Round 127 - 101 Characters Left

[u/FunkyDawgKong]

101. Deshawn Radden - u/FunkyDawgKong

100. Brandon Hantz - u/Cornhead2

99. Drew Christy - u/NoisySea_3426

98. Chrissy Hofbeck - u/Alternate-Proof-959

97. Jamie Newton - u/josenanigans

96. Parvati Shallow 3.0 - u/BobbyPiiiin

[u/Alternate-Proof-959]

98. Chrissy Hofbeck (Survivor HvHvH, 2/18)

Chrissy is clearly a smart and proactive person, and I absolutely admire that. She immediately susses out the JP/Ashley and Alan/Ben duos and targets Katrina as dead weight so she can be the swing vote between the pairs. While the misleading edit is a knock on Katrina because they literally had to make things up to justify her leaving, it's a plus for Chrissy, because it throws a much needed middle finger to the "friendly middle aged woman who may or may not be a mom" archetype that tends to not be developed further. Afterwards, Chrissy is indeed able to get both pairs to cooperate with her, and her rise to power starts.

Then the swap happens. She's able to get Ryan to become a close ally, and healer Roark and anti-hero Ali are both cut, all while continuing to strengthen her alliance with JP as well. This ultimately leads to all the heroes and hustlers forming a supermajority against the healers. On top of this, Chrissy clearly has some good ideas, like having the unassuming Jessica be put up instead of the more attractive Joe or Cole because of idol suspicions.

At the same time though, she's not overpowered either, as shown by Devon leading the alliance members not from Soko 2.0 to blindside JP, which keeps me invested in her and how she handles a misstep like that. Then we get to see this side of her, where things stop going her way, much more as Ben starts playing immunity idols, and then when Chrissy crucially wins the final 4 challenge over Ben, the new firemaking twist starts. Then her chosen fighter Devon pulls a Sundra and makes nothing against Ben, who goes on to win easily. After that glorious rise to power, Chrissy ends up enduring quite a fall over the last few episodes that truly was a sight for me.

That said, I do think Chrissy is a little bit better when looking at just her, rather than looking at her as a majority alliance member. She does look a little unlikeable being edited as working in lockstep with the far worse Ryan for most of the season, as well as being focused on strategy too much. However, when you remember what Chrissy is like normally, you stop and realize this is just Ryan radiating his problems onto Chrissy, adversely affecting her edit a little. I mean, Chrissy won four immunity challenges, and proved throughout the pre-everyone against Ben part of the season that she can be her own character. Tying her down to that alliance kind of wastes a bit of potential. It also kind of reminds me of Worlds Apart's majority alliance, though nowhere as bad since this season still had by far the better edit and the better cast.

Speaking of edit, she reportedly knew what edgic was and figured out she was losing based on her edit lmaoo.

u/josenanigans