Kalina Holmes

***Kalina*** was the Lone Survivor of Essential Survivor: Togo

## Togo

From a fan favorite during the pregame, to fan favorite and Lone Survivor by the end, Kalina marks Essential’s first female winner and first unanimous winner. And for good reason to. Kalina had a bumpy journey to the end from start to finish and while she wasn’t the most respected by the end, she surely did give a good story.

Being selected by a former acquaintance, turned enemy Nick. Kalina was chosen to be on the dysfunctional Kabre tribe. Despite being the only girl on the tribe, she didn’t have any trouble fitting in as Kabre enjoyed her presence. Mainly, Aidan, Doug and Bob. So due to her freakish likable aura, within the first 3 days, Kalina was included in 3 different alliances. Which truly shows a testament to her social game whether you like it or not. Before Kabre’s first Tribal. Kalina’s alliance of four seemed like they were gonna have an easy vote against Nick. But when Ben and Aidan thought otherwise, you can only imagine how much drama brewed up immediately. So when the sides were officially drawn and it seemed like rocks would be drawn, Kalina’s alliance planned out a 3-2-1 vote, in hopes of getting Aidan to throw a vote on Nick while the others voted Ben. Luckily, it worked! Unluckily, Ben played his idol, idling out Bob and ticking Kalina and Doug to a point where we as an ORG refuse to talk about what happened next.

At the swap, Kalina felt alright with her tribe. She got swapped onto it with Aidan from OG Kabre, but they mended ties quick enough to not have a lasting impact. At the first and only post-swap Tribal, Kalina had felt as if she was on the bottom of her tribe. Luckily for her, she was included on the Drew vote, and also informed by Aidan about Brendan and Jack’s double agent business. At the merge, Kalina won second individual immunity, glad and shocked that she won. But safety didn’t calm her nerves as camp was a total mess right before Tribal Council. As a quick majority was formed with herself, Aidan, Liz, Jay, Asier, and Zach, the original target was Gabe as he seemed to be the head of the opposing side. But when the plan somehow got leaked to him, it was no surprise that Kalina’s alliance had to switch the vote, so they moved it to Brendan… only for Gabe to find out yet AGAIN. At that point, they had just disregarded Jay’s presence and didn’t include him on the vote. Thankfully, this time it didn’t get leaked and to avoid rocks, Zach used his Steal-A-Vote on Gabe. Successfully blindsiding Jack and gaining some power. This power continued with the next vote as her alliance successfully took out Brendan.

But at the Auction before Brendan’s vote out. Aidan had bought himself an idol with special powers. The rule was that he had to give away half to someone, and when one of you got voted out, the other received a full idol. So without a doubt, Aidan had given his half of the idol to Kalina. At the Final 7, Kalina won her second individual immunity. And with both Leetah and Jay departing the game in quick succession. Ben and Gabe were all alone with Asier on the side. So it seemed like Ben would be an easy target for the majority, but when Zach and Liz flipped due to Gabe’s shenanigans, Kalina felt blindsided as her most trusted ally, Aidan was sent to Ponderosa. But it wasn’t all too bad as she had gotten an idol out of it. During the pre-Tribal portion at the Final Six, Zach and Liz apologized for leaving her out on the Aidan blindside. Kalina accepted their apologies and was willing to work with them. And even for extra measures, Zach gave her his idol as a sign of trust. So now, Kalina’s guaranteed Final 4. And despite not needing her idol, Gabe was finally voted out at the Final Six. Now we’re at the Final Five and Kalina’s still obviously safe. But now, she was in the minority with Asier as the other three oddly teamed up. She told Asier that she had an idol, which went to Ben, then Liz and Zach. Foiling their plans to vote her off. So they decided to use the rocks rule to their advantage by causing a tie between Liz and Zach, getting Asier outas Ben was already immune and Kalina would play her idol. But when Kalina switched her vote to Liz last minute, not only did she get berated by Asier, but also eliminated Liz while blowing up Ben and Zach’s plan.

Now we’ve arrived at the Final Four and idols are out of play. It seemed like Kalina gave up when she lost immunity to Zach but boy were we wrong. She campaigned heavily to Asier that same night to vote for Ben, and fortunately he did! So when Kalina and Ben went to firemaking, Kalina blew Ben right out of the water, sending him packing. And to make things even better, Kalina won Final immunity, and even though she had tight relations with him, she sole voted Zach right out of the game and brung Asier with her to the Final 2.

While all the jurors deemed both FTC performances as trash, they saw Kalina’s story and journey throughout Togo, and as her fellow finalist Asier ignored the juror’s remarks. It was no question that Kalina would receive all of their votes, making Essential history and fulfilling what 17 other castaways failed to do.