Survivor 51 Episode 2 Analysis - Decoy Votes, Rob's Plan, and Injuries

0:00The Survivor Specialist film Blake are back and today we are digging deeper into episode number two of Survivor 51. As you can see from the title, we're going to be talking decoy votes, Rob's plan, injuries. We're also going to be talking about the two tribe format. Rob's plan. Rob's plan. That's all I can think. The entire time. Rob's plan. It's better that you're doing the song and dance because I've been thinking that nonstop and I'm just I'm surprised nobody else has said that. Anyway, Blake were two episodes into the open era. I got to hear from you last week. How are you feeling now? I really liked what I saw last night. I think it was something where it's like, why is this refreshing? And I think there's just some stuff of instead of here's what we're supposed to do because there's six of us or here's what we're supposed to do because I know how this works. There is some people that are still like, we've never had somebody like Lewis come back. How does Lewis do this? What do I do with Lewis? Lewis doesn't even have a buff.

1:04I think that's interesting for Lewis. I think that's interesting for his tribates. I think that's interesting for people in the audience. And then it's something where it's like even 51 seasons in somebody's like, I'm about myself out and use an idol and we're going to we're going to make sure Eric gets through this. And then through no amount of his effort, even against his own vote. Eric stays anyway and Rob just like, all right, sick. Like just stuff that has never happened is happening. It is happening genuinely. I think it's happening without survivor. Forcing it to happen. And I think that's always what seems more interesting as a fan as a lover as a hater as a survivor superstar, a specialist, whatever. One stuff is happening naturally. It feels way better. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think what were you going there? You were going full. I got to look up the name of the artist, Meredith Brooks. That's what you were going there. I'm a lover. I'm a hater. I'm a, you know, throw the 90s fans out there.

2:05Red shirt fan hitting us with $20.20. Thank you, Randy. Thank you, red shirt fan. This is definitely Randy Bailey. He can't believe he said something positive. No, I mean, I get what you're saying. And even down to the producers not telling Rob ahead of time, you can't vote for yourself. They could definitely tell that that's where it was going. I'm sure that there was something in a confessional of him mentioning the potential of voting for himself. Just let it get to the point where he's about to actually do it at tribal council because it is ultimately going to lead to better TV. If you're telling him this beforehand, he's going to quit, which I saw a couple comments. And I think one of them might have actually been on our video. I probably give credit where credit is due, even though I'm probably one of the worst people at doing that when it comes to all these podcasts. But somebody had said something on the lines of this is it J. A. T. H. D. O. This is a comment on our last night's recap. Rob got off the couch and never envisioned a scenario where he wasn't on top and going undefeated all season. He also didn't realize how hard the sleep deprivation and starving is he is giving hangry ass sleepy baby.

3:07And I think that that's actually a really good way of describing the way Rob was acting last night because episode one he's so into it. And he loves it. He's got a night. He's not going to tell anybody everything's going great for Rob. And then last night they lose two challenges and he just decides I don't want to be here anymore. And we do see this on survivor a lot. We see a lot of people who once they taste that first defeat and everything's not all people see it in their living room. I sure people see it on the pickle ball court. Like who's your who's your friend that you beat him three times and then he's like I'll see you guys in a week and a half. Like apparently that's raw bylin. Like that that's who it's going to be on this survivor season. And that's nothing against him. Like that's a way to live. But boy is it one of those where you're like damn it is feast or famine of you are either the person who's pointing at others to be like ha ha or you're like tucking your tail kicking the ball over the fence to no one can play. That's just not how survivor works. Well Rob feels like he's a sore winner and a sore loser. And I always say I'm in this one is how to watch the great.

4:11I'm seeing the rate. Yeah, I love sore losers. I say this all the time on podcasts. I think more people should be sore losers. I think as a society we've just determined that if you're upset when you lose you're a bad person or a bad sport or whatever. As Judd said, she says I have bad sportsmanship. Who cares. So I just feel like we should be kind of looking at Rob right now though and saying okay, but don't go too far over the line survivor casting team. Rob is entertaining. He's fun to watch. Clearly wanted to have his big moment. His big send off. He's trying to create a TV moments letting get his five minutes of fame and try to extend it into 15. But don't go too far with this because then what you're in it up leaning towards is the Hannah where you're going to end up getting somebody who really does quit. And we don't actually want quitters on survivor will take people like you who aren't fully going to quit but will bring that up as a potential threat to the rest of the drive. But I don't want the person to actually walk off of the island. So there's got there's got to be a good towing of line here.

5:12And right now when I look at you know Rob toe that line like toe that line well because Rob is very entertaining. But if Rob actually would have quit last night. I would have been pissed. It's the open era. We can't. There's no way quitters can be getting through casting at this point. Like it's just there's no way I don't care how entertaining they are. You as a casting team have been doing this for so long quitters can't get through. I think this was. To me this was a tantrum. That's what I feel like it was he had this grand plan of I don't want to be here anymore because we lost I never thought I would lose. Now I'm just going to use this idol to save somebody and I'm going to make this big moment that's going to make me famous and it'll be everything everybody talks about. You know he was licking his chops thinking about oh this has never been done before waiting till you guys see what I'm going to do. So yeah it's never been done before because it's idiotic and can't be done. That's the problem. And so I just think this was a tantrum and I think he's going to be fine moving forward. But it is the conversation of last night and it is legit.

6:15And we've seen this before I know Will is putting together a video of of people who've tried to quit and failed on survivor. And we've seen this numerous times and survivor history. I mean one of our favorite players of all time is shame powers and shame powers tried to quit that season like 12 different times and people just had to talk them down or he eventually would say I actually don't want to quit anymore. It's like brother what the hell is going on so super entertaining. One of our favorite players Janus Torres just went on to our own. Oh Janus Terrell that's how much of a favorite she is and she actually does quit. She's not fake quitting. But I feel like you know it's like how much can we dissect Rob's plan Will and I dissected it as much as we could last night. At the end of the day this was Rob just trying to make a TV moment and not wanting to be there because he's mad that he lost. Which I'm sure when we see him in public one day at a finale or whatever everybody is going to hug him just as much or give him a high five just as much like you're on survivor whether you quit and get last or when you get first like I think that's it for some people.

