After the Wentworth boot, Gavin feels a little insecure. He confronts Wardog about not being included on the vote. Wardog openly says he didn’t trust that Gavin would flip on Wentworth. Gavin doesn’t like that Wardog is “barking out orders” and talking to him “like a dog.” My guy, take a look at his name. WarDOG. What do you expect?
But regardless of how appropriate the phrasing is, Wardog is now next up on Gavin’s hit list. Luckily for Gavin, Wardog is an actual legitimate threat in the game. So instead of Gavin erroneously targeting him out of revenge, it might actually be a good game move.
Unfortunately for Gavin, he might need to wait on that plan for the time being. Devens appears to be the consensus target, and Gavin doesn’t really have any choice right now but to pledge his loyalty to Ron and Victoria.
In other news, Ron and Julie manage to patch things up after Ron left Julie out of the Wentworth vote. This was a surprising development. With how much Julie wears her emotions on her sleeves, I would have expected a bit more drama here. But to her credit, she acts rationally and even agrees that it might not be the worst thing that the two of them don’t vote together every single time.
Reward Challenge
My goodness Survivor has some fun water challenges. For this one there are two teams of four:
Wardog, Lauren, Devens, Julie vs. Ron, Aurora, Gavin, Victoria
Two members from each team swim out to a platform, run across it, jump back in the water in, and pull themselves under the platform while underwater. They then retrieve a set of three rings, with each needing to be tossed onto three separate targets. The winning team wins a mud bath escape and the standard reward feast.
Even after Wardog initially swims to the wrong platform (because of course he does), Devens’ ring-tossing abilities cement the win for their team.
Edge of Extinction
This was a bummer of a scene. And not because it was sad to see people be sad (which it wasn’t, btw). It was just dumb. Wentworth is sad about being voted out, which makes sense, but it still doesn’t make great TV. And Reem is still pissed at Wentworth for voting her out. Dude, it’s been four weeks. She even says a short time later that there is a healing process that happens on the Edge. Apparently she hasn’t completed that just yet.
This is one of the big problems with the season. There isn’t a lot of interesting stuff happening on the Edge. But because all of these players are still technically in the game, air time has to be dedicated to them. You can’t ignore them, but you can only show people sitting around being sad and bored for so long. Hopefully we’ll have the final Edge challenge before too long and it will finally come to an end.
Vata Beach – Post Reward Challenge
Aurora, Ron, and Victoria discuss how much of a threat Devens is. Gavin still wants Wardog, but knows it’s an uphill battle with his current position in the game. Unless Devens wins immunity, he very well might be headed back to Extinction Island. After considering keeping it, Ron returns the extra vote to Aurora. That was probably the only decision to make. It would cause too much unnecessary friction to keep the vote. But still, not everyone would realize that, especially someone like Ron who isn’t exactly tight with Aurora.
That fact is further illustrated when Ron and Aurora fight over how much rice to cook. It culminates in Ron calling her a “Rice Nazi.”
"Rice Nazi"…the lesser known “Seinfeld” episode. #Survivor
Julie and Lauren talk about working together and trying to shake things up. Lauren wants to vote out Devens, while Julie thinks voting out Wardog is priority number one. For two people so eager to work together, they might want to find a way to settle on a single target.
Immunity Challenge
Each player races over an obstacle carrying a buoy, then they maneuver a second buoy through a net, before pushing a third buoy under a net. One of the buoys has a key to unlock puzzle pieces, which they solve to win.
At least from the edit, it’s a pretty close challenge most of the way. But Devens pulls ahead and wins again. This is one of my favorite things to happen on Survivor, when the consensus target wins immunity. It doesn’t always result in chaos, but I love seeing players being forced to scramble to make new plans.
Pre-Tribal
With Devens safe, Gavin sees his chance to move the target to Wardog. Unfortunately for him, Ron isn’t so sure Wardog is the right choice. He knows Wardog is a big threat, but he also sees himself as a major threat in the game, even ahead of Devens in the big threat rankings. He’s (justifiably) worried that if they vote out Wardog, his name is next up on the chopping block.
To Wardog’s credit, he recognizes his place in the game, and gets to work. He also gets in a great quote, “If people are smart, they’ll take out the Wardog. But I’m banking on stupidity tonight.” Once again, production chooses the wrong quote for the episode’s title. “Fasten your seatbelts” is whispered by someone on the jury. Tell me you wouldn’t have loved to see an episode titled “I’m Banking On Stupidity Tonight.” That would be an all-time great episode title.
Anyway, Wardog wants to go after Aurora, seeing her as an easy enough vote. And with her strong challenge performances, he might be able to get enough people on board. From what we see, Ron and Devens are on board, but Julie is a little hesitant.
Tribal Council
Nothing too notable happens during Tribal, but Devens once again is the star. I fear he’s at a point in the game where he almost has to win immunity to stay alive in the game. If they didn’t before, everyone now recognizes how much of a threat he is. Unless he can go on a Mike Holloway-esque immunity run, he has some serious work to do.
And in the end Wardog is voted out 6-2, with Wardog and Devens both voting for Aurora.
We have the family visit next week, and we see Ron give Devens his (expired) advantage from the beginning of the season. Should be in for another fun episode.
