I just finished watching Naked and Afraid XL recently, which is basically the Naked and Afraid formula, but super-sized in all ways. Multiple teams, lots of past challengers, and nearly twice the duration, going for 40 days instead of 21. I found the special season to be very entertaining, and it did a good job of making me buy in emotionally to particular people, and I was actively rooting for the successes of some challengers, while wishing hell and failure onto others. After all, putting two people together is vastly different than putting a larger number together; predictably, the show devolves into a lot of personal drama between challengers, and conflicting ideologies and survival strategies, and we as the viewers end up taking sides, because that’s what we do whether we want to admit it or not.
That being said, upon the final episode of the challenge (the reunion show has yet to air at the time I’m writing this, although it too will undoubtedly be a train wreck of a guilty pleasure), I felt compelled to write something of a power ranking of the challengers of the XL challenge. Some of them were no-brainers, but ultimately, it’s really a reason for me to blast the people on the show that I liked the least, as if they’re going ever read this.
From best to worst:
Jeff Zausch – Indisputably the MVP of the entire show. He withstood near-debilitating dehydration to start the challenge, overcame it, and along with EJ, forged an unbreakable chemistry and team dynamic that carried them, as well as everyone who wandered into their gravitational pull to more favorable conditions than if they were on their own. Jeff would proceed to be the finest hunter throughout the entire 40 day challenge, killing three electric eels and enduring numerous electrical shocks in the process, a stingray and several fish to acquire and provide the largest amount of protein for himself and everyone around him.
Jeff also demonstrated time and time again, the ability to be the bigger man in an environment that was cultivating drama and potentially detrimental conflicts, like when Team Weak Links caught their own stingray and didn’t share with Team Bro Show, but when Jeff caught his third electric eel, still shared his bounty with the rest of the cumulative group.
Perhaps it was his faith, or maybe he remained cognizant throughout the entire time that he, and his actions were going to be broadcast on television, but Jeff came out of the entire XL challenge looking like a badass and a saint.
EJ Snyder – Upon completion of the XL challenge, EJ becomes one of two challengers to have completed Naked and Afraid an insane three times, which is a total of 82 cumulative days spent naked in desolate parts of the planet, starving and going insane from physical challenging.
But much like his two prior appearances on the show, EJ remained tough-as-nails, but at the same time, demonstrating a lot of the personal growth he developed from his previous experiences, especially when it came to patience with others, as well as ability to work well with others without going too alpha male.
He wasn’t quite the hunter that his Bro Show brother Jeff was, but EJ was still a team-first player who maintained good relations with everyone encountered, while not compromising his personality of being loud and exuberant in the face of victory.
Laura Zerra – Along with EJ, Laura is the other Naked and Afraid veteran to have completed the show an astounding three times. Going into the show, I had pegged Laura as the strongest female member, because throughout her previous appearances on the show, she proved herself to be tough as any alpha male, and demonstrated lots of universally useful survival skills.
Admittedly, I TV crushed on Laura after her first appearance, but the best part about watching the XL challenge, is that seeing someone progress through harsh conditions throughout 40 days really showed some less than pleasant personality traits come through. It’s like dating, without having to buy a few weeks’ worth of dinners and conversations to discover them yourself. But her give-no-fucks attitude grew uglier at times, and despite her general skill superiority over all the other women, proved to be just as catty and nasty towards the member(s) branded as black sheep at times.
But she caught a stingray, several lizards with her bare hands, and the coup de grace, a fucking caiman on Day 39, when just about everyone else was at their weakest points. She’s not just the strongest females, she was one of the strongest challengers, regardless of gender.
Chris Fischer – Honestly, I don’t like putting Chris this high on the list, because especially towards the end, I thought he was one of the bigger assholes on the show, but a combination of the leadership qualities he did demonstrate, as well as the lesser-skilled demonstrations from everyone beneath him, it’s kind of by default that he ends up this high. Seriously, he looks like an asshole, so it’s never any surprise when he behaves like one, like when he gets all jealous and salty when Jeff catches an eel and rebuffs his assistance, and makes all these hypocritical remarks about sharing food. Not to mention the blatant bullying of both Honora and Dani, which ultimately led to both quitting.
However, throughout the show, Chris was a tireless worker who endured a great deal of physical exertion, and was seen doing vastly more work than a lot of his companions, both in the first half when it was him and Luke as Team Bromance, and when he merged with the girls to make Team Weak Links. He boosted morale in team exertions, and it’s safe to say that without him keeping the band in check, Team Weak Links probably would have crumbled.
Shane Lewis – To me, the lowest point of the entire show was seeing when Shane had to tap out. Sure, he had a very abrasive personality, but he never hid his intentions or motives, freely admitting to showing off a little when it was initially him and two women, and was undoubtedly a tireless worker that had the foot to the floor when he was trying to improve his survival situation, whether it’s chopping down trees, climbing up giant trees to try and get fruit, or actively hunting while his teammates sat at camp and lazed around.
It was really sad watching a guy get ganged up on and psychologically tormented by Alana and Dani initially, to the point where he decided that trying to survive alone was superior to being with toxic teammates. And although I can’t speak for all viewers, it was one of the brighter spots in the show to see how desperate and grateful Shane was when he encountered and ultimately joined up with Team Bro Show, and to see just how reinvigorated and eager he could be when paired up to guys with comparable work ethics.
