Survivor 51 Premiere Listener Treemail Bag

RHAP: We Know Survivor

Rob Cesternino and Brandon Donlon host a mailbag episode to dissect the premiere of Survivor 51. They analyze standout player edits like Jen

Key takeaways

• Jenna's photographer-themed confessional was noted as a major crowd highlight at the American Dream Mall.
• The hosts discuss how the 'new era' of Survivor may be prioritizing social-media-savvy younger players over older contestants.

Main topics

• Survivor 51 Premiere Analysis
• Casting Trends and Age Demographics

Notable quotes

Just when you thought you were out, they pulled you back in.

Conclusion

An engaging deep dive for Survivor enthusiasts looking to parse throug

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:08) Hey, everybody. What's going on? Rob Cicerino back here with a season premiere mailbag. I'm so excited. I love the mailbag. I love hearing what the listeners have to say. And I'm here with a man who has curated all of your questions about the season 51 premiere. Give it up for Brandon Donlan. Shout out, Brandon Donlan. Speaker 3 (0:30) We're here. We did it. Lots of questions about whether you like spaghetti or not. Yes. Maybe the most popular question is, do you like Speaker 1 (0:38) spaghetti? Most popular Speaker 3 (0:38) question, you Speaker 1 (0:39) want Speaker 3 (0:39) to jump Speaker 1 (0:39) right into Speaker 3 (0:39) it? No, but I just think, like, if you've been listening a while, I feel like you talk about spaghetti organically, what, once a year maybe you bring up spaghetti? Speaker 2 (0:48) Yeah, do Speaker 3 (0:48) you Speaker 1 (0:48) know my answer of do I like spaghetti? I think Speaker 3 (0:51) the answer is Speaker 1 (0:52) yeah. I think Speaker 2 (0:53) you really like it. So Speaker 1 (0:54) I would say spaghetti is fine. I actually prefer, if you were going to ask me my pasta of choice, I would say, give me... Cappellini, angel hair. Oh, really? You go thinner than a spaghetti? You know, it's interesting because I actually really like a very thin pasta. But if I go for like a udon, like a soup in Asian cuisine, I like a big fat girthy noodle. So I don't know what it is, but like with sauce, with pasta, like a... Italian food? No, I like it thin. I'm Speaker 3 (1:35) team girthy noodle in any cuisine. A fettuccine? Oh, my God. No, I'm Speaker 1 (1:40) down. I don't really like a fettuccine. Yeah, that Speaker 3 (1:43) seems... Spaghetti is kind of like a blanket term for all of that, I think. But if you get down to specifics, I do have deeper opinions, as do you. And that's what makes us beautiful and unique. Speaker 1 (1:55) Yes. Okay. So we're here to talk about the Survivor 51 premiere. We got questions. We solicited them from all over. And I'm excited to go through that here with you and talk about everything that's on your mind as we are closing out week one of the Survivor 51 premiere week. What have you thought about Survivor 51's premiere week? So Speaker 3 (2:20) once I watched the episode, and I'll be honest, this is a space for honesty and trust. I didn't love it on my first watch just because it felt a little bit. I think I texted you in the middle of the episode. It felt to me a little samey same, even with the two tribes. It was just like the same confessionals that we get every time. And it was the same whatever, whatever. I think after the immunity challenge, I'm in. After the immediate challenge did change my mind. It brought me back because it's good. The 10 tribe strategy is good and nobody losing the votes is good. I think that a lot of the people that you learn about the last half of the episode are very fun. I wasn't in, but then they pulled me back. Just when you thought you were out, they pulled you back in. You Speaker 1 (3:07) know, we're coming out of the big moves era. Then that went into the new era. But I know last night you were doing big moves. Can we pull back the curtain a little bit that you helped a friend move last night? Yeah, we Speaker 2 (3:22) got off the slot podcast. I think we clocked out at about 9, 10 p.m. Speaker 1 (3:28) And Club Condo. Over on Patreon, which is very fun. Check it out. Robbiswebsite.com slash patron, which I don't really promote enough. Speaker 3 (3:34) We should Speaker 2 (3:35) do that more. Speaker 3 (3:35) And then I went to my friend's condo and helped her move her stuff from that house to her new house at 9, 10 at night. Were you part of a team or you were like the Speaker 1 (3:47) person? Speaker 3 (3:49) I was the, what do you call it in a relay race? The last person. The anchor. Is that right? Speaker 2 (3:55) I finished. I finished the job. It was only a couple bags and a cat. But what I did was get that from the apartment and then brought it to Newhouse. So I brought in the last bags of the, you know, which Speaker 1 (4:10) nobody remembers who did the middle part. It's Speaker 2 (4:13) all about who Speaker 1 (4:14) did the end. Okay. All right. So they call that on Survivor, like the hero spot of like, you're the guy who like does the puzzle or throws the