2013 SOTF-TV Seasons

Season Twenty-Seven

Dates: February 2013

Winner: Agustin Olivera (four kills)
Runner Up: Claire Dubuisson (four kills)
Third Place: Kelly Dershowitz (one kill)

Location: The Cupid's Point Resort in the Poconos Mountains in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Notable Participants:

• Agustin Olivera (winner, four kills): A scruffy and heavyset Argentine football player, Agustin rose to prominence on the first day for winning a fight against Vladimir Sirotovsky by biting the boy's neck. He later became a minor member of The Band. Agustin's fighting style and penchant for nocturnal combat prompted fans to nickname him "The Werewolf."
• Claire Dubuisson (runner-up, four kills): A punkish junior with who stylized herself as a "knight," killing players with her assigned broadsword. She was best friends with Vladimir, whose death she attempted to avenge in endgame.
• Charlotte Plaskett (eighth place, five kills): The graduating class's valedictorian, Charlotte rose to prominence as an accomplished sniper, though many complained that her kills were boring to watch.
• Davy Cotton (ninth place, five kills): The captain of the robotics club, junior Davy Cotton was the showier of Season Twenty-Seven's top two players. He used the game as an opportunity to get back at his bullies, often tying them up before executing them.
• Terrence Soto (thirteenth place, nine kills): A quiet boy who spent the majority of the game camped out in the hotel's basement, Terrence attained brief prominence and infamy when a miscalculation of his cost the majority of the remaining cast their lives.
• "The Band:" Lisette Lemieux (twentieth place, two kills), Hakim Thompson (twenty-first place, one kill), Catherine Louder (twenty-second place, no kills), and Tobias Vang (twenty-eighth place, one kill): The Band was an escape group primarily formed of students from the matching band—hence its name—led by the hubristic Hakim Thompson. The group was mainly known for its inefficiency, drama, and messy disintegration. The season's eventual winner stuck with the Band for most of the game, although he was only kept around as muscle.
• Vladimir Sirotovsky (forty-fifth place, no kills) - A squirrelly and unassuming junior, Vladimir was mostly known for his messy death on the first day. His gothic attire and pale skin combined unfortunately with his own name to make him reminiscent of a vampire, inspiring his killer's nickname.

Summary: Season Twenty-Seven involved fifty juniors and seniors from Castor Gardens High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The students were taken from class on Valentine's Day, which became the season's defining gimmick. Fittingly, the season took place at Cupid's Point, a swingers resort in the Poconos Mountains that was closed and abandoned in 2009 due to declining profits; the resort was purchased from a bankruptcy liquidation by the producers. The area included a hotel and surrounding villas, a nightclub, a pool and spa area, a recreation center, and a golf course.

The first day of the season saw seven deaths. Highlights included Charlotte Plaskett shooting Jodi Michaels from a third story window, and the diminutive Davy Cotton picking a fight with and managing to incapacitate football player Kyle Matheson with a blow to the knee before shooting the boy with his own assigned gun.

The biggest highlight of Day One, however, came in the evening. A senior football player named Agustin Olivera encountered junior Vladimir Sirotovsky in the upper levels of the hotel. Agustin wasn't looking for trouble, but a panicked Vladimir accidentally fired his gun at the other boy, sparking a fight. The senior managed to disarm his trigger-happy classmate, but that only increased the boy's panic. Since neither were equipped with weapons, they resorted to using their fists.

Their conflict was long and drawn out, with numerous blows exchanged. While Agustin was physically stronger, Vladimir gained the advantage by kicking the older boy in the groin, and proceeded to crawl on top to strangle him. Agustin clawed at his opponent's face and stunned him, then bit his throat in a moment of desperation, piercing his carotid artery. Vladimir was immediately incapacitated, and Agustin turned the tables and beat him to death. As the adrenaline wore off, Agustin realized what he'd done, and he took off into the night. He quickly became a fan favorite for his ferociousness, and fans dubbed him "The Werewolf" since he was hirsute, wore a sweatshirt from NC State (known for its mascot, The Wolfpack), and had seemed nonviolent until the sun went down.

A further seven contestants perished on the second day, keeping up the steady pace set on Day One. Charlotte and Davy each scored their second kills. Davy drew particular attention by torturing the junior class president, Monisola Oyeyemi, who he had apparently held a serious grudge against from school. Another participant who rose to prominence was Claire Dubuisson. Claire decided to strike back at the active players, and found her first success when she used a broadsword to skewer a boy who had killed her friend earlier in the day. Hoping to garner attention from the show's fanbase, she styled herself as a knight, looking to deliver justice.

Elsewhere, Agustin stumbled upon a group of students. They were initially terrified by Agustin's bloodied clothes and the tale of his killing spun by the announcements, but sensing his remorse, their leader, Hakim Thompson, saw an opportunity. They were forming an escape group, Hakim said, and Agustin could join them if he provided protection. Agustin had a slight crush on Hakim, and unbeknownst to him the other boy was fully aware of this. Using the fact to his advantage, Hakim winked and made some suggestive comments, and Agustin was soon swayed him to Hakim's side.

The four students Agustin joined, dubbed "The Band" by fans, filled him in on their plans. Inspired by "The Escape Artists" from last season, Hakim was sure that the key to escape lay in electrocuting their collars. However, the group had yet to find an appropriate tool to carry out their plan with. Agustin acted as a bodyguard as they scoured the resort, to no avail. They retired to their hideout in the villas when night fell, where Agustin shared a villa with a girl named Catherine Louder. While Catherine was initially cautious around her companion, she warmed up to him as Agustin told her about the fight and explained his regrets over killing Vladimir.

However, Agustin was unaware that there was major drama underlying the rest of the group's interactions. The four other members had been part of the school marching band, and all but Catherine were seniors. Lisette Lemieux and Tobias Vang were a couple, and Tobias was Hakim's best friend and friendly rival. Unbeknownst to Tobias, however, Hakim harbored an intense crush on Lisette. Finding himself in a life-or-death situation, Hakim decided it was time to act on his feelings.

That night, Hakim and Lisette snuck out of the villas as the other slept, Hakim claiming that there were pressing matters they needed to discuss. He ended up confessing his feelings, though Lisette didn't completely reciprocate them. She'd crushed on both boys throughout high school, but she was loyal to Tobias. After some bickering, the pair agreed not to bring this up again and turned in for the night.

Their search continued the next morning, though it was equally fruitless. Tobias was getting impatient and proposed that they try another plan, but Hakim was determined to try electrocution first. While Tobias made legitimate arguments, Hakim mostly rebutted him out of spite, fueled by Lisette's rejection.

The Band's big break came that afternoon, when they encountered Colin Stapleton, whose assigned weapon was a stun gun. However, he was accompanied by Claire Dubuisson, who had saved him by nearly decapitating his would-be killer. Claire had been friends with Vladimir before the game, and was immediately wary when she spotted Agustin. The Band tried to coax the weapon out of Colin, but Claire told him to refuse, asking the group why they were harboring a murderer. Catherine and Hakim stuck up for Agustin, and a long-winded argument broke out.

An impatient Tobias, eager to get the stun gun just to prove Hakim wrong, took matters into his own hands. He raised his pistol and shot Colin in the chest, killing him. Enraged, Claire charged at the Band, though Agustin stepped forward and pushed her off. Realizing she was outnumbered, a furious Claire backed off.

Instead of celebrating, The Band began arguing. Hakim chastised Tobias for shooting Colin in cold blood, but Tobias retorted that they'd gotten the stun gun in the end. A squeamish Lisette took Hakim's side, which only further infuriated Tobias. The trio debated on the way back to the villas, where the bickering continued into the night. Catherine and Agustin took neither side, too focused on dressing minor cuts Agustin had sustained in the tussle.

The group woke up early on Day Four, eager to make good their escape. Since there were no corpses nearby and they were unwilling to leave the safety of the villa, the group decided that one of them would be a guinea pig. Hakim nominated Tobias, leveraging the murder of Colin against him. Tobias begrudgingly agreed, and Agustin held him down as Hakim discharged the stun gun against various parts of his collar. Clumsily, he kept catching Tobias with the jolts, which only worsened as the test went on without apparent success, frustration clouding Hakim's mind. Tobias initially merely winced and cursed, but his protests became more frequent and louder as Hakim grew more frustrated. Lisette begged him to stop, but he refused, certain that it would work. Instead, however, the repeated shocks eventually triggered the security mechanisms of the collar, giving Hakim only a moment to scramble clear before it detonated, killing. Lisette was devastated, and Hakim attempted to console her. It dawned on Lisette, however that Hakim could have willingly killed Tobais in order to get to her; his sloppiness with the shocks combined with his insistence that the experiment continue after obvious initial failure cast him in a poor light indeed. Lisette managed to pull herself together, but her hatred of Hakim stewed for the rest of the day.

