Tonight's episode is titled "Reverse the Curse" and it's the finale of
S50. I wonder what curse they're talking about? Of the players left, who
has been cursed in the past? None that I can think of.
More later.
On 5/20/2026 1:17 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
Tonight's episode is titled "Reverse the Curse" and it's the finale of
S50. I wonder what curse they're talking about? Of the players left,
who has been cursed in the past? None that I can think of.
More later.
They'll be talking about this finale for ages. How could Jeff and who
was ever directing and producing the live portion of the finale screw up that badly? Cirie should have yelled at Jeff hoping he would realize he
was doing things out of order. There's no doubt they'll never do another live finale after tonight.
The game mostly played out as I thought it would in terms of boot order
but I was really surprised at how a few things went down. I did not see Jonathan winning immunity at F5 by completing a complex puzzle before
anyone else. If Tiff had got to the puzzle just a bit faster she would
have won, Aubry would have been voted out, and Tiff might have won the
game.
Aubry winning Simmotion at F4 was a huge shocker. As soon as that
happened I was pretty confident she was going to win the game.
I was super happy they kept fire at F4. Too bad Jeff ruined all of the suspense.
Flying loved ones out for the F3 was another surprise. Served no purpose
but I'm sure the loved ones enjoyed a free trip to Fiji.
I really liked the extended FTC questioning. Christian set up Aubry perfectly to seal the win. Tiff and Cirie also helped her a lot.
Jonathan's pregaming with Chrissy and Steph was very obvious during the questioning. So much so that Dee had to put an end to it. I thought
Joe's performance at FTC was even worse than it was in S48. He should
have asked Eva to help him out before going to play. Jonathan did good
at FTC as far as I'm concerned.
Was there a fan vote for the Toyota Land Cruiser or did Aubry get it
because she won? That makes her the undisputed biggest winner in terms
of dollar value for a single season.
Cirie winning the $100K from Sia was a given.She'll walk away in second
spot in terms of money.
It was nice of Aubry to acknowledge the past winners she played against
in helping her to learn how to improve her game. I'm pretty sure
mentioning Michele last and emphasizing her the most was intentional to
send a message to people to not harass her.
S51 is the start of the "Open Era" where anything from the past is fair game. It sounds like the Open Era will be pure randomness which should
be pure torture for players like Rizo.
If the S50 finale had been done with an After Show it would have been excellent.
On 5/20/2026 11:56 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
On 5/20/2026 1:17 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
Tonight's episode is titled "Reverse the Curse" and it's the finale
of S50. I wonder what curse they're talking about? Of the players
left, who has been cursed in the past? None that I can think of.
More later.
They'll be talking about this finale for ages. How could Jeff and who
was ever directing and producing the live portion of the finale screw
up that badly? Cirie should have yelled at Jeff hoping he would
realize he was doing things out of order. There's no doubt they'll
never do another live finale after tonight.
I am happy to say I did not watch one moment of the live portion until
Jeff read the votes.-a I was concerned about inadvertent spoilers, but I also didn't want to slow down the momentum of watching the episode.-a I spaced through every live segment and just watched the taped episode,
and apparently that was the right choice.-a What were the major screw-ups
I missed?-a How many previous winners were introduced?-a Only winner I saw in the post-vote part was Tina.
The game mostly played out as I thought it would in terms of boot
order but I was really surprised at how a few things went down. I did
not see Jonathan winning immunity at F5 by completing a complex puzzle
before anyone else. If Tiff had got to the puzzle just a bit faster
she would have won, Aubry would have been voted out, and Tiff might
have won the game.
Jonathan won because he whipped through the first part of the challenge
so fast and literally had more time than anyone else on the puzzle part.
-aTiff showed again that she is one of the better challenge performers
of the new era.
Aubry winning Simmotion at F4 was a huge shocker. As soon as that
happened I was pretty confident she was going to win the game.
Same here.-a Once she won that, I could see clearly how the game would
play out.-a If there had been an F4 vote, there is no doubt Rizo would
have been voted out because he was clearly the most likely of the four
to get winning votes from the jury.-a And if the fan vote was for fire (which I kind of thought would be the case), I just knew Aubry would
take likely-zero-vote Joe to the finale and force Rizo and Jonathan to
make fire.-a And given Rizo's track record of not being great at
challenges and never working much around camp (which would include
making fire), I was pretty sure Jonathan would beat him easily.-a And as
we discussed previously, the only reason the betting markets were
solidly in favor of Aubry had to be that the news leaked that she went
up against the two J's in F3.
BTW, I thought it was brilliant on Aubry's part to realize Simmotion was
a likely F4 challenge and to actually buy the challenge on Etsy and
practice it.-a That's really next level.
I was super happy they kept fire at F4. Too bad Jeff ruined all of the
suspense.
Not sure what you mean by this.-a Did he spoil something in the live segments about the fire challenge?
Flying loved ones out for the F3 was another surprise. Served no
purpose but I'm sure the loved ones enjoyed a free trip to Fiji.
