Survivor Edge of Extinction cast assessment: Julie Rosenberg an unlikely winner?

Julie Rosenberg comes into Survivor: Edge of Extinction recognizing her limits and knows how she can navigate to the end while still being herself.

Far too often in Survivor, we see overconfident personalities enter the game, only to get blindsided when they think they are at the top. Julie Rosenberg is the complete opposite. She understands her strengths and weaknesses and realizes that she’s not a big physical threat or fully prepared for the survival aspect of this game. It’s refreshing to see castaways with that unique sense of self-awareness.

Julie Rosenberg is a 46-year-old mom from New York City. She built her own small business from home as she designs eco-friendly wooden toys that she sells online. In her interview with ET Canada, we learned how it took Julie 17 years of applying to finally make it on Survivor. Ever since season three, Survivor: Africa,  she has applied on and off and has watched basically every season.

When asked about her gameplan, Julie said that she doesn’t have one. She feels that it doesn’t make sense to overthink before the game even begins since there are so many different situations. Her goal is to stick to her strong social skills by building solid relationships with everyone she can.

That doesn’t mean that Julie hasn’t prepared for Survivor. She is confident in her fire-making abilities and did some research on typical Survivor tasks including gutting a fish and tying knots. In her pre-game interview with Josh Wigler, she also mentioned that she has been working out. So even though she’s not a challenge beast or a survival expert, she probably won’t be the person that weighs the tribe down.

Her fitness for being the oldest person on her tribe will help to keep the target off of her back. Pair that with her gentle and kind attitude and you have someone who can float under the radar for most of the game, or at least to the merge.

In her CBS bio, Julie compared her drive to Stephenie LaGrossa, her humor to Cirie, and her emotion to Dawn. Although it’s hard to see a strong connection between her and any of those castaways at this point, her subtle but strong Stephenie-like determination came out in her comments.

One classic Survivor player that immediately comes to mind when thinking about Julie is Teresa “T-Bird” Cooper, ironically from the third season. She had an incredibly polite and sweet personality, which drew many people to her. On top of that, she used her genuine kindness to hide her plotting and scheming.

Julie gives off that similar vibe, and that kind attitude will probably be enough for her tribe members to trust her. The only question is if she possesses the killer instinct that T-Bird did. Teresa mastered the skill of planning votes behind people’s backs while still appearing innocent.

If Julie can make a few of those subtle moves while retaining her genuine personality, I wouldn’t be surprised if she beats the odds and wins the title of Sole Survivor, especially if the jury is bitter towards the returning players.