Pod Meets Twirl'd: Survivor 5001 PART 1

Welcome to Pod Meets Twirl, a podcast that once chronicled two guys who had never seen Dancing with the Stars but watched a season and somehow walked away experts. From there, we ventured into Traitors, a show I'd never seen but Will swore he could win. And now we turn to Survivor, season 50, the big one. And this time the roles are reversed. Will has seen exactly one season, the first one. Meanwhile, I've watched for years. We are Will Friedle, who prefers his wilderness with room service, and Ryder Strong, who will hike any mountain but hates the beach. Two best friends, one devoted to the comforts of civilization, one who would never leave the woods if he could. Both reality competition scholars. Join us as we dive into alliances, blindsides, fire making, sand-related misery, and 25 years of television history culminating in a single massive season. This is Pod Meets Twirled, seeking immunity. How you feeling, Will? I'm excited, cautiously excited, I guess. And you're completely right with what you said in your intro. As my wife often says, if I'm in the woods for three days, I've been dead for two of them. So. Yeah, so, but you grew up kind of, didn't you camp when you were a kid? Oh, every weekend. I was in the woods every weekend growing up. I was a Boy Scout. I can start fires. once you had your own home you were never going out hell no you once you sit in a nice hot tub you never want to have to scrounge for water again would you do like an rv would you do like a yes a camper van yes yeah briefly and a big one right um but what is it that scares you or what is it that is it just a discomfort yeah i like i like things like showers and hot water and yeah you sleeping on a mattress and i shower like twice a day sometimes right yeah at least wait really Like every day you shower twice a day? At least. At least? Well, you have to keep in mind, I also work out twice a day. So I wake up in the morning and I work out and I do cardio or lift weights with the trainer. And then at night I do cardio again. Do you shower after you poop? Are you one of those people? No. God, no. I couldn't. I'd be showering 11 times a day with my stomach. Are you kidding? I'm a prodigious pooper, my friend. Very healthy body. Will Friedell, that's going to be your new intro. Prodigious pooper, Will Friedell. I am. i've got a very healthy body scholar and prodigious pooper oh my god um okay so it's not about it's not about like the animals or fear of the woods or exposure to the elements i don't mind bugs i don't mind uh you know oh a bear is gonna get me i'm not scared of the woods right i just i like being comfortable and i like not having to you know again there's a novelty to that stuff i get no like i i feel like with you there's um a piece to it and a almost a philosophy to it which i is completely and totally lost on me really the the idea that i'm getting like in touch with nature and yeah that doesn't do anything for you huh nothing whatsoever see i think that there's something so profound that happens when you look at an amazing stars you know like the sky filled with stars or i've got telescopes put them right outside right right near next to the little waterfall in the face of nature that is really important to me. And I feel like is even better when it's slightly earned. In other words, like you're- You got to hide to it or something like that. Yeah, you got to hide to it. Sure, sure, sure. And there's something terrifying, genuinely terrifying to me about the solitude of the woods that in that terror actually makes me feel good. Like I feel like I am somehow closer to reality or like closer to the real nature of things. Does that make sense? So are you one of those people where it's like the closer you get to tasting death is really makes you feel like you're alive? No, I guess not. Or it's like, I need to do 100 miles an hour on a motorcycle. No, I don't want that. No, no. It's more about the like, you know, the slight panic that comes from like being alone in the woods, looking around and being like, yeah, if I ran into a bear, it would just kill me. And it's not because the world's an evil place. It's because the world is just a place where things happen. And you are a physical body in it that as much as we like to think of ourselves as important, we're not. And that feeling of like not being important is really profound to me. And I cherish it, even though it scares me, right? Like I want to be important. I want to be the center of my own movie. And getting into the woods is a sort of shortcut to that sense of inconsequence of your own life. And I think that that's healthy and fun. I like to sit at home knowing how important I am. that's that's that's what i like watching your own tv show watching you like to sit at home watching boy meets world where you you you all the time and susan's next to you applauding she's applauding me you're amazing um no as a kid i did all that stuff i hiked mount washington and we we camped every weekend my my i would get home from school and we all had we were without