Top 100 Survivor Characters of the Decade: #70–66
Some Neat Ladies and Poker Players
Welcome back to my countdown of the top 100 Survivor characters of the decade. Before we begin, here’s a quick reminder of the criteria in play:
•The most important thing to note is that this is all subjective and done by myself. No doubt many readers will see people miss the top 100 and will feel like I have slighted a character. These are simply my opinions on who the top 100 is, it’s my personal list that I’ve been curating for well over 4 months, and I completely understand that you can disagree. I look forward to healthy disagreement as I reveal this list.
•A player’s entire history is considered in their rankings. For example, I won’t be looking solely at Malcolm Freberg’s Philippines appearance, his Caramoan and Game Changers games are part of the whole product.
•This list will only include Survivors who debuted between 2010 and 2019. That means players who have played prior to that won’t be included even if they participated in a season that fits out parameters (IE: the entire cast of HvV).
•Sadly, as it is still playing out, I can’t fairly incorporate out Island of the Idols cast into my rankings. That means I will have to leave them out entirely. With that said, there’s no doubt that Noura would have cracked the top 20 (probably the top 10) if she sustains this run she has been on. Likewise, players like Missy, Kellee, Elaine and even Dean would also have had a shot at making the top 100. I sadly don’t have the time to put this thing together if it means having to wait for this season to end.
•I am ranking these Survivors as characters. Not as strategists or game players. I am solely trying to determine who I believe were the most entertaining characters of the last decade.
To read any of the previous entries, click HERE.
With all of that out of the way, I present you numbers 70 through 66 in A Tribe of One’s Top 100 Characters of the Decade countdown.
70. Monica Culpepper, Survivor: One World & Survivor: Blood vs Water
If someone like Brenda is brought down by a second appearance, it can also become a lifeline for other characters. Monica is one such example. An otherwise fine presence on a terrible season would not have helped her make this list but given a second chance, she seized the moment and really delivered as a character.
One World feels so detached to Monica’s Survivor journey that it’s easy to forget she was even on the season. I would wager that 99% of Survivor fans think of Blood vs Water when they think of Monica Culpepper. It’s interesting that her original season has essentially become a historical footnote.
It’s easy to understand why. Monica does not get a lot of airtime on One World. When she is featured, she is always kind, pleasant and nice to be around. Maybe that’s the reason she doesn’t get much shine because One World would rather focus on the degenerates (or Kim’s dominance of said degenerates).
Her journey is essentially cut-short due to being swap-screwed. Colton Cumbie, the biggest degenerate on the One World cast, feels threatened by Monica’s competence (few players on One World are actually competent) and blindsides her. That’s essentially all you need to know about Monica 1.0.
In marrying Brad Culpepper, Monica gave herself a second chance on Survivor. The theme was Blood vs Water. Production needed to find former players who had family that was worth throwing onto a season of Survivor. Brad, a famous football player, became someone that production was interested in having on the show. Monica, always nice and easy to deal with, became an easy choice to bring back to the show.
Blood vs Water is where Monica shines. As I just mentioned, a large part in her return was due to her relationship with Brad. It’s something that Monica is used to. She has spent her life in Brad’ shadows as he went through the NFL and went on to become a lawyer. The attention is always on Brad but not this time, this is Monica’ time. Survivor is Monica’s thing.
… And then Brad comes into Blood vs Water like a bat out of hell. He takes control of his tribe through a bro alliance and starts voting out people. In a normal season, that would be simply seen as someone playing hard. On Blood vs Water, the returning players whose loved ones get voted get heated. And Brad thank 99.99% of that heat.
That leads to some iconic moments like “Fuck you Brad Culpepper” from Marissa Peterson, that has deservedly become the longest running-joke in the Funny 115’s vol. 3. Or, Candice flipping him the bird as she walks into redemption island.
Once again, Brad has taken the spotlight over Monica. Not intentionally mind you, but he has become the focal point and Monica is left to deal with the aftermath. It gets to the point where Candice gives an immunity clue to Monica, hoping to attract a target onto her and hurt Brad in the process. Monica is no longer a player in the game to Brad’s tribe, she is mostly seen as an accessory to get to him.
On her own tribe, Monica has to deal with a complicated situation. Everyone is angry at her husband for voting out their own loved ones. She knows the man she married and stands by him but she also to juggle playing Survivor and validating her tribe’s angry feeling towards her husband. It’s an uncomfortable situation that Monica has to juggle but she does it because this is Monica’s second chance.
It’s easy to tell that Monica is a wonderful person. She is the one who consoles Colton when he is crying about missing Caleb, his boyfriend. The same Colton that was such an ass on her original season and became the reason for her boot. Despite that, Monica’s compassion for others overrides any feelings of negativity towards him. It takes a very good person to juggle that kind of complicated emotion towards a person. She even gives him the benefit of the doubt in a confessional,
For all of us to judge what decisions he makes is hard. We haven’t walked a mile in his shoes. And I don’t think it’s easy. If he’s changed, wouldn’t that be a beautiful story? But then again: it’s Colton Cumbie.
Then, Brad’s tribe turns on him and he gets voted out in the pre-merge. Before going home, Brad gets revenge on Candice by beating her in a duel. Then, he loses a duel gets officially sent home. The thing about Brad is that even when the attention is on him, he clearly loves Monica more than anything in the world. While everyone else focuses on him, his attention is on Monica and his send-off is one of the sweetest in Survivor history.