I'm glad they didn't dwell on this too long
I really liked the extended FTC questioning. Christian set up Aubry
perfectly to seal the win. Tiff and Cirie also helped her a lot.
Jonathan's pregaming with Chrissy and Steph was very obvious during
the questioning. So much so that Dee had to put an end to it. I
thought Joe's performance at FTC was even worse than it was in S48. He
should have asked Eva to help him out before going to play. Jonathan
did good at FTC as far as I'm concerned.
It was a great discussion, one of the better ones I can remember.-a I
love how Stephenie got put in her place when she was so overtly
campaigning for Jonathan.-a Was it Tiff who kept saying something like
"Is that a question?"
Was there a fan vote for the Toyota Land Cruiser or did Aubry get it
because she won? That makes her the undisputed biggest winner in terms
of dollar value for a single season.
No, there was no fan vote.-a Jeff made clear the way to end the car curse was to simply award it to the winner after the final vote.
Good point about Aubry being the undisputed biggest single season money winner ever.-a Who could have predicted that?
Cirie winning the $100K from Sia was a given.She'll walk away in
second spot in terms of money.
Did Sia actually appear on the show during the live pre-vote segments?
It was nice of Aubry to acknowledge the past winners she played
against in helping her to learn how to improve her game. I'm pretty
sure mentioning Michele last and emphasizing her the most was
intentional to send a message to people to not harass her.
S51 is the start of the "Open Era" where anything from the past is
fair game. It sounds like the Open Era will be pure randomness which
should be pure torture for players like Rizo.
I hate it already.
If the S50 finale had been done with an After Show it would have been
excellent.
Can't disagree with that.-a Jeff himself said the players are at their
most honest and raw right after the final vote.
BTW, I counted heads in the shot of all the players in their seats, and there were only 23.-a Looks like Mike White didn't think the $10k
appearance fee for the live finale was worth it.-a Was his absence addressed?-a Guessing they made some excuse about "busy filming the new season of White Lotus" or whatever.
On 5/20/2026 11:56 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
On 5/20/2026 1:17 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
Tonight's episode is titled "Reverse the Curse" and it's the finale
of S50. I wonder what curse they're talking about? Of the players
left, who has been cursed in the past? None that I can think of.
More later.
I was super happy they kept fire at F4. Too bad Jeff ruined all of the
suspense.
Not sure what you mean by this.-a Did he spoil something in the live segments about the fire challenge?
On 5/20/2026 11:56 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
On 5/20/2026 1:17 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
Tonight's episode is titled "Reverse the Curse" and it's the finale
of S50. I wonder what curse they're talking about? Of the players
left, who has been cursed in the past? None that I can think of.
More later.
They'll be talking about this finale for ages. How could Jeff and who
was ever directing and producing the live portion of the finale screw
up that badly? Cirie should have yelled at Jeff hoping he would
realize he was doing things out of order. There's no doubt they'll
never do another live finale after tonight.
I am happy to say I did not watch one moment of the live portion until
Jeff read the votes.-a I was concerned about inadvertent spoilers, but I also didn't want to slow down the momentum of watching the episode.-a I spaced through every live segment and just watched the taped episode,
and apparently that was the right choice.-a What were the major screw-ups
I missed?-a How many previous winners were introduced?-a Only winner I saw in the post-vote part was Tina.
On 5/21/2026 12:22 AM, Rick wrote:
On 5/20/2026 11:56 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
On 5/20/2026 1:17 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
Tonight's episode is titled "Reverse the Curse" and it's the finale
of S50. I wonder what curse they're talking about? Of the players
left, who has been cursed in the past? None that I can think of.
More later.
They'll be talking about this finale for ages. How could Jeff and who
was ever directing and producing the live portion of the finale screw
up that badly? Cirie should have yelled at Jeff hoping he would
realize he was doing things out of order. There's no doubt they'll
never do another live finale after tonight.
I am happy to say I did not watch one moment of the live portion until
Jeff read the votes.-a I was concerned about inadvertent spoilers, but
I also didn't want to slow down the momentum of watching the episode.
I spaced through every live segment and just watched the taped
episode, and apparently that was the right choice.-a What were the
major screw-ups I missed?-a How many previous winners were introduced?
Only winner I saw in the post-vote part was Tina.
You missed the biggest screw-up of all time. Trust me, it'll be all over
the news tomorrow. After Aubry won immunity at F4 and chose Jonathan to
go against Rizo in fire, they went back live. Jeff calls Rizo out from
the back and starts talking to him about being in fire two seasons in a
row. Cirie and Dee tried saying something, the whole place gasped, and
Jeff told Rizo to take a seat with the jury not realizing they hadn't
shown the F4 fire challenge yet. After another commercial break, Jeff realized he screwed up and said something like "Now we're going to show
the fire challenge where Rizo loses." Jeff joked about screwing up the
rest of the night.
No previous winners were introduced. When they showed Tina I noticed
that Ethan was sitting right beside her. I'll have to look at photos tomorrow to see what other winners were there.
