The thing is, he did, in fact, get the least amount of points at the end. As he said he would. But because Ally and Oscar were both so good at being middle of the road that they tied for first, that made Brennan second place by default, and since Sam had decided second place would be the winner, Brennan won. But Brennan (almost) never sacrificed his integrity within the episode. He did, in fact, try his hardest at every turn. So we have a paradox on our hands where Brennan technically won the episode through his hard work.
Unfortunately when 2 people tie for first, the next person is 3rd, not 2nd. So I do find it strange they gave it to Brennan but, oh well, they do as they want to.
In the after episode about the episode, Sam said he chose them carefully. Brennan for his hyper-competitiveness, Ally for their talent in undermining Brennan and Oscar for being completely uncompetitive and just happy to be there.
You can hear Beardsley start in on him almost immediately "Excellence never pays, hmm?" and then they draw Oscar into joining in with the LOTR stuff. (I maintain he was sincere about being excited to read them to start, then Ally dying of laughter at Brennan losing the books to a non-fan just activated the comedy instinct to needle him)
The fact that you could absolutely tell before Sam had even started announcing the final scores that Brennan had figured out he was going to be awarded the 2nd place win is just so perfect
Whats truly amazing is watching Brennan ping pong between hating the concept and trying his best and his inability to resist competition and actually trying to do the mid rules.
@ragdollrose2687 making Brennan face paradoxes or reveal layered layers (if you saw the bingo episode) I think is Sam's way of showing Brennan love.... And trying to break him...
@@ragdollrose2687I think it was the difference between the objective tasks, like push ups, where he hated the idea of not trying 100%, vs the performance ones where he could gamesmanship and play the players and thus is still applying maximum effort
it's less the fact that it's about birds IMO it's more the fact that sam played him like a fiddle by not only choosing less known birds but also requiring the specific species instead of the general family like the other two players (simease fireback vs pheasant)
@rainbowbarfeverywhere yeah he was stressed bc sam rigged the game, not because he Particularly loves birds. I think he loves birds in the way he does all of nature cause he's curious and loves knowledge
fun fact: the royalty free song that plays during brennan and oscar's dance was also used for some reason in a bumper in the tv station for my city's subway system, and whenever i hear it i cant help but layer on top of it "DANCE IS A SIN"
@@Butterratbeesome cities have little TVs in their subways. The song that Oscar and Brennan plays sometimes on one of those little TVs in the subway. This person, upon recognizing the song, either mentally or perhaps out loud, chants, "DANCE IS A SIN!"
I feel like it should be noted that in the behind the scenes episode for Second Place, Brennan's gong bang was so loud is messed up the lights on the set.
@@buttonsfan There's a great moment when Brennan is interviewing his mom for the Starstruck D20 season, and she tells a story about how he got a question wrong on a little quiz at the end of kids magazine about animals or something, and she tried to console him being like "It's okay, it's not a test" and his response was "You don't understand I *want* it to be a test!" So yeah, probably a pretty long time ahaha
What impresses me the most in that episode, is that not only did Brenna Won, got second and last in a 3 person contest, During the sacrifice of thepoints phase, the way they all chose their numbers was the ONLY scenario, where that could have happened.
It's not the only scenario, actually. There are a lot of other ways to do it, but one is: Oscar bets 5, Brennan bets 3, Ally bets 2. Brennan wins the round and stays at 12, and Oscar and Ally both end up at 13; they still tie for 1st overall so Brennan is still last in points, 2nd place, and the winner.
I mean, even with the stipulation that Brennan bets -∞ in every universe... Ally needs to come in second since if Oscar did he'd have stayed in first ahead of Ally. But Ally could have still bet 1 or 2 points. But I see your point and it is fun
Brennan saying "I'm going to get him; I'm going to get Sam Reich" as though he's about to take 'revenge' only to run up and give Sam a giant bear hug is the most wholesome shit and I love it.
I mean, the best thing this concept of "aim for the middle to win" in terms of points, overlooks the contestant placement. The middle podium was already Brennan's... he was destined to win.
ally's first answer always gets me cause like... they're right lmao. i forget what episode it was but they gave a similar answer in a previous gamechanger/um actually episode where they actually got points and it gave me major that vibes
My favorite part is "whats happening is wrong" because I fully did not clock that second place would actually be the full winner as well and thats the moment it clicked for me 😂
There's a short of a behind the scenes of Game Changer, and it's Sam saying that the first time he made Brennan angry and Brennan Brennaned out, Sam was just like, well that's an unending mine of content right there.
Also at least parts of other episodes, like the bird knowledge portion of the one where they're wearing heart rate monitors, sometimes referred to as the "Roseate Spoonbill incident"
@@FuzzyKayna Okay but putting Brennan "There is no corner of my heart I would not turn over to the world for 5 points" Lee Mulligan in the "Be Mediocre" game is objectively torture for him. That's his hell. Sam putting Brennan in this game and saying it wasn't to torture him sounds like Jigsaw when he says he doesn't kill people. Brennan would sooner start gnawing off (or chipping them, apparently) body parts than having to choose between either doing The Most or trying to win. An enthusiastically devious game designer puts someone in an almost impossible but technically winnable game? My point is that Sam is literally Jigsaw and may actually be trying to give Brennan a heart attack on set for good content. Sam is either lying to us or to himself, but deep down? He knows what he did.
I would like to appreciate, for a moment, both your sense of comedic timing, and especially the insertion of a "the vulture dimension" video link during Brennan's dramatic speech 😂😂
I liked the dynamic shift in this episode: as soon as Brennan failed to deliver on his promise of Goose Egg #2, he actually started being faithful to the premise, with his botched Donald Trump impression and his "DANCE IS A SIN!" bits for example.
Im still a little upset that Brennan didnt argue hes in third so noones in 2nd Cause placement is based on whos above you, he has 2 above him so hes 3rd
Watching Brennan put in 100% even though he knows it will be his undoing feels like the last semester of college where I had already gotten into grad school with flying colors but still put WAY too much time and effort into anything while literally everyone around me was saying I could phone it in even just a little bit. Needless to say this video has very strong neurodivergent vibes
In the end my giggles turned into a witchy cackle, and the cackle turned into an abominable "hon-hon-hON-HONNNG" french laugh that i do not know where it came from ❤🎉
I feel like this was a master strategy from Brennan as soon as he heard the premise. If the aim of the game is second place and doing your best doesn’t award points the only way to win would be to try to out preform the other contestants. Because the more points they earn the closer they get to first and first doesn’t win thus getting himself dq’ed at the end. He said that he was going to lose so hard to actually lose he would have needed to be earning points hand over fist. I mean Brennan said it all the back in survivor “do you think I fuck around?”
someone clearly wanted to pit two of Brennan's core attributes against each other... success and thank you for the laughs, because watching Brennan try to simultaneously win the average game and do his best is hilarious!!!
i CANNOT get over "you're not just playing the cards, you're playing the other players." "wait, are you playing me?" "I'm playing poker right now on my phone."
This is fantastic! I would love to see a similar breakdown of the bingo episode. Brennan 's portions made for a compelling story in the larger story of the episode.
him calling it a “sick rodeo… this bizarre fucked up clown festival” while they do their little dance in the back and sam struggles SO much initially to dance in sync with them 😭😭
iirc, it was originally going to be key lime pies, but they remembered last minute that Ally can't eat gluten. so they just went for pie filling with no crust
The best part is how Ally egged him on the entire way. They knew just how to get Brennan's goat, and as a result, they shared in the last laugh with Oscar and Sam.
