Kristie Bennett (Australian Survivor: 2016 - 1st Place)

HeWhoShrugs

One of the most iconic winners of all time who won’t get the respect she deserves because she wasn’t a masterful player. Who cares how great her game was? She had the greatest winner story of all time and her winning AU 2016 brought me to tears multiple times in that finale. There was no way she wasn’t making endgame, but I’m still in love with the fact that such a remarkable character blessed our screens.

Purplefebruary

Kristie starts off the game on Aganoa, easily the biggest trainwreck of the three starting tribes. And I mean a trainwreck in the best sense of the word, you have a group of eight eclectic people who all fall on various levels of the crazy scale ranging from normal (Phoebe) to absolute bonkers (Des).

Then when the tribe get back to camp after the latter’s boot, the dysfunctional factor is added by Kristie losing her bag and having a giant paranoid freakout. What’s most fascinating about this scene, is that it starts off seeming like it’s going to be this big OTTN ball of crazy, but then we get a moment where El takes Kristie aside, and Kristie opens up her heart about how the game is negatively affecting her, and it’s all framed very sympathetically. This moment serves as her big breakout in the season, which for someone who would eventually win the game, is a really unorthodox way of introducing them to the audience, especially when you’re used to recent US seasons where the editors try their best to whitewash their winners into generic CPbots. That’s a positive on the part of the AUS editors in that they’re not afraid to show the not-so-good sides of their winners.

Much of Kristie’s content in the premerge outside of that second episode is her acting as the quirky sidekick who does yoga and tries to catch fish with Rohan’s underpants, first to Kat when they first end up on Vavau, and then to Phoebe after Kat is voted out. As Vavau progressively gets Ulonged, and after Phoebe has saved herself with two idols, she tries to make one last push to make the merge by throwing her friend Kristie under the bus. And it almost works, except then JLP reveals at TC that Saanapu will be kidnapping one of them instead. They decide to kidnap Sue, giving Kristie a huge reprieve.

And to Kristie’s credit, she demonstrates that she’s not as stupid as everyone else makes her out to be, and quickly susses out that her friend Phoebe was trying to blindside her, and we get a hilarious confessional where her first thought was: “you bitch!”. She very quickly sets into motion to get Phoebe out before she gets her, and manages to convince Conner and Kate to finally take Phoebe out once and for all. Her biggest move of the whole game was to take out the biggest strategic player of the premerge, and that’s pretty impressive for someone who frequently gets called a floater.

”She could be playing me, but I can play her better”

Once the merge hits, Kristie again steps into the background as anyone who isn’t in the Brick Clique tries and fails to take control of the game, as her role is to simply manoeuvre her way out of the firing line by getting in good with various members of the majority. She should’ve easily been the next to go after Conner and Kate got pagonged out of the game, but she manages to dodge the bullet as the Brick Clique put their focus on the Saanapus who are on the bottom of their little hierarchy instead.

One great scene we get in the early postmerge is when Kristie finally wins a reward challenge, and gets to have a letter from home. But she sees Matt on the losing side, and she knows how badly he’s missing his fiance. Out of the pure kindness of her heart, she offers to give up her letter so Matt can get his. Not only is it one of the few heartwarming moments of what is a hugely dragging early merge, it also provides important context as to why Matt was the most pro-Kristie member of the jury, as he talks about how much gratitude he has towards her for her sacrifice.

Then the game finally gets shaken up at the final seven, and Brooke is brutally culled by her own partner-in-crime. Matt finally decides to wake up and tries to take advantage by attempting to take down Lee and El next, but at this point Kristie has reconnected with Lee in a big way, and she refuses to go along with it. We get to the final four, and Flick is trying to save herself by trying to convince Kristie to send Lee to fire, but to the dismay of Flick and the entire jury, she still wouldn’t budge.

Everyone just cannot understand what Kristie’s logic is by sticking with the most powerful player in the game, a guy who is one half of a seemingly unstoppable power couple. When JLP tries to ask Kristie how she’s going to break up the power couple in the final three, she cheerfully replies “I guess I’ll have to win immunity!” which causes the jury to collectively facepalm. After Flick is voted out, she tells Kristie that she’s an idiot, to which she simply replies: “we’ll see…”. It seems like the odds are all stacked against her and that her naive strategy is leading her down a path straight to Jury Villa.

And then we get to the Final Immunity Challenge. I’m not exactly stepping out of the consensus when I say that it is quite possibly the greatest Final Immunity Challenge in any edition of Survivor in terms of pure drama. The final three have to compete in Hands On A Hard Idol, with freezing cold waves constantly crashing down on them, all while their loved ones are watching. The challenge goes on for hours, everyone is freezing and in a lot of pain.

It eventually comes down to Kristie and Lee for the necklace. At this point, Kristie is in absolute agony, and only her sheer determination is keeping her in this. Then it starts getting too much for her, and she tearfully pleads to Lee to let her win this one. She promises that she’ll take him to the final two, and that she would be an easy beat for him. She’s using whatever energy she has left to persuade him to step down. Finally, she tells Lee that he reminds her of her own father and that by stepping down, Lee would be making an eight-year-old girl’s dream come true. His response is to simply say: “I’m proud of you”, before another wave crashes down and Lee slips.

It’s left ambiguous whether or not he did this on purpose, but regardless, against all odds, Kristie did what she set out to do and won the Final Immunity Challenge. And we get this great scene where her father congratulates her, and she’s limp on the ground simultaneously in a lot of pain but also crying tears of joy. We get to Tribal Council, and as the jury take their seats on the bench, they’re all slack-jawed at the sight of Kristie wearing the necklace. You can even hear some of them say “how did she do that?!”. She promptly votes El out, taking Lee to the final two with her as she promised.

It’s now Day 55, and we get this great scene of Kristie waking up and saying “I did it! There are no more challenges!”, and what’s great about this scene is that she’s talking to the camera as she says all this, like she’s breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to the audience. As the final two leave camp for the last time, Kristie talks about how she survived everything the game threw at her and defied the odds before saying “isn’t what this game is all about?”.

Then we get to the Final Tribal Council. Now before we start, it’s worth adding some context into just how monumental this FTC is going to be, because from my understanding, it seemed like most of the jury was in the mindset of “ew, neither of these two, but I guess I’ll go for Lee because he did stuff” with Matt being the sole Kristie vote.

Lee does his opening speech where he blabs about integrity etc, and then it’s Kristie’s turn. And the first thing she says, which sets up how this is going to turn out, are the immortal words: “you all thought I was crazy!”. She then proceeds to roll off her Survivor journey in detail, her moves, her motivations, her hardships. He delivery is so confident and so eloquent that the jury are completely blindsided by this. Jennah-Louise in her speech actually cracks a joke that she feels that she’s addressing a completely different person. Nick notes that her previous TC performances in the past were quiet and incoherent then suddenly she’s firing on all cylinders.

And it’s not just her opening speech, every single question she’s asked, she answered perfectly. It’s like she instinctively knew what the jury was going to ask and knew exactly how to respond to them. I won’t go through all of them but I’ll go into a couple of my personal favourites: Flick talks about BIGMOOVS and that she perceives Kristie as having done nothing. Kristie responds by saying that actually, there’s more than one way to win Survivor, and that making lots of little subtle moves is also a valid winning strategy. And personally, that kind of talk really speaks to my heart as someone who gets exasperated by all the constant talk of BIGMOOVS and RESUMES and all that toxic US stuff. THERE. IS. MORE. THAN. ONE. WAY. TO. WIN. SURVIVOR.

The second one that I want to talk about is Matt’s question, where he brings up the fact that she was manic at times and isn’t sure who the real Kristie is. She explains that she didn’t even realise that she had anxiety issues until the game started, but battled through it. There’s a big stigma towards being emotional in Survivor, and she made a great point that there shouldn’t be as long as it doesn’t affect the way you play the game.

It truly is one of the greatest FTC performances in Survivor history, and many people have even gone as far as to say it’s the greatest ever. Even greater than ChrisD’s masterclass in bullshitting. Even greater than Todd getting Jean-Robert to shut up. Even greater than J.T. effortlessly steamrolling Stephen. This performance was so great, it left the jury totally stunned. You see them at points looking confused and frantically whispering to each other. And then the votes come in, and Kristie wins in a crushing 8-1 vote. She overcame her last great obstacle, and one of the greatest Survivor underdog stories of all time is now complete.

