People watch Survivor for their own reasons. Some watch it for the gameplay and the strategy involved. It’s a great exercise in game theory and seeing who can excel at that kind of stuff fascinates certain fans. Others watch the show the entertainment provided. Those are the people that would rather watch character driven narratives and compelling drama stemming from actual relationships between individuals.
No matter which side one falls, there will always be characters that sort of define the type of show you enjoy. Strategy heads might like someone like Russell Hantz, Spencer Bledsoe or Kim Spradlin. Players that are often referred to as “gamebots” for their penchant to talk about the game more than anything else while on the island and in confessionals. Players who like the characters might lean more towards people like Coach Wade, Adam Klein or Sandra Diaz-Twine. Those people also understand how to play the game but a lot of their storyline revolves is more about what is happening to them on the show rather than their strategy.
Few players fall into both categories and in the Venn diagram, the middle between strategy and character would have to be called the “Cirie Fields” zone. There are other players who fulfill the requirements but in my eyes, nobody comes close to Cirie in terms of providing both as a strategist and as a character on a television show. She is like the Haley’s Comet of Survivor players in that someone like her will only be cast once every 75 years.
In terms of gameplay, Cirie has obviously earned her stripes. When she was going through casting for Survivor: Panama, producers had to have her pegged as a possible early boot. Cirie has never been what one might call athletic. On top of that, she is famously the woman who hated the outdoors, going so far as being scared of leaves. At a first glance, Cirie would seem more suited for the comforts of Big Brother than the rigors demanded from the Survivor experience. With the plan to separate the tribes by age and gender, Cirie as an older woman had to be the producers’ odds on favorite to be Panama’s first boot.
Instead, she became the season’s breakout character. While her physical abilities obviously limited her, Cirie managed to survive on her social skills. With the writing on the wall that the older women were probably going to lose the first challenge, Cirie went to work early to tighten her relationships with her tribe. She made alliances with Melinda Hyder and Ruth-Marie Milliman and used the fact that “Timber” Tina Scheer was such an oddball as a way to sort of distance the tribe from her. There’s an alternate universe out there where Tina is able to mesh with the other women and Cirie is a first boot because she is the most useless member back at camp. Thankfully we do not exist in that world.
Throughout her inaugural season, we got to Cirie’s brain at work multiple times. At the tribe swap she remains a member of Casaya, a now dysfunctional but somehow successful tribe. She is marked for dead by the younger people who invade her camp but thanks to some winning at challenges and her social guile, Cirie is able to worm her way into the inner workings of the Casaya majority. She becomes very close to Aras Baskauskas and together, they form the sane duo inside the insanity that is the Casaya experiment.
It’s fitting in a way that Cirie falls at final four because of a fire making challenge. Up until then, Cirie’s arc had been one of personal growth. Faced with the task to make fire, the ultimate form of life in the game, Cirie just wasn’t quick enough. It doesn’t undo all that Cirie has learned it just shows that she is not done growing as a person. It also flags up that Cirie does not lose Panama because of her social skills or ability to make alliances. It’s the first, but certainly not the last, time that Cirie loses the game to something outside of poor social gameplay.
Even though Cirie didn’t go all the way, she made a bunch of fans back home. Coming out of Panama, she wins America’s Favorite Player because of her story. Throughout the season, Cirie conquers so many fears and really comes out of her shell as a camera savvy personality. Her reaction to Casaya’s multiple meltdowns are always comedic and she is as baffled as we are to see that she is able to get into that alliance’s majority despite being a big outcast at the start. Her relationship with Shane Powers brings out the best in her narrative abilities, especially when he asks her to check out his chaffed penis. In fact she has relationships with all the important players in Panama and they all become better characters because of her.
We can talk about her ability to read people, the 3–2–1 vote and a bunch of other things Cirie does strategically throughout the season. All of those things are great but what truly makes me love Cirie is her giddiness. Few people can match her level of joy to be playing Survivor. She has the iconic Cirie giggle. She is always laughing and smiling. She truly understands how lucky she is to be playing a game so many want to try but so few actually do. Even though she is completely out of her element, Cirie really takes the time to get the most she can out of her Survivor experience.
