Being a reality television competition with multiple seasons and numerous returning players, Survivor sometimes requires context. Outside relationships between castaways are not often brought up on the show itself because CBS prefers not to let the audience know that these players may have colluded together before the game even began. There was also a marked shift in philosophy post Survivor: All-Stars in that the show does not like players to call back to previous years on any given season.
Survivor: South Pacific is one season that would be greatly serve by added context. The show’s 23rd season featured two returning players playing for their 3rd time, Ozzy Lusth and Coach Wade. It also featured one player, Brandon Hantz, who was the nephew of the infamous Russell Hantz. It was the first time that a relative of another cast member would take part in a season.
In terms of reputation, South Pacific is not particularly well liked among the fan community. There is obvious reverential treatment towards the two returnees and outside of that, a lot of the season is shrouded in a cloud of darkness. It took a lot of seemingly random events to come together to create South Pacific’s vibe but this is where context is needed.
First and foremost, one needs to know about Coach and his history with the show. His first season was Survivor: Tocantins and he became one of the season’s breakout stars. Coach preached honor and integrity and repeated his mantra of “iron sharpens iron” throughout his first season. Despite claiming this as his strategy, Coach saw fit to target alpha-male and strong contender Brendan Synnot, who he dubbed the Dragon, at the merge. This led to the creation of Coach’s self-given moniker as the Dragon Slayer. Coach was also caught in numerous lies throughout the season despite claiming to always be truthful.
While Coach took himself very seriously, the rest of his tribe and the producers did not. Eventually, much of the narrative of Tocantins was driven by Coach and his antics with his boot episode being essentially a 42 minute love fest from the producers. Even Jeff Probst could barely hide his adoration for the goldmine of television they had suddenly stumbled into. He would always try to bait Coach into re-telling his wild stories and push him to say insane things at tribal council. Suffice it to say, Coach would be brought back at the first opportunity.
That chance came along when Survivor decided to do a Heroes vs Villains theme. For his arrogance, inability to see the hypocrisy of his gameplay and general narcissist personality, Coach was placed on the Villains tribe. One of his tribe mates on that season was somebody no one else from the cast had ever seen in action, Russell Hantz. Off the back of season 19, Russell was immediately asked back for Heroes vs Villains which would be the series’ 20th season.
Feeling good about Russell, Coach sought to join him in an alliance. For his part, Russell did not respect Coach and used him as a number until he was no longer needed. Coach burned his bridges with Boston Rob Mariano and his alliance to follow Russell into battle only to be left behind to become the first member of the jury. Russell’s Heroes vs Villains game was cutthroat and left many other contestants feeling raw and upset at him but probably none more than the Dragon Slayer.
The way that Russell played Heroes vs Villains was essentially how he also played Survivor: Samoa. While it did not leave him with many fans in the game, Russell became lauded as one of the show’s best ever villains. He was hugely polarizing and was either loved or hated by the fans. No one had a lukewarm take on their appreciation for Russell.
Because of that insane popularity, Brandon Hantz became an obvious casting choice for later season. Coming into South Pacific, Brandon felt he was tasked to repair the Hantz family name to the worldwide audience. Not wanting to play like his uncle, Brandon was determined to use his chance to play Survivor to prove that he was a good man and that not all Hantz family members were devious people.
So there’s some context for the beginning of the game. Now we can move onto what happened within it. Much of the darkness in South Pacific would have likely been avoided were it not for random luck. Each tribe would have one returning player join their side. Ozzy drew the Savaii buff and became part of that tribe, leaving Coach to end up with the Upolu tribe that featured Brandon Hantz. Of course, at this point, nobody knew Brandon’s familiar connection with the game and he intended to keep it that way. If Ozzy draws a Upolu buff, the entire narrative of SoPa is immediately different simply because Ozzy is not a religious man but Coach certainly is.
Very quickly, Coach picked up that a large portion of his tribe were also devout Christians. Brandon was extremely outspoken about his religion, claiming to have found God after going through a very rough patch in life. Albert Destrade and Rick Nelson also spoke freely about their beliefs. As a Christian man, a sentence Coach would utter dozens of times over the course of the season, it became very logical to Coach that they should join forces. On the first night on the beach, Coach pulled together Brandon, Rick, Albert, and Sophie Clarke and formed a final five alliance. It is worth noting that Sophie is an atheist and simply agreed to this alliance because you never say no to an alliance on Survivor. If you don’t believe me, ask Jonathan Penner.
