There’s nothing quite like a returnee season of Survivor. Wednesday night’s Season 50 premiere will begin the sixth season in the show’s history featuring a cast entirely of returning players: 24 veterans of Survivor, split into three tribes of eight, will compete over 26 days for $1 million. From players competing in their second season—newer stars like Genevieve Mushaluk, Dee Valladares, and Q Burdette—to Cirie Fields and Ozzy Lusth, who are coming back for a record-tying fifth time, this cast is one with plenty of history and underlying drama. Season 50 promises to be a maximalist trek through Survivor lore. In the show’s increasingly self-referential middle age, it could hardly be any other way: The season’s subtitle is “In The Hands of The Fans,” and fans voted on various elements of the game, such as whether tribes would start with rice or whether there would be final four fire-making, though crucially not on who would be playing.
We gathered Defector’s jury—Luis Paez-Pumar, Kelsey McKinney, Alex Sujong Laughlin, Rachelle Hampton, Sabrina Imbler, and Normal Gossip producer Jae Towle Vieira—to preview these 24 players, explain their respective deals, and give our best guess on the question already animating a million fan debates: Can they win? The result is extremely thorough, so let’s get right into it.
Jenna Lewis-Dougherty
Robert Voets/CBS
What has she done already?
Season 1 (eighth place), Season 8: All-Stars (third place)
What’s her deal?
Jenna Lewis-Dougherty is an incredible pick to represent the first season of Survivor on its 50th season. Not because she is a legend, or even a particularly great game player, but because she best symbolizes the early game, when relationships mattered more than anything else. This was her downfall in Borneo, as she was so annoying and confrontational that people just got sick of her and voted her out early. She improved massively when she came back for the first returnee season, All-Stars, and led the charge against the winners that season. They never had a chance.
Now she’ll be playing a completely different game, which is exciting in its own way. Will she try to stay old-school, or adapt to the new rules and make the sort of big moves and alliances necessary to guide her into the final third of the game? Who knows! I think she’ll be more dangerous than anyone expects, provided age has diminished her former inability to read a room.
Can she win?
I have no idea. Jenna has not played in 42 seasons and 23 years. The game has evolved so much since then; she has never played with idols, never mind any advantages. But Jenna has two things going for her. One, she is probably the least threatening old-school player, even though she placed third her last time out and was only really beaten because of the Boston Rob-Amber love story. Two, she seems genuinely excited to just be back on Survivor, and that might help curb her worst instincts. If she can learn to not blab all her secrets and opinions to anyone who asks, Jenna could be a useful alliance member. But if she comes in with an agenda like on All-Stars, I don’t think this cast will keep her around as long. – Luis Paez-Pumar
Colby Donaldson
Robert Voets/CBS
What has he done already?
Season 2: Australian Outback (second place), Season 8: All-Stars (12th place), Season 20: Heroes vs. Villains (fifth place)
What’s his deal?
Let me preface this by admitting that I’ve never actually seen the season of Survivor that arguably made Colby Donaldson famous. I came to Survivor late in life; my reality TV tastes have always trended toward docu-soaps (Selling Sunset, Real Housewives) and dating programs (Love is Blind, The Bachelor). It wasn’t until Boston Rob Mariano’s appearance on the third American season of The Traitors that I finally decided to test those murky Survivor waters. For my own personal comfort, I’ve defaulted toward seasons that feature both returning castmates and Boston Rob.
It just so happened that Colby Donaldson was included in two of those seasons: All-Stars and Heroes vs. Villains. I don’t think it’s controversial to say that All-Stars is objectively The Rob and Amber Show, and so it wasn’t until Heroes vs. Villains that I even fully remembered Colby’s name. At that point, what I mostly remembered about him is that he was described as a fierce physical competitor—he apparently won five consecutive individual immunity challenges in his first season—and was likable enough to get eliminated fairly early in All-Stars.
Maybe that’s why the moment early on in Heroes vs. Villains, where Colby gets his shit absolutely wrecked by Benjamin “Coach” Wade, made such an impression on me. Or maybe it was because after this moment, one of his fellow contestants took to referring to Colby as “Superman in a fat suit.” Most likely, it was because Colby still managed to outlast every single one of his fellow Hero tribemates after absorbing that massive ego blow, seemingly by convincing everyone that he was indeed Superman in a fat suit.
Can he win?
I’m not sure what it means for Colby’s gameplay in Survivor 50 that he’s been publicly known as washed for over 15 years, or that he’ll be past 50 himself when he lands on the beach. But if there’s anything I learned from his run on Heroes vs. Villains, it’s that Colby has an ability to turn even the worst hand into an advantage. Still, I doubt he’ll win; his competitors have always been aware of the threat he poses, even at his weakest. He’s just too damn likable! But I wouldn’t be surprised if he lasts long enough to be a jury member. – Rachelle Hampton
Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick
Robert Voets/CBS
What has she done already?
Season 10: Palau (seventh place), Season 11: Guatemala (second place), Season 20: Heroes vs. Villains (19th place)
What’s her deal?
Stephenie is well-seasoned. She’s been an early boot, and she’s made the jury, and she’s also been runner-up. She’s gotten a “good” edit and a “bad” one. The production anointed her as a lovable underdog in Palau, valorizing her strength and persistence when her starting tribe lost every challenge, and that favorable edit certainly worked on me as a kiddo. I remember thinking of her as a hero—perhaps not on par with the likes of Ozzy in my developing brain, but certainly a member of the good-guy pantheon.
Presumably eager to capitalize on everyone’s fondness for the production’s newly anointed darling, Survivor bought her back immediately for Season 11, but this time no amount of editing could disguise the truth. Stephenie may be athletic and stubborn, and she’s certainly capable of lying, browbeating, and coaxing by turns, but she’s no hero. Her losing streak in Palau, which was always presented as bad luck, starts to feel less coincidental the longer you watch her; she doesn’t exactly bring out the best in her teammates. She’s more than willing to berate and disparage anyone that makes a mistake. If Survivor Wiki is to be believed, she has “the worst challenge win-loss ratio (10-to-39) of any contestant to play in multiple seasons.” She’ll betray her alliance members at the drop of a hat, but she’s not especially good at detecting when she’s being manipulated, which means she’ll cast off allies to the detriment of her own game. Her abysmal final tribal council performance in Guatemala made clear that she doesn’t know how to place her moves in context, or how to “own” her duplicitous behavior in a way that would allow others to admire it.
