I’m gonna start with an unpopular opinion: I think Nicaragua had possibly the best cast of all time.

“But Nobullman,” you begin to rage from your computer, scrambling for your pitchforks and pressing the downvote button on Reddit, “how can you say such a thing? Half of the cast were young mactors and half of the cast were useless old people! How are those good cast members? That’s everything wrong with modern day Survivor!”

Now, you see, that’s where I think you’re wrong. Survivor fans nowadays are quick to judge the cast on appearances and the shiny young pretty people and the crochety old and weak people immediately put people off. And sure, some of the young folk were extremely attractive and many were West-Coast-Based, and many of the older folk didn’t have a huge impact on the game (only four made the merge!) but as characters, separate from strategy as much as possible, what they gave to the story and to the TV is unquestionably awesome if you just pay attention to them. They’re pretty freaking awesome with very few duds. And of course, to commemorate my recent completion of the season, I am gonna rank them, 20th to 1st.

Let’s get to it!

20th: Sash Lehman (2nd Runner Up.)

“Sash and I are the king and queen of Nicaragua. Well, I’m the king. Sash is more of a queen.” ~Brenda.

This season had a lot of fun, zany characters. And then there’s Sash. Sash is your typical grade-A straight-off-the-new-age-conveyor-belt Strategy-Bot-2100. He tells us what he’s gonna do as far as strategy goes and he talks about how great he is. The difference between him and Russell is… his fall is very mediocre. He’s kind of slimy and he brags a lot but he’s generally just there to make moves, explain them, and then toot his little Sash horn. He might have made things happen this season, and I respect that, but as a character he barely brings anything new. And he did have some sparks and some moments where he could have been lively and original, but they never quite materialized. I don’t think he was the most offensive but I didn’t really give two shits about him.

Best moment: “You should have known better than to mess with the biggest bachelor in New York. As they say in Nicaragua, Hasta La Vista.”

Worst moment: For being this season’s strategist, he sure sucked at it. (Read: Brenda vote, Bruno vote, zero votes.)

19th: Alina Wilson (12th Place.)

“I can always be used as a pawn.” ~Alina’s speech to keep her around.

I think the only other legit dud this cast had was Alina. She had more sparks of interest than I think Sash had, but they never really materialized. Also a strike against her is that not only was she not super entertaining, she didn’t really do much to alter the storyline. She may be nice enough, and quite pretty, but she’s not exactly what we come to watch Nicaragua for.

Best moment: Her sincerely breaking down into tears at the F13 Reward just because she had food.

Worst moment: Essentially admitting she’s little more than a pawn.

18th: Shannon Elkins (19th Place.)

“That kid Fabio, he’s a dumb blond. I never thought I’d call a guy a dumb blonde but he’s freaking retarded.”

Shannon was actually a pretty dynamic early boot. He was off-color, funny, dynamic, and explosive. You know why he went home and you can see his vote as the beginning of the Chase-fucks-over-literally-everyone-he-shakes-hands-with storyline. So yeah, he’s a dynamic early boot. But it’s balanced out by the fact that I reeeeeeally don’t like the motherfucker so he rests at eighteenth.

Best moment: Making Jeff ask “New York is full of gay people?” in complete deadpan in Tribal Council.

Worst moment: What he said to make Jeff ask that.

17th: Yve Rojas. (14th Place)

“I think Yve is a little arrogant.”

“I’m arrogant? At least I don’t brag about my Ferraris and my three houses.”

“I do!”

~Yve and Dan having a battle of wits.

Yve is another character that has moments, and she has a few good ones and some really good confessionals. However, as far as being memorable goes, she is not incredibly memorable except for one thing: this woman is goddamn beautiful. She is by far the best looking woman out there. When I saw her running out with the others I thought she was for sure a La Flor member. To my utter shock, she is 41.

So yeah. I’m a little shallow. She gets 17th for that alone.

Best Moment: I’m seventy-five-percent sure she flipped the others off after she was voted out.

Worst moment: N/A. Just that she wasn’t always present in the show.

16th: Kelly Bruno (15th Place.)

“She better hope that leg ain’t near the fire.” ~NaOnka

Speaking of pretty people, as far as the La Flor women go, you can keep your Brendas and Purple Kellies: I think Kelly Bruno is much prettier. And I’m not just saying that because of the sympathy vote literally everyone and their mother was paranoid about immediately after seeing her (cause we all know how much sympathy votes work for people like Dreamz). I think she has a really pretty, unique face. And I’m drawn to that.

