Is Jonna a Political Mastermind?

On All Stars 2, MJ complimented Jonna. He called her the missing piece in his game because she knows how to manage politics. Meanwhile, he sucks in this area.

My gut reaction was huh? Jonna never stood out as an amazing politician in the game. Neither did MJ, but he did noticeably struggle on The Duel 2. Then, I took a step back. Jonna might not have an amazing storyline, but she falls into a category of players who tend to last a long time. Every single time she did a show, she made it past the halfway point.

Prior to All Stars, she never made a final. The closest she came was on Battle of the Seasons when she was eliminated in Namibia in the final elimination. On that season she was noticeably part of the core “Rookie Revolution” alliance, but team Cancun likely would have made the final if Jonna went into Hall Brawl with CJ.

On Rivals, she was a vocal rookie but mostly fought with other newbies, on Rivals 2 she was a very silent player, Free Agents was similar to Rivals 2, and she was (unfortunately) dominated by Zach’s game on Battle of the Exes 2.

Now that she’s returned years later, it’s clear that she’s very aware of the game being played, but she’s also not inserting herself too much. Jonna is the type of player who wants to avoid eliminations and fly under the radar. This week, she demonstrated that she knows the best move to make when she wanted to put Jodi against Janelle in elimination. Yet she didn’t make the move, so she’s not too hasty in playing her hand.

Compared to her main-series appearances, Jonna has definitely improved. Still, she’s not a mastermind, but she’s far from incompetent. She seems to know what to do, but she doesn’t execute a lot of moves.

This season could be her season. We’re slowly watching Jonna improve, but most of the time she’s a background player. It’s quite possible MJ is seeing something the viewers aren’t seeing, and we might see more of her strategy as the game progresses.