Survivor David vs. Goliath power rankings: Episode 10 prepares for trouble

4. Alec Merlino

What a turnaround it’s been for Alec Merlino. Despite voting with the majority Goliath alliance for the first two post-merge Tribal Councils, he’s been feeding Nick, Christian and others information about the vote. Even flipping his vote at the last second to Angelina might be viewed not totally as a Goliath betrayal (except for Angelina, of course), but as an alternate vote option to protect the more “valued” Goliaths in the game.

With five Goliaths and five Davids at this point in Survivor: David vs. Goliath, he’s an important swing vote no matter the circumstance. He can assure the Davids that his vote against Angelina is for real by taking out another Goliath player. He can work with the Goliaths and still feed the Davids information so that at the next vote he becomes a full-fledged member of that group.

He can also ultimately play heel after the Davids get their majority and work with Alison, Kara and parts of David to take out a strong player of the Davids after betraying the Goliaths. Alec has played a middle-of-the-road game, playing both sides either with information or votes. He has shown time and time again he doesn’t care about late-game perceptions, so it will be interesting to see if he gets Sarah Lacina-like respect if he makes it to the end.