This is where we need some more context on Coach. In the past, he had been largely ignorant in terms of strategy and focused much more on being a memorable character. In South Pacific he sounded and felt like a different person. Never one to really put together a legitimate alliance, his final five group would actually hold water. In the past, he came in preaching honor and integrity and intended to try and prove it could be used as a legitimate strategy. This time around, he constantly repeated the same mantra but used it as a smoke show to deceive people and move his way further into the game. Of course Coach would never admit this openly.
One other big difference from this iteration of Coach is that for the first time, he was being taken seriously by his tribe. Outside of Sophie, nobody really questions Coach’s decision making. Of course, Sophie being the lone differing voice would ultimately become important for the season’s endgame but it is not highly noticeable on a first watch. For the most part, Coach is played completely straight and meant to be taken as a legitimate contender in the game. This is a huge departure to Coach 1.0 who was largely a buffoon and Coach 2.0 where the editors simply accepted him as a joke character and used him as such.
In the game of Survivor, commonality is the easiest way to forge deep bonds. The Upolu Family, as Coach’s alliance would come to be called, bonded over their deep sense of religion. They would have prayer circles each morning, before meals and before and after competitions. Because they believed so strongly in their God, it made the Upolu alliance especially close. Since four of the five players felt like the man above wanted them to work together, straying away from that group would present a great moral conflict.
As all this is happening, Brandon is also experiencing major inner turmoil. What the show doesn’t really tell us but can be picked up through physical clues is that Brandon is a recovering addict and being out on the island is taking its toll. He immediately distrusts Mikayla Wingle because she is attractive as Brandon put it, “as a married man, I have to stay away from that stuff”. He felt tempted and in Brandon’s weird sense of justice, blamed that temptation on Mikayla who had done nothing in an attempt to seduce him. He also compares her to Delilah, the woman Samson loved and eventually became his downfall. As Sophie tells the audience in a confessional, in biblical terms, Brandon would call Mikayla “the whore of Babylon”.
Because of his obsession with wanting Mikayla gone, Brandon tells people outside of his alliance lies to try to get votes pinned on Mikayla. He then feels bad about making up these lies and fesses up to them during Upolu’s first tribal council leaving the rest of his tribe and Jeff astounded that he would be so open. Brandon’s willingness to lie so quickly but also so easily admit to his lies made his alliance weary of Brandon. The problem was that he was entrenched within the Family and nobody was willing to turn against that.
Having allied with Coach, Brandon also felt bad for omitting his last name to him. He believes that having been raised in the church, he should come clean to Coach because not doing so would be ungodly. Brandon follows through with that thought and tells Coach who his uncle is. This worries Coach a little bit because of his past trauma with Russell but also tells Brandon, “you say you’re gonna play like a man of God. That means something to me”. It also important to note that this is likely the first instance where Coach realizes that Brandon is playing the game based on what his religion would tell him to do. Coach sees that Brandon can be manipulated through his strong beliefs and files that away for later when it will become much more important.
Later on, after Albert has shared the hidden immunity idol clue with Coach, the latter prays for help from God to find it. Lo and behold, shortly thereafter Coach stumbles onto the idol and shares the information with Albert and Sophie. Having seen Brandon in action, he deems him too unstable to share such key information with him and no one is sure Rick was even truly a character in South Pacific so he doesn’t get the information either.
As the days go on, Brandon becomes more and more motivated to find the idol. As Coach tells it, Brandon’s desperation brings out the Russell inside him and scares Coach a little bit. Because of his determination, the trio who know about the idol decide to stage a fake discovery so that they can put Brandon at ease and let the whole tribe know the idol is in Coach’s possession. Ever the showman, Coach gathers the troops to pray that they find the idol and not long after goes to get it to show Brandon. Knowing full well how religious Brandon is, Coach still prays with him to find an idol that is already in his pocket. To Brandon, this is evidence that God is behind them to win the game and that his must stay true to his alliance of five. This shows once again how much darker and cutthroat Coach is willing to be in order to get to the end.
