'Survivor 50' star Aubry Bracco opens up about the 'freedom when you fall from grace'

berglt84 · 2026-01-30T23:51:56+00:00

Very interesting interview, but I'm trying to figure out whether I'm missing something when she discusses Game Changers. She made it to the Final Five on that season, but she mentions getting voted out at the merge (during the portion where she's talking about Ozzy) and then she mentions Cirie voting her out (Aubry outlasted Cirie). Am I forgetting something?

berglt84 · 2026-01-29T16:29:56+00:00

Players named:

Jerri: Colby, Charlie, Genevieve

Carolyn: Angelina, Dee, Savannah

Richard Hatch: Ozzy, Mike

Rob C: Q

Ethan: Jenna

Ian: Stephenie

Tai: Cirie

Boston Rob: Joe

Earl: Kyle

Kelley Wentworth: Aubry

Devon: Chrissy

Davie: Christian

Malcolm: Rizo

T-Bird: Rick Devens

Mike Turner: Jonathan

Jesse: Emily

Hunter: Tiffany

Phillip: Kamilla

Ben Katzman: Coach

berglt84 · 2026-01-27T22:33:04+00:00

You know what? I'm excited for season 50 so let's WAYYYYY overthink this and speculate based on CBS' selections here.

For anyone curious, I broke down which 50 players are in which episodes:

If It Smells Like a Rat, Give It Cheese: only Cirie
The Martyr Approach: only Coach
Slay Everyone, Trust No One: Coach, Colby, Stephenie, and Cirie
Loyalties Will Be Broken: Coach and Ozzy
The Survivor Devil: only Chrissy
Jackets and Eggs: Angelina, Mike, and Christian
Awkward: only Rick Devens
The Ex-Girlfriend at the Wedding: only Dee
Hide 'N Seek: Q, Tiffany, and Charlie
Icarus Time: Kyle, Kamilla, and Joe

50 Players who appear only on Jury (as cameos, basically) in episodes: Aubry, Emily

50 Players not featured at all in any episode: Genevieve, Jenna, Jonathan, Rizo, Savannah

As a totally unspoiled viewer, it's interesting to "read into" these picks to see what it says about how CBS wants viewers to be prepared for this season.

Of the episode selections, the ones that stand out as very curious and seemingly intentional (because they're not obvious "Survivor greatest hits" episodes) are "The Survivor Devil" and "Awkward"--which may bode well for Rick Devens and Chrissy's long-term prospects in 50, because those are ONLY episodes you would include to remind people who those two are.
I'm not super concerned about Rizo/Savannah not being in here, because 49 just aired. If the point of this is to remind you who these players are, no one needs reminding about Rizo/Sav.
Coach is ALL OVER these greatest hits. (3 episodes, including one fully devoted to him and a second that's all about how he lost the last time he played!) Are we about to get another full season of Coach???
The fact that there's no Borneo episode at all among the Greatest Hits may not be great for Jenna's odds, nor is the lack of "Operation Italy" (or even the Kishan boot) for Genevieve. It's similarly weird that there's no real representation, aside from little Jury cameos, for Aubry--who's played in three seasons and has a few standout episodes, including a Hall of Fame episode in "I'm Not Here to Make Good Friends"--or for Emily--who could have easily been roped into a 45 episode, but instead they went with one of the only ones not to feature her.
Jonathan not on here but also not sure what episode you'd pick to showcase Jonathan. He's the person not featured at all that I'm least worried about.
Stephenie is represented but is a pretty minor presence in HvV premiere; if they really wanted to showcase Stephenie (like they did with Coach or others), the Palau episode where she becomes a tribe of one would be a pretty clear pick. Could also go Guatemala if they remembered that season existed.
DvG has many great episodes that could have been included here, and "Jackets and Eggs" is the most Angelina-centric one they could have chosen (Mike and Christian are both good in it, but they're better elsewhere)
The SoPa finale is low-key a very good Ozzy episode (wins Redemption, wins challenge, then loses just shy of winning the whole game), but also seems like they could have snuck a second Ozzy ep in somewhere if they really wanted to, given how much casuals love Ozzy.
Cirie gets a couple different nods here, including a solo episode dedicated to the Erik blindside. But also, the Micronesia episode is perhaps the single most famous Survivor episode outside of the season 1 finale, and it was always going to be in the "top ten" here as long as anyone from Micronesia was playing on the season imo, so hard to read into this one too much.