That night, Lisette resolved to kill Hakim. She attempted to enlist Agustin and Catherine as accomplices, but neither were willing to turn on their leader, especially as there was no evidence that Hakim had actually done anything wrong. Lisette kept pressing the issue, and an argument broke out. At one point Agustin moved to grab her shoulder, but she panicked and seized a cleaver that was lying on the table. She drove the other two back, and when Catherine tried to approach to console her, Lisette swung the blade towards the other girl's face.

Agustin screamed as Catherine crumpled to the ground. He bodyslammed Lisette into a dresser, and the sound alerted Hakim to the commotion. When he entered the room and saw Agustin pinning down Lisette, he assumed the worst and attacked the boy. While Hakim and Agustin grappled, Lisette pulled the cleaver out of Catherine's forehead and buried it in the distracted Hakim's back. A second struggle ensued, which ended in Agustin smothering Lisette with a pillow. Horrified to have killed once again, a distraught Agustin fled the scene.

Lisette's death pushed Season Twenty-Seven into the final nineteen. Agustin's return to violence was well-received by fans, who were disappointed by his inactivity over the past few days. However, there had been plenty of action from others to fill the vacancy. Claire Dubuisson had continued her crusade by bagging two more players after Colin's death, and now held a renewed grudge against Agustin. Charlotte Plaskett and Davy Cotton were tied for most kills at five apiece. From the looks of the bombastic cast, Season Twenty-Seven's late game would be glorious.

However, Endgame would come sooner than the fans anticipated. On the fifth day, Danger Zones were used to corral students into the hotel and a few nearby outdoors areas which were largely unappealing due to poor weather. In the late afternoon, however, a boy named Terrence Soto who had been laying low in the hotel's basement miscalculated a bluff geared to drive off an interloping girl named Sandra Calabrese, who had figured out that the building was now home to most of the surviving cast and was seeking a hiding place herself. Terrence ended up hurling a live grenade at her, and the ensuing explosion in the basement of the hotel caused a significant portion of the building to collapse, killing Terrence, Sandra, and eight other students. Among the victims were Charlotte and Davy, who'd been in the midst of a firefight in the lobby. The final fourteen contestants became the final four in the blink of an eye.

Begrudgingly, the executives triggered Endgame, calling all the survivors to the golf course to avoid any potential repeated mass destruction; the remains of the hotel were in unstable condition, and there was concern that flying debris had caused damage to other nearby buildings.

The first finalist to arrive at the golf course, Rabia Mahmood, was freezing and half-starved due to a misguided attempt to wait the game out that had kept her from engaging in any notable action or seeking shelter. She succumbed to the elements moments after reaching the Endgame arena, bringing the remaining finalists down to Agustin Olivera, Claire Dubuisson, and a straggler named Kelly Dershowitz who had been scouting outside the hotel at the time of the explosion.

Agustin and Kelly were the first to arrive on the scene, as the sun set over the resort. Agustin was hesitant to kill again, but with more determination and survival in her sight, Kelly instigated a fight. This fight proved much more disastrous for Agustin than before, as Kelly managed to slash his arm. However, he gritted his teeth and tackled Kelly, getting the upper hand and finishing her off by repeatedly beating her head against the ground. As Kelly expired, Claire appeared on the other side of the golf course. Agustin took Kelly's knife and scrambled into the underbrush.

The next half hour was a drawn out game of cat and mouse, with Claire stalking the woods in search of Agustin. Wanting to finish him quickly, she eschewed her usual weapon for a pistol she'd scavenged off her last kill. Despite his size, Agustin managed to keep out of sight, and snuck up on Claire. As she finally passed his hiding place, he rose from the bushes and lunged, sinking the knife into her back and ensuring his victory.

Legacy:

• Rated as: Poor
• While Season Twenty-Seven was initially shaping up to be a good season, its abrupt and anticlimactic ending earned it a poor reputation with viewers. The deaths of Charlotte and Davy in the midst of their climactic showdown especially angered fans. Furthermore, while the cast was fairly large, the majority of the contestants were uninteresting and forgettable, save for the Band and a few of the more prominent players.
• The Band became a textbook example of a failed escape group, with their leader coming under particularly heavy criticism. Hakim Thompson is remembered for his stubbornness and promiscuity, though nowadays he's more often referenced as "wannabe Louie Sabin." Fans still deride his insistence on using a collar flaw exploited a mere season earlier, especially given its clear early failure; though there is a vocal minority that maintains that he was more aware than he's given credit for and in fact intended to dispose of Tobias all along.
• A further contributing factor to Season Twenty-Seven's poor reputation was its winner. Despite his warm reception and memorable time in the game, Agustin Olivera floundered under the spotlight, and said little during interviews after his victory. He was offered a scholarship to North Carolina State University for the publicity they got after the season, though he dropped out after a year due to continuing mental health issues. Afterwards, Agustin moved with his family back to their home country of Argentina, and he hasn't been heard from since. For a time, rumors about his current whereabouts flew around on message boards, though the general consensus is that he most likely changed his name to live a quiet life away from SOTF.

Suggested by: Aloha

Season Twenty-Eight

Dates: Spring 2013

Winner: Arthur Lam (four kills)
Runner Up: Evelynn Miller (three kills)
Third Place: Vickie Barnett (two kills)

Location: A movie set located in rural Texas. Originally used in a zombie movie, the expansive set included a gas station, a stretch of freeway packed with abandoned cars, an indoor mall, and a suburban cul de sac. While the sets were largely non-functional, they provided a striking visual aesthetic to the season, and the producers seeded the sets with enough materials and provisions to incentivize student scrounging. The set has since been used for several other movies, though some extensive reconfiguring has rendered parts of it unrecognizable.

Notable Participants:

• Arthur Lam (winner, four kills) – A handsome Chinese-American boy with a passion for punk rock and a history of trouble in school, Arthur on paper had high potential as an antihero, but in practice he often came across as inarticulate and much of the trouble he found himself in during his time in the game was the result of his own temper and poor impulse control. Arthur accrued a number of fairly severe injuries during his time in the game, with his best regarded moment being his brutal final battle with Evelynn Miller and Vickie Barnett.
• Evelynn Miller (runner up, three kills) – One of the season's more confounding contestants, Evelynn couldn't rightly be termed either hero or villain, largely due to her own conflicted morals. She made multiple halfhearted attempts at playing, even managing a totally unprovoked murder on one occasion, but repeatedly lost her nerve or fell prey to her conscience, seemingly randomly risking her own life to help other students she didn't even like.
• Vickie Barnett (third place, two kills) – A popular, level-headed member of the volleyball team, Vickie was viewed as a protagonist for much of the season. A day before Endgame, however, she sacrificed her moral standing, as well as much of her tactical advantage, by choosing to pursue a bizarre and poorly-explained vendetta against her oldest ally, Steven Regaledo. She entered the finals victorious over her erstwhile friend, but under-equipped and with the ire of the viewers.
• Miami Schreiner (seventh place, five kills) – The biggest killer of Season Twenty-Eight, Miami's most defining trait was her tendency to throw tantrums when others failed to treat her with the respect she thought she deserved. Prone to showing off, Miami did acquire something of a fan following, but almost everyone agreed that she seriously over-valued herself.
• Edward Tracy (twenty-second place, one kill) – Edward Tracy is known as a huge waste of potential and an ever-dangling "What if?" A dedicated actor in school, Edward approached his casting with true fervor and zeal, embracing his role as a villain and playing it to the hilt. His early performance earned him a reputation as something of a more sadistic Kenny Yamana, and his sole kill remains infamous to this day, but it soon became apparent that Edward's tactical sense was just not up to snuff, and he was thwarted and dispatched on the second day by a prospective victim.
• Erin Crawford (twenty-ninth place) – Erin was one of the first students to be killed during season twenty-eight, tortured to death by Edward Tracy. Her death was fairly horrific, as she begged repeatedly to be released or at least killed cleanly, while Edward toyed with her, keeping her hopes up while slowly mutilating her, and all the while maintaining a good-humored smirk for the viewers.

