In an interesting twist of fate, Rick Devens’is sent to the Edge of Extinction after his game is cut short by a tribe swap that only saw one person truly switch tribes.
For 33-year-old news anchor Rick Devens, the swap could not have gone any worse. This week’s episode of Survivor: Edge of Extinction at the onset looked like another ho-hum episode where the Manu tribe would likely lose again and send Wendy to the Edge of Extinction. However, in Survivor, things can change at the drop of a hat and they did in this episode.
The tribes are seen arriving at a beach where the Kama tribe is shocked to see Chris was voted out at the previous tribal council and Jeff tells them to drop their buffs because they are switching tribes. On this particular swap, it was an expansion from two tribes to three. The tribes ended up shaking out like this:
- Manu: Eric, Aubry, Wendy, Victoria, and Gavin
- Lesu: Wentworth, David, Rick, Wardog, and Lauren
- Kama: Joe, Ron, Julia, Julie, and Aurora.
To summarize this unique swap: The Kama tribe got split in half between the new Kama and Manu tribes and gained Wendy in the process. Meanwhile, the remainder of the Manu tribe got sent to Lesu losing Wendy and some chickens back at camp in the process. This new tribe also meant the original Manu no longer had their easy target and David and Rick were at the bottom of the Lesu tribe.
At the Lesu tribe, the game was starting to take its toll on Lauren, who was starting to feel sick. At the Immunity Challenge, Lauren had a great performance that resulted in a close finish, but would ultimately lead to a Tribal Council trip for Lesu.
Back at camp, David targeted Lauren because of her illness and fear that Wentworth had a Hidden Immunity Idol. Meanwhile, Lauren targeted Rick out of fear that Rick would flip and had the social ability to make a flip work out for him. This made Wardog the swing vote.
While Wardog shared the same fears as both David and Lauren, he ultimately sided with Wentworth and Lauren, voting Rick out 3-2. Luckily, for Rick, he will now be at the Edge of Extinction and have the chance to potentially rejoin the tribe members he says are like family.
There are two main reasons Rick was sent to the Edge of Extinction fourth; the tribe swap and fear he would flip. The tribe swap is the biggest reason Rick was voted out in the last episode. If there had been no swap, they would have had Wendy as the easy boot with how tight the five members of Lesu were.
Unfortunately for Rick, that was not that case. Instead, the swap left Rick and David on the bottom of their new tribe where Lauren feared Rick would be likeliest to flip out of their five and because of those two reasons, Rick was sent to the Edge of Extinction fourth.