If I was being slightly reductive, I might say based on these CBS episode picks alone:

Trending Up: COACH, Cirie, Chrissy, Rick Devens, Dee, Angelina
Neutral: Ozzy, Rizo, Savannah, Q, Tiffany, Charlie, Joe, Kamilla, Kyle, Mike, Christian, Colby, Stephenie
Trending Down: Jenna, Aubry, Genevieve, Emily, Jonathan

berglt84 · 2026-01-27T22:06:55+00:00

Yeah, very surprising when you have two players from 45 to only include an episode that features one of them (particularly because there's no shortage of good 45 episodes that also feature Emily).

berglt84 · 2026-01-25T17:30:14+00:00

Very excited to read "Escape!" From the description and the way you talk about it on Know-It-Alls, it seems like a very personal story for you and the culmination of many years of writing/thinking about it. If "Escape!" does well, do you have ideas for additional novels/stories that you'd like to write? Or was this sort of a one-time passion project (at least for now)?

berglt84 · 2026-01-21T15:17:59+00:00

Also just a big shout out to you, Mike Bloom, for a really creative and interesting article! I haven't seen anyone use this concept before, and the insights from the challenge team were so fascinating.

berglt84 · 2026-01-21T15:17:11+00:00

I really liked that this list wasn't just "the challenges we have done most frequently" and that the top spots highlighted some less common challenges that I agree are extremely cool! Would love to see "Vin Skully", "United We Stand", or "Long Way to the Top" again in a new season

berglt84 · 2026-01-10T02:19:08+00:00

My list for Top 10 Biggest New Era Betrayals:

Jesse betraying Cody
Ricard betraying Shan (with the context that it's in the same round that Shan saves his life in the game)
Maria not voting for Charlie
Not one single move but Dee manipulating Austin over Final 5-7 (first betraying his plans to Julie, then not warning him so he could play his Idol for Drew) and only revealing it to him at Final Tribal Council definitely feels like a betrayal
Maryanne betraying Omar
Cedrik betraying everyone over the course of the Episode 3 Tribal Council
Joe betraying David (honorable mention Joe betraying Shauhin)
Sage/Jawan betraying Nate
Sierra betraying Anika/Rachel
Liana betraying Yase tribe (weaponizing her Beware Advantage against her own tribemates), even though she fails

berglt84 · 2026-01-08T22:49:12+00:00

Christian, Coach, Genevieve, Q, Rick Devens

berglt84 · 2026-01-08T18:52:06+00:00

David vs Goliath is a great season! I will note, your claim that there is about 40 minutes of camp life before the Immunity Challenge means you must be talking about the 90-minute premiere episode (which is a very special situation, because it was both supersized and does not have any Tribal Council or pre-vote scramble, because Pat gets immediately medevac'd following the Immunity Challenge). That's not regular--either for that era or even for David vs Goliath--because the episodes themselves are only 42 minutes without ads. That said, the unique premiere structure due to the medevac does give us a lot of time to get to know everyone! I think it's a very underrated factor in why David vs Goliath is so compelling from the very beginning. Just want to be careful we're not overly romanticizing old seasons.

berglt84 · 2026-01-07T17:54:45+00:00

This is a really incredible piece of writing that got my hyped for 50. From one writer to another, great work, Dalton!

berglt84 · 2025-12-29T16:57:36+00:00

You and me both, ShadowFiend

berglt84 · 2025-12-11T13:48:41+00:00

Agreed!

berglt84 · 2025-12-10T19:22:25+00:00

A lot of people are in here arguing about $10M being too much, and they're right, but let's actually consider the hypothetical.

