The order in which players left the game and the impact they left behind:
- Darnell (To Tang/Brawn) His ineptness with the diving mask made him an easy first vote out.
- Jennifer (To Tang/Brawn) The instigator of Cyndey's earliest attempt at an all-girls alliance ended up becoming her first victim, too.
- Liz (Chan Loh/Brains) Peter's one ally ended up being the first victim of the Brains' early inability to trust each other and somewhat extreme splintering.
- Caleb (Gondol/Beauty) The earliest most likable player in this season, and the first of three evacuations. He set the tone for how to handle Tai.
- Alecia (To Tang/Brawn) Was an early indicator of the reaction to the kind of tough style Scot exhibited, and how hard it was to play with and/or against.
- Anna (Gondol/Beauty) The early tribe-swapping idea had everyone thinking to eliminate Beauties because of the Julia variable, and thusly the early strength of the Beauties was seemingly eliminated by voting Anna (part of the Beauty girls alliance) out. (But everyone then forgot to eliminate the rest of them.)
- Peter (Chan Loh/Brains) Peter suffered in a season filled with people who were convinced they were in control. This was especially tricky because two of his Brains teammates, Aubry and Debbie, were leading that charge. And so he was the one who had the toughest time of the three, because he couldn't get along, ultimately, with either of them. It's funny that they kept claiming he was done in by his ego, because that's kind of what leads a lot of players to the finals...
- Neal (Chan Loh/Brains) Neal's such a hard one to evaluate. He kept showing flashes of brilliance (finding the hidden immunity from his camp, for instance), but his gameplay consisted entirely of unquestioningly following others, and his tirade after being eliminated from the jury was a poor way to go after gaining so much sympathy from explaining how Survivor changed his life, when he was evacuated. For such a fan of the game, his gameplay rarely reflected it. Either he was hugely thrown off by actually playing it, or Neal really was as ultimately pointless as the editing made him seem as a personality, but I find it hard to think too much of him, in the end.
- Nick (Gondol/Beauty) His overconfidence did him in, and is the player from the jury pool who first demonstrated how tough the rest of the game would be for players like that. From his beginnings in the Beauty tribe, unknowingly on the outs from the girls alliance, to his later scheming, Nick could have been better, if he'd just stopped to think things through a little more.
- Debbie (Chan Loh/Brains) Aubry's relationship with this alleged character defined her whole season. The nutcase who ended up in a position of power once the Brains solidified post-Peter, Debbie's overconfidence mirrored so many other players, and she never saw it coming. Aubry wasn't her biggest fan to start with, and ended up deciding that Debbie really was the liability she initially seemed, and so she ended up blindsided. Hard to root for. My sister kept comparing her to Phillip ("the Specialist") as someone completely oblivious to the effect they have on people, but Phillip's game was intentionally driven by his odd character, whereas Debbie's wasn't. She literally had no clue.
- Scot (To Tang/Brawn) This guy and his buddy Jason were ultimately in the same boat as Debbie, because they became ludicrously overconfident to the point of alienating their would-be allies. Ultimately, I think Scot was more responsible for Jason's downfall, so their Russell-like antics reflect more poorly on the former NBA champion (won in his last season, with the Celtics, by the way).
- Julia (Gondol/Beauty) If only she had exhibited more confidence, Julia could have gone further, but ultimately her gameplay was so similar to Michele's that one of them had to go, and just as inevitably, one of them was going to win. So that's good for someone who rarely received much help from the edit.
- Jason (To Tang/Brawn) Such a tough case to analyze, like a lot of other players this season. Like a better version of Dan (Worlds Apart) or the infamous Russell, Jason serves as a villain first and foremost, but a smarter one than either of them, as possibly because of the extremes his odds went through throughout the season. He needed Scot to make this work just as much as he suffered because of Scot. The mastermind of an alliance that never went anywhere, thanks to key defections by Cydney and Tai, Jason still ended up a viable contender to reach the finals, against all odds, because he was smarter than Dan or Russell. But now we know what it looks like when you take that kind of player and add someone who stokes the mischief.
- Joe (Chan Loh/Brains) Almost a better comparison to Phillip ("the Specialist") than Debbie was this guy, a retired FBI agent who displayed no cleverness whatsoever, went along for the ride others provided him, and still liked to reference his ability to read people. To what end, Joe? I don't know if it was his age that got in the way, but his evacuation became morbidly hilarious when Cydney literally sat there predicting it, and then it happened just as she said it would.
- Cydney (To Tang/Brawn) Few players have frustrated me as much as Cydney, who was almost as clever as Kim (One World) in flipping from one seemingly sure thing to another, but could never quite seal the deal. Ditching an alliance she reluctantly came to (Scot and Jason) for another attempt at an all girls block put her, uncomfortably, into the editing for the first time, but it also put her, rightfully so, into the finals. Her only problem? She started playing way too late in the game.
- Tai (Gondol/Beauty) This apparent second coming of Yau-Man turned out to be something else entirely, a game-changer with every decision he made, an emotional player who still ended up playing smartly, once he realized who he should stick with (Aubry) in the game's final stages. It didn't earn him any votes in the finals, but Tai absolutely deserved to be there. Better than Yau-Man, ultimately. Plus, Mark the Chicken! Sia as his biggest fan! Memorable for all the right reasons, even if he blew all the advantages he picked up along the way, including knowingly passing up the opportunity to use the Super Idol.
- Aubry (Chan Loh/Brains) Such an intelligent player, who kept turning disadvantages into advantages, including working her way through the wreckage of the Brains tribe (which was smarter on the whole than the last Brains tribe by, oh, about a thousand percent, although it didn't look like it most of the time), losing her two biggest, unquestioning allies to evacuation, and still making it to the finals. She called Cochran her "spirit animal." It showed.
- Michele (Gondol/Beauty) Despite my vehement disagreement with the season's biggest twist (the ability to vote out a jury member, which goes against the whole point of the jury, where the finalists no longer have the game in their hands), Michele, as she did the rest of the season, played it wisely, and eliminated Neal, who instantly proved her right, even though the voting made it a moot point, with five of seven remaining jurors voting in her favor. A true underdog story, the proverbial spoiler being left in long enough to, y'know, spoil. But she absolutely earned this one. As with the rest of the finalists, Michele had to scramble basically the whole game, but she never got her hands dirty, incredibly. That's how you win a season like this. Hard to predict the winner for most of the season, but the minute this girl made it to the end, it was academic from there.
