Survivor: Cagayan - Power Rankings!
Week 9
By Jim Van Nest, Survivor Analyst
April 21, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com
1) Spencer - Why Spencer, you ask? Well, because Spencer is still a force in challenges. Spencer now finds himself (albeit loosely) with the numbers. And oh yeah, he's still sitting with an immunity idol that no one else knows about. Further, everyone seems to like him. That's going to be huge coming to the end game. Right now, even people that Spencer is voting off can't hold it against him. He's been playing from behind the whole game and any vote can be viewed as not personal. Not everyone out there can say that.
2) Woo - I'm keeping the stealth ninja near the top because he made the right move last week. Tony will take the fall for the LJ boot, but Woo was wise to jump on board. He followed the crowd and now will find himself as an option for the side with the numbers, while having no real blood on his hand. LJ's people will without a doubt be targeting Tony and Woo gets away scot-free. I'm not sure he's done enough to win the game, but with the right final three, he could easily "Fabio" himself to victory.
3) Tasha - One week after I basically sent her home, fortunes have changed for Miss Tasha. One immunity win and one major blindside later and she's sitting in a pretty nice position in the tribe. She falls below Spencer because she doesn't have an idol. She also falls below Spencer because for some reason or another, when people want to talk strategy with her alliance, they go straight to Spence and not Tasha. Do I think the two of them are playing this game together? Without a doubt. But from what we're seeing, Spence seems to be getting all the respect and credit for what they're doing. And as we've seen many times before, in Survivor, perception can sometimes be reality.
4) Tony - Okay, I know I'm going to catch some crap for this from #teamtv, but I have to leave Tony in the same spot as last week. My reasoning is simple, he just pissed off three people that are either on the jury, or headed to the jury in LJ, Trish and Jefra. His moves have all worked out for him and he's made for great TV, but at this point, he's pretty well painted himself into a corner and I'm not sure how he gets anyone to vote for him. We're getting down to the nitty gritty here and there will be a lot of people with knives in their back with #teamtv engraved on the handle. Also, you have to expect that Trish and Jefra will be gunning for him this week. If they get any love from Spencer/Tasha/Jeremiah at all, Tony could go from hero to zero this week. I do, however, think he's savvy enough to avoid that fate. I would, if I were him, start doing whatever I could to actually put a trick into that bag of tricks though.
5) Jeremiah - I'm still having a hard time deciding what to do with Jeremiah. He's just sort of floating through the game at this point. He's now on the right side of the numbers, for a minute, so he should be safe this week. But he's really done very little on either side of this game to give me a read on where to rank him. I still don't believe he's much of a threat to win the game. If he wants to have a chance, he's going to have to make a move. He has to have something to hang his hat on at a final Tribal. Somewhere he can point and say, "Yeah, I did that." Right now, he doesn't have that.
6) Kass - I actually thought about putting Kass up a little higher in the rankings. My reasoning here is that she's putting herself in a position to be a decent goat to take the final Tribal. And from there, a decent attorney could potentially talk her way into some votes. Then I remembered that no one really likes her out there and she's pretty much an island. I don't think anyone actually WANTS to work with her, but they will use her as a vote. Eventually, she's going to be the consensus throwaway vote at the bottom of whichever alliance wins out in the end. That being said, it certainly won't be this week and probably won't be next week.
7) Trish - Trish and Jefra are in a world of hurt right now. They lost their boy-toy and their alliance all in one Tribal. At this particular moment, they look to be the obvious next two boots. That being said, the obvious does not apply to Survivor: Cagayan. Also, Trish has proven herself to be quite adept at getting herself off the bottom of the heap. If she can avoid the vote this week, it wouldn't surprise me at all to see that she weaseled her way out of trouble again. I think a lot depends on how she handles the aftermath of the LJ vote, though. If she can keep her wits about her, she might have some room to play out of this.
8) Jefra - The new previews are showing that Jefra is NOT handling the aftermath of the LJ vote well, which puts the target straight on her forehead. Immunity notwithstanding, I'll be shocked to see Jefra make it out of this episode. The only other possible option I see is maybe a surprise blindside of Tony, but I think it might be early for that - especially since that would leave Spencer and Tasha without verifiable numbers. The best course of action is to dump Jefra at the eight and make a move on Tony next week at the seven. The fact that we've seen very little of Jefra all season also suggests to me that she's a mid-jury boot and will kind of fade away into the sunset of Ponderosa. I'm just curious to see if she'll get a warmer welcome than LJ did.
As always, I'd love to hear what you think of the rankings. Follow me and hit me up: @vannestjc on Twitter. Keep an eye out for the recap later this week. ‘Til then, take care.