It may also be relevant to know that Stephenie landed herself in hot water last year for going on an antisemitic rant on Instagram Live, and she made lots of casually ableist and homophobic comments during her time in Guatemala. These indicators speak to Stephenie’s character on their own, but they also demonstrate Stephenie’s hotheadedness and, to be generous, lack of political savvy.
Can she win?
No. Stephenie can be useful if you can stomach her as a bedfellow, but she doesn’t have sufficient insight to calculate when it’s best to keep an ally or when to dump them, nor does she have the acumen to successfully navigate a final tribal council. Cirie recently ran laps around Stephenie (and everyone else) on a season of The Traitors (U.S.), and I’d expect the same kind of dynamic to emerge here, where someone who has a better grasp on the mechanisms of the social game recognizes Stephenie’s potential as a bulldog and/or goat. But for the sake of my sanity, and perhaps as cosmic payback for eating that sacrificial chicken, I’d love to see Stephenie go early. – Jae Towle Vieira
Cirie Fields
Robert Voets/CBS
What has she done already?
Season 12: Panama (fourth place), Season 16: Fans vs. Favorites (third place), Season 20: Heroes vs. Villains (17th place), Season 34: Game Changers (sixth place)
What’s her deal?
Cirie Fields is a ruthless competitor with a bedside manner that lulls her foes into complacency. She’s been on five seasons so far, including last year’s Australia vs. The World. She was a member of the “Black Widow Brigade,” the killer alliance of women in Micronesia — Fans vs. Favorites along with Parvati Shallow, Amanda Kimmel, Natalie Bolton, and Alexis Jones, who picked off stupid men one by one by flirting with them before blindsiding them. Cirie is responsible for sending Ozzy Lusth home that season; he at least found love with Amanda, or something.
Cirie has never won a game of Survivor; she placed higher in earlier seasons than later ones because her competitors realized what a threat she was. You can see her stretch the full breadth of her abilities on the first season of The Traitors (U.S.), which she won as a Traitor against a group of people largely unfamiliar with her game.
Can she win?
I honestly don’t have a lot of faith that she will make it past the merge. The people she’ll be playing against will almost certainly be charmed by her, but I also think they know too much to fall for it this time around. If they’re smart, they’ll get her out early, but hopefully not before she makes at least one savage move. – Alex Sujong Laughlin
Ozzy Lusth
Robert Voets/CBS
What has he done already?
Season 13: Cook Islands (second place), Season 16: Fans vs. Favorites (ninth place), Season 23: South Pacific (fourth place), Season 34: Game Changers (12th place)
What’s his deal?
One of the very first things Ozzy Lusth did on his first season of Survivor was throw a challenge. This is usually not a well-regarded choice: Your team has to go to tribal council intentionally, which puts everyone in danger. But his tribe on Cook Islands decided they disliked one of their teammates enough that the risk was worth it. So Ozzy threw the challenge himself; just as he planned, they went to tribal council and sent the annoying guy home. He’s since said he regrets the decision to throw the challenge, but it’s indicative of the player he was at the start: impulsive, reckless, and unbelievably charming.
After watching all of Ozzy’s other seasons, it’s stunning that he ever agreed to throw a challenge, since he’s one of the most competitive players I’ve ever seen on the show. He’s good at challenges—an incredible swimmer, good at fishing—and also a bad loser. He’s done a lot of losing on the show. His first season, he was the runner-up. His next, Fans vs. Favorites, he got absolutely destroyed by the aforementioned Black Widow Brigade. He was furious, and stayed bitter as a juror. In his third season, he managed to get voted out three times before they were able to get him out of the game. His fourth appearance on the show, I do not remember at all.
I’m a little surprised to see him back on primetime. After his first season, producers were furious because he had done a video for Playboy that showed him receiving oral sex and having sex with multiple other people. Since then, he’s launched an OnlyFans. Obviously, I love this for him, but I’m surprised that CBS accepted it.
Ozzy has said in interviews that the man he was in those days was a kind of fantasy character that wasn’t his actual personality, and that he’s planning to work on building relationships better this time around. That seems necessary, because winning every single challenge and being the best swimmer in the world is a much harder game to play as a 43-year-old. I’m interested to see how well his old gameplay will work in the new game, where so much of winning a season seems to be based on nerdy study of the game and its history instead of actual survival.
Can he win?
If Ozzy is actually open to playing a more strategic game and can continue to win a few challenges, I do think he has a chance to win. However, if I were playing, I would vote him off first because he’s too charismatic and good at the game. – Kelsey McKinney
Coach Wade
Robert Voets/CBS
What has he done already?
Season 18: Tocantins (fifth place), Season 20: Heroes vs. Villains (12th place), Season 23: South Pacific (second place)
What’s his deal?
How to sing the song of Survivor’s first and only self-appointed Dragon Slayer? Coach Wade, whose totally irrelevant given name is Benjamin, is one of Survivor’s most iconic contestants. The thing about Coach is that he is always saying grandiose shit. Coach loves telling stories. A striking number of them involve kayaks, and many of them cannot be independently verified, e.g. his claim to have set the world record for the longest solo ocean kayak expedition by kayaking more than 6,000 miles from the Gulf of California to Punta Charambia, Colombia over the course of 24 weeks. Late in his season on Tocantins, after another contestant was medevacked off the island, Coach told a fireside story about how he was paddling on the Amazon in a kayak when he found himself stalked by a tribe of “pygmies” who captured him, tied him up, carried him back to their village, tied him to a stake, and beat him with clubs, at which point Coach broke free of his bonds, ran back to his kayak, and paddled so hard that his hands bled. “I just can’t describe the feeling of being stalked by another human being,” he said to his bewildered tribe.
That’s the thing about Coach: Love him or hate him, he’s endlessly entertaining. Although his braggadocio made him a villain in his first season—likely a blow to his ego—he made it to fifth place as a part of the “Warrior Alliance.” (The name was his, of course.) Coach returned two seasons later for Heroes vs. Villains as a villain, where he formed a tight alliance with Jerri Manthey and climbed many trees, taught an eye-rolling Boston Rob tai chi, and wore feathers in his hair before he became the first member of the jury. Coach returned for the third time in the South Pacific, where he and Ozzy Lusth were the only two returning players. Once again and somewhat obviously, Coach was seen as a joke; the players all wanted to be on Ozzy’s team. This time he was able to build trust with his tribe, perhaps in part because he rebranded as The Zen Slayer. Coach’s social game felt savvier that time around, as he manipulated Russell Hantz’s religious nephew Brandon by crafting a “miracle” in which he found an idol. Was this manipulation intentional, or the result of a man who’s just addicted to saying shit? It’s hard to say, but slowly and surely, Coach built real alliances with his tribe and made it to the final tribal council. There, his Coachly essence became his downfall, and Sophie Clarke became the sole survivor.