Much of the pre-merge focuses on Brandon’s struggle with Mikayla’s “temptation”. He keeps trying to have her voted off and failing. He also keeps being very open about his intent at tribal councils. For her part, Mikayla is completely confused as to why this guy she barely even speaks to is so steadfastly trying to have her voted out. It’s an interesting study in itself seeing Brandon talk about how much she tempts him in confessionals and seeing her do none of that during actual camp footage. Having been unfaithful to his wife before, Brandon is projecting his attraction to Mikayla as Mikayla wanting to be with Brandon. It is a very narcissistic way of seeing things and unfortunately for Mikayla, eventually makes her a casualty to the Upolu Family.
The longer the game goes, the more the Family starts to resemble a cult. They pray before and after challenges, the words “Father God” are uttered too many times to count and Brandon refers to his religion at least once an episode. After one challenge, Coach aggressively makes Albert and Sophie kneel to pray while they are both still blindfolded from the competition, making it look like Coach is trying to execute both of them. To the Savaii tribe looking in from the outside, Upolu looks like a bunch of nutcases being ruled with an iron first from the man they all know from prior seasons to be the supreme nutcase.
Come the merge, Coach proves his improvement at the game of Survivor and is impressively able to sniff out Savaii’s gameplan. He manages to convince John Cochran to actually flip over to his side and target Keith Tollefson to secure the majority for Upolu. He does so by calling on Cochran’s super fan side and telling him that big moves make big moments. Coach also knows that Cochran wants to play for as long as possible and forcing a tie and rock draw greatly hurts Cochran’s chances of staying in. With the next few votes, Ozzy and Jim Rice are sent to Redemption Island, solidifying the stranglehold that Upolu has on the game.
Having been blindsided before, Coach takes steps to ensure everybody in his alliance is comfortable. He establishes final three deals with every member as a way to let them know that they aren’t at the bottom of the totem pole. Much like Boston Rob and his buddy system in Redemption Island, Coach makes a rule that the Upolu are not to talk to the other side. He lurks around whenever someone from Savaii is talking to his alliance to ensure that nobody is making side deals that don’t include him.
With the numbers on his side, Coach becomes almost like a deity to the majority of his tribe. He straight up tells Edna that she is number six and she doesn’t fight it. Both Whitney Duncan and Cochran realize that he is essentially a cult leader but since Cochran stupidly flipped on his tribe, there is nothing the minority can do to stop him.
For his part, Brandon now starts wanting to go back on some of the promises he has made. This includes to Edna because Brandon would prefer keeping Cochran over her. He openly says this at tribal council but also says that can’t go through with it because he is bonded by his word to keep Edna Ma and that everything is black and white. As Brandon puts it, “there is no gray”. This is more evidence for Coach to observe that Brandon sees religion by the book. He does not interpret the teachings to his everyday life but rather lives his everyday life by the teachings which is why there is no room for gray in Brandon’s world. Despite his pleas, the tribe chooses to remain loyal to Edna and vote out Cochran, putting the death knell on Savaii.
Having whittled down Savaii to nothing, the final six consists of all Upolu Family members and tagalong Edna (until Ozzy late comes back from Redemption Island). This is where the game gets incredibly messy, especially for Coach. On the loved one rewards, the winners take their loved ones to Redemption Island. While there, Coach takes the time tell Ozzy that “as a Christian man” he will take him to the final three so they can fight it out like warriors. It’s also interesting to note from a character perspective that Coach’s loved one is his brother. This is a huge contrast to his original season where it was his Assistant Coach and it was played completely for laughs.
During that same reward, Brandon’s dad, Shawn Hantz, has a talk with his son. He tells him to snap out of it and stop playing based on his religion and more like someone trying to win a million dollars. Everything about Brandon talking to his dad is so Hantzian that it would be impossible to even script. Shawn also tries to strong arm Coach into taking Brandon with him to the finals. That’s a move that probably hurts Brandon more than anything because it serves to remind Coach which family Brandon is from and Coach does not like to be “bullied”. Especially by a Hantz.
