Red Ed Goes Full Deep Throat And Steven Cheah Throws A Last Minute Curveball (Surviving Barstool Episode 1 Recap)

Steven Cheah8/29/2022 2:30 PM

Eight Barstool Sports employees living in the office for one week. Only one person can walk away with the $10,000 grand prize. The sole winner will be voted on by the five that were voted out. Surviving Barstool Season 2 Presented by Mattress Firm kicked off last night with some fireworks, but let me give you a behind the scenes look on what happened and why.

EPISODE 1 SPOILERS BELOW

Seven contestants showed up to Barstool HQ on a Sunday at 2:30pm wide eyed and bushy tailed. Note: Grace was super hungover from the night before and took a redeye to make the call time, but did it like a champ. However, the cast was eight people. We had gotten word Tiko was running behind. Not only that, but she was super late.

In a game where nobody seemingly has any pre-formed friendships or natural alliances, first impressions are critical. And that was a tough look for anybody. It also put an immediate target on Tiko's back.

We then immediately went to the 2nd floor for our first challenge. Sifting through all that bedding for keys with your name on it was no easy task. I don't think many people tried to win in all honesty, but at the same time, it was kind of difficult to tank. If you found a key and your name was on it, what are you actually supposed to do? But credit to Jackie who definitely deserved to win, something that was a theme in episode 1.

But then under KFC's line of questioning, Jackie shared a little too much information.

The Barstool Reality GOAT doesn't approve.

Winning the first challenge seemed odd as it just got you the Mattress Firm suite for the night but NOT the safety necklace. So you were still eligible to be voted out the next day. But Jackie is sharp. While everyone was out looking for clues, she realized there must have been some additional benefit to the Mattress Firm suite. So she started looking in there and voila.

But unfortunately for Jackie, Rudy was walking by her room when she slipped the clue into her bag. He got his hands a little dirty and went through her stuff to nab the clue.

The plan worked as Rudy ended up finding the second clue before Jackie was able to figure it out that night.

It then comes to light in the show that Eddie & I are working together.

Since this is a behind the scenes blog, I'll open up and admit I started playing this game a few weeks before we started taping. I had a brief sit down with Eddie in mid-July and threw out the idea of us working together. It materialized into a secret alliance as I suspected nobody there knew we were real life friends. I was hoping to model the Tommy Smokes x Nick Turani plan that worked so brilliantly in Season 1.

But at this point, the whole cast is kind of feeling each other out. I had my antenna up for awhile leading into the game. In a conversation the week before taping in the kitchen with Caroline about life/Barstool, she blurted out that she had previously worked with Grace O'Malley at another job. She downplayed it, but I did some digging and figured out they were somewhat tight. I had them pegged as an alliance days before we set foot in HQ that weekend.

Jackie and Kim seemed like a logical fit as they were bunking together and both had no ties to anyone else. Tiko was a wild card and Rudy had probably the best relationships with everyone with his work on Stool Scenes.

Moving into the first challenge, moving the eggs up the wire fencing with our finger. It was an absolute blood bath.

Jackie was one win away from a dynasty and she probably could have had another 2 minutes and nobody would have caught her. It was that big of a blowout.

This is where things start to get fucky. In Surviving Barstool Season 1, everyone did their daily jobs and kind of played the game on the side. I was under that assumption for Season 2 as well. It was Monday and I was in The Yak from 1pm until around 2:30ish. In that time, the vote had switched from Tiko to Kontent Kim to Eddie. I was unable to join The Yak or do any other real work the rest of the week because of this.

But that day after The Yak, Rudy asked me to sit down. He had planned out a Kontent Kim exit and cited a majority of votes. I was merely a pawn here and was going to do what the numbers dictated.

But during our chat, the five women all kind of got together incidentally. And when I say that, I mean that the game is a lot of paranoia. You don't want to be left out of conversations. So you find yourself just hopping in a bunch. Butting in even. But as long as you're in that conversation, you're kind of prohibiting people from strategizing against you. That seemed to happen with the five women as eventually they were all together. So naturally, they wouldn't talk about voting one of themselves out, so the natural conclusion happened - they formed an all-female alliance.

It was a very savvy play and would have worked. Eddie would have been blindsided and it would be myself and Rudy left vs. five women in an alliance. Tough circumstances indeed.

But the mistake that the women made was to congregate in Eddie's room. It was a good room as the doors close and nobody can see in. It's also not a podcasting or video room at the moment, so you have complete privacy. Unless someone is living there.

Eddie got a bad feeling and had to put together a plan and quickly. In a stroke of genius he decided to lay down his phone and press record to try and get their conversation on tape.

