The Watch - The Marvelfication of ‘Star Wars’ and the Premiere of ‘Survivor’ Season 39 | The Watch

Episode Date: September 27, 2019

Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige is being tapped to develop a new ‘Star Wars’ movie for Disney, and we discuss what this could mean for the franchise (4:16). Andy gives some lukewarm takes on the latest episode of ‘Succession' (12:50). Plus, we break down the season premiere of ‘Survivor’ (17:54). Host: Chris Ryan Guests: Andy Greenwald and Riley McAtee Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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to sign up for Z-mail and get 15% off your first order. Hey guys, thanks for listening to today's episode of The Watch. Just a little table of contents for you. Greenwald called in for New Mexico in between meetings. But we talked a little bit about the news that Kevin Feige was going to be producing a Star Wars film with Lucasfilm. It obviously has some interesting implications for the future of filmmaking over at Disney. I joked with Andy that it was sort of the disnification of everything, including Disney.

it remains to be seen what role Kathleen Kennedy will have going forward. Obviously, she's still the head of Lucas film. She's working on a bunch of different movies, both shows and new trilogies, new offshoots of Star Wars once the Skywalker saga wraps up. But Feigey's emergence there is pretty fascinating. It'll be something to keep an eye on. So Andy and I talked a little bit about that.

We talked a little bit about season two of succession, which she caught up on. And then later in the show, I was joined by Riley McTee. And we talked a little bit about Season 39 of Survivor, which debuted on Wednesday night. I just wanted to give a heads up as we go forward. Greenwald obviously going to be back in town soon, so we'll hopefully have a lot more of him on the show.

I would imagine we would. But I do want to just give you guys some notes about some of the shows that we're going to be covering in the coming weeks, just so if you want to catch up with them or get ready for them, you can. Turns out Peekeye Blinders is really good. So this is probably the show that the most people over the years have asked me to talk about. And I have to admit, it was the stupidest reason possibly.

But you know how, like, you get into a show, you'll start, you know, the first episode. And there's just one thing that will turn you off about it. It doesn't matter. It could be an actor. It could be anything. And for Piki Blinders, I honestly would just get so annoyed by the use of contemporary music in a show set in the 19-19 or whatever it was, that it would just be so distracting for me. And I think I tried to watch the first episode of the first season two or three times. And for whatever reasons, I couldn't.

And then so over the last. last couple of weeks, you know, obviously we've been talking a lot about succession. I have a bunch of stuff coming up. So I've been trying to get ahead on October stuff. We did Mine Hunter. We, you know, but I was just like, I kind of just want to watch something for me just for fun. So I just decided to start watching Peaky Blinders. And I've been burning through episodes so that we can start talking about the new season, which I believe comes out October 4th. So thanks to everybody who's been telling me for years as you watch Peaky Blinders, including some of my co-workers. I'm sorry for being so delinquent on that. But we'll have a

really good time talking about that. I think we'll do it Mind Hunter style as we do with the Netflix shows. So we'll do three episodes about, actually, since Peeky Blinders is only six episodes, maybe we'll just do two episodes, but we'll do three and three. It tends to be a really good way to summarize the Netflix shows rather than do episode, one podcast episode per Netflix episode. That tends to get a little bit long-winded. So we'll do that with Peaky Blinders. And then November, I think we'll definitely be hitting the crown, which comes out on the 17th. And Amanda and I are going to talk about that. Amanda Dobbins and I will talk about that on the watch in the same fashion.

Just one episode for three episodes of the show. Really looking forward to season three, I think it's going to be really fascinating to see Olivia Coleman in the role that was obviously popularized by Claire Foy and also popularized by the Queen of England. So I'm really excited for those two shows. There's a bunch of other stuff coming up. We have some really good guests coming up in the next couple weeks. So if you have shows that you're watching that you want to hear us talk about, definitely

hit me up on Twitter. Hit us up in the Facebook group on the Watchpod. Facebook group. And we'll have a lot more Andy back on the show coming next week because it'll be back in LA. So a lot of fun stuff for the pod coming forward. Let's get into the episode right now. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the wrigger.com and joining me in between meetings from New Mexico. It's Andy Greenwald. Hey, buddy. Welcome. Welcome to the mean streets at the Lend, New Mexico, 40 scenic miles south.

of Albuquerque. We're here all day. And can I give you a small... We're almost done. We've got one day left after today. And can I give you a quick anecdote in the world? Last night, went out to dinner.