Okay, and as a character, Kellybee isn’t that bad. In fact she’s the first character I think is actually a pretty damn good character, and a character I like. She’s got charisma, she’s strong, and she doesn’t play up the amputee angle nearly as much as the rest of the cast did. However, I think that at the end of it all that she was only utilized for the story as a brief inspirational story and a paragon of good that was the foil/victim of NaOnka early on. But hey, it takes a special type of girl to scrap with NaOnka for an idol clue, so props to her for not backing down.

Best Moment: Her kicking ass in challenges where her artificial leg not only isn’t a problem, it isn’t really in focus: Kellybee can kick it with the best of them… dude I didn’t mean… I just… I did not just say that!

Worst Moment: Not her fault, but her being relegated to NaOnka’s victim early on bugs the shit out of me.

15th: “Purple” Kelly Shinn. (Quit in 8th Place.)

“You don’t really talk all that much.” ~Chase

Make like Foster the People and get out your torches, I’m about to drop some unpopular opinions.

I’m gonna get this out of the way: I do not resent Purple Kelly for quitting. I was not out there, I did not experience it, and she’s a 20-year-old 90 pound girl who only was given a bikini and had to loan out Fabio’s coat for any warmth out there. I’m surprised she didn’t break in half out there. Am I disappointed she quit? Mildly, I liked her, and it’s a shame to see anyone quit. But what I really resent is how the show totally erased a sweet, adorable, and goofy young character except for 2 or 3 moments as revenge for her quitting the game, something that really is little more than a natural element of being out in the wilderness for up to 39 days during hurricane season off the shores of Nicaragua. Unlike the rage of the fanbase, I think the fact that people quit emphasizes the extreme element of the competition and makes it more real and intense way more than it takes away from it because people decide their health and sanity is worth more than a million dollars.

Purple Kelly is a freaking awesome character in her three scenes or whatever. She’s just the most adorable thing and is so harmless. I mean, sure, she’s attractive, and any girl with any neon-colored hair is hot to me, but she’s just so lovable. Sure, she was portrayed as kind of an airhead but we’ll never know how much she was stupid and how much she was punished. Personally, I think the whole “Purple” legend is more mystique than actual character, but I really think she could have been the first Kat, only more self-aware. I don’t resent the fact that she quit and I think the way they handled the quitters (and the way the fanbase handles quitters) was highly deplorable.

Kelly is awesome.

Best Moment: Her “20 Years of Wisdom” confessional.

Worst Moment: The fact that if she held on til a vote-out we could have gotten a great character out of it.

14th: Jimmy Taratrainwreck. (17th Place)

“I’m a leader where I came from, and I wanna be put in, Coach. I’m tired of being on the bleachers.” ~Some form of Jimmy T’s entire dialogue throughout Nicaragua.

If you want an example of how to utterly fuck the early game up the ass, keep an eye on Jimmy T. He is a trainwreck of being self-indulgent, bitching and moaning, and just generally being a pain-in-the-ass. He’s hilarious for awhile, until he just gets annoying, but he is just such a disaster that it’s impossible to look away.

Best Moment: The first time he bitches about wanting to be put in more challenges before utterly fucking it up.

Worst Moment: The 731st time in approximately 4 episodes he bitches about wanting to be put in more challenges after doing nothing but fucking them up.

13th: Jane Bright. (6th Place)

“I started the fire, and by god I’ll put it out.”

I am utterly torn on Jane. On one hand, I think she is incredibly compelling TV, has many engaging scenes, can make me laugh sometimes, can be badass, and her friendship with Fabio is adorable.

On the other hand, I fucking cannot stand this woman. I mean she just pisses me off so much.

What pisses me off about her is some combination of the following: humiliating and destroying Marty’s character multiple times down the road based off of false accusations or him just playing the game and making that her whole game between the Bruno vote and the Marty vote and even afterward, her acting like a holier-than-thou player of the game who is America’s underdog while doing things that were just as nasty and selfish as NaOnka, and the fact that America saw all of this and rewarded her with Fan-Fucking-Favorite of the season.

In fact, the best way to describe Jane Bright is “NaOnka with a hero edit.” Like NaOnka, she thought she was all that. Like NaOnka, she reeeeeeally thought she was all that. Like NaOnka, she had unreasonable rivalries with people who didn’t have anything against her other than the fact that she was competition. Like NaOnka she was more than willing to sabotage camp and steal or hide food. Like NaOnka, she thought she should have no accountability for her actions because she was God’s gift to the world.