the karate or being cool in any way shape or form my couple friends and i in seventh and eighth grade we were like Johnny from Karate Kid, we all had dirt bikes. We built a track in the woods. Uh, we were in the woods every weekend. We loved it. We, there's, um, uh, we found an old abandoned chicken coop and we spent every weekend and all the weeks we had off, like rebuilding it into this great fort we had. I mean, I loved the woods and stuff like that, but then I got to a point where I'm like, okay, I don't, I don't need to do that anymore. And I'm not gonna, there's no, I find no peace in it. So there's no active like, oh, this is the best thing in the world. I get to go and be in the woods by myself like no i'd rather go have a nice massage somewhere and get a nice meal and watch a show and go to sleep in a nice and and now you have you watch the one season of survivor the very first one but you have watched alone another survival reality yeah several times okay we've seen a bunch of episodes of alone and now that is way more badass than this way more badass and yeah that one is yeah that you know that one is true survivalist skills and and they have to carry their own camera gear. They are truly alone. Yep. It's hardcore. And you see that, that, that actually the survival skills, which are difficult, but are manageable. The real thing is the loneliness, right? Like you watch people start to go crazy being in the wilderness by themselves after, you know, 30 days or whatever. That would be the easiest part for me by far. Do you think so? Really? Dude, I was alone in my house by myself with my anxiety for like seven years i didn't see anybody so being alone i i was able to completely compartmentalize the difference between see that's why the show is called alone and not loneliness right because i being alone and being lonely were two very different things i love being alone i almost never get lonely really even now now it's a little different because i have susan yeah without susan like yeah yeah 12 hours goes by and i want to be with my wife yeah you talking about your mid when you were single I think it would be very different now because that what you see is like on that there was one season of alone where this guy was doing great he even made like his own chest he made the toys the guy who made all the toys no i'm going home i'm out of here yeah i'm going home i know like dude are you like he locked up his fake garage that he built and i was like i'm going home yeah it's no but no i saw that too yeah best on that show are the ones that have either just been through a divorce yeah or or they they need the money so bad they have something so important to stay there for like and they're doing it for somebody else that they're just going to do it their kids i remember that that one season where the guy built rock rock house yes and he was eating and and i soon i looked at each other and he he saved he he killed the um it was an ox or something muskoc and then and then he's eating the stomach and we looked at each other like okay when you're eating warm contents of musk ox no one's gonna beat that guy no he's gonna eat his own leg before he leaves no one's going to beat that guy and he dug a fire pit too right like he dug he dug it's called stone it was called rock house where the whole thing was made of stone he found the cave and then built everything around it and so i mean you're not going to beat that dude it's just not going to happen um whereas sue always says i would have tapped out on the on the boat ride over yeah where i would have literally been on the phone and the guy the producer's phone would have rung and he would be like i'm standing next to you like yeah i'm tapping out turn around and tapping out but it wouldn't be from loneliness it would have been probably from boredom more than anything else Well, so Survivor, you know, it's having watched most of the seasons I have to in our some of our promotional material for this season, it said on the social medias that I had seen every season. I actually haven't watched every season. What what's happened is I started watching it when my wife was pregnant and we started devouring every season. And then I watch it with my son and her. Now, the problem is they watch it sometimes when I'm out of town. So I've missed either half of a season or I know. that's not allowed I know but I couldn't you know hold them back from what you know they'll start a season without me and then I'll jump in so it's a little confusing and it's been especially confusing coming into this season 50 because there's a lot of people that I do know or I've seen but I can't remember what they did in their season because in part sometimes I didn't finish the season or I only came in 50 seasons how could anybody remember what everybody did in every season I know it's a lot do you have a favorite from the season whether they won or not do you have a favorite survivor that was your favorite the whole time ozzy ozzy's just the man the guy who's in this one yes he's the best of all time is ozzy ozzy's not coach