Survivor 43, Episode 9 "What About the Big Girls" Gameplay Analysis

 "Peanut butter jelly time!"

-Cody Assenmacher

I really enjoy these episodes of Survivor where they split the group up and two people get sent home.  It's a fun way to shake up the game that feels more authentic than just advantages.  This was a fun episode, and best of all; the Knowledge is Power is out of the game!  What more could you ask for?  Anyway, let's get into who played well and who sucked.

Who Played Well:

Let's start with Owen, who I'm making my new winner pick with my original pick, Ryan, being gone.  I don't like that he got so heated with James, but he was part of the group that took out James.  I think that frees Owen up to play has game and makes him less of a target.

I can't believe I'm doing this, but I'm also going to put Sami into this category.  I hated that he told Karla about the plan to take out James.  I thought for sure that Karla would flip things around and Owen would go home.  But somehow, Sami managed to pull this off.  He took out the person he wanted to leave and got Karla to go along with it.  It's not a move I would have done, but I have to give him props for succeeding.

Finally, we have Noelle, who was really the mastermind of the James vote.  I really like how she made James comfortable by using the Vote Steal on Owen before taking James out.  It was just a really smooth move and knocked out the Knowledge is Power and a dangerous player.

Who Sucked:

We'll move on to Gabler and Cassidy.  They made the wrong move in taking out Ryan.  Ryan wasn't going to beat anyone and they missed a great opportunity to come together and take out a much bigger threat in Jesse.  It's definitely worse for Gabler, but I do wish Cassidy and Ryan had been able to get over their beef and work together.  They were too focused on each other and missed the real threal.

Jesse and Cody made the wrong move in taking out Ryan.  This was the perfect opportunity to take out Cassidy, who is a much better player than Ryan.  They even talked about pulling the trigger if James ended up being voted out, but they didn't.  Ryan can't beat anyone.  Why not keep him around?

Finally, we have Karla.  It's great that she won Immunity, but she had two different ways to go about saving one of her closest allies.  She could have probably convinced Sami to go after Owen.  If not, she could have tipped off James, who could have used his Knowledge is Power to take Noelle's Vote Steal.  I just don't know why she would give up control like this.

As for James, his conflict with Owen made him a target.  He didn't need to purposefully try to exclude Owen from the previous vote, especially since he had Immunity.  It doesn't matter if he had been in on the plan or not.  All this did was make Owen an enemy for James and made the target on James' back bigger.

Ryan needed to spend more time focusing on the social and strategic aspects of the game and less time fishing.  He could have convinced Cody and Jesse to go after Cassidy.  And if he had gotten over his beef with Cassidy, they could have taken down Jesse.  He seems like a really nice guy, but he is not cut out for Survivor.

Verdict:

Since two people were voted out, I'm going to give out two Best and Worst Players of the Episode.  For Best, I'll start with Noelle Lambert for masterminding the James vote and making James feel very comfortable as she did it.

I'll give my other one to Sami Layadi for convincing Karla to join his side and taking out James.

For Worst Player of the Episode, I'll give my first one to Mike Gabler for voting out one of the only people he had a shot to beat in Ryan and for not going after Jesse.

The second one will got to Karla Cruz Godoy for not saving her ally, James, when she had two clear avenues to do so.

I'm bummed that the Owen/James feud is over.  That was my favorite part of this episode, but I'm very curious to see how things are going to shake out next time.