kyle was like, not yet hold off there. Let's not do that just yet. I'm going to close this gate here and you just stay on your side of the gate right now. But really, I will be opening the gate, I promise. Yes.

Yeah. No, I think it's a fantastic example and explanation and analogy for Kyle's game. Yeah. Now, even in the end game, we saw how hard Kyle worked to not just fool Joe and Eva, but do so in a way that made them think he was still with them. Yeah. The final episode opened with Eva thanking him for having their backs. Which is exactly what Kyle and Camilla wanted to come from this.

Right. He said at the beginning of the finale that he wanted to come out of that vote with a good working relationship so he would have all the possible options heading forward. And that's exactly what he did. Yeah. And that seems like hardly scratching the surface on all the flexibility Kyle showed throughout the game

as you would expect from someone who played the middle like he did. but I do feel like we already talked about a lot of it already in the first rule and You know the description about being the doorman of the Trojan horse is so perfect that I don't think there's a lot more To say there door man. I love that So now when it comes to Eva and Joe Pretty sure I have a good idea of what your answer is going to be. But what did you think of them in terms of this rule?

Not so flexible. I mean, they were really kind of locked in, right? Shocking. They were really kind of locked in. And this is why I feel like the David vote probably surprised so many people because they did seem to be so locked in to that core group and we were going to go to the end together. But that was through the works of Kyle and Camilla. And so you have to give them credit for swaying Joe and Eva because that wasn't Joe and Eva being flexible. That was them responding to information that were being provided

as opposed to them looking at an entire game happening around them and determining what's the best way for them to go in the best direction. So I just I feel like they were very much set in their ways and very much locked into this idea of honesty, integrity, loyalty and and the we aspect, right, the we that we talked about, and it's about the we and not about the me. So I don't think that they were too great at being flexible.

Yeah, I obviously agree. Flexibility was not exactly part of the plan for them. They had their goal, they knew how they wanted to get there and they did it. And I think that's also why whenever there was a little bump in the road, Joe went kind of nuts. You know, like we talked about with him wanting to write down someone else's name when Mary

said what she said, or you talking last week about his eyes literally fluttering as you thought about what Kyle was telling him about Shaheen, like his brain was just going nuts processing this change. Too much information. Yeah. Yes. Now on the opposite side, we had Camilla who was forced to be flexible because as we already discussed, she wanted to lie and play a game.

Yeah. She told Mike Bloom, it was the most frustrating thing in the world. I'm not a patient person. I consider myself a top 10% impatient person. I had to exercise so much patience. I never had this experience where I had to be so patient. Just sit on my hands and have to deal with this honesty and integrity garbage. God, I love Camilla.

But it was so frustrating, so suffocating. And the game that I came in wanting to play, I threw that out the window. I was not going to be able to do that. I just had to work with the honest people to see what they wanted. How could I get in their good graces so I could eventually, I could make a move, the Shaheed move. She really is a great example of this rule because she had to completely change everything. Yes. And I think and I don't know if this is necessarily the greatest time to mention this, but I it's worth the mention.

She even wanted to go to rocks so badly. Oh, yeah, just because she wanted there to like she wanted to force the other people who were playing scared as she indicated who weren't willing to like do something different because she knew if we go to rocks, they're going to flip and it's going to be great. And so I just, I do, I love this idea that she had because she was so willing to take every idea that she had and consider it and then figure out, well, this is the group I'm working with. And that's something that we've talked about so often is that people come into this game with an idea in their head is how they're going to play Survivor.

And you can't do that because you don't know who you're going to play in the game with. You could come in with an idea. I mean, Kyle has ideas, but you have to be willing to be flexible. Right. Exactly. I was trying to come up with a different word for it, but yes, adjust yourself, adjust that. Yes. And so that's the thing with Camilla that is so fantastic is that she did have an idea and ideas are great because you want to have a familiarity with the game. You want to understand the concepts and the possibilities and the things that can happen. But my gosh, when you come into a season like this and and you realize who you're playing with, and you realize how they want to play the game,

Camilla realized very quickly, I have to shift everything about how I wanted to approach this game. And she really did it so incredibly well. Yeah. So what did you think about Mitch in this role? Well, I feel like Mitch tried, but I think Mitch was in a really tough spot too, just because of what we've already talked about where when he did think that he had an opportunity

to make a move and try something different, he was met with people who were not interested in doing those things because they had a different idea of what their game consisted of. And so I feel like Mitch was very frustrated because he didn't have what Camilla had. You know, Camilla had the ability to get inside information through Kyle and then utilize that information and make things happen without Eva and Joe knowing. The only options for Mitch were people like Star and Mary and you had Star who's blowing up his game. And so it makes his ability to be flexible so much more difficult,

even though he wanted to be. And so I think he found himself in a really tough spot because he was almost outplayed by those people who were promising him things like, Oh, we're going to get to the six and then we're going to do something. Trust me. Like we're going to get there. And so he was like, okay, I'm ready to do it. I want to, and then couldn't. Put me in coach. Right, right.

And then it doesn't, it doesn't work. Yeah, I agree. I, you know, we talked earlier, he moved around. He tried to make inroads with different people. He knew he shouldn't make a move just to make a move. I would say he did as well as he could here. It's just unfortunate for him that none of the available paths led to an open door. It was always Kyle

there closing. Yes. Yes. Okay. Well, the fourth rule tells players not to let their emotions control them. This is an interesting situation because there was a lot of discussion of emotions in the game. And I've heard from some people that it made them question whether Kyle was making the right decisions for the right reasons as the game went on. Indeed, we saw in the game and heard from Kyle later that he felt very emotionally connected to Joe and Eva. We even saw it affecting him during the confessional where he said he

didn't want to hurt people. Now, a lot of people took that as, or at the time to mean he would never turn on Joe or Eva. Which led to some unwarranted yelling about him in social media and other places. I suspect that might've been what editors wanted to make it look like Kyle was just gonna march along with those two to his demise.

But the fact is that Kyle understood. He knew that however he felt about them, he had to do some things to ensure he won. We discussed earlier how he managed to come up with a plan that undercut them without making it seem quite as bad as actually voting them out. And I think he probably did it for mostly strategic reasons, but it's certainly possible that there were emotional components as well. Even if there were, he found a way to make it work. And plus for his other votes, I don't recall any moves he made or didn't make for emotional reasons. A perfect example, he voted out Mitch when he needed to. He put Camilla into fire and cheered on Eva. So he had emotions, but that doesn't mean it ran his game.

Yeah. And I do think that, again, it's finding that balance and recognizing who you're playing the game with. And he really did that so well because he saw the emotional side of the game that was coming through Joe and Eva and the relationship that they had. And he knew that he could use that to his benefit. And I think that that is another component of this game that some people seem to forget about is that other people are going to have responses to things that are happening in the game. And how do you respond? Do I think that you should give somebody like kudos and like, you can do it when you're in the fire making challenge.

