Built like Atlas, seasoned in life experience and already changed career paths, Survivor Ghost Island’s Brendan Shapiro is good to go.
Rarely do you get a season where the oldest player of their gender is also arguably one of the strongest of the entire cast. It’s only in Survivor Ghost Island where you have the cast’s average age being under 30, making Brendan Shapiro stand out in more ways than one as both a parent and a natural leader among young adults. That could hurt him or harm him, depending on how he plays his cards.
Brendan may be ready to be an adaptable Survivor player if his life reflects the kind of player he can be. According to his CBS bio, he left his well-paying desk job during the recession to make his own business. Then, last year, he sold his business in order to pursue his lifelong interesting in teaching, becoming a physical education teacher near his hometown of Herndon, Virginia.
That shows a strong ability for risk assessment, personal confidence and the ability to convince his family it will work out alright (which it did). Brendan aims to bring those skills and put them to the test in Survivor Ghost Island, as he’ll need to find himself a great alliance and know when the time is right to flip the switch should things not shape up properly as the castaways dwindle down in numbers.
We already know due to early press footage that Brendan Shapiro is selected as an early tribe leader as part of a new marooning twist, meaning he was selected to the role by his fellow Malolo tribemates. He does exude the appearance of a leader, and certainly can exemplify the strength and determination that such a person should own in a game of Survivor, but easily could a person be voted out at or right before the merge due to how much of a threat level they possess.
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That could be said of any physical threat, and Brendan is a longtime fan of the show. He has been applying for 16 years, meaning he’s been following along with every story beat and knows the ins and outs of this game. He should be aware of what the physical threat winners did to further their game, and his risk assessment abilities should help guide him through to, and beyond, the merge.
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If there’s one thing that does outright concern me is that he has a hard time with people punching down. I’m sure he wasn’t a huge fan of Survivor One World, but he’s about to embark on his own Survivor Ghost Island journey; sometimes the people in charge will try to take out people at the bottom in less than appealing ways.
Since it angers him to see it, he could find himself getting into arguments or finding himself in the middle of others’ conflicts while acting as tribe leader. That kind of behavior, while personally endearing and noble, could show him choosing sides or having his name in the conversation surrounding a conflict. In Survivor, you want to blend into the background, and that’s already a hard task to accomplish when leading your tribe.
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The age factor is certainly not a complete detriment. The two oldest men of Survivor Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers made it to the finale night last season, so anything is possible. Brendan Shapiro looks like he could hold up the sky for an eternity, but perhaps he’ll settle for just 39 days.