Rob Has a Chaoscast: Interview with Kass McQuillen

Kass McQuillen has driven down south to be Rob’s special in-studio guest and discuss her 38 days on “Survivor: Cagayan.” Kass starts out by assessing Rob’s “man cave” in comparison to her husband’s barn. She also shares that she does not like the attention that comes from being on the show, but it’s harder to avoid in her small town.

Rob breaks down Survivor Cagayan from the Perspective of Kass McQuillen

Kass breaks down the struggles of the Brains tribe in the early days, and her thoughts on David, who Rob thought would have made great TV had he lasted longer in the game. Kass found the conflict among the alpha males on Luzon amusing. She gives more detail on the rice dumping situation with J’Tia and Garrett’s idol clue. She also says that telling J’Tia she was going to vote for her was a mistake, but one that didn’t hurt her in the long run and in fact helped her. Kass details why she elected to work with Tasha and J’Tia over Spencer and Garrett. Rob and Kass then compare and contrast elements of her game to two-time winner Sandra’s gameplay. Kass explains that keeping Spencer over J’Tia was a last-minute decision, and Jeff Probst influenced it more than Spencer.

Next Rob and Kass go into the tribe swap and how the three Brains came back to working together and the decision to vote out Alexis. Rob asks Kass if she feels “intentional Matsinging” would ever be a good idea, as the Brawns had never been to tribal council by that point. Then they go into Kass’s decision to flip at the merge and her personality clash with Sarah. Kass points out that Spencer was more close with Sarah and Jeremiah, and so she felt the only person she betrayed with that flip was Tasha. Kass talks about her conversations with Tony and Trish during the merge and letting them feel comfortable approaching her. She mentions she wanted to rope in Jefra but Spencer didn’t think it was a good idea. Kass describes how Sarah would discuss getting back with Tony and Trish and just promising the Brains top seven, rather than final four. She felt flipping was in her best interest. She says she didn’t flip out of spite, but it did feel good and it was hilarious that two idols were flushed as well. Rob asks her why she didn’t wait with the move until later in the game.

Kass says she was willing to work with Spencer and Jeremiah after the flip, but not Tasha and Morgan because they wouldn’t talk to her or were rude. She thinks everyone was so mad because they all expected her to be their goat. Kass felt Spencer had a lot of opportunities to switch it up, such as at the Jefra vote, but he never told anyone about his idol. Kass didn’t feel the need to convince him to do so because she liked the story of going up against two Brawns in the end. Kass talks about why she suspected Spencer had the idol.

Then Rob asks Kass about being blindsided about the LJ vote. Kass didn’t have a chance to see LJ play so she didn’t feel she could assess whether he was a good player. She talks about how he went to a bunch of different people with final 3 deals as well, likely because he noticed Tony, Trish and Woo were unbreakable. Next they talk about the Jefra vote. Kass was less thrilled about this blindside. She thought it was stupid to not get Spencer out. She thinks Tony was too nervous that Jefra considered flipping on him, but that the fear was irrational about a women’s alliance. Logically, Spencer was a big challenge threat but Jefra was not. She says Tony didn’t realize that Jefra would never pull the trigger on a big flip.

Kass talks about how Tony would make fun of Spencer’s strategy and be condescending toward the women. Kass goes into why Tasha didn’t vote for Tony in the end. Kass found his misogynistic comments funny but Tasha didn’t appreciate it. Kass says that Tasha said that God had already chosen the winner and she used that as a way to get the women to work with her. Next Kass takes Rob through the discussions and plans on the reward with Spencer and Woo. Kass says it was Woo who didn’t want to go through with it, but she had wanted to flush Tony’s idol during that vote even if they ultimately sent Tasha home.

Then they talk about the famous line “Do you need me to talk ‘llama’ to you?” Kass found it hilarious and wasn’t sure why he picked “llama.” She did mention that she was an animal handler (instead of revealing she was a lawyer) because her family had an exotic animal farm. Kass said she never trusted Tony out there, but Trish and Woo always did. Kass goes into her decision to tell Woo about Tony’s final 3 deal with her. She thinks Woo was worried about losing to her and also that everyone was being encouraged to take Tony to the end. Kass was disappointed but not shocked that Woo didn’t take her to the end. Rob breaks down the potential votes that Kass would have had over Woo. Kass says he was known as “Weasel Woo.” Kass also goes into her animosity with Trish. She says that she had a brotherly type relationship with Tony and that Jeff was surprised that Kass received cheers at the finale. Rob shares a theory that Kass’s educational background might have influenced some people’s negative opinions of her. Kass says she gets a lot of positive feedback from women and fans, and thinks the blogging, obsessive subset of fans is in the minority and she was surprised to discover this world existed as she was someone who only watched the show on TV. Kass says she has no hard feelings toward anyone after the game, but that Trish and Tasha still have problems with her. She also talks about Denise Stapley’s criticism of her. She doesn’t think former players should be so quick to critique current players and should look at the bigger picture.

Rob asks Chaos Kass about her Twitter feud with Russell Hantz. Rob also teases the “The Vlachos” trailer. Kass feels doing a “wife swap” with Tony’s family would be fun to see. Then Kass takes questions from the Rob Has a Podcast audience and covers a variety of topics including: Woo’s decision to take Tony, considering voting for Woo, her hypothetical jury speech, her relationship with Spencer, why she cried on the island, who she was closest with on the island and currently, pre-season predictions, social media behavior, applying for the show, what she would do if she played again, her individual immunity win, her mistakes in the game, her sociability, a DMK with Trish, Sarah and Morgan, advice for happiness, and potential storylines for “The Vlachos”.

Special Thanks to @RHAPrecapper for this episode summary