Previously on my confabulannotations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mystery, The Hound of the Baskervilles: Holmes deduced victim witlessness

And now, the story continues…

Chapter 4 - Sir Henry Baskerville

Our breakfast table was cleared early, and Holmes waited in his dressing-gown1 for the promised interview. Our clients were punctual to their appointment, for the clock had just struck ten when Dr. Mortimer was shown up2, followed by the young baronet3. The latter was a small, alert, dark-eyed man about thirty years of age, very sturdily built, with thick black eyebrows and a strong, pugnacious face. He wore a ruddy-tinted tweed suit4 and had the weather-beaten appearance5 of one who has spent most of his time in the open air, and yet there was something in his steady eye and the quiet assurance of his bearing which indicated the gentleman.

“This is Sir Henry Baskerville,” said Dr. Mortimer.

“Why, yes,” said he, “and the strange thing is, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, that if my friend here had not proposed coming round to you this morning I should have come on my own account. I understand that you think out little puzzles6, and I’ve had one this morning which wants more thinking out than I am able to give it.”

“Pray take a seat7, Sir Henry. Do I understand you to say that you have yourself had some remarkable experience since you arrived in London?”

“Nothing of much importance, Mr. Holmes. Only a joke8, as like as not. It was this letter, if you can call it a letter9, which reached me this morning.”

He laid an envelope upon the table, and we all bent over it. It was of common quality, grayish in colour. The address, “Sir Henry Baskerville, Northumberland Hotel,” was printed in rough characters10; the postmark “Charing Cross,” and the date of posting the preceding evening.

TO BE CONTINUED

Faulty IKEA Kits
Grade: D

We return from the Mark vote-out with Caleb getting all the credit for the move, our first warning that this week is going to have more discussion of big moves and who is responsible for them than, I dunno, a forced job relocation from Perth to Vancouver.

But there’s no time for further strained ‘move’ analogies from me, because instead there’s a reward challenge, a classic game of Five-a-Side Rope Stretch Cylinder Balance™.

(The reward itself? An IKEA feast, in which players receive a flat box of ingredients and convoluted instruction diagrams on how to eat it. Also, your spoon is an Allen key.)

Blanche is hopeless at the challenge, stumbling all over the place, knocking blocks over with every step and dooming her team to an IKEA-less fate. ‘Blanche’ may be a near-anagram of ‘balance’, but unfortunately she’s received an ‘h’ instead of a second ‘a’ in her kit, and, rather than get on the phone for a replacement, she’s just forced it in there, in the wrong place, and, fittingly (or, not quite fittingly), cost her team the reward.

Blanche
Grade: D+

Still, while Simon is off eating his IKEA furniture with four of the newbie alliance, who refuse to believe a word he says, Keeley and Brooke are making a fake idol.

Inspired by the challenge, they’ve ordered one online and, once delivered, Keeley wastes no time assembling it.

Meanwhile, it’s time for an immunity challenge, a classic game of Cross-Arm Balance Ball™. Loz wants to win the challenge to make her kids proud. Simon wants to win the challenge because he’s played 99 days of Survivor and desperately wants to reach triple figures.

Could Simon contrive a way to be voted out on Day 99.94 of his career and become the Bradman of Australian Survivor? Probably not, but if any player was going to accomplish this feat, it’d be him.

Off to Tribal Council then for some Three Amigos-style shenanigans: Simon immune, with Brooke and Keeley sporting immunity idols of varying degrees of reality. When Brooke spots Cam wearing Sally’s jumper, the returnees (yes, yes, plus Keeley) realise he isn’t with them, despite earlier claims to the contrary, and decide to deploy the idols.

“Wait a moment,” says Jackson, peering closely at Brooke’s idol. “That one still has the price tag on it!”

But the newbies are still wary enough of the situation to switch their split from Keeley to Blanche, and when Keeley plays her real idol for Brooke, it is, indeed, Blanche - who Ben had earlier described as having the game awareness of ‘a fart’ - who goes home, dissipating into the Samoan breeze.

Still, kudos to Blanche for getting to play in the first Survivor season she’s ever watched.

Simon Dodo Edits
Grade: B+

Despite the fake idol shenanigans, the newbies still outnumber the returnees (plus, needless to say, Keeley) six to three. This means they can split any vote and not have to worry, right? Especially since a panicky Simon had thrown his lot in with the newbies at the last moment at the previous Tribal Council.

But Ben is worried. He explains that he’s put on a brave face to be a funny personality, a claim that comes as an enormous surprise to most viewers. Including Simon, who sidles up to Jackson and asks him what his (Jackson’s) biggest blind spot is.

Simon, you can’t ask people what their biggest blind spot is. By definition, they do not know.

Anyway, the answer is Ben. Who is funny.

Then it’s time for an immunity challenge, a classic game of TreeBall™! This challenge proves near impossible, but just seconds before David is about to shout ‘fuck it, next ball wins’, Simon lands his last one, and tries to make a profound speech about chasing redemption. It is an immediate flop, which the show makes sure we notice.

The Australian Survivor editors simply cannot resist the lure of a Simon dodo edit. It fuels them and gives them purpose. It is the marrow of their very existence. When the raw footage is uploaded to the server, they abandon their workstations as one and gather around the monitor as their ancestors once gathered around the flame that kept the formless dark at bay. They do not choose this. They are called. It is life to them and they crave its soul-sustaining comfort.

Ben
Grade: B

Anyhoo, there are the usual needless lies and ploys before Tribal Council, with the returnees (+K) continuing to either a) hunt for idols while in the form of a LOST smoke monster or b) pitch to Jackson that he needs to turn on Ben.

It’s Simon who does most of the latter, explaining to Jackson that unless he votes out Ben, he won’t have a move of his own.

“Oh, right,” says Jackson, who’d briefly forgotten about the whole ‘move’ motif of this week’s episodes.

But in confessional, Jackson explains that he doesn’t want to clean his room (?) and goes on to point out that Ben is ‘the Pippen to my Rodman’.

Ahem, Jackson? I think you’ll find Pippin’s pal was Merry. As a Jackson, you should know that.

It all feels very pointless, what with the newbies having the numbers to split the votes and ensure they get rid of either Brooke or Keeley. But we’ve already seen from earlier in the season that they don’t actually understand the purpose of splitting the votes. Plus, Caleb starts taking about an axe for some reason, so maybe they think they’re literally chopping votes in two?

Perhaps it is this lack of faith in Caleb’s axemanship that does the job, or perhaps it’s Simon’s wrestling analogy whispies, but either way, Jackson flips on Ben, sending him out of the game.

Oh, and then there’s a soccer commercial to remind us the next episode is not until Wednesday.

