An Extensive And Exhaustive Player-By-Player Preview Of ‘Survivor 50’

There's nothing quite like a returnee season of Survivor. Wednesday night's Season 50 premiere will begin the sixth season in the show's history featuring a cast entirely of returning players: 24 veterans of Survivor, split into three tribes of eight, will compete over 26 days for $1 million. From players competing in their second season—newer stars like Genevieve Mushaluk, Dee Valladares, and Q Burdette—to Cirie Fields and Ozzy Lusth, who are coming back for a record-tying fifth time, this cast is one with plenty of history and underlying drama. Season 50 promises to be a maximalist trek through Survivor lore. In the show's increasingly self-referential middle age, it could hardly be any other way: The season's subtitle is "In The Hands of The Fans," and fans voted on various elements of the game, such as whether tribes would start with rice or whether there would be final four fire-making, though crucially not on who would be playing.

We gathered Defector's jury—Luis Paez-Pumar, Kelsey McKinney, Alex Sujong Laughlin, Rachelle Hampton, Sabrina Imbler, and Normal Gossip producer Jae Towle Vieira—to preview these 24 players, explain their respective deals, and give our best guess on the question already animating a million fan debates: Can they win? The result is extremely thorough, so let's get right into it.

Jenna Lewis-Dougherty