Why Did Ciera Get Sent Home from Survivor: Game Changers?

It’s never a good thing to be the first person voted out in Survivor. So why did Ciera become the first boot of Game Changers?

Last night’s premiere episode of Survivor: Game Changers had not only one, but two eliminations, to get things started off with a bang. But, by the end of the first hour, we already had our first elimination: Ciera Eastin (who voted out her mom. No, that will never die). Let’s break down how and why that happened.

By Day 2 on Mana, Tony Vlachos had already caused quite a stir in camp. On the first day, he semi-jokingly semi-seriously announced he was going Hidden Immunity Idol hunting, and then actually did it. On the second day, he really started working on his Spy Bunker. Unfortunately, Troyzan caught him acting suspiciously, and on a tribe that had basically already deemed Tony the most suspicious and that had that information, that really should have been our Cagayan winner’s demise, right?

Now here’s where it gets interesting. Ciera, picking up on the almost-too-obvious play here (it’s vote out Tony, by the way), started suggesting instead that people make Caleb the target. Simply put, at that point, it would have been best to assume Tony had already found the Idol. However, by taking out Caleb, you take out Tony’s closest friend on the tribe so far and rob him of a vote. Not everyone was behind the plan, though — Varner brought up Caleb’s challenge strength in particular. The early game makes challenge performance a big factor in why to keep someone, so as to keep more numbers, after all.

Malcolm basically spelled out how the tides were about to turn in his confessional following that scene.

"“It’s open season on who the first target for this tribe is. Everyone’s playing nice with everybody, but names have started being thrown out: Caleb, Tony. These are two people I don’t want to go at all. But what I do know is the person throwing these names out is Ciera. Strategically, for my game, I’m where I wanna be. Everyone’s talking to me. But if Ciera’s the one who’s gonna push us out of Zen mode on this tribe, makes it easy to target her early.”"

To make a long story short, Ciera started extremely aggressively. This isn’t to say that she shouldn’t have tried to shift the target onto Tony and Caleb. In fact, in a different game, she probably would have managed to pull it off.

However, returnee seasons of Survivor are also ones where perception matters even more than usual. (Tony picked up on this during the second Tribal Council of the episode.) Everyone on Mana knew Ciera voted off her mom and was willing to go to rocks. They knew that that willingness included a general strategic skill. This also probably explains why the episode included that short scene of Varner, Malcolm, and Aubry breaking down that conversation with Ciera where Aubry reiterated the point about Ciera’s early efforts.

By the time Mana lost the Immunity Challenge, it was time for Tony himself to start working. He pulled in Varner, Malcolm, Caleb and Aubry to start, and Caleb dropped Ciera’s name. Then, to compound it, Malcolm, Varner, and Aubry tattled on Ciera’s Day 2 gaming.

Although the editing attempted to suggest that Michaela would go home after disliking the fact that she was the fake target fed to Ciera, it really was no contest. Behold, the votes:

Yeah, 9-1 is pretty authoritative.

Next: Former Players React to Game Changers Episode 1

Survivor: Game Changers airs Wednesdays on CBS.