Among the very passionate fans of the franchise, Survivor: Marquesas has a reputation as being an excellent season. Outside of that demographic, I often hear it talked about like a throw-away season of Survivor. People know that it acts as the origin story for one Boston Rob but otherwise don’t remember Marquesas for anything of importance. As someone who loves the olden days of Survivor that kind of thinking is crazy to me.

The firing squad squaring up on Marquesas haters.

If any old season can lay claim to having changed the game of Survivor the most, it has to be Marquesas. Up until that point, our three winners had come from majority alliances who ended up grabbing the numbers advantage and never letting it go. While the show was still seeing major viewership, there was a definite fatigue factor in play by Survivor: Africa. People were tired of watching a predictable outcome that could be seen weeks before it played out.

Survivor: Marquesas changed all of that. For the first time, the minority and the people on the bottom rung of an alliance decided they weren’t okay with just going out without a fight. This was in large part due to the coconut chop reward challenge in which the Rotu 4 showed their very definite pecking order but it woke up the masses. Were twitter around back then everybody would be tweeting about Paschal and Neleh’s “wokeness”.

Yaaaaas queen! Slay!

As they sat there seeing Sean Rector, then Vecepia Towery, then themselves and Kathy, it became very obvious. If that wasn’t enough, the obviousness with which the Rotu 4 celebrated their reward challenge win when they got back to camp was like the hammer hitting them over the head. It was enough to spark some motivation to organize an overthrow and both Sean and Vecepia were more than ready to lend a hand.

Even as a stand-alone moment, John Carroll’s ouster is an amazing television moment. One minute, he’s on top of the world, heading towards and fairly easy victory. As the leader of the Rotus, he was on a Richard Hatch trajectory with nothing in his way to stop him. Except for his own arrogance. As the votes came down on him, John’s cocky grin turned into a sour expression and then tears as he realizes he is suddenly out of the game he thought he ruled. The moment is best capped off by Sean’s voting confessional,

You thought you had me, didn’t you John? Well let me give you a little advice. If you ever go to Vegas, always bet on black.

As an aside, it’s absolutely criminal that Sean has not been brought back to play Survivor. For all the charm Boston Rob puts on display in Marquesas, I would argue that Sean matches and even surpasses him. He also lasts a lot longer in the game and gets a lot more time to really flesh out his character. Sean is a forgotten legend of the early days and should have been included in Survivor: All-Stars, probably instead of Boston Rob. The time has probably passed for a return but I will continue to hold hope.

My face when Candice plays three times and Sean has never been brought back.

So Marquesas is important for its overthrow, the first of its kind in the franchise. That isn’t the only noteworthy impact the season has had on the game. In the early days of the pre-merge, Marquesas also has one of the first blindsides that really changed how people could approach the pre-merge.

It’s funny considering his pretty fair image as a challenge beast in the present day but Boston Rob’s original Maraamu tribe was brutal at challenges. They were the first tribe to really be showcased as the tribe that really can’t do anything right and could really be seen as the proto-Ulong in a lot of ways. For a tribe that struggled so much in challenges, you would think tribe strength would factor in a major way when they decided who to vote out.

Well with Boston Rob on your tribe, it’s often going to go the way he wants it to go, challenge prowess be damned. From the very start of the game, Rob did not get along with his tribe’s de facto leader, alpha male Hunter Ellis. Hunter was a capable player but an excellent survivalist. He worked hard at camp and always gave it his all in challenges. Hunter is basically the template for the early Survivor work horse who would rather just play a straight-up honest game and work hard than try to strategize his way to the top.

Like an older Colby without the brains. Or personality.

As we know now, Boston Rob does not exactly play that way. Sure, he may be a good competitor too and he will try to play physical if you need him to do so but Rob would rather beat you with his brain. So with Hunter being full of hubris and leading a tribe going nowhere, Rob decided when Maraamu lost its third straight immunity that they no longer needed him. In that moment, Hunter became the inaugural leadership figure to be sent home before the merge.

It was an important moment in the show’s history because it showed that no position was safe. Yes, being a challenge liability was still bad but being the tribe’s figurehead was also no longer a desirable position. If you took up too much of the spotlight, you were giving your tribe a reason to vote you out before you became too big of a threat. Hunter’s exit is also great because he is so bitter with his parting words,

I really don’t understand the logic behind it (the vote) right now but…hey…you got me. I was camping with a bunch of knuckle-heads and I will tell that to your face when I see you again. I will phone the Red Cross and let them know where you guys are so that you can be airlifted out of there after you die of starvation and dehydration after the next couple of days.

Say what you will about Boston Rob but at the very least, I will always appreciate him for engineering this blindside and giving us a bitter Hunter.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Finally, it’s also worth noting the season’s winner and how different she was in comparison to the previous winners. A lot of that is because of how the coconut chop challenge played out. The minute a dominant alliance was defeated for the first time, we were going to get an unconventional winner and Vecepia was definitely different than her predecessors.

Of course, physically speaking, Vecepia is the franchise’s first visible minority to win the show. That it happened in its 4th season is pretty fast. As a player, Vecepia was masterful socially. She was quick to jump ship on sinking alliances and always found opportunities to ally with where the power lied. In a lot of ways, Vecepia was the original Sandra Diaz-Twine and knowing that Sandra is a superfan who had seen every season prior to hers, I wouldn’t be shocked to find out Vecepia was her inspiration.

Like Sean, Vecepia is another player from Marquesas who deserves to be brought back. I believe she was pregnant during ASS and has since never really been talked about. Sandra’s rise to prominence definitely hurt Vecepia’s chances of a return simply because they are so similar and Sandra provides better sound bites. Still, if she is open to a second season, Vecepia is definitely someone producers should go talk to.

While it may not be remembered by the majority of Survivor fans, Marquesas holds a special place in my heart and I know that I am not alone in saying this. It was the birth of Survivor modern strategy and it helped save the franchise. In the same way the shot clock ended up saving the NBA, having a season where a majority didn’t cruise to the end injected a shot of interest into Survivor. Had the fall of the Rotu 4 not happened, I’m not sure how much longer the show stays on the air, especially because it was immediately followed by Survivor: Thailand and Brian Heidik strong-arming his way to a dominant victory.

Whenever you’re next thinking about re-watching a season, place Marquesas at the top of your list. You won’t regret it.