Surviving Barstool Season 1 came to an end this week. The show which is the newest series by Barstool Sports is a spin off of the hit reality show Survivor on CBS.
Eight of the companies bloggers and content creators were challenged to live in their New York City office. They competed in challenges for immunity from being voted off by their peers. Challenges ranged from memory challenges to physical challenges all in pursuit of a $10,000 prize. The series was great in my opinion and I will break it down episode by episode
Episode 1: Cowboy Dave
In the first episode of the series we were introduced to all the competitors which included: Kelly Keegs, Brianna Chickenfry, Trysta Krick, Tommy Smokes, Donnie, Nick, Zah, and finally White Sox Dave (WSD) aka The Cowboy
As a Barstool fan, I thought I knew who would get voted off by their peers in the beginning based solely on popularity. Like it or not anytime a group has to vote off someone, the least popular contestant is going to be kicked from the group. The two least popular of the bloggers are WSD and Trysta Krick. WSD walked into episode 1 with some ridiculous cowboy hat and started going by the name Cowboy, not sure why he decided to do this, but I know it just made him more of the laughing stock from the group.
In Challenge 1 the contestants went bobbing for nips of vodka in a tub of water. They each started with 5 in their tub, but the twist was that the contestants could add another nip to a blogger of their choice to make it more difficult. The first blogger to get all their nips out wins the challenge and was safe from the first vote.
Trysta Krick had the second most in her bucket after the extra nips were added, leaving her with 10, but more importantly leaving her with the idea of how the contestants felt about her.
Well, the plan backfired and Trysta won the challenge making herself safe from the first vote and securing her a spot in episode 2. After the group discussed they quickly came to the decision that WSD was getting the boot, everyone except him had to know it.
WSD was voted off week one despite being the self proclaimed “glue guy” of the group. The group came down to 7 for episode 2. Surviving Barstool Season 1 biggest loser was WSD.
Episode 2: Lowering the Bar
The group which is now down to 7 went back to “the bar” and the face of the coolest, yet most disgusting show on the Barstool Network, Jeff Vibbert from Lowering the Bar appeared to have the contestants do an eating and drinking challenge. The group had to drink thick water as well as eat some canned brains of some sort. It came down to Zah and Donnie, both of which traveled the world prior to this and eaten exotic things before.
Donnie won the challenge leaving him safe, and the group finally had to make a decision based on strategy to eliminate the threats to the prize. Trysta won the first challenge and that combined with her lack of popularity amongst the group left her on the chopping block. She was eliminated and the group had been cut by 25%
Episode 3: Remember the Game
The challenge was a memory game, the host KFC named off a bunch of brands from within the company and the contestants had to stab the corresponding tile with a skewer.
Kelly Keegs won the challenge leaving her safe from elimination and the remaining 5 contestants were on the chopping block.
Self proclaimed Survivor super fan Tommy found the hidden immunity necklace in the office on the first day, which would leave him safe from being voted out if he played it prior to the votes being read off. This is where the gamesmanship became awesome for the viewers. The group suspected Tommy had the idol so he came clean to the crew, announcing he had it and a vote for him was pointless because he was going to play it to keep him safe.
Well, never trust someone who was so willing to divulge his plan in a game for $10,000 dollars, but the group failed to figure it out and he played them all like a fiddle. He stood up to the group in the council and faked them all out that he was going to play the idol, the group revealed their votes for Zah, he sat back down with a shit eating grin and watched the votes come in for the strongest contestant Zah. The most liked person of the crew Zah was sent home as the group got played by Tommy.
Episode 4: Tommy’s Idol
After Tommy played the group he had a huge target on his back, but he still held the hidden immunity necklace that kept him safe from being voted out, The immunity had to be played in the final 5 so we knew it was going to be played. Although he was safe, the remaining contestants had to fight for their own safety. Surviving Barstool Season 1 had been taken over by Tommy
The challenge this episode was a trivia blend with a carnival favorite ring toss. The contestants had to answer trivia questions, and their “family” aka another blogger from the company attempted to toss a ring on a bottle for each correct answer.
Kelly showed she was a true threat to win the whole thing, dominating trivia and securing safety from being voted off once again. So with two contestants already guaranteed their spot in the finale, the group had a decision to make as to who was being sent home.
Donnie sent a text message intended for Brianna divulging his plan to vote Nick out, he just happened to send that text to Tommy and Nick. His inability to read ended up being the final straw for him, as once all the contestants knew his plan he was voted off by the group. The group was down to four bloggers left headed into the finale.
The Finale
Tommy found the first idol and rumors swirled of him having a second idol that did not exist, but nobody knew that for sure. The group had a final challenge where they had to stack as many nips as they can on a ruler like stick. Bri shocked the group winning this challenge and kept her safe and into the final 3.
At the council the group discussed the fake idol, they revealed who they thought the biggest threat is Kelly Keegs who won two of the challenges and played a great game competitor wise. Kelly and Nick revealed they are voting for each other leaving Tommy and Bri to have the final say who is going home. Kelly was voted out leaving Tommy, Nick, and Bri as the only remaining bloggers for the $10,000 dollar prize.
Like Survivor, the jury aka the people had been voted off get to ultimately decide the winner, whoever they deem to have played the best game should get their vote and the most votes gave them the grand prize in the end. The pre recorded segment show of the game ended and the votes were going to be read live by KFC on a YouTube live stream.
The finalists plead their case to the jury and in the first three votes, each contestant had a vote for them to win. Tommy got vote number 4 and Nick got vote number 5 leaving the vote tied 2-2.
KFC revealed the final twist. Bri who was a finalist that could not win had to cast the vote to decide the ultimate winner. What a situation to be in, she is one of the companies most recent hires and had to decide which of her co-workers was winning the first season of Surviving Barstool and would be $10,000 richer.
Well, she chose Tommy Smokes because in her opinion he played the best game between Nick and Tommy. I feel bad for her to be put in this spot, but the jury ultimately screwed this up because he fucked them all over at one point with his antics.
TL//DR: Surviving Barstool Season 1 was a hit success, and I can not wait to see who will be cast for season 2.
By the way: WSD slept walked through New York City in his only night in the office