I don't, I don't think that that should be a moment where anybody is like trying to build anyone up because this is a game for a million dollars and you're trying to win and, and no, you should not be doing that. But I can understand why in a situation like this, that this was the way he was approaching the game because he understood I need to have Eva here. I can't have Camilla here. And so this is, and this is the relationship that he's been creating with both Joe and Eva

throughout the duration of this game. And so every season of Survivor is going to be different depending on who's playing the game. And in this particular season, we had people who really were focusing on emotional bonds and really creating those bonds. And it did affect some of their gameplay negatively, but it also helped other people's gameplay very positively. Yeah. Speaking of those two people, I'll once again talk about Eva and Joe together because yeah, I completely think emotions controlled them. Their games were based on emotions.

Joe's even more than Eva's because he had the added emotional component of his sister in the back of his mind and of protecting Eva, as well as maintaining his honesty and integrity. And he even added in final tribal council that he wears his emotions on his sleeve. So while the alliance they formed that we discussed earlier was based on the idea of

protecting them, it was also based a lot on vibes and who they got along with on an emotional level, which is one of the things I think that changed with David. Yes. And I think that we saw a lot of an emotional response from Joe during the fire making component where he was willing. And this was even a moment that I was like, Kyle, please don't do this, where they were there was a response to put themselves into fire instead of Eva. And that was that was completely from an emotional position. And and that's one of those circumstances again, that there's no place for that in survivors as far as I'm concerned.

Like I understand wanting to support people and feel for them. And I get that. But again, game for a million dollars. But Joe was begging her, please let me do this. I don't want you to do it. Let me do it. And to her credit, she said, no, I need to do this and I'm going to. But that was certainly from an emotional protective standpoint. And that's what Joe approached most of this game with. Yes.

Yeah. Now, with that said, as they marched along towards the end, Joe and Eva were easily able to vote out people they liked, whether it was Mary or Mitch or whoever. So once they had laid out their path, they didn't deviate for this reason. Mm hmm. You know, so at least I could say that much for them. Yes.

Oh, for sure. Now moving to Camilla, we wouldn't really expect the great deceiver to let emotions get in her way. But she did tell us in the finale that she couldn't vote out Kyle in part because of emotional reasons. However, she also noted that she could have just gone next in that situation anyway. So it wasn't like it was just emotions. There was she didn't want to vote him out.

Plus, it would have been bad strategically for him. I think more than that, though, I don't think there was any way in the world she would have gotten Joe and Eva to turn on him. So it was a completely moot point as far as I'm concerned. Well, and that, again, is her understanding of who she's playing the game with and where they're going to be coming from. It's just huge. And I'm sure she worked through that permutation as well.

I couldn't even do this if I wanted to. It's very much like Mitch at that point, right? Where if you don't have the numbers, you can't do it anyway. So why try? Yeah. Yeah. Now, the great thing is that even after she was voted out by Kyle, Camilla didn't let her emotions negatively affect her.

She recognized and even said beforehand, as we discussed earlier, that it was better for both of them to have the other one in jury rather than alongside them in final three. And since she was the one in the jury, she was gonna help him win. Yeah.

Now with Mitch, he told us he knew emotions would be tough, but he needed to get past it and play the game. But he also knew the way to build trust was to use emotional bonds. He did say in interviews that late in the game, there was one move he could have tried to make, but he just couldn't do it.

And that was at final five, he thought about telling Eva and Joe what Kyle had been up to the whole time in terms of working with himself and Camilla. But just like we talked about with Camilla's situation, I don't think it would have worked anyway. I think even if he had told them, they would have talked to Kyle and Kyle would have been like, no, of course not. Of course I'm with you too. You're like my sister and my brother. And I was just

I was just being the guard on that Trojan horse door. I was lying to them. And who are Joe and Eva going to believe? They're not going to believe me in that situation. They're going to believe him. Even and I was going to say Camilla, he would have Camilla if I needed to. Right. Another cooperation. Yeah. Right. Exactly. You know, I mean, Eva talked in interviews about other cases

where she was like, I wasn't going to listen to someone who wasn't my ally. I don't see how this would have been any different. So even if this was an emotional decision, I think Mitch should rest easy because it went to work anyway. Yeah, no, I agree wholeheartedly. All right, we could go to the fifth rule, which reminds players they need to pretend to be nice and play the social game. Kyle came into pregame interviews saying things like my biggest superpower is charm.

I hate using the word charm, but I do love people. I've been this way since I was a kid. I can be pretty persuasive. And he also said you can't play this game without people. You can't just come out here and be like, I want to make this move. You need people as a foundation. These aren't just pieces or cards. You've got to be able to sort of build a foundation before you can play.

And then he did it just like what he talked about for forming a title alliance, he followed through, and that's exactly how he played. And we heard him talk about in the game early on. He talked about how in his partnership with Camilla, she was more strategic and solve problems while he navigated socially and got information from people. Then fast forward to the finale, where he said the reason he was able to dictate and finesse most of the moves was because of relationships he built throughout the game.

And then other people also talked about it in the finale with Camilla saying Kyle had super deep connections with everyone and Mitch adding that he used relationships to his advantage. Yeah. And this was the one part where Kyle was concerned with his game though, because he was creating those relationships and forming those bonds, but then he's voting people out. So it's like this, it's this weird issue

and thing that is always an issue with Survivor, that you're voting people out of the game who are then going to be on the jury, who you're hoping will vote for you to win a million dollars. So he had to find a really good balance here because he did have relationships with everyone who went to the jury and probably better relationships than most people that were potentially going to be sitting in that final three. But he really did fine tune it.

And I think that a lot of what he ended up doing, he could point to it as a game move as opposed to this isn't personal. This is something I had to do for purposes of the game. And so it didn't negatively affect the relationships that he had with the individuals who he sent to the jury. And one person in particular was David. He was actually really quite surprised that David wasn't more upset with him considering he had a hand in sending David to the jury.

