So he could use the extra vote both at the initial vote and a re-vote?
That’s my understanding, based on statements from other websites by self-proclaimed Survivor experts (who do tend to be right, generally).
That’s officially confirmed, in that they broadcast a confessional with Aurora saying exactly that. Like, almost literally those exact words.
I saw that, but I wouldn’t take something someone says in a confessional as “official confirmation” of anything. It’s just Aurora’s opinion, which could be wrong: people say dunderheaded things in confessionals all the time.
Wow.
I don’t know what you mean.
There are countless different hidden advantages they’ve had through the years. In every single case, the way they explain to the audience what it is and how it works is a confessional from the player who has it. Aurora has a power, and she explained a facet of how it works to the audience in a confessional.
Are you saying that for the first time in the history of the show, they broadcast a player explaining a power wrong or in a misleading way to the audience?
It’s not like Jeff has ever turned to the cameras and said “And this season we planted an extra vote and a HII that you can use AFTER I read the votes. Amazing, right?” It’s always and only the contestants who explain the rules to us.
You’ve never seen a confessional from a player who said “I’m going to use this HII to save myself tonight” when we in the audience know it’s a fake? 
I have never once seen a contestant explain a rule and then that explanation turned out to be wrong. In the entire history of the show, not once.
The reason is because that’s how the show explains rules to us. The contestants find advantages, read the explanation written on the back, and then they turn to the camera and explain the rules to the audience.
That’s just how the show works. And because that’s how it works, they would never air a contestant’s explanation of a rule if it were wrong or incorrect in some way. They’d ask them to try it again, only this time explain the actual rule so the audience at home understands.
Maybe I’m old and jaded, but I’m so bored by the “very special journeys” of the Extinction people, with the swelling music and the staring pensively into the distance and the earnest cliches.
I did enjoy Rick scampering around, giggling and hiding from people.
Same on both counts. This episode in particular I really felt that they had their chance, they lost, they shouldn’t still be here. Every single player has a free ticket to the final night just for not quitting. Lame.
Devens continues to crack me up. He’s gotta win, right? If he can still use his HII next vote that gets him to final 4, and that sounds correct in terms of the last time you can use it. Possibly longer since presumably someone from extinction is cheesing their way back onto the show, so I guess maybe it’s still final 6 right now?
EDIT: Rereading that, it was lost on me that the only reason Devens is still around is because of exctinction island. Without that he’s not here to entertain me. It would be much better if the returning player gimmick happened somewhere around weeks 6 and 10 instead of 4 and 13 or whatever they’re doing.
I found Devens really obnoxious last night. Different strokes, I guess.
But I really really hate that they are bringing one of the exiles back this late in the game. For all the babble about how horribly they’ve been suffering… have they? I bet they’ve been given about the same amount of food as the actual players, and they haven’t had to expend energy on the various challenges along the way.
And, majorly, most of them have been out long enough that even people they may have helped engineer the blindside of have gotten over resentments, and they’ve had days to weeks to hang out together and bond with the rest of the people who will be voting who gets the money. That’s a HUGE advantage.
Well, for maybe everyone except Reem.
This whole season was designed to tilt the odds in favor of their handful of chosen favorites, and I think it tainted the show.
Poor Aurora. She went to the EoE and didn’t even get a letter from herself.
I don’t mind the game having a returnee come back to the game. But I think there should be only one returnee, and he/she comes back at the merge.
If you pause on Wardog’s letter, it’s pretty funny. He crossed out the first question - “Why are you here” - and wrote in “The Wardog makes his own rules. Wardog became a way of life, a way (something), a way to stay strong and resilient.”
In what way? Every contestant has the choice to go to EoE and win their way back in.
I am happy that Survivor s trying tweeks like this all the time but I have to agree with the general sentiment here: this has been dragged too long. Nobody likes a bannee get back this late in the game.
Well, your second paragraph kind of answered your question.