7:21I do think the one thing that I could not reconcile no matter how dumb it felt is he's the one who got Eric in this mess in the first place. So like how does that work mentally of man this shouldn't have happened to you Eric you didn't get a good star you didn't you didn't get a fair shake of a lampstale that sucks for you and it was you who he's looking for an idol. Check his shorts they're dry I promise you there was no way he was fishing and you're just like oh my god like what five days and then I think it's very important of to to be behind. The survivor experience of what is the worst five days you've ever gotten sleep wise and how many times did you go I have to go to the doctor or I have to hang out with somebody that cares about me and have them pamper me because if I don't sleep the six day I may lose it all. And I think if he's sleeping that badly I think that is the key of like even one sick even one five night five hour night of sleep can maybe get him back in the game.

8:33Yeah again it's a tantrum and when people are tired they throw tantrums and when people are upset they throw tantrums and that's just what this was for me and you know what it's a 40 year old man throw tantrums and 40 year old men throw tantrums it happens it's a thing it's not fake it's not made up it's especially north that's 40 year old man. That's me in three years bro you think I'm going to stop throwing tantrums. No. Blake is the king of tantrums by the way Blake and I Blake you were talking about who's the guy who like disappears and just goes away after they lose Blake and I did a a sportal thing on Friday night where Blake was like I'll leave after I beat you and he was at my apartment for another like three and a half to four hours. So I just wanted to make sure I threw that in there real quick. You write for leaving I edit that's you don't edit. I mean dude yeah just throw just throwing that out there guys but anyway so when we're talking about you know let's move off of Rob let's talk about this decoy vote because this is something will and I actually forgot to talk about last night because it didn't feel like it had anything to do with the reason why Anna went home but it was a part of the story that came up and Anna said why am I throwing out names fine guys just put me out there because I don't need to actually throw out a name that's going to look bad for me whatever we didn't really talk about this because it didn't feel like her throwing out

9:45names or her like her being the decoy is the reason she went home it feels like Alexa's kind of set her up. What do you think about putting yourself in a position to ever be the decoy vote and ever be the person who could potentially go home because of a shot in the dark player something like that especially in this situation Anna didn't vote for somebody else so she knows that if in her best case scenario it's nine one vote Eric is going to vote for her. And she's going to get the last vote and if Eric plays a shot in the dark and it is successful Anna will be the one going home so in the new arrow why would you ever you know since season 41 why would you ever throw yourself out there as decoy vote. I think it's Guatemala it's like you can't. I have all because of the idol yeah. I think there's one thing the thought process for me is all these all these shows are not the same but boy do they kind of melt together sometimes. Big brother you never say go ahead you can nominate me as upon let it happen to you let let somebody go.

10:47What if we used Anna and that way you can from now on be like screw you. But if you're going to be the person who goes oh we can put my name up if we have to you don't have a reason to go after somebody later on and everybody has a like. Okay they must not be that into the game like I do think if anybody said to me like oh. Not go all go get the water but like anything negative game wise if they were like oh I wouldn't mind going at jury or I wouldn't mind being the merge boot but I think they're it the worst easiest version of that is. We can use my name as a decoy and I think that says to me of you're not checked in you're not. In it to win it which is kind of what you want in some allies but sometimes it's like if you're willing to do that what are you willing to do to me like if you can put your name out there willy nilly. And I do think that was a crazy thing for Anna to say because there were so many other names already.

11:51It's like Eric could have picked anybody and I don't think he would have picked Anna yeah and I do think because Anna put her name out there I read her Mike Bloom exit press today first time I've done that in years like that I think that's another thing of wow survivor is interesting. Maybe I was in a weird headspace today at work to but it was like oh I'm reading her thing she was like oh. The whole thing was those two girls think she's coming after them but she's not she just wants to get rid of Eric and it's like well we don't know that and we are going to outmaneuver you and I truly think Anna like screwed herself. I think if she was like asleep in the shelter I think if she was a little bit less neuronic I think if she's has one better friend than Carter maybe she's still in the game and probably getting 14th place instead of 20th. Well yeah I mean and then we have this comment from Kevin O'Donnell Anna throughout the name of every woman on her tried this episode including her own I actually think the only one she didn't throw out was Alexis but I guess she did throw out Alexis because when she was sitting next to Carter she was talking about Alexis.

12:58So yeah and I think that that's where I think tonight what we saw or last night what we saw is a lot of people who are used to being the main characters realize that everybody else around them is a main character it's like you know for anybody who's gone to college or if you're going to college now whatever like that first week at college when you realize like oh crap it doesn't matter like if you're if you're you know especially if you're going to a good college or whatever you have that first week of oh I'm not as big of a deal here. I feel like rework for everything that I had in high school or you know even if you're even if you weren't the cool kid in school but you're really smart I'm not the smartest person in this room anymore and I think Rob and Anna both kind of went through a little bit of learning that they're not the main characters think Eric went through it too because when they did decide to tell Eric everything that was going on and Eric was like oh I thought I had better relationships whatever I think you're seeing a lot of people who are used to being the center of attention realize that other people these other players on this

