BB28 Why ___ Lost Week 11

RHAP: We Know Big Brother

The episode provides a detailed post-mortem of Big Brother 28 players Melody and Dee, analyzing their polar opposite gameplay strategies. Th

Key takeaways

• Melody failed to strategize outside her immediate social circle, effectively isolating herself from power players.
• Dee successfully utilized the 'BB bribe' to protect her alliance and exert influence over Yash for multiple weeks.

Main topics

• Melody's gameplay analysis
• Dee's strategic maneuvering

Notable quotes

They weren't just on different pages of a book, they were in whole separate libraries!

Conclusion

A deep dive into the strategic divergence between two players that ill

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) You played yourself and got voted out This is why Blank lost And this is why Blank lost Oh baby, this is why Blank lost Speaker 1 (0:21) Welcome back to another double edition of Big Brother Why Blank Lost. Wait, wait, do you hear that? I think it's the Pharaoh. Oh no, we've been cursed. Now we only have one more week of Big Brother 28. Okay, some people may say that's a blessing, not a curse. But the real curse is that I only have one more week of chatting with my co-host, Chappelle. Speaker 2 (0:49) Yes, David, it's me. I'm one of the people who would say it's a blessing. Let's wrap this thing up this Speaker 1 (0:53) season. It's Speaker 2 (0:54) time. It's time to go. Let's pack it up. But yeah, I've been enjoying this, David. It's our first season podcasting about anything together for the whole season. And yeah, this has been so much fun. And we've had a lot to talk about, a lot of interesting gameplay. You know, sometimes Big Brother can get a little stale, you know, just it just does. But this season has been. Very dynamic and fun and interesting. There's been so many iterations. I think even right now, the outcomes are unclear and that's so much fun. And so, yeah, I have definitely been enjoying this, but I do think that I'm starting to lose steam. I'm starting to see the end, the finish line. And I'm not, I don't know if I'm Speaker 1 (1:31) gonna Speaker 2 (1:31) make it. Speaker 1 (1:33) I mean, it doesn't help that, you know, they've got Survivor overlapping and the Traitors overlapping. And of course, multiple seasons of the Traitors, if you're someone like me. But come on, can't we just finish Big Brother first? I mean, Speaker 2 (1:44) Willy Wonka is coming or something like that. I have not Speaker 1 (1:49) watched a single episode of Willy Wonka. I'm going to go Speaker 2 (1:51) ahead Speaker 1 (1:51) and spoil it for you. I'm not Speaker 2 (1:52) watching it. Speaker 1 (1:54) I'll watch Speaker 2 (1:55) it. I don't know. I don't know, man. Someone's going to have to tell me. Something's going to have to happen on that show. Speaker 1 (2:00) for me to go watch it because otherwise I Speaker 2 (2:02) think I'm good. I might have to pass. I Speaker 1 (2:04) just heard there was a Lala-like wallpaper licking competition or something. See, that's Speaker 2 (2:10) not doing it. That's not enough. People want me to watch 99 to beat because of the dang Big Brother players over there to survive. Hey, guys, let's stop. Let's just get Big Brother out of the way. We don't need 99. I Speaker 1 (2:23) don't Speaker 2 (2:23) need it. I don't need it. So yeah, let's get Big Brother out of the way so we can move on to other things. Speaker 1 (2:28) Yeah. Speaker 1 (2:30) Well, this week we have a lot to talk about and we have two very different players, almost opposites in most ways, which means we'll be covering all the bases as we follow the same path. That's kind of a mixed metaphor there. Cover all the bases on the same path, but the same path that we do every week, comparing how both Melody. and D, played, to a set of guiding rules I originally wrote back in 2004 and have modified ever since. We'll analyze their actions using what we saw on TV, live feeds, interviews, and other information. And of course, the most recent published version of the rules is at robhazwebsite.com slash bigbrotherrules. Now, before we get to all of that, we always have some other things to discuss about the week in general. But this week, I said always, this week, not so much, because there were so few people. Few people there and so much time was dedicated to figuring out what would happen with Melody and who drew Witty Vick. So really, the only thing I want to mention isn't even about what happened in the house. It's something that Melody told Mike Bloom because. It deals with us, Chappelle. And it completely validates what we talked about last week, even as some people continued to claim that Melody didn't know what she was doing or made the wrong decision in renominating Yash in the double eviction. Because she said, he iced me out of the vote with D and Angela, which clearly meant he wasn't working, or he was working with the icons. And then that put an even bigger target on my back and just solidified that me, Drew, and Barrett were a trio and we're the next to go. And he lied to me about what the bribe exactly covered and then ultimately put me on the block next to my only two allies. And then he was the biggest competition threat. So that's exactly