Summary: Season Twenty-Eight took a class of thirty-two seniors from a Lake Charles, Louisiana high school across the state border to a disused film set in Texas. As one of the seasons during the years in which SOTF was at peak saturation, Season Twenty-Eight saw a slightly larger prevalence of gimmick than many other seasons; specifically, in seeking a theatrical feel, the producers selected a school known for its strong drama program and provided each student with a costume along with their other assigned equipment. Many students chose to don their costumes, some in the spirit of fun or for some perceived tactical advantage, others due to believing that they were in fact required to do so. The first day of the season saw half a dozen students perish. Notably, the first and second deaths came when Cindy Thigpen attempted to threaten Angelina Dismuke with a grenade; Angelina believed the weapon to be a fake and in calling Cindy's bluff got both of them blown up.

A span of quiet followed this explosive beginning, during which the only real action came courtesy of Edward Tracy. Tracy awoke in the gas station and managed to lure Erin Crawford in with the promises of a safe hiding place. Having done so, he locked her to a drink cooler using his assigned weapon, a pair of handcuffs, and then spent the next four hours toying with her. Initially, Edward claimed he was just making sure he could trust Erin, and grilled her on random minutiae of her hour in game prior to their meeting. Soon, however, he became physical, using Crawford's assigned combat knife to inflict progressively more severe injuries upon her. Crawford at first believed she had a chance of survival, but by the end was begging Tracy to finish her off; Tracy, for his part, cheerfully vivisected her, at one point severing a number of Crawford's toes in a game of this-little-piggy and ultimately carving out her liver and making a quip about how he wished he'd been assigned onions.

Further notable kills during the first day included Miami Schreiner's elimination of Calvin Nosal. Miami had originally been playing herself up as something of a manipulative seductress, wearing a skimpy dancer's outfit and trying to enlist Calvin as a partner and bodyguard. When Calvin made passing fun of Miami's name, however, she became incensed; as soon as he turned his back on her she hit him in the back of the head with a baseball bat and ultimately beat him to death. Elsewhere, Arthur Lam got into a heated argument with Addie Henderson about the possibility of escape. Arthur belittled Addie's hopes enough to convince her that they were in vain, but in doing so inadvertently also provoked her into selecting him as her first target. Arthur was caught by surprise when Addie attempted to bludgeon him with a brick, and while he was able deflect her attack, his left pinky was broken in the process, an injury which severely pained him for the remainder of his stay in the game. Arthur had throughout the discussion not revealed his own weapon, a handgun, which he finally pulled out, shooting Addie point blank.

The second day saw Evelynn Miller briefly establish herself as a threat by shooting her friend, Scott Wetzel, to death completely unprovoked. Evelynn had been darkly alluding to her plans to play throughout the first day, espousing care only for herself, but confronted with the reality of Scott's death her resolve instantly cracked; she ended up trying to stem his bleeding, desperately apologizing well after it was too late.

Edward Tracy, meanwhile, attempted to further his renown by stalking Miranda Dixon through the darkened shopping mall. Dixon, captain of the lacrosse team, became increasingly panicked during the pursuit, but when Tracy finally revealed himself and moved in for the kill, Dixon immediately realized that she had a major advantage in both physical strength and weaponry (due to her assigned broadsword's greater reach); she turned on Tracy and quickly dispatched him, sustaining minor wounds in the process.

Vickie Barnett and Steven Regaledo had met up on the first day, and by this point had solidified an alliance. The pair decided to try to play the long game, moving around the arena gathering supplies and learning the lay of the land while avoiding trouble to the best of their ability. An intelligent and charismatic pair, their banter and willingness to take risks when there seemed to be decent potential payoff endeared them to fans of tactics and personalities alike.

Arthur spent most of the second day trying to get hold of painkillers to deal with his injured finger and, failing that, to make a splint. He delivered a number of rants to the cameras during this process, the most infamous of which being the final one, during which he punched his own leg to emphasize a point, further damaging injuring his pinky and leaving him sobbing on the floor.

Finally, Miami Schreiner was in the process of mugging Rafael Tate when he implied that he didn't think she'd actually hurt him; in response, she stabbed him to death.

By the morning of the third day, the remaining students numbered less than half what they had at the beginning, a number further reduced almost immediately. Miami happened to be standing outside a room containing Shaun Smith and Christina Johnson as the announcements played. The two students loudly mocked the idea of Miami as serious threat, causing her to burst into the room and shoot Shaun. She forced Christina to apologize for having doubted her, then stated that forced apologies were meaningless and gunned the girl down as well.

Seemingly having overcome her guilt over Wetzel's death, Evelynn Miller decided to play once again, catching Miranda Dixon unawares and holding her at gunpoint. Miller's speech to Dixon started out as a cold explanation of how she had to kill to survive, but slowly became more and more emotional and apologetic; eventually, a sobbing Miller lowered her weapon and allowed Dixon to leave in peace.

A shaken Dixon sought refuge in the gas station, where she encountered the remains of Erin Crawford. Horribly disturbed, she ran outside, only to bump into Arthur Lam. When Dixon accused Arthur of having killed Crawford, he responded by sarcastically admitting to it, before chiding Dixon for having not paid enough attention to the announcements to know that she had in fact killed Erin's murderer herself; Lam was right in that Dixon had not paid particularly close attention to the announcements, however, and she failed to grasp his sarcasm. Thinking Lam's admission of guilt genuine, Dixon attacked him. When her wild swing failed to connect, Lam grappled with Dixon but was quickly overpowered. Dixon began to strangle Lam, but he dislodged her with a headbutt, mildly concussing himself in the process; when Dixon stumbled backwards, Lam shot her in the face.

Vickie Barnett and Steven Regaledo happened upon the aftermath of the opening explosion, but were interrupted in their looting by minor player David Sullivan, a heavyset boy rather absurdly dressed in a tutu, having mistaken the bag of the girl he woke up near for his own. Vickie drew David's attention by bargaining with him for their lives, while Steven edged slowly closer, eventually lunging at David and slitting his throat with a knife.

Only ten students remained at the start of the fourth and final day of Season Twenty-Eight. Miami Schreiner scored the first kill of the day by gunning down Raymond Cole, a boy who offered to ally with her and help her make it to Endgame.

In one of many husks of old cars, Arthur Lam ran into Gary Novak, who had been wounded in an altercation with Miami the day prior. Novak explained that he just wanted to spend the last few hours of his life in peace. Arthur responded by explaining his own desire to find some quiet, recounting the horrors he had experienced in detail and dwelling particularly on the sorry condition of Crawford's corpse before opining that a similar fate might await Novak. He bid Novak farewell and wished him luck; ten minutes later Novak shot himself.

The alliance between Vickie Barnett and Steven Regaledo ended abruptly and bizarrely. The pair disagreed on where to head next, with Steven angling for the mall, feeling it likely to soon be declared a danger zone, and Vickie wanting to search the cars under the assumption that it was more likely something useful had been overlooked there. Steven relented fairly quickly, but Vickie became agitated, accusing him of appeasing her for some malicious purpose. Steven was unable to calm Vickie with words, and offered her his weapons to prove his peaceful intent; Vickie stabbed him with his own knife. This led to a full-on fight between the former friends, but Steven was heavily disadvantaged by his lack of armament and his serious wound, leading Vickie to triumph through attrition.

Miami had cornered a girl named Tammy Whalen behind the gas station and was preparing to kill her when Evelynn Miller called out to them. Evelynn told Miami not to pick on the defenseless, and started shooting at the player. Miami flew into a rage and returned fire, but her weapon ran out of ammunition, forcing her to try to close the gap and engage Evelynn with her baseball bat. She made it most of the way there before one of Evelynn's bullets finally found its mark. Tammy profusely thanked Evelynn, who became uncomfortable and turned to leave. Tammy, however, spying an opportunity to make it a step closer to home, scooped up Miami's gun, pointed it at Evelynn, apologized, and pulled the trigger. As the empty gun clicked, Tammy paled and screamed that she hadn't meant it; Evelynn shot her without a word.

The final death before Endgame was a boy named Brian Brown. Believing that the mall would be the Endgame arena, he tried to secure an advantageous position by climbing onto a chandelier high above the central plaza. The fixture, designed only as a set piece, had never been meant to bear notable weight, and collapsed, sending Brian plunging two stories to his death.

