I watched the new mini-series! It was good! 😀 Go watch it so we can have more Escape the Night content! I will do a post about it after a few weeks have passed. Until then, there is now new material for all five of the featured creators to add to my current rankings.
Since so many people have been on the show, I felt like it could be fun to give my top ten favorite characters from Escape the Night. As you can see, there’s an asterisk on the top of this post. I will only be discussing characters that have been introduced and NOT won a season.
Spoiler Warning.
Anything discussed beyond this point will be considered a spoiler warning for all seasons of Escape the Night.
Seriously. The next thing I will write is the winners of the first four seasons. So please please please, if you are wanting to not know the winners of seasons one through four, leave the post and come back later.
This means I will not be discussing Eva, Olli, Andrea (s2), Tyler, MatPat, Nikita, or Bretman in this post.
If you noticed that a winner or another player is missing, that is because there are at least two people whose outside behavior have made it impossible for me to enjoy them on the show. If you know, you know.
This leaves me with some counting to do. I counted Andrea(S1), Justine, Glozell, Sierra, Matt, Tim, Lele, Lauren, Jesse, Destorm, Liza, Tana, Gabbie, Alex, JC, Roi, Teala, Safiya, Rosanna, Manny, and Jojo. Twenty-one youtubers that have been on the show, but not won the series (as of the end of season/beginning of season five. I will only be sharing vibes and performance things if I even mention a season five contestant.)
So now, I have to structure this top ten by who I like the most. And what is a top ten without Honorable Mentions. I’m going to have two, because some of these characters are still worth mentioning for impact alone.
Honorable Mentions:
Justine Ezarik – Justine is only so low on this list because she went out early in both seasons. We didn’t have a lot of time to see her work. She was an amazing personality and had good chemistry with her friends on the show. But when it came to challenges and puzzles, she was not fast enough. However! She fucking FOUGHT against that mummy in Season Four and that was such a badass moment. Like they really let some of these youtubers throw hands with the actors in All Stars.
Glozell Green – Glozell was a huge source of entertainment and also adversity almost, as she was the first person to cast suspicion onto Joey, and this was all the way back in season one! She walked so other players could also walk. As far as I remember, she was pretty perceptive in the puzzle part of the game. However, her mistrust of Joey almost screwed them up a bit.
10. Lele Pons – Lele is a season one original cast member, and she hasn’t been back since. I remember during my initial watch that she was one of my favorites. She brought the drama. Like she had a season long rivalry with fellow player Matt. It was so fun to see, especially because she was so much more interesting than him. She was very smart in the way she played her game and she was very helpful in the puzzles. She just didn’t do well in the death challenges.
9. Timothy DeLaGhetto – Tim is the second multi-season person on this list. In Season One, Tim was an unstoppable force, making it to the penultimate episode before meeting his end, having survived two other death challenges. He was a good presence in that first season and that’s why he is actually the highest season one person ranked on this list. He did return for All Stars where he was… not as good as he was in Season one. That’s why he’s at nine.
8. Gabbie Hanna – Gabbie is a Season Two contestant. She was great at the puzzles and was decent at challenges! She was also just a really fun cast member to watch, in both season two and the All Stars return. It’s a shame that there seemed to be so much trouble concerning her on set. I do believe that she was one of the first to form an alliance in this show. With Destorm of all people! She was definitely messy once or twice in the show. The reason she’s so low is just that I have folks I like more.
7. Jojo Siwa – Somehow, in some way, JOJO SIWA beat out fourteen other people. Girl was just introduced. But her energy on screen, her unintentional comedy. The character she had really won me over, even with all the references to “Karma.” She seemed to really adjust well to everything with little reference and actually helped solve a few puzzles. Why isn’t she higher? I mean… it’s Jojo Siwa dude. I am going to get a lot of flack for putting her this high. She may have the least combined screen time out of everyone just because she was apart of a mini-series.
6. Liza Koshy – Liza Koshy, the woman you are. I was absolutely in love with her character work. She was everything. She was good at puzzles. She was hilarious. She knew what the fuck she was doing. She was the fan-favorite before Ro came along. It’s wild to me that she only played the game for one season. And her elimination in Season Two was a SHOCK. We really thought she was good. But nooooooooo. And what made it worse was that I was really rooting for her to take the whole show. She could have done it too! CURSE YOU, TYLER OAKLEY!
5. Safiya Nygaard – Season Three is a stacked cast for multiple reasons. Safiya is one of them. In a season with several “villains,” Safiya was one of the heroic ones! Yet another single season person, Safiya came to the season with a very analytical mind and was great at solving puzzles. She was also very well-liked among the cast it seems, never actually touching a final death challenge. Her end came when the person she voted for won their final death challenge. It was like the biggest upset, because they lost a huge puzzle solver in such a sudden and upsetting way.
4. Tana Mongeau – Our first three-time veteran on this list, Tana returned in the newest season and showed us why she is an underrated queen. She is so funny. She knows how to act in front of a camera. And she is smart. Do not let your preconceived notions fool you. Girl knows her fucking puzzles. Her first death in season two was literally because of fucking Joey and Andrea. Like… The reasoning they gave for that was just… Ugh. All Stars gave viewers another chance to see her in action. And it just reinforces my belief that she really enjoys this type of thing. Solving puzzles, being with friends. And she showed a lot of heart in her All Star return. She beat Justine in her death challenge to everyone’s shock, then tried to do what she could to protect her. It didn’t work but still. Then, later on, she was thrown in with Gabbie. This woman left her own puzzle to try and help Gabbie get ahead. She is on her queen shit, let me tell you.
3. Destorm Power – Destorm was the show’s first proper villain. He was out for him and only him. He started rivalries with Alex Wassabi after beating his then girlfriend Lauren in the first death challenge of the season and somehow got Gabbie Hanna to save his life. All within the first three episodes. He had most of the Season Two cast rooting against him when it was his time to go. But he came back in All Stars. He had a little bit of a turnaround. But the best thing about this season was that he showed just how good at puzzles he was. Was in four death challenges, and he could have won three. But he had his hero moment in a rematch against Alex Wassabi. “This is for Lauren.” Yes. Yes it was. Honestly, in my opinion, Destorm being the first good villain in the series really set the stage for villains to come. *cough cough* NIKITA.
2. Manny MUA – I talked a bit about Manny in a previous post. Season 3 was his only season before coming back and he is just as good as he was in Season 3, if not better! He’s an absolute wizard at puzzles, he’s wicked smart, funny as fuck, gorgeous to boot, and he’s proven MULTIPLE times that he is the strongest player of this whole god damn game. The only person that has canonically beaten him is his best friend, Nikita. You’d think the man was meant to be a real-life final boy with the way he plays. Like, fuck I’d cast Manny as the lead in a horror movie. Best believe no monster could take him.
1. Rosanna Pansino – Nobody should be surprised by this. She’s a fan favorite. She’s good at puzzles, she’s incredibly helpful in team challenges, she’s just all around a good person in and out of the game. The only side she’s on, is the side of her friends. She will cheer on anyone and just be supportive as heck. Yes. She’s lost two death challenges. Yes. Both times she was so close to winning. But I think that’s the appeal. That’s what keeps her coming back. She’s an underdog, and she’s so easy to root for. Like nobody actually dislikes her in these games.
So that’s the list. What do we think? Did I get anything wrong? Are you also enraged that Jojo is at number 7? Let me know!
I would watch a season with this cast. It would be such a good season.
Scribbles of a Chee 
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