It’s officially official: two returning castaways will rejoin the tribes on the spring edition of Survivor …but let’s spoil that later on, shall we?

(The spoiler will be located directly under the Survivor logo – read easy til then, and read below that to know who the returning douchebags castaways are.)

CBS announced the cast on its official page with photos, bios, videos and more! The two mystery members are marked as question marks, giving us a grand total of 18 tribe members. EW has a slammin’ photo gallery including brief bios and little blurbs of fun facts. Check it out!

The Winz is not so sure how we feel about the new “twist.” Redemption Island sounds like something too close to a Real World/Road Rules Challenge and we all know Survivor is far superior to that. So they vote someone out and then get them back when they win a duel? Won’t that deplete almost all of the tension at Tribal? “Who cares who is voted out, they can just win the Redemption round and return!” Yikes.

Another side note – more than half of this cast is from the L.A. area. (Casting department getting lazy, Probsty?) It’s been no secret that Survivor does a ton of recruiting for the show, as opposed to old-school video submissions/interviews, but enough is enough already. Some of our best cast members were every-day normal-guys! The over-abundance of recruiting techniques (i.e. – finding castaways in Hollywood bars) makes it less possible that they’ll find the next Rupert, Jane, Denise or Big Tom – and that can and will mess with the show’s dynamic. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow…but someday.

I’m extremely leery about this one, folks. Regardless, the new season starts February 16 on CBS.

And now for some other Survivor business:

As you may have noticed, I didn’t really chime in regarding the Nicaragua finale. It’s probably because the entire show ended with a big: MEH. It’s boring to watch someone “Colby” their way to the final (Australia-Colby, not Heroes-vs-Villains-Colby!). It’s boring to watch a final tribal when it’s so blatantly obvious who is going to win. And goddammit, HOLLY was voted out!

Who wasn’t rooting for Holly!? It would’ve been an epic redemption story! She was shaky and shady during her first week, but totally upped her game as the show progressed. Even though she didn’t win, I’m still a huge fan of hers and found her story to be both interesting and compelling. And if the show continues to recruit, we can say goodbye to the Hollys of Survivor!

Nicaragua was a mediocre season, at best. Maybe this is why producers decided to bring back…(spoiler below!)

Russell Hantz and Boston Rob. Ugh. Somebody kill me, please.  If there ever was a reason for this die-hard fan to stop watching the show – I think it would be Hantz’s third appearance in four season coupled with Boston Rob’s fourth.

This better be fucking good, Probst.