Unfortunately for Shane, his time with Team C-Words had deprived his body of protein for so long, that even when massive amounts of it was acquired when Jeff killed his first electric eel, the damage was too far gone, which ultimately led to one of the more unfortunate tap outs of the show’s history.
Eva Rupert – Starting with Eva, from here on, the list is pretty much populated with the people that didn’t really do a whole hell of a lot, or at least that’s what was shown on television. Ultimately, Eva was probably shown doing more things than everyone else beneath her, which is kind of sad, because even Eva wasn’t really shown being that much more active than all the others.
But middle of the pack is pretty sufficient at describing Eva’s contributions to the show in general. She didn’t catch anything other than a few sardines here and there, found a dead squirrel that I’m still surprised didn’t have rabies or force at least two competitors off the show from some random disease.
I will give credit to Eva though, in a cast full of people who clammed up when confronted, I found it refreshing to see Eva take her angst and frustrations with Team Bro Show, and get up in their faces, and actually talk it out like civilized human beings. Granted, she couldn’t return a similar courtesy to Dani when she did the same to the rest of Team Weak Link, but it’s now how you coast through the race, it’s how you finish it.
Luke McLaughlin – The interesting thing about Luke is that I remember his episode in Nambia, where he was a very strong competitor, resourceful and very adept to living out in the wild and off the land. I would have pegged him to have been one of the stronger competitors going into the XL competition, but throughout it all, Luke just kind of floated his way through the 40 days.
Sure, he gets two assists for helping Laura secure both the stingray and caiman, but for the vast majority of the show, Luke was shown often times either laying around, living off of fruit and nuts from their first camp, and often times trying to pawn off the smart alec remark and ultimately be portrayed as the show’s comic relief. Otherwise, Luke was basically a guy with the capability to be a #1, but was content to coast and be in the middle.
Dani Beau AKA Vegan – Honestly, I don’t like Vegan. I wasn’t a fan of her episode, and I wasn’t thrilled to see that she was on the XL cast. As predicted, she was a weak component throughout the entire XL show, choosing to be lazy, exert as little physical movement at all, citing her vegetarian beliefs, and whining about contemplation of having to break her dietary boundaries.
She was almost never seen contributing to any of her teams in any real manner. But the reason I place her here, is because ultimately, Alana was the alpha bitch influencing and enabling the weak-follower Vegan into her own shitty behavior, and despite the fact that I really, really wanted to see her fail and break her vegan beliefs and eat some animal flesh, she never relented, and managed to make it out after 40 days, sans meat consumption.
Alana Barfield – Honestly, never have I ever wanted to see someone fail at the show more than I had hoped for Alana to fail during the XL challenge. I wanted to see her get shocked by an eel, or get pierced by a stingray. Perhaps contract a disease from the squirrel and have to be taken off.
Because she was without question, the most toxic and passive-aggressively detrimental person to have ever been on the show. Whether it was the way she bullied and mind-fucked Shane, rendering an extremely hard worker into a defeated shell of a man, or the way she acted like a typical C-word and talked behind Dani’s back about how useless she was, before just outright bullying her and basically telling her to go tap out.
Save for a fish she caught in the first half of the show, Alana ultimately rode the coat tails of everyone else throughout the remainder of the show, talked a metric fuckton of shit about other challengers, and somehow managed to gravy train her way to successful extraction, much to my chagrin.
Dani Julien – Ultimately, what I think did Dani in was what’s popularly being glorified on social media and news outlets of this “epidemic” known as simply being an introvert. The bottom line is that Dani is kind of a loner, which served her great at the start of the challenge, when she thought she was in it all by herself, and managed to survive a week without anyone else. It wasn’t until she joined others, and then that number grew and grew, to a point where her loner personality simply alienated her from the rest of them, resulting them to get the wrong idea, and naturally bully her instead of try to understand her.
I really wanted to see Dani relocate to the extraction point early, and just basically try to survive the remaining nine days on her own, like she had managed to survive the first seven days, but there’s only so much more someone who’s mentally defeated, can actually continue on to go, and by tapping out, Dani ends up on the lower tier of the totem pole.
Honora Bowen – The only reason Honora doesn’t sit at the very bottom of the list is simply the fact that poor Hakim was put in a place with no water to start with and had to tap out before she could. But if Jeff is the undisputed MVP of the show, and Alana is the undisputed bitch of the show, then Honora is obviously the undisputed batshit crazy person of the show.
Sure, it wasn’t necessarily right for Chris and Luke to gang up on Honora to begin with, but in all fairness, Honora was a quitter in her own episode who demonstrated some batshit crazy behaviors then (bogarting a coconut, having more nourishment than her partner but still tapped out), but she could have handled herself in vastly different ways. But to basically deliberately try and sabotage the entire game for other competitors because they’re saying things that hitting a little too hard, is going a little too far. Several times, she threw items such as blades, containers and fishing equipment into the lake, because she didn’t like the way she was being spoken too. And then she tapped out.
Based on the preview, Honora is determined to remind fans of the show that when it comes to crazy, that she’s still the queen of that list.
Hakim Isler – Personally, I like Hakim, and I liked Hakim during his own episode in India. But it’s for no other reason than the fact that he was the first guy to have to tap out, succumbing to dehydration, that he has to undoubtedly be the weakest challenger of the cast. EJ and Jeff were in the exact same boat as he was, and they went all the way.
*Alternate title: “Alana was the biggest C-word on Naked and Afraid XL”