Heading into Season 50, Coach has rechristened himself The Tide Walker, which he defines as a person that can move or flow with the tide. He says he’s changed his tactics from making war in the open to making war with a clean heart, the meaning of which remains unclear. “I want to play the game like that,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “To hide behind the shield at times and to sharpen the blade in silence and to make war, but with a clean heart and at the same time admitting that I’m making war.” We’ll have to wait to find out what this might mean.
Can he win?
Coach has never had a better chance to win. The years that have passed since his last appearance seem to have mellowed him out, and his preseason interviews suggest he has put helpful distance between himself and the “egomaniac, selfish” version of past seasons. It seems fair to say that few players will view him as a real threat, and might even be interested in keeping him around for novelty’s sake. But that’s how Coach gets you—you think of him as a joke, then over time his idiosyncrasies become charming, and then you become entangled in his deep and flawed quest to be a righteous man. I think Coach has an excellent chance at making it to the final three again, but whether he can win the game will depend on The Tide Walker’s self-awareness and personal growth. He’ll have an inspirational quote at the ready regardless. – Sabrina Imbler
Aubry Bracco
Robert Voets/CBS
What has she done already?
Season 32: Kaôh Rōng (second place), Season 34: Game Changers (fifth place), Season 38: Edge of Extinction (16th place)
What’s her deal?
Aubry is one of the most beloved players of the modern era, and with good reason. She first played in Season 32, a Brawn vs. Brains vs. Beauty season. Aubry was one of the Brains, and her edit told the story of a nerdy girl who overcame “analysis paralysis” to turn the tables on the insufferable bros surrounding her. I can’t overstate how much shit Aubry had to deal with in Kaôh Rōng, and how miraculous her gameplay was as she found ways to survive and thrive, and tip votes in her favor again and again. Even by Survivor standards, she had to deal with a lot of machismo and overdeveloped egos, but she made all that personality management look easy. Aubry was on the right side of the votes every time. Her two closest allies were medevacked at different points in the game, an enemy alliance was armed with a Super Idol—in this season, combining two hidden immunity idols allowed the resulting Super Idol to be played after the votes have been read—but Aubry still managed to build a genuine enough relationship with Tai to get him to flip on his alliance and bring his idol with him. She also did a firemaking challenge at final four and won, preserving her place in the game.
Ultimately, Michele Fitzgerald won the season with five jury votes to Aubry’s two, thanks to a dominant performance in the final challenges and good relationships with the jury. Aubry, who had to play and betray much more actively, had burned more bridges. Not to be dramatic, but this finale broke hearts and divided families. Fans made a huge ruckus about how Aubry should have won.
Aubry returned for Season 34, but she was nowhere near as dominant as she had been in Kaôh Rōng. Although she made it to fifth place, she was almost “purpled” in the edit—her confessionals were scant and brief. She just wasn’t one of the main characters this time around.
Aubry came back one more time for Season 38, as one of four returning players in a cast otherwise composed of newbies. She didn’t last long. It’s rare to see anyone cite this season as a favorite, due to some strange structural twists that didn’t land well. At that point Aubry had played Survivor three times in four years, and took a long break from the show.
Can she win?
Aubry’s a contender. It’s unfortunate that there’s a certain kind of player who will never vote for Aubry to win—Q’s assorted comments about Aubry over the years gave me flashbacks to Jason and Scot—but everyone on the cast has built-in enemies, so I don’t think Aubry’s out of contention. Time after time in Aubry’s Survivor career, she has been on the wrong side of the numbers. And time after time, she’s found ways to change her circumstances, vanquish her enemies, and stay in the game. There’s no one recipe for winning Survivor, but to have a real shot, you have to get lucky. So far, luck has not been on Aubry’s side. If she can catch a break, who knows. – Jae Towle Vieira
Chrissy Hofbeck
Robert Voets/CBS
What has she done already?
Season 35: Healers vs. Heroes vs. Hustlers (second place)
What’s her deal?
Chrissy Hofbeck is a surprising pick for Season 50. She first played in one of the show’s worst seasons, and wasn’t a particularly dynamic character in it. Her main appeal was that she was a challenge beast, and she’s tied for the most individual wins by a woman, with four. (One of the women she’s tied with is also on Survivor 50.) Other than that, Chrissy didn’t build strong relationships or pull off any incredible moves. She was just a solid player on a season without many. She’s most memorable for getting totally screwed by a twist: Heading into the finale, Chrissy’s only competition was Ben Driebergen, who found so many idols that some people believed production cheated in his favor. After Chrissy won Final Immunity, the producers dropped a bomb: Chrissy had to pick two people to go into final four fire-making, the first time that the show deployed what has become a finale staple.
There had been fire-making tiebreakers before, most notably back-to-back in Seasons 12 and 13, but there had never been a prearranged fire-making challenge for a spot at Final Tribal Council. I’m not a fan of the gimmick in general, and definitely am not a fan of production springing this on Chrissy when she probably thought that the remaining players would vote out Ben and hand her a win. Instead, Ben beat Devon Pinto in fire-making and the jury awarded him $1 million over Chrissy, thanks in part to her poor social game.
Chrissy looks to have learned from her mistakes, and has emphasized before the game that she wants to build alliances with friends and people she trusts. The self-awareness to understand how she lost bodes well, though her lack of any built-in alliances and her status as a threat on individual challenges might make her an easy target for an early blindside.
Can she win?
I don’t think so. She seems like a clear boot soon after the merge, unless she happens to form a strong majority alliance. That does appear to be her goal, but until I see this new Chrissy 2.0, I just think she’s too much of a threat and not enough of a social gameplayer to protect herself by putting her trust in an alliance. That said, I’m more intrigued by Chrissy than I thought I would be when the cast was revealed. – Luis Paez-Pumar
Angelina Keeley
Robert Voets/CBS
What has she done already?
Season 37: David vs. Goliath (third place)
What’s her deal?
“Natalie, is there any way I could have your jacket? Natalie? Natalie?” It’s one of the most memorable moments in Survivor history, but unlike the big moves and bigger blindsides that have peppered the 49 seasons to date, Angelina’s plea to Natalie Cole for her jacket is just pure awkward comedy.
