Day 31: Best Comeback

Survivor 39-Day Challenge

The best comeback is Kass’ comeback in the Final 4 immunity challenge of Cagayan (2014).

There have been a lot of comebacks on Survivor which Jeff annoyingly declared as “the biggest/best comeback in Survivor history”, but I do think this one tops them all.

It’s the opening challenge of the Cagayan finale episode after a surprise family visit late in the game. The whole airtime of the challenge was more or less 10 minutes, which is saying something as it’s on an episode where every minute counts for storytelling.

The challenge was called Vertigo, and the mechanics are as follows:

The castaways start on a tall perch where they have to gather water with a bucket and a long rope. Then, the water must be poured into a chute, which causes a pole with a key at the top to rise. Once the castaway is able to reach the key, they must head over to shore and work on a block puzzle. The first person to complete the puzzle wins.

And that was a tall perch alright, and wobbly which scared the hell out of the Final 4, especially Tony and silently Kass. Kass was so scared of the height of the perch that she could barely pour water into her chute, while the three guys had no problem whatsoever. At one point, the rope was tangled and got stuck which cost Kass more time — “an absolute disaster” as Jeff described it.

All the guys were in the puzzle portion of the challenge; Kass was still up on the perch. Spencer and Tony were already working to finish their puzzles while Kass was still finishing the first part of the challenge. I actually was surprised watching it live that Probst didn’t tell Kass to just sit-out the challenge like he’s done in the past (like to Natalie Tenerelli in Redemption Island).

Miraculously, Kass finished the first part of the challenge while the guys were almost finished and could smell victory over the puzzle. However, by the time Kass was on the puzzle, she put piece after piece with ease, and smoked everyone else.

That puzzle was hard, evidenced by Nick’s failed attempt of such version in Winners at War (2020) even though he’d already done and completed such puzzle on his winning season David vs. Goliath (2018). Even Spencer, another brilliant puzzle solver, having a ton of time to complete the puzzle, was thrown under pressure but failed.

I don’t know how they could’ve edited that to become such amazing of a comeback. I think what makes this really special is the fact that Kass was so hated back then and nobody would ever cheer for her (I would and I did, though) to come from behind in such a way. Nobody guessed this would happen nor Kass could pull it off. Single best performance in a challenge? Heck no; Kass was horrible on the perch. Single best comeback of the series? I would say so, yes.

Just for the sheer duration of this narrative, I think it trumps all season-long comeback storylines such as Aitu 4’s in Cook Islands, Salani women’s in One World, or Mike Holloway in Worlds Apart.

Kass’s comeback in Cagayan is one of the reasons its finale is one of the best, and to an extent, the reason Cagayan is gold.

Runner-up: Aitu 4’s Comeback, Survivor: Cook Islands (2006)