Survivor David vs. Goliath: Should Dan Rengering return?

The Florida Hot Cop managed to find multiple Hidden Immunity Idols and was taken out with a secret Survivor advantage. Should Dan return to the game?

It always sucks to be the first person in Survivor to do anything other than in a way to win the game. Many will remember Paschal as the first person to be eliminated from the game via a rock draw. People still talk about that dude who got medically evacuated after falling in a fire. There’s even a player who was voted out of the game before jury in all three times they’ve played.

Of course, there are a plethora of other reasons why those other players will be remembered, but for the players, being voted out in ways nobody else had before is downright painful. This is definitely true for Dan Rengering; the only player in Survivor history to be voted out due to an Idol Nullifier advantage.

Dan Rengering’s game in David vs. Goliath started out strong and only went downhill from there. In the premiere, he managed to find himself in a strategic, one-sided showmance (not his one side) and find a Hidden Immunity Idol while being on a tribe of bigger threats. He later got together with those threats on Tiva and dominated in almost every challenge his tribes faced, including finding a second idol in the middle of a challenge.

It was as the merge where his game started to slow down, as his social game and overall standing started to slip. Everyone knew he had at least one Hidden Immunity Idol back from the Goliath days, but he managed to tell Kara he had another one, which helped calculate his ultimate demise. After John was voted out, the Davids still needed to work together to take the power back.

After Christian performed his breadth-first search for an idol of his own, the Davids performed their next great trick; pooling their powers together. They used Nick’s Vote Steal advantage on Alison to misdirect the votes and all throw theirs onto Daniel in an effort to bait an idol play on Alison. It didn’t work, as Daniel played an idol on himself and the Davids were squashed in defeat.

At least, that would have been the story in 36 previous seasons. In David vs. Goliath, an Idol Nullifier meant Dan’s idol play on himself would become negated instantly, and all six votes against him would count. Let us know in our straw poll if this unprecedented elimination, and the culmination of Dan’s play, is worthy of another shot at Survivor.