< Survivor (TV series) < Characters

Survivor (TV series)/Characters/Redemption Island


Rob Mariano

  • The Ace
  • Affably Evil: Charming, friendly, funny, and seems to be a genuinely nice guy. But heaven help you if he ever decides you've become a liability.
  • Anti-Hero / Anti-Villain
  • Badass
  • Badass Moustache
  • The Bad Guy Wins: Though this time around he was hardly the villain he'd been in prior seasons.
    • In fact, Jeff even went so far as to label him a "hero"! Next to Russell, that wouldn't have been too hard.
  • Big Brother Instinct: Towards Natalie, which leads to the Pet the Dog moment below.
  • Boring Invincible Player / Showy Invincible Player
  • Boring but Practical: His gameplay this particular season. Even people who think he deserved it thinks this was one of the most boring seasons to watch because he had an entire Cult Worshipping him and nobody thought of removing him until it was too late.
  • Born Lucky: Gets dealt the equivalent of the Five of a Kind in Survivor. Comes back knowing the game from the previous three times he's played it, gets put on a tribe full of players willing to pledge Undying Loyalty, manages to have the producers conveniently forget the "Russell factor" when hiding idols despite filming it after Nicaragua[1] also has the luck to be put on one of the most imbalanced tribes ever[2] (Although to be fair, Russell could have been put on Ometepe too), combined with the challenges that he had to compete in being mostly puzzles, and it's easy to see how he won.
  • Character Development: Just compare this Rob with the smarmy, overconfident Smug Snake from Marquesas.
  • The Chessmaster
  • Cult: Turned Ometepe into one, at least according to the Zapatera. Rob himself preferred to a military metaphor.
  • Dangerously Genre Savvy: This being his fourth time, it's pretty much expected.
  • Determinator: To the point of collapsing after an Immunity Challenge win.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: See "Stop Having Fun!" Guys below.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: After four seasons and 117 days, the guy finally wins the game.
  • Mr. Fanservice
  • Even Evil Has Standards: This interview quote in regards to Julie's speech sums it up best:

"I didn’t like the way she ripped into Natalie. She said Natalie’s parents wouldn’t be proud of her, but at the same time, what kind of example are you setting for your daughter?"

Phillip Sheppard

Natalie Tenerelli

  • Kid Hero: The youngest person ever to compete on Survivor, Spencer of Tocantins notwithstanding. (Both were 19 years old at the time of filming)
  • Lazy Bum: Encouraged by Rob.
  • The Load: Not to the level of Dan in Nicaragua or Chet in Micronesia. Only reason she got to the finals is because everyone thought they could beat her (and probably misplaced trust in Ashley's case).
  • Ms. Fanservice: Possibly unintentionally, but the cameramen sure liked her.
  • Naive Newcomer
  • Nice Girl: Hands down the nicest (albeit also the most naive) contestant this season.
  • Quiet Young Naive Girl Has a Point: See Wrong Genre Savvy below; coming off the heels of Russell's back-to-back losses, it was actually a reasonable assumption that the strategist would take the fall and the nicer finalist could pull off the win.
  • Tagalong Kid
  • Tall Dark and Bishojo
  • Those Two Girls: With Ashley.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: Attempted the Natalie White - perfected tactic of hiding behind the aggressive strategist and then win because the jury didn't want the one that cut their throats to win. It failed partly because she never made any big moves on her own (while Samoa Natalie worked the Galu ladies to off Erik), but also because she didn't appear to make the effort to get to acknowledge, let alone befriend, anyone who wasn't specifically in her alliance. By contrast, an instrumental part in Natalie White's victory was building bonds with the former Galu.

