You know what? Fuck it. I could go with an easy Mia cut, but 20% of my all-time bottom 10 is still here as we are approaching the top 500, and I AM NOT GOING TO BE NOT HEARD HERE. So I am going to use a wildcard on someone who I previously nominated (which, per precedent from SR2, is allowed). But which one will it be??????
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You’re welcome, Wilbur.
512. Stephanie Valencia (Survivor: Redemption Island, 14th place)
I weighed my options on whether to wildcard Rocky or Stephanie here. Ultimately, while I do think I dislike them both roughly equally, I do at the very least understand why Rocky has a fanbase and why people might see his role in the season as a positive one. Plus, I don't think he's currently being protected by a web of deals that will guarantee him to fall outside of the bottom 100, while Stephanie does (and I realize that also makes her more likely to be idol'd, but I'd rather waste the wildcard knowing I did everything I could possibly do to get her out as quickly as possible). So here we stand.
At some point in 2011, the Survivor gods said to each other "hey, you know that Jacare guy? Let's genetically modify a Survivor character to ensure that he hates them as much as humanly possible and see what happens.” The result? Stephanie Valencia.
Stephanie combines everything I can't stand in a character. She's whiny. She's entitled. She’s delusional. She gives Russell Hantz more verbal blowjobs than the editors of Samoa. She spews the "play the game" bullshit that I covered in my Krista writeup. She has the most annoying voice of anyone who has ever been cast. She's a tryhard. She’s petty. She’s vindictive. And the list goes on and on.
So two of the most notorious villains that the show has ever seen are inexplicably brought back to compete on the 22nd season of Survivor, one of which is an infamous bandy-legged little troll who was known for latching onto “dumb” young girls and handily destroying them on his deathmarch to becoming the greatest player ever. Now in late 2010, we were somewhat relieved from the peak of Russellmania thanks to his poor performance in the HvV postmerge and making a fool of himself at the HvV reunion, and full season without him on it. Which is cool, because if you were there at the time you remember how crazy it was with the arguments that there was a flaw in the game thanks to this troll’s inability to win it. The fanbase was splintered in a way it never really recovered from, we were basically told to forget about the first 18 seasons of Survivor and how it was played, and the editing styles would never be what they used to be… but the last we saw of Russell was people like Rupert and Colby and even Jeff Probst calling him out on his bullshit. Yay!
But then this happened.
On day 1, Stephanie immediately shits on all of the progress that we made over those months by talking Russell up more than Russell himself. She gives confessionals about how she NEEDS to align with him because he’s the only one who knows what he’s doing, as opposed to… you know, actually trying to integrate with her tribe and form bonds. She spends the next several episodes talking about how amazing Russell is, how he’s so smart (no), works hard around camp (nope), is one of the best players to ever play the game (uh-uh), etc. She comes up with a ton of plans to try to save herself and her alliance, none of which include… you know, trying to get along with her tribemates and contribute to the team and be a decent human being. She talks up making the BIGGEST BLINDSIDE EVAR!!! in a completely forced, unnecessarily obnoxious way. Predictably, her plans fail miserably, and even when Russell is out of the game, she talks him up so much and insists that he’s going to come back and they’re going to take over the game, and it just sucks. She proceeds to say she’s going to get revenge, and that a storm is a comin’… only to do absolutely nothing productive.
I covered a lot of the rest of her post-Russell story in my Krista writeup, so describing it here would be pretty redundant, but it’s just awful. She criticizes all of her tribemates despite doing jack shit around camp, leading her tribe to a loss as the caller in the blindfold challenge, constantly belittling Sarita who was at least smart enough to know that 6 > 3, and aligns with David fucking Murphy. That should tell you everything you need to know right there.
And on top of all of this, she's presented as being in the right! Redemption Island is the story of how Rob and his minions took revenge on the Zapatera 6 who had the audacity to get rid of Survivor legend Russell Hantz. So when Stephanie starts the awful "play the game” bullshit at the other players for not helping her get out of a situation that was ENTIRELY HER FAULT, it's just absolutely infuriating, since the show portrays it as “wow, Zapatera fell apart after they got rid of Russell, Krista and Stephanie! Looks like they really were the only smart ones all along!”
She just... sucks. In every way imaginable. Thank the lord she wasn’t brought back for Cambodia. I checked out her campaign video again, and she spends the first half talking about Russell again and the second half talking about how she’s funny (no), less naive (nah), wants to make BIG MOVES (bleh), and that if you don’t for her, the season will be boring (…alright Stephanie, I’ll give you that one).
If you took Eliza Orlins and stripped away all of her likability and replaced it with a humorless, tryhard personality, sprinkled on the awful PLAY THE GAME bullshit despite being a terrible player whose poor position in the game was entirely her fault, threw in some “RUSSELL HANTZ IS JESUS” shit from 2009, and topped it off with the most annoying voice anyone has ever had on the show, you'd get Stephanie Valencia. She should’ve been cast for Big Brother, and even there would’ve been absolutely terrible. She might not be my least favorite character in the history of this show, but she’s definitely my pick for most annoying, with Phillip as the only real competition.
I can’t in good justice risk letting a character I hate this much get any higher when the pool is mostly just filled with bores, even if she ends up being idol'd.
In summary: I am wildcarding you. You are so misguided and so rude.
The nomination pool remains as Allie, Laura A, Brenda 2.0, Cecilia, Mia, Linda, and Brook.