The game mostly played out as I thought it would in terms of boot
order but I was really surprised at how a few things went down. I did
not see Jonathan winning immunity at F5 by completing a complex
puzzle before anyone else. If Tiff had got to the puzzle just a bit
faster she would have won, Aubry would have been voted out, and Tiff
might have won the game.
Jonathan won because he whipped through the first part of the
challenge so fast and literally had more time than anyone else on the
puzzle part. -a-aTiff showed again that she is one of the better
challenge performers of the new era.
Yes, that huge lead helped Jonathan a lot. But don't forget to subtract
time when he was barfing.
Aubry winning Simmotion at F4 was a huge shocker. As soon as that
happened I was pretty confident she was going to win the game.
Same here.-a Once she won that, I could see clearly how the game would
play out.-a If there had been an F4 vote, there is no doubt Rizo would
have been voted out because he was clearly the most likely of the four
to get winning votes from the jury.-a And if the fan vote was for fire
(which I kind of thought would be the case), I just knew Aubry would
take likely-zero-vote Joe to the finale and force Rizo and Jonathan to
make fire.-a And given Rizo's track record of not being great at
challenges and never working much around camp (which would include
making fire), I was pretty sure Jonathan would beat him easily.-a And
as we discussed previously, the only reason the betting markets were
solidly in favor of Aubry had to be that the news leaked that she went
up against the two J's in F3.
Did you catch the comment from someone in the jury saying Rizo never
once made fire? If true, stupid on his part not to practice what appears
to be his biggest weakness.
BTW, I thought it was brilliant on Aubry's part to realize Simmotion
was a likely F4 challenge and to actually buy the challenge on Etsy
and practice it.-a That's really next level.
Quite a few players buy challenges. I do worry that her saying that will mean the end of the challenge.
I was super happy they kept fire at F4. Too bad Jeff ruined all of
the suspense.
Not sure what you mean by this.-a Did he spoil something in the live
segments about the fire challenge?
See my explanation above.
Flying loved ones out for the F3 was another surprise. Served no
purpose but I'm sure the loved ones enjoyed a free trip to Fiji.
I'm glad they didn't dwell on this too long
From what we saw, Joe would have been better off having his wife plead
his case at FTC even though she wasn't there.
I really liked the extended FTC questioning. Christian set up Aubry
perfectly to seal the win. Tiff and Cirie also helped her a lot.
Jonathan's pregaming with Chrissy and Steph was very obvious during
the questioning. So much so that Dee had to put an end to it. I
thought Joe's performance at FTC was even worse than it was in S48.
He should have asked Eva to help him out before going to play.
Jonathan did good at FTC as far as I'm concerned.
It was a great discussion, one of the better ones I can remember.-a I
love how Stephenie got put in her place when she was so overtly
campaigning for Jonathan.-a Was it Tiff who kept saying something like
"Is that a question?"
I think that was Tiff. I wonder if she and Cirie talked at Pondy and
Cirie got her to cool down concerning being mad at Aubry?
Was there a fan vote for the Toyota Land Cruiser or did Aubry get it
because she won? That makes her the undisputed biggest winner in
terms of dollar value for a single season.
No, there was no fan vote.-a Jeff made clear the way to end the car
curse was to simply award it to the winner after the final vote.
Good point about Aubry being the undisputed biggest single season
money winner ever.-a Who could have predicted that?
Not me!
Cirie winning the $100K from Sia was a given.She'll walk away in
second spot in terms of money.
Did Sia actually appear on the show during the live pre-vote segments?
No. I was expecting her to come out to hand Cirie a check but it's
pretty obvious the show has taken full control of the prize other than
for still letting Sia provide the money. lol
It was nice of Aubry to acknowledge the past winners she played
against in helping her to learn how to improve her game. I'm pretty
sure mentioning Michele last and emphasizing her the most was
intentional to send a message to people to not harass her.
S51 is the start of the "Open Era" where anything from the past is
fair game. It sounds like the Open Era will be pure randomness which
should be pure torture for players like Rizo.
I hate it already.
If the S50 finale had been done with an After Show it would have been
excellent.
Can't disagree with that.-a Jeff himself said the players are at their
most honest and raw right after the final vote.
BTW, I counted heads in the shot of all the players in their seats,
and there were only 23.-a Looks like Mike White didn't think the $10k
appearance fee for the live finale was worth it.-a Was his absence
addressed?-a Guessing they made some excuse about "busy filming the new
season of White Lotus" or whatever.
You must have fast forwarded too fast. Mike White is in the south of
France shooting season 4 of The White Lotus. But he stayed up late and
they had him on a satellite feed. Jeff talked to him probably longer
than he talked to Aubry. Jeff asked him about cameos and Mike White announced who from the S50 cast he chose. In a real shocker, he said
Charlie and Kamilla are getting cameos. Poor Ozzy!
On 5/21/2026 3:26 AM, Brian Smith wrote:
On 5/21/2026 12:22 AM, Rick wrote:
On 5/20/2026 11:56 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
On 5/20/2026 1:17 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
Tonight's episode is titled "Reverse the Curse" and it's the finale >>>>> of S50. I wonder what curse they're talking about? Of the players
left, who has been cursed in the past? None that I can think of.
