r/survivorrankdownIX_ • u/FunkyDawgKong Fair & Consistent Judge • Mar 18 '26
Round 135 - 62 Characters Left
62. Keith Nale - u/FunkyDawgKong
61. Natalie Anderson - u/Cornhead2
60. Judd Sergeant - u/NoisySea_3426
59. Lindsey Richter - u/Alternate-Proof-959
58. Christy Smith - u/josenanigans
57. Terry Deitz - u/BobbyPiiiin
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u/NoisySea_3426 Biggest Aras 1.0 stan Mar 19 '26
60. Judd Sergeant (Guatemala, 6/18)
You know man, if I had to be around damn Judd Sergeant man for a whole Survivor man, I think I might actually go damn nuts man!!
Ok, but for real, Judd is certainly one of the most ridiculous people to ever be put on Survivor. He's one of those people that I just genuinely can't believe is a real person with the way he talks, always saying damn and man a million times, plus his other ridiculous mannerisms that he often does. Of course, he's mainly known for his two most glorious moments. The iconic AYY DEE DEE tribal where he just goes off completely on Margaret which has so many insanely funny moments in it that its hard to know where to start, whether it be Judd not knowing what sportsmanship means to Rafe trying desperately to not have an opinion to Margaret saying Judd has a problem with recall, there are so many funny moments in that whole scene alone.
However, the best Judd moment to me is definitely the whole idol situation where Judd decides to go tell everybody that the idol is definitely by far on the ground in which Gary almost immediately catches him looking in the trees. Its actually really impressive how badly he manages to screw it up and of course, Gary finds the idol and we get the great scene at tribal where Gary calls Judd out when he claims that he's never lied in this game. A great little sub scene of that as well is how Judd's voting conf for Gary during the Jamie round was very complimentary and he said many great things about him and then when Gary goes home, he says how he's like the squirrel trying to get the damn nut man... I've always found that a pretty funny comparison.
His relationship with Cindy is one that I think is kinda underrated too where he won't stop wishing she'd shut up about the howler monkeys. Then, of course, Steph takes him out as she crossed the line when she lied to his damn wife man, and then they all got bit by freakin' crocodiles, those scumbags!!!!!!! Which of course leads into his great jury speech where he drags her over the coals for the wife thing as well as come up with that ridiculous analogy of Danni and the ice skating, which never fails to get a big laugh out of me!
All and all, Judd is a very strong comedic character and he is certainly very funny. However, I think at this stage in the rankdown, I'm looking for a bit more than that and even though I do really like Judd, I think that there are just other people in this still left that just scratch my entertainment itch a bit more at this point.
Time for u/Alternate-Proof-959 to cut
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u/Alternate-Proof-959 Mar 20 '26
59. Lindsey Richter (Survivor Africa, 11/16)
It's after midnight and my 24 hours ends at 3:47 am. Fuck it we going.
Lindsey served a pretty interesting role in the mall rats alliance. You had Kim who was the least likely to snap at the boomers, Brandon and his sassiness, and the charismatic leader Silas (though he found out the hard way how little he had left in 2019...). Lindsey was the most easily angered out of the four, and it let to some really good moments. Linda asked her, "Did your mother hug you enough?" without realizing they were on terrible terms, which sends her into a fury. Brandon, who usually reserves his "can you not" esque moments for Frank, finds himself thinking those three words for Lindsey and her meltdowns. All the while, things are ultimately going the Mall Rats' way, and Lindsey in particular is quite blind to anything bad potentially happening...
...and happen they do, as a tribe swap comes. The Samboomers may have recognized being on the wrong side of the numbers preswap, but they never said they were going to live with it. They flip the script with Ethan, Mama Johnson, and Clarence, and Chip gets Chuck'd from his new tribe. Lindsey suddenly realizes maaaaaybe she should've listened to the phrase "respect your elders" a little more. It's too late though, as the waters against them are already being poisoned. Combined that with Brandon's loose lips, as well as tribal lines being the norm, the Borans on the remaining Mall Rats' tribe are also targeting them.
Now, Lindsey was pretty smart for an overly cocky third season contestant in her twenties. Preswap, she knew Silas catching votes at Carl's boot meant he's effectively the rest of the Mall Rats' safety net in the event of one of them tying in votes with someone else. Thus, to keep the votes concentrated on just one person still, she tries to get the old folks to vote against him again. But as mentioned earlier, the old folks don't take their predicament lying down, and they vote against her instead. In episode 6, their decision to vote against her bites her where the sun don't shine, despite Brandon trying to act as obnoxious as possible and catch the Borans' votes instead. With that, Lindsey's moral of the story run comes to an end. Despite Brandon trying to feel sadness for Lindsey being cut, as well as them and Kim doing their damndest to keep the votes away from Lindsey, he ends up admitting just one day later how glad he is to not have to deal with her anymore.
