Survivor David vs. Goliath: Should Kara Kay return?

She was one of two players in Survivor: David vs. Goliath to finish their game with zero votes, as Kara Kay charmed the competition. Should she return?

One of the hardest things for the Survivor editors to portray is a strong social player who doesn’t drive the strategic talk. As such, it’s hard to see what they’re doing in the game other than maintaining great relationships, even though that’s integral to a long run. Kara Kay was perhaps one of the more charismatic people in David vs. Goliath, making it to the penultimate stage without a vote written against her.

On the earliest days of the Goliath camp, Dan found himself smitten with Kara, as she found herself in a one-sided showmance that she regarded more as a strategy. It became clear to the rest of the tribe, too, as Jeremy called it by name and Angelina and Natalia gave her forewarning not to get too bogged down by his game.

People just gravitated towards Kara, as Elizabeth found herself on common ground with Kara as they swapped to Vuku. It was so authentic of a close bond that it made Natalia nervous and paranoid, eventually blowing up her spot to the point where Alec was convinced that he needed to flip over to the Davids to vote Natalia out and gain control.

Even in the face of defeat, Kara was able to put on a brave face outwardly toward Alec while pitching getting him out on Vuku (as funny as that may seem in retrospect). Elizabeth was the only person in Survivor: David vs. Goliath who could see through her social game, but as the merge came and Carl buried Elizabeth deep, Kara’s path to the end widen up.

Her only misstep in the merge phase was to throw her vote onto Angelina at the Dan elimination vote, as that drove Angelina to get vengeance on her. Thankfully for Kara, she never really faced any further opposition from her, as Kara was consistently in the middle and keeping open communications on both sides of the vote.

This strategy held up until the Final Four, where she had to make fire faster than Mike White, unfortunately failing to do so. As such, Kara became the third person ever in Survivor history to be eliminated at Tribal Council without a vote against them, joining Paschal from Marquesas and Cirie from Game Changers.

Kara was a social butterfly, lending a voice to most of the votes and even won an Immunity Challenge. Vote here in our straw poll and let us know if you would like to see her return in a future Survivor season.