Here's a kid who practiced Survivor's puzzles on a 3D printer at home, then crushed the tree puzzle on the merge beach to win his team safety. That's Carson Garrett in one image — an engineering student so deep in the lore he was building his own idol replicas in the sand. He wasn't just a fanboy collecting trivia, either: he was one of the cursed Tika 3, the underdogs off a beach that couldn't win a challenge, and he rode it all the way to the final four with two individual immunities of his own.
The Tika 3 made their run on Danny — and it was Carolyn's idol that kept Carson alive long enough to be there. At the final seven she finally pulled the idol she'd guarded for weeks and played it on Carson, wiping out the votes against him so they landed on Danny instead. He fought to the very end and lost the only way left to lose: at the final four, Heidi Lagares-Greenblatt took her shot at immunity, chose to make fire herself, and lit a record-fast flame to beat him head to head. Carson went out fourth, one step short of the final three that crowned his Tika brother Yam Yam 7-1 — about as easy a player to root for as the new era has produced.