Ashley Underwood

  • Action Girl: When she puts her mind to challenges, she really can win them! She's almost like the female Brett in this regards. Speaking of which...
  • Alpha Bitch: Of the Ometepe alliance.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Turned out to be a much stronger competitor in challenges than Boston Rob anticipated.
  • Distaff Counterpart: To Brett. Both are players who spent the most of the season Out of Focus before emerging from the shadows of the Spotlight-Stealing Squad and showing that they are not the Living Prop they were edited to be early in the season. Likewise, this causes the people in control of the game to think Oh Crap. They also finished in final four and became a Shocking Elimination (in her case, she was shocked).
  • Eleventh-Hour Superpower: The reason she was Brett's Distaff Counterpart.
  • Hair of Gold: Played straight during the season; subverted at the reunion.
  • Hey It's That Girl: Miss Maine 2009.
  • Hypocrite: Throughout the season, she would talk about how much fun it was to blindside another contestant. When she was eventually blindsided, she was less than a Graceful Loser about it.
  • Informed Ability: Zig-Zagged. She was supposedly good in challenges, yet all the time we saw her pre-merge, it was Grant and Rob carrying the team with her in third or fourth, then getting out-performed. Rob also thought of her as a threat, when all she seemed to do is just whatever Rob said and then laid around at camp next to Natalie. Then suddenly, she actually starts winning. Rob immediately thinks Oh Crap.
    • Foreshadowing: If you look in the early challenges, you can see that Ashley actually isn't doing bad, even at challenges that are slanted towards the physically stronger Grant or Zapatera tribe. Later on; she winds up becoming Rob's second obstacle in the season.
  • Jerkass
  • Lazy Bum: Encouraged by Rob.
  • Out of Focus: Until the end when we had a surprising repeat performance of Brett from Samoa.
  • Shocking Elimination: See Hypocrite above.
  • Spanner in the Works: Came the closest of anyone to completely upending Rob's plan.
  • Those Two Girls: With Natalie.
  • Worthy Opponent: One guess.

Andrea Boehlke

  • Action Girl
  • Back from the Dead: But like Matt, it ultimately means nothing because she's voted out immediately after after being unable to do anything about the stranglehold Rob had on the game.
  • Defeating the Undefeatable: Outlasted Grant, Matt, and Mike, who were all very physical competitors. It should be noted that she did it in an endurance challenge which traditionally favors women, but even still.
  • Farm Girl
  • Fatal Flaw: Waiting too long before making a move against Rob - had she flipped to the Zapatera when Matt came back, chances are she would have done better.
  • Genki Girl
  • Genre Blind: But not to the point she could be considered Too Dumb to Live.
  • Hair of Gold
  • Hot Amazon
  • Only Sane Woman: Between Rob planning out every single move of the game, Ashley and Natalie hanging around camp not doing much, and Phillip just being himself, she generally comes off as this (which isn't so Genre Blind).

Mike Chiesl

  • Badass
  • Mr. Fanservice
  • Genius Bruiser: Was strong in any challenge, including puzzle-based ones. Given that he's an Iraqi War Veteran, it's safe to say that detail shows!
  • The Hero: For the Zapatera alliance.
  • Meaningful Name: Just look at the guy!
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: Probst barely spoke to him at all.
  • Worthy Opponent: Rob stated in the torch walk that he was glad Mike didn't win the challenge because he was legitimately afraid to have had to compete against him and sit against him in the finals. He was also one of the few people in the torchwalk who the final four didn't deliver a Take That to.

Matt Elrod


Grant Mattos

  • Badass
  • Badass Beard
  • Badass Long Hair
  • The Dragon: To Boston Rob.
  • Expy: While the edit tries to play him up as an expy of Lex, the way his story plays out is more akin to Gregg's in Palau.
  • Genre Blind: Did you really think Rob was going to take you to the finals? Not once did he even think that Rob had done everything for his tribe and that'd likely win him the game, but was again surprised he was voted out.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: Dude played for the Chargers, Broncos, and Titans.
  • Mr. Fanservice
  • Worthy Opponent: Rob saw him as this. Truth be told, he's NFL - and during the tribal game (When the challenges were mostly physical or teamwork oriented), it really showed since he and Ashley were carrying their tribe.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness

Ralph Kiser

Steve Wright

  • Badass Beard
  • Call Back: Uses Rob's betrayal of Lex in All-Stars as proof that Rob has cut his close allies loose before, and can easily do it again.
  • Cool Old Guy
  • Fatal Flaw: Hating Russell so much that he took his eye off the million and threw the Immunity Challenge to get rid of him, which at the very least may have cost Zapatera a possible numbers advantage going into the merge. While you could blame much of the Zapatera Alliance for this, post-game Steve's been the only one who's really defended that decision whereas both Julie and David regret it.
    • Even though one can also point out that they shouldn't have done it so early.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: While not as well known as Jimmy Johnson, he's a former offensive lineman.
  • Only Sane Man: Of the Zapatera once Mike was gone.
  • Out of Focus: started off making one think he might get far... but he slowly drifted Out of Focus. We did get to see him give more than three confessionals, though.
  • Team Dad: To the Zapatera Alliance.
  • This Is Gonna Suck: Right after Matt's second blindside, he mutters "Let the fireworks begin."

