The order in which players left the game and the impact they left behind:
- Ronnie (Lairo) First voted out, a victim of the original core alliance that would come to dominate the season.
- Molly (Vokai) In hindsight the first victim of the Dan fiasco.
- Vince (Lairo) A victim of the nonsensical gimmick of the season, bringing back Boston Rob and Sandra for a secluded island visit to give somewhat helpful insight into the game and opportunities that more often than not were fairly pointless and only served to mislead their hapless visitors.
- Chelsea (Lairo) Breaking up a potential threat to the greater alliance. This idiotic tribe didn't seem to realize it kept losing challenges regardless of their voting. But don't worry, they'd definitely realize it later!
- Tom (Lairo) A victim of a tribal swap. At this point Dean's ability to survive ought to have become apparent to someone.
- Jason (Vokai) Left out of the convoluted voting strategies that dominated the season.
- Jack (Vokai) For a guy who idolized Greg from the first season, I wanted the edit to give him a chance to bring that kind of spirit back to Survivor, but his big moment ended up being a complicated racial moment with Jamal that they both learned from, which ended up being overshadowed by a far more complex and less easily-resolved fiasco. But more on that in a moment...
- Kellee (Vokai) Yeah, so plenty has already been made of how and why she left the season. Survivor became more talked about this season than it has in ages, thanks to how this situation played out, both during the course of the season itself and how fans reacted to it. I almost quit watching Survivor after the Jeff Varner incident (believing, as I still do, that Jeff deserved a better response, which in hindsight could've easily played out the way the Jack/Jamal incident did, but would never have the way this fiasco did), but on the whole, this thing resolved itself the only way it could. Eventually, the producers pulled Dan from the game. But what Kellee, and those around her really proved, was that the game can sometimes get out of control. Players can forget that there are real people and real experiences happening around them that have nothing to do with the game. But more on that later.
- Jamal (Vokai) I think this guy was one of the rare cool heads of reason in a game that often doesn't really have one. Unfortunately, this was a season that played more to Lairo numbers than strategy or logic, so he had to settle for that teachable moment with Jack.
- Aaron (Lairo) I honestly thought much better of this guy after seeing his response to the Dan fiasco, but as a player, he was easily manipulating the vast Lairo numbers for no conceivable reason except this was just not a good strategic season, as evidenced by a mastermind who only wished he was cleverly operating behind the scenes being easily eliminated well before the end of the season.
- Missy (Lairo) I was back and forth on her all season, but eventually her basic character was revealed by the Dan fiasco as she willingly attempted to use it to her advantage with no thought about how it affected people not voting with her. I'm not a fan of players who will do anything to have their best chance at winning. Too often it means they end up with no chance at winning, and the only one who doesn't realize that is them.
- Elizabeth (Lairo) The Olympic swimmer and other "benefactor" of the Dan fiasco. Given that Missy was more obviously constantly maneuvering, I'll give Elizabeth the benefit of the doubt and assume she didn't realize what she was doing. But in hindsight, she probably feels like an idiot, and she should.
- Karishma (Lairo) Nobody scrambled like she did this season, and the only reason she couldn't go further is because at least as of this experience she doesn't really that she really only stands in her own way. A textbook example of talking more to the camera than her tribemates.
- Elaine (Lairo) I liked her a lot more than I ended up by the time she left, because her scrambling looked a lot less decent, a product of an insecurity she tries to overcompensate for when she's really moved well past it. A would-be Rupert.
- Dan (Vokai) A prime example of the kind of support a bad alliance will willingly take, just because he adds to the numbers. But as long as his behavior didn't bother them. Ejected, first ever in twenty years. Deserves the dubious distinction, especially after having been warned since the first episode. Highly unlikely he's any better in real life. Highly likely he won't be able to get away with it anymore.
- Janet (Vokai) A perfect example of that good person that sometimes appears in the game who ends up sacrificing their future prospects on general principle. Fans like to complain about some of the "oily" early winners like Brian or even Rich, but this was a season that put them to shame.
- Lauren (Vokai) It's difficult to separate her from the worst aspects of the season, as she was perfectly willing to go along with a bad numbers alliance, and survived as an act of attrition because none of them was actually worth anything.
- Noura (Vokai) A person who lacks any real sense of reality except apparently when she has her sister around. All her ideas of empowerment are actually the things standing in her way. Literally made it to the finals because she had no shot at winning.
- Dean (Lairo) The real winner of the season, survived an awful original tribe and kept finding advantages and even using them (which is theoretically the new game play the season was meant to highlight), and came up short because, I assume, he was too aggressive in promoting himself at the final tribal council. There were players in past seasons (like Amanda! twice!) who would've earned a lot more votes if they'd been half as aggressive as Dean was in defending his record. But what he failed to emphasize was that it wasn't just the advantages he had to tout, but his ability to exist at the bottom of a tribe and an alliance that dominated the entire season and make it to the end anyway, not because no one thought he could beat them, but because no one saw what a threat he really was. I have to assume there were a lot of jurors kicking themselves, watching this season play back.
- Tommy (Vokai) Won basically because he joined the big idiot alliance and they voted for him just because he had been a part of it.