no coaches no ozzy is the guy who looks like the drummer from a for okay yeah he looks like the drummer from toto he is he is by far the best survivalist ever on survivor he like oh yeah he's i i think i told you about him he's the guy who like will fish for everybody oh that's him yes dude so did you notice he already found like yams and everything he is like oh that's him he provides for everybody he is and he's never won he's been on the show i think four or five times and he's the nicest guy his problem is he gets too cocky and he thinks that by being providing for everybody that they won't stab him in the back and they always always stab him in there he's the one who had a problem with coach yes who i guess said that it was because of him the coach didn't win a million dollars coach is my the the villain that i love to hate coach he's a villain he's again knowing nothing about this i thought everybody so what happened coach's first season and some people do love him but it's mostly because they have mixed feelings about him because he's a very good player, but he's also very socially manipulative. Um, there's the season that really turned me against him, which I believe was his first season. He was on a tribe with somebody I'm blanking on this guy's name, but this guy was not very stable mentally. Um, and very religious and coach made a partnership with this guy and like four other people and said, we're going to go all the way to the end. Like day one, he was like the best, the only way to win this game is if we never break alliances. And then this guy was really off his like rocker and like targeting women because they were enticing him, you know, like saying like that woman is a, is a scent here from Satan. And because she's dressing and, and you're like, dude, you're just attracted to her. Let it go. It's not her fault. Right. Right. And coach didn't draw the line and say like, oh, this guy's probably going to say, he instead leaned into it, used religiosity to keep them tighter and said, let's all pray before every challenge is. And I find that really despicable. I agree. He made it to the end. He made it to the end. He did not win. The jury did not get him. It was a woman who also just sort of attached herself to him knowing that he might get to the end and she was smart and she won. But that's always turned me against coach. He's manipulative, and I think he crossed the line there, going too far into using religion to rally this team of people on his side. They did very well, though. They won. And by sticking with that group of five, because it is true, if you have a group of five and you never, no matter what, turn on each other, you can make it all the way to the end, pretty much, especially back in those days. Now it's gotten more complicated because of the rules that they've introduced with advantages. Well, this is what I want to talk to you about, because there's basic things that I, as somebody who didn't watch survivor that I don't know. And since I watched the first season, all I remember is naked guy. That's all I remember. And I actually remembered the girl from this one, Jenna, I think her name was. I remember that. So first of all, what is you, you're talking about new rules. So what is the new era? I actually don't know that distinctions. Technically, I believe it was a, it was a, it was a shift in the way the game. I don't know. Technically, but yeah. So I, I honestly, I had the same question. I was sort of like, Okay. We'll have to figure that out. Maybe one of our producers could jump in with a thought. But I believe it has something to do. I believe the problem with Survivor when it started was that the men would dominate the entire first half of the game because the challenges were so physical. Right. And the men would end up winning. And so women were getting eliminated, like, just, you know, within the first couple rounds and challenges. and so I believe at some point they decided to institute more puzzles and to make the social more yeah so it wasn't just and then um because at a certain point you know if your tribe is is is losing you just decimate there's like one person left and what was ended up happening is people would never want to vote their big powerful men off so they would they would just keep winning with their men and vote the women off so I believe the new era has something to do with that shift because the game is way more balanced now in terms of like the teamwork involves like a puzzle always or some sort of like throwing challenge that doesn need brute strength or physical ability Yeah It it much more balanced And then also um this you know, when it gets to the individual challenges, a lot of the challenges are physically tough, but they're often about perseverance in your own strength, like with your own body. In other words, you're like beholding on to something, holding onto something just by your fingertips. And it's like, it's your own weight. Do you know what I mean? So it's not like it's a, it's like, it's varied to the person. It's not like we all have to lift the same amount, you