Survivor player uses fish as a weapon in deleted scene

To win Survivor, you need to scheme. You need to plot. You need to be in the know on every conversation and have spies in every corner. Or, if your name is Ryan Medrano, you just need to go fishing a lot. At least that is his hope.

In last week's exclusive deleted scene from Survivor 43, Ryan employed a very unique strategy as all the players came together on one beach at the merge. While everyone else made sure to be at the center of as many conversations as possible to forge new connections and alliances at a pivotal stage in the game, Ryan took the complete opposite tact — isolating himself to make a wind wall on the beach for his new tribe.

And now, in this week's exclusive deleted scene, he's doubling down! As the tribe returns from their immunity challenge on day 14, and some contestants go in the water to wash off the mud and others go to the well to talk game, Ryan does something completely different. He goes straight to work.

CBS

"After the challenge, we come back to camp and I know everybody's about to go off to talk, and I know the first hour is a lot of pandemonium," Ryan tells the camera. "So I'm gonna go fish for you guys." Going to great lengths to stay out of key conversations certainly seems like a unique strategy, but does it pay off? Well, in Ryan's defense, he does manage to score a giant clam for the tribe. And not only that, but he then goes back on and starts stuffing his pockets with fish and snails to make what he calls "a little Fijian ceviche."

Is there a method to Ryan's madness? He certainly thinks so. "I like providing," he explains. "I like seeing people smile. The better people are feeling, the happier they are around me, the better the game is going to go my way and the experience is going to be out of this world. I want people to know in the back of their head, 'Hey, if we keep Ryan, he'll provide for us.' A high-caliber Survivor season is what I came to play and I'm providing that to get that out of the people I'm playing with."

Will it work? Judging by the votes he pulled at this week's Tribal Council, and the fate of other providers that previously played the game (Ozzy Lusth, anyone?) probably not, but we'll see. And you can see the entire deleted scene play out for yourself in the video at the top of the post. Also make sure to read our full episode recap as well as our exit interview with Dwight, the definitive rule about idol transferring at Tribal Council, and Jeff Probst weighing on extended epsiodes.

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