More later.
They'll be talking about this finale for ages. How could Jeff and who >>>> was ever directing and producing the live portion of the finale screw >>>> up that badly? Cirie should have yelled at Jeff hoping he would
realize he was doing things out of order. There's no doubt they'll
never do another live finale after tonight.
I am happy to say I did not watch one moment of the live portion until
Jeff read the votes.-a I was concerned about inadvertent spoilers, but
I also didn't want to slow down the momentum of watching the episode.
I spaced through every live segment and just watched the taped
episode, and apparently that was the right choice.-a What were the
major screw-ups I missed?-a How many previous winners were introduced? >>> Only winner I saw in the post-vote part was Tina.
You missed the biggest screw-up of all time. Trust me, it'll be all over
the news tomorrow. After Aubry won immunity at F4 and chose Jonathan to
go against Rizo in fire, they went back live. Jeff calls Rizo out from
the back and starts talking to him about being in fire two seasons in a
row. Cirie and Dee tried saying something, the whole place gasped, and
Jeff told Rizo to take a seat with the jury not realizing they hadn't
shown the F4 fire challenge yet. After another commercial break, Jeff
realized he screwed up and said something like "Now we're going to show
the fire challenge where Rizo loses." Jeff joked about screwing up the
rest of the night.
I did see a news report about that. That's wild! I'm almost torn
between vindication over my approach of skipping the early live portions
and regret for not being able to enjoy the screw-up in real-time. After >all, it seemed obvious anyway that Rizo was probably going to lose in fire.
Here's the part I don't understand. Nowadays live shows like this are >almost always shown with a 7-10 second delay. That's why when Chris >Daugherty yelled out that obscenity when he won it was bleeped. The >director of the show has to be on alert in case someone in the crowd
yells something out or there is a flasher or something. I wonder why
they didn't instantly bleep Jeff's words and cut to a commercial? It's >almost like even knowing it was a mistake, they deliberately decided to
show it anyway.
Later today I plan to go back and actually watch all the live stuff I >missed. I do think watching the actual taped episode first and thenSupposedly Amber and Boston Rob were visible but again you have to
going back and picking up all the live segments is the much better way
to go.
No previous winners were introduced. When they showed Tina I noticed
that Ethan was sitting right beside her. I'll have to look at photos
tomorrow to see what other winners were there.
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2The game mostly played out as I thought it would in terms of boot
order but I was really surprised at how a few things went down. I did >>>> not see Jonathan winning immunity at F5 by completing a complex
puzzle before anyone else. If Tiff had got to the puzzle just a bit
faster she would have won, Aubry would have been voted out, and Tiff
might have won the game.
Jonathan won because he whipped through the first part of the
challenge so fast and literally had more time than anyone else on the
puzzle part. -a-aTiff showed again that she is one of the better
challenge performers of the new era.
Yes, that huge lead helped Jonathan a lot. But don't forget to subtract
time when he was barfing.
Aubry winning Simmotion at F4 was a huge shocker. As soon as that
happened I was pretty confident she was going to win the game.
Same here.-a Once she won that, I could see clearly how the game would
play out.-a If there had been an F4 vote, there is no doubt Rizo would
have been voted out because he was clearly the most likely of the four
to get winning votes from the jury.-a And if the fan vote was for fire
(which I kind of thought would be the case), I just knew Aubry would
take likely-zero-vote Joe to the finale and force Rizo and Jonathan to
make fire.-a And given Rizo's track record of not being great at
challenges and never working much around camp (which would include
making fire), I was pretty sure Jonathan would beat him easily.-a And
as we discussed previously, the only reason the betting markets were
solidly in favor of Aubry had to be that the news leaked that she went
up against the two J's in F3.
Did you catch the comment from someone in the jury saying Rizo never
once made fire? If true, stupid on his part not to practice what appears
to be his biggest weakness.
Agree. He is a great strategic player with excellent social skills, but
his refusal to do camp chores and especially his refusal to practice
this very basic skill is his obvious weakness. Assuming his inevitable >return in a few years when he is older, I wonder if he will see any
change in him in this regard?
BTW, I thought it was brilliant on Aubry's part to realize Simmotion
was a likely F4 challenge and to actually buy the challenge on Etsy
and practice it.-a That's really next level.
Quite a few players buy challenges. I do worry that her saying that will
mean the end of the challenge.
I was a little surprised Jeff didn't ask her about this in the reunion, >unless he brought it up in the parts I skipped. I think Jeff actually >likes it when players take initiative to practice challenges, like
Charlie and his hand-grip training or Rachel who did so much pre-season >puzzle practice that she eventually used her winnings to start her own >puzzle company.
I was super happy they kept fire at F4. Too bad Jeff ruined all of
the suspense.
Not sure what you mean by this.-a Did he spoil something in the live
segments about the fire challenge?
See my explanation above.
Flying loved ones out for the F3 was another surprise. Served no
purpose but I'm sure the loved ones enjoyed a free trip to Fiji.