13:58season especially aren't just going to be NPCs and just walk around and let everything happen around them and so Anna is throwing out everybody's name I still think Alexis set her up because Alexis was really throwing out the names the first time but if you're talking too much and you're saying too many names and you're playing sloppy survivor you're going to go home in the open era you're going to go home in the new era you're going to go home really at any time in survivor history throwing out too many names or just or just being like loose lift and talking everybody is what will get you to go out of survivor so you know when you're playing these early days you kind of got to pull the alligator or strategy and just lay a little low you don't want to do too much I know that that's that's kind of the trader strategy is don't stick your head up too far because you don't want to get murdered or banished at the roundtable but especially in 20 person survivor 21 person survivor big tribes there is so much room to hide don't do too much I don't do too much truly I think that's something where it's like how do I do this new meta of open era like I wouldn't try to take control the game until like final 12 yeah like literally this first two weeks it would be we we are playing the Olympics like I think what's your face says

15:15what is our name? I don't know bro Kyle and who Kyle and Camilla so Camilla like you're playing the Olympics and if you if you have to because you're not a strong athletic player you're playing the puzzle Olympics and that those these first two weeks are all just positioning to maybe you have a shot to take over the game at 12 because if you think you can take over the game at final 19 and run it all the way through I think you're insane yeah I mean I totally totally agree I mean you know for as you know you might not be the biggest fan of the style of play but Aubrey played it perfectly in 50 her name came up early she made a mistake and then she just let the game happen around her for the longest time that's what you have to do sometimes like you don't have a choice you just have to like we already have two people like that on this new season two of like who survived playing their shot of the dark last time oh she's the new Aubrey and maybe it is ready to go like they even said I mean we said this Devon said it in the tribal council and then starting off the episode I think they had another thing of

16:19oh she made it through now she's going to be a deep contender I was like oh my gosh yeah yeah I'm like the intention of this that was Jenna here but Jenna really did not get much content aside from that which to me felt pretty damning to her winning potential she was not a part of any conversations that happened on that tribe after the initial whatever and then I guess with Brody cut his finger off those are really the only two things so yeah I just I don't know I think again you don't have to be the main character of survivor early on and I think that was Anna's biggest downfall she she wanted to be too involved in too much that was going on and you know even when it came down to throwing out a name and then saying actually I'll be the decoy you've done too too many things there you don't need to do either of those things like don't do either of those things yes you're going to naturally sit around talk with people and throw names out that is going to happen but you don't need to be the one who is throwing the names out all the time like like especially in that moment it was whoa whoa okay I mean six people voted Anna out of this game

17:23one of the people who didn't vote Anna out of this game had no idea what planet he was on the other person knew that Anna was getting votes but ultimately just thought that this was the layup and then the other person was Carter who I truly don't know what is happening with Carter but Carter and her got caught in the eye in tell Carter Carter and her were number ones according to her and I I don't know why we wouldn't believe that so that that made sense like it does feel like every Anna voter is in a driver's seat and it's like like I would be very worried if I was one of those three but it is like their major strength in Rob right yeah so it's like okay we may like are you going to vote out Carter or Rob next if you lose the next challenge are you willing to give that up or do you vote out who is the other person you're not going to vote out ory so the three people who are on the wrong side of that vote are you really willing to vote them out at the next tribal counts I think maybe maybe Carter but Carter and Rob and even from

18:23the way people were talking after the challenge seemed like they were killing it in that reward challenge and seemed like they were the only ones who really had anything going on is there did any dudes not vote out Eric or did every dude vote on Eric Christian didn't okay Christian yeah Christian Christian Christian and Christian were the two that we didn't hear from in the build up but they were along with the majority and they were ultimately deciding votes I will say 21 people it's interesting but it is hard to remember everybody 21 new names 20 different decisions this week and I think it is something too if you're on Savu Savu Savu Savu did I haven't remembered it tribe names since 2004 it's the opposite of Toka Savu so Savu if you're on Savu and you were you were doing well they got Lewis and now you lost once you won once they got Lewis back you lost one and now you're down one has to be the most like

19:27god damn like I mean that have to throw the first challenge from now one like if we're doing the meta for when you guys are gonna go on 53 and win the show throw the first challenge if there's somebody on the next island because who cares because yeah I mean to me it's like that twist always ruin seasons I mean just look at Panama totally ruined Panama sorry Blake oh now you're punching me through the screen I'm just saying I mean we've seen that happen yes it's frustrating I don't know how often we're gonna see the odd numbers I mean I know for 52 we'll definitely end up seeing the odd number again we'll get 21 I'm sure you know Brad's uncertain as everything is I'm sure there'll be a lot of repetition between 51 and 52 but I do feel like it is it's a free it's a free pass because now Lewis joins that tribe but if they want to vote Lewis out they vote Lewis out nine of them get to just hang out if they don't vote Lewis out you know they're the ones who are bonding with Lewis not the other tribe so yeah you're down 10 nine now as the purple tribe but you know that's how survivor goes and I also don't think it's that big of a disadvantage

20:28because I think we're gonna get a swap very quickly here um one thing that I want to talk about and this is why I'm still Kevin Adonis saying three tribes in 52 though well that will suck because this tweet I if you listen to the patreon I went on a huge tangent about this earlier because I thought that this was so unbelievably important but Shannon Gus put out a tweet earlier today talking about the two tribes and she said it's episode two and everyone except Lewis has been a tribal the average episode that everyone had been a tribal from 41 to 50 was just over five love getting to see the players actually play early and this is why the two tribe format to me is so much better than three tribe format and we need three tribes every now and then but at the end of the day if it's two tribes you're telling us first them story which is good yeah you're doing a head story that's great and it's either gonna be this tribe wins or loses or this tribe wins or loses

21:33that's gonna be the story every week when you have three tribes you're you're most likely gonna have a tribe that never goes to tribal council they're just gonna keep winning so anytime you check in with them there's really no story there and after two episodes the other thing people that can go to tribal council after two episodes is 67% of the cast and as I pointed out on the patreon if you do an 18 person start 12 people will have gone to tribal council from seasons 42 through 49 I think it was 12 people went to tribal council through the first two episodes I know there's some meta-vax whatever and I leave out 41 purpose so because they had a double boot episode one but through the first two episodes 12 people will go to tribal two of them will be out of the game at most 12 people will go to tribal two will be out of the game so at most 10 of the 16 people will go to tribal that is barely over half that is not good that's five eighths of your of your people

