Best Survivor Winners No. 24: Maryanne Oketch (Survivor 42)
The best way to win in the new era of Survivor appears to be to lay low pre-merge and then explode onto the scene in the final few days. That’s what worked for Erika in Survivor 41 and Maryanne Oketch played a similar game in Survivor 42.
Maryanne came off as silly, goofy, and was just along for the ride but when it got down to the end, she showed she was hardcore and ready to play ball with everyone else.
Where Maryanne first started to show some game was when Omar went home. She got Mike’s word that he’d either play his hidden immunity idol on her or give it to her at the next tribal council if she stuck with him. Sure enough, he played it on her at the next tribal when it wasn’t needed. Also, Maryanne had her own hidden immunity idol and that’s the bombshell she dropped on the jury during her incredible final tribal council performance.
When it comes to finalists who swayed the jury enough to end up winning the game, Maryanne joins a rare group. Her terrific final tribal council performance where she outlined how she carved out a path for herself to the end and kept the hidden immunity idol a secret paired with Mike flat-out bombing in front of the jury, helped give the show back-to-back female winners for the first time since Kim Spradlin and Denise Stapley did it in 2012.