Yeah. Yeah. Now Kyle expanded more on this in interviews, for instance, telling Mike Bloom that his secret partnership with Camilla worked because of the relationship he had with everyone else. He said, you have to build a foundation with people to play the game. It's not poker. It's not chess. People think it is. I thought it was, but I built relationships. I had the foundation to play the game. When people were clocking me, other people didn't believe them. So again, it goes back to the same thing we were just talking about,

that even if Camilla had tried to work with Eva and Joe to get rid of him, even if Mitch had tried to work with them to get rid of him, it went to work because of the foundational relationships that he had built. Right. Yeah. Right, yeah. Now, Eva is a different situation because pretending to be nice would not come naturally to her. However, she did have a good social game. At first, as she told Mike Bloom, one of the things I struggle with with my autism

is I'm too blunt. And yeah, we saw that sometimes. But once it all came out after that challenge, a key person who had been turned off by that bluntness star understood that she wasn't trying to be rude or mean. You know, and as Eva said, that's just who I am. That's how I communicate. Now, I need to get on the soapbox a minute here because I think other players got to understand that. But I wish more viewers would. Because comments I have seen on social media,

posted as comments on some of the videos I make, whatever, makes it clear that some people, not everybody, maybe not even close to the majority, but a very vocal minority, just don't get it. Instead, they call her rude and they say, I didn't like the look she made on her face or I didn't like that, whatever. How about instead of doing that, you try to understand her like the people she was playing with did. Nobody said that about her in the game and they were the ones close to her. So why are you a viewer getting upset about this? I mean, yeah, this is a game

and we're talking about the social component, but if the other players can accept her for who she is and how she communicates and they understand that, it would be nice if all the viewers could as well. Well, and I think also in listening to the pregame or the postgame press, someone like Kyle, when he was talking about Eva and how they, he's like, she's like my best friend now. Like we're like brother and sister. We're so close.

And it seemed like that was really kind of a theme with most people who were interviewed when they left. Everyone really did seem to get along exceptionally well. And there wasn't anyone who was thinking anything other than, yeah, she was a really likeable person. And now I understand more about her because she shared this this moment with us and this part of herself. So someone like Star, as you've already mentioned,

can say, oh, well, that makes sense. And I'm so proud of her. I'm gonna give her my idol. I mean, this is what we end up seeing from that. And I'm gonna give her my vote in the end as well. So, you know, I do think that there's a lot to be said there about understanding where people are necessarily coming from because everyone walks into this game

with a different set of issues, needs, wants, desires social makeup, physical makeup, all of these things. And those are all of the things that you will be judged for when you play the game by people in the game. And unfortunately, people who are watching the game and those people watching might not give you all of the permissions that you should necessarily have while playing the game based upon all of your makeup.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, what did you think about Joe in this role? Obviously, he did a lot of pretending to be nice because normally he's just a mean guy. Right. Oh, my gosh. He's so mean. Yeah. Joe is like, I don't know. He's like the nicest person, I think, probably ever.

And I do think that my mother loves Joe. Well, okay. All right, really? Okay. Obviously. My mother loves you too. But my mother definitely loved Joe. But I do think that it's interesting to see someone

like Joe who at the start, before he even started the game when he was just being interviewed about how he expected to play the game, he really had this idea of himself. Like I just want to be me and I just want to be this nice person that I always am. And it was kind of nice to just watch that unfold, even though it's like, I don't know how well it's going to get you through the game as far as like winning. But, but it was really kind of a breath of fresh air to just see like a really nice person who like genuinely cared about people who he was playing this game with. I mean, if you want to have someone on your side, Joe's the guy because you just look at the way he responded to Eva when she was in need.

That man will forever be in Eva's corner and and fighting for her and being part of her existence in her life. And that's a really incredible thing to see. So yeah, I mean, he didn't have to pretend here at all. But I think that's probably why someone like David was a little more offended by the vote out, right? Because like, oh, but you violated this thing that we had and and you broke a promise And so it can it can negatively affect this game for sure if people perceive you as someone who wouldn't do that

And then you do it So I think you know that's that's potentially an issue that he ended up Creating for himself by taking on this this very loyal Honest integrity role that he really did. Yeah, yeah. I agree with everything you said. I thought it was pretty obvious from the start

that this was not Joe playing the game, this was Joe being Joe. Yes. And he said at the reunion that Eva gave him the opportunity to show the world who he really is. And I do think everyone saw that. Still, that's outside the game. world who he really is. And I do think everyone saw that still.

That's outside the game, and he did not leverage it in the same way that someone like Kyle did for specific game purposes. Kyle made all these friendships, made all these tight relationships and use them within the game when he needs. Yes, Joe made all these friendships, made these tight relationships, at least with the people in his alliance. I think I have a note a little bit later that some people commented, he didn't so much do it with people outside,

but was this nice guy, but didn't do anything with that in terms of the game. So how do you feel Camilla did in this rule? Well, Camilla was great at pretending to be nice because nobody knew that she was such a great liar, right? Like nobody knew that she was sneaking around and conniving and throwing people under the bus, as she said. So she clearly did a really great job. She said that she spent a lot of time just talking and having conversations with people in between challenges or downtime that she just would talk to people. And she had a really good relationship.

I believe she mentioned Eva and Mitch as well in these conversations that she was having. And so I think overall, Camilla did a great job here because nobody suspected that she would be so sneaky and conniving and the best liar that we've probably seen in a very long time. So I think she did great. Yeah, I think so too. I mean, I don't think we saw as much of her in this related to this rule. Right.

You know, she was usually talking to us about running people over with a bus or talking to Kyle quickly about plans, things like that. But she clearly did have those good relationships, like you mentioned, with people in the game. Mm hmm. And then even more clear by the end was that Mitch was beloved by all. Yes. You know, he told Dalton Ross that after charity was voted out and he was on the bottom, as we previously discussed, it was his social game that kept that mostly kept him around. And we heard that from so many other players, both on and off the show.

Bianca told Mike Bloom, my genuine heart wanted to work with Mitch so badly. I love that man. Charity told Mitch or told Mike that Mitch is hands down the most likable person on this cast. Shaheen said Mitch is likable, hilarious, and fun to be around. And so on. Yes. Yeah, I mean, the mere fact that you're being told at five that you're going to get voted out because everybody loves you speaks volumes of how people responded to you.

Which exactly takes us into rule six, which warns against being too much of a threat. And I want to do this one in reverse order for that reason because it continues the thread. In a way too many people liked Mitch. Yeah, you just mentioned, you know, Camilla saying everyone loves you. If you're there you win. Eva telling him, you know, it's because we like you too much. And I was there yelling at my TV and saying, damn it, Mitch, you should have been more of a jerk. Yeah. Yeah, unfortunately.

And this is the interesting part about the being too much of a threat because it really is so individualized. It depends on the people. It depends on the person. And Mitch was a threat because he was just so likable and everybody loved Mitch and Mitch had no blood on his person and Mitch was a threat because he was just so likable and everybody loved Mitch and Mitch had no blood on his hands. And all of these things that you would think

are like great attributes to have as a person in real life. But when you're playing survivor, you don't wanna be the most likable person because if it does turn into a popularity contest, guess who's winning? It's going to be Mitch. Yeah, and you mentioned it. There were other reasons too, besides, you know,

Kyle mentioning he had no blood on his hand, even going back so far as to episode seven, Joe talked about him being a competitive and having a great overall story. Now on top of that, he would have been seen as the underdog who came from behind, you know, was on the outs. Would he have won? Who knows?