I can understand why some fans would be frustrated by her strategy, especially in the endgame when she stuck with Lee and El. And yes, 99% of the time, that kind of strategy fails. Epically. But Kristie somehow made it work through sheer determination. She made this win happen, she worked for it. And with the gift of hindsight, her weird and unconventional path to the end makes her story even better. She didn’t go for what most people would see as the most sensible option, she went for the path that felt right for her.

And to me, I find that incredibly inspiring. Kristie showed that if you have a goal, no matter how farfetched it may seem, no matter how many people try to tell you otherwise, you can achieve it if you pull out all the stops to make it happen.

Average Placement: 2.66

Purplefebruary: 1

Ramskick: 1

HeWhoShrugs: 2

Qngff: 3

Sliemy: 8

Shawkwave: 1

It wasn't close.

Luke Toki (Australian Survivor: 2017 - 7th Place)

Purplefebruary

What can I say? Luke is undoubtedly the best casting discovery Australian Survivor has ever made. The guy was made for TV. He’s hyperactive and runs around building spy shacks and making big moves, but has the endearing and dogged likeability that a lot of people of his archetype just don’t have. He’s having the time of his life on the island and we as the viewer can’t help but feel like we’re included in his fun capers.

HeWhoShrugs

Another guaranteed endgamer. No way was he getting cut, and for good reasons. Luke is one of the best jester characters of all time. He’s not super serious and he’s not a particularly great mastermind since he has obvious weaknesses like his own super high likability and spotty strategic game, but AU seasons don’t need those types of players to be good. Luke’s a constellation from the minute he sets foot on the Samoan shores and his presence singlehandedly makes 2017 a must see season. Plus he gets a ton of similar confessionals and I don’t care. That’s how great he is in front of the camera.

Sliemy

Who doesn’t love Luke? He just has completely everything you could ask for in a character. Truly one of the most charismatic, entertaining people to ever play Survivor, it’s completely authentic and he’s an exceptional confessionalist. Him and Jericho are easily my T2 of the season and their bond is easily one of Survivor’s best. I’ve only watched a few episodes of the most recent season and he was already the Luke I remembered loving, he never gets old for me.

The last bit of Luke is in the 2017 Final Four

Average Placement: 4

Purplefebruary: 2

Ramskick: 4

HeWhoShrugs: 3

Qngff: 8

Sliemy: 2

Shawkwave: 5

So Luke and Tom tied with a 4.0 average, and they also tied when looking at their peak placement from individual rankings (each being placed at 2nd by two rankers). No clean way to decide but at least it's only choosing 2nd and 3rd rather than 1st and 2nd. I just looked at the standard deviation of their scores, the median, and the average when removing the highest and lowest scores. Tom had the lower standard deviation, but was higher in the other two sections. So based on that, Luke just beats out Tom.

Tom Swartz (Survivor South Africa: Philippines - 1st Place)

Purplefebruary

The OTTN king of Survivor SA. The man who broke edgic. As much as we enjoy the trainwreck and hair-trigger temper, there is the other side of Tom in that he’s a big lumbering softie who likes collecting clams, and delivers his confessionals with some real gravitas. And his FTC closing speech is legit one of the best ever. It’s even up there with ChrisD bringing Julie her hat.

HeWhoShrugs

LOL how did this dope win Survivor again? Oh right, because he redeemed himself step by step and displayed positive qualities. Huh, I guess US Survivor should take notes when making complex anti-hero winners in the future, because Tom is exactly what they should look like. We see him start off on a high note, then watch him fall from grace into scummy villainy with his raging temper and anti-social tendencies. But as the season wraps up, we start to appreciate Tom’s goofy side and see him blossom into a fully realized character, a man who regrets the way he acted, a man who repents for his sins against his former friends, and a man who somehow won Survivor after being a goat for 80% of the season. I’m still not sure how this happened, but I’m glad it did.

Sliemy

South Africa: Phillipines is easily the best season of Survivor ever edited, a season with everything going for it - outstanding characters, classic episodes, iconic moments, but most importantly an amazing winner. While an OTT winner has been seen a few times before, it’s never been to this magnitude. Tom was an absolute trainwreck who angered everybody from his original Luzon tribe, but basically became a member of Mindanao once the merge came along. His transition between the two sides was an excellently edited story where he’s putting himself in what seems like an unideal position, because these are legitimately the people who like him, or at the very least are nice and tolerate him. It speaks a lot to many aspects of social game on Survivor where you simply cannot just ostracize people. Also, his dynamic with Ace although early on is a phenomenal highlight and his rivalry with Palesa the entire season was easily a Survivor best, that works all too well with Palesa giving him a winning vote in the end. Defying all expectations to give an incredible Final Tribal Council speech was truly mesmerizing, and with the full context of everything, he honestly wasn’t a bad player like he was made out to be during the season.

Tom's part of the SA6 Final Four

And that's all I've got

Average Placement: 4

Purplefebruary: 5

Ramskick: 3

HeWhoShrugs: 7

Qngff: 2

Sliemy: 5

Shawkwave: 2

Werner Joubert (Survivor South Africa: Philippines - 4th Place)

Purplefebruary

It’s hard to elaborate on Werner for me, he can be summed up as the smart guy who becomes the bus driver and gets brutally cut down before the end. And he plays this role well. One of the things I admire with Werner is that he’s just so good with people, and you should hope so considering he’s a pastor. Oh, and he was robbed of a place in the jury.

HeWhoShrugs

See my idoled Werner write up for my feelings on him. Nothing’s changed.

HWS's idoled writeup

Werner's part of the SA6 Final Four

Average Placement: 5.66

Purplefebruary: 9

Ramskick: 2

HeWhoShrugs: 10

Qngff: 1

Sliemy: 4

Shawkwave: 8

Jericho Malabonga (Australian Survivor: 2017 - 1st Place)

Purplefebruary

The Cookie Monster! Jericho is quite fascinating because he wants to be this evil villain, but he’s so nice and likeable that he ends up being more of a cheeky scoundrel. He has increasingly bizarre analogies throughout the season, including when he referred to Sarah as a drowning cat. He is the perfect sidekick that Luke could’ve possibly gotten out of that cast. And that scene where Locky teaches him to overcome his fear of swimming is one of the greatest Survivor moments ever.

HeWhoShrugs

So uh, another weird, WTF winner I see. Yeah, Jericho’s a bizarre case. He talked about dragging people down to hell, made jokes about murdering cats, dribbled cookie crumbs on a fat guy’s chest, spent a good chunk of his FTC performance ruining his chances by trying to sound like some two faced lying gremlin… and he still won because these seasons refuse to have normal winners. He’s nowhere near as great as Luke, but he’s still a worthy champion who fills that come from behind victor role really well.

Sliemy

Jericho is my all-time favorite from modern Australian Survivor easily. He’s also actually my first winner pick to ever come to fruition. I remember him standing out to me pre-season, but he got the Tina treatment Episode 1 and really wasn’t present much to my chagrin. But suddenly he hit the ground running Episode 2. Some people could argue that Jericho might be too repetitive or one-note, but for me he was simply pure non-stop chaos and entertainment from his debut. Of all Survivor villains, I feel like he genuinely thrives off of chaos potentially the most and is likeliest the most open about it.

He also works so well because it’s such a sharp juxtaposition. We’re introduced to him as this very religious Christian man, he’s very short and baby-faced, high voice - your initial impression is that he’s the most adorable thing and wouldn’t hurt a fly. He recognizes how people view him, and takes full advantage of that. Also his bromance with Luke is the most wholesome thing ever and I absolutely adore the two together. I know everybody loves Luke more, but I’ve just always personally had a soft spot for Jericho, and he really drives the endgame for me. His scene of Locky teaching him how to swim was such a great character-building moment, his spree of challenge wins satisfied the challenge-lover side of me, and the F4 endgame episodes where he defends himself against Michelle and manages to convince Tara into throwing away her game - things like this and more were the pinnacle of the final stretch of the season.

I also live for all the little wreckless, petty things that he does. Telling Jarrad that he will underline his vote, leaving Jarrad under the impression they were working together, to then underline Jarrad’s name sending him home. The entire debacle with the cookie jar, the contrast with Tarzan crying over not being able to betray his team, and Jericho having absolutely zero qualms about taking the cookies, and using them as a legitimate form of strategy and social currency throughout the episodes. Him being such a jackass to Michelle and Pete when they tried to take him out and taunting them when the votes came back a tie and he beat them. Him dragging Pete for filth before taking him out.