Julie Wolfe

  • Foreshadowing: When the idea to throw the challenge comes up, Julie is the sole dissenter of the alliance, pointing out that throwing challenges could give the other tribe momentum. Not only does this build up to her being the swing vote at Tribal Council, it also foreshadows Ometepe chain-winning immunities after Zapatera threw the challenge.
  • Hypocrite: In Rob's eyes.
  • Out of Focus: While she did have a decent amount of screentime pre-merge, her only memorable moments of the season were duping Russell and then stealing Phillip's shorts.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Delivered at the Final Jury.
  • Straw Feminist: Gave off vibes of this at the Final Jury.

David Murphy

  • Badass Bookworm
  • Determinator: Give him credit on his final Immunity Challenge performance; it required him to hang upside down by his legs, which favored the women due to weight. Not only was he the last man standing, he held out for so long that when his body finally gave out on him he could barely even walk.
  • Graceful Loser: The only jury member perfectly willing to admit Rob beat him (especially when casting his vote).
  • Hannibal Lecture: Amazingly, he delivered one to the other members of the jury, telling them exactly why Boston Rob deserved to win the game in very harsh, uncompromising terms.
  • Informed Ability: He's supposedly really good at puzzles but when we finally get to see him do them, he loses both times due to overthinking them and taking too long.
    • For one of those puzzles, it's pretty clear he was in on the fix. He was a part of the six-player voting bloc that discussed throwing the challenge to get rid of Russell. Otherwise, why would Stephanie have called him out at Tribal Council?
  • Shout-Out: After a Final Jury that mostly consisted of the jury members berating the Final Three for how they felt they played the game, what are the first words out of David's mouth before he delivers his Hannibal Lecture? "And now for something completely different."
  • Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Tries his damnedest to win his final Immunity Challenge, fearing that he'll be the next to go. He is indeed sent packing that night... because Rob saw his challenge performance and thought he'd be a contender to take out Matt.
  • The Smart Guy: Of the Zapatera Alliance.
  • Worthy Opponent: This guy totally could have won a previous season or gone down with a huge fight.

Sarita White

  • The Load
  • Nice Hat
  • No Sympathy for the Devil: Though they were both Zapatera, that wasn't Russell she was cheering for at the duel.
  • Noodle Incident: She was apparently the person who made the pitch for throwing the challenge and getting rid of Russell, but the audience never sees this. It would explain why Russell targeted the physically stronger Julie to flip; when he normally targets girls who aren't physically strong like Sarita.
  • Team Mom: David outright calls her this at one point.
  • Stupid Boss: Very much this for the Zapateras.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: Had less screentime than the other members of her alliance, though this is partly on account of being eliminated pre-merge.

Stephanie Valencia

Krista Klumpp

  • Alliterative Name
  • Heel Faith Turn: On Redemption Island, she's revealed as a deeply religious person and bonds with Matt, giving him her Bible when she leaves.
  • Expy: Of Natalie White, right down to the occupation.
    • Except that Natalie didn't attempt to point anything out to anyone.
  • Odd Friendship: Russell-acolyte Krista and Warrior Monk Matt.
  • The Quiet One: It's been assumed this was her strategy, and it usually works. Unfortunately; she wasn't good enough in challenges so was dropped as low-man on the totem pole.
  • Token Good Teammate: Easily the nicest member of her alliance with Russell and Stephanie. Chances are if those three were in the finals, she'd have won.

Kristina Kell

  • Alliterative Name
  • Fatal Flaw: Hating Rob so much that she overplayed by looking for the idol, never considering the possibility that this would make her an early target, or even that Rob was going to split the vote and negate the idol's advantage.
  • Genre Savvy: Why she was voted out, on top of not being a member of the Boston Rob Cult. The first thing she did upon realizing she's playing the game with Rob? Start idol hunting to make sure he doesn't get a hold of it and then try to use it to get him out as fast as possible. Needless to say, Rob wants her out first, as well as anyone aligned with her. However...
  • Negated Moment of Awesome: She fails to meet the requirements for being Dangerously Genre Savvy on account of her not realizing that Rob was going to split the vote.
  • Out-Gambitted
  • Too Clever by Half
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: If you watched the reunion episode, you probably wouldn't even know whom she was, along with everyone else voted out pre-merge sans Russell Hantz. She only even got camera time when Rob was referring to her hunting for the idol. You'd think that finding an immunity idol before the first tribal council would deserve mention, but Probst didn't even look in her general direction.


Russell Hantz

Francesca Hogi

  1. ↑ The clues were more vague and the idols were hid in less obvious locations. For some reason, Ralph manages to find the idol in plain sight, Kristina finds it in episode one, and Rob finds it in a very well hidden spot on a tree
  2. ↑ The Ometepe consist of five people younger than 30; the Zapatera have only two.
  3. ↑ There was even a deleted scene of him and his two girls stealing rice while the rest of his tribe was fishing
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