‘Survivor: Millennials vs. gen X’ top 8 rankings: Are Bret, Sunday, and Jay in big trouble?
If there was ever time for “Survivor” to have itself a fairly boring episode, we have a feeling that we’re just about at that time. There are two eliminations coming on Wednesday night’s new episode, and if you’re looking at the characters across the board at the moment, you’ve got one group that feels as though they are pretty unified, and then another that is floated in the wind, hoping for a miracle. We’re just not sure said miracle is coming their way.
Still, one of the things about this (very great) season is that it’s surprised almost every step from start to finish. Here’s to hoping that it can do that one more time…
As with many of the other ranking pieces that we’ve done over the course of the season, we’re thinking about this with the criteria of strategy first, and then coupling that off with such things as screen time, edit, challenge ability, and whether or not these players have any hope of a chance to win the game at the end.
8. Bret LaBelle (last week: 5) – This sort of drop what happens when the numbers flip! Thanks to Will’s betrayal, Bret is now on the outside of the numbers, and unless Will convinces someone like Hannah to flip back against the Ken – David – Adam contingent, it feels destined to be a fairly predictable boot from the game for Bret. Given that everyone knows Jay has an idol, it makes little sense to target him. Jay probably won’t play the idol on anyone else, and Bret’s a social threat who is well-liked.
7. Will Wahl (7) – We put Will so low just because there’s a fairly reasonable chance that he ended up playing himself out of the game with some of the decisions that he opted to make on this past episode. It wasn’t so much that he made a move to us as it was that he made it clear to everyone that it was about a resume. Basically, he looked at everyone and said “I’m trying to get a case together to beat all of you. Even if you’re doing this (which is understandable, since everyone plays the game), why in a million years would you want everyone to know that you are? He’s an easy person to cut off, and David’s side would still have the numbers.
6. Sunday Burquest (6) – The great news for Sunday is that the only chance we see of her leaving is if Bret wins immunity and nobody wants to get idoled out of the game by Jay. That combination is probably unlikely to happen. The bad news is that despite a couple of strategic moments here and there, we haven’t seen enough of her to know if she could win at the end. For now, we don’t see it.
5. Ken McNickle (9) – It was probably a mistake to put Ken last last week over David (who was in more danger in retrospect), but we’re justified this time around coming off of that bizarre move we saw him make with Will, refusing to budge when it came to trusting him. We like Ken as a character (he’s incredibly entertaining), but he’s done little to think that people respect his game enough for him to be crowned Sole Survivor at the end of all of this.
4. David Wright (8) – David now has the numbers, and by virtue of that he’s in a far better spot than he was recently. Unfortunately, he’s also still an enormous threat to win at the end of the game and people know it, and if you’re going to vote him out, it’s best to do it either now or before he ends up finding another idol. Otherwise, you’re stuck until around final five, and it could be a lot harder there if Ken’s still in the game.
3. Jay Starrett (1) – We were really feeling the idea of Jay winning the game when he had the numbers on his side, given that he could hold onto the immunity idol for a few more weeks and he was probably capable of beating many of the people in his alliance in challenges. However, now he’s in a spot where he may need to play that, and Ken’s a pretty significant physical threat who could take him down. Jay could be coming up to a spot where he’s viewed almost as a Joe and taken out in fear of him winning his way to the end.
2. Hannah Shapiro (3) – While the show isn’t necessarily putting Hannah often in the position of the main mover-and-shaker in the game, at the same exact time she’s done subtle things and build great bonds with people that she has an interesting case at the end of the game. She’s likable, and while she’s been targeted twice, that’s been mostly because of sentiment that nobody would play an idol on her. (Adam showed them!)
1. Adam Klein (4) – Adam is reminiscent in some ways of a John Cochran – Tony Vlachos hybrid. He’s got a little of neuroses and he cannot help his fandom of the show, but like Tony, he has this nasty habit of at times digging himself a hole in the game. Yet, also like Tony, he manages to dig himself back out. We’re not sure he is strategically dominant like either one of them was, but coming off of the amazing episode he just had in between the family visit and the idol play, we can easily see Adam beating almost anyone other than maybe David in the end.-
Now, let’s turn this over to you! Let us know in the comments who is topping your own rankings, and head over here to read some other news pertaining to “Survivor.” (Photo: CBS.)