As the saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for.” After a year without Survivor, we now have two concurrently running seasons, with the U.S. not far behind. And not only that, but with the way Australian Survivor runs things, with multiple episodes each week, we have 4 episodes each week. Now, I love it, of course. But damn if it isn’t a lot to keep up with. So while I’ll be recapping this entire season, I’ll be doing it weekly rather than recapping each individual episode.
It might take a week or two to get the flow down for how to structure these. I can’t do the full recaps like I normally would. As much as I would love to put out individual recaps each week, that would be a lot to handle. I’ll try to cover all the main storylines while still getting into the strategy, but we’ll see how the balancing act goes. Either way, it’s gonna be fun!
One small note, this season is going to be a touch shorter, at 48 days.
While we’ve seen two iterations of the Brains vs. Brawn vs. Beauty theme in U.S. Survivor, our good friends down under decided to do away with the Beauty tribe. All the jokes have been made. The Aussies are all beautiful, making a Beauty tribe redundant, JLP is beautiful enough on his own for a Beauty tribe, and so it goes. But really, as LaPaglia himself has said, the main reason is that their game is too big for three tribes. It can be hard enough keeping track of 24 players split on two tribes. Make that three and it could become quite confusing.
Regardless of reasoning, I like the switch. Strength and smarts are two clear components of effective gameplay. Beauty doesn’t really have a clear fit. By default they kind of become the “Social” tribe, but as far as themes go, Beauty always feels like the odd one out, without any real place in the game like the other two. Plus, the Aussies are beautiful, so it will probably be like getting two Beauty tribes anyway.
Premiere
Just have to start with a quick heads up. If you’re reading this before watching the premiere, skip ahead to about 1:30 if you want to avoid being spoiled on the winners from the first five seasons.
And there’s our guy, JLP himself, Jonathan LaPaglia. What a glorious sight. That’s the good stuff, righ there. The tribes break down as follows.
Red Tribe (Brawn) Chelsea, Daini, Dani, Emmett, Flick, Gavin, Gerald, Janelle, Kez, Shannon, Benny, Simon
Our Aussie friends don’t waste any time and we jump right into the season’s first challenge.
Reward Challenge
The tribes start by releasing a key, either by chopping through a log or solving a slide puzzle. The key unlocks a gate. Once through the gate, one player climbs up a platform to be the caller to help tribe solve a rotating puzzle where they need spell out their tribe name on five different arms.
The winning tribe has a choice of reward: survival kit or fire. Love it. I wish there were more reward choices like this. Forcing the tribes and players into binary decisions like this allows for much more drama and arguments and different strategy talks to evolve that wouldn’t have come up otherwise.
Gerald for Brawn chops through the wood like a knife through butter. By the way, Gerald just happens to be a literal world champion wood chopper, because of course. Cara starts in on the puzzle for the Brain tribe, but really struggles. She eventually switches out with Mitch who eventually gives up on the puzzle and decides to chop wood instead, before giving way himself for Andrew to come in and finish it off. It’s a disastrous start for the Brains.
But, as all Survivor fans know, the puzzle is the great equalizer. While the Brawns had a huge head start, the Brain tribe picks up the final puzzle and quickly catches up. It stays dead even, as both get to four each. Unfortunately for the Brains, they get stuck on their last arm, allowing Brawn to get the victory. They choose the survival kit.
Camps
Not a ton happens at either camp. It’s lots of introductions and setting up shelter and trying (and failing) to get a fire started. We also get more player introduction videos. I’m a big fan of these. It’s a unique twist that neither U.S. or South African Survivor uses. It gives viewers a fun glimpse of players back home in their natural element. I get that it would be tough for them to include these, given the time constraints. But with Australian Survivor routinely running longer than an hour, they have a lot more air time to work with.
The one drawback, however, is that these videos can point to who will or won’t be voted out, at least early on. If a player hasn’t gotten their video intro yet, you know they’re safe. So early on, especially the very first vote, the pool of players who might be eliminated is actually quite small. But that being said, the show does a mostly good job of getting a good number of players introduced so it doesn’t come across as too obvious.
The one notable happening is George (Brain) finding an advantage under a rock by the water well. It’s a super-powered Safety Without Power (or Tribal Council Pass in Survivor SA). Along with himself, he can save five other tribemates at Tribal Council. Once played, all six leave and head back to camp. It’s only good for the first Tribal Council they attend. At first, I was fine with this advantage. Didn’t love it, didn’t hate it. I was admittedly blinded by its absurdity. But the more I thought on it, and after seeing it play out, I really don’t like it. I’ll get more into that once we get to Tribal Council.
