Cirie ought to go down as the greatest Survivor ever for the masterful strategy she’s played out.
It was her idea to work Erik into giving up the immunity necklace. I reversed my recording just to check that out and watch her while they talked over the events of the immunity challenge was a lesson in machinations.
The women were sitting around, talking things over, mulling how awful it was that Erik had actually won. Parvati, Nat and Amanda were fatalistic. “If ONLY he hadn’t won Immunity.” Cirie had a sort of far-off look on her face. Then she said, slowly, “Unless we can get him to give the necklace to Nat.”
None of the others would have thought of that. In fact, Natalie out and out said it wouldn’t work — that it was too crazy. And not only did Cirie hatch the plan, it was she who came up with the four-pronged strategy to make it work.
1) Get Nat to go to him with the argument that everyone on the jury hates him and Amanda is his biggest threat. Ergo, he could redeem himself by giving Nat the immunity necklace and then the women would vote out Amanda.
2) Present herself and Nat as his compatriots, but with reservations, playing on the fact that he’d told so many whoppers they didn’t trust him. She (Cirie) needed a physical show of faith on his part that he would keep his word. And then she provided it: Giving up immunity.
3) Present Parvati and Amanda as the enemies. She then cemented it by telling Parvati and Amanda to go hard on him at Tribal. That would have tipped off a more intelligent player because Amanda is very strategic and has never “lost it” at Tribal the way others have. She and Parvati played the roles Cirie had written for them to perfection and Erik bit, hook, line and sinker.
4) The final link in the chain was her little speech at tribal, where she said it was only possible for an extremely dishonest player to redeem himself by actions, not by words. When she said that, I knew her strategy would work. Erik was sold. You could tell by the look on her face.
And if there was ever any doubt about Cirie’s philosophy about Survivor and strategy, she enunciated it perfectly when she cast her vote for Erik. “My momma always told me you may not be able to beat them here (pointing to her bicep), but you can always beat them here (pointing to her head).”
Masterful. She may not win, but she deserves to.
One other thing: If Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama really wanted to win the Democratic nomination, they’d hire Cirie Fields. She’d plot and scheme and strategize and smile, smile, smile. Knowing her, she’d find a way to get Republicans to vote for them.
Last 5 posts by Susan Engle
- The greatest Survivor season ever? - May 11th, 2008
- Baconsalt: The seasoning of the gods - May 6th, 2008
- Eight Belles ran with the boys - May 3rd, 2008
- Can You Duet? - April 29th, 2008
- Lost in thought: The Miniseries - April 29th, 2008
May 9th, 2008 at 7:36 am
Nah, Richard Hatch was the greatest. Cirie’s had season after season to watch and learn. Hatch took a simple premise (vote out the weakest player) and turned it on its head, forming an alliance and picking off the strong ones. He figured it all out on his own and set the bar for every season to come.
And Cirie was totally clueless last week when Amanda played her idol. Amanda had Cirie just about ready to go for a “pick-the-purple-rock” tie at tribal and then convinced her to go ahead and vote her out so she could play the idol. She was able to test Cirie’s loyalty AND play the idol. Them’s smarts.
We are only seeing what the producers show us. Cirie wasn’t the only one working the mojo on poor hapless Erik.
May 9th, 2008 at 8:07 am
Cirie is a much better strategist than Richard Hatch. She has masterminded most of the best working plots this season. She may not be that strong physically, but she sits back nice and quiet and studies the other players. That is the key to survivor — To know your opponents inside and out. To know exactly what makes them and breaks them. Last night’s episode will go down in history as one of the best masterminds and one of the dumbest plays to go down. Just as your blog said, after I heard what Cirie said at Tribal, I knew Erik was hooked. It was one of the greatest reality TV moments EVER!
May 9th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Absolutely, Kristi. The reason I think Cirie is better than Richard (who rocked at reality TV, but real reality — not so much) is that she’s had to rely entirely on the mental/strategic/social game. She doesn’t win competitions and yet she manages to survive. I think the social/mental game has not been honored by either fans or players. Rarely do you hear players plotting against other players for being strong mentally. It’s always “he wins challenges” or “she’s really strong.”
Cirie took weaknesses and turned them into strengths. Now there’s a Survivor.