One of the most decisive players of Survivor: David vs. Goliath, Angelina Keeley brought entertainment in a variety of ways. Should she return?
Consider the possibility that characters who don’t play Survivor the way you would play it, aren’t set up to win, and generally don’t have a winning strategy can still provide entertainment value. It would suck if everybody was a non-feeling gamebot that only talked about winning; you need players who can stumble and don’t stay humble.
Angelina Keeley fit that role perfect in David vs. Goliath, edited as dismissive of the Davids from the moment they stepped on the boat in the opening. The former Stanford University student body president is used to communicating her thoughts and getting her way, and she played that way from the start, convincing the Goliaths to vote Jeremy out over camp nuisance Natalie.
Of course, you can only be so slick, and Angelina didn’t fool many for long. After being swapped onto Jabeni and the tribe was set to visit Tribal Council, she really wanted to vote out Lyrsa just to get a jacket and regain some lost warmth. However, with the plan shifting towards voting out Natalie, Angelina voted for Lyrsa just to provide cover for the most hilarious post-vote-out move ever.
Angelina begged for Natalie’s jacket to no avail, as Natalie made the correct call in thinking she was being duplicitous. She was not taken seriously no matter how much she protested, which would become an ongoing theme as she would pitch Christian as the merge boot only for Mike to pitch the exact same plan a vote later.
After Dan was voted out and Angelina’s name was written down by Alec and Kara as a contingency, Angelina switched over to the Davids for a while. It was during that time where Angelina employed her masterful negotiation skills by lowballing Jeff Probst for extra rice. Thankfully, he gave her an extremely easy out by allowing someone to sit out of an Immunity Challenge, securing food for the tribe through Day 39.
Unfortunately, Angelina’s nature is to be boastful of her accomplishments, and she would not shut up about the rice. She told the jury multiple times, she mentioned it to her mom, and it even came up during the Final Tribal Council. En route to Day 39, she also relied heavily on Mike and Nick to help find a Hidden Immunity Idol in a rock wall, which admittedly was the most difficult idol to find all season.
She was dragged to the end and chosen by Nick to join him at the Final Tribal Council, where the jury was quick to point out Angelina’s lack of self-awareness and fake selflessness with the rice play. While she did get props for finding a Hidden Immunity Idol (women had made up 15% of idol finds at the time), she received zero votes at the Final Tribal Council, finishing in 3rd place.
Angelina was a hot mess of multitudes, bringing a real human touch to Survivor: David vs. Goliath while pushing back on the social norms of what is expected out of women in this game. Vote here in this straw poll if you would like to see Angelina back in a future season. Will she get your vote, reader? Reader?
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