Just think to the challenge where they all vote on a bunch of superlatives. Eventually it turns into a Courtney Merit roast as she starts to get all of the bad ones like “most annoying” and “biggest poser”. As she keeps getting more and more superlatives thrown her way, the already eliminated Courtney becomes more and more enraged. Most people might feel awkward having to be in the same room as Courtney as she has to deal with realizing her tribe, and alliance, hates her. Cirie? She just stands there and laughs in her face. Not in a mean way either, in typical Cirie fashion, she makes it adorable and impossible to hate.
Cirie gets an emotional reunion with her husband, H.B., back at camp late in the game. Seeing his outrage and discomfort at the tribe’s living situation is a great way to show how far Cirie has come. Having her show H.B. around the camp and seeing him react in the same way day 1 Cirie did to various things while Cirie just laughs at him shows that she is now a completely different person. They cap off her metamorphosis by showing her catching a fish for Aras near the end stages of Panama and it’s one of the few times I have audibly cheered for a person on the show. Cirie just has that ability to make you root for her.
When the producers decided a few years down the road to make a Fans vs Favorites season, Cirie was one of the biggest no-brainers to ask back. Some people return after a short while off the show and offer diminishing results. Not so for Cirie. Strategically, she is probably even stronger than she was in Panama. She dominates Micronesia alongside Parvati Shallow and does so with an iron fist. Even when she comes into the game and it looks like she might find herself in the minority, Cirie works her magic and ends up on top.
The beauty of Micronesia Cirie is that she comes in with the previous knowledge from Panama. If she was a character on the Simpsons, Cirie would have gotten on the island and once again been unable to do anything. That’s not how it happens. Cirie 2.0 isn’t afraid of leaves or unable to help around camp. In fact, she allows herself to be the first to visit Exile Island. Think back to Panama, there is no way that Cirie Fields could have survived an experience like that. In Micronesia, she thrives and it’s wonderful to see.
One of her most memorable moments of Micronesia has to be the Ozzy Lusth blindside. Cirie was in good with both Amanda Kimmel and Parvati but could see that Ozzy had a bit too much pull on the former for her own good. First she starts to highlight to Amanda that Ozzy is flirting with Alexis Jones. Cirie knows she is eventually going to vote out Ozzy and wants to be able to win back Amanda. Only a genius strategic player would be so subtle with her gameplay but it works. Amanda gets upset with Alexis but it also falls as a knock on Ozzy. Then, with Parvati she secretly gathers the votes from the fans to pull off a blindside on Ozzy. Cirie then ropes Amanda back in and suddenly, Ozzy is gone and Cirie finds herself in a power position. Ruthless gameplay that one would expect from a Boston Rob but with Cirie, her sugary niceness is able to hide that devilish side of her and make her seem like just a nice friend out on the island.
Above all that, Cirie is once again a dynamite character. As if to prove that she is the best of both the strategic and personality worlds, Cirie becomes the mastermind for the “get Erik Reichenbach to give his idol to Natalie Bolton” plan. She is the one who comes up with the fine points of what Natalie is ultimately able to pull off. Her narration as she thinks through this idea is on point and classic Cirie with her adorable giggle thrown in as she relishes in the malice she is about to get involved with.
Once again, Cirie loses Micronesia in a less than conventional way. After having a final three for every season since Cook Islands, Micronesia reverts back to a final two situation. The players only realize this at the final three where Cirie is already stuck with Parvati and Amanda Kimmell, both of whom will take each other over Cirie if they win immunity. Cirie is left out there having to fight for her life in the game and puts up a great battle but cannot outlast Amanda. Her exit is demoralizing and depressing, especially her final words when she tearfully apologizes to her family for coming up short. Cirie has a gift for making people feel emotions and that’s why she is television gold.
