The only two-time winner of Survivor has returned for a third shot at the million dollars. How might Sandra Diaz-Twine fare on Game Changers?
Sandra Diaz-Twine doesn’t have to return to Survivor. Two games and two wins really says it all. No other winner has ever managed a repeat. No, we don’t count Boston Rob Mariano’s marrying winner Amber Brkich after All-Stars as his winning…at least not the title of Sole Survivor, anyway. However, that hasn’t stopped Sandra from heading back out onto the island for a third try in Game Changers. Let’s take a look at her two winning games.
Well, more accurately, let’s take a look at perhaps Sandra’s most defining moment from her first appearance in the Pearl Islands.
The following video comes from YouTube and originally comes from CBS. (It does contain some language, although the most offensive has been censored.)
Here’s one of Sandra’s cornerstones: she does best when she can pit herself against a villain. Even if the villain looks like he’s in control all the way to the end (or the final three, in Jonny Fairplay’s case), Sandra can and will outlast him, point out all the different ways she tried to take him down, and then walk away with the million dollars and a tiara in the case of Heroes vs. Villains. She may get knocked down, as she did with Boston Rob’s exit in HvV, but she manages to sneak her way through.
Here’s the other cornerstone of Sandra’s game: she’ll let anyone, and we do mean anyone, go out before she does. She voted out Rupert, a Pearl Islands ally and an attempted ally in HvV, and said he’d still write her name down to win the million dollars. (He did.)
She lets you know what she thinks of you, and that seems to make other players think she’s more trustworthy than she actually is. In the linked video in the above paragraph, she points out that she’ll make up a good lie. Well, that and she’s mean. Both are very true. (She’s just also really funny.)
She even admitted that her focus on herself works for her in her cast video for Game Changers:
She doesn’t have much in the way of physical game, which she admits in her cast video as well, though she does do fairly well with puzzles. Since the show likes to tack puzzles on to the end of challenges, she can easily help out there in order to contribute.
However, the fact that she is a two-time winner does make her a really easy target. At the same time, though, she’s someone that you can work with. As she mentions in her cast video, she wants to work with alpha males in this game. That might actually make her a good ally for someone like Brad Culpepper or even J.T. Thomas. With J.T., she also has the connection of being a winner. The two didn’t do well together on Heroes vs. Villains, but both of them are older, possibly wiser, and might need the help.
Based on the tribe divisions, alpha male, physical types on Mana include Malcolm Freberg and Tony Vlachos. Of the two, she may play better with Malcolm — he has a snarky streak of his own and also played well with an older woman, Denise, in Philippines. Tony’s got a temper that might not work well with Sandra’s. In terms of female allies, at least to start, Michaela may also not be a bad choice, since the two are both strategists.
However, Jeff Probst has already confirmed that a third tribe will be thrown into the mix very early in the game. We’re less worried about Sandra’s ability to adapt to this than others’. She said it herself: as long as she isn’t the target, she’ll go with the majority.
Ultimately, though, Sandra works for herself, and that’s why she could probably go far again.
She certainly seems to think so.
Next: Game Changers Cast Assessment: Cirie Fields
Survivor: Game Changers will premiere on Mar. 8.