On a season that promises to be cutthroat and full of strategy—all good returnee seasons are—Angelina offers a welcome dose of comedy. She’s completely lacking in self-awareness, and always ready to annoy everyone in order to do things her way, which makes her an ideal cast member, even if she’s all over the place as a player. Who else climbed a 100-foot ladder to retrieve an idol? Who else sacrificed a chance at immunity in order to earn rice for her tribe, while also letting no one forget that? Who else entered Final Tribal Council thinking she had a real shot to win, only to receive zero votes? Angelina is fully and completely herself, and I wouldn’t want her any other way.
Can she win?
As much as I will love having Angelina back on my TV screen, she has no chance. At best, she’ll be seen much in the same way she was in David vs. Goliath: an unserious player who is a perfect goat to carry to the end. At worst, her idiosyncrasies will wear on this veteran cast a lot more than it did in David vs. Goliath, and she’ll be an early boot. I’m hoping for the former. Perhaps the seven years between her seasons will have mellowed her out enough to sneak by for longer than I expect, but every episode she remains in Fiji will be a gift. I’ll leave you with her pregame interview, where she calls herself “your new self-aware queen.” – Luis Paez-Pumar
Christian Hubicki
Robert Voets/CBS
What has he done already?
Season 37: David vs. Goliath (seventh place)
What’s his deal?
Christian Hubicki is a big ol’ nerdy delight. I’d argue he was the breakout star from one of the show’s best non-returnee seasons, thanks to how damn likable he came across on David vs. Goliath. As one of the Davids, Christian fit the profile, rude though that profile was. He was smaller than some of the other competitors—pro wrestler John “Johnny TV/Mundo/Nitro/Morrison” Hennigan among them—but he was a brilliant gameplayer both strategically and socially. He was so good at getting his alliances to love and trust him that he became the beneficiary of one of the best idol play/vote split moves ever.
More than that, Christian was just fun TV. His hyperactive way of speaking, made famous in a long immunity challenge where he just started spouting off science facts for hours, and the way he was able to connect with anyone he talked to helped him last much longer than such a clear jury threat should have. He was eventually voted out for that exact reason, thanks to Mike White, who is also back for Season 50 and should make for an interesting dynamic. Since playing Survivor last, Christian has gotten married and now has a son, and his pregame press seems to emphasize a smarter, calmer contestant. This is great news for him and his fans, because if he can control how much he takes over the game through sheer force of personality, people might forget just how strong of a player he is. But if he plays the same as he did in Season 37, Christian’s threat level will peak too early; he’s just too charming to be taken to the end, a sort of nerdy version of Cirie Fields.
Can he win?
Man, I hope so! Objectively, I think Christian is too much of a jury threat to get to the final tribal council. Everyone loves him, he’s super smart, and he’s a good speaker; the reasons people will want to play with him are also why he won’t make it too far. But I don’t care, and I’d love nothing more than to see him minimize his threat level just long enough to make it to the end. If he gets there, he would probably beat anyone but the aforementioned Cirie in an FTC showdown. It likely won’t happen, but Christian is the best and I want this for him, and for us. -Luis Paez-Pumar
Mike White
Robert Voets/CBS
What has he done already?
Season 37: David vs. Goliath (second place)
What’s his deal?
Perhaps no Survivor contestant’s run has been so culturally consequential as Mike White’s. When he competed in Season 37, he was cast onto the Goliath team, though he was relatively unknown to normies. (He’s got three Emmy Awards now, but he may still be.) If his competitors recognized him at all, it was from his two prior stints on The Amazing Race, or from his supporting role as sheepish Ned Schneebly in the 2003 Jack Black movie School of Rock, which he also wrote.
His unassuming social game led him through to the final four, when he beat Kara Kay in the firemaking challenge and made it to the final jury vote, coming in second to Nick Wilson. But the most significant lingering effect of White’s appearance on the show is what he did next: write and direct the HBO show The White Lotus, which interrogates the way people can turn on each other in paradise. He even cast his fellow Survivor castmates in cameos on the show, nodding to the connection. White will have to play less under-the-radar this season; everyone knows exactly who he is this time.
Can he win?
I think he can! His gameplay is unassuming enough to fly under the radar in what will be a beach full of big personalities, and if he can make it to the merge, he stands a good chance. -Alex Sujong Laughlin
Rick Devens
Robert Voets/CBS
What has he done already?
Season 38: Edge of Extinction (fourth place)
What’s his deal?
Rick Devens is an idol hunter. He’s both the premier idol hunter on the Season 50 cast and one of the most prolific advantage seekers in Survivor history. He had to be on Edge of Extinction: Devens holds the distinction of being one of only two Season 50 cast members to get voted out of the game and then come back in, thanks to that season’s big twist. (Players voted out got to live on a purgatory island, then compete for a chance to get back in the game.) Unfortunately for Devens, the same twist that kept him in the game eventually led to his downfall, as Chris Underwood returned from the second Edge of Extinction challenge and won the whole thing after besting Devens in fire-making.
That being said, there’s a reason why Devens is back this season and not Chris. The Georgia native is one of the best confessional narrators of all time, and he also loves a little bit of chaos: planting fake idols, scheming for maximum carnage in his own idol plays, things of that nature. That’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and Devens ended the game mostly as a solo player carried by advantages, which might be an issue this time around if he’s not on top of his game. (He does appear to find the Billie Eilish Boomerang Idol, which, congratulations on that.) Pregame interviews have also seen other players annoyed by Devens’ antics at Ponderosa, the hotel where players stay before the game and after they are voted out. Add all that up, and Devens has a hard road ahead of him.
Can he win?
The previews for Season 50 have emphasized some shenanigans—thanks to that Billie Eilish Boomerang Idol, whatever Jimmy Fallon is doing there, and (sorry) MrBeast’s briefcase—which is where Devens thrived on his first season. If he’s able to best capitalize on the celebrity shenanigans, there’s no reason that Devens can’t make the merge and open his game up a bit. He’s also spoken about being a bit less unpredictable this time around, which might save him from another early vote-out. But players like to know what’s happening, and his ability to find idols and his glee in maximizing their potential makes him too much of a wild card. I don’t think he’ll make the merge. – Luis Paez-Pumar
Jonathan Young
Robert Voets/CBS
What has he done already?
Season 42 (fourth place)
What’s his deal?