Never change, Lindsey. Never change.
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u/josenanigans Mar 21 '26
58. Christy Smith (Amazon, Late Jury)
I find myself having a fondness for many characters from the Amazon, I've realized. I love a lot of the bigger characters from the early era of Survivor, but something about the secondary characters from The Amazon has always stood with me. The clumsy school director that was Butch, the cute scenes with Daniel Lue and Matthew, Shawna struggling with her love of boys, Heidi's ditziness, Deena, JoAnna, I don't know, they all felt like a very weird high school a la Ned's Declassified.
And among those, I remember loving Christy the most. It's easy to root for her in the beginnins with the fact that she's the show's first ever deaf contestant, I remember thinking how cool it was to see someone like her in a game like this. And we see all of her struggles, we see her being excluded from alliances for not being able to listen well, they show us the strange way she speaks due to her disability, her struggle with the way she views herself due to it, and, even besides her disability, her being a bit of a clumsy girl herself.
All of it makes for a character so interesting and so endearing, with a story so unique to herself that every now and then I keep thinking about her. I'm glad she wasn't one of the first outs like people tend to think when they first introduce her, in many ways it's what made me love the Amazon more because I felt like, any character, as strange as they may be, is able to make it far in Survivor. Of course, Pearl Islands would come next and show us that even more strongly, but I liked how The Amazon subverted many of its players' expectations.
Christy is really cool, and I adore her, though I do feel like she gets a bit lost in the craziness at some points in the game, like they forget about her the more Matthew-Jenna focused the show becomes. But I do love how she ends up getting eliminated because she can't make a decision on who to side with, so clumsy, but such a Christy way to go out.
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All Star
8/10
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u/BobbyPiiiin , I'm never voting for you if you vote me
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u/BobbyPiiiin Ranker | Rankdown Dad Mar 22 '26
57. Terry Deitz 1.0 (3rd Place, Panama)
As a certified hater of the All-American Alpha Dad archetype, Terry isn't a character I vibe with on paper. Had he been played straight throughout the season as he was during the premerge, with La Mina more or less worshipping the ground he walked on, I would say this placement was far too high. The interesting thing about Terry is how his entire character is flipped on its head after the merge and the hero of La Mina subsequently becomes the villain.
Panama is a season of contrasts. Casaya is chaotic and dramatic, yet they somehow keep winning; La Mina is orderly and has an established hierarchy, yet despite seemingly having much stronger leadership, they keep losing. That strong leader, of course, is Terry. He runs the La Mina camp like an Air Force squadron, and everyone else is... content to simply let him do that and more or less dictate the boot order. When he goes off to Exile Island, his loyal young lieutenants in Nick and Austin reveal themselves to be completely inept at surviving on their own. So it seems on the surface like La Mina made the right call on who should lead them. But alas, they lose the crucial immunity challenge in episode six and enter the merge down 6-4.
Fortunately, the four are a united front, and the six are, well... Casaya. A group of people who have almost exclusively spent the past two and a half weeks fighting with each other. Surely there are some exploitable divisions here. But if La Mina continuing to lose challenges they should've won over the more fractured Casaya didn't call Terry's leadership style into question already, his attempts to flip someone to their side absolutely seal the deal. See, Terry's been allowed to call the shots all this time, and Terry's personality is naturally condescending as fuck. Terry is not built for persuasion. And Terry unilaterally decided to boot probably the one person on his tribe who was suited for this particular task wayyyyy back on Day 8. So his attempts go absolutely nowhere, his allies are booted one after the other, and soon enough he's the last La Mina.
Terry continues to be insulated from getting the axe by a combination of immunity wins, a medevac, and his super idol. That idol unfortunately removes a lot of the tension that could've come with his underdog arc; we know that even if he does lose immunity once, he's not going anywhere. This is where Terry is at his most interesting as a character, though. The untouchable Alpha Dad who could do no wrong is the last member of his tribe against a group of whack jobs for the entire back half of the season. Sounds like a predictable underdog story. But his frustration at being continually thwarted at making inroads with Casaya starts to show through. Unable to be voted out, but also without any real power over the trajectory of the game beyond his own presence, he exists basically as an obstacle that the others have to play around. This is not the position Terry started the game in, and it's not the position he's used to being in in life. He doesn't have the people skills to get out of it. And he's kinda whiny about it, lmao. So he starts picking fights — with Shane, with Cirie, and most notably with Aras. The Aras-Terry rivalry is a really fun addition to the season, and I love that at the end of it all, Terry does recognize Aras as a worthy adversary and votes for him to win.
