Survivor: Edge of Extinction’s first person voted off the island, Reem Daly, was an entertaining character who we deserve to see more of in the future.
The cards were stacked against Reem for a few reasons with the main being a sad truth. Older women tend to be easy targets early on in the game of Survivor. It’s not fair, but it’s just the way it seems to go nearly every season.
To be fair, Reem might be old, but she didn’t really do herself many favors socially, moving her teammates’ clothes (her heart was in the right place), trying to target Kelley Wentworth after the team lost their first Immunity Challenge, and accusing the team of being ageist at Tribal Council when her name was being thrown around. None of those actions scream well-liked tribemate.
The fact that nearly the entire tribal council was about Reem and her beef with her tribe didn’t paint a pretty picture for the Virginia native and her chances of advancing to the next round. She was voted out with all but one other contestant voting for her. You have to give her credit for not backing down, but it was pretty obvious early on in the episode that Reem wouldn’t be long for this game.
The good news, however, is that this season’s theme is Edge of Extinction. We didn’t get a whole lot of information on the latest twist, but whatever Edge of Extinction is, I’m all for it because it means that Reem gets to stick around for longer than an episode and that’s awesome.
We saw her make the decision to attempt to get back into the game, so we know Reem will be included even if just for a few minutes. Hopefully, we get a few more comical confessionals out of her while she’s on the Edge of Extinction.
Were this a regular season, we’d have been wondering what might have been with Reem. She’d have been heading to Ponderosa and we’d have three more months worth of episodes without her and eventually forgetting she was even on the show.
Survivor hasn’t had many strong older women who are as entertaining as Reem was. Sure there have been likable older women on the show, but none who drop “dude” and “bro” on us regularly and have witty confessionals.
Someone has to be the first to go on Survivor and while it sucks that Reem had that “honor” this season, perhaps Edge of Extinction will keep her around for longer than normal.