The last person to leave the game, the person so close to the end they can taste the money but has their opportunity to plead their case taken away at the very last moment. That person becomes ingrained in their respective season as the final recipient of “The Tribe Has Spoken” and earns a place in a very special group in Survivor history: The Day 38 Club.
Inside Survivor contributor Ian Walker continues the countdown of the updated and revised Day 38 Club rankings. The list takes into account the strength of a player’s game, character, and the power of their story.
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No. 9 – Cydney Gillon (Kaoh Rong)
From her keen sense of observation, easy-going personality, and hilarious soundbites, Cydney Gillon was a supremely fun person to watch. Encompassing the brains, brawn, and beauty that bore her season’s namesake, Cydney was able to use her chipper and laid-back demeanor to form strong relationships with almost everybody in the game and seemed well set-up to make it to the Final Tribal Council.
However, thanks to one erratic player, she found herself in a tie situation at the final four which she could not fight her way out of and left the game on Day 37. Cydney gets a pass despite not actually being eliminated on Day 38 since she was still the last member of the jury.
Cydney’s game began on the Brawn tribe, where she quickly realized she needed to cozy up to the two muscleheads who were calling the shots, Kyle Jason and Scot Pollard. Just by keeping a low profile and “cheesin’” whenever possible, she got to the merge pretty easily, by which time she was finally able to make some moves of her own.
At the first vote after the merge, Cydney noticed that Scot and Jason were getting chummy with former Beauty Nick Maiorano, which caused her to be like “brrr” and shake things up. She turned to two of her newest allies, Aubry Bracco and Michele Fitzgerald, who each had connections of their own, to amass enough votes to send Nick out of the game and planting Cydney firmly in the majority.
From that point forward, Cydney’s role in the overall narrative arc of the season diminished a bit, but it was still obvious to see what great of a game she was playing. The only people mad at her were Scot and Jason; everybody else viewed her as a trusted ally. She was in such a good position that she soon became a crucial swing when Jason was on his last legs, working to convince her and Michele to come over to his side, but Cydney stood her ground.
Fast forward to the final four and Cydney was in a great spot. She was much closer with both Aubry and Michele individually than those two were with each other, and she knew that the two of them would target each other before they targeted her, and that’s exactly what happened.
Michele won the final four Immunity, which meant Aubry was pretty much toast. But Aubry had something playing in her favor that nobody else had, and his name was Tai Trang. Tai had followed Aubry’s lead the last couple of rounds and chose to force a tie at the next Tribal, making Cydney compete in a fire-making tiebreaker challenge against Aubry.
Unfortunately for Cydney, she needed more heat than she could muster, as she lost the fire-making challenge and had her torch snuffed. While she didn’t get to Day 39, Cydney still played a really strong game without relying on a lot of big moves. Instead, she just relied on her cheerful, observant, hysterical personality to get far in the game while leaving a lasting impression on Survivor: Kaoh Rong.
Stay tuned to Inside Survivor as the Day 38 Club rankings continue over the coming days. Check out the previous entries here.
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I love her. But this is too high. How did she even beat David, Jerri, and Kass lol
I would put her over Kass easily, but not David or Jerri. Not only is Kass a giant goat whose Cagayan game was a hot mess, but the only iconic thing about her character or story that whole season is being part of the dumbest move of all time by Woo. Agree no way should Cydney be higher than either David or Jerri though.