Not to mention his completely wreckless FTC performance. He truly doesn’t understand the concept of jury management and I loved how he teared into his allies, to the point Henry even needed to address him that he wasn’t helping himself. I don’t think Jericho really took it anything in the game too seriously though, he was just there to have fun, and it luckily panned out well for my entertainment!

Average Placement: 6.66

Purplefebruary: 7

Ramskick: 7

HeWhoShrugs: 8

Qngff: 6

Sliemy: 1

Shawkwave: 11

Adam O'Brien (Survivor New Zealand: Thailand - 5th place)

Purplefebruary

I have mixed feelings on Adam because he’s the definition of the kind of person who “if you’re his friend he’s a darling, but if you’re not he’s a total bitch”. But he does provide a lot of the levity and the laughs in the season, and is easily its most colourful character.

HeWhoShrugs

I’ve said before that NZ: Thailand might be my favorite season of the six in this Rankdown. Yes, more than any of the AU seasons or the universally acclaimed, world class SA: Philippines. I won’t deny those seasons are iconic, enjoyable experiences and outshine most of what US Survivor has put out in recent years, but there’s something about NZ: Thailand that just spoke to me, you know. It felt like an indie movie version of Survivor: made on a small budget by people with a passion for the craft, resulting in one of the most unique seasons ever filmed. Though one of the big things the season has going against it is the lack of charismatic characters. Some call these characters “bland” or “boring” or “dull” but not I. I myself didn’t mind the quieter, more introverted narrators because I myself am fairly quiet and introverted, so to see people on the show acting like me made it easier to relate to the cast as a whole. I enjoyed seeing the innate awkwardness on camera, but there was one stand out who didn’t fit that mold whatsoever: Adam O’Brien.

It’s not even a question: Adam is my Number 1 International character, beating out icons like Kristie, Luke, Tom, Shane, etc. At first it might sound a little strange having this villainous comic relief character from a less liked season sitting on the Shrugs throne, but I don’t have any regrets about putting him there. I legitimately think Adam is the funniest person to ever appear on any Survivor season I’ve seen, combining the over the top antics of someone like Luke with the facial expressions of Michaela Bradshaw with the villainous “mean girl” edge of Courtney Yates (and given the Asian lakeside location, I find Courtney to be the best comparison).

But to understand why Adam is so magical, you need to travel back in time to 2017 when NZ: Nicaragua hit the screens. While it definitely gave us some great characters and some fun moments, the season was an overall disappointing venture into International Survivor and wasted a lot of potential, particularly with its cast. The group themselves weren’t awful, but they lacked a big, breakout personality or two who could unapologetically steal the show and break up the standard monotony of quiet narration every week. So when they returned to cast Season 2, casting knew they needed to aim for a more diverse group of personalities that wouldn’t just become another “good guy” circlejerk like the previous season. They needed someone with a fiery personality who would own themselves and add some life to the environment. Someone who could play the villain without a care in the world while remaining a fun and oddly likeable presence on the show. Someone who could keep the audience entertained, for better or worse, all season long. And that’s where Adam O’Brien comes in.

From the moment I saw the cast photos, I didn’t think much of the guy. All I knew about him was his botox injections, which sounded fun in a behind the scenes kind of way, but since I didn’t see any cast videos or read any bios I never knew what to expect from him personality-wise. He seemed like a generic dude who fit right in the rest of the cast, so I put him aside and stanned Lisa just based on her horrible “I’m definitely the first boot with this face” cast photo, unaware of what was coming for me with the Adam O’Brien experience.

Lasting almost the entire season gave us plenty of time to hear from Adam, and given his high confessional count, we heard a ton from him. For me it was definitely for the better, because I can’t remember a single time Adam didn’t make me smile, laugh, or just get plain excited to watch the show when he reared his botox-filled head. His introduction to the audience is him literally standing around camp doing nothing when everyone else is working, remarking about how lazy he is when it comes to the survival elements, and then pointing out that nobody’s even noticing, which ends up being a real testament to his great social game when he’s not even a serious target to go home until the final five, a time when he was literally the only option to go home to the majority. He’s like Sandra, someone who can be a huge bitch and shred you to pieces, but you’ll still love him because he’s Adam freaking O’Brien and getting insulted by someone of that caliber is an honor!

Adam’s journey continues with the fantastic second episode where he pushes himself to the point of vomiting after the challenge and becomes a sort of “camp morale booster” for his tribe when they celebrate his birthday on the island. If I had to pick a scene that got unfairly forgotten, I’d go with his tutorial about “watermel-owns” and how to tell if one’s good to eat. It’s such a quirky, nonsensical way of explaining something you’d find on a WikiHow article, but Adam pulls it off so well and makes it hilarious, something he does with pretty much every mundane part of the Survivor experience. Imagine how boring it would be if Josh or Matt sat there and said “Yeah uh, watermelon’s pretty good, eh? Especially the ones with yellow on the bottom.” It would bore you to death. But Adam comes in and acts like it’s a goddamn Broadway show.

But then the villainous side of Adam shows up and that’s where he lost a lot of people. The Dylan rivalry didn’t win him many fans (except me because I was craving a good villain after Nicaragua dropped the ball), but this short little arc is one of my favorites in the season because it’s Adam at his snarkiest. You can say he got too mean and “bullied” Dylan, but after reading exit interviews, the whole thing was overblown by the edit and it was more of a one-day thing that turned into a stalemate. Basically, Adam felt like Dylan was direct competition for “camp clown” since they were both sassy, snarky dudes and decided his best move was to keep Dylan on the outs. Most of the “bullying” people thought was happening actually remained in the confessionals themselves (along with most of Adam’s snark since the whole cast thought he was just a jolly dude without a mean bone in his body until the show aired). Dylan and Adam eventually get swapped together to the new Chani tribe and Dylan immediately flips to get rid of Josh, one of Adam’s best allies. Common sense would say Adam is on the outs and will definitely lose because Dylan is the “hero” of the season, right? He’s supposed to beat the big ol’ meanie faces and… oh wait, Dylan loses the battle and gets blindsided with Adam smirking the whole time and celebrating the night away? That’s a twist, and a good one that really subverts what you’d expect from Survivor storytelling. They built someone up as a villain due for a downfall and then let them win the fight without any consequences, and you know what? I fucking love that! And it’s not like Adam was a one note negative entity either. He got to rationalize his dislike of Dylan, Dave, Arun, and whoever he didn’t take a liking to. And the editors gave him a chance to do so. It would have been so easy to just make him look like a douchey asshole, but they allowed him to be a complex, insightful villain during the pre-merge and I think it worked out beautifully.

Then we get the third act of Adam’s journey following the opening act and the Dylan saga: the post-merge. This is why Adam shows his strategic chops and plays the game to win, flipping back to Khangkhaw to knock Arun out after tricking him into bring him to the merge. Yet Adam’s game takes no damage because he’s just that likeable out there. Even voting incorrectly multiple times doesn’t tarnish the guy’s reputation because what he lacks in a good voting record, he makes up for with an amazing sense of humor and some amazing digs at his fellow Phsan members. Namely: Dave.

The Adam/Dave rivalry is one of my favorite parts of the season and helps both characters ascend to great heights. The gist is Dave is kind of a brat. He whines about being hungry all the time, goes on all the food rewards, comes back to camp complaining about how full he is, and then the cycle starts all over again. And of course, Adam is there waiting to mock him for how ridiculous he’s being with some great impressions and even better confessionals where he just tears into the guy for being too dramatic about everything. Dave buys a challenge advantage at the auction (one he needs given how terrible he is in challenges) and whines since it’s not the food he wanted even though he’s been on all the food rewards, so Adam rightfully reads him to filth as they leave the auction. Another great moment in this feud comes when Eve takes him on a reward trip to eat chocolate. Adam and Dave actually bond over Adam’s adopted brother having a lot of mental disorders and everything seems to be getting better between them, but Adam can’t help but end this beautiful scene with “Dave still annoys me. On the inside I’m just like: you’re an idiot -_-.” It’s Courtney Yates level comedic timing and I’m sad only a fraction of fans will ever bother to see it given NZ’s status as “the other” international series that you don’t need to see. But Adam’s in this season, so you definitely DO need to see it.

