Survivor: Tocantins was the 18th season and aired in 2009. What were some of the most memorable moments?
Survivor was in the best stretch of its history and that continued on with Survivor: Tocantins.
Part of why Tocantins is so highly regarded amongst the diehard fans is that it has a lot of the older season nostalgia. There are only 16 contestants in Tocantins, unlike the previous two seasons, and there weren’t a whole lot of shenanigans throughout the season.
The first thing we’ll start with when covering why Tocantins was such a hit is…
Great Cast
The reason Tocantins holds up so well isn’t because of the drama, the twists, or anything like that. When all else fails, a good cast can carry a season pretty far and Tocantins is proof of that.
From winner J.T. Thomas to runner-up Stephen Fishbach to crazy Coach Wade to hysterical Tyson Apostol to lovable fallen angel Taj Johnson-George, even to witty third place finisher Erinn Lobdell, Tocantins was filled with terrific characters who made the season highly entertaining.
First Impressions
Tocantins started off with a bang, with both tribes having to vote off who they perceived to be the weakest member of their team. This came with no prior conversations between any of them and they literally had to go off of first impressions, hence the title of the twist.
Jalapao picked Sandy Burgin because of her age while Timbira selected Sierra Reed because she had been sick in the days leading up to the start of the game.
Fortunately, neither woman was eliminated from the game, but instead, they received a helicopter ride to their camp while the rest of their tribe had to hike there in the sweltering heat while carrying all of their supplies. The two also had an opportunity to search for a Hidden Immunity Idol, as they received a clue when they arrived to their camp.
First Impressions would be used again in Blood vs Water and Cagayan, with the Blood vs Water version resulting in the two selected by their respective teams landing on Redemption Island. Tocantins used the twist in the best way.
Exile Island Alliance
Exile Island returned for the first time since Micronesia and had a twist along with it – The winner still picked someone from the losing tribe to go to Exile Island, but the twist was that whoever was chosen got to pick someone from the winning tribe to join them.
Brendan Synnott and Taj were the first two to go to Exile and that was where the Exile Alliance was born. It was the greatest alliance in Survivor history to never vote together at one single tribal council.
No, really, the Exile Alliance was a heavy focal point of the pre-merge stage, but it was all for naught, as Brendan was blindsided at the beginning of the merge. It was supposed to consist of him and Sierra from Timbira and then Taj and Stephen from Jalapao, but it never came to be.
For something that took up so much air time, you’d never have guessed that the Exile Alliance would have fizzled as quickly as it did, but that’s exactly what happened.
Coach
I have to give Coach his own segment on here. He might not have been everyone’s cup of tea, but boy was the guy entertaining or what? Also, as much as I like the Tocantins cast – even to this day – the season would have been a snoozer without Coach and his Dragon Slayer comments.
My favorite Coach moment came at the first individual reward challenge. Everyone was throwing balls underhand at tiles and trying to break them. Erinn accused one team (they were split into three teams of three) of being stacked to which Brendan pointed out what everyone was doing and how no one had ever done this before.
Coach’s response of “I have” gets me every single time.
I also love the moment when Erinn says in her confessional “Who is this jackass?” referring to Coach. It’s golden and one of my favorite confessionals ever in Survivor history.
J.T.’s Brilliant Win
J.T. played Survivor‘s perfect game. What is a perfect game, you ask?
Well, it’s when you get every jury vote at the end while also never receiving a vote cast against you throughout the course of the game. Earl Cole almost had one in Fiji, but one person did vote for him earlier in the season.
J.T. managed to get the Timbira alliance to fall in love with his Southern charm and as a result, what was a 6-3 Timbira advantage at the merge, turned into the Jalapao three making it to the top four. J.T. managed to win immunity when he needed it the most and he formed the social bonds needed to get him to the end and for people not to recognize he was a huge threat until it was too late.
Unfortunately for J.T., every time he returned, his legacy dropped, but I’ll always consider his win in Tocantins to be one of the best wins in Survivor history.
Oh and in case you were wondering, there have only been two true perfect games in the United States version of Survivor – J.T.’s in Tocantins and John Cochran’s in Caramoan.
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Since Tocantins, we’ve seen Tyson go on to win Blood vs Water and Coach land as the runner-up in South Pacific (and had he just owned up to his game, he’d likely have won), so I wasn’t lying when I said it gave us some legends.
What were your favorite moments from Survivor: Tocantins?