After flying high for four weeks, I guess it was about time for Australian Survivor to have a down week. Episode 13, the merge episode, was great. Lots of fun, some big moves, everything you want out of a merge. But the 14th and 15th episodes? Yikes. One of the worst non-elimination episodes I’ve ever seen, dragged down by some truly atrocious creative decisions by production. I still have hopes for the final stretch here, but man this was a disappointing week.
The most surprising thing about this week is that Australian Survivor did the unthinkable: it’s got me rooting for a player who’s been voted out of the game. I never thought I’d see the day, but here we are. It’s a little more palatable in the Aussie game, as the non-eliminations are a given for each season. So it doesn’t hurt as much to cheer for an “eliminated” player. But still…
Episode 13
Dani and Hayley discuss the Dani votes from the previous Tribal Council. Hayley doesn’t try to side step it at all, and owns up to it completely, saying she wanted Flick to stick around. This should earn her Flick’s trust for now, while creating an enemy in Dani. Dani also had the, shall we say, interesting logic that she actually saved Flick by not writing her name down. Um, what? That’s not how that works. Nothing more there, just something fun to point out.
Reward Challenge
Before getting to the challenge, we are merged! With 13 players now on the home stretch, there’s a good mixture of deserving players (wuddup Hayley), not so deserving players (no fun to call out bad players, but there are a few), and those who still haven’t shown much of anything yet (hey Flick). The unknown quantities could make for some fun times here, as we have no idea really what to expect from them. Here’s hoping they all get a chance to show a little something before their game is finished.
The first individual reward challenge is unique in that everyone gets something. The players dig up a bag of sandbags, and use a catapult to land them on a series of polls. Once you land a sandbag on two polls, your challenge is over and you get to choose one item from a merge buffet table. There’s steak, donuts, a phone call home, and a couple mystery items. It’s a first come first served deal.
George chooses a burger, Hayley takes a steak, Chelsea takes the phone call home, Dani a full loaded baked potato, Wai takes a mystery item which turns out to be pancakes, Cara another mystery item of donuts, Emmett a mystery item of lollies, Baden takes another mystery but it just turns out to be a single egg,
Laura takes the last mystery item which ends up being a pizza, Andrew gets an avocado smash, Flick gets a bowl of rice, Kez gets the banana and Gerald the bottle of milk.
I liked this challenge. Usually I prefer it on Survivor when players have to miss out on something. Let there be a division to sow some seeds of jealousy. But for the first merge reward, I kinda dug it. Sometimes you need something nice and simple to let the tribe have a bit of fun all together.
Camp
What’s the merge name?? The Fire Tribe? Yikes. It’s been better than George’s first suggestions of Queen Elizabeth and Unity (don’t know if they were jokes or not, to be fair), but my goodness it’s a bad tribe name.
Hayley is on her heels after the Dani split vote plan. She knows Dani is out for her, but she might only have a five person alliance she can currently count on. She’s hoping to bring Flick – and by extension, Gerald – to their group to take out Dani.
Hayley is masterful in her approach to Flick and Gerald. She lays out why it would be bad to stick with their current group. But more than that, she positions them as the power players. Hayley’s group is at their beck and call. And of course, throwing Dani under the bus for wanting to use Flick as the back-up option on the Simon vote can’t hurt.
But hope is not lost just yet. As George says, he’s a Brawn on paper, but he still has relationships with the original Brains. He talks to them about using Hayley’s idol to turn the game back around against the Brawns. As the Brawns still trust George, he will know who they are targeting. All the Brains have to do is trust George…
Immunity Challenge
The merge and an endurance challenge to kick off individual immunity. They go to together like lamb and tuna fish. The players hold a bar over their head to keep a ball in place in a chute. If the ball rolls out, you’re out.
After Hayley drops out, Dani gives a little smirk and seems to willingly give up. That’s just a rookie move. She’s even said how good a player Hayley is. Dani has to know Hayley will likely be targeting her after what happened at the Simon vote.
Emmett takes down the first individual immunity, outlasting Andrew after 40 minutes. Often, you could argue against winning the first challenge, for fear of outing yourself as a challenge threat. But that’s not a concern with Emmett. That’s been no secret since Day 1.
This was a pretty lackluster episode in terms of challenges. Hopefully they’ll get back on track going forward. With the Survivor AU track record though, I’m not worried yet.
Pre-Tribal
Emmett works to blindside Laura. Everyone knows Dani wants Hayley out, so that’s the plan they’re going to stick with in the open, hoping that Hayley will waste her idol on herself while they vote out Laura. Now could be the time for George to shine. He’s had to scratch and claw and scramble his way to get to this point. And now he just might be able to swing the game in his favor.
