Originally posted Wednesday, April 24, 2019 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
Atlanta educator Ron Clark avoided elimination again, making it to the top seven on "Survivor: Edge of Extinction."
Instead, the target was Wardog, who supposedly orchestrated the blindside of his ally Kelley Wentworth last week. Ultimately, his over-the-top strategizing caught up with him. Even he knew he was in trouble going into tribal council and was not surprised when he was cut.
Clark, who has been just as strategic as Wardog but less obvious about it, managed to hide behind Wardog and wasn't even mentioned as a potential person to be voted out this week. As Macon broadcaster and game threat Rick Devens noted, he, Ron and Wardog were the three biggest targets left. If they stuck together, he said, they could pick off the others - like Aurora McCreary.
But they were only three people and Ron wasn’t even sure that was his best move. Wardog’s only sure ally ultimately was Devens, who was a target but won individual immunity again. (Devens hardly looks like a challenge beast but here he is.)
Ron decided to go with the majority and take out Wardog instead of Aurora.
Earlier in the episode, Ron felt like he had to make amends to his closest ally Julie Rosenberg for not informing her of the blindside. He was worried she would take it poorly. She didn't -at all. She has inherent trust in Ron. In fact, he's the only one she really trusts. She understood why he did it and even rationalized that it was a good thing because it showed to others that they weren't necessarily tied together at the hip. Ron was suitably relieved.
He also has had a strange relationship with Aurora. During this episode, they were rubbing each other the wrong way, arguing over how much rice to give out after losing a reward challenge. Ron was clearly hangry and she called him (to the “Survivor” cameras) a “drama queen.” He said he deserves $2 million, not $1 million, to win just tolerating Aurora for up to 40 days. Nice.
Last week, Aurora - on the hot seat after helping cause the crazy tribal blow up that led to her ally Julia Carter going home - tried to gain Ron's trust by handing him her "extra vote" advantage. As most vet players know, the "extra vote" advantage isn't all that useful most of the time.
So Ron gave it back to her this week to show his loyalty to her. Or so it seemed.
Otherwise, going after Wardog was an easy move and kept Ron completely off the radar. That may not necessarily remain the case as most of the obvious targets are now on the jury. And we await the return of one of the players from Edge of Extinction.
Next week, the trailer shows Ron giving an expired “secret advantage” he never used from the opening minutes of the show to Devens but not telling him it was useless. Hmm...
