Survivor Edge of Extinction episode 13 recap: Baiji
Rick Devens has become the whirling dervish he sought to destroy as our Survivor: Edge of Extinction episode 13 recap looks at the odd man out.
It’s hard not to feel like we’ve been through this exact Survivor situation before. While Rick Devens is actually capable of winning an Immunity Challenge, his “find idols and advantages to keep himself safe from inevitable elimination” seems quite similar to Ben Driebergen’s idol-heavy path to victory. Hopefully, Edge of Extinction doesn’t bend the rules surprisingly to let Rick win (wait … isn’t the Edge …)
Anyways, onto the show! We started with the post-tribal with Rick Devens lying about where he found the Hidden Immunity Idol. He really played into the idea of all the advantages and idols being only one the Edge of Extinction, which plays into Aurora’s Extra Vote advantage story coming from the Edge.
This ultra confirmed a plan that was already mega-confirmed; Rick Devens needs to go. However, Lauren wanted to call out Rick on his BS because she still has her Immunity Idol on her, which she found at her old beach. Knowing this information and knowing that one of the most recent Survivor seasons that aired on television was Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, she left Rick to go hunting for an idol.
He had been searching all night and into the morning, but eventually, Rick did find a Hidden Immunity Idol. It didn’t seem to be as much of a daring find as in a tree holding up the shelter, but when a player actively searches for an idol, production has to hide it somewhere!
The Reward Challenge was a mixture of obstacles, including throwing one up on a contraption, navigating through a rope maze before catching it on the other side. From there, players dug through a submerged sand bar to push both balls through before throwing them atop a structure to land on top. A Fijian island tour via helicopter ending with a luxury resort trip with an open bar and plenty of food was the prize.
Julie and Lauren were way too far behind to have an impact on this challenge, as they kept stumbling near the beginning. This put the usual suspects at the front of the pack, with Rick, Aurora and Gavin fighting to throw their balls up onto a pillar and have them stick. If that sentence doesn’t sound like a Jeff Probst special, I don’t know what is!
Gavin ended up victorious, which is appropriate since he chose Victoria to go with him first. Despite saying his decision was about who hadn’t been on reward a lot, he picked Lauren as his second choice. While they enjoyed the reward benefits, they all stuck to the plan of getting out Rick and Julie, even though Lauren thought of other plans behind the scenes.
After the reward recipients arrived back at camp, Victoria walked over to Aurora and tried to give her the “we cool, right?” Even Aurora knew that he couldn’t work with Julie and Rick if she wanted to win, so she begrudgingly grinned and bore what would come from Victoria while being unhappy on being on the outs.
We skipped out on the Edge of Extinction last week, but no good deed goes unpunished. Instead of getting a proper Rites of Passage that we used to see with the Final Four in old Survivor seasons, we spent time on the Edge this week with jury members reading letters they wrote to themselves before the game began. In this crucial episode, it’s what we needed; for eliminated players to pat themselves on the back.
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Day 33 came around, and Rick Devens played Survivor troll for an entire day. Knowing he had the Hidden Immunity Idol, he just ran around the island and trolling them as they finally, finally decided to follow him around and prevent him from finding an idol. Too little, too late, especially for Lauren who knew better than to let Rick Devens off the hook.
The entirety of Day 33 was the Rick Devens troll show, as Day 34 brought the Immunity Challenge. Players needed to slide letters for a six-word puzzle down a makeshift shuffleboard, needing to carry the letters held between two handheld poles across a series of obstacles to the end platform. Once all letters are retrieved, only then can they spell out “Not Living On The Edge Tonight.”
It seemed like the first run through the letter obstacles portion was a disaster for all the players involved, but Aurora, Lauren and Rick ended up arriving at the puzzle portion at roughly the same time. “Edge,” “Vote” and “Done” showed that everyone had a different idea for what the six-word phrase could be.
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However, in a move that certainly helped Rick Devens win Immunity (even though everyone else heard the word as a clue), Jeff Probst clearly hinted at the word “tonight” being part of the passage. Rick just happened to have the word “Edge” already figured out, making it an easier time to figure out the phrase and win immunity.
With Julie on the bottom of the tribe after being the victim of the blindside, she went off with Rick in the hopes of finding a way for them to flip an easy vote into a strategic vote. Julie pressed on her partnership with Lauren in an attempt to get her to vote out Aurora instead, playing into Lauren’s already stated objectives while making sense in trying to get out a challenge threat.
It made sense for Lauren, who went talked to Gavin in order to pull off the blindside. She was a bit pushy for her own good, giving Gavin pause by insisting they could pull off the Aurora vote without her knowledge. The two knew that they couldn’t flip the vote on Lauren regardless unless something crazy happened, so instead, they pondered whether or not to vote Aurora or Julie before Tribal Council.
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Tribal Council laid the cards on the table, with Rick celebrating the fact that he’s safe and isn’t going anywhere while Julie admitted that she had nowhere to go, either, but to talk with Rick about forging a plan. In actuality, most of Tribal Council was Rick Devens talking about how excellent he was and the others confirming that Rick Devens is, in fact, awesome.
It’s hard to plant a target on a walking target, but damn did it seems like everyone thought that was a good idea. Rick kept pushing back, however, insisting that once the Edge of Extinction player comes back, the playing field is more even to bring balance to his side’s favor. He even put his foot down by insisting he’d play his idol on Julie, saying who they chose to vote for would go home.
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Of course, everyone planned to vote out Aurora regardless, as it only made sense to vote out a challenge threat. However, because everyone was talking up Rick, it seemed like Lauren’s plan saw Rick get credit. Even Aurora said reverse psychology worked! It will take a group effort to take him out heading into next week’s finale.