The superfans are left to their own devices as our Survivor: Edge of Extinction episode 11 recap looks at the movers and shakers defending against the “goats.”
Wardog has put himself in an odd position. He was responsible for both getting out his “long-time nemesis” (?) in David Wright and then his closest ally in Kelley Wentworth in last week’s episode, effectively removing the biggest threats to win in the game. However, that means he has a huge target on his back heading into tonight’s Survivor: Edge of Extinction, with Lauren likely on the warpath for revenge (basically).
She was a bit rattled after being blindsided by Wardog, but she also realized the danger of taking out Rick who poses a threat to everyone. Gavin was a bit more forward, saying he felt on the outs of the vote. However, Wardog barked back, stating he was just trying to go where the numbers were and keep himself safe.
This put Ron in an awkward position, as he seemed to be playing both sides of the camp. He was understanding of Gavin’s concerns of being talked down to, showing a lack of interest in joining his side. He also had to win Julie’s trust back, doing so by telling her Aurora gifted him her extra vote advantage. For what it’s worth, Julie seemed almost hesitant to blame Ron at all.
On Day 28, Rick Devens woke up to the situation that presented itself and pitched an alliance of “threats and players” between him, Wardog and Ron. He realized that even though he’s been opposite Wardog for the game, they each presented themselves as shields for others, pitching Aurora as the “safe vote” challenge beast against them. However, we learned Wardog’s thoughts on the easy vote last week.
The reward challenge made its return once more, with players split into two teams. Two swimmers would swim out to a platform, dive the length backward underwater, retrieve a ring and bring it to a finish platform for two other players to toss three rings on buoys, winning a mud bath, chicken, beef and refreshments at a Fijian spa.
Despite slipping on the starting platform and swimming away from his platform, Wardog kept pace for the blue team with Ron on the bellow team in the swimming portion. However, Lauren was on a mission in her portion for the yellow team, not taking a stop for air when performing her portion compared to Lauren, who stopped just once.
Gavin and Victoria had trouble on the ring toss, but Julie and Devens were on fire. The oldest randomly-selected team (minus Lauren) won the reward, with Devens, Wardog, Julie and Lauren earning the benefits. However, Gavin saw this as an opportunity to take his revenge on Wardog, hoping to earn the trust of Aurora, Ron and Victoria in voting him out.
Kelley found herself beating herself up over her imperfection playing Survivor, with Joe and Aubry trying to cheer her up. However, Reem was much more hesitant to support her as such, blaming her for ruining her experience. It’s hard not to feel sympathy for both Kelley and Reem, as the Day 3 boot never got to experience the ups and downs of the game. Both players expressed their emotions and grew together through the hardships.
With the Wardog of the North off on reward, Ron “Varys” Clark was spreading propaganda to his little birds. While Gavin, Aurora and Victoria were plotting against Wardog, Ron was earning Aurora’s trust by returning her extra vote advantage. Even if he did so, he could still vote out Aurora and get rid of the extra vote in a significant blindside.
While Ron contemplated his options, it felt like we were sent back to David vs. Goliath days as Aurora and Ron fought over the amount of rice to make. Aurora was content with one cup for four people, but Ron felt that was too little for what they had for the rest of the game. Both got very dramatic over the argument, with Ron calling Aurora (the person he’s trying to earn trust from) a “rice nazi.” Boy was that way too extreme!
Wardog and Rick were mud brothers at the reward challenge, as their differences were finally cast aside in the interest of succulent muddy rubdowns. However, Julie and Lauren took the opportunity to plot against the other two, with Julie more on the side of getting out Wardog than Lauren, who wanted Rick Devens out. It seems like those are the two primary targets of the episode.
The Immunity Challenge arrived on Day 29, and thank the Survivor gods it wasn’t a balancing challenge! Players raced through an obstacle course with a buoy, collecting two more and bringing them to an end platform where they needed to solve a star puzzle.
Pretty much everyone but Ron made it through the first stage easily enough, but Aurora and Rick were the leaders heading into the puzzle section. However, nobody had a clear advantage heading into it, with Rick starting to get the 3D pattern down fairly quickly. Despite saying she hated puzzles, Aurora was the closest behind, with Gavin tantalizingly close behind.
Just when it looked like Rick had it locked down, he stumbled on the core of his puzzle, opening the window for Aurora and Gavin. However, he had built up too much of a lead that he was able to reverse a few blocks and solve the problem, winning his second-straight individual immunity. The conversation of “Wardog or Rick” seemed to become a lot easier, although Rick’s shoutout of “La Cheeserie” requires a lot of explaining.
It seemed like everyone was grimacing their smiles to Rick as he came back from camp, as Ron deepened his relationship with both sides of the “Aurora or Wardog” vote. Wardog saw through his situation perfectly, too; he knew that Aurora, Victoria, Gavin and Julie could work with Ron and take him out. Instead of taking a possibility lying down, Wardog banked on the stupidity of others not making the correct move in getting himself being voted out.
Julie really wanted to take out Wardog, but Lauren was adamant in thinking about her long-term game by not removing Wardog and Rick as players to work with as possible teammates in the future. Meanwhile, Aurora seemed to have the same level of game awareness as Wardog by noting Rick and Wardog haven’t been talking to her; an occurrence when they try to vote her out. This got her contemplating whether or not to use her extra vote.
As tribal council came around, Kelley Wentworth was still shaking her head after her blindside. The conversations seemed to focus on the targets of the game, with Wardog alluded to his “talking to” (or down to) Gavin and Wardog dragging Ron into the Kelley blindside play, which got a quite negative reaction from a few members of the jury.
It then proceeded to become a talk about the idea of threats, who’s a threat to which players and who can actually win this game. There’s a certain meta-narrative to these talks, as it seemed like the players and the jury themselves were teasing the idea of a bitter jury. Certainly, we heard a wide array of opinions on what earns respect, with players certain they can only trust few people left in the game.
As we headed to the votes, Aurora was fully confident in the vote not to use her extra vote advantage. Because of this, it became clear that the Wardog was banking on stupidity and lost on the stock market, as he was voted out 6-2. That’s certainly going to be a wild night on the Edge of Extinction!
Next week, we will see the loved ones compete in a challenge, Rick gifted an expired advantage menu and general distrust of Rick in general.