The fifth season of BigBen Survivor made its way to India which is found in South Asia. After the most recent flop twist known as “The Black Vote” plagued the Jordan cast with several inactives. There was no major twists nor a swap this season. Also Fobbyiyg made the only video of intro to date. Here are the archives.
PreMerge
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Alright, so a season without swaps could be viewed as relatively boring. However, I will still go round-by-round what happened each episode. There are a lot of comical memories that I plan to reflect upon as I go through my overview.
Felix (CharlieBibi)
JJ (JJCanada)
Michael (diarzibari101)
Newz (OldNewz)
Owen (AlmightyOz)
Rich (Zed55)
Ryan (wangifold)
Sebastian (Luckybucket) also formely known as #Dryerfish
Vasava *Blue Buffs*
Brendan (bwburke94)
Ethan (thewinner)
James (jamessmith5)
Joe (jharrin7887)
Mickle (MicklePickle20)
Qaz (Qazwdxedc)
Tyler (Tylerseeg)
Will (willtatum)
Final 16 – Vasava wins immunity! With Pawra heading to tribal it became an easy mission of getting rid of the inactive in Michael. We saw the alliance of Rich and Zed form. Also, to note we had the alliance of Newz, Sebastian, and Ryan form in the process. However, instead of doing the simple vote of an inactive member of the tribe. OldNewz tried to make a power move and go for Felix who had the notorious reputation of being villainous. This immediately backfired as once Newz told Rich about the plan he told Felix. Sebastian also told Felix this plan and Newz became in the hot seat immediately. It looked as if this vote could come down to Newz vs. Felix. However, both sides agreed to let this battle wait for another day and a rogue vote was thrown onto Rich (probably by JJ). JJ and Owen look like the swing votes for the next time this tribe heads to tribal. Sebastian is playing the middle between the Felix/Rich and Ryan/Newz pairs.
Final 15 – Pawra wins immunity! An alliance was created between James, Ethan, Mickle (Ruben Colon), Tyler, and Will. That left Joe, Brendon, and Qaz on the outs. The bigger anticipation is what will happen on the Pawra tribe with Charlie vs. Newz and where JJ would stand in the game as the sides were 3v3. However, back to the Vasava’s tribal where Qaz was voted out as he broke his computer when typing in his username and “supposedly” was on a cruise to the Artic Ocean. It was a unified vote with Qaz self-voting and Brendan voting Will. Qaz returns to mediocre greatness later and Sebatian finds the idol.
Final 14 – Pawra wins immunity! The alliance looks to be sticking together between James, Ethan, Mickle, Tyler, and Will meaning that either Brendan or Joe are leaving. With Brendan already having to vote Will it seemed he be the target if people caught onto him. Also, mickle left a boot list leaving him inactive and unpredictable. Ethan brings up an important fact that I ended up black mailing him to play this season (forgot to specific contents). Anyways, the vote becomes 5-2 where Brendon leaves but Joe is left on the outs voting Mickle.
Final 13 – Vasava wins immunity! The war of all wars looked to have reached this tribe. It looked like Newz was on his way out. However, Sebastian gave his idol to Newz in hopes that everyone would vote Newz and that Newz would vote out Charlie. JJ and Owen were in the best position but nearly an hour or so before the vote. They each wanted to vote out Rich. They told Newz to vote Sebastian. This was berserk as I am like where are the numbers to Rich going to come from which is extremely impossible. Felix did a great job of pitting the sides against one another and Newz did a solid job of shifting gears. Neither trusted JJ nor spoken to him so why let a wildcard stay in the game. In the end, this move ends up paying off as JJ is blindsided leaving Owen on the outs. It is still one of the biggest self-destructions of someone going from the top to rock bottom. JJ could have gone very deep had he just written down Newz or Felix’s name.
Final 12 – Pawra wins immunity! There was not a ton of content for this episode, but the vote was between Mickle’s bootlist and active Joe. However, due to Mickle’s chaotic nature and unpredictability the tribe voted him off while he voted Ethan. Ethan was right in the fact Mickle would troll and vote him at some point and this turned out being the tribal. Joe is still seemingly on the outs of this tribe. The idol doesn’t look to have been discovered yet for this tribe.
Final 11 – Vasava wins immunity! The word “Airling” will forever haunt the minds of the Pawra tribe for many decades to come. Anyways, this vote either looks to be take a shot at Felix or go for Owen. It seemed like a lot of back and forth between who would ultimately leave. Felix has been a target for both Ryan, Newz, and Sebastian but in the event they merge tomorrow they want to have Felix and Rich on their side. On the other side, Owen has been very shifty and it’s hard to determine where his head was ultimately going to be at. In the end, it was Owen leaving who incorrectly targeted Sebastian who was the glue between both pairs.