I'm glad they didn't dwell on this too long
From what we saw, Joe would have been better off having his wife plead
his case at FTC even though she wasn't there.
I really liked the extended FTC questioning. Christian set up Aubry
perfectly to seal the win. Tiff and Cirie also helped her a lot.
Jonathan's pregaming with Chrissy and Steph was very obvious during
the questioning. So much so that Dee had to put an end to it. I
thought Joe's performance at FTC was even worse than it was in S48.
He should have asked Eva to help him out before going to play.
Jonathan did good at FTC as far as I'm concerned.
It was a great discussion, one of the better ones I can remember.-a I
love how Stephenie got put in her place when she was so overtly
campaigning for Jonathan.-a Was it Tiff who kept saying something like
"Is that a question?"
I think that was Tiff. I wonder if she and Cirie talked at Pondy and
Cirie got her to cool down concerning being mad at Aubry?
Was there a fan vote for the Toyota Land Cruiser or did Aubry get it
because she won? That makes her the undisputed biggest winner in
terms of dollar value for a single season.
No, there was no fan vote.-a Jeff made clear the way to end the car
curse was to simply award it to the winner after the final vote.
Good point about Aubry being the undisputed biggest single season
money winner ever.-a Who could have predicted that?
Not me!
Cirie winning the $100K from Sia was a given.She'll walk away in
second spot in terms of money.
Did Sia actually appear on the show during the live pre-vote segments?
No. I was expecting her to come out to hand Cirie a check but it's
pretty obvious the show has taken full control of the prize other than
for still letting Sia provide the money. lol
It was nice of Aubry to acknowledge the past winners she played
against in helping her to learn how to improve her game. I'm pretty
sure mentioning Michele last and emphasizing her the most was
intentional to send a message to people to not harass her.
S51 is the start of the "Open Era" where anything from the past is
fair game. It sounds like the Open Era will be pure randomness which
should be pure torture for players like Rizo.
I hate it already.
If the S50 finale had been done with an After Show it would have been >>>> excellent.
Can't disagree with that.-a Jeff himself said the players are at their
most honest and raw right after the final vote.
BTW, I counted heads in the shot of all the players in their seats,
and there were only 23.-a Looks like Mike White didn't think the $10k
appearance fee for the live finale was worth it.-a Was his absence
addressed?-a Guessing they made some excuse about "busy filming the new >>> season of White Lotus" or whatever.
You must have fast forwarded too fast. Mike White is in the south of
France shooting season 4 of The White Lotus. But he stayed up late and
they had him on a satellite feed. Jeff talked to him probably longer
than he talked to Aubry. Jeff asked him about cameos and Mike White
announced who from the S50 cast he chose. In a real shocker, he said
Charlie and Kamilla are getting cameos. Poor Ozzy!
And poor Christian! Despite his apparent attempts to apologize for
voting Mike out, it seems the two have still not talked since filming.
I think I read that Mike feels Christian was hamming it up too much for
the cameras, but I would argue Mike's own decision to be a contestant on
the season in light of his obvious fame was a bit of hamming it up.
On Thu, 21 May 2026 10:09:29 -0400, Rick <Rick@nospam.net> wrote:
On 5/21/2026 3:26 AM, Brian Smith wrote:
On 5/21/2026 12:22 AM, Rick wrote:
On 5/20/2026 11:56 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
On 5/20/2026 1:17 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
Tonight's episode is titled "Reverse the Curse" and it's the finale >>>>>> of S50. I wonder what curse they're talking about? Of the players
left, who has been cursed in the past? None that I can think of.
More later.
They'll be talking about this finale for ages. How could Jeff and who >>>>> was ever directing and producing the live portion of the finale screw >>>>> up that badly? Cirie should have yelled at Jeff hoping he would
realize he was doing things out of order. There's no doubt they'll
never do another live finale after tonight.
I am happy to say I did not watch one moment of the live portion until >>>> Jeff read the votes.-a I was concerned about inadvertent spoilers, but >>>> I also didn't want to slow down the momentum of watching the episode.
I spaced through every live segment and just watched the taped
episode, and apparently that was the right choice.-a What were the
major screw-ups I missed?-a How many previous winners were introduced? >>>> Only winner I saw in the post-vote part was Tina.
You missed the biggest screw-up of all time. Trust me, it'll be all over >>> the news tomorrow. After Aubry won immunity at F4 and chose Jonathan to
go against Rizo in fire, they went back live. Jeff calls Rizo out from
the back and starts talking to him about being in fire two seasons in a
row. Cirie and Dee tried saying something, the whole place gasped, and
Jeff told Rizo to take a seat with the jury not realizing they hadn't
shown the F4 fire challenge yet. After another commercial break, Jeff
realized he screwed up and said something like "Now we're going to show
the fire challenge where Rizo loses." Jeff joked about screwing up the
rest of the night.
