Survivor Edge of Extinction: Can Rick Devens win the game?
All the words I’m going to write about the possibility of Rick Devens winning Survivor: Edge of Extinction beyond a simple “yes” is just window dressing.
Mike Holloway. Ben Driebergen. Fabio Birza. Rick Devens. Should the telegraphed, beat-over-head editing of Survivor: Edge of Extinction continue on its current path, we could see another huge impact player on the edit come from behind after weeks of play being the odd man out. Will we see the predictable happen or will the unpredictable, as teased, actually occur?
Rick’s chances of making Final Tribal
If Rick Devens doesn’t win another form of immunity (whether it be Hidden Immunity Idol or another Immunity Challenge), he will not make it to the Final Tribal Council. There is no strategy he could enact or player he can throw under the bus in order for him to escape an inevitable fate, as the jury, the other players and he, himself, have made it clear that he would win if he makes it to the end.
Thankfully for Rick fans (don’t let Reddit shame you for liking an entertaining character just because he’s doing well and because production wants to lessen other characters’ edits), he already has a Hidden Immunity Idol he should, and will, use. That means that, at the bare minimum, he has two chances to compete and win an Immunity Necklace and an opportunity to find another idol (based on using it at Final Six).
That would guarantee his chances of making it to the Final Four where he cannot be straight voted out thanks to Jeff Probst and production’s insistence that you should fix something that wasn’t broken. He would have to make a fire or win the final Immunity Challenge to guarantee his spot at the Final Tribal Council.
Though Rick Devens is currently in a Detroit-esque “Rick vs. Everybody” mentality, I give him a 50/50 shot of making it to the Final Tribal Council. He has won multiple Immunity Challenges, he has experience hunting for idols and finding them no matter the odds, and has the drive that allows production to feel okay about hiding idols in easy-to-find spots once he encounters trouble.
Rick’s chances of receiving votes at Final Tribal
If he makes it to the end of Survivor: Edge of Extinction sitting at the Final Tribal Council in one of those three well-coveted seats, he will win this game. I know it, you know it, the jury knows it, production wants it so badly to happen and everyone on the show’s Facebook page is made to believe that nobody else deserves it.
No matter who he’s sitting beside, he has the resume, the respect of the jury and the underdog story. His biggest threats might even be the people who come from the Edge of Extinction, although not everyone would even surpass his record despite the shared bond by the Edgers as jury members scratching and surviving.
Maybe Kelley Wentworth and maybe Eric Hafemann can compete and earn their way back into the game, win their way through the Immunity Challenges (or find an idol themselves) and can earn a spot at the Final Tribal Council and take some votes away from Rick and, potentially, the third person sitting beside them. However, I believe Rick has too high a profile to be beaten at the Final Tribal Council.
Verdict
I believe Rick Devens has the best shot out of anyone in Survivor: Edge of Extinction with a 50% chance of winning. Considering there are four other constants and one unknown player as competitors, that’s pretty great odds. What makes it impossible to predict a clean slate victory is that it seems way too obvious even for an underdog story in seeing Rick win, especially with the seeds of a Lauren uprising via Final Four fire-making challenge possibly taking him out.