Jonathan Young’s value proposition on Survivor is simple: He’s strong. That’s it. He’s probably the strongest player in the game’s history, and his signature moment was putting an entire tribe on his back, both metaphorically and somewhat literally, during an early challenge in Season 42. Unfortunately, the Buff Guy Challenge Beast is a boring archetype to talk about, especially when it comes to Jonathan, whose game has no other dimensions. He’s not a great social player, his strategy is all over the place, and he gets paranoid very easily. Weirdly, he’s also not great at individual immunity challenges, winning just one on his season. Jonathan is a great person to have on your tribe pre-merge, as he will almost singlehandedly get the team to that point, and he’s not a big enough threat to take out immediately after that. This makes him a boring player, but he won’t be unmemorable. Surely there will be at least two or three moments during team challenges when his strength takes center stage. And if we get a Jonathan vs. Joe Hunter showdown in a pure strength challenge, then all the better; I do love when that happens.
Can he win?
Nope. Even if Jonathan ups his individual challenge game enough to make it to Final Tribal Council, nothing about his previous gameplay makes me think that he’ll have the social relationships or big moves to convince a jury to award him the million. At best, Jonathan will be a FTC goat, which isn’t the worst thing to be when your game boils down to being a big strong guy. There’s a chance that Jonathan’s buddy Boston Rob Mariano gave him enough tips to evolve as a player, but I’ll believe it when I see it. – Luis Paez-Pumar
Dee Valladares
Robert Voets/CBS
What has she done already?
Season 45 (winner)
What’s her deal?
Dee Valladares has quite a reputation entering Survivor 50. Her winning performance on Season 45 has seen her hailed as the best all-around player of the New Era, and it’s not too far off. Dee’s a threat to win immunity challenges—she won three in Season 45, including Final Immunity—she has a strategic mind, and she’s so damn likable. She even had a bit of a faux-showmance with fellow finalist Austin Li Coon, and her grip on that relationship was so strong that Austin played against his best interests more than once because he couldn’t bear to betray Dee. And so, despite being the biggest threat to win throughout her season, Dee was able to ride an alliance all the way to the end, only really facing danger at Final Five. Once she won Final Immunity, her victory was as clear as any heading into a final tribal council. Her performance there wasn’t anything special, but it didn’t need to be.
Dee has no weaknesses in her game, and on an even playing field, I’d pick her as the favorite to win here. That said …
Can she win?
Winners usually have a rough time on returning player seasons. It makes sense; with the exception of all-winners season, Winners at War, players who have already earned the Sole Survivor title are easy targets in a season where there are usually few weak players. No one wants to hand another player a second million-dollar prize—except for Sandra Diaz-Twine on Heroes vs. Villains, but that’s because Sandra is one of the best players ever to play this silly game—and there’s not really an easier way to form consensus on Survivor than by ganging up on a winner. Still, of the three players on Season 50 that have won already, I give Dee the best chance to win again.
Dee will benefit from a few factors. Her victory is less recent than both Kyle Fraser’s and Savannah Louie’s, she has an impeccable social game, and she has a potential built-in ally in Emily Flippen. (Kyle has two people he worked with on his season, but that might be too many allies; it might only raise his threat level.) I think Dee will make the merge, and maybe ride out the first few votes, but even if she somehow makes FTC, she’ll either need to drag two goats (players with no chance to win) with her, or have an all-timer FTC performance to win again. – Luis Paez-Pumar
Emily Flippen
Robert Voets/CBS
What has she done already?
Season 45 (seventh place)
What’s her deal?
Emily Flippen was so abrasive early on in her season that it felt like she would never make it past the first tribal council. But, as is the case in many modern seasons of Survivor, there was a single cursed tribe from the beginning and Flippen was on it. She should have been an easy first target, and she was! The only reason she wasn’t voted out first was because one of the women decided that she wanted to go home. That’s baby behavior, and we don’t respect it. What I do respect is that Flippen, more than many modern players, really had to do some self-reflection very early on in the game. Why did everyone hate her? Why was she coming off so poorly? Was her weird paranoia justified or based on hunger or what? She began to work with Kaleb, a social spoke of that entire season, and attached herself to him with some success. Unfortunately, bad gameplay by a few players allowed a four-person alliance, including eventual winner Dee Valladares, to snowplow their way to the end.
My favorite thing about Emily is that throughout the airing of her entire first season, she only posted screenshots of herself from the show with superimposed meme text that said EMILY FLIPPEN FINANCIAL ANALYST because she is (you guessed it) a financial analyst.
Good luck, Emily Flippen Financial Analyst! Time to see how much you actually learned your first time through.
Can she win?
Emily Flippen Financial Analyst will not win this season. – Kelsey McKinney
Charlie Davis
Robert Voets/CBS
What has he done already?
Season 46 (second place)
What’s his deal?
Charlie Davis’s whole personality appears to be “liking Taylor Swift.” I will admit that he expertly co-executed three blindsides against players with hidden immunity idols in a row, but that does not make me like watching him on TV. He lost in a very close final tribal council vote, and that feels apt to me, because there’s nothing Taylor Swift loves more than going into her next era as an underdog.
Can he win?
White men never get voted off early unless they make a big mistake, so I think he’ll make the merge for sure. He might even make it to final tribal council! But he will not win. – Kelsey McKinney
Q Burdette
Robert Voets/CBS
What has he done already?
Season 46 (sixth place)
What’s his deal?
Cancel Christmas and don your Q Skirts—Season 46’s chaos demon is back! Former Ole Miss football player Quintavius “Q” Burdette is the definition of a menace. Starting his season on the doomed Yanu tribe, Q quickly formed an alliance with eventual winner Kenzie Petty and fellow S50 player Tiffany Ervin, but it was very clearly an alliance of convenience for him from the start. That might be overselling it, actually. I’m not entirely sure that Q should have gone against his alliance when he did, but if there’s one thing that animated his gameplay, it was a case of main character syndrome so severe that anyone aligned against him had to go. This made him an unreliable alliance member, but it also made him wildly entertaining.
In between blowing up his own game, Q did some interesting stuff. He took Bhanu Gopal under his wing pre-merge. (Bhanu might be the single worst Survivor player I’ve ever seen, thanks to his inability to shut his mouth; Q’s advice was essentially “shut up and do what I say,” and he wasn’t even wrong!) He created the Q Skirt—I don’t even know how to explain that—threatened to cancel everybody’s Christmas, and then told everyone to vote for him because he felt so guilty about turning on Tiffany and telling everyone about her idol in hopes of securing a blindside of his former tribemate. It was a mess.
