‘Love Is Blind’ Resets, ‘Survivor’ Stalls: A Reality TV Check-in
Update: 2024-11-05
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A palate-cleanse conversation about the state of legacy reality franchises, and what might come next for them. Guests: Joe Coscarelli and Caryn Ganz.Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything
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Transcript
00:00:00
It's a Steadhunting, host of the run-up from the New York Times.
00:00:03
For over a year, we've been traveling the country.
00:00:06
We're talking to people in Wisconsin today about how they're feeling about the election.
00:00:10
We're talking to people in Michigan specifically because it matters so much.
00:00:12
We are in New Hampshire.
00:00:14
Talking to voters about the issues that matter most to them.
00:00:18
Listen to the run-up wherever you get your podcasts.
00:00:21
My communications person tells me that...
00:00:24
People actually listen to your podcast, is this true?
00:00:27
Like this, thank goodness.
00:00:31
Welcome to the New York Times Popcast, your high-level thinker fest of music news and criticism,
00:00:43
but also this week, reality TV news and criticism.
00:00:46
I'm John K.
00:00:47
Romanoca.
00:00:47
I'm Joe Costa Raley, reporter at The New York Times.
00:00:50
Whoa, we're not doing titles anymore?
00:00:52
Everyone just knows.
00:00:53
They made it this far.
00:00:54
If you are choosing to listen to Popcast during a historic election week in America, you know who we are.
00:01:00
Yeah.
00:01:01
We're here to sue your brains.
00:01:02
We are.
00:01:03
So very pointedly, Joe and I last week were like, what are we going to do?
00:01:07
We don't know what's going to happen, obviously.
00:01:09
It's before the election, we don't know what's going to happen.
00:01:12
We don't know what the week's going to be like.
00:01:14
And we're like, we want to do something that if you need a little bit of an escape, they're probably going to need a little bit of an escape.
00:01:21
If you've come to us, you've come to us for a reason.
00:01:24
And that is to hear me and Joe speak about something a tiny bit frothy that we love, which is reality television later, we will be joined by Karen Gans, who also loves something frothy.
00:01:35
And we're going to talk about another thing, but we're going to start by talking about Love is Blind, which just concluded season seven later, when Karen shows up, we're going to talk about the current season of survivor,
00:01:48
nerds, first nerds, Joe.
00:01:50
Love is blind season seven.
00:01:51
I just watched finally the reunion episode earlier today.
00:01:55
Yeah.
00:01:56
Where did Garrett procure that sport coat?
00:02:00
Do you think I thought you would know see this is the thing like everybody's like, Oh, Garrett's in his glow up area, Garrett's in his fashion era.
00:02:09
And I'm quite sure that that is a tapestry that has been remade as a sport coat like that.
00:02:15
That maybe came from Garrett grandma's house.
00:02:17
Like I don't, I don't really know where that came from.
00:02:19
I do it.
00:02:20
Look, he was wearing motorcycle boots of a sort.
00:02:24
He did appear to have a wide leg trouser.
00:02:27
He was on button to the third button, like I understand he's trying something.
00:02:31
His hair, he looks, he did have long hair.
00:02:33
But man, that sport coat, they auctioned that off for charity, please, I wish to not see that again.
00:02:39
Here's what I'll say about Garrett's glow up, which I think applies to the whole season and the whole conversation we're about to have is the most important thing to remember about season seven of love is blind on Netflix is that it's set in Washington,
00:02:54
DC, the, the DCness is all over the fashion, the politics, the personalities,
00:03:05
the job, the job descriptions are incredible.
00:03:08
Yeah.
00:03:09
So Garrett, you clear security officer, great, Garrett and Taylor Taylor is a, like, clean energy policy lobbyist, maybe, or something, or researcher, something along those,
00:03:20
also Taylor showing up to the reunion show with like a gold breastplate that maybe wearing Zendaya's left.
00:03:29
Well, I mean, I, I did want to say I don't want to, they didn't speak about this.
00:03:32
They did talk about Garrett's club.
00:03:34
They did not talk about Taylor's outfit.
00:03:36
If that was, I don't know, scaper rally, for example, first of all, shout out, my goddamn Rosemary, but if that was scaper rally, phenomenal, happy to see it.
00:03:47
If it was she in, concerning, concerning, however, that said, look, very happy to see Garrett and Taylor holding it down for a year,
00:03:58
also Ashley and Tyler successfully made it.
00:04:02
Yeah.
00:04:03
So we're going, we're going backwards from the, from the reunions.
00:04:06
Yes.
00:04:07
Well, successfully one year of marriage, bless them, but yes, the deceness of this season.
00:04:13
I mean, okay, this reminds me a little bit, did you ever watch a married at first sight?
00:04:19
No.
00:04:20
Never.
00:04:21
Not even like not even the early students.
00:04:22
No.
00:04:23
Okay.
00:04:24
So if I'm remembering regularly and someone feel free to email me if I'm not right, but I'm pretty sure that this is what happened in the earliest seasons of married at first sight.
00:04:31
One of the signature problems they had was that they did not filter for region.
00:04:35
So you could plausibly end up married to someone who lived a thousand miles away.
00:04:40
And then you had to sort of like figure out what to do.
00:04:42
So then in later seasons, they started filtering for region.
00:04:46
But then what happened is the show's got incredibly, the season got incredibly regionally specific, like the North Carolinaness of, of a, of a season, the lanternness.
00:04:57
You really did see local color for good and for bad.
00:05:02
Obviously, with Love is Blind, they factor that in right at the top.
00:05:08
And you end up with DC, which is notionally a metropole, but genuinely is not.
00:05:15
And so you end up with people with unusual jobs, a sort of quasi transience.
00:05:21
It's like we're in the big city, but we are quasi transient in the big city because very few people are actually from DC.
00:05:28
Yeah.
00:05:29
There's lots of sort of mature area, but also tri-state area like DMV, Fredericksburg.
00:05:34
Yeah.
00:05:35
There's Baltimore.
00:05:36
There's, yeah.
00:05:37
There's DC proper.
00:05:38
There's a lot of, yeah, yes, suburbs, exerbs, et cetera.
00:05:43
How did you feel about the overall quality of the connections on this season of Love is Blind?
00:05:51
I got to be honest with you.
00:05:52
I was kind of blown away by them and by the maturity of some of these relationships and the couples, even the ones that didn't work out.
00:06:00
Yes.
00:06:01
I thought this seemed like the say-nest season of the show that I've seen.
00:06:05
I thought, you know, I do think we could ask the headline question like, "Armen-OK," which I think like carries across a lot of culture and reality television.
00:06:18
I think Armen-OK stands, but overall, I thought communication was really high level from a lot of these people, even the people like we'll get to Leo,
00:06:30
but Leo is a pretty good communicator for being somebody who is also lacking in some self-awareness.
00:06:36
Steven is a pretty good communicator, even though he has a lot of other issues that he needs to work through.
00:06:47
But I mean, I could just start with Tyler and Ashley, who among the best reality TV couples that I've ever seen.
00:06:58
I know this is going to sound glib, I don't mean it glibly, like actual couple goals.
00:07:02
The chemistry is real, and it's not because they're like living some like high, unreachable fantasy.
00:07:08
It's because they appear to be capable of looking at each other in the eye and telling them what are you telling each other what they feel, even when it's difficult.
00:07:17
And then getting through it.
00:07:18
Yes.
00:07:19
And we're in a period of romance movies, of sexy thrillers coming back, rom-coms, maybe they're trying to bring back to me.
00:07:28
The romance film of the year is the reveal between Tyler and Ashley from season 7 of Love is Blind.
00:07:36
Like they wanted each other up, the spark, yeah, like the sparks coming off of the two of them.
00:07:44
So it was, yeah, it was legitimately moving and dare I say sexy.
00:07:50
It was what Clay and AD thought they were, yes, yes, yes, yes, seriously, like that's, and that never was that more clear than on the reunion when AD showed up.
00:08:01
And I thought was kind of like, little basic, like kind of like my best life, like you know, it's like, no, like I bet AD is looking at Ashley and Tyler and be like,
00:08:11
damn, like that's what I, or even better, I truly thought that that's what this was and it wasn't that.
00:08:18
Right.
00:08:19
And you mentioned Taylor and Garrett, the only other couple.
00:08:21
I mean, even the fact that only two couples made it to the altar and both of them seemed like couples that could work off of reality television.
00:08:31
Like they didn't seem like they were in love for TV or getting like, I wasn't watching through my fingers.
00:08:38
I was like, oh, these people like, huh, this experiment, as they like to refer to love as blind as opposed to a reality show, like it can work.
00:08:46
And I'm not saying these people are going to be married forever.
00:08:48
But I'm like, Taylor and Garrett, they used the pods to their advantage and Tyler and Ashley did the same thing.
00:08:55
And I had no real doubts about either of them as they got married, even though they don't be known each other for three weeks or whatever it was.
00:09:04
I don't know.
00:09:05
Do you agree?
00:09:06
Yeah.
00:09:07
It's tough to know if this is in direct response to some of the legal challenges that Love and Blind has had over the last couple of years about inhumane working conditions,
00:09:18
producers like sort of knowing that people were ill suited to each other or perhaps had secrets in their paths and not being transparent about them.
00:09:26
I don't know.
00:09:27
Good stories about this by our colleague, Julia Jacobs, good, good, good feature in the New Yorker by Emily Nussbaum about Love is blind behind the scenes, quite juicy stuff,
00:09:38
really.