Final 10 – Vasava wins immunity! Many individuals were shocked the merge was not at ten with numbers being at 5-5. However, in BigBen Survivor twist fashion everything is not what it seems to be. Sebastian thought he could continue playing the middle between Rich and Felix. However, that was not the case as Rich sniffed out Sebastian overplaying his hand so him and Felix decide to go after him. While, on the other side Newz, Ryan, and Sebastian are going to vote Felix. The original plan was Felix, Rich, and Sebastian vote Ryan and Newz plays the idol on Ryan. I think it was an impossible situation for Felix either way unless he changed gears and voted Rich out of desperation and say he was a shield come merge. In the end, Felix was pretty much screwed out of making merge and if I could go back in time then merge should have been at final ten. Newz has yet to give the idol back to Sebastian.
Merge
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Final 9 – Sebastian wins immunity! This tribal becomes extremely messy out of the gate. At first, it looks like Rich will join original Vasava and split votes on Ryan and Newz. However, Newz who received the hidden immunity idol from Sebastian decides he will play it for himself at tribal when Sebastian wants him to play it for Ryan because he knew where the votes will end up going. This was selfish on Newz’s end. Joe, then decides he wants to go for James and wants to bring Newz and Rich into the fold. They also feel they have Will on board. However, in the process Newz tells Rich supposedly he has an idol. In the end, Newz played on himself and negated zero votes while Sebastian and Ryan voted Joe, Joe, Rich, and Newz voted James. Finally, the majority this round between Ethan, James, Tyler, and Will voted Ryan. This started the war of an internal conflict among the Brovivors (Newz & Sebastian vs. Ethan). It was crystal clear supposedly Ryan was getting the votes and Newz feared a 3-3 split on him by a majority of six including Rich.
Final 8 – Newz wins immunity! Immediately, Sebastian says why did Newz not tell me or Ryan he was voting James we’re all on the same team! Then the vote would’ve been 5-4 with Ryan staying instead. However, despite Sebastian voting for Joe at the previous tribal. It became apparent it was 4v4 with Rich, Newz, Joe, and Sebastian vs. Ethan, Will, Tyler, and James. It became apparent that Ethan was the other sides leader so the Newz’s side of things wanted Ethan to go while the other side didn’t like Joe being a flip flopper and thought nobody would go to rocks for him. Joe made a mistake telling James that Newz was after him when Newz was trying to save him. In the end, it did not matter as each side stuck to their guns 4-4/3-3 with James being the first person in series history to draw the purple rock. Nobody has an idol now, but we do see the duo of Joe and Rich bond a lot more.
Final 7 – Sebastian wins immunity! The game looks to be a battle of pairs with Will/Tyler, Newz/Sebastian, and Rich/Joe. There seemed to be no place for Ethan in the tribe after sticking to his guns last round. There were some false rumors that Will was the vote to avoid an idol play. Sebastian pitched a Will or Tyler vote to Ethan which made sense for Sebastian and probably Newz due to the fact there was potential for the other four to get together next round leaving Newz/Sebastian on the outs. However, Newz did not trust Ethan because he believed that he was coming for him. Ethan was in fact a “Free Agent” saying he will vote whoever needs to go. In the end, it became a 4-3 split with each side sticking to their guns from last round with Ethan receiving four votes and Rich receiving three votes. Not sure why they voted Rich but it is probably because he was in the safest position. Ethan was a fascinating character.
Final 6 – Will wins immunity! This challenge was “Touchy Subjects” and at the conclusion of the challenge not even a few minutes after the results. Joe and Rich agreed it was time to flip on Sebastian. Sebastian believed he would not get targeted as he did not believe he was as big a threat as Newz. However, that was not the case as Newz was viewed as someone who did not have solid jury management. The pair of Newz/Sebastian decided their best play was to stick with Joe/Rich due to the fact keeping the big threats together. In the end, Ethan leaving proved to be a mistake for the Newz/Sebastian duo as Sebastian was taken out in a 4-2 vote (Newz saved Sebastian).
Final 5 – Newz wins immunity! The situation is interesting as Newz after losing his closest ally finds himself in between two pairs in Joe/Rich vs. Tyler/Will. There is no idol in play meaning Newz looks to be the swing vote. However, one of the most surprising moves of the season takes place where Tyler expresses wanting to take out Will. This is likely for the sake of the matter Tyler wanting to secure his spot in the final two. In the end, the vote is 3-2 with Tyler blindsiding everyone taking out Will which left many people baffled. Joe received the other two votes from Newz and Will. This was viewed as a huge social move for Rich by most individuals, but the credit did go to the Joe/Rich dynamic as a pair.
