There’s always one player who gets a troubling edit on Survivor. A few years ago, Heather was so mad about how she was edited she actually called the producers to complain. This season, that person is most definitely Jaime. She’s repeatedly been portrayed as comic relief or shown to be out of touch with the larger game, but according to at least one of her fellow castaways, fans are missing a huge part of her personality. Be aware, there will be spoilers for everything so far this season, as well as the last episode's wild Tribal.
Danny Massa was voted out during the last Tribal Council, and during his exit interview with Entertainment Weekly, he was asked about things that happened on the island that fans aren’t seeing. He brought up how he wished the show had shown more of the dynamic between him and Frannie Marin and the breath work they would do together, but he also talked about Jaime Lynn Ruiz and the edit she’s been getting. In particular, he talked about how helpful she was around camp and how knowledgeable she was about how to do things…
With Jaime, just how tough and how much of a camper Jaime was around camp. She knew more stuff than most people. She was preparing the fish, and no matter what situation with rain pouring down, I would look over and that smile would be there — tough as nails. Those are things I would have liked to have seen more. I remember being impressed by that, that this cute little girl is getting poured on [by] rain, storms happening, and she's like, "Namaste!" That was very cool.
I do think Survivor has done a pretty job of showing how positive of a person she seems to be, but unfortunately, that positivity has sometimes come off like clueless optimism in how it has been framed. For example: we saw how much genuine excitement she had about finding an idol. But jokes on her, it’s fake (like so many other idols this season)! We saw how excited she was about finally revealing to everyone that she doesn’t have an idol anymore because it went home in Kane’s pocket. But jokes on her, no one believed her confession.
If you look in the background of scenes or in the minor conversations, however, it’s obvious that she’s just a hopeful and happy person a lot of the time. And that’s an extremely noble quality to have. The world could do with more happy people, and Survivor could do with more people who make the most of the experience.
In addition, there’s also clearly more to Jaime when it comes to strategizing. We haven’t seen a ton of that from her (since she’s been typecast as the comic relief by the editors), but this episode, we got to see her and Lauren jump to the middle and ultimately decide who they wanted to vote out. They wound up siding with the Tika 3 (Carolyn, Yam Yam and Carson) and against Danny and Heidi in what may prove to be the most pivotal vote of the season.
There are only six people left on Survivor 44. Maybe the edit will ultimately fulfill the prediction of so many fans and we’ll see her as the good-natured and uncompetitive third place finisher. Or maybe we’re all about to get blindsided with a more strategic and well-rounded Jaime we’ll finally get to see in the remaining episodes. We shall see.
Either way, it’s obvious there’s way more to Jaime than has been shown so far on Survivor 44. I’m glad Danny pointed that out. Hopefully, with the show expanding in length next season, this'll be less of a problem moving forward. Also, if you haven't watched this season yet, you should get on that. It's been a wild ride of medical issues, over the top personalities and shocking votes. It's really good, and if you've enjoyed the show before, you'll enjoy this.
