‘Survivor: Blood vs. Water’ review: Ciera Eastin makes a case for an all-star season

There are times this season on “Survivor: Blood vs. Water” where we’ve felt that Ciera Eastin’s game has been a little bit insane. But, there are some things that she has done very well. While we very much think that she is a big target to go home the next time she loses a challenge, she is doing a very good job of doing whatever she can to survive. It’s a ridiculous level of lying on her part to try to keep herself safe, but it’s what makes her a genuine candidate to actually come back to this game at some point. Casting doesn’t always do a great job of finding memorable women who play the game hard, and that’s what she is doing.

Probably the best part of her game is really about positioning. Since she’s constantly in a position where she’s on the outs, she is not really making any enemies with her moves. There are some similarities to Sandra, but the latter was far better at staying out of trouble herself.

But, despite all of the crazy / intense efforts that Ciera made to try and get Monica to flip on Tyson and Gervase with all sorts of claims about them saying nasty things, in the end she still lost her best ally in the game in Hayden Moss. This is the first time that Hayden has ever been in this much trouble in almost any reality show, since it’s solely up to him now to win at Redemption Island (which he has a chance to do so long as it’s not like the first duel to get back in the game). We lost Katie Collins tonight, which was mostly sad from an emotional point of view since her mother had to beat her to make it happen.

This was overall yet another great episode of the show, mostly because Ciera’s drama after she won immunity managed to at least make a predictable vote a little more unpredictable. Now, we go into a finale with a group of five people after the last duel, and given who wins certain challenges, anything could happen. Grade: A-.

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Photo: CBS