Photo: Network 10
Immunity Challenge
The tribes race up a ramp, across a net, and down a ladder. Two players untie the ladder which they use to climb up a deck, which they race down in a cart. They then climb a rope to retrieve four balls. To finish, two players attempt to land all four balls in a net using a slingshot
In what seemed on the outset as a challenge heavily favoring the Brawn tribe, both tribes get to the slingshot at about the same time, but Brawn pulls out the win once again.
Pre-Tribal
Mitch wants to vote out a physically weak player, and he sets his sights on Wai. Phil realizes it could have been them in that same position, so they’re keen to join in this plan.
Wai knows she’s on the chopping block and sets out to put her own plans in motion. She wants to take out Mitch, as he’s already presented as a big threat. George has been wary of Mitch from the jump, as Mitch has become the de facto leader of the tribe, bossing everyone around. He’s not the kind of player George wants to keep around, but he’s not sure he can swing the numbers. He also has his advantage he can play, which might be able to put him in control of a 6-5 majority alliance.
Tribal Council
George takes aim at Mitch, calling him out as a leader, as someone who has been dictating camp life so far. Mitch makes his plea to keep the tribe strong. It could have been a very interesting vote had George not played his advantage. But he does, taking Rachel, Baden, Cara, Georgia, and Wai back with him to camp.
And so we’re left with…what, exactly? Mitch admits Wai was Plan A and George was Plan B. It’s obvious nobody else has a clear idea of what Plan C would have been. But with Mitch still there, and with his constant “Keep the tribe strong” arguments, what was left but to vote Phil out? They were clearly the physically weakest player in the remaining six. so even though none of the other five wanted to vote Phil, they became the obvious, self-preservation vote.
Survivor is not a fair game. That much is obvious and known to us all. But this? Yes, George massively misplayed his advantage – his best play would have included saving Phil and leaving his allies at Tribal to vote out Mitch.
But it was still insanely overpowered. It completely disrupted the vote and destroyed any chance at real strategy. An idol doesn’t disrupt a vote like this. The single person Safety Without Power doesn’t disrupt a vote like this. It was a big move only in the sense that it shook things up. All it did was send a player home whom not a single person was even considering targeting. I think back to Wentworth’s idol play in Cambodia. She negated nine votes, sending Savage home with a mere three votes against. Nobody thought Savage was in danger, but Wentworth, Abi, and Ciera’s play specifically targeted him. That wasn’t the case here. Nobody wanted to vote Phil out. Even Mitch, who was basing this first vote on physical strength and could clearly see that Phil could fit that bill, had no interest heading into Tribal of voting Phil out.
But back to George for a second. Yes, he saved himself. And yes, he saved Wai. But at what cost? Possibly his own game. As we’ll see immediately in the second episode, all he did was invite the rest of the tribe to mistrust him. This advantage play should have been a collaborative one. Get your group together, solidify who wants to vote out Mitch. Then leave those people at Tribal Council. It’s a slam dunk at that point. He makes further mistakes back at camp the next day, but we’re not quite there yet.
While the ending left a lot to be desired, I still enjoyed the premiere. The new locale, the brutal Australian Outback, is going to be a major character itself this season. I can’t wait to see how it affects the players as we get deeper into the game. Until the show proves otherwise, I’m going to assume this advantage is not a sign of things to come. I always like when production teams mix things up and try new things, so they get a pass on this one…for now. But if we see more ill-advised and all-powerful advantages pop up consistently, it’s going to put a major damper on the season as a whole.
One concern I had heading into the season was the challenge balance. Australian Survivor tends to focus more on the physical aspect of challenges. And in a Brains V Brawn season, that could swing things unfairly to the Brawn side. But even though they did win both challenges here, they were both played very close. Hopefully that can continue, with the Brains getting their share of wins too, as a Pagonging here is absolutely not what we want to see.
Episode 2
George is feeling mighty full of himself after Tribal Council. He has no clue how badly he misplayed his advantage. And then he makes a further, even bigger mistake in openly saying he saved the five weakest players in the tribe. First, that’s objectively not true. Second, you don’t tell players you want to align with that you think they’re weak. I can’t even believe I’m typing that out.
At this point, George still thinks he has a solid alliance of six, but those five are not eager to team up with him, Rachel in particular. Rachel hasn’t received a lot of screen time yet, but I like her. She’s got some feistiness to her that I hope we can see plenty more of. So when he thought he was creating a majority, all he did was put himself in an alliance of one (assuming Wai is the smart player she seems to be and jumps ship).