Albo’s Speech
Grade: D

That Wednesday episode looks as if it’ll be delayed when the prime minister schedules a chat to the nation. But before anybody can utter a ‘wrap it up, Albo’, he does so, and we still have time to squeeze in a Millionaire Hot Seat before the episode.

(Earlier in the week, Hot Seat was advertising their ‘tallest ever contestant’, a characteristic which I’m almost certain has little to do with one’s ability to answer trivia questions, so it’s not just Australian Survivor who have players wildly out of their depth.)

Speaking of which, here’s Cam, partnered up with Simon on the reward challenge, a classic game of Paired Disc Obstacle Course’n’Roll. Simon literally holds Cam’s hand through the challenge and is then left hanging on the high-five. Something quite poetic about that.

The two of them take Brooke and Jackson on reward, where the production team almost forget to hide an idol.

“Quick!” says one of them. “Just shove it under a cushion or something.”
“I can only find half of it!” says another.
“That’ll have to do! Hurry! Brooke’s coming back.”

Then it’s time for another impossible immunity challenge, a classic game of Seesaw Cylinder Tower™.

Brooke wins immunity, and all talk turns to rocks, with the four newbies and the two returnees (plus Keeley (plus Jackson)) refusing to budge, despite the best efforts of both sides to get somebody to flip.

“The numbers don’t stack up,” somebody says at one point, before being told that they’re still thinking of the cylinders in that bloody see-saw immunity challenge.

At tribal council, David is ready for a lucrative cross-promotional rock draw, in which the rocks are brought out in the form of ‘Rocky’, Ryan Gosling’s adorable puppet co-star in Project Hail Mary, the smash hit movie, acclaimed by critics and audiences alike, now in cinemas all around the world, from the team that brought you The Martian and The LEGO Movie.

But before he can get to that, Brooke flips and Simon goes home.

David lets out a single tear as he crams his Rocky puppet back into his suitcase. Maybe next week…

Over on the HitchPod podcast, we’ve just done a bonus episode for paid subscribers on Thunderball from 1965.

Enjoy!

Check out more Hitchcock material!

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Previously on my confabulannotations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mystery, The Hound of the Baskervilles: Holmes mused about demons

And now, the story continues…

“Running from what?”

“There lies our problem. There are indications that the man was crazed with fear before ever he began to run1.”

“How can you say that?”

“I am presuming that the cause of his fears came to him across the moor. If that were so, and it seems most probable, only a man who had lost his wits2 would have run from the house instead of towards it. If the gipsy’s evidence may be taken as true, he ran with cries for help in the direction where help was least likely to be. Then, again, whom was he waiting for that night3, and why was he waiting for him in the yew alley rather than in his own house?”

“You think that he was waiting for someone?”

“The man was elderly and infirm4. We can understand his taking an evening stroll, but the ground was damp and the night inclement5. Is it natural that he should stand for five or ten minutes, as Dr. Mortimer, with more practical sense than I should have given him credit for, deduced from the cigar ash6?”

“But he went out every evening.”

“I think it unlikely that he waited at the moor-gate every evening. On the contrary, the evidence is that he avoided the moor. That night he waited there. It was the night before he made his departure for London. The thing7 takes shape8, Watson. It becomes coherent9. Might I ask you to hand me my violin10, and we will postpone all further thought upon this business until we have had the advantage of meeting Dr. Mortimer and Sir Henry Baskerville in the morning.”

END OF CHAPTER THREE

Suddenly, six weeks later, the X-Men arrive in Japan! There they discover that it’s on fire as a result of mysterious artificial earthquakes. They pop in to help, only to be told by that jackass Sunfire (last seen all the way back in issue 94) that they’re not needed and their help brings great shame on Japan and other such dated tropes. He probably offers them a bonsai tree at one point.

Luckily for modern readers, Sunfire is told to dial the dickishness down a few notches by special guest star, Misty Knight, who, in the grand tradition of comic book coincidences, is also Jean’s roommate. That’s enough to remind Cyclops that he should probably give the Professor a call and let him know that Jean and Beast are dead (which, of course, they’re not, but that’s the kind of information Misty keeps to herself). So he does, but only gets the answering machine: ‘Hi, you’ve reached Professor Charles Xavier. My mind’s not in at the moment, no doubt wandering the mental plane. But if you leave your name and psychic state, I’ll get back to you telepathically as soon as possible.’

Scott hangs up instead, just in time to be confronted by a) another earthquake, b) the prospect of Wolverine romancing an innocent garden-dweller, and c) Mandroids! It’s the latter that’s most infuriating. “You’re Avengers villains, you yellow, armour-plated pissants!” screams an enraged Scott, and he and the rest of the X-Men beat the living snot out of the portmanteau menaces. Triumphant, they are then confronted by a hologram of some scoundrel called Moses Magnum, Master of the Magnum Force, who promises yet more earthquakes unless he’s made the King of Japan by midnight tomorrow or next issue, whichever comes first. Nightcrawler checks the page count. “Yeah, we’re on page 17,” he says. “It’s going to have to be next issue.”

MVP: It’s gotta be Charles. We don’t see much of him this issue, his larynx still recovering from last issue’s interminable storytelling. But when we do see him, he’s described as Lilandra’s ‘Terran consort’. Bloody hell. Imagine being a ‘Terran consort’. That’s the good stuff.

Next issue: I guess Moses Magnum, Master of the Magnum Force becomes King of Japan.

Fuel Prices
Grade: D

We begin the week with a merge and a classic Survivor game of Balance-a-Barrel™.

It’s a challenge that allows not only the winner to receive a car, but also for David to segue from his unusual pronunciation of ‘Barren’ (Berren) to an unusual pronunciation of ‘Barrel’ (Berrel).

I will personally give ten shiny dollars (each!) to any group of players who forms an alliance called ‘The Barracking Baronesses’ or ‘The Barricade of Barristers’ or some similar David accent-accentuating handle.

Nevertheless, in a sign that he’s really maturing into the hosting role, David quickly grows bored with the challenge after not enough players prove inept at it, and suddenly declares that they all have to do it with no ropes, on one foot, eyes closed, while balancing a turtle on your nose and being sprayed with a hose.

Chaos ensues, everybody’s barrel topples, and Sally wins the car! She immediately starts crying, due to the future trajectory of fuel prices, so David decrees that the players can all have a mighty feast as well.

Lottie
Grade: C-

Returning to the merge camp, Caleb promises he’s going to do something new and shake the game up! That something new? Catching a fish in his bare hands! This is precisely the kind of behaviour that is failing to dispel fan theories that he’s a Gollum.

As the returnees bond in the dark, the improbable brains trust of Sally and Lottie come together, and agree on one thing.

“What we absolutely need to do is get rid of the returnees!”
“Yes! They’re way too dangerous to keep. An urgent priority.”
“Agreed! Vote them out immediately.”
“So... Jackson next?”