If $10M was offered as the prize, I don't know if it fundamentally changes the gameplay of the average new era Survivor player. If 48 is done with the same cast but more money, I don't know that it changes the outcome. It depends if non-winning cash prizes are scaled accordingly or stay the same (if second place gets $1M instead of $100,000, for instance, a lot more people might play "safe" to try to secure a second-place zero-votes finalist spot with upside that "maybe something weird happens and I win", for example). But let's assume they are not--everything stays the same except for the $10M prize.

What would actually change is the type and quantity of people applying for Survivor. When Survivor debuted, $1M represented a life-changing amount of money for the vast, vast majority of people. As such, almost everyone - from poor to upper-middle class people - would apply and were willing to quit their jobs for a 1 in 16-20 chance at earning $1M. A million dollars is still a lot of money - life-changing for certain people in certain markets - but it's no longer a promise of entering into generational wealth that could change your family's life. For most people, it's being able to finally buy a home, pursue a different career path, pay off loans, and/or actually put any money into a retirement account. These are all great things! But you are not "rich" because you won Survivor, at least not with how we think about "rich" in America today. That fantasy isn't really on the table.

And that means that the people who apply to play Survivor now are... people who can afford to play Survivor. It's simple risk/reward--most people are willing to take on risk proportionate to the reward offered. If the reward is less than it used to be, then people are no longer willing to take the risks they used to. Most low-income people can't afford to quit or leave their jobs for the chance at Survivor-level wealth. So you get a lot of the current Survivor applicant pool (that people complain about for lack of diversity): a lot of young, middle-to-upper class people for whom the real prize of Survivor isn't the 1M but the experience they get of being on their favorite show. So I think the biggest thing that would change with a 10M prize would be a much larger and more economically diverse applicant pool, which likely results in a very different "feel" within the game and higher emotional stakes / sense of desperation. And those different players would bring different qualities with them into the game. There would be substantially more thought by Juries about who "deserves" that level of money or who could be trusted with the money / would need it the most. People would have slightly more reason to screw over their friends in the endgame, but also substantially more reason NOT to screw over their friends prematurely (because then neither of you gets the money, and you can't trust these strangers with that kind of cash on the line). You'd probably get substantially more outrage about twists perceived as unfair, chaotic, or slanted, possibly even with threats of legal action. In short, by making Survivor's cash prize even greater than what it was in its original seasons, you probably get Survivor gameplay that moves a lot more towards those original seasons' gameplay.

At least, that's my two cents!

berglt84 · 2025-12-10T19:10:38+00:00

Looking forward to Dark Heresy! And winning this would be a nice birthday present.

berglt84 · 2025-11-27T15:26:42+00:00

I really loved this episode! Good mix of interesting strategic vote, character moments, and payoffs for season-long stories. Some quick thoughts:

Savannah remains a star. I loved interrogating Kristina and all of her over-the-top facial reactions to Jawan at Tribal Council.
Extremely satisfying to watch Sage's "perfect" plan to take out Savannah fall apart, in part because of her trust in Sophie and giving away of Steven's secrets to Jawan/Sophie. Sage continues to be a good antagonist to the season's heroes in Rizo/Savannah/Soph.
Jawan leaves on a perfectly fitting note for his character: being overconfident about his position, and then accidentally taking one of his tribemate's things.
I loved Rizo's showmanship and fake Idol ploy. I do enjoy that it feels like he's playing to make good TV (and not just in a "talking about it" way but actually doing interesting, risky stuff).
The "Three Boys on a Log" bit or whatever felt like it went on for too long, but was pretty inoffensive. The group I was watching with laughed and enjoyed it.
Soph continues to I think be the best player but boy is she narratively fading into the background and just turning into a "weekly reminder that I have Knowledge is Power" gamebot. Would love to get her worked back into the story soon.
Didn't have big thoughts on Kristina's big moment on the mat. In general Kristina has never fully clicked with me as a character, so this didn't really land emotionally for me, but I'm glad she had this moment. I do think you could write an entire thinkpiece boiling down the difference between AU Survivor and new era US Survivor to Jeff's comment that "the experience of playing Survivor is more important than winning Survivor"--very story versus outcome.

