I'm doing this series of Survivor discussions alongside Rob Has A Podcast's Survivor Season Rankings, so if you have no idea what that is, click here for more info!
This season ranked #26 in RHAP's season rankings, which makes it the 15th season we've discussed so far, and the 8th full season of Survivor that I've watched this year (+2 partial rewatches). As I've continued through these rankings, some groupings/tiers of seasons have emerged. The bottom-tier-- largely defined by their problematic actions and players. The top tier-- not yet amazing seasons, but rather enjoyable. And then, there's the middle tier seasons-- the nothing burgers. Last week's season, Guatemala, was one of those for me. So is this one, and I find that there are several similarities between them.
I'll go ahead and mildly spoil my ranking of this season-- I do prefer it over Guatemala. However, both seasons suffer from similar problems. The gameplay on both is completely forgettable, and the key players make moves based on personal vendettas and biases more than strategy. Both casts have a lot of unlikable players, a lot of forgettable players, and a handful in the middle. And although Gabon doesn't quite have Guatemala's pagonging, it does have one tribe that's completely inept at everything, all the time.
However, Gabon does have one thing going for it-- the hot mess factor. People who want to watch a hot mess season will have a great time with Gabon. Gabon can be a messy, bumbling series of unfortunate events, and I'd be lying if I said that wasn't entertaining.
Enough preamble, let's jump into the specifics.
Let's start with the location and general aesthetic of the season. Usually, this wouldn't even be a point of discussion, but this season is beautiful. The entire aesthetic of this season is stunning, from the shots of elephants, to the massive expanses of green, all the way to the soundtrack of the season. Of all the seasons of Survivor that I've seen, this would be the location I'd want to play in. It doesn't rain, rudimentary shelters are already built, and there aren't any water challenges for me to blunder. Plus, there's a chance at seeing elephants just feet from your camp, which was such a cool moment to watch. And, apparently, the temperatures stayed in the 80s most of the time. That's as smooth sailing as you can ask for on Survivor.
Gabon suffers from a largely unlikable, non-strategic cast. Or, at the very least, a cast of anti-heros, villains, and purple players. I found myself rooting for the original onion alliance and the players who later got pulled into it, but by the endgame, only Corinne and Randy are left of that group, and they're both really negative individuals. Personally, I still liked them and was rooting for them (despite disliking their more problematic elements), but I imagine a lot of people didn't like them and were rooting against them. However, their enemies... aren't any better.
On the other side, you have people like Crystal, who's been stripped of her Olympic titles due to doping, Kenny, who hits on every woman he meets and gets a major superiority complex about his messy gameplay, and Sugar, who's unlikable, vindictive, and a poor winner. From what I've heard from other people, it seems like this was the group most people were rooting for. As much as I can't really imagine rooting for them, when looking at the cast as a whole, I have to kind of shrug and remember I probably wouldn't be rooting for any of these people on a different season. People like Bob and Matty are thankfully more likable, but.... where is the gameplay?
That said, if this is a season you enjoy, it's likely because you enjoy the cast's messiness. Which I totally get. Sugar is a huge character, and she makes decisions largely based on her current emotions and vendettas, which leads to her backstabbing people seemingly on a whim. Randy and Corinne are also huge characters, and have no qualms about starting fights and being mean directly to people's faces. Crystal's confrontational as well, practically yelling as she voted Randy out. Ace is such a quirky douche. And Kenny is a messy "mastermind," whose gameplay is truly a game of two steps forward and one step back. Not to mention GC, who takes leadership of Fang one day, only to relinquish it the next, and later go totally MIA right before a challenge. Another bonus is Jillian, who's literally collecting elephant dung on day 1 and suggesting they harvest seeds from it and squeeze it for drinking water. Ma'am, you were fed normally until 6 hours ago, chill out.
Another negative of the season, as mentioned earlier, is that the gameplay isn't strong. Often, any semblance of legitimate strategy is completely nonexistent. It's hard to pick a best player of the season. It's probably(?) Kenny, who considers himself the mastermind of the season. But Kenny's not some brilliant supergenius manipulator. He's a strategic, but really messy player, who makes a lot of mistakes as he goes along. A lot of the decisions made for votes this season are vindictive, personal, or the most obvious vote-out of the next person on the totem pole.
