User blog comment:Coolio15/Canary Islands Boot Order/@comment-26485526-20190821025611/@comment-9949103-20190821041818

Oh, Jesus Christ, here we go xD

Tara was, BY FAR, my favorite character going into this season. And from the two episodes that I got through, she definitely maintained that position.

When I was coming up with her character, I was really struggling because I was scared that she would just turn into a clone of Riley or something. And given how similar they look, I really wanted to differentiate Tara from Riley as much as I possibly could. Looking back at her bio, I think I was able to do just that.

Unlike Riley, who was cutthroat and calculated, Tara really did own up to her first confessional in calling herself a "talker". She was a complete ditz and a blabbermouth the whole way through, getting more and more villainous and just more and more ridiculous as the season went on.

To me, what made Tara such an enjoyable character aside from her high-energy and ditzy personality was her startling amount of apathy for other people's games, especially people she was supposed to be in alliances with. One of the earliest and BEST examples of this was in episode 4 when Tara and all the other remaining women went on a beach party reward as part of winning an immunity against the guys. While at this reward, Liz attempted to reel Tara into the alliance of Brianna, Toshi, and Paul, a trio which Liz had just been brought into the episode prior. Tara, however, lets her lips run wild and lets it slip that she was also approached by Toshi to be in an alliance, but this was one containing all the guys of the construction crew (Robbie, Jasper, Patrick). Hearing this, Liz realizes that Toshi is double-dealing and it is from here on out that Liz is after Toshi and, ultimately, leads to Toshi's blindside right before the merge when most of his former allies turn on him, all because Tara decide to talk too much and essentially ruin Toshi's game.

She does the same thing to Eula, of whom she had a good bond with but decided that it was better for her to leave as not to disturb her own position in the middle of Paul's and Jasper's competing alliances. Eula tells both Kerri and Tara that she'd like to see the girls left at La Palma stay strong after getting rid of Brianna, whom she and Kerri find to be very untrustworthy. Tara, however, brings this tidbit right over to Patrick and Clay, scaring them enough to where they switch the vote from Brianna to Eula in spite of Kerri's protests. Even though Tara did not necessarily intend for Eula to get blindsided, her own ditzy persona along with the bonds she created with Kerri and Clay as a new tribe make them feel comfortable enough to where they feel they will still be okay even if Eula goes home. And thus, another ship sunk because of Tara's loose lips.

Ultimately, the biggest difference between Toshi playing both sides and Tara playing all sides is that most of what Tara did was not out of any strategic gain for herself, it was genuinely because she couldn't keep her damn mouth shut about private information. And even though this blew up other people's games, her valley girl voice and dumbass persona that she played up on the island made people consider her harmless for a majority of the game. At the merge, Tara continued to jump from vote-to-vote, mainly staying loyal to Clay and Kerri as she turned on her former "allies" one by one until it was down to six.

At six, there was a big plan to blindside Kerri with an idol in her pocket that Tara was brought into by Patrick and Robbie, both of whom had been outcasted or pegged as a threat by Kerri respectively. However, when the vote switched to Clay because of Kerri winning immunity, Tara decided to go back to her original alliance and blow up Robbie and Patrick's plans to blindiside them, creating a seemingly clear line in the sand and a potential 3-3 tie when the outsiders realize that Tara flipped back to the other side. However, after iconically telling Patrick that she leaked info for the "fun of it" and that she won't be loyal to Clay or Kerri because she's playing in anyone's alliance, she is able to make Patrick realize that she is not a threat compared to someone like Robbie, who can win challenges and has been able to dig himself out of some sticky situations so far during the merge. At Tribal, Tara votes for Robbie with Patrick and Faith and pulls off a sinister blindside to slither her way to five, pissing off her former allies Kerri and Clay in the process.

Once getting to the final five, Tara is elated and even stoked at the idea of getting "in touch with her inner actress" to convince Kerri not to play her idol and vote her out despite her having just backstabbed the principal. Acting outrageously surprised when Patrick tries to get her voted out, Tara plays her part perfectly and even though she would have been dead meat if Kerri had used her idol, her stellar acting, along with Patrick's scheming and Faith's ability to keep Kerri calm, allowed her to remain in the game and see Kerri leave with the idol in her pocket.

At four, Tara was once again on the chopping block for her erratic gameplay and being outed as a "confirmed rat", but it didn't matter as Patrick had already pegged Faith as the bigger threat, allowing Tara to simply float into her seat at the FTC.

Though she was lambasted by many of the jurors for what was percieved as "poor" strategic gameplay and a tendency to burn every bridge that she had the opportunity to, Tara made a strong case for herself at the FTC, attributing her personality with her strategy and saying that, to her, they had to become intertwined because she knew she would not be able to control her mouth. Though she apologizes for the hurt feelings, she also reminds jurors of all the chances they had to find out about her two-faced play style and vote her out. These pleas earn her the respect of the more strategically-inclined jurors, such as Paul and Liz, but it is not enough to give her the win.

Even so, Tara would have been a star from start to finish. From going on an "Animal Planet" style lizard hunt with Liz, to going skinny dipping in a luxury pool reward after a sugar rush, to calling Clay a "literal egghead" only to realize that Clay is the only person she's talking to, she would have been my fave to write this season. I had SO many stupid moments planned for her xD