We’re a few days away from the premiere of Survivor: 50 – In the Hands of the Fans, another historic season that brings 24 former players—the biggest cast in the show’s history—from Borneo to Survivor 49. To commemorate the show’s 25th anniversary, producers decided to put some of the show’s key elements in the hands of the fans through a public vote.
While we count the days before the premiere, we’ve decided to take a trip down memory lane and relive 50 of the best moments in Survivor.
To keep up with the new season’s theme, we decided to ask Survivor fans to select and rank their favorite moments of all time.
Let’s continue with 20 to 11!
20. Survivor: Heroes vs Villains, Sandra burns Russell’s hat
In hindsight, Survivor: Heroes vs Villains wasn’t really about Sandra versus Parvati; it was Sandra versus Russell.
It’s a recurring theme in most of the episodes. Sandra talking about how much she wants to get rid of Russell; Russell undermining Sandra as a player. Editors want us to fully understand that the two hate each other.
By the time we get to the finale, Sandra has had enough. It’s Day 39 and there’s nothing left to do. Sandra also had no reason to play it cool with Russell anymore. He doesn’t have any power over her at this point.
Now, he needs to know why she’s a Survivor winner. And why he can’t mess with two ladies, especially if those ladies are named Sandra and Parvati.
After their celebratory breakfast, Russell casually asked Parvati if she’d vote for him if she was on the jury. Parvati told him she would vote for Sandra—the same answer she gave him a few days ago.
“Seriously?” Russell asks in disbelief.
“Absolutely.”
Sandra is quiet, trying to get a nap. Russell is obviously bothered. He thinks he is entitled for a hypothetical vote. He then walks away towards the beach.
Parvati then tells Sandra how Russell’s so full of it.
“He don’t know what it’s like to be up against two chicks,” Sandra says.
Fist bumps.
Suddenly, Sandra had a great idea: “I’mma burn his hat.”
Parvati bursts into laughter. “Oh my god. Oh my god do it.”
“So he can take his bald-headed ass to tribal council.”
“Are you gonna tell?” Sandra asks Parvati as she reaches out for the hat.
“Uh-uh. Are you kidding??”
Sandra throws the hat into the fire. And then went back to lie down.
“That’s how much game I got.”
As the fire consumes the hat, we hear Sandra in the background saying: “I should burn his sneakers.” And then Parvati starts laughing.
19. Survivor: Philippines, Denise attends every single tribal council
Survivor: Philippines brought back three former players: Mike Skupin from Survivor: The Australian Outback, Jonathan Penner from Survivor: Cook Islands, and Russell Swan from Survivor: Samoa. It also introduced the first actress to play, Lisa Welchel.
More importantly, it also introduced us to the first player (and only one so far) to attend every single tribal council: Denise Stapley.
It is a feat unmatched by anyone. She attended 15 out of 15 tribal councils—and emerged as the Sole Survivor.
18. Survivor: Pearl Islands, Sandra’s “I can get loud too!”
Some of the best moments in Survivor don’t have to revolve around big moves or game-changing twists. Sometimes, they are rooted in the mundane and can be triggered by the smallest of things.
In Episode 3 of Survivor: Pearl Islands, the Drake tribe is trying to figure out how to approach the upcoming challenge. And since they’re up by one player, they need someone to sit out.
Jon then casually drops Sandra’s name.
“Sandra won’t be a bad one to do today,” he says implying that Sandra is not as good a swimmer as most of them are.
That didn’t sit well with Sandra.
“What makes you a better swimmer than me?” she questions.
Jon gave a lame excuse. Of course, Sandra won’t have it.
“The day we jumped off the boat, where were you when I was already on shore? Still in the damn water.” Sandra reminds him.
Jon offers an even lamer excuse. “I had a glass in my sock. I couldn’t kick my legs so I swam with just my arm. And how much did you beat me by using your entire body to swim and me just using my arms?”
Maybe Sandra thinks it’s not worth the effort, so she heads on back to the shelter. Unfortunately, Jon isn’t done yet.
“You beat me so bad how much did you beat me by?!” He was already close to shouting.
“What are you talking about?”
“WHEN WE JUMPED OFF THE BOAT AND WE WENT TO THE SHORE WHEN YOU BEAT ME SO FUCKING BAD AND I JUST USED MY ARMS. HOW BAD DID YOU BEAT ME BY?”
Sandra has had enough. She goes out of the shelter, ready to pounce.
