Paschal English received 4th place in Survivor: Marquesas.
For those of you who don’t know, Paschal was recently caught having an affair with his District Attorney (he was a judge). For this entry, we are going to forget that entry and pretend it never happened. This is mainly due to the fact that it makes his cute relationship with Neleh incredibly creepy and odd.
For those of you who don’t remember, this is Paschal English. He is a judge from Georgia. He quickly developed a friendship with fellow castaway, Neleh Dennis, whom he called Sweet Pea. Their friendship lasted nearly the entire game, until day 37. On day 37, Paschal was put out of the game by one of the most controversial rules in the entire game: the Purple Rock. But we will get there, just wait.
Paschal was immediately seen as one of the nicest people to play the game. As I mentioned, he quickly developed a friendship with Neleh on the Rotu tribe. They were fairly benign at the beginning of the game. There is one story at the beginning of the game that involves Paschal. We all remember in Marquesas when Kathy peed on John Carroll’s hand in order to alleviate the pain of a sting. Well at the reunion, we all find out some interesting information about Paschal: He is a bit gun shy. Turns out that Paschal tried to pee on John’s hand but couldn’t produce. We are all happy to know that he got over this shyness eventually, just ask the District Attorney (Ok, I know I promised not to mention it, but that one was just too easy.)
One of the most entertaining things about Paschal was that he was one of the people who gave Survivor its first ever power shift. When we watched seasons 1-3, we all saw 3 Pagongings in a row (with a small exception in Africa). After the immunity challenge in episode 8, Paschal and Neleh realized that they were on the bottom of their alliance. This is because the challenge was one of those “cut the other person’s rope thrice” challenges. Well John, Zoe, Tammy, and Rob were too stupid to realize that this would reveal their entire tribe pecking order and decided to get Paschal and Neleh out right after Sean and Vecepia. It would seem that not five minutes after, Paschal and Neleh were in an alliance with Sean, Vecepia, and Kathy. They immediately took out the other four. This was a huge moment in Survivor history. Like I mentioned, this was the first time that anyone ever staged a coup against their existing alliance. (Lex did get Kelly out, but then went back to his old alliance, so I don’t count that.) I also think that it is this move that saved Survivor. After three seasons of the pecking order being incredibly easy to guess by episode 7, people needed to realize that there was such a thing as a power shift. It was exhilarating to watch for the first time, because it also gave a great underdog story. Sean and Vecepia went from positions 8 and 9, to a possibility at being in the final 2 together. Without this move, I don’t know that Survivor would have been able to survive until season 6, which is when the next big power shift happened. Thank your lucky stars that Paschal English was there to save the show.
While Paschal probably saved the show in that regard, he (actually the producers through him) almost ended it as well. I wasn’t active on message boards or anything at this time but I can only imagine the ire that ensued when Paschal pulled the dreaded purple rock.
This was the single most controversial elimination in the history of Survivor, but let’s get some background.
Paschal has just basically allowed Survivor to stay on the air. He has never gotten a single vote in the entire game, and here we are on day 37 at tribal council. There are four people left in the game: Paschal, Neleh, Kathy, and Vecepia, who has immunity. The vote is deadlocked: 2 votes for Kathy (Paschal and Neleh) and 2 votes for Neleh (Kathy and Vecepia). Neither side will budge. Jeff Probst gives them a choice: “decide between yourselves who will go home, or the three of you without immunity will pull rocks, whoever gets the purple rock will go home.” not wanting to go home themselves, they couldn’t come to a decision. They decide to pull rocks.
This leads us to the moment that I will forever hate. I love Paschal, but for some reason he was fated to be royally screwed in the butt by the Survivor producers. He pulls his rock, and jokingly claims “Oh Jeff it feels purple”. This jovial old man who has made it to day 37 without ONE SINGLE VOTE AGAINST HIM pulls the purple rock.
Well Paschal, joke’s over. You had probably the best chance of anyone to win the game (except maybe Kathy) and you blew it because the two girls pulled yellow.
I know that this doesn’t seem as if it would be entertaining for Paschal, but I feel as if Paschal is the reason that this moment is entertaining. While it was controversial and it makes me mad, I do still enjoy watching that moment because it was such a tide-turner. Yes, the rules have changed. Yes, it is for the better. But we can all remember Paschal as the only person to ever have to pull a purple rock. And for that reason, he is number 92 on this list.
Thanks to everyone for reading, please comment below if you want, I do love reading your comments. Also, check back later this week as I intend to put up 2-3 posts per week from now on. This is the first one for this week, I hope you all enjoyed.
Thanks for reading,
Jeff
Clue to #91: This person had a bit of trouble relating to their tribemates on a very fundamental level.
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