It's a lovely place here. I'm going to shout it out. They're not even sponsoring us. Monty Carlos Steakhouse. No free ads. No. But listen. They paid me with delicious food.

And you walk into the back and there's a secret steakhouse in the back. And I went there with some of our actors, Brian Garrity, Jay Ferguson. Brian Garrity walked in and he goes, Buck County, baby. I'm home. It reminded him.

It's very East Coast. But anyway, the only thing I wanted to say was, as we were leaving, we walked back to the liquor store, and there was a news report on us filming here today, and that was the most exciting thing that's happened to me all year.

As you were walking through the liquor store, you saw on the news that you guys were filming in New Mexico. We were going to be filming in Belend the next day. Oh, there was like local news there? Yes, and that got me more excited than getting to make a TV show. Like, something about local news.

There's that news. newsman again for our Phillyhead. That was super exciting. What was your order? Oh, I got a, I got a, junior steak. I got like a 10 ounce something or other with a baked potato. They serve everything with a baked potato with Texas toast and the salad, your mother made you once in 1985. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? With like buttermilk ranch. Yeah. Shredded iceberg in a like wooden checked bowl. It was great. That's great. I love it. If you're ever in town, hit it up. Greenwald, you've got only a limited amount of time, and I want to make the most of it. So do you want to start with...

Let's start with Kevin Feigy, the announcement that Kevin Feigey is going to do... is going to produce a Star Wars film. And it is about... This is basically the Disneyification of everything, including Disney, I guess. It's... Yeah. ...in an era of mergers and acquisitions and consolidation. It's interesting that even within the mouse,

they're starting to pull their talent from a very small pool in some ways. It's the end of the... Skywalker saga, I guess, is the best way to put it. These nine films, they've made a couple of spinoffs. Those spinoffs were, I think, received generally pretty well, but, you know, solo lost money. Rogue One, we all know, had its problems behind the scenes with directors being replaced, et cetera.

Kathleen Kennedy is still in charge of Lucasfilm, but it sounds like Kevin Feige pitched the Disney Brass on Kathleen Kennedy on an idea for a Star Wars movie, and it sounds like they're going to go forward. Obviously, Kevin Feigy spends most of his time overseeing the multi-billion-dollar industry that is the MCU, did you have an initial reaction to this? What's interesting, but it also feels inevitable, right?

Like there was a big Bob Eiger interview, and he sort of admitted that maybe they had overworked the Star Wars muscle in the first few years of owning it. Yeah, his quote was, I just think that we might have put a little bit too much in the marketplace too fast. I think it's right, and I think, though, they were operating under the same feeling of, like, generational inevitability that we felt about Star Wars,

where it was just as natural as breathing, that this was the biggest franchise in the world, and always would be. That's not the case. Disney actually owns the biggest franchise in the world, which is the Avengers movies at this point. And so I think it's smart of them to sort of do a correction, take a moment, use this opportunity where they have the halo, are going to make a billion dollars to take a moment, consider what they're going to do with it. Because there was a couple of years there in the middle of this period of Kathleen Kennedy, Disney, Star Wars movies, where it felt like they were handing out keys to the franchise like Oprah giving out free cars,

right. Like Ryan Johnson was going to get his own trilogy after The Last Jedi. Benny Off and Weiss were getting their own trilogy. Everybody was playing in the pool. So you're talking after the Trank Days then? Well, people, they took them away. They give us and they took us away from people. But they were definitely taking meetings and making promises to a lot of different

filmmakers all over Hollywood. What this feels to me is a, it's one of those topics that we often come up again, especially in recent years, where are we praising the creativity and the artistry behind it? are we praising the business behind it? And I think the reason why Kevin Feigy is, I mean, the numbers speak for themselves why he's the most successful producer in the last 10, 20 years in Hollywood. But I would say he's probably the best producer because he has just seemed uniquely able to steward a brand and communicate the value of the brand in relatively straightforward term.