Despite how much Q rubbed everyone the wrong way, he did not succeed in getting everyone to vote him out. He lasted four tribal councils after that before finally getting the boot at Final Six. One would think that his truly horrendous game post-merge would inspire some personal growth and evolution as player, but all of Q’s pre-50 material has made it clear that he is still the same goofball he was four seasons ago. I could not be more thankful for that.
Can he win?
God, no. I love Q, but his brand of chaos is just too much for Survivor. Even if he manages to keep things under control, his reputation for flipping on his own alliance for no reason will make him an easy candidate for a boot. I think he’ll go out fairly early for that reason, but for the sake of entertainment, I hope he can at least make it to the merge, when alliances become a lot more fluid and therefore more prone to a vintage Q blow-up. -Luis Paez-Pumar
Tiffany Ervin
Robert Voets/CBS
What has she done already?
Season 46 (eighth place)
What’s her deal?
To me, Tiffany seems like the dark horse of Survivor 50. She is the least-known player on the island, coming from a relatively but not too recent season—perhaps best known for Liz’s infamous Applebees meltdown—and placing a forgettable eight place, the worst of any of the Season 50 cast. This should make her threat level minimal. Tiffany is an incredibly well-rounded player. She’s funny and likable. She’s lowkey jacked—not a challenge beast, but she’ll be a valuable support in tribe challenges early on. She gives great confessionals. She’s a classic jack of all trades, master of none.
Tiffany’s Survivor game to me resembled that drawing of a horse. She played a great pre-merge game, but things got messy after the tribes united. She started the season on the disastrous Yanu tribe, along with Q Burdette, who’s also returning for 50. Yanu was a bizarre tribe with all-time wacky characters, such as famed quitter David Jelinsky and the uncontrollably honest Bhanu Gopal. Tiffany navigated these social dynamics with relative ease. She had some savvy moves, like giving a tribemate a fake idol to ensure she wouldn’t play her shot in the dark. Things were looking bright for Tiffany entering the merge, as she had an idol in her pocket. But Q eventually blew up her spot, souring the two’s previously close relationship and fracturing Tiffany’s relationships with other members of her tribe. She had been waffling over trying to blindside her closest ally, Kenzie Petty, who would eventually win the season. Tiffany went home thanks to a blindside, one of the many victims of the famously ruthless player Maria Shrime Gonzalez. As a jury member, she iconically, and rightfully, told runner-up Charlie Davis to stay away from Taylor Swift lyrics at final tribal council.
I’m excited to see how Tiffany navigates her relationship with Q, as the two parted ways on adversarial terms. She’ll head into Season 50 with the advantage that the two others returning from her season are not her close allies, lowering the chances of people voting her out in a suspected alliance.
Can she win?
For the reasons outlined above, Tiffany is in the best position of any player to win Season 50. Fans have been confused about why, exactly, she was cast, which is a testament to her advantage coming into the game. That’s the advantage of being random: No one will think you’re a threat if no one knows exactly who you are. If Tiffany can stick to her low profile, she could make it far in the game. Based on her first season, I don’t think she’s a strong enough strategic player to make it to the end in such a stacked cast. But I’d love to be proven wrong, and this very well could be the season where Tiffany becomes a Survivor icon. No one remembered much of Parvati Shallow in her first season; it took two seasons for her to become a legend. -Sabrina Imbler
Genevieve Mushaluk
Pictured: Genevieve Mushaluk, from the CBS Original Series SURVIVOR, Season 50, scheduled to air on the CBS Television Network. — Photo: Robert Voets/CBS ©2025 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
What has she done already?
Season 47 (fifth place)
What’s her deal?
Genevieve is the best example of why taking the Survivor edit at face value is a fool’s gambit. While there are subreddits and analysts dedicated to figuring out who will go far each season based on edit ratio, confessional count, and other specialized criteria, Genevieve bucked that trend thoroughly in Season 47 by escaping the “purpled” designation. If a contestant is considered “purpled,” it means that they are not given a substantial amount of screen time, particularly early on, which should indicate to the audience that they will not be relevant in the latter stages of the game. Genevieve’s start on the red Lavo tribe in S47 was a pristine example of purpling: She barely had any confessionals, she was not shown to be a key driver of votes, and she was just kind of floating in the background like a Canadian ghost. She did step to the forefront to help get rid of tribemate Kishan Patel—Kishan’s dejected “Genevieve … I trusted … us three” quote is an all-time reaction—but she entered the merge with a low threat level.
After the merge, Genevieve rose from the purple ashes to become one of the better antagonists of the New Era. Her feud with eventual winner Rachel LaMont was the driving narrative of the back half of the season, with Genevieve standing out as the only person to really understand how much of a threat Rachel was. Unfortunately for Genevieve, she put herself on everyone’s radar on Day 16 by orchestrating the ousting of former Lavo tribemate Sol Yi, and though she managed to survive the next few votes, it was clear that she was on the outs with the majority alliance of the merged tribe. While she probably should have gone earlier than she did, a secret mission, dubbed Operation Italy, with the only thing she had resembling an alliance in Sam Phalen and turncoat Andy Rueda, allowed her to skate by the final seven vote, and a timely immunity win at Final Six got her within one more immunity win from at least making fire for a spot at Final Tribal.
The 34-year-old lawyer is back with a massive fanbase on social media (she’s “mother” and “Genevieve Bobshaluk,” the latter thanks to her haircut of choice this time around), and the expectations for one of the better non-winners of the last nine seasons are through the roof. She comes in as a lone wolf, with no one else from her season around, but she was able to salvage that spot into a Final Five appearance last time.
Can she win?
If the goal of the cast is to get rid of big threats early, then she might stand no chance; her season is recent enough that her comeback story will be fresh on players’ minds, and she is a clear strategic and physical threat. However, if the cast works to get rid of premade alliances and jury threats, Genevieve might float by under the surface for long enough to once again take center stage in the back half of the season. Unless her social game has improved massively, she’s just a bit too much of a loner to build the relationships needed to secure jury votes, but I would not be surprised if she makes it to the Final Tribal Council this time around. – Luis Paez-Pumar
Kamilla Karthigesu
Robert Voets/CBS
What has she done already?
Season 48 (fourth place)
What’s her deal?