Finale Intro:
Finale – Newz wins the first challenge and secures himself a spot in the final three. I think if Tyler had not been inactive at the finale that Newz would have kept him. However, Tyler self-voting pretty much created an easy vote at the final four and securing that either Joe or Rich was making the end. Looking at the comments posted it seemed as if Rich was getting taken to the end regardless which is crazy, as he was playing the best game (just reading the comments in the forum and VL). A Newz take would be great here! Joe wins final immunity! Newz lost a huge lead after not knowing how to do slide puzzles and that was the difference for him reaching the final tribal. He had zero votes cast against him on the season but Joe casted his lone vote all season.
Final Tribal
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At first, I was under the impression that this would be an outright Rich victory. He played a fantastic social and strategic game who made strong relationships. Even looking back, his final tribal looked a lot more superior than Joe’s. But this was a very open jury questioning. Joe had made some decent relationships that go unnoticed in the edit the entire season and not to mention Newz saying he thought “Rich was outright winning” and casting a troll vote for Joe would not matter. It turns out that was the difference between arguably Rich being one of the best original winners to one of the “Best to Never Win”. I think had Newz made it to the end it was probably going to be a 4-3 vote looking back or 5-2 either against or for him to win. It is hard to say as Ponderosa was relatively vague or most of it being roast at Newz by Sebastian and Ryan. Overall, I think Joe is someone that I written off early at final tribal as he seemed the beta to Rich’s alpha. But he did play a good game despite the fact it looked like Rich overshadowed him. I’m also some of Joe’s jury votes came from people being on his original tribe so they knew him better.
Jury Votes
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Ryan - Joe
James - Joe
Ethan - Rich
Sebastian - Rich
Tyler - Joe
Will - Rich
Newz - Joe
Final Synopsis
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India was a fantastic season! The cast itself looked sort of miserable but there were several great characters who ended up making deep runs or were memorable. We had our first ever rock draw in the series and saw a legitimate battle of duos where arguably we saw the best duo come out on top (no shade to Newz & Sebastian). Felix and Qaz were the only memorable premergers as the rest died off the site. Joe, Rich, Newz, Sebastian, Ethan, and James who are the on DvD cover were unique characters (wish Sebastian played again). Joe’s win looks “hell lot better” on the rewatch and Rich maybe Rich looking back was a lot more under the radar. Still, he’s up there among “best to never win” and in future seasons would continue to always make a deep run. Also, I forgot about Mickle.
DVD Cover
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Rich – Joe – Newz
Sebastian – Ethan – James
Season Ranking
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1. Nepal
2. INDIA
3. Hawaii
4. Iceland
5. Jordan
Winner Ranking
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1. Rhys (AndThenThereWasOne)
2. Jimbo (sahmosean)
3. Brandan (Maladus1)
4. Joe (jharrin7887)
5. Cole (Cole91)
16th: Michael ( diarzibari101) [Pawra] (7-1)
15th: Qaz ( Qazwdxedc) [Vasava] (7-1)
14th: Brendan ( bwburke94) [Vasava] (5-2)
13th: JJ ( JJCanada) [Pawra] (5-2)
12th: Mickle ( MicklePickle20) [Vasava] (5-1)
11th: Owen ( AlmightyOZ) [Pawra] (5-1)
10th: Felix ( CharlieBibi) [Pawra] (3-2)
**Merge**
9th: Ryan ( wangifold) [Pawra/Airling] (4-3-2) *1st Member of the Jury*
8th: James ( jamessmith5) [Vasava/Airling] (4-4/2-2/Drew Purple Rock) *2nd Member of the Jury*
7th: Ethan ( thewinner) [Vasava/Airling] (4-3) *3rd Member of the Jury*
6th: Sebastian ( Luckybucket/#Dryerfish) [Pawra/Airling] (4-2) *4th Member of the Jury*
5th: Will (@willtatum) [Vasava/Airling] (3-2) *5th Member of the Jury*
4th: Tyler ( Tylerseeg) [Vasava/Airling] (4-0) *6th Member of the Jury*
3rd: Newz ( OldNewz) [Pawra/Airling] (1-0) *7th Member of the Jury*
**Final Tribal Council**
Runner Up: Rich ( Zed55) [Pawra/Airling] (Received 3 votes to win)
Sole Survivor: Joe ( jharrin7887) [Vasava/Airling] (Received 4 votes to win)
Our next stop is the “Original All Stars” where the OG legends were born 😊
Joe winning by a thrown away troll vote I can't. Also looked like a really interesting season with the dynamics really shifting so much, wonder if that Newz guy will ever come back.
