Survivor: David vs. Goliath episode 10 edgic: Just hanging out

With the field narrowing by 20% in one week of gameplay, the Survivor: David vs. Goliath episode 10 edgic checks in on a wild field of strong players.

The editing tools of Survivor the past few seasons has evolved dramatically. Though the quality of television has widely varied, you could see certain moments with fun highlights. I’m talking about Debbie getting called out on a “lie” to Brad in the teeter-totter portion of a Reward Challenge. I’m talking about the “Jays does have an idol” segment of Millennials vs. Gen X. The back-and-forth confessional montage between Chris and Dom was a Ghost Island highlight.

When it comes to edgic, however, it’s a different story. Ghost Island was a two-horse race for most of the season. It took an impossible idol run and the literal changing of the Final Four rules to make sense of the Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers. This is in part due to a focus on the fun players on dry seasons with ABC gameplay and a general lack of fun personalities or characters.

Survivor: David vs. Goliath has married compelling character moments with strategic gameplay spots, bringing in the season’s theme and pushing it to its bearable limits. We’ve moved past the “David slingshot to take out Goliath” stage naturally into a game filled with betrayal, despair, hard-fought justice and jubilation. As Davie Drake-nbacker put it, “Started from the bottom, now we here!”

Let’s take a look at our Survivor: David vs. Goliath episode 10 edgic chart, where we could reasonably see half the remaining field have a story worthy of a winner:

Nick Wilson (CPP4, UTR1): Given the overall balance of Nick Wilson, I still favor him as the overall winner contender. He started out strong with some personal content in the opening episode, he’s been in the middle of team and personal-oriented gameplay and has offered introspective confessionals paired with occasional winner quotes and talking about his life outside the game.

The fact that he was so shaded by the edit in being blindsided by Christian is such a huge editing moment with just three episodes left in the season. Highlighting his highs and not burying his mistakes is great in this double-episode that focused on Carl, Christian, Gabby and Alison for (partially) negative reasons.

Christian Hubicki (CPP5, CP3): I had been pegging Christian as the high-visible distraction edit for most of the pre-merge, and had been begrudgingly respected his character development and personal content in the final pre-merge episode through to the merge. But now we’re starting to see his social gameplay start to fade away as the David morphs into his overconfident Goliath self.

He’s made a critical move by blindsiding his closest ally to establish a resume with Carl’s elimination. He also shared information about his powers in the game and has been the Goliath of the merge. With this season leaning well into its David vs. Goliath theme, he could represent either the David becoming Goliath or the new Goliath taken out by a slingshot.

If he does win, expect his heroic Immunity Challenge battle to be his crowning achievement.

Kara Kay (MOR2, CP3): Considering how middle-of-the-road the edits of women Survivor winners have been in modern (and most of the show’s) history, Kara falls right in that spot. She had just one confessional in the first hour, but it encapsulated immense game awareness by calling out Carl’s overconfidence.

Kara has an impressive social gameplay so far and has, perhaps, the least editing negativity when presenting it to the audience. With the majority of Goliaths being presented as overconfident, boastful and doomed to fail, Kara has had to climb out under the falling shadow of Dan. If a Goliath wins, it’s her.

Gabby Pascuzzi (OTTM3, CPP3): As much as this content writer would like to put faith in a technical writer winning Survivor, Gabby might have an edge case. Even though she makes smart moves like getting rid of Carl who was lying to her about Angelina being the second vote, because the editing has made Gabby more about her crying, I’m afraid of where this puts her overall winning chances.

I’m getting the third-place Hannah Shapiro vibes from her edit, although she has a compelling narrative turnaround point from this episode; Mike White previously stated she couldn’t lead soldiers into battle. If I recall correctly, she was leading the Goliaths (including Mike) and Christian into battle to vote out Carl. Talk about a 180!

Angelina Keeley (MORN3, OTTM4): Forgive me for going full tinfoil hat here, but Angelina MIGHT have a crazy, sloppy winners edit. It teeters on a tightrope, but here it goes.

Angelina has obtained optimal results despite the edit burying her efforts. It happened when she targeted Christian first only for everyone to agree to the plan coming from Mike the next episode. She successfully bartered for rice and got the best deal out of anybody in Survivor history; sitting out an Immunity Challenge. She even brought it up to the jury, who respected her grit.

Most of her perceived negativity in the merge came from fallen Goliaths who were overconfident in their gameplay. There is a very, very slight chance that Angelina could win, and it would be as wacky and entertaining as the suggestion.

Davie Rickenbacker (UTR2, OTTP2): Survivor: David vs. Goliath is like an advanced version of Ghost Island, and Davie fits the upgraded role of the fun, outgoing personality. He’s shown to be strategic and play hard when push comes to shove, yet he’s also primed to fire off a fun confessional that brings in-game and out-of-game perspective about Davie.

Even in a balanced season edgic-wise, we haven’t seen enough personal content or winner quotes out of Davie to put him in a winning spot.

Mike White (UTR1, CP4): Despite having a great under-the-radar game, Mike White has a lot going against him. He’s a millionaire, he’s gone against his alliances too often, he doesn’t have substantial big moves on his resume, and he’s not more liked than any combination of players that get to the end with him.

Alison Raybould (UTR2, CPP3): Way and above the least visible player of the entire game, there’s no solid story that could make Alison a compelling winner of Survivor: David vs. Goliath. Although she has been getting solid bumps in visibility recently and played a huge part of the Carl blindside, there’s too much invisibility overall.

Carl Boudreaux (OTTN4, OTTN4): When nothing about Carl’s story developed for two episodes after finding the Idol Nullifier, it became clear his story wasn’t a rising David shining star, but a “New Advantage Edit.” The sudden storyline of Carl, the Godfather, was a funny two-hour narrative that began and end with his exit, and that was an awesome arc to see play out.

Alec Merlino (CPP5): As much as I continue to believe that violating his NDA deserves him sitting out the reunion, I also believe that Alec had one of the more compelling “fallen athlete” edits in the modern game. He played a dynamic, strategic game that opened up the opportunity for David and Goliath tribal lines to break down. His wild, but strong, play saved a season from a potential Pagonging.