New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

3) Ashley

The good news for Ashley is that she survived the last vote, which was not the original plan. The bad news is that we learned from the discussions that Rob and Grant both dislike her and even Natalie wouldn’t become a fan of hers on Facebook. Interchangeable Ometepe Female #2 is trying to play the game, and that makes her Rob’s biggest remaining threat on the island, at least in terms of him getting to the final vote. The doomsday scenario for Rob would be him not winning the final immunity challenge as Ashley, Natalie and That Nutjob all have to understand that if they take Rob to the end, he wins.

4) Mike

In spite of the vote in the prior episode, Mike is still better positioned to win than any of the other players at Redemption Island as well as That Nutjob. We originally had the person in fifth place slotted here but after a bit of debate, we came to this conclusion. Everyone on Zapatera respects Mike, who has comported himself as well as any player in the history of the game. That’s four jury votes right there. In addition, Mike has bonded with Matt during their time at Redemption Island. Matt is a wild card in a lot of ways, but the one thing we feel confident forecasting is that he will vote for Mike if he can. That tips the scale to the point that even though he was voted out, Mike has a solid chance at winning Survivor if he wins his way back into the game at the end.

5) Grant

Grant has earned the respect of his peers over the course of the season. He is also a former NFL player, which means he is a freak of nature athletically. Plus, he has demonstrated a deft touch at the strategy aspect of the game as well as a few of the puzzle challenges. We deem the players ranked from fourth to sixth as the most likely to win the challenges at Redemption Island required to re-enter the game. Out of those, Grant offers the best combination of accomplishments prior to being vote off and challenge skills to win re-entry then make a case for winning the game. What hurts Grant is that we are not sure he has done enough to stand out from the other players on Ometepe who did not get voted out. In order to win a jury vote, he would need Phillip and one of the women to be his opponents at the end. It’s a narrow set of parameters required for him to achieve victory.

6) Matt

Think of Matt as the Boston Rob of Redemption Island. For all of his disastrous attempts at playing the game of Survivor in terms of strategy, Matt has accomplished the one imperative to maintain his presence in the game. He has survived each and every elimination competition. Think of Matt as an action hero in a movie. There have been bullets fired at him from every possible direction yet none of them has even winged him yet. The only damage he has taken in the game has been due to his personality. His devout nature and steadfast honesty have proven to be a terrible fit with the other contestants this season. For this reason, we have trouble finding enough votes for him to win the game, which is the way it should be. After all, Matt has been voted out of Survivor twice. Even scoutmaster Lill only got voted out once. Even *LILL*!

As Jim has mentioned over the course of the season, Matt has gotten a winner’s edit, though. What we presume has happened is that when the producers and editors of Survivor got together after the season to discuss how to frame the episodes, they had the problem that Rob/Ometepe had been so dominant that it made for bad television. Matt’s perseverance in the face of historically unprecedented circumstances is an interesting side note in a season otherwise devoid of quality storytelling and is worthy of recognition. If not for that, we the viewers would have been subjected to even more nonsense from That Nutjob. Do we think Matt can win Survivor? It’s unlikely unless everyone at Zapatera is holding a grudge, a vibe we haven’t gotten from them, and Oemetepe turns upon one another at the last moment, something they haven’t done yet. Do we think Matt should win Survivor? Absolutely not. That would be an abomination.

Continued:       1       2       3