Tyler Hawks

***Tyler*** was the Lone Survivor of Essential Survivor: Saint Martin. He later competed again on Essential Survivor: All-Stars.

## Saint Martin

As the first winner of this franchise, you’d expect Tyler to have some crazy and interesting story that would really set the tone for what’s to come in this series. Thankfully, he did and I’m pleased to say that Tyler’s winner arc is really one you rarely see. Beginning the game and approaching the first Tribal Council, he was one of the names that was frequently mentioned as an option, because of his apparent social game and eagerness to play. He found himself in the minority three with two other allies. But with the help of Will, Tyler managed to stay in the game and gain two more allies in Georgy and Aria.

Once the inevitable Tribe Shuffle came on Day 7, Tyler’s position in the game greatened when he was transferred to the New Gonzalo tribe with three OG Irma members. Safe to say that the OG Gonzalo would be getting wiped by OG Irma if they lose. Well even when Steph was voted to due to her bad challenge performances, Georgy, an OG Irma was voted off instead of James, another OG Irma due to him attempting to throw Tyler under the bus. Fortunately, his ally Tommy put a stop to it, saving Tyler and gaining even more trust from him. And to make things better, he even found an idol! A couple days later, the rest of New Gonzalo decided to turf Derek for his inactivity.

Although the post-swap portion of Tyler’s Essential Journey was somewhat boring, once the tribes merged, Tyler’s game really took off.

After noticing the OG Tribe divide, he immediately knew that he wanted to improve on his social game if he wanted to get far. But finding his second idol definitely helped his game one step closer. Along with winning the first Individual Immunity Challenge. He knew his win would paint him as a physical threat because of his overkill score, so because of that he laid low and let OG Irma take care of the vote, which had been decided on Shai. And although the vote went Irma’s way. There was a clear fipper. Luckily, Nick confessed to Tyler about flipping so that mystery was solved.

Now we see Tyler losing the Immunity Challenge due to spilling his score out to everyone. He lets Irma control the vote again, choosing Kiibo. But he finds a predicament where James doesn’t trust him, due to Jayden’s extreme lies about him. All the while, Tyler receives three votes from the same Tribal Council. People are catching onto him, and people are catching onto him fast.

This was proved even more when the next challenge was ‘Touchy Subjects’ and Tyler was the popular vote for all of the threatening options, even worse, he didn’t win Immunity. Had Will not have been evacuated, Tyler could’ve had a free pass to Ponderosa. Nick’s evacuation was up next, and besides Tyler being so close to finally voting Jayden out, nothing happened.

We’ve reached the Final 6. Two Gonzalo and Four Irma are left, Jayden wins Immunity leaving Jennifer as a prime target. Only Jennifer began to get into Tyler’s head, causing Tyler to debate on whether he should use his idol on her. Good thing he didn’t because if he did, the person with the next highest amount of votes, would be Tyler.

At the Final 5, Aria wins immunity. Tyler obviously doesn't sweat it because there’s a clear target in Jayden and he has two idols. But during Tribal Council, after Tyler saves himself and Tommy with his idols, Jayden plays a Legacy saving himself as well. Resulting in James’s abrupt elimination.

So now everyone’s main goal is to target Jayden, if he makes it to FTC, he more-than-less wins. But to keep it brief… he wins the Final Immunity and Tyler is now on the chopping block. He knows Jayden and Aria are already voting for him, so he relies on Tommy. Thankfully, Tommy sides with him. Now Tyler and Aria are dueling in a tiebreaker, which he wins.

And even with a rather quiet Final Tribal Council, Tyler become the first Lone Survivor in Essential Survivor history in a 3-1-0 vote!

## All-Stars

With only 2 winners coming into the season, that target is gonna be bigger than it would’ve been with four of them. But Tyler managed to avoid that target for quite a while. Compared to his dominant winning game, Tyler played more dynamic this go-around, and even though he didn't make it to the end again, we were all content with his gameplay this season.

At the Andaman camp, Tyler seemed to be in a good spot right off the bat. Nobody took note of his winner status too seriously, and he made good bonds with people such as Kim, which fueled him to make a part of the majority alliance the tribe had. But after Calvin’s boot and yet another challenge defeat (with finding an idol in between), Tyler wasn’t in the best position. Although he was in the majority for his tribe, his alliance wanted Enrique out. While he would’ve rather taken out Jay. Oddly enough, neither of those two were even in the discussion once people found out that Theodore was leaking the alliance and information to the minority. So in retaliation, Tyler made a sub-alliance with everyone in the majority except Theo, pulling off a 6-2-1 blindside. Although, the next Tribal he took a backseat. Mainly because Jay made his boot so easy to justify.

At the swapped portion of the game, off-rip, Tyler acknowledges that he got a good draw for the swap. He trusted the people he came in with and was excited to learn about the 3 that he didn't know. He instantly clicked with Logic and Aidan on varying levels. But he noticed that Logic began to push the Aidan/Ben duo idea, and that spewing any sort of information that he made from his previous tribe. This made it so much easier for Tyler to let Logic have an in with his group, especially when blindsiding Aidan. And this under the radar version of Tyler continued with the next vote, as he was a main factor in the impromptu Logic blindside as well.

At the merge feast, Tyler had found himself an extra vote to go along with his idol. Buddying back up with his group after winning immunity, the original rivalry of Jayden and Tyler began to start right back up again as the former began to amplify everything going on. Besides this Tyler began to work on his gameplan of using Brandon, Kim and Enrique as shields in the game, so when Adam was blindsided, it didn't work out in his favor as Kim has now lessened her target. At the next round, Josiah easily won immunity. And with a simple Brandon vote being the only plan said, Tyler’s paranoia began to run wild. But after a bunch of scrambling and idol consideration, Enrique was taken out right after. And due to Josiah’s Vote Reveal, Tyler’s side seemed more fractured than ever.

But during Enrique’s Tribal, Tyler revealed his idol to everyone… and by everyone, I mean Jayden and Jacob as no one else noticed it. But despite noticing his idol, Jayden proposed an idea to Tyler about taking out one of the majority on his side. Of course, Tyler loved that idea, but since it was coming from his old nemesis, he shot it down almost immediately. But after some convincing (and a bit of desperation) Tyler caved in. Allowing Jayden to help his side regain some numbers in taking out one of the biggest names, Josiah.

At the Final 10, the numbers seemed to now be in Tyler’s favor. With Brandon, Kim, Jayden, Paul, and Ben on his side (that’s 6), mathematically they could’ve rode it out until the Final Six… would have. As usual, something went horribly wrong. Kim and Jacob were targets on both respective sides. But oddly enough, Brandon and Jayden flipped sides so quickly, taking out Kim (despite her pleading for Tyler to use his idol).

Right after the vote-out, Tyler was furious at Brandon, stating that he single-handedly ruined both of their games, (spoiler alert; he did) and that they were screwed. Once Zach won immunity, Paul began to throw out both winner’s names immediately. Causing for an alliance of Ben, Brandon and Tyler to form. Their plan was to target Paul, but in an 6-3 minority, they needed a miracle to pull that off… and that miracle as Jacob. Jacob kept giving them info about what his side would be planning, so when they were told Jacob’s side would be splitting the vote, they trusted Jacob to have them split 3-3, then flip with them on the revote. But Tyler was smarter than that, and used his extra vote on Paul… but Jacob was smarter than that too and made the split 4-2 instead of 3-3, sending Tyler and Paul to a revote. And in a last ditch attempt, Tyler began to call out people’s gameplans, but it was to no avail as he was booted 4-3. With an idol in his pocket.