Joe vs Rick: Breaking Down the Feud

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1:01And I have been obsessed with something that's lived rent-free in my head since the end of this week's Survivor episode. And I have just been thinking so much about the scenes between Joe and Rick Devins and ultimately with Christian in Survivor 50. It's been so fun. And I thought that this would be a great opportunity to take some time and really slow down everything that transpired. And go back and take a look at it with fresh eyes because I think that we have a real opportunity to do a character study on what makes these Survivor players tick. Because I thought that the clash of styles that we saw in this episode was so compelling. And I think like any great movie or TV show, these characters are so rich and I think there's so much going on that I'd love to do a deep dive into exploring where everybody is coming from. Because I've thought about this a lot since the episode aired and who was right, who was

2:02wrong, whose side am I on? And I just think that what's really fun to talk about is I see everybody's perspective on where they're coming from in all of this. And so I just thought in terms of studying these great survivor characters, this would be a fun thing to take a deep dive into. So let's take a look and we're going to start with these two characters who just seem so diametrically opposed in their approach to how they look at the game. And that's Joe and Rick. And now we know about how Joe has this open wound from Survivor 48. He's talked about that a lot in the show and in the preseason. But I think that we're going to see how this open wound really affects him and the other characters in Survivor 50 in a really interesting way. And so we're going to go and take a look here and they're going to bring in some moments from the episode. And we got this set up here where Rick Devins is here talking about what it's like to

3:07play with Joe. And I want to like take a listen to what they're saying here and stop down at certain points and really break this down. And Rick Devins, he's talking about Joe early on in the episode and he says, if we booted Joe, my game would be so freed up because with Joe, he's all about integrity, which is not that fun, especially when you get strategic. Because you have to work around his principles. And this is going to really guide how we're seeing how Rick has these conversations with Joe. And we're going to have everybody sitting around, not sure exactly when this happens, but Rick for some reason says to Joe, can I grab you for 30, 30, but 30 seconds, 30 minutes, I don't even, that Rick doesn't seem to want to do anything with Joe.

4:07Not sure why he needed to grab him and take him to the well. Obviously, we know earlier in the episode that Ozzy had proposed this alliance of Rick and Joe, Savannah and Ozzy working together. And Savannah's like, hey, are you going to tell him about the thing? Rick's like, probably not, but why is Rick talking to Joe by the well that we don't have the answer to that question. So Joe, we know spotted Savannah talking to Rick and he is trying to get to the bottom of things and Joe's like, so how are you feeling? Make a little small talk and Rick Devins is talking about like, oh, I just beat Q in the challenge. That was great. And just Joe's like, it's not even those things, oh, that's awesome. He wants to get to the bottom of things and he's like, so what was Savannah saying to you before we took off and Rick does not have a great or convincing answer here.

5:12He as jam jam once it does not really have that light in his eyes when he's saying, she said, are you guys going to talk strategy and I said, no, Joe's like, ah, that's weird. Joe is not looking at Devins at all while this is going on. He's like, he's doing this thing with this, the stick in his teeth and it's a little bit of a thing where he's kind of recovering his mouth. I think he's trying to hold back a little bit, but he just seems very tense with how he's scrubbing his teeth with the stick. And Rick is trying to explain what he's like, yeah, well, yeah, I think I think she wanted to be a part of it, but not super convincing in what he's trying to sell to Joe. And Rick's trying to say like, yeah, I got the vibe that she likes you and maybe she's

6:15liking me too. Maybe she wants to, maybe she does want to work with us. And Joe's like, no, okay, yeah, that's all it wants to do. But he's not looking at Rick. He's not really buying it. And I want to talk a little bit more about Joe because I think that he's such a fun character to have here in Survivor 48. And I know what you're saying. What do you mean, Rob? What do you mean, Joe's a fun character? But I think that him being here in this season is interesting because I think that a lot of people look at Joe the same way that Rick Devins is talking about Joe of Joe. All he wants to do is honor and loyalty and integrity and that's boring. But I think that Joe coming off of Survivor 48 is in this really interesting position where he played this game and then he ended up getting this betrayal that he feels deeply. And then he only just watched on television about two weeks before he knew he lost the game. But he didn't know exactly what happened to him with Kyle and Camilla and now he's all

7:18the sudden he's back in Fiji, there's Camilla is here, he doesn't know how to process things. And the thing about Joe is that he is a processor of information. And with Joe, I want to take a look back at here. Here's a little bit of Joe in a very pivotal moment in Survivor 48. Here's Joe when Kyle is telling him that Shaheen has the idol. And the thing about Joe is that it's always with Joe in the eyes. Let's watch how Joe processes this information. He's almost like a computer. You see his eyes like movie magazines are trying to process things and in Survivor 48 you would see this where he would go off and be by himself or maybe with Eva. But in Survivor 48 Joe was controlling everything and he really could set the pace, set the tone where when Joe needed time to process, he was able to really be at his own pace.