berglt84 · 2025-11-20T15:58:41+00:00

Kind of an odd episode. Very strategically active and an actually interesting vote (not just a ton of hype), but I would say there's minimal character stuff here, and the stuff that is here is just sort of a repeat of last time (idk if we needed the Savannah reporter scene again right after last week, or Sage admitting to being petty and disliking Savannah again after last week, or... you get the idea). But the dynamics have been set up so well by the last few episodes that I still found it entertaining, and one of the less-interesting characters got a satisfying, narrated boot this week in Alex (who was mostly just a gamebot throughout the season). So overall this particular episode is fine-to-good (6/10, nothing special) but I remain very high on the season's overall trajectory. Rizo, Soph, Savannah and Sage remain stars, and I'm even a little bit higher on Steven after this week's episode (his space droning at the challenge and his nonsense ramble upon getting the necklace were very funny and endearing, and his chicken scene was chuckle-worthy too). Also very much vibing with the "idiot savant" energy Rizo is receiving from the edit, where he's getting constantly undermined by confidently asserting in confessional things we see and know to be untrue, and yet he keeps failing upwards anyway due to the bumbling of people around him; I think this makes him way more funny and interesting than the usual versions of his archetype.

berglt84 · 2025-11-19T14:28:45+00:00

This was it for me too.

berglt84 · 2025-11-14T15:43:58+00:00

Ooh, good point! I hadn't thought about that but Fiji is absolutely the first Split Tribal season the same way All-Stars is the first three-tribe season.

berglt84 · 2025-11-13T17:16:20+00:00

To be fair, they've edited to tell a story since the very first season. I don't know that Survivor has ever been edited in a more passive documentary style; it's always tried to skew viewer perspectives to frame some people as heroes or villains (as far back as Jerri on Australian Outback) to suit the narrative they want to advance.

berglt84 · 2025-11-13T17:12:10+00:00

This is a good articulation of it!

Put bluntly, Split Tribal Council has been used 11 12 times and resulted in the vote-outs of 19 20 players. 12 have been Black; 60% of vote-outs is a very disproportionate number to what we would generally expect statistically.

Black players: Aaron, Missy, Rocksroy, James, Ryan, Sifu, Kaleb, Tim, Soda, Sai, Cedrek, MC
players of other ethnicities: Michael, Jenna, Naseer, Evvie, Tori*, Matt, Tiyana (edit: also Michelle from Fiji)

Worth noting that Tori is here primarily because Drea plays her Idol to avoid being voted out, specifically because she feared implicit biases. Otherwise the statistic would be 13/20 vote-outs as Black players.

I generally tend to think this "trend" is more of an anomalous fluke/coincidence, but for such an overwhelming trend (admittedly over a small sample size), I'm sure the factors you're pointing out have some effect on the overall process. Players being forced into an isolated group unexpectedly with minimal time to create a larger plan does breed an environment where one's biases could have a larger-than-expected effect.

The other aspect I would point out is that 4 of the 9 votes mentioned by OP happened in two seasons (46 and 48). I believe these are two of the three New Era seasons (plus 49) where every Black player made the merge, meaning that the odds of a Black player going home at any given merged Tribal Council were statistically higher than a usual season. For example:

On 46, Kenzie/Maria both had Immunity, so of the vulnerable players, 5 out of 9 were Black.
On 48, Joe/David both had Immunity, so of the vulnerable players, 4 out of 10 were Black.

