Each Double Cross clue mentions the title or subtitle of a season of the US TV show Survivor.
Clue | Answer | Survivor season mentioned in clue | |
---|---|---|---|
A | Type of weapons tested at Maralinga in the Australian Outback | NUCLEAR | Australian Outback |
B | He played Lt. Cable in the original Broadway cast of South Pacific | TABBERT | South Pacific |
C | Musician honored on a medallion between Mozart and Victoria in Palau de la Música Catalana | HANDEL | Palau |
D | Brazilian state northwest of Tocantins | PARA | Tocantins |
E | Pearl claimed Peridot is harmless without these enhancers | LIMB | Pearl (Islands) |
F | Friends in the movie Aaaah look for a ghost in this Tamil Nadu device | ATM | Ghost (Island) |
G | Box-shaped Peruvian drum thought to originate from Africa | CAJON | Africa |
H | Where PANAMA is D7 C1 D5 C1 D4 C1 (abbr.) | EBCDIC | Panama |
I | Joe Pesci title character who faces pool hustlers in Alabama | VINNY | (Heroes vs. Healers vs.) Hustlers |
J | This Nashville restaurant is run by head cook Deb Paquette | ETCH | Cook (Islands) |
K | Plant native to the Amazon which caused a boom in 1879 (2 wds) | RUBBERTREE | Amazon |
L | In Japanese, this Super Mario 3 enemy is known as Gabon | SPIKE | Gabon |
M | Channel -3 (WB cartoon where David Paymer voiced a snail) | UMPTEE | David (vs. Goliath) |
N | Funeral chant in Cambodia | SMOT | Cambodia |
O | Company that lets you "Live Anywhere" in places like Norway, Indonesia, and Thailand | AIRBNB | Thailand |
P | Environmental activist who survived a 2009 typhoon in the Philippines | CABE | Philippines |
Q | US State whose second-largest city was disparaged in advertising from the Fiji brand | OHIO | Fiji |
R | Within the Cagayan Valley, Roman Catholics are this | MAJORITY | Cagayan |
S | Room 401 magician visited by prospective American Idols | MINKIN | (Island of the) Idols |
T | Sitting US President honored on a Vanuatu coin | OBAMA | Vanuatu |
U | Footballer who played himself in a Vin Diesel movie that partly filmed in Caramoan | NEYMAR | Caramoan |
V | Inedible outer portion that you peel apart from the fruit | RIND | (Worlds) Apart |
W | Prefix for China used in histories of Vietnam | INDO | China |
X | Chakotay claimed he and their dinosaur ancestors came from one world | VOTH | One World |
Y | Sabal tells this Far Cry 4 character that sins must be washed in blood | AJAY | Blood (vs. Water) |
Z | Crichton who played rugby for Samoa | LOKI | Samoa |
The words in the grid are groups of names, separated from adjacent groups with shading. Solvers must recognize that they are names of contestants from the TV show Survivor (US edition). A hint to this is that each clue mentions (part of) the title or subtitle of a different season of Survivor.
K | E | I | T | H | J | E | N | N | A | M | I | C | H | E | L | E | M | I | K | |||
E | B | R | E | N | D | A | C | I | R | I | E | T | O | M | R | U | P | E | ||||
R | T | S | A | R | A | H | S | T | E | P | H | E | N | P | A | R | V | A | T | |||
I | B | R | A | D | J | O | N | K | I | M | M | I | V | I | C | T | O | R | ||||
I | A | M | O | N | I | C | A | D | A | N | I | E | L | L | E | M | A | T | T | |||
B | U | R | T | O | N | C | O | L | B | Y | A | U | B | R | Y | B | E | N | ||||
C | O | B | Y | B | O | B | B | Y | J | O | N | A | M | A | N | D | A |
The acrostic from the clued answers spells NTH PLACE VERSUS A COMMON RIVAL.
Each shaded group in the grid is the list of people who came in a particular ordinal place (e.g. 2nd place) against one particular returning contestant, across all of the appearances of that contestant.
(Some of the people in the grid also appeared in multiple seasons, but getting the same ordinal number for an entire group makes the solution unique.)
The groups in the grid are given so that these returning contestants are in alphabetical order (by first name).
Group of Names | ordinal place | season | contestant in all those seasons | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Keith (Famie) | 3 | Australian Outback | Amber (Brkich) Mariano | ||
Jenna (Lewis) | 3 | All-Stars | |||
Michele (Fitzgerald) | 3 | Winners at War | |||
Mike (Chiesl) | 6 | Redemption Island | Andrea Boehlke | ||
Brenda (Lowe) | 6 | Caramoan | |||
Cirie (Fields) | 6 | Game Changers | |||
Tom (Buchanan) | 4 | Africa | Ethan Zohn | ||
Rupert (Boneham) | 4 | All-Stars | |||
Sarah (Lacina) | 4 | Winners at War | |||
Stephen (Fishbach) | 2 | Tocantins | J.T. Thomas | ||
Parvati (Shallow) | 2 | Heroes vs. Villains | |||
Brad (Culpepper) | 2 | Game Changers | |||
Jon (Misch) | 6 | San Juan del Sur | Kelley Wentworth | ||
Kimmi (Kappenberg) | 6 | Cambodia | |||
Victoria (Baamonde) | 6 | Edge of Extinction | |||
Monica (Padilla) | 7 | Samoa | Russell Hantz | ||
Danielle (DiLorenzo) | 7 | Heroes vs. Villains | |||
Matt (Elrod) | 7 | Redemption Island | |||
Burton (Roberts) | 5 | Pearl Islands | Sandra Diaz-Twine | ||
Colby (Donaldson) | 5 | Heroes vs. Villains | |||
Aubry (Bracco) | 5 | Game Changers | |||
Ben (Driebergen) | 5 | Winners at War | |||
Coby (Archa) | 9 | Palau | Stephenie LaGrossa | ||
Bobby Jon (Drinkard) | 9 | Guatemala | |||
Amanda (Kimmel) | 9 | Heroes vs. Villains |
For each of these returning contestants, only one of their seasons appears in the original clues; we order by those clues, and index into their names with the ordinal place that was found.
Survivor season mentioned in clue | Contestant | Index | Letter | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Australian Outback | AMBER | 3 | B | ||
Palau | STEPHENIE | 9 | E | ||
Tocantins | JT | 2 | T | ||
Pearl (Islands) | SANDRA | 5 | R | ||
Africa | ETHAN | 4 | A | ||
Cambodia | KELLEY | 6 | Y | ||
Caramoan | ANDREA | 6 | A | ||
Samoa | RUSSELL | 7 | L |
(It's also easy enough to find the indexing but not the ordering, and look for anagrams.)
The indexed letters spell out BETRAYAL ("It's a double cross").