00:09:38
So check those out if you care about this show and it's ethics at all.
00:09:42
And it made me wonder if in the wake of those legal concerns, if they double down in the quality of the casting, if they said, you know, you know, they're like,
00:09:52
here's where we fell short, even if they're not admitting in any legal sense that they fell short.
00:09:58
But where they fell short is they didn't X people out who had things that are potentially disqualifying.
00:10:03
They encouraged people to stay together who actually probably should have split up.
00:10:08
They essentially pushed people to the to walk down the altar, walked down the aisle to the altar, knowing that they were going to one or more was going to say no.
00:10:17
And I thought it was notable that actually seven couples got engaged this season or seven couples that we know about, got engaged because sometimes there have been couples that got engaged that they don't use storylines on seven couples got engaged.
00:10:30
Two of them then made it to the altar were basically a hundred percent yeses.
00:10:35
And everybody else had the good sense to pull the record.
00:10:40
And I, you know, you know, a little bit about how reality television works.
00:10:44
Like I don't think like Ramses just decided on a Monday morning.
00:10:48
I'm done.
00:10:49
I'm sure he talked to the producer and said, I think I'm done in the producer rather than saying, hey, just stick it out.
00:10:55
Just make it to the aisle.
00:10:56
It's great.
00:10:57
Maybe you'll feel differently, I've got to assume that the production choices were more like, hey, okay, that's unfortunate, but let's just knock it out on camera.
00:11:06
And everybody can go out to their lives.
00:11:09
That makes me think that there was a renewed commitment to ethics in the casting and production.
00:11:13
Again, it's speculation.
00:11:15
But that was my main takeaway is that this season felt more mature, more responsible.
00:11:21
And to your point, the men in particular, frankly, more than the women.
00:11:26
Men in particular were incredibly articulate and encouraging with their feelings and with their vulnerabilities, even when you're, yeah, I'm not going to say, I'm not going to say they were more so than the women,
00:11:39
but relatively to past seasons of love is blind.
00:11:42
I see where you're coming from.
00:11:43
I think more so than the women, you know, I, you think about obviously the way that Hannah was speaking to Nick, like just like really, really difficult, like even cur, but she was correct.
00:11:53
Almost all that's up, but still like that's how that's not how I wish to be spoken to in a relationship.
00:11:59
I mean, I thought I thought Marissa, Marissa and the Rams relationship, Ramses relationship was, was, was quite in touch with herself and her feelings.
00:12:08
I thought she cared about her and Stephen and Stephen and Monica, Monica, yes, Monica had some tough, had some tough moments,
00:12:19
but again, I think like, I think she just like Hannah, like the reason they were acting up and because they knew something was wrong and,
00:12:29
and they were correct that they should not be with that person.
00:12:32
But to your point about, about this season being a bit more ethical, again, relatively, I think again, we don't know what we didn't see.
00:12:41
There may have been things we didn't see.
00:12:42
We may hear things really know what we see.
00:12:45
But even the fact that they didn't let Brittany and Leo go to Cabo, they, they were just like nah, like you're cut basically, and you heard them talk about it on the reunion where they said like the producers were really looking for people who they believed were going to make it.
00:13:00
And yeah, if you saw the reveal between Brittany and Leo, you knew like that was, that was not going to last, but it's even like evening.
00:13:09
Okay.
00:13:10
I just wanted, if they just wanted the car crash, they would have just said them to Cabo, no matter what.
00:13:15
Okay.
00:13:16
I have an alternate perspective on Brittany and Leo, which is that so if the show had invested in them, they would have figured out how to make it sort of work.
00:13:30
Because ultimately Leo is the type of person structurally that Brittany was looking for and Leo, yes, rich and, and kind of like you can just do you like I'm just going to do this and you can do you that's essentially what she said she was looking for.
00:13:46
Leo, clearly if you're choosing between Brittany and Hannah, like clearly you have no perspective whatsoever on what you need in life.
00:13:54
You clearly don't know anything about yourself or your own needs.
00:13:57
But I think he looked at her and said, this is a beautiful woman.
00:14:01
I would love to travel and take this person around the world.
00:14:04
And he would have brain melted his way to making it work.
00:14:08
I understand that there was not an instant spark between the two of them, but I actually perversely think that that relationship truly had more legs than say Tim and Hannah,
00:14:19
is it Tim and who never seemed genuinely connected in any real way.
00:14:23
They were two people who like were timid about Tim and Alex, sorry, two people who were verbal about their own kind of like needs and the dysfunction of those needs without ever fully like making accommodations for the other person's dysfunction needs.
00:14:38
Yeah, well, they were the dud couple of the season until it detonated at the reunion because yeah, obviously their big fight happened off camera and they didn't want to recreate it like they didn't want to recreate it.
00:14:52
But I thought they're back and forth was quite heated at the reunion in a way that made me think they did have real feelings for each other at least at some point.
00:15:00
I see what you're saying about Brittany and Leo on paper.
00:15:04
I guess what they said they wanted, but again, like if they could have just found what they thought they needed on paper, like they wouldn't be on Love Is Blind in the first place.
00:15:14
So I just think like, I just think there was no, there was no chance.
00:15:17
I mean, and you see it now, like they could, they could have figured it out afterwards and they're like, oh, we're friends, but I'm just saying it wasn't saying I wouldn't be surprised to see like a Love Is Blind season 12 reunion and they bring Brittany and Leo back and they figured it out and they made,
00:15:32
I'm just saying I wouldn't be shocked.
00:15:34
You're either a romantic or as Hannah wrote on her list, delusional, delude.
00:15:40
I am delude.
00:15:41
Okay.
00:15:42
Also, I have no, look, I don't have any expertise in fine wristwear.
00:15:47
I don't even know if it's a good Rolex.
00:15:49
Just can't believe Mike, look, Mike Nouveau, if you're listening, take a look at Leo's Rolex.
00:15:53
I can't tell is it a $4,000 one or is it a $40,000 one?
00:15:57
I just don't know.
00:15:58
So but everybody has the answer on dime piece.
00:16:01
Yeah.
00:16:02
We, we catch true, we should, we should have Googled there was a lot of talk about the Rolex, but I, but I do think so I felt this with Leon Brittany.
00:16:10
I felt this with Taylor and Garrett.
00:16:12
I did feel this a little bit with Ashley and Tyler as far as the ethics of the casting.
00:16:18
In some prior seasons, I haven't necessarily felt that the producers and casters in their mind were like person one should go with person seven woman two should go with man four.
00:16:30
This season, I absolutely think they were like, I think Taylor and Garrett are a thing like I think Leo and Brittany are a thing and they're just steering people in that direction.
00:16:42
That's how it felt to me.
00:16:44
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00:16:45
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00:16:50
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00:16:58
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00:17:09
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00:17:16
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00:17:43
There were a couple people, like Leo, the art dealer with the Rolex, who were deciding between two extremely different people.
00:17:51
When you're thinking of, like, Marissa and Ramses, who she ends up with, and she was with the Bowdoin guy, Steven's, Steven had another connection in the pod.
00:18:02
I'm blanking.
00:18:04
Regardless, I think it was, it still felt self-driven to me.
00:18:07
It just felt like there were cleaner matches, but the maturity of the season overall, and I do think this continues to be blanketed by the deceness of it all,
00:18:19
but it wasn't just in the emotional connections, but it was also in, like, the things we got to see them talk about.
00:18:26
Yeah.
00:18:27
Like, they were, they talked about, I'll just run, run through it, like Palestine, Trump, contraception, Mormonism, the military, the, the,
00:18:37
the morality of the military.
00:18:39
90% of this is Ramses and Ramses and Ramses, just for the record, though.
00:18:43
Get it early, 90%.
00:18:45
I mean, Ashley and Tyler, who we talked about before, like, making it through a really intense thing, which is that he didn't tell her that he had three children with a friend,
00:18:58
seemingly as some sort of a spurned owner, although there's been, there's been disputes about whether all of them were donated children,
00:19:09
and he's, you know, he sort of addressed it on the reunion, but it happened very quickly, or even the, the sexuality that Stephen was discussing at first,
00:19:20
seemingly jokingly, and then becomes less funny, as, as the show goes on, and, and he gets in trouble for, for sexting with a stranger.
00:19:29
But, you know, him talking about the fame of the show and sort of reality TV groupies, like, I thought there was like a lot of third rail.
00:19:37
Also Stephen and his, and usually these shows, he's covered ancestry.
00:19:42
It basically thought he was even talking about the turn down part block, 10% Canadian, and that, which I think actually got him engaged on the show.
00:19:52
She kept bringing it up as the thing that, like, like, he's a passion for her learning about his African heritage, really moved her sidebar.
00:20:02
Have you ever done a sleep study?
00:20:03
No, but I would love to do a sleep study, honestly.
00:20:07
I do not remember being allowed that degree of access to my phone.
00:20:12
I just don't, also don't you think getting worked up affected the sleep study for him?
00:20:17
Like, don't you think that, like, don't you think the results are null and void if you're sexting?
00:20:24
If you are a sleep doctor, please, please, I would like to have, like, some medical way in about, like, whether you should be sexting during a sleep study.
00:20:32
I truly, honestly, though, when he had that excuse, and was like, I didn't come home because I had a sleep study, first of all, I, it seemed obvious he was lying, but apparently not, or he did the most crazy Amazon dot com Halloween costume ever to get a photo of himself in a bed,
00:20:47
looking like he was a sleep study.
00:20:49
I truly thought there was no way, but also if you are doing a sleep study, he didn't tell her.
