There are a lot of hardcore Survivor fans who watch the edit very closely. They track confessional counts, analyze the tone players are getting and try to figure out why certain storylines and alliances are either included or omitted. For weeks, they’ve been convinced there were only four players left with real winner potential, but after episode 10, many are quickly backtracking and suddenly convinced a surprise fifth player might be the winner.
The player in question is Aubry Bracco, and to say she’s received an unusual edit would be an understatement. She’s gotten at least one confessional in every episode (which is true of every winner since Survivor 42), but a lot of the content she’s gotten has been negative. We’ve been shown a bunch of confessionals about how she was ready to start playing the game or ready to make big moves, only to not be involved in whatever move was actually made that episode. Throw in how her weird feud with Genevieve was depicted early in the season, and the overall picture has been kind of hapless and impotent.
That edit has caused both casual viewers and most people in the so-called Edgic community that track everything in more sophisticated ways to basically write her winner potential off, but not so fast. Despite once again not really doing anything, Aubry was edited in a really curious way during “A Side Dish Of Chaos.”
Article continues belowWe got a full backstory about her previous controversial loss to Michelle Fitzgerald in Kaoh Rong. She talked about how the thing she learned is that you can win Survivor by making big moves later in the season. In a way, it recontextualized all of her previous confessionals about stepping up and making a big move and made it look more like she’s biding her time and less like she’s flailing around.
On his podcast after the episode, Phil from Survivor Specialists said he’s now convinced Aubry is going to win the entire season. His co-host Will didn’t go that far but said he thinks she’s now among the small group of potential winners. They’re not the only ones shouting that either. Numerous fans hit up social media to talk about how it suddenly looks like Aubry is getting a winner’s edit, with many pointing to her confessional about Kaoh Rong as potentially the defining story of redemption related to her original season.
A win or at least a deep run would explain why she’s been on the season so much, even when she hasn’t really been involved in the primary action. She’s gotten at least one confessional in every episode and gotten 2 or more in 8 of the 10 episodes. That’s normal for people like Coach and Q who are wacky over-the-top characters up to shenanigans at camp (or during pregame), but the Survivor editors have shown they’re perfectly fine not featuring Aubry during other seasons. On Game Changers, as an example, she was in 9 episodes where she got 1 or 0 confessionals.
In theory, any of the 9 remaining players could win Survivor. There’s no rule that the show needs to edit its winner in a certain way, but most casuals and experts have written off Tiffany, Joe and Emily. They’ve each been underedited or they’ve been shown in such a way that makes it feel like they don’t have sway or influence over any of the other players, which would be an odd way to tell the story of the winner. That leaves Rick Devens, Jonathan, Aubry, Rizo, Cirie and Ozzy.
I think, of those six, Rick is probably the least likely. His only remaining ally is Emily, and he suddenly has a huge target on his back because of all the nonsense he’s pulled at Tribal Council. If he somehow got to the end, people might be impressed enough to vote for him, but I think it’s pretty unlikely he gets there. I’ll keep him in the longshot pile, but I wouldn’t bet money on it.
Heading into this week, I would have put Aubry in that same group with Rick. I never one hundred percent wrote her off since she was regularly getting content, but it just seemed ridiculous that we’d keep getting these confessionals about how she was about to start playing, only for that not to happen. I honestly thought the show was dunking on her and trying to make her look stupid, but now it feels like that might be part of a wait-wait-wait-wait-NOW narrative that the editors have put in the work to build.
I’m still going to put my money on Ozzy. He’s gotten a consistently great edit throughout the entire season, and if he’s sitting next to anyone that’s not Cirie at the end, I think it’s likely he’s going to win the game. I also think Jonathan and Cirie are really viable options (even if they got a 0 confessional episode), but to me, Aubry is probably next in line, even ahead of Rizo who has been viewed by many as the fourth winner option. My perception of Aubry has completely changed, and judging by the fan reaction since Episode 10 aired, I’m definitely not the only one changing my buff.