8:21And we see Joe went when Joe's actually upset. Like we see how he is with Shaheen when Kyle has told him that Shaheen has the idol and he has this plan and he's going to use it and he's going to betray Joe. You see how Joe when he's really upset with you, he doesn't look at you. But I really feel like in these conversations with Rick, I feel like that he's just trying to process what's happening. He really doesn't understand what people are doing and it's making him feel this wound that he has from Survivor 48, but he doesn't, he knows something is off and it's really, it's bothering him because he feels like, hey, this is Kyle and Camilla all over again, if he just, he's struggling to understand what this is and he's really trying to process all of this. And so we have to talk about this second scene where we have Rick and Joe once again.

9:24Now before we get into all this, I just want to mention also, I interviewed Savannah on the Thursday after the episode and she talked about in the exit interview, actually what happened in real life and the feud between Joe and Rick was actually more intense in real life than it was in the episode. We don't get to see everything in the episode. So we're doing the best with what we have. So it seems like, at least according to Savannah that this actually was, and here's her words explaining it. Since the episode came on, I've been obsessed with trying to figure out the dynamics of your tribe and why people are feeling some type of way about Joe because admittedly, I feel like I did not see Joe doing anything that really was making people feel uncomfortable. Can you give us some illumination on this? You're putting me in the hot seat. I'm scared. No, here's the thing because I know that Joe's going to be listening to some of these interviews

10:27and Joe's a family man, he has kids like, I'm not trying to bash anyone. That said, the conversation that Joe and Devon's had was way more intense than it seemed on TV. If you have six people on a beach and Joe and you see these six people who are very concerned about the potential to work with someone in the future, you're concerned about how reliable they are, I think it tells you that there was more to that conversation than was aired. But again, I'm not trying to bash anyone. No, I don't think you are. So it seems like there's more to what happened on the island and ultimately we just are not privy to that. So we can only go off of what we see. But before we have this other conversation and I don't really know how this starts up because we end up with Rick and Joe just talking. Here's Rick again in his confessional and he's talking about Joe and he says, Joe is so

11:27frustrating. It's survivor. You give each other grace like I'm going to see two people whispering and that's okay because Joe wants to play his way and we're all supposed to play around and it sucks, man, especially on season 50. It's boring and it's restricting and all of us are coming out to here play unleashed, play unleashed. That's such an important distinction and phrase that Rick uses that he sees himself as this person who is able to do play the game. However, he wants to play Rick's poker player and he wants to be at the table and there's wild cards and there's bluffing and we're having fun and I'm bluffing you and you're bluffing me. That's Rick Devins in a nutshell and we saw it to great effect at the end of the episode when he has the moment with Christian where he's going to hide a fake idol at tribal council. Rick gets energized by being able to play loose and fast and chaotic but he does not

12:34feel like he can do that with Joe around that Joe's presence, just the way that Rick interprets how Joe wants to play the game. Rick feels like he's constrained and Rick is framing Joe as being the person who's preventing him from playing this game. Joe represents this accountability to, oh, I have to feel bad about playing the way I want to play because you're here and I don't know if Joe has said that but certainly we get that Rick is feeling that way from having Joe just on the beach and his season has just aired and maybe that's top of mind. We see Joe, he's going to talk to Savannah and Savannah's like, yeah, Ozzy wanted to make an alliance with me, you Rick Devins and him and Joe's like, wait, so he wanted to make an alliance with us and that's okay. So Joe again tells us about his own, his words PTSD from Kyle and Camilla and he says he's

13:41bringing that baggage. We know that Joe has this wound and it comes up in his conversations with Rick because he doesn't really understand why is Rick hiding something from him? And so they talk again and see and Joe's like, all tight and he's looking down and Rick looks like he's trying to smooth things over with Rick. He's like, yesterday at the well, it was obvious you were trying to catch me and something and that's like, and Joe says to Rick about this like, there's no such thing as catch you in something when it's, you ask someone directly and you're hoping for the truth which I didn't get. So I went to Savannah to once again put the truth out there, why would you not tell me about the alliance, I made it and Joe is probably feeling like he's at the bottom, something that never happened to him in survivor of 48 and he's just, he doesn't get it like that

