Andy Rueda's gameplay is an enigmatic mix of cluelessness and shrewdness on Survivor 47

Nearly every season has at least one player who doesn't appear to belong on the show for whatever reason. In the Survivor 47 cast, it is clearly Andy Rueda.

In the season premiere, Andy had a major meltdown that was painful to watch as a fan. He also turned on Jon Lovett, his closest Gata ally, early without a blink and gladly participated in his blindside.

Since then, his Gata tribemates have tolerated him, pulling him along as an extra vote. Sam Phalen has especially fought to keep him around, while his closest ally, Sierra Wright, hasn't trusted Andy since the beginning of the game—for good reason.

Both sides of Andy Rueda's game were evident during Survivor 47 episode 8

For most of the game, Andy has bumbled around like a blind squirrel trying to find an acorn. He has to be constantly placated in camp, and his self-confidence is as fragile as an eggshell.

In all honesty, his woe-is-me and nobody-likes-me act have been wearing thin for both the audience and his fellow tribemates. Sam and Sierra have been his only allies and protectors.

In episode 6, during the unanimously agreed-upon vote to remove Rome Cooney, Andy drew two votes as a backup in case Rome had an idol. At tribal council, Andy was visibly upset when he realized he was that safety valve, and even more so when he eventually found out Sam was involved in that decision.

During episode 8, Andy again showed how terrible he is at the game of Survivor. A Survivor auction was announced, and the contestants had to search the jungle for tubes containing cash. Andy was shown walking by obviously placed tubes without noticing them, and he complained he couldn't find any. In the end, he didn't find a single one and wasn't able to participate in the auction other than as an observer.

He didn't display any feeling for the game until after the immunity challenge in episode 8. To the point, he seemed clueless most of the time, but in a moment of clarity, he revealed he did know Sam and Sierra were using him as a vote and that they thought they had him controlled. The edit even shows Sam and Sierra crowing about the fact that Andy was in their back pocket.

Andy decides to plant seeds of discontent in fertile ground. A shaky Gata/Lavo alliance seemed ready to take out Tuku one by one (and they should have), but a number of folks in that loose alliance had differing opinions on who was the biggest threat in the game.

Lavo ended up allying with Tuku to blindside the Gata members. It became a question of who would be leaving. Sam, Sierra, and Rachel LaMont were all candidates to go, and all three had people who wanted to work with them. It was finally decided that Sam and Sierra were too close and needed to be separated.

For the record, the alliance that includes Gabe Ortis, Sue Smey, and Caroline Vidmar seems like a more potent group that needed breaking up more. Still, Andy engineered the blindside that saw the tribe vote out Sierra at tribal council.

For the second time in the game, Andy turned on his closest allies. In this case, however, it was a good move on his part because they did not respect him as a player. Of course, he hadn't earned any respect from anyone in the game, but that is beside the point.

Survivor has always had lovable, fish-out-of-the-water players that the audience could relate to and pull for. These tend to be players that resonate with many people for various reasons. Andy should be in that category, but at least for me, he isn't. He seems clueless most of the time and unaware. He will get credit for knocking out Sierra, but it may not advance his game as much as he thought it might. We'll see.