Survivor season 35 final edgic: Edit lessons going forward

My first year of Survivor edgic was certainly a bumpy road, but the edit for season 35, Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, can teach us all new lessons.

I must admit, my first foray into Survivor edgic went as bumbling as expected. I overrated certain episodes in tone (see Ben’s CPPP3 in episode 5), got baited by Lauren and Devon’s distraction edits and rated the winner behind Devon and Chrissy as contenders before the final episode aired. To be fair, who the hell could learn how the never-before-seen twist, even if it was rumored, would factor into the edit?

There are some rookie mistakes that will get better over time (Survivor Ghost Island can’t come soon enough), but there are other lessons we learned from the Survivor edgic of this season that can be applied to future seasons, especially if the next season was filmed a few weeks after season 35, Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers.

As such, our Survivor season 35 final edgic piece will showcase the Final 5 and each lesson their edit taught edgic-watchers going forward. But first, our final chart:

Ben Driebergen (CP4) – Winners can be fairly negative without control

When Tony Vlachos won Survivor Cagayan, it was so unprecedented because never before had a winner been given such a negative edit before. Now that we know that it’s possible, we must now add a new caveat; winners can now be negative and play from the bottom and not have any allies in the game if they find magic shells two nights in a row and play them three out of five nights.

What separates the two is that Tony was in a power position for most of the entire game, while Ben lost his power on Day 33 (or even earlier) once he became the biggest target. He was shown getting into arguments with Joe, blew up Lauren’s game, drew the ire from everyone else at camp and bailing out his edit by emphasizing that he is a Marine every other episode.

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His edit screamed 4th place r.obbed g.oddess, but the fact that everyone kept repeating that he’ll win if he makes it to the end should have tipped things off. Survivor season 35 taught us that you can be overtly positive, overtly negative, have everyone gun for you and never win an Immunity Challenge as long as production suddenly throws in twists that nobody could predict, that fundamentally change how Final 4 strategy works.

Chrissy Hofbeck (CP4) – You can’t win if your follies are constant

Of all the players in the Final Tribal Council, Chrissy had a clear, consistent “fall just short” edit. She came into the game with an underdog story, throwing up on Day 3 after a challenge and tying a record for female Individual Immunity wins with four on Day 38. However, it seemed like for three or four straight episodes from the merge forward, Chrissy made social gameplay errors left and right.

Whether it’s whispering out loud at the merge feast to Ben about how tight a duo they are, whispering to Ryan about the Hidden Immunity Idol at the spaghetti reward or openly doubting Ben’s ability to find an idol, Chrissy was constantly fumbling to undercut her underdog victories. Even as the Final 4 Alliance flipped on JP and Chrissy became the underdog, her blunt social game kept undercutting her feel-good story.

What makes Survivor season 35’s Final Tribal Council so weird is that it looked pretty much in the bag for Chrissy until Joe urged Ben to try harder. Chrissy, from the beginning, looked to be the player that would reluctantly win if she made it to the end with lesser players. Unfortunately, Ben made it to the end, hence her second-place edit.

Ryan Ulrich (MOR2) – Merge content is more important than pre-merge

Despite keeping Ryan in 3rd or 4th-place winner contenders spots throughout my Survivor season 35 edgic charts heading into the merge, to me, it was clear from the start, that Ryan Ulrich’s edit wasn’t one of a winner. Typically, Survivor will designate the best orator to act as tribe narrator, relaying the story of what drives each episode’s main plots, concerns, threats or plays.

Ryan just so happened to go to Tribal Council plenty of times before the merge, as we often got to hear him make weird allusions to sad birthday parties or offering anecdotes about how he’s never been in a relationship. From a season’s story standpoint, he served as the audience’s main character to understand what’s going on, as you wouldn’t get that same level of understanding out of JP’s five total confessionals.

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Once the merge hit and it became the Ben and Chrissy show, it became immediately clear that his purpose to move the season’s story along was no longer necessary. He still got big edits in episodes crucial to his play, including the one where he betrays Devon’s trust and where he grabs the Hidden Immunity Idol, but for the most part, his edit’s purpose was fulfilled.

Devon Pinto (CP3) – Personal content is mandatory for a win

While it looked like Ben Driebergen got the distraction edit for the majority of Survivor season 35, Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, it was actually Devon Pinto who played the audience. He had a strong under-the-radar gameplay post-merge, but his pre-merge play was very quiet. Besides making friends with Ryan and Ashley, his importance in the game was minimal.

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However, once he was credited for whipping the Round Table Alliance together to take out the Healers, plus once he started controlling Ben’s actions before the JP vote and commanding the Joe vote, he was getting the kind of winner’s edit you come to expect from a Sarah Lacina type. Just like her, Devon started getting a ton of confessionals highlighting his game from the merge on. Plus, he would get random opportunities to talk about how he’s normally radiant like a bright light, similar to the image up above from the season finale.

The one huge red flag heading into the finale is that he had relatively no personal content whatsoever. While Ben would constantly bring up the Marines and Chrissy would talk about life back home, Devon barely got the chance to talk about what he’d do with the million dollars or what he was playing for.

I thought the lack of personal content would be the thing that transcends Survivor edgic, but with Ben’s win, it became about how bombastic you can be with positive and/or negative vibes, no matter your position in the game.

Mike Zahalsky (MOR2) – Only one player can “doofus” their way to victory

Oh, Dr. Mike. While he did rise to the occasion time after time post-merge, he started out the game as a slow swimmer. Then, after giving himself a confidence boost, he sought performance enhancers in the form of a Hidden Immunity Idol in order to spring back into the action as the merge came around.

While he did limp around for a short time after that, Mike perked back up again as he fumbled around in search of paydirt. Jerking around loudly and quickly about in Cole’s Tribal Council boot episode, Mike played his idol a bit too prematurely, leaving his only Healers partner, Joe, unsatisfied. They bonded over their misfortunes as the Coco-Nuts, highlighting their sad sack standing in Survivor.

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My point in this urology-heavy description of Mike Zahalsky is that you can’t win this game if your edit shows you bumbling your way to the end. Only Fabio Birza of Survivor Nicaragua got to pull that off, and he had to win a few Immunity Challenges in a row just to back up his gameplay-absent victory. That’s why, no matter how hard things looked for Dr. Mike, the audience knew which direction his play bent towards in the end.