Survivor: Why was _____ sent to the Edge of Extinction ninth?

At arguably the craziest tribal council in Survivor history, the season’s most invisible player of the season, Julia became the latest blindside victim.

Julia’s game came unraveled all at one crazy tribal council on Day 23. For the better part of 22 days, Julia had been on cruise control. She was part of the dominant Kama tribe which won every immunity challenge, avoiding tribal council for 19 days. She was part of the Kama Six that was in control of the game. However, she had gotten very little airtime. The first we really saw of Julia was during episode 4 when she and Ron searched through Joe’s bag. It was not until episode 5, however, that Julia finally got a confessional.

Once the merge hit, we finally got to see more of Julia’s game. She played an instrumental role in blindsiding Eric on Day 22. After Wardog spoke with Julia and Gavin about his perceptions of the Kama group, Julia got suspicious.

She went to Eric and questioned him about voting David out that night instead of splitting the votes between Wentworth and Lauren. When Eric refused to vote David out, that prompted Julia, Gavin, Victoria to consider voting out Eric and Ron. Ultimately, it was Eric who was voted out at tribal council that night.

After Eric’s elimination, Julie and Ron attempted to reintegrate with the Kama alliance, but Gavin wanted him, Julia, and Victoria to align with Lauren, Wentworth, and Wardog with David being the target. Julia, however, was hesitant to align with another tight trio. David and Rick also reconciled after having split in the previous episode and attempted to realign with Julie and Ron.

After Gavin beat David at the immunity challenge, Wentworth’s alliance to try and shift the target off of David and onto Ron. This prompted Julia to try and get the former Kama members to align together against Wentworth. However, Gavin was against the idea as he still wanted David out.

At tribal council, comments from Aurora stoked fear into Wentworth and David’s alliances. Wentworth and David’s alliances formed a new plan on the spot at tribal. This led to total chaos at tribal council. David and Wentworth’s alliances teamed up to target Julia or Aurora. At one point, Julie stormed out of a discussion between the Kama tribe.

Ultimately, Rick and David played the halves of the idol they had on David, negated one vote against David. In the end, almost the entire tribe voted out Julia as she was sent to the Edge of Extinction by a vote of 9-1-0 over Wentworth and David. The lone holdout was Aurora who had voted for David.

With Julia’s elimination, it is very difficult to tell why exactly she was eliminated. She had no storyline during the game with how invisible she was. The only reason it would appear she was the target this episode was because of her comments at tribal council, as well as the blindside of Julie and Ron that Julie took exception to the night prior. The lack of a storyline would lead viewers to wonder why exactly they picked her when it would appear she was not much of a threat.

This begs the question; why was the person who was eliminated in arguably the craziest tribal council in Survivor history ignored for so long? It would have been nice to get some idea of what they saw in her to make her the target at that tribal council in more than just the one episode prior. The editing here really leaves a lot to be desired.

Luckily for Julia, she is now on the Edge of Extinction where she will have a chance to return to the game.