But why take that chance when there are better people to face at the end? Yes, for sure. Now, speaking of not taking any chances, we have Camilla as we work our way backwards. Her being a threat really only applies to Kyle, both because he won the challenge to give him the sole decision and also because I don't think Joe and Eva saw the threat level that Camilla would have posed if she'd made it to the end. If they were surprised by what Kyle was saying, would they have been surprised if Camilla had been there instead? Oh, yes, and I do think that they had a little

bit of blinders on for sure. Yeah. Yeah. But Camilla told us he didn't want to go against Camilla in the end for many of the same reasons that Camilla said it to Kyle earlier. They played similar games, they could have split votes. Plus Kyle told Dalton that he knew she'd been selling her underdog story to the jury every trial counsel.

He saw them nodding along with her when she talked while they weren't doing the same for when he and others talk. Yes. Yeah, for sure. Now, I'm not sure that Camilla could have done much in a different manner to reduce her threat level. She had to sell herself to the jury when she had the chance because as she said in the pregame, she is often overlooked in the real world and she figured

she'd be seen as non-threatening in the game, which is great for staying around, but not so great for final tribal council if you make it that far. And because she had played so closely with Kyle, they both came to that same conclusion about being a negative for both of them to be in final three. a negative for both of them to be in final three. Yeah. Now what's funny to me is that Kyle didn't even know how bad things might've been for him if Camilla had indeed made it to the end alongside him. I know, right? She made me laugh so much when she told Mike Bloom

she would have lied and claimed his moves as her own and thrown him under the bus. Joe and Eva were trying to be respectful about claiming each other's games and stuff like that about each other. But I would not have been respectful at all. I know. This is why I feel like we missed out with the Camilla.

Maybe we'll get to see her again someday. Oh gosh, she definitely would have been entertaining for sure. But I love too that, and we've already mentioned so much about Camilla and her understanding of the game. But also, like she understood herself and how she would be perceived, which is just huge in a game like this, knowing that you are going to potentially be overlooked, knowing that people aren't necessarily

going to see you as a threat can be to your benefit, but also recognizing that and then taking steps to. Fix that so that way, you can be seen as someone who could win this game but also recognizing that and then taking steps to fix that. So that way you can be seen as someone who could win this game. And then to actually have most of the jury confirm that, that if she had been sitting there, that they would have voted for her.

So that I really think speaks volumes as to her ability to connect with the players that she was playing the game with, but not necessarily be seen as too threatening to each of those individuals. She was really just a threat to Kyle. Yeah. So moving to Joe,

this gets to something we discussed a little bit earlier, because if you had asked me this question about being a threat a few weeks ago, you would have gotten a very different answer than the one I'm about to give. Because the more time went by, the less of a threat Joe became. We you know, we did mention that somewhat earlier. Not to give Jeff Probst any ideas, but if this game were only like 13 days,

Joe would have been seen as a huge threat by the end. But the game played on and Joe just kind of coasted. As we mentioned, Camilla said earlier, he and Eva were an obvious duo, but they weren't the ones working hard. He talked about how his honest and loyal game got him to final three. And I've already been in some of those discussions that on social media that we talked about, because the fact is, it's not what got him to final three. It got him along in the game, but being less of a threat is what actually got him to final three. And it was by no means

intentional. Shaheen saw it, Kyle saw it, Camilla saw it. They all wanted to go to the end with him and Eva because they knew they could beat that duo. Yes, yeah. 100% correct. Now, as for Eva herself, she was also seen as a threat early on, in part because, you know, the whole obvious duo with Joe thing that we've discussed. But unlike Joe, she also said she purposely tried

to reduce her perceived threat level. As we spoke earlier about her trying to make people think she was dumb and telling others that she was just doing whatever Joe was doing as she noted in her interview with Mike Bloom. I guess I'd say that worked because she was indeed brought to the end as someone Kyle, Kamala and Shaheen at least all thought they could be.

But I also think she had the same problem that I just mentioned for Joe, that in fact she wasn't a threat. Yes, she was trying to reduce her threat level. She didn't need to necessarily because for the same reasons as Joe. Yeah, yeah. And I think that this is again,

not something that is a typical response to a duo. This is very specific for this particular season. But yes, being a duo for these two definitely did not work to their benefit. Yeah. Now, as for Kyle, he clearly did a great job managing his threat level, because Joe and Eva never thought twice about bringing him to the end.

We've spent a long time discussing how well he kept his actual game secret. So we certainly don't need to repeat it again right now, but that was definitely a key. Yes, for sure. Okay, well, we can go to the seventh rule, which covers idols and advantages in game mechanics. Kyle, of course, found the beware advantage and realizing that he

couldn't solve it, handed it off to Camilla as part of the start of their relationship. Then they used it together to get rid of Thomas, as we discussed earlier. But of course, it wasn't just the idol itself that did the work. They had to come together, hatch the plan, do their acting, to pretend to not be working together and convince the California girls so they could use the idol in the best way possible. Before the actual vote happened,

Kyle and Camilla also had to deal with Shaheen searching Kyle's bag while Camilla sat there pretending she was with them. Luckily, as we discussed last week, Shaheen did not check in Kyle's shoes. But the important part is they used that information to decide on how best to play things. And this shows how players play the game

using what they have available to them. It's not just, oh, look, I have an idol. It's how did you use that idol to do something? Yeah. Or how did you just use the potential of an idol to do something? Which we also saw with Camilla and Kyle when it came to Shaheen, like just building in that idea that an idol did exist that Shaheen has and they knew how Joe was going to respond to that.

So there is something to be said about a game like Survivor that introduces so many idols and advantages too much at a time sometimes as well. But if you are a savvy player, that can certainly help you if you know how to present that information to other players and Manipulate that information if you can to your benefit Yeah, you know it occurs to me another thing that we didn't see at all in tribal council was Kyle talking about hey You know how long me and Camilla had been working together Remember when Thomas was voted out? Yeah, did that we pretended you had no idea We got you to reveal how you were going to vote.

We use the idol together, et cetera. There was maybe a little bit of that mentioned, but nowhere near as much. I have to presume there was more that was discussed. But yeah, that's a great point, because that is a great moment for both of them. Yeah. Right. Right. Now, not related to idols, but to the game mechanics portion of this rule.

I was glad to see Kyle thinking the same way that I had mentioned last week in my prediction that he shouldn't put Joe in Final Four firemaking and give him a chance to win and add some shine in the jury's eyes. Yeah. Yeah. Because we know that fire making should not be a reason to vote for someone. Yes. But not all the jurors see it that way. I mean, heck, we saw Star say she voted for Eva because of that. So you don't want to give Joe that hope for a moment.

Yes. And I think that this is, and I won't go on our soapbox like we have about final or fire making, but this is just one more issue with fire or fire making where when you win that final immunity challenge, that should be all you need to do at that moment. You shouldn't be debating whether or not you also need to put yourself into fire making and, and then also be concerned that who you do put there is then going to be like seen as some type of a hero because they because they made a fire.