This setup, particularly with a super-late return, is tailor-made to help a physically strong but socially weak player who would always get voted out before the end if he had to win like 5 immunity challenges in a row to get there (say, Joe or possibly Chris?). Why Probst and co. find these types of players compelling is beyond me, but clearly they do. At least with their blatant idol-hiding to help physical players the player has to be willing to put in the work instead of just laze around and win one challenge.
The only saving grace is that I strongly suspect (hope?) that the jury will understand and respect the fact that hanging out on EOE island and the getting air-dropped back in at Final 5 is not the same thing at all as either (a) surviving the whole game without getting voted out or (b) getting returned at the merge like Rick was. But my fear is that since the returnee will be someone who had the same experience the jury members did their identification with that person might outweigh their logic on who actually played the best game.
Rick could still be in a bit of trouble since his idol only saves him one more vote and there has to be at least two more votes if they return a player from EOE. He’s going to need to win one more challenge or hope that the returnee is seen as an even bigger threat to win than he is (unlikely IMO).
I thought Rick played this week just about perfectly. Find an idol, make the other players work chasing you around, make it clear who you are voting for, and then give the others enough fear that they could go home to encourage them to vote with you. And, of course, don’t play your idol to save Julie. The only way it could have gone better was if a few votes went to Gavin or Lauren somehow. He may have even made a bond with Julie, but I doubt that will actually help him.
Did the preview make it clear if the returning player happens first or after the next TC? It has to be first, right?
If you think “their handful of chosen favorites” are all “physically strong but socially weak player(s)” then I guess I answered my own question. I don’t think that though.
Yeah, that’s fair. They sort of showed us who their “favorites” are based on who they had come back this season - and I guess Joe only really falls in the category I defined (although possibly Kelley - I have a hard time categorizing her game since she’s never actually impressed me that much… but obviously I’m in the minority on that).
I guess the simpler answer is: they brought back some returning players, presumably to drive ratings, and they wanted to maximize the amount of screen time devoted to those returning players.
It’s actually one of the dilemma’s of the show’s structure - stronger personalities will tend to be targeted for elimination leaving behind less compelling players. Their solution seems to be a combination of mechanisms for players to get a second chance and liberal distribution of advantages and idols for those willing to put in the effort (who are sort of by definition stronger players).
The extended scene on EoE had me wondering who some of those people are. And what would a returning player write to themselves other than “If I am reading this, I either screwed up or am doing OK”. It’s not like they don’t know what it’s like to be on Survivor.
I was sort of expecting Lauren to get voted out because she was the one who brought up the idea of voting out Aurora. I guess her alliance has her as the goat.
I really liked Rick at the start of the show and he was my winner pick, but I have gone off him for some reason. He is annoying. I still think he will win though.
I dom’t think Lauren is any more of a goat than the rest. Except for Rick, none of them have much going for them.
Agreed. A few weeks back, lots of people were saying (here, on Twitter, or maybe both) that they just assumed the final returnee would come back in the finale. I thought this was a borderline laughable assumption–that there’s no way they would do anything that ridiculous.
But they did. :smack:
He played it well, but if he made it clear who he was voting for, I missed that. He said at TC that he could be voting for any of the four of them. I thought it might have been better to say that he was NOT voting for Aurora, but one of the other three. That would make it more likely those other three would band together against Aurora (it’s pretty clear that’s what they were doing anyway, but just in case). Because if they think he’s voting Aurora, they have less reason to cancel a plan to vote Julie, since they would then know their secondary target goes home if he does follow through on playing his idol for her.
Here in the thread [post=21611339]that was me[/post]. I can’t even really say why I felt that way; it just seemed to me to be clearly and obviously what was happening, even though objectively and with hindsight it wasn’t really clear or obvious at the time.
Possibly because edge of extinction is so stupid that of course it will end up being the stupidest possible variation, but that’s not what I was thinking at the time.
Agreed. He specifically hid who his target was so the majority couldn’t just keep voting Julie and let Aurora go home. If he told them Aurora they’d still vote him and he would have had to play his idol.