I did see a news report about that. That's wild! I'm almost torn
between vindication over my approach of skipping the early live portions
and regret for not being able to enjoy the screw-up in real-time. After
all, it seemed obvious anyway that Rizo was probably going to lose in fire. >>
Here's the part I don't understand. Nowadays live shows like this are
almost always shown with a 7-10 second delay. That's why when Chris
Daugherty yelled out that obscenity when he won it was bleeped. The
director of the show has to be on alert in case someone in the crowd
yells something out or there is a flasher or something. I wonder why
they didn't instantly bleep Jeff's words and cut to a commercial? It's
almost like even knowing it was a mistake, they deliberately decided to
show it anyway.
Because production didn't know it was a mistake. The players did but
as Rizo even says in a clip over on Twitter when they called for him
to go out on stage he was confused but went along with what production wanted. Then Jeff orders him to join the jury and he does because what
else is he going to do at that point.
Later today I plan to go back and actually watch all the live stuff ISupposedly Amber and Boston Rob were visible but again you have to
missed. I do think watching the actual taped episode first and then
going back and picking up all the live segments is the much better way
to go.
No previous winners were introduced. When they showed Tina I noticed
that Ethan was sitting right beside her. I'll have to look at photos
tomorrow to see what other winners were there.
wonder why invite them and not show them. It's a case where a live
reunion show would have been better as they would have a segment
dedicated to the former winners. Maybe even start off the show and ask
the former winners their prediction on the winner.
The game mostly played out as I thought it would in terms of boot
order but I was really surprised at how a few things went down. I did >>>>> not see Jonathan winning immunity at F5 by completing a complex
puzzle before anyone else. If Tiff had got to the puzzle just a bit
faster she would have won, Aubry would have been voted out, and Tiff >>>>> might have won the game.
Jonathan won because he whipped through the first part of the
challenge so fast and literally had more time than anyone else on the
puzzle part. -a-aTiff showed again that she is one of the better
challenge performers of the new era.
Yes, that huge lead helped Jonathan a lot. But don't forget to subtract
time when he was barfing.
Aubry winning Simmotion at F4 was a huge shocker. As soon as that
happened I was pretty confident she was going to win the game.
Same here.-a Once she won that, I could see clearly how the game would >>>> play out.-a If there had been an F4 vote, there is no doubt Rizo would >>>> have been voted out because he was clearly the most likely of the four >>>> to get winning votes from the jury.-a And if the fan vote was for fire >>>> (which I kind of thought would be the case), I just knew Aubry would
take likely-zero-vote Joe to the finale and force Rizo and Jonathan to >>>> make fire.-a And given Rizo's track record of not being great at
challenges and never working much around camp (which would include
making fire), I was pretty sure Jonathan would beat him easily.-a And
as we discussed previously, the only reason the betting markets were
solidly in favor of Aubry had to be that the news leaked that she went >>>> up against the two J's in F3.
Did you catch the comment from someone in the jury saying Rizo never
once made fire? If true, stupid on his part not to practice what appears >>> to be his biggest weakness.
Agree. He is a great strategic player with excellent social skills, but
his refusal to do camp chores and especially his refusal to practice
this very basic skill is his obvious weakness. Assuming his inevitable
return in a few years when he is older, I wonder if he will see any
change in him in this regard?
BTW, I thought it was brilliant on Aubry's part to realize Simmotion
was a likely F4 challenge and to actually buy the challenge on Etsy
and practice it.-a That's really next level.
Quite a few players buy challenges. I do worry that her saying that will >>> mean the end of the challenge.
I was a little surprised Jeff didn't ask her about this in the reunion,
unless he brought it up in the parts I skipped. I think Jeff actually
likes it when players take initiative to practice challenges, like
Charlie and his hand-grip training or Rachel who did so much pre-season
puzzle practice that she eventually used her winnings to start her own
puzzle company.
I was super happy they kept fire at F4. Too bad Jeff ruined all of
the suspense.
Not sure what you mean by this.-a Did he spoil something in the live
segments about the fire challenge?
See my explanation above.
Flying loved ones out for the F3 was another surprise. Served no
purpose but I'm sure the loved ones enjoyed a free trip to Fiji.
I'm glad they didn't dwell on this too long
From what we saw, Joe would have been better off having his wife plead >>> his case at FTC even though she wasn't there.
I really liked the extended FTC questioning. Christian set up Aubry
perfectly to seal the win. Tiff and Cirie also helped her a lot.
Jonathan's pregaming with Chrissy and Steph was very obvious during
the questioning. So much so that Dee had to put an end to it. I
thought Joe's performance at FTC was even worse than it was in S48.
He should have asked Eva to help him out before going to play.
Jonathan did good at FTC as far as I'm concerned.
It was a great discussion, one of the better ones I can remember.-a I
love how Stephenie got put in her place when she was so overtly
campaigning for Jonathan.-a Was it Tiff who kept saying something like >>>> "Is that a question?"
I think that was Tiff. I wonder if she and Cirie talked at Pondy and
Cirie got her to cool down concerning being mad at Aubry?
Was there a fan vote for the Toyota Land Cruiser or did Aubry get it >>>>> because she won? That makes her the undisputed biggest winner in
terms of dollar value for a single season.
