Idol Speculation: “Survivor Edge of Extinction” Episode 10: Twist on the Outcasts

With the returnees out of the game proper (Edge of Extinction notwithstanding), now is the time for our new players to establish themselves as characters in their own right. That said, Gavin, while I enjoyed the “Pokemon” reference with “Smell ‘ya later!”, that’s not the way to do it. It just makes you seem like a derivative, lukewarm Gary Oak. I applaud the effort, but for now, the most interesting thing about you remains your pineapple shirt.

Speaking of Gavin, he’s first on our list of “Damage Control” tonight. Gavin is rightly pissed about being left out of the vote, but manages to keep his temper under control. The worst you can say is that he was slightly whiny when telling Wardog he just wanted to be included in the majority. Now, will Wardog continue his character development, or will he regress and be an ass about all of this? Well, you tell me: Which one’s funnier? Yes, the enigma that is Wardog continues, as despite handling previous situations well, here he’s fairly dismissive of Gavin, and doesn’t really address his concerns or do anything to bring Gavin back into the fold. Wardog’s done worse jobs, but the damage is done overall. Gavin now is out for blood. Wardog blood.

Our next damage control, predictably, comes from Ron towards Julie. However, despite Ron being so worried last episode about Julie’s reaction, she’s actually quite chill about the whole thing. Dare I say, she was downright pleasant about the whole thing! She assures Ron that everything’s ok, and that she understands why she did it. The pair reaffirm the need to move forward, and we pick up our jaws off the floor after Julie, she of the emotional reaction, controlling her emotions. Hmm. Character development for Julie, or simply reacting based on her mood? You decide!

The next morning, the time comes to sort some order from this chaos. We need a new majority alliance, and Rick and Wardog come to deliver. The pair talk with Ron about how the women will see them all as threats, and vote them out to build their resumes. They say the only way the threesome can have a chance at getting to the end is to stick together, voting out Aurora next since at this point she’s just the default target of any new alliance. Slightly sexist, and I think these guys are underestimating the skills of some of the women (Victoria and Julie in particular), but there’s a logic to their pitch, and at least some evidence to support it. Ron brags to the came about how he’s in the middle of all alliances and can go any way, and the fact that no one but his has caught onto this speaks volumes about his skill in the game.

Why, is that a reward challenge post-merge? It must be a team challenge! Yes, our teams of four break up into pairs. Two do the “Keel-Haul” challenge first seen on “Survivor Pearl Islands”, retrieving rings along the way. Our other pair then hurl said rings into posts to win a spa day. It’s as generic as they come, and not at all exciting. For one thing, they toned down the difficulty considerably. In previous iterations of the “Keel-Haul” challenge, coming up in the middle of the structure either disqualified you, or required you to go back to start. Here, it’s just a “You’re taking time catching your breath.” thing, and it’s not nearly as exciting. Secondly, our teams our very uneven, to the point that there’s no mystery about the challenge. Our blue team consists of Wardog, Lauren, Julie, and Rick, while our yellow team consists of Ron, Gavin, Aurora, and Victoria. Not only did yellow get all the challenge beasts, with Aurora’s performance in the challenge being highlighted by Probst, but the blue team got Wardog. With no puzzle to balance things out, since Rick is probably the best puzzle solver left, they’re pretty much doomed.

Or not, it would seem. Evidently Rick moonlights as one of those jerks at carnivals who make those rigged games look easy, as he almost effortlessly hits three rings to win reward for his team. Rather than celebrate, however, we cut over to Edge of Extinction. Kelley is of course the focus, but for once she’s not talking about how Edge of Extinction sucks. Rather, she’s talking about her personal “journey”, of accepting mistakes and failing to build connections. A confessional that would be particularly touching IF WE HAD FOLLOWED THIS JOURNEY FROM THE GET-GO! Yes, it got pain lip service to once in a blue moon, but overall, Kelley’s journey hasn’t been clear, and this kills any emotional connection this might have built. Chalk up another opportunity lost to this godforsaken twist.

