by Don Hart

The Nov. 6, 2008 edition of the Calgary Herald reported Jeff Probst’s revelation, before the series began, that two Survivor groups would emerge in Gabon: The “Good” would struggle against the “Evil”. The “Good” group according to Probst will believe that “a good person must win the game, while the “Evil” group will emerge that is “spiteful, nasty, mean-spirited and determined to win at all costs”.

I’ve been waiting since episode 7 to see who was going to replace Ace as the villain of Survivor Gabon. After Marcus’ exit in Episode 8 and Charlie’s in Episode 9, I am finally ready to speculate which Survivors are good and evil. After carefully studying the exit interviews of the latest four evictees: Ace, Dan, Marcus and Charlie, I found all four providing valuable clues. When in doubt, consult two lawyers and a doctor!

The “Evil” Group (ranked by degree of evilness)

1. Ken: Ken has been the greatest manipulator so far in the game. He has blatantly lied in the ousters of Ace and Charlie. He considers himself the mastermind, the “glue” of his current dominant alliance with Crystal, Susie, Matty and Sugar. Charlie reports that when Randy, Dan and Susie joined Kota, they told him that Ken had been referring to Charlie as a “homo” and a “fag”. Whoa! It sounds as if Ken is a homophobe, which propels him to the top of the “mean-spirited, nasty, spiteful, win at all costs” Evil camp.

2. Crystal: Always confrontational, Crystal is solidly allied with Ken. She succeeded in convincing Susie to oust Marcus. She is self-congratulatory in her betrayals, of which she already has many. Ace in his exit interview claimed she is getting a kind edit and that her attitude “is worse than we’ve seen”. Marcus says she “is not a logical person”. Charlie calls her “mean-spirited” and criticizes her use of the middle finger in her “Sayonara, Kota God” farewell to Marcus.

3. Randy: Randy is as confrontational as Crystal. He goes out of his way to antagonize Crystal, Ken, Susie and Matty, all his former Fang tribemates. Do not forget that he had formed an alliance with Susie and Matty before the first tribal mix. His camera interviews are filled with negativity, as he is self-proclaimed loner in real life. Yet, he was able to form a Fang alliance first with Dan, Matty and Susie (Note: Randy, Susie and Matty tapped fists together in their short-lived alliance against Ken and Crystal) and then a Kota alliance with Marcus, Charlie and Corinne. In my opinion, Randy is the most interesting of all the original 18 Survivors, and he has received a lot of airtime for a reason. He gets a wealth of comments from evicted Survivors, not all bad. Dan: “He wasn’t loved as a kid, but you’ve got to love him now. It’s great to see him come out of his shell and be accepted by lots of people. You could almost hug him.” Marcus: “Randy is a really bright guy. He’s a wiseass, but we had a really good relationship.” Charlie: “Everyone hated Randy. Sugar wouldn’t sleep in the same hut with him. Corinne! Crystal and Susie all called him hot headed. He just got into fights and disputes all the time.”

4. Corinne: She has portrayed herself as a bitch in her private camera time and has made negative comments about anyone not in her alliance. We’re all waiting for her evil role to develop further. She, like Randy, receives mixed comments from the evicted. Marcus: “She’s the smartest one there. She loves saying things that get people riled up. However she’s disguised, she’s a good person who has your back. She was working for everyone.” Dan: “I’m surprised her personality hasn’t come out yet.” Like Natalie in Survivor 16, Corinne is prone to provoking her fellow Survivors.

The “Good” Group (ranked by degree of goodness)

1. Matty: Matty plays from the heart but is a strategic mess. He abandoned his alliance for Ace, and it still stings a bit. Kelly said that “it was dumb of Matty to ally with Ace, but that Matty was a cool guy.” Ace called him a “great guy, but he had no idea what he was doing on Survivor. He didn’t know how to (strategize)!” Kelly said that “it was dumb of Matty to ally with Ace, but that Matty is a cool guy”. Matty is a slam dunk to be in the “Good” group.

2. Bob: Bob is this season’s Yau-Man. He’s been edited to seem like an all-around nice guy. We haven’t seen any game strategy from him, and the exit interviews only reinforce this “loyal, but no strategy” description. Dan explains in his exit interview that Bob tells long, drawn-out boring stories and that he can talk down to others, like a teacher. Both Marcus and Charlie said that Bob napped during crucial strategy discussions. Marcus calls Bob “A great guy”, but that with him, “there was more of you tell me what to do, and I’ll do it”. Dan: “A nice guy.”

3. Susie: A hard-working mother and wife in real life, Susie has received the least airtime. We know she makes some wise decisions, as when she sided with Crystal and Ken against Marcus. But, she has made some horrendous blunders, like telling Corinne that she was going to vote her out. In tribal councils, she should process her thoughts before she speaks. Marcus said he thought he had bonded to some degree with Susie, revealing he had “Hispanic-American” roots himself and that he had even spoken Spanish with Susie. Marcus: “She spent days trying to back out of every promise she made. She’s not well-suited to fit into a group of people.” Dan: “Randy thinks Susie has gone too far in the game.”

4. Sugar: Sugar redefines “lucky”. She quickly discovered the immunity idol and enjoyed comforts while on Exile Island. Then, in another twist of fate she found herself in the power position in Episode 9’s Charlie ouster. Like Bob, she has some flaws we have not seen. Charlie says in an exit interview that Sugar has been inaccurately edited so far in the Series. He says that she was “very unlikable”, that she “demanded where to sleep”, that she “tore up her fellow tribemates’ bags and would wear them as dresses without asking”, and that she “would wear others’ clothes without asking”. Ace: “Sugar is very capable of doing things for no apparent reason”. Kelly: “I don’t know what she was trying to do. She was all over the place.”

Surely all the remaining Survivors have more complex personalities than “good” or “evil”. The editors, however, have a story to tell. So, they emphasize certain personality traits to keep viewers both entertained and surprised by the way things turn out. So, if the editors want to present their story by emphasizing the “good” for some and the “evil” for others, we can live with that.

It will be interesting to see if good triumphs over evil in Gabon. In the meantime, we have to note the current alliance mix of the good and the evil:

1. The good Matty, Sugar & Susie are allied with the evil Ken & Crystal.
2. The good Bob is allied with the evil Corinne & Randy.

It looks as if there is turbulence ahead for the alliances.

Further Notes on the Final 8

It is interesting to note that five of the Final 8 are from the original Fang tribe, while only 3 are from Kota. With all that early Kota challenge dominance, Kota was only able to place 3 in the Final 8. Did they become so complacent in their early successes that they were unable to survive the two tribal mixes? Was there as much Kota discord under the surface as there was in Fang? Or did all that Fang suffering harden them enough to prepare better for the twists that were thrown at them by the Producers?

Of the original 18 Gabon Survivors, four were over 40 years old. Three made it to the Final 8. Are older Survivors better able to survive this season than in earlier shows?

And so the Hydra:

I wrote after Episode 6 that, “There has to be a villain or a group of villains” for there to be a good story. Marcus in one of his exit interviews, in Fansofrealitytv.com, described the Kota tribe’s decision making this way: “I made a lot of references to a hydra. Kota was a many-headed beast, because everyone was smart, everyone was thinking.” So let’s borrow that hydra image but spin it in another way. In looking over again at the “Evil” group above, it appears as if we are going to be entertained by four new villains. Sugar for one may find out that she may cut off Ace’s head, but like the hydra, four new villainous Aces have grown in his place.

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