Survivor Edge of Extinction episode 10 recap: Sabre-toothed cats

Two players faced extinction tonight across two tribal councils. Our Survivor: Edge of Extinction episode 10 recap tries to piece it all together.

What a chaotic tribal council last week! We are now in an exciting part of Survivor: Edge of Extinction as we are a month away from the finale. However, we entered Wednesday night with 10 players left in the game and no two-hour episodes scheduled in the future, meaning we’ll have to squeeze as much action between now and the end. That means two people voted out tonight!

Once again, we forego “Previously on Survivor,” going straight into camp life and David lamenting using his idol. However, Wardog accurately pointed out that Aurora dug her own grave. To Ron, he pitched a strong six alliance of himself, Kelley, Lauren, Ron, Julie and Gavin, which everyone seemed to be onboard to play as a group.

Aurora knew she was in a bad position on the bottom, talking about how she’s not giving up and using her strength as a foster care child to keep her going. Considering Aurora was invisible before she won immunity, it’s surprising to finally get some backstory on her life at this stage.

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The first Immunity Challenge was a modern throwback this time, with players forced to squat and hold a jar of water on a platform ahead of them. Getting too low or too high means dropping the pot to douse a fire in front of the player, signaling their exit. Anybody who chose to sat out received Bret LaBelle’s most hated reward; Survivor pizza. Look at those green olives and pineapple pieces!

Lauren, Victoria, Wentworth and Ron all sat out for pizza and cola, which might have been a smart decision. A butterfly took Wardog out quickly, Gavin fell quickly afterward and Julie’s legs gave out. 19 minutes in, Rick Devens gave a CBS newscaster update seconds before falling, leading to a David and Aurora showdown. Just four minutes later, however, David’s legs gave out and Aurora won her second immunity of the season.

With a shark eating minnows to greet the players back at camp, the sharks were quick to pounce into action (especially with an hour and two tribals tonight). The group seemed to form David as their number one target, with both Gavin and Wardog taking umbrage with his effectiveness in the game.

David and Devens knew that they were likely the targets, so they planned to go on their own counter-insurgency plan. They pitched bringing the outsiders to take out Wardog in hopes of crippling the power of the Lesu Three. Getting to work, Devens worked in getting Victoria out from the bottom and David pleaded to Aurora in getting herself out of her rut.

All plans came to a head through Julie and Ron. David used his “I’ve played Survivor before” card, effectively saying that if they don’t take this shot they might regret it looking back. Ron and Julie then convened as to how to best utilize their spot going forward, as they weren’t sure just how strong their new “Strong Six” alliance would be.

We didn’t even get a commercial break before going into tribal council number one, as we needed to get to the action as soon as possible. David talked about how it wasn’t Plan A or B that took effect last time, but Plan C at tribal. Devens also spoke to how he plans to go with people who want to play their own game, even if it’s on a single-seater like Julie.

Very quickly, we saw the cards laid out on the table; how much can you trust the Lesu Three and how far will they take you, the outsider, with them. Julie and Ron saw themselves in the pilots’ seats on this vote, responding to how they don’t like being told what to do. David even got buried a little bit on his “my brand is loyalty” bit, and even Lauren was quick to throw that back in his face.

Despite his pleas, David was voted out and sent to the Edge of Extinction. However, we didn’t even get a commercial break before we saw the next EoE advantage where players had to search for an advantage in a “jagged and hollow” spot. Despite being on the island for ~12 hours, David found it, being able to send “an advantage” to a player for the next Tribal Council.

We saw nothing of the players still in the game on Day 24 and Day 26, as we were sent to Day 27 to an Immunity Challenge. Players had a paddle and needed to balance five balls on dimples on such a small platform. However, David’s advantage allowed Devens to only need four balls to balance on the platform, showing how unfair it was for jury members to give active players advantages.

Ron, Aurora and Devens were the frontrunners of this challenge, which proved to be a lot harder than it appeared for everyone else. Devens, however, got his third ball on the platform before knocking it off with his fourth and final one. It was pretty much a three-horse race, with Devens “knocking his balls” repeatedly to give the others a chance. However, the advantage proved to be too much for others to catch up with, as Rick Devens won his first immunity challenge of the season.

With Devens out of the equation, Julie wanted to revert back to getting out Aurora. However, Wardog had other plans in mind. Wardog didn’t want to take the easy vote; he wanted to take out the last returnee in the game with Wentworth. That’s when he started to plant his seeds with Aurora, Ron and Devens, it seemed like a crazy play was in the works.

However, Ron was the harder push. He knew that Julie wants Aurora out no matter what, so he had worries about going against the blindside. That’s when Aurora started to think about her spot in the game from a meta standpoint, gifting Ron her extra vote on the (unbinding) condition he returns it to her if she gets back from the Edge of Extinction. This gave Ron two opportunities in an episode to play the middle how he wants.

Tribal Council’s jury is starting to get packed tightly as the players started talking about the blood of the blindside (hey, that’s the episode title). Conversations started to revolve around how easy it was for players in power and how to not feel comfortable when so many people are hunting for a stealthy play.

Things started to shift towards trust as we approach the endgame, as players started to talk about who you can trust going forward. That’s where we started to get teases from players about not rocking the boat, as Julie teased that you shouldn’t be rearranging the paintings after the Titanic crashes.

Boy, did the Titanic crash tonight, as Kelley Wentworth was blindsided in a 5-4 vote that will split the game wide open once more. Two returnees were voted out in the span of an hour, leaving us wondering what the hell is in store for the rest of Survivor: Edge of Extinction.

This remaining group of eight will have one more player join them from the Edge of Extinction soon, and they will be thirsty for revenge.