14:46if there was an alliance, why didn't you want to tell me about it, Rick? I just like, help me understand. He's Joe is again processing and Rick's like, well, I didn't think I was the appropriate one to approach you about it and Joe's like, what, but I don't understand. How is it bad? I don't get it. If that's what it is, I don't get it. Yeah, why wouldn't you tell me about an alliance? And Rick, he doesn't have a great response, he's like, I wasn't, you saw it, I froze. It wasn't a great survivor of a moment and Joe just keeps going back to it like, but I don't get it and look how animated he is now. Now he's like really like looking at Rick, I don't get it. It doesn't make sense if it's just an alliance talk and now Rick is really doesn't have any good answers that it doesn't make sense is Joe's version of saying, you know, this

15:52help me understand this and Rick now is again, even more frustrated with Joe. And he starts off with like always kind words for Joe. I have not stopped loving Joe as a human being, but I am over it with Joe as a game player. You're a survivor player, bro. We're allowed to lie and backstab like, what are you doing? This is like going out onto the football field and being like, I'm a pacifist, I'm sorry, I don't touch people. It's like, good luck for your team trying to play with you and where is damn team? Now I do think that this is not necessarily the right analogy because Rick is saying, hey, we're all on the same tribe here, Joe, what are you doing with how you're playing the game? You're holding us back as a team when in reality, if this is a football team and they're in the huddle, Joe is trying to say, hey, QB, what's the play?

16:57And Rick's like, I don't have to tell you if I don't want to, I'm going to run an audible. I'm going to run whatever play I feel like you don't need to know what the play is. Like I'm allowed, like Rick's treating Joe, like, sure, if this is football, you can run a fake on the other team, but Joe's saying, like, I thought I'm on your team and Rick doesn't want to bring him in like that. And this is really not going great in this clash of styles. Rick says, I've never played with someone like you before, I've never played with anyone who came to Survivor to be totally trustworthy. And I didn't think I would want to. And yet I'm like, dude, this dude is so magnetic where, you know, Rick is trying to warm Joe up here, but Joe won't let it go. He says, do you know that trust is all you have in this game? Do you know that if you want to, well, sure, you're way to the top though, bro, just to defend

18:03my game that you said you never wanted to work with or can't work with now, now that I know that and Rick is like, no, I just not what I'm saying. And Joe's like, what, what I'm saying is, listen, bro, it's just that I'm just repeating what you're saying to me and Rick is frustrated, you're twisting my shit. If you don't have any time for me, that's one thing. What are you talking about time for you? It's all, it's like, all I'm trying to do is build trust. That's my game. And let's go back and talk about the origin story for Rick Devins as a player. And this is something that I think is really fun because in the story of Joe and Rick, I think that there are some parallels because we know that Joe coming off as Survivor 48 is wounded. But once upon a time, Rick Devins was wounded too.

19:06And Rick Devins came into season 38, 10 seasons before Joe was going to play. And he came to the edge of extinction and Rick Devins was really such a team player. He was on the tribe, Lesu with David Wright and Kelly Wentworth and he went along with, we're voting out Reem, we're voting out Big Wendy, we're voting out Chris Underwood. But eventually, it came time to, hey, we're down to five and Rick, it's your turn. And Rick Devins got voted out by the tribe he was loyal to. And he went to the edge of extinction. And then Rick Devins managed to win his way back into the game. And he came back from the edge of extinction only to get lied to by the people that voted him out in the first place. And so Rick Devins isn't wounded after his season. Rick Devins is wounded mid season of Survivor 38. And so he comes back into this game with this open wound that he's dealing with.

20:11And so after there's a merge vote where the Ron Clark comma tribe, they end up, they get all of these people voting the other ways where that I believe it was Lauren and Kelly and War Dog voted against David Wright and they lied to Rick Devins. Here comes War Dog. And War Dog wants to try to get Rick Devins back on the same page so that they can work together. And he wants to vote, we want Rick to vote with the Lesu five and work back together. And so War Dog is saying, hey, let's get the old five Lesu back together. And War Dog is like, oh yeah, I'm dying to get back with the old Lesu, except that I don't want to get back with you guys at all. This is a great moment in the edge of extinction where this is classic Rick Devins and he's

21:13like, I don't want to get back with you guys at all. And he's pissed. He doesn't want to work with War Dog at all. He says, it was so stupid. Don't come out here and War Dog at me like, don't yell at me and tell me about how I'm not playing the game. You think I should be playing. Rick says, I don't like being barked at. I'm not going to work with you. And then he says, if I can't trust Lesu, then let's do everything we can to get with comma. They just saved me at the last tribal. So don't bark at me about how I'm playing the game just because I'm not doing what you want me to do. Then he ends up telling War Dog, hey, don't War Dog at me because here's the thing about