I think RHAP said it best in the recap for this season-- Kenny is probably the best player on Gabon, and even HE probably isn't among the top 100 best Survivor players of all time, in a list of a bit less than 600 Survivor players.
Candidly, I don't remember a single thing that happened pre-merge in this season that wasn't a chaos/hot mess moment, and most of the stuff that's stuck in my memory from the second half is in a similar vein. Not strategy, not gameplay, just the messiness and drama. Which is extremely entertaining, but not necessarily what I watch Survivor for.
We've also gotten to the point in Survivor history where immunity idols loom large over the season, but there's only truly one in play. Because the players threw the other into the ocean. When gameplay is lacking, sometimes it's nice to have idols in play, because they can force people to strategize, or at least just spice things up. Instead, Sugar holds onto it all season, so even idols can't save us.
A quick note on the twists of the season, since we're on the topic of immunity idols-- there's not much to note here. There were a few minor twists, relating to the tribe swaps, but none of them were extremely notable. I personally wasn't fan of the twist of the fake merge, but I never really enjoy that, nor do I ever love a second tribe swap. But that's just a personal thing.
So, the cast is generally unlikable, albeit entertaining thanks to their messiness, and the gameplay isn't all that spectacular. Are the challenges at least... interesting? Well, sure, some of the challenges are cool. But for at least the first half of the season, the outcomes of the challenges are essentially a foregone conclusion, because Fang is one of the most disastrous tribes Survivor's ever had. But, at least there's exile island and an immunity idol hunt, right? Except Sugar finds the idol in episode 2 and gets sent back to exile every subsequent time. Therefore, no idol hunting. Just a whole lot of Sugar just eating fruit.
Bob made a fake idol, and he did a really great job of it, but the idol didn't really have an impact when used and he was just a pawn used by other players all season. The second fake idol arguably made an impact, but again, why didn't you think of this explanation the first time, and also why did anyone believe him after the first fake idol?? He seems like an incredibly nice human, but he's one of the worst winners in the show's history. He lacked strategy 99% of the time, and wouldn't have won if not for Sugar essentially deciding to lay down and die for him, which was done independently, not of his own design.
The Final Tribal Council this season was absolutely abysmal from everyone involved. Every single one of the final 3 had a horrible performance in the jury questioning. And somehow, the jury managed to one-up them. Marcus' entire question was all about the honor and integrity of donating the winnings to worthy causes. Contrast that with Corinne absolutely laying into Sugar in a very cruel and vindictive way. And, possibly worst of all, Kenny continuing to be butt-hurt over all of the strategic moves made by the final 3, despite being our "strategist" of the season. It was an absolute disaster, and honestly, I'm not sure who I would have voted for if I were there.
At this point, you might be wondering how I could call this season a "nothing burger," say it'll be higher than the current middle-ranked Guatemala, and then rail on it for the entire rest of the post. What gives?
Truthfully, I think I enjoyed my time watching Gabon more than most other seasons this year. I was really in the mood for it, and wound up binging nearly the entire season while working over the course of only two evenings. And I think the hot mess factor is really what carried the day. The strategy was non-existent, most of the prominent players were unlikable, half the cast is irrelevant, we have one of the most disastrous tribes ever, and possibly the least strategic winner ever. But chaos reigned supreme and thoroughly entertained me, and although that's not going to earn it anywhere near a high ranking now or on the final list, it does certainly pull it out of the bottom tier.
I'm going to forget a lot of things about Gabon and people who played on the season. And I have already forgotten a handful of those things. The minimal strategy. The purple pre-mergers. But the drama, the messiness, the train wreck-- that's going to stick with me.
So, that's just about all I have for Survivor Gabon. If you want to see my full ranking of the seasons RHAP has covered so far, that's linked here. I'll be interested to see where this season ends up placing in the long run, and how much I end up fiddling with its placement before the end of this long journey.
Thanks for checking out my blog! Come back weekly (hopefully) for updates to my Survivor season rankings, which will be here, on the same page I've linked several times on this post already. If you'd like to follow me on social media, the links are below!
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