SPOILER ALERTS: Recapping Episode 2 of Surviving Barstool and Looking Ahead to Episode 3

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR SURVIVING BARSTOOL SEASON 5 EPISODE 1 BELOW. DON'T READ THE RECAP IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED EPISODE 1 SPOILED.

BELOW IS BASICALLY A PLAY-BY-PLAY OF THE EPISODE AND WHAT LIES AHEAD FOR THE NEXT EPISODE! These are my thoughts as the episode is rolling.

If you want to watch a recap show for Episode 2, check out the Breakdown Boys!

Episode 2 picks up with Roach and Snake both down to five players after the first Tribal Council, while Rat still has all six.

One of the first conversations is about people talking about how Ella and Katic openly talked about an alliance on a podcast before the game, and I have to agree with everyone here: that was a terrible idea.

Every single person in the cast can watch that, take notes and immediately know who you’re connected to before the game even really gets going.

Pat then says there’s basically a New York alliance trying to get the Chicago office people out first, and once they get to the merge they’ll figure the rest out later.

That sounds simple enough in theory, but this is Surviving Barstool, so naturally it takes about five minutes before everybody starts making side deals and lying to each other.

One of the biggest questions we had after Episode 1 was what Dana Beers would do after losing both Ella and Katic? We saw Dana and Tate talking in a preview, and sure enough Dana finds Tate and tells him he still has Marty and Nick Turani and wants Tate to join up with them.

Tate agrees to tell Dana everything he hears, which sounds great until Tate turns around and meets with Dani Jackel and Nicky Smokes to discuss picking off the bigger threats like Nick and Dana one-by-one.

So basically, Tate is already playing Dana.

Then Dana finds one of the new idol missions in the hallway, and this one is called The Imposter. Dana gets a fake idol, but in order to earn the real one, he has to give the fake idol to someone, that person has to play it at Tribal Council, and then they have to be voted out at that same Tribal. I love this twist because there are about a million different ways Dana could use it to manipulate somebody.

Dana immediately tells Nick Turani about the mission because he trusts him and Nick is part of his original alliance. Personally, I kind of wish Dana would've sat on that information a little longer. In a game where everybody is telling everybody everything, holding onto one piece of information for more than five minutes might actually be useful.

Down the Chute

The challenge is called Down the Chute, and because Rat still has six members, they have to sit somebody out. They choose Nick Turani after he basically volunteers himself, which means he has to participate in the next challenge (bad news about that next challenge). I actually thought that was a smart move at first because if the next challenge involves a puzzle, trivia or anything that requires using your brain, Nick is probably the last guy you want sitting out.

The challenge has contestants running downstairs to grab balls and shooting them down a ramp, while teammates control the ramp from the top and bottom. Everyone on the team has to break one target.

Annika gets Snake off to an early lead, Pat answers for Roach, Rone gets another for Snake and Dani Jackel gets Rat on the board. It stays pretty close most of the way, but Roach barely beats Snake by just a few seconds. Brandon Fucking Walker delivers the game-winning shot, which means Feits, Tommy Smokes, Dante, Pat and Brandon are safe while Rat and Snake both have to vote somebody out.

And now you have to wonder if sitting Nick Turani in an arcade-style challenge was actually the right call. Maybe that was a dumb take by me! Hannah seemed to struggle some, and once the challenge ended with a bunch of time left in the episode, you knew there was going to be some serious drama before Tribal.

Things Start Getting Messy

Snake seems pretty confident that Annika is going home, but Meek Phill decides he wants to try and make a big play and suggets to others to get Rone out instead. He goes to Annika with the idea, and of course she’s all for it because we already know from Episode 1 that she despises Rone after all the Spring Break Recap Show drama.

Over on Rat, we get a flashback showing Hannah finding a mission before the challenge called Finders Keepers. Three pieces of an immunity idol are hidden around the office, and she has to collect all three during the challenge. She tells Dani Jackel about it, but one of the pieces is sitting basically right in the middle of the challenge, so grabbing it would’ve been way too obvious and she never completes the mission.

Naturally, Dani tells Tate. I actually think that was smart by Dani. She knows Tate is playing hard, and giving him information like that is a pretty easy way to start earning some trust with him.

Dana and Nick then start talking through their plan, but Nick spills the beans to Nicky Smokes that Dana might have an idol. Dana has to cover his tracks and tells Smokes he doesn’t have one, which technically isn’t a lie because he hasn’t actually earned the real idol yet. Dana then tells Tate about the mission because he wants him to help vote Hannah out and get rid of what he views as a weaker link.