With Brad out of the way, it’s finally time for Monica to shine. She’s going to take control of this game and go all the way to the end. She’s going to win this thing for Moni… oh wait Tyson Apostol has built a dominant alliance that includes Monica (and Gervase Peterson) and he’s going to get all the credit.
Tyson is my favorite Survivor character of all-time. I love every iteration of Tyson and am anxiously awaiting season 40 to get Tyson 4.0. It still doesn’t feel real. In Blood vs Water, Tyson becomes a dominant force and an interesting character in Monica’s own journey through the game. Unintentionally, he becomes her new Brad.
While Monica is part of the Tyson and Gervase alliance, she is not always treated well or equally. Tyson sees dealing with her as more of a chore because she can be emotional. He eventually plays such a clean game that to the jury, it becomes clear that Gervase and Monica are following orders and that Tyson has systematically dominated his way to the end with two “goats”.
This the part of the Monica experience that can be grating for people. Like Lisa Whelchel, we got a lot of content from Monica about potentially flipping away from Tyson but never pulling the trigger. Part of that is because Monica is a loyal person, part of it is because Monica probably rationalizes “I’m just as important in this alliance as Tyson or Gervase, and I’ve won immunities, I can beat them.”
But to the detractors I ask: what was Monica’s alternative option? She isn’t made to feel welcomed by the Hayden Moss side of the numbers. And even if she were and decided to flip, are we to believe she could have beaten Hayden or Ciera Eastin when she couldn’t beat Tyson? If either of those two would have made it to the end, they would have the game respect Tyson got but with the added wrinkle that most of the jury liked both players where they respected but didn’t necessarily like Tyson in the game.
It may not be what you want to hear but in staying with Tyson and Gervase, Monica was making the best decision “for Monica”. Although I understand that hearing the fifteenth version of the same confessional does get annoying after a while.
With Tyson and Gervase, Monica makes it all the way to the end. She has a chance to defend her case at the final tribal council. And Monica is proud of herself.
This is a touching moment outside of the Thirdpersonica meme. It’s what makes Monica a great character. It’s understanding that all her life, Monica has been Brad’s wife. Then she became a mother. And that’s an angle of her story I would have never understood until I had kids of my own. When you become a parent, you lose part of yourself. You love your children to death, more than anything in the world but in the process, you must choose to give up parts of your personality to care for them.
Then, those kids grow up and eventually become people in their own rights. They start needing you less and less and soon, they leave the home and you’re left with a huge void in your person. The kids are gone and is the part of you that you gave up in caring for them. That’s the idea of an empty nest and why it can be so impactful.
Going onto Survivor helped Monica find that part of herself she had long before let go. You can see in how she talks about it, how much it means to her to have become wholly Monica again. Not Brad’s wife. Not mom. Just Monica, a neat lady.
Not only does she find herself through the experience, she’s able to show her kids that she’s tough too. You can tell how much those immunity wins means to her because it’s an opportunity to show the kids that Brad isn’t the only beast in the family.
… All of which makes it twice as brutal to watch when the jury shits on her throughout tribal council. It has to be especially hurtful for Monica to hear that the jury doesn’t know her when she has been on this journey of self-discovery on Survivor. She’s spent her entire life as Brad’s wife, letting the man have a bigger piece of the pie. On Survivor, it was supposed to be her time to shine and in the end, she ends up losing to a man who she spent most of the season letting have a bigger piece of the pie.
Monica doesn’t get credit for winning more immunities than Tyson or for her part in their alliance. The jury views her solely as Tyson’s Survivor wife who helped take care of him while he made the big decisions. It’s one of the more tragic endings to a castaway’s story we’ve ever seen. Monica gets to go through this entire journey internally only for the jury to decide that internal journey isn’t valid and she’s still what she’s always been.
That kind of tragedy is what makes Survivor such a compelling show 20 years later. You can only do so much with strategy, it’ll always boil down to who has the most numbers (unless trinkets are involved). But those numbers are people and those people are what makes this show works when it’s at its best. Monica remains one of the best examples of this in the past decade.
69. Albert Destrade, Survivor: South Pacific
As I’ve mentioned before, I love when players break through their archetype. You have people like Jay Starret or Alec Merlino who go far beyond what we expected from them. Then you have players like Albert who blunder their way through the game while thinking they are smoothly running things. Albert’s a good character because, well, he kind of sucks at Survivor.
In his own mind, Albert is a great tactician. He comes from a poker playing background. He’s well-educated. He’s fit enough to compete on Survivor and he’s attractive enough to fit in with almost anybody. In his archetype, Albert would be a dangerous contender for the title of sole Survivor.
All of that would be good if perception met reality. In reality, Abert is far too openly sleazy. Everyone around him can see that Albert is plotting away in his mind but they keep him around because he doesn’t have any of the power he seems to think he’s gained. In reality, there isn’t that much separating Albert from Rick Nelson in the Upolu Family’s hierarchy.
For much of the season, Albert is a complimentary character. He’s not the focus of the episodes, because it would be hard to take focus away from Coach Wade, but he chimes in with some good stuff here and there. My favorite little moment was highlighted earlier in this rankdown, when Albert returns from the duel between Christine Shields-Markowski and Stacey Powell. He has to share the news that *gasp* Stacey called Coach Benjamin!