know, or whatever. It's like, it's all scaled to you. So it's really about challenging to yourself. So yeah, I believe that has something to do with a new era or the old era. I'm pretty sure. Also, here's the thing that I find, I think is a big mistake. You should never start a new season of a show, assuming everybody that watches the show has seen it before. Yeah. So one thing this did not explain to me in any way, shape or form, which I have no idea is, what the f*** does an idol do? Okay. So an idol protects you at tribal. So if you can't be voted out, you cannot be voted out, but you only play it after everyone's voted. So essentially they're wasting their vote. And so if you feel like everybody's going to vote for you and they don't know you have an idol or only certain people on your team on your tribe know you have an idol, you could then bust the after the vote. You say, hey, I'm playing this idol. And then the person who gets the next level of votes is the one out. So it can be a real turnover. so they have to they have to always be suspicious that somebody is playing the game with an idol in their pocket and that's why like ozzy got voted with he got voted out with an idol in his pocket because he didn't he he didn't play it which happens often people will just be so trusting of their team the team might know they have an idol convince them oh no we're not voting for you tonight blindside that person and then they walk out with their idol in their pocket so you can be voted out even if you have an idol you have to play it before you ever after yes you have to play it after the vote is, but before it's revealed, you have to play it. Yes, before they read it. And then you have things like multiple idols. Like people will play, I'm playing an idol. And you're like, okay. And then the other person who's like the next in line will be like, I'm also playing an idol. You're like, oh my God, and it'll go down. They've had like tons of weird things like that. The main thing with idols is that if it's played or if it leaves the game because it's in their pocket, it gets hidden again on the island. and are these always hidden or are there are do you ever win one when you win a okay it's changed every season you got you don't yeah you you win when you're yeah you win immunity through the challenges either as a tribe or when they get to the individual game you individually win immunity but yeah the idols are and there have been seasons with no idols and then there have been seasons where you get clues that can lead you to an idol and then you have weird rules like this time they have that boomerang idol that got introduced the billy eilish idol yeah the game is you know it's oh my god i just realized if you take her middle name out it's literally a billy idol how did nobody else pick that up that it's a billy idol okay got it yeah it's a complicated game and yeah it's pretty manipulative in terms of like how the rules change season to season you know they're they're ultimately gonna go for the best television and of course there have been times when you're, you can tell that they're kind of tilting the challenges to sort of favor a certain person or to give certain, but yeah, it's, it's a, it's a tricky game. The main thing is, you know, the three, the three rules outwit outlast and outplay. So those are the three things you really, you, you know, you, that you, you want to, uh, outwit your fellow players, you know, cause you're going to have to eventually be voting against each other. Um, even if they're on your tribe or working against another tribe in the, in the early half of the game. Let's see. Outlast, obviously, just surviving and staying there. Yeah. Outwit, Outlast, Outplay. Is that it? Yeah, that's it. What's been interesting for me is like going back to the early seasons, there was a lot of emphasis put on the actual survival factor, like how they got food. Right. If they got food, building fires, stuff like that, that has really for the large part been edited out. Now the game is now, I mean, I think people also psychological stuff, it's all the social stuff. Cause they are still doing all the physical stuff. I mean, you see in this one, they figure out how to make a fire, which was great. And you're still having to build shelters. You see them working hard. They're just not focusing on that in the editing at all anymore. So it's really just about who's partnering with who, who's going with who. And then the challenge is becoming the sort of showdown and the immunity, the tribals to be like the reveal of what's actually going to happen. So you don't get like there would be whole seasons where you just be listening to people complain about how hungry they were or that they were cold. And you don't get that much anymore. And I don't know how much of that is because it's not as hard as it used to be. Cause they did like one season in Africa, which was truly devastating. Like people were like near death because they were starving and the heat was going to, and they used to do a lot of seasons where they would do in like a