Payton Pantaleo

***Payton*** was a castaway on Essential Survivor: Brazil. He later returned for Essential Survivor: All-Stars

## Brazil

Arguably the best confessionalist this season, Payton was most definitely a good player on the wrong tribe. Because being on the Janeiro tribe didn’t exactly help his chances at winning. Now let’s talk about why.

Let’s begin with this; Janeiro only won two out of five challenges in the pre-merge, losing four members before the merge. But before any of the eliminations happened, Payton was brought into a 4-person alliance consisting of Evan, Paul, Milo and himself. After a couple of eliminations, it became very clear that Payton was running the alliance and Paul was his right-hand man through it all. Heck, even when Payton went to Exile, he got his wish when he came back and saw that Dany had gone home and had willed him her Legacy Advantage

When Payton returned to camp, it was time for a Joint Tribal Council. Payton hated hearing that due to Samba having a clear numbers advantage, but when he realized that Samba wasn’t as close-knit as they thought, he became ecstatic. First, news got around that Gavin was originally Samba’s target, which Payton didn’t mind because it wasn’t him, but when Lucifer started making the rounds, trying to blindside Tae, it was music to Payton’s ears! Unfortunately, Tae’s vote-out didn’t happen because Gavin was medically evacuated right before Tribal.

Moving onto the merge, it was clear to everyone that Payton was the glue that held Janeiro together. And with two people flipping, sides were drawn. On the OG Janeiro side we had Payton, Evan, Milo, Paul and Dimitri. While the OG Samba tribe had Adam, Brandon, Lucifer, Kim, Jerry, Rebecca and Jess. Paul was Samba’s target, but with a little advice from Evan, he played his Legacy on him. But when Kim played her idol for Adam, a Janeiro still went out in Evan. At the next Tribal, Payton was Samba’s target, yet Lucifer found out and played an idol for him. Sparing Payton just one last time.

His fate was sealed when two of the alliance members flipped on him at the Final 10, making him go home in a 6-3-1 vote.

## All-Stars

As a beloved player from Season 2, Payton had high expectations from the viewing lounge coming into this season. He proved himself to be a competent strategist in his original season, with the problem being that he got very unlucky in his positioning. Unfortunately, history had definitely repeated itself here as the swap as a one-hit killer.

After the long flight and boat ride, Payton finally reached the Andaman and Nicobar Islands with the rest of the All-Star Cast. Like everyone else, he was ecstatic to reunite with some of his old Brazil alumni, such as Adam, Kim, and Lucifer. But he wasn’t gonna reunite with them at only the marooning, because he was met at the Andaman camp with 3 other Brazil members in Kim, Adam and Paul. Worried about the other six people forming a collision against them, all four Brazilians began to work on their social capital. But oddly enough, when they lost the first challenge, Brazilians weren’t even an option. It seemed like the tribe was fairly set on a Calvin boot due to him not being as active as the rest, so not wanting to make Brazil a target, Payton went along with it. But shockingly, Payton received a vote.

At the third challenge, Payton was supposed to end off the challenge by making fire with Paul. But before they could go, Enrique and Tyler were competing in the endurance portion. But not even 5 minutes into the challenge,Enrique accidentally screwed up for the tribe, setting them back by a large margin, resulting in their loss (even though they would have lost anyways). Most of the tribe, (as in the newly made majority alliance) wanted to target Enrique since he was on the bottom of the tribe socially. Payton wanted to be an advocate for Enrique and move the target onto Jay, but when Payton gave Enrique advice, he assumed that Payton was trying to put a bigger target on him, resulting in even more passive gameplay from Enrique. But luckily, Theodore allegedly began to break the news to Enrique that he was the target, which made the majority alliance blindsided him as they couldn’t trust him anymore.

But in true Andaman fashion, they went back to Tribal Council for the third time. And it seemed like an easy Jay vote due to his seemingly fake behavior to everyone, but just as some people were starting to want to flip over and boot Enrique, Jay took it upon himself to call out the entire tribe for not taking out the Kim/Adam Final Two earlier, putting the Final Nail in his coffin. But after that mess and a half… the swap came!.... the swap came….

Once the swap had finished, Payton had returned to the Andaman camp with Adam… and 6 other OG Nicobar. With the current situation not looking too good, Payton had a plan to be completely open about the preswap, in hopes that the Nicobar folk would find a contradiction in Adam’s version of the story. But before he could even begin to execute, Brandon told Payton that Josiah said Payton threw Adam under the bus, which he wouldn’t have any reason to do so early. But nonetheless, Payton was banking on his former tribemates to throw the challenge so that he and Adam would be safe and have a chance to integrate themselves. But when they were completely blown out of the water, Payton realized that they didn't care.

But, it wasn’t a closed story just yet for Payton. As Tribal Council got nearer, Brandon and Jayden approached the two original Andaman with a plan to blindside an OG Nicobar, specifically Jacob, and to avoid a 4-4 split, they tried to put Josiah’s vote on Adam. But when the other side realized that Adam and Payton were too comfortable (and changing their story), Jacob used his Extra Vote Advantage, voting out Payton 5-4.

## Voting History

 Now That's An All-Star Cast
 Is This What A Social Game Looks Like
 It's Clear As Day And I See Right Through It
 Start Slow, Finish Fast
 Admentos
 Voted Out, Day 12