Episode 38.11

I’m wondering about different people’s chances of returning to the game. I don’t know if the last of the returnees is on Extinction Island just yet. Maybe their story won’t matter which might be why they do not have the substance in their edit that they should. If you keep track of the confessional count, then you would have known how easy it was to predict that Rick would win reentry to the game since he is the one who had the highest confessional count at the time. It could be Kelley who comes back into the game. I doubt that it is David. Why would he have not been included in the last episode’s recap? He was voted out of the game and they didn’t mention him at all.

Something that I wonder about this season is that they are clearly doing the jury differently. I wonder what past contestants, especially Neal, would think of the fact that the first person voted out will have a place in the jury. This makes me wonder: should there be a jury security challenge? Should people have to last long enough in the next reentry challenge in order to be a part of the jury? I don’t think that they should have to as I think that they’ve gone through enough surviving on Extinction Island. Still, all they had to do was not go right or raise a sail to leave the game to be on the jury this season.

Let’s get to the idols from Millennials versus Gen x. David found one and gave it to Jessica who saved herself from being voted out. Adam gave one to Hannah who only cancelled minority votes. David gave one to Ken who did not get any votes, but then did not have to draw a rock and was safe from that tie-breaker as a result. Jay played one and wasted it. Adam found one and played it for himself the last time it could be played. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, we get to the after effects of the tribal council. Ron wants to gain the trust of Rick by giving him his outdated advantage menu. Rick buys this up. Since when is the best way to gain trust lying? Is this a romantic comedy where they will all make amends at the end and fall in love before living happily ever after? I guess that Rick is a bit skeptical.

We then get to the reward challenge where loved ones show up at the challenge. Rick’s son doesn’t know that he’s on Survivor. I’m not going to go into all of what goes on at this point. We then get to the challenge in question. Ron and his loved one Roy win the challenge. Ron picks Julie to join him on this loved ones visit. He also picks Gavin as well. The rest of the contestants then have to instantly leave the loved ones as they lost and weren’t picked on the reward. Victoria talks about the crucial choice of who to pick on the loved ones challenge.

In the second segment of the show, people are emotional on the family visit. Gavin feels that he might not have made the best decision by going to play Survivor and abandoning his new wife. Ron wants to get Gavin’s loyalty. The people want to vote out Rick next. People look through his bad and he catches them doing it leading to a bit of an awkward situation. Aurora doesn’t think it is awkward. Now Rick says that people should question if they trust her or not. Rick keeps looking for an idol and finds a clue in a tree. (How many idols are in holes in trees?) The idol is above the shelter. He doesn’t know whether or not he should be coy about getting it or not.

In the third segment of the show, we return to Vata in the middle of the night. I’ve been walking in my sleep. Through the mountains of fate. To the river so deep. He gets the idol, but at least one of the people sleeping might have noticed this.

At the immunity challenge, Rick promises all of them the final three. He is bad at math. He’s also the first out of the challenge as he tries to taunt Aurora. Ron is then out next. Other women fall out after this. Gavin wins immunity. Ron feels confident that Rick is going to try to play his advantage and fail.

In the fourth segment of the show, we go back to camp after the challenge and Rick talks about what all went wrong at the challenge for him. No one wants to talk to him. But he has one immunity idol. Ron had told Rick to vote for Aurora in case Rick has an idol. Victoria talks about how they have to split the votes in order to cancel out a potential idol play. They want to get rid of Ron. Aurora wants to give her extra vote to Gavin in order to make sure that it works. She doesn’t want to go down as an idiot. Does this mean that she will? Gavin doesn’t want to vote out Ron. He doesn’t want to make the wrong choice about which side to vote for. Rick might want to use his advantage.

In the fifth segment of the show, we arrive at tribal council. Rick talks about how Aurora was looking through her idol. But sleeping beauty might have lost her chance to stay in the game. (I’ve been waiting a long time to make a reference like that.) People talk about the loved ones challenge about what had gone on there with who won.

Rick thinks that no one talks to him about what was going on and that no one was looking to work with him. This vote could go many ways. When asked about idols, he gives Jeff an advantage menu, but he says that it has no power anymore. He then goes back and plays his idol. A lot of people voted for him. Ron is voted out of the game as a result. Ron takes the torch to go to the twist of the season that had no airtime the rest of this episode.

On the next Survivor, people want to target Rick again and something is happening on Extinction Island. It is possible that Rick will find another idol or something or is at least looking for one. When Ron gets to Extinction Island, Reem is strangely warm to him. Has she softened a bit? Or is this temporary?

Total confessional count: Aurora- 10, Rick- 31, Lauren- 14, Julie- 17, Gavin- 14, Victoria- 15, Ron- 18; Reem- 13, Chris- 8, Aubry- 14, Joe- 9, Eric- 10, Julia- 7, David- 21, Kelley- 24, Wardog- 17.

New confessionals this episode: Julie- 0, Gavin- 2, Victoria- 2, Ron- 3, Aurora- 1, Rick- 6, Lauren- 1. Extinction Island confessional count: Reem- 0, Chris- 0, Aubry- 0, Joe- 0, Eric- 0, Julia- 0, David- 0, Kelley- 0, Wardog- 0.

The fact that no one from Extinction Island had a confessional this time around might have been the one biggest thing to note of this episode. We’ll see if that’s a marker of things to come. Ron had eighteen total confessionals. Those that are higher than him are David, Kelley, and Rick with Rick as the highest with thirty-one. Everyone else is lower with Aurora as the lowest with ten. As for new confessionals, Ron had three. The only person higher than him was Rick with six. Everyone else was lower with Julie as the lowest with zero. There’s not much else to say this time around so I’ll end the recap here. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.