what we discussed last week in terms of him losing her trust. I love the smell of vindication in the morning. Speaker 2 (4:27) Yeah, she's saying exactly what she needs to say, because that's where we were at. We looked at it from all angles and said, like, yeah, she could do a bunch of things here. There's not any real just like game clinching move that she can make that would just. you know, catapult her to number one as far as like threat, threat wise or win equity or whatever. But she has to maximize the little bit of time that she has. And so, yeah, getting drew out, it loses a person who will take her even further into the game. Yash is not going to take her that far into the game. Yash is going to take Taylor into the end game if she can. She needs, she's trying to make it as far as she can and maximize her attempts to win. She can't, she also can't beat Yash. So it's not bad that Yash is going out. We agreed. She sounds like she completely understands what she did. Now, I do think that, you know, with hindsight, maybe getting Drew out isn't so bad for her because at least people are not incentivized to then take her out as much because she's not like a duo. But they're still not incentivized to take her far. With Drew being there, it doesn't make Melody so attractive as like, OK, this is my definite final three needs to be Taylor and Melody. You know, I just think that she made the choice with the decisions that she had in front of her. She looked around, she said, OK, this is the best I could do in a short amount of time. And I think that, you know, being the week prior to her accident, I think that she had her peak at the right time. You know, it was the best thing. It was the best thing for a lot of people in that house. Speaker 1 (5:49) Right, right. Now, normally, maybe not this season, but normally we even have our Julie Chen Moonves' Wrong About Blanks segment. But of course, as we've talked about each week, Julie, it's been so strange. And once again. I don't have anything. If this keeps up next season, we're going to have to move it to semi-retired status. So we'll have to see if they hire the same intern to keep her informed or she goes back to her usual way. I mean, she even said a bunch of nice things about Devins in her interview. That must have been so painful for her. Speaker 2 (6:23) She's running out of content. She's like, oh my God, I can't drag him anymore. She's like us. She's like, I can't figure out a way to drag Devins. We're like, well, we can't figure out a way to drag you. You know? Yeah. And look. At least Julie is listening to the voices that are in her head. She got the little us, the little bike in there. You know, they're like, Julie, don't say that. And she's like, OK, I'll give you this because Jeff Probst ain't doing it over on Survivor. Jeff's like, see, don't Speaker 1 (6:44) we all love Speaker 2 (6:45) the fire making? So I'm sorry. Would I have to lead and say like, I'm going to side with Julie on this one, Jeff? You really piss me off. Speaker 1 (6:55) Oh, yeah. With the size of our segment, our Jeff Probst is wrong about segment on the on the survivor version of the podcast that we recorded last night, which is now available. Oh, that was an extra double long. And I didn't even include everything I could have in that segment. Speaker 2 (7:12) Yeah. Injected into my veins because because Julie got us over here starving. Speaker 1 (7:17) Right. Speaker 1 (7:19) But that just means now, okay, we don't have as much stuff for the free. It's time to move into, you know, like I said, we have plenty to talk about. So let's get into it. Because to say Melody and Dee played very different games would be a massive understatement. They weren't just on different pages of a book. They were in like two separate libraries. Speaker 1 (7:43) they were opposites in so many ways, one playing a much better game than the other. And yet they went out in quick succession. Still one had a good chance to, to win if she'd made it to the end while the other had no chance. You can probably guess which is which, but let's break it all down for both of them. And RHAP, we know big brother and we know why Melody and Dee lost. Speaker 1 (8:09) I hadn't thought about saying those two together. Melody and D &D. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the first and most important rule is, of course, to scheme and plot. And just as I suggested, we have a very big difference between our two evictees. To put it bluntly, Melody didn't strategize nearly enough, while Dee, let's just say, will not only be talking about her in rule one, but definitely in rule two as well. Let's start with Melody. I think it's fair to say she was widely known for not doing much in terms of gameplay. She came in talking about how she's a huge super fan and has been watching since she was in the womb. I said in our preview podcast, I think she has potential, but I just don't know if she'll live up to it. Boy, did I hit that nail on the head. Because through her entire time, we would see her think about and talk about making moves or having conversations that would have been great to have. Speaker 1 (9:08) But then not doing it. She would just often like talk herself out of it by going, well, I