Idol Speculation: “Survivor Edge of Extinction” Episode 12: Toy Story

I’ve got idols with me/I’ve got idols with me
Advantages/I’ve got ‘em too
‘Cause Production/Likes me more than you.
When I win/You’ll all be feeling blue
‘Cause I’ve got idols with me!

Well, I’ll give the episode this: It at least gave me the chance to make another song parody. That very few people will get, as I doubt the overlap between “Survivor” fans and “Toy Story” fans is particularly large. Still, it’s a positive, and the episode should take what it can get. It won’t be getting very many compliments for this particular one.

We start off back at camp, with everyone discussing the previous vote-out. Gavin gets a bit of character development talking about his conflict in voting out Ron, but steels himself for future votes. He talks about how Rick is now the big threat who needs to go under any circumstances, thereby ensuring that Rick will stay this episode. He also mentions that Rick gets “All the best toys”, thereby at least giving me title fodder for this blog. Rick tells what at first seems like a pointless lie, claiming that his idol came from someone on the Edge of Extinction, rather than just being one he found. As soon as I wonder about the point of it all, though, Rick justifies himself in confessional, stating that this makes people think idols aren’t hidden around camp, thus preventing others from looking for the re-hidden immunity idol. Pretty good justification, but I’d point out that at least Lauren should be aware that this is bull, since she HAS found idols at camp previously. I’m pretty sure Rick isn’t aware of it, though, and Lauren could be justified in keeping quiet due to not wanting to reveal her idol, so not a bad play on his part.

Rick naturally gets up early and starts idol hunting. Not being quick enough, everyone notes his absence. Aurora talks about wanting Rick out, and rejoices in the fact that she finally has an alliance that seems solid. And with that, we know the outcome of the episode with absolute certainty! Good night, everybody!

Look, I know I rail against too little foreshadowing all the time, but too much can be just as bad. By setting up these obvious storylines SO EARLY in the episode, it just took the tension out of it. This could have been rectified by an interesting journey as to how we got to the outcome, or good character moments, but the journey itself just isn’t interesting. They TRY to give us the latter, but for some reason, with so many people left, it just doesn’t work. Huh. It’s almost like THE GAME ISN’T DESIGNED TO HAVE NEARLY EVERYBODY LEFT AT THE END! MAYBE THIS WAS A HORRIBLE IDEA FROM THE START!

Ok, ok, rant over. I evidently didn’t give Lauren enough credit, as she does call Rick out on his bluff, both to him and everyone else left. She frames it as a “gut feeling”, thus keeping her hidden immunity idol, well, hidden, but it’s well-done nonetheless. I’m all ready to praise Lauren for keeping a good tail on Rick thus preventing him from finding his hidden immunity idol… And then she just up and leaves. Loss of smart-person points, Lauren. Sure enough, the dramatic music tells us Rick finds an idol. At least the episode was QUICK to point out how things wouldn’t go as planned. Rick tries to do his news anchor schtick again, but his giddy enthusiasm boils over, and it just comes across as forced this time. Patience, Rick, patience.

It’s saying something when the best aspect of this episode is the challenge, and not just the challenge, but the REWARD CHALLENGE! My God, we actually get something original in it! True, it’s our same generic obstacle course with digging under a pole and tossing balls onto an arch, but the first leg has players throwing a ball into a ramp, which they must run through some ropes to the other end of. If they catch the ball, it’s good. If not, try again. It’s creative, it works well in the challenge, it keeps things individual! By this season’s standards, it’s gold!

After a four-way race between Gavin, Rick, Aurora, and Victoria, Gavin “wins”. I put this in quotation marks because, although technically victorious, he now has to decide who to offend by not taking them on reward. True, it’s not as bad as when the same thing is done on the family challenge, but still decently bad. Gavin first picks Victoria to take on the picnic with him, which is solid. She’s both his ally, and someone shown to hold a grudge over not being picked, at least according to last episode. But then, Gavin fumbles it with his second pick: Lauren. The others are astounded that Aurora wasn’t picked, and frankly so am I. Both are in Gavin’s alliance at the moment, so it’s not the most illogical pick, but let’s consider the choices. Gavin can take Lauren, the person who’s the only non-Rick original Manu left, and therefore has little option BUT to stick with you, or Aurora, who’s been pretty much a free agent this season, and is KNOWN to hold grudges based on her feelings. Who needs to be coddled more?

After the requisite “Ha Ha, screw you!” helicopter fly-by of camp, we cut to our feast, where Gavin broaches the possibility of Rick being immune. He suggests, should this happen, that Julie get the votes, which makes a certain amount of sense. She’s not much of a threat in any regard at this point, but might have a couple of friends on the jury (Eric, Ron), and was the other person left out. Thus, easy consensus vote. I’m not sure she’s the SMARTEST choice at this juncture, but we’ll get to that. Lauren, however, is again one step ahead, saying privately that she has a bond with Julie (that we’ve never seen before this episode), and might want to try and find another plan. Yep. Same amount of subtlety we’ve come to expect from this episode.