However, the one thing that sets me apart besides Jane getting an inexplicable hero’s edit is how she always plays the victim and playing victim cards just to defile someone. In some scenes she accuses Marty of sexism, and just runs his character as a person through the mud, and the show just lets it happen, whereas Kellybee was given the underdog edit. As someone who is bisexual and struggles with mental disorders, I really resent it when people play [Insert Disadvantaged Group] Card here with no justification. And seeing as Jane was the Nicaragua Hero, you could bet your ass if Marty was really that evil, they’d show it like they did Shannon and NaOnka. It was just really fucked up.

However, the thing with Jane is, she really does have awesome moments. From her immunity wins to her starting fire to her just being a really great narrator and speaker, there were times I almost rooted for her. However, that’s just all really offset not only by who she is and how she acts but how the show portrays her. I just really don’t like it.

Nevertheless, I would be lying if I didn’t think she was compelling enough to at least place 13th in my poll, despite my resentment of her.

Best Moment: Completely beast-moding the F12 Immunity Challenge.

Worst Moment: Her putting the fire out moment actually gave me chills so I won’t say that… can we count her making her entire life’s goal to destroy Marty Piombo on a metaphysical level one moment? Cause it really was one moment 20 times at least.

12th: Wendy DeSmidt-Kohlhoff (20th Place)

“I don’t have any blisters on my feet so that’s a small plus…” ~Wendy Jo’s pitch for why her tribe should keep her

Wendy Jo holds a special place in my heart because she is my type of person. A socially awkward, quirky, harmless, and caring person who truly wants to get along with other people but just doesn’t get how people work all that well. She’s really sweet and for the social moths like myself, she strikes a chord and it’s hard to see her get unanimously booted out for being an odd duck. I think that makes a pretty good first boot as far as I’m concerned.

Best Moment: She’s very aware of who she is, if not how others see her, and that just adds to her charm. As shown in her final words where she wants to be put with the kids.

Worst Moment: Even her husband thought she’d be the first out. Ouch.

11th: Jimmy Johnson

“I’ve not missed a second of Survivor since the first season. I never imagined it would be this hard.”

Jimmy Johnson, a name I can’t type without hearing it in Holly’s thick South Dakota accent, is possibly the single biggest celebrity Survivor has had on it and possibly ever will have. They shot for the stars with Lisa Welchel and Jeff Kent, but one of the most celebrated coaches in the NFL, the sport of America? That is a tall order to pull off. And despite lasting only three episodes, he really delivered. He was just a paragon of virtue and kindness. He really wanted to see Espada succeed with his help. He was selfless because he never needed the money and just wanted to have an adventure. Jimmy Johnson was just such a good guy. And that’s why he’d never last around Marty.

I love how his elimination changes the reign of the tribe from the good, loving, caring, fatherly coach Jimmee Jawnsin to the dark lord of strategy, Marty. It couldn’t have ended better than that. Is Coach multi-dimensional? Not overly. But he’s a very nice guy and a nice start to the game.

Best Moment: Him giving Holly a pep talk to keep her from quitting, by far. And him writing the foreward for her book after the show is just extra sweet.

Worst Moment: Not his fault, but the fact that the first episode belonged entirely to a guy who would last three episodes. But hey, biggest star on Survivor history, you give him all the airtime you can in his three episodes.

10th: Ben “Benry” Henry (7th Place)

“Time to dethrone the king of Espada. Benry’s here, baby. *knocks over the paperweight* Oops…”

Benry isn’t the deepest character or the deepest strategist, but in a season full of funny people and funny moments, Benry is damn funny. He is consistently on in terms of physical humor, witty humor, humor at one’s expense, Benry runs the gambit of humor and constantly makes me laugh. He isn’t vital to the season but he’s much appreciated.

Best Moment: His needling NaOnka to give her reward for Libertad after she had already declared she was going to quit.

Worst Moment: The fact that his nickname is Benry. I think Shannon would call it Benretarded.

9th: Brenda Lowe. (10th Place)

“You are the black widow, king cobra, and black mamba all in one. You may not be going home tonight, but the lines have been drawn.” ~Marty

Anyone who bought the sweet and lovable Brenda from Caramoan pre-teeth-robbery like I did must have been surprised to see her on this season. Brenda is a complete alpha bitch. She rules the roost and will totally destroy the shit out of you if you double cross. She is also cocky, witty, and has a great way with words while she’s talking about how great she art. She is a villain like John Carroll and her fall is almost as satisfying, with her openly admitting she didn’t scramble before everyone except Purple Kelly voted her off 8-1-1. Is she a complex character? Hardly. I’d argue she’s not even a good player. But she’s a great villainess.

