Episode 10
Blood
Some of the guys are starting to peg Shay as the next possible boot. But Nina has been working with her, and wants to continue to do so. Nina wants to push Mel’s name instead of Shay. Mel’s smart and knows the game, and she won’t work as a physical shield like the guys will, which is what Nina is planning on come merge.
Water
Jesse is getting a little antsy, wanting to find a time for a big move. He sets his eyes on Ben. He’s an obvious physical threat, and he has Shay waiting for him at merge. Ben has also been a bit too vocal about the tribe’s lack of food, which, in theory, will just make it easier push his name as the vote.
He talks to Sam about his plan, and she’s open to it, pretty much for the exact same reasons that Jesse has. She wants to make it a point to get him out before merging.
Reward Challenge
Each tribe is divided into two teams. One member from each team goes down a giant wanter slide, grabbing a ball at the bottom. First to shoot the ball in a basket a little out in the water wins a point. First two teams to score two baskets win a reward of a picnic together, away from camp.
I absolutely love this setup. It’s a super fun, easy way to mix things up for an afternoon. And with the added Blood V Water component, it only adds intrigue.
On the second run, Nina twists her ankle when she goes off the slide into the water.. She didn’t break anything, so medical leaves her be for the time being, to see how it progresses.
But the potential mix-em-up is nixed when both red teams win. If they’re going to do something like this, why not just draw randomly for every team, guarantee some inter-tribe dynamics. I still like it this way, a lot. But I do love when we get the mixed tribe rewards.
Reward
Mark finds a clue to an idol, and as far as he knows, nobody saw him get it. But Jordie tells us in a confessional that he saw Mark find it. When Jordie asks Mark if he found anything, Mark says he didn’t. So Jordie files this away, hoping to be able to use it to his advantage pretty soon.
The doctor comes to take a second at Nina’s ankle. He tells her they have to temporarily take her out of the game to get some X-rays or other imaging done.
Immunity Challenge
The Blood tribe arrives without Nina, who then comes into the challenge on crutches. She has an avulsion fracture. It’s not a big issue on its own, but the risk of continuing in the game is deemed too great, and Jonathan has to pull her from the game.
This sucks. It absolutely sucks. This is arguably the biggest impact a medevac has had on a game. You could maybe say Penner in Micronesia or Neal in Kaoh Rong? But Nina was an absolute force, showing out in all facets of the game. Again, it sucks. As Nina leaves, Jonathan says he doubts it’s the last time we’ll see her on Australian Survivor. And I’d agree, and I can’t wait to see her come back. And hopefully we’ll get to see her on U.S. Survivor soon, so even more people can see what an awesome player she is.
But to the actual reward. The tribes race through a mud pit to clear path through a wall of hay bales. They carry chariot through the path to a tower, where the player in the chariot tosses a monkey fist to latch onto a hook on the tower, which releases sandbags. They fire the sandbags from slingshot to knock down targets. In addition to immunity, the winning tribe also wins a tribe advantage..
Of course we’ll have to wait and see what the advantage is, but I’m feeling a bit uneasy about it. Maybe I’m still just a little leery after last season, but Australian Survivor doesn’t have the best track record recently in this regard. Hopefully it’s more an informational reward, or one player gets to attend the other tribe’s Tribal Council.
After falling way behind, Blood pulls out a huge comeback win.
Pre-Tribal
Jesse still has his sights on Ben, but Ben still thinks he’s in tight with the majority. Sam and Jesse talk to ben about a Michelle/Khanh vote split. At the water well, Sam brings in Michelle, Khanh, and Chrissy.
But Chrissy isn’t so sure. She talks to Sam about flushing Khanh’s idol. It’s the elephant in the room, and everyone knows it has to go at some point. Chrissy doesn’t seem to favor the Ben plan, but feels like she’s going with it rather than risk rocking the boat.
But then. With everyone around the fire, Chrissy tells Ben she’s heard his name, though she doesn’t think he’s the actual plan. Jesse is beside himself. This is a prime example of Chrissy’s lack of prior Survivor knowledge coming to the forefront. For someone who came in knowing little to nothing about the game, she’s done surprisingly well, up until this moment of course. Jesse, though, is able to do some damage control, and calms Ben’s fears.