00:20:55
He didn't tell her the night before.
00:20:56
No, no, no, no, she did.
00:20:58
She seemed to know that it was on the schedule.
00:21:00
I read an interview with her in Vulture where she seemed to know that he had this sleep study on the schedule for a long time.
00:21:06
I just feel like if I would have a sleep study like this week, for example, I would tell multiple people, like, I would tell you, I'm not, I'm not engaged to you.
00:21:15
I would tell you, though, I would tell Karen, like, I would just let people know.
00:21:19
And I just, like, I didn't feel like he was like, maybe he was worth coming.
00:21:22
It didn't really, the vibe was not forthcoming.
00:21:26
Something deeply, deeply broken about the way Steven was portrayed and portrayed himself on this show.
00:21:32
I mean, just the fact that he was very adamant, A, about talking about the possibility of all of this and in the lead up, talking about his past getting caught for DMing girls and then leaving his phone on the counter with no password when he had just been sexting with a stranger.
00:21:49
It was just like, it's all very, very much, you know, begging to be caught vibes.
00:21:55
That was the darkest plot line for me.
00:21:56
Maybe that's his kink.
00:21:58
Yeah.
00:21:59
Maybe that's the fetish.
00:22:00
It was dancing on kink jam on pop gas, but maybe that's his, no, no, not whatever he was talking about.
00:22:05
Yes.
00:22:06
Monica's kink is definitely karma, though, now moving forward.
00:22:10
Okay.
00:22:11
Wait.
00:22:12
I want to, I want to zoom in on two of these couples that we've only glossed, glossed on, but you can decide which one we're going to do first.
00:22:19
And that's Marissa and Ramses and obviously Nick and Hannah genuinely.
00:22:23
I find Nick and Hannah's tragic on so many levels.
00:22:26
So let's do, let's do Marissa and Ramses because I feel like there's actual, there's actual meat on the bone there.
00:22:31
Nick and Hannah are two immature people.
00:22:34
No matter I don't care of Hannah, like left home at 18 and like runs her own household, like they are emotionally immature.
00:22:40
To me, that would have been like if the producers were like one couple doesn't go to Cabo, Nick and Hannah, to me, Nick and Hannah all day.
00:22:49
So let's, let's talk about Marissa and Ramses, which is a fascinating relationship.
00:22:54
So Marissa is a super, she's a former naval officer or soldier of some kind.
00:23:00
She's in the Navy.
00:23:01
Now is a civilian, but extremely pro-military and pro-military.
00:23:07
I didn't get the sense in the kind of like I wish to be an imperialist kind of way, but more in a, I see this as a group of essentially like-minded and similarly,
00:23:18
culturally and financially situated people all working together for common goal.
00:23:24
Though I did get some real whiplash from her monologue about the military.
00:23:29
Like you're saying she's extremely pro-military, but she had that whole thing about having her finger on the button to launch a missile to kill people and like having to, you know, what would it be like to have to look somebody in the eye?
00:23:40
Did she actually say a family or a mother was she saying that as I, I found that conversation?
00:23:46
That's what I'm saying.
00:23:47
That entire, that entire monologue was.
00:23:50
I had spinning and I thought she was saying that she was anti-military and then, but then she landed in the place of like, but I don't regret it and I might do it again.
00:23:59
I think she was saying she's an anti-jeff maybe, but pro-military, right?
00:24:05
Which is a tough, you know, team Ramses in that, that's a tough needle to thread.
00:24:10
Yeah.
00:24:11
Yes.
00:24:12
That is a, that's the thread that you have to thread it as tightly as one of his little brains.
00:24:16
Yes.
00:24:17
But I thought it was fascinating that Ramses, a person who clear seems to have genuine anti-imperialist of use, like a person who is skeptical of American power in the global sphere would knowingly choose to date a person who comes as a product of a mill,
00:24:39
not just in the military, but I think she said was a military household maybe grew up in the military as well.
00:24:46
This seems to me an incredibly short-sighted choice on his part.
00:24:50
And so for him to say, actually, the thing that I didn't like about Maris on the reason I chose to end our engagement is she had too much energy.
00:24:57
I didn't even get to the too much energy point much energy.
00:25:02
When you too literally, I think he, I think he is now what he said, I think he meant too much bad energy.
00:25:08
He did, I don't think he meant like she was hyper.
00:25:10
I think he meant she was, I thought that, no, I think he meant she was stressy.
00:25:15
He said, our energies don't match.
00:25:17
They don't align.
00:25:18
I don't want her energy in my life.
00:25:20
Or was he saying that she has imperialist energy and he had anti-imperialist energy?
00:25:23
Well, going back to the pods, I mean, this is another couple where like the chemistry was real and only intensified when they saw each other.
00:25:32
And I thought like they, you know, they overlooked some biographical and life goal disconnect because they had a lot going on.
00:25:46
Yeah, they had a lot going on emotionally and physically, I think.
00:25:50
But I also think Ramses was probably just wild flirty with everybody.
00:25:53
Like they did, they, this is another thing is they did not show like the producers outside of the Leo situation and the Marisa situation where they didn't show people essentially spitting game to other,
00:26:09
you know, to other people.
00:26:11
But like you didn't really see like I kind of got the sense that like Ramses was probably a bit of a flirt.
00:26:16
And like Marisa seemed to be in a place in her life where she wanted to be flirted with.
00:26:22
But I was very, very surprised that he would make a choice to partner with a person who knowingly or not and intentionally or not embodied a value system that clearly has nothing to do with his personal values.
00:26:36
And it made me wonder given the fact that he was divorced and feels like he was kind of like maybe like a dog.
00:26:42
I can't really tell, but maybe it was a dog in a previous relationship there.
00:26:45
Yeah, for sure.
00:26:46
He is carrying something.
00:26:47
It made me wonder if someone who, and I don't mean Marisa square in like a dull sense, but someone who comes from a more formal, traditional structured family.
00:26:58
Maybe he thought that's a person that makes sense for me so that I don't do whatever I did last time because once I'm faced with a person who was in the military and doesn't take masks and doesn't take golf.
00:27:13
Like maybe he thought that was an opportunity for him to kind of like step up into his next chapter.
00:27:19
I think she was really bristling up against what kind of person she had been and what kind of person she wanted to become.
00:27:25
And I think she saw.
00:27:27
She's definitely as a path to that.
00:27:30
You said traditional family structure.
00:27:31
I don't know that I would call Marisa Sibling's and mother a traditional family structure.
00:27:37
I hear fair, fair, fair, taken no take, but I do think, you know, hearing her talk about her Mormonism and whether faith would play a role in their marriage and all of that.
00:27:46
Like, I do think she was real, there was a real tug within her, which I thought made her an extremely compelling character and her pain when they broke up.
00:27:56
I thought it was seemed was really raw, so raw, so raw.
00:28:01
But her mom sort of cutting the tension by being like, love is not forever.
00:28:06
Like I don't believe in any of this.
00:28:08
Just like sort of pulling the rug out from the whole concept of the show was, was again, something that I think elevated the season beyond most dating reality television.
00:28:20
One thing that I was struck by with her mother again, number one, that the producer shows to weave that reluctance into the show, like her reluctance,
00:28:30
but also I think what the mom said is totally fair.
00:28:35
You know what?
00:28:36
You reach a certain age and maybe the person who you partner with, that may not be your partner for the rest of your life.
00:28:44
And maybe the reason that you, or maybe the reason that you think that is because you have been let down multiple times before and shows like love is blind are premised upon no matter, hey, no matter what you've been through before,
00:28:55
it probably wasn't good, but we're going to give you a fresh start to feel the other way, to feel that everything is possible.
00:29:01
And I truly think most people in the world are like the mom, most people in the world like the mom and like, hey, maybe this is going to work.
00:29:09
Maybe it's not going to work.
00:29:11
And even if it works, might not work forever.
00:29:14
And that energy, first of all, I'd love to see the mom do a really some other reality show.
00:29:19
Yeah, she should be a golden bachelor at, yeah, golden bachelor or survive, we're going to talk about survival.
00:29:24
Maybe put her on survivor, talk about, she go in survivor.
00:29:27
Chop and neck.
00:29:28
For sure.
00:29:29
Absolutely.
00:29:30
So truly a star is born with Marissa's mother, but I really was grateful for that perspective because I do think that that perspective, both is true to a lot of people's personal feelings.
00:29:42
And it also, it does undercut a little bit of the dream of the show, which is fair.
00:29:48
It's like we're so deep into the reality dating show era that like, you don't actually, you don't watch it to see people, well, love you watch it in essence to see the ways in which they're going to fail each other.
00:29:58
And Marissa's mom was like, that's about to happen.
00:30:02
Yeah, let me narrate that for you all.
00:30:04
Yeah.
00:30:05
What did you make the thing of?
00:30:06
What did you make of Ramses outfit at the reunion?
00:30:09
I mean, just as, as Marissa's mom said, I'm not messing with your style in general.
00:30:16
Look, I just want to look, I don't know why haven't looked to be fair.
00:30:23
I haven't looked at his IG, I have a lot of like Google Tim.
00:30:26
I don't know what, what does he do for work?
00:30:29
I don't quite understand what kind of guy he is, period.
00:30:31
Okay.
00:30:32
So I don't know what he does for work.
00:30:33
I don't know where he hangs out.
00:30:34
I don't know what his crew's like.
00:30:35
I don't know his team's like.
00:30:36
I don't know if he's like the alpha in the crew or like the seventh guy in the crew.