On Heroes vs Villains, her time is cut short because of how good her two previous performances had been. She is idol’ed out of the game by the combined efforts of Tom Westman and J.T. Thomas and goes out pre-jury. She puts in a good performance in her short time and leaves the game with one of her more memorable quotes, “I’m a gangsta in an Oprah suit”. It’s the first time that Cirie is really defeated strategically. Very few can say they were able to best Cirie in a battle of wits and social currency and in a way, it’s impressive that it took two dominant winners coming together to make it happen. I don’t like to make lists but calling Cirie the “best to never win” seems like an easy call and this certainly backs up that argument.
Losing so quickly in her third season probably ends up serving her well for Game Changers. She is still remembered as a threat for her social wit but not nearly as much as she was in Heroes vs Villains. On top of that, Cirie lands on some dominant tribes in the pre-merge and never even has to attend tribal council. Because of that, she is nearly invisible on the show in the pre-merge and that sucks for the viewers but is great for Cirie. Such a situation is perfect for a player who thrives on making relationships. Without being faced with the burden of voting people out, Cirie is able to establish trust with multiple players and form an alliance that insulates her as much as possible. By the merge, she is firmly in good with Andrea Boehlkhe, Michaela Bradshaw, Aubry Bracco, and somewhat so with Sarah Lacina. Cirie is even able to mend fences with Ozzy and ally with him before he is blindsided out of the game, without Cirie’s input this time around.
As the game has evolved throughout Cirie’s different seasons, so has she. In Game Changers she tries to pull off one of the flashiest moves anybody has ever thought of. She tries to engineer it so that she can use Sarah’s vote steal on her as a way to save her from being blindsided. The entire plan is convoluted and complicated and only a legend like Cirie could come up with it and find the proper words to explain it to the camera. Cirie is unfortunately stopped by a technicality in the sense that she failed to realize that Sarah’s advantage is listed as “non-transferrable”.
Still, Cirie is able to escape the blowback of her failed move because Cirie has magical wizard powers. She is only sent home at the final six when everybody else ends up with some sort of immunity and Cirie is the only eligible person left. She was never the intended target at that vote but has to go anyways and it stings. In a game that has been touted as the most intense social experiment ever, Cirie goes home despite being possibly the best social player on the island. Not only that, she joins a select few people to go home without ever having a vote cast against her throughout the season. It feels very symbolic that the vote before all the advantages came into play came out as 3–2–1 with Sarah leaving. For Cirie to once again create her iconic vote in a different manner, in a different season, only to go out on it seems right in a way.
In what feels like a full circle moment, one of Cirie’s best moments in Game Changers is when she gets a family visit from her 18 year old son, Jared. Back in Cirie’s original season, Jared would have been like 7 or 8, that he was now a high school graduate while his mom was still a star on Survivor tells you all you need to know about Cirie’s ability to consistently make amazing television. Like HB in Panama, Jared is shocked to find out how her mother lives out on the island. Once again Cirie is the one who shows her boy around and tells him how to act in a world that was once totally strange to Cirie but has since become like a second home to her.
Above all, Cirie is relatable and genuine. We never get the sense that she is putting on airs to get the audience to like her. Sure, she lies in the game to other players and does what she has to do to win but that never follows her into confessionals. Cirie is approachable while also being larger than life. It takes a special person to be able to pull off both of those simultaneously.
If Game Changers was the last we have seen of Cirie, it’s great that she was much more visible than her short sting on Heroes vs Villains. Cirie is pioneer of modern day strategy but also a throwback to a time where players got airtime for being charismatic and personable on screen. She is like a laboratory specimen that got infused with the power to do both. She may not be a winner but there are few winners that many would actually rank above her in terms of the joy we get from watching her on Survivor. If you’re a four time player and people wouldn’t mind seeing you for a fifth time, you’re doing something right and without a doubt, Cirie is doing more than a few things right.
