This season... was not very good. Honestly some of the events that happened were okay but this cast was just not it. Only a few people popped, there was very little characterization, we were told about so many important relationships rather than being shown them, and I just didn't really care about these people or what they did. It's a shame because I think this could've been an okay season, but the finished product just did not give us anything. The endgame got better but only marginally so, and it still wasn't really worth the price of admission. Even this cast ranking is very nebulous because I don't really care about... anyone all that much lmao.
1. Gabler (he did peak way too early and was kind of an irrelevant bore by the end, and part of this high ranking is because I was actually able to predict his win and I'm proud of it, but premerge Alli-Gabler was the PEAK of the season. Randomly insisting on playing his Shot in the Dark in the premiere, the entire feud with Elie, lovingly trying to cover his tribemates with palm frond blankets while they slept... iconic, legendaric)
2. Elie (for a season that desperately needed ANY sort of characterization, Elie played the villain role perfectly. It seemed a little concerning episode 1 when she wanted to have a girls alliance and then immediately spearheaded the Morriah boot, but then her feud with Gabler started and it was the only consistent storyline of the entire season. Elie wasn't particularly evil, but she was just arrogant and not self-aware at all and it was so much better than what anyone else was giving at the time. Her boot episode performance was great with her proclaiming that she was MADE to play this game, only to be left near tears after Gabler calls her out for searching through his bag and them having a full-on fight in the jungle <3)
3. Jeanine (fun appendage to Elie who could just NOT catch a break lmaoooo that whole chain of events where she was left out of the Elie vote and then kinda worked her way back into things seemingly and then gave her HII to Dwight in case Knowledge Is Power gets played only for Dwight to get booted even though Jesse secretly had her HII and nobody knew it was seriously a work of art. Her perpetual shocked Pikachu face from the Jury was a constant highlight)
4. Cody (having a LIVIN tattoo on his butt cheek <3 he seemed wacky and fun which is desperately needed in modern day Survivor, but after like episode 4 he just kinda became a boring gamebot which was sad to see)
5. Noelle (OTTP inspiration porn that never really got as annoying as it could've gotten, but it's also hilarious that she's allegedly a huge ****ing bully in the real world? <3)
6. Justine (she seemed like she had potential but then she was booted and I didn't care)
7. Nneka (a frightening Trumpie who unironically tweets **** like #Landslide2020 so I don't really like her as a person BUT her Challenge performances were all-time awful and that was like one of the only fun things about this season)
8. Karla (seemed actually good in the first few episodes, then kinda became annoyingly complacent and not good, and then by the endgame she became kind of a demon in the best way possible so it wraps back around to her being okay? A weird morph but here we are, even if it's not for the reasons anyone thought)
9. Jesse (his coronation edit was annoying as was his general storyline about being in juvie and now being a loving father BUT the fact that it all led to him getting a heartbreaking downfall at the hands of *Gabler* of all people kinda makes his whole arc age better for me, it's true. And his overlord gameplay was kinda annoying but it kinda made some interesting **** happen I guess?)
10. Lindsay (promising premiere but then largely irrelevant. Gets upper yellow for having a fun boot episode where she decided to become randomly paranoid for no reason and spawned her own boot just because)
11. James (he seemed like a good old school fan but then after the premiere he just talked in New Era isms in a raspy voice that I couldn't understand most of the time. Points for having like the only real fight this season with Owen?)
12. Ryan (overly cocky to a fun degree for a brief moment but other than that I largely didn't care)
13. Morriah (a first boot on Survivor)
14. Cassidy (the rabid fandom she has is absolutely perplexing because we know literally nothing about her other than she's a girl who was on Survivor 43. What is her personality? What did she do to supposedly deserve to win? Why am I supposed to care?)
15. Owen (kind of an annoying tryhard who embodied a lot of the bad things about modern Survivor but I don't think he's a bad person and the finale made me kinda empathize with him for being a big Survivor fan but having a negative amount of agency in the game ever)
16. Dwight (who)
17. Geo (a strange morph from OTTP sob story to OTTN cocky guy but I didn't really find him likable at any point for some unknown reason)
18. Sami ("I'm going to convince everyone I'm 23 and NOT a 19 year old!!!!!!" vs. doing cringey Tik Tok dances and memes at any given moment, goodbye human. Also I'm immediately suspicious of any BYU student so two strikes and you're OUT bitch)