00:30:40
I don't really know.
00:30:42
What I do know is that I do not know any crews of any people cool or uncool that are dressing like that today in 2024.
00:30:52
Washington DC, but he might be the absolute like he might be the sickest guy in Fredericksburg.
00:31:00
I have no idea.
00:31:01
It could be, but I just very simply don't know.
00:31:04
And I admire the off brand references.
00:31:07
I admire that he's coming out with the full Curtis Blow 1981, like that's, there's something in that man that is serious,
00:31:18
but it is not his commitment to love.
00:31:21
The cheekbones are serious out of control, it's got serious face, great structure, great structure.
00:31:27
Unbelievable.
00:31:29
Do you think that love is blind?
00:31:31
I was really concerned about giving it all counts.
00:31:37
I was really concerned, obviously, after all the legal troubles, I was really concerned that this would be, in essence, the undoing of the show in on a number of levels, one that they would be overcorrecting for it in some bad way,
00:31:51
but two that good, sellable, dateable people would no longer wish to participate, but that does not appear to have happened.
00:31:59
And I know on screen, it feels like they righted the ship.
00:32:01
I don't know what's going on behind the scenes.
00:32:03
I don't know how shady the show is or isn't.
00:32:06
It's not any reporting that I've done, but it felt, it definitely felt like a stabilizing season for the brand.
00:32:12
And again, the fact that the couples that made it to the altar made it at a hundred percent, that I think is the show signaling to an audience.
00:32:21
This is what we're trying to be about.
00:32:22
Yes, we have couples that fight.
00:32:24
Yes, we have couples that break up, but we also have real conversations that lead to break up, but we're going to thank you at the end of the season.
00:32:31
The way we're going to repay you for watching the whole thing is by giving you the fantasy, or at least giving everybody but Marissa's mom the fantasy.
00:32:39
And we're not just here to humiliate people, except for Nick, except for Nick.
00:32:44
Okay.
00:32:45
You want to do Nick and Hannah real fast because like honest, first of all, you want to talk about glow, like glow ups or glow something also everybody, because it's so DC, especially this year, but just in general,
00:32:57
like people come to the reunions, looking crazy.
00:33:00
It changes also a year, the year between, but the changes in aesthetics and bodies in feet, like, there's a lot of changes in hand bodies are changing bodies are changing quicker than ever.
00:33:13
Yes, styles are changing quite quickly.
00:33:16
People get on TV and they fix their teeth, you know, like a lot, there's a lot, there's a lot going on there.
00:33:23
And Hannah was open throughout the show that she'd had ups and downs, you know, losing 45 pounds was a big part of her character in the cards,
00:33:34
the sort of insecurity between I'm a hot girl or I'm going to be disappointing to them.
00:33:41
You could tell that she was living with one foot in each of those worlds, which I thought made her very compelling.
00:33:46
Look, she was the main character of the season, I think, ultimately, and that meant, that meant that, that Nick had to be dragged along for the ride,
00:33:57
notably did not glow up at all for the reunion.
00:34:01
Had a whole year, had a whole year to grow his beard, even as long as yours is right now, which is not, like it's a little longer than my, and somehow for a year, couldn't figure out that actually he should grow his beard in a tiny bit,
00:34:14
couldn't figure it out.
00:34:15
Can we just talk about him quoting the Kim Kardashian sample at the beginning of Drake's search and rescue?
00:34:23
Oh, yeah.
00:34:24
I didn't come this far just to come this far.
00:34:26
We're going to go out from this segment with that as soon as we finish up on Nick and Hannah.
00:34:32
I honestly, that's my Danielle signature.
00:34:34
That's like literally every time I'm trying to get somebody's watch out and no, I didn't come this far just to come this far.
00:34:40
But that guy, that guy gives Drake fans a bad name, but, but it's also maybe more representative than either of us would like to admit he might even listen to podcast.
00:34:51
You know, right.
00:34:52
Nick, if he's got, I don't know if he's got to that level yet, but here, but I do think like watching them compared to the, the maturity of the two couples that got married on the show.
00:35:04
Like it was like you were watching a different show when it would cut to them, you know, the scene of them of him trying to boyopasta, trying to say bucatini, you know, all of that.
00:35:17
I felt like watching the real world versus watching like a grown in sexy romance on the other side, the Tyler and the Ashley stuff.
00:35:26
It's funny.
00:35:27
You say that Hannah is the main character of the season, but because did you not find her grading and fearsome and not in a good way?
00:35:34
I found her surprising at every turn.
00:35:38
I did not understand that she was going to be super type A when she was in the pods.
00:35:45
Like I didn't know she was going to be, you know, the vacuuming every day.
00:35:49
I thought the brother, the gay brother who came over for dinner was a twist.
00:35:53
And then they topped that twist with the sort of like super wipe red down the middle rest of her family.
00:35:59
I was on my toes with her throughout.
00:36:01
And I think she was hard to put into box.
00:36:04
You saw and you heard her in the first couple episodes and you thought she was one thing.
00:36:08
And then they just, they just kept piling on to that.
00:36:11
And I thought she was, yeah, quite a, quite a complex person working her way to maturity.
00:36:16
And I liked watching the journey I wasn't, I wasn't turned off by her as a reality television character.
00:36:23
You, you, you just thought she was, because I, even when they were talking on the reunion of, oh, she's getting such a hard time.
00:36:27
She, you know, she was so mean to him, blah, blah, blah, like I didn't really, I could see how that would be a takeaway from the season, but I didn't feel that.
00:36:34
You did.
00:36:35
Yeah.
00:36:36
I really, I thought she was an incredibly difficult and ultimately one note character as the season got deeper and deeper, because her disappointment with Nick,
00:36:48
which I think is a mask for her disappointment in herself for having made that choice or been allowed to make that choice or whatever, um, became the dominant part of her narrative.
00:36:58
And I don't, I did not find it intellectually or emotionally compelling, kind of as like pure thought.
00:37:06
And I didn't find it televisually compelling because it really like, look, I'm not saying Nick showed up and was like a great, perfect person, but I do think that, I do think that it felt it did feel abusive.
00:37:18
And even there's this hilarious moment in the life of you, where mo, where is abusive?
00:37:24
Look, this man, this man, can I made you the man that you are?
00:37:29
I made you everything that you are.
00:37:30
Everything you are because of me, I'm not saying that he's, he, he doesn't, he's not a better way to communicate that he is not sexually mature.
00:37:41
He is not.
00:37:42
He lives with his parents, like, I mean, again, I'm not saying that I'm more mad at him than Hannah.
00:37:49
He's not above review.
00:37:50
Okay.
00:37:51
I'm not saying it's beyond rebuke.
00:37:52
Oh, but I am saying he's out of the reunion when Marissa was like, this is my best friend and I'm writing for it.
00:37:58
Yeah.
00:37:59
You're mean to me too.
00:38:00
Right.
00:38:01
Yes.
00:38:02
Like, well, there it is.
00:38:04
We've just, we've just learned quite a bit about both Hannah and Marissa.
00:38:07
I want to conclude this half of the conversation this week with a sliding doors experiment, which is what if Leo had chosen Hannah or Hannah had chosen Leo,
00:38:18
because I spent a lot of time trying, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why what Leo thought he saw in Hannah and maybe that type of anus of how she,
00:38:29
like, moved through the world is like, I, like, emancipated or whatever at 18 and I built my own life.
00:38:36
Maybe he's responding to that, but that wasn't clear on the show.
00:38:40
What do you think happens if they, the sliding doors open and they look at each other?
00:38:45
I just think he's never talked to a woman with a Southern accent before.
00:38:48
I gotta be honest.
00:38:49
And he was like, this must be the most iconic woman ever, because he has an accent.
00:38:54
Yeah.
00:38:55
I think he was totally projecting 100% shallow, just, just exotic in a way.
00:39:04
I think he was totally, I mean, he, you know, ENTJ, as he said, can you explain, like, I don't really know what that means.
00:39:16
It's a personality type.
00:39:17
No, I know.
00:39:18
But I'm saying what is it?
00:39:19
Can you translate it?
00:39:20
Extroverted, intuitive, thinking and judging, natural leaders who are decisive, confident and charismatic.
00:39:27
That's the AI overview from Google.
00:39:30
What are you?
00:39:31
What are you?
00:39:32
I haven't, I don't do personality tests, but popgastmytimes.com, let me and John know what our personality test is.
00:39:38
Yeah, actually, that's good.
00:39:39
I would actually like, yes, can you send emails, let us know what, what we are.
00:39:44
And then maybe one day we'll take a test and we'll see who's right.
00:39:46
I do think he was correct that she is smarter, probably than she gets credit for on a daily basis.
00:39:52
And I want to, my closing thought is I will never forget the, the pasta moment was great.
00:40:00
But when she walked into Nick's bedroom in his parents house, looked at the bookshelf and said, Oh my God,
00:40:11
have you read all those books?
00:40:14
And I paused it and I counted the books in the shot.
00:40:20
There were 14 books, there were 14 books.
00:40:27
They were a thousand percent assigned in high school, as which he sort of alluded to.
00:40:35
There was a Salmon Rushdie book in the mix, which was the most impressive, if you want to, if you want to call it that.
00:40:42
Maybe Ramses snuck in and snuck in in the book, Dragon Keeper, Ice Fire, Stone Fox, I'm just reading off some of these.
00:40:50
There was a divergent book, there was a divergent book, and then there was Sophocles and Rushdie.
00:40:58
I just like, it was one of the greatest things I've ever seen in my life.