Endgame was held along the strip of highway packed with abandoned cars. The finalists were Evelynn, Vickie, Arthur, and a girl named Dorothy Kromm, who had scored a kill on Day Two but otherwise flown largely under the radar. All the finalists arrived at roughly the same time, though from different parts of the arena; Kromm and Vickie formed the first meeting, and Vickie rushed Kromm and stabbed her multiple times, leaving her to bleed out against the husk of a school bus.

Evelynn, Vickie, and Arthur all met up around the car where Novak's corpse rested. Vickie was the only one without a gun, but this led to Arthur and Evelynn focusing most of their attention on each other. Vickie tried to make a play for Evelynn's pistol, lunging at her and grabbing for the weapon. Evelynn reacted quickly, shooting Vickie in the shoulder, but the gun was knocked from her grasp in the process. Arthur, realizing his advantageous position, held the girls at gunpoint, ordering Evelynn to kick her own weapon under a car. Rather than shooting them, however, he started complaining about his time in the game thus far. This incensed Vickie, who told Arthur he had nothing to complain about, citing the bullet wound in her shoulder and her own likely-impending death; she also called Arthur a sicko and a sadist, implying he might torture the girls or otherwise take inappropriate advantage of his situation. This caused Arthur to, in a rage, hurl his gun at Vickie. It bounced away somewhere out of sight amongst the cars, and a split second later all involved realized the implications.

With firearms out of the picture, the remainder of Endgame devolved into a slow, painful free for all. Vickie immediately attacked Evelynn, biting her face and clawing at her, and Arthur waded into the fray, initially on Evelynn's side. Evelynn, however, took advantage of the momentary distraction on Arthur's part to stab him twice in the thigh and once in the back. As Arthur reeled from the pain, Vickie moved to finish him off, but Evelynn stabbed her too the second her attention wavered. Arthur finally had had enough, and in a surge of adrenaline tackled Evelynn and disarmed her. He spun around and lunged for Vickie, killing her by stabbing her in the eye with Evelynn's knife, though she raked his face with her fingernails in the process. Arthur twisted the knife so deeply into Vickie's eye socket, however, that he was unable to withdraw it, and Evelynn grabbed him from behind. Arthur flailed wildly, slamming Evelynn into the cars around them, finally dislodging her. She was briefly stunned, allowing Arthur to get the upper hand and slam her head into the hood ornament of a nearby sedan half a dozen times. As Evelynn died, she mumbled incomprehensible apologies. Arthur dragged himself onto the hood of the car and sat in a pool of his own blood, rocking slowly until he was retrieved by the pickup crew.

Legacy:

• Rated as: Poor
• Probably the longest-lasting impact of Season Twenty-Eight was its introduction of costumes, a gimmick that proved popular with fans, in large part due to its optional nature (students without interest in wearing their costumes could forgo them without penalty). Costumes featured in following seasons with increasing regularity, eventually becoming an expected component of SOTF-TV.
• The death of Erin Crawford became something of a meme, in part because viewers felt that the producers were trying too hard to build sympathy for her given the amount of screen time her death was given and in part due to Tracy's over the top melodramatic delivery. Several remixes of her death went viral, often played humorously or set to cheerful music. This enraged many people, but most especially her sister, Susan Crawford, who quickly became one of the most prominent voices of criticism against the SOTF program.
• Arthur Lam found middling popularity at best, due to his dubious charisma and tendency to cause most of the trouble he faced. He was able to cash in on his victory to some extent, but was never a face of the show like some of his fellow winners. Worse, he developed an addiction to prescription painkillers while hospitalized for the severe injuries he sustained, and after his release this quickly blossomed into full-blown addiction to illegal narcotics. In a number of his interviews, Arthur was clearly strung out, and his relationships with friends and family deteriorated quickly. He made occasional attempts to connect with Susan Crawford, but his unwillingness to disclaim SOTF entirely coupled with the painful memories he evoked as the last surviving member of Erin's season prevented them from ever becoming close. In 2018, half a decade after his victory, Lam collided with a lamp post at ninety miles an hour in a residential area in the middle of the night, driving a rented sports car. Lam, who was not wearing a seat belt at the time, was ejected from the car and died immediately upon impact; an autopsy found a high blood alcohol level and evidence of several drugs in his system.

Suggested by: MurderWeasel

Season Twenty-Nine

Dates: 2013

Winner: Larissa Ford (five kills)
Runner Up: Mona Weston
Third Place: Alister Swain

Location: Ryleigh Point Campgrounds

Notable Participants:

• Larissa Ford - Winner, started the game with a Barbie doll and went on to win with five kills.
• Alister Swain - Third place, started with a balisong and got eight kills.

Summary: Season Twenty-Nine of SOTF-TV took place in the abandoned Ryleigh Point Campgrounds and involved forty-seven students from Hollowood High School. The setting had a lot of open grounds, a two-section parking lot, as well as numerous lodges, a lake, and a rec center. Some unusual deaths include F04: Ariel Smithers (who was pushed off a cliff onto a rusted scrap pile by F12: Nadine Fischer) and F22: Helen Neeman, M16: Dustin "Dusty" Geoffries, and M03: Orwell Jang (who inadvertantly opened a door to a burning lodge and burned to death in the ensuing backdraft).

The winner, F09: Larissa Ford, started off in a car in Parking Lot B. Stumbling upon M20: Alister Swain, they quickly formed an alliance, and spend the first half of the game running around, hiding from others and only killing in self-defense. Around the halfway point, Alister stumbled off on his own and began to kill indiscriminately, using the Remington 700 he picked up after killing its previous owner, M01: Aaron Fernandez, with a rock. Larissa did not fall as far as Alister, continuing to only kill in self-defense until there were only four left. She and Alister, as well as F19: Mona Weston and M08: Patrick Owens, were herded into the rec center. Alister killed Patrick with a bullet to the heart but was taken by surprise by Mona and stabbed to death. Larissa met Mona in the games room and, after a brief struggle, Larissa killed Mona with a blow to the throat with a pool cue.

Legacy:

Suggested by: CondorTalon

Season Thirty

Dates: July 23rd-July 29th, 2013

Winner: Daphne Rivers (two kills)
Runner Up: Parvati Rai (six kills)
Third Place: Ethan Wainwright (five kills)

Location: Grenadier Island in the north of New York. During the summer, the uninhabited island was relatively temperate, but with only a few buildings including an ancient military base, shelter was scarce. The military base proved to be an important feature as the game progressed. Additionally, intermittent rainfall occurred during the final days of the season, driving many contestants to seek shelter and escalating into a full-blown storm by the final day.

Notable Participants:

• Daphne Rivers (winner) - A well-regarded student council member and popular athlete, Daphne was nevertheless predicted by many to be an early out due to her sharp tongue. However, her shrewd conduct and willingness to throw her devoted boyfriend (Ethan Wainwright) under the bus gave her enough of an edge to come out on top.
• Parvati Rai (second place) - Though initially friendly on the exterior, Parvati proved unable to cope with the stress and snapped, becoming the season’s most prolific killer. This, along with her obnoxious behavior on the camera, quickly earned her villain status, though she is not as popular as many runners-up.
• Ethan Wainwright (third place) - A good-hearted but horribly misguided young man, Ethan was manipulated him into committing murder several times over by his girlfriend, Daphne. As he became more reliant on her support, he became more sympathetic, and is actually seen by some as the hero of the season, doing his best to protect his girlfriend and unaware of her manipulations, his main fault his trust in his love.
• Julie Warner (fourth place) - Julie is also well-regarded as a heroic figure. A foulmouthed but well-meaning young woman, Julie scored two kills, both in the defense of her allies, while also acting as the emotional support for her companions. She achieved notoriety mostly for her sass towards her attackers and even her eventual killer, and is the most-quoted character from the season.
• Amber Abbott (thirteenth place) - Known for her strategy, Amber’s clever tactics earned her four kills, and she had one of the most chilling deaths in the version, which made her memorable despite her otherwise average performance.
• Samuel Falcon (eighteenth place) - The highest-ranked killer until his death at the halfway mark, Samuel was an unpopular and hotheaded soccer player whose five kills, mostly made using his assigned katana, were earned in a short period. However, his death at the hands of Ethan Wainwright was a fan favorite scene, which coupled with his early game motivator status to grant him in death some of the popularity that eluded him in life.

