Well, now that Extracted’s spoiled brat is out of the way, can we talk about who the real villain of the series is?
Unsurprisingly, Anthony through a hissy fit and never made it through the night. It resulted in him embarrassing his parents even further and shocking everyone in the room with his angry tirade.
Tony felt the best way to end his embarrassment and his son’s “misery” was to extract him, leaving a front-running family to exit the series sans prize and dignity.
Anthony’s Exit Puts Much-Needed Spotlight on Austin
But here’s the thing; without Anthony, there throwing temper tantrums and giving Gen-Z a bad name, it allows the spotlight to focus squarely on Extracted’s most problematic contestant thus far, freaking Austin.
I don’t know how Austin is offscreen. For all we know, he’s an entirely different person, and he’s getting a crappy edit.
We can only go according to what we see on this show.
And everything Extracted has shown about Austin thus far screams that he is a walking red flag to the point of sounding off all the alarms.
It was already disconcerting when we heard Ashley admit she was on the series and wanted to participate in this Hunger Games-level torture show to prove that she could hack it with Austin and his hardcore, outdoorsy family.
The implication in what she was saying was that she somehow wasn’t already worthy of them and felt she needed to go above and beyond in something that aligned with their interest to prove her worth.
Ashley had some issues during the first installment, and with no other distractions, we could direct our full attention to how terrible of a partner Austin comes across in this challenge.
He behaves like Ashley’s struggles in the field are an embarrassing reflection on him, and he must subsequently punish her for not getting things right.
Austin’s “Tough Love” is Just Him Being a Dick
The only embarrassing thing on display is his viciousness regarding his future wife.
Austin writes off toxic, cruel behavior as “tough love” when the reality is that there is little love found in how he speaks about and treats his fiancee.
It’s reached a point where his behavior has caught the eye and ear of the other teams and contestants, and they’re put off by how he treats his fiancee, too.
The most glaring point is that his father is having a come-to-Jesus moment, not unlike Tony, regarding Anthony over how he raised his son and where he could have gone wrong.
From what we’re seeing, Austin lacks basic empathy. If he can’t even exude some compassion toward his future wife when they’re under stress, where do they go from there?
Austin’s Behavior Has Caught the Attention of His Father and Other Contestants
However, even if we set aside him 100% NOT giving off Grade-A Husband Material right now, he’s also illogical as a competitor in this game.
It makes no sense that he’s hellbent on Ashley learning how to do things the hard or most basic way rather than giving her the tools she needs to make this experiment easier on her.
All the other teams are going out of their way to give their survivalist whatever they need to last longer in the game. They’re willing to manipulate, strategize, and everything else to make it work.
They’re all true allies and assets for their survivalist teammate, and in doing so, it guarantees their whole team can last longer in the game and possibly win and take the prize money home.
Meanwhile, Ashley is out here competing with the Canadian wilderness, other teams, and her fiance. What do you even do when your life partner is more of an adversary than an ally?
Scott realizes the flaw in whatever “plan” Austin thinks he’s enacting. Unfortunately, he’s not nearly as vocal about it as he should be, and it could cost them the game sooner rather than later.
For the second time in a row, we watched Austin give up a chance to aid his fiancee so he could teach her a lesson or make her “tough it out” to prove herself.
It was particularly abhorrent as he arrogantly passed up two methods of securing her fire, which she desperately needed and requested.
We’re watching Ashley freeze her ass off in the cold, unable to make a fire to last through the night, and Austin is more insistent on her doing it the way he wants, that he doesn’t care what befalls her if she can’t do it.
Ashley’s triumphant moment was managing to make a fire despite no materials and the false belief that her partner was doing everything he could to make her life better, but then it burned out as quickly as she made it.
Somehow, an entire room of strangers and competitors are heartbroken and supporting her more than her fiance. Instead, he threw a tantrum, embarrassed that she couldn’t maintain the fire.
Austin failing to consider that he could be the reason their team fails, not Ashley is mind-boggling, and it doesn’t matter what anyone does moving forward. He’s tarred and feathered as Extracted’s biggest villain!
Over to you, Extracted Fanatics. What are your thoughts on Austin? Let’s hear it below!
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