Survivor season 35 cast: Joe Mena familiar with high-risk situations

Survivor: Healers vs. Heroes vs. Hustlers castaway Joe Mena deals with high-risk situations daily, creating an apparent natural fit in the game.

Few games offer the levels of risk that Survivor does innately. Recently in Kaoh Rong, we saw an excess of medical evacuations due to the conditions — and that’s just one season. There is a long list of physical injuries taking players out of the game. That’s also just where the risks start, though. When you factor in the risk of every social move made over a potential 39 days, facing tricky situations is unavoidable.

Joe Mena, a member of the Healers tribe for season 35, Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, should be well-versed in how to deal with those risks.

A probation officer from Bronx, NY, Joe isn’t just a guy dealing with people who’ve been arrested for low-level crimes. Instead, he’s tasked daily with overseeing and interacting with those labeled high-risk. And as he tells it, his role with this type of clientele isn’t exactly healing. Instead, it’s more or less about trying to managing these people and tempering emotions and situations that could lead to bad results:

Mena’s ability to deal with this type of person seems absolutely pivotal to his chances on Survivor. As we’ve discussed multiple times on Surviving Tribal, the game is more about the social aspect than perhaps ever before. And while Joe appears able to perform well physically — outside of swimming, which he just taught himself how to do to come play the game — his ability to maneuver through the various people and personalities on the show with him is more critical to his chances.

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Full disclosure, I watched his CBS cast video before reading anything else about Joe. And the immediate vibe that I got from him was that he could be very similar to Cagayan winner and Game Changers castaway Tony Vlachos. No, it wasn’t just the accent — it was the confidence he exudes and the inexplicable charm in everything he says.

So it was interesting to then look at his introduction interview on CBS and see which past Survivor players he would compare himself to:

"Tony Vlachos’ understanding of how to manipulate others, Mike Holloway’s “ball to the walls” attitude, and Jeremy Collins’ ability to stay true to himself."

Apparently even Joe thinks that he has a little bit of Tony vibes going for him. And while Tony, Mike and Jeremy are all winners of previous seasons, there’s something slightly concerning about Mena approaching the game thinking he’s like or attempting to be like those guys.

Particularly in the cases of Tony and Mike, their games are nigh impossible to replicate. Both men were seemingly on the verge of getting voted out for the majority of their seasons, but found ways to work their way into staying all the way until they were being awarded $1 million. However, with fans of the show having seen that and with the inherent risk in that strategy to begin with, that might not be the smartest approach for Joe to take.

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Then again, maybe Joe Mena does have that special quality that Tony, Mike and Jeremy had. His charisma is undeniable and, if he’s as smooth as a manipulator as he says he is, he could certainly come close to mimicking that style. That’s the riskiest strategy he could use, but as we said, he’s pretty accustomed to dealing with high-risk situations already.

Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers premieres on Wednesday, Sept. 27 at 8:00 p.m. ET on CBS.