Summary: Thirty-six students, taken from a school in Sacramento, in Northern California, were deposited on Grenadier Island shortly after a flood; as such, much of the area was damp and cold, a rude awakening for the contestants. Daphne Rivers, assigned a sabre, quickly found her boyfriend, Ethan Wainwright, whose weapon was an automatic rifle. Daphne tearfully convinced him to take care of her, and the two set out to find warmer shelter. When a boy named Russell Banks attacked the pair, Ethan was forced to kill him to protect Daphne. While he felt a measure of guilt for this, she reassured him that he’d done the right thing.

On the other side of the island, Parvati Rai suffered an emotional breakdown when Thomas Gibson was gunned down in front of her by bit player Shelby White. Parvati threw her assigned glass pitcher at Shelby, which shattered and inflicted deadly lacerations on the girl's face and neck. Parvati, after a period of hysterical sobbing, attempted to bargain with the producers to let her go. Eventually composing herself, she took Shelby’s gun and left the scene.

Julie Warner immediately earned some fame when she literally slapped sense back into her friend, Natasha Ripley, who was screaming in Julie’s face that they were both going to die. Julie’s well-known response before the slap, ‘Bitch, pull yourself together!” is one of the most quoted lines of the season. Remarkably, it worked, and the two stuck together for several days along with companion Nevaeh Walker.

Meanwhile, shortly after awakening, Amber Abbott discovered her assigned weapon: a longneck rifle. After making her way to the top of the lighthouse, Amber picked off a pair of students traveling along the nearby path. The scene has a reputation as intense, as Jenny Peterson, lagging slightly behind her friend, was shot in the side and quickly succumbed to internal trauma. Her partner, Alicia Clearwater, tried to drag her to safety, but in doing so sealed her own fate; it took a couple shots, but Amber soon managed to put a bullet through Alicia's eye.

Also on the first day, a group consisting of Dorothy Polson, Michael Wagner, and Eileen Dipietro convened, planning to pursue escape from the island. The group managed to stick together and fend off several attacks throughout the game, but never made any real progress towards attaining their goal; this led to them being treated largely as comic relief, with their grandiose plans constantly juxtaposed against their failure to even begin to enact them.

The second and third days were relatively standard, with Parvati gunning down a second victim on Day Two and a third early on Day Three, Amber killing a third target from long range on Day Two, and Samuel Falcon popping up on the radar late Day Two after attacking a mostly-unarmed would-be-escape-group including Julie Warner and her companions. He killed three of them, including Nevaeh Walker, with his katana before being shot in the shoulder by Julie and retreating.

Shortly after, Jonathan Day ambushed Julie and Natasha, leading to another famous quip by Julie: "You scared the Jesus out of me! I think I’m Buddhist now." However, when Jonathan attacked with a machete, Julie shot him in the head before commenting, "Buddha help me, these fools don’t know what a gun does."

Elsewhere, Daphne and Ethan encountered a former friend of Daphne’s, Claire Silver. Secretly, Daphne resented Claire, and she concocted a false story about Claire attacking her while the group was briefly separated. When she related this story, Claire, sensing a dangerous deception, actually attempted to assault Daphne, but Ethan gunned her down before she could land any real blows. Additionally, by the end of Day Three, Samuel had made use of his sword to kill another student and her friend.

Early in Day Four, the first major shakeup went down. With seventeen dead, Ethan and Daphne encountered the wounded and borderline-delusional Samuel, who stumbled upon them while they were resting. Recognizing Ethan as a killer, Samuel immediately attacked the pair with his katana. Because Daphne had been reloading the rifle for Ethan at the moment Samuel appeared, Ethan was forced to fall back on a saber, leading to a swordfight. This memorable scene ended with Ethan impaling Samuel in the chest, making it perhaps the most dramatic fight of the season.

By the end of Day Four, Julie put an end to Amber’s sniper strategy. As Julie and Natasha passed the lighthouse, Natasha was shot in the stomach, causing her to slowly bleed out. After a brief reassurance to Natasha ("Stay put girl, I’m gonna go whoop some ass"), Julie stormed the lighthouse, and as Amber attempted to descend the stairs in order to flee, she was forced back to the top by a hail of bullets. A melee struggle ensued when Julie reached the top of the tower, as Amber was unable to effectively bring her rifle to bear and Julie had run her clip dry; the fight moved dangerously close to the balcony, where Julie kicked Amber in the chest, causing the other girl to fall with a squeal to her death. The editing for this scene in later broadcasts and highlight reels was distinct: as Julie kicked Amber, the music that had been playing cut out, and since no footage was aired of Amber’s fall, the last seen of her was her terrified expression as she toppled off the edge. This was made especially poignant by Julie’s surprisingly gentle and touching scene upon returning to the dying Natasha, who bled out in Julie’s arms.

Parvati also killed a fourth student around this point, and spent most of her time on-screen begging to be sent home, asking for rewards, or otherwise pleading with the producers. Her whiny nature rendered her fairly unpopular with the audience, especially since her kills were straightforward and unexciting, mostly consisting of her shooting wildly before running off.

By Day Five, only eight students remained; Daphne, Ethan, Parvati, Julie, the Dorothy/Michael/Eileen trio (still pursuing their dreams of escape without anything to show for it), and a lone wolf named Andrew Doss who had avoided interactions for the most part. Parvati had four kills, Ethan had three, Julie two. When the Andrew encountered the escape group, he decided to make a name for himself and obtain some better equipment prior to the finals. During the ensuing fight, he stabbed Dorotthy to death but was ultimately shot by Eileen before he could inflict any further damage. The noise of the fight drew the attention of Parvati and allowed her to sneak up and throw a grenade, finishing off Eileen and Michael. As such, Endgame, featuring a final four, was declared that day.

Endgame took place at the lighthouse in the early hours of Day Six, as the clouds that had gathered swelled and then burst in the first throes of a storm. Julie encountered Ethan and Daphne, whose relationship she immediately guessed was a one-sided one. Goading Ethan with, "She’s using you, you dolt!" and, more famously, "If you don’t put a bullet in her, she’s gonna put one in you," Julie attempted both to help Ethan and to weaken the alliance. Her efforts were unsuccessful, however; after Ethan shot her in the chest, Julie spoke her last words to him: "See you soon, fool." This finally managed to shake Ethan's confidence, and he turned to seek reassurance from Daphne, only to find that she had disappeared as he struggled with Julie.

In fact, Daphne had noticed Parvati, at this point nearly deranged with fear and grief, a short ways away. When Daphne approached the girl, a shootout ensued. In the ensuing firefight, Parvati was struck in the shoulder and collapsed, leading Daphne to believe she was dead. As Ethan arrived, hurrying to investigate the gunshots, Daphne ran to him, exclaiming, “It’s just us!” as they embraced. Moments later, however, Daphne then shot Ethan in the chest at point blank range, fatally wounding him. As he looked on in shock at the betrayal, Daphne kissed him and moved to take shelter from the mounting wind by the lighthouse, believing she had won.

Momentarily confused by the lack of an announcement of her victory, Daphne's attention was drawn by a slightly off-target gunshot striking the wall a few feet to her left. Turning, she realized that Parvati was still alive. In the standoff that followed, Parvati flinched from the biting wind and rain, and Daphne took advantage of this hesitation to fire her automatic weapon wildly, managing to hit Parvati repeatedly in the chest and head, and leaving Daphne the last one standing.

Legacy:

• Rated as: Very Good
• Season 30 was generally very well-received, thanks to its cast of popular contestants and memorable moments. The biggest issue many people felt was with the winner; a vocal minority have a strong dislike for Daphne Rivers due to her betrayal of Ethan and her general Endgame performance, though many others think her strategy quite sound and note that she was actively working towards her victory throughout the entire game.
• Julie Warner has received postmortem popularity, both for her highly active story line and for her famously acerbic wit; this has led to numerous t-shirts, buttons, and other wares featuring some of her best quotes.
• Daphne proved a moderately popular winner thanks to her sarcastic personality in interviews and her physical attractiveness, while strategic fans enjoyed her playstyle and hold her as an example of how to win without needing a lot of kills. Her betrayal of Ethan, however, led to her being widely regarded as a villain even by her fans, and in an effort to distance herself slightly from that image she became steadily less involved with the SOTF scene over the years. She currently works as a runway model and designer.

