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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Welcome to Pod Meets Twirled, a podcast that once chronicled two guys who had never seen Dancing with the Stars, but watched a season and walked away experts. From there, we ventured into Traitors, the show I'd never seen, but Will swore he could win. And now we turn to Survivor Season 50, the big one. And this time the roles are reversed.
Will has seen exactly one season, the first one. Meanwhile, I've watched for years. We are Will Friedle, who prefers his wilderness with room service, and Rider Strong, who will hike any mountain but hates the beach. Two best friends, one devoted to the comforts of civilization and one who would never leave the woods if he could. both of us reality competition scholars.
Join us as we dive into alliances, blindsides, fire-making, sand-related misery, and haiku writing, and 25 years of television history culminating in a single massive season. This is Pod Meets Twirled, Seeking Immunity. I was telling Indy I was about to come record, and he's like, what are you recording? I said, Pod Meets Twirled, and he goes, ugh.
Chapter 2: What is the significance of Survivor Season 50?
He's like, you're, you're not even talking about dancing with the stars anymore. I was like, Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. It's called pod meets twirled seeking immunity. And he's like, ah, you know, that references boy meets world pod meets world dancing with the stars and survivor. I'm like, Indy, you parsed that perfectly. All four. Thank you very much.
So he finally is recognizing the brilliance of his father. Okay, good. It's about time because once he turns 18, apparently he's just going to resent you. Oh, I think I've only got till next year. He's 11 right now. Oh, that's true. Middle school is when you start hating your parents, like really hating. Well, we were busy working. I was already audited by the time I was 11.
Come on, this kid's way behind. All right, I'm so curious how you feel because I thought this was the most fun I've had watching a Survivor episode in a long time. Where are you at? I don't disagree. I still am not, I don't really care about any of the people. I don't. I don't care who stays, who goes. I'm glad that coach went, but that was the only because I found him annoying.
See, now I'm kind of sad he's gone. Because he was so annoying. He had crossed over the threshold from so annoying to so entertaining that I was like, well, I hope he sticks around. I'm trying to get... I'm trying to learn the people more than I am. I'm starting to have some favorites, definitely. I thought the challenge...
was super super cool like that like having to work together and the paddles and all that stuff i thought that was really great yeah i think that's why this episode was so good for me because i was on the edge of my seat during the challenge which usually i'm like okay the challenge is happening and i'm like cool and it kind of plays out the way you expect honestly like most of the time you're like i kind of know who's gonna win or at least who the top like three or four are gonna be or which team which tribe is gonna win in this case i was like i have no idea
And it was totally down to the wire. It was, it was very entertaining. And I feel the same way edge of my seat. And it was no, I fully enjoyed all that kind of stuff. I still, I'm just the, the, then the rest of the show, I'm still just trying to wrap my head around. And I just, again, I know I came in on the wrong season. I say that every, every week.
So I wish it was just a whole bunch of people that didn't have a backstory. And then it's, I could kind of get into it a little more, but I'm definitely enjoying it more than I was at the beginning. Certainly. This finally was a twist that I was like, this complicates the game in the best way. Right. You know, like the other twists I've been like, what?
But this one, when I read that they were going to be splitting the teams, I was like, oh my God, why did we merge so early? Right. But then when I saw what they did and saw the reaction to it and like the fact that they would have to do this double elimination based on two people who had chosen each other, I was like, that is awesome. Now, question.
Do you think the teams would have been radically different had they known both were going home before they picked each other? Yeah, I think so too.
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Chapter 3: How do voting strategies impact gameplay in Survivor?
But you're invested because every episode you're watching a different person change their fortunes. It goes up or down, up or down. So I feel like it's an easy way to illustrate that point. But there's also, especially with something like reality or a documentary, which again, I want to talk about our documentary, which was just announced. We're going to Tribeca.
Thank you very much for Doc Meets World. There's a thousand documentaries in that documentary. If you edit it any differently, it becomes an entirely different documentary. So every episode of survivor, like dance with the stars is one thing.
It's, it's, it's kind of, it's formulaic in the best way, but you know, they're going to come out and they're going to dance and you know, they're confessionals in the middle, but with something like survivor where they're just shooting, it's, There's a thousand episodes in the episode. You could take all the footage from that last episode, re-edit it entirely, and it's all about Devins.
And it's a completely different episode. It's from his point of view, right? That's what I mean. Yeah, it's like you have to pick your protagonist. You have to make these decisions that are really, yeah. I mean, that's why editing is the essential, you know, that is where... reality shows are written.
You know, it's like you have the, you have the plan where you write what the challenge is and you write with the casting.
Right.
And then you write when you're doing the confessionals with the way you interview them. Those are, that's why you have story producers on set sort of keeping track of like, who are we, you know, they must have like boards with like, who's up this week or who's, what are they saying? Or who are they aligning with? Which is just must be insane. And then of course, yeah, exactly what you're saying.
You do the final writing in the edit and man, you could, I mean, you can make people look good, look bad. Exactly. And again, you can go, I would love to see somebody take every, like somebody who works for Survivor, go back and take an entire season where people know it so well and re-edit the entire thing and make it a completely different season of the show because you know they could.