should talk to this person. But, you know, that won't matter. They won't change their mind and so on. Melody, you never know until you try. Just look at the fact that Devens seemed dead in the water this week until like two hours before the eviction. He kept working on Drew and it worked. Or the fact that there should have been no way that Yash and Taylor would flip to keep D over Angela. But D worked on them until she got her way. You never know until you try. Speaker 2 (9:50) I think Melody, She's so fascinating as a player for me because I have been very critical of her all season because she talks so much trash. Her and the Pipe Queen, they get together and they just yapping, yapping, yapping about what everybody else is doing wrong in the game. But then you look at them and you say, okay, now you go do something. And you get no motion. I think week one. I think that was the most active Melody was for me. She came in and she said, all right, I'm going to play. Then she got Lyric and started to move reckless. She's like, I'm leaving Lyric. I'm leaving her to fit in the dust. I'm finna go. So she starts separating herself from Lyric. Or she starts separating herself from Mallory. That's what it was. Mallory's like the first pariah. She's like, I don't want to be seen with you. Then Mallory goes and wins competition. She's like, okay, Mallory, we can come back. But Lyric, we don't want to be seen with you now. She very quickly was like, all right, I don't want to be surrounded by the people who are going to be at the bottom. Cool. And then she said, well, I kind of like these people at the bottom. They're fun. I want to talk to them. I'm just hang out with them. And I'm just going to keep hanging out with them. And she did. She got in her alliance. First, it was, you know, Melody and Mallory and, you know, Lyric. Then Lyric's gone. So, OK, so it's just Melody and Mallory. And then they find Barrett and then Drew. And, you know, it's OK. Now it's the four of us. And we're the four best friends that anybody can have. It's just us being the four friends just hanging out. hanging out driving the plane and driving the truck and then you know on the train and all the all the fun games and stuff like that talking trash about people showmanson doing everything but talking to the other people in the house and really um scheming and plotting with people who were trying to start like some type of counter uh you know alliance to the obvious the obvious alliance with the vets. I saw a clip this week with Ashley, our first boot from this season, and she pulls Melody into the storage room and she says, okay, Melody, here's the alliance. It's the icons and it's Drew and it's Barrett and it's Kamu and it's Chuck and it's Haley. And Speaker 1 (11:52) Melody's like in the diary, I'm like, whoa, my mind is blown. Speaker 2 (11:56) You had all of that in front of you. You actually laid it out for you. And then the rest of the game, there are attempts, but they are futile. They are flimsy attempts at doing anything. You know, my biggest disappointment with her is that the only the real end that she had was her relationship with Drew and Barrett. And she wasn't able to use that to her benefit at all. And then when it was time for her to grab the ball and do it. With her and Mallory, they're on these balance competitions. And I'll say the same thing that I'll say about her that I'll say about Mallory. That is your chance to win and take control and to make the moves for yourself. And she did not do it. Throwing that challenge is crazy. And they all did it. And then now we see what happened. So yeah, scheming and plotting. She just wasn't locked in on the game. I think she forgot what she was doing after a while. Speaker 1 (12:50) Yeah. Yeah, that is a... A very good summary, but people know me. I like to dive into the details. Let's give some examples here because, like you said, this was an issue for her all game long. Back in mid-July, I want to give credit to Ren Davis. He said this on Blue Sky. Melody has done nothing but talk to people who have no power all day. Talk about calling out a trend before it even started to happen. In early August, when Melody was up against Lyric. She told Mallory, I haven't talked to anyone. Now, say what you will about Lyric. She at least talked to people, lots of people, outside her little group. Early September, Melody complained she couldn't get in with Taylor and Lala and hadn't really worked with Yash, so she only had Drew and Barrett who had lied to her. Well, why do you think you couldn't get in with them? Oh, that's right, because you chose. not to work outside Mallory and your little group and so on. In the September 16 TV episode, she said she felt like she was truly on her own fighting for herself. It's like, well, yeah, because that's the situation you created for yourself. Other people had fought for you and carried you. And most of those people were gone now. Speaker 2 (14:10) Yeah. The thing that always kind of bugs me about the like, I can't figure out a way to work with this group is that people, they try once and they give up and then they go back to what's comfortable. And it's like kind of like give it a half ass try. And the people aren't really giving