22:33have gone to tribal council whereas now twenty twenty firsts of our people have gone to tribal council two tribes is infinitely better because we actually get to watch people play survivor rather than checking in with a tribe who's like like took an aquedump and like that's it there's no other story there for each I think the way I was gonna do it quickly and I know we we want to talk about this book for the rest of our lives but I'll do it one more time it's like would you rather watch Gryffindor versus Slytherin or Gryffindor versus Slytherin and versus Hufflepuff well nobody cares about Hufflepuff like we should have Gryffindor be more of them and Slytherin be more of them and Gryffind Gryffind versus Slytherin oh my god Gryffindor versus Slytherin is the the biggest battle of the season it's the whole thing not a side thing because Gryffindor and Slytherin killed each other Hufflepuff made it to the end and the Hufflepuff three are in the finals it's like why do we not

23:35care about that at all because oh the all of our favorites were on the other two or the main characters it felt like we're on these guys it's like I feel like if you do it an analogy like a narrative thing that you guys have done for years it's like nobody's like I wish there was more Ravenclaw this book like where are they yeah I mean I totally agree I totally agree because when you sit here and you watch this you know you were saying it's hard to keep track of all 21 people and I agree with you on that but at the same time only three people didn't get a confessional last night and this was another big part of my argument why two tribes is better especially in the 90 90 minute episodes that is the reason why truly because in 90 minute episodes you have so much more time to bounce back and forth between the two storylines that are going on whereas back in the day of a 42 minute episode in an hour long slot you would lose out on six or seven people in those early episodes because they didn't have enough time to tell it well now you have enough

24:35time you 18 extra minutes to have more people discuss and so I love the fact that we're starting with two tribes and and Lehigh Valley Bears is what are your thoughts of going to three tribes in episode four I'm fine with that I am fine with three tribes still showing up we've already seen everybody play we're not sitting here going oh wow three tribes only Sophie Beleriati's tribe has gone to tribal council do Jawan and Savannah actually hate each other how come Shannon and Sage can't get along we already know we already know who's voted together we know who's been on the right side numbers who's been on the wrong side of the numbers because these things have actually played out in our eyes in front of us there's four shadowing to what's going to happen because of seeing both tribes go to tribal council now I also understand this is a dream scenario and a lot of two tribe seasons you're not going to get this you're not going to always get both tribes losing to go to tribal council early but that's also fine I'm also okay with that because you can still clearly show where

25:35tribe divisions are happening in another tribe when the numbers are too small generally what ends up happening when you do do a tribe swap from three tribes to three tribes is you just end up with one person who's either in a swing position or the outcast and that's always what the story line is and half the time we don't even get to see that person play so I feel like two tribes is a great great start to the season and I think it's breathed a lot of life into this because Christian Tanan and Carter didn't get confessionals last night Tanan was not relevant was not involved at all did not see her I think the only time I saw it was at the challenge but Carter was a massive integral piece to the story that took place last night and Christian ends up being one of the deciding votes and does have a good bit at tribal council I got to hear from 18 people last night 18 or 19 people out of the 20 I feel like I know we're 19 of 20 people stand at this point Tanan I don't but Tanan just feels like she's on the outs because the alliance of five that was built up she wasn't a part of so I know where everybody is that is not the case with the three tribe starts it

26:42just isn't we go that we go too long and generally in three tribe starts not only that we end up at the same tribe going to tribal council twice anyway so now we've had six people out of 18 go to tribal council early and now we're down to four of those people so we watched four people play survivor through two episodes of survivor that works every now and then with a mad sing situation or something like that it doesn't work like this it doesn't work every time and you need to mix it up and this is that's why this is good your paycheck date could soon become the most irrelevant date in your life earning is a non bank finance app five million people in growing the concept is almost a noingly simple you earn money you access it up to a hundred and fifty dollars per day of what you've already worked for up to a thousand dollars between paychecks tips are optional and standard transfers take one to two business days with no mandatory fees expedited transfers started 399 and cap it 599 it's not about emergencies it's just a better way to exist financially day to day worth checking out I am so tired of waiting for paychecks in a world where everything is instant

27:47why do I and so many others willingly wait for the money we earned we earned this money it doesn't make sense I did the work now I have to decide between paying a credit card bill or an electric bill because those bills don't line up with when I'm given the money that's rightfully mine why are we allowing this to happen stop waiting for your money download earn an on the app store or google play spelled like earning money without the g type in the specialists under podcast when you sign up and it'll really help the show earning is a financial technology company not a bank access limits are based on your earnings and risk factors standard cashouts take one to two business days with no mandatory fees expedited transfers available for fee tips are voluntary and don't affect the service available in select states terms and restrictions apply visit earnin dot com for full details jump start your holiday savings with 10% cash back during rackets and big stack event stack 10% cash back on top of early holiday deals at macy's durm store lands end and more it's October 5th to 7th

28:51only so join now at raccoton dot com or download the raccoton app that's r a k u t e n looking for the best of verbo discover vacation rentals of the year top quality homes guess love from across the country are curated lists takes the guesswork out of planning so you can spend less time searching and more time packing book your next day now with verbo um let me save everybody from passion that stuff out again the the thought process that i wanted to appreciate about what do we mean when we say this people from all walks of life and i'm going to say two people's names and you guys may roll your eyes because it's both the blonde have been from that are strong on each side but i want to say out loud how many people watching of the four million how many people that i've ever played survivor would hit that part of their thumb with an axe in general probably nobody the people that would hit it how many of them are immediately pulling themselves from the end

