Survivor: Winners at War, Episode 8 "This is Where the Battle Begins" Analysis

"Queen slayer!"

-Tony Vlachos

Survivor: Winners at War continues to deliver with a solid merge episode.  I do think this should have been a ninety minute episode though.  The game reentry challenge took up a large chunk of time, so the rest of the episode felt a bit rushed.  That said, it was still a fun episode with some good and bad gameplay, which we'll take a closer look at.

Who Played Well:

Let's start with Adam.  He was a likely candidate to go home due to his actions premerge, but played it cool in this episode and got on the right side of the vote.  He also had an epic voting confessional that was both bad-ass and self-aware.

Tyson managed to get back in the game from the Edge of Extinction.  He also got into a Threats Alliance along with Ben, Jeremy, and Tony, which could benefit all of them.  They were all on the right side of the vote as well.

Denise managed to win Immunity when she was on the chopping block.  She also got on the right side of the vote.  Most impressive was that she was willing to vote out Adam if that's what everyone else wanted.  It didn't end up happening, but I like how cutthroat she is playing.

Finally, Kim, Sarah, and Sophie all also got on the right side of the vote.  Sophie also had an amazing read on the potential Threat Alliance.

Who Sucked:

Jeremy may have been on the right side of the vote and won Immunity, but he pushed way too hard to try and save Wendell when he needed to go with the flow.  I wouldn't be surprised to see this blow back on him and send him to the Edge.  He put himself too far out there and couldn't even save Wendell.  It was the worst of both worlds for Jeremy.

Finally, Michele and Nick both ended up being left out of the vote.  Nick also seemed to be annoying some people by budding into every conversation.

As for Wendell, there probably wasn't much he could have done.  He was taken down because of an outside relationship, which has been a common occurrence in the game.  Maybe if he had thrown Nick under the bus, but he was in a tough spot.

Verdict:

The Best Player of the Episode goes to Denise Stapley for winning Immunity, getting on the right side of the vote, and being completely willing to turn on Adam.

The Worst Player of the Episode (besides the person who was voted out) goes to Nick Wilson for being on the wrong side of the vote and annoying some of the other players.

I'll be curious to see if Nick can find a way out of this situation.  I'm also amazed that Tony's name wasn't even brought up once.  Incredible.