Stranded In Mongolia
SEASON 5
(November 8th, 2008 – December 7th, 2008)
Stranded in Mongolia is the fifth season of Stranded and features the most evil twist to date. On the very first night of the game, tribes were asked to vote for a new tribe leader, or Khan, that would be immune until the merge. Unknown to the tribes, the Khan’s would have to earn their Khan status each round by completing a mission set to pit them against their tribes. On Oronar, the tribe chose Lindsey as their Khan, while on Tumat, Hunter got the title. When Lindsey had to miss the first challenge, the Khan task was considered a fail. Teresa quickly volunteered to take her position and in doing so began the most diabolical reign of Terror in Stranded history. Their first task was to throw the challenge by not responding for at least an hour. The two Khans were immediately hated by their tribemates. Hunter decided to make the best of his situation by making decisions to minimize his target and help his tribe as much as possible. Teresa, on the other hand, saw Kelly make a comment about her in the second Immunity Challenge. From that point forward, she vowed to throw every single Immunity Challenge and guarantee that her tribe would go home one by one as she sat Immune. She reveled in punishing her tribe mates with each Khan task. Round by round of her throwing every challenge for her tribe and them going to council after council culminated in a final mission that turned the tables on the Khans. In order to keep their Khan status and Immunity that went along with it for the final round before the merge, they had to agree to give up their ability to win any indiviudal immunity challenge in the merge. When Teresa refused, she was immediately vulnerable. She began targetting the weakest member of the tribe in an attempt to save herself. Ethan, who may be the sweetest most genuine person to ever compete in Stranded, found a Hidden Immunity Idol and also bought one of the most far fetched lies in Stranded history. Unaware that Hidden Immunity Idols could not be used before the merge, Teresa bluffed Ethan into thinking she too had a Hidden Immunity Idol. She told him that if he were to give her his Hidden Immunity Idol than the trust between them both would double their idols and they would each have two Hidden Immunity Idols. In one of the most surprising decisions to date, Ethan bought her lie and gave her his Hidden Immunity Idol. When she found out that she could not play it before the merge, she decided to return the idol to Ethan before being voted out unanimously by her tribemates.
While it had already been one of the most entertaining seasons to date, the merge would solidify it as the most entertaining season of Stranded ever. While Oronar had gone to every council and seemed to be down in numbers, they had a leg up on the competition by sharpening their strategic skills. In particular, Jessie and Carl had one of the most unique friendships in Stranded history and became one of the first and most epic frienemies the series has seen. From day one of working together, they wanted to get one each other out and took every opportunity to cut the other down, unfortunately it never made sense for them to get the other out. Stranded in Mongolia brought us the incredible story of a merge with 5 Oronar members to 6 remaining Tumat members. It seemed like the Oronar members were toast until they convinced Paschal to flip sides and another member of Tumat did not vote. Tammy became the first person voted off followed quickly by Paschal, Neleh and Hunter. The 5 remaining Oronar members consisted of Jessie, Ethan, Carl, Silas and Kelly, leaving Kathy and Rob as the two remaining Tumat members on the outskirts. From the very beginning Jessie and Carl were closest allies but the worst of enemies. They were Stranded’s first pair of frienemies. They would trust eachother implicitly, yet were constantly looking to stab eachother in the back. It wasn’t until now that such an opportunity was to arise. The plan was to unanimously vote off Kathy as they had been doing since the merger (picking off the Tumat’s one by one). However Carl and Jessie saw this as a golden opportunity to finally get rid of one another. Carl planned to take Silas, Rob and Kathy and vote off Kelly, one of Jessie’s close allies. He Rob and Silas all voted against Kelly. What he didn’t know was that Jessie had also been plotting to take out his alliance when she, Kathy, Ethan and Kelly all teamed up and successfully voted off Silas, Carl’s right hand man. Carl was not a threat to Jessie since he gave up his right to participate in Immunity Challenges when he became Khaan. At the next vote, Carl pulled a Janu saving Rob from certain elimination. He quit the game and became the 6th member of the jury. Rob went on to win the next two Immunity Challenges making Kathy and Jessie the next two boots. In the end it was a tie vote for both Ethan and Rob and Kelly broke the tie giving Rob the title of last person Stranded in Mongolia. Stranded in Mongolia will always have a special place in Stranded as the best season ever.