Reward Challenge
One member of each tribe goes head to head. They race through narrow tunnel to battle for a sandbag to get into their tribe’s square. First to three wins. They’re playing for fishing kit, salt, pepper, oil, and a loaf of bread with honey.
In what seemed like yet another Brawn-leaning challenge, the tribes find themselves in a 2-2 rubber match. But once again, Brawn comes out victorious, though it wasn’t without some fireworks. Emmett gets a big lead against Joey, getting through the tunnel and getting the bag before Joey gets the tunnel himself. He stands by the Brawn square taunting Joey. Joey ends up getting to him and preventing Emmett from landing the bag for a little bit. But Emmett is able to maintain the upper hand. This was beyond stupid. There’s literally no reason to do this. These kind of actions can get you voted out.
Baden and George have it out at camp over George…well, over George being George. At the challenge, George volunteered last second to go up against AFL legend Gavin, after Baden was already walking to the starting point. George is saying how he’s sure he would have beaten Gavin had he been given the chance, but he was intentionally overlooked. Doubtful, but that’s not even the point. Baden won that matchup anyway. What’s the point in making a stink about it when your tribe won that round?
All this did was push George further to the outs. But at least for his sake he’s realizing it now. After a dust up like that, your allies should come to your support, but nobody’s talking to George. Everyone is talking and laughing with Baden like old friends. George knows he’s in trouble, and if they lose the next Immunity Challenge, he’s likely to be target #1.
Immunity Challenge
One at a time, the players swim out to a deck, climb up ladder, and roll over a spinning wheel into the water, and then swim to another deck. Once everyone makes it through, two players use a pole to knock balls out of a floating net, after which the tribes must place all their balls into a chute on a third platform to release a key. They give the key to two puzzle makers to unlock a box of puzzle pieces, to solve a hanging puzzle.
Once again, another challenge that’s neck and neck. Wai absolutely dominates the puzzle for Brains, leading them to their first victory of the game.
This was much needed, not just for the Brains for the season as a whole. Even though all challenges have been pretty close so far, Brawn had still started off 3-0. It’s good to see that the Brain tribe still has some fight in them and it’s not just going be a walk in the park for the Brawns. But as long as you’ve got a puzzle at the end, and the lead-up isn’t just pure, brute, physical strength, we should keep seeing fairly competitive challenges.
Photo: Network 10
Pre-Tribal
Daini wants to target Janelle, pointing her out as the tribe’s weak link. Janelle picks up on it though, and gets to work herself. She sees Simon, Emmett, and Gavin are becoming a strong trio and wants to break them up. She wants Emmett out after his antics at the reward challenge.
But what’s pre-tribal planning without a third plan? Emmett notices Shannon whispering with the other women and decides she’s too unpredictable and sets his sights on a Shannon blindside. He heads into Tribal feeling very confident his plan will come to fruition.
Tribal Council
It’s an Emmett vs Janelle showdown. She goes after him for being overly cocky and he just can’t see why that would be a bad thing. I’ve always thought self-awareness is one of the most important traits to have if you want to be a good Survivor player. Now, maybe Tribal Council isn’t the best time to admit to your faults, but he seemed to truly believe there was nothing wrong with how he had been acting. That kind of attitude doesn’t bode well for his long-term prospects.
In the end, though, Janelle’s weak challenge performance seemed to be the final nail in her coffin, as she’s voted out 7-4-1, with Shannon receiving 4 votes and Janelle’s lone vote for Emmett. While I liked and supported the Emmett play, Janelle being the only vote for him really illustrates how little of a chance she actually had here. With a de facto 7-4 split heading back to camp, it could cause some nice drama in the coming days. Emmett thought his plan to blindside Shannon was all but guaranteed, so it will be fun to see how someone so supremely confident will react after seeing their plans go up in flames.
I went longer than I had hoped to on the first two episodes. Unless there are some serious fireworks in the third episode, I’ll try to shorten that one up a bit. That’s probably just going to have to be the way it goes most weeks. One or two episodes will likely get a little less coverage than would be ideal but what can you do.
Episode 3
Things are a little uneasy over at Camp Brawn. Gavin admits in a confessional that he voted for the wrong person. He still thought the move was Janelle. He even says, “This game is so confusing.” Not a great look for the AFL legend.
The Brains finally get a fire going on Day 6, and it’s an instant morale booster.