00:41:01
Have you read all those books?
00:41:03
Hannah, should you ever see the bookshelf by, you know, I read it more than Nick, I guess but I think she was just impressed that he had any books at all given the kind of guy that he was.
00:41:18
American Romance.
00:41:19
All right.
00:41:20
We're going to go out with a note of Drake in honor of Nick to protect, like I know, like look, in each of these couples, I think there, there's an interesting to like be skeptical of one person and protect the other person.
00:41:33
You seem to wish to protect Hannah, Nick for all his flaws, I wish to protect Nick.
00:41:39
So let's go out with a little bit of Drake.
00:41:40
We'll be back with Karen talking about Survivor 47.
00:41:43
I'm trying to use your name, but don't hit me up in W.I.D.
00:41:47
me, baby.
00:41:48
Now, send a word of P.I.C.
00:41:50
to see me, baby.
00:41:51
Okay, now we talk.
00:41:52
Okay, now we talk.
00:41:53
Okay, now we talk.
00:41:54
Okay, now we talk.
00:41:55
When we talk, you gotta last a night, don't want to forget.
00:42:02
We are back for part two of the Reality Television Counter-Program episode of PopCast.
00:42:25
We are joined, you know her, you love her.
00:42:29
It's Karen Gans.
00:42:30
This course is on the show, Karen.
00:42:33
Welcome to PopCast.
00:42:34
It's been a minute.
00:42:35
Thank you, John.
00:42:36
Yes, it's good to be back.
00:42:37
Yeah.
00:42:38
It's good to have you back.
00:42:39
A thing that we all have in common that we all share, and we've talked about on some occasions previously is our continued commitment to the Survivor franchise.
00:42:49
And I do want to say, when we all got involved with Survivor earlier in our lives, I do think it was better.
00:42:57
I feel like it's been an interesting few years and we've been, of interesting few seasons I should say that we've been riding out.
00:43:05
So in the current, I think lots of ups and downs throughout.
00:43:08
I mean, it's not like a, it's not like it started at the top of the straight line down to four to season.
00:43:14
I feel like we're in a bit of a dip.
00:43:16
The last three seasons, like yeah, the new era is struggling.
00:43:22
So we're in season 47, we're about halfway through.
00:43:25
We've all been texting about this among ourselves, certainly the thing that has been the most gratifying to me about this season is that they finally got Rome out and Rome,
00:43:36
this is about two weeks ago, Rome was sort of a classic, I think, new seat or new style survivor player, like very much fancing himself a strategic wizard,
00:43:48
real talkie thought that he was to echo something from the earlier part of this episode, a real high level thinker.
00:43:55
He really thought he was doing, really thought he was doing the do and in the episode in which he was summarily bounced, I literally was sitting on the edge of my couch in genuine fear that they were setting us up that he had actually in fact outfoxed everybody else.
00:44:10
Right.
00:44:11
Thankfully that did not happen.
00:44:13
What a relief.
00:44:14
But I do think it's emblematic of the law that we've been experiencing in the last couple of seasons, which is we are in generations of players who have grown up watching every single episode of every single season of survivor.
00:44:26
They know who got eliminated on episode seven of season nine.
00:44:31
They are candidly not that good at other stuff.
00:44:35
They're mostly good at knowing about certain things or can you talk a little bit about where we sit in the bigger picture in the meta survivor conversation right now to what you just said,
00:44:46
I kind of wish they would do a season that was like all virgins.
00:44:49
Yes.
00:44:50
Yes.
00:44:51
Exactly.
00:44:52
They should cast only people who have never seen survivor.
00:44:55
And that would reset everything.
00:44:56
Yeah.
00:44:57
Totally.
00:44:58
My detector test.
00:44:59
Seriously.
00:45:00
Who won season 10?
00:45:01
I don't know.
00:45:02
Okay.
00:45:03
Then you can join the cast.
00:45:05
Although I do feel like they have dipped in and out over the last couple seasons of the new era in trying people who are not super fans who are not crazy strategists based on the history of the show.
00:45:21
And I think there are like bits and pieces of that on this season.
00:45:25
And in the last few seasons, like I think we disagreed about this last year, but John and I were very compelled by Q and Karen was, I think, epically annoyed by you.
00:45:36
But I do feel like Q was not there to recreate games that he'd seen on Paramount Plus.
00:45:49
You know what I mean?
00:45:50
But unfortunately, Q was there to recreate like his college football winning season.
00:45:55
And I do think that even, even elements of Rome's game were a throwback to like chaos agents of the past.
00:46:05
You wanted to be a survivor nerd strategist, but he also had some like brand enhance in him.
00:46:12
You know what I mean?
00:46:13
Like some just total like, like I'm so unself aware, I have no idea what everyone thinks of me.
00:46:19
And I'm turning the game upside down because I'm not playing it correctly.
00:46:23
I do think something that's carried through this season is that people seem really upset and offended when having been voted out in ways that I just don't think are valid at all.
00:46:34
And if you're thinking of like Tiana and this most recent episode, bonkers, I agree with this.
00:46:41
Yeah.
00:46:42
Also, Tiana, how did she not know she was getting voted out given that she was sitting in her on her stump while every other person had gotten up and was negotiating around her.
00:46:52
And she just was sitting on her stuff.
00:46:53
I mean, Anika, the same way, I'm like, girl, nobody you, you, you were not a main character of this game.
00:47:00
Nobody was thinking of you as anything except somebody to vote out.
00:47:04
Yeah.
00:47:05
And she was acting like her heart had been wrapped out of her chest.
00:47:09
But they do think their main characters.
00:47:10
They do think their main characters.
00:47:12
And also I do think was it last season or the season before where there were like blind sides like eight weeks in a row?
00:47:19
It was last season because it was all the people that went home with the idols in their pocket.
00:47:23
Yeah.
00:47:24
Like Ken Street.
00:47:25
Yes.
00:47:26
So I think, and I don't know if this season's cast has seen that season, I'm not entirely sure.
00:47:30
They did refer back to it where they said like, I won't go home like those people in the last season.
00:47:35
Right.
00:47:36
Okay.
00:47:37
Right.
00:47:38
So, but I think it like got in everybody's head because they're looking at last season.
00:47:41
They're like, everybody's a genius strategist.
00:47:44
I am on this show, if so facto, I am a genius strategist.
00:47:50
And I do think the tears genuinely come from the revelation that they are not the people that they thought they were, especially in a survivor setup where, you know,
00:48:00
forgive the phraseology, but it's not jox versus nerds.
00:48:05
It's not a bunch.
00:48:06
It's not a bunch of people who can do all the physical challenges versus a bunch of people who talk about the people who do the physical challenges.
00:48:11
It's not that.
00:48:12
It's 95% people who talk.
00:48:15
And bizarrely, John with my guy's name, John love it.
00:48:19
Yeah.
00:48:20
Yeah.
00:48:21
John love it.
00:48:22
Just act.
00:48:23
Just act.
00:48:24
It's like everybody like saw themselves in him and we're like, nope, got to get him out of there.
00:48:26
Like, well, yeah.
00:48:27
This season, having a podcast host, like a quite well known one, John love it, former Obama speech writer, a founder of Podsave America, Rome, who we are for refer to as an eSports commentator.
00:48:39
He's like a YouTube, like a Twitch stream or something, like identify as an eSports commentator.
00:48:45
I did not do the research.
00:48:46
There's no, there's a radio like, yeah, Gabe with the big curly hair.
00:48:50
He's a radio host.
00:48:51
And then Sam, the young hot shot is a sports reporter.
00:48:55
Like, there are a lot.
00:48:56
And he's a freelance writer.
00:48:57
Yes.
00:48:58
There are a lot of media types there.
00:49:01
And this goes back to his teen picture, Karen, looking for Teeny's LinkedIn.
00:49:08
We have been pitched.
00:49:09
I've been to Google right now.
00:49:11
We've been pitched a lot of Ben Katzman, a second runner up from previous season who has a band or two.
00:49:19
No, but the overarching thing that I've been complaining about in the new era and continue to complain about is the millennial Gen Z tech media type person.
00:49:32
Which yes, is the demographic that is newly obsessed with survivor post season, say 40 or even post COVID.
00:49:42
But that doesn't mean only those people need to be on the show.
00:49:44
And I do think I've gotten like a bit of a breath of fresh air from someone like Sue who's a bit older and owned a flight school, which is keeping secret from people.
00:49:53
But it's cool.
00:49:54
Kyle, the construction worker, you know, going back, which like nods back to like, you know, James the grave digger from the golden, the golden years.
00:50:02
You know, it's like, we really need way more of those people and way fewer people who we might have mutual friends with on Facebook.
00:50:10
I do want just as a quick aside, Teeny graduated from Rutgers, New Brunswick in 2022.
00:50:15
So with a lot with deep respect, I don't know what the state of Teeny's freelance writing career is with deep respect, like as a former recent graduate freelancer,
00:50:28
right, who's made it all the way to here.
00:50:31
I would say Joe, I agree with what you're saying, but you have forgotten one of my favorite characters in the past few years, who was also a bit of a media person who was Aubrey.
00:50:40
Right.
00:50:41
Right.
00:50:42
But Aubrey, I feel like Aubrey is from a previous generation where the survivor nerd was a new archetype, like the, the, um, the last, yeah, what's our man, the, the small nerd guy who writes for TV,
00:50:54
uh, who won, uh, you know, I'm talking about, uh, like, it's like his last name, right?
00:51:03
It's a Clark center.