culturally specific area. So you'd have like the Philippines and you'd learn about Filipino culture. They'd eat, you know, or whatever. They kind of now have just limited it to Fiji for the last like 10 years. They don't go anywhere to Fiji. And it's just like, it's kind of a standard set of circumstances. like there are fish there are coconuts you get a certain amount of rice um and you can get flint if you work for it so you can start a fire um and that was the other thing is i didn't again because i didn't know when they're like one team wins flint i was like okay does that mean the other teams can't just build a fire if they want to they just and i didn't know if that meant it's like one one tribe gets fire the other two you can't have fire right but that's not what it means but but it means you can still go and use it. You could make a fire if you knew how to make a fire. Yeah, but you'd figure everybody going on something called Survivor would know how to make a fire. Dude, you are, well, every season, not every season, but almost every season there comes down to a challenge between two people where they have to build a fire after, because they like split the votes or there's no other way to determine it. So they have to build a fire at the tribal council. And I shit you not, half the people that get there do not know how to build a fire with Flint. how's that not the first thing you learn it's first thing i dude i alex and i are talking about this all the time we're always like how does it's like not knowing how to swim yes dude you have to figure this out like get you know so yes i'm i agree with you like the first thing i would do is figure out how to make fire under any conditions but especially the fijian conditions right like knowing what my resources are guessing there's a book called how to make a fire in fiji exactly exactly and then i'd learn what what i can eat and what i can hunt and what kind of fish i could eat and then i would also starve myself leading up to going because you watch these people and they lose so much weight and also their bodies are so used to regular calorie intake you see like big guys crash because they have such requirements their bodies require So which is so weird That the opposite of alone Everyone on alone they put on as much weight as they possibly can before they go into alone. So you see these women that are like, I just put on 60 pounds before I got because they just know they're going to lose it. They know that they're going to lose all the body fat. So they're like fat is fuel on alone. So they're like, put on as much weight as you can. It said it seems almost like a bit of a vanity project on survivor where it's like i need to look good with my shirt off mike white worked really hard to make sure he remember he's like i've been waiting for this moment for months i'm like yeah with your 15 personal trainers exactly but at the same time it's like i i think i'd rather go in 30 pounds overweight and carrying a whole bunch of fat no i don't i because of their because they're so physically stretched like the challenges you want to be in really good like lean fighting shape yeah and also not be hungry you know so like to me i would i would be like calorie restriction going like the month before i'd be go to like a really low calorie diet because what that does is it trains your body to be more efficient with less food because you're only getting so much rice you're only getting so much stuff so yeah be used to it here we go maddie just said the player that won last season so she was fasting for months before going to show so her body yeah that's exactly what i would do which is totally it's the opposite of alone everybody on alone is like you put on as much weight as possible sitting around in right you know in cold weather and trying to survive it's not the same thing yeah this is like you yeah this one you just want to be because you're working hard i mean those challenges you see them yeah insane it's really tough man like it's not light you know and you're doing that on low okay my last question is a is a basic one um are these people hot or are they cold because when you've got somebody just in shorts with no t-shirt next to a woman with a parka and a uh a sweater what the f**k is happening are they hot or are they cold because i'm confused it's weather extremes man without shelter i think at night like when you saw them on exile island they were all bundled up and whatever they could have because i think but i'm talking at the same time you've got a woman there literally in like a trench coat and a and a a turtleneck next to a guy with shorts on i'm like temperature wise, help me out. What's happening on this island. Yeah. I think it's tropical, which is just varied, you know, and it's like, whether you've been in the water or not, or like, right. Yeah. Without shelter, man, it's intense. Like that was confusing. I know. Well, I mean, I think the game has gotten a lot better since, and maybe that's what the new era is, is locking it in in Fiji and sort of controlling those conditions