But let’s not skip too far past Adam’s most iconic moment: the Jurassic Park rant. It’s the final eight and a trip to the Survivor Cinema is up for grabs. The movie? Jurassic World. Our boy Adam is a big Jurassic Park stan and this is the reward he’s been dreaming of since he got to Thailand. So the teams are drawn, the challenge is played, and he loses. It’s all thanks to Tara being a total waste of space in the challenge who stops to “DUST THE FUCKING DECK!” and can’t even figure out the puzzle herself. Adam’s furious, so he spends a good half of the episode complaining about how Tara sucks, how he wants a ticket to see Jurassic World, and yeah, that’s about it. It’s nothing super complex and it’s not top tier intelligent comedy, but it’s all so funny and as a Jurassic Park stan myself, I can relate. You tempt me with a free Jurassic World showing and movie snacks in the middle of a Thai lake and take it away because someone blew the challenge for some dumb reasons, you bet I’ll be pissed!

But Adam wouldn’t be complete without a fun person to play off of, and that’s where Tess comes in to be his little partner in crime. I can understand writing them off as camp bullies, but man, Adam and Tess are such an iconic duo in this season and bring so much heart to it. They’re aligned early on and don’t really do much together until the post-merge, but once Adam believes he has to vote her out and attempts to do so, the final five episode is where they really shine. Tess wins reward and decides to take Adam with her, figuring it’s better to repair that hurt bond than give one of her rivals a day off. And so they make up and decide to stick together to the bitter end with Adam falling short, but not before he washes his hands in the camp well out of spite. It’s such a (literally) dirty move but Adam just makes it fun for some reason. You almost want to see him completely trash the joint with that botox-filled smirk on his face, because the dude’s charm is just plain infectious. He’s delightfully cracked in the best way to put it another way.

Oh, and he wasn’t done fucking with everyone after left Thailand. No no, he was still on his A-game on social media when someone attacked him on Twitter. What did he do? Well, the person who attacked him said they hadn’t seen the penultimate episode, so he just went and spoiled the final three for them. That’s such an Adam move and I love him for it. The lesson: don’t fuck with the watermelown king.

And that’s why Adam is my number one international character. He’s hilarious, villainous, loves to sing songs and force production to pay royalties for them, owns 90% of NZ:Thailand’s entertainment stock on his own, and stands out as the biggest character Survivor NZ ever had across 34 players and two seasons. I’m probably higher on him than anyone in existence and knew he would probably be my number one from the beginning. He might not be for everyone and I doubt he’ll rank super high with everyone else, but he’s pretty much made in a lab to appeal to me in every way possible so here he sits on my throne.

Average Placement: 7

Purplefebruary: 10

Ramskick: 8

HeWhoShrugs: 1

Qngff: 9

Sliemy: 7

Shawkwave: 7

As you can see Adam's average placement was tied with Lisa's, but Adam had the highest individual rank between the two due to HWS, and Lisa had the lowest individual rank from Q, so this one seems like a clear fix. There's another one coming up that won't be as easy but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Lisa Stanger (Survivor New Zealand: Thailand - 1st Place)

HeWhoShrugs

Lisa is the winner Survivor NZ needed. And if it ever comes back, I hope Lisa was able to change the way Kiwis play. She tackled Survivor was this adorkable childlike tenacity for adventure and honestly, that’s so goddamn relatable to me. She felt like an old school winner despite her gamebotty confessionals and focus on the strategic game, largely because she’s so unique. She’s this quirky, soft-spoken librarian mom who’s super jittery and anxious all the time, yet she made one of the most badass moves with the Matt blindside and played about as well as someone in her archetype could ever dream of playing.

Purplefebruary

Lisa gets introduced to us as this tiny, nerdy librarian who’s a huge superfan. She gets a good amount of content in the premiere demonstrating her superfan status, acknowledging that her only knowledge about Thailand is that a season of US Survivor was filmed there. And in a great piece of foreshadowing, she has an encounter with her future FTC rival Tess, where Lisa struggles to believe that someone would be on Survivor having never watched a single episode. Not even after being cast. It does a great job of setting up just how different these two finalist’s approach to the game would be.

Her premerge edit is fairly quiet for the most part, where she mainly plays the role of the geeky side character who just wants to check off a Survivor bucket list. We get a cute scene after Khangkhaw win an Immunity Challenge where they let Lisa collect the idol, and she gushes about how much this means to her while giving the idol a big hug. This turned out to be a big part of her premerge strategy, she wanted to give off the appearance of a harmless fan who just wanted the experience, and it worked as her tribe found her sympathetic and didn’t see her as a threat.

She comes back into prominence in the last premerge episode, where she gets faces off against Dave in the Outpost challenge and wins a Vote Steal thanks to her puzzle skills. We get a confessional where she mentions both Cirie and Fishbach as two of her all time favourite players (<3), both of whom also had a Vote Steal but messed it up, and how she really wants to use it correctly. Unfortunately, as good as she is with puzzles, she’s not so good at lying, and tries to cover up her advantage at camp which JT immediately sees straight through. Later in the episode we get this amusing moment where Khangkhaw are trying to throw an Immunity Challenge, but Lisa is too sick to throw it and ends up winning the challenge for them.

The merge comes, and Lisa knows that the time has come to step up her game. Because her Vote Steal can only be used at the next Tribal Council, she uses it to steal Arun’s vote and it helps send him out of the game. Then she managed to maneuver into a better position in the tribe by pretty much becoming Matt’s key strategist and they made the first big power move by blindsiding Brad. In the actual season the main credit for the move went to Matt, but a secret scene shown in the reunion show demonstrated that Lisa played a big role in making sure that Matt’s plan worked.

Author’s note - The merge episode was when I started watching the season as it was going out live. With no knowledge or context as to who the remaining players were, Lisa was the one who caught my attention the most. I tend to have a bias towards the “nerdy female” character in Survivor and my first impression of her was that she seemed smart enough to have a lot of potential in going far in the game. After that episode, I spent the next few days binge-watching the premerge to catch up.

Lisa wins reward at the final eight along with Matt, Dave and Tess where they all get to watch Jurassic Park, and they all get surprised with videos from loved ones. After Lisa sees her video from her family, she suddenly has an epiphany and realises that if she stands any chance of winning the game, she has to get rid of Matt. She knows that he’s too powerful and would win hands down if he got to the end. She wants to win for her family, and is determined to achieve it.

Then comes the final seven, and Lisa thinks it’s the perfect time to try and make a move on Matt, as it’s a nice odd number. But things go pear-shaped in a huuuuge way. First of all, Matt spots the same idol clue that she does, leading to him having it in his possession. With that in mind, Lisa ends up having an emotional breakdown feeling that there is no way she can get rid of Matt now, and that all her dreams have been shattered to pieces. In a desperate attempt, she tries to pull off a crazy scheme to get him to pass the idol to her, which doesn’t work but I’m still amazed that she somehow got away with not getting caught. Then secondly, just to put the icing on the crap cake, Matt wins immunity again, which leads to a hilarious moment where Lisa has a Freudian slip on the bench and blurts out “oh no!”. With no other option, Lisa is forced to vote out her friend Eve, one of the people she wanted to take to the F3 with.

After that episode, it seemed like all hope was lost and that Matt was going to deathmarch to the end...

Then comes the final six episode, which turns out to be Lisa’s piece-de-resistance in the season. She’s still determined to take down Matt, even though she thinks six is a more difficult number to pull it off. Matt informs the alliance that Tess is the next to go, and a despondent Adam is going along with it. So she works out that she can organise a 3-2-1 vote if she and Tara can somehow get Dave on board. Problem is, unbeknownst to the rest of the cast, Dave and Matt are real-life BFFs and there’s no indication that Dave would ever turn on his bestie. She sits Dave down and informs him about Matt’s idol to try and get him to flip, a secret that Dave is very upset to find out about.

Thanks to an advantage, Dave manages to prevent Matt from winning immunity again, which means all systems go for the plan. By the time we get to TC, it’s still up in the air whether Dave will flip, but the plan works, and Matt is finally out of the game. It is seriously one of the most impressive Survivor moves ever made both US and international, a move which Matt himself said that not even Lisa realised just how impressive it was that she managed to get someone to turn on his lifelong best friend without knowing it.

In the aftermath of the Matt vote, you could cut the tension at camp with a knife as no one is talking to each other. Having masterminded the biggest move of the game, Lisa finds herself in Adam’s bad books, as he mistakenly thinks she was trying to split him and Tess up with the move, and confronts her about it at TC. A confused Lisa is left having to defend herself and explain that she simply didn’t trust Adam enough to bring him into the plan (and as I said earlier in my Eve writeup, this is massively ironic on Adam’s part as he pretty much did the exact same thing with Eve), and he is swiftly sent packing by Dave and Tara largely because his protestations came far too late for their liking.