“You know what? I CAN GET LOUD TOO! What the f*ck!”
Jon then says he doesn’t want to argue with her. And then walks away.
“I can have a bigger mouth,” Sandra continues. She goes back to the shelter and drinks water.
“God! Have the last word. That’s all you always want!” Jon reacts.
“Then be quiet so I can finish it.’
We then see Sandra air boxing as Jon walks away into the woods.
“Screw Jon, cause he’s an ass. Everything that comes out of his mouth is just ridiculous.”
17. Survivor: Panama, Cirie’s 3-2-1 play at Final 6
The legend of Cirie Fields began to take root on Episode 1 of Survivor: Panama when she convinced her tribe to vote out the one person who provides food. She did it again on Episode 2 when she deflected the target on her and pointed it to another person.
At Final 6, there is less room to wiggle with some people already dead set on who they’re taking to the end. And it seems like Courtney is a shoo-in at the Final Two because she is so annoying the others believe no one would award her any vote.
In fact, Shane wants to take Courtney. Terry also wants to take Courtney.
But Danielle doesn’t like that. She’s part of Terry’s alliance and she is not willing to settle for third.
That also doesn’t sound right to Cirie either.
“I wanna get rid of Courtney, like, yesterday,” Cirie says. “In some kind of way, Courtney’s going. Believe that.”
Then the gears in her beautiful mind start working.
At the next immunity challenge, Terry wins for the fourth consecutive time. With the power around his neck, he is gunning for Aras. He has Courtney and Danielle on his side, so Aras is definitely going home.
Shane, on the other hand, convinces Aras to vote for Danielle.
Cirie’s target, Courtney, is not even on the chopping block.
And she doesn’t have numbers—not yet, anyway.
“Terry wants to take Courtney to the final two. That to me makes Courtney the most dangerous person out here. I wanna kind of mess up Terry’s plan and mess up Shane’s plan and hopefully we get rid of Courtney next,” Cirie says.
Then it clicks. She takes both targets and forms an alliance with the two.
She approaches Aras and tells him he’s on the chopping block. She then pulls Danielle in. They can simply vote out Courtney and ensure they move farther together.
“The only way to save you is to vote Courtney,” she tells the two.
At tribal council, Cirie successfully flipped the numbers by getting 3 votes on Courtney, 2 votes on Aras, and 1 vote for Danielle.
They eventually reached the Final Four together.
16. Survivor: Palau, Stephenie becomes a tribe of one
Survivor: Palau didn’t start like any other seasons.
Jeff didn’t meet the castaways on the beach. Instead, they had the 20 players row the boat towards shore. Jeff briefly talked to them on the way to shore and told them waiting at the beach are two immunity necklaces, one for the first man and first woman to hit the beach.
Stephenie LaGrossa instantly contemplated on jumping out of the boat. But nah, they’re still too far. As the group continued rowing others started to switch places, trying to get to the end of the boat where it’s easier to jump.
“As we were slowly rowing in, I was like ‘I think it’s close enough. I’m gonna jump.’ I figured I can beat the boat,” Stephenie says in a confessional.
She dove into the water. After a few strokes, she realized it was a mistake.
That moment gave us a glimpse of how Stephenie would play the game: bold and confident.
As part of the Ulong tribe, she did well in challenges. But her tribe sucked in general so they lost every single immunity challenge. Ulong holds the record for being the only tribe to lose all immunity challenges prior to the merge.
As her tribe dwindled, we see Stephenie become hungrier for victory every episode.
But Ulong was fated for destruction. In Episode 8, we witnessed how Ulong’s failure to secure a win gave birth to an icon. Having lost to Koror once again, the two remaining members, Bobby Jon and Stephenie, face tribal council but they can’t vote each other out.
They prepare to make fire.
“Do you feel confident in your fire-making abilities?” Jeff asks Stephenie.
“I’m not that good,” she says, which is true because Bobby Jon taught her all camp life survival skills she knows.
It turned out Bobby Jon taught her so well she beat him at the challenge.
Bobby Jon lost.
In an unprecedented and historic moment, Stephenie becomes a one-woman tribe.
“This is crazy. It’s just me now. I’m scared,” she tells Jeff before she heads back to camp. Alone.
15. Survivor: Gabon, “Forget you, goodbye, go home!”
When Crystal Cox was introduced in Survivor: Gabon as an Olympic Gold medalist, we were like “wow, she’s gonna kill it!”
And then we see her suck in basically all challenges.
