20. Phillip
I said before the season started that the only good thing about Phillip coming back was that it would be literally impossible for him to be worse than he was in Redemption Island.
And coming out of the season.. the only positive thing I can say about him is "Well, at least it wasn't as bad as Redemption Island."
Phillip is gross and he deserves the blame for many of the editing issues that I will touch upon later.
19. Brandon
At first I took Brandon Hantz's #SurvivorBreakdown seriously and was torn on him, because on one hand it was horrible and uncomfortable, but on the other hand it was totally unique and he did call out Phillip.
But now I realize that it was just shameless self-promotion because the Hantzes have a TV show coming up, so I'm totally set in the fact that I hate Brandon for being a famewhore. Also, I choose to blame him for Erik starving to death. At least this virtually guarantees that we will never see a Hantz on Survivor (or Big Brother but who cares) again. I heard he wasn't going to be at the reunion, but I'm not watching that (because I heard the words "Boston Rob" and "Phillip" in the same sentence), so someone let me know whether that was legit.
18. Cochran
Cochran's win could have been sort of okay if it had been mixed in with doubt like it was in the finale, and also if he hadn't spent his time shit-talking everyone to show how confident he is, and also if he hadn't gone on in a secret scene about targeting Malcolm for being more attractive than he is... so, basically, if he weren't Cochran. Also, he pulled a JT, which I don't have anything to say about but I still feel like it warrants mentioning. Cochran wasn't as horrible as Brandon or Phillip but he still did a good job of filling the "why are you still here" spot after they were gone and he's still one of my two least favorite winners of all time.
17. Francesca - Not really her fault that she's this low, because it's not really due to anything she did, but I hate that she was out first. I'd rather have seen her go further. Because her character is "was out first twice" and I wish she hadn't been out first twice, I dislike her as a character this season.
16. Matt - Taking out Laura is unacceptable when it's your only moment in the entire season. Spoiler alert: Laura does well in this.
15. Reynolds - I always wanted to like Reynolds because he has a lot of charisma and could be a good character, but he totally flatlined post-merge and never had a consistent role prior to that, so I can't say I like him. He basically had no role in the storyline so when he was out I was just like "Oh. That's the guy who got all the air time early on"? He could have been awesome, but he wasn't, so...
14. Hope
13. Allie - She is one notch above Hope because of her Twitter bitterness (Twitterness???) about the reunion show bullshit.
12. Michael - I liked this one Secret Scene where he and Phillip clashed, but when I try to think of things he did on the show, all that comes to mind is that Corinne liked him because he's gay. So, uh.
11. Julia - The "Julia is quiet" jokes that comprised her last two episodes were repetitive and I should dislike them on principle, but they're better than anything she herself ever could have provided, so I don't mind.
10. Brenda
9. Erik
Both of them should have been awesome, but instead, Phillip!!!! I only like them because of what they should have been.
8. Shamar - He brought the lols for me at the time, but his exit felt weird and contrived. He was a huge character but then he just.. left in a really anti-climactic way, and it soured me to him, but he was funny for a few weeks prior.
7. Eddie - Wanting to make a kennel attached to a bar is hilarious, but that's basically the only time I cared about Eddie. Still, he seems like a nice guy, so good for him.
6. Corinne - The anti-Phillip stuff was cool and I liked her for a few weeks, but she was pretty much a one-note character with no real impact.
5. Andrea - I like her storyline of wanting to fix her mistake of being too confident and being at the bottom of her alliance, so she got too paranoid which put her at the bottom of her alliance. She proved this season that she can actually be entertaining, so good for her. She wasn't awesome but she was good.
4. Malcolm - I loved him in the Michael and Phillip boot episodes, but his own boot episode was so tedious and he got so much air time that he falls just a little bit. Still, I love watching people have fun, and Malcolm wasting an Idol just to take out somebody annoying who he didn't like while bragging about how his alliance couldn't go home is one of the best examples of that, even though it is tarnished by how manufactured it was.