rings at the end. Speaker 3 (4:24) Yeah. And if you live in the New York City area and you need help moving, DM me and we'll see what we can do. We can work Speaker 2 (4:32) it out. I'll bring Mike Bloom. I'll bring Maggie. People live around here. You know, wouldn't that be fun if we needed to, like, do another stream of income as we formed a moving company? Speaker 1 (4:42) I think it might be like a decent like social media video of like, hey, so I didn't know who to call for moving. And so I contacted RHAP and they sent a bunch of podcasters over to help me move. Speaker 2 (4:55) Yeah, that's funny. The best ability is availability. It's Akiva Winokur. So Speaker 3 (4:59) maybe Speaker 2 (5:00) just Speaker 3 (5:00) being able to go would be helpful enough. You don't have to be helpful when Speaker 1 (5:04) you're there. Yeah. I don't know who would be the best podcaster to help you move. Like, there might be a lot of good podcasters to help you pack. Like, who is the biggest, strongest person we have to help you move a couch? I don't know if we have that person. Is Speaker 2 (5:22) it Jason Reed? Jason Reed's my immediate first guess. Yeah, he can move a couch. He can move a couch, for sure. That might be it. It's a lot of people who can do material as you're packing, but not a lot of people who can... Speaker 1 (5:35) move Speaker 2 (5:35) the Speaker 1 (5:35) material. Yeah. Okay. All right. Let's get into the questions. Where do you want to start? Speaker 3 (5:43) I'm looking in our document. We solicited questions in so many places on the internet. Speaker 1 (5:48) Wherever you were, we were. And I reviewed all the questions, a wide variety of questions. And I picked out some selects of things that I thought were interesting to talk about. So let's go anywhere you want to go in this survivor Speaker 3 (6:02) -themed mailbag. There was a question that I can now not find, but I'm going to rephrase it a little bit. You saw the episode. last Saturday at the American Dream Mall. Was there anything in the episode that elicited a loud crowd reaction? What was the crowd most excited about in the episode? Speaker 1 (6:20) So it was the cast. And so they were very excited. I saw that there was a question about how did Jeff's... spiel about the Final Four firemaking play in the room. It was very... The people in the room really liked the episode. I think the thing that maybe in my mind got the biggest reaction was when... Jenna did the rant about the being a photographer and I shouldn't call it a rant, but her like where she did her like, okay, this is a camera and this is like, I think that she like stood up and I think people cheered for her in that moment. Speaker 3 (7:01) Yes. She was my favorite of the episode. The standout of the episode for me was Jenna. I was very moved. And this is like, to me, classic Survivor as they like breadcrumb something. Is Speaker 2 (7:12) this Speaker 3 (7:12) classic Survivor? Did you say that? Speaker 2 (7:15) In many ways, no. It's not even kind of classic Survivor. But this, the Jenna arc. Is this single digis? It's not. We did this in season 38, the Maroon. The Jenna breadcrumbing something in the beginning Speaker 3 (7:29) of the episode, not telling you what it is, building the tension, and then having the reveal that she's working through a divorce or whatever. That's so good. That's what makes this show so good. It's just people. It's interesting people that they've cast in the show, and they're letting them tell their own story at their own pace. I think that's so great. Speaker 3 (7:50) Yeah, the Survivor official account just posted a bunch of pictures of her getting her pictures done where she was geeking out about the camera. With the photographer. Right. With Scott Duncan. Yeah. Brother of Tim Duncan, who's in the NBA. Speaker 1 (8:03) Mm-hmm. Speaker 3 (8:04) America runs on Speaker 1 (8:05) Duncan. Speaker 3 (8:07) In Speaker 2 (8:07) many ways, they do. In the city that I'm in, they certainly do. Not so much in California. Speaker 1 (8:13) My son's birthday. Happy birthday, Dominic, who's 13 today. Door dashed him a breakfast sandwich from Dunkin' Donuts. Nice. Bacon, egg, and cheese on a bagel. Listen, it's the best one. It's the Speaker 3 (8:27) best Speaker 2 (8:27) thing they got over there. You get some hash browns. Dunkin' Donuts is the only thing that's still cheap. Speaker 3 (8:32) Everything else is expensive, but Dunkin' Donuts, maybe not if you door dash. Maybe Speaker 1 (8:35) not on DoorDash. Speaker 3 (8:37) That's a $32 bill on DoorDash. $7 sandwich on DoorDash. Yikes. Let me bounce around this document. Dylan Torchinski, friend of the podcast, whose last name I kind of butchered. Do you think it threw the players off that they were dressed in red, yellow, and blue, but weren't divided into three tribes? Speaker 1 (8:58) Yeah, this is a good question. And I wish I could remember where I saw this. I feel like I absorb so much from like refreshing the Twitter and Reddit. And so I'm not sure where I saw this, but. I wonder if this is a response