Survivor: Island of the Idols — Rob and Sandra’s Best Teachable Moments

Rumors of an all-winners’ season for Survivor Season 40 have had the fan community buzzing for months, and although we've got a full season premiering Wednesday, September 25 to go before that can come to fruition, fans  won't have to wait until the spring to see Survivor legends return to Fiji. The upcoming season, labeled Survivor: Island of the Idols, features the return of two of the franchise’s greatest players, albeit in a slightly different capacity.

Boston Rob Mariano and Sandra Diaz-Twine will join the cast for Season 39, but (luckily for them) first-time players won’t have to compete against these two titans of the game. Instead, Rob and Sandra will be living on their own beach — complete with sublimely ridiculous Easter Island-style giant busts of the pair — and providing mentorship to castaways who are sent there over the course of the game.

Based on their own Survivor experiences, what sort of curriculum can we expect in Rob and Sandra’s master class? Here are a few of their best moments, and the takeaways.

"Boston" Rob Mariano

Boston Rob’s legend looms large in Survivor lore: he’s played four times, made the finals twice (one win, one runner-up finish to his now-wife), and been the unequivocal star of every episode he’s appeared in. The man has written the book on Survivor strategy. He’s known for absolutely dominating the physical and social games, and for cannily identifying and dispatching his potential adversaries with lightning speed. He’ll likely advise contestants to take a proactive approach and maintain absolute control at all times.

So, what can we learn from his greatest Survivor acheivements?

1. Engineering the ouster of Hunter Ellis (Survivor: Marquesas)

In early seasons of Survivor, the first few contestants voted out of the game were usually booted because they were dragging the team down in some way. By this metric, Navy pilot Hunter Ellis should have been safe: he was well-liked, athletic, and a natural leader. So when Rob decided to take Hunter out at the third tribal council, it was a radical move (not to mention excellent television). Rob’s rationale: Tribe strength and survival skills were far less important than maintaining strategic control.

It’s debatable whether this move was too big too soon, as it painted Rob as a big enough threat that he was voted out at the mid-season merge, but Hunter’s ouster was probably the main reason Rob was asked back for the franchise’s first All-Star season in 2004.

The Lesson: Make big moves early and often.

2. Hitching his wagon to Amber’s star (Survivor: All-Stars)

Hard as it may be to believe now, when the Survivor: All-Stars cast was first announced in early 2004, fans pointed to two individuals as inexplicable choices. One of them was Rob -- sure, he was funny in confessionals, but he hadn’t even made it to the jury. The other was Survivor: Australia sixth-placer Amber Brkich, who was mainly remembered for playing second fiddle to the season’s big villain and her outbursts of “Oh my gawwwd” at food rewards. So when the biggest story of the season was not just that these two teamed up to dominate the game, but that they genuinely fell in love in the process, it shocked everyone.

Pairing up strategically may have been their ticket to the end (and it certainly earned Amber the million dollars), but their romance was the real narrative driving force of the season. When it culminated in a dramatic proposal just before the final vote was read, it cemented both Rob and Amber as Survivor royalty. Cynical fans viewed it as an attention grab at best and assurance he’d get the million dollars either way at worst, but over the past fifteen years, Rob and Amber have proven the doubters wrong. The Marianos have gone on to tie the knot in a televised special, competed in two seasons of The Amazing Race, and raised four daughters.

The lesson: Find your ride-or-die and never let her go.

3. “You take care of her, I’ll take care of you.” (Survivor: All-Stars)

Rob and Amber veritably dominated Survivor: All-Stars throughout the season, but one move in particular is cited as the season’s most iconic. After a somewhat hinky tribe swap separated the couple and left Amber alone on the opposing tribe with no allies, Rob appealed to the better nature of Survivor: Africa standout Lex van den Berghe. Playing upon their outside-the-game friendship, he asked Lex to spare Amber at the next vote, with assurances that he’d do the same for Lex in a later stage of the game. Lex obliged, voting out his own ally Jerri Manthey instead. Three days later, when the tribes merged and Rob and Amber were reunited, they immediately voted Lex out. To this day, it remains one of the most ruthless moves in Survivor history.

The lesson: Do whatever it takes to take care of your own.

4. Throwing an idol clue into a volcano (Survivor: Redemption Island)

It isn’t the most fun or exciting thing to watch one person run roughshod over 17 opponents, but let’s give credit where credit is due, nobody has ever controlled a game more thoroughly, or more masterfully, than Rob did on his fourth time out. After sussing out and eliminating every person on his tribe who seemed remotely like trouble, Rob forced the rest of his alliance into lock-step for the rest of the game, and not only did nobody ever make a real play to take him out, they all still believed they had a shot to beat him.