While the Brawn coalition is talking, Kez points out a suspiciously clean-looking rock…to everyone. She ventures over for a look and what do you know, but she finds another idol. I get that given the circumstances, she didn’t have much of a choice to get it without anyone noticing. But still, there was zero attempt made.
Given this new development, George wants to put the target on Kez, to get the idol out of play before it can be used against them. George finds a tiny window to fill Hayley in on the plan. Hayley is in a tough spot. From what we’ve been shown up to this point, it looks like George is fully on the Brains’ side. But given George’s journey in the game so far, Hayley has valid reason to doubt George.
Tribal Council
Hayley plays her idol for Laura. Kez decides not to play her idol, and she is voted out. It’s easy to go results-based thinking and say it was a bad move not to play it. But I think it would have been pointless. She could have played it on herself just to guarantee her safety, but there was still only a 1/7 chance that she would be right. And there was no reason for her to think she would have been the target. If anything, she should have played it for Dani, as you could make the case that Hayley would have lobbied to target her again.
After Kez is voted out, she passes her idol to Flick. I hate that. I know it’s in the rules, and all the players are aware of that rule, but still. If you have the idol (or any other advantage) on you at that point, it should die along with your flame. So even though George’s plan worked (almost) just as he intended, the idol is still in the game. It shouldn’t lessen his move, though. He still voted someone out who had an idol. That’s always a big move. Cannot wait to see where George goes from here. King George indeed.
Episode 14
After blindsiding Kez, George is sitting pretty. He pulled off his move (almost) without a hitch – it appears he doesn’t know Kez handed her idol off to Flick. Hayley takes the heat for playing her idol correctly, and his playing of both sides is kept secret. However, Baden takes note of this, and he’s got his eyes on George.
Dani believes someone tipped Hayley off to the Laura vote. The one thing Hayley could hide behind is the exact reasoning Emmett gave. They have tried and tried and tried to vote Laura. Why wouldn’t they go for her again? But it seems all for naught, as Dani is pretty well convinced someone snitched. Hayley remains dead center in her sights.
Immunity Challenge
For this challenge, not one, not two, but THREE (!) immunity necklaces are up for grabs. But as the icon Billy Mays would say, “But wait, there’s more!” The three are the only players who will have the opportunity to vote at Tribal Council. While I’m not a fan of three immunity winners, I can live with it. But what I hate is the voting part. You can’t let such a small minority hold the entire power in the game like that. That’s even more magnified when it could easily turn out that one of the votes is completely meaningless. Two alliance partners could for sure win, making their votes the only ones that matter.
However, all of that makes me think this will be a non-elimination vote. Giving three players that kind of power just doesn’t make sense. A non-elimination would track. Fingers crossed, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
The challenge is done in three stages. In the first stage, they barrel walk across a field, with the first eight advancing to the second stage. Next, they walk over a beam while gathering rope, which they use to climb over a wall. The first first five advance to final stage, maneuvering threes balls through a table maze. What’s different here is that the challenge doesn’t stop. At least in the U.S. version, there’s usually a break in between stages. I like the Aussie way better. I don’t like when the challenge pauses. It gives players a chance to regroup and diminishes the advantage players in the lead build up.
Emmett and Andrew are the first to win, with the third and final immunity taken by Dani. If this is a real vote and Hayley is voted out, I might actually scream.
Pre-Tribal
Dani obviously pitches Hayley, but Emmett suggests Baden as an alternative. From what we see, nobody thinks this might be a non-elimination episode. Of course they can’t assume anything, but only having three people voting has to raise some red flags. But until they hear otherwise, the players have no choice but assume it’s a regular vote, sending someone home.
Feeling desperate, Hayley approaches Dani with a bold plan. She reveals George and Cara masterminded the Kez vote. Hayley is a friggin’ genius. She talks about wanting to play an open game, not wanting to play a “boring” game by just voting down tribal lines. Dani even suggests to Hayley that she spy for Emmett and Dani. Hayley’s response is perfect, saying she’s 100% down, even saying she thinks it would be fun! To Dani’s credit, she doesn’t buy it, but Emmett definitely wants to keep her over Baden. He sees Baden as George and Cara’s only true remaining link to the original Brains tribe.
Tribal Council
Jonathan drops another bombshell. When JLP very purposefully said the “opportunity” to vote, he meant it. Only one player out of Emmett, Dani, and Andrew will actually get to cast a vote. And how will they decide this? By a fire-making challenge, of course. Once again, I hate this.
Dani wins the fire challenge. And now I’m wishing and praying to any god who will listen that it’s a non-elimination. You simply cannot let one person hold this much power. Dani sides with Emmett and votes Baden. After the remaining tribe members leave Tribal Council, the show cuts to Baden, and we know Baden’s flame still has a tiny spark. He finds a note, sending him to Redemption Rock (hilariously bad name, almost as bad as the Fire Tribe) to await his chance to get back in the game. Considering Australian Survivor has used this twist before, I think it’s safe to assume the next player – maybe more – voted out will join Baden and they will compete in a challenge to get back in the game.