With the knowledge that she is at the bottom of the six, Edna appeals to Coach’s strategy. She tells him that Brandon should go over her because Coach is constantly preaching honor and integrity and Brandon has displayed none of it towards Edna and a lot of other players in the game. Coach placates her to keep her happy but eventually still votes her out, proving once more that while he may say one thing, Coach is doing the other.
After Edna’s boot is when things really kick into high gear. Brandon becomes the biggest target because he might be able to beat Ozzy in Redemption Island, he’s unstable and he could somehow still manage to win a jury vote over the people left in the game. As is sometimes the case in Survivor, Brandon manages to win the individual immunity and unknowingly pull his own ass out of the fire. He punctuates his win with a loud “thank you Jesus!” as church bells ring in the background, a wonderful audio addition by the producers. That is only the start of the religious imagery the show throws at the audience in this episode.
Because Brandon was the original target, the alliance has to turn on itself for the first time. Coach, Rick and Sophie settle on Albert because he gets caught in a lie with Rick, denying that he told Rick he would take him to the final three. It all seems set in stone that Albert will be the one going until Brandon’s religion starts acting up again. He believes that Albert’s intentions in lying were not malicious and that he wants to save him. Brandon decides he will do so by giving him the immunity necklace.
Throughout many conversations about Albert and the immunity necklace, Brandon is working away at a piece of wood with a hammer. If one were to quickly glance, he looks very similar to a carpenter working away at his craft. Whether intentional or not, it is very hard to ignore the parallels to Jesus the carpenter as Brandon decides to give away his life to Albert and essentially die for his sins.
Because his closest alliance is with Coach, Brandon runs his decision to give away immunity with him. Of course what Brandon doesn’t know is that before the immunity challenge, Coach was all set to send Brandon packing. As he tells Coach, “if we can’t forgive our brother, our heavenly father will not forgive us” and Brandon prays that Coach will accept his decision.
For his part, Coach is both dumbfounded and caught off-guard by Brandon’s decision. He knows that if Brandon does give up that immunity, Coach needs to vote him out or risk never getting another chance to do so. Of course, Coach can’t just tell Brandon that will be what he does if Brandon chooses to give it away so he finds a workaround. Since Coach has learned from multiple moments that Brandon will blindly follow what God tells him to do, Coach tells Brandon, “I need to pray and I promise you this: I will do whatever God wants me to do”. This is how Coach sets up a loophole making it okay to vote off Brandon in Brandon’s own eyes.
This is the part of South Pacific that can get icky to a lot of viewers. It’s the crossroads of Brandon’s internal struggle coming to an end. Throughout the season, we get three much emphasized goals of Brandon’s time on the island. He wants to prove that he is a good man, something he reiterates multiple times in confessionals, he wants to follow God and he wants to reclaim the Hantz name. When it comes time to make the decision to either save Albert or keep immunity for himself, all three of Brandon’s goals come into play. Giving away his immunity would satisfy all three objectives in his mind and so it is never a question for him. At tribal council it is the first thing Brandon tells Jeff: he wants to give away his immunity.
Given the opportunity to give the immunity back to Brandon, Albert claims that he would “as a Christian man” if he felt like Brandon was in danger of going home. That is the final nail in the coffin for Brandon, or the cross if you will. Claiming that God spoke to him and told him Brandon needed to go to Redemption Island to face Ozzy, Coach votes out Brandon. He also uses a lot of hand gestures that make him look almost Jesus like to the camera.
By the tone of tribal, Brandon probably started to realize what was going to happen but it doesn’t make it any less tough to watch despite what anyone thinks of Brandon Hantz: the person. Before he leaves, Brandon and Coach embrace and the framing of the shot makes it look very much like a picture that might appear in the Stations of the Cross. As he walks off, one final church bell rings to put a caper on Brandon’s incredibly religiously flavoured boot episode.
In an ironic and very vintage Coach moment, he shoots an angry confessional after tribal about Albert pretending to not know Brandon would be leaving that night. He says in his confessional, “Own yourself. Own your actions. I’m sick of people coming out here and trying to look like they’re holier than though” which is classic coming from Coach, the most holier than thou character Survivor has ever given us. Throughout the season, Coach has made an almost visible effort to be more self-aware but with the adrenaline from the Brandon boot kicking in, the old Coach can’t help but creep up to the surface.