Best Moment: Her saying that they should take the idol from Marty and then vote his ass out.

Worst Moment: Holly was right. You should’ve. Scrambled.

8TH: TYRONE DAVIS. (16TH PLACE)

“THAT BOY JUST DON’T LISTEN.” ~TYRONE WATCHING JIMMY TRAINWRECK COMPLETELY FUCK EVERY ASPECT OF A CHALLENGE UP AND NOT LISTEN TO HIM.

OF COURSE FOR THOSE WHO KNOW TYRONE ON SOCIAL MEDIA YOU KNOW WHY I’M TYPING THIS POST ENTIRELY IN CAPS LOCK, BUT DESPITE TYPING ONLY IN CAPS LOCK ON FACEBOOK, AS A CHARACTER, TYRONE CONTRASTS SHARPLY FROM USUAL AFRICAN-AMERICAN ARCHETYPES SEEN ON THE SHOW AND IS JUST VERY CALM, VERY SOOTHING, AND VERY STRONG IN A MATURE, COMPOSED TYPE OF WAY. I LIKE THAT, AND I LIKE TYRONE. EVEN WHEN HE CAN’T GET ALONG WITH THE YOUNG PEOPLE IN HIS TRIBE HE’S NEVER “ONE VOICE!!”ING AROUND CAMP. HE’S JUST VERY CALM AND QUIET, AND THAT’S PART OF HIS CHARM. I ALSO LIKE HIS ARC AS A PRE-MERGE BOOT, FROM BEING A RESPECTED LEADER TO A MINORITY WHERE THOSE VERY TRAITS WORK AGAINST HIM.

BEST MOMENT: THE WAY HE HANDLES JIMMY TRAINWRECK.

WORST MOMENT: THE FACT THAT HE WASN’T ABLE TO ADAPT TO THE KIDS IN THE TRIBE.

7th: Chase Rice (Runner-Up)

“Sorry man, it’s nothing personal.” ~Chase before backstabbing literally all of his allies.

Chase is one of the worst players of all time. Ever. He is at least top 5. There is not a promise this motherfucker wouldn’t break. Not an ally he wouldn’t backstab. Not a plan he wouldn’t snitch. He is literally impossible to work with. If they weren’t so bent on taking out Fabio he probably would have found a way to betray Sash while he was at it. He makes alliances he knows he can’t keep for some reason. It’s no wonder no one respected him: the dude is awful at Survivor, and anyone who thinks he deserved to win need to watch someone like Chris Daugherty who knows how to make and break promises without looking like a little biatch.

However…

…the fascinating thing about Chase is that he is such a nice guy. He doesn’t strike me as slimy or skeezy the way the city rat Sash does. This is a guy who likes people and cares about them but is in a game where he can’t care about people, and he is constantly reacting to them. In a popularity contest, there’s no reason Chase shouldn’t do as well as Fabio, but when you ask them to play a game that involves backstabbing people, Chase just gets the backstabbing done out of the way.

Chase does some dick moves in the game and betrays people for no reason, but I don’t think it was because he was a dick. He just thought he had to. And he has a poor understanding of how Survivor works but it’s impossible to hate him. He shows himself to be caring, loving, relatable, and just a really nice guy. He just can’t play Survivor well, and while some people work with precision like a master surgeon doing an open heart transplant, Chase played more like Rooster Teeth playing a Surgeon Simulator.

Best Moment: Comforting a sick and exhausted NaOnka by telling a story about his father, only to break down in tears halfway through. It shows both his heart and how he cares about people and the fact that he doesn’t realize that talking about death might not comfort people who are missing home.

Worst Moment: I was Team Fabio on the whole family visit thing. That was cold.

6th: Jillian Behm (13th Place)

“I’m gonna miss you, babe. See you, Doctor Jillian.” ~Marty’s final words to his partner in crime.

Jill is one of the most underrated badasses in Survivor History. If she had gotten to the merge she could have cut things up about as well as a Jane could have with infinite times the likability. But what I really love about her is that she completes the Jill/Marty duo, and she is about as amazing a sidekick as you could get. While she snarks a bit about her obsessively-planning partner who gets the airtime, she always stands by him and she’s always loyal to him even until the end, and the way they talk to each other sounds like two true and weathered companions against the world. It’s short lived, but it’s a really beautiful partnership, and I love every moment of it. Jillian could stand well on her own, but she’s amazing as a sidekick to the mad scientist that is Marty. More than likely this is personal taste and certainly not popular opinion, but hey, this is my personal list. So #6 she is.