So yes, it's it's certainly it was a good thought process that Kyle had relative to not putting Joe in that hero moment, if you will, and giving him an opportunity to really shine. I feel like it would have been really fun though if it had been Eva and Joe against each other in fire because that would have been fascinating to see how Joe was going to deal with that. It would have been interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Now, speaking of Eva, she had the most trinkets of everyone, but she didn't use them. She got the idol by helping Star with it. So Star decided to unburden herself from it and hand it off.

It was publicly known and I guess it might have helped shield some of the moves that some of the people on the outs wanted to make, or at least it could have been used as an excuse. You know, like I could, I could, you know, see, for example, Kyle saying, oh, we can't make that move now because Eva has the idol in my place. But otherwise, yeah, that idol didn't do anything. Well, I love Camilla's thought process on it, too, was that they knew where the idol was and they knew that

Eva wouldn't play it for anyone except herself or Joe. And so it was actually of a benefit for them to know exactly where it was and know that it wasn't going to be played. Camilla was more concerned with if by some chance Eva does get voted out and they re-hide that idol, someone like Shaheen having it in his hand and he's someone who might play it for someone else and someone like so she was actually thinking about the potential if that I don't find its way back out into the Survivor universe who could find it and then what that person would do with it? And so she actually liked the fact that they knew exactly where it was and knew that Eva wasn't

going to do anything crazy with it, like try to save somebody else. So I think that that was a very interesting part of Eva having that idol and people just knowing it didn't necessarily matter because she wasn't going to be using it to pull some big move off. Yeah, it's better to have a known than an unknown situation. Mm hmm. Now, speaking of knowns and unknowns, you know, Eva also had the safety without power

and told Rob that one thing we didn't see was she only told Joe, Shaheen and Kyle about it as a way to create that core four within the strong six. Little did she know as she announced at final tribal council, they're, oh, look, I have the secret that I think by then pretty much everyone knew about it. Yeah. And this was not as Camilla announced it to that she knew about it. Right. So Camilla said in her exit press too. Yeah. Yeah. And again, she didn't actually play it. So, okay. And then later, she could have gotten the knowledge as power, but realized there was no point.

And she got the final immunity challenge advantage that may have been the least helpful one ever. Right? That was absurd. Yeah. But you know, the thing is that was fine with me because I don't like advantages for the final immunity challenge anyways. So good. Give them a useless one.

I'm perfectly happy for it. Right. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for that. Yes. Now, Joe didn't have anything himself, but it bears mentioning again, just how much he freaked out at the idea that Mary might have one and write down his name.

And also that if Shaheen really did have an idol when Kyle and Camilla made their play, you know, we talked about Joe would have given it away, even though he was trying that. Yes. Yep. All of that is accurate. And then finally, Mitch had his publicly known block of vote, which he used back at the split tribal council. He told Rob he did it in part because he was worried he was in danger.

And I think also because it made sense to get rid of it at that point. So people would not have a reason to target him. Both of those make perfect sense to me. Yeah. And I, and this is something that we've mentioned time and time again, is if people know that you have something, it's not really going to be helpful to you, which is why if people know that you have something, it's not really going to be helpful to you, which is why, you know, it's star everybody knew star had an idol and she gave it to Eva in a very

public fashion. So then everybody knows Eva has it. And it certainly minimizes the use of that particular thing. If everyone knows that you actually have it. Yes. Yes. Okay, well we could go to appendix A, which discusses players keeping their end goals in mind when voting. And we talk about voting out the weak, then the strong, then the weak, then the strong. Of course, for the fifth and fourth place votes,

we were in the phase of voting out strong players or those who could threaten your chances at the end. As we discussed, Mitch was seen as something of a threat. And even aside from that, it made sense for Kyle and Camilla to finish up their plan of moving forward with Joe and Eva. Yeah. Yeah. And then on top of that, we already discussed that each of Kyle and Camilla knew it would be best to go to final three without the other. So it similarly made perfect sense when Kyle put Camilla in fire making and hoped she would lose, which we still don't like.

Yes, fire making. We don't like fire making. We don't like. Right. I mean, if there wasn't fire making in this case, then the three of them would have just voted out Camilla would have been the same thing. And I and that is correct. But I just I would I don prefer high missile survivor in that regard. I agree.

So, you know, Appendix A, that was shorter than it usually is, but about the right length for our final podcast. But now we have Appendix B, which is going to be a little longer because it deals with the jury and final tribal council. So let's look at Joe and Eva first. We saw some situations of both of them trying to do jury management. At the time, it didn't look great for either of them. Indeed, Camilla said to both Rob and Gordon Holmes that one reason she and Kyle knew they could beat the duo at the end was, and I had referenced this earlier, they were too insular in their relationships only within their group. And on top of that, look at what happened with Mary. While the conversation Eva had

with Mary looked rough at the time, and I was like, oof, she did not get Mary's vote. Mary ended up saying in interviews that she left that conversation with respect for Eva for being so blunt and honest with her about not working with Mary anymore. Yeah. But she didn't leave her conversation with Joe the same way.

She was annoyed as we clearly saw on TV and heard from her in interviews because it was just such a bad attempt to get her on his side. Well, and Camilla talked a lot about watching people's responses to who was speaking during tribal council and that she felt like she was getting a lot of nods and people were smiling. she felt like she was getting a lot of nods and people were smiling. And then people looked kind of pissed off when Joe was talking or Eva was saying things. And that is something that you don't normally hear

survivor players talking about, this jury management. She's mentioned it for a very long time throughout the season. And I knew you were gonna love every moment that she said it because it is very, very true and it's a real thing. And, and I, and the fact that she even called people out in the middle of tribal council about doing terrible jury management, I think was fantastic, because that is putting it at the forefront of everybody's mind. So then they're like, Oh, well, maybe I should be paying more attention to what's happening and how

people are responding. I thought it was great for her to be doing that. I mean, it put them at the foot, put it at the forefront of their mind, but they just weren't good at it. You know, I mean, no, no, no, I'm talking about for the for the people who are actually on the jury. Oh, yes, that she's calling and outgoing, Hey, jury, pay attention to what's going on because they're really bad at this. They're not helping themselves.

But also like Joe seemed to recognize he needed to do jury management. He said on the show that the game to him was about relationships and numbers and needing friends on the jury at the end. But like we just said, his jury management sucked. He basically for such a nice guy, because jury management involves, you know, playing the game more. He basically told Mary, I'm being honest with you because if I vote you out, I want your vote on the jury. And it's like, no, once again, way too much honesty.

You don't have to tell them everything that goes through your head. Right. No, one thing that we've talked a lot about when it comes to jury management is really recognizing the people who are on the jury and complimenting them. Like Shaheen was feeling very good about himself during that final tribal because he was being told you were the guy we had to get out. Like you were the move. Like we needed you to go.