22:15Rick Devins is that Rick Devins doesn't want to be told what to do. Rick Devins doesn't want to be told what to do by his enemies or his allies. Don't tell me what to do with your logic, War Dog. Don't tell me what to do with my loyalty, Joe, because we see here that War Dog is telling Rick Devins, hey, you have to vote with us. You know, this is the numbers and Rick pushes back against that. You know, I don't have to play the logical game. You want me to play War Dog. Don't bark at me. Don't War Dog at me. I'm not going to do what you want me to do just because you decide it's correct. And Joe, Rick also doesn't want to go and say, hey, I don't want to play the game that you want me to play, Joe. I don't want you to tell me how to play morally with your honor and your loyalty.

23:15That's boring. That's not how I want to play. And so for Rick, that he uses the word War Dog with War Dog, like don't War Dog at me. And that's when Rick is feeling like you're putting your framework on me, your logic, your expectation, your code. Don't put that on me. And Rick doesn't see himself that way. Rick, after he comes back from the edge of extinction, only feels safety when he is this unleashed player, this free agent, somebody that moves with fluidity without obligation, that he gets energized in the live tribal council with the pilots and the passengers. And being able to play idols, find idols, make fake idols. These are the things that really like get his motor going. And he needs to be able to feel that way. And that was the thing that after Rick Devons was wounded, he was able to find safety,

24:20to rebuild himself by finding this play style that gives him strength, where Joe, after his, he gets wounded, like he's still looking to find what energizes him in the game. And he's hoping that it's going to be trust and safety and feeling like, okay, I can trust people. And for these two people, they're just coming at it diametrically opposed. And for Rick, he does not want to be lectured about how to be playing the game. He does not want to be wardog. Nobody puts Rick Devons in a corner. But the way that he comes to Joe and tells Joe about, hey, Joe, this is how we, we, we need to play the game this way, that the man who hated being wardog is a little bit wardogging Joe about, hey, this is how we're playing the game on season 50, Joe. Can't you see this? And it's, I think that's such an interesting clash of these two styles.

25:25And then let's bring Christian into this because Christian is the person who is going to then take his shot to try to work on Joe. Now going back to Christian's backstory, we know how Christian was able to, you know, and Gabby wasn't feeling great at times in survivor David versus Goliath. Christian was able to be somebody who was able to soothe her, make her feel good. Hey, oh, what were you mean, you mean playing the sand? No, play together. Christian in his day job, and I've gotten the great pleasure of getting to know Christian over many of the years, he works as a doctor of robotics. And so there's so much trial and error in what he does. He builds systems. And then when there is an issue with what he's built, then his issue or his goal is to go in and figure out why isn't this working? What's happening here?

26:26And I think that that's how Christian ends up approaching this situation with Joe. And he has better results in this. And of course, here's this great scene with Christian and Joe in the hammock. And so Joe is asking Christian who we don't see yet, who are you thinking of voting tonight? And Christian says to Joe, I'd rather not say around camp if that's okay. And then we see Christian through the netting of the hammock. And he says to Joe, honestly, there are times I'm afraid to talk to you about these things because you mean well, but I don't want to create a situation where you're in a conflict of interest. And this scene with the net is so incredible because Christian, he comes at Joe from this position where he's next to Joe, but also beneath Joe and he's coming to him.

27:31And you'll see him eventually he's going to be standing, but he starts off coming from this position where he's low and he's underneath Joe and he's looking at Joe through the hammock. And the hammock is a little bit like a veil over his face and he does have these veil intentions. And the hammock here, it's a metaphor or a metaphor where that Christian also is coming in to try to manipulate the way that Joe is seeing things, but he's doing it, wearing this veil. And we get the confessional from Christian about how this is the therapy carousel. And that's the name of the episode. And I love that this scene ends up being part of the name of this episode because it's obviously my favorite thing to talk about. Christian then says the thing to Joe that really starts to change things.