We've talked about this in the podcast for years that, like, it takes a very particular talent to say, here's what makes Dr. Strange interesting or Thor interesting or Antwer. man interesting, not characters like the Hulk who everyone has always known, even if they did know anything to be him. You know what I mean? And so, Figey is the guy who potentially can re-communicate what is pure and good about Star Wars as mass market entertainment to the larger world. And that's a really good point, especially given the timing, because Star Wars finds itself at the end of the Skywalker saga, which means that presumably, I mean, I don't think that they'll completely sever all ties to sort of any Easter eggs or nods to the original movies.

Oh, never. I do think that they need some sort of brave step in a new direction to connect people to a new set of stories and a new set of characters that maybe exist outside of the force, the rebellion, and then the reiteration of that story that has been the most recent trilogy. What's really interesting, though, is that Fagie traditionally in the Marvel universe

has tended to shy away, I think, with no disrespect to the people who have made Marvel movies, has tended to shy away from strong-willed or otores with a really strong vision. I mean, the Marvel movies have a tendency to more or less look uniform with the exception of a few things here and there, like maybe Guardians or Dr. Strange, like you mentioned. But the Star Wars movies have actually had pretty distinctive looks. I mean, especially Rogue One. Even though there were three different people directing Solo, I felt like that looked different

than other Star Wars movies. So I think the big question going forward, is whether or not Disney wants a situation with its Star Wars films like it has with Marvel, where it's essentially all parts of a cog, all these cogs in a wheel, rather than, hey, we got this incredibly visionary director to come in and give their stamp on Star Wars. I think cogs on the wheel is actually the successful model here, because if you think about it, the word I used at the beginning was intentional, inevitability. Star Wars is fallible in a way that I don't think anyone predicted it would be.

And one of the reasons is is because it was dormant for so many years until Disney bought it, it doesn't have the foothold in the emerging marketplaces in the world that the Avengers do. Captain America, Spider-Man, the Hulk are on every backpack in China, right?

But Star Wars just isn't. And that's a huge, huge problem, especially for a company like Disney that's expanding its parks and all its operations all over the world, particularly in places like China. So something like the Mandalorian, which we have been falling all over ourselves

to talk about, we will continue to, is not the few, of the franchise, that's action figures in the early 80s, right? And now expect their entertainment to look and feel a certain way. But Feige, if they really give him the keys, what he's going to be tasked with doing is making the next generation of five and six and seven-year-old in China love this. And that might not necessarily feel like the movies that we've gotten in the last six

or seven years. Which, by the way, is fine, because, again, we talk about this all the time, but that weird uncanny valley between innovation and fan service, which is essentially what this last Skywalker trilogy has been. it doesn't feel like a successful long-term strategy. No, I think you're right. All right, so we only have a couple more minutes with you because you've got to run, but do you want to do kind of...

Yeah, we're rapping actors left and right, dude, it's sad. You're... Everybody's going home. Everybody's going home. So you really only have, like, one more day. Yeah, we got one day. I mean, we've been out here all day. We've got three more small things to shoot here,

or one big and too small, and then we've got a full day tomorrow. We'll be going to, like, one in the morning. And then that's a season wrap, dude. Then we're done. And then you edit, pretty much all straight through. Yeah, until like Thanksgiving or Christmas.

And then you guys are going to see the show in January. Who's hosting the after show, by the way, for The Ringer? If we discussed that, should we not do it on the air right now? I think it's Kevin Clark. I've got my pick. Oh, yeah? Who's your pick? I'm kind of into the Kevin.

I think Kevin Clark's a great idea. Yeah. I got some new jackets that I could wear if I ever got to talk to him on Camber again. I love jackets. I wanted to see what you thought because I know you caught up. Let's hear your succession thoughts. Yo, I have some lukewarm takes for you, my friend. Okay.

And they are so not worthy of this podcast because you and Jason are doing a great job talking about every week. But I caught up. And I just want to say what everybody already knows. This is the best show on TV, to an absurd degree. It's throwing outrageous 100-mile-per-hour heaters in every episode. It has that spark and electricity that really only comes every so often these days with a week-to-week show. I still don't think it's possible in a streaming show, even though I think streaming shows can be brilliant. And it's doing the thing I love best, which is it is now a true celebratory ensemble, right?

