Elizabeth Eliminated On ‘Survivor: David Vs. Goliath’:

elizabeth survivor — Image Credit: Courtesy of CBS

The tribes merged into one on the Nov. 7 episode of Survivor: David vs. Goliath, and Elizabeth Olson, an original David tribe member, was first to be voted out. At the merge, there were seven original Goliaths and six original Davids. However, there was also a secret mixed group of six within that, made of three Goliaths — Alec Merlino, Alison Raybould and Mike White — and three Davids — Gabby Pascuzzi, Christian Hubicki and Nick Wilson. For this vote, though, the Goliaths stayed strong to their original alliance, and targeted Elizabeth.

Everyone was on-board with the decision, except for Angelina Keeley, who wanted to go for a bigger target, Christian, instead. When no one would agree with her on that, she decided to spill the beans to Elizabeth and tell her she was getting voted out. Elizabeth used this as gumption to flip the switch on Angelina. At tribal, she let the Goliaths know that Angelina was sharing their secrets, and it led to a pretty wild blow-up, with Goliath members accusing Angelina of just trying to secure jury votes.

In the end, though, Elizabeth’s plan didn’t work, and it was a unanimous vote against her. Here’s what she had to say about it!

Were you able to approach any of the Goliaths before tribal to set your plan in motion? No, because Angelina’s smart and didn’t let me know that information [that I was getting voted out] until the very last second. So I didn’t have time to have conversations at camp and convince people one-on-one or in a better setting with time. I just did not have that opportunity. My plan all day and even before was to get Dan [Rengering] out, so I wasn’t sitting around on my butt twiddling my thumbs, hoping everything was going to my way. I had a plan in place, but I was feeling like the whole Dan thing wasn’t transpiring. The Angelina thing as not my first choice. I would’ve rather played with her than Dan, but when you have a massive crack like that, you have to do whatever you can.

Were you confident it was going to work? I wasn’t confident it was going to work, but I was pretty darn sure I was going to do everything in my power to exploit the cracks as best as I could and hope the Goliaths would see through and get irritated at it and vote Angelina’s ass out!

I felt like, in the middle of tribal, I was gaining ground for real. I was like, wow, people are biting at this and people are angry! Alison, in particular, was pretty pissed that Angelina was courting the jury. I didn’t even have to say my assumption of what Angelina’s motivation was in having that conversation with me — Alison said it for me! It was way better for them to come to that realization themselves. So, at that point, I’m feeling pretty good. I didn’t know if they would actually do it, but I was giving them plenty of opportunity to think about it and for there to be a logical reason why they should. I could feel the fear at tribal council and that was like music to my ears!

Then, I felt like there was a moment that I felt all that momentum I was gaining leave, and it didn’t get shown on TV. I had gone around and was whispering to people, and I got back around to Carl [Boudreaux], and he was like…Elizabeth, I don’t even want to hear you. He said that loud enough for everyone to hear, purposefully. I thought I just had to convince one Goliath [to flip], and I didn’t know I had to convince my Davids too! So at that moment, I was just devastated. I felt like there was no chance in hell that I was walking out of tribal afterwards. That’s when Gabby started crying. I don’t think Gabby wanted me to go, but the writing was on the wall. It was smart for her to vote for me, even though she didn’t want to.

So were the Davids just voting for you because they knew they had to? Look at what we know — there were three groups in the voting: The Goliaths, The “strikeforce six” and then Carl and Davie left over and me. The six wanted to get two Davids out. Well, three of the six were already in that strikeforce. So, they only had three options to get two — Elizabeth, Davie and Carl. Davie and Carl were both already agreeing and on-board for me. I was unaware of all of this, but it just makes sense on paper. I was the logical one they were coming for. And I’m not bitter about that.

Do you still think Angelina was campaigning for your vote and do you respect that gameplay? I had mad respect! But I think she underestimated my ability in the game, and was surprised that I came back swinging and punching. She misread that. I don’t think she once thought I was going to come back fighting. But, yeah, I respect the gameplay 100 percent.

Anything you wish you’d done differently? I think one of my biggest things was misreading Alec. I thought he was in my court, but he went and shared information about me going for Dan to Dan’s face. That was a big misread on me. I thought I was safe to go with Alec. In my gut, I felt like he was on my side. So that was my biggest misread in the game. My biggest error was my relationship with Carl, but even more, I didn’t really re-connect with Nick, and I really regret that. I was so focused on my new enemies, the Goliaths, and trying to build the relationships with them, but I didn’t cling to my older relationships, which were more valuable. I should have paid more attention to the people I already had relationships with first.