Suggested by: Espional

Season Thirty-One

Dates: 2013

Winner: Drake Godwin (five kills)

Drake Godwin (generated by backslash)

Runner Up: Tina Tran (one kill)
Third Place: Ananda Nagarkar (three kills)

Location: The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia

Notable Participants:

• Drake Godwin (winner) – Something of a loner in school, Drake turned to player hunting around the one-third mark of the game. Commonly labeled an anti-hero by the fanbase, all but one of Drake’s kills were either self-defense or noted players, but the single-mindedness with which he hunted his targets and the almost brutal efficiency of his kills prevented him from being viewed in a more heroic light.
• Tina Tran (runner-up) – A bubbly, popular fashionista, Tina was originally pegged as an early out by the viewers. She proved to be more cunning than people expected, gaining her one kill early on when she smothered her ex-boyfriend in his sleep and stole his assigned gun before going on to team up with Drake and aid his player-hunting efforts. Though their alliance was tense to start off, they grew to respect and like each other throughout the game, and Tina was finally mercy killed by Drake after being wounded in a shootout during endgame.
• Ananda Nagarkar (third place) – One of the main villains of Season Thirty-one, Ananda is sometimes overlooked in favor of his close friend and partner in crime, Rayner Babcock. While Rayner was aggressive and paranoid, Ananda spent most of his time subtly goading Rayner to attack others, riding his coattails as Rayner took the title of major player. Most consider Ananda’s connection with Rayner to also have been his downfall, as he became much more unstable and reckless after Rayner was killed by Drake Godwin.
• Rayner Babcock (twelfth place, seven kills) – Season Thirty-one’s top killer, Rayner was a star member of the basketball team who fell into paranoia and killing early on, slowly becoming more unhinged and picking up injuries as time went on and he charged into fights at his teammate Ananda’s behest. He fell afoul of Drake Godwin on the morning of Day Four, fatigue and his wounds enabling Drake to overpower him.
• Leah Martin (twenty-second place, two kills) – Relatively unknown to other contestants, Leah became notable among fans for her dramatic psychotic break just before the mid-point of the season. Having spent two days in relative isolation, the stress of the game and its unnerving location led Leah to start believing she was being haunted or possessed, and she violently killed two classmates who startled her. She then had a hysterical episode (dubbed by some as the “Night of Terror”) which culminated in her running screaming through the asylum attacking anyone she came across, and ended with her jumping to her death from an upstairs window.

Summary: Season Thirty-one was held on the grounds of West Virginia’s Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, a disused psychiatric hospital located in Weston that was famously rumored to be haunted. The season was moderately-sized, with thirty-nine seniors from a nearby high school in Charleston participating, and had a strong focus on the history and urban legends that surrounded the hospital. As the season both aired around Halloween time and in tandem with a resurgence of popularity for “found footage” horror in cinema, camera glitches and audio distortions were not edited out as much as they would be in a normal season, to emphasize the horror flavor of the location.

There was a steady rate of action throughout the game, with several people emerging as killers on Day One, including Rayner Babcock, the top killer for that season. A memorable scene occurred when Rayner was approached by a hysterical girl named Cassie Sheppard, whom he grew increasingly frustrated with until Cassie started to shake Rayner in an attempt to make him listen to her, at which point he reacted violently, ultimately strangling her to death.

After killing Cassie, Rayner was approached by his friend and teammate, Ananda Nagarkar, who had witnessed the altercation. Rayner seemed overcome with guilt, but Ananda assured him that everything was fine and offered to team up. Rayner accepted, and over the course of the day Ananda began subtly inciting him towards paranoia, which resulted in Rayner attacking and killing another student who approached them in the evening, sustaining a gunshot wound to his shoulder in the process.

That night, Tina Tran scored her first and only kill by smothering her ex-boyfriend and erstwhile ally Henry Abrams in his sleep. The pair had met up earlier in the day and bickered over their previous breakup, before Henry showed Tina his assigned gun and offered to protect her during the game. Privately feeling that Henry was a liability, and still bitter towards him for his actions during and after their breakup, Tina killed him and stole the gun.

On the second day, Drake Godwin began attracting attention after he killed an attacker in self-defense, using the lump hammer he had been assigned as a weapon. The hammer would become Drake’s trademark, utilized in his strategy of catching his intended victim unawares and killing them quickly by bashing them over the head. Soon after, Drake encountered Tina and another student named Selena Black, and after a tense stand-off where he interrogated Tina about her murder of Henry, Drake agreed to team up with them.

This discussion was interrupted by Rayner and Ananda, whose sudden appearance caused Selena to panic and try to flee. Rayner gunned her down, enraging Drake and causing him to declare his intention to hunt and kill Rayner and other players. Rayner attempted to shoot Drake, but Tina struck Rayner’s injured arm, causing him to drop the gun. While this almost spelled doom for Rayner, Ananda intervened, retrieving the weapon and using it as a threat to keep Drake and Tina at bay. Both parties cautiously backed away, with Rayner and Ananda eventually exiting the room and closing the door behind them; Drake argued that he and Tina should immediately chase them down and catch them unawares, but when attempting to do so discovered that the latch of the door, corroded after years of neglect (or due to the intervention of spiteful spirits, depending on who you ask) had failed, rendering him unable to pursue.

Ananda used Drake and Tina’s reactions and his own role in salvaging the situation to fuel Rayner’s paranoia and convince him that Ananda was his only possible ally, motivating Rayner to attack people whom he felt posed a threat to Ananda. As evening fell, meanwhile, Drake scored his second kill on a contestant who attempted to ambush him and Tina as they settled down for the night.

The most notable event of the second night was Leah Martin’s spectacular psychotic break. Having spent most of Day One and the entirety of Day Two hiding from others, lack of sleep and fear of her surroundings and fellow participants seemed to be taking its toll on Leah’s mind. She began talking to herself throughout the day, and the editing emphasized odd noises and camera distortions in Leah’s area in order to fuel speculation that she was indeed being possessed.

It was around three in the morning of the third day when Leah was startled by a couple sneaking into her hiding spot while looking for some privacy that the event popularly referred to as the Night of Terror began. After murdering the couple, Leah ran screaming through the building, attacking anyone she came across (though finding little success and being quickly repelled due to her instability), before jumping to her death from a third-story window. Though the incident was over fairly quickly, it remains one of the most memorable events of the season.

Aside from the early-morning incident, Day Three was the quietest of Season Thirty-one, with no other particularly unusual happenings.

On the morning of Day Four, Ananda briefly left Rayner, who had by this point amassed a large number of kills and a notable ledger of injuries, to gather some supplies he’d seen in another room while Rayner rested. While Ananda was away, Drake and Tina discovered Rayner and a fight ensued. Rayner’s accumulated wounds proved his undoing, and Drake overpowered and killed him. Ananda returned quickly, drawn by the sounds of the confrontation, only to find Rayner dead. In reaction, he flew into a hysterical fit, engaging in a shootout with Tina and Drake. Both Tina and Ananda were left wounded, and Ananda withdrew; forced to decide between pursuing his foe or assisting his ally, Drake vacillated for a time but ultimately chose to help Tina, noting Ananda's lack of kills in the process. Ananda, however, remained agitated and violent, scoring two kills throughout the day as he roamed the area attacking those he could find.

Endgame took place on the evening of Day Four, in the hospital’s cemetery. Drake, Tina, Ananda, and a relatively low-key player named Spencer Kopski were set to be the final four. Spencer assumed he arrived first to the area, but he was ambushed by Ananda and quickly killed. When Drake and Tina arrived, Ananda began wildly firing at them, further wounding Tina. Tina and Drake quickly formulated a plan to split up, with Tina engaging Ananda in a firefight while Drake snuck around to attack him. Ananda, already in a distracted state of mind, was caught off-guard and didn’t react in time, allowing Drake to fatally bludgeon him.

When Drake returned to Tina, it was obvious that she was mortally wounded. In a touching scene, Tina thanked Drake for keeping her company during the game and asked him to put her out of her misery. Drake took the gun and dispatched her with a quick shot to the head, leaving him as the winner.

