Survivor: Marquesas

Future appearances

Kathy Vavrick-O'Brien and Rob Mariano competed again in Survivor: All-Stars, where they placed 8th and 2nd respectively. Mariano competed on The Amazing Race 7 with his fiancée and fellow Survivor alumna Amber Brkich, placing 2nd; the couple, now married, returned for The Amazing Race 11, where they placed 8th.

Mariano would appear again to participate in the twentieth season Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, where he placed 13th; he was later invited for the fourth time to participate in the twenty-second season Survivor: Redemption Island, which he won.

Season summary

The sixteen contestants were divided into two preselected tribes of eight, Rotu and Maraamu. The Rotu tribe prospered as a unified, hard-working group, while the Maraamu tribe quickly became divided between those who worked, led by Hunter, and those who didn't, led by Rob. Rob's faction dominated the votes, resulting in Maraamu losing every single challenge. On day 10, a random tribe shuffle sent Rob and his allies Sean and Vecepia to Rotu, while Paschal, Neleh, and Kathy joined Maraamu. While Rob seemed like an easy choice to eliminate, original Rotu member John aligned with fellow original Rotu members Tammy, Robert, and Zoe to eliminate Gabriel, the fifth remaining original Rotu member, for being strategically apathetic.

The tribes merged with ten players remaining: seven original Rotu and three original Maraamu. Rob attempted to align with Kathy, Paschal, and Neleh to overthrow John's alliance, but was unsuccessful and consequently eliminated. However, Paschal and Neleh later wisened up to their inferior positions within the Rotu alliance, aligning with Vecepia, Sean, and Kathy to take control of the game, systematically voting off John and his allies.

With only the five remaining, Kathy found herself caught between the two pairs of Neleh and Paschal, and Vecepia and Sean. She aligned with the former to eliminate Sean, but Vecepia won immunity at the final four. Knowing Paschal and Neleh would not vote for each other, Kathy publicly approached Vecepia at Tribal Council about aligning and taking each other to the final Tribal Council. Vecepia agreed to the deal, and they agreed to both vote for Neleh that night. With the vote being tied and deadlocked for the first time, the new rules for breaking a tie-breaker came into effect as everyone, save for the immune Vecepia, would reach into a bag and pull out a colored rock, with whomever drew the purple rock being eliminated, resulting in Paschal's elimination despite having received no votes cast against him throughout the entire game. At the final Immunity Challenge, Vecepia went back on her deal with Kathy, agreeing to let Neleh win immunity in exchange that Neleh would vote off Kathy. Neleh agreed and Kathy became the final member of the jury.

At the final Tribal Council, Neleh and Vecepia were both lambasted for hiding behind religion while simultaneously lying and backstabbing. Neleh met criticism from John and his alliance whom she had turned her back on, and was accused of riding coattails and not playing the game until very late. Vecepia was condemned for constantly flip-flopping between alliances and was met with heavy disdain for betraying Kathy after publicly aligning with her. However, the jury decided to award Vecepia for playing under the radar, her incredible social game, and strategically shifting allegiances, in a vote of 4-3.

Reception

The season has ultimately met a negative reception, primarily due to the cast being seen as fairly forgettable, and the final two and winner Vecepia Towery being perceived as having poor gameplay. However, the use of the Purple Rock tiebreaker has been one of the most polarizing moments in Survivor history, with critics divided on whether or not it was an unfair solution to a tie, or if it made for entertaining television. Host Jeff Probst was not fond of this season, ranking it his second-to-least favorite (as of season 19). Probst stated, "Dramatically, I just felt like Marquesas never got any momentum, and by the time you got to the final two with Neleh and Vecepia — I'm sleeping." He also said that the environment in Marquesas was the most brutally unpleasant in the show's history due to the biting no-no flies. However, Survivor columnist Dalton Ross of Entertainment Weekly gave this season a positive review, calling it, "an underrated season that saw the first totem pole shake-up: where people on the bottom got together to overthrow those on the top. Yes, it was a weak final two, but it also had a woman peeing on a guy's hand. Plus: Purple rock!!!" The exit of John Carroll is widely considered to be the foundation of modern Survivor strategy by columnists and fans alike. Joe Reid of The Wire ranked it among the bottom 10, at #19, in 2014, saying that Rob had "a comparatively ignominious debut" despite his future reputation, called John "a preening dyngus," and said that "Vecepia backing into a victory because she didn't piss anyone off was anti-climactic." Fansite "The Purple Rock Podcast" also ranked Marquesas in the bottom 10 at #20, saying that although the season "gets bonus points" for featuring the Purple Rock, the season "sort of limps to the finish line" in its storytelling and character narratives. Former Survivor contestant and reality TV podcaster Rob Cesternino also ranked it in the bottom 10 at #21, while a corresponding poll on his website saw it rank just outside the bottom 10 at #18.