Say, you know what we haven’t had in a while? Reem getting mad at people! Showing once again that she fails to comprehend why she was voted out, much less make any changes to correct it, Reem goes into Kelley, sending her off to the mast to have a good cry. This whole scene manages to hit the sweet spot of being mean enough to be uncomfortable, but not being so mean that it’s entertainingly uncomfortable. The result is that nothing much comes of it, and Edge of Extinction wastes our time once again.

Ron is making the best out of losing by saying it gives him a chance to talk to Gavin, Victoria, and Aurora about strategy. I’d point out that you could do this just as easily on reward, but who am I to harsh his mellow? Despite earlier being against Wardog, the foursome now identify Rick as the next biggest target, and swear to get him out. Now, how is Rick a target, you may ask? Initially they make him out as a challenge threat, but again, while I’d argue he’s a puzzle threat, he’s not as much a challenge threat overall. However, they then argue that he’s a jury threat whom everyone loves, which is more up Rick’s alley. This, however, brings up an interesting comparison. To all but the most uncultured, Edge of Extinction is obviously just the “Outcast” twist from “Survivor Pearl Islands” on steroids. There are some differences, but they’re overall minor. Thus, you expect this season to go down much the way that twist did. One big difference, though, is that the outcasts were vilified on their season, being seen as having “not played the game”, and being inherently less deserving of winning than those who had never been voted out. Here, Rick is not only not vilified, but his return from Edge of Extinction is even seen as something of a positive in terms of winning the game. So, why might we get two separate reactions from the same twist. Gut instinct might point to us knowing this time that the returning player from vote oblivion actually did suffer and starve like everyone else. That doesn’t hold, however, as apart from Rick’s word, which is worth just as much as Burton’s and Lill’s were on “Survivor Pearl Islands”, the contestants have no way of knowing this. As such, it must be something else. Rick’s charm is definitely a factor, but I don’t think that alone is enough to overcome this twist. Thus, I see two possibilities as to why the twist seems better received by the players this time. One is pretty straightforward: It’s season 38. A greater emphasis on resume building, coupled with people in general playing less overtly-emotional games, means people are less likely to be personally hurt by someone coming back, and thus less likely to hold it against them. The other, more intriguing possibility, is that people DO resent the person coming back, and think them less deserving, but just aren’t showing it. You see, the one big difference between this and the “Outcast” twist is that the outcasts only had one opportunity to get back in the game. Everyone else afterward was just voted out as normal. Here, however, people voted out KNOW they can get a second chance at the game. Therefore, to vilify the person returning from the Edge of Extinction, is to vilify themselves should they get back in the game after being voted out. No one wants to take that risk, so they keep their real thoughts to themselves. In the end, though, they’ll be forced to show those feelings. Really, the only way we’ll know for sure how they feel is Final Tribal Council, if there’s a player who went to Edge of Extinction there. If the reason is the former, they’ll be praised for overcoming obstacles. If it’s the latter, they’ll be asked “Why should I vote for you when you got outwitted?” or some variation therein. Doubtful we’ll get that specific of a scenario, but it’ll be interesting if it does happen.

Ah, rice. Ubiquitous to “Survivor” at this point, it is so often the subject of contention, due to being so central to camp life. Thus is the case here. Especially with such a large group of people, rationing is essential. That said, no one really wants to be in charge of the rationing, since it can lead you to seem bossy and controlling. Aurora, naturally, is in charge of the rice distribution, and verbally slaps Ron down for wanting to make a large portion while everyone’s away. Without knowing how much rice they have, it’s hard to make a call here, but the rice itself is not really important. What is important is Ron first giving back Aurora’s advantage, he says to buy her loyalty, but also implies that he’d look like a jerk to a potential juror if he didn’t, the second that while Aurora trusts him, he’s not sure he can work with her long-term, thus setting up some misdirection for the episode.

