Matt Liguori analyzes the Survivor: David vs Goliath cast each week to pick out his top three players, his bottom two, and one player we should be keeping an eye on.
Survivor 3•2•1 — David vs Goliath Week 2
Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme….
If you’re new here, let me introduce myself. Hi! My name is Matt and way more often than not, I’m super high on players who inevitably soon will self-destruct. It happens every season, and this time there was no wasting time. Jessica Peet was my winner pick and after last week’s episode, I was feeling fantastic about it. I thought her edit was looking as great as her position in the tribe seemed to be. Wrong!
Luckily, this season has been amazing through two episodes and I won’t let this one hurdle get me down. There’s a bunch of solid contenders and great characters (hey, Natalie!) so we’ll just slide this early fumble under the rug and look ahead to the many I’ll continue to make as the season goes.
Live Know-It-Alls last week was a great time! As has been reported on multiple platforms, the live show was one of the best we’ve had over the years. The guests were fantastic and the show ran super smoothly. It’s always great to see familiar faces and meet new ones, so shoutout to everybody who was there and I hope you all had an awesome time too.
Thoughts? Comments? Agreements? Disagreements? Reach out on twitter @mattliguori or leave a comment below!
TOP 3
Christian
If this blog were still a straight up Power Rankings, Christian would be comfortably positioned up top at #1. The hyper-frenetic half of the new Mason-Dixon alliance is sitting in the best possible position of the David tribe. All episode long, players were coming to him to pitch voting together, working together, even playing in the sand together. It started with Nick, then Elisabeth and Lyrsa, and finally we saw Gabby making sure that Christian is on her side. Christian is well aware of his great spot and shared with us how he thinks he’s the perfect person to be where he is. He’s got a lot of power, and going forward I have faith in him to make the most of it.
Elisabeth
Elisabeth was somebody I’ve quietly had my eye on since the pre-season, and with this strong of an episode it’s finally time to bring her in here. Elisabeth could win this whole game. She showed us this week that she isn’t going to sit back and allow the game to be played around her. Once she heard her closest ally’s name come up as a target, she managed to turn things around and rally up the votes to not only keep Lyrsa safe, but to pick off the exact target she wanted out of the game. With numbers now on her side and a proven willingness to play hard, I think Elisabeth has longevity in the game.
Johnny Nitro
It wasn’t a huge week for John, but it was a solid week. From where I’m sitting, John’s not only in a great spot, but he’s actively playing behind-the-scenes by bringing in Natalie to his side when it’s clear that she has nobody else. That’s one vote that will always be on his side, in addition to the majority alliance that has formed around him of the three women, Alec, and Dan. He doesn’t appear to be rubbing anybody the wrong way; being a professional wrestler probably doesn’t have anybody worried about him as a strong brain-power/strategic threat, so as long as he continues helping his tribes win challenges, the mayor will continue residing over Goliath…town.
BOTTOM 2
Bi
Things aren’t looking great for Bi. Having lost her closest ally this week, Bi seems to be on the bottom of the totem pole. While she’s maintained her positive attitude within the tribe for herself and for the group, it may be too little too late to do anything to save her game. The David tribe needs to find a way to win, and you’d think having an MMA fighter on their team would be a benefit. But without the social connections to anybody in the majority alliance, it’s hard to see what cracks Bi can find to stick around much longer. It looked like she had a good thing going with Gabby, but if her and Jessica made it obvious how much closer they were to each other than to Gabby, who could blame Gabby for deciding to go another route?
Jeremy
I love Jeremy. Don’t you? How could you not? As much as it breaks my heart, I’m really worried about him. The dynamics of the Goliath tribe seem to be a group of six in the majority, with links between John and Natalie, the girls to Mike White, and Angelina to Alison (after last week’s idol hunt). Who does that leave on the outs? Jeremy. What makes me more nervous for Jeremy is that after his failed attempt at “helping” Natalie, Jeremy named her his top target. I think the majority group already views Jeremy as a strategic threat, and him pushing for Natalie to go home while she’s got John pushing to keep her around is going to backfire on him. Plus, if word gets out that Jeremy found Dan’s idol, or if word gets out that Jeremy is heavily onto the Dan and Kara showmance… not good for his chances.
1 TO WATCH
Davie
Davie’s position at the end of this week’s episode is a lot worse than it was going into it. His closest ally is probably Carl, and the move this week to take out Jessica was made to weaken Carl. But look at Davie… the guy just found an idol and will have that by his side incase he needs it, and seems to be comfortably taking on the role of tribe provider. To be fair, it feels like the provider role is becoming less and less important in a tribe as Survivor evolves, but given this group of Davids, I think they’d really struggle without somebody going out and bringing back food every day. The Nerdpocolypse may be coming, but Davie told us in the premiere that “hey, I’m a nerd too!” and that connection to Christian may be enough to blend in with the rest of the group and keep his name off the chopping block.