Kamilla’s Survivor story can’t be told without Kyle, her partner in crime up until her elimination in Season 48’s fire-making. Kamilla and Kyle both started on the Civa tribe, where they bonded first over being Guyanese and second over their shared passion for the cinematic masterpiece Holes (2003). The Holes Alliance was one of the most effective alliances in recent memory. Kyle and Kamilla worked in lockstep on their first tribe: When Kyle found a beware advantage, Kamilla unlocked it for him. After a fortunate tribe switch that placed Kamilla and Kyle on the Vula tribe with hunky firefighter Joe Hunter, debate professor Shauhin Davari, and evil gay guy Thomas Krottinger, Kamilla and Kyle successfully hid their partnership from the rest of the tribe. Impressively, they kept this secret even after orchestrating a blindside over Thomas using Kyle’s idol and Kamilla’s extra vote. On Vula, Kamilla, Joe, and Shauhin came together to have one of the most densely packed new-era trauma-bonding conversations, in which Shauhin shared how his father was impacted by war in Iran, Kamilla shared how her family fled genocide in Sri Lanka, and Joe shared how his father faced Jim Crow segregation in the 1950s.
After the merge, Kamilla stayed loyal to Kyle even as he joined an alliance of strong boys, plus Eva the hockey player. It was a season of big buff boys—early on, Kamilla explained the concept of “Chads” in a confessional when describing the stuntman David—but she smartly stayed under the radar. She was always on the outskirts of major alliances that Kyle belonged to, making her situation vastly more precarious, but Kamilla had plenty of skill on her own. She was excellent at puzzles, winning two immunity challenges, and her social game was strong. She proved an excellent liar and successfully spread misinformation that helped her guide votes against key players. Her game came to an end when Kyle won the final immunity challenge and sent Kamilla to fire, which she had agreed to do if she had won. When Eva’s fire licked the rope first, Kamilla’s flame was snuffed out. Kamilla haters will say that Kyle was the brains of their alliance, that she rode his coattails as he engineered the duo’s big moves. She and Kyle engineered Shauhin’s blindside in the penultimate episode by convincing Joe Hunter that Shauhin had an idol, a move that swayed the jury toward Kyle.
The two were very equal in their gameplay, with Kamilla bonding more with the tribes’ outsiders and Kyle connecting with the game’s biggest threats. Her position on the outs gave her a huge advantage as she never had a target on her back. And she was extremely likeable, funny, and fun to watch in her confessionals—in the finale, the jury said if Kamilla had made it to the end, she would have won.
Outside of Survivor, Kamilla is a software engineer at Discord. A LinkedIn post from three years ago introduces Kamilla as a she/they (Survivor has never been good about people with more than one pronoun) who plays MapleStory.
Can she win?
Kamilla played a classic, strong underdog game on her season, and this could help her case heading into Season 50. Kyle will have a huge target on his back, as will all the previous winners, meaning Kamilla might have a better chance of skating under the radar. Unfortunately, playing so recently means her game will be fresh on everyone’s minds. Fortunately, she’ll need less time to brush up on puzzles. It will be interesting to see what tactic Kamilla takes this season—whether she’ll lock in to another secret alliance or play a more solo game. Kyle’s return will hurt both of their games and increase the chances of one of them getting voted out early. If Kamilla can dodge an early elimination, I think she could go far. But I doubt she’ll win. – Sabrina Imbler
Kyle Fraser
Robert Voets/CBS
What has he done already?
Season 48 (winner)
What’s his deal?
I’ll be honest, I don’t have much to say about Kyle Fraser. To me, he is the least memorable winner of the New Era, not really through any fault of his own. He played a fine enough game, made a big move, and won a 5-2-1 vote for the million after dragging the Joe Hunter-Eva Erickson duo to the final with him. It was a deserved win; Eva and Joe simply rode the majority alliance for most of the game, safe in the knowledge that their bond with each other was unbreakable.
Kyle, on the other hand, had his secret bond with Kamilla, which was mildly more interesting. While it felt like the pair was often talking about making a big move without doing anything, the Shauhin vote was the biggest strategic play of the season, and thanks to Kamilla backing up Kyle’s claim that it was his move at Final Tribal Council, that move was probably enough to win.
Kyle is one of three winners, which bodes poorly for him, but he’s a well-rounded player. Everyone seemed to like him in Season 48, he’s good at identifying big moves (if not always following through on them), and he’s a pretty good challenge competitor (he was unlucky to run into Joe and David Kinne, who were both humongous). Of all the cast members on Season 50, Kyle probably is the most expendable, and I wish they had brought another New Era winner—Maryanne Oketch? Erika Casupanan? Mike Gabler, even?!—instead of him.
Can he win?
I don’t think so. Between the weight of being a winner, the inclusion of two other allies, and his broadly above-average performance, nothing about Kyle jumps out to me as someone to keep an eye on for the win. He’ll be useful in tribe challenges, and he will probably be part of his tribe’s majority alliance, but I think he’ll fall right before or right after the merge. Let’s move on. -Luis Paez-Pumar
Joe Hunter
Robert Voets/CBS
What has he done already?
Season 48 (third place)
What’s his deal?
The second Joe Hunter stepped foot on the island, he played an honest, obvious, and open-hearted game. Quite simply, he was a guy you could trust. (It didn’t hurt that he is also a handsome firefighter and father figure.) Early on, he made an alliance with Eva Erickson after she told Joe she has autism, and showed him how to calm her down if she needed extra support. Joe more than rose to the occasion after he and Eva were separated by the tribe swap. When Eva had an emotional crisis during an immunity challenge, Joe walked over to comfort her despite their positions on different tribes and the target this would put on his back.
Joe and Eva would once again team up in an alliance with big, beefy players. Throughout the season, Joe dominated in the challenges and protected his alliance members, especially Eva, even when it risked his game. Joe’s alliance protected him in turn throughout the season, and his four individual immunity wins kept him safe later in the game. He made it to final tribal council, where he finished as the second runner-up. His only vote came from Cedrek McFadden, one of the most ruthlessly consistent flip-floppers in Survivor history, who probably would have voted for either of the other contestants a minute sooner or later.
The thing about Joe Hunter is that it’s basically impossible to hate him on the show. Even if you dislike his game, even if you find him boring, even if you dislike the way Jeff Probst fawned over him or the producers framed his support of Eva as inspiration porn, even if you dislike his fans, it’s hard to hate the guy who anchored one of the most nurturing and supportive relationships ever seen on Survivor. It’s hard to hate Survivor Daddy! If Joe had played much earlier in Survivor history, this strategy would have won him the game handily. He could have sailed through an early season like Tom Westman (Season 10), who was also a handsome firefighter, because back then Survivor was a lot more invested in the idea that being a good guy with a strong moral compass merited a win. But this logic has fallen out of favor in the new era. Voters and audience members reward strategic gameplay, deft betrayals, and schemes. Refusing to backstab someone does not make for very interesting television, and that’s why Palau was a snoozefest. Joe also represents an annoying trend in the new era where producers are overindexing on sentiment, either in players’ pasts or in real-time moments in the game. Of course, this isn’t Joe’s fault, but it doesn’t do him any favors. Ultimately, it’s hard to find a player more likable than Joe, but it’s also hard to find a player less equipped to tackle what will likely be a very strategic and scheming season.