During this time, I get a text from Zah reading, "Hey it's Eddie. Do not text my phone." Eddie had known that Zah, who I work directly next to during The Yak was a trusted source and he was right.

A bit later, Eddie texted me and Rudy saying we need to meet ASAP. We did not previously have an all guys alliance, but the women teaming up kind of forced us together. In that room Eddie is saying we need to spin the vote to Tiko or Caroline and do it quick. Our options were trying to recruit Kim or trying to recruit Jackie. Rudy and Eddie were familiar with Jackie so asked her to come meet with us.

We figured that we needed to pull out all the stops. Getting to the final four is better than the final five, which is all the other group could technically offer unless she had additional side deals.

But the voting in the final in my mind was key. Because if Jackie rides with us til the end and we're the final four, she's guaranteed one vote in the final. You only need three to win, so that's a great start. I think anybody would be insane to turn that down vs. the other deal.

So with that handshake, I felt good about things. But we still had more to figure out. With Jackie, Rudy, Eddie, and me, that'd be four votes for Tiko. Caroline, Tiko, Kim, and Grace would be four votes for Eddie.

This show is loosely based off of another gameshow that airs on network television, so I did what any logical person would do, I looked up the tiebreaker procedures. At this point in the game, if it's a 4-4 tie, then the people that are not tied will re-vote. So six of us would vote again, without Tiko and Eddie participating. If it is still tied after that, then the two people up for elimination would get to make pleas to the rest of the contestants why they should stay vs. the other person.

Those were two MAJOR points where Jackie's cover could be blown and she would have the opportunity to change her mind. We simply could not take that chance. That's when Eddie, Rudy and myself formulated a different plan. We needed to figure out how to get someone to burn a vote. Eddie nominated Rudy to talk with Tiko citing they had a friendship. But I had an understanding with Tiko, who was my roommate. We talked with each other and gave each other what we were hearing. She had told me (after I had heard the recording) that the plan was Eddie that night. She was unaware I had a secret alliance with Eddie at that time. So while that didn't necessarily change any plans we had, it did help build our trust. In that guys only meeting, I then stepped up and said I think I could convince her to burn a vote. At that point, we were about 10 minutes from lining up to vote. I needed to find Tiko and find her quick! And I did, unfortunately she was flanked by the other four women.

The thing about Surviving Barstool is you have to have these conversations, but they also have to be kind of secretive. Just talking up to a person and saying, "can I talk to you?" when they have another plan already formulated would throw up a huge signal that you're working with someone. I scrambled downstairs to try and buy some time.

I thought we were kind of screwed until Kate showed up in the lobby with her adorable kid. A few people, including myself went to say hi. Rudy then tapped me on the leg with his torch and signaling to move when we had an opening. I looked Tiko in the eye and gave her two lines. "Caroline is making a power play to take you out. We're all voting Caroline." and walked away. Everyone started to line up at that point. She did check with Rudy and he did confirm that plan. This isolated Tiko and didn't give her a chance to check with the other women. Were they plotting against her?

It was very feasible. Caroline had whispered to me after the initial challenge, "it's got to be Tiko first, right?" purely based on her tardiness. There was also the tiff with Jackie to start. Tiko also just walks in on a conversation right before where she believes she saved herself.

Trust was at a premium at that time and I knew I had Tiko's trust. Which means the only logical thing I could do to save myself and my alliance was to betray Tiko.

It's not a very proud moment for me as I actually would have liked to have worked with Tiko. She was my roommate and I did have her trust and she had mine quite frankly. But once the tape came out and I knew Eddie was the play, my secret alliance took precedent to my newfound understanding with my roommate.

But even with this move, you're never 100% certain everyone is going to keep their word. I cannot understate how tense this vote was. The air was dense. Everybody was nervous. Look at us!

When the votes start coming and it's a storm of Eddie's (and one Eddy), I am not feeling good. Jackie could have easily just played us. But then when things get locked up at three, I have a good feeling. The way we voted was a snake, so Kontent Kim went first and down the line to Rudy. Then me, Tiko, and Caroline to finish out. When I went into Dave's office to vote, I came out and gave Tiko a nod to signify, "we're good. it's done." building upon the message I'd given her just before we went to council. That pushed it over the edge as she stated she was confused on where to go when she voted.

When the Caroline vote was read, it was pure shock from KFC and the whole group. It was all going to come down to one vote as we'd successfully burned a vote. The last vote was for Tiko and our planned work to perfection. Most people were shocked. I was legitimately sad and it's all over my face.