Reward Challenge
Two members from each tribe hold up a trough while two more defend it from the members of the other tribe trying to fill it with water. When you drop, you lose. Playing for tea, coffee, and biscuits. Brawn wins once again in a pretty uninteresting challenge. The Brains are still in search of that elusive first reward win.
At their reward, the Brawn tribe finds pictures of their loved ones hanging up. Thankfully they don’t show them going through each and every one. If it’s not Colby yelling at his brother for not being better at catching water, I don’t want it.
Kez finds a clue to an immunity idol hidden at the Brawn camp.
Photo: Network 10
Immunity Challenge
The tribes solve a giant brain teaser to release a ring. They use the ring to climb over a wall, where they then cross a series of rope steps leading to a pile of sand bags. Two players use the sandbags to knock over a tower of blocks. Two tribemates put finish by putting the tower back together while standing on a seesaw.
After being ignored and ignored some more, the Brains finally let George take a crack at the brain teaser, and man crushes it, giving the Brains a massive lead that proves too much for the Brawns to overcome. They don’t even get through the rope stairs before the Brains finish rebuilding their puzzle, giving them their second immunity win in a row.
Pre-Tribal
Kez, Flick, and Shannon work to pull in Gerald, Benny, and Daini to pull off a blindside on Gavin. Simon wants to go after Shannon again, and finish what he started at the previous Tribal Council.
Kez goes idol hunting, hoping to find it to provide a little extra assurance heading into Tribal. She’s pretty sure she deduces where the idol is hidden, but it’s in plain sight of the tribe camp. She tells Flick about the clue, and the two sit by where the idol is hidden, pretending to have a chat, while Kez digs. She is able to find it, seemingly without anyone seeing her.
Daini finds himself in the swing position, between the two solid groups of five. He’s able to play it off pretty well with each that he’s on their side. While speaking to Simon’s alliance, he suggests switching the vote from Shannon to Kez. As a show of good faith for their new alliance member, they agree. Daini then tells the viewers in a confessional that he just wanted to see if he could get them to trust him. He’s making some savvy plays this week.
Tribal Council
After a pretty standard-fare Tribal Council, Kez plays her idol for herself. With Simon’s alliance switching the vote to Shannon, their five votes are negated. It’s ultimately all for naught, though, as Daini joined the Kez/Shannon/Flick alliance in voting for Gavin. Gavin is voted out 6-0. Even though the idol play proved unnecessary, I still think it was the right play. She probably wasn’t completely sure she could trust Daini just yet, and he could have just as easily have been the 6th vote going against her instead. However, I’ll be curious to see if we get any reasoning in the 4th episode as to why she played it for herself instead of Shannon, who would have seemed to be the other alliance’s obvious target.
I think I would have targeted Simon or Emmett instead of Gavin. They have each so far proven to much more of a gamer than Gavin. They would seem to present more of a long-term threat than Gavin would. But maybe they were safeguarding against an idol, thinking Gavin would be the least likely to have one, or he would be the least likely person to have one played for him by another player. And I’m sure there were other dynamics that we didn’t see. But from what we did see, either Emmett or Simon would have been a bigger move at this point in the game.
Wrap Up
To there we have it. One week, three episodes down. Aside from the terrible super advantage that George found, it’s been a pretty solid start to the season. I know one of the common concerns was that the Brawn tribe would dominate in challenges early on. Thankfully that has not come to pass. Sure, they’ve won all three rewards so far, but they’ve lost two of the three immunities. From that perspective, it’s shaping up to be a much more evenly matched season than many may have predicted.
Normally I make my winner pick in my premiere episode recap, but that can’t be done here. Besides, as much of a shot in the dark it is in other Survivor seasons, it’s even more so here, with such a larger cast.
On the Brawn tribe, both Shannon and Kez have flashed some chops, especially in the third episode. Daini showed some nice social acumen navigating between his tribe’s competing alliances. I think Simon has lots of potential as a player, but he’s found himself in a precarious spot.
On the Brain side, we haven’t seen as much, just because they’ve only gone to Tribal once. Baden, Joey, and George have gotten the larger chunk of air time, just with them being bigger personalities. But George may be in the toughest spot in the game. He needs another advantage or a tribe swap soon. Wai is definitely smart enough, but I don’t know if she can put together a complete game to take it all the way.
But I have to narrow it down to one. Call it recency bias from this third episode, but I’m going with Kez. So there we have it! Until next week, I’ll see you back here for another scoop of the crispy!