After Adam’s big speech, Lisa is left concerned if him highlighting the fact that she’s the biggest strategist in front of the jury will help or hinder her case if she makes FTC. Her exasperated voting confessional says that he made a better case for her game than she ever could herself, but the seeds of doubt still remain. This is Survivor NZ, after all, this may as well be The Australian Outback in terms of game development. She has a confessional about how “I would vote me out too”, which shows an incredible amount of self-awareness in where she stands in the tribe.

At the Final Immunity Challenge, the worst case scenario happens for the Lisa-Dave-Tara alliance and Tess wins immunity. Tess decides that she wants Dave out because she thinks they played similar games and that might split the jury vote (having no idea that Matt just blew the lid off their secret at Jury Villa), but this makes Tara upset and Lisa paranoid. Then Tara comes up with a hair-brained scheme to get herself voted out to allow both Dave and Lisa to get to the F3 and give her mortal enemy Tess one last middle finger in the process, and they arrange a 2-1-1 vote to achieve it, a very first in Survivor history. Imagine how US viewers would react if that ever happened in US Survivor, but we’re sadly never gonna see that happen. THANKS, PROBST.

Final Tribal Council finally arrives. Lisa gives a very solid opening speech explaining her strategy, her motivations, and does a little joke about having a pre-game alliance which was her family. Some people think that was pretty cringeworthy, but I think it was really cute and very on-brand for her given how much of a nerd she is. Cut to the live results back in NZ, and Lisa takes her seat on the bench in an RHAP t-shirt while everyone else is all glammed up (apparently, producers tried to stop her from wearing the shirt but changed their minds at the last minute). The results come in and she wins 4-3-0, managing to buck the trend of older strategic women getting buried at FTC.

Author’s note - I’ve mentioned numerous times that I was at the reunion show, and I got a photo with Lisa and had a quick chat with her. I told her how happy I was that she won, and that I really wanted to be in a (hopefully) potential Season 3. I can tell you that in person she is very sweet and soft-spoken, and she gave me some advice which was in summary: “really think about whether or not you can handle it before you apply, as I found it extremely tough and would never do it again”.

I’m not going to sit here and try and convince you that Lisa played a flawless mastermind game, but I am going to tell you that I found her slow rise to power and her subsequent win very inspiring as someone who is also an introverted nerdy female. She demonstrated that people like me can win Survivor and gives people like me hope. And as I alluded to earlier, it’s so refreshing after so many examples of strategic older women not being respected by Survivor juries that one actually managed to buck the trend and show that this archetype can win and not just be a FTC goat. And she also demonstrated that superfans can play smart and not go in like a bull in a china shop and kill their own game (you know who I’m referring to).

And while there is a better example in this endgame of the older woman subverting expectations and clutching victory in this rankdown, Lisa is the one who did it first. And that’s why she should be appreciated.

Average Placement: 7

Purplefebruary: 4

Ramskick: 5

HeWhoShrugs: 5

Qngff: 12

Sliemy: 10

Shawkwave: 6

Shane Gould (Australian Survivor: Champions vs. Contenders - 1st Place)

Purplefebruary

Shane winning Survivor was the bizarro unlikely outcome we all needed. It was amazing watching this sports legend from decades ago come onto the show and be this endearing, oddball granny who is inclined to do a blindside, says in confessional “don’t fuck with me” in the third person, pretend to be sad, and act as a mole. What a world we live in.

HeWhoShrugs

Don’t fuck with Shane Gould. Basically the result of Scout Cloud Lee fusing with Gillian Larson… and then winning for some reason! She was written off as an early boot by pretty much everyone, like when Luke ranked her near the bottom every week in Redmond’s power ranking game because “She’s old LOLOLOL!” Little did we know that Shane Gould was just a few weeks away from being the oldest Survivor winner in the world and being a badass while doing so. She’s got the shady confessionals, the fun quips around camp, and the pure spectacle of this hippie olympian farmer granny winning a 50 day Survivor game going for her. That’s endgame-worthy right there.

Sliemy

I really like Shane, I love what she represents, but I just really don’t see her end-game level over people like Sharn, Mat R, and possibly Shonee. She doesn’t have a consistent, prominent focus on the story the way the others do, and is a little one-note with her journey in my opinion. With that being said, she still works well as a winner, she completely defied all odds to become the oldest female Survivor winner, I don’t think anybody saw that coming from Day 1.

Again no full writeup =[ I wrote a bit about her for the final four but I believe that's all.

Average Placement: 7.5

Purplefebruary: 6

Ramskick: 9

HeWhoShrugs: 4

Qngff: 5

Sliemy: 11

Shawkwave: 10

Michelle Dougan (Australian Survivor: 2017 - 4th Place)

Purplefebruary

Michelle is legit one of the greatest social players of all time. She’s this snarky girly girl whose sole preparation for Survivor was to get a pedicure, but knows the mechanics of the game and is great at it. She was targetted as weak so many times, but managed to fight her way out of danger, including that epic TC where she absolutely verbally ANNIHILATED poor Ben. She was called out for sucking in challenges, and then proceeds to end Locky’s immunity run. And I love the running theme where those who try to mess with Michelle end up paying the price big time.

HeWhoShrugs

I’ve always found Michelle more annoying than entertaining. She’s just so rude and obnoxious to people and it didn’t feel fun to me. I like her story and she pulls it off well, especially her take down of Locky at the final five by half a second or one second or whatever it was, but I just don’t like her personality.

Qngff

https://old.reddit.com/r/IntSurvivorRankdown/comments/cj18tk/round_18_33_characters_remaining/evdbfii/

Sliemy

Easily the best of the iconic robbed 4th place goddess archetype. My most memorable moment is her completely bodying Ben and impressively managing to stay despite being completely swapfucked. She only really kicks into high-gear once the merge hits, but she hits the ground running serving nothing but iconic, sassy confessionals. Her turning against the Asaga 4 for excluding her on one of the votes was also very entertaining, and I particularly enjoyed following her relationship with Jericho, their alliance unraveling because of the loved ones visit was very intense, and I was genuinely on the edge of my seat wondering which would come out on top.

For a bit more written on Michelle in place of a full writeup, here's the 2017 final four writeup

Average Placement: 8

Purplefebruary: 3

Ramskick: 11

HeWhoShrugs: 11

Qngff: 11

Sliemy: 9

Shawkwave: 3

Sharn Coombes (Australian Survivor: Champions vs. Contenders - 2nd Place)

Purplefebruary

Sharn runs hot and cold for me. To me, she’s by far at her most interesting when she’s screwing up, like the poop idol, or persisting in going back to Monika for the hundredth time despite the evidence that Monika has zero interest in flipping. And of course, she has one of the biggest FTC collapses since Stephen Fishbach which was so incredible to watch live.

HeWhoShrugs

Yeah she’s a weird pick for an endgamer, I admit it. But I just really like Sharn. She’s not a top tier character and she can be a little gamebotty at times, but she’s just having a ton of fun out there and I love watching her play. I also love the irony of this amazing speaker getting hyped up as a huge FTC threat, only for her to blow her chances by one vote after walking in as the winner of the season. It’s the perfect downfall for her and really ties all her little flubs together to create a cool runner up story.

Sliemy

My 2 endgame picks are definitely both characters that seem to stick out here for most people spectating. I can kind of understand that feeling with Avi, but Sharn’s lack of reception honestly baffles me. I feel like she provides you everything you could want in a female antagonist/character, the drama, comp beast teas, the iconic moments, the tragic and complex storyline, the underdog run, etc. She just brought absolutely everything to the table and easily stole the show in Champions vs. Contenders, and it’s just frankly not close at all in my mind, and I’m genuinely shocked she isn’t stanned more.

Sharn was definitely a more quiet character for the first third of the game, but I feel like Shane and Shonee were both equally pretty quiet at this point, although maybe Sharn was slightly less, but I do feel like they all become prominent around the same point to where I don’t see the others as having more complete storylines than her. Anyways, we really would just see her check-in with that fact that she was a well-renowned lawyer apparently in Australia. There were lots of complaints over how sports-heavy the Champion tribe was, so it was nice to have somebody like Sharn bring a different mindset to the table. Also, have to mention her iconic hulu dancing scene.