Getting back to camp, Rick does what EVERYONE who finds an idol should do: Make like you’re still searching so no one catches on that you’ve found it. Rick again takes childlike glee in giving everyone the slip, and it’s here we learn the TRUE lesson of the episode: Lauren is Satan. Yes, you heard me right, Satan. Only the Lord of Darkness himself could dislike the game of “Hide and Seek”. It’s the best childhood game ever. Shame on you for disliking it, Lauren!

Oh good, the Edge of Extinction. So nice to see you after missing you last episode. It wasn’t long enough.

Ok, ok, I’ll be fair to the Edge of Extinction. It actually had kind of a fun idea this time around. Rather than looking for an advantage, those on the Edge of Extinction get to read notes they wrote to themselves prior to the beginning of the game. This is something we’ve never seen before, but it fits really well here, giving everyone a chance to look back on their journey, reflect on how far they still have to go, and talk about how they’ve grown as people. At least, that’s what SHOULD have happened, but it seems the overcrowding from the Edge of Extinction is now affecting even those on the Edge of Extinction. Rather than hearing excerpts from each person’s note, we get a montage. In some cases, where we get a bit of content from the person in question, it really works. Julia and Reem are prime examples of this. But most everyone else? It goes by too fast to build an emotional connection, and we’re just left wondering why we had to have this at all, if it’s relatively pointless?

Moving on to our immunity challenge, which is that “Slide tiles and carry them over balance things to solve a word puzzle” challenge, first seen on “Survivor Worlds Apart”. Probst claims it’s a common backyard game. I don’t know what backyards are like in Texas, but I’ve never seen a game even CLOSE to this anywhere but “Survivor”. If there’s something I’m missing, please enlighten me. It’s your standard dull, reused challenge, and yes, I realize that statement is redundant. I can at least say that the puzzle solution is good. “Not Living on the Edge tonight”. Fits with the season, but not completely obvious.

Surprising no one with a functioning brain, Rick wins, after Probst gives a fairly subtle hint to get people to the word “Tonight”. Julie, recognizing that she’s probably in trouble, makes a show about going off to talk with Rick. The pair decide to target Aurora, because as mentioned, she’s kind of the default target at this point for any alliance. Speculating on who they can get to help them out, Julie mentions her “bond” with Lauren that, as mentioned previously, was not brought up prior to this episode. Still, Lauren is open to the idea, and discusses with Gavin the possibility. Gavin is less closed off than he was to getting out Ron last episode, indicating that he’ll probably go along with the plan, but he wants Victoria in on it. In case Lauren wasn’t obvious enough, she keeps hinting how she’s willing to go with just Gavin, and they don’t need Victoria. Victoria, not being an idiot, realizes this means Lauren probably wants to go to the end with Julie, and thus getting out Julie might be a better bet. Victoria keeps herself open to the possibilities, though, as she should. As to which one she should go for, the answer right now is clearly Aurora. As mentioned, she’s more of a challenge threat, but also think about the Edge of Extinction. Whoever comes back next episode, they’re likely to have an uphill battle, since almost no one left would want to work with them. Aurora, as a relatively free agent, is a godsend to them. Thus, you get her out, whoever comes back has little foothold, barring another game-breaking advantage. This is only the right move for now, though, as we shall see soon at Tribal Council.

Talk at Tribal Council is pretty much all about how Rick is the one everyone wants out, and it sucks that he won. This leads Rick to try and get back at everyone, pulling out his hidden immunity idol and saying he’ll play it for Julie. I’m not buying it. Unless the idol expires at this Tribal Council (which, admittedly, it might), there’s no reason for Rick to risk it when in all likelihood Julie joins in voting him out should he not win the next immunity. What this DOES do is incentivize others to vote for Julie. Yeah, for all the good points voting for Aurora has, a chance to flush an idol trumps them. Rick, unfortunately, finds himself in the position of the “Three Amigos” on “Survivor Caramoan”, as by unveiling an idol, he now has to play it, or risk losing an ally. It’s too easy a bluff to call.

Evidently calling an easy bluff is too much for this cast. Aurora is predictably sent home, and I’m kind of sorry. Both she and Julie would be losses to this season, but Aurora was the slightly bigger character, and more intriguing, as she rarely had a formal alliance. She goes out with class, though still swearing vengeance against Rick. Vengeance she might get as she, like everyone else, heads to the Edge of Extinction. Ok, while I’m HAPPY no one just gave up on the game, it’s still annoying that we had to see the non-dilemma every time. After Keith, nothing could compare.

