Survivor Season 38 - 2019

I have mixed feelings about Purgatory Seasons, where a player being voted out of tribal does not necessarily get ejected from the game, but there were enough interesting ideas and characters to make this season a winner for me.

Previous gimmicks culled the restless dead periodically, but “Edge of Extinction” filled up over the course of the entire season, and for the first time ever the jury was composed of every survivor that got got. There’s a lot to like here: we get a better sense of the interplay between survivors and jurors, and we get to keep following our favorites even if and when they are eliminated from the game. On the other hand, one of the interesting things about Survivor is that the cast of characters is winnowed down over the season, and that never really happens here. The editors do their level best to balance all of these locations and stories, but it’s a tough gig.

In the top half, it’s a “some returning players” season, with four repeat castaways that are all favorites of mine, and have all been called out in previous writeups. One half of \bkell\w*y\s+w\w*worth\b Kelley Wentworth, my TV best friend Aubry, nervous screenwriter David, and hirsute lunk Joe represent the Survivor royalty, with two each going to the new tribes. Long story short, they are dispatched one by one by a fierce set of newbies who correctly assess the threat level of letting any of these people anywhere near the finals. The arc from “Fans vs Favorites” is clear: new players went from being stomped by the returnees to being the (much more populous) stompers. Now that the metagame immune response has taken hold, I wonder if the producers will bother trying this format again.

But the second half belongs to Rick Devens. A charming news anchor who was very quickly voted out in the early days, Rick joined the rest of the unquiet dead on Edge of Extinction to—and I’m simplifying slightly here—sit around and wait for something to happen. At the midpoint of the game, Rick wins the first of two opportunities to claw back into the game, and the producers gift him with an immunity idol to give him a fighting chance. This kicks off an absolutely wild chain of events, where Rick forms alliances of convenience, wins immunity challenges, finds idols, and creates fake idols to keep himself in the game, and the longer he lasts, the greater his threat level, leading to even more desperation to eject him. I’m reminded of Rachel in a more recent season.

In a cruel twist of fate, another contestant is ejected from Hell right before the final challenge, gets immunity, and then gives it up to make the entire season a showdown between the two Lazari. This extremely risky gambit pays off, and Rick becomes the final juror. This is disappointing for two reasons: Rick was a joy to watch (his giddy laughter while everyone was finding his fake idols was incredible) and played an unbelievable game. But also, the ultimate champion was someone who basically sat on a desert island with nothing to do for the vast majority of the season. My guess is this: if Rick had won, we would have seen this format again, but given the maximally bizarre way that things shook out, we won’t.