Survivor All-Time Top 40 Rankings | #19: Cook Islands

[@fable23]

I love how Taran is like Rob's podcast-son.

[@michellemcbride1780]

The same polite enthusiasm from each of them!

[@HoneyMooseyFace]

I love a wicked long podcast! It gets me through the work day. You guys were great and Taran, as always, you rocked it!

[@worthplayingfor2197]

Taran did such a good job with this podcast!

[@robcostigan8757]

Hats to Mr. Armstrong. Excellent radio voice, Taran.

[@worthplayingfor2197]

I loved the extended length of the podcast. I don't listen to BB podcasts but Taran did such a good here that I get why he podcasts so much

[@michellemcbride1780]

I just rematched the season and this was such a great podcast to find. These guys were great!

[@jacksonturrentine8444]

Great podcast, thanks guys!

[@shamankaangel-heart7509]

loved the podcast, entertainment for over four hours and brought back memeories of watching with the depth and detail ..thanks x

[@christina-rc2hq]

i agree so much w/ what Mari said about Ozzy's edit. I remember the 1st time I watched cook islands being so confused about what penner said at the FTC, but then Micronesia and other future seasons came and I was like oh that makes sense.

[@TheMurrmursonbottle]

There’s hints of it in the premerge. He starts to be a bit condescending on his first tribe to the women, but after the mutiny he had to be edited positively to A) make it look like Yul had competition (which he did, Ozzy did almost win) and B) make Aitu look like badass, completely rootable underdogs because that’s literally the only storyline the season had and if Ozzy looked bad then the viewers can’t be engaged

[@stone5048]

Rewatched Cook Islands this week and 19 is almost spot on imo. It’s never bad and never transcendent. Half the characters or so are absolutely fantastic. The other half, particularly people voted off in like the 16-10th place range, are forgettable which could just be editing flaws since you can’t tell every story. Yul’s game was great and played the God Idol perfectly using it as tool. In my memory of the season I don’t remember Yul and Ozzy being so close given the following 15 years where you don’t associate them together anymore.

[@TheGamerGirl2330]

I forgot to fill out the Survey for this one too as I was expecting Rob to post the survey and not Taran (didn't know Rob was moving) so here are my answers MVP-Yul Underrated-Jenny (yes, I liked Jenny) Best Pre-Merge Boot-Cao Boi Who should play again?-Nate or Cao Boi Who?-Cecilia The season is ranked too low I really liked this season when it originally aired (it is on my rewatch list) Yul I would rank at 10, 11, or 12 and I would still vote SJDS as the next season in the countdown!

[@ILoveRealityTV6]

Cook Islands is an underrated season! Definitely a top 10 for me.. And yay to Koah Rong and San Juan for squeaking by another week!

[@jmoney2196]

I had this season ranked #13. This season for me had a fantastic cast and some very interesting moments, and it all accumulated to probably the closest final vote in all of Survivor. I love how the best strategist in Yul ended up beating the challenge beast in Ozzy in such a vote where honestly I would've awarded either one of them the win. Ozzy basically does one better on Terry Deitz from the previous season in the way that he performed in individual challenges. Plus, Jonathan, Candice, Parvati, and Nate were great to watch. I also wonderfully enjoyed Cao Boi while he was around in the pre-merge. Personally, I thought the pre-merge wasn't the most exciting, but once the mutiny happens, the underdog story just completely takes off. It all culminates into a fantastic post-merge episode where Yul and Jonathan's strategic relationship was the main reason for the tables turning on Raro. It is a bit of a pagoning in the merge, but everyone still plays hard the whole time so it's actually enjoyable. I know a lot of people aren't the biggest fan of how the tribes were divided, but in my opinion, it helped express just how diverse the cast was, especially since this will likely be the formula for casting in future seasons. Plus, I felt like if they were ever going to divide the tribes like that, it's a good thing they did it in an earlier season. I will say the hidden immunity idol was a bit overpowered this season since it basically gave Yul an extra life for the entire game, but I loved how he used it to persuade Jonathan at the merge. Overall, I think this season is fantastic with lots of solid moments, and the story definitely makes it worth a watch.

[@Miumiu0404]

I kinda wish you guys had a 4 panel of white, black, Asian and Hispanic. It would be so interesting to hear perspectives from the 4 ethnicities that this season had divided. lol

[@lucasm.thomas5976]

One of my absolute favorite seasons. Picked it to rewatch first out of all the seasons. Yul was incredible!

[@jonaskinsey8746]

Great group of people!

[@analiesedodd]

After rewatching this season again, I have serious questions about why Candice is on the heroes tribe. The Aitu 4 are the heroes of the story and she’s clearly the villain after the mutiny. I’m really curious what the thinking was to even consider putting her on the heroes tribe (I know she was a late addition but still) even though I like her later games a lot more.

[@NnifWald]

Candice was originally supposed to be on the Villains tribe, with Parvati on the heroes tribe. Production realized it was probably not the best idea to have Parvati start on the same tribe as Amanda and Cirie, so they switched her and Candice last-minute.

[@ILoveRealityTV6]

Her spot should've gone to Vacepia..

[@darriusbethea2373]

Honestly half the heroes tribe lowkey weren’t heroes. Sugar Candice, Stephanie, James, and Cirie. Where either villains or didn’t fit either category such as Cirie.

