Age: 27
Hometown: Salem, Oregon
Previous Season(s): Survivor: Blood vs. Water, Survivor: Cambodia
Previous Placing: 5/20 | 10/20
Days Lasted: 37 | 26
Correctly Voted for Boot: 8 | 3
Votes Received: 14 | 10
Individual Immunity Challenge Wins: 1
Most Memorable Moment: Voting out her mom and forcing a rock draw.
What happened in her previous season(s): For a recap of Ciera’s game in Blood vs. Water check out our retrospective we wrote before Survivor: Cambodia.
Ciera returned for her second stab at the million dollars in Survivor: Cambodia just over a year ago. She was voted on the season by a fan vote, where she was placed in a game with nineteen other players seizing their second chance at the title of sole Survivor. In the early game, Ciera was a non-factor. She was on the winning Bayon tribe early on, only to be traded over to the newly formed Ta Keo, where her tribe won all but one immunity challenge. However, in this time, Ciera was doing what she does best – forming bonds and making alliances. She used her time at Ta Keo to build trust with Kass McQuillen and Kelley Wentworth, a decision that would be very beneficial later on.
Ta Keo’s first immunity loss came after the three tribes were swapped back into two, it was at a classic food eating challenge where Ciera slacked the whole challenge. Andrew Savage emerged as the new tribe leader, pulling in his former Bayon members, Kass and Ciera, and pulling strings with his Angkor tribe mates Woo Wang and Abi-Maria Gomes, plus he had the old school bond with Kelly Wiglesworth. In this alliance, the major target was Spencer Bledsoe. Savage was setting up a blindside, using Ciera as the decoy boot. In her first tribal of the season, old shades of the girl who voted out her mom emerged. Just to push attention off any votes coming at her, Ciera pulled in her faithful ally Kass and Abi-Maria, but also had to pull off the impossible – convince Kass not to take out Spencer, one of the biggest rivalries going into Cambodia. Using her excellent persuasive tactics, Ciera was able to not only mend the relationship between Kass and Spencer but was able to blindside Savage, effectively eliminating Woo.
Heading into the show’s first ever thirteen person merge, Ciera was on the outs along with fellow female comrades: Kass, Wentworth, and Abi-Maria. Ciera tried to stir up some trouble by making up a lie about how Savage was targeting Jeremy Collins. But despite her efforts, her ally Kass would go on to be the first voted out of the newly merged tribe, leaving Ciera and the other two women to become what would be known as the “Witches Coven.” The odds were completely stacked against them, but they started making moves, taking out some of the biggest threats on the playing board. This began with the idol play by Wentworth, eliminating Savage. Ciera and her fellow witches were then able to persuade Jeremy, Stephen Fishbach, and Spencer to see the threat that Wiglesworth was to their Bayon Alliance and convinced them to vote her out.
Ciera was special to this season because she was able to see the benefit of going on rewards. On many occasions, Ciera was able to pull in players at rewards to help further her interests and take out her targets. On one occasion, Ciera appealed to Joe Anglim by painting a target on Fishbach. Using the information that Fishbach was after Joe, Ciera planted seeds to get Joe to create a coalition to eliminate Fishbach. The plan was successful, almost. At the next tribal, a majority cast their votes for Fishbach to be eliminated. However, due to knowing which way the votes were going, Jeremy played his first idol of the season on Fishbach, pushing the target to the person with the next highest amount of votes. Two votes for Kimmi Kappenberg were cast, but three votes for Ciera eliminated her and made her the fourth member of the jury. The reasons cited for Ciera’s elimination were her strategic gameplay and mind control over other players.
Biggest Strength: Ciera’s biggest strength, I believe, is her ability to take risks. Yes, her strategic gameplay is fantastic, but it also gets her in trouble and voted out. Ciera is not scared to talk to players and go after big targets like Brad Culpepper, Tyson Apostol, Andrew Savage, and Stephen Fishbach. She voted out her greatest and most trusted ally (her mom), drew rocks, took out Woo Hwang and helped eliminate Andrew Savage. Ciera is not scared to get her hands dirty, and she is the type of player who creates the perfect amount of chaos for Survivor: Game Changers.
Biggest Weakness: Ciera’s biggest weakness is her physical capability in challenges. In Cambodia, she was fortunate to be on winning tribes where she was able to sit out of a lot of team challenges, but she had close escapes at many tribals at the beginning of Blood vs. Water because of her inability to perform. If she can just get past the team portion of challenges, she can avoid the limelight of being a physical threat post-merge.
Ciera is one of twenty returning castaways who will compete on Survivor: Game Changers which premieres March 8 on CBS. Stay tuned to Inside Survivor for more cast retrospectives and other pre-season content.
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I love Ciera. I ‘d guess she made it to the jury again.
Ciera is a surprised because she was pretty invisible in Cambodia. I don’t even remember what placing she got, was she the one that had an argument over clams or was that Monica?
Placing and her game is explained in her retrospective above ^.
One of the players I’m most excited about. Hope she’ll be able to make big moves and an all lot of chaos. Don’t know why, but I’ve got a feeling about a Malcolm-ciera alliance
[…] far as castaways who could overtake Ozzy for this record, there are two: Andrea (22) and Ciera Eastin (23). Both players played in a redemption island season, however, Ciera, unlike Ozzy and Andrea, […]
Ciera is a mediocre player who has a better reputation than she deserves based on her voting out her mother (in case you hadn’t heard) and willingness to draw rocks. This mediocrity was fully evident in Cambodia where her constant harping about “making big moves” was based on the fact that she had made questionable moves that left her on the outside of the stronger alliances. (It was also a rather blatant attempt to curry favor with Probst, since this seems to be his mantra as well, even though it often makes more sense for players to make subtle moves rather than “big” ones.)
I had no issue with her coming back for “second chances” since the show always struggles a bit in regards finding memorable returnee players on the women’s side, and she was certainly memorable from BvW2. But I have no idea why people here are “excited” to see her again just three seasons later. Nothing she has done warrants a third chance on Survivor.
The problem, as I see it, is that it’s virtually impossible for Ciera to change her game strategy. She is always going to be a liability on the challenge side of things, and this means she is always going to have to rely on sneakiness and strategizing to survive, but – the problem is that – everyone knows this about her, or should know this about her.
[…] again to Jeremy for taking part. For more on Ciera, you can check out her cast retrospective and official cast bio. Stay tuned to Inside Survivor for more Playing With Game Changers […]