And he even said to Eva, I'll credit you. Like you took the best person out for sure. But I need to like, there needs to be like, show me more. Like what about this? And then she was really kind of put on the spot with, we want, and I think David was the one that actually was like, we want some proof and we want you to show us something substantial to back that claim up. And so there is a lot to be said about recognizing those who you've put over

there and, and giving them like credit and props that you were a great survivor player. That's why I needed you to be taken out of this game. And you could feel that with Shaheen that that was being done, but that wasn't anything that, that Joe or Eva was necessarily doing. They were patting themselves on the back the entire time like, look what we did. We wanted to be in the end together and here we are the most dynamic duo you've ever met in Survivor history. Ta-da! And the jury is gonna be like, wait, no, we all wanted to be sitting next to you two. Are you kidding me?

Like you're giving yourselves credit for both being there? No, that's where everybody wanted you to be, but we wanted to be the other person sitting next to you. Yeah, and you know, that, you know, it kind of circles back to something that we had talked about with Joe earlier, where he said in a confessional heading into final tribal council that he didn't want to backstab someone just to shock and awe and impress the jury.

But like we said earlier, the jury is made up of the people you have to impress. So that is a contradiction. You have to shock and awe them. Yeah. And that's a big reason he only got one vote there. If know, if you if you're not trying to impress the jury, what are you doing there? Yeah. Yeah. You know, now, Camilla told Mike Bloom that all of the jurors agreed

they could be swayed to Joe or Eva if they revealed something mind blowing about how they intentionally pretended to play the honesty and integrity thing on the outside. But they actually knew that they were going to have to cut people off. Now, of course, that didn't happen because it wasn't deployed at all. But let me just put this out there. I doubt Joe is listening, but Joe, if you're listening and if you are headed out to play again at any point in the future. This is perfect.

You've played your honest, loyal integrity game. You go in next time and you say, you've all seen me. You know who I am. And you lie and you backstab behind their backs. You do that. I will stand up like David did, and I will applaud. You'll stand up. Love that. Yes. Yes.

Yeah. Well, I think that this is this is a very interesting idea with a jury. And I feel like I can I can relate to this moment as well, because it was a very similar thing that happened with Ken on my season as well, where it's like if Ken had said, I promised to be loyal to David, to my David, the David from my season to the very end, but then I knew I had to cut him because he was going to help me get here and get to the final three. And then I was like, he's got to go now. And that was my choice. It wasn't Adam. It was me. I'm the one who made the final decision because I'm the one with the immunity necklace, right? So he really had all the power at that point

relative to that decision, which is what I was kind of hoping he would express when I asked him that question in the final and he didn't. And I feel like it's the same thing that people were wanting here. Like if there had been a moment where all of a sudden, Joe was like, yeah, you know what? I am a loyal guy.

I am honest and I do have integrity, but I also know this is a game for a million dollars. So I wanted to be me, but also I wasn't just being me. I was being backstabbing and I was being conniving and I was doing all of these things and it was part of my game. Look at what it did. It got even out of the end

and you all thought that we weren't doing anything. Ha, you know, I mean, it's like, it could have been one of those moments but that's That's not what he was doing. Right. Because that's not what they were doing. Yeah. And I remember from your season, you know, he, you know, Ken made the move and everyone credited Adam with convincing Ken to make the move because Ken didn't take credit for it. You know? Right. And Star even gave them the golden opportunity to say something like that when she asked what undercover moves they made. Right.

Now from what we saw instead of talking about those, Eva quote, revealed her non use of safety without power. And then because of we, right? We write and then that she was a secret PhD student after Kyle talked about being a lawyer. So opportunity wasted. Well, I mean, I say opportunity wasted for them, but there wasn't anything for them to talk about. Yeah. Now, to my mind, Joe was pretty much out of the picture for the final tribal council. He said a few things, but I never considered he could pull it off based on what we saw. Eva made more of a case than he did.

So it was fitting that she got two votes to his one. She talked about how she wasn't just Joe's plus one and was trying to pull off what we talked about earlier, revealing her strategy. The problem was that, as I mentioned earlier, I'm still not entirely sure what she was trying to convey. And then when she used the Shaheen example, boom, it was over when Kyle blew it up. Yeah. I will say her final argument that this was an unprecedented season and, you

know, she would be an unprecedented winner. It was much stronger than I expected. When I, when I rewatched, I did feel kind of an emotional tug from what she said, but it just wasn't anywhere near enough to overcome Kyle's moves and her relative lack of moves. She told Mike Bloom in this final tribal, not only do I have to convince them to give me a million dollars, but I also have to convince them that I'm smart. And I successfully convinced them that I was smart. I did not convince all of them that I deserve the money.

Right. I also think it's worth mentioning here that Camilla had made a decision to not try to sway the jury before they walked in and was going to let Kyle have that moment of that reveal, which is very scary. That, you know, because that can be a risky move to not kind of prep the people. It wasn't her money. It wasn't her money. Right. But I so that's true.

But so but I also think that it also was to Kyle's benefit. Like I think he knows actually like thank Camilla for doing that because it did give that jaw dropping moment where they didn't know this. And you could see Shaheen just being like, Oh, God, they got me. And Shaheen felt so good about himself in that moment because they went that extra step to get Shaheen out of the game, which made him feel better about his game. So I really do love that Camilla took that approach to not like try to sway them beforehand. She's like, I didn't even talk to the jury about any of them.

She wanted it to happen in the moment and be in front of the jury, which I think is it's a fantastic support of Kyle. And to give him the opportunity to really sell himself and have that moment, I think is huge. Yeah, and you could tell by the look on Kyle's face that he knew it was working out perfectly. And it looked like he was kind of trying to figure out exactly when to break in,

and that's when Camilla mouthed to him to indicate, I got you, you know. Which made it easier, because that way he didn't have to look bad by interrupting Eva or talking over him. He could wait. He knew he could wait and it wouldn't go off in some other direction because Camilla was there to bring it back to him. And of course, that was the killing blow. If there had been any doubt, it was now erased.

As he mentioned, you know, he he worked so closely with Camilla. You said it, we saw the shocked faces, not just from Shaheen and the jury, but from Eva and Joe. And Kyle wisely noted that he had to change the perceptions of those on the jury of who he was and what he was doing. And he clearly accomplished that there. Yes, he did. and he clearly accomplished that there. Yes, he did.

All right, so it is about time to wrap things up. What are your final thoughts on Kyle and all the rest of the final five? So before I get into just my final thoughts, I just need to show this for one quick moment because Joe, I love you for reasons other than you just being Joe. This is from the beginning of,

and you can't read the sign very well, what he has on there. Maybe you can see if I, Millennials versus, yeah. It says Millennials versus Gen X is the best season ever. That's what he shared before he went out onto the island. So thank you, Joe. The funny thing is,

is when you held the phone up there, because of your ring-like, it looked like he had a halo. Oh, well, maybe he's got a halo too. So Joe, thank you for that. I appreciate that little nugget. But I won't go into too much depth with these five because I know that you are about to, David Bloomberg. You have got the drop the mic moment, I'm sure.