In case it wasn’t clear, I am not partial to this episode. It was predictable, and gave us nothing in return. Thus boring, lame, and with little to do but write song parodies about it. Let’s hope this downward trend doesn’t continue into the finale.

Speaking of which, this is normally where I’d talk about those who are left, and their odds of winning the game, should they get to the end. Well, I’m not doing that this season, mainly because we don’t know who all is coming back from the Edge of Extinction. To give you my general thoughts, those coming back from the Edge of Extinction have the best chance of winning in the end, but the hardest time getting there. Then there’s everyone else, who seem like nice enough people, but cluster in their ball of blandness to not stand out at all. Instead, let’s live up to the “Speculation” part of this blog’s name, as I give you:

MATT’S TOP 5 PEOPLE WHO MIGHT COME BACK FROM THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION!

Yes, this will not be a proper “Top 5 and Bottom 5” but will follow the format of one. Now that we’ve finalized who all has a shot to come back, let’s discuss the people I think have the best odds, based both of edit and on challenge performance. We begin with…

5. Chris-Maybe a bit of a stretch, but Chris has been presented as a challenge beast from the beginning, and he nails the editing part of it as well. We’ve seen a fair amount of Chris after his exit, which is partly due to his length of time on the Edge of Extinction, but he’s gotten a lot of confessionals about his “Perfect Game” failure, which seems like a story to be set up for the finale. However, Chris only gets number five, because I would have put him much higher before tonight. The trouble is that I feel like his note scene may have wrapped up his story arc, and may spell doom for the man come the challenge.

4. Joe-Yeah, it wasn’t going to be a list about challenges without Joey Amazing showing up SOMEWHERE. If this list were based purely on challenge ability, he wins hands down. Joe is favored to win most challenges, and things like a ropes course, which we know will be in the challenge, are right up his alley. So, why is he only number four? Well, as I said before, I’m counting edit here as well, and have we heard from Joe at all since his boot episode? That’s what I thought. That severely decreases his odds, though challenge performance alone is enough to keep him on the list.

3. David-Out of all the returnees, David’s is the only one whose exit didn’t feel satisfying. Aubry and Kelley both got done in by their hubris, and Joe just underestimated his opponents. All flaws that we can understand. David? Just bad luck with the numbers, and that just feels unsatisfying for a returnee. Add onto that returnees being favored in most challenges due to greater familiarity, and this challenge favoring the tiny, and I think David’s got a decent shot at returning. If we’d heard from him more after his boot, he’d probably be number one.

2. Aurora-Aurora has what we might call “Andrea Boehlke Upside” from “Survivor Redemption Island”. A tough challenge competitor voted out close enough to the end that she has more energy than most of her opponents, and again, coming into a challenge that plays to her strengths. Her comment about getting Rick out also strikes me as potentially prophetic, so I’d give her pretty good odds of returning overall.

1. Aubry-Perhaps this is just wishful thinking on my part, since I love Aubry as a player and want her to do well on this season, but I keep coming back to a couple of things that make me see her as the returnee from the twist. She has returning player upside, to be sure, but we also saw a decent amount of her well beyond her boot episode. Granted, we’ve seen pretty much nothing of her these last few episodes, but since most of our time is just devoted to the newest person on the island, that’s unsurprising. Two things come back to me that make me favor Aubry. One is the chance to practice the challenge. It not only gives her an edge physically, but an edge psychologically, as she won’t be as shocked as the others by the challenge itself. The other is the “Aubry is out for blood” comment from the first “Back from Edge of Extinction” challenge. While Aubry’s story FELT like it concluded with her exit, this opened it back up again, and I feel it needs to be resolved, which it can only do if Aubry comes back.

Honorable Mention: Reem-Going purely on confessionals, Reem would be the person to re-enter the game. She’s been the most consistent narrator of the Edge of Extinction, and on a certain level, it would be poetic justice for the first boot to re-enter the game. That said, this challenge doesn’t particularly favor Reem, and her confessional count seems more due to her giving a great confessional than hinting at a return. Still would be fun, though.

So, what do you all think? Who’s going to come back from Edge of Extinction? Let me know your GUESS in the comments below. Spoilers will not be approved, and will be afforded a special level of hell, along with those people who talk in the theater.

That said, you’re going to have to wait for your weekly dose of “Idol Speculation” next week. As previously mentioned, I have a new job, meaning I don’t have vacation yet, and can’t call off of work following the finale. This means I can’t stay up to write the blog and still go to work, so it will have to wait for the afternoon after. I swear to not read any blogs or take in any new opinions until I get mine down on data. See you when that happens!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.