You can thank Rick Devens for Survivor: Edge of Extinction’s exciting live Tribal Council, as he took the lead in creating whispering chaos.
It’s been five days since last week’s episode of Survivor: Edge of Extinction and I’m still trying to put together what actually happened at that crazy Tribal. It’s easy to come out of this and think that Rick doesn’t deserve episode 9’s MVP because he wasted a Hidden Immunity Idol, but there’s a lot more to it than that.
Rick Changed Kama’s plans
Coming into Tribal Council, it was Kama’s game to lose. They had six to Lesu’s five, and the entire day it looked as if Kama was in the swing position. They had the choice of which Lesu group they wanted to keep, and which one they wanted to get rid of.
As with most of this post-merge game, Lesu remained divided, that is until Rick unified them. Aurora decided to comment on how the five Lesu members should have teamed up with Julie and Ron since they were left out of the loop by Kama in the last vote.
Rick couldn’t let that statement pass and used that to fuel a persuasive argument to gain the numbers. With Julia and Aurora not gaining anyone’s trust by their disingenuous comments, Rick picked the perfect time to strike.
Immediately Julie blurted out her willingness to consider this plan. Rick’s good relationship with Julie since the merge may have moved her to feel comfortable jumping ship. So although it was a group effort, if Rick didn’t react to Aurora’s comments, there’s a good chance that we wouldn’t have seen a live Tribal Council and that a Lesu member would have had their torch snuffed instead.
Rick benefited from the confusion
More than simply throwing the vote into confusion, he was able to prevent an original Lesu member from going home. Instead, Julia, a strong strategic and physical threat was sent to the Edge of Extinction, dropping Kama’s number advantage. For the first time since the start of the game, the original tribes are even, thanks to Rick’s initiative at Tribal.
Now we have to understand Rick’s idol play. In hindsight, it was obviously not necessary, as even Victoria tweeted about that idol play being pointless, but you have to consider how crazy the circumstances were. The Kama alliance has pulled off a few blindsides already that shocked David and Rick. During the live Tribal, several Kama members mentioned that David was their original target.
As teased in episode 10’s sneak peek, they still feared that Kama might be pulling off some theatrics and that they could still band together and vote off David. So it wasn’t a correct idol play, but their thoughts behind this decision are understandable. You wouldn’t want to get voted out at that Tribal Council with an idol in your pocket!
The fate of this episode was determined at Tribal Council, and it was Rick who stepped up, influencing the final decision. Plus, Rick easily had the best quote of the night claiming he was the poop in David’s shark and minnows analogy!