No, there was no fan vote.-a Jeff made clear the way to end the car
curse was to simply award it to the winner after the final vote.
Good point about Aubry being the undisputed biggest single season
money winner ever.-a Who could have predicted that?
Not me!
Cirie winning the $100K from Sia was a given.She'll walk away in
second spot in terms of money.
Did Sia actually appear on the show during the live pre-vote segments?
No. I was expecting her to come out to hand Cirie a check but it's
pretty obvious the show has taken full control of the prize other than
for still letting Sia provide the money. lol
It was nice of Aubry to acknowledge the past winners she played
against in helping her to learn how to improve her game. I'm pretty
sure mentioning Michele last and emphasizing her the most was
intentional to send a message to people to not harass her.
S51 is the start of the "Open Era" where anything from the past is
fair game. It sounds like the Open Era will be pure randomness which >>>>> should be pure torture for players like Rizo.
I hate it already.
If the S50 finale had been done with an After Show it would have been >>>>> excellent.
Can't disagree with that.-a Jeff himself said the players are at their >>>> most honest and raw right after the final vote.
BTW, I counted heads in the shot of all the players in their seats,
and there were only 23.-a Looks like Mike White didn't think the $10k
appearance fee for the live finale was worth it.-a Was his absence
addressed?-a Guessing they made some excuse about "busy filming the new >>>> season of White Lotus" or whatever.
You must have fast forwarded too fast. Mike White is in the south of
France shooting season 4 of The White Lotus. But he stayed up late and
they had him on a satellite feed. Jeff talked to him probably longer
than he talked to Aubry. Jeff asked him about cameos and Mike White
announced who from the S50 cast he chose. In a real shocker, he said
Charlie and Kamilla are getting cameos. Poor Ozzy!
And poor Christian! Despite his apparent attempts to apologize for
voting Mike out, it seems the two have still not talked since filming.
I think I read that Mike feels Christian was hamming it up too much for
the cameras, but I would argue Mike's own decision to be a contestant on
the season in light of his obvious fame was a bit of hamming it up.
On 5/21/2026 11:38 AM, shawn wrote:
On Thu, 21 May 2026 10:09:29 -0400, Rick <Rick@nospam.net> wrote:
On 5/21/2026 3:26 AM, Brian Smith wrote:
On 5/21/2026 12:22 AM, Rick wrote:
On 5/20/2026 11:56 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
On 5/20/2026 1:17 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
Tonight's episode is titled "Reverse the Curse" and it's the finale >>>>>>> of S50. I wonder what curse they're talking about? Of the players >>>>>>> left, who has been cursed in the past? None that I can think of. >>>>>>>
More later.
They'll be talking about this finale for ages. How could Jeff and who >>>>>> was ever directing and producing the live portion of the finale screw >>>>>> up that badly? Cirie should have yelled at Jeff hoping he would
realize he was doing things out of order. There's no doubt they'll >>>>>> never do another live finale after tonight.
I am happy to say I did not watch one moment of the live portion until >>>>> Jeff read the votes.-a I was concerned about inadvertent spoilers, but >>>>> I also didn't want to slow down the momentum of watching the episode. >>>>> I spaced through every live segment and just watched the taped
episode, and apparently that was the right choice.-a What were the
major screw-ups I missed?-a How many previous winners were introduced? >>>>> Only winner I saw in the post-vote part was Tina.
You missed the biggest screw-up of all time. Trust me, it'll be all
over
the news tomorrow. After Aubry won immunity at F4 and chose Jonathan to >>>> go against Rizo in fire, they went back live. Jeff calls Rizo out from >>>> the back and starts talking to him about being in fire two seasons in a >>>> row. Cirie and Dee tried saying something, the whole place gasped, and >>>> Jeff told Rizo to take a seat with the jury not realizing they hadn't
shown the F4 fire challenge yet. After another commercial break, Jeff
realized he screwed up and said something like "Now we're going to show >>>> the fire challenge where Rizo loses." Jeff joked about screwing up the >>>> rest of the night.
I did see a news report about that.-a That's wild!-a I'm almost torn
between vindication over my approach of skipping the early live portions >>> and regret for not being able to enjoy the screw-up in real-time.-a After >>> all, it seemed obvious anyway that Rizo was probably going to lose in
fire.
Here's the part I don't understand.-a Nowadays live shows like this are
almost always shown with a 7-10 second delay.-a That's why when Chris
Daugherty yelled out that obscenity when he won it was bleeped.-a The
director of the show has to be on alert in case someone in the crowd
yells something out or there is a flasher or something.-a I wonder why
they didn't instantly bleep Jeff's words and cut to a commercial?-a It's >>> almost like even knowing it was a mistake, they deliberately decided to
show it anyway.
Because production didn't know it was a mistake. The players did but
as Rizo even says in a clip over on Twitter when they called for him
to go out on stage he was confused but went along with what production
wanted. Then Jeff orders him to join the jury and he does because what
else is he going to do at that point.
