Survivor Edge of Extinction: Should Lauren O’Connell return?

If Lauren O’Connell’s story in Survivor: Edge of Extinction is focused on anything, it’s hard-fought tenacity. Should she return in the future?

It’s very hard to be a newbie player on a mixed-player Survivor season filled with returning players. Harder is it to be cast as one of those returning players’ fans and escape from their shadow while emulating their gameplay. Thankfully, Lauren O’Connell‘s social charm and underdog story allowed her to soar and thrive to overcome adversity.

Lauren did not make it to the finale without heading to Tribal Council a lot, as she stands alone in being able to be voted out the most out of any other castaway in a season at 15 times. This happened due to being on tribes with poor challenge performances, going to tribal five out of six times before the merge and being ill after swapping to Lesu.

Entering the merge, despite being down on numbers Lauren was in a good position. Before arriving at Vata, she had found a Hidden Immunity Idol after being inspired by her player idol, Kelley Wentworth, while working with her to find her own. The two also had bigger threats ahead of them (for the time being), allowing Lauren, Kelley and Wardog to play well from behind.

Unfortunately, Lauren had such a hard time surviving in Survivor physically that her body gave out during the second Individual Immunity Challenge, passing out while holding a block on her head. It could have been her last day had Wardog not helped Julia and Gavin plot a Kama insurrection, as the votes were going to be split between her and Kelley before it flipped on Eric.

The first time Lauren felt alone was when she and Kelley were blindsided by Wardog, implementing 30-second talks with the tribe to vote Kelley out with an idol in her pocket. That only kickstarted Lauren’s gameplay, getting immediate revenge on Wardog at the next vote after bonding with Julie on the mud spa reward and working with Victoria to control the backup vote at Final Seven to take out Ron in case Rick played an idol.

Creating these new relationships gave Lauren a real chance of making it to Final Tribal Council. At least, until Chris happened. His return to the game was Lauren’s undoing, as Kelley told him she had an idol which allowed him to convince her to play it at Final Six to make a big move worthy of a winning resume. Unfortunately, it was part of his winning resume, not hers, as Chris and Rick teamed up to take her out at Final Five.

Lauren O’Connell was so close to a real shot of winning the game, as only an unfair twist and a great number of idols in the end that stopped her from Final Tribal Council. Vote here in our straw poll and let us know if you think she should return in a future Survivor season.