Survivor South Pacific Episode 8 Thoughts

My friend Gary and I have disagreed on Cochran's abilities as a player. Gary has felt that he is going to be a great player, while I don't see this at all. After this week, I think I've been proven correct. Cochran joined Survivor Africa's Brandon in the "most unnecessary move that will only piss off your own tribe and possibly end up getting you voted out next" group.

I understand where Cochran was coming from; why should he help a tribe that has continually pissed on him and treated him as an afterthough? He knows he is at the bottom of his tribe as well, so he needs to do something to improve his spot. Flipping on his tribe is so very tempting.

It's also the worst possible move he could make.

Let's look at what Cochran's move did:

• Removed him from a 1/7 chance of being eliminated. This is the only positive of his move; he made sure that he would not be going to Redemption Island this tribal council. At the same time, it was a 1/7 chance. It wasn't a guarantee that he would get the boot.


• Alienated his tribe. This is a big one, but it is not insurmountable. Presumably he would be able to jump to Upolu and join with them. With that said...


• Jumped Cochran from being 6 in an alliance of 6 (and 3 in a sub-alliance of 3), to being 7 in an alliance of 7. You never want to move back in alliances - being 5th in an alliance of 5 is better than 6th in an alliance of 7. So just by numbers, Cochran worsened his position. It wouldn't be too hard for Savaii to approach Upolu and say "Let's just vote Cochran out this week; you still have the edge, it would help harmony around camp, and it would throw us a bone." Upolu can see him as being expendable, then vote him out.


• Made himself look to be untrustworthy. This one is pretty simple - Cochran has shown that he is willing to turn on his own tribe, and didn't even immediately switch sides to Upolu, so why would somebody trust him?


• Cochran threw away 5 jury votes. This is the big one. By turning on his tribe, he essentially guaranteed that he will not be getting jury votes from Savaii. They know he did not play the game too much at Savaii, and that he did nothing but save himself after the merge. Combine that with him screwing Savaii over and how do you think they are going to react to him?

In short, Cochran saved himself in the immediate, weakened his short and medium turn position, probably increased his chances of making it to Final Tribal Council and virtually killed his chances of winning the game. Not a bad day's work of destroying your game.