James Poirier

***James*** was the Lone Survivor of Essential Survivor: Yemen. He later returned for Essential Survivor: All Stars 2

## Yemen

Unlike its in-person counterpart, Essential Survivor has a track record of the older players being more skilled than the younger ones, and James was surely no exception. He came into the game getting himself to the top of the tribe, and maintained that good position for a majority of the game, all the way to the end where he won 4-1-0. Let’s see how he did it.

Starting off with the Extroverts, James made good ground with everyone. Getting into an early majority alliance. However, the group definitely wasn’t on the same playing field to begin. James noticed the Alison/Khamp pairing and reported this over to fellow ally Felix who couldn’t agree more. But instead of taking the premature shot at them, when Munfatih lost, Tony was the consensus vote. Which was fine with James as he already seemed weird to him. For the next 2 challenge wins, James started to lay out to groundwork to take out Khamp. Happy about the core four of himself Terry, Matt and Felix, with Joshua as a shaky fifth. However when the alliance would finally be put to the test as they lost another challenge, Matt and Joshua began to crack under the pressure and throw out Owen’s name in idol paranoia. James, not wanting to leave a duo in, was able to steer them back to sanity and execute the 5-4 vote plan with ease. However that didn’t come without a negative side, which was Alison’s resentment.

But her resentment didn’t last long. As the Survivors headed into a Tribe swap, James got placed in a 3-2 majority with Alison and Joshua. Now practically forced to work together, James and Alison cut all of their differences behind them and started on a new leaf. She even revealed her idol to him immediately, along with James showing his Vote Steal, but to separate the two of them, they wanted to make a fake crack to bait Abby and Zak (with it even working on Joshua to an extent). Mutaradid never lost any challenges though, it resulted in them trying to keep the shtick alive for the whole time. But when the merge hit, the façade all crumbled apart fast.

For starters, Alison found yet another idol and told James about it. When Cedrick won first individual immunity, he made an alliance with Abby, Matt, Felix, and Zak to target Alison due to idol suspicions. Of course they were all on board, but James couldn’t have that happen. So he reported this back to Alison and told her to play an idol. She did, idoling out Josh. Only problem was that it was painfully obvious that James was the one who clued her in.

During the next round, with the James/Alison duo pretty well-known to everyone, they had nowhere to hide. With Alison winning immunity, all eyes were on James and he’d have to pull off something huge to get the target on his back; so he attempted to blindside Felix. But when the plan is gaining 0 traction, the duo quickly shift over to throwing votes onto Cedrick. Fortunately, more behind-the-scenes action was happening which resulted in Matt going home 4-3-2, sparing James. He even calmed it down a ton in the next round as a Zak blindside was being orchestrated. Not wanting any spotlight, James took the backseat here.

To start off the Final 7, more trouble is caused by Felix. He commenced with trying to pin Alison and James as an extreme threat to everyone. Much to James’s dismay as everyone seemed to be buying it, especially Neb who James didn’t trust and was in Felix's back pocket. To counter this, James wanted to create a 4 with Alison, Cedrick and Abby to take out the brewing challenge beast in Joshua. But just as the plan was about to take flight, Abby revealed that she wanted to quit and that everyone should vote for her. The tribe was very split on this, Felix Neb and Joshua were down to voting her out, while James, Cedrick and notably Alison weren’t too high on the idea. This divide caused a huge feud between Alison and Abby. James taking the high road and not getting himself worked up. But regardless of who wanted to vote Abby, James still had his Vote Steal, so by using it on Joshua, he was still able to send him home 4-2-1, with Abby quitting right behind him.

During the Final Five, the two duos began to face off against one another with Cedrick in the middle. But with Alison’s idol still remaining, all they had to do was win immunity so Alison could play and her idol. Thankfully, Alison won immunity and played her idol and James. Giving those two the power to control the vote. And due to his challenge prowess compared to his Ride-or-Die, they voted off Neb.

In the Final Four, it was fairly obvious to everyone that Felix was the main target here and without immunity he’d be going home. To secure that, James won his first Individual Immunity challenge here, launching himself to the FTC. Of course, Felix began to campaign for him, but to no avail. It somehow worked on Cedrick though as the vote tied and Felix and Alison were sent to fire. Alison won the firemaking match, and advanced to the FTC with James and Cedrick.

During the FTC, while James gave it his all, he sure didn’t need to as the jury was already heavily in favor of him. Rewarding him with a W by a 4-1-0 vote. However there’s been some controversy on whether either James or Alison should’ve won this season, after reading both summaries, who would you have voted for?

## Trivia

- James was originally cast for Essential Survivor: Anarchy, but dropped from the season for IRL reasons. Cillian was his replacement.

- James, at 41 years of age when announced the the Lone Survivor, is the oldest winner of Essential to date.