And you had Jay Smith Cameron on last week, and I remained enormously jealous about it. But it is a sign of a show operating at the peak of its powers, or at least just beginning to realize how much, how powerful it can be. When you have these supposedly minor characters in the background, and all of them are capable of owning the screen and owning a scene, and you actually get excited every time any combination of them is on, these last few episodes have found this impossible. sweet spot between the humor, which has never been better, and the actual, just like, accurate emotion that's underneath all of it. The mother and father stuff, this last week was, it was not, maybe you can help lift up this former TV critic who's just to achieve emotional discomfort on that level while still making the show pleasurable to watch. It's something that I just admire and envy. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think that what's also been great about it is just that it feels

like it's been a while since, I mean, I guess that you could say this with Fleabag, obviously, but Fleabag always felt like a short-term proposition. Like, you just can't imagine her making like dozens and dozens of episodes of Fleabag. For Succession, you really just do feel like this is a show that found another gear in its second season, and it gives you a lot of hope for it going forward. I think that one of the cool things that it's doing this year is it's able to be a couple of different versions of this show in any given episode. Yeah. And I talked a little bit with Jay about this where I was asking about, because she had she had this really astute quote

when season one was happening, which was that basically it's this mix between a comedy and a, and a tragedy, but that in any given scene, you can have one character who's playing the show as a comedy and one character that's playing it as a tragedy. So while you have Greg

or Roman and Jerry having these sort of more comic affairs, quite literally in the case of Roman and Jerry, then with Kendall, you still have all this pathos that's really quite affecting. The one thing that I think has been interesting, I'd be curious to know whether there's somebody who's like

slightly more casually watching it this year than I am probably because I have to talk about every episode so in depth is that I've started to try and reckon with the stuff that seems to be happening in between episodes or the, like I guess more like the liberties that the writers are taking in terms of Kendall's behavior episode to episode does not necessarily correspond with what ended in the previous episode. episode, how it ended in the previous episode.

And that's especially the case for Safe Room when at the end, it seems like he and Shiv come to some sort of, not just a truce, but have like a true moment of like human connection. They hug. And then in this subsequent episodes, there seems to be, they seem to walk that back a little bit. And I was wondering whether anything like that, if you had to put on your critic hat, like you were saying, how would you critique this show?

Well, that I couldn't speak to other than the fact that I appreciate it. You know, it reminds me of Mad Men where almost every episode. was almost a month between each episode. It really felt like they were picking spots in lives and the lives were ongoing, which allowed them to be very artful in what they did. And I feel the same way here. Like they're choosing the best moments.

They don't need to do every moment, which I think takes a lot of confidence in writing to be able to pull off. I got to go, because I got to do a notes call with the network, but the thing that I do want to say about it that I'm really impressed by is we've talked a lot about the difficulties of matching contemporary dramas

to the heights of recent prestige shows. And one of the things that made Breaking Bad unique that everyone still talks about and misses, was that it was always, it always had its endgame laid out, and we were just along for the ride from day one. Yeah. Right? It didn't meander. It went straight down in one direction.

The thing that's so special at the moment about succession is you can see all the collisions and all the fractures that are still to be played out, whether it's between Shiv and Tom, Logan, and literally everybody, all the fault lines that we're going to be exploiting over the next, hopefully, multiple seasons. And for some reason, that doesn't bother me. It just feels delicious. It feels like we're sitting down to a, you know, and it's a fault. fantastic meal at a restaurant that you know is going to be good, and you've peaked at the

menu, but it doesn't bother you because you're so focused on the first course that's been put in front of you. What a way to go for you? I think that's pretty unique. And I think you need to... I'm going to go. I got a whole meal in front of me. Turn around to the network and just be like, no notes, dog.

No notes. I fixed it. I fixed Star Wars today, and I fixed TV. And it's a pleasure to talk to you, buddy, and I will be back with you in Los Angeles next week. All right. Awesome. See you soon. Bye, Brian.

All right. Now I'm joined by my The Ringer's resident survivor expert, Riley Mac. Riley, your appearances last year received so warmly. Great. Yeah, that's great to hear. I love the way you think about Survivor because you think about it so strategically. So I thought, what better time to have you back on than the premiere of season 39, aka the season that we have to wait before we get to the truly cool season 40.