Sharn moves to the Contender tribe at the swap where she gets more scenes reminding us that she exists. Australian Survivor tends to prefer to separate arcs by pre-merge and post-merge is what I’ve noticed, because once the merge hits Sharn hits the ground running. Regarding the post-merge, with Lydia leaving immediately, Sharn became that inspirational figure I looked up to, her snatching immunity wins left and right, clawing her way through trials and tribulations with each episode, and making it to the final stretch - it was truly a journey. The best part is I did not expect Sharn of all people to be the badass comp beast.

I’ll go over some specific highlights that easily put her as the best character of the season. Her first idol find scene is probably the most iconic idol find in Survivor history. Grabbing an idol at a challenge is an idea we’ve seen used a lot throughout the 30s era, but somebody actually dropping it and exposing themselves. Sharn’s reaction to it completely sells the scene, her just awkwardly picking it up, knowing it’s a wrap, and everybody just staring. She’s also a crucial part in making the Mat blindside such an epic moment. She confidently stands up to play her idol on her closest ally, but suddenly is intercepted by Benji who warns her not to do it, her reaction is perfect just nervously shifting to playing on herself under Benji’s guidance.

I personally felt like Shane was missing moments like this where we truly saw her vulnerable, Sharn is far more multi-faceted for me, we got to experience her highs and lows, and the post-merge story is basically dominated by her perspective. The following tribal, she’s the target for Benji who gets Shonee to play her double vote. Shonee playing it on Sharn was the wrong play however and allowed them to take out Benji on the revote. Another highlight episode from Sharn who had Benji clocked earlier. Benji tried to make up a lie to her that Brian thinks she’s after him, but Brian had immunity so his story didn’t add up, and Sharn sent him packing accordingly.

At the final 6, she finds another idol and manages to save herself yet again. I found it very interesting the intense vitriol against her from the fanbase for finding another idol and the show being accused of being rigged. There was never this energy for people like Palesa, Phoebe, etc. Sharn was just highly disliked at large by the public and I never understood it, she served you everything you could want in an underdog. Regardless, she remained unbothered living to see another day. She wins the next immunity and sends Monika packing.

Her penultimate impressive showing is at the Final 4 where we see the second 2-1-1 split in Survivor history, directly following New Zealand: Thailand. She essentially tricks Shonee into voting herself out. At this point, I’m thinking Brian wins FIC takes Shane and wins, but Sharn pulls a clutch win joining the club of women to win 4 immunities and takes out Brian. Both Sharn and Shane had incredible stories, it was an impressive F2 and I was honestly fine with either winning, but Sharn was obviously my rooting interest. As big of a stan that I am, I would not change how it played out. In the same way the finale episode is really the crux for selling Krisite’s story in 2016, I really think the FTC sold Sharn here and it easily makes my T5 FTCs ever.

As a lawyer, there’s an expectation that you’re a good speaker, can keep your composure, and know how to sell your pitch, even if you’re wrong, you should know how to be convincing. So it was a huge surprise to everybody when Sharn just completely dropped the ball. My heart absolutely broke for her watching the FTC, she was really blindsided by the jury’s perception of her and just completely shut down. It’s such a tragic ending for a character who just spent the entire merge breaking down boundaries for women in her archetype and clawing her way to the end despite the frequent challenges. Especially the way Mat was so hard on her, when he really had nobody to blame but himself for going, and Sharn wasn’t apart of trying to take him out.

Her final plea to the jury apologizing to them, but to not take her dream away from her for only a simple mistake. I could tell she lost the game as the scene unfolded, I seem to be alone in how badly I felt for her, but maybe that’s because I was a huge stan. I do see it as an objective tragic scene. It’s a very relatable feeling to be flustered and lost for words, but it happened on such a grand scale and was amplified by the fact that she was legitimately a frontrunner. I’m still happy and proud that she got 4 jury votes, and one of the few times I think somebody truly works as a runner-up, and easily the best one in Australian Survivor (up to this season at least, haven’t watched season 4 yet).

Average Placement: 8.33

Purplefebruary: 12

Ramskick: 10

HeWhoShrugs: 9

Qngff: 4

Sliemy: 6

Shawkwave: 9

Avi Duckor-Jones (Survivor New Zealand: Nicaragua - 1st Place)

Purplefebruary

While he sucks up a lot of the airtime and has one of the most painfully obvious winner edits since Cochran, I do think he’s a bit more nuanced as a character than people give him credit for. He talks integrity but shows a good level of game awareness. He wears his heart on his sleeve. He has his own way of doing things. And in confessionals, he has a very commanding and confident presence without being intimidating or in-your-face. It’s easy to see why he won almost unchallenged.

HeWhoShrugs

Yeah, I’m not an Avi fan. He’s likable and has a solid story, but like most NZ: Nicaragua characters, he’s pretty dull and repetitive in his confessionals and his obvious winner edit made the season more boring than it could have been. I get the appeal, but he’s not for me.

Sliemy

Survivor New Zealand: Nicaragua is probably the most hated season of Survivor ever, unfairly of course, and I think a large part of it comes down to how people feel about Avi. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are several spectators upset to see him get this far, let alone be in the endgame. The main critiques I hear regarded him is that he was an insanely predictable winner, he was annoying/self-righteous, or that he was boring. I make sure to isolate myself from fan reaction as much as possible when watching RTV seasons until I can watch the episodes, because I like having my own thoughts first, and I was definitely surprised to see the amount of Avi hate because I was simply fascinated watching him the entire season and he was easily one of my favorite overall Survivor characters and winner ever.

Firstly, the production for the season was obviously wonky with an unnecessary twenty episodes for a sixteen person cast, so once a clear frontrunner emerges early on, it makes sense how things can get stale to sit through. I personally had no idea Avi would win the season, I’m not really an Edgic person and I didn’t read spoilers, so I was 100% convinced that Tom was marching his way to the end, basically the way people felt about Avi in this regard, is what I felt about Tom. I would not have believed anybody that were to tell me that Avi beats Tom in the FIC, takes him to the FTC anyways, and still wins the game almost unanimously.

Avi feels like one of the most unfiltered, authentic winners we’ve ever had, they showed all aspects of him, his faults and his positive qualities. He’s an insanely likeable dude and a great person, his confessional detailing his experience in Ghana, teaching and helping children, and how he appreciates the Survivor experience teaching him not to take anything for granted, remains a personal highlight. Also, his FTC might be the most prominent example of the jury seriously factoring just how purely great a person is to determine who deserves the money, not that he didn’t have a phenomenal game. Tom’s voting confessional (who I thought was a locked Tom vote) was very telling, he was simply speechless, Avi’s just such a great guy.

And following along with the season, I felt the same way. As a sidenote, can I just mention that I find him to be one of the best confessionalists ever, he oozes charisma and stage presense, when he’s talking, I want to listen. I think Q broke down statistics of how he may be the most overedited Survivor player, at least for international survivor, ever with about 150 confessionals across 20 episodes, and I think he deserves every last one. He’s amazing at bringing his personality into each one, even the throwaway ones, his experience with survival on mission trips, the raw anger and happiness throughout the tribulations of the game. I truly feel like nothing gets left unseen, there’s just not another winner as “real” to me.

With that being said, he obviously had his nasty sides that likely made people sour on him. The most notable that comes to mind is him absolutely going ballistic after the merge at the Sala blindside when Shannon betrays him, and he thinks Jak is going home. He really flipped out, but I found it very entertaining, and again the fact that he ends up being the winner and they allowed him to be so flawed like this was truly spectacular. His reflection afterwards clocking himself on how he behaved inappropriately and wanted to mediate things is the type of detail that really makes Avi a complex character, a good person who has his flaws that is trying to navigate his way through this morally corrupt game of Survivor. Although he gets mad at others - he has to lie to people too, he has to also blindside people, etc.

So yes, he’s hypocritical at many points, but I think what distinguishes him from other people is that he’s very cognizant of it. He will reflect back and realize that maybe things weren’t as black and white as he originally thought they would be. Maybe it’s not possible for him to be a nice guy in this game, maybe he’s being naive in thinking that he’s somehow morally superior to his fellow castaways. And while obviously it is persistent, I like it being a season-long conflict between himself, and again to hammer it home I love how raw and unfiltered he felt, I really feel like I know everything there is to know about Avi’s personality watching through the entire season.