Legacy:

• Rated as: Good
• Season Thirty-one proved quite popular with fans of horror and supernatural shows, though others complained that the emphasized camera and audio glitches interfered with viewing. Marketing for the season emphasized potential supernatural activity, though nobody officially affiliated with the show would outright claim that actual hauntings had occurred.
• Drake Godwin proved to be a decently popular winner, though he became most known for his incredibly succinct and blunt interviews and fan interactions. He used his fame and royalties from a brief stint as a spokesman for a chain of hardware stores to put himself and his younger siblings through college, and he currently works as a physical therapist for several pro athletes. He married his college sweetheart right after graduation, and the couple is currently expecting their first child.
• Inspired by the ghost tours that regularly go on at Trans-Allegheny, for a short time the facilities somewhat infamously offered SOTF-related tours, inviting guests to see if they could contact the spirits of the contestants who died there. The show itself would not endorse the tours, and they were quickly discontinued following legal action from several families of the deceased contestants.
• Some find it notable that all three of the final contestants were nonwhite (Drake being African-American, Tina Vietnamese-American, and Ananda Indian-American).

Suggested by: backslash

Season Thirty-Two

Dates: Early November, 2013

Winner: Blake Smithson (one kill)
Runner Up: Edward Achenbach (no kills)
Third Place: Heidi Abbott (one kill)

Location: A small ghost town in New Mexico, near the Mexican border (so close, in fact, that for legal reasons one boundary was an erected fence along the actual border). A good number of the buildings on site were structurally unstable, and the season producers elected to not reinforce the failing buildings due to the possibility of interesting environmental deaths.

Notable Participants:

• Blake Smithson (winner, one kill) - A former academic high-achiever turned delinquent due to a rough family divorce in his sophomore year, Blake had ample brawling experience and a temper that created high expectations for him to become a season highlight. He failed to live up to these expectations as his loyalty to his buddies, Georges and Aaron, ultimately proved most important to him, leading him to keep a disappointingly steady grip on his temper despite being in possession of high-caliber firepower from his awakening on.
• Edward Achenbach (runner-up, no kills) – Edward was a controversial camera hog who earned what many fans consider disproportionate amounts of screentime for his long rambles, which his rare supporters call intellectually stimulating. The majority of fans consider him heavy handed and pseudo-intellectual at best. His first incited controversy early in the season with a botched torture attempt that many believe was pettily motivated, and many studying the season in depth believe his character was far more shallow than he liked to claim.
• Heidi Abbot (third place, one kill) - An ex-debater and an opportunist, Heidi used what many fans consider crocodile tears and ham-fisted emotional appeals to win the trust of various groups, discarding and betraying them as she saw fit. Besides this, she was generally uninteresting and rarely if ever spoke except to use her persuasive tactics, which tended to fall into the same exact patterns she'd already found success with. This led to the irritation of many viewers, who began to question the intelligence of her peers in constantly taking Heidi at face value.
• Jennifer Liu Yang (fourth place, four kills) - One of the season's two notable killers, Jennifer was the girlfriend and close confidante of Georges before paranoia and a desire to avenge her fallen friends and lover led her to take up the mantle of killer in the latter half of the season. Her fall from grace and loud and violent falling out with Blake had some dramatic impact and entertainment value, but her actual killings were considered to be lackluster; at best she was merely quiet, uninteresting, and passable as a plot device.
• Aaron 'A' Martin (tenth Place, five kills) - An ex-delinquent in middle school who cleaned up his act come high school, Aaron was an early favorite of fan girls due to a number of excellently timed one-liners and a tough rugged appearance contrasted by his kind treatment of Georges and Blake that some evidence suggests might have been romantically tinged. He turned killer when the action began to dry up, promising to Georges to only take kills to ensure their plans to survive to the end would work out. He consistently targeted contestants with only passing relation to himself, and thus his kills had little dramatic import or buildup, and a lucky streak with his gun also earned him the ire of many fans for his fast, uninteresting eliminations.
• Georges Clarence Foster (sixteenth place, no kills) - Considered in some ways the mastermind and tone setter of Season Thirty-Two, Georges was a hemophobic pacifist with strong anti-SOTF leanings who encouraged all the friends he met to play the infamous "run and hide" style of SOTF gameplay, in hopes of sabotaging the season and buying time to figure out a better way to survive. It unfortunately worked quite well, and Georges' persuasiveness resulted in a very passively played season by many of its contestants. He also likely prevented a neurotic Jennifer from turning player sooner than she ultimately did, through his close relationship with her.

Summary: Twenty-six students were taken from Henry David Thoreau High School in St. Augustine, Florida to participate in Season Thirty-Two. 2013 was the second year to use an expanded six-season format, and by its later months much of the production crew who had helped make Seasons Thirty and Thirty-One successful was burned out or on vacation, leading to an influx of new blood in preparation for 2014. Season Thirty-Two was to be their trial by fire. The students were handpicked with the assumption that this would lead to many interesting character dynamics, and there were a number of school delinquents with records of legal infractions and conflicting loyalties with the other students selected, in a move reminiscent of Season Two (though executed with slightly greater subtlety). The theory was that a smaller season with a focused cast would allow for successful drama without requiring quite as much prep work, staffing, or infrastructure.

The season opened with one of the delinquents, Blake Smithson, meeting another, a teenage mother named Jacqueline Porter. Both had guns and engaged in a furious shouting match, Blake calling out Jacqueline for her confession that she intended to play the game to return to her baby daughter. However, the tension resolved itself with Blake electing to storm away, and when he met Georges Foster later he admitted he didn't have the guts to fire. Jacqueline espoused the same sentiment when she found her own friend to ally with, Carol Johnson, and would ultimately never kill as she'd planned.

Blake's meeting with Georges took place during the first evening, and also included an encounter with Aaron Martin, who had wittily given himself the nickname "A" after proving his questionable accuracy practicing with his assigned semi-automatic rifle. Georges had already convinced three others to not immediately play the game, including a conniving Heidi, who out of earshot had stated her intent to instead "wait and strike." Georges recommended the others run and hide and only come out of hiding to possibly keep others from killing if they could safely approach, and Blake and Aaron readily agreed, almost immediately removing one third of the season's guns from active play.

By the end of Day One, only three people had died, and one of those due to a weak floorboard in a two story building sending him tumbling neck-first into a window. Fans continued to remain cautiously optimistic that the action would pick up, but there was already a growing lack of interest and annoyance, with the large numbers of "cowards" only providing token entertainment.

The early morning of the second day provided a highlight moment, but one that many considered more hilarious than dramatic or awesome. Edward Achenbach attempted to abduct Opal Puglisi, subduing her by choking her into unconsciousness. He produced the first of many dubiously dramatic speeches when she came to, angrily ranting in affected English, at times even faux-Shakespearean, and touching on various seemingly unrelated existential and Darwinian themes. He then dared Opal to escape before he tortured her. He hesitated for maybe ten minutes, threatening her with his knife, until she finally worked up the courage to tackle him from her prone position. He lost her, and his knife, and she fled into the early dawn only to unceremoniously be stabbed to death by an unrelated passerby killer. Season Thirty-Two's excellent camera work—helmed in part by veterans and in part by newcomers who would resurface in several more successful seasons—turned the attempted torture scene into a meme for a good amount of 2014, with plenty of stills of the splotchy-faced Edward rambling and spit-talking at the awkwardly positioned crying Opal, depicted with a smorgasbord of dramatic up-angles, panned shots, and angled shadows.

Day Two was somewhat better paced, seeing a few wannabe killers scored their first marks, though their motivations were rarely more compelling than a desire to "go home." Jacqueline, for instance, was betrayed and killed by Carol. Heidi watched people die twice over yet remained unharmed herself, always giving the killer a reason to spare her despite killing her ally. She used an apparently smooth talking voice, though most viewers found this questionable as her charisma did not translate well for the camera. Moreover, while persuasive, she was also boring, even to each new ally she made.

Georges, Blake, and Aaron continued to roam the arena while not using their guns, save for the occasional awkward intimidation of a nervous onlooker into "following Georges' advice." Some fans enjoyed the dynamic of the three boys and their consistent approach to keeping the peace, but they also drew a good amount of ire for turning the season into a dragger, with many students keeping to themselves and few strong storylines developing for lack of interesting interactions. Contestants ran and hid from each other more often than they even tried to talk, and Georges seemed to be at the center of that phenomenon.