Rob’s ironclad grip on his alliance was rivaled only by his grip on information within the game. He’d locked down the Ometepe tribe’s hidden immunity idol by episode 4 of Survivor: Redemption: Island, and he spent a large chunk of the remaining pre-merge game ensuring that nobody else even knew there was an idol. When his tribe won a reward in episode 7, Rob was quick to find an idol clue hidden among the treats, and before anyone else could see it, he hurled it into a nearby active volcano, chortling to the camera the entire time. It’s not necessarily a game-changer by itself so much as a fun little moment, but it is diabolical, flashy, and emblematic of Rob’s mustache-twirling style.

The lesson: Maintain control at all times, but look cool doing it.

Sandra Diaz-Twine

Where Boston Rob is a master of control, Sandra’s game has been infinitely more flexible. Her entire approach to Survivor has been famously summed up in three words: “anyone but me.” It’s a policy that propelled her to become the only two-time winner in the franchise’s history, and it’s one that should heavily influence the lessons she imparts to these newbies. It’s often harder to pinpoint individual defining moves in Sandra’s game, especially since her attempts at making proactive moves are so often unsuccessful by traditional Survivor metrics; but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have her own pantheon of epic moments.

1. Shifting the blame (Survivor: Pearl Islands and Survivor: Game Changers)

Sandra’s Survivor: Pearl Islands game seemed to be in jeopardy the night the tribe voted out Rupert Boneham, the de facto tribe leader and one of her closest allies. On the way back to camp that night, Sandra accidentally overturned a bucket full of fish from Rupert’s final fishing excursion. When the tribe saw that the fish had been spilled, accusations flew, and rather than speaking up in defense of her last tight ally, Christa Hastie, Sandra let the tribe believe Christa had emptied the bucket out of malice. Christa was voted out two Tribal Councils later, leaving Sandra flying solo but still alive.

This move worked so well that Sandra repeated it in Season 34 when she let her tribemate Michaela Bradshaw take the blame for eating a canister of sugar left over from a tribal reward. The resulting discord bought her at least two extra tribal councils.

The lesson: As long as you’re not getting voted out, you’re still in the game.

2. Getting loud with Jonny Fairplay (Survivor: Pearl Islands)

Perhaps Sandra’s singular defining moment as a character took place in episode 3 of Pearl Islands, when she lost her temper at tribemate Jonny Fairplay during an argument over who should swim during an upcoming challenge, infamously informing him that she could “get loud too.” From this interaction, Fairplay learned he couldn’t walk all over Sandra. The two butted heads throughout the season, but Fairplay seemed to tread a little more carefully after this confrontation, and because of that, he never quite seemed to get the upper hand on Sandra.

The lesson: You can’t hide who you really are for 39 entire days, so sometimes it’s best to lean into it.

3. Managing Russell (Survivor: Heroes vs Villains)

After losing most of her allies (Boston Rob among them) early in the season, Sandra found herself playing most of Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains from the bottom, just as she had in her first time out. Her biggest nemesis during season 20 was Russell Hantz, whose incredible strategic chops were rivaled only by his deep unpleasantness as a human being. As with Jonny Fairplay before him, Sandra was the only person to entirely see Russell for the snake that he was. With no choice but to work with him until such time as she could take him out, Sandra managed to brazenly gun for Russell (occasionally telling him so, directly to his face) while still inexplicably managing to keep him from thinking she was a threat to his game. She never did manage to get rid of him, but he underestimated her at his own peril, and when he and Parvati chose to take her to the finals, she ended up beating them both.

The lesson: Never give up.

4. Turning in a brilliant jury performance (Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains)

Nearly every move Sandra tried to make throughout the course of her second Survivor stint was an unequivocal failure. Attempts to convince members of the Heroes tribe to target Russell were either ignored or thwarted. But only Sandra would have been able to spin her repeated failures into a success story. At the end of the game, Sandra carefully pointed out to the Heroes that had they listened to her, they could have been up there with her. Every Hero on the jury was still smarting from their loss, and they were so disgusted at the prospect of rewarding Russell’s game that they all cast their votes for Sandra, securing her second million-dollar prize.

The lesson: Know what your jury wants to hear.

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Jessica Liese has been writing and podcasting about TV since 2012. Follow her on Twitter at @HaymakerHattie.