it to them. So they give up and they go back to what's comfortable. But you'll notice that once we get down to the final five, the final six, final four, final three, all of a sudden these people can find reasons to work for each other because now all of a sudden with no other options. Huh? Wow. I think I do. I think I do kind of like D. Speaker 1 (14:41) I Speaker 2 (14:41) think I could see myself going to the final two with D. I think me and D can work together. Where Speaker 1 (14:45) did all this come from? Speaker 2 (14:46) All season it's been like, I just can't speak. I just don't understand what Lala and Taylor are doing. I don't know. Now all of a sudden, we're like, oh, are Taylor and Melody locking in right now? Should they be working together? Magically, once you're limited to just these few people, your gameplay opens up. But you need to start looking at the entire game like that. Yes, this person doesn't want to talk to you right now, but make them talk to you. Go and spend some time with these people. Try to get to know each other. This is a long game. And for, you know, obviously you want to go back to what's comfortable because you're away from home. You're in the parking lot. You haven't seen anybody else. You like certain people more, but you got to at least try. And it was just just the feeble attempts to make these connections where you go in there, swing and a miss. All right, cool. Where's where's Drew? You know, meanwhile, Drew is in your face. He in their face and he and other people's faces. He's just bustling around the house. But no one could say that he was not active because we saw him bustling around the house. And we always knew where to find you with Mallory. Speaker 1 (15:43) Yeah. Yeah. And then on top of that, it wasn't just not talking to the right people. It was creating an oppositional situation with the wrong people. So I just quoted Ren Davis and he also added, Melody has made no attempt to build anything with the icons and has created a distrustful antagonistic perception. Speaker 1 (16:07) So, I mean, you've got these two ends working against her. Plus, even when she did talk to the right people, it was half-hearted. Like you said, these basic attempts. Like when she finally decided to talk to Angela in the battle between herself and Lyric and said, well, I'm not going to go around to everybody promising safety. Why not? Why not? You have watched Big Brother since you were in the womb. Why are you not going around and promising safety? And then she went back to lying around and being upset. And I think that a big part of the problem was just, she truly had no idea what was happening in the house for a lot of the time. Now it's a, it's a, I don't know what the cause and effect is. Did she have this problem because she didn't know what was going on or did she not know what was going on? Cause she wasn't talking to anyone but her own group. I think it's a combination there, but. Like at the end of July, she said in the diary room, well, Taylor needs to not go with personal feelings to keep Lala instead of Mallory. Okay, you're missing the point. You don't understand. It's not just personal feelings. That's her number one ally. Speaker 2 (17:21) Yeah. Speaker 1 (17:22) You know, she would be voting out her number one ally and moving to the bottom of an alliance. Speaker 1 (17:30) And then around the same time, she kept saying things like, well, if people vote this way, it would divide the House. Despite the fact that it was already very clearly divided, that she was on the wrong side of it. You just talked about that Ashley scene. And then if that wasn't enough, Jason literally called it out to everyone in the Tea Party. Oh, you're going to divide the House. So how do you have no idea that this is actually the way it is? Or as Devin's would say to Drew in early September, she hasn't even been in on things that have happened in the house. Was Speaker 2 (18:08) it when Haley had the HOH and was it Melody who was like, I'm not talking to her. I'm just not, I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to, I'm not going Speaker 1 (18:15) to do that with her. I just being her don't get along. Speaker 2 (18:17) But it's like, that's that, that's the, the, the thing that bothers me, right? Like I'm too real. I can't, you know, like I can't be fake like that. Yes, you can. Yes, you can. This is for $750,000. And even if it wasn't, you trapped in a house for two months. What else do you have to do? Why? Why not lie? Why not? Air Speaker 1 (18:34) into Drew's eyes. Yeah. Speaker 2 (18:36) But like, hey, in the meantime, go do these other things. Lyric was in love. Did Lyric stop playing the game? No. Lyric was damn near proposed to on TV. We got on here and talked about why Lyric lost. And we did not say Lyric just sat in one room. We said Lyric was getting busy. Now, the problem is that Lyric was getting too busy. She was everywhere, right? She was doing it all. But Melody, you got so caught up in your own little web of like, these are my friends and these are what I want to hang out with. So that whenever you went and you got any type of pushback from these people who were in power or you saw the lines about it, instead of being proactive and trying