to the Survivor 49 controversy of that we had people who were pre-gaming, who were cheating in the, I guess, I don't want to say the C word, but basically they were taught, people were talking, okay, you're blue, I'm blue, let's talk, let's figure out who's the first one to go. And then I didn't even catch that they had had them wear specific colors to start, but then it's like, haha, joke's on you. You're actually in two tribes, and you can't predict by who has nail polish who's on your tribe. Speaker 3 (9:55) I Speaker 1 (9:56) do wonder if Speaker 3 (9:57) they told them, because obviously, when you're in the new era, at least, I was told that I was in the yellow tribe. You gotta buy all yellow. They were told on 49. They were all in blue. They knew that. I'm wondering if they were told nothing and they were just like, go buy a bunch of stuff and we'll pick what you wear. Like, I think there was probably an expectation that the tribes would be different rather than they go there. Like, I don't think anybody went there thinking they were in red, yellow, and blue is, I think, my point. Speaker 1 (10:25) I didn't notice that. I don't know if people clocked that some people had red, some people had yellow, some people had blue, and maybe it was a coincidence, maybe it wasn't. It seems like a lot of work to do just to fake them out. Yeah. Devin has a Speaker 3 (10:39) beautiful red jacket. Speaker 1 (10:41) Yeah. Something I noticed. Yes. I thought maybe if they would have like brought them in in three boats where it's like, okay, now, haha, joke's on you. It's three tribes, but, or it's two tribes, but they didn't even do that. So it seems like a lot of work to do. When you're Speaker 3 (10:57) watching this on Saturday, do you think that they're going to schoolyard pick or did you expect a different producer based mechanism to make the tribes? Speaker 1 (11:07) I thought maybe a schoolyard pick was in play a couple of weeks ago, but I thought that I had seen enough online where I thought that there were shots of them getting buffs. So I was not thinking there was a schoolyard pick going into this. I do think a schoolyard pick is on the table here in the open era. Do you think that? I do think that, yes. I wonder Speaker 3 (11:27) if that is too much power to the player. I wonder if that is gone for good. Speaker 3 (11:33) I Speaker 1 (11:33) don't think so, because I think that they'll switch the tribes then if they don't like what the schoolyard pick is after a couple episodes. I guess that's true. That's what they did. They Speaker 3 (11:40) only ever did Speaker 1 (11:41) it. Did they ever Speaker 3 (11:42) do it after Gabon? Is it the last time they did it? I think that might be it. I Speaker 1 (11:45) think that Gabon was messed up where they had a schoolyard pick to start, and it was kind of a lopsided schoolyard pick. But did they also then, did they redid it? And then I think it was also screwed up. right? They redid it. They had them rank one to like seven. Ranked Speaker 3 (12:01) by, Speaker 1 (12:01) right. Who are the strongest players and I think they still screwed it up. Speaker 3 (12:07) Yeah, Speaker 1 (12:07) Kenny Hong was going for Kelly Speaker 3 (12:10) Zarnacki. Speaker 2 (12:11) Last pick Kelly Zarnacki. Yeah, because she's hot. What are you supposed to do? She's hot. Speaker 3 (12:16) That's what he said. I'm not co-signing it. Let's see. How do you think the tribe divisions were decided behind the scenes with the unknown factor of who would go to exile? That's from Mitchell. Speaker 1 (12:29) Yeah, this is a good question. Also, in terms of we had one person had to had to get picked to go to be on the exile island. And I did listen to on the pod has spoken Tyson and Riley were talking about that of. that potentially Riley had asked, like, did they have like 21 different versions of this for whoever went? I think that they basically had like a whiteboard and then very quickly, like on the fly, just ultimately like that. I think they had like, here's what the tribes are. And then, okay, just basically switch things around based off of, you know, I think it's like a pretty easy sub, you know, I guess. Give me another give me a different person to go to exile and I'll tell you what the new tribes would be Give me Pat. Pat's looking for pants. And I think that Jeff, I think there's 11 women and 10 men. So it's almost easier with a woman going. And I haven't looked at the breakdown of then. I think Jeff mentioned that from a men-woman perspective, I don't think the tribes are totally even. It's sort of like matched up based on. They should do like a combine of like, okay. everybody should run like a 40-yard dash and like do bench presses and then just like have like a total number of like make it equal that the two tribes can do an equal number of total bench presses. And that's Speaker 3 (14:00) the Speaker 1 (14:00) tribe. It doesn't matter if it's men versus women. Speaker 3 (14:03) Is that fair? I always thought, I think that's a great idea and I always thought they would do that. I