29:55like it wouldn't even be a question in my opinion if if i cut off half of my thumb i would be mentally devastated and shot and like i ruined my chances but i would go home like i legitimately can't imagine but Brady is still in there want a challenge and like went to bed with his thumb half missing and like that's just a different mindset that i will never be able to do because he's such a physical dude and i am such a non physical dude of like all of my power strength whatever is mental and social or just doesn't exist at all and mental and social it's harder to prove if you have actual power or not kill be said i think Brady has a chance or has a shot at being the strongest survivor to ever play and i think that's something where is it mental fortitude is it physical strength or whatever it is that kept Brady in after slat like i can't imagine and and even watching it seeing some other people almost faint on the show

30:56the fact that they showed it and like here's literally his like thumb you see he made a he made a necklace of it so gross i saw he like made it into an idol or whatever i was like a resin necklace with his dominant yeah and like that's kind of weird to please don't do that and i do i wish maybe he has a does he have a here's what my thumb looks like now on social i don't think he has shown if he has i haven't seen it um yeah i don't know exactly what he did it looks bad it is he said it was stupid i did find the talk with the doctor so compelling for some reason it felt like a different type of doctor talk of like the doctor is just literally enamored with this dude of like he doesn't care about his health at all his heartbeat is beating a mile a minute and he's just like i i need to go into the challenge like i don't care like like i can still play right and the fact that the doctor was like we we got to get you ready for this challenge was just such a weird like

31:59what i literally thought this whole time like it sucks that Brady goes home in episode two because he's getting back from this never going home it was too lighthearted sam Clark says is Brady's personal item smelling salts um i mean he was he was amped man and i i mean it's it's an athlete thing though right i mean it's like you know just like last week or two weeks go whatever it was jackson dart tears his mcl and he's trying to go back in and play you know like you like Brady is a you know i know a w's not real but a w is very real in terms of the physical stress it puts on your body like he's used to taking a beating he's used to actually physically like pushing himself to limits this probably isn't remotely close to one of those painful things he's ever endured and i know that that sounds crazy to some people but that's just how it is i mean for him this isn't that big of a deal i'm sure it sucks that he's missing part of his thumb now but you know then on the other side and this isn't shate at christian 49 years old hurts her ankle and is being like helped in the camp and everything like that and they're talking as if she might be pulled

33:01from the game i hope christian's not pulled from the game but like if you see these two injuries obviously a broken bone is a lot bigger of a deal than chopping off the meaty part of your thumb but still like as i'm watching this you can't help but sit there and say this is just this is the difference in casting and this is what we were talking about like you said when we when we were talking about we want different walks of life this is what we mean you can't go 18 of the exact same archetype and say oh but like we have different ethnicities on the show or we have different upbringings on the show like in terms of lgbtq or you know whatever it is you have to have people who are actually like polar opposites it's so many ways that they look at life and i think that's so important on survivor because nobody else on this island and i don't know if anybody from the new era would have been able to just chop off part of their thumb and been like okay let's keep going but you need to have a crazy person like that and you need to have another person who can't do

34:05that like you need to have a good mix and i do feel like there's a lot of variety on this cast compared to what we were getting because you know what it reminded me of which you had to remind me which season it was i think jt lost a tooth in a challenge go and spit it out and it's like that dude won like yeah if i lost a tooth i would be crying off on the side and being like i wanted to place survivors so much but i not like this and like the the people that can just do that and keep going it's like that's a different breed of people and like i i truly think if you're on brady side and you're an alliance member to him you're like all right we're in this now like i i don't i don't think you're gonna backstab me because you have literal skin in the game like i that's a mental switch for me of like this person is in and i think i can trust them till the end because why would he backstab me right now like i we can he's somebody that could fit right into one of those

35:09joe david kyle alliances of like let's just take over and be the top dogs and knock each other out and like just have us at the end i would believe that for him yeah i feel like he's going to the final seven at least and i wouldn't be surprised if he's sitting in final three because i think at this point you're not worried about him winning survivor he can win challenges but so what joe one four and jody win survivor joe it's a two-time third place i think that you are taking brady as far into this game as you possibly could take brady and i think that you know if you're in his alliance great he's not gonna backstab you he's he's he was so upfront with debon about how we wanted to put that first vote you don't think that this guy has the strategic sense to actually pull one over on you and like you know he's a bad-ass i i want brady and my fox all like i want i want to know he's sick to watch him and the other thing is like when killbees is doing random tweets i'm like brady could be one of the strongest survivor players ever or strongest survivor

36:12he didn't say man he was like just strongest survivors ever in my mind i'm like does that mean he wins six or seven individual i mean he's like too much into that man tell me what do you mean tell me more uh i'm sure you i'm sure you already know more so don't you don't know no no no i would never and then the other one that i truly oh this is a different walks of life and this is truly what i mean have you ever been to iowa because it's a different world because Carter is whether it's a fresh breath of air if it's stinky air if it's farm air whatever air it is it is different than any and air is spelled with an e i r r e or whatever like it was so funny that he was like it's a r i c right and i was like no and then he's like i'm writing it anyway and like it's just something of and then he's proving in his phone on social media that there's a r i c's that live with near him i what was the other thing he was talking about crabs and not being quiet about it and other people are like he's because he's talking about crabs like they're people and nobody else in their right

37:16mind would do that and would be like i hope people aren't overhearing me but in case they are i'm talking about the crabs not the people that aren't in my alliance and it's just so funny to me that because Carter is so who he is and like hard to understand like i think that's something that's maybe interesting and casting from now on is not just the people that beat to their own drum but even after two weeks of spending time with me people still don't quite have me figured out i kind of want to see more of that on survivor of like it wasn't a decision that people made it was an indirect i mistook Carter's words and personality for something it wasn't and now we have a domino effect that's out of control yeah i mean i i i agree with you i mean lamina makes the absolute wrong read lamina will go down as a lot of people's fan favorite after this i'm sure with survivor fact checker puts out info when a is going to go up in popularity and everything this is the wrong