You can tell that Albert is trying to stay solemn so that Coach knows he supports the Stacey/Christine slander. But he also realizes the ridiculousness of Coach calling himself Coach and can’t help but chuckle as he relays what Stacey said. That quick laugh and smile is all we need to know to understand that at his core, Albert agrees with what Stacey has put out in the universe.
Albert’s laziness around camp is also a fun little addition to his character. He’s nicknamed Prince Albert by Rick for not contributing very much. Albert’s answer to that remark would probably be something akin to, “It’s not outclean, outgather, outorganize!”
There’s a quick moment in the game that perfectly encapsulates Albert’s transparent sleaziness. He has won a combined immunity and reward challenge. He must pick somebody to go get massages with him. Let’s see how this plays out, don’t we?
If Albert really wants to play this off, he should have just given up the reward to Cochran and accepted his thanks. Instead, on two occasions, Albert tries to work in that people should remember this momentous occasion the next time a food reward comes up. Albert tries to play it off jokingly but it’s clear that he’s being serious, and everyone can see that. This is the kind of obvious sleaze Albert exudes that makes him a wonderful character.
It’s appropriate that Albert came on Survivor as a dating coach. He probably thinks of himself as Will Smith in the movie Hitch but he’s more like your high school friend’s older brother whose never had a girlfriend but is still going to give you advice about talking to your crush.
Another aspect of Albert that becomes amusing across the season: he’s constantly trying to make moves and getting shot down. He speaks up for saving Mikayla Wingle over Edna Ma. That move gets shot down. He then plots to vote out Dawn Meehan ahead of Jim Rice but that gets rejected by his alliance. He’s always trying to find ways to get Rick out of the game because Rick and Albert don’t get along but the rest of Upolu won’t ever break.
On top of that, Albert is out there talking to the Savaii members, getting their hopes up. That’s Albert’s attempt at currying favor with future jurors, promising them protection in the game that he’s never able to follow up on. Instead of making those players feel good on their way out the door, they leave feeling angry at Albert for giving them false hope. Still, Albert doesn’t see this and considers himself a strong contender if he can just get to the end of the game.
In the last two episodes of South Pacific, Albert is operating at an 11. Edna has just been booted out of the game. 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.
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!” Because it wouldn’t be an episode of South Pacific without a direct reference to god or Jesus.
Because Brandon was the original target, the alliance must 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. He also tried to get Coach and Rick on board with voting out Sophie earlier in the episode, which as usual, failed. Albert is so bad at covering up his lies, this another moment where he is so outwardly sleazy that it’s mystifying Albert doesn’t realize how the others perceive him.
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. He decides that he will die for Albert’s sins, much like his own savior did for him.
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. It helps that Albert is pushing this along as God’s will and Coach is over in a corner “praying for clarity” instead of helping Brandon in any way, shape or form. At tribal council it is the first thing Brandon tells Jeff: he wants to give away his immunity.
Albert obviously accepts the immunity necklace. Given the opportunity to give the immunity back to Brandon, he claims that he would “as a Christian man” if he felt like Brandon was in danger of going home. Except that he knows Brandon is in trouble and about to be voted out as is “God’s will” if you were to ask Coach.
The decision to hold onto the immunity necklace immediately transforms Albert into a final tribal council goat. The jury is obviously disgusted with how Albert essentially used religion to get ahead in the game. Now, Sophie and Coach can gladly take him to the end knowing that one person will not be a threat to their win.
By this point, Albert has been one-upped in challenges. He’s had his strategic propositions rejected dozens of times by his alliance. He’s openly lied to Brandon after guilting him in giving up his immunity necklace and then watched him get voted out. So how does Albert feel about going into the final tribal council?
Going into tribal tonight, I feel confident because I feel like I played a head and shoulders better game than the other two. So, not only do I know how to express myself well and I know how to kind of persuade well, but I truly think I’ve played the best game remaining. So that’s gonna make me feel confident about my answers, feel poised, and not feel defensive or on my heels. But feel kind of stronger and a little bit sharper.
I mean… and we call Coach delusional?
Needless to say, tribal council does not go as well as Albert had planned. He’s accused of transparently kiss the jurors’ asses and leading them on (which he did). He’s labeled as sleazy (which he is). Ozzy tells him straight-up that he did nothing the entire game and happened to be in the right place at the right time (which he was). Jim tells Albert not to begin his answer with a compliment (because he knows the dating coach has these tricks up his sleeves) and despite this, Albert can’t help himself. He begins his answer by complimenting for his question and his approach to the game. The entire jury cracks up because they know, Albert is a complete phony this entire time.
Then Rick comes up and eviscerates Albert for his choice to use God in getting Brandon’s immunity necklace. Albert tries to step in by asking, “can I comment on that” to which Rick gives a very stern no. Albert’s look of resignation as he gets silenced by Rick is great. I feel like this is the moment above any other where Albert finally realizes he’s completely fucked.
But it gets worse for Albert when Brandon comes up.
At this point, Albert is completely dead in the water. His insistence on trying to explain a simple yes or no question speaks volumes. Say what you want about Brandon Hantz but he destroys Albert with his jury question. On two consecutive questions, Albert tries to use his self-proclaimed poise and way with words to escape a tought question. On both occasions, he gets completely shut down.
