Yesterday’s episode of Survivor: Edge of Extinction had an ordinary Reward Challenge, followed by a dramatic ending to a shocking Immunity Challenge.
Warning: This article containers spoilers for episode 8 of Survivor: Edge of Extinction.
Nothing from this season was scarier and more relieving than yesterday’s Immunity Challenge. The scary part is obvious, as it was painful to watch Lauren feel dizzy and flat out drop. The relieving part is that the injury bug didn’t claim a castaway. The promos ahead of yesterday’s episode of Survivor teased a possible evacuation that we never want to see and could have ruined the dynamics of the game.
Thankfully, Lauren’s blackout was just due to exhaustion and nothing more serious. Let’s take a look at both challenges individually and what they tell us going forward.
Reward Challenge:
The twelve remaining castaways were split into two teams. Two pairs are tasked with swimming out to a platform. Once they make it there, they have to cross a balance beam, climb up a crow’s nest, untie a bag of puzzle pieces and swim to shore. Once the two pairs bring both bags of puzzle pieces to the shore, the remaining two team members can start working on a plank puzzle. Here’s another look at this challenge.
The yellow team consisted of Gavin, Wentworth, Lauren, and Julie in the water, and Ron and David solving the puzzle. The blue team was made up of Eric, Wardog, Rick, and Aurora taking on the swimming portion, while Julia and Victoria were tasked with the puzzle. Thanks to Eric and Aurora’s outstanding performances both in the water and untieing the bags, their team got off to a solid lead.
Julie’s struggles getting up on the platform didn’t help in making a comeback. Once again, David couldn’t manage to close the gap on the puzzle stage, while Julia continues to show off her great challenge abilities, winning Chinese food for her team. The best part of this challenge was the heaviness of the planks that added another element besides simply solving a pattern.
Reward Challenge Rankings:
Creativity: 2/5
Difficulty: 2/5
Entertainment Value: 2/5
Immunity Challenge:
This Survivor endurance challenge has been featured three times before. Each castaway is tasked with standing on a perch on their tippy-toes to brace a wooden block between their head and a wooden frame above them. The last person standing without dropping their block wins Individual Immunity. You can take another look at this intense challenge here.
Within the first 15 seconds, Wardog dropped his block. Eric, Gavin, Wentworth, and Rick didn’t last too much longer. A bit later, Julia and Julie couldn’t hold on, with a visibly frustrated Ron to follow. This left Victoria, David, Lauren and Aurora who lasted a whole 25 minutes without any change.
At this moment, Lauren began to voice her feelings of dizziness. After a great effort, David lost his block and received an overwhelming applause. Then you started to see Lauren fading and right before she shockingly hit the ground, she called her blackout. Jeff alerted medical immediately, and they treated her not too far from Victoria.
Aurora ignored the current circumstances and was quick to work on persuading Victoria to let her win it to prove she was still in the Kama majority. Lauren was able to regain consciousness and recover, giving viewers and the cast a chance to breathe. Even without a negotiation, Aurora outlasted Victoria to win immunity. To add to this intense drama, we were treated with Rick’s comedic remarks that makes us so thankful that he won his way back into the game!
Challenge Takeaways:
For the second straight Immunity Challenge, it came down to two women at the end. Last week was Julie’s coming out party, this week it was Aurora’s turn to step up. In the Reward Challenge, Aurora continued to show her great swimming ability. When it came time for the Immunity Challenge, Aurora knew that she was in trouble, and she was able to fight it out to secure herself to get a little farther in the game.
Although Julia didn’t last too long in the Immunity Challenge, she had another dominant outing at a puzzle, proving that she’s strong at both physical and mental challenges. The fact that Lauren passed out before stepping off her perch shows how tough of a competitor she is, and how she’s willing to go to the limit to outlast others, even earning props from Probst. The last time that happened to someone (Joe), he was voted out that night. Victoria also had a surprisingly solid challenge performance, nearly winning the necklace.
With both Eric and Joe out of the game, the playing field is wide open, similar to David vs. Goliath. So we’re likely to see several different castaways win immunity over the next few episodes, with a possibility of a strong competitor going on a brief run.
Immunity Challenge Rankings:
Creativity: 1/5
Difficulty: 4/5
Entertainment Value: 4/5