like the idea that the opening challenge is like you have to swim and then you have to run, like you have to do mini triathlon and at the end you get your buff. Like, you can, you pick it. So at least, like, everybody's on the same page with who can do what well. Yeah. I think that's such a great Speaker 1 (14:24) idea. I don't even, like, okay, so Pat goes to Exile Island and now Louis is on that tribe. Yeah, it seems like. Does it matter? They made Speaker 3 (14:34) two tribes of 10. It's one switch they have to do. Yeah. And they just bump over, like, 20. I initially also thought 21. configurations of this, but I don't think that makes as much sense. I don't even Speaker 1 (14:45) know how many men are on the tribe that went to tribal council. I mean, I think so. The tribe that went to tribal council, there's Brady, Devin, Kilby is there, Mike is there. Is there somebody else that I'm missing? Devin, right? Devin, Brady, Mike, Kilby. Is there another man on that tribe? Speaker 3 (15:07) Is there? No, maybe there's not. Maybe it's 6 and 4. And now it's 5 and 5. Speaker 1 (15:11) Yeah. Okay. So even Speaker 3 (15:12) easier. Even. Even. Speaker 1 (15:15) Yeah. Very interesting. I don't think it was that complicated of a question. No, I don't think so. In terms of how do we figure out the tribes after somebody goes to exile. I think that they basically, I think they had the buffs wrapped up. They had a whiteboard. Cross off Lewis and then, okay, sub in somebody else. This, I thought, was an interesting Speaker 3 (15:37) question, and I'm curious to hear your perspective. Iam168 asks, why is everyone so young? Is that a weight, do you think, Speaker 1 (15:46) Iam168? Speaker 3 (15:49) A Speaker 2 (15:49) great weight to be. I think that's a healthy weight to be. Yeah, that's me after lunch. Sure, sure. Speaker 3 (16:00) My question for you is, When did you feel like, when was the first season you saw where you're like, oh, everybody's young? Is it now or has it, did that happen a couple years ago? Speaker 1 (16:10) When did I feel like everybody is young now? Hmm. Not that you're later days, but like they are. I Speaker 3 (16:17) mean, Speaker 1 (16:17) I am. I just, I don't feel like I am, but I am. I can't deny that. If I was on the season, I think I would be like right there. I think I'd be the oldest guy on the season. That would be the case for many of the seasons I have watched recently. So, and far and away on the big brother, forget it. Oh my God. Speaker 1 (16:37) But I don't know if I really had a season where I feel like, okay, these are all children now. Where did all these young people come Speaker 3 (16:44) from? I'm echoing the sentiment of I'm 168. I'm watching people and I'm like, wow, I feel like half the people are younger than me. It wasn't always like that for a long time. And then one day it's just everybody's younger. Speaker 1 (16:59) I don't know when it actually happened, but that's not the way I watch the show where I feel like, okay, these are all... I'm, you know, I'm an elder statesman watching a bunch of young people on television. Maybe Speaker 2 (17:10) I Speaker 1 (17:10) should get there, but Speaker 3 (17:12) that's not how I feel. Is Survivor all elder statesmen? Is that anything that we can pitch? The golden survivors? Speaker 1 (17:19) Yeah, that's something. Speaker 2 (17:21) I Speaker 1 (17:23) think you want to have a mix. I think that that's what is fun about the show. Speaker 1 (17:29) Yes. But I think I played on a season, you know, in my original time out on Survivor, I think I played on a season with mostly young people. And I think it was sort of refreshing after the previous season of Thailand was a lot of like older folks playing Survivor. Speaker 3 (17:47) I wonder if there's any resistance, like Rob, who's on this season, who is, I don't know how old he is. I'm sure 40. I think he's 40. Speaker 2 (17:55) He... is he does a lot of social media. He does a lot of TikTok on his Speaker 3 (17:59) own. I wonder if there's resistance casting anybody who's not 20s, early 30s because of the emphasis that social media is now having on the show is we want the people that we cast to be able to make content for us. And I think everybody on this show, it gives that. The people that are older than 38. Yeah, I Speaker 1 (18:18) really think that age is really a number with the... survivor contestants. I feel like that the, you know, here's Rob, Rhode Island Rob, who's on the show, who's 40. This is not the average 40-year-old. You know, if you, you know, looked at the average, you know, 40-year-olds in America, like, they're, like, this is a youthful 40. I think that anybody who, I think Kristen, who is 48, like, again, probably Not the average 48-year-old. I think that just because you are a certain age, I do think that the average person who goes on Survivor, it feels younger than the number. Speaker 3 (19:02) Yes, I do see that, which is interesting. Kareem Clark asks, how do you think the casting approach has changed in the open era versus the new era, if at all? Speaker 