Survivor: Thailand – WWJD? (What Will Jan Do?)

Jan is in an interesting position as we near the finale of Survivor: Thailand. She was a sure thing to be voted out if Chuay Gahn had lost another group immunity before the merge, but when they kept winning and ended up going into the merge ahead of Sook Jai, Jan’s position suddenly switched. Much like Kim J. of Survivor: Africa, her weakness became a strength as she is not now viewed as a threat in individual immunity challenges. Kim J. made it to the final two. What Will Jan Do?

Now that the Pagonging of Sook Jai is done, Chuay Gahn must turn on one another. One thought might be that Jan will still be the next to go because everybody else has alliances with each other in a tangled web that has Brian at its center. After all, it would be easiest to get rid of the unaligned person before turning on your own alliances, right? Well, not necessarily.

If the others all turn on Jan, they have each lost a potential ally when they have to turn on each other. Helen appears to have thought of this, as she brought up to Brian that they just need a swing vote to help them out. Jan could be that swing vote. In fact, I would go further and say Jan should be that swing vote, and she should start pushing for it.

Until now, we have not really seen any plotting from Jan. The closest thing we saw was her telling Ghandia that all the women should vote against Clay, because he was the cause of problems in the tribe – which seemed rather odd considering what had been going on with Ted and Ghandia at the time. Since then, we haven’t heard a peep from her as far as strategy goes. This could mean one of two things – either she hasn’t been plotting with anybody, or she has but Mark Burnett wants to keep it a surprise. I’m going to assume, for the purposes of the rest of this article, that it’s the former; if it’s the latter, there’s nothing we can do to predict what might happen with such a major event hidden.

So, if Jan hasn’t been plotting, but has just been riding along with her fellow tribemates as they have gotten rid of each Sook Jai, what does she do now? Does she just go peacefully into that dark night? Or should she pick up where she left off with her anti-Clay campaign? The answer, of course, is the latter. She should not be waiting for somebody to approach her – she should be searching out others in an attempt to make it further. She would have to be completely daft to not see that others are getting tired of Clay. (OK, yes, I admit there are those who think she is completely daft – but let’s just call her “eccentric.”) She should talk to Helen about finding a way to vote him out. After all, at this stage of the game they only need three people. Helen seems to trust Brian, but if Brian refuses to give her a solid answer (as he hemmed and hawed last week), she should cut her losses and move on to Ted.

Now, as far as what Jan will do, as opposed to what she should do, I can’t say for sure. I have seen spoilers posted indicating that Jan eventually wins it all! I have seen others that Brian and Clay make it to the final 2. There are probably other ones that I just haven’t seen that claim the winner will be Helen or Ted. That’s the thing about spoilers – you don’t know which one is right until it’s all over, so they haven’t really spoiled anything! But I do think Jan has a chance.

If she can get in with Helen and either Ted or Brian, she could easily move into the final three. From there, it’s all up to her. As noted earlier, Kim J. made it into the final two, but she did so by winning immunity challenges. If the show stays true to form and has an endurance test for the final two, it seems unlikely that Jan can beat the likes of Ted, Brian, or Helen. So if we assume she will not win, will the winner take her to the end? Let’s look at all three.

If Brian wins and his choices are Helen or Jan, I think he would bring Helen. He will have had to betray several people to get to that point, so the last thing he wants is the likeable Jan next to him. He would be better off facing Helen, who also played the game well and grated on some nerves.

If Ted wins with those same choices, he would also be better off bringing Helen along. He simply has a better chance with the jury against her than against the sweet, if eccentric, Jan.

If Helen wins and she has come all this way with Brian, she may decide to take him to the final two as they had agreed (not knowing that he had made this agreement with several others as well). It is possible that she might take Jan, but I don’t find it likely. If Ted, not Brian, is the other option, I suspect she will still vote out Jan because Ted is less likeable than Jan, from what we’ve seen.

So where does this leave us? I think the answer to the question, “What Will Jan Do?” is as follows: She will come in third place.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline, and can be reached at rno@pobox.com.

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