Survivor: Kaoh Rong - Power Rankings
Week 1
By Ben Willoughby
February 24, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com

I figure women love Nicholas Sparks, so why not?

Previously on Survivor, Probst boasted about how this location was probably going to kill half the cast, and the show immediately demonstrated this when some sort of proto-centipede burrowed into Jennifer’s ear to have a good night’s sleep. The 18 castaways were divided into three tribes that no one is ever going to learn, so let’s do as the show does and call then Brains, Beauty and Brawn.

Brains won the reward/immunity challenge, while Brawn came in last. “We’re Brawn for a reason,” roared Jason as his tribe proceeded to lose the puzzle-making portion of the challenge, and after some to-ing and fro-ing about who was least awful and a tied vote, the decision unanimously went against Darnell the postal worker. Darnell wasn’t upset and urged every viewer to live their dreams – even if said dreams are causing your tribe to come to Tribal Council by losing your diving goggles in the first five seconds of a challenge and taking a dump in the ocean while everyone’s watching from your nearby camp.

Here are the power rankings after Week 1. And I have photos of every one of the contestants holding up a sign saying “r/RoastMe”, so anything I say is fair game.

Brains

1. Peter

Peter, an emergency room doctor, says he can’t deal with ignorant people, so he’s sure to have a blast over the next 38days. He also happens to look like Barack Obama, and after living on a beach trying to build alliances with a bunch of people with their own goals and agendas who will end up going against him just to deny him a win, he’s going to have a lot more in common with the President.

2. Neal

Neal is an ice cream entrepreneur - just like Eric! For an entrepreneur, Neal seems to be a pretty negative guy – 10 minutes after stepping on the beach, he was already sizing up who would not be good enough to stick around.

3. Liz

Liz is a quantitative strategist in real life, which means she is going to be lost without her risk models and MATLAB for Dummies textbook. By about day 12, I expect a frustrated interview that goes something like “there’s no way to interpolate the human brain.” If Neal is negative, Liz is even more so – she came up with the “most likely to be medevac’d” line for Joe and has tagged Aubry as mentally fragile.

4. Aubry

Aubry is a lily-white skinned social media marketer from California, who still doesn’t know enough about the sun to not work in it. Even though she gets a dose of heat exhaustion, she still uses words like “faculties,” leading Liz to describe it as more of an anxiety attack. She also went and proved herself in the reward/immunity challenge by diving to collect all four paddles, so maybe she’ll be okay after her Day One meltdown.

5. Joe

Joe, a 72-year-old former hostage negotiator for the FBI, seems to have a good head on his shoulders but has already been pegged by the rest of his tribe as “most likely to be medevac’d”.

6. Debbie

Debbie is a chemist by training and Red Lobster server by situation. She claims in interview that “puzzles lay down for me like lovers,” so it’s no surprise that she has been labelled as the tribe weirdo. With only six people on the beach, we have to double-up on roles, so she has also landed the job of tribe mother figure who looks after Aubry and anyone else who will freak out over dehydration.

Beauty

1. Caleb

Caleb was on Big Brother, and before that was a prison guard in Baghdad, so he’s clearly had a lot of experience with reality TV. The women on the tribe discussed how on Big Brother, he had an alliance of nine and led it to the end, without realizing that’s probably a bad thing on Survivor. Sounds like Caleb might be playing with the right people.

2. Michele

Michele is a bartender. We didn’t really get introduced to the women on the Beauty tribe, but Michele (I think it’s Michele) seems to be the one most willing to play outside an all-female alliance.

3. Anna

Anna is a professional poker player who relies on her boobs for success.

4. Nick

Nick is a personal trainer/life coach who claims that his life is easier because he’s better looking than most people, and I don’t know whether it’s funnier that he’s a personal trainer/life coach and he thinks life could be a lot harder, or that he looks like a less attractive version of Rupert Everett, and would probably still be a personal trainer/life coach if he were average-looking rather than slightly-better-than-average.

5. Julia

Julia says that we shouldn’t pre-judge her just because she’s in a sorority, but that’s all we really know about her so far, so I’m judging.

6. Tai

Tai is the “Mr. Inner Beauty” of his tribe. He loves all life, whether it is chickens that he ties together so they can be happier until their eventual death, or trees that he is uprooting while rummaging around for a hidden immunity idol. Unfortunately for Tai, he got totally busted looking for an idol before there was even a challenge, and everyone on his tribe thinks that his inner beauty is all garbage.

Brawn

1. Scot

Scot is a former NBA player, and has already taken on the job of tribe leader. His leadership style is telling people who are freaking out not to freak out, which always works well on Survivor when people are freaking out.

2. Kyle

Kyle is like a collection of everything terrible wrapped up into a big sack of meat. Ear gauges, dumb and loud about it, a man bun, a knuckle-cracking habit. He has so many awful tattoos that I’m going to point one out each week and see who lasts longer - Kyle or this list. He claims that “Blondie” (Alecia) and Darnell don’t measure up to his standards, but Scot is a former NBA player, Cydney is a world-class bodybuilder, and I’m not yet clear on why a guy who has “Blue Label” tattooed in cursive script under his collar believes he is at their level.

3. Jennifer

Jennifer is a construction worker who is tough enough to live through a night listening to a bug lay eggs in her head. I’m glad it’s out of her ear, but I think she should have been given the chance to do the bug-squishing.

4. Cydney

Cydney is a professional body-builder who has already lost her first alliance in the game. I wonder if the real reason Darnell is gone is because the others on her tribe didn’t want a pair.

5. Alecia

Alecia’s claim to be on the Brawn tribe is that she has been bungee jumping and diving with sharks, so she has clearly been cast as a clear joke by the producers. Maybe someone in casting has been reading too many pick-up artist guides and is trying to neg her. “You’re not pretty enough to be on the Beauty tribe. But tell you what, I’ll cast you on Brawn. You’ll still get to be on TV.”

There are the power rankings for the week. Next time on Survivor, Tai totally leans in for a kiss with Caleb.