Five more students were dead by the end of Day Two, but not much had happened. Jennifer Yang finally met with Georges on Day Three, and fans hoped her mental state, which had been increasingly obviously unraveling over the past two days, would finally produce an explosion of action for the season, but it was not to be. The third day almost passed without a kill at all, as Georges soothed Jennifer into relative calm and coherence, and incidentally shared an on-screen sex scene with her that won some minor regard as being one of the rare scenes of that nature that managed to be somewhat genuinely passionate and titillating, rather than awkward or disturbing to watch. More memes were promptly produced of Blake and Aaron stoically watching over the building where the lovemaking occurred, scaring off two "runner-hiders" with their guns. Fan edits suggested that the interlopers were instead scared off by the grunting and moaning coming from inside the building.

Aaron, who had earlier rather infamously stated, "It's only really a gun if you shoot it, dude," noted that the third day had only produced a single death, and began to fret over the pace since most of the active killers had killed each other the day before and nobody else seemed willing to step up. He told Georges that he intended to take it upon himself to kill, once a day, to get them to the end and to safety faster. Georges adamantly refused to endorse this plan, and the two had a quiet, intense argument. Aaron fled, promising that he'd only do what he had to for his friends. Georges began to openly sob and wail as he begged for Aaron to come back. While the subject of some minor fangirl appreciation, the entire argument and its aftermath was mostly considered too melodramatic to be compelling, especially as Aaron continued to talk in uninspired clichés. Jennifer and Blake also caught criticism for passively watching from the sidelines, making no effort to steer the outcome of the debate.

The next two days passed with few kills and little else of interest happening. Blake had little to say, and Jennifer and Georges devolved into smarmy lovers who mostly communicated nonverbally. The two kills Aaron managed were uninteresting shootings, and the "interesting" element of unstable buildings also began to backfire as they boringly killed several contestants in accidents. In a bid to prop up sagging viewer numbers as the season's ratings declined due to a simple lack of compelling viewing, several novice producers made the ill-advised decision to turn heavy recap and highlight focus to Edward, thinking his many theoretically thought-provoking moments would smooth over the quieter moments of the season. Instead he proved to be another drag, as his incessant speeches were of dubious quality. Large parts of the season's fanbase laughed him off or found him insufferably haughty and holier-than-thou. He also proved to be a coward after his failed "experiment" on Day Two, running and hiding when others appeared rather than trying to directly confront them with his philosophies.

Georges' death late on the fifth day was rather randomly brought about by one of his paranoid "runner-hider" disciples, Clara Taylor, who shot him as his group unknowingly approached her hiding place and then fled. While fans hoped Georges' death might introduce interesting swerves to the arcs of Blake, Jennifer, or Aaron, they merely continued on as they had. Blake and Aaron both vowed to live on to honor Georges' legacy, and Jennifer merely stewed in her once-more-exposed paranoia and grief without clear results or action. Aaron continued to kill steadily through Day Six, where he was the only actual killer (scoring three kills rather than the single one he'd previously allotted himself). As before, he scored his kills without much in the way of flair, tactics, or enthusiasm, and many of his targets escaped him simply by running.

Aaron was finally brought down late that day when his luck and increasingly-uninspired one-liners ran out, as he was tackled through a window by Robert Sykes, who managed to pull himself into another building before perishing of the injuries he'd sustained in the fall hours later. Jennifer caught news of Aaron's death on the seventh day. She finally snapped, and began to angrily rant at Blake, claiming his inaction had brought about the loss of her loved ones. He coldly countered that he was playing smart and staying true to Georges' pacifistic designs, Jennifer would have none of it and stormed off, intent on "protecting" Blake by killing everyone else standing. Fans hoped for a turnabout leading to exciting kills with Jennifer's turn, but were let down in another rampage of uninteresting kills with little dialogue or physical action, as Jennifer awkwardly stumbled into and out of fights with a broadsword that she could barely wield and only scored her kills via long clumsy chases. Her kills were so inefficient that, despite devoting all her energy to her dark mission, she scored only two kills apiece on the seventh and eighth days, but she was also the only one accomplishing anything. This inefficiency was compounded by Heidi, an ally Jennifer reluctantly allowed to tag along after the girl approached her in the aftermath of her first kill. Jennifer claimed that she had teamed up with Heidi out of pity, a move that lost both girls more popularity that they barely had to begin with. They proved to lack synergy and rarely spoke.

When Endgame was declared, in the sole three story building in the area that had already claimed two other lives on its own, it was Blake, Jennifer, Edward, Heidi, and Clara, but the latter girl tried to linger on the edge of a Danger Zone too long to game the system and got her collar detonated. Heidi betrayed Jennifer, killing her so fast with a stab to the jugular that Jennifer didn't even have time to express surprise before she passed out and crumpled. Edward tried to monologue as he stalked through the building but broke off mid-sentence, screamed, and fled when he bumped into Blake and the boy pointed his gun at him.

Blake then dared Heidi to come after him, claiming he had no intent to kill her. When she stalked closer and brandished her knife, for all of his blustering Blake's conviction in Georges' plan ultimately faltered. Confronted directly by death for the first time, he coldly shot her point-blank. Moments later, Edward emerged from the shadows and challenged Blake to hear him out. Before Blake could respond, a floorboard gave out under Edward and he fell into the basement of the building, fracturing his skull. He lapsed into and out of consciousness to complain, beg, and rant for another hour or two, while Blake sat around waiting for the producers to get him. They, however, stubbornly waited out Edward's death, citing propriety, hoping he'd say more "interesting" things as he died, and figuring Blake might finish the boy off to provide at least a little more of a conclusion.

Legacy:

• Rated As: Abysmal
• Season Thirty-Two had a number of interesting moments, but this only makes fans lament the wasted potential all the more. Almost all of the contestants are considered by many to be uninteresting, unsympathetic, or forced in their mannerisms. That a good fifth of the season's deaths were environmental was also a large point of contention with fans. The dramatic slowdown of action after the second day was a massive weight on even those who found the characters interesting in some way or another, and fans overall were not pleased that an under-thirty-contestant season took eight days to conclude, with a bulk of the kills being mediocre. The producers' decision to make a poorly considered Hail Mary out of Edward likely worsened the overall tolerability of the season, and almost all of those involved in the decision would not see their jobs last into 2014, leading in part to the return to a four-season year. Future producers and marketers have buried the season to a significant extent, with merchandise and DVDs mostly out of print. Ironically, this has led to a certain appreciation in value for mere rarity. Few fans like to return to Season Thirty-Two, except perhaps to conduct case studies and analysis on the sometimes compelling charisma of Georges, or to appreciate some of the funnier moments.
• The memes from Season Thirty-Two, by comparison, have enjoyed some longevity, and it started the career of several of SOTF's best cinematographers. Aaron somewhat noteworthy statistic is that the Jennifer-Georges sex scene is one of the most commonly depicted in fanart, and Edward's botched torture scene and some of his lines remain fairly popular "obscure" memes in SOTF communities to this day.
• Blake accepted interviews and media appearances for a period of time after his victory, and at first seemed like he might be intending to try and take on Georges' anti-SOTF rhetoric. However, fans quickly began to call him out for insincerity given how he'd chosen to act in Endgame. He received notable criticism both online and in Q&A sessions for his behavior and actions in the game, and lack thereof. This aroused his temper, and he ended up pistol-whipping and beating a particularly vehement anti-fan during a convention. Against the advice of his lawyers, he insisted on taking the charges to trial instead of securing a more lenient plea deal, and he was swiftly convicted. He was jailed for three years due to aggravated assault and illegally concealed weaponry, and remained on probation following his release.
  
  Blake's looks and his relationship with the more popular and controversial Georges and Aaron earned him a minor club of fangirls who visited him in prison regularly and maintained small fansites, saving him the advertisement revenues for when he got out. Upon his release, Blake began to hang out with his most dedicated female fans, traveling, crashing at their places and sleeping around. He eventually impregnated one Marina Estefan and elected to quietly slip out of the country to avoid the responsibility of fatherhood, drawing on his dual citizenship in the UK. He travels the UK alone now, doing odd jobs, though some rumors connect him to criminal elements and drug dealing. He sends semi-regular child support to his daughter, Georgia-May Estefan, who he has confirmed is partially named by his request to honor Georges, and she receives further support via a garnishment of a portion of Blake's somewhat-meager SOTF royalties. He is mostly ignored by the current SOTF establishment, and is only infrequently interviewed, with a reputation for showing up to those interviews drunk and belligerent.

Suggested by: Cicada Nights