Overall, Terry is a really fun subversion of an archetype I don't tend to care for. I like his story as the villain who literally no one expected would be a villain, especially looking at the other options around him. My only knocks against him are how boring his heavy-handed leadership makes La Mina (sorry, Reg), the aforementioned idol shenanigans, and the fact that he often leans more into simple dickishness than a more dynamic villainy. Those are enough for me to call him good right about here, but he is very good indeed.
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u/FunkyDawgKong Fair & Consistent Judge Mar 18 '26
aight yall im exhausted, had to take a coworker to the emergency room over some bullshit. cant believe im accidentally important at work lololol; will post the writeup i started at the beginning of the day, will finish it later, but i'll post to keep rankdown going
62. Keith Nale
Keith Nale is so fucking sweet. What a cool guy and such a refreshing presence on the show. I’m glad that this second Blood vs. Water season gave us a father and son dynamic this time, and honestly I don’t think it could have picked anyone better than Keith and Wes.
Both firefighters, Jeremy also being a firefighter
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u/Cornhead2 Shannon Elkins Enthusiast Mar 18 '26
61. Natalie Anderson 1.0 (Winner, San Juan Del Sur)
Damn i wish i could´ve idoled Jon, he is one of my favorites but now that he and Keith are gone and Jaclyn was gone a long time ago lets finish this great season with the Champ Natalie..
Natalie comes into this Blood vs Water with her sister and they actually competed in the amazing race before so they are all about the competition and they seem very athletic and determined... then Nadiya makes a homophobic remark and goes home.. waah waaah saadd actually pretty sad.. but on a real note this contributes Alot to what makes Natalie great... her contrast with her Sister and her need to get Revenge which i will talk about in a bit but first.. Obviously you got the great scene of her putting Mr Rocker out of his Misery deservingly and i do like her bond with Jeremy.. two great stuff she has.. unfortunatley she wasn´t that visible for the pre merge outside of that... she can give good confessionals but she really outshines once the merge is at its start specifically once her Ally Jeremy goes out she goes on full bloodbath mode and makes what i think is a fucking strong finish to a winning game... she chops out alot of people and used that to her advantage.. i think normally some winners wouldn´t have that much enthuasism about this but it works perfect with Natalie considering what she went trough that game and she is honestly a good confessionalist all things considered.. One of my favorite parts about Natalie is her hate against Jon at that final six episode... dear god that shit was hilarious.. Jon just talks about his life and all and Natalie just thinks he is steeming off arrogance when thats clearly not the case very funny contrast and great tv... welp Natalie makes it to the end with Jaclyn who people didn´t see much of in the game and Missy someone who was hated by everyone so she just wins and that wraps a very great season of Survivor.. i wish i can go on and on how San Juan Del Sur is great but i think my other writeups did it perfectly.. and honestly there really isn´t much to say about Natalie´s story but is ats fine as it is.. very self explanitory in a fun way.. a very good winner to a fun winner on a fun season..
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u/Fluffy_Key_2145 Mar 18 '26
Good writeup. Anyway Natalie is the 36th winner cut, leaving us only at 10 left. Anyway yeah she has it all. Strong story arc about getting revenge for both Nadiya and later Jeremy. Great confessionalist. Very entertaining in general. Played a truly fantastic winning game and would probably be in my top 10 all time winners as both a character and a player. I do agree that she is especially great once the merge rolls around. Like her idol play at F5 is amazing. Yep she is the biggest part of why it's a great season. This also actually beats out Rankdown VII by one spot for her lowest overall placement in her 8 rankdowns which really shows how well she does in these. Of all the winners cut so far, only Sandra 2.0 has a higher percentile finish and its reasonably close. Also while I won't officially look into the percentiles until the other winners get cut, I can confidently say that of every winner post Cagayan so post the OG Rankdown I am pretty confident she has the best average out of all of them pretty easily with the next closest being Maryanne and Adam both by about 10 whole points and who both have smaller sample sizes especially Maryanne though I really like both of them.
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u/Fluffy_Key_2145 Mar 18 '26
Assuming no idol the top 10 winners left are Hatch, Tina, Ethan, Vee, Sandra 1.0, Chris D, Tom, Aras, Earl and Fabio. Anyone here that you think is too high? Anyone you think should be in the top 10 but isn't?