00:51:04
Yeah.
00:51:05
Survivor winner TV writer.
00:51:08
He's like a hero.
00:51:09
Yeah.
00:51:10
Yeah.
00:51:11
We're blanking.
00:51:12
Cochran.
00:51:13
Cochran.
00:51:14
Cochran.
00:51:15
It's a novel, the idea that Cochran could not only like be really good at the game, but win as the survivor nerd, you know, I, like, was he the one who had like written his,
00:51:26
whatever, like thesis on strategy and survivor, yeah, they were something, yeah, and like, and obviously a bunch of survivor contestants have since become professional survivor commentators and podcasts.
00:51:38
Yeah.
00:51:39
Like someone else hosts a survivor podcast, like in addition to who we've we've mentioned already dozens.
00:51:44
Oh, yeah.
00:51:45
Yes.
00:51:46
Yes.
00:51:47
Yes.
00:51:48
Yes.
00:51:49
I can't remember, but it's one of the people or whatever.
00:51:50
Yeah.
00:51:51
Yeah.
00:51:52
That's yes.
00:51:53
Yes.
00:51:54
That was way too.
00:51:55
See, it's just too, it's too much.
00:51:56
It's not that that archetype can't work.
00:51:57
It's just that it can't be the whole show.
00:51:59
Okay.
00:52:00
So I have a thought, which is obviously post-cogran, a number of people who maybe previously would not have applied to be on survivor are like, oh, maybe this is a lane for me.
00:52:11
I could do this.
00:52:12
Do you think hand in hand with that?
00:52:15
People who are more physical threats, see season after season after season of basically making it through the first two or three challenges to like help the the initial drive and then getting whacked either right before the merge or right at the merge and people saying I probably can't win.
00:52:32
Do you think it all that's in place?
00:52:34
So it's not simply it's an over index of people applying who are strategic nerds as much as it is.
00:52:42
The game has fundamentally been renewed not as a physical threat game.
00:52:46
I think it'll be interesting to see what happens with Kyle on this season because Kyle has played a pretty low profile game so far, but since the merge has revealed himself to be a real challenge beast.
00:52:59
He doesn't really, he doesn't really, he doesn't look like a jock, but he is like a blue collar salt of the earth guy and he's like washing them, you know, out on the field.
00:53:09
So like, I wonder if they'll see him as a threat or if they'll be too distracted by the sort of the strategists.
00:53:16
And another issue is that in the new era, idle hunting has become almost as important as having a social game.
00:53:24
So there are some people who don't even bother really having a social game and they just spend the whole time.
00:53:28
So it's like, it's that third category.
00:53:30
It's like a physical threat.
00:53:31
Like a brainy social player and then like the person who's just going to keep finding them.
00:53:35
I hate what the game has done with the idols and the people.
00:53:38
What do you think of that?
00:53:39
Where it's like, you don't actually find night only more what you do is you find a piece of paper wrapped in a wrapped in another piece of paper wrapped in some string, hiding up in the tree and then you got to go dig something out and what do you,
00:53:49
like, what do you make of that?
00:53:51
They're not even giving these people rice anymore and they won't let them find an idle.
00:53:55
It just seems like a particularly cruel, do you know what I mean?
00:53:59
But is that a reaction to the fact that idle finding became too obvious of a move basically?
00:54:05
Yeah.
00:54:06
Yeah.
00:54:07
I do think they've sort of, I will say in defense of the new era, I think they've been working stuff out as they go.
00:54:17
And I think they've self corrected on a lot of it.
00:54:19
I think they've sort of, you know, that we were doing a lot of prisoners dilemma stuff over like the previous five seasons, you know, like you lose your vote, you don't lose your vote.
00:54:30
You know, all this high level thinking and a lot of chance, which is my least favorite thing in Survivor, like, well, I thought they pulled it off on this most recent episode where they split the trial.
00:54:40
Oh, oh, yeah.
00:54:41
Well, just, but just the idea where like there are a lot of things that even if you're good, you can still get eliminated.
00:54:48
Like there's just these moments of total docess Machina.
00:54:52
And I think they've cut down on that and I think they've improved the changes to the idle stuff, the changes to the merge, the, the game itself, I think is like finding a medium.
00:55:04
You just need to get rid of shot in the dark shot in the dark.
00:55:06
We got one good moment when Caleb rolled a snake eyes or whatever.
00:55:11
You know, yeah, yeah.
00:55:12
Like that was awesome.
00:55:15
That's the peak.
00:55:16
Just like shot in the dark was bad before that.
00:55:18
And it's bad after and like they just need to get rid of it because it creates too much, too many contingency plans, I think for, for tribal.
00:55:27
But other than that, I'm like, I'm coming around on where they, where they've gone with the idols and the strategy of the game.
00:55:34
But when you say contingency plan for tribal, it reminds me that like for the first like 40 seasons, nobody ever renegotiated at tribal.
00:55:41
Right.
00:55:42
A live tribal, live tribal was, was, had never been seen before until like yeah, 10, 20 seasons ago.
00:55:49
I mean, exciting the first couple of times.
00:55:51
Yeah, I find it baffling and destabilizing and I, I don't enjoy it.
00:55:54
I actually do enjoy and I do find it baffling that like people were bound in the first 30 seasons.
00:56:01
You have to sit on the stump.
00:56:02
Like we can't, like I can't even look at the person next to me.
00:56:05
And then in a certain point, someone was like, Jeff is okay.
00:56:08
If I get up and Jeff was like, but that's one of the great things about the game, which is that it's so, it's very tightly made, but it's also very open and you can break so many of the rules.
00:56:21
But the game didn't get broken until like people only voted out who they liked for like many years, you know, or who they didn't like, you know, who they voted based on who they liked and who they didn't like,
00:56:32
instead of strategy, like the alliance didn't happen for many years, you know, like the, the, the, the fact that the game is like breakable and reinventable is to me,
00:56:42
why it's lasted almost 50 seasons.
00:56:45
But to a point, you know, and I think that it, they've, they've, they've reached a moment where the game had been broken so many times that like they didn't know where to turn.
00:56:55
And like to me, the answer is like, maybe take it back to basics, like make it really hard to survive again, have them out there a really long time.
00:57:02
They shortened all the, all the seasons, like I'm really looking forward.
00:57:05
I think like 50 is obviously the maker break.
00:57:08
Like they haven't done returning players in a really long time.
00:57:11
It's going to be that, you know, I don't know how far back they're going to go or if it's just going to be returning people from the new era.
00:57:17
But like to me, if you made that like a very classic game with lovable characters, like that could, that could be a new new era reset for them.
00:57:26
Like I think that's going to be sort of maker break.
00:57:30
Well, here's a question.
00:57:31
It's almost impossible to picture the game without probes at this point.
00:57:34
Like he's as much a character as anything else.
00:57:37
But like do you think it would benefit if he left?
00:57:40
He'll never leave.
00:57:41
I'm just, it's a hypothetical.
00:57:42
John, we, you, you had a thing last season where you thought he was over it and needed to go.
00:57:48
It was, was it last season in the season before it was, but it was recently it was two, there were two things that were happening.
00:57:54
And you remember where they taped like two or three seasons, like all back to back.
00:57:59
Yeah.
00:58:00
Yeah.
00:58:01
And like didn't it?
00:58:02
But air them in normal rollout.
00:58:03
Right.
00:58:04
There was something going on there.
00:58:05
I couldn't tell if it was like frustration fatigue of just like, I've been out here a long time.
00:58:11
I couldn't tell if it was like absolutely hate these people.
00:58:15
Like I wish to not be around.
00:58:16
Do you think he's been really frustrated by some of the cast members in the last couple years?
00:58:20
For sure.
00:58:21
The third thing is there were episodes where I looked at him and I, and again, it's like, I don't know.
00:58:27
And here's a medical doctor.
00:58:28
But he looked different.
00:58:30
I thought that was every couple years.
00:58:32
He lives in LA.
00:58:33
Yeah.
00:58:34
But like he, there was something where I thought he looked unwell for like a series of episodes and made me wonder is, you know, is it because he's AJ?
00:58:45
Is it because it's something's wrong?
00:58:47
I mean, this is not a perfect example comparison, but it was like there were stretches with TJ Lavin on the challenge where you're like, something's up with bro, like that's.
00:58:56
And so I had that a couple of years ago with probes.
00:58:59
And I was like, I wonder if something underlying and they've obviously nothing.
00:59:02
I could be totally wrong.
00:59:03
Certainly nothing has ever been made public.
00:59:06
But there did seem to be a combination of both physical and psychological fatigue.
00:59:10
In the same way that like a new era bachelor, just for whatever you think of Chris Harrison, it just doesn't hit in the same way.
00:59:18
It's not like that particular blend of like charm and smart, which was central to how the show is structured, like probes certainty.
00:59:27
I mean, that man is like a hosting superhero.
00:59:31
He should win best host of a reality television show anytime someone gives that award.
00:59:36
Yeah.
00:59:37
But, you know, not getting any younger, but I do think if he gets replaced, it's unless they reset the show at the same time that they reset the host.
00:59:45
I think it's unlikely to be a positive.
00:59:49
I think he is the show.
00:59:51
I don't think I'd want to watch it without him.
00:59:54
I also, I have a counter point, which is like, I think he's as good as he's ever been and still the best.
01:00:01
And among the people in America, best at their jobs, you know, like full stop.
01:00:06
Like I just think like President company excluded it.
01:00:09
Yeah.
01:00:10
Yeah.