because like they did an Australian Outback one, which was brutal. Like you get into situations where like the survival question overtakes the gameplay because it's like, we're literally starving and, you know, or our shelter gets blown away by a hurricane wind, you know, like that shit like that has happened. So I think now they've, they figured out the beaches. Like now they're repeat using, they're using the same beaches that you can recognize from season to season. Well, that's, it's interesting. That's their set. Yeah. I mean, it's basically become their set. Yeah. They figured out what they could control. There has to be a point where you've done enough seasons there where you've depleted their natural, right? Like the coconuts aren't going to be as plentiful and the trees. It's a good point. that you can use to make shelter aren't going to be as plentiful and eventually they're gonna have to move it right i know i don't know how they rotate it or how they figure it out would you go on yeah i think this is the one reality show that i would but again like traders i would probably be bad at it the same way that like aussie's bad at it like i mean i'd be way worse than him physically number one but number two i'm just too trusting i'm just too like i would be like i would want to play with honor and integrity but you said you can do that yeah but it's hard man you know like you eventually somebody's gonna have to say let's take advantage of you know writer's honor and like his word which but you would also have to you would have if you wanted to play honorably you would have to go in in ripping shape because what you would essentially be saying is i'm gonna play honorably but i have to win every challenge that i can possibly win so we're not voted off yes and i mean i think i would do exactly what aussie is doing which is partner up with a Machiavellian genius, like Sari and just be like, Hey, you're going to, you're going to help tell me who to vote for and help me and watch my back and be the strategic mind for me. Well, I'm just like here to help and like support and provide like, and I could never be that provider, but I, hopefully I would offer other help, you know, in terms of like moral support or leadership skills or whatever. But I, yeah, I would not be, I'm not a good liar. I'm not a good No, you're not. And I'm really uncomfortable with, you know, and I just would ultimately be like, nope, just take me out. Vote me out if I, you know, have to lie. Well, here's the last thing I'll say before we get into this. And you told me about this. You've said this several times, but it wasn't until I really watched. Jeff Probst is a phenomenal host. He's the man, dude. Phenomenal. At times he's doing sports commentary. At times he's a shrink. It's great. And I assumed that he had an earpiece on. Yeah. You know, that his producers were helping him. Turns out Emily Longoretta, who's writing our Podmeans World book, and she's a journalist, and she went and covered Survivor this season. He does no earpiece. He is fully on his own. That man, like, because I look at, like, Amazing Race and Phil, what's his name, who hosts that. I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it. Oh, I'm like, dude, your job is, like, you got the cushiest job in the world. Cause he just literally gets to fly around the country or the world and meet people in beautiful places and be like, you made it. You didn't like that's all he has to do. Whereas like Jeff Probst is actually engaging them and, and, and monitoring and, and like, um, overseeing, refereeing and overseeing. He's a referee. He's doing sports. He's like a trial judge. He's like a trial judge. Dude, he is. He's great. An entertaining host. Yes. He is man. And like, yeah, I just think he's a godsend. He's empathetic. Dude. He keeps everybody on track. halfway through the show, I was like, my God, this man is a good host. Yes. And when we started watching it, Indy like became a fan of Jeff Probst, you know, when he was a little, little, like five-year-old six-year-old watching, I'm like, it's a good person to look up to, dude. Yeah. Like he's like a hero. That guy is a really good host. He's like one of the few like reality show hosts that I'm like, he deserves every cent that he gets. Oh, guy's good. Because that is not easy. Yep. He's entertaining. Yes. He's, yeah. I mean, he's, it's really, really good at what he does. And everybody feels like he's on their side. Like, it doesn't matter how they behave. Like for the most, like every single person that's part of the game, they never turn on him. They never are like, Jeff, you really messed this up. Or Jeff, how dare you talk to me like that? He's always very upfront. He's personable. Yeah, he's the best. It was great. Yeah. All right. So we're going to pause here before we get into the actual recap of the episode, because it turns out we've had a lot of survivor back history to cover and discuss. You've been listening to Podmeets Twirled. The torches may be snuffed, but our questionable analysis burns on. We'll see you next time at Tribal.