Joe’s persona outside the game is a little all over the place. In a confessional on Episode 12, Joe said that he applied to be on the show to honor his sister Joanna, who died in 2011. After his season ended, Joe spoke out about how he believes Joanna was murdered, and did not die by suicide as police ruled. Joe believes Joanna’s husband, Mark Lewis, killed her. Also after his season, Joe reconciled with his ex-wife Kayte Christensen-Hunter, a broadcast analyst who covers the Sacramento Kings for NBC Sports California. Christensen-Hunter found herself in the tabloids in 2023 for allegedly grabbing a gun during a party and shooting an opossum, after which police showed up to the house, reported the Sacramento Bee. Joe was suspended for 10 days for using “personal friendships” to convince the police to leave after the possum shooting. He’d been previously suspended for “grabbing and shaking a recruit, and pushing another one,” per the Bee.
Can he win? Unfortunately, Joe stands no chance. Although his tactic of playing with honor was charming and arguably refreshing in his first season, I believe it will get him nowhere a second time around. Joe has stated that he can only play the game in a way that’s comfortable for him, which means staying fiercely loyal to his friends and doing heavy lifting around camp, both physically and emotionally. His game is written on his face, and therefore he will be easy to outwit and outplay. He might be difficult to outlast; I do think he could make it far in the game and could perhaps make it to final tribal council again, if only because his strategy is fundamentally unexciting enough that this jury will not vote for him to be Sole Survivor. Regardless, I think he will be beloved once again on this season by both his tribemates and the general populace. Which new tribemates will he take under his exquisitely muscled and fatherly wing? When asked to name which Season 50 players are friends or foes, Joe listed basically every single one of them as a “friend.” -Sabrina Imbler
Rizo Velovic
Robert Voets/CBS
What has he done already?
Season 49 (fourth place)
What’s his deal?
It’s your boy, the man, the myth, the legend, the R-I-Z-G-O-D, RizGod, baby! The walking catchphrase that is Rizo Velovic is the first of two returning players from Season 49, a season that the cast of S50 has not seen. This is due to the reality of production schedules: Rizo (and Savannah Louie) both got nine days off from the end of S49 before heading back to Fiji for S50, months before their season hit the airwaves.
Unlike the cast of Season 50, we do know what Rizo is all about, and frankly, there’s a lot to be impressed with here. He was lucky to not end up on the Kele tribe that was whittled down to two members before the merge, and he’s a disaster at puzzles, but every other part of his game is rock solid. Even though you would think his ego would annoy other players, he was able to parlay it into an alliance with Savannah and Sophi Balerdi that managed to flip the game from a 3-7 minority into three of the final four spots. Rizo found an idol early on, an idol everyone knew he had, and he threatened to play it at something like six tribal councils before finally doing so at Final Five (hilariously, he received no votes against him upon finally using the idol). He read the situation correctly over and over. Add in that he has said he wants to be a Survivor legend and that S50 is his time, and we might see a similarly aggressive Rizo this season, with enough experience under his belt to make it one step further than his last time out.
Can he win?
Chat, is he cooked? I don’t think so! Of the two players from Season 49, Rizo certainly has the better chance to win. While the cast seemingly knows that Savannah won that season, they will certainly have less intel on Rizo and his gameplay. That will work to his benefit almost as much as the uncertainty might work against him. Underneath all the memes and Gen Z bravado, Rizo is a very intelligent Survivor player who understands how to use all the twists and turns to his advantage. Holding on to an idol for as long as he did was masterful, and it worked mainly because no one took him seriously. If Rizo can just keep most of his hyperactive energy in the confessionals, he might slip under the radar for long enough to create another critical alliance. I just hope he practiced fire this time around, because I think Final Tribal Council is attainable for the RizGod … baby. – Luis Paez-Pumar
Savannah Louie
Robert Voets/CBS
What has she done already?
Season 49 (winner)
What’s her deal?
Savannah Louie is a throwback. One of the biggest knocks on the New Era of Survivor is that everyone is too nice and focused on “big moves.” Savannah had no time for either of those things. Before the merge, she solidified her mean-girl reputation among the cast, thanks to Uli tribemate Jawan Pitts’s unfortunate mistake of using her water bottle and backpack by accident. This made Jawan her first nemesis, but Savannah’s aloof social game and ruthless strategic acumen made her pretty much everyone’s nemesis. She was the “dragon” of the season, the player who was built up as such a threat that whoever took her out was sure to win the season.
No one did. Thanks to a record four individual immunity wins, and the Tres Leches alliance with Sophi Balerdi and fellow Season 50 player RizGod, Savannah was never targeted enough to get the boot, and even though she was sent into fire-making by Sophi at the end, she prevailed over Rizo and then waltzed through FTC without ever changing herself.
Now, Savannah is back, filming Season 50 just nine days after her win. While I would normally be wary of someone trying to win back-to-back seasons (never been done before) on so little rest, Savannah seems indefatigable in her quest to become the greatest Survivor player ever. At the very least, I hope to see her turn on the attitude at least a few times before she’s sent home. Given that she recently called Taylor Swift her least favorite person in the world, my vote is for her to bully poor Charlie.
Can she win?
No one on Season 50 has a taller mountain to climb than Savannah. She’s from a season that no one on the cast has seen (save for Rizo, who lived it). The memory of Russell Hantz running roughshod in Heroes vs. Villains is still fresh in the Survivor collective memory, and there’s no way the players who were on that season (Coach, Cirie, Colby) will let that happen again. Savannah’s also a winner, something that apparently was not a secret during the filming of S50. This makes it unlikely that Savannah will be able to lower her threat level at all. I can’t really see a path for her to even make FTC; her social game is the weakest part of her skills, and I don’t see her going on an insane immunity run like she did on her first season. She’s valuable to her pre-merge tribe as someone who always brings it in challenges, but I’m willing to call her the first merge boot with some degree of confidence. – Luis Paez-Pumar
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