28:35He says, so I don't know what your relationship is like with Savannah. So I'm afraid to say anything to you about the woman. And from Joe, things start to click a little bit. He's like, oh, oh, oh, I'm straight, I like, I won't lie to you. And Christian responds, no, no, no, I know you won't. But at this point, now everything makes sense to Joe. We've talked about Joe is processing this whole thing. Why is Rick, I don't understand why won't you just tell me why, if it's an alliance, why is that bad? And now Joe sees it. He sees like, oh, okay, oh, this wasn't about me. This was about Savannah. You didn't know, you didn't want to tell me about Savannah, okay. And I think that Joe likes Savannah, but I think that he was willing to say, okay, I thought

29:41you were guys were trying to blind side me. And so Joe now all of a sudden is a little bit more open with Christian. He says, listen, like, I'm a straight shooter. If I have a question, I'm going to say what happened here? That's just what I'm going to do. And Christian now is making Joe feel seen. He says, I remember that from your season. If there's a common denominator among all the disagreements, and this is just, as Riz God might say, this was cinema. Here's Joe rocking the hammock slowly back and forth. And in fairness to Christian, he has his newborn son, Michael at home, and maybe he is missing him. But here is just that, you know, he has done the work where metaphorically he has, or even literally, he's now, he's soothed Joe. Joe was really very...

30:43He was bothered by what was going on. And Joe is finally feeling good. Christian is up off the ground. He's standing and now him and Joe have an understanding. And Christian goes back to talking about the therapy carousel. He said, so I'm just jumping on this little carousel. And it's a lot to keep track of keeping everything calm. And so hopefully we made the right choice and nothing goes haywire. And really, that's what Christian is just been trying to do through these two episodes of how do we take somebody out of the tribe without creating any additional chaos? We know Rick likes to thrive in the chaos. Christian is looking for how do we move forward? He didn't want to have a dirty vote back in the first episode. And so they're able to then get Joe on board to vote out Savannah.

31:46And they get a clean six to one vote against Savannah here. But the therapy carousel is just such an interesting way to look at it because that for Christian, you have the whole tribe is revolving around Joe who's really at the center of it. And they're all in their own ways trying to dance around him and work around him. And Joe is just trying to get some stability and some understanding from where he's coming from. Rick does get to go and do get his moment where he gets to go and hide the idol at tribal council. And I think it's going to be so interesting to watch how all three of these personalities move forward in the game. The tribe swap is coming. Can Joe find the people who are going to be able to give him the reassurance that he

32:47needs moving forward? What does it look like if Joe can find his people? It was so interesting in survivor 48 where Joe was the person who was at the head of everything. He was able to really set the pace in survivor 48 here. He's on the worst possible tribe for him. He's on a tribe with Christian and Devons and Syri and Emily Flippin and the game is going so fast. And he might feel like that this is a carousel that he can't keep up with. But what happens if he links up with some of these players who look at the game more like him? And what happens for Devons if he ends up on a tribe that looks at things a little bit more like Joe. It's just so fun to take a look at all of this and talk about all of these characters. And I'm having the best time here in survivor 50. One last thing in terms of Joe and Rick Devons in terms of the comparison between these two guys that Joe, even though he's a newer school player, he is the classic survivor hero.

33:52And he's somebody that obviously in the production and Jeff, they love Joe from the moment that they saw him. He had the moment with Eva, but also he was this guy who is a hard worker around camp. He doesn't lie. And also he is the old school type of hero that the survivor firefighter, what a classic trope between Tom Westman and Jeremy and Keith and the firefighter is like the best profession that you could be on survivor in terms of the audience getting the shorthand for who a hero is. And this is something that I talk about in the tribe and I have spoken that the idea of the hero really started as sort of this hard working blue collar guy who is going to be a hard worker inside the game, but also has this heroic profession outside of the game. But Rick Devons comes along and it started really with Russell Hans where that then there becomes this idea of a survivor hero can also be the person who outhustles everybody

34:54in terms of idols and advantages and working hard at the game. And that becomes a pivot where we see it start with Russell all the way through Malcolm and then through Mike Holloway and then and ultimately in Rick Devons where there's this other type of survivor hero, the person who's going to be out there hustling, looking and turning over every single rock, looking for every advantage, having fun playing the game. And so in Joe and Rick, you have also this budding of heads of the two different types of survivor heroes that we have over the course of the show, the old school fire fighter, heroic makes a bonfire helps out Eva versus the hero who's looking for every single idol and having a ball playing the game and being that hard working survivor player of a more modern era. And that's the clash between Joe and Rick. So survivor 50 has been incredible so far.

35:56Thank you so much for indulging me on this interesting exploration of all of this. Thank you so much. Looking forward to reading. We have to say in the comments and I hope that everybody enjoys stuff like this because I love talking about these survivor characters that we know so well. Thanks so much also to Brandon Donnellan behind the scenes who helped me immensely with putting this all together. Take care everybody. Bye.