And then there’s Croc. He’s been close with Ben from early on, and he’s not exactly excited about voting out Ben. He talks to Chrissy and KJ about maybe flipping the vote onto Khanh. Croc also has his idol, which he could use to save Ben.
Tribal Council
After Water takes their seats, Jonathan brings in the Blood tribe. I like it. We’ve seen it before, nothing crazy. But. That’s not all. They get right to the vote. No whispers, no live discussion, nothing but the vote. And I’m totally okay with this. How often does the vote actually change at Tribal? Yes, there was the Juicy Dave incident early on, but that’s still the exception. The biggest thing is for someone like Khanh. He can’t gather any further info about what that plan is, and whether or not he should play his idol.
Khanh once again decides not to play his idol. Ben receives four votes, which is enough. Except that there’s a second part to the Blood advantage. They can steal one player from the Water tribe. The tribe votes to choose which player to take, and can only choose from those players who received votes. Along with Ben, Khanh and KJ also received votes.
I think I like this more because it’s a Blood V Water season. Because, as Jordie points out, it’s not just about making their tribe stronger. It’s about trying to ensure your loved ones are safe with who you leave them with. In all, though, I prefer this to having Ben just simply joining the other tribe, like they did with Sophie. Make the other tribe make a decision.
Blood votes KJ onto their tribe, with only Shay voting for Ben. I like it, but let’s see how Shay reacts, especially without Nina, who seemed to be there to level her out, at least in a strategic sense. Hopefully she can at least see the logic behind the decision, and not have too volatile of a reaction. KJ was a safe choice. She’s not reunited with a loved one, and they’re not knowingly bringing an idol into their camp like they would with Khanh. No matter what, though, it certainly opens the door for some potential fireworks and both tribes.
Episode 11
Blood
Back on the (slightly) new Blood camp, the tribe welcomes KJ with open arms, while Shay deals with the inner emotional fallout of being so close to being united with Ben. She’s upset, but at least knows she needs to present the team face to the rest of the tribe. No reason to get upset and emotional and give them a reason to vote you off. I like Shay a lot; I really hope she can put this behind her and focus on the game. It wasn’t a personal move against her by any means.
Water
Things are a little less copasetic here. Ben returns to camp after the almost blindside. The tribe is in damage control with Ben. The good thing is that they should still have the numbers to vote off Ben. Chrissy and Jesse toss around the idea of throwing the next immunity challenge to finish the job. This is especially intriguing to Chrissy, who confirmed to Ben at Tribal Council that she voted for him. And with that, Ben’s puts his target right on Chrissy’s back.
Immunity Challenge
It’s a team maze challenge. One by one, the tribe moves a ball through a series of maze, passing the ball to the next player upon finishing your maze. This is just a solid challenge. Everyone has to show up, there’s nowhere to hide. It’s also an easy challenge to throw, if the Water tribe decides to go that route. Very easy, as far as challenges go at least, to make mistakes that can look very natural. With Jesse and Chrissy next to each other, it does seem like that was maybe the plan. We’ll see if we get any confirmation.
Blood wins, and Ben is right back on the chopping block.
Pre-Tribal
With Ben the obvious vote, Jesse, Sam, Chrissy, and Croc start to firm up the vote. But Croc, who wasn’t 100% supportive of the first Ben vote, wants to flip the script. He wants to vote Jesse instead. He tries to bring in Chrissy, Khanh, and Michelle. But Chrissy doesn’t want to go after Jesse.
After Croc talks to Ben, Ben flips it around and tells Sam and Jesse about Croc’s plan. I like this. Ben is just going for it. He’s trying to take full control, and force his way back into the thick of things.
I love where this is headed. There are three possible plans, with shaky levels of trust within each one. This could be the most interesting vote yet.