Meanwhile, our winners are having good fun at the reward. I would say “clean fun”, but they’re slathering themselves in mud, so yeah. Rick and Wardog just seem to be having a good time, but Julie and Lauren talk some strategy. Lauren is, of course, upset over the blindside of Kelley last episode, but also is now adrift and needs an ally. Thankfully, Julie is on the market to bring someone into the “Herself and Ron” fold. She and Lauren talk girl talk, by which I mean they discuss which guy they want out first. Julie favors Wardog, while Lauren favors rick, presumably because she has more connections to Wardog than to Rick. No agreement is reached, but the two do seem to want to work together, so another cog is in place.

Our immunity challenge today is NOT an endurance challenge, thereby making it the best individual immunity challenge thus far. As to the specifics, it’s mostly your bog-standard obstacle course, with contestants picking up pointless buoys along the way, leading to a 3-D star puzzle. I do like how you can’t necessarily tell is a piece is right or not in the puzzle, but apart from that, nothing much to recommend this challenge.

As this challenge has a puzzle, Rick is favored to win it. Win he does, though the editing gets clever and shows us one of his failures before we get into his success. Normally, the taking out of one major target could be a problem, but as both Aurora and Wardog were targeted before it makes a good bit of sense here.

Wardog, of course, sets out to rally the troops to his side. Even he admits that he’s a better choice to vote out than Aurora (debatable, as I’ll get to), but that he’s banking on everyone being “stupid” tonight. This honestly is the first thing we’ve seen that makes me think Wardog will go. Bland though this season might be, by and large people have made the smart decision each and every time. This implies that, if Wardog is the smart decision, then he’ll go, since that’s what’s been happening. Plus he’s underestimating his opponents, and that’s never good.

But is Wardog the smart decision? Depends on who you ask. Ron is one of our swing votes tonight, framing the debate as going between the group of Gavin, Aurora, and Victoria versus the group of Wardog and Rick. Between those two groups, it is smarter for Ron to stick with the former. Yes, the threat argument is there, but Ron’s proven that he can control the former group, and overall has greater influence and more options that way. With the latter? Fewer options and a hard time influencing anything. The debate is a bit more of a gray area for our second swing vote, Lauren. She indicates that she’s leaning towards Aurora, which is the correct move for her. Similar to Ron, keeping Wardog in the game gives her more options, where she doesn’t have much of a relationship with Aurora.

Who do I think is going home? Aurora. While Wardog is something of a threat, the momentum to get him out doesn’t seem to be there. Conversely, Aurora’s been the target for a while now, and eventually there’s just a frustration that the one target never goes home, and you get them out just to scratch that itch. Plus, all swing votes talk about her ouster with a lot more enthusiasm than Wardog’s. “Stupid” comment aside, Aurora seems the clear target. Good attempt at misdirection, show, but it’s not working this time.

Tribal Council at first seems like it’s going to be another exciting fireworks show, with Gavin once again going off on Wardog for how he talks to people. Wardog brushes it off, however, and we settle in to poker faces once again, keeping everything reliant on the previously mentioned poor misdirection. Instead, I want to draw attention to the jury, and not just because it was mentioned that people are playing to it tonight. While we only see from a select few people, those we do see are not happy with Wardog. This, to me, implies his jury threat to be overstated. True, he’s made moves, but he hasn’t made them in the nicest way, and I don’t think the jury can respect his moves without respecting him as a person, which they clearly don’t. This makes Aurora, with her potential underdog story, much more threatening in the long term than the abrasive, challenge-poor Wardog. Ron’s best move is still to vote him out, as the reason I outline above has nothing to do with these factors, but Wardog’s threat level just went down several notches, says I.

Not says the tribe, however. It seems the seemingly poor misdirection was itself a misdirection, as once again the smart move is made, and Wardog goes home. Despite not caring much for Wardog, I’m still sorry to see him go over Aurora. Don’t get me wrong, I like Aurora much better as a person, but Wardog was a far more fascinating character. The man could be a savvy player one minute, and a complete lunatic the next. That’s a fascinating dichotomy that Aurora, for all her pluckiness, just can’t match.

This episode is a solid episode of “Survivor”. Not much to make it stand out, but it develops the story of the season, and does its job well with solid misdirection and editing. That said, I do worry that the “Original Kama” thing is taking hold again, as only Lauren and Rick remain of the original Manu, and so this season may be boring yet.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.