[@NnifWald]

@@darriusbethea2373 I'm pretty sure they just cast a 20-person returnee season before they came up with the theme

[@codypagels1598]

Also, Black Widow Parvati was a Villain, Casaya member Danielle was a Villain, but Black Widow Casaya member Cirie was a Hero.

[@rosuttorosutto8719]

Great season! Love that San Juan ‘del dur’ has made it through another week!

[@cameronholmes5590]

Personally this is my favorite season, I think this is very low for Cook Islands but I can kinda see why people would have it so low. Yul is my favorite winner of all time and his game and win I think gets underappreciated sometimes because of the bottle twist and the idol that could be used after all the votes were read but the bottle twist is not his fault that's out of his control in my opinion

[@casterotthomas2118]

Congrats Taran ! You nailed it !

[@nickolauskalisek7303]

Cook Islands is in my top 5 of my favorite seasons

[@loganroy3381]

So many candidates for the Who's that person. My guess is that Latino woman who was on the Ozzy-Yul-tribe at one point (Cecilia? Not the cop, whatever her name is). A very top heavy cast and not a lot of exciting moments make for a dull rewatch. On the first watch, the season is solid.

[@Vhstape-le4mr]

17 members of the cast were from New York, California or Washington DC. Three weren’t

[@BaGurpaGurpa]

Great podcast episode. Taran was great. Cook Islands is one of my favorites, despite the cringe twist. Was rooting against Candice and Adam, Penner grew on me over the course of the season, Yul might be my favorite winner. I have never liked Ozzy, personally, because his throwing the challenge to boot Billy really rubbed me the wrong way. Always thought he was kinda full of himself. Incredible competitor, though.

[@poverty9696]

I LOVE THE POVERTY PRAISE

[@aleclee139]

Do we get my boy @peridiam on any of these recaps?

[@vCraazy]

The guys videos are great, but I dont think hes rhap podcast ready, at least judging by his Survivor Specialists appearances.

[@TheMurrmursonbottle]

@@vCraazy I think if he went out of his way to do a rewatch of a season he really enjoyed he’d be great talking about it. I’m sure any of us could talk for hours about our favorite seasons

[@brockbattistuzzi7466]

lol I'm with Mari and matt, i really didn't like Palau though how Taran felt about Palau is also how I felt about Cook Islands

[@soldaten-norbert8520]

How cute is Matt?

[@jennyk885]

I'm very interested to see how high Amazon lands. Won't surprise me the RHAP community has it placing at 8-10. I had it at 17 on my rankings.

[@mihkelhint]

I would expect it to be #4 after HvV, PI and Cagayan. For me it is at #2 after PI. It not getting ranked as one of the very top seasons is somewhat of a recent take I've seen in the fandom. I remember back around season ~24 or so when I still listed me favorite seasons and read lists from others in places like Sucks etc, Amazon was almost universally ranked #3 after HvV and PI. I last re-watched it about 3-4 years ago having it somewhere 4-6 range prior, and I enjoyed it even way more than I expected.

[@markdean2524]

" OH nay say them" 🤣

[@TheMurrmursonbottle]

I think Cook Islands should be a bit lower, like 25-30. I recently rewatched it and when I compare it to other lower ranked seasons like Gabon, Guatemala or Vanuatu it really doesn’t excite me. It feels like the entire premerge cast is completely forgettable (except for Cao Boi of course). While watching the season I was interested in people like Jenny and Christina but then immediately forgot them because the characters and subplots absolutely do not hold up compared to any other season - yes that’s absolutely the fault of the editing, but that still damages the season for me. I don’t know if we got any personal content from any of these players. I actually felt myself rooting for Candice this time as opposed to Aitu because Becky and Sundra do NOTHING, Ozzy is a douche, and Yul is completely carried by the flawed and broken idol. The show wants you to root for Aitu because they were outnumbered early on, but I can’t do that when they just bore me. I didnt really care about the casting twist, Fiji did it better since it wasn’t a gimmick but I don’t really think it should be a huge controversy. I also find Yul to be a lot less impressive than I remembered him, since he threatens Penner with the idol and has to do almost nothing else the entire game other than argue with the white people a couple times. I don’t know, Cook Islands is stale to me, but I’m okay if that’s a little unpopular

[@RyokoAsakuraLastFan]

Supposedly Nate was on the short list for All Stars 2 before it became Fans vs Favorites

[@andysuarez07]

For Vecepia and Earl's wins you had full panels of African American panellists but no Asian background for the first Asian winner? Especially with the recent issues the Asian communities across the world are facing, I thought you'd do better

[@ericMT]

Survivor got so lucky with this twist. It could have gone much, much worse. Fortunately some great players took the focus off the racial element and it became a non-issue after a few episodes.

[@mpeluzzo66]

I believe Candice was suppose to take Parvati's spot on Micronesia but because of med school she couldn't do it

[@iddiolgames]

Personal: Palau

[@Vhstape-le4mr]

The final 9 are all from California and one from dc

[@brittanylundrigan783]

Are you still doing post game interviews for bb can ??

[@mattviggiano]

My podcadt has been ROB'D and not in a good way. Miss my guy cesternino. But these guys definitely held it down well and I always love my rhap. I hope the move is going okay rob! Sending you my patience and energy.

[@worthplayingfor2197]

cook islands is like a bottom 10 season imo

[@mpeluzzo66]

Candice is my favorite contestant of all time