to figure out a way to work with them, to maneuver your way into them, you would give it like a shot. And then you'd give up and go back to the people who were working, actively working against you. It'd be different if FAP was some strong alliance that was always anti-ally and they just couldn't get power. No, the people in FAP were going and working with the allies to your detriment. You know, so at least maybe you should go work with the allies to their detriment. Maybe you should go and throw Drew under the bus a little bit because he's throwing you under the bus. But she doesn't see it. And when she did see it. It didn't matter to her because it was like, oh, well, there's nothing I can do about it. Drew, stop. Stop. You're always going back to them. Well, maybe you stop telling him stuff. You know, maybe start talking to other people. She really just it's like I said, she's so fascinating because you could see that the instinct to do something was there, but she just didn't have the will. She just kind of gave up. And then it was like, oh, well, we can't do this. We can't do that. And giving up just looks so sad and boring. And then when you finally get power, people are like, OK, now we want you to do what you should have been doing the whole game. But when it to her, it doesn't make sense to her to do that thing. Now you're getting dragged. And I think that had she been more active throughout the entire season, it wouldn't have looked like, oh, when she finally got in power, she didn't know what she was doing. Speaker 1 (20:28) Yeah. Speaker 1 (20:32) I mean, yeah, a perfect example of all of this you mentioned is Drew, her situation there. Despite all the time that she spent with him and the fact that she knew where he stood and how sneaky he'd been, or at least she eventually reached that point. She, like you said, she didn't do anything to bring him over from the dark side, which kind of goes along with her overall game of, well, not. doing anything to strategize with almost anyone. She could have at least. Speaker 1 (21:06) tried, you know, to pull him the same way the icons had. But she never did until basically a couple weeks ago when she was like, Drew, I want you to use the veto on me instead of yourself. Yeah, that wasn't going to fly, Melody. I mean, even during that week when she was nominated against Drew and Barrett, she played it much like she played the rest of the season by not really doing anything. She needed to be lobbying for votes, but she just got mad when Drew won veto rather than actually trying to prepare for the possibility. Her final days in the House were much the same. Barely any campaigning to try to get Dee to vote out Taylor instead of herself. She told Dalton Ross, the only thing I can think of that I would want to. do over strategically to get me in a better position to win is to get closer with Dee earlier. I feel like if I had gotten closer with Dee before Taylor did and had more of an allyship with her, maybe that would have taken me further. Well, yeah, I think you're right. Speaker 2 (22:10) But Speaker 1 (22:10) this was not a final week issue. This was a whole game issue. Speaker 2 (22:15) The Mallory vote really radicalized her and Barrett and put a battery in their backs to where they were like, okay, now. Now we see the truth right now. I can't, I see what's happening. That's where Drew is. But there were so many signs throughout the season that they were just ignoring. I will always go back to that moment where Angela is sitting outside and she's like, well, you know, the guys have been working with us since the very beginning. Right. Really? Really? Okay, cool. Well, at that point, Melody, what are you going to do about it? And they don't do anything. They just like, you just, Hey, this is cool. I was like, Hey, go. Make your own thing. Tell them, hey, it needs to be all the women. It needs to be all of us. You've been working with the guys this whole time. I hate them. How about we go after them? You know, like, how about just do anything? Try something, throw something, you know, do something. But it just, like I said, it always falls flat because even in that moment, she's so disappointed by, oh, Drew's been lying to me. Oh, she's so hurt by Mallory's going home. She's doing all this screaming and hollering in the background, which is still crazy to me. But it's like, once you do that, get to work. get to work you know um we saw and she she talks about taylor but we saw when yosh went home taylor goes and cries and then taylor starts pushing her agenda you know she gets to work and so when she looks back and says yeah maybe i should have been a little bit more like taylor yeah you should have and i hate that it's taking hindsight for you to see that yeah Speaker 1 (23:37) exactly All right, I think we can switch to Dee now. And of course, we have a completely opposite situation because as I said, if anything, she overdid it, which, you know, we'll get to in real time. For now, we'll look at what she did in terms of scheming and plotting because there was a lot of good stuff there going on. And I want to note, she began the game by playing dumb. Now, I know she acknowledged in her interviews that she didn't know. as much about the