It is not often we get a viewer blindside that is unanimous, but Elizabeth Olsen fit this irregular mold at the merge in Survivor: David vs. Goliath.
Who she compared herself to
Elizabeth compared herself to two players; Big Tom and Sandra. These are two far different players and Elizabeth would have hoped to be the best of both worlds. In episode six of Survivor: David vs. Goliath, she was involved in a confrontation with Davie and Carl. This type of arguing is not too far away from Sandra, except in this case it did not seem like Elizabeth ended up on the winning side of the argument.
She has a similar upbringing in comparison to Big Tom, but was more serious about the game and did not have that classic Big Tom goofiness to her. I am going to say that out of those two she is more like Sandra because outside of the southern accent she had little similarities to either of Big Tom’s games.
Comparing her to 13th placers
It seems like I go back to Fiji for my contenders quite often, and I will be doing it again for Anthony Robinson, who might seem like a surprise pick. 13th place was not good enough to make the merge in that season, but I still see similarities. Elizabeth had no one on her tribe back her up in the bamboo bed situation, and Anthony had multiple situations where his entire tribe, led by Rocky, would pick on him. It is not that they never built connections, but in both cases, they did not have someone willing to step up and jeopardize their own game to back them up.
Next up is Kass McQuillen from Cambodia. Kass hit the merge and was a member of the alliance that was in the distinctive minority like Elizabeth. Kass was singled out as a threat to make big moves so she was selected as the target. Kass’s alliance would at least stay on the same page while voting, while everyone turned on Elizabeth. Neither of them had sufficient connections in order to get the targets off of their back. Elizabeth’s closest ally, Lyrsa going home was a big part of this for her.
Betsided
Lastly, I am looking into Hali Ford from Game Changers. Both Hali and Elizabeth made it to the swap without the target ever nearing their backs. After the swap, Hali and Elizabeth were both put into perilous positions.
Both of them managed to stay alive at their respective Tribal Councils and were able to hit the merge by the skin of their teeth. Hali found herself on the outs of both alliances, and simply no one had long-term plans to work with her. I find this quite similar to Elizabeth’s game.
The verdict: Hali Ford
These two women may appear to be polar opposites, but I feel like the overall story of their games are rather similar. For most seasons the 13th place player is voted out pre-merge, which limits the pool of players to that could be considered. I picked Anthony Robinson as my pre-merge comparison, which was somewhat of a stretch because I felt like they still had some similar storylines.
We will have to wait and see if Elizabeth can be the merge boot a second time around as well like Hali was in Game Changers.