I find it hard to believe that the director, stage manager and other production staff didn't know instantly that Jeff had screwed up.-a They
have a script and detailed plan for the show and would know exactly
where they were in the episode proper.-a Also Jeff has an earpiece so someone should have immediately said "we haven't shown the fire making
yet". I get that it was ultimately Jeff's screw-up, but I seriously
wonder if any heads will roll for no one immediately stepping in to at
least alert him.
On 5/21/2026 10:44 AM, Rick wrote:
On 5/21/2026 11:38 AM, shawn wrote:
On Thu, 21 May 2026 10:09:29 -0400, Rick <Rick@nospam.net> wrote:
On 5/21/2026 3:26 AM, Brian Smith wrote:
On 5/21/2026 12:22 AM, Rick wrote:
On 5/20/2026 11:56 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
On 5/20/2026 1:17 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
Tonight's episode is titled "Reverse the Curse" and it's the finale >>>>>>>> of S50. I wonder what curse they're talking about? Of the players >>>>>>>> left, who has been cursed in the past? None that I can think of. >>>>>>>>
More later.
They'll be talking about this finale for ages. How could Jeff and >>>>>>> who
was ever directing and producing the live portion of the finale >>>>>>> screw
up that badly? Cirie should have yelled at Jeff hoping he would
realize he was doing things out of order. There's no doubt they'll >>>>>>> never do another live finale after tonight.
I am happy to say I did not watch one moment of the live portion
until
Jeff read the votes.-a I was concerned about inadvertent spoilers, but >>>>>> I also didn't want to slow down the momentum of watching the episode. >>>>>> I spaced through every live segment and just watched the taped
episode, and apparently that was the right choice.-a What were the >>>>>> major screw-ups I missed?-a How many previous winners were introduced? >>>>>> Only winner I saw in the post-vote part was Tina.
You missed the biggest screw-up of all time. Trust me, it'll be all >>>>> over
the news tomorrow. After Aubry won immunity at F4 and chose
Jonathan to
go against Rizo in fire, they went back live. Jeff calls Rizo out from >>>>> the back and starts talking to him about being in fire two seasons
in a
row. Cirie and Dee tried saying something, the whole place gasped, and >>>>> Jeff told Rizo to take a seat with the jury not realizing they hadn't >>>>> shown the F4 fire challenge yet. After another commercial break, Jeff >>>>> realized he screwed up and said something like "Now we're going to
show
the fire challenge where Rizo loses." Jeff joked about screwing up the >>>>> rest of the night.
I did see a news report about that.-a That's wild!-a I'm almost torn
between vindication over my approach of skipping the early live
portions
and regret for not being able to enjoy the screw-up in real-time.
After
all, it seemed obvious anyway that Rizo was probably going to lose
in fire.
Here's the part I don't understand.-a Nowadays live shows like this are >>>> almost always shown with a 7-10 second delay.-a That's why when Chris
Daugherty yelled out that obscenity when he won it was bleeped.-a The
director of the show has to be on alert in case someone in the crowd
yells something out or there is a flasher or something.-a I wonder why >>>> they didn't instantly bleep Jeff's words and cut to a commercial?-a It's >>>> almost like even knowing it was a mistake, they deliberately decided to >>>> show it anyway.
Because production didn't know it was a mistake. The players did but
as Rizo even says in a clip over on Twitter when they called for him
to go out on stage he was confused but went along with what production
wanted. Then Jeff orders him to join the jury and he does because what
else is he going to do at that point.
I find it hard to believe that the director, stage manager and other
production staff didn't know instantly that Jeff had screwed up.-a They
have a script and detailed plan for the show and would know exactly
where they were in the episode proper.-a Also Jeff has an earpiece so
someone should have immediately said "we haven't shown the fire making
yet". I get that it was ultimately Jeff's screw-up, but I seriously
wonder if any heads will roll for no one immediately stepping in to at
least alert him.
I posted video explaining what happened.
If Tiff had got to the puzzle just a bit faster she would
have won, Aubry would have been voted out, and Tiff might have won the game.
On May 20, 2026, Brian Smith wrote
(in article <10ulvqs$fs7q$1@dont-email.me>):
If Tiff had got to the puzzle just a bit faster she would
have won, Aubry would have been voted out, and Tiff might have won the game.
If Amanda Kimmel had got on her flight to Fiji, Aubry wouldnrCOt even have been
In the game. :-)
On 5/21/2026 8:11 PM, Zeppo wrote:
On May 20, 2026, Brian Smith wrote
(in article <10ulvqs$fs7q$1@dont-email.me>):
If Tiff had got to the puzzle just a bit faster she would
have won, Aubry would have been voted out, and Tiff might have won
the game.
If Amanda Kimmel had got on her flight to Fiji, Aubry wouldnrCOt even have >> been
In the game. :-)
Welcome back!
| Sysop: | Amessyroom |
|---|---|
| Location: | Fayetteville, NC |
| Users: | 70 |
| Nodes: | 6 (0 / 6) |
| Uptime: | 00:22:18 |
| Calls: | 949 |
| Calls today: | 1 |
| Files: | 1,325 |
| Messages: | 281,474 |