After a quick game of Hold Dem Poles™, the highlight of which was Caleb cackling at David like he’d just challenged him to a fiddling contest for his soul, Brooke wins immunity.

At Tribal Council, a lotta Lottie votes sees her go home, but not before there’s also a lotta talk about underdogs, big dogs, top dogs, and dirty dogs.

Less Survivor: Redemption, more Survivor: Red Setter.

Motown Songs
Grade: B

After the Lottie vote-out, Mark consoles Caleb, who was once again left in the dark. He complains about ‘Being on the outside of the blindside, not the inside’, which is not only fair, but also sounds like a chorus from a catchy-as-fuck 1960s Motown song.

Simon, meanwhile, is feeling confident. How confident? He’s cobbled together a fake idol, which, knowing Simon’s history in the game, seems like a less than wise ploy to be dabbling in. Worse still, he also dabbles in some wordplay, which feels even more dangerous for him, specifically. He strains mightily to explain why he calls Mark the ‘soul collector’, not only because he carries so many pairs of shoes (or ‘soles’) wherever he goes, but also because he’s collecting the souls (or ‘souls’) of everybody he votes out of the game.

Look, it’s a tough gag to make work, but Simon argues that he is now ‘an unstoppable force’ in this game. Perhaps I’d go so far as to say he is now a punstoppable force in this game. In that I’d like to force him to stop with the puns.

Still, it’s time for the immunity challenge, a classic game of Tether-Buoy’n’Net-Crawl’n’Shelf-Toss’n’Puzzle-Ramp-Roll™.

David indulges in some chat about balls, to go with the previous challenge’s pole banter, his host innuendo game finally kicking into gear, post-merge.

Eventually, it’s Simon who lands his balls on a shelf to win. (Balls on a shelf, of course, is the increasingly popular alternative to Elf on a Shelf.)

Richard
Grade: C-

Around about now is when Ben and Jackson decide that it’s time for the newbies to step up and take down the returnees. An exciting idea, of course, but I’m not convinced that duo is the pair I want leading the resistance.

(It is the returnees, themselves, who dub the newbies the ‘resistance’, which just goes to show their boldness. If I were ever on Survivor, I’d never refer to my opposing alliance as ‘the resistance’. Because most of the time resistances are cooler than whoever they’re resisting. And I really don’t need to appear any less cool than my baseline level. (This, BTW, is my application for the show, producers. Get on board!))

The point is that, after these nitwits gather the numbers, Richard decides to bring Simon in on the plan.

Word obviously then gets back to Mark (via a look from Brooke (that’s all it took!)), who reluctantly abandons his plan of voting out Blanche. (A good thing, too, because he was inexplicably calling it ‘the Blanche plan’ when ‘the Planche’ was right there.)

Off to Tribal Council, where Rich tries to explain the situation in rhyme.

“I thought it was going to be an evolution,” he says. “Turns out it’s more of a revolution!”

(Laughter)

Rich, emboldened, riffs on the idea. “I thought it was going to be a blindside. Turns out it’s a… mind-glide.”

(Some shoulder shrugging and the iffy hand gesture at that one.)

Rich, desperate and sweating, tries one last time. “I thought it was going to be Mark. Turns out it’s me going dark.”

For, yes, after bluffing with Simon’s fake idol, whispering to Simon and Brooke, bluffing some more, whispering to Keeley, having a one-on-one chat with Ben, whispering to Caleb, playing his real idol, then having a post-vote mic drop moment, Mark sends Richard packing.

Put out your blazers.

Mark
Grade: B+

After Rich goes, the Dummy Newbie Alliance all head back to camp and climb into the one clown car in which they all sleep.

Then it’s a reward challenge, a classic game of Slingshot! (Sandbag-Keygrab Edition)™. The reward challenge is high tea.

That’s swiftly followed by the immunity challenge - a classic game of BowBall!™, which goes for over an hour! At least, if the rice hourglass David is using to time the challenge is to be believed, which it almost certainly isn’t.

Brooke obviously wins the challenge and the returnees (plus Keeley, who is now an honorary returnee on the basis of her love for returning her library books on time) have to come up with a scheme to survive the vote from the Dummy Newbie Alliance.

Turns out they’re in luck, because the Dummy Newbie Alliance are so dumb (and/or newbie) that they don’t even understand the purpose of splitting votes. They choose to inexplicably split 5-2 on the returnees, apparently not realising that two is a number that is less than four. Worse still, the five (which is more than four) will become four when Caleb jumps to the returnees, a number which, most mathematicians agree, is less than four (the returnees plus Keeley) plus one (Caleb).

Look, it’s the kind of very basic arithmetic that six-year-olds have typically mastered, so we can’t really expect Ben and Jackson to have it sorted.

Just to make sure they have the crucial Caleb vote, the returnees (plus Keeley) agree to vote for whoever Caleb wants to vote for. This is the key to surviving the vote and is very important. Mark therefore has the following conversation with him:

“Hey, Caleb. We’ll vote for whoever you want.”
“I want Jackson.”
“Absolutely. Whoever you want. So, Ben, was it?”
“Uh… sure.” (eyes spin in his head like a cartoon character who’s been bonked on the head by an anvil)

And so, everything works out perfectly for Mark. The Dummy Newbies split incorrectly. The returnees plus Keeley stick together to vote out Ben.

Oh, except, yeah. Caleb, sick of nobody listening to him, decides he’s not voting with Mark after all. He votes for Mark, sending him home.

Told you Caleb would become more pigheaded.

Previously on my confabulannotations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mystery, The Hound of the Baskervilles: Holmes pointed things out on a map

And now, the story continues…

“…

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Carrot In A Box™
Grade: B

We start the week on Sunday, as part of Channel Ten’s ongoing attempts to trick people into missing as much of this season as possible.

Mark and Keeley are at loggerheads over who should go next from their tribe - Richard …

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Last issue, the X-Men thrillingly escaped that terrible Ka-Zar, Lord of the Savage Land comic that threatened to ensnare them. They therefore open this issue on a raft in the dangerous seas of the Drake Passage, a ‘narrow strip of water separat…

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Mudball™
Grade: A

Don returns from last week’s tribal council in which he received far more votes than expected (ie, more than zero), declaring he needs to go back to Survivor 101. Frankly, I’m not entirely convinced Don has all the prerequisites for Survivor 101. Faith also has a chat with Mark that she requests ends with an ‘awkward cuddle’. Mark, a graduate of Awkward Cuddles 101, complies.

After that, though, it’s time for a reward challenge - a classic game of Mudball™. Bloody hell, it’s a great game, Mudball™ - just people scurrying under nets in time to gather balls then tossing those balls back into nets. Proper sport. I’d happily watch a Mudball™ spinoff league - just the greatest Mudball™ers from all around the world, competing on the world stage. Get it into the Olympics. Summer and winter.