It’s here that Albert’s Survivor journey comes crashing down on him. He realizes that the game he’s been playing in his mind: calm, cool, subtle manipulation, is far from the game he’s played in real-life. Albert finally sees that everyone saw through him from day one, he was just another number in Coach’s alliance and in doing Brandon dirty, he made himself one of the biggest goats in Survivor history.
That Albert has to struggle with this realization in real time, as he’s getting reamed by the jury makes everything better. Like Bart Simpsons once said, “you can pinpoint the exact moment his heartbreaks”. Still, outside of the game, Albert has had a good sense of humor of his embarrassing Survivor stint. His twitter handle is @Zero_Votes and it seems like Albert has accepted his loss with dignity. He can be soothed in knowing that getting beaten down like that and his delusions of grandeur are the reasons that Albert will go down as a memorable Survivor from the 2010s.
68. NaOnka Mixon, Survivor: Nicaragua
NaOnka is probably the most selfish person to ever get on Survivor. She operates in her own little world where things go her way, or they don’t go at all. She’s never meant to be a likable character on the show. It’s hard to say where the line blurs between reality and getting caught up in the heat of the game, but it’s safe to say a lot of what see from NaOnka in Nicaragua is her personality, only magnified.
I would say that NaOnka’s biggest purpose in Nicaragua is setting up drama. Most of her relationships with other players are negative. Her first negative relationship, and the one most will remember, is with Kelly Bruno. Kelly is a perfectly normal woman who will not sniff this countdown. The only thing about Kelly is that she is an amputee and is playing Survivor on one leg. Thanks to NaOnka, Kelly’s leg is more likely to make this list than the woman herself.
Most people, upon hearing that a Survivor contestant was playing on a prosthetic leg, would be amazed at their perseverance and simply move on. It’s what happened with Chad in Survivor: Vanuatu when he revealed it to the other guys on his tribe. NaOnka? Oh, she’s not going to have any of that. Kelly has one leg? Kelly needs to go! The basis for NaOnka wanting Kelly out is steeped in logic: she would immediately win against anybody at final tribal council. But NaOnka is on this train literally day one.
And NaOnka takes it much further than it would need to go. NaOnka doesn’t just want Kelly out. She convinces herself that she hates Kelly. Even from early on, NaOnka starts talking about racing Kelly and not treating her differently because she has one leg (whick Kelly never asked for).
It only gets worse from here. A sampling of NaOnka’s take on Kelly’s situation:
She has the heart, she has the mind, but she doesn’t have a hundred percent of the body, and that’s gonna hurt us.
I came all the way here from South Central, and there’s a million dollars on the line. I will not let anyone stand in my way. Not even a one-legged person can stand in my way.
You could say I got hood? I sure did. I got hood. I didn’t get ghetto. Ghetto would’ve been, “Girl you know I had to whoop that, and I had to get that, gurl you trippin gurl, uh-uh gurl.” No, I just WHOOMP! It’s the game. It is a game. She has one leg. Don’t think that I’m gonna be nice to you because you have one leg. I’m not gonna be nice to you, you gotta be kidding. My name is NaOnka, not Fool.
I really don’t need no charity case on the jury. I might even force her to quit the game. And screw your leg. Screw your leg. Keep it away from the fire.
Eventually, things boil over when La Flor wins a reward that comes with a big fruit basket. Inside that basket is a clue to the hidden immunity idol. Kelly spots it but so does NaOnka. With her boiling resentment towards Kelly in the backdrop, NaOnka decides that when they get back to camp, she’s going for that idol clue. Like Cole wrestling Christy much later, this becomes an unfair matchup.
The NaOnka and Kelly drama eventually goes away because they swap on different tribes and Kelly is eventually voted out. I’m sure when NaOnka learned that Kelly was gone, she was pleased that others did her work for her.
Another tense relationship for NaOnka is her association with our eventual winner, Jud “Fabio” Birza. It’s never really explained why NaOnka hates Fabio but from the very beginning, NaOnka HATES Fabio. She hates his hair. His face. His clothes. She just can’t stand the guy.
The love doesn’t grow from there, when NaOnka’s sock suddenly goes missing. She accuses her tribe of stealing her sock (yes, singular) and in retaliation, takes Fabio’s extra pair as her own. Once again NaOnka is the most selfish person ever cast on Survivor. Fabio rightfully isn’t happy about this and tries to confront NaOnka. That ends with NaOnka screaming in Fabio’s face as Fabio goes through the gamut of exasperated expressions before giving up.
It’s also during this time that La Flor loses its first immunity challenge. They will have to vote somebody out at tribal council. La Flor’s first tribal council is a calamity of errors but outside of Shannon trying to falsely out Sash, NaOnka’s reaction to Fabio is what stands out the most.
This is a perfect microcosm of NaOnka’s relationship with Fabio. His mere existence annoys her to no end. He never actively tries to get under her skin, she just can’t be around him. Meanwhile, Fabio simply reacts to NaOnka going off on him with some eye rolls and a shoulder shrug. It’s like he’s accepted he can’t reach her and they will never be able to cooperate on anything.
A great moment in the NaOnka-Fabio dynamic is during the wrestling with Kelly. Everyone is shocked at what is happening and they all realize an idol clue was involved. Blissfully unaware of anything else, Fabio is simply offended that NaOnka smushed all the bananas. His head isn’t in the game, he’s just upset that NaOnka has damaged a source of food for him.
