Taako From Teevhii unwraps the best bonus scenes from the season finale of Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers.

This Week In Secret Scenes

“I Don’t Want You Following Me Around, Dude”

This was a fun secret scene, and honestly, if we’re going to gut the reunion anyway, let’s just make the finale three hours and include scenes like this. But there’s a lot to dig into in these two-and-a-half minutes, so let’s get into it.

First, Ryan is bummed Chrissy didn’t take him on reward. Hold onto that thought.

I loved Ben’s quip of “I’m gonna go look for an idol. You can hang out.” Ben also raises a good question in asking “Why?” Why is Ryan following Ben if he’s not going to actually look for the idol too? Ryan is literally just walking behind Ben. If Ben found an idol, then great, you know he has an idol. But Ben still has an idol, which he can still play. Ryan’s babysitting only works if he beats Ben to the idol to keep it out of his hands.

Ryan also shows evidence that he isn’t the greatest Survivor superfan in mentioning that “Tony found all three of the idols in his season.” There were actually six idols in Cagayan, and Tony found half of those. Two of those six should be in the memory of any superfan who has watched Cagayan: LJ played his idol for Tony (after Tony played his own idol for LJ), and Spencer grabbed his idol out from under the noses of the Ninja Stealth Mode search party. I’m bringing this up solely to rag on Ryan, which turns out to be kind of a theme in this post.

Final question on this clip: Was Ben taunting Ryan by bringing him to the raft, the place where Ben had already dug up the idol he was supposedly looking for? Probably not, but I like to think he was.

This Week In Confessionals

“I Just Didn’t Feel Like Bringing Ryan”

Normally I don’t include clips of players talking about the last Immunity Challenge or how their reward was. But I’ll be honest, I enjoyed how exhausted Chrissy sounded by constantly hanging out with Ryan. There were other reasons she brought Dr. Mike and Devon on the reward, sure. But there’s also the small kernel of truth that Ryan isn’t really doing anything to earn these rewards and is only experiencing them because of Chrissy.

“I Never Wanted to Step on Anybody’s Toes”

As Desi pointed out at FTC, Ryan is trying to rationalize how bad he is at much of this game and to justify his lack of improvement in those areas. Continuing a theme from the last clips (and into the clips to come), Ryan doesn’t really do much nor does he try all that hard to avoid the perception of not doing much. Which is interesting solely for the fact that most Survivor fans know that a journey of growth is a great thing to pitch at FTC. It won’t clinch the win for you, but it’s a helluva lot better than not trying to improve at all and staying your same sucky self. Also, jurors will deny a finalist their vote given a single glaring weakness just as often as they reward a finalist for a single superlative strength. It never hurts to round out your game, but Ryan put in no effort to do that.

“I’m Feeling Like The Luckiest Guy In The World”

It should be said again: Devon is a bright and beautiful light. Watch this clip for that alone.

Looking beyond this season, Devon seems to talk as though this is the very definitive end of his time on Survivor. The optimistic read of this exit interview is that Devon doesn’t take a return for granted. The pessimistic read is that Devon isn’t interested in returning for another season. Here, he’s dismissive of the prize money and says that the self-discovery and growth he experienced is all he wants or needs. He’s found resolution to this story, and there may not be anything for Devon to gain by returning.

This Week In Ponderosa

“I Wanted to Be a Survivor Legend; I Don’t Know If I Will Be”

I really don’t have anything to say about this. Cole ran out in his underwear to greet Mike. I have no clue why, but maybe he hit the kava a little too hard? Mike and Joe also talk about the CocoNutz (sp?), which, um, yeah.

“I Know I’m In Love With Everyone”

What a joyful Ponderosa. Devon was great and in high spirits. He truly did not seem bitter at all, which is more than can be said for some final boots. And everyone at Ponderosa seemed to love having Devon there, which makes me wonder not if Devon would’ve won had he made it to FTC, but how much his margin of victory would have been.

There was also a chemistry in the Ashley/Devon portions of this video, which was not entirely played up in the main edit (Editor’s note: a chemistry is selling it short. Emma and I are now official Ashley/Devon shippers). I am not a Survivor gossip queen, so I don’t know if/how this shook out after filming. But it’s ironic that Ashley was painted as part of a power couple with JP when there wasn’t really anything there, while there was little to no attention paid to the power couple she formed with Devon right after the swap.

This Week In The Jury Box

Time for some bonus bonus clips with the jurors sharing their thoughts heading into FTC.

Desi feels that her vote is a toss up between Ben and Chrissy, with an edge going to Ben. The jurors are trying to not be bitter and to stay neutral going into FTC. Desi states that she has no reason to vote for Ryan.

Cole thinks it’s a win-win for him and Ben if Ben “clears his name” and claims the “Selfish Cole” campaign was just strategy and not based in truth. With that said, he is leaning towards voting for Ben over Chrissy. Cole believes that Ryan has not outplayed either Ben or Chrissy.

JP said some words. I was excited to hear again from this delightful doofus, but then my eyes glazed over and my mind went blank. I came to in time to hear JP say that Ryan was “drug along” and that Ryan would’ve probably cut his own finger off had he tried to make fire.

Joe echoed his fellow jurors in claiming an equivalence between finding idols and winning immunities. Joe says that he is split 50/50 between Ben and Chrissy, but he gushes about Ben’s hustle while saying nothing about Chrissy.

Lauren is leaning towards Chrissy as she has some issues with Ben. She believes that Ryan won’t win but that he gained an invaluable experience in learning that “there’s a world out there besides [his] bedroom.”

Ashley praises Chrissy on her challenge wins, her persistent and determined mindset, and her strong woman. She also commends Ben on surviving the odds stacked against him as a result of being a targeted threat, on being a hard worker, and on winning the support of his mortal enemy Joe. Ashley has no reason to vote for Ryan.

Mike sees Ryan as an underdog who never gave up, but who also had only four good days of strategy sandwiching a whole lotta nothing. Mike believes that Ryan didn’t outplay Ben or Chrissy but also doesn’t believe that either Ben or Chrissy outwitted the competition.

Devon thinks that Chrissy was the strongest competitor of the season but isn’t convinced that Chrissy’s game was based on a strategy of her own devising. He also thinks that Ben was ballsy but a little lucky, so he’s discounting Ben’s idols and is looking just at strategy. Devon thinks he deserves to be at FTC over Ryan as Ryan was dragged to the finals and there was a noted lack of effort in improving his survival skills. But Devon still respects Ryan the most out of the three finalists.

This Week In Gifable Moments

When you have one glass of eggnog too many.

When you really just can’t do anything well.