The calm before the storm, for sure. Yeah, I mean, this is like, it's really cool that Survivors on twice a year. Yeah. But I think you and I both are like, can we just get to this season of champions of season 40 is going to be? It's the real appetizer, and all you want is the main course. Yeah, it's like if the NFC championship games sucked. You just want to get to the next thing. All right, season 39, premiered last night, hour and a half episode.

Island of the Idols. Yeah. I'll paint a picture for anybody who's actually going to listen to this part of the podcast who doesn't watch Survivor, or maybe missed this last episode and doesn't care about it being spoiled. So it's basically the usual setup for Survivor, although I think they did away with some of the usual first episode, like everybody has to go diving in the ocean for supplies and stuff, right? Yeah, they did away with that. And then they, like, brought it up in the episode, too.

The contestants were, like, what the hell, Jeff? You didn't meet us at the boat at the beginning. How come you didn't throw a chicken into the sea that I had to dive after? And they get onto these islands and two tribes, and, you know, they're kind of going through the normal. Everybody thinks they like each other. And then, like, immediately somebody does something socially awkward and becomes ostracized kind of thing.

But at a certain point in the episode after the first challenge, who's the person who got sent to the island of the idols? Elizabeth. Elizabeth. She's the Olympic swimmer. She's an Olympic medalist is what they had on the screen. I don't know what medal she's won. Here's the thing.

I'm not going to do any deep dives on anybody's resume until a couple weeks in. It's like the thing with Survivor first episodes is you're essentially just going through the motions of watching it because you don't learn anything really. The show never really, really gets good until the merge, but the first few episodes are even especially weak. Because there's just so many,

people, everybody is named Laura, everybody is standing around, like, you can't remember, like, who's done what, and, like, there's also, the way it's cut together, and this goes for the island of the idols part, is specifically, it never feels more scripted than in the first episode. Yeah. So it's like,

there's just a lot of conversations where you're like, does anybody actually talk this way? And then that became especially clear when, so this swimmer, uh, was there, Elizabeth. Elizabeth gets sent to the island of the idols. Nobody knows what it is yet. She arrives on this beach, and there are these giant fucking Easter Island-style sculptures

of Boston Rob and Sondra. Two of them was legendary players that replaced their survivor. Sondra's won twice. Boston Rob is like this iconic player. And there's these giant sculptures of their faces on a beach. And she's like, whoa.

Now, it's really funny because they actually edit it to make it seem like she saw the sculptures but didn't necessarily know that Boston Rob and Sondra were there. Yeah. It was weird.

She seems like legitimately surprised after seeing these statues to see Rob and Sandra come out. And then, you know, she basically goes to Survivor School. They do a little bit of mentorship. And there's a challenge within the mentorship where she has to, like, do fire against Rob. And they give her some advice. The advice seems incredibly scripted.

Yeah. I mean, just Rob and Sandra are both. They're not just legendary players. They're also, like, really great characters. That's why they're so legendary. and so even they felt a little stiff and like I thought a little bit bored even It was kind of like what are they doing here?

How would you describe Rob's play style? He's like very strategic I think But he like wants to be The most recent season I watched him on Was I watched Heroes vs Villains a couple years ago Just to like get back into it And he was very much like I'm gonna be the leader and get everybody in line

That was the season where he did the weird He was like to make sure that nobody flips Everybody has a buddy and so you're going to be with your buddy all the time. And everyone was like, this is kind of whack. Yeah. Like, what's going on? Yeah.

And then Sandra, I would say, is probably more psychological. Like, she tends to, like, bore down into people's, like, sort of states of mind at any given point. And I wouldn't say she's manipulative, but I think she would probably say she's manipulative. So it's okay. She, like, knows how to play people, right? Oh, yeah. She has a great read on everybody. Right.