At the merge, NaOnka decides to hide some flour from the rest of the tribe because “they made too many tortillas”. In reality, it’s because NaOnka is the most selfish person ever cast on Survivor. She gets caught and eventually fesses up to the tribe. Somehow, most of the blame for this act falls on Alina’s shoulders. NaOnka does not like Alina because she was Kelly’s closest ally. It becomes very convenient for NaOnka to let Aline take the bullet for flour-gate and send her to Ponderosa as the first member of the jury.
The final contentious relationship between NaOnka and a castaway is with Marty Piombo. Much like Fabio, NaOnka simply does not like Marty. Somewhere in the background, Jane Bright is nodding along. It doesn’t help when Marty and Fabio forge a weird bond from being two of the players kind of on the outskirts of the power structure. Their rivalry comes to a head in another legendary tribal council in which NaOnka lets everybody have a piece of her mind.
Here you see the difference in her relationship with Fabio and Marty. With Fabio, she just gives it out and he mostly takes it. He tries to jump in now and then but NaOnka is like a freight train and nobody is going to stop her. With Marty, it’s much more of a give and take. He trades barbs with her which seems to annoy her more than Fabio soaking it in.
That scene is NaOnka in her prime as a Survivor character. She’s off the cuff but funny. She has the sound effects of a vintage Stacey Powell (chronologically, Stacey Powell is an off-shoot of NaOnka and not the other way around). She’s dishing out insults and coming back with snappy quips to responses. You know a character is on a roll when Jeff Probst lets them take over a tribal council and NaOnka does this multiple times in Nicaragua.
Even the positive relationships that NaOnka forges go sour. Supposedly, NaOnka’s closest ally is Brenda Lowe and by proxy, Chase Rice. When she’s approached with a plan to vote off Brenda in the early post-merge, NaOnka doesn’t even give two seconds, she just does it. With Sash Lenahan, her first ally from La Flor, she doesn’t even consider voting for him at final tribal council despite working together for most of the game. We’ll get to how she screws Holly in a minute.
If NaOnka had allowed herself a proper vote-off, we could be talking about an all-time character. A player who, unbothered by the opportunity to win a million dollars, was always going to say what’s on her mind. You don’t have to like NaOnka but you’re going to like not liking her. She had all the elements to be a classic Survivor villain.
But NaOnka didn’t allow herself to be voted off. Instead, she took herself out of the game. On day 28, late in the jury phase. I’m not here to judge whether a person can handle the elements of Survivor or not. May be NaOnka really had hit her limit and she needed to leave when she did. It’s just hard to accept a player bowing out like she (and Purple Kelly) ended up doing.
In case you need a reminder of how this went down, allow me. It was a rainy day in Nicaragua and NaOnka was feeling down. This wasn’t the first time she had talked about potentially leaving. Earlier, Chase had been able to convince her to stick around. This time, NaOnka was dead set on leaving. It’s post-reward challenge and her team has just won reward. NaOnka tells Jeff that she wants to quit. Jeff tells her that she will need to do so at tribal council that night if she still feels that way.
Jeff also tells the tribe that he can give them a tarp… if one person is willing to sit out of the reward. Logically, if NaOnka is going to be quitting that night, she should be willing to step down and not see Gulliver’s Travels. NaOnka, the most selfish person ever cast on Survivor, doesn’t see it that way. She won’t step down and instead Holly decides to be the one to miss out on the reward. Holly is the person is the nicest to NaOnka and the person NaOnka likes the most. Even in this moment, NaOnka is not willing to put her ahead of feeling slightly uncomfortable for a few hours.
At tribal council, NaOnka pulls the trigger and opts to leave the game.
It’s unfortunate that this is how NaOnka leaves the game because it’s unsatisfying. Jonny Fairplay would not be remembered as this legendary villain if he had gone on to win. His downfall was almost as important as everything that built towards it. With NaOnka, we get all of this build-up. We anticipate her vote out and, in the end,, it feels like a letdown to see her quit. She doesn’t get her comeuppance, she just leaves in a whimper. That’s not fun.
NaOnka is edited solely as this villainous player. Obviously, there’s a lot of truth to that portrayal. But it’s also a mask to hide the insecurity that NaOnka feels about herself. You see a lot more of her true personality when she’s down on the outs, in the rain and checked out of the game. That’s where you can grasp that the front NaOnka has put on is a coping mechanism for being out on Survivor.
Similarly, NaOnka’s hatred of Kelly stems from this insecurity. Kelly is depicted as this confident person who has had to live with only one leg. In a sense, NaOnka feels inferior to Kelly for having these issues with confidence when Kelly is standing next to her having faced greater adversity. That sense of inferiority transforms itself into hatred for Kelly and the rest goes from there.
I think the end of NaOnka’s story is kind of nice. She becomes a vote for Fabio to win in the end. It speaks a lot about NaOnka outside of the Survivor bubble that she was able to see that her treatment of Fabio was unfair. That the vote was so close that Probst had to reveal NaOnka’s “Fabio 420” vote on the air was just icing on the cake.
Her quit is unsatisfying but it doesn’t take away from the rest of her material. NaOnka is one of the most naturally gifted confessional givers in Survivor history. She’s unapologetically villainous. She starts fights AND finishes them. At tribal council, she’s always good for an iconic line or two. In short, despite her quite she’s an all-time Survivor character and she’s earned that spot through her own means.
