Survivor: Pearl Islands – Who Will Go in Episode 13?

The next Tribal Council on Survivor: Pearl Islands will be an important one—after it is done, all of the remaining players will have made the final four. Now more than ever, when the survivors cast their votes, they will be thinking about who they want to have sitting next to them in front of a jury. Let’s look at the five players in the game to determine who is safe, who is vulnerable, and ultimately who will be voted out next.

Of the remaining five, Jon is the one most likely to make it to the final four. Physically, he’s not a threat at all. He has never won an immunity challenge on his own, and in fact was probably responsible for Drake losing a reward challenge by steering the boat so badly. Sandra dismissed his strength last episode by saying that he’s like a girl. There’s not much of a chance of him hitting an immunity winning streak, so that’s not a reason to vote him out. The niceness factor is also obviously not an issue for Jon. Jon is probably the most obnoxious, irritating player in the history of the game (sorry, Robb from Thailand). Whether it’s bragging to Morgan that Drake threw an immunity challenge, showing up at Tribal Council drunk, or just making his Jonny Fairplay hand signal yet again, Jon will never win the title of Mr. Congeniality.

Even more importantly, Jon has screwed over three of the jurors. Rupert, Tijuana, and Christa all thought they were in an alliance with Jon, only to find their torches snuffed. You sit next to Jonny Fairplay in the finals and chances are you can expect those three votes without even trying. You only need four votes to win the million dollars, so Jon is a great choice to have at your side in the final two. Jon is totally safe at Tribal Council this week. He will not go home.

Lill is also in an excellent position. At this stage in the game, smart players will vote out the biggest threats. Lill certainly does not fit that category. The biggest strike against Lill is that she is an Outcast. Jon, Darrah, or Sandra could tell the jurors that the object of the game is to outwit, outplay, and outlast—Lill was voted out once already, so can you really say she played the game better than someone who was there the entire time? Considering how unhappy the other players were that the Outcasts were let back into the game, it’s a very compelling argument.

At the last Tribal Council, Sandra voted against Lill, saying that because Lill is a nice person and everyone loves her, she cannot be beat in the final two. Sandra is dead wrong. No one has ever won Survivor because they were nicer than the person they were sitting next to. To give just one example, in Survivor: Amazon, nobody thought Jenna was a nicer person than Matthew (well, maybe Heidi did), but everyone agreed that Jenna played the game better than he did. The jurors respected the way she played the game, and Jenna won the vote in a landslide. Lill, sweet as she may be, has not plotted or schemed at all. She has been riding Burton’s coattails ever since she got back in the game. Lill has almost no chance of being the sole Survivor, and as a result has almost no chance of being voted out this week.

The other three players are at risk. Darrah is the last player from the Morgan tribe (other than Lill, whose Outcast status supersedes her ties to Morgan). As a result, she has no close ties to the other players. While on one hand, that makes her a free agent and possible swing vote, it also leaves her with no allies. She has also proven herself to be a threat in challenges. Darrah has won the last two immunity challenges in a row and was mainly responsible for winning the reward for her team last week. Darrah has been impressive in a wide variety of challenges—her first immunity was a mental challenge, her second was the skill challenge of firing the musket, and her reward challenge victory was physical. The remaining players might choose to vote her out to make sure she doesn’t win any more immunities. Finally, Darrah has two former allies on the jury—Ryan and Tijuana. The remaining players won’t want to sit next to her in the final two knowing that she already has half the votes she needs to win.