‘Australian Survivor’ Blue tribe power rankings (week 1): Everyone knows Khanh Ong is ruling as ‘king’
It’s been one week in the game for the 24 players of “Australian Survivor: Blood V Water,” which under the Aussie format means three people have already been sent packing. For all you “Survivor” fans who aren’t able to watch, Gold Derby has recapped the first three episodes — Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3 — and we’ll be covering the show all throughout the season. To help keep you up to speed on what’s going down Down Under, we’ll also be providing weekly power rankings of the players still in the hunt to become Australia’s ninth “sole survivor.”
This season is modeled after the 27th and 29th editions of the main franchise in that it features pairs of players connected by blood, all in the hopes of answering the age-old question: Is blood truly thicker than water? On Day 1, host Jonathan LaPaglia split those pairs up between two tribes: the Red tribe representing blood and the Blue tribe representing water.
Below is our assessment of the Blue tribe, losers of the first two immunity challenges who ended the first week one more player down than their opposition. They sent Andy Meldrum, a veteran of “Australian Survivor” who returned to the game after finishing 12th on 2019’s “Champions vs. Contenders,” home first and Briana Goodchild second. Both of those decisions came down to their playing the game too hard too fast.
SEE Everything to know about ‘Australian Survivor: Blood V Water’
Check out our power rankings of the 10 remaining players on the Blue tribe below. (Warning: this article contains spoilers for what has already aired!)
1. Khanh Ong
2. Mark Wales
3. Alanna “Nina” Twine
Khanh has shown such an incredible amount of savvy in a short amount of time that it’s no surprise Queen Sandra Diaz-Twine‘s daughter Nina is already declaring him King. A known fan favorite from “Master Chef,” Khanh entered the game with a fair target already on his back, but he’s managed to win his tribe over with a spirited personality and a close companionship with Mark, who is also a threat as a veteran player from season 4. Nina is a threat for obvious reasons — namely being a student of the biggest threat in series history — and so the three of them actually make up a formidable stronghold on a tribe that seems to be listening to them. If they continue to work and vote together, they very well might control the power for a large chunk of the game…
4. Christine “Chrissy” Zaremba
5. Jordie Hansen
6. Alex Frost
… and that’s because Khanh, Mark and Nina seem to have Chrissy, Alex and Jordie firmly in their pockets. The six players at the top of this tribe have all remarked, to some degree, about their affinity for playing with the other five and so it seems as though they’re set up to work together until they no longer can. That they all rallied to spare Alex in what could otherwise have been an easy first vote due to his back injury says they’re committed to him as an ally. Chrissy and Jordie have seen more screen time than Alex has, though “edit” is a hard thing to evaluate on a version of the show that features 24 players with three episodes a week, each 1.5 hours long — that’s a lot of people to try to cover and some narratives won’t emerge until later in the season.
SEE How to watch ‘Australian Survivor: Blood V Water’
7. Josh Millgate
8. Melissa “Mel” Chiang
9. Kate “KJ” Austin
10. Shayelle “Shay” Lajoie
Josh, Mel and KJ frankly just haven’t registered enough on screen yet to warrant any high placement in a ranking, but they also haven’t been put on their back foot in the same way that Shay has. Shay was Briana’s friend and close ally in the game, and at one point the tribe thought she might use her newly found immunity idol on her behalf, so she is the obvious “outside” of the tribe going forward. That she has an idol everyone knows about further adds to her threat level, putting the others in a position where they’ll likely try to flush it out through a split vote against someone expendable (like KJ or Mel?) while they still have the numbers to do it. There’s another scenario where Shay gets folded in to an alliance with control because she seems like a physical asset to the tribe, but until there’s evidence of that we’ll have to assume she remains on the outside looking in.