Surviving Reelfoot Lake

Surviving Reelfoot Lake is the first season of Surviving Reelfoot.

Jared Updike became the inaugural winner of Surviving Reelfoot in a 5-3 vote over runner-up Desiray Sturgeon.

Production
Daren Kirksey was noted to be a last minute addition to the cast by production due to being low on members on the start date, and his son Evan Kirksey was already competing.

There were no twists this season other than the existence of one hidden immunity idol at each of the Kalopin and Copiah camps. Due to the low number of castaways, the jury formed when the game began.

Season Summary
The series premiere began with a tribe draft with Desiray and Kyle being randomly selected to be the tribe captains. Desiray picked the purple buff and formed Kalopin and Kyle was left with the red buff and formed Copiah. Until the merge, Kalopin won all of the reward challenges but Copiah won all of the immunity challenges sending Kalopin to tribal council twice before the merge. Jaylen formed a 3 person majority alliance between Daren, Desiray and himself on Kalopin. On Copiah, a 4 person majority alliance formed between Evan, Jared, Ke Andre, and Kyle.

With 9 people remaining in the game the tribes merged to form S'nore. Copiah immediately began self destructing with 3 successive eliminations at the merge despite having the numbers. In the first 2 merge vote we saw the series' first ever tie vote as well as the seris' first ever idol play to negate votes.

At the final 5, the Kalopin alliance was ready to turn on the father-son duo. Evan was the intended target and his father Daren had won individual immunity. At tribal council, Daren gave up individual immunity to Evan and ended up being voted out in his place.

At the final 4 tribal council, the vote was deadlocked and a firemaking challenge ensued between Evan and Jaylen, with Jaylen coming out victorious. With Jared winning his second individual immunity challenge in a row, it did not matter since Jaylen left the following tribal council becoming the final juror.

At the final tribal council, Desiray was praised for her under the radar gameplay and how she did 'more with less' since she knew less about the game beforehand. She was also commended for reaching the final tribal council with no votes against. She was criticized for being under Jaylen's wing too much, and some thought she was overshadowed by his gameplay. Jared was criticized for doing 'less with more' having known the game well beforehand and having many blunders as soon as the merge started. Many of the jurors were still impressed by his scrappy underdog gameplay which got him from the bottom of the tribe to the final tribal council. Ultimately he was awarded the win and the title of Sole Survivor in a 5-3 vote.

Trivia

 * This is the first season to have someone reach final tribal council with no votes against.
 * This is the first season to have someone give up an individual immunity necklace at tribal council.
 * This is the first season to feature a double idol play as well as a successful idol play.