01:00:11
It's just like no, like he's so competent.
01:00:13
And I do think he still cares, which is weird.
01:00:16
At the same time, like Karen, you watch Top Chef, right?
01:00:19
Like I thought Kristin sliding in for Padma, I love like one of the great and I thought her exact sort of mix of iciness and warmth was crucial to the show.
01:00:33
But I thought Kristin has like slid right in and I didn't even notice it.
01:00:36
So, and maybe, maybe I'm wrong and I wouldn't miss probes as much as I think I would.
01:00:40
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01:00:46
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01:01:00
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01:01:11
But can I just make one note that irritates me every single episode and Karen as an editor,
01:01:22
you will understand this.
01:01:24
I wonder if this is something that bothers me.
01:01:26
Go ahead.
01:01:27
When he says, once again, immunity is back up for grabs, that is a thing redundant.
01:01:36
You cannot be like once again and back up for grabs.
01:01:38
It's the same thing.
01:01:39
Pick one, immunity is back up for grabs or once again, immunity is up for grabs.
01:01:46
Like just, wow, you're not wrong with the copy.
01:01:48
Where is the copy?
01:01:49
They drive every episode drives me nuts for 25 years.
01:01:59
Yes.
01:02:00
Literally, I like this will be the episode and you finally stop, stop doing it.
01:02:04
Oh no.
01:02:05
It's me.
01:02:06
Stop doing that.
01:02:07
Please.
01:02:08
Anyway, Karen, what you're bothered me.
01:02:10
I was bummed when he stopped saying, come on in, guys, I didn't find guys to be a gender term.
01:02:16
And I was sad that they lost that.
01:02:18
And I can't stand when they get to a challenge and he says, let's get it on.
01:02:24
Stop saying that.
01:02:25
Stop.
01:02:26
Stop.
01:02:27
Yeah.
01:02:28
But I do like, I do like when he's like, this challenge is all.
01:02:32
You know, when he does the voices, the live voice, like he's like, like live, like I do like that.
01:02:41
Okay.
01:02:42
People this, okay, of competitors this season, look, I think it's slim thickens.
01:02:47
But if you're rooting for a person, who are you rooting for?
01:02:51
And Karen, if it's the person that you said to me in text, like two weeks ago, that is wrong.
01:02:56
We'll do it.
01:02:57
Why don't we do a, you know, will win prediction and a favorite wish they would win prediction.
01:03:04
I can't remember what I said to you.
01:03:06
Well, what's all right?
01:03:07
Do you go first that?
01:03:08
I'll tell you.
01:03:09
No, call me last, because I got to think about it.
01:03:10
All right.
01:03:11
I will.
01:03:12
I mean, yeah.
01:03:13
All right.
01:03:14
Well, I'm just going to, I want to run through the last, the previous four winners, because I do think it says something about where the show is.
01:03:18
So we had Gabler in 43, to me, up top five or survivor winners of all time, even covering the dark years of like the, the late 20s or whatever was very strange,
01:03:31
like kind of wanted at the final tribal by pulling on hard strings, but did not play a good game.
01:03:37
Other ones, especially because Jesse is one of the best players of the new era.
01:03:41
He got voted out right before final tribal.
01:03:43
I guarantee we'll see him back on 50 because I feel like he, you know, he was the one who had been in prison and a gang member of that.
01:03:49
He was, he was like, he's survivor, all survivor, and higher us for the season 50.
01:03:55
He'll be back.
01:03:56
All right.
01:03:57
We had YAMM.
01:03:58
Pretty good winner.
01:03:59
44.
01:04:00
Right.
01:04:01
I think we all loved, we all loved the YAMM, but not as much as some of us love it.
01:04:04
Yeah.
01:04:05
I'm a Carolina guy personally, but YAMM played a good game.
01:04:08
D 145.
01:04:09
No.
01:04:10
Was it big on me?
01:04:11
Yeah.
01:04:12
That was a, that was not a great, not a great selection, Emily and Drew were in there.
01:04:17
I liked them.
01:04:18
They were good players, but, but yeah, D and then last season was Kenzie, who Karen, you were pro, you were pro Kenzie.
01:04:25
Very pro Kenzie.
01:04:26
Okay.
01:04:27
So with that, with that set, I'm like, it's time for Sue to win, survivor for 47.
01:04:34
I want, I want Sue to win.
01:04:36
I think like it's an older woman is often in the mix at the end, but very rarely seals the deal.
01:04:44
Shout out to Tina, you know, all the way, all the way back in the day.
01:04:50
So I would like Sue to carry it, but I kind of think it's going to be Rachel, the graphic designer, or I feel like Saul could win.
01:05:01
I think Saul is very solid and playing and playing a great game.
01:05:07
And now the Rome is out.
01:05:08
Now that Rome is out, it's like most obvious antagonists, because there was like pure antagonism list, first like five episodes.
01:05:14
Yeah.
01:05:15
And I think Gabe's playing too hard.
01:05:17
I think Sam is playing too hard.
01:05:19
Think Sierra is a non-factor.
01:05:21
Teenie.
01:05:22
I'm on the fence about it.
01:05:23
I got to see how Teenie irons out the next couple episodes.
01:05:26
John, what are we?
01:05:27
No, no.
01:05:28
Karen Gans going next.
01:05:30
I can't, I can't remember who I said I hoped to win because I'm also going to Sue now.
01:05:37
I think Sue deserves to win.
01:05:39
I know I didn't say that, but I have, I've changed my opinion.
01:05:42
Sue, Sue lying about her age has been phenomenal.
01:05:46
Sue, I mean, look, I know that like you're trapped on nylon, you don't know anything about anybody.
01:05:52
You believe whatever people tell or whatever, Sue being like, I'm however old, which is younger than me and Karen.
01:05:57
She's 40 years old.
01:05:58
She's 40 years old.
01:05:59
Yeah.
01:06:00
Yeah.
01:06:01
Respectfully.
01:06:02
Respectfully.
01:06:03
There is, there is, except that it's a value is out there.
01:06:07
There's amazing content of Tyson, former survivor winner, asking his kids how old they think Sue is.
01:06:14
Oh, no, Instagram.
01:06:15
Okay.
01:06:16
I recommend it if you haven't seen that.
01:06:17
I mean, but children can't jump with people, their 40s look like, these are adult humans.
01:06:22
It's like unfathomable to me that they don't know what a woman in her 40s look like.
01:06:25
I think they know and they're just keeping it moving.
01:06:28
Okay.
01:06:29
Because like she probably could have said like 53 and pulled it off, but she's, she went like for 20 years younger.
01:06:35
Wasn't Saul who looked to look at her in the eyes and said like, we look good for our age.
01:06:39
Like saying that they were the same age.
01:06:41
Exactly.
01:06:42
Yeah.
01:06:43
That was a great moment.
01:06:44
That was great.
01:06:45
But I agree with you on Sue for all the reasons you said also like she didn't do the best job of covering up that paint thing, but she was so funny.
01:06:53
You know, see like that?
01:06:54
Like that was a gimmick that I enjoyed.
01:06:56
I thought the paint, the paint move was, it was really funny.
01:06:58
I did.
01:06:59
I loved it.
01:07:00
It looked like blood.
01:07:01
They're like, she was missing it.
01:07:02
There's a giant pile of blood.
01:07:03
It was so, that's so difficult to clean up a bunch of paint that has fallen from the sky in the jungle without getting caught.
01:07:09
Like she did her best, but.
01:07:10
Yeah.
01:07:11
No, she did.
01:07:12
And like I just appreciate her like general bad assness and the fact that like, she's not really, she's not playing too much with her heart.
01:07:18
She seems like a very strategic player.
01:07:22
And I mean, I kind of have a soft spot for Genevieve.
01:07:25
We don't discuss her much, but I don't know.
01:07:27
I think she's, I think she's wily.
01:07:29
Yeah.
01:07:30
I like Kyle of all the physical players.
01:07:32
He's my favorite.
01:07:34
Not much of a strategist, but just seems like a nice guy.
01:07:36
I'd be happy to hang around with him.
01:07:37
We haven't talked about Andy and the AI guy at all.
01:07:40
Andy, I want to murder with my parents.
01:07:43
Okay.
01:07:44
This is, we, we somehow got this far into the conversation without talking about.
01:07:49
The new new survivor archetype is not a joke.
01:07:52
It's not a nerd.
01:07:53
It's a person who quite literally cannot handle being on survivor.
01:07:56
Yeah.
01:07:57
Somebody with an emotional, emotional meltdown.
01:08:00
It's someone who's been kidnapped, like literally, it's like someone who thinks this is squid game.
01:08:05
I didn't say millennial Gen Z.
01:08:11
I thought that covered over over anxious.
01:08:12
It is striking to watch, like whether it's Bonnie last season, an absolute nuttier of survivor contestors or Andy, who obviously now thinks of himself as strategic genius and doesn't realize he's just getting along until last week does realize he's getting strong along by everybody.
01:08:31
But like, look, I know there are medical screenings, psych screenings, like I know that there are all kinds of screenings.
01:08:40
I am simply suggesting that they are screening four things, not screenings, things out.
01:08:44
Yeah.
01:08:45
You forgot about Jolinsky from last year, the, the one who made it even last year on this season.
01:08:52
Jolinsky's a top five player on this season.
01:08:56
But Ben, last season, they all spent sleepless nights holding his hand and getting him through panic attacks.
01:09:01
Literally, you don't have to be here.
01:09:05
We are in the anxiety era of survivor, certainly.
01:09:08
It's miserable.