67. Garrett Adelstein, Survivor: Cagayan
Earlier in this countdown I wrote that Wendy Jo DeSmidt-Kohlhoff could make the short list for the worst player of all-time. If I were to create this list, I think the first name to make it would be this guy, Mr. Garrett Adelstein. In my estimation, no one has ever played Survivor more terribly than him.
You first have to take in the context. Wendy Jo was not a good Survivor player but by looking at her, you wouldn’t expect much strategy. Garrett is a professional poker player. He makes a living playing a game of strategy. On top of that, he’s a physically fit, conventionally attractive guy. I don’t need me to tell you this, Garrett can tell you himself,
As far as I’m concerned, I’m already on the outs with my tribe, so this is a complete no-brainer. Obviously, I’m going to look for the Hidden Immunity Idol. When people see my body, often they’re like, “He’s just a dumb jock.” But I was valedictorian of my high school class, 99 percentile SATs and for a living am a high-stakes professional poker player. So, anything I do in my life, I go all in. Without question, David making the asinine decision he did, works to my advantage, but he’s a threat and I want him out of the game.
Of course, that confessional is related to David Samson’s decision as leader to mark Garrett as the weakest member of the Luzon tribe. David is his own special train wreck of smarminess and terrible decision making. His rationale behind pinpointing Garrett as the weakest member was that he was actually the strongest, making sense to get him out of the game right then. David apparently doesn’t watch Survivor if he thought that Garrett, along with people from the other two tribes, would get voted off right from the starting mat.
That leads to Garrett being sent to the Luzon camp ahead of everyone else. He has the option to choose between an extra bag of rice or a clue to the hidden immunity idol. Garrett chooses the clue to the idol, feeling ostracized by David’s decision. We quickly find out that Garrett might be jacked but he’s not resourceful.
The clue to the Hidden Immunity Idol said it’s right by the waterfall. Unfortunately, these hide-and-go-seek type activities — it’s just not my area of expertise. I’ve been in situations at the poker table, playing for huge amounts of money, and I didn’t get stressed out about it. So this should be child’s play. But I’m embarrassing myself by not being able to find this stupid Idol right now.
I mean… whose area of expertise is “hide and go seek type activities”? Outside of children, I don’t know many hide-and-go-seek pro players.
As we know from Luzon, they’re a truly terrible tribe. It’s interesting in the sense that Tasha Fox, Spencer Bledsoe and Kass McQuillen all make deep runs in both of their seasons and show their Survivor competence. For whatever reason, their chemistry just did not work out on Luzon and that means a lot of lost challenges. Including Cagayan’s first immunity challenge.
The quick and easy vote for Luzon at this point would be J’Tia Taylor. She’s been bossy, has instructed the tribe in constructing a poor shelter while doing none of the work and she blew the immunity challenge with the puzzle. We’re one episode into the season and J’Tia has already shown herself to be kind of a train wreck.
Luzon looked set on voting her out, but Garrett had other plans. Still bitter from being separated from the tribe by David, he pitches another plan to J’Tia: why not take out David instead? With Spencer and Tasha, their respective closest allies, they can get rid of David, J’Tia stays another round and Garrett gets revenge.
The plan goes through and Garrett feels vindicated. He’s gotten his foe out of the game. The first tribal council of the season went his way. He’s got an idol. Everything is coming up Garrett. By this point in the Cagayan premiere, you could be forgiven for thinking that Garrett might even be a threat to win it all.
Despite the success of his plan against David, Garrett was feeling a little down in general.
Last night, Tribal was a lot of random arguing but, you know, in the end, the real point of Tribal was to send David home and we were able to successfully do that. But I’m not having fun playing Survivor. This isn’t fun for me right now, I have to be honest. Manual labor isn’t fun. Starving isn’t fun. Like, it’s not like a cool adventure for me. When I’m playing poker, I’m sitting in a comfortable chair, chicken and vegetables are like being brought to me right at the table. I wanna play Survivor, like, to outwit and outplay people. Like, I don’t want to play Survivor to survive in the wilderness.
“I don’t want to play Survivor to survive” is an all-time Survivor quote.
Luzon continues to do what Luzon does by losing another challenge. J’Tia is once again the star in the puzzle, where Luzon stumbles for a second consecutive challenge. With evidence stacking up against her Survivor skills, J’Tia is on the hot seat and Garrett can feel it.
So we get back to camp and given the fact that J’Tia totally screwed up the whole challenge, it’s clear J’Tia’s the best option to go home tonight.
So clear in fact that Garrett is just going to talk strategy out in the open. Like, in front of J’Tia and everything. Instead of talking to Spence privately and approaching Kass, who was also down on J’Tia, Garrett insisted the tribe hash it out together. When Tasha said she would rather talk to Garrett alone, he shut that down and went further by saying the 5 players should just stick in the shelter until it was time for tribal.
Garrett decided that the best course of action to get his target out of the game was to attempt to stifle gameplay. Even Spencer, Garrett’s ally, was completely baffled over Garrett’s decisions in strategy.
Then, because of Garrett’s asinine policies, Tasha gets Kass to go to the beach with her. There, Tasha pitches Kass on voting out Garrett because the women have the majority. J’Tia can go next but they need to make this move now. Garrett and Spencer follow Kass and Tasha because Garrett can’t leave anybody alone… except the person he’s just publically announced would be voted out.
Obviously, J’Tia wasn’t going to take this lying down and decided to act. It’s just that her actions may not have been the wisest for her own survival?