38:17like not even that it's the wrong move because i think getting rid of anna is fine in this situation i think the women made the right decision there because she was throwing out a lot of the women's names but the reasoning for why she's throwing Carter's name out there it it just isn't that it's not correct it's wrong and so i feel like you know based on how Carter is i don't know if Carter is going to be able to get himself back and i think he's too close to rob maybe rob will give Carter the idol and then Carter will be able to go do what he needs to do um but i don't know if the women are ever going to trust Carter because now what Carter's going to go back and he's going to be like what happened and they're going to say well we heard you all talking and saying this that whatever needs me i was talking about the crabs they're not going to believe that nobody's going to believe that it's the same thing Lewis comes in and says hey i didn't get an idol or anything and kill be immediately says i'm good at reading liars he's lying he has something well kill be you're wrong but it's enough to put suspicion on somebody and in survivor suspicion

39:21is more important than reality i mean that's just true so i don't know i feel like this i agree with you i think that having people like Carter who is going to talk about crabs like humans and then lenea who's going to overhear that and immediately go back and gossip and be aggressive about it i think that's good like aggressively try to take Carter and that perceived men's alliance out of the game even if it's not a real thing i think it's good that we're seeing sloppy gameplay messy gameplay this early on and that's going to lead to maybe a weirder boot order than we're used to but it'll still feel satisfying you know go all the way back to australia kell being the second person voted out of that season like where did that come from well it came from the fact that they thought he had beef jerky so that's why they did it and so i think that you know whether it's real or it's not that's why kell gets voted out and i think that's what we just saw on this try we saw somebody miss hear somebody or just take it out of context and vote against that person's alliance

40:22anyway and that could shape the whole season and that's fair that's survivor baby i love that i think or no i was checking our other fantasy teams i'm the only one with still a fantasy how were you checking on all your fantasy teams there no no you didn't hear anything i said no i did but i forgot um it's something where it is the fresh breath of air i think what i keep wanting to say right now that's what was something i was going to talk about cedric cedric is a butt doctor he's coming in and telling his butt doctor joke that he told it finals and everyone was like a finals like you should say that on the show and it's such a fun party trick that he does and like i feel like we haven't heard everybody's butt doctor joke of like what they said at finals because it hasn't come up or it hasn't been important like i'm sure each one of these people has that wonderful story that got them on the show or joke but we're we're doing survivor again

41:26it doesn't matter like there's not four people only four people washing themselves after they lost the challenge for the third time in a row and it's like it's just me and these three people that i know and there's no other options like i think part of it is there's less superfan part of it is everything is happening more naturally and part of it is it's two tribes and all of that is just i think tweaking you can tweak one of these or two of these things to have it be better but it feels like we went all the way and it feels like because we went all the way this does feel like a new new era open era but like i like that but i'm hoping after we watch 51 and 52 the tweaks that make 53 and 54 i think that could make that that whole year be amazing i agree i think we're into a totally different version of survivor and and and another point will and i talked about this a lot last night but i know you'll agree with it when things are happening now when anna is playing

42:30sloppy lexus has eight other people to go talk to about anna playing sloppy so she has avenues on a smaller tribe of anna is playing sloppy but anna is in with two other people on the tribe the best you can do is make a three three and so this is where like this is where Jeff and production and the people putting together the game have just missed the point of what we were talking about during the forties rather than trying to think through what could be done to make it better they took everything so personally and it's like this is already proving that the fans were correct the fans were right saying this is how we want people to interact give us more numbers Jeff feeling like smaller tribal councils are more dangerous we just had two great tribal councils to start this season two great tribal councils to start this season and you know what's amazing and i say this

43:31all the time it wasn't just about the tribal councils though that made these first two episodes so good these first two episodes were really good aside from the tribal councils going into the tribals even if jena had gone nine one that was still a very good episode last night's episode would have been great even if Rob didn't try to vote for himself just the six four blindside it was already great before that because of the storytelling that was there they got so reliant on tribal council providing all of the drama we don't tune in for an hour and a half every week to watch 15 good minutes you turn in for an hour and a half every week to watch a full episode of tv that's really good and i think that the two tribe format is allowing them to do that i mean think about also why these episodes feel so much more full and why the characters feel so much more developed at this point we had twenth we had we had eighteen of the twenty seventeen of the twenty people get a confessional last night

44:33we have two tribes we don't have a journey Lewis rejoined a tribe so we don't have ex-ciland we have a reward challenge we have a immunity challenge we have a tribal council and yet we're still it doesn't feel like it's a rushed episode it doesn't feel like it's crammed we're still getting so much content why because in the new era they're trying to do three tribes plus whatever journey is going on plus focusing on the storyline of all the people who are on the journey plus then telling the story of the immunity challenge and the pre-tribal and the tribal you're doing too much you've complicated it beyond the point of it being fun you know it's like whenever you play a board game that you really love and you play the initial version of it and like this is a great game and then they make like an expansion or they make a spin off of the game you say let me buy that one and then you buy it and you look at it and you say this is way too complicated they have taken the fun parts out of this and they've expanded it and put too much into it it happens all the time and that's what survivor did in the forties last night we just watched two tribes go head to head and we

45:37watched alliances in those tribes build and fall build and fall build and fall it's so unbelievably refreshing I don't even I can't say more I just can't believe how refreshing it is truly I can't is this a new era of survivor I think one thing that's weird to me is like how did this happen is it a conscious decision is it a longer leash on certain departments is it oh olympum to me with actual questions you have I trust you production hands from the higher ups is it no this is just just like there's other seasons that some of the best seasons of survivor have been after some of the worst like what happened in Philippines I would really know yeah it just works and you're like okay cool like I it's something and I one thing diabetics survivors just saying it right now some of the challenges were pretty good where I was like oh I haven't seen this part and like oh