That's a great idea, man. It'd be really interesting to see. I went to a play once. It was like an experimental theater play. It was a Brazilian production. It was in English, but it had come from another country originally.
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Chapter 4: What makes Coach a controversial character in Survivor?
And the whole thing was, you saw the same play twice. It was two hours long, so it was a long night. But the idea is, there's two audiences. There's an audience in one room, and then there's an audience in another room. The audience in one room gets to see a live performance. stage play going on. The audience in the other room only sees what the cameras that are running around stage is catching.
So you watch the same play twice, once as, as if it's a reality show on a screen and once as if it's an, a play and you see the difference of just, just how the cameras capture or don't capture. So is it basically what you're saying, but in a live theater context and it didn't have editing, but still just the framing of like limiting what you could see to what the camera changes, the whole story.
Yeah, of And what was so cool is that, of course, I saw it with the theater version first and then the screen version. But if you were going the other way, you'd have a different experience, right? It was like either expanding the frame or limiting. Super fascinating. That's a great idea. Yeah. We should re-edit all the Boy Meets Worlds to where Corey is the villain. That wouldn't be that hard.
I know. It wouldn't be that hard. We'll do it for seven years. No, I think it's a great idea, man. If somebody was like willing to consciously plan that, like to shoot a reality show, do a whole season and then release a second version of that same season. With all the existing scripts. You can't reshoot anything. No, can't change a word. No, can't change a word. It's just re-edited.
It's a great idea. That's such a good idea. That's a great idea. All right, let's not tell anybody about that idea so we can save it and pitch Hollywood. Okay, so whatever we do, don't tell anybody.
Okay.
All right. Jonathan tells coach to lay low. That seemed to be one of the themes of the episode. It was, hey coach, maybe just go sit on the hammock. Maybe just go sit on the hammock and shut the fuck up.
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Chapter 5: How does the latest challenge test the contestants' abilities?
I love how coach then mocks how he should talk and he's like, oh, the sky is blue. Yeah, that's called being a normal human being. He literally has to present with his ego what it would be like to talk as if he didn't have an ego. What an idiot he would be then. There was some saving grace there.
at a couple of times through the episode where at least he was cognizant of kind of the person that he is, where he's like, it was more like, Hey, more or less this, this is me better or worse. I'm this guy. No, that's what he says at the end. And I, I, I mean, I hope that I'm never that person. Do you know what I mean?
Like, I'll tell you, like, that's a sad sort of state when you're like, well, love me or hate me. You got to deal with me. I know. I know. Uh, I think it'd be better to be loved. Yeah. I mean, again, it's just, it becomes, you know what the problem is? It just, it becomes such a caricature of a person where it's like everything this guy says is, is a quote from somebody else.
Like he's like, if you'll permit me a Nietzsche quote, I'm like, oh my God, really? Do I have a choice? And he can't help himself. I know. He can't help himself. You just feel it. It's so. I know. Yeah. Stephanie got her alliance of seven. Still my crush. Yeah, really? Yeah. Really? She comes off as a total badass to me. I just love the energy. Something about her kind of rubs me the wrong way.
Oh, I love the energy. It's partly who she's picking. I'm like, really? This is your alliance? And there's this whole conversation that everybody's having about the middle, which is so interesting. They all kind of know this, which is Aubrey, Devens, Christian, and Emily. And it's so funny because this is where I feel like the old and new styles are colliding because these four ā
specifically have done incredible almost every other season. Right. And they've done incredible because it's usually that they partner with... somebody, you know, somebody who's doing really well physically early on or who's doing really well socially, like a leader, like an alpha, they partner with them and sort of whisper in their ear and help tell them which way to go.
And this season is kind of going back to the old school Survivor where the alphas are just running the show.
Right.
Which is the way it used to be. And it's so interesting to see that these four specifically who are, you know, The nerds, really. I mean, they're the ones who are physically not, you know, they're like the nerdy sort of outcasts. They're taking over the world. I know, but they're stuck in the middle in this case, which is super interesting.
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Chapter 6: What were the outcomes of the tribal council decisions?
It really depends on who I would like to think that I would be friendly with everybody.
Right.
I mean, I'd like to think that I'd be, so assuming I'm in everybody's good graces, I think I'd probably be in a position similar to like, Who am I most like in terms of gameplay? At this point, I don't know, man. I think I'd probably be mostly like a Christian. I was going to say, I think you're most like, probably most like a Christian.
Which is like, not physically a complete liability, but also probably not going to win individual challenges by myself. But well-liked and in a sort of like alliance position with a bunch of different people. So... Yeah, so I don't know. I don't know who I'd pick, but who did Christian end up with? Jonathan. Yeah, so I'd probably go for super physical. That's what I'm saying.
If you're in a giant team, if you're in a challenge where you need a partner, I don't know what the survivor challenge is going to be, but unless it's be as small a guy as you possibly can, I'm going to pick Jonathan basically every time. But you know what I mean? It's like, why would you not want to take the giant guy with the huge muscles who's won most of the stuff?