game as she should have and was learning some of it on the fly. But she had been coached up by her friends, Brandon and Kelly, among others. And she definitely knew a lot more than she was letting on. Meanwhile, she had people like Jason and Taylor absolutely convinced she was clueless. Both of them talking about how they have to teach her. On day six, Dee said to the cameras, do these people think I'm stupid? They actually think I'm so stupid. It's so fun. And then even weeks later, Taylor talked to Yash about how Dee was probably one of the winners who shouldn't have won. It was probably just a floater who got lucky. And then her acting continued as people who should have known better, even including Barrett and Drew, did not think she and Devins were really all that close. Speaker 2 (24:57) Yeah, she came into a game with... Massive advantages, right? Like she knew two people. Oh, yeah. But she also should have come in the game with a huge target. She should have come in the game. This person has won a game that's very similar to Big Brother. People have always said Survivor is Speaker 1 (25:14) Big Brother on an island or Big Brother is Survivor in a house. Speaker 2 (25:17) You know, there's some shared DNA in that. You got to vote people out. You got to have a social game. You got to win a jury vote. She's got experience in this. you could probably discount Angela a little bit because Angela is a personality hire. Trust me, as one I understand. But then you also have Devin's who some would argue is a bit of a personality hire. He is a showman. He came here because he's going to make a scene and he has done that at every turn. He came here to win. D came here to win. That's a shark in the water. And so for her to come in and, you know, obviously she comes in and gets that HOH. But after that, you know, there are so many opportunities for you to go and start to work. You know, you have to start working to get D out. It's not enough to sit around with Valerie and say, oh, we hate D. We hate D. We're going to target D. That's not good enough. You have to go out and put out work because D is going to work hard. You know, the devil works hard, but D works harder. And she's working everybody at every turn. She don't even like these people. The red corner, she hated them. She spent the first two weeks talking trash about Chuck and Haley and Kamu to some extent. But she was working with them because she knew that I needed to have work with these people that I didn't necessarily agree with or like too much because they're good for my game. She was willing to do that. You think Melody Speaker 1 (26:27) could go and fake it with Haley and Chuck? No, she Speaker 2 (26:32) couldn't. And that's why she did it. So, you know, to say Dee was not scheming and plotting enough, which is like it's just the antithesis of who Dee is. She can't help herself. Speaker 1 (26:43) Yeah, I mean, she did like she did so much more than just acting when she came in. She was making individual relationships and alliances right out of the gate. Like a perfect example. Drew told her Jason was coming after Devins. D goes into action, specifically seeks out Jason just to chat. They end up with an alliance. Now, Jason later said it was a fake alliance, but who knows? She still had an alliance on paper. He might have changed his mind. We've seen that happen before. But the point is, she acted proactively to try to shore up support. And this was just one of many examples. Throughout the game, if she decided she needed to change the way things were going or to smooth her path, she did the opposite of Melody. She went directly to the person and talked to them. To the point that Mallory complained about it in her interview. Mallory, in one of her exit interviews, said, oh, the thing I hated about Dee was she always wanted to talk about things. She always wanted things out in the open. Well, we're allowed to have our own inside thoughts. Well, yeah, you are, Mallory. But Dee is also allowed to try to talk to you about it. So, you know, I don't know why Mallory was. Well, I know why Mallory was complaining. We don't need to dive into that. Speaker 1 (28:04) How did Dee save herself when she was against Angela? She talked and talked and talked to the voters, Yash and Taylor. How did she save herself against Yash during the double eviction? She immediately went to Drew and started making him promises. Now, would it have ended up that way anyway? Maybe, but she wasn't going to take that chance. She was not Melody. She was not going to sit back. She went directly to the source. It was the same every time she wanted to do something. She talked to people. Speaker 2 (28:35) Yeah. And if she couldn't get to that person, you could talk to the proxy. You know, it's like, OK, me and Mallory not really getting along. Drew, can you go do some work with Mallory? Barrett, can you go do some work with Mallory? Go get me in good with them. Mallory and Melody should not be sitting around being like, man, I keep hearing D talking trash about me, knowing that all season and then not doing anything about it. D heard the same exact thing. She heard, oh, Melody and Mallory are talking trash about me. And when she had the opportunity to get them out, she