To bring this back to the previous entry, this certainly feels like a move NaOnka would have pulled off in Nicaragua if she had thought of it.
Regardless, that’s it right? J’Tia is doomed. She’s been annoying, has created a terrible shelter, has blown two separate challenges for Luzon and now she’s burned most of their rice. This is the end of the line… right?
Well… not quite.
Aren’t poker players supposed to be good at bluffing? Garrett straight up outs the alliance he believes he has and then tries to backtrack it. This is a masterclass in how not to answer questions at tribal council. Jeff’s shock at how bad this tribe is will never get old.
Behind this train wreck of a tribal council, Kass is not going to side with Garrett. Instead, she joins J’Tia and Tasha in voting for him. But all isn’t lost because Garrett has an immunity ido-
I was just so blindsided, and I, uh, left a Hidden Immunity Idol just sitting at camp, dug up, that I didn’t even bring, because I was so sure that I knew what was gonna happen tonight. It’s really embarrassing in a lot of different ways. Really, really embarrassing.
WHAT THE FUCK Garrett? You didn’t even bring that thing to tribal? You didn’t bring anything to tribal? What’s wrong with you man?
I consider players who look like they could be great and have the tools to succeed at Survivor that fail to be far worse than obvious train wrecks. Obviously Chet Welch sucked at Survivor but nobody on this planet ever thought he would be good at Survivor.
It’s different with Garrett. He seems like the kind of guy you breed in a Survivor lab. For him to come out and play a worse game than J’Tia, a person who burned her tribe’s only food supply but was somehow not voted out in the same round of play, is truly terrible.
Garrett makes this list because of his ineptitude. When I will look back on this decade of Survivor game play and I think about the worst players, he will always be top of mind. That kind of failure is remarkable and deserves to be forever recognized.
66. Ben Driebergen, Survivor: Heroes vs Healers vs Hustlers
Here we have one of the most controversial figures in Survivor history and certainly, the most controversial winner (until Chris Underwood came out of nowhere to take his spot… it’s something Chris has become good at). All of this is mostly through no fault of Ben’s and falls squarely on production’s shoulders.
Ben Driebergen as a character is hard to quantify. He doesn’t really fit into an archetype. His biggest story is his former service in the marines. It’s something that he’s proud of while it simultaneously has affected his life in negative ways. Ben is a fun-loving person. He’s loud and can be obnoxious. But there’s also a darker edge to Ben, there’s pain behind his eyes that isn’t always acknowledged but is ever-present.
In that sense, Ben is a fantastic character because he’s very real. I see him as an off-shoot of Rudy Boesch’s military angle. I think that the major difference between Rudy and Ben is that Ben’s military career exists in a post-9/11 world whereas Rudy’s service came much earlier. By the time Rudy got to Survivor, he had years of processing his military service. Ben came into Survivor with much less time between his service and the show and his scars are much more apparent.
That kind of pain makes Ben feel outside of the game. If you close your eyes, you can imagine Ben on LOST island rather than on Survivor. He’s very raw and honest about his feelings. I can’t imagine how good Ben’s presence on HHH must have been for veterans who deal with the same issues. We say it all the time, representation is important and Ben played a pivotal role as a spokesperson for mental health in the military.
I challenge you not to feel moved by this scene:
“The past will eat you alive, but the future will save you.” Those words always hit me in a deep way. Ben’s so open about his experience and his words feel so genuine. It’s no surprise that it became the title of that episode. In terms of characters, Survivor is always at its best when you forget that it’s also a game. In that moment with Ben, I’m not thinking about Survivor, I’m just focused on the person. Also, how great is Lauren at simply acknowledging what Ben needs and leaving him alone? Lauren is great, man.
There’s also Ben’s devotion to his wife and kids. As a family man myself, this speaks to me on a level it might not everybody. How he speaks about his wife as a savior, I feel that from him so truly. They become Ben’s inspiration for the rabid idol run he’s eventually going to go on and that ties back in with his past very well. It’s easy to see why Ben is so motivated to keep working later in the game with how they explain his past. In that sense, Ben feels like a very complete story arc.
It would have been easy to show Ben as this heroic figure. In fact, I would have expected it from production. Burnett shows have always been known to worship at the alter of the military. Still, production for HHH decided to show Ben as a full-fledged person. He has his heroic side and the side where he can be petty. He’s shown as not being very good at the social game. He has an arrogant side to him, like when he’s playing all his idols. They could have edited Ben as a very one-dimensional hero that strictly talks about his military experience, but they didn’t. That’s what makes him such a good character.
Another part that elevates Ben as a character is his relationship with Joe Mena. They simply don’t like each other. When Joe decides to make up the lie that Ben swore on his marines, Ben can’t process his anger. It brings up another moment where he has to handle dealing with his PTSD while also playing Survivor. Ben’s anger is so far outside the reach of the game that it really translates on the screen. I don’t think Joe realized how far he was going with his lie but it brings out a lot of emotional range from Ben that goes further into making him a good character.
That anger towards Joe helps crystalize the double-agent plan, where Ben pretends to be playing two sides in order to throw-off Ryan and Chrissy. This is the moment that displays Ben’s game ability at its best. He’s able to convince Chrissy and Ryan that he’s with them and gets Ryan to flush his idol. He also gets the chance to vote Joe, his nemesis, out of the game. I’m not going to sit here and claim that Ben is a great Survivor player but I think this phase of the game illustrates that he understands how to play in a normal situation.