Tribal Council
Ben’s plan succeeds, as Croc is blindsided. This was a great vote. Croc was left on an island, with Chrissy and Khanh voting for Jesse. Chrissy was agonizing all day over which way to go, but between Jesse and Ben, and it wouldn’t have even made a difference. I hope she can move past this without putting her rage blinders on, but no matter what, I can’t wait to see where she goes from here.
Episode 12
Water
After the Croc blindside, Ben is feeling strong again. He brought Croc’s plan to blindside Jesse to them right away, and he hopes and thinks that’s bought him his loyalty back. And so far, it looks like that group has moved past the first attempt to get rid of Ben.
Chrissy, on the other hand, is not handling it as well. She lost Croc, who was not just her loved one, but a valuable ally in the game. And his idol left the game with him. In talking to Sam about the Croc blindside, Sam reveals to Chrissy that it was Ben who brought the plan to Sam and Jesse. Learning this, Chrissy sees red, pinning her target on Ben.
Blood
Mark found an idol clue at a previous reward, but has yet to find the idol. But unbeknownst to Mark, Jordie saw him find the clue. Jordie has been keeping that part to himself, so he can use that knowledge to the best benefit of his game. After Mark finds the idol, Jordie asks him about the idol clue. So Mark has to pretend to keep looking with Jordie. Eventually, Mark decides he has to tell Jordie about the idol, which couldn’t make Jordie any happier.
Immunity Challenge
The immunity challenge comes with a twist. They are not playing for tribal immunity, but individual immunity, with one winner from each tribe. Jonathan says “two players will be voted out.” The easy assumption is that it’s one from each tribe, but this is Australian Survivor. That very well could be the case, but this may not be the only twist. We’ll have to wait and see.
For the challenge itself, it’s a pretty standard Survivor individual immunity challenge. They stand on narrow pegs while balancing a ball against a narrow frame above their head.
Water tribe comes down to Khanh vs Sam. Khanh says he’ll give Sam the necklace if he wins. Which was strange. At one point Sam asked Khanh if he’d let her win, but Khanh wanted to keep going to see how long he can last. But he tells Sam that he will give her the necklace if he wins. After Sam steps down – and faints – Khanh wins. Let’s see what happens…
After nearly an hour, Shay outlasts Jordie win the Blood immunity.
Pre-Tribal – Blood
With Shay now safe, the guys need to find another target. The initial obvious play is a Mel/KJ vote split. And with both Mel and Michelle still in the game, Mel maybe becomes the priority target. But then in the water, the guys talk to KJ about the fact that they’re splitting the vote! Why?!
When Josh tells Shay about the plan, she’s not so sure. She thinks KJ would be more likely to come after her than Mel, so she talks to Mark about both of them potentially switching their votes to KJ.
Pre-Tribal – Water
Chrissy is still pissed at Ben. She talks to Sam and Khanh about going after Ben. She can be upset all she wants, but she can’t see past the anger she feels toward Ben. She even knows the vote flipped after Croc tried to blindside Jesse instead. In that sense, he brought the blindside on himself. With Chrissy dead set on Ben, Ben really has no choice but to try to turn it around on Chrissy. As long as she’s still in the game, he can’t feel safe.
Sam and Jesse find themselves in the swing position. They can create a 2-2-2 vote to get out Chrissy, or they go with Chrissy and finally vote out Ben once and for all.
Before heading off to Tribal, we see that Sam does indeed have the immunity necklace. Even if it went over smoothly, it’s still surprising that we saw none of this at camp. But with it happening pre-merge, there’s probably less risk, with so much game still left to play.
Tribal Council
After the votes are cast JLP reveals the twist, because of course there’s a twist. Rather than both players being eliminated, they go into a fire-making challenge. Winner stays, loser goes home.
For Blood, the split works out just like they planned, with Mel going to fire. For Water, Ben becomes the target once again. For the third time (!), a twist comes into play at Tribal when Sam was trying to pull of a blindside. But this time, it all works out, as Mel defeats Ben in the fire challenge.
Wrap-Up
We’ve got the merge on Sunday! There’s a good mix of loved ones pairs and singles, which should make for some very interesting dynamics, especially in the early merge. And will we finally get some confessionals from Mel and Michelle? Please??