Best Moment: Her kicking ass in the first individual immunity challenge.

Worst Moment: None. Quite harmless on the whole.

5th: NaOnka Dixon.

“My name is NaOnka. Not fool.”

NaOnka is the other half of the just-damn-rotten duo of Nicaragua, and I’ve already ran through my comparisons with Jane earlier. However, NaOnka is the qualities Jane has, with all passive-aggression removed, and just flat out explosive aggression up to eleven. I’ll admit; I don’t find a lot of the shit she does funny… but she’s fucking hilarious. She’s got so many random quirks; her self aggrandizing and blatant unawareness, how she will randomly translate her ebonics/slang for others around her or the confessional cam, occasionally randomly referring to her ass, and her spontaneous feuds with Fabio. She just makes me laugh my ass off, and I don’t even like her.

That is not at all to excuse her doing the awful shit she did or saying the awful shit she said. She was a pretty damn hateful, selfish, bitchy, destructive tornado of evil when she wanted to be. I think her letting Holly sacrifice her reward for the tribe while she went on one last escapade before she quit was one of the lowest things I’ve ever seen. Yet, even then, she has a third dimension to her evil and funny dimensions: actual humanity.

In Survivor now we have some pretty blatant villains with no redeeming side to them whatsoever, like Phillip, Colton, and Russell. However, people forget that for all the blatantly-fucked-up things NaOnka did, and the list is fucking WILDLY LONG, she had her moments where she was a real, vulnerable human. Like her scene with Chase I mentioned in his entry and her talking about being divorced at 27, we get to understand her as a human. I think that had she not quit and quit so cavalierly, she might be seen as a highly ferocious Abi-Maria rather than the worst person in Survivor history that she often is.

But seriously. Girlfriend was fucking cray cray, which means crazy.

Best Moment: The completion of her story arc with Chase, where to thank him for being there for her when she originally wanted to quit, she gives him her idol. That’s a heartwarming NaOnka moment immediately overshadowed by her shivving Holly in the reward and quitting.

Worst Moment: Aside from the Gulliver’s Travels fiasco, her stealing food cause she didn’t get a big piece of it and then acting like she should have immediately been forgiven was pretty shitty.

4th Place: Dan Lembo (5th Place)

“First time flying above the Nicaraguan jungle riding a zipline… it was okay. There aren’t many ziplines in Brooklyn. If there are, you’re a burglar.”

Dan Lembo is a hell of a character, because like most older characters (and he’s the oldest outside of Rudy to make the finale, by the way) he just does not give a shit and he’s as real as it gets. He has a sharp, snarky sense of humor that never misses, and he’s a gold-mine for some great physical humor (at his expense) what with his wrecked knees and being approximately 2 inches taller than Lydia Morales. Plus, he looks like a Lawn Gnome. That’s strangely adorable for someone currently banging one of Donald Trump’s assistants half his age.

But what really makes Dan Lembo an incredible character to me, and this is something I posted in Previously on Survivor, is this: You have these two young girls who for whatever reason, decided to quit on day 28. But you also have this guy who’s three times their age sitting here still in it. He’s one of maybe the five oldest people ever to make the top 5 behind I think just Rudy. Both his knees are fucked so I have to imagine every challenge that he fails at must hurt something ferocious. He hasn’t played the best game and his alliance went to shit three times over. On top of it all, the guy is fucking massively rich! He doesn’t need the money, he’s not gonna win, he’s 63 years old and his knees are fucked and he’s gotta be in massive pain…and this stubborn little Brooklyn Lawn Gnome doesn’t even consider quitting after a throwaway comment on day 15. That is what makes Dan Lembo legend, and I think he’s one of the most underrated characters in Survivor history. He’s got a lot of dedication and tenacity, and most of it is because he just doesn’t give a shit.

Best Moment: His friendship with Fabio, all of it. Culminating in him fuming to his son that Chase is a scumbag, not because Chase didn’t take him, but because Chase didn’t take Fabio.

Worst Moment: I can’t say he has many. The fact that he only has 13 confessionals in the season is a travesty.

3rd: Marty Piombo (11th Place)

“Maaaaa’s Catfishing Trip has been terminated cause y’aaaaaaaaaaaal messed with the wrong gator, missy.” ~Marty’s voting confessional to Jane Bright.