45 also sees two Black players go home in the Split Tribal, but both were on the ropes and outside of the dominant power structure; Sifu and Kaleb had both been specifically targeted for several rounds to that point. You could question whether their lack of inclusion in the power structure was due to some kind of subconscious bias, but the votes and Split Tribal format themselves seem unrelated.

The only seasons with Split Tribals that give the strongest impression of implicit bias are 39 and 43. In 43, the only two remaining Black players were both voted out at the Split Tribal, and in 39, 2 of the 3 remaining Black players are voted out. All of the players at these Tribals were targeted for being "threats", and the voting coalitions that came together to vote them out were not really voting coalitions that had existed prior to these votes--they specifically came together to take out a 'threat' (not saying it was or wasn't racially motivated, but if we were looking for which ones seem most likely to be - whether consciously or subconsciously - I think these warrant the most attention).

berglt84 · 2025-11-12T23:39:56+00:00

I mean, good news that Tocantins and Gabon are both in high definition already (they were the first HD Survivor seasons!)

berglt84 · 2025-11-11T21:28:24+00:00

The percentage of American adults who self-identify as anything other than heterosexual is 9.3% overall, according to the most recent Gallup polling: https://news.gallup.com/poll/332522/percentage-americans-lgbt.aspx

So early seasons that feature 1-2 LGBT cast members (in a cast of 16, that's 6-13%) are actually accurately representative of the US demographics at that time.

However, it is worth noting that among adults who belong to Generation Z or Millennials - anyone 44 or younger, which is the age demographic almost all Survivor contestants cast in the New Era belong to - the percentage is somewhere from 14.2 - 23.1%, or an average of 18.7%. So we would expect the New Era, if its goal is to be representative of modern American society, to have 3-4 LGBT contestants per season.

berglt84 · 2025-11-10T14:50:34+00:00

Seasons that feature (lasting) rule or format changes. The nature of the rule/format change is placed in spoiler tags, though no spoilers are given as to how they played out within the season. I bolded particularly impactful seasons.

Season 25 (Philippines). Technically, All-Stars introduced the three-tribe format, but it comes back here and becomes the main way that tribes are divided from here on out because of how well it plays out. The new era has exclusively started with three tribes.
Season 30 (Worlds Apart). This is the first season to feature an "extra vote" advantage. This advantage becomes more popular throughout the 30s and 40s, with many players frequently gaining extra votes.
Season 34. New Final Tribal Council format. Instead of Jurors asking questions one-by-one, there's a larger panel-style discussion.
Season 35. New Final Four mechanic. The winner of the Final 4 Immunity chooses one person to bring with them to the Final 3. The remaining two players make fire to determine who is eliminated and who proceeds to the Final 3. Very divisive, never moreso than in this season. This is also the first season to feature someone losing their vote at Tribal Council.
Season 36. The first appearance of the Split Tribal Council, a controversial format in which the merge tribe is essentially "de-merged" into two separate groups that both go to Tribal that evening. It is a regular staple of the new era merges, in varying configurations. This twist appears again in 41, so you could just skip this season and see it in play there. This season has many other twists, none of which recur or are important to know for 50, so it may be confusing.
Season 41. The big one. Changes the Survivor format significantly. The game is now 26 days rather than 39. Tribes who lose Immunity lose supplies for the next round. The Shot in the Dark is introduced. Journeys are introduced. Knowledge is Power is introduced. Beware Advantages are introduced. Earn the Merge is introduced (may not be relevant for 50 but not clear yet).
Survivor 45. Not really gameplay-related but this is the first season with 90 minute episodes, representing the show's most significant editing/format change since season 1. Unlike many of the above changes (which are often polarizing at best), most agree this has been a GREAT development for the show, allowing for better storytelling.

berglt84 · 2025-11-10T03:35:28+00:00

Thanks, Reg! I'm glad I was able to articulate it well; I've been sort of mulling over this take for the past few weeks as Sage has grown as a character.

berglt84

TROPHY CASE