Survivor: Winners at War, Episode 3 "Out for Blood" Analysis

"Baby shark!"

-Tony Vlachos

Man, that was a heart-breaker of an episode.  I still can't believe Ethan was the one voted out.  What a brutal episode.  This is going to be a tough season, I can tell already.  Some of the gameplay in this episode was pretty brutal as well.  Brutally bad.  Let's take a closer look.

Who Played Well:

We'll just be sticking with the Dakal tribe for this segment.  Sophie and Sarah managed to pull off a clutch win during the puzzle section of the Immunity Challenge.  Sarah also managed to pull off a heist netting her a Vote Steal.  Good stuff for Officer Sarah.

I also liked Yul throwing Tyson under the bus to Sandra.  Creating division between these two is a great move for Yul and I think he'll be able to keep Sandra on his side.

Who Sucked:

Sticking with the Dakal tribe, the only person I have here is Tyson.  He put too much trust in Yul in thowing out Sandra's name.  He needed to be more subtle with that move and maybe wait until after they lost an Immunity Challenge.  Doing it now just creates enemies.

Moving over to Sele, we have a lot of people to talk about.  Adam tried to get too cute in this episode.  I understand why he told Ethan and Rob that he wanted to take out Parvati, but he would have been better suited to keep that information to himself.  At the very least, he should have told the new school alliance that he was going to tell Ethan and Rob before he did that.  Instead, he got caught playing both sides, was on the wrong side of the vote, and was lucky he wasn't voted out himself.

Ben, Denise, Jeremy, and Michele all made the wrong move in voting out Ethan.  I get that they wanted to teach Adam a lesson, but all they've done is piss off Adam, Parvati, and Rob.  If they swap tribes, those three have no reason to stay loyal.  The right move would have been to get rid of Parvati.  Heck, getting rid of Adam is a better move than voting out Ethan.  On the plus side, Denise has a full Idol now.

While I appreciate Rob's attempts to regain control, they backfired on him and got Ethan voted out instead.  Would he have been better served to let Parvati go and keep Ethan?  I'm not sure, but both Parvati and Rob ended up on the wrong side of the vote and lost a key alley.

Kim, Nick, Sandra, Tony, and Wendell really didn't do anything good or bad.

As for Ethan, he probably did the least wrong out of everyone on the Sele tribe.  He was just too close to Rob.  It's a bummer to lose him here.  He was probably the person I least wanted to see voted out on Sele.

Verdict:

The Best Player of the Episode goes to Sarah Lacina for winning the Immunity Challenge and getting her hands on the Vote Steal.

The Worst Player of the Episode goes to Adam Klein for scheming and plotting too much, getting caught playing both sides, and for being on the wrong side of the vote.

As painful as it was, this was still a great episode of Survivor.  I'm excited to see what happens next even if I'm probably not emotionally prepared for it.