Game Play
Sandra has been under the radar for much of this season, but always lurking in the background behind the ‘power’ players. Sandra has attempted several moves during the game, some of which were successful and others which failed because she couldn’t convince players to see the game board the same way that she did.
We saw her talking with Rob frequently and she was evidently Rob’s ally and confidant, though there hadn’t been many opportunities for them to put plans in motion. Sandra did vote along with his plan to eliminate Parvati / Russell, and stuck with Rob on the vote that sent him home. After Rob lost the war for dominance in the Villains camp, Sandra found herself having to scramble for survival and that’s when we saw her starting to move to protect herself. Sandra, perhaps alone among the villains, had a good read on Russell’s motivations and reactions and manipulated Lil Evil into eliminating Coach in order to buy herself and Courtney another day in the game.
While Courtney wouldn’t survive another tribal council, Sandra made the merge and has survived ever since. Russell may not completely trust her, but has needed her vote. Sandra for her part has twice attempted to throw a wrench in Russell’s plans. She told the Heroes the truth about Russell’s deception, but they didn’t believe her. Later she tried to convince Candice to turn on Russell, but Candice was resolute in her fear of Russell and his Immunity Idol. You have to give Sandra credit for still playing the game and not giving up when people either don’t listen or make bad moves. We’ve seen plenty of people in the past roll over and play dead, but Sandra has kept angling, kept scrambling and has a legitimate shot to make the final tribal council. Her persistence in trying to overthrow Russell and the fact that several Jury members would not be on the Jury if they had listened to her, gives her a compelling case for deserving the million dollar prize.
Chances to Make Final Tribal Council – 65%
Sandra has a fifty / fifty chance to make the final three. There are three legitimate contenders to win a jury vote right now (Sandra, Parvati and Colby) and two chances to eliminate them before the Final Tribal Council. The remaining players know this and given that the ‘Villains’ came together to eliminate Rupert, we can predict that they’ll come together to eliminate Colby if they have a chance to do so. Which means at one of these tribal councils it will come down to Parvati vs Sandra. Sandra is a little less likely to win an immunity challenge and a little more likely to have Russell bring her along at this point.
Chances to Win - 45%
When we first began this analysis our thought was that Sandra was the second most likely person to win Survivor, that she could beat everyone in the game except for Parvati. Our review of the situation changed that position a bit. Many members of the Jury would not be there if they’d listened to Sandra… she clearly out-witted them, some of them were her allies in failed alliances… but she out-lasted them, and some of them were her rivals… and she out-played them. She can make the best of all possible Survivor arguments ‘If you’d listened to me, you would have been here with me’. Ironically, Sandra is also immune from the argument that she was carried to the Finals, because she was at best loosely part of Russell’s alliance. She can point to her various attempts to get current Jury members to see the truth and make the right decisions. While she was doing her plotting from the shadow of Russell and Parvati, she can point out that she’s been playing alone since Courtney was voted off and she did what she had to do to make it farther in the game. It’s a great argument for her to make, probably the most compelling argument any of the Survivors can make and it’s an argument that even has a chance against Colby because it could compel JT, Amanda and Rupert.
Ideal Final Tribal Council
Sandra has a reasonable chance against any of the Final 5, even against Colby or Parvati. But for her the ideal Final Council option is to bring Russell and Jerri. While Russell gets game play credit everyone hates him. Jerri isn’t hated but she’s clearly ridden (and been ridden by) Russell so it’s hard for her to stand apart from the negative association.
