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!
Finally, having already watched 26 other Survivor seasons before this one, I've finally had my first exposure to the infamous Russell Hantz. And somehow, I've managed to do what I've heard is impossible-- be completely ambivalent to him. I don't love him. I don't hate him. There's a lot of good and a lot of bad, which has led to me having a lot of mixed feelings.
Thanks to those mixed feelings, I'm going to be breaking down the season a bit differently than I have before. Usually, I would discuss the cast, gameplay, etc. separately in a post like this. This time, however, it makes more sense to break down the season by what I did and didn't like. So that's what I'm doing today.
The first major dislike: absolutely everything Ben and Mike did on-screen.
Ben is easily one of the worst people we've ever seen on Survivor. He treated the other players horribly and said a lot of disgusting things. Villains are only good characters when they're entertaining, and there's nothing entertaining about the vile things he said and did. Mike comes away from the season relatively unscathed in comparison, but in his short time in the game, he said some of the more offensive things of the season. Combine that with Russell calling all the young girls on his tribe dumb, and the first few episodes of this season became very difficult to get through.
Like: *most* of Russell's gameplay.
As far as his strategic gameplay, I think it was pretty strong. He's obviously a flawed player, and he lost for a reason, but on a strategic level, I enjoy his gameplay. Unfortunately, I think some of the negative aspects of his game turned the jury into a bitter one, which ultimately led to his loss. He's a big factor in changing the game going forward. In the future, there will be fewer idol clues, and we'll see some players actually get rewarded for the kind of chaotic, manipulative gameplay that he couldn't quite completely pull off this season. I think he ended up paving the way for that kind of gameplay. If he'd played this game in a later season, I think we would've seen a Russell win. But at this point in Survivor history, it simply wasn't respected.
Dislike: Russell as a person.
There's a reason his social game is ultimately his downfall. He's an entertaining personality, but dealing with him 24/7 would be miserable. There are very few instances where I could see any strategic benefit to messing with your own tribemates' wellbeing, and throwing socks into the fire and pouring out canteens just to do it? Not one of those few instances. He starts off the season already over-confident, and the longer the season goes on, the bigger and bigger his head gets, and it's just not a good look.
Dislike: a huge portion of the cast was under-edited to make room for Russell.
Somehow, Kelly this season is practically purple Kelly before purple Kelly even existed. Furthermore, we can easily forget Brett exists for the entire first 3/4 of the season. He's completely non-existent and then suddenly boom, he's besties with his prayer warrior BFF Natalie. It comes out of nowhere, and it's really jarring. I get why we would spend a huge amount of time with Russell, but we lose so many people's edits in the process.
Like: several of the players we actually did get to watch throughout the season.
There were some interesting characters this season. Most of them are pretty replacement-level players, but I enjoyed watching them as people. Shambo is such a unique character-- being shunned by her tribe and ultimately picked up by the remainders of the other tribe. And that hair that everyone keeps harping on. Danger Dave is another interesting character this season, with some funny moments. Monica and Laura are both compelling players and characters as well, and I'm looking forward to seeing them on their returnee seasons. My personal rooting interest, however, was with Jaison. From the second he dragged Ben for his racism, Jaison became my favorite of the season, and nothing was going to change that, no matter how mediocre his gameplay.
Dislike: the emphasis on tribe leaders.
I hate this. I hate this so much. Back to back, we've watched seasons where having tribe leaders is a major throughline and I don't want to hear about it anymore. I'm not sure when this obsession started, or when it ended, but I want to watch a bunch of people playing a social strategy game, not debating the merits of having a leader. You don't need one. You're playing a game. Plenty of other tribes have thrived with no leader, and it doesn't need to be brought up over and over and over.
And, rounding this out with a thing I'm not mad about: Natalie's win.
Personally, I think that Russell played the stronger strategic game. But I'm not sure I'd want to give him a million dollars on a human level, the same way I wouldn't have voted for Jackson Michie in BB21 because on a human level, I don't want to give him large sums of money. However, I think Natalie played a stronger game than she's often given credit for. We see Natalie very early on describing her strategy, which she ultimately executes. She actively rode coattails as a strategy, and doing so ended up being the right move with this group of people. For the people on the jury, her social game, and liking her as a person, won out over Russell's strategy. Taking advantage of that isn't lack of gameplay, it's clever gameplay. She also is the one who orchestrated the Erik blindside, which ultimately helped turn the tide in her alliance's favor. It was also a move that Russell was completely oblivious about. Or, rather, refused to acknowledge because Natalie was too dumb to be able to pull off a move like that.
So, that's just about all I have for Survivor Samoa. If you want to see my full ranking of the seasons RHAP has covered so far & where this placed on that list, that's linked here.
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!