But I will say thank you to this final five for providing us an opportunity to see Survivor played from a different perspective. I know that the viewers, many of the viewers were complaining that you weren't playing the game and that we didn't see what you were doing and gosh, somebody make a move already. And I really do love that we were able to see the moves that were being made in the manner in which they were being made. Like there was a drop the mic moment in that final tribal council for everyone who was sitting there saying, well, tell me what you did. Tell me what I didn't see. We

all know survivor as a game about what the jury sees happening. And when you can surprise them with a moment like, Hey, by the way, Camilla and I, we were like this and we were doing all of these things that you didn't know we were doing. And that move that this one over here, that Eva and Joe wanna adopt, no, no, no, no, no, no. Actually, let me tell you what really happened, was such an incredible thing to see. So I do really want to give Kyle and Camilla props

for taking this game over in a way that you don't normally see games like Survivor be taken over. They were underhanded, sneaky, under the radar. Nobody knew what was happening. And they were literally playing the game on 15-minute, like, you know, running around the island, like quick little 10-second conversations. Like, it wasn't what we saw Joe and Eva doing.

Joe and Eva, we saw the complete opposite. We saw them really taking over the entire game through this idea of honesty, integrity, and loyalty. And then Kyle and Camilla just used it to their benefit. I really do believe that this is a season where people were working the numbers from a very early standpoint and realizing, how do I get to the end?

What do I need to do to get to the end? And who do I need to get to the end with? Which is why we saw such a pacing of this game. People were waiting for the exact correct moment and we didn't see the moments where we're gonna vote out the most threatening and then the next most threatening is going to go and the next most threatening is going to go.

And then the final three is like kinda, well, all the people that were potentially gonna win are now sitting in the jury. That's not what we ended up having here. We had people who were pacing themselves and waiting for the exact right moment to strike. And that's what we ended up seeing. So I think overall, Mitch, Kyle, Camilla, Eva, Joe, you were fantastic to watch. You had all different types of gameplay, but I really do think this came down to a game of numbers. And this is why we saw who we saw sitting in the final three. This is why we saw who we saw sitting in the jury is because everybody knew who they could potentially win in the end or beat in the end, I should say. And I think Kyle was just that person who was able to bring that to fruition where everybody else ended up not being able to.

But that's ultimately what my thoughts are on the season. So thank you for a great season. It was lovely, but David Bloomberg, please take it away. So here we are at the end of a season that many viewers found frustrating. But I think it gave us a very good winner and some other capable players, even if we didn't get to see

them actually play as much as they did. One of the players who was hit the hardest by the edit was, of course, Mitch. I suspect it's because in the end, his plans just didn't work out. I still wish we'd seen how hard he tried though, as Jeff even mentioned it and confused a lot of the viewing audience. Still, we've been able to put together a lot of it leading into the finale and then, of course, at the end. Mitch made the wrong ally in the early days of the game and had to fight through almost every day after that just to stick around. He did it using his social game and trying to get allies to work with him. But in the end, that social game and trying to get allies to work with him, but in the end that social game was used against him.

Camilla also appeared to play from the bottom, but she of course had her secret alliance with Kyle as well as others. She was the best liar of the season, and she took pride in that, at least privately, as she should. She worked with Kyle to stay out of the bullseye and maneuver her way up into the final four, even though she wasn't part of the Strong Alliances plan. But once Kyle won the final immunity challenge,

they both knew what had to be done. Joe played a game of honesty, integrity, and loyalty, also known as not a winning survivor game. There's a reason I say that every time we see someone proclaim these things, whether in the pregame or during the game, because if you really do play that way, you're just not going to win. And if you go against it, well, then you didn't really play that way. And if you go against it, well, then you didn't really play that way. He and Eva did make a smart move by bringing together the stronger challenge competitors who they also believed would be loyal.

It was a good way to insulate themselves for a while, but you're just never going to get a group that large to all agree to march to the end together without turning on one another. You, you mentioned that earlier. So turn they did one by one until there were only three of them left. And the thing was Joe and Eva didn't get to final three because of that alliance or honor or anything like that.

They got to final three thanks to other people bringing them to final three because those people saw they were beatable. Joe went from being the person everyone expected to win to getting just one vote and that vote was from Cedric for reasons not even really related to the game. Eva had a pretty good tribal council and surprised me by pulling out two votes, but as she said herself, she couldn't convince them to give her the win. I would say with good reason because whatever strategy she believed she had, she either didn't explain it well enough or the jury just didn't accept it as being a true survivor strategy. I think it was probably the latter.

Kyle came into the game already thinking about many of the things he would end up doing, starting with how many recent seasons had solid alliances going to the end together and also using social relationships as the basis for strategic moves. He clearly kept both of those in mind, as well as the rules we've been discussing. And I have a revelation to make here. Kyle has a special distinction because he has now let me know that he's been a regular

Y blank loss listener for a while. Yay! Now, of course, we have previously talked about, and sometimes too, right here on the podcast, many players who have listened before they played with second place, third place, fourth place, etc. finishes. And while I suspect a few of the winners may have listened prior to them going out there, Kyle is the first absolutely verified winner to do so.

I'm not sure about Adam on your season. He seems like he would have been but I don't know that I've ever actually asked him that straight out. Hmm, that's interesting. Yeah. You know, repeat guest, Dr. Jeremy Faust, told me, Kyle was a winner who played more according to the rules than just about any other he's seen.

And I have to agree. And now we know one reason why. more according to the rules than just about any other he's seen. And I have to agree. And now we know one reason why. For his part, Kyle said he showed what a well-rounded person can do. He won challenges. He built relationships that matter. He played the game with those relationships.

He rode the middle. When people tried to push him out in the middle, he pushed them out of the game. All those things were true. But I think he undersold himself. Kyle had a rough start to the game between his first challenge and losing to an injured person by breaking his water jug in the supply challenge. But he recovered and things started looking better quickly. His strategy of playing the middle paid off in so many ways. Joe may have been the figurehead of the strong Alliance, but it fit perfectly into Kyle's ideas. He used it to move along and, as he said, play the game on his own timeline, in the margins, with little pushes instead

of big moves, to draw, that would draw unwanted attention. As Shaheen said leading up to the final tribal council, Kyle probably played the most strategic game. He aligned with the right people at the right time and was willing to turn on them when he had to and not a moment too early. Those last parts were key. He wasn't in a rush to turn on his when he had to and not a moment too early. Those last parts were key. He wasn't in a rush to turn on his number one like we've seen in some recent seasons. He didn't make moves just to get a resume. He was always thinking, always planning, always looking ahead.