The Final Tribal Council I remember being nervous because it felt like he was getting clocked for some of his antics, but he never pretended to be anything he was, and the jury clearly really liked him as a person. It’s kind’ve interesting the dichotomy between how his castaways feel about him compared to how the public did in that sense. Also, from a personal standpoint I really connect with his character, as I definitely have a reputation for being 100% myself at all times, regardless of the situation or context, and I appreciated being able to watch somebody that was able to have his game walls down most of the time and just be himself, and it just so happened that being himself actually made him a great player. I stand by him being potentially one of the best social players to ever play Survivor.

I won’t be surprised if he’s one of the earlier boots in this endgame, but he 100% deserves this placement in my eyes, and if there’s another one of these I doubt he’ll have as many vocal supporters as he did in this rankdown, so I’m happy he at least gets his credit for what he brought to an underrated season this one time.

Average Placement: 8.5

Purplefebruary: 11

Ramskick: 6

HeWhoShrugs: 12

Qngff: 7

Sliemy: 3

Shawkwave: 12

Okay so this is finally happening, sorta. About half of the writeups still haven't been written, but we'll work with what there is and at least get the endgame order and writeups that were done out for people to see. With a few more rankers not having done writeups though I did decide to ultimately include Q's rankings because if he would be cut out for not wanting to do writeups then Rams and Shawk should be held to the same standard, and if that happens then it's only 3 rankers deciding things sooooooo yeah all 6 rankings were averaged. If any of the writeups that didn't get done happen to be written eventually, then I can add them to the posts, but for now, it's been two months, so let's just finally wrap this up.

Barb Raos (Survivor New Zealand: Nicaragua - 3rd Place)

Purplefebruary

Barb is the no-bs-taking strategic force of the season, a lot of the season wouldn’t be the way it turned out if it wasn’t thanks to her. She plays the power goat role well, and in a season dominated by integrity, it’s refreshing to have at least one character just cutting people’s throats simply because she wants to, and then sleeping with a teabag mask after she’s done.

HeWhoShrugs

Older women don’t have it easy in Survivor, do they? With the exceptions of Lisa Stanger, Denise Stapley, Tina Wesson, and Shane Gould, women over the age of 35 tend to fall into two categories. They’re either badass bitches who become audience favorites and fall short of the finals, or they’re complete messes who end up getting no votes, terrible edits, or both. Barb… really isn’t in either category though. She leans towards the latter because she definitely didn’t get respect from the jury, but she’s not really a mess and her edit wasn’t bad. In fact, it was quite good and gave her credit where it was due for the game she played. So why do I have Barb this high? Well, I think Barb is the perfect meta-character for the older woman archetype, one who really tackles the role in a unique, interesting way like no other older woman has before. And that’s why I really wanted to write about her, because there’s more to her than just “older woman final tribal loser.”

To understand Barb, you need to know the history of her archetype and how it’s pretty much the hardest difficulty level to play on. I’ll be forever grateful for Lisa Stanger showing up just one season later to prove it was possible for an older woman to win by playing strategically in New Zealand Survivor, but Barb had the highest mountains to climb when NZ: Nicaragua started. Her occupation was “MUM” so you knew she was pretty much screwed. She was deemed a liability in challenges, cast out of the majority alliance immediately, and basically fucked off for the pre-swap of the season, readying herself to be taken out first when Hermosa actually lost a challenge. But that time never came and Barb miraculously survived to the swap to find herself in a good position, with old rival Georgia as easy pickings and Sala and Avi waiting for the older duo of Barb and Nate to flip. For the most part, Barb isn’t really that interesting for the first half of the season. She’s a cool presence to have around and it’s always fun to see underdogs get their revenge, but Nate is the more relevant member of their alliance and does most of the talking, a problem that persists throughout the season as I touched on in my Nate write up from way back when. But I like Barb. She’s a cool lady who brings a nice “no shit” perspective to the game that a season of sanctimony needs sometimes.

But then we reach the merge. And this is where Barb suddenly shines. It was easy at first to stick with Avi’s alliance and knock Lee and Mike out one after another thanks to that dumb double boot Tribal Council that only encouraged a Pagonging (seriously, NZ: Nicaragua’s ideas for twists were so bad!). Next, Jak appeared to be on the way out. He was exposed, had almost nobody vouching for him, and was severely outnumbered in a game where tribe loyalty was started to take its hold on the season. But you know what, Barb’s not here to just go with the flow. She wants to make the biggest move possible and take down the fan favorite Rupert knockoff himself: Sala. Watching NZ: Nicaragua in the moment made this blindside absolutely euphoric. After a few episodes of easy votes and predictability, Barb singlehandedly pulled together a move Jonny Fairplay concocted several years ago, right down to who the target was. But here’s the beauty of the move: Barb didn’t really do it to win the game. She didn’t take Sala down because she was there to get the lousy grand prize or go down in Survivor history as a great player. She did it because she got bored and felt like shaking things up.

From here on out, Barb is the star of NZ: Nicaragua and one of the only truly great characters to come out of the season. In a meta sense, and almost as a parody, Barb admits to herself that she will never win the game against a bunch of hot youngsters who clearly don’t respect her as a player. She acknowledges how screwed she is by that big, fat “MUM” at the bottom of the screen and decides to just… not play the game that’s build against her. But it’s not like she’s admitting defeat. No, she’s going to redefine what “winning” means in her dictionary. Sure, you can aim for the 100K and the title of Sole Survivor, but Barb knows she’s got a 0.00% chance of pulling something like that off. So she decides her real “win” is to help her metaphorical Survivor kids Avi and Tom win instead, since they’re deserving of the prize and need her help to keep moving forward.

As a viewer, it can be frustrating to see someone like Barb carry the biggest blindside of the game on her back and then casually dump it off in a ditch and stop playing for herself to win, but watch the season from Barb’s perspective like I did. She knows Survivor doesn’t reward cutthroat moms, especially ones with negative personalities. So why even bother playing the game the way you’re expected to in the first place? Why waste your time pandering to people who’d never give you their votes in a million seasons. Why waste your time working your ass off to get to the final three when you know what horrible layer of hell is awaiting you regardless of how you play? Why waste your time babysitting everyone when you could pick your favorite kids and help pay their Survivor tuition with your votes? From the Sala vote onward, Barb subverts what we’d expect from the Survivor mom and plays her own way, for herself, but not to win. It’s one of the most meta stories I’ve ever seen and it’s fantastic commentary on the predicament older women face in Survivor, but a part of me feels like it wasn’t intended to be so. I don’t think the NZ editors were that crafty despite the good work they did with the footage they had. It felt like they created a surface level story of how Barb lost and accidentally created something amazing.

Most of Barb’s edited story feels like a big slug-fest against her. You can practically hear the editors calling her lazy, spoiled, rude, etc. from beyond the shores of that beach. They really do give her some bad looks here and there to explain her loss, even letting the fan favorite Sala call her a turd that won’t flush as if it’s some kind of righteous ownage of a shitty human being. But the magic of all this is how Barb doesn’t really give a damn. She knows it’s coming. She sees it. She’s ready. It gets to the point where she even debates quitting by vote because she’s got no chance and doesn’t feel like going through with all that jury thrashing for nothing. And just to make things super ironic, this is where Barb randomly wins immunity in one of the most epic victories ever. Seriously, this is the best episode of the season. Barb has a love of horses (follow her on Instagram for more Barb horse love in the most wholesome sense that phrase can have) and since the filming location is near a ranch, Barb sees a stray horse wandering around the jungle and takes it as a sign that luck is coming her way. And against all odds, she beats two of the biggest challenge beasts and a cop in a physical challenge built against her. It’s such a great win that Matt Chisholm himself loses his mind at the great TV moment happening before his is. It doesn’t get Barb any closer to winning because she still knows she’s destined for third place at best, but it’s just a beautiful moment of Barb making the journey her own, totally apart from everything else going on around her.

When FTC finally comes and Barb has to speak to the jury, she doesn’t bother trying that hard. She knows she’s toast and gets the last laugh as the jury eagerly awaits some tearful breakdown or sincere apology and never gets it. Barb owns who she was, decides she’s fine with losing as long as one of her island sons wins the game, and shrugs off the nasty comments coming her way. It’s a great way of wrapping up a FTC loser story without forcing some suspense on the audience. She’s not the Dawn or Julie who’s clearly not liked by the jury yet tries their best to swing just a couple people her way. She’s Barb, the badass matriach who operated from her hammock with an iron fist, burned every bridge she crossed, and walked away feeling like her own winner in the end despite receiving no love from the jury of her peers.