Quite disappointing at first, but then it just became entertaining. She was fun to watch. She knows how to align with the right people, so in a way, she knows how this game works.
And yet, at the back of our minds we still wonder if she can rebound and impress us for once. Maybe win a challenge or devise an impressive game move.
She did neither.
But she did give us the best voting confessional ever in the history of the show. Actually, this episode had three of the best voting confessionals. Gabon is such an underrated comedy gem.
It happened it Episode 9. The Nobag tribe is sick and tired of abrasive Randy (even though he just gave them cookies earlier at the auction). They’ve ran out of patience for the guy and they want him gone.
When he got into a verbal fight with Susie inside the shelter where he basically told her to “f*ck off!” his fate was sealed. They are going to vote him out that night.
Randy knows this, which is why he is deliberately getting on everyone’s nerves.
“The plan is for me to act really nasty,” he says so that the old Fang players would vote for him. “My only prayer is if Bob would give me the idol.”
“Everyone votes me out. I spring the idol out at tribal. Susie. That’s three votes. She goes home.”
“It’s a great plan,” Corrine tells him.
Good for him because Bob has the idol and is about to give it to Randy. Bad for Randy because the idol is fake. Because Sugar has the real one.
Earlier at Exile Island, Bob made a fake idol because he can’t find the real one. Thought it might come handy in the future. When he got back at camp, he revealed his fake idol to Sugar.
Being the sweet girl she is, Sugar suggested to Bob gives Randy a gift: the fake idol.
“I think Randy would fall for it. It would be hilarious,” Sugar tells Bob.
Bob knows he’s out of options.
“My life expectancy is a little bit better off allowing her the satisfaction of me giving Randy the idol,” he says in a confessional. So, he gives Randy his idol.
That night at tribal, people were outdoing each other with their voting confessionals.
Corrine: “I’m voting for you Susie, because payback’s a bitch!”
Sugar holds up the parchment with Randy’s name: “You are a disgusting, old, hot-headed, chauvinistic, alcoholic and bigot. And you need to grow up before you die alone. Loser!”
Randy holds up Susie’s name: “This vote is not strategic. It’s strictly personal.”
Then Crystal walks up to the voting booth.
All of a sudden, the stillness at tribal was disturbed by a loud voice.
“You have made my life hell from Day One. Forget you, go home. goodbye!”
Charlie from the jury broke into laughter. Sugar had to cover her face.
Finally, some Olympic gold sh*t.
14. Survivor: China, James gets voted out with two idols
James Clement is the first contestant to be in possession of two immunity idols in Survivor: China. He is also the first and only one, so far, to be voted out with two idols in his pockets.
James started out in the Fei Long tribe with Todd Herzog and Amanda Kimmel. A tribe swap put him in Zhan Hu, which put him in the minority. On Day 16, Fei Long won the reward challenge and had to kidnap someone from the other tribe. They chose James.
One of the rules this season is kidnapped players receive clues to the hidden immunity idol, which they have to give to someone from the tribe that kidnapped them.
As original allies, Todd knew he can save James and keep the original Fei Long people. James gave Todd the clue. Todd and Amanda figured out where the idol is. Todd gave the idol to James for protection.
James returns to Zhan Hu and rips off the idol at camp. He’s now in possession of two idols.
That’s power.
“That’s funny. I’m a Survivor with two idols,” James says.
But when they merged, Todd is a bit annoyed that James hasn’t given him one of the idols. Meanwhile, Amanda is worried about the power James wields. It gives him a sure path to the Final Four.
At Final 7, Amanda decided to strike.
“I have a really good idea. We get rid of James tonight,” she tells Courtney.
On Episode 10, after PG, Denise and Erik went away for a special reward, the remaining alliance of four—Amanda, Todd, Courtney, and James—were having a fun time. They remarked that in a few days, it’d be like what it is now: the four of them left in the game.
James says that this is how it should be. Just the four of them.
But Amanda has another idea in mind.
“I don’t feel comfortable going to the final three with any of them. This is part of the game where a change needs to be made.”
While Erik is trying to get James to flip so they can vote Todd out, Amanda is busy getting people to turn on James.
“I have a really good idea. We get rid of James tonight.
And they did. That night, James walked out of tribal council with two huge idols in his bag.
Frosti and Jamie were laughing over at the jury bench.
Now that’s funny.
13. Survivor: 47, Operation Italy
New-era Survivor has introduced a number of twists and advantages to make up for the fewer days of game play.