Purple Rock controversy

Paschal's elimination at the final four sparked controversy in the game of Survivor. In the first tribal council of episode thirteen, Neleh and Kathy each received two votes while Vecepia had won individual immunity. In previous tie situations, where a re-vote did not determine a single contestant to be eliminated, votes from past tribal councils were used, and the contestant with the most prior votes was eliminated. This tiebreaker was retired after Survivor: Africa, and as Neleh and Kathy had the same number of votes cast against them at previous tribal councils, it would not have been able to break the tie even if it was still in use. Starting in Marquesas, if the tribe could not reach a unanimous decision as to who should be voted off within an allotted time, contestants who did not have immunity would pull different colored rocks from a sack. Whoever chose the odd-colored rock (in this case, purple) would be eliminated. The official rules of this tiebreaker also state that the contestants receiving the most votes (in this situation, Kathy and Neleh) also become immune. However, at this tribal council, Neleh and Kathy were also forced to choose rocks, when according to the rules they should have been immune, which in theory would have automatically eliminated Paschal. Though Paschal chose the purple rock and was eliminated anyway, it is speculated that the fire-making challenge (which would involve only Neleh and Kathy) should have been used in this case and that production was in error by using the rock drawing tiebreaker. This theory was supported by host Jeff Probst, when he later admitted that using the purple rock tiebreaker was a mistake at this point in the game, because the formula behind it was impossible to apply fairly with only four players left.

No further tribal council ties occurred on the show until six seasons later in Palau, which had several tie votes. The first two ties were resolved by a re-vote, while the other two had to be resolved by a fire-making dual (the first occurred when the Ulong tribe had only two members left and thus a tie vote was the only possible outcome, and the other occurred with the final four contestants). However, due to Paschal's elimination at the hands of the purple rock, future castaways that took part in the show between the Marquesas and Palau seasons believed that drawing rocks was the tiebreaker for all situations, including the final four. As a result, many contestants would change alliances late in the game in order to avoid another tie and another chance of drawing the purple rock. For example, in All-Stars, Jenna Lewis voted against her ally Rupert Boneham at the final four to avoid what she thought would be the purple rock tiebreaker.

Other than Palau, there have been five other seasons (Panama, Cook Islands, Gabon, Worlds Apart and Kaoh Rong) where the tie votes were all settled with a fire-making challenge, all of which were broken when only four contestants remained in the game. In Survivor: Micronesia, it was theorized by Cirie Fields that the purple rock draw is the tiebreaker for all deadlocked votes, except in the final four when the fire-making challenge is used instead. In Survivor: Samoa and Survivor: South Pacific, it was stated numerous times that in the event of a deadlock tie, the rock tiebreaker would be used, thus confirming Fields's theory.

Following Marquesas, the drawing of rocks to break a tie would not occur again for more than eleven years, when in the twenty-seventh season, Survivor: Blood vs. Water. After a tied-vote at the Final 6 round, Katie Collins drew the odd-colored rock at the final six tribal council and went to Redemption Island (as the twist was in play). The odd-colored rock in this draw was white while the others were black. The rock draw also appeared in the thirty-third season, Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X. A tied-vote at the Final 10 resulted in Jessica Lewis being eliminated after drawing the sole black rock. Probst stating in an interview that the tiebreaker had been used so scarcely that they did not take consistency of the colors into account.