And she's the only person in Survivor history to ever win twice. That's right. So they give her, they give her some advice. she goes back to the island to the regular beach and decides to lie about what island of the idols is, which I'm sure will not blow up in her face at all. I did not understand the point of that, because especially I would have understood if she had told the truth about everything, but then had lied about losing her vote, which is what happens at Island of the Idols, just so that she doesn't reveal that she's useless at that night's travel council,

and she still strategizes with people, and she still has some power in the game, or pretends to have some. but she lied about Rob and Sandra and the next person who goes is going to be like wow Elizabeth just lied her ass off. As soon as they come back. So it's basically like the other tribe will go to the island of the idols next week and then the following week,

presumably Elizabeth's tribe will go back. Right. And that's when she'll be found out to say nothing of the fact that there might be a situation in which it comes out before then. Yeah. Sometimes I'm always surprised that

I'll be surprised if actually next week Jeff doesn't say something about it. Yeah, I feel like Elizabeth should the moment they get back from tribal, basically be like, hey guys, I'm going to tell you what actually happened

on Island of the Idles. It's a tongue twister. Yeah. Let's just call it boot camp. Sandy's boot camp instead of Barry's boot camp, yeah. You know, she should just get back and say, here's what actually happened.

I just couldn't say anything because I lost my vote like an idiot, but, you know, now I'll be honest or whatever. I mean, rather than let somebody come back and just blow you up. Right. But the only thing that she has going for her

is that the early stages of Survivor games are tend to be so chaotic and kind of devil-making. The thing that I always find fascinating about these early weeks is you can only really fuck up. Yes. Like, you can only do something wrong. No one's ever really won Survivor

in the first two or three weeks of this season. They can certainly lose it, though. Yeah, I mean, one of the guys pointed it out when one of the other guys, see this is the problem with the first episode is I don't know anybody's name. I don't think anybody listening knows. Like Dalton Ross at EW is probably the only person who knows these people are.

Yes. So on the Purple Tribe, which is not what it's called. But on Purple, one of the guys, you know, wandered off to go look for idols. And everybody immediately noted that this guy was missing. And so one of the other guys was like, this is, you know, a cliche mistake. You disappear on the first day to go look for idols and everybody notices it. And now, not only do you not have an idol, but you have a giant target on your back. Yeah.

And it's stuff like that. It's like the other big one that people do is they will insist on doing the puzzle and the challenge and then they'll suck at it. And then everyone will be like, well, we're only here because of you. So I guess we'll just vote you off. Yeah, there's definitely a way to conduct yourself. I think a lot of people try to establish a lane for themselves or a role for themselves way too early. Like even I was really nervous there was a woman on one of the tribes. I think of the lifeguard.

Janet. Janet. I remember her name. She was one of like the three people I remember the name of. I did not know that there was such a thing. chief lifeguard, so that was like an interesting wrinkle. But Janet was like, I can make bamboo fire. And it was, she did it. And it was great. But I was like, oh shit, Janet, don't like promise to be able to make fire and then like dunk on yourself. Or the other person who always

goes home early is the person who's like, okay, you know, I'm not going to build the shelter, but I'll direct everybody else at building the shelter. Because I'm like a CEO. Or even like I'm a structural engineer. Yeah. There's been a couple of weird like, yeah, I have a master's in architecture. So I'll do the shelter and then it's like I didn't build a floor. Or I didn't raise the floor at all off the ground. Yeah, Janet did a really good job of sort of taking the lead but not being like bossy or mean or anything. She's just like, hey, I can make fire and then she did it.

Well, she's like, I think she was aware of what her perceived weaknesses could be. Like she was like, I might be viewed as like a little too old to keep around. So I have to show why I need to be here. Too many people often go into the game trying to just only working off their perceived strengths. So I think that guy who ran off to go look for idols was probably like, I bet I've seen past seasons, you just immediately rack up idols and you're playing from a position of strength the entire time. But if you fuck up, you're dead. Yeah, I mean, if no one trusts you, what are you going to do? Idol your way 20 times to the end?

Yes. The other interesting, I mean, there's a lot of ways you can screw up in Survivor. One is by trying to take charge too fast. The other is by drawing too much attention to yourself. And then a third, which I don't think I've ever seen on Survivor before is being. too touchy-feely with the other people on your tribe, which was an interesting wrinkle for this show. Yeah. That one actually made me wonder.

This is a guy, Dan, who's just kind of like a real massager. Yeah, he was up in everybody, and a lot of the women were like, I don't really like him in my personal space like this. It's creepy, and eventually it led to an instance where... One of the women were interested with him. It was just like, just basically don't touch me. And he was like...

