James Clement (China)
Last China entry on my list, I decided to include James for a number of reasons. From the way he threw Mark Burnett's black guy stereotypes out the window, by actually being the hardest worker on his tribe to his great one-liners, James was truly larger than life. He was hands down the biggest character until he left and gave mastermind Todd and snarky Courtney a run for their money in the entertainment departement. He was like the Rupert equivalent of China, but more, you know, tolerable. Even though he lost a lot of points with people after making one of the dumbest moves ever in this game, he immiately won me back by owning up to his stupidity and holding absolutely no grudes. We can count on our fingers the number of people who left with such class and dignity after getting completely screwed over.
Helen Glover (Thailand)
One season later after the huge popularity of Kathy, Helen seemed to have mimicked her entire story arch all over again. She started out as an overbearing loudmouth that immidiately got her ostracized from the rest of her tribe, then decided to settle down, sneak her way into a power position and by the end she was immensly respected by the jury, extremely popular with the viewers and pegged to win the whole thing. But what really won me over with Helen is that she was human. She had faults just like us, she was strong, but also had weaknesses and she went through a wide array of emotions. There were no hidden agenda with her, she was real and what you saw was what you got. Keeping in mind that this was a mind-numbing season, she was definitely a breath of fresh air and her attitude after getting voted off, though bitter and juvenile, is still memorable to this day. However I'm still puzzled that she chose to sit out in the snorkling challenge. That's always going to bug me....


