46:41we're rolling up the ball as the whale is getting pulled and like they're getting closer and closer it's like we've seen the salamander it's very funny to me of where on our what is it 17th or 19th season in Fiji and they're like the whale the whale is super important it's probably 24 seasons in Fiji at the time because they finally started thinking though about actually making each season feel unique and one of the ways to do that is to focus it on something like whales or something just anything all right we named her pose because of both sided and then you're like I'm the other tribe I'm gonna be like we named him Sidon yeah because it's beside us uh lehigh valley bears the downside of this episode was Mike and Mike oh my god there was it Mike I'm not listening to this that's bad comment it's not Mike don't don't do this to Mike's Mike's improv was the worst though Mike didn't do improv he did he said what is this brown liquid coming out of the cow that was Rob I said Rob in my head

47:47sorry yeah that's what I'm saying it's not like Mike didn't do shit Mike's not even on that tribe Rob let's such such like a Mike it's insane it was Rob Mike's not even on that tribe I'm defending Mike's name here I'm defending Mike's honor do not do not do not Mike had a fucking night last night Jesus dude he had an amazing season of or amazing episode of survivor and the Yankees beat them so bad that's a knock him out of the point two in two games if you're a redsox fan that night to be Boston or Rhode Island Rob that's for sure yeah remember I don't know if you watch that game or not Blake but like the first time the redsox at scorer on in 26.2 uh postseason innings the guy slow trots around the bases like as slow as he panning hits the corner so slow next inning Yankees court like seven runs just anyway um this is not a baseball podcast but I always enjoy bringing it if it was a baseball podcast I am excited to see the Dodgers play for their

48:48first postseason in a while so shut the hell out of here um but yeah it's like you know but you know that's actually a funny thing to bring up is baseball right now because the Dodgers keep dominating and it starts to feel repetitive for anybody who's not a Dodgers fan the new era of survivor just hit that point of just like okay well if I'm not into this version of survivor this is so stale I'm not gonna watch this you know how many people aren't watching the postseason of baseball because it just feels like it's predetermined who's gonna win it so I do feel like there was you know there is something to be said where people want variety in their lives people want variety in their TV shows and survivor just went too same Z for too long and I am I am hopeful that even though we're gonna get three tribes at some point on this season that I'm sure we're gonna get it multiple double boots maybe a triple boot all this stuff's gonna happen I am hopeful that the show is moving in the right direction and maybe now when we're praising Jeff Jeff will actually listen to us and actually understand what it is that we're praising and understand they're not just praising him to make ass and I'm decisions or maybe he'll find the one bad thing

49:52that we say every episode because supposedly listens to all these podcasts based on the digging deeper last week so here we are I mean or he'll be like every single podcast likes the show now so we want more more negative points what's the most negative thing you can say about episode two just to bounce it out I think that the most negative thing I mean I enjoyed the entire episode I would say that the most negative thing was not actually hearing more from Christian and Carter despite the fact that they're the tribe that's going to tribal Christian and Kristen being the deciding votes and not really hearing what their reasonings were I understand wanting to keep it in the dark but I think that it would have been better if we heard just a little something from one of them before the votes came out because once or he didn't vote that way and like the fourth vote comes up my okay well where's the fifth and sixth vote coming from oh it's coming from Kristen and Christian we didn't really hear from them but I enjoy I mean like last night's episode and I don't

50:55want to be overly dramatic here everybody but to me last night's episode is like a 10-10 episode of survivor that's what survivors supposed to be that doesn't mean that it's a top 50 episode of survivor it might not even be top 100 episode of survivor there's a lot of episodes of survivor but this is what survivors supposed to be we are watching the the the ramifications of a tribal council we are watching you know an injury and how people react to it we are seeing the drama from that we have a reward challenge that is fun that they're going head to head and we see an actual reward not just the sanctuary we have the fallout from that we got a lot of camp light we have a great immunity challenge both the immunity challenge and the reward challenge had different elements that we really haven't seen lately we get Maggie slow mo as of them throwing her up in the air Brady smack in the table even though half of his thumb is missing we get all that we get a great tribal council we get you know a bone headed play from somebody who's just trying to make good TV

51:56and it ends up biting in the ass like this this was old school man and it is something where you know I I don't always want to be the guy who's like if you do like digital like survivor but coming out of these first two episodes if you're not feeling good about where we are right now I don't know if survivor is still for you and that doesn't mean that we can't have errors in the future but if you're not coming out of those two episodes saying I really enjoyed those two episodes and you're too focused on what bad is going to happen in the future there's no reason for you to be watching the show anymore because there is going to be things there's always any things you don't like that happen on survivor we had a fake merge in Thailand okay season five had that that's how long back season three has an unbelievably unfair twist because nobody knew that tribeshops could happen and the way they do it is not good for Lindsay and Silas who are in total control but that the point is there's always going to be something that is going to be controversial that you might not like Michelle Ye going out the way she does in Fiji the the bottle twist from Cook Islands Aaron Reese Burger getting screwed in the best season of survivor it always happens you got to

53:00enjoy the good episodes though and you got to be excited about it and if you're not excited after these first two episodes I think survivors passed you by two things I think the most negative thing I could say about this for me I didn't even ask you but you just need to say that so bad you can't be positive you have 51 minutes of positivity one second because I think you're gonna just revolving yeah go ahead I I'm ready for blindfolded challenges to be done I don't think there's anything exciting that we could ever do with blindfolded challenges I don't think anybody goes I can't wait to get on that beach and get that blindfold on and people are getting hurt people that have 26 years of whatever if we're gonna trust our cast of 40 something year old women trust our cast of 50 something year old men what they need to be able to see so they can move their bodies to not move their bodies and the things where they could get hurt and I think that would be something that would piss me off extremely I do I do think it leads to stuff where Rob goes what why weren't why weren't you the one without it Laney and honestly I thought it was very funny