Yeah. And it actually made me wonder if something like that has happened on like past seasons. You haven't included it because I don't know who knows what's on the other than before. Also maybe it wasn't even like

in past seasons like they weren't even looking for that as like a behavior that they wanted to highlight before but now it's like much more in the public consciousness as it should be

but that guy seems like he might be in for a bad one next week because it seems like the woman who he had had an issue with was pretty upset in the scenes from next week so I'm not sure how that will play out

but yeah those early the early episodes are always so like interesting to see who makes the same mistakes and you're like, you know this person was sitting around when they're like, if I ever get a chance at Survivor, I won't make the mistake that those are people like, going home first seems to be like you really, really, really,

nose planted. Yeah, I feel like Survivor does so much of trying to cast to certain stereotypes. And, you know, so it's like, oh, okay, they have like the older mom and they have, you know, like, the young hot shot. Yeah, the athlete. The guy's like, who played for the New York Rangers. In this episode, the poker player. Like, how many poker plays?

players doing it on this show. There are not that many poker players in this country. But I think that those people think strategically about something like Survivor in the same way, right? So I bet their audition tapes are pretty good or whatever the process is to get on must be pretty interesting for them. But I just mean that those, like, certain character archetypes show up so heavily in the first episode because there's just nothing else to show you.

And so it's like, oh, yeah, here's the poker player. Guess what? He's being like a sleaze ball like they all are, you know? And it's sort of not until once you get a few episodes in that you get some depth and dimension because then these characters have actually had time to be on screen and you kind of figure out more about them other than you know them being the one dimensional kind of uh sure one sentence the alliances seem a little bit more serious sincere as the weeks go on as well because when you first start survivor in a season it winds up being you know like it'll just be like somebody going up to

another person being like we're best friends now and you're just like okay if they're one out of a hundred of those actually wind up mattering in six weeks I guess I say the best moment on this episode for me was Elaine, who we haven't even talked about yet, who totally won the episode. Yeah. Her talking to Ronnie, the poker player, and her just being like, yeah, man, I trust you 100%. And then immediately cut to a confessional. And she's like, that dude's a snake.

Yeah, she was, she should, I hope she sticks around for a while. So tell me, um, she's great. What did you think of, you know, each of these seasons, especially recently, have had a premise, whether it's Ghost Island or. Yeah. Whatever. And what did you think of the island of the idols and? Could you see it being entertaining going forward?

I hope so. I mean, kind of I touched on it. They sort of seemed a little bit bored, Sandra and Rob. But they were pretty funny at the tribal council, actually. I kind of liked their presence there when Sandra was like, I didn't get this emotional. I just voted you out. Yeah. That was a very emotional tribal council.

Yeah. It was like 13 minutes long. And there was like tears. It's like, it's only been in one night. Yeah. You guys have been here for three days. Like maybe saved the tears for a little later. I don't know.

I think there's potential. I mean, they won't have to. explain the rules of it to every person now, like not on camera, right? Hopefully. Yeah, we hope. But, you know, I don't know. I mean, you know, I'm not a huge fan of the twists. I'm more just, I love the pure gameplay.

So, yeah, your ideal survivor is, it's just the two tribes, there's the murder, and it's just like, how can you think of new ways to play the game within the format that's already established, rather than some, like, what was the island last year where they could come back? It was Exile Island. And that one was really intrusive because they kept having to keep going to keep going to going back to those players a little bit. Yeah, you and I talked about how that affected the actual, like,

entertainment level of the broadcast because you had too many characters. This one seems like it'll be a little bit less intrusive. And we get Sandra and Boston Rob, who I do love. I wonder if there's a twist coming with that, though. It feels, they don't seem to be, especially Sandra does not seem like, super into just not playing. I mean, like, it seems like at one point maybe, like, I know Jeff said they can't win the million dollars,

but I wonder whether or not we'll have, like, a more active role for them. I'm shocked that it's like, hey, you guys are going to sleep on a bamboo bed every night for 39 nights in a row. You know there's an Airbnb in that jungle. You don't even have a chance to win the million. Oh, yeah, they have like a feather bed. A whole mattress carved into the head. The hacienda is in there. There's a trap door into like the giant Boston Rob head has a bed in it.

Well, we'll have Riley back on in a couple of weeks once we kind of separate the wheat from the chaff on Survivor a little bit. But we're really interested to see how this island of the idols thing goes as we tread water. until we get to season 40. Yeah. Thanks for coming on. All right. Thank you for having me.