On top of that, the double agent plan is also what breaks down the relationship between Ben and Chrissy, probably Ben’s most complicated relationship of the season. They start off as allies at the Heroes camp when Alan Ball proves to be completely unreliable for either of them to truly trust. At pre-swap Heroes beach, that pair runs the game. But then they swap away from each other and will only get to reconnect at the merge.
At that point, Ben has gotten close to Lauren. Chrissy has paired up with Ryan Ulrich thanks to his decision to give his day one idol to her way back during the first tribal council. They start working together as a group in the early merge but soon split apart. The double agent plan is the final nail in that coffin. From that point on, Ben and Chrissy become adversaries.
After the double agent plan, everyone essentially decides collectively that Ben is untrustworthy as an ally on top of being a big threat to win. That’s when everyone decides they want to vote him out. And yet, Ben just keeps finding idols like Russell Hantz on crack.
A lot of people have issues with Ben’s idol finds but I don’t really. It’s clear that he was working extremely hard out there, searching constantly on the island. I can’t blame the guy for taking advantages of idols when production keeps supplying them. Now, should production have been replenishing idols every time Ben played one? That’s another question but that’s also not Ben’s call to make.
Plus, I hate to admit it as someone who thinks idols are too rampant in the current game but… Ben makes idol plays entertaining.
Chrissy’s general annoyed-ness after every idol play is fantastic. So is Devon’s constant surprise along with a mix of respect for Ben continuously finding idols. Plus, you have Joe on the jury, Ben’s sworn enemy, cheering on every bombastic idol play because it’s exactly how he would have played these moments.
Besides, you have to give Ben props for becoming the first player to ever cancel everyone else’s vote and having the sole deciding vote to send someone home (sadly he chose to target queen Lauren).
As we know, idols can only take you so far. Specifically, as far as the final four, where idols are no longer playable. To get to final tribal council and collect his million-dollar, Ben is going to have to win an immunity challenge. That’s not something has proven capable of doing during his time on Survivor. But this time, he gets very close.
That upside down “U”. Were it not for that, Ben would have won that final immunity challenge, punched his way to the end and won the game. Instead, Ben has to face the consequences of his mistake, knowing that in losing the immunity challenge, he’s lost a million dollars. That’s a brutal scenario to face.
That final immunity challenge was a butt kicker man. I was so close so many times. I knew I had to win immunity to stay in this game. It just hurts that a… silly mistake is gonna cost my dream and my family’s dream. A million dollars was at stake today. My kids’ college. Retirement. I just let it slip away. And that… that hurt.
So, Ben’s idol-fueled frenzy comes to a halt at final four, just short of the goal. It’s a story of heartbreak and a lesson that despite your hardest efforts, sometimes you just fail. At least Ben’s guaranteed another spot somewhere down the line and will be remembered as one of the saddest fallen angels in Survivor history.
Fire making challenge? What’s that now?
This is where it becomes hard to rank Ben as a character. It’s so difficult to believe that production came up with this fire-making challenge ahead of time but decided not to inform anybody. Instead, Ben suddenly gets a never-before seen second chance at buying his way to the end of the game by making fire against Devon. It’s almost like somebody on production wanted to see the marine get to the end and win, no matter how it might look on camera.
And that’s exactly what Ben did. He beat Devon at fire, made it to final tribal council and won over Chrissy and Ryan. I can’t fault Ben for seizing the opportunities he was given but I can consider that a huge knock against him as a character.
That damn upside down “U”. If Ben had just won that final challenge legitimately, many people’s belief in Survivor production might have survived a little longer. Sure, the idol finds were suspect but that was never outside the norm for Survivor. I want to travel to the alternate universe in which Ben wins this challenge just to see: is there still a fire-making challenge at final four on Survivor?
Like NaOnka, Ben’s fate hurts his ranking as a character. If Ben gets voted out at final four, he’s one of the best tragic stories of the decade. He would probably be in my top 30. Instead, he gets gifted a second chance and ends up winning a game he didn’t deserve. That’s hard to put aside when you’re looking at the whole package. HHH is so much better with a Devon or Chrissy win because Ben then falls into his rightful spot as a fallen angel. Instead, a very good season gets tainted with the “rigged” label and is unfairly remembered as being bad.
Not only that, Ben’s win is the inspiration, in my opinion, for production getting cute with twists and themes. I don’t think we can get to Edge of Extinction without first having Ben win a fire-making challenge and winning the game. He’s unfairly become the face of a version of Survivor that the fans mistrust. That’s on production far more than on Ben but we don’t rank production crew as characters and because of that, Ben ends up taking the hit.
Still, it wouldn’t be fair to Ben to leave him off this list. He has some huge moments on the show. His idol plays are memorable, whether you like them for the greater game or not. I will never agree with how he ends up winning the game but that too becomes a defining moment of the decade for Survivor. Ben is an integral part of moving Survivor towards where we are now and for that reason alone, he deserves to be on this list.
Next week, I’m hoping to play catch up and have a few more instalment come out. It’s going to become more and more of a time crunch as the weeks go by and we get further into the countdown. The more memorable the characters, the more I have to say. Still, we’ll get to the end of this and eventually unveil the greatest Survivor character of the decade. I can’t wait for you guys to find out how this plays out.
