Survivor 43, Episode 10 "Get That Money, Baby" Gameplay Analysis

 "My leg's sweating off."

-Noelle Lambert

Normally I don't really give a crap at all about the Reward Challenges on Survivor, but this episode was certainly an exception.  Noelle's win was exciting and badass.  Unfortunately, it helped lose her the game.  You don't want to be too inspiring on Survivor or you're going to get voted out.  Anyway, let's take a look at who played well and who sucked.

Who Played Well:

Let's start with Gabler.  I actually like the Noelle vote for him.  She is someone who needed to be out of the game for him to have a chance and we got to see him plotting with multiple people throughout the episode.  It's good to see him considering multiple plans of attack and keeping strategic channels open.

Cassidy winning Immunity really saved her and Karla.  I think one of them would have gone home otherwise.  They seized the opportunity and helped get the vote onto Noelle instead of them.

Who Sucked:

Owen and Sami ended up on the wrong side of the vote, which is pretty typical for Owen at this point.  Sami has now been painted as a schemer and someone who will flip on anyone.  I'm not so sure Sami can win anymore.

Finally, we have Cody and Jesse.  I really don't like that they turned on Noelle.  It seemed like she was pretty close to them and was absolutely willing to work with them.  She's also the perfect person to use as a meat-shield.  She's such an obvious threat that people could very easily miss other threats.  Cody and Jesse should have gone with the plan to split votes between Karla and Sami to try and knock Karla's Idol out of the game.  The Noelle vote was too soon for them and I predict everyone will be coming for Cody and Jesse in the next episode.

As for Noelle, she already had a spotlight on her after her strategic play in the previous episode.  She made things worse for herself by winning the Reward Challenge.  She was the most obvious threat in the game and other people exploited that to knock her out.

Verdict:

Best Player of the Episode goes to Cassidy Clark for winning Immunity, saving herself and Karla, and taking out Noelle.

Worst Player of the Episode goes to Sami Layadi for being left out of the vote and for being seen as untrustworthy by the other players.

I think this is going to blow up in Cody and Jesse's faces next week and I'm very excited to see how this unfolds.  Hopefully, this will lead to the rise of Owen as he goes on to with the season.