Survivor 47 started with Andy Rueda, a 31-year-old AI research assistant from Brooklyn, nervous about his position in the Gata tribe. He could tell he wasn't fitting in, and he turned to Rachel LaMont for comfort during the night — however, this made him more of a liability and suspicious to the other castaways. Rueda decided to make his bad reputation work for him, and got all the way to the final six. Episode 13 showed him asking a potential juror to keep an open mind if he were to make his case to the jury. Unfortunately, it looked like the jurors already had their minds made up. But should they have?
Andy was part of the demise of Sierra Wright's game, but she thought she was dragging him along. His turn against Sierra and Sam Phalen to align with Lavo started his "She's All That" makeover. Andy worked with Lavo again and successfully took out Sol Yi, who previously wrote his name down. Though he had triumphed over his frenemies, the perception of his game was still negative by episode 11. Genevieve Mushaluk told Rachel they should target those who are being dragged along, like Sue Smey — and Andy. Andy worked hard to make an impressive move he could claim to fix his dead-weight perception with "Operation: Italy," but it didn't fully work.
Operation: Italy was created to keep perceived bigger threats Genevieve and Sam over the underdog alliance (Andy, Sue, Rachel, Caroline Vidmar, and Teeny Chirichillo). Andy flipped on them to take out Caroline, and the jury noticed. "That was Andy. Andy flipped again," Sol said, showing a sign that the jurors don't respect flipping.
Sam gave a cover story that Caroline's exit was an "accident." Rachel called out the lie and said Andy flipped at Tribal Council in episode 13. "That's true," Sierra agreed.
Jeff Probst asked Andy if that was his perceptive. "Did I flip? Yes," he answered. Sol and Gabe Ortis look annoyed at this; Sierra and Caroline were relieved that he owned the move. Andy's final plea to Rachel was for her to keep an open mind as a juror. That plea worked, but not in the way that he hoped. Instead, Rachel saw him for the threat that he was and voted him out. When this happened, Gabe pointed at someone in approval as everyone else on the jury grinned.
"We got ourselves a game," Kyle Ostwald whispered to the other players.
Most castaways would agree that you need to be adaptable and flexible to outwit, outplay, and outlast. Andy's journey was about adapting ever since he earned a terrible reputation — and Probst says repeatedly that perception is everything. After finding out Genevieve's negative perception of his game, Andy went into action by trying to lead a vote. He got his results with Operation: Italy, but it was reduced to Andy flipping again instead of playing out as a well-orchestrated move. For the plan to work, it took Genevieve creating a fake idol, Andy acting to trick four castaways, and — as Sam alluded to on X — the group throwing the immunity competition. Of course, the jurors didn't know that at the time.
The flipping strategy is also common on Big Brother. "So when I found myself in the middle of the merge, and in a much better position than I was at the start, I looked at myself as a Big Brother 'floater,'" Andy told Parade. "I didn't have a specific long term strategy, but I knew I was spinning plates and keeping options open."
Floaters, or disloyal players, get backlash on both CBS shows. Nicole Franzel, who won Big Brother 18 and Big Brother: Reindeer Games, said she didn't like Frankie Grande's floater strategy. "He's literally so nice to every single person," she told the Black Bi Reality podcast. "But for me, it's triggering. I can't trust you because you don't like that person but you're acting like you do. Is that me?"
We saw another great Survivor player this season almost lose an ally with this line of thinking: Caroline and Sue worked closely from the beginning, and that relationship was at risk after Gabe was voted out. "I just don't like nonloyal people," Sue told Caroline. "It's just who I am … It's not that I don't like you. But you can see I'm loyal."
Sue, a flight school owner, was loyal — and blindsided by Caroline's betrayal. Caroline knew this was a risk, but made a great case for herself. "I kept feeling like I was making decisions good for Gabe, and I started feeling like I didn't have any control over my own game," she explained. "I feel like I waited my whole life for this, just to do what someone else was telling me to do. That, to me — I would go home earlier and play my game than make it to the end feeling like he carried me."
This is one of the best quotes of the season, and ultimately, by the end of the conversation, Sue respected Caroline's move.
Andy's flip had a similar backlash, and from more castaways. "I did Operation: Italy, which I looked at as an impressive move, definitely something I could talk about," he told Parade. "But from the perspective of Rachel and Sue and Teeny, it was not a masterful move that raised my threat level. It was perceived as sort of this weak-willed, impulsive flip that handed Genevieve the game, because her idol is 'real.'" The sixth-place finisher hoped to unexpectedly impress the jury as Kristie Bennet of Australian Survivor had.
But for that to happen, the jury must be open to hearing new information and new arguments; they can't come into the finale with their minds already made up about the finalists. There have been winners who were loyal to their alliances. But there can be winners who had to be scrappy to socially climb. That's part of what makes these competitive shows hard, unpredictable, and fun to watch.