There is something very strange about Marty Piombo. Because, like Sash, Marty Piombo is a gamebot. But it’s beyond a level of just playing the game. Marty lives, breathes, and loves the game, and the very idea that he could be a legend. All he wants to do is talk about the game, play the game, make things happen, be a player. When he leaves, he talks about how much he want to play. When NaOnka and Purple quit, the look on Marty’s face is one of pure heartbreak as he says “That’s fucked up, man. I want to be in there.”



So Marty isn’t just a gamebot. He’s the game. His entire existence is to play the game, so it’s not just editing. That’s all he’s giving us. That’s all he wants to do.

What makes Marty even better is that Marty is not just a gamebot, not just the game personified, he is a fucking fantastic narrator. All he talks about is the game, but unlike Sash, who is (if you’ll pardon the expression) rather vanilla in his talk, Marty is funny, he’s sharp, the way he speaks is involved, engaging, and clear. He knows what’s going on and will share it, and even better, he is just as open in Tribal Council. It’s just a joy to see. If everyone could narrate at the skill level of Marty Piombo, I wouldn’t mind gamebots.

I think even funnier is that despite loving the game, getting the game, being the game… Marty Piombo is not that good at the game. At all. As soon as the swap happens he falls apart and never gets back together. In fact, he just makes things more of a wreck for himself and Jill. But that’s even more compelling to have a game player who is so inherently flawed be the “chessmaster” for the season. It’s a shame Marty didn’t last that long, because I could take several entire seasons of him just marching around like a gamebot.

Best Moment: Where he’s so far at his wit’s end during his Tribal Council that he just doesn’t care and just starts having fun. Notably, making fun of, laughing at, or imitating NaOnka at every chance, especially walking back from voting for Jane with the exact same bouncing style as NaOnka. It’s hysterical.

Worst Moment: Giving Sash the idol. Good and bad gamebots do not mix.

2nd: Holly Hoffman (4th Place)

“My teenage daughters told me they wanted to quit cross-country. I said no, you started it, you finish it… they ended up as regional champions, Kelly.”

Holly Hoffman’s story arc is like the second coming of Kathy O’Brien. She wanted to quit on Day 5, and had a complete emotional breakdown which involved throwing out food and ruining expensive shoes as revenge, but then pulls it together not only to play a great game and last to day 38, but to be the one decent player who plays hard. I actually think out of the alliance of four she had and the other hard and vocal players (and not laidback players like Fabio) she actually knew what she was doing. But it’s not about that, it’s about her.

Holly is a perfect balance of lovable and salty. She’s loving and caring to other people but has no bones about cutting throats and doing whatever it takes. Her story arc is amazing, starting from where she did and then running the season. Had Fabio not been the wrench in other people’s plans, she’d have won, and it’s easy to see why: she is a true human being with real fears, but inspiring dedication and some true power. I’m glad she went as far as she did and didn’t quit. She made this season remarkable, and when we’re talking potential all-stars, Holly has to be on more lists. The Double-Quit episode in particular made her a star in my books.

Best Moment: Her trying to convince Kelly not to quit, using some of the same words Jimmee Jawnsin said to her.

Worst Moment: What was with the shells in particular?…

1st: Fabio Birza (Winner)

“My whole strategy, bro, is to be out in the open, you know, make people laugh, but it goes beyond you know, let’s keep him around cause he’s funny.”

How do you get a winner to a story, a hero, as amazing as Fabio? He is simultaneously the nicest, sweetest, funniest, most adorable, most goofy people the show has ever seen. He’s a dork who’s a goldmine for physical humor and knows how to play dumb (how do you tell your fake leg what to do?), but there’s also other times where he’s real, and he’s openly emotional, and you can see him just so genuinely hurt and emotional (I cried a little when he reacted to Chase snubbing his visit from his mother), and those two go together so naturally, the laughing and crying, because he’s such a real guy, and such a young guy at that. And he’s also so much smarter than he seems, with so much hidden depth. He’s an extreme character with extreme strategy and extremely outlandish moments, but they all work for him, and I adore him. I’m glad he pulled out a win because he made this season amazing. He deserved it just for that.

Best Moment: His interactions with his mom and him randomly getting pinched by crabs.

Worst Moment: None to speak of. He’s a home run and a half.

Nicaragua was one of the greats that no one talks about. There are so many unquestionably fantastic, engaging, and fun characters. And any good story relies on its characters, so Nicaragua is a wild success in my books.

Hope you enjoyed these writeups even a fraction as much as I enjoyed the season.

The Nobullman, signing out.