didn't even want to at first. But then the target on their back, she's like, why wouldn't I? I know y'all hate me. And this was when Mallory finally let her guard down. That's why she's so mad in that in that iconic, you know, diary room where she's screaming and talking about the icons are the worst allies ever. And they're horrible people and all this other stuff. Yeah, because they're not your allies. They're not your allies. Speaker 1 (29:25) These are your Speaker 2 (29:26) they're working against Speaker 1 (29:27) you. Speaker 2 (29:27) They use that alliance. They schemed and they plotted with you. to let you let your guard down, y'all threw challenges that you shouldn't have thrown, and then when they had the chance to cut you, they did. And they did the same thing with Lala and Taylor when they were like, oh yeah, it's the Honor Society, until they needed to cut Kamu, and then all of a sudden, what Honor Society? You know, that's how it works. And Dee did that above and beyond the way that Melody even, like... attempted to do it. So that's why it's like when you, it kind of falls on deaf ears for me. And I guess that's an awful metaphor. So I won't say it like that. But I think for me, it's just like, I can't really understand when you say like, I'm having a hard time talking to people and pushing when you see people who will not stop. They are relentless in pushing. And I, I, I much, I respect that a little bit more than I do the half assed tribe that I saw on the other side. A lot of times. Speaker 1 (30:17) Yeah. Yeah. A lot more because, and then the other thing is, when Dee talked to people, she had no problem whatsoever if she had to lie or in her famous words, swear on her mom, her dad, her dog, whatever. And yet somehow that part really never caught up to her. Like when she worked on convincing Yash to keep her instead of Angela, she told Yash, oh, I never broke a promise to you or to my alliance. And the only reason that it didn't work with, with. with them because I was so loyal to the crossovers. But I need to work with you now because they turned on me and I'm looking for someone else to be loyal to. It was such a load of BS. She knew it, but Yash bought it. And because of that, she was able to exert an enormous amount of control throughout the game. In most ways, if she wanted something to happen, it happened. Speaker 1 (31:19) A great deal of that was because of her strategic ability and her willingness to just be straightforward and address whatever issues there were. With that said, you've already brought this up. We can't ignore the massive advantages she had to start with. Speaker 2 (31:36) Being Speaker 1 (31:36) one of only three who could win the first HOH, having a pre-built alliance, having an even more pre-built and tighter alliance with the guy she had just played Survivor with and done a bunch of press stuff with. And of course, being first in line to get the audience voted chance at a power while her allies did the same. Devins saved her with a diamond power of veto. She kept them safe with the bribe. And she did acknowledge as much with her in her interview with Mike Bloom. For example, she said, I do think we had an advantage, obviously. However, I did not choose to get an advantage. This was all America. Blame America if you want to. Well, OK, D, I'm not going to blame America. I blame production. But I understand what she's saying. Don't blame me for what was done on my behalf because I didn't choose it. You know, and she's right. We have to take that into account. But as she continued, it all came down to what Devins and I did with the powers. And I think that both of us used our powers to their full advantage and their full power in itself. And I have to say she's right here. Devins used the veto on her because they were tight allies. Sure, they came in with a likelihood of working together, but it didn't have to end up that way. It could have gone a very different way. We saw on Survivor 50 people who came in as allies. and went against each other. We saw it happen time and time again on Survivor 50. Here, she took the bribe, which many of us, including myself, poo-pooed when she got it. I was like, that is almost worthless. She turned it into a literal game changer in ways that I wouldn't have thought of. I know Taron thought of some of it, but Taron is Taron. He is thinking about this every minute of every day. Dee is no Darren. And yet she came up with it. And she told Mike, Bloom, I'm proud of the way I handled the BB bribe. It was a hard no at first. And then I came back up and I got the most out of that 5K. I was able to keep not only myself safe, but Devin's and Angela for a whole week, even as a renum. She's actually not giving the outcome enough credit because she doesn't realize as of now that Yash threw the HOH comps to avoid being stuck. under the terms of the bribe. So she kept them safe for multiple weeks with this thing. She figured out how to best use it and exert her power over Yash to pressure him to accept her terms when, as we discussed last week, there was no way he should have done it. Speaker 2 (34:06) We could have been talking about this bribe as an afterthought, you know, as like, oh yeah, she saved herself for a week,