That’s another theme that will start to appear as Coach gets closer to the end. The more victory seems in his grasp, the more Coach starts to resemble his former self. At the final five, Coach then sides with Sophie and Albert in voting out Rick since Ozzy has won immunity. The same Rick that Coach promised earlier the same day he would not vote for. This pisses Rick off a fair degree and he eschews Coach on his exit out the door for a hug. At the final four, it is an easy decision for all involved to vote out Ozzy when he fails to win the immunity challenge. It is a bit more troublesome for Coach because he has pledged to wanting to take Ozzy to the end as part of his “iron sharpens iron” strategy but deep down, everybody knows that was never a true intention from Coach. The problem is that it leaves Ozzy feeling pretty bummed about the outcome when Coach does not step in to at least let Ozzy take part in a fire making tie breaker.
Through his manipulation of religion and cult like ownership of his alliance, Coach finally makes final tribal council. Considering the game he played and how strategic it was, he figures to be the leading candidate going into it, all he has to do is explain his game and how he had to exploit people to get to the end as a returning player without Ozzy’s challenge acumen. Simple enough right?
Wrong. Coach being Coach, nothing is ever simple. Having leaned on the Upolu mantra that he had coined of “honor, loyalty, integrity”, Coach was able to build trust with his alliance. The problem with leaning so heavily on that kind of talk is that when someone who preaches that stuff constantly stabs you in the back, it’s going to hurt a lot more than any other random person. Case in point: Rick is extremely pissed off that Coach voted him out of the game and goes in on him with his question. Similarly, Ozzy’s vote is lost because Coach did not try to save him at four despite swearing on his religion that he would.
When it comes to Brandon’s question, he dances around it and gives him shallow compliments about how Brandon “should have been there” and that Coach would “make it up to him”. Whitney doesn’t ask him a question but does point out to Coach that she feels like he “used Christianity to control your whole tribe”.
If at any point during these questions, Coach had owned up to his choices, things might have gone differently for him. During his vote for Coach to win, Cochran even says that using religion as strategy was a great game move despite Coach’s reluctance to cop to it. Throughout the whole game, Coach presented this self-aware, strategic presence that he had never before displayed. He was taken seriously by his tribe and presented as a legitimate threat to win by the edit. All of it comes crashing down when Coach refuses to admit to his game play and it costs him the game. It is the most Coach Wade way to lose the game of Survivor if there has ever been one. Faced with a very possible win, Coach chose to stay in character and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
While Coach does a great job of burying his chances to win, Sophie is also there to give him a shovel. The entire game, she has been the only one really questioning how Coach runs the operation and been saddled next to him as an easy lane to the final three. Once there, she makes sure to turn everything on Coach and really puts the nail in the coffin for him when she reveals that Coach knew about the idol before showing it Brandon.
Considering how the game eventually plays out, it’s possible that the editors were once again making a joke out of Coach. Up until Final Tribal council, Coach 3.0 seemed much more serious than his two previous showing. The difference between this iteration and his two previous is that one has to watch the entire season of South Pacific to realize that Coach is still a joke. Throughout the season, he is built up as this master game player who conquers both tribes. The only real opposition we see from his own alliance is Sophie questioning his methods and choices. When we as an audience sees how the game ultimately plays out, it is sort of like the editors pulling the carpet under our feet. Like Wile E Coyote can never actually catch the Road Runner, Coach is never meant to actually win Survivor, they are both much more compelling as perennial losers.
South Pacific is certainly not the lightest season of Survivor. The use of religion as strategy can be a difficult pill to swallow for those who devoutly follow Christianity. There is also depiction of a man in Brandon who follows his religion in all the wrong ways and uses it as a way to excuse himself from his bad actions. Despite the darkness that looms on the season, one has to think that Sophie winning makes it a little easier. Following his story, Brandon is edited to show that he is a man who does not fully understand his religion and whose past haunts his present. Coach is shown to be a devious player who cannot close the deal on the win because his own personality gets in the way. Ultimately, in a season ruled by a religious cult, it seems almost appropriate that the winner ended up being the atheist.
