Australian Survivor – Sun, Sept 4

Our recorder has blown a gasket so I’m watching live tonight and, darn it, I missed the first few minutes.
Over at yellow shelter Sam and Conner are getting used to their new digs, while Nick (aka Aussie Rob C, but much brasher) and Tegan arrive at blue to find the shelter is soaking wet. Nice welcome.
“I’m out for blood,” says Nick, adding he was surprised Sue (the naughty Nanna) betrayed him.
I can’t wait to see what red tribe’s reaction to the swap is at the next challenge.
It’s night and a storm is lashing the island, leaving everyone – even Chester the chicken – soaking and dispirited. Except, that is, red tribe, because they finally won a challenge and got all of yellow’s previously won comfort items and gear. Cricketer Lee is obviously not used to losing so he’s stoked things are looking up.
Over at yellow, new tribe member Spidey Sam knows he’s no longer the top of the totem pole.
At blue, Flick knows she had a lucky escape. I’m really interested to hear Magic Matt’s take on all this. Nick’s strategy is to be super helpful around camp and he chops up a coconut with ease. We finally get to hear Tegan speak and straight away Brooke gets to work on drawing her into the pretty girl alliance. Tegan doesn’t seem to have much strategy and because she was weirded out by the truth or honesty test (and is a model/personal trainer) I’m thinking she’s a recruit rather than a student of the game. It’s actually in Tegan’s interest to distance herself from Nick, to make him a target should the team go to tribal again, but she doesn’t seem to be doing so consciously.

What the hell is it with Survivor and yoga? Is it compulsory to whip out Downward Dog at the auditions? Pigtails Kristy and Lawyer Phoebe are bending it on the beach and Kristy seems to have recovered from her paranoid “they moved my bag” freakout.


They have a chat about how expendable Model Rohan but Phoebe’s real bond is with El the army chick.
Suddenly Nick is sporting a brown fedora. Where did that come from? He gets to work ingratiating himself with his new tribe and seems to make headway with Magic Matt, who reveals he’s pissed off with the pretty girl alliance of Flick and Brooke.


At yellow, Conner is liking the yellow vibe (and we learn the chicken’s name is Apricot – clever) but he knows he’s in danger because he’s no super human and he thinks the tribe would rather keep Sam. With such big numbers I’d be ditching Sam and keeping Conner, who can more easily be won over to their side.
We finally get some Dreads Barry back story (about his time playing with the Wallabies), so he could be going tonight as he’s treating Survivor like a school camping and ignoring the Outwit and Outplay aspects of the game. And that’s what happen when you recruit people, even if it’s great to see cultural diversity in the cast.

It’s challenge time …
JLap does the “come on in” and red’s minds are blown to realise no-one went home and there was a tribal swap. The challenge contains a component that is a Survivor classic: binding sticks together to create a long pole that can then hook a key.
Conner said he sucked at challenges but, boy, the little fella had some speed on him racing out to the frame in the water.
Blue and yellow get their poles built quickly but they are quite bendy and blue drops their key on the sand and have to drag it. Red has made El and Kat the pole builders – setting Kat up to be in the firing line again? Blue are first to the firemaking station and Nick gets a spark straight away. They win immunity.
Yellow is having trouble getting their fire to build up enough (was Nick their fire starter?) but red still doesn’t have their key off. On the sidelines Lee, Phoebe and Rohan are slowly dying watching the girls try to hook it. Finally they get it but Lee and Rohan must be the best fire builders, otherwise they would have been on the pole building. Lee gets it started quickly and they are doing a good job building it up, sheltering the flame nicely. Well, I’m actually glad, for Kat’s sake, that she’s not in the firing line yet again, as she surely would have been. I just hope that when she is voted out she burns that monstrous leopard print cardy thing in the fire along with her buff.
So, the yellow tribe is going to tribal and Conner and Sam are going to be really worried – there’s no way JLap will be throwing in another twist tonight.

Interestingly they seem to be targeting Conner, without any talk of splitting the vote in case he or Sam has a secret idol. How do they know Kylie had the only one? Conner pitches to the majority alliance that he is desperate to stay and will be a loyal number in future. And it has an impact: Coma Girl Kate is swayed by Conner’s emotion. She throws Barry’s name out as a possibility and it seems some of the others are irritated by Barry’s refusal to “play” the game. And then there’s a curveball: Andrew (in a trilbly, because felt hats are totally suitable for the climate in Samoa) tells the camera he wants Craig out, because he’s a threat. He approaches Naughty Nanna Sue, seeking support. Finally! People who want to make moves and not just hold hands and sing Kumbaya.


At tribal council …
JLap awkwardly questions Sam and Conner about how much it sucks to be on a new tribe and then tries to get some dirt on last week’s Nick blindside. Then he reminds Craig and Baz how bad they were at building a fire in the challenge. JLap has been doing quite well until this episode as Survivor host, but his line of questioning tonight is stilted and they are draaaaggging it out. Not good editing.
I hope it’s Barry.
The votes are read and it IS Barry! Hooray. The question will be whether anyone clued Sam and Conner in to the vote (judging by the vote footage at the end, they did).

Tomorrow night
Kate has a horrible-looking lump under her arm that looks ready too explode, reminiscent of the last season of US Survivor when everyone was sporting pus-filled boils, which resulted in ice-cream maker Neale being ousted on medical grounds. I hope Kate stays – she seems a good egg. And that JLap puts his medical background to good use. Lance it, JLap – that would be grosser than any bug-eating challenge.

What did we think?
Well, it wasn’t as twisty as the last episode and tribal council was boring and awkward, but it’s always good when tribes don’t take the easy option and vote out the newest tribe members, especially when they are people who really want to play. I’m hoping Magic Matt and Nick build up a decent alliance over at blue and are able to pull Tegan away from the pretty girl alliance.



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