54:03that he was like there's no way you're under 200 pounds and Eric is like I promise you I'm 190 and he's like no you're not it's like you're not an exact number of one 93 you weigh one 93 yeah and you know that exactly that's what you weigh doubling down on that I somebody that I was watching with was like what did they say I was like you know you heard right like he's calling them fat twice yeah um but I think I'm over blindfold challenges where it just doesn't like we've done a lot of left a lot of other challenges in the pantheon of survivor stuff I think it's time to go blindfold doesn't do anything for us what could we do besides blindfolds to to do the same type of thing maybe we're doing it where you can't talk and we put gat or that's kind of crazy maybe you can't breathe but like some do some other sense where you can't use it now or whatever so I also want to I want to bring up something else the blindfold part doesn't bother me but you can't be putting blindfolded people in dangerous situations walking around hitting your leg or your special places on a bar doesn't bother me like you're not moving that fast

55:08you're not gonna do that much down was insane the heater totter is one of the most dangerous elements in a survivor challenge and I really mean this this is one of the most dangerous elements in any survivor challenge I don't remember if we've actually seen a lot of people take injuries on this but isn't this this is what busted missy's Achilles is it not I think so this is what busted missy's Achilles and so now you have a woman who's around the same age as missy running this challenge blindfolded and this is so dangerous because there's the big squares in the net so you're fucking get caught in the net there's so many people on it that you don't know when it's gonna move at the ends of it it's wood if you smash any body part into that that's gonna be hurting you and now you're blindfolded doing it you can't prepare for the fall you can't say oh this is what's coming I mean we had we had um killby jump up in the air to sit down that could have been really damaging to him so I I actually think that the biggest problem is this theater totter

56:14they need to remove this from the game of survivor the other thing like I I think if this was at a like a county fair people would get injured and then they'd like haven't removed after two times and like that was out what I was gonna say is like your person that's guiding you doesn't care about your health they care about you're going fast yeah they're not gonna go oh gingerly step over this oh take take a second quick and you're not you don't have the same reaction time is like my own body and like imagine if you were blindfolded over a like what is it called a balance beam and somebody was like one foot in front of the other balancing like I just don't think there's anything I care about with blindfolded stuff oh yeah if you're in a blindfolded it's got to be this simple go out grab things or do a puzzling you have a caller you can't be having I in mind the twist on this of two people running it together and everything but it's too dangerous with

57:16the net with that with that thing and like you can't be having them do potentially damaging things you just can't um you had another point you were gonna say you said two things one was being negative and then what's the next huh ultimately I think I was excited for the next time on that's a good thing to be I I do think it's we we haven't had a person go home that it didn't make sense yet and so I think it's just something where you're like okay survivor feels well editing survivor feels like it's got some story lines I think another thing is like or he seems like somebody that would be in trouble immediately on a six person tribe even though we need strength he's like he's not good at survivor but like this time he has a little bit like he's already voted once wrong but I think he's gonna be fine on another one I think you would go home immediately at final and at their fifth vote um uh jelly it got a immunity and even I think

58:22now we've had two people read out the thing and go it's not a beware I just get this and that's what I was gonna say is like it is very frustrating that we just put 17 of my favorite survivor players on an all star season and we course corrected after when why did we waste some of our favorite people's last survivor thing and course correct after that and now we won't have an all stars for five or six seasons when it's like could you guys have thought about it a little harder easier or asked more people and had this be for 50 we did two tribes and had this mindset yeah no I agree with that I mean it's it's like you sit here and you watch this and you say why can't you understand that this is what was so good I mean we we watched Genevieve open two idols last season and do nothing with them except hand them to other people like the idols were so pointless last season and like you're saying I mean that's the cast that you want the best season with because this is the

59:23cast that we're all the most focused on we didn't get it and you know now they're course correcting I'm glad they're course correcting thankfully they finally realized their mistakes because there were so many mistakes and this has been you know this has been a breath of fresh air plus jelly's my winter pick jelly's looking pretty good she's in the lines of five she has an idol she's got her boyfriend I'm liking where I'm at I'm just saying I'm liking where I'm at call me peanut butter because jelly and I are going all the way that was my impression of Phil on this pool on this podcast now we will mute Blake for the remainder of time just time not even on just this podcast for um I don't know and I I'm assuming people I guess it makes some more sense that we would merge at 18 or swap at 18 I'm assuming that happens and I think what's going to happen Blake and this is going to be even more frustrating we get there I think we're going to swap at 18 I think we're going to get three tribes I think we're going to watch two people go home from each tribe so we don't get bullshit like the blood bone and that's going to be another thing that we're going to

1:00:24say why couldn't you figure this out a season earlier and maybe it's like they didn't have us they didn't listen to our here's what we think is going to happen because they already had a plant it's just like who is in charge of that stuff last week like and it's the same thing with 40 of 40 is the only one we do fire tokens on and like I want to watch 40 again it's coming up on every season matters pretty soon I'm going to enjoy that but it's going to piss me off that 80% of some of these people strategy not 80% let me let me be real here 30% of an episode is going to be talking about fire tokens and we've never cared about fire tokens ever again yeah oh I know I know so they didn't even care about them in that season all right that's going to do it for this episode I think we're good so become a patron patreon.com slash specialist we're talking about ghost island over there turns into Davy versus Goliath next Thursday so Blake I hope you've started Davy versus Goliath because I know Will hasn't starts next Thursday I will be live on Sunday with Rizzo at noon

1:01:30eastern time 9 a.m. Pacific tomorrow John and Alex Trey also be doing survivor rewind tonight they'll be doing a challenge recap and that's what we have going on and then on Monday Tag With will have Sophie Beleri Sophie just confirmed that one so I know that one's happening it last week bloom jump in at the last second Tiffany had something come up that she could not move so that's what we have going on the rest of the time traders is not on tonight so Will and I will be back with the traders next week otherwise thank you all so much for listening hope you enjoyed this episode please like this video please subscribe to the channel we've been gaining subscribers like crazy it really goes a long way in helping us with the algorithm so please keep on subscribing and we will see all next time see you