Survivor Edge of Extinction: Breaking down the cast’s exit interviews

After a full season without exit interviews, we finally get the insightful comments from the Survivor: Edge of Extinction cast on RHAP.

Exit interviews hosted by Rob Cesternino are one of the most intriguing extra features Survivor superfans get to enjoy each season. Unfortunately, due to the Edge of Extinction twist, there were no exit interviews during this season which made us miss out on those juicy, informative details

Thankfully, Rob sat down with several castaways after the finale to get their brief thoughts on the season. If you haven’t listened to it yet, you can find the interviews on RHAP. Here a few significant details we gleaned from the players’ comments:

Survivor: Ghost Island had a huge impact on this season

When the castaways were at Ponderosa gearing up for season 38 about a year ago, Ghost Island was finishing up. Fortunately, they allowed the cast to watch the Ghost Island finale prior to starting their own season.

Right before his eyes, Chris watched Domenick Abbate pose the idea of giving up his Immunity to compete in fire, but mistakenly turn it down. Chris cited watching Dom’s choice as a key factor in his fire-making decision.

He also mentioned how the overall passive gameplay from that season made the castaways in Edge of Extinction more open to considering big moves. That insight definitely explains the aggressive and fluid gameplay from a majority of the players this season.

Victoria explains her shocking reason for voting Chris at Final Tribal

When Vicotria got her torch snuffed, she turned around and told everyone that she was voting for Gavin, but she ended up writing down Chris’ name on the parchment. Victoria told Rob that she was so upset with Gavin not wanting to vote with her that she wanted to get back at him.

By saying she was voting for him, Victoria wanted the remaining castaways to view Gavin as a threat to earn jury votes. Glad to know that Victoria’s revenge is just as strategically planned as her blindsides!

Devens didn’t think life on Extinction Island was that tough

There has been much debate about the difficulty of living on the Edge of Extinction. Devens said it straight: it’s harder to be in the game than on Extinction Island. That’s probably a key reason why he voted for Gavin to win. Rick explained that the biggest difference was the stress. On Extinction Island, he could go off on his own and have a five-hour nap. He would never even dream of doing that in the game.

Kelley didn’t give Chris a message to send to Lauren

One of the most brilliant strategic moves of the season was when he successfully convinced Lauren to play her idol for him. Chris claimed that Wentworth had a special message for her: you better make a big move by playing your idol for yourself or someone else.

It turns out that Chris made that up. However, he did spend time with Wentworth on the Edge discussing Lauren’s game. Chris came away realizing how the jury wanted Lauren to make an independent move, and he used that fact to his advantage.

Gavin wouldn’t have done anything differently

When the runner-up of the season was asked what he would change if he could go back again, Gavin said nothing. He thought he played as good of a game as he could, but just wishes he was the one participating in the fire-making challenge.

Here are a few other interesting findings:

• Ron would definitely be willing to play Survivor again
• Joe believes that he wouldn’t have been able to replicate what Chris did if he won his way back from Extinction Island
• After finding his fourth idol, Rick told Chris to relocate and collect the fake idols, but they were a second too late as Julie found one
• There was a lot going on Extinction Island that we didn’t get see. For starters, they killed multiple sharks and held a chess tournament which David dominated in
• The decision to vote out Aurora was determined well before Rick teased everyone at Tribal Council about playing an idol for Julie
• Victoria wore a beanie because it was cold at night and there are no pillows!
• Julie understood during Final Tribal that she wasn’t going to win

Rob has recently had Rick on a nearly three-hour podcast, which we will post an article featuring the highlights of that interview soon. Expect more interesting details to come out as this offseason continues.