Survivor: San Juan del Sur Power Rankings
Week 5
By Ben Willoughby
October 28, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com

They weren't smiling like this when John Rocker was there.

Following a tribe switch, we have power rankings that might be accurate - or at least as close as you can get with the slanted view of what the Survivor editors choose to show you based on who they think has an interesting story, or whoever they don't want to go to the trouble of blurring.

New Coyopa

Despite the tribe switch, Coyopa still managed to be the sucky tribe, with their immunity challenge strategy of saying “never give up” while digging sand as slowly as possible. Of course, that should be no surprise as half the tribe is former Hunahpu. What was a surprise to Probst is that the three couples on the tribe did a terrible job of communicating. Most couples in real life do a terrible job of communicating! That’s what couples do! Single strangers communicate better, because they have no other choice.

1. Missy

It seems like Missy was a huge part of Hunahpu’s rice problems. Sure, all those hungry college athletes are going to eat all the rice if it is there, but it’s not there unless someone cooks it, and that someone appears to have been Missy, the mother figure/enabler of the tribe.

Anyway, based on last week’s vote, Missy seems to have some sort of alliance happening with Keith. Missy’s plan to split the vote between Kelley and Dale wouldn’t have happened unless Keith’s vote was in the bag. So even though no one likes her, everyone makes fun of her and she doesn’t have a chance long-term, Missy is #1 this week.

2. Jaclyn

The Jaclyn-Jon couple were the swing vote at the last tribal, and while they are aligned with Missy-Baylor, there’s nothing that can touch them. I’ve put Jaclyn at #2 because she seems to have more going on upstairs than Jon.

3. Keith

Keith was the odd person out on a tribe that had three couples, and from what we saw – Keith fishing while the other six were having fun – he didn’t do a lot to change that. But he has managed to survive one vote, and now he’s potentially the swing vote in an alliance of five, which is a good place to be.

4. Jon

Jon is #2 in the tribe power couple,but that only gets him as far as #4 in the Coyopa power rankings. But that’s a lot higher than he thought he would be coming into this week.

5. Baylor

Baylor drips with insincerity about how cool Jon and Jaclyn’s PDAs are, but at least she admits how jealous she is in interview. She is still the “untrustworthy” one on the tribe, especially now that Dale has called her out for convincing all the other Coyopa women to vote for him and then flipping her vote. If someone doesn’t take Baylor to the end, it’s because they have found some other patsy.

6. Dale

In her brief time with us, Kelley gave some pretty astute observations – and one of them was that her father “doesn’t deal well with divas." Then it’s a good thing Dale came on Survivor! Since Dale could barely keep his yap shut when Kelley was around to coach him on the social graces, who knows what he is going to say now that she is gone?


New Hunahpu

New Coyopa continues Old Coyopa’s tradition of being terrible at challenges, and New Hunahpu continues Old Hunahpu’s tradition of being plain terrible. It’s especially bad for the former Coyopa members of Hunahpu – Josh, Alec and Wes - who starved themselves and lost challenges on their old tribe, only to find that their new tribe had adopted the hobbit mealtime schedule and left nothing for the remaining 27 days (or with less hyperbole, the 10 to 12 days until the merge – which is still pretty dumb). As usual, I know nothing about the tribe dynamics at Hunahpu, but then, neither do they.

1. Reed

Reed is #1 because he’s the potential swing vote. He could go with his old Hunahpu tribemates of Natalie, Julie and Jeremy (bringing along Josh), or he could flip over to join his boyfriend Josh, Wes and Alec to take out the singletons. Because this is Reed, whichever choice he makes is likely to be the wrong one, but these are power rankings, not good sense rankings.

2. Alec

Despite the initial shock that Drew was voted out, Alec is still elated that he lasted longer than his older brother in this game. Natalie, who is no stranger to sibling similarities, observes that Alec and his brother are very alike, so she and Jeremy are both putting the full-court press on him. While that must feel very flattering to Alec, it’s not very flattering to have been fingered as the most gullible tribe-member. Still, when other players are sucking up, they’re not voting you out.

3. Josh

Josh got an inspirational interview about his relationship with Reed and how it allowed him to come out to his pastor father and how they are waiting until they get married. Does that mean Josh is doomed? Probably, but for now he looks pretty safe.

4. Wes

As Kelley had to get some camera-time on the episode that would vote her out, someone else had to play “Invisible Survivor” last week.

5. Jeremy

Jeremy has gone from being the guy that everyone listened to, to the guy who has to butter up Alec to keep himself in the game. He has other options, but he’s smart enough not to trust them.

6. Natalie

Natalie seems to be in tight with Jeremy, but not with anyone else on New Hunahpu. We’ll see what happens with her efforts to lure Alec over to the single side.

7. Julie

13 days in and Julie still doesn’t seem to have an alliance with anyone. She should play the “available vote” strategy, though that only works if someone actually wants to play with her.

Those are the power rankings for this week. Tune in tomorrow night to see the steep price New Hunahpu has to pay for Old Hunahpu’s regular double-helpings, and then come back the day after for David and Kim’s recap.