Cirie this season

So I was watching some video a while back about who the contestants for this season wanted to get rid of first, or something like that. I remember Malcolm said that he would get of Cirie, because he wanted to keep the targets as shields, while Cirie wanted to get rid of them. Obviously, Cirie didn't do this, as she didn't attend a pre-merge tribal, and most of the threats and legends were out pre-jury. My question is why would Cirie want to do that on a season like this, with a clear upper echelon of threats, that she was in, and the rest of the cast, a lot less threatening. Wouldn't she want to keep the big threats to keep people around her that could get her further in the game just by being voted out? Because now she's the lone legend standing, and she's clearly a fish-out-of-water in terms of her threat level with the rest of the remaining cast.

She didn't necessarily say it this season explicitly, but she had the same thought process in HvV, so Malcolm may be right in assuming she would try to do the same.