I’ve come to terms with the Survivor 50 cast not being everything I wanted and am legitimately fired up for the milestone season, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still hit by the occasional ping of sadness over a legend that’s not there. I got hit with one of those pings again this morning while I was watching a pregame interview with Coach, who is returning, and he confirmed a fantastic Russell Hantz story about Heroes vs Villains.
Many Survivor fans, including this one, would tell you the greatest season of all time is Heroes vs Villains. There are a lot of reasons for that, but one of the things that makes it so great is all the returnees slowly realizing the destructive power of Russell Hantz. The all-time villain was the only player in the game who everyone else hadn’t watched play since his season had just finished filming, and it took a long time for players to truly understand what they were dealing with.
Players have said before that Hantz lied to them about what happened during his season, and during a chat with Mike Bloom from Parade that was shot days prior to 50 filming, Coach confirmed the “great lie.”. He said Russell played up his alleged loyalty and said he played the game honorably but went out with dishonor after he tried to hit someone who voted him out. Here’s a portion of Coach’s quote…
I’m having flashbacks of what it was like to be at Heroes vs. Villains in Ponderosa with Russell, and we didn’t know his game. And when we met Russell, I said, ‘Why are you on the Villains tribe?’ And he was like, ‘I was honorable to my alliance. When I got voted off, I jumped out of my stool and tried to hit somebody. That’s why they put me on the Villains tribe.’
This conversation, of course, came in the context of talking about Savannah and Rizo. The 49 winner and fan favorite loser at fire are in the exact same position as Russell. They’re the only two who no one else has seen play, and it is a recurring theme in many of the pregame interviews that people consider them the biggest threats because of the uncertainty.
It’ll be interesting to see whether Savannah and Rizo come clean about their own games and what happened in Fiji, or if they’ll try to be deceptive as Russell was. Jeff Probst and the producers almost certainly won’t interfere; so, it’ll be up to the two players as to whether they want to lie or not. I suspect they’ll be truthful, as Rizo doesn’t have much to hide, and Savannah has been open about saying she needs to play a better social game on 50 if she wants to make another deep run.
Russell would certainly lie again if he had the chance, but unfortunately, Survivor doesn’t cast ‘em like Russell anymore. The show has largely moved away from such clear cut villains, and for many fans, that’s to the clear detriment of the show. Personally, I would have loved to see the schemer back, alongside other legendary villains like Abi-Maria and Jerri (who were both last minute cuts), but maybe in their absence, we’ll see one of the legends on 50 get more villainous than expected.
