Addison's Survivor Grades -  SEASON FOUR: MARQUESAS
  Name Grade Comments

Peter Harkey C- Fruit loop, yeah, and clumsy in speaking about strategy so very early in the game. However: the reaction to the purple rock later in the game makes it clear that these survivors didn’t know that prior votes didn't break ties.  Thus, his desire to establish a unified tribal vote would makes perfect sense - Kucha would have understood, and it’s astonishing that after three seasons his fellow tribemates should have reacted so strongly to this. Really not a bad player by my guess, and even for his goofiness he shouldn't have gone first.
Patricia Jackson D- After this many Survivor seasons, can nobody figure out that playing BB Andersen is not going to get you anywhere? The camp's not going to be organized. Ever. Deal with it and start playing the freaking game.  
Hunter C- His physical abilities are obvious, but his ability to play politically is pretty weak. You can argue that he was victimized by knuckleheads - whatever. A more adept player would have sensed the way things were going and adjusted strategy. Maraamu divided around him; he would never have been able to cobble together a strong long-term alliance.
Sarah Jones F The comparisons made to Mitchell are dead on; Sarah is the token dud player who does nothing even remotely connected with the game. She probably wouldn't have remembered to vote if Jeff hadn't been there to tell her.
Gabriel Cade D The only situation he's good in is a very unified pre-merge tribe. How often does that really come along? Even without a tribal swap, he would have been without a game plan at merge.  His exit may have been weird and largely inexplicable, but had he not gone when he did, his main long-term prospect was being a complete waste of a jury space.  Blah.
Gina Crews C+ Was in Hunter's shoes, yeah, but way more socially capable. Had Maraamu won the last group IC she would have gone far after the merge in shimmying into an alliance. No heady game plan, but seemed like a good instinctive player.
Rob Mariano D I'll admit he provided by far the best TV from the first half of the show, but if there is an effective way to play entirely around deception and manipulation, this isn't it. Rob was a toxic player, good at generating chaos but unable to direct it solely at his enemies. I'd really like to see a Rob-style strategy done successfully, though.
John Carroll C+ Some good ideas, some bad ones, a real personality problem. Axing Gabriel before Rob or Sean is obviously iffy in retrospect, but on the other hand, it stands as a really incredible example of forging an alliance around a trumped-up crisis. I'm really amazed that JRTZ hung together after their lukewarm formation around the Gabe boot; John deserves credit for that. Obviously, huge minus points for not being able to somehow keep the alliance under wraps.  I wish we knew more about how the Gabe boot was explained to the rest of Rotu; this has always been kind of a plot hole.  Along with the rest of the Rotu 4, loses big points for falling for the coconut-cutting challenge.  Essentially Lex with less magnetic leadership – more ambition than strategy.
Zoe Zanadakis C- Dull, go-with-the-group kind of strategist. I only give her such a high grade because at least she was in an alliance that seemed to be going somewhere at one point. Awful, lame attempts to escape her doom once the alliance was going down in flames probably sealed her fate.  Points for at least trying, unlike the General.  I'm going to agree with giving her a few bonus points for being a solid pre-merge team player type as well.
Tammy Leitner C+ There's nothing specifically that she did that wrong - she got into an alliance, it failed, and she was up a creek from then on, forced to cling to immunity way too early in the game. It was her status as a challenge threat that really put the crosshairs on her (see her utter domination in the stilts challenge) ahead of others in the half-baked JRTZ alliance.
Robert DeCanio D+ Some general.  He better not command my army. Classic Amber-esque lack of adaptability, unable to think outside of his alliance box and frankly lacking in some emotional management skills ("I'm gonna burn it all!" Yes, Robert).
Sean Rector C A very mixed player. Very difficult to live with on the psychological level - stirring up drama one minute and cracking wise the next, but a competent strategist. Best move was working to line up the K/P/N/S/V alliance and turning the tables on an mid-game alliance for the first time in Survivor history. Minuses for not producing a better endgame plan and for getting bogged down in defensiveness (the F5 TC stands out as his suicidal moment).
Paschal English B- Good balance of tactics, fairly steady, didn't seem to talk recklessly. Ditching JRTZ to move himself and Neleh up on the totem pole is exactly the kind of canny calculation we're always wishing the Survivors would make. I'm not sure how to rate the tight bond with Neleh - it acted as both a shield and an anchor, and ultimately sank him. Really, once PKNVS was an active force, he didn't need to maintain such close operations with her. The iron won't-vote-for-you promise created the dilemma that was ultimately resolved by the purple rock, and Paschal’s departure.  
Kathy Vavrick-O'Brien B+ Just plain crummy at the beginning of the game and would have gone out like Patricia if not for the Rotu streak (which she of course deserves some credit for). After that - wow. One of the best midgame adjusts ever, she went from being in great danger (the Gina boot) to being in the line to eventually decide the F4 (the John boot) in two TCs. Never quite seemed to realize the power she had or what the possibilities were to do with it, but sliding yourself into the space between two solid pairs is no mean feat. Willing to gamble once the chips were finally down, showed guts in making a deal with Vee at F4 - a shame Vee betrayed her.
Neleh Dennis C- Coat-tail riding isn't a bad strategy in and of itself, and has now given us the #2 player two games in a row. The only problem is that, in this case, I can't really give it credit as being a strategy, as Neleh herself denied that she was playing the game much at all. By her own implicit admission, she got into the F2 by mostly dumb luck and the work of others; this clearly did not impress the jury. Getting people to carry you when you're not a guaranteed Goat takes some skills, though. She was, indeed, "working it" all along, but a strategy that looks like dippyness can't win, period (see my notes on Dr. Sean).
Vecepia Towery B+ You have to be doing something right to win the game, even if the jury didn't really seem to want to let it happen. Points for devoting her luxury item to a long-term preparation for Fallen Comrades, and for going UTR while more prominent players (Rob, Sean, JRTZ) got chewed up in the midgame. Managed to hop around alliances without anybody but Sean really being conscious of it in a negative way. Her big problem was that thanks to the way the game played out from the F5 on, she was unable to make a clear case that she'd been angling for this scenario all along. Playing UTR prohibits you from assertively guiding events; there's a fine line between "no more drama" and being Kim Johnson. She didn't deserve to win, but she got there, so what can I say?   
Grading System  x  Pulau Tiga  x  Outback  x  Africa  x  Marquesas  x  Thailand  x  Amazon  x  Pearl Islands

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