For now, however, instead of playing for gold medals, these Survivor contestants are playing for something even better. Namely, meat pies. Awesome stuff. Although, as much as I enjoy a good game of Mudball™, I would also someday very much like to see a pie reward based on which tribe can recite the most digits of pi.

Before the winning tribe (I dunno, Bounty maybe?) can get to the pies, however, David has a surprise. “Drop your buffs!” he says, then laboriously works his way through every single contestant’s fresh buff draw.

One by one, they march up and draw their buff. One by one, they march to their new tribe. It’s mostly just a clean swap - Bounty becomes Barren, Barren becomes Bounty with a few stragglers here and there (eg Ben - you can’t spell Barren without Ben).

However, in all the confusion over the new tribes, David seemingly forgets his most important duty: ie, explaining clearly who got the pies!

Don
Grade: D

Turns out that it was the individual players of the winning tribe who won the pies, not the greater concept of the pie-winning tribe. As such, pies are delivered to former Bounty members on both camps.

Richard, who, along with Lyndl is the only Original Bounty remaining on New Bounty, sees this as an opportunity to worm his way into the new tribe. He cleverly offers share options in his pie to members of the tribe willing to invest in a pie-eating paradigm shift, an offer that is enthusiastically subscribed to by savvy early investors.

Will it help? Who knows. Because time is instead taken up by the formation of a Three Wise Women alliance, featuring Keeley, Faith and Sally. They have in their sights Mark and his key allies, Don and Tez. A classic Three Wise Women v Corn Chip Cartel face-off. How many times have we seen this in Survivor?

The point is that, after an obvious immunity defeat in a game of Rainy Tower Climb Bag Throw™, Keeley pulls Rich aside to discuss the prospect of blindsiding Mark.

KEELEY: If you’re on board we can do it.
RICHARD: Oh, I’m on loads of boards

Sure, there’s a bit of confusion with Sally telling Don to target Mark and Don telling Mark that Sally’s targeting him and people getting generally fed up with Caleb’s bullshit, but ultimately, it’s the Three Wise Women, led by Keeley, who get their way, springing Don’s name on Rich at Tribal Council while Tez and Caleb squabble about goodness knows what.

The votes come in, and Don goes home. In retrospect, we should have known the Don was doomed when the tribe received those inexplicable symbolic oranges along with the pies as part of reward.

Is Don. Is voted out.

Lyndl
Grade: C

After the Don blindside, Mark is feeling emasculated (emarksculated? is that anything? no), as he realises the Three Wise Women now have all the power.

Over on the other tribe, Blanche is bonding with her new tribemates, most notably Aisha, to whom she spills all the tea (admittedly, on Survivor, tea is mostly just leftover sock-cleaning water). Great to see Blanche’s game being so dependent on the kindness of strangers.

Blanche is keen to target Brooke, so follows her around the jungle to make sure that she doesn’t find an idol. Brooke then immediately finds an idol, a discovery that Blanche doesn’t at all notice.

Time for the immunity challenge, a classic game of Ladder Carry Impossible Anagrams!™ How impossible is it? Well, that depends on whether you understand how apostrophes work.

In the end, Simon, of all people, eventually powers the team to victory by scrambling together the correct solution, shouting out ‘I can spell!’ in triumph. I mean, yes, technically it was Aisha who solved it. But was there ever any doubt about her spelling ability? I suspect not.

Mark joins the Three Wise Women, who, as a collective, are also known as Head Office. Maybe? Honestly, I’m losing track. They decide it’s time to get rid of Tez, who is concerned he’s not being taken seriously.

He decides that the best way to be taken seriously is to throw Faith’s name out to Rich and Lyndl, and then go tell Faith that’s what he did. Which is interesting gameplay for sure. Serious gameplay? Well, that’s for the viewer to decide.

Rich tells Tez he loves the plan, but Tez is less convinced. Especially since he’s just told Faith about it and is therefore now on the chopping block himself. Wonderful that Tez has no faith in his plan to ensure there’s no more Faith. By the time, he gets to Tribal Council, he’s so flustered that he’s on the brink of asking David who he should vote for.

As, indeed, is everybody else, with votes flying all over the place. In the end, though, it’s Lyndl who goes home, with Tez surviving another day. A classic Tez tease episode.

Being Individuals
Grade: F

Back at New Barren (?), Jackson tells us, the loyal viewers, that he got the best tribe swap of all time, and that he could ‘sit pretty’ all the way through to merge, by just being one of the numbers, but he doesn’t want to do that.

Jackson, my large friend, here’s a tip: just be a number and sit pretty all the way through to merge.

Anyway, he’s not doing that. He talks to Simon, and this pair of nitwits decide the one thing this season needs is more named alliances. So they gather together, Ben, Brooke, and, uh, I dunno, Loz, and call themselves Beauty and the Beasts. “Bags being a beest!” says Simon, spelling it incorrectly in his mind.

Time for the immunity challenge, a classic game of Cross-Tribal Paired Ball Hold™. David informs us that both tribes are going to Tribal Council and that they’re playing in pairs (one from each tribe) for individual immunity.

Despite spending thirty-five minutes watching everybody draw their buffs two nights earlier, we don’t get to see how the pairs are chosen here. Which is a shame, because I definitely wanted it to be something other than random. Why? Because Tez and Blanche are paired together and that’s a beautiful combination.

Other combinations are not quite as beautiful. Less keen on teamwork are Mark and Jackson, for example, who are too individualistic and annoying.

They’re first out when David reveals he also has the JLP clause in his hosting contract that allows him to change the rules whenever he’s bored with a challenge or is late for a gym session.

Eventually, Simon and Faith outlast Rich and Brooke to win individual immunities, David throws the necklaces at them and scurries off to do some bench presses.

Tez
Grade: D+

David’s hasty departure means that neither tribe has a clue what’s going on, whether it’s both tribes voting together for one person, or each tribe voting out one apiece, or some kind of inscrutable tribal electoral college system that is open to trivial manipulation by partisan billionaires.

Each tribe therefore hastily cobbles together plans for all eventualities, with Tez in so much danger on his tribe that he takes on Caleb (!) as a mentor. Wild days, indeed.

Eventually, they wander in and David kicks things off with a question to Brooke. “You’ve actually been to a double tribal council before, right?” he says. “On All Stars?”

Brooke confirms this is true.

“Good season that one,” continues David. “Good winner.” And he does the ‘who has two thumbs’ point at himself.

Point made, he explains the rules. Each tribe will elect a ‘hero’ to make fire. The winner of the fire challenge will ensure their tribe’s complete safety. The other tribe will vote somebody out.

This throws everybody’s plans into chaos, because not a single one of them watched the Australia v The World season. Turns out both tribes want to vote somebody out, and so chat begins on who is best at throwing fire challenges, and they break off and whisper to one another.