And he could do that because of the way he had set himself up so well earlier. He saw how both himself and the people around him were being perceived within the group of remaining players and also by the jurors. He used that information to make his moves at precisely the right time and against the right people. And that is why Kyle won and Eva, Joe, Camilla and Mitch lost. And you probably should add that Kyle is the best average guy you'll ever meet.

Yes. Well, I haven't met him. So, you know, I can't say that part. But that was how he represented himself. And I think everything that you just said is so on point to that type of an approach where he didn't want to be the the main character. Right. He ended up being the main character. Well, yes.

But if he had been the main character too soon, he'd have been the tall poppy. Exactly. Exactly. That's what he knew. Such such a great, great winner, for sure. Soon he'd have been the tall poppy. Exactly. Exactly. That's what he knew. Such a great winner for sure. Excellent job, Kyle. And thanks for listening. Yes.

Now we have a couple more things to wrap up. So keep on listening all the way to the end. Oh, I was thinking Kyle for listening. Oh, Kyle. Yes. I'm sure he always listens to the end. So we want to remind everyone, of course, that the rules we just discussed are available in poster form, in t-shirt form, and the checklist on a t-shirt form that we are both wearing.

So again, go to robhezlewebsite.com slash yxlostfeed in order to get all of them. Yes. And should we talk about where they can find us? Absolutely. Okay. So I am at Jessica Lewis 89 on both blue sky and Twitter. I am at Jessica Lewis six, seven, eight, nine on Instagram, but I do not post nearly, I don't even know, like a quarter of the

amount of things. I mean, I'm, I'm small potatoes compared to the guys sitting next to me because David Bloomberg has taken over social media by storm and he actually has a link tree in order for you to find all of the places in which you can see the content that he has created, which is insane. There's so much of it. David Bloomberg, tell them where they can find you. Tell them what they can find.

Yes, you can go to linktree slash David Bloomberg to find all of my various accounts. Or you could find me directly on blue sky is at David Bloomberg. Come on over there before big brother. A lot of big brother people are coming over. It's a better place to have discussions than that other X place.

We will, of course, be back for Survivor 49 in probably four months or so. And as I mentioned last week, it will be the 10th anniversary of the Why Blank Lost podcast. So we're gonna try to find additional ways to have some fun with that. Even before then, I will be back with Ovi Kabir for the big brother version of Why Blank Lost.

And of course, until then, I will be posting my reality TV videos every single day on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, where I am at DavidBloombergTV, again, as you can see on Linktree. And on top of that, I am still co-hosting the Tradar Coverage's podcast of Genius Game in the UK. So you can look that up and still find me there if you're missing hearing me on a podcast.

I was just gonna say, you're not gonna miss David Bloomberg He's gonna be out there for you somewhere So as we wrap up I Do want to encourage in addition to finding us on all those different places But you should check out the RJP patron program at Rob has a website comm slash patron you get access to all the special podcasts that are put out just for patrons, plus Facebook groups and discord and a whole bunch of stuff that goes along with it. And of course it supports shows like ours and everything on the network. So

become a patron at Rob has a website.com slash patron. And if you want to go in at the lower level, do it quickly because the $5 level is about to disappear. As of June, it will no longer be an option. If you get in now at that level, then it will be grandfathered. So if you're thinking about it, that's a perfect way to get in now and start. You should definitely do that. Also make sure that you're subscribed to all the RHAP Survivor podcasts at weknowsurvivor.com.

And since we're moving to Big Brother soon, you can go to weknorealitytv.com because Big Brother will be on that aspect of things. On either one, you'll find the whole large amount of podcasts there and you can select your podcast service of choice. And so for the survivor one, you'll get in the future, the Know It Alls, the B&B Club Condos, Survivor Global,

us obviously, and more. So definitely check those out. And we would like to thank everyone at RJP for all of the incredible content that you do provide, not only on We Know Survivor, but all of the content that David Bloomberg has just been speaking of, including what will be Big Brother. And I know you will all be missing me during that time, I know, but you will have plenty of David Bloomberg during that time. So please enjoy and OV is fantastic. So that'll be a good time for all. Thank you to Scott, Jess, and Doug for all of the editing that you do for RHAP,

not just for Wide Length Lost, but all of the content that you did hear David speak of. Thank you to Will from America for the theme song that you hear on the audio version of Wide Length Lost. So it is super catchy. It's a great tune. Thank you, Will. And David, we did it. We made it through another season.

And I should say, as I was sitting here thinking to myself, my gosh, we don't have to do predictions, which is fantastic because we all know Jessica's terrible at predictions. Until the Survivor 49 preseason, we don't have to do them yet. I know, and then it's gonna start again. So to all of those players who are going to be playing Survivor 49, I apologize ahead

of time. Okay. I didn't really just one of them, just for one of them. We have to apologize. But here's the thing. Like I will, I will apologize because in this particular season, I didn't think Kyle was going to do great. Kyle ended up winning.

So if I don't think you're going to do great, then perhaps you're going to win. If I think you're going to win, you're probably going to get voted out. And I believe for survivor 47, you predicted that a certain Rachel was going home first. So I'm very bad at this. Thank you for reminding Rachel of that as well. No problem. Just I Just, I mean, it is what it is, okay? I'm bad at my predictions, so anyone who's about to play this game in 49, just take what I say with, you know, a little grain of salt. Like, it's fine. For the prediction part. For the after part, for the predictions. No grains of salt needed, just for the prediction part. Yeah, so, yeah,

so I really, that's why one year I went to Rox, because, yeah, bad at that too. So, so yeah, so I really that's why one year I went to rocks because yeah, bad at that too. Yeah. So just be just no just no but for now no predictions. We're done with the season. It was a great season. Thank you so much. So David there we are. We're we're good. Yes. Thank you as always Jessica for not just another great episode, but an awesome season. We had a lot of fun. We had a lot of good guests.

Yes, we did. And, you know, I think we will carry that into next season. Like I said, the 10th anniversary season. If anyone has any other ideas for us on what we can do to celebrate, let me know. And really, it's going to be a series of celebrations because we have the 10th anniversary of the podcast. And then Survivor 50, in addition to obviously being Survivor 50, will be also the 25th anniversary, I believe, of me starting Why Blank Lost as a column.

Oh, my gosh. So, you know, we'll do that. And then a little while after that, you know, we'll get to the 10th anniversary of you joining the podcast that'll you know, a little. So yeah, we've got a lot to celebrate here. So many things. So many things. So I hope you have an awesome summer. You know, the same for all the listeners and viewers, whether you'll be joining us for Big Brother coverage or not.

But, you know, as we've said, you can find us on social media. So we will see you there. Bye. Bye. They'll break down the rules and they'll show you how You blamed yourself and got voted out This is why Blank lost This is why Blank lost Oh baby, this is why Blank lost