1 (19:15) Yeah, I don't know. I kind of asked Jeff a little bit about this. I felt like that there were a number of farmers who were on there. I do feel like that we have more people here in 51 who are not necessarily all super diehard fans of the show. And I think that's probably good for the show. I think that you had in the new era, there is. you know, there are multiple or, I'm sorry, there are not multiple people in any season that have not seen over 30 seasons of the show. And I think you have some newer fans to it, and I think that they bring some different ideas to the table where if everybody is over-optimized of how they're playing the game, I think that's a less fun television show to watch. Agreed. Speaker 3 (20:00) I think one of my favorite scenes in this episode was Ori, who I believe is telling Sharonda, like, I'm new here. Like I just got here. What do we do? And I think that that leads to like interesting storytelling for both people. It like it lends itself to showing the strengths of either people where Ori's adapting, having never really seen a ton of this. And Sharonda is doing the opposite using her. maybe 30 plus season skill base. Yeah, because you get Speaker 1 (20:25) people who that they know what they're supposed to do. And if everybody knows what they're supposed to do, it's less interesting than when you have people who don't know what they're supposed to do. And when they don't know what they're supposed to do, maybe they do new things that we've never seen before. And then the people who know what you're supposed to do have to react to people. Oh, wait, this. He's not doing what he's supposed to do. What do I do now? Because I don't know what to do when somebody, I've never seen anybody have to react to what this person is doing that I've never seen before. So I think that that creates a lot of fun dynamics. Absolutely. I Speaker 3 (20:57) think about like D on this last Big Brother season. And D had seen, you know, 10 episodes of Big Brother before going in. And like just seeing somebody just naturally get it is so interesting. But it's also interesting to see somebody who naturally does not. I think that's also very good for the TV show. So I'm all in on that. That is really the only change that I have noticed in the casting. I think that's a great change. But otherwise, I feel like this is not remarkably different from the 41 through 49. Speaker 1 (21:24) Yeah, I think we got away from, I think, in the new era, and I have to see the numbers on this. This is a little bit more vibes than I have the facts to back this up. A lot of young tech professionals in the new era, and maybe we have less of that in this season. Speaker 1 (21:41) I'm going to jump to Speaker 3 (21:42) the end of the episode with Ben Gregory's question. Would you rather have Jenna's position moving forward, knowing you're on the bottom of your tribe, or would you rather be in Lewis's position, having almost no information or certainty going into a tribe? Speaker 1 (21:57) Yeah. This is hard because I feel like I can't answer this question without doing like any kind of edit reading where I feel like that Jenna, her edit feels to me a little bit more kind of like an Emily Flippen type turnaround of here she is at the merge and she's really running things. We're like, remember, remember in the beginning, remember when she like when she they thought she wasn't a wedding photographer and she was on the bottom and she turned it around. And that's, it feels like to me, that's where her thing is going. So I'm going to try to answer this question without having that in my mind. But I feel like that Lewis, based off of who Lewis is. I think the players are so smart that they're so good at where, like, based off of my experience in the Traders, especially, I just think people are like, okay, all right, this person, we got to watch out for them. We need to keep an eye on this person. They seem like they're going to be good. And Lewis, I think, is just the threat level from Lewis is, like, non-existent, which is, like, why you should be watching out for him. But I just think, like, okay, well, he's not. he's not up to something. Look at Lewis. Like, he's an open book. He went to, and maybe they're worried he has a thing, but I just feel like that Lewis is going to come back and thrive. No doubt. I, yeah, he, he Speaker 3 (23:19) gives to me, and it's so funny. We do, you did social media content when you were at that American dream event. He says his four favorite survivor players are say Venus, Rome, and Q. So he's, he's, Speaker 2 (23:32) yeah. He's seen the television show, certainly, but I'm not, I don't get a lot of super fan, obviously. And that's, again, that's like, I think you get a guy who's just kind of playing for chaos. That's a guy who's going to do something nobody's ever seen before Speaker 3 (23:47) or thought about doing on the show. And I like that a lot. Like volunteer to go to Speaker 1 (23:52) XL Island. Speaker 3 (23:54) Yeah, he'll go have a whack at it. Is that what he said? A crack at