Survivor Marquesas: Most memorable moments from season 4

Purple Rock

See, I told you Marquesas introduced a lot of big things in the series! The purple rock was indeed introduced in season 4, and that was the only season where it was a purple rock. Now it’s either black or white.

Leading into Marquesas, the producers were still trying to figure out how to handle tiebreakers. Seasons 2 and 3 saw past votes come into play and that resulted in several players having their torches snuffed. Season 4 wiped out the whole “past votes” thing and instead, came up with a new concept.

How it’d work is that the contestants who didn’t receive votes would revote and if things were still deadlocked, everyone would deliberate and try to come to a consensus. If they couldn’t do that, everyone remaining who didn’t have immunity would be forced to draw rocks.

In season 4, this tiebreaker didn’t come into play until the final four.

Paschal and Neleh voted for Kathy while Kathy and Vecepia sent votes toward Neleh. No one was willing to change their vote, so that meant everyone except Vecepia would be drawing rocks. A yellow rock meant the player was safe and a purple rock meant that player was going home.

Well, Paschal drew the purple rock and was voted out despite never having received a vote. As unfair as this was, the rock draw forces players to consider if they’re REALLY content with leaving their game in fate’s hands. Do you want to put your game on the line when you don’t necessarily have to?

The rock draw went away for quite some time, but we saw it resurface in the first Blood vs. Water season where Cierra, Katie, and Tyson drew rocks (with Katie going home) and again in Millennials vs. Gen X with poor Jessica drawing the black rock.

Newer fans might not know that this twist originated in season 4, but it did, and at the time, it was quite the outrage.