3. Sherri - She was awesome pre-swap, she was awesome at FTC. Other than that she was a non-entity, but I really can't think of anything Sherri did wrong to balance out the times when I did like her. She made the pre-swap great, though of course a large part of that is because I was holding out hope that she would shock us and defy the spoilers and win. She didn't fully live up to her potential, but I still enjoyed her and her Gallagher-esque FTC performance
2. Laura - She would probably rank in my all-time top 100, though near the bottom. Of course when the girl who is out in episode four is in your top two, you have a lame cast, but that girl is Laura Alexander, so she's worthy of a top two spot. I really, really enjoyed her. Her personality appealed to me, she got a much better edit for her placement/demographic than one would expect, and I think she was fucked over by the Shamar evac. Had he been voted out and she stayed, who knows what could have happened? Laura for second chances, please.
1. Dawn - Popular opinion is that Dawn is awful, but I love her. Not even because I found her breakdowns funny or something; I loved her unironically and sympathized with her a majority of the time. Her paranoia was sometimes grating to watch but I can't blame her for the game affecting her as much as it did. Her story arc is actually kind of tragic to me. She never could have won because she's someone who gets affected so much by the stress of the game, but she tried her best. She learned to play a cutthroat, individual, selfish game despite being a selfless person in real life, and I wish that she had been rewarded for it with a win. I could go on and on about her story arc because if I were to include this cast among others, she'd honestly be in my top 15 all time and I can say without exaggeration that had she won, she would have been in my top three and become my favorite female character of all time. I loved her that much. I find her situation fascinating, I find her gameplay compelling, her FTC performance was much stronger than I expected it to ever be, I really, really wish she has won, and with the deleted Facebook/Twitter, I hope she's doing better and had a great Mother's Day. Dawn is a legitimately nice person whose personality made playing the game incredibly hard from her, and I would take a real human being with emotions like Dawn over a shameless gamebot or an OTT caricature 99 time out of 100. Her story arc is fantastic and the only reason I would include Caramoan in my "every character ever" ranking would be to give her the top 15 spot that is warranted by the tragic story arc of the dichotomy between Dawn's gameplay and Dawn's personality. And I am fully aware of the fact that I am pretty much the only person who feels this way, but I don't care, because I think Dawn this season was a legend and almost made the whole season worth it.
...Almost.
Comments
Andrea, IMO, deserved player of the season! :)
Please check out my Survivor: RI episode one recap and tell me your thoughts because I think you're great with analyzing this stuff and I'd love your opinions! Pleassee. :)
Notsae DO NOT WATCH REDEMPTION ISLAND. GET THE FUCK OUT WHILE YOU CAN. WATCH ANY OTHER SEASON. LITERALLY ANY OTHER SEASON. I'M NOT EVEN EXAGGERATING. /GET OUT NOW AND PICK ANY OTHER SEASON IN THE HISTORY OF THE SHOW./
ye brenda is super overrated and the dawn hate reminds me of the #Americahatesshellymoore bandwagon -_- but i didnt watch this season so maybe i shouldnt be talking ^_^
Dawn was amazing, and played incredibly well. It is kind of like the bullshit hypocrisy that Lill got in Pearl Islands for being a Boy Scout leader but lying to people, people held Dawn to a certain standard because she is a mother and IS a great person, but didn't hold Cochran to the same standard so they handed him a unanimous win. What the ACTUAL fuck?
You know something is wrong with a season when a pre-swap boot is top 2 :o
But i do have to agree with you on this list, though i'd knock malcolm down a bot since he was overly confident (in a bad way IMO) and i think he was trolling Dawn FTC like half of the jury were (which was very childish)
Please check out my Survivor: RI episode one recap and tell me your thoughts because I think you're great with analyzing this stuff and I'd love your opinions! Pleassee. :)
http://www.tengaged.com/blog/Notsae/4233579/survivor-redemption-island-episode-1