And I think my specialty would be puzzles. So like Christian, I would probably be picked by somebody who is not as good as puzzles like Jonathan. So yeah. Yeah, yeah. Good team, good team. But I love the Devins and Aubrey. She refers to them as the hot mess express, which I just want that shirt. Hot mess express vibes. All right.
Ozzy then throws out Devin's name to Jonathan and Joe talking about getting rid of him, which is interesting at this. This is where like everybody's starting to target that middle ground, which I was like, ah, coach tries to talk to Tiff claims that he didn't push for her name, which we know is complete crap. Yeah. He literally went around telling everybody they had to vote for her. I'm sorry.
I have a quick question. Yeah. We're talking about the middle. So if there's a middle, there's a bottom. Who's at the bottom? Nobody, actually.
I think that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. It's like there's no... There is no... There's no bottom.
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Chapter 7: How does emotional intelligence play a role in Survivor gameplay?
No, I think she was hedging her bets and hoping to save her shot in the dark for a later time. So they were basically like, one of us should play her shot in the dark, and she was going to save hers. But in retrospect, she should have just freaking played it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because then they would have had two out of six chances. Yeah, or two out of 12 chances. Right.
As opposed to one out of six. Right, right, right. So... Yeah, she walked away. She lost. Anyway, we're getting ahead of ourselves. But yeah, I think that really what, the fact that they had individual votes means that they could have, like they all decided to sort of stick with their partner. Right. But they could have actually, like Chrissy could have gone behind Coach's back.
Well, yeah, I mean. No, it's no benefit. No, there would have been, no, but there were certain people like, was it, who said, I will not write Coach's name down? Out of principle. It was Joe. That's right. Joe's just like, I'm not going to write coach's name down. It's like, okay. So his partner could have said, I'm going to write coach's name and you don't. So you save phase.
He just wrote Chrissy. Is that true? Yeah. He just wrote Chrissy knowing that coach was going to get voted off anyway, but he, out of principle, was not going to write coach's name down. This is exactly the question that I had about the ending. I couldn't keep track of who voted for... Okay. See, that's super clever. Yeah. So then he's like...
honor and integrity holding true, but clearly screwing him. Yeah. I said, I wouldn't write your name down and I didn't, but he did because he wrote her, his partner's name down and they were a pair. So you wrote his name down without having to write. You had your cake and ate it too. I can see coach bringing that up in the jury. I can see you had your cake and ate it too.
It's exactly what happened. That's interesting. Okay. That explains my confusion. Cause I was like, who voted for coach? Cause they, you know, I was like, okay, got it. All right. So the challenge, I think this is one of my favorite challenges I've ever seen. I agree. This was cool. Every one of these, I was like, this is cool. And it felt well balanced.
Like every partnership, I was like, actually, it didn't really come down to so much brawn and so much puzzle. It was like brawn and brain. It was a balance. I was like, oh. And it really was about team communication all the way, which was so cool. Like, that seems like the point, especially considering these guys had chosen their partners, you know, and sometimes been stuck with a partner.
It was just a great dynamic. There was actually no brawn in this. It was, there was some physicality, but you didn't need to be, being big was of no benefit in this one.
you're right no strength nope no strength or even really endurance no you needed some some agility some hand-eye coordination right which coach apparently did not have no and then basketball like man that's the other thing you need communications in this one yes yes this is what's what's the old saying it's um slow is smooth smooth is fast slow is smooth smooth is fast Yeah.
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Chapter 8: What are the implications of the new twist introduced this season?
So it's like, you know, the slower and the smoother you went, the faster you actually finished the challenge.
Right.
Which, which worked unless you, and that's the other thing, by the way, I, the other thing I learned from this episode is if there's a pickup basketball game, coach is not the guy you pick to be on your team.
His name is coach. Coach.
he couldn't make the basket he couldn't make the basket he admitted he was like basketball's not my sport i'm like okay so what is what do you coach of tai chi like what do you he's your yoga coach that's what he's the coach of he is oh he's a soccer coach okay okay all right good enough well there you go he's definitely not a haiku coach because he can't even do that he is not
All right, tosses, you got to toss a ball through a thing, basketball style, catch it on the other side after dodging all the ropes. Dodge the ropes. Love this. Yep, cool. Aubrey made it out of the gate faster than everybody, which was so cool. Yep. Coach took forever. Then this cool paddle pass thing, which was like, yeah. Joe and Tiff made it through that.
They all made it, unless they edited this in a certain way, I thought this was going to take a lot longer than it did. And there were some guys who were like, they were passing it to each other. I mean, there was some good hand-eye coordination in this one. I was impressed at how fast they got through that part. It was cool to watch.
At that part, I was like, we have to do one of your game days where we do Survivor kind of challenges. I agree, man. We should totally do that. I'm sure there are party companies that set up these kind of challenges in a park for you. We should do it. I would be so into it, dude. I'm down. Let's do it. And we should make it like an exercise goal, right?
Like to get in shape to be able to do some crazy ass challenges. We'll do a survivor like Saturday. It'll be fun. Dude, I'm so in. Okay, good. Yeah. So, and we should just do this, exactly this challenge.
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