Are you confused and having fun yet???

Meanwhile, Glenny and Marty go into a room to talk about possibly voting Rone out, except they make one pretty gigantic mistake: Rone is standing on the other side of the door listening to the entire conversation. (Note: I'm not sure how Rone heard the conversation as clearly as the production team made it sound) I cannot believe people still don’t check their surroundings before having these conversations.

Well, now you’ve fucked up and let Rone sniff out the entire thing.

Rone immediately starts scrambling to keep himself alive, while over on Rat, Nick Turani gets Nicky Smokes, Dana and Tate together to figure out whether Hannah ever completed her idol mission. The idea is to split votes and see if Hannah is forced to play anything.

Tate leaves that conversation and immediately runs back to Dani and Hannah to tell them exactly what’s happening. He tells them to stick with writing Nick Turani’s name down, and if everyone follows through, Nick is gone because he had already convinced Nicky Smokes to write Nick Turani's name down from the beginning.

That’s when it really starts to look bad for Dana.

Right before Tribal, Rone pulls Glenny and Marty into a room and basically asks them what the hell he just heard through the door. They tell him they’re still sticking with Annika, but at this point Rone knows enough to be suspicious of everybody.

Snake Tribal Council

At Tribal, Rone tells everyone, including Jeff D. Lowe, that he’s heard Annika and Meek are trying to get him out. That creates a bunch of last-second chaos before the votes are cast, and then Meek pulls something out of his pocket that looks like an idol.

It’s a fake Pink Whitney idol... It does absolutely nothing. Stupid Meek lol.

Annika ends up getting eliminated 3-2 over Rone, which means Glenny Balls and Marty Mush stuck with their original alliance and voted Annika out. I really think this was the time to get Rone, because letting him stick around while he still has a real idol feels dangerous.

The biggest win for Rone is that he didn’t even have to use the idol. Marty and Glenny may regret that one later. (On a side note: Hell of an effort to try by Meek and Annika to go for the big dog Rone. This was a good time to do that, and like I said, I think Marty and Glenny will ultimately regret this)

Rat Tribal Council

Rat heads to Tribal next, and everybody looks nervous as hell. Nobody plays an immunity idol before the votes are cast, and when Jeff reads them, Nick Turani gets the third vote from Nicky Smokes, Hannah and Dani Jackel.

Nick Turani is eliminated.

That earlier conversation between Tate, Dani and Nicky Smokes ends up being the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Tate successfully helps flip the vote while Dana still thinks he’s working with him, and that is a massive move this early in the game.

Seeing Nick legitimately upset after getting voted out hurt my damn heart. Then he gets one last shot in during his exit confessional by saying Nicky Smokes is bad at his job and won’t be working at Barstool much longer.

Hell of an exit.

He has since apologize for what he said and said he didn't mean it.

Questions Heading Into Episode 3

The biggest question is once again what Dana Beers does next? We asked the same thing after Episode 1, but somehow his situation looks even worse now. I thought bringing Tate into the alliance might help him, but hats off to Tate because he’s playing a really good game so far and basically just showed Dana that he isn’t nearly as safe as he thinks he is.

The interesting part will be whether Dana realizes Tate helped swing the vote toward Nick. Tate could easily try to convince him that Hannah and Dani flipped Nicky Smokes on their own and keep pretending they’re still aligned. Honestly, that feels exactly like something Tate would try.

The other big question is what happens with Meek Phill? It feels like the next time Snake loses, his name is going to be sitting right at the top of the list after he tried to go behind Rone’s back and couldn’t pull it off. Rone knows exactly what Meek was trying to do, and he basically already told us who’s next on the chopping block.

Episode 2 was one of the best individual shows ever aired in my opinion. Nick going home this early sucks, Dana’s game suddenly looks shaky, Tate is quietly becoming one of the more interesting players in the season, and Rone somehow survived another vote without touching his idol.

WINNER OF EPISODE 2

WINNER: Tate — Kudos to the man that has haters refer to him as SpecTate. He has done everything but sit around and watch so far. He has controlled his tribe and picked off one big dog with pure intentions of voting off another threat in Dana Beers. The way he made sure to get to Dani and Hannah and let them know the plan while not being seen and throwing Turani completely for a loop was genius.