Survivor: Marquesas

Survivor: Marquesas is the fourth season of the American CBS competitive reality television series Survivor. The season filmed from November 12, 2001, to December 20, 2001, and premiered on February 28, 2002. Hosted by Jeff Probst, it featured sixteen new contestants competing for 39 days on the island of Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia.

Promoted as "Survivor's going back to the beach," this installment of the series had originally been planned to be filmed on the Arabian Peninsula in the deserts of Jordan's Wadi Rum. However, less than two months before filming was to begin, as a result of the September 11 attacks and the political situation in the Middle East, this plan was abandoned and production was moved to Nuku Hiva.

36-year-old office manager Vecepia Towery was named Sole Survivor after defeating 21-year-old college student Neleh Dennis by a jury vote of 4–3, becoming the first African-American contestant to ever win the game. Several changes to the Survivor format were introduced this season, including each tribe beginning the game with no supply of food or water, the ability for a contestant who wins individual immunity to transfer it to another contestant, as well as the controversial "purple rock" tie-breaker, in which, rather than counting votes cast at previous tribal councils, the eliminated contestant is decided by a random draw in the case of a tie vote.

Contestants
The contestants were divided into two tribes: Maraamu and Rotu (Tahitian words for 'south wind' and 'heavy rain', respectively). They later merged into the Soliantu tribe (a word created by competitors Kathy-Vavrick O'Brien and "Boston Rob" Mariano which they intended to mean "Sacred Allegiance to the Sun").



Future appearances
Kathy Vavrick-O'Brien and Rob Mariano competed again in ''Survivor: All-Stars. Mariano later participated for three more seasons: Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, Survivor: Redemption Island, and Survivor: Winners at War''. These appearances made him the first castaway to play five seasons of Survivor. He also appeared on Survivor: Island of the Idols serving as a mentor alongside Sandra Diaz-Twine.

Outside of Survivor, Mariano competed on The Amazing Race 7 with his fiancée and fellow Survivor alumna Amber Brkich. The couple, now married, returned for The Amazing Race All-Stars. In 2024, Mariano competed on Deal or No Deal Island.

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 wisen 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 came into effect as everyone (save for the immune Vecepia) would reach into a bag and pull out a colored rock, with the purple rock meaning elimination. Paschal drew the purple rock, resulting in his elimination despite having no votes cast against him throughout the 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, both Vecepia and Neleh were lambasted for hiding behind religion while still backstabbing the jurors. However, Paschal praised both finalists. Neleh was praised for her honesty and close strategic and personal bond with Paschal, but also criticized for not starting to play the game until day 24. Vecepia was praised for her under-the-radar strategic and social game despite being in the minority, but criticized for using religion to betray Kathy the night before. Ultimately, Vecepia was awarded the title of Sole Survivor in a 4–3 vote due to playing from day 1-39.


 * In the case of multiple tribes or castaways who win reward or immunity, they are listed in order of finish, or alphabetically where it was a team effort; where one castaway won and invited others, the invitees are in brackets.

Voting history

 * Notes

Reception
The season was ultimately met with mixed to negative reception, primarily due to the cast being seen as fairly forgettable, and the final two 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." Winner Vecepia Towery was not contacted about appearing on the show's all-winner season, despite being one of only 14 female winners, as well as her status as the show's first African-American winner. 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, ranking it 17th out of 40 and 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." "The Purple Rock Podcast" ranked Marquesas 27th out of 40, 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. In 2015, a poll by Rob Has a Podcast ranked Marquesas 18th out of 30 with Rob Cesternino ranking this season 21st. This was updated in 2021 during Cesternino's podcast, Survivor All-Time Top 40 Rankings, ranking 22nd out of 40. In 2020, Inside Survivor ranked this season 9th out of 40 saying that it "is a season that deserves more respect. Not only does it have some incredible characters and hilarious moments, but it’s an important, game-changing season."

A small increase in the average number of viewers was observed for the season compared to the prior season, Survivor: Africa.

Purple rock tie-breaker
Paschal's elimination at the final four sparked controversy in the game of Survivor. 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 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 where they should have been immune, which in theory would have eliminated Paschal by default. 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 as there were four contestants remaining. 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.

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, 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 ten resulted in Jessica Lewis being eliminated after drawing the sole black rock (with the other rocks being white). Probst stated in an interview during Blood vs. Water that the tiebreaker has been used so scarcely that they did not take the consistency of the colors into account.

Rob Mariano
During his time on the show, then-25-year-old contestant Rob Mariano made several homophobic and misogynistic remarks about fellow contestants, even going so far as to out one competitor as a gay man. According to Mariano, 35-year-old fishing boat captain Zoe Zanidakis, whom he deemed insufficiently feminine, was "the toughest guy on the island." In reference to 36-year-old registered nurse John Carroll, a gay man, Mariano stated, "When I first saw John I thought he was a big-time queer... I won't be sleeping next to him tonight." Also in reference to Carroll, he said, "We have eight guys and one girl on the island. I think her name is John."

After an argument about voting strategy, Mariano asked Carroll "Are you gay dude?" to which Carroll responded "Hey, don't ask me that...Yeah I am." He expressed discomfort over the public outing later in an on-camera interview: "It was very passive aggressive... a throwaway comment... thanks for outing me."

Nevertheless, Mariano would frequently be invited to participate in subsequent CBS productions throughout the years that followed, eventually winning the million-dollar prize on his fourth Survivor appearance and later going on to be featured as a "mentor" and "Survivor icon" in the show's thirty-ninth season. Shortly after he was eliminated on the show, Mariano addressed the incident in an interview, saying "I actually talked to him right after I outed him on the show. The reason I asked him if he was gay wasn’t to bring him out on national TV; it was to see if he would be honest with me." Neither Mariano, Survivor, nor CBS have ever since publicly addressed the comments or apologized for his behavior on the show.