Ugh. Brutal. Not for Baden, for us, for the show. I’ve always thought Australian Survivor’s biggest issue is the inclusion of the non-elimination episodes. They’re almost always low points in the season, and this episode was no different. Just let the cast play! Look at what these players have been able to do when they’re given free rein! And this particular iteration was so constricting. For as many episodes as someone will be sent to join Baden, it sets those up for failure as well.
There will be a minimum of two votes to ultimately only eliminate one player. And how will it be approached and handled by production? Will the other players only know about when it’s time for the challenge? Will they know at the next vote? There’s so much that can still go wrong from a functional standpoint. I’ll give it a pass, but only because the season has been – for the most part – so strong up until now. But if Hayley ends up getting screwed with this twist, I’m going to lose it.
Episode 15
We learn that after Tribal, Chelsea went with the medical team to get looked at. The tribe could tell she looked off, but nobody knew what was happening. That makes sense, as we hadn’t seen anything about this previously.
Emmett and Dani have not yet blown up George and Cara’s spot, so George continues playing double agent. Gathering the rest of the OG Brains, he reveals that Flick confirmed she has Kez’s idol. Hayley is ecstatic. Not only does she now know where the idol is, but she has more information to use to throw George and Cara under the bus.
Emmett pulls George aside, and tells him that Hayley told them George and Cara were leaking information from their alliance. George does a pretty good job handling it, saying Hayley is just desperate, and she’s doing whatever she can to sow doubt amongst the majority. Emmett seems to believe George at this point, but if Hayley were to reveal the idol knowledge, that just might swing it.
Immunity Challenge
JLP tells the tribe Chelsea is the second recipient of Medical Immunity. Not knocking Chelsea by any means, but come on! I just can’t with this rule. If you’re sick enough to be taken out of the game for further examination, you should be out of the game completely. But we’ve already gone over this with Georgia. No need to spend any more time on it.
Walk a rocking beam while balancing blocks on a wobbly ledge, spelling out IMMUNITY. Hayley needs this. If she loses, I don’t see any way that she manages to stay in the game, short of finding an idol. Simon gets out to a lead and then takes the Cydney Gillon approach to this challenge, going at a snail’s pace as he works to complete the challenge. And it pays off, as he secures his third straight immunity win.
Pre-Tribal
George pushes the vote towards Hayley, which, duh. She’s still the best player in the game. Plus, Hayley getting the boot helps ensure his safety a little bit, as she’s the only one actively trying to expose him as a double agent.
George then gets to work trying to flip the remaining Brains tribe. He tells Andrew Hayley tried to make a deal to join the Brawn majority, in exchange for voting Andrew over her. Hayley takes note of this, and tries to plan her counter. She talks to Emmett, Gerald, and Flick, telling them George told her about the Laura vote, and that Cara knew about it as well. They tell her to vote with them, for Andrew. She’ll take the lifeline, but doesn’t feel like she can fully trust it.
Tribal Council
I’m usually very indifferent to Tribal Councils. They don’t often do much for me. But this one was fun. Hayley and George have a great back and forth, as Hayley tries to reveal George’s deception, who spins it like a true politician. Hayley straight up asks him if he’s calling her a liar, and he won’t answer. He spins it, he dances around it, but never answers definitively either way. Too bad it’s going to be almost meaningless considering whoever gets voted out isn’t actually eliminated from the game. Isn’t it fun when the stakes are removed? And even more fun when those involved don’t even know the stakes have changed? Hayley is voted out unanimously, and heads to Redemption Rock to join Baden.
Fire Tribe
JLP visits the camp, letting them know Chelsea has been pulled from the game. She had temporarily lost her sense of balance, and the doctors decided it would be too much of a risk to send her back in.
Redemption Challenge
Hayley and Baden must hang onto a pole suspended over water. Simple and straightforward. Hayley outlasts Baden after 20 minutes, getting back into the game. On the surface, it would seem Hayley is coming back into the game in an impossible situation. But this is still Survivor, and things are rarely as simple as they seem. She’s a woman on a mission, and she’s desperate. If any coalition needs a number, she will most likely be game.
Plus, she had to created some doubts about George’s reliability. Maybe he becomes a target? Then there’s Emmett and his challenge prowess. Announcing he wants to win every individual immunity, and then winning the first three? He might have to win out to make it to the end. If he loses, he would be a very attractive target. So yes, Hayley isn’t returning to a golden opportunity, but she’s proven time and again to be a very strong player, and there are certainly cracks to be found.
