Welcome to Inside Survivor’s 50 For 50, a semi-regular feature highlighting 50 former castaways who we think should be considered for a spot on Survivor 50. In a snake draft, the Inside Survivor team selected ten players each, with the only rule being they couldn’t have played more than twice.
PROFILE
Name: John Carroll
Age: 58
Season: Marquesas, 2002
Finish: 9th Place
HIGHLIGHTS
From the start of Marquesas, John was in a power position. A strong, well-rounded player who was safe for much of the pre-merge thanks to the Rotu tribe’s dominance in challenges, he used the second-ever tribe swap to solidify an alliance with Tammy Leitner, Robert DeCanio and Zoe Zanidakis from his original tribe. This “Rotu Four” alliance is the blueprint for all future overconfident Survivor alliances barreling towards an inevitable downfall, and this particular downfall would forever change the game.
Secure in an alliance that he believed would take him all the way to the end, John went into the merge on top of the world. After eliminating Boston Rob Mariano, the Rotu Four made it to the Final 9. A majority was so close that they could taste it, but it all came crashing down when they publicly revealed their planned boot order at the infamous Coconut Chop immunity challenge.
What followed is the stuff of Survivor legend: for the first time, the “outsiders” left out of the dominant alliance teamed up to take out the most powerful player in the game in John. The rest of his alliance exited the game soon after him one by one, setting Vecepia Towery on her path to victory.
As far as villains to be defeated and dragons to be slain, John in Marquesas is one of the best. He’s good, and he knows it, bringing a cockiness to his gameplay that has you rooting for his downfall. He’s strong-willed and is willing to speak his mind, which leads to some great conflict and confrontations with his tribemates. He’s a complex and compelling narrator with glimpses of vulnerability that show us who he is outside of the game.
Above all, though, John is a great villain because he’s not trying to be one. And in my opinion, the most compelling villains are the ones who believe they’re the heroes of their own stories.
WHY HE SHOULD BE CONSIDERED
The impact of John’s blindside can’t be overstated: it birthed the game of Survivor as we know it. The idea of a fragmented group of outsiders coming together to overthrow a smaller power alliance seems like a no-brainer now. But in an era of the show where the rules of the game were still actively being authored by both production and the players themselves, John’s blindside advanced Survivor strategy arguably just as much as Gretchen’s did in Borneo.
What better time to bring John back than for as historic of a season as Survivor 50? He should have been back well before now, but better late than never. New Era Survivor loves to be self-referential and talk about historic “firsts,” so why not bring back the first person to be the victim of this kind of flip?
There’s so much narrative potential for John as a returning player. How does he feel about being on the receiving end of such a major Survivor first that ended his game? After over 20 years, how has he changed as a player? Will he fall back into the same trappings that ended his game the first time or will he learn from his mistakes and let others take control? After two decades, can he adapt to such a drastically different game?
Even if he were to go out early in the season, I would die for even just one more episode of John. His Survivor story feels far from complete, and it’s about time we get to see how it ends.
Written by
Thank you for including me! You know I would go back in a Nebraska minute. I was always a New School player in an Old School body. ️