Three sisters from Massachusetts are hoping their tight bond and different personalities will help them secure a quarter of a million dollars on a reality survival competition.
Longmeadow natives Katie, Carly and Emily Kratovil are all participating on “Extracted,” a survival show on Fox that returned for its second season on Monday, Jan. 26.
The competition pits families against each other in hopes of winning $250,000. Teams comprise one amateur survivalist, named the “Competitor,” and two friends or family members, referred to as “Companions.”
The Competitor is sent into the woods around Madeley Lake in British Columbia, Canada initially without supplies. Meanwhile, the Companions are watching from HQ, and can periodically send the Competitor supplies or remove them from the competition by pressing a red “extract” button per their request. Doing so eliminates the entire team from the competition.
The contestants stay in the wilderness for about three weeks (around 20-21 days), however this can vary based on how fast they are extracted.
“I never in a million years imagined that I would have experienced anything like this with two of my sisters,” Emily told MassLive in an interview alongside Katie and Carly.
Her and Carly served as Katie’s guides in HQ, while Katie endured the cold, hunger and wild animals to try and secure the grand prize.
“We all have all these totally different personalities. So I think that’s ultimately what helped us, too,” Katie said about her dynamic with her sisters. “I’m super Type B. I’ll just go with the flow. Clearly, I went into the woods. Emily’s more Type A and Carly’s kind of a mix of the two.”
Carly added that the sisters “balance each other out,” and that’s ultimately what helped them on “Extracted,” which was definitely not a walk in the park for any of the sisters.
Katie, Emily and Carly grew up with two other sisters in Longmeadow. At 29, Katie is the second oldest. Emily, 27, is the middle child and Carly is the youngest at 22. Despite an eight-year gap from the oldest to youngest, Emily said the sisters “were all really close” growing up.
“I never felt like there was that big of an age gap,” she said. “It really just felt like we were all friends growing up, and as we got older, we got a lot closer.”
The sisters graduated from Longmeadow High School. Four out of the five sisters attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst while Katie went to SUNY Plattsburgh in upstate New York. She currently lives in Saratoga Springs while Emily and Carly currently reside in Longmeadow.
Katie had watched the first season of “Extracted,” so she was already a fan of the show. She decided to apply for the second season after seeing a casting call on Instagram.
“I was like, ‘You know what? I have nothing to lose. I might as well just apply and see what happens,’” Katie recalled.
While she initially applied to be on “Extracted” with her dad and fiancé, the producers were more interested in having a team of sisters. Once they learned that Katie had four sisters, the producers asked if any of them would be interested instead. Katie originally asked her two other sisters, but they could not commit because of work. It was then that Emily and Carly “got drafted in,” according to Katie.
“Katie called Emily and I in May when she got the call, and she started the call with, ‘Take me seriously for five minutes,’” Carly recounted, mentioning how her big sister “has a tendency to do things spontaneously.”
After explaining the premise of the show, Carly wasn’t sold on “Extracted” at first. Knowing it was a survivalist competition, she said “I am literally no survivalist” and added “you’d have to pay me to go out there.”
But once Katie told Carly about HQ, she “was a lot more interested” and “super excited.” It also helped that Katie established from the start that she would be the survivalist.
“It was always me in the woods. It was never an option for the other two,” she said. “I don’t think Emily or Carly would have done it if they had to.”
While Katie said she had “no business” going out into the wild, Carly maintained that her older sister is the one who is “more creative and good with their hands.”
Emily backed this up by saying, “I’d love to think I could do it, but if it came down to it, I don’t know. Katie was definitely the right fit as a survivalist.”
As seen in the first episode of Season 2 of “Extracted,” Katie appeared to be panicking right from the start. She told MassLive that she felt “an overwhelming surge” of uncertainty, but didn’t let it distract her from focusing on surviving.
“I think I told Emily and Carly the entire time I was out there that I was in a state of denial because I just couldn’t believe it was happening,” Katie said, adding that she “honestly never once thought I couldn’t do it because I was just so excited to be there.”
She continued, “We’re kind of just like, we’re never going to get this opportunity again if we don’t just do it. There was no room to be scared. There was no room for nerves.”
Katie’s best tactic was “talking nonstop” with her sisters, even joking that she was “surprised I didn’t catch flies” because “I just didn’t shut up.”
While Katie admitted that she ”definitely over communicated,” Carly added that it was “highly entertaining” not only to her and Emily, but to other contestants.
“We had a couple other contestants who said that they were just listening in to Katie because she was talking non stop,” Emily said.
Katie’s talking tactic ultimately worked in her favor, as other families saw her constant communication as a strength. This was especially helpful when it came time for the family members in HQ to rank the survivalists from weakest to strongest. The ranking ultimately determined what supplies each survivalist would receive in the woods, with the family of the weakest contestant typically choosing first.
“Lining up was really challenging because we had no idea what the impact would be if you were strongest or weakest,” Emily explained. “We wanted to be in the middle for that reason, but also because it would set Katie up, whereas people aren’t looking at her as a really strong competitor and they’re not threatened by her, but she’s also not a weak survivalist.”
As opposed to shouting like most of the other families, Emily and Carly took a quieter approach in these situations. The girls would talk to the person next to them and try to convince them why Katie should be in the middle of the survivalists instead of an either end of the spectrum. While Carly admits that this “didn’t really work out in our favor for the lineup,” her and Emily were able to get Katie what she needed — and Katie agrees.
“I think that they were under a ton of pressure in HQ. Obviously, I’m sitting there starving, and it’s completely up to them for me to get something. And I knew that they would do whatever it took to get me what I needed because we want to win. So I had no doubts about them. My faith was completely in their hands. I trusted them completely.”
While the sisters’ tight bond was an asset to them throughout the competition, it also made it incredibly difficult for Emily and Carly to watch Katie suffer from afar.
“It was hard to see her be in that state in the woods,” Carly said, with Emily adding, “We’ve never had to watch her in the state that she was in.”
Despite the discomfort, Emily and Carly did their best to focus on putting Katie’s needs above their own.
“Every minute of the day, our focus was on Katie. It was hard to think about anything else in life, that was our reality,” Emily said. “All that Carly and I were worried about was Katie and getting Katie what she needed.”
At the end of the day, the sisters were proud of their efforts on “Extracted” and would not change or trade their experience for the world.
“I’m pretty content with my experience,” Carly said. “I feel like everything we did was to the best of our abilities, and we tried the hardest that we could.”
The rest of the Kratovil clan was also incredibly proud of the sisters, with Emily saying that their parents “thought we were crazy, but they were excited for us.”
Once the cast for season two was announced, Katie said many people were shocked to hear that she and her sisters would be on “Extracted.”
“People were coming out of the woodwork and texting me and DMing me on Instagram,” she recalled.
But the overall feeling was excitement, specifically from Kratovil’s immediate circle. When the first episode of season two aired, the sisters gathered with their family and close friends for a watch party in Enfield, Connecticut.
“Every time we came on the screen, everyone would freak out and cheer,” Emily said.
“We had no idea what happened at the end of the episode,” Katie added. “Once it started, we were just screaming a whole lot.”
The sisters could not disclose how far they made it, but those looking to root for the Kratovil sisters can catch the next episode of “Extracted” Monday night at 8 p.m. on Fox. Episodes are available to stream the next day on Hulu.
The finale of “Extracted” season two is expected to air on May 11.