While all these sound exciting on paper, sometimes, when you see them play out it can’t help but feel that they undermine the basic elements of the game. And sometimes can lead to ugly results.
What’s missing in the new era is the kind of drama caused by blindsides and jaw-dropping moves that result from genius, conniving minds.
There’s also a reason why we don’t have a lot of entries from the new era in this list.
Survivor: 47 is an exception. It delivered one of the juiciest blindsides that didn’t involve the use of a hidden immunity idol or any advantage. It was birthed by desperation and desire to take power.
We’re down to the Final 7. The majority, ironically called the “underdog alliance” has their sights on big threats Genevieve Mushaluk and Sam Phalen.
It should be an easy vote.
But if there’s one thing that remained consistent in Survivor, it’s that anytime a group decides that one is an easy vote, it almost always turn out the other way. Especially if there’s a flipper.
Someone like Andy Rueda.
When picked by Sam to join him on the reward alongside Genevieve, Andy grabbed the opportunity to come up with a plan to overthrow the majority, which they called ‘Operation: Italy’.
The plan is to wreak paranoia and get the majority to split the vote between Genevieve and Sam by spreading a rumor that Genevieve has an idol. The three of them will then vote Rachel out.
Back at camp, ‘Operation: Italy’ is set in motion. Andy starts to tell everyone he’s worried about an idol, which is why they need to split the votes. But Teeny Chirichillo isn’t convince.
When Rachel LaMont won immunity, ‘Operation: Italy’ needs revision. They need a new target. And they decided to turn their sights on Caroline Vidmar.
12. Survivor: Cagayan, JTia throws rice into the fire
What happens when you leave an angry, ganged up on nuclear engineer alone at camp?
She goes nuclear.
Luzon (Brains tribe) lost the second immunity challenge thanks mostly to a poor challenge performance from J’Tia Taylor. Everybody knows it.
So, Garrett Adelstein does the smart thing by telling J’Tia she’s going home. He then does something smarter: he kept everyone from talking to each other to ensure no other plans arise.
Looks like he’s taking a page right off the Boston Rob playbook. Only for dumber.
Tasha Fox is itching to have side conversations because she wants to play the game. She gets into a disagreement with Garrett about how they have to be able to talk to one another. She’s few seconds away from stomping her feet and throwing a tantrum.
All this time, J’Tia sits quiet on the shelter. Just looking around at everybody.
Better let them aggravate each other—and vote out each other, she could be thinking.
Garrett is trying his best to be the Cagayan godfather so when Tasha and Kass McQuillen go down to wash at the beach, he follows with Spencer Bledsoe in tow.
Kass then asks why the left J’Tia alone. “She’s pissed. Somebody needs to watch her. I don’t know what shenanigans are going on.”
“No, there are no shenanigans,” Garrett calmly says while munching on a piece of hala. “I just prefer the four of us stay together, that’s all.”
Back at the shelter, J’Tia finally moves.
She opens the jar where the bag of rice is, walked over the fire, and poured it all out.
“That’s what happens when you leave crazy people alone,” she says her confessional, laughing like a crazy person.
When the rest of the tribe got back, Kass noticed rice splattered all over the fire.
“Who poured rice on the fire?” Kass asks, although she probably knows the answer.
“I don’t know,”
“The rice fairy?” Kass answers sarcastically.
J’Tia simply walked out. Queen.
You know what else is crazy? She didn’t get voted out that night.
11. Survivor: Blood vs Water, Ciera votes out her mom
After fighting her way back to the game in Survivor: Blood vs Water, Laura is reunited with her daughter Ciera. By Episode 10, they were the only pair left.
“Look at the power we have. We are two votes. Who would have thought we hold the power in the game?” Laura tells Ciera.
But that power is what worries Ciera. They have now become a huge target.
Add that to the fact that Laura is a physical threat in challenges.
True enough, Tyson is plotting with Hayden and Caleb to take out Laura. He does, however, care about Ciera’s position so he asked his allies to not tell Ciera so she doesn’t have to do what’s basically the Survivor equivalent of parricide.
“I wanna go as far as possible with my mom. But if my mom needs to go, in order for me to win the game, she needs to go,” Ciera shares in a confessional. “’Coz I have a better shot at winning this than she does.”
Despite her last-ditch efforts to lure the target to somebody else, Ciera eventually joins Tyson and the rest in sending Laura back to Redemption Island.
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