01:09:09
It's genuinely miserable.
01:09:10
Yeah.
01:09:11
Yeah.
01:09:12
And the person you told, Karen, the person you told me you were most excited about was Teenie, which was actually like Teenie.
01:09:17
I don't think he is going to win.
01:09:19
But like, I like watching her play.
01:09:20
Go visit her in her hometown of Manahawk in New Jersey.
01:09:23
You guys going out.
01:09:25
Okay.
01:09:26
So here's a thing early in the season.
01:09:28
I felt exactly as you guys felt about Sue.
01:09:31
I was like, Sue, the sleeper, Sue is going to get through the first, you know, probably gets to the merge.
01:09:36
No one's going to take on that.
01:09:37
Seriously.
01:09:38
Gabe was kind of like, oh, I'm looking to form a bond with an older, older woman.
01:09:45
What kind of weird, what kind of weird hinge app, hinge app, approach is the defending game.
01:09:51
Young man, old woman, older woman.
01:09:53
It always works.
01:09:54
It's a great, great super.
01:09:55
But I didn't say it like that though.
01:10:00
And that would be my strategy.
01:10:01
Okay.
01:10:02
So if there are any people who are 42, who would like to partner with Joe on a future, that's the survivor.
01:10:10
Just know that that's possible.
01:10:11
My early thing was like, Sue's going to get through the first five, six weeks, going to make it to the merge and then going to start shopping next.
01:10:19
She is not shopped the neck.
01:10:21
Right.
01:10:22
Everything, the smaller the game has gotten, I actually think the more fraught she's gotten.
01:10:27
So I don't know if there's like a second wave.
01:10:30
On the plus side, no one seems to be gunning for her.
01:10:32
But I don't, I don't see the like proactive, apart from the pink cleanup thing.
01:10:37
Which is why I still have an idol though.
01:10:39
Right.
01:10:40
I think she still has an idol.
01:10:41
I think she hasn't played it yet.
01:10:42
Yeah.
01:10:43
Right.
01:10:44
So.
01:10:45
Okay.
01:10:46
So here's who I think is going to win.
01:10:47
Caroline's going to win.
01:10:48
Because I think she is like Genevieve, but less abrasive.
01:10:53
To me, Caroline and Genevieve are the two genuinely most dangerous players here.
01:10:58
They're true strategic thinkers.
01:11:00
They're willing to form alliances with unexpected people.
01:11:04
And I think that they're both way, way, way sharper than they're actually letting on in a kind of like day to day, what we're seeing in terms of how they communicate.
01:11:13
So I believe Caroline or Genevieve, but most likely Caroline.
01:11:18
That type also, that type has come up a lot over the last couple of years.
01:11:22
Because she's like Emily, the investment analyst, you know, 45 or like Franning, and like Franney from 44, like they have, and then, you know, there's a long line of analytical women who power through survivor.
01:11:36
But I think she's going to be seen as a strategic threat and I don't know that she has a lot of personal, deeper relationships.
01:11:44
Caroline, you're saying.
01:11:45
Yeah.
01:11:46
Yeah, I just, but I just don't know that there's anybody smart enough to get five votes against her at this particular point or anybody who feels like they need to gather five votes against her.
01:11:56
And by the time I think they think they need the votes, I think it's going to be to keep it to the season.
01:12:00
Who I would be happy if they won.
01:12:01
Unfortunately, there's already been voted out.
01:12:03
That was Kishan.
01:12:04
Kishan.
01:12:05
I know you liked him.
01:12:06
I mean, from a distance, like new anxiety survivor, but actually was like, I'm going to literally take an ice pick and shove in your stomach survivor.
01:12:15
And I real obviously started feeling himself was like I'm playing a heavy hand, did like one or two many, one or two too many conversations and got got by Genevieve,
01:12:28
who is one of the better strategic players, but in my, what I would have liked to have seen, what made me happy is if you like hold it back 20% somehow gotten to the merge and then just done the thing that room thought he was doing,
01:12:41
which is literally stir every pot and then walk away and laugh.
01:12:46
Yeah.
01:12:47
They were smart to wipe.
01:12:48
They were really smart to wipe them out really.
01:12:49
They really like like the thing is they didn't see it at all.
01:12:53
And then they saw it in like bright technicolor like on one day and then they were like that with this guy.
01:12:58
But that's who I would have liked to have seen make it all the way.
01:13:00
But I think I'm going to go with Caroline to.
01:13:02
All right.
01:13:03
So we'll come back and we will, we will, we will start work segment for the ending of the season.
01:13:09
Important final question.
01:13:10
Yeah.
01:13:11
Which of the three of us would go for this on the show?
01:13:12
Have we not done this on on pop cast?
01:13:14
No.
01:13:15
We've done it over text.
01:13:17
I, okay.
01:13:18
So I'm, I'm, I'm a survivor of anyways is zero, zero idea of wanting to play.
01:13:26
I don't think I would deal well with the comfort.
01:13:28
I think I could do the physical aspect.
01:13:30
I think I could do the strategic aspect.
01:13:31
I have no interest in surviving.
01:13:34
Same.
01:13:35
So I have just, I, you know, I just think I just like the bug bites and the, the, the scabs is just like that.
01:13:41
So be like, you'd be like Bob.
01:13:43
Andy and you just be like, yeah, I just, I, I, I think I don't think I could, I don't think I could go far because of discomfort.
01:13:50
I think it's, it's care.
01:13:51
Yeah, it's Karen.
01:13:52
It's obviously.
01:13:53
It's like obviously Karen.
01:13:54
Yeah.
01:13:55
It's like literally it's so obvious.
01:13:56
I can't believe you're asking the question.
01:13:58
Yeah.
01:13:59
I can do.
01:14:00
I think most likely to get voted out first is John 100%.
01:14:06
I thank you.
01:14:08
Yeah.
01:14:09
I think you and John love it.
01:14:12
You know, you know, you and John, you're going to be a spin off.
01:14:16
We're doing a spin off pod.
01:14:17
First out.
01:14:18
First thing I got in in the ocean being like, you heard my podcast or no, I was just going to give you a pop cast.
01:14:26
I've been putting pop cast stickers up all over Fiji.
01:14:28
It's a beautiful place.
01:14:30
All the testimonials would be like, John, he's talking about this podcast.
01:14:34
He's on.
01:14:35
I don't want to hear about anyone.
01:14:36
No, I honestly, I would really, I would almost pay to see here what they would say about all of us.
01:14:40
I could deal with the discomfort.
01:14:41
Like, it's fine.
01:14:42
Yeah.
01:14:43
I don't think I can do.
01:14:44
I think I'd be bad at the challenges.
01:14:45
I think what I, when I was way younger, I was a physical threat.
01:14:48
No, I think that would help your game.
01:14:50
That's why I would last longer because if you were, that makes you a yes.
01:14:54
Whatever a team.
01:14:55
They feel like she's drowning.
01:14:56
How is she helping the team carry the actual hardest thing for you would be able to look people in the eye and not let them know you were super annoyed by that.
01:15:05
Yeah, that's true.
01:15:06
That's true.
01:15:07
You would be like Emily in the beginning of the season where Emily would just like look at the person and be like, you're not that smart.
01:15:13
You're, I find, I find you uncharismatic.
01:15:16
You're not that smart.
01:15:17
And I don't want to be your ally.
01:15:18
Now, I'm scared.
01:15:19
I'm like, literally 30 years ago, I've gotten old and jaded and now I just don't care anymore.
01:15:25
But I used to be very good at pretending.
01:15:27
We said this before we will get your tape ready soon because we also, we, John, you know, John, I also believe wholeheartedly that not only could you go far, but you would 100% get tasked.
01:15:40
Yeah.
01:15:41
100%.
01:15:42
There's no doubt in my mind if we told out your application without telling you you'd 100% get cast.
01:15:47
God, my poor parents, if they had to watch me on this TV show, are you kidding?
01:15:51
I'm, I think it's time for you to have a life change.
01:15:53
I think it's time.
01:15:54
I think we're going to do it.
01:15:55
That's what we're going to do right now.
01:15:57
Yeah.
01:15:58
We're going to do it off life.
01:15:59
That's our show.
01:16:00
Every episode of popcast ever is at nytimes.com/popcastsubscribe wherever you get your audio podcasts.
01:16:06
And now that we are largely paywalled, I guess you, you should subscribe to nytimes audio.
01:16:12
Then it's $6 a month or $50 a year.
01:16:15
And then you get the full back archive of all episodes of popcasts of the new era, the old era, the pro terror.
01:16:23
All errors of popcasts.
01:16:24
New players.
01:16:25
New players.
01:16:26
Absolutely.
01:16:27
Returning players.
01:16:28
Also, shout out to two returning players who I hung out with in Columbus, Ohio, the weekend, Rob Harbilla and Hanif Abduro keep shout out there by in Columbus.
01:16:35
We will be back next week.
01:16:36
Our producer is always his painter is out of the headstep of media and we're out.
01:16:41
The drive is spoken.
01:16:48
Once again, immunity is back up for sanity in sanity.
01:16:53
Is there not one copy editor on the staff of survivor?
01:16:57
It's been 47 seasons.
01:17:00
You can figure out how to not say guys, but you can't figure out how to de-redundify the one sentence that's set on every single episode.
01:17:08
De-redundify.
01:17:10
Literally.
01:17:11
That's fine.
01:17:12
I'm allowed to neologize.
01:17:15
That's what I do.
01:17:16
I'm a writer.
01:17:17
