Survivor: Cagayan Preview - Brains

Unfortunately, it was a very busy week for me personally with tests and work, and I didn't have time to get anything up on the blog. But that’s behind us, and we’re less than one week away from the season premiere of Survivor: Cagayan! It’s time to preview the Brains tribe. In the game of Survivor, brains have little to do with what you do for a living, and everything to do with how well you can maneuver your way to the end. On the Brains tribe (also known as the Luzon tribe), we have an MLB team president, a professional poker player, a nuclear engineer, an attorney, a chess expert, and an accountant. All of these professions clearly require brains in the real world, but which of these will be able to translate their smarts into Survivor? Let’s take a deeper look at the Brains tribe:

Not only do we have a former professional athlete this season, but we also have the President of the Miami Marlins, David Samson. Just a simple Google search will show you that David is worth nearly $200 million. $200 million!!! He’s been watching the show from the very first season, and says he decided one day that he was going to play Survivor. It must be nice to have that decision in your own hands. I think David could go either way in this game. He claims he is good at everything and great at nothing, which probably means he won’t be a liability in challenges or around camp. On top of that, I assume that as a fan since Survivor: Borneo, he has a pretty good understanding of the game. But will he be able to relate to the other players in this game? There are no other multi-millionaires that I know of on the Brains tribe. Poor social relationships have broken plenty of people in this game before. I think that’s going to be his biggest problem, but if he overcomes it, I think he could make it deep.

I’m going to be perfectly honest: I can’t stand Garrett. If you aren’t with me on this, read the guy's CBS.com cast bio; the guy is a douche. He’s the type of guy who has no problem telling you how great he thinks he is, how much he parties, how much time he spends in the gym, etc. On top of all this, he likens himself to the “perfect Survivor player” without having even played a day in the game. He spent over 2,000 hours preparing himself for Survivor, which I assume is his way of saying he watched every episode over a six-month period. On paper, Garrett has what it takes to win this game. He’s obviously very strong, in fact given the make-up of this tribe he’ll probably be relied on physically, and he is at least smart enough to be considered a “Brain”. But like David, how is he going to relate to the other people on his tribe, especially when he can’t seem to stop talking about himself? He just seems way too cocky to me, and like Jeff Probst said in his cast assessment video, I think he’ll come off as disingenuous. On the bright side, if he gets voted out, he can do all the partying he wants at Ponderosa.

J’Tia is the perfect example of the phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover”. On the surface, you might think J’Tia was meant to be on the Beauty tribe (she actually was even a model at one point in her life). But when you dig a little deeper and find out that J’Tia is a nuclear engineer, there’s no doubt she’s qualified to be on the Brain tribe. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see J’Tia make it far in this game. First of all, she was given a gift from casting in Tasha. I think there’s a good chance that those two will end up aligned with each other, and in a tribe of just six, a pair can be so dangerous. Essentially, to eliminate a pair in a tribe of six, every other player in the tribe has to be against that pair in order to get one of them out. We saw in Survivor: All-Stars just how dangerous this can be. On top of this, I think she has both the smarts and the social skills to work her way into a good position in this game. Picking her as a winner might be a bit of a stretch, but it’s definitely not something that can be completely ruled out.

In one of the season previews for Survivor: Cagayan, Kass makes it clear that she wants people to underestimate her. So I assume she’ll have no problem with me saying that she is clearly the weakest member of the Brains tribe physically, and perhaps the weakest in the entire game. Without a doubt, this is going to be her biggest hurdle in the game. If she ends up costing her tribe a challenge, she could lose her spot in the game for that alone. Her second biggest hurdle is that she is just plain boring. But if she can fly under the radar and survive a few rounds, she could very easily make it very deep. The key for players like Kass is just to make it to the merge, where she’ll be an asset for her physical shortcomings rather than a liability, and then make a move to win the game. I assume she knows this; otherwise I would question her placement on the Brain tribe in the first place.

If it weren’t for Garrett, I would’ve taken this time to talk about how snobby, delusional, and entitled Spencer is. But I dislike Garrett so much that I’m actually rooting for Spencer, who I also don’t like, to blindside Garrett and make him look like a fool in doing so. Spencer is the “super fan” of this season (he even titles himself as “the John Cochran that doesn’t suck” in his CBS.com cast bio). His knowledge of the game will likely be unmatched, but Spencer is far too arrogant and it will be his comeuppance in this game. I have no doubt he’ll have his fair share of witty moments and one-liners in his confessionals, and he may even be able to take control of an alliance. But he’s far too overconfident and I have no doubt he’s a blindside waiting to happen. Jeff Probst even went so far as to say that Spencer has a zero percent chance of winning this game. Probst may have been a little offended after Spencer insulted his man-crush in Cochran, but the number doesn’t seem that far off. Fortunately for Spencer, he won’t be targeted as the only “Brain” on his tribe like he might have in a normal season, and that could help him gain some footing in this game.

Tasha is one of two former NFL cheerleaders this season. After watching her pre-game interview (below), I assumed Tasha was somewhere between 24 and 29 years old. When I read her bio, I was shocked to find out she was 37 years old. She has a great youthful exuberance about her, and I think her spirit alone will allow her to stick around. She’s also been a fan of the game since the very first season. As I mentioned with J’Tia, casting did her a great favor by sticking her on a tribe with another African-American female. Assuming they don’t hate each other right off the bat, that’s an instant alliance for the two of them, and it should allow both of them to survive early votes if the Brains find their way to tribal council. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Tasha made it far in the game. But would other people let such a likeable person such as Tasha make it to the end? Kim Spradlin took this risk with Sabrina in Survivor: One World, but it’s rare.

FINAL THOUGHTS: If you asked me before I saw the cast whether Brains, Brawn, or Beauty stood the best chance of winning Survivor, I would have answered Brains without hesitating. To be fair, it’s very rare that a winner of Survivor would only fit into one of these three categories. But after analyzing this tribe, I think the Brains may have the worst chance of bringing home the title of “Sole Survivor” among the three tribes. I don’t think they’re a physically weak tribe as a whole, and in challenges with three tribes all they have to do is not lose. I could imagine scenarios where every single one of them makes the merge, but I can also see scenarios where each of them gets voted out early. It’s hard for me to imagine any of them winning the game. Either J’Tia or Tasha are probably the best bets to do so, but who else really has a realistic shot?  If they come into the merge with most of their tribe intact, there will be huge targets on all of their backs as “Brains”. The best case scenario for a Brain to win this game might be to go into the merge with only two or three left, thus removing the targets off their backs, similar to how Malcolm and Denise found their way to the merge in Survivor: Philippines. From there, they can use their smarts to maneuver their way to the end.

As always, feel free to leave any questions or feedback in the comments section below. Thanks for reading.