Survivor: Game Changers Cast Assessment: Caleb Reynolds

Kaoh Rong alumnus Caleb Reynolds is among the players returning to Survivor: Game Changers. How might he do, and what sorts of alliances can he form?

Survivor has a tradition of bringing back players who could have gone further in the game, but had their time cut short by medical evacuation. In fact, it even specifically brought back three medevaced players for Survivor: Philippines. (You could say it was a second chance before Second Chance.) We say all this because Game Changers will bring back yet another medevaced player in Caleb Reynolds.

Caleb’s first game took place during Kaoh Rong. However, he ended up leaving the game after experiencing severe heatstroke. In fact, he told People after the fact that he only responded once in 20 minutes. As he said, though, he’d been giving “110 percent” during the challenge, and he usually gave at least that much in each challenge. In fact, the Survivor wiki (an unofficial resource) even notes that he has never been to Tribal Council, such was his strength.

That means that we can’t necessarily assess his strategic game. He didn’t need to have one. However, he did have a pretty good social game all around, most notably seen in his friendship with Tai. Here’s the video (via Survivor Fever on YouTube), including commentary from fellow members of the Beauty Tribe.

Now, CBS has already confirmed that Caleb and Tai have a chance to rekindle their bromance. However — and you might want to look away here if you don’t want any spoilers — the two may very well be on opposite tribes, according to rumors. Caleb may be alone on an island with a lot of experienced players.

However, if his physical prowess hasn’t lessened, he becomes an asset in the pre-merge to whatever tribe he’s on. Since they’ll be in Fiji, there’s far less of a chance that he’ll need to deal with the extreme elements that took him out of the game last time.

Additionally, he has a pretty good social game, since he was able to make friends with someone as different as Tai, as noted by pretty much everyone else on the Beauty Tribe. That friendliness might help him slide into an alliance. At the same time, we can’t see him necessarily leading one, not with all of the other strong strategic personalities on the show.

Even his time on Big Brother, according to that show’s unofficial wiki, saw him fall to the bottom of his alliance. However, he seemed to have grown up some on Kaoh Rong, and he has actually gotten married in the interim.

Right now, we think Caleb could easily make it through to the merge based on his physical game. He could also become a target based on his already-established ties to Tai, though, even if the two aren’t on the same tribe to start. He could work together with other physical players in order to protect each other — Ozzy might be a natural fit for that, and Tony wouldn’t make a bad choice either.

Next: 6 Seasons to Watch to Prepare for Game Changers

Survivor: Game Changers premieres Mar. 8.