Now it’s time to look at one of the most divisive winners of all time.

Pre Merge

Ben starts on the Heroes tribe With Alan, Ashley, JP, Katrina and Chrissy. Ben immediately connects to Alan Ball. They along with the power couple of JP and Ashley make a plan to target one of Chrissy or Katrina. The Heroes suprisingly lose the first immunity challenge and go to tribal. The tribe chooses to target Katrina and she goes home. After seeing at tribal that Alan was “Confident” he links up with Chrissy after she approaches him. They became a tight duo for the time being. The Heroes won until the swap at final 15.

Ben swapped to the Yawa tribe with Lauren Rimmer, Cole, Jessica and Dr. Mike. As the only Hero on Yawa he and Lauren link up as the only non Healers on the tribe. Ben also bonded with Dr. Mike who felt like he was on the bottom of the Healers. Yawa won their way to the merge but I have to mention one of Ben’s most memorable moments. A bamboo shoot explodes near camp causing Ben’s PTSD to trigger. I mention this due to how well executed it was and it is a highlight of the season.

Merge

Ben makes the merge and links back up with his old tribe as well as the remaining Hustlers. The two tribes decide to Pagong the Healers. The alliance chose Jessica to vote out due to her being the least likely person to have an idol or have an idol played for her. Ben and Lauren were also given an offer by the Healers to join them putting him and Lauren in the middle. Ben and Lauren go with the Heroes and Hustlers alliance to vote out Jess.

After this vote, Ben wanted to target Cole due to annoying him during his time on Yawa and being the strongest person from the Healers. This was the point in the season where some people in the audience started to sour on Ben due to how he talked to Cole after Cole attempted to find the idol at the flag after Chrissy and Ryan found it. Ben berates Cole for it and essentially tells Cole to give up. This made me

ot like Ben since of course Cole is gonna try to go for the idol with his ass on the line. Cole ends up winning immunity so the focus shifted to spliting the vote between Desi and Joe. Ben overhears Joe saying that he wanted to get Ben out and that Ben swore on the Marines. Ben gets pissed and gets into an argument with him. Lauren tells Ben about her extra vote and that she needs to sacrifice her vote so the split plan will not go smoothly. Ben then goes up to Dr. Mike and tries to get him to join on the split by putting his vote on Joe. At tribal, Joe and Ben fight a bit more about their previous argument but that does not change the fact that the vote split is sucessful and causes a tie where Desi goes on the revote.

In the next round, Lauren tells Ben about her successful play and Ryan tells Ben about his idol in his pants. That is not a euphemism Ryan actually hid an idol in his pants. Ben took that info to Devon in order to weaken Ryan since Ben realised that he was a threat. Lauren beats Cole for immunity so Ben wants to split the vote between Cole and Dr. Mike. The girls were sick of Joe but Ben pushed hard for Cole and Mike. This pissed off his allies and made them question if they wanted to continue working with him. In the end, Ben got his way and Cole was voted out.

After Lauren wins a reward, she takes Ashley, Devon and Ben with her. On this reward, she creates a tight aliance between the four due to them thinking that Ryan and Chrissy have too much control. They also got letters from home and while Ben read his letter he came across his first idol. At the immunity challenge, Ben chooses to eat instead of playing and Ashley wins immunity. Devon decides to sent Ben as a double agent so Ryan and Chrissy still trust him and they new alliance can get info. The new aliance along with the Coconuts blindside JP leaving Ryan and Chrissy in the dark.

Ben continues to act as a double agent through the next vote but Ashley wants him out. The plan is to vote out Joe but Ben’s name was on the table. The aliance sticks together and votes out Joe. Chrissy figures out that Ben has played her so she denies Ben his sweet Kelly at the loved ones “challenge”. Back at camp, Lauren finds half an idol and shows Ben. Lauren gets the other half at the immunity challenge. Ben gets a little paranoid and notices how much power Lauren has so he tries to get Ryan and Chrissy to vote her out. Chrissy is still pissed at Ben so she rallies the votes agianst Ben by telling Mike who tells others. Devon warns Lauren which turns the plan agianst Ben. At tribal, Ben plays his idol and sends Lauren home with one vote.

I’m gonna glaze through these next couple of votes since the same thing happens three times. Ben finds an idol, Chrissy wins immunity, Ben plays an idol and someone else goes home. This is the part of the game Ben is infamous for since he relied purely on idols to get through the game. At one point, Ben gets an idol near his confessional spot with a sign that says dig here. This is one of the most questionable moments of Survivor and made people think they were rigging this for Ben.

At final four, Ben can no longer play idols so he has to win immunity.He fails due to an upside down U. In any season before this one, that would be the end as Devon, Ryan and Chrissy would vote him out. NOPE, we got Chrissy’s “advantage” that Ben gets another shot through the infamous fire making challenge. I’m still mad about this. Ben beats Devon and gets to the final three without any social bonds.

Endgame

At FTC, Ben is praised for his strong strategic game. I personally agree that pre Lauren vote he was playing decent but after that he had no strategy outside of finding idols. Him and Chrissy were critisized for their poor social games. Ben ends the tribal by talking about his PTSD. In the end, Ben wins by a vote of 5-2-1. I would remissed if I did not mention the 10 minute montage they gve Ben to justify his win.

Overall

This is the winner I’m least excited to see. In fact, Ben is my least favorite winner. In order to do well, he needs to dial back the king Ben stuff because that will not fly with winners and he needs a better social game.

Strategic – 6/10

Physical – 5/10

Social – 4/10

Overall – 5/10

Winner Scores

1. Wendell – 8/10

2. Nick – 7/10

3. Ben – 5/10

Next time, we will be looking at the most recent female winner, Sarah Lacina, Winer of Survivor Game Changers.

Grab your stuff and head back to camp!