In a way, Barb can be seen as a brilliant self-parody of the ill-fated Survivor mother. She skipped past all the bullshit and just lived her own adventure completely outside the realm of the game. She took NZ: Nicaragua and made it all about her. She took the remote and tuned into the channel she wanted, much to the chagrin of those who found her sour and rude. It’s crazy to think that NZ: Nicaragua, the one dud season of the six in this Rankdown according to me, might have given us the most interesting take on a long term Survivor staple of them all. There’s never been someone who got ahead of the curve like Barb did, and I doubt we’ll ever get another one quite like her. She’s a real treasure, an NZ Queen, and a worthy endgamer in this dumb little internet writing seminar. Good on ya, Barbs. Good on ya.

Average placement: 8.66

Purplefebruary: 8

Ramskick: 12

HeWhoShrugs: 6

Qngff: 10

Sliemy: 12

Shawkwave: 4

I did one for SA7 so I thought I'd do the same here.

Post your thoughts on the season and your rankings here!

Just thought I'd put something up to keep us occupied while we wait for endgame, which is probably gonna take another 5 years, lol

I'll work out my own rankings later but share your rankings and thoughts. Personally I think I'm gonna be a lot higher on a certain player and a lot lower than a certain other compared to the rest of the Rankdown community, lol.

Link to form is over heeeeeere!

Rankers are welcome to join in, too!

13 - Shannon Quinn (/u/purplefebruary)

OUR ENDGAMERS: Kristie Bennett, Luke Toki, Michelle Dougan, Jericho Malabonga, Sharn Coombes, Shane Gould, Barb Raos, Avi Duckor-Jones, Adam O'Brien, Lisa Stanger, Werner Joubert, Tom Swartz

17 - Jeanne Michel - WILDCARD (/u/purplefebruary)

16 - Tara Pitt - WILDCARD (/u/ramskick)

15 - Werner Joubert - WILDCARD (/u/HeWhoShrugs) - IDOLED by /u/ramskick

SKIP - (/u/qngff)

15 - Lee Carseldine (/u/Sliemy)

14 - Palesa Tau (/u/Shawkwave)

The Pool: Shane Gould, Sharn Coombes, Jericho Malabonga, Shannon Quinn, Luke Toki, Werner Joubert

I made a spreadsheet so we can see who internationally is compared to who in the US by what percent of the others they are ahead of. I think it's pretty cool. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yGowWu3r57eDh-mNnEAzSUglVbtNH6VbLAmAl0Coi2E/edit?usp=sharing

20 - Shannon Quinn (/u/purplefebruary) - IDOLED by /u/qngff

20 - Dave Lipanovic (/u/ramskick)

19 - Toni Tebbutt (/u/HeWhoShrugs)

SKIP - (/u/qngff)

18 - Shonee Fairfax (/u/Sliemy)

17 - Avi Duckor-Jones - WILDCARD (/u/Shawkwave) - IDOLED by /u/Sliemy

The Pool: Lee Carseldine, Tara Pitt, Werner Joubert, Shane Gould, Sharn Coombes, Kristie Bennett

24 - Tess Fahey (/u/purplefebruary)

SKIP - (/u/ramskick)

23 - Locky Gilbert (/u/HeWhoShrugs)

22 - Brian Lake (/u/qngff)

21 - Barb Raos (/u/Sliemy) - IDOLED by /u/Shawkwave

21 - Marthunis Oosthuizen (/u/Shawkwave)

The Pool: Lee Carseldine, Tara Pitt, Shonee Fairfax, Werner Joubert, Shannon Quinn, Dave Lipanovic

SKIP - (/u/purplefebruary)

28 - Katinka Oosthuizen (/u/ramskick)

27 - Phoebe Timmins - WILDCARD (/u/HeWhoShrugs)

26 - Sala Tiatia (/u/qngff)

25 - Mark Herlaar (/u/Sliemy)

SKIP - (/u/Shawkwave)

The Pool: Barb Raos, Lee Carseldine, Locky Gilbert, Tara Pitt, Brian Lake, Tess Fahey

33 - Mat Rogers (/u/purplefebruary)

32 - Nick Iadanza(/u/ramskick)

31 - Matt Tarrant (/u/HeWhoShrugs)

30 - Michelle Dougan (/u/qngff) IDOLED by /u/Shawkwave

30 - Flick Egginton (/u/Sliemy)

29 - Henry Nicholson (/u/Shawkwave)

The Pool: Barb Raos, Lee Carseldine, Locky Gilbert, Tara Pitt, Katinka Oosthuizen, Sala Tiatia

39 - Jak Thomas (/u/purplefebruary)

38 - Moana Hope (/u/ramskick)

37 - PK Phetoe (/u/HeWhoShrugs)

36 - Sue Clarke (/u/qngff)

35 - Renee Clarke (/u/Sliemy)

34 - Craig l'Anson (/u/Shawkwave)

The Pool: Matt Tarrant, Flick Egginton, Barb Raos, Nick Iadanza, Lee Carseldine, Mat Rogers

43 - Conner Bethune (/u/purplefebruary)

42 - Sala Tiatia (/u/ramskick) IDOLED by /u/qngff

42 - Fenella McGowan (/u/HeWhoShrugs)

41 - Sam Webb (/u/qngff)

40 - Annalize Sainsbury (/u/Sliemy)

TRIBE SWAP - (/u/Shawkwave)

The Pool: Sue Clarke, Jak Thomas, Renee Clarke, Moana Hope, Matt Tarrant, Flick Egginton

47 - Chané Mynhardt (/u/purplefebruary)

46 - Samuel Hinton (/u/ramskick)

45 - Tevin Naidu (/u/HeWhoShrugs)

44 - Shay Tapusoa (/u/qngff)

43 - Dave Lipanovic (/u/Sliemy) IDOLED by /u/qngff

43 - Brian Lake (/u/Shawkwave) IDOLED by /u/HeWhoShrugs

The Pool: Annalize Sainsbury, Sala Tiatia, Avi Duckor-Jones, Conner Bethune, Henry Nicholson, Sam Webb

51 - Tessa O'Halloran (/u/purplefebruary)

50 - Jacqui Patterson (/u/ramskick)

TRIBE SWAP - (/u/HeWhoShrugs)

49 - Sarah Tilleke (/u/qngff)

SKIP - (/u/Sliemy)

48 - Tegan Gasior (/u/Shawkwave)

The Pool: Annalize Sainsbury, Chané Mynhardt, Sala Tiatia, Avi Duckor-Jones, Samuel Hinton, Tevin Naidu

57 - Dylan Conrad (/u/purplefebruary)

56 - Ace Chetty (/u/ramskick)

55 - Anneliese Wilson (/u/HeWhoShrugs)

54 - Mike Sparrow (/u/qngff)

53 - Brooke Jowett (/u/Sliemy)

52 - Kent Nelson (/u/Shawkwave)

The Pool: Flick Eggington, Marthunis Oosthuizen, Jacqui Patterson, Tessa O'Halloran, Renee Clarke, Henry Nicholson

62 - Eve Clarke - WILDCARD (/u/purplefebruary)

61 - Des Quilty (/u/ramskick)

60 - Kate Campbell (/u/HeWhoShrugs)

59 - Lisa Stanger - WILDCARD (/u/qngff) IDOLED by /u/purplefebruary

59 - Jenna Austin (/u/Sliemy)

58 - Seamus Holmes (/u/Shawkwave)

The Pool: Flick Eggington, Brooke Jowett, Marthunis Oosthuizen, Mike Sparrow, Dylan Conrad, Ace Chetty

67 - Dee Harper (/u/purplefebruary)

66 - Kat Dumont (/u/ramskick)

65 - Mark Wales (/u/HeWhoShrugs)

TRIBE SWAP - (/u/qngff)

64 - Samantha Gash (/u/Sliemy)

63 - Jennah-Louise Salkeld (/u/Shawkwave)

The Pool: Seamus Holmes, Flick Eggington, Des Quilty, Brooke Jowett, Kate Campbell, Jenna Austin

72 - Sam Webb (/u/purplefebruary) - IDOLED by /u/ramskick

72 - Tara Thorowgood (/u/ramskick)

71 - Vusi Mafulela (/u/HeWhoShrugs)

70 - Matt Hancock (/u/qngff)

69 - Kaysha Whakarau (/u/Sliemy)

68 - Andrew Torrens (/u/Shawkwave)

The Pool: Dee Harper, Kent Nelson, Samantha Gash, Mark Wales, Tegan Gasior, Jak Thomas