David is pretty quickly fed up with this. “If you don’t name your heroes,” he suddenly declares. “I will turn this Tribal Council around and go home.” And he starts counting to ten.

Simon asks if he can give his immunity necklace to Rich to protect him. When told that he can, he doesn’t do so, and instead declares that he’ll make fire. Mark decides that he’ll also make fire. Simon then starts wasting even more time, removing his immunity necklace, rolling his sleeves up, dousing himself in petrol, until David is once more fed up. Gym closes at 10pm, guys!

Anyway, it turns out that neither of these idiots have any idea how to throw a fire challenge, instead swiftly mustering gargantuan conflagrations. Earlier in the episode, Tez had spoken about how his life motto is to just ‘keep on failing’ or some damn thing. He could have taught these two a lesson.

Simon eventually wins and his entire tribe is permitted to return to camp. Before he goes, Simon asks David if he can give Rich his immunity necklace, despite that obviously being against the spirit of how immunity works.

“I honestly don’t give a shit,” mutters an exhausted David.

So Simon does, and Tez goes home.

Disappointingly, we’re still trapped in a tiresome Ka-Zar, Lord of the Savage Land comic instead of the Uncanny X-Men issue for which we’ve paid 35 of our hard-earned American cents (or, as the cover excitedly tells us, ’STILL ONLY 35c’). Ka-Zar reminds the X-Men (and through them, us, the disappointed readership) of the problem at hand. Namely a villain with the improbably unthreatening handle of ‘The Petrified Man’. This nominally omni-terrified villain’s crime? Excessive urban planning! Because somehow he’s surreptitiously built an entire freakin’ city on top of the thermal shaft that powers the entire Savage Land.

Look, I dunno what to tell you. Everything about the premise is bizarre - from the council building approval processes that the Petrified Man seems to have effortlessly circumvented through to the entire idea that Ka-Zar and his folk are furious that their home in the middle of Antarctica might have to deal with a bit of snow. Nevertheless, as the X-Men try to help, they’re suddenly attacked by Pterodactyl-Riding Petrified Henchmen™, who kidnap a handful of the team and fly away.

Undeterred, Wolverine takes advice from Ka-Zar’s pet sabre-toothed tiger (this is not a joke!), and he, Storm and Nightcrawler simply wander into the city to rescue their teammates from being burned at the stake for some reason. Then there’s a big eye beam battle on top of the city that ends, Death Star-style, with Cyclops overloading the thermal exhaust port that runs straight down to the reactor core. The city explodes, Storm fails to rescue the Petrified Man from certain death, and, contractual obligations to support the Ka-Zar, Lord of the Savage Land comic fulfilled, the X-Men set sail on a raft into the South Atlantic Ocean.

MVP: Look, it’s not Scott, who very amusingly tells his team to ’stay close’ during the Pterodactyl-Riding Petrified Henchmen™ attack and ‘cover the back of whoever’s next to you!’ before immediately being clipped from behind. Nitwit. No, instead I’m giving the MVP award to that blowhard Karl Lycos, who shakes Scott’s hand at the end of the issue and says ‘the world thinks Karl Lycos is dead. Let’s leave it at that’. And Scott doesn’t have the heart to tell him that ‘the world’ doesn’t think about Karl Lycos at all.

Next issue: The next issue box promises ‘the least expected X-Men origin of them all’. It had better not be those bloody leprechauns from a few issues back.

WARNING: This entire podcast is full of spoilers. If you haven’t read Watchmen, go ahead and do so. Come on, people. It’s friggin’ Watchmen.

Email us: lostwithinlostpodcast@gmail.com

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Will this Lost Within Lost branding change shortly? Perhaps. Stay tuned. For now, we’ll stick with it.

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Don Roberts, Mat Roberts’ Brother
Grade: D+

We return from Eliza’s vote-out at the end of the previous week, with Jackson a very sad wrestler indeed. Lyndl takes him aside and explains why it was perfectly logical for her to go, stumbling only briefly over the bit where Eliza tried to secretly warn her about the perilous position Lyndl was in.

Over at the other camp, Don is struggling to keep his identity as Mat Rogers’ brother a secret, falling into Keeley’s cunning trap of asking if he has a stage name.

“My stage name is ‘Don Rogers, Mat Rogers’ brother’,” he clarifies.

“Did you say ‘Don Rogers, Mat Rogers’ brother’?” ask his tribe mates.

“No. I meant ‘Don Roberts, Mat Roberts’ brother’,” clarifies Don quickly, belatedly remembering his lie. “Forgot my own name.” He wipes the sweat off his brow. “And that of my brother.”

Phew, he thinks to himself. Got away with that one.

Smooth.

But it’s enough to impress Mark, who brings him into one of his many alliances, alongside Caleb. Don suggests they call themselves the ‘corn chip mafia’, which Mark almost immediately upgrades to the catchier ‘corn chip cartel’. That’s the great gameplay that only a returning player can bring to the game.

“Nobody can say no to these,” Mark chuckles. But nobody knows what he’s referencing.

Paula
Grade: C

Time for a reward challenge, a classic game of Tug-of-War Sandbag Toss™. Awkwardly, the Barren Tribe don’t even notice that Eliza had been voted out. Brutal to not have the other tribe even recognise your absence.

Their inability to see the absence of Eliza is made even worse by Cam’s inability to see anything, because he forgot his glasses. He loses the challenge, throwing all his sandbags away.

Bounty’s reward? A chocolate cake split into uneven pieces (including one piece of size zero), all to be divvied up by corporate CEO Rich. As a metaphor for social inequality, it couldn’t have been more on the nose.

On the plus side, Aisha finds a scroll in her piece of cake which leads her to an advantage in the well.

A good thing she did, too, because after a classic immunity challenge of 1d20 Ball Toss™, Bounty are back to Tribal Council.

It’s unclear where the numbers are going, with plans all over the place and fake names being dropped. This is why you don’t vote out Daniel, a source of clarity, because you know if he says your name, you’re 100% safe.

In the end, it’s Paula who goes, blindsiding Harry in particular, who thought the votes were on Lyndl. “Who the hell is Paula?” he furiously asks, before being reminded she was his number one ally. “Her?” he adds.

Harry
Grade: B+

Having been left out of the previous night’s vote, Harry declares that he is once again Dirty Harry™ and he’s going to ‘burn this tribe to the ground’.

Over on the other tribe, Don, meanwhile, reveals to everybody the truth that he’s Don Rogers, Mat Rogers’ brother.

“Uh-huh,” seems to be the consensus.

“Don’t tell the other tribe,” he says.

“Okay.”

Then it’s time for an immunity challenge, a classic game of Sandbag Trolley Push Axe Chop Dangling Jigsaws™. When Bounty loses that, thanks to an inability to recognise background shapes, they also have a secondary individual immunity challenge, a classic game of Stand-a-Poke Ball Balance™.

This brings back troubling memories for Simon, who last time he took part in a bonus individual immunity after losing tribal immunity, he won, then still got utterly schooled by King George Magic™.

Simon cunningly avoids that fate this time, however, with the role of King George instead played by Jackson. And poor old Harry taking the Simon role.

Because realising he’s on the bottom, Dirty Harry channels the flinty appearance of his cinematic namesake by stealing the flint from the tribe and passing it off to Jackson. His plan? To tell the rest of the tribe that if they vote either of them off, there’s a 50-50 chance they’ll be losing their flint, and so maybe vote out Rich instead.

But Jackson instead Dirty Harrys Harry, handing back the flint, betraying his co-conspirator by leaving him with no safety net whatsoever. Harry’s therefore voted out. A good old-fashioned out-dirtying. By gum, it’s been a while since I’ve seen one of those.

Oh, and Caleb was also there. Because of Aisha’s advantage. Didn’t make much difference to, well, anything.

Slingshots
Grade: A-

With Harry gone, Caleb returns to his camp and wakes up his entire tribe to tell them everything that went on. And, as a recapper of the goings-on in Australian Survivor myself, can I just say that Caleb’s explanations left a lot to be desired. Too many extraneous details. Many of his Rule of Three jokes poorly constructed, with punchlines coming in the middle of the list. A general vibe of confusion.

Back on Bounty tribe, Simon is trying to play the provider role just until he can get through to the tribal swap. A classic ploy, as old as the game itself. Not usually done through the provision of belts, but, as ever, Simon plays the game his own way.

Then it’s time for the reward challenge, a classic game of Drown’em’up Slingshot Contestant Bowling Pins™. David explains how in the first portion of the challenge - the ball gathering portion - you must ‘try to prevent your opponents from getting to the ball by any means possible!’

Rich clears his throat. “Excuse me, David,” he says. “A quick point of order. Does that include having the Board of Directors referring the motion back to the Water Ball Provision Oversight Committee in accordance with proper corporate governance?”

“Go!” shouts David.

Bounty win reward (nachos and margaritas and sombreros from home), which leaves Don enraged. He explains to Mark that, honestly, he would have been the best in the slingshotter role because of his vast experience playing rugby league, which honed his hand-eye co-ordination to almost superhuman levels, particularly in the field of crashing through a row of humans.

While he’s banging on endlessly about that, a trio of the women on the tribe (I want to say Keeley, Faith and, uh, Betty?) decide that Tez has to go for some reason.

They call the mission to vote him out ‘Operation: Snuff the Weasel’. An infuriating choice, because ‘Operation: Tez Dispenser’ was right there.

Johnson
Grade: D-

Then it’s time for the immunity challenge, a classic game of Water Crate Carry Upright Maze™.

The Bounty tribe take an early lead, thanks to Simon outperforming Ben on unclipping the underwater net that releases the water crates.

Don is furious! “I would have been the best in the underwater net clipping role, thanks to my vast experience hunting crabs on Cronulla beach with my brother Mat Rogers.”

“With who?” says Caleb.

Despite their best efforts on the maze, Barren are unable to make up the lead and are off to Tribal Council.

“I’ll be a smokescreen for the true vote,” suggests Don, the instant they arrive back at camp. He goes on to point out he is the greatest smokescreen in the tribe because of all his experience of providing smoke machines for touring bands at the local RSL.

Mark, meanwhile, wants Johnson gone, despite Johnson trying to get back on Mark’s good side. They have the following awkward conversation:

JOHNSON: I’m committed to voting the same way as you tonight.
MARK: Yeah, me too.
JOHNSON: Wait. You want to vote the same way as yourself?
MARK: (smiling calmly) Of course.

Operation: Tez Dispenser has also been placed on hold for some reason, because Keeley and friends (apparently the other one is named Sally, of all things!) would rather dispense with Caleb instead.

Johnson then also has an awkward conversation with Keeley, something along the lines of this:

KEELEY: We’re thinking of voting out Caleb
JOHNSON: And it’s not me?
KEELEY: Well, no. Because you’re not Caleb.
JOHNSON: Ahhhh

Finally, Johnson somehow gets into an awkward conversation with Faith as well. Faith tells Johnson she’ll set him on fire if he messes up the Caleb vote. Faith, ironically, does not believe in ambiguity.

Ultimately, however, everybody gets sick of all the awkward conversations and sends Johnson home.

Brooke, however, manages to play her idol for no reason, giving her an extra bonus thing for which she needs to redeem herself, making her now the most important player this season. Good play.

We ended last issue with a ptalking pterodactyl named, uh, Sauron, confronting those X-Men who had so foolishly found their way to the Savage Land, holding the prone body of Storm in a full-page cliffhanger. Great stuff. And, of course, enough to get this issue kicked off with Wolverine all riled up and attacking Sauron. But, uh-oh, what’s this? Sauron has some kind of hypnotic gaze that enables him to mind-control Logan. A fine excuse, as if any were needed, to indulge in some Cyclops-on-Wolverine fisticuffs (or clawticuffs/eyebeamticuffs).

They all then fight for about eight pages until Sauron suddenly runs out of juice and turns back into a human improbably named Karl Lykos. Because it turns out Sauron is not merely a mesmeric pterodactyl - a mesmerodactyl if you will - but a were-mesmerodactyl. Anyway, before Logan can gut the human version of him, some other buffoon from a completely different comic book (Ka-Zar, Lord of the Savage Land, if you can believe it) pops in and whips everybody back to his hut for a tedious flashback.

None of it is particularly interesting - you’d be disappointed if a tedious flashback was, to be fair - and it also goes on for way too many pages, introducing a whole heap of characters from that different, duller comic book that none of us care about. ‘See Ka-Zar issue 20’ suggests editor Roger Stern, at one point. “No, thank you,” responds Scott, on behalf of all of us. And then patiently explains to the rest of the team who want to help Ka-Zar that they need to leave the Savage Land immediately so that they can, uh, get back to, um, Professor X, and, yes, Professor X, that’s the ticket, to help him, uh, defeat, maybe, Magneto? The others all sigh and start trudging out of the Savage Land, only for a snowstorm to lock them in. “A snowstorm in Antarctica?” says Ka-Zar. “Now I’ve seen everything.” Kind of a weird dude.

MVP: It’s Banshee. In the battle against Sauron, Banshee expresses confusion that a were-dinosaur from a lost underground land isolated from the rest of the planet might not have heard of him. So somebody’s rather full of himself. Luckily, Banshee redeems this absurd pomposity by immediately thinking to himself that he needs to get ‘up-sun’ of him. Which is a splendid directional term.

Next issue: The very real prospect of having to deal with that more boring comic! Plus, more Banshee self-importance!

In the process, we cover such topics as fake movie posters, spending flight delays watching Batman and Superman fight, and more of Alan Moore’s wizardly fury.

WARNING: This entire podcast is full of spoilers. If you haven’t read Watchmen, go ahead and do so. Come on, people. It’s friggin’ Watchmen.

Email us: lostwithinlostpodcast@gmail.com

BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/lostwithinlost.bsky.social

The hellsite: https://x.com/lostwithinlost

Will this Lost Within Lost branding change shortly? Perhaps. Stay tuned. For now, we’ll stick with it.

Spotify

YouTube

Other links

https://linktr.ee/lostwithinlostpod

My Watchmen (2009) posters referred to in the episode

‘Huh,’ they think to themselves. ‘Let’s give ourselves something to redeem then.’ And they immediately sack JLP.

Because, yep, that’ll do it.

Returnees
Grade: B

We meet our two tribes. Or, in some cases, remeet them. Because we have returnees! The other players spot them and whisper urgently among themselves.

“There’s Mark!” says Lyndl, a superfan, and we cut to her audition, where she demonstrates how she’s willing to do anything to get on the show, by showing up to the interview without any vowels on.

“Who the hell is Mark?” says Don, who reveals himself in confessional to be Mat Rogers’ brother. Same kind of player, he assures us, just with a hat made out of beavers for reasons we sensibly don’t explore.

“Jack. Got it,” says a pastor named Daniel, who has been cursed by God to not remember anybody’s name.

Other returnees are recognised. “There’s Dirty Harry,” whispers somebody. (“Flirty Larry,” says Daniel.) “And Brooke.” (“Blythe.”) “Simon.” (“Silas.”) “And David.” (“David,” whispers Daniel, dropping to his knees to worship the Golden God, in direct defiance of the very first commandment - ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me, even if they wonneth a season of the show that thou art on, as well as a veritable shit ton of shekels on Deal or No Deal Island.’)

“Five returnees!” says another noob, a truck driver named Caleb. “That’s too many!”

“You’re right!” says David, gesturing dramatically. “And therefore, I shall be… your new host!” And a smoke bomb explodes, and there’s lots of coughing, and when it clears, David’s still there, but now with a little sash that says ‘host’.

Daniel
Grade: D-

So the teams are split into two tribes and run their first challenge to determine their names. (“Oh, no,” winces Daniel. “There’s going to be names?!?”) It’s a classic Australian Survivor contest of Heavy Block Pyramid Puzzle Trolley Push’n’Flame™.

The winning tribe gets to call itself the Bounty Tribe, and live on an island stocked with all the earthly delights one can imagine (ie, a hammock!). The losing tribe is the Snickers Tribe, and their island is a hellhole of the worst kind. (“That’s okay,” says Cat. “I’m from New Zealand.”)

Simon and Harry are the two returnees on the Bounty Tribe, and Harry gives Simon instructions on how they’ll best work together. “If you say the rice is too crispy, that means Lyndl has the numbers. If you say it’s too warm, then Daniel is planning to backstab. If it’s mushy, they’re splitting the votes, but if it’s salty, trust no one. Unless it’s too salty, in which case, a new alliance was formed at the well. If I sneeze after eating it, play your idol.”

“Sorry, I’ll just get a pen,” says Simon.

Anyway, it’s a good thing that Harry did come up with this plan because after a particularly gruelling game of Wagon Wheel Push’n’Roll™, the Bounty Tribe are sent to Tribal Council. (“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” says Eliza. “Forget the Bounty, there are Wagon Wheels now?”)

Some dude named Cameron has strong opinions on the vote. “This season is about redemption. Which doesn’t mean following somebody else. I’ve never met somebody who wants to reinvent themselves as a sheep.”

I dunno, Cam. I’d quite like to reinvent myself as a sheep. Free wool? Can eat grass? Wolves always trying to dress up as you? What’s not to like?

Not that it matters. Because all schemes are aborted when everybody gets swiftly annoyed that Daniel can’t remember a single person’s name. They vote him out instead.

“I guess I’ll just have to go back to church,” Daniel says, as his torch is snuffed. “And continue spreading the good word of… oh… man… it’s on the tip of my tongue… bearded guy… lots of big ideas… I want to say ‘Jonas’?”

Smorgasbords
Grade: A-

Over to the Snickers Tribe, where Brooke is trying to find an idol. During the previous immunity challenge, Lyndl took her aside and explained how at the challenge before that, she found a clue to a hidden immunity idol, but it wasn’t a Bounty idol, it was a Snickers idol, but there was a Bounty idol, but on the Snickers beach.

“I’m sorry,” said Brooke. “Who are you?”

But the pair of them eventually sorted it out, and under cover of darkness, Mark helps Brooke find the idol.

Just in time too, because it’s time for a classic Survivor contest of Drown’Em’Ups™, in which your reward is a smorgasbord of rewards.

“Does that smorgasbord of rewards include as one of the rewards another smorgasbord of rewards, which, in turn, contains a smorgasbord of rewards, and so on ad infinitum?”

“Shut up, Mark,” says David.

“Will do, GG!” And he salutes.

(They call David ‘GG’ now. Call me a traditionalist but I think they should wait until he’s been sworn in as Governor General.)

The point is, the Snickers tribe wins reward and send a couple of nitwits (Ben and Blanche) off to choose their items for them. They return with not a single smorgasbord.

Cat
Grade: C

The immunity challenge is a classic contest of Chest Retrieval Spelling Bee Climb-A-Thon™, in which Simon proves his worth by climbing and spelling in slow motion.

A great moment for Simon, who has spent most of the game so far looking over his shoulder for George to come in and effortlessly undo all his schemes. Why, even at the getting-to-know-you session where everybody was discussing their best party tricks, Simon said his was ‘being completely outwitted by George at every turn’.

On the plus side, while he may not have yet found redemption, he did manage to trick Daniel into giving him a sweet pastor jacket before his torch was snuffed. So things are turning out okay for him.

Less so for Mark, who is deeply concerned by ghosts, who he suddenly claims are on the island haunting him. Who ya gonna call, Mark?

Luckily, despite being distracted by a sexy pottery session with one of the ghosts, Mark still has the good sense to rally the numbers at Tribal Council. He uses his knowledge of 1980s television (a gift from former ally Eden) and, in particular, Miami Vice, to spot a Don-Johnson split vote and switch the numbers to eliminate Cat instead.

He then dons a pastel jacket and no socks and heads back to camp in his Ferrari, listening to Phil Collins.

Eliza
Grade: B+

Overly confident, Mark now declares himself to be ‘the biggest player on the beach’. Weird, because given all his ghost talk, I could have sworn he was a medium.

Meanwhile, Harry is pondering up a storm. He muses in front of the fire better than almost any other player I’ve seen. A strong contemplator of his options is Harry. Plus, give him a toothpick? Forget about it. He’ll just be mulling things over like nobody you’ve ever seen.

What’s Harry pondering? We’ll never know. Because now it’s time for a reward challenge, the highlight of which is Brooke and Lyndl’s shambolic attempt to swap their idols. They take multiple aborted attempts but finally get there in the end.

The reward is doughnuts and a $5 coffee mug from home. They each have heartwarming images on them. Harry, for example, has a photo of his imaginary child from the first time he played. Gorgeous. Simon has his alignment chart to remind him to keep his head in the game.

And Lyndl, of course, ended up with Brooke’s mug. Eventually. The important thing is, it all makes for excellent prop comedy going forward. Simon, in particular, goes Full Bill Lumbergh from Office Space, popping in to every strat chat with coffee mug in hand. Great stuff.

Speaking of strat chats, Jackson takes Eliza aside and gives her some bad news about alliances. “You’ve been left out of the big alliance,” he advises her. “You’re in the bottom. A hopeless buffoon in the eyes of the majority. Just a truly unwanted member of the tribe.”

“This is such good info!!” responds a delighted Eliza and rushes off to wake up Lyndl in the middle of the night and tell her that she, too, is on the bottom.

“Lady, I need my beauty sleep,” says Lyndl.

Bounty then wins the immunity challenge after Don manages to outthrow Jackson in a classic contest of Barrel Roll-Coconut Throw™, inspiring Don to start demanding everybody call him ‘Don Coconut’ from now on.

Lyndl, meanwhile, takes the opportunity to organise a sleep-deprived revenge vote against Eliza.

Simon is unsure what’s going on. “HOW’S THE RICE, HARRY?” he suddenly shouts at Tribal Council. He clears his throat. “I SAID ‘HOW’S THE RICE?’” And winks, before slapping his forehead. “OH, RIGHT! I’M SUPPOSED TO TELL YOU. IT’S, UH, PRETTY TASTY? IS THAT RIGHT?”

Harry cunningly pretends to be somebody else, and Eliza is sent home. Jackson, cruelly left out of the vote, is sad, and left with no choice but to start a five-person alliance immediately. Easy as 1-2-3.

In the aftermath of the previous issue’s battle with Magneto, Jean and Beast have escaped up and out of his lava-encased Antarctic lair into the icy terrain above, where they’re rescued by a passing helicopter owned by, I dunno, Ozymandias henchmen? They’re picked up and return to the mansion, where Jean harshes Professor X’s previously upbeat honeymooning-with-an-alien-princess mood by telling him that everybody else is dead. The Professor nods gravely. “Those poor dud mutants,” he intones. “No, no,” clarifies Jean. “The interesting ones too.”

But, of course, both the dud (Banshee, Colossus) and interesting (Cyclops, Logan, Storm) mutants survived, along with those who teleport back and forth (Nightcrawler) between those two settings. Unlike Jean and Beast, this X-subset escaped down and out of Magneto’s lair into a mysterious subterranean prehistoric jungle known as The Savage Land. “What? After The Wonder Years star, Fred Savage?” asks Nightcrawler. “Zip it, buddy,” says Scott. This is exactly why Kurt’s never quite been consistently top-tier material.

Needless to say, after a brief battle with a passing pterodactyl, in which Wolverine slices it into winged smithereens, the group join a small village of native Savage Landers. The remnants of the team are still comically grieving the wrongly assumed deaths of Jean and Beast, but Winnie Cooper pops in to talk some sense into them. Look, it’s a great little slice-of-life dramedy, the modern streaming rights for which are fatally compromised by the 60s soundtrack that gave it so much of its original character, but which are now too cost prohibitive to sensibly renegotiate. Frankly, even calling this issue ‘The Day The X-Men Died’ is just asking for some Don McLean trouble.

Oblivious to all this is Storm, who in a final page reveal is assaulted by some kind of talking pterosaur - presumably unrelated to the previous, less chatty, one - who declares his name to be ‘Sauron’! “What, we’re taking on the Tolkien estate too?” complains Nightcrawler.

MVP: Scott. Somehow while shaving in a local river, Scott notices the moustache that has grown on his face over the last week, and how it resembles Corsair (from issue 109, maybe?), and therefore starts to remember that Corsair is his father but then also forgets when Storm interrupts him. Nutty stuff, but it’d make for one hell of an episode of Maury Povich, if we could once again just sort out the rights.

Next issue: Another pterodactyl fight! Plus, Colossus finds the One True Ring!

A man walks into an Apple Store

MAN: One apple, please.

WOMAN: (sighing) It’s not that kind of apple store, sir.

MAN: Are you saying you don’t sell apples?

WOMAN: Of course we don’t. You know that.

MAN: I know no such thing. I was simply overcome with a craving for a juicy apple, and then, noticing I was outside a so-called Apple Store, I thought to myself ‘well, there’s a stroke of luck’, and ventured inside to purchase one.

WOMAN: No you didn’t.

MAN: I’m sorry?

WOMAN: That’s not what happened.

MAN: Are you claiming I don’t want an apple?

WOMAN: I don’t know whether you want an apple or not. What I do know is that you didn’t actually believe this store would sell you an apple.

MAN: How, pray tell, am I supposed to know that an Apple Store would not be in the position to sell me an apple?

WOMAN: Because we are one of the biggest companies in the world, with a globally known set of products, none of which are apples.

MAN: One of the biggest companies in the world?

WOMAN: Immensely profitable, yes.

MAN: But you don’t sell apples.

WOMAN: No.

MAN: Despite advertising yourselves as an ‘apple store’?

WOMAN: (shrugs)

MAN: What do you sell then?

WOMAN: (gesturing around the store) Phones—

MAN: (incredulous) You sell phones made out of apples?!

WOMAN: No.

MAN: The very thought boggles the mind.

WOMAN: We sell phones made out of electronics.

MAN: How would a phone made out of an apple even work??

WOMAN: It wouldn’t. (Changing subject) We also sell computers.

MAN: (opening mouth)

WOMAN: They’re not made of apples either.

MAN: (lying) I wasn’t even going to ask.

WOMAN: (giving him a disbelieving stare) And other things as well. Maybe you’re interested in an Apple Watch?

MAN: Is it—

WOMAN: (interrupting immediately) No. It’s not. Nothing here is made of apples.

MAN: So why do you call it an apple store?

WOMAN: Because that’s the name of the company.

MAN: The company that doesn’t sell apples.

WOMAN: Yes.

MAN: (looking at the woman’s badge) And you’re supposed to be a genius?

WOMAN: Yes.

MAN: (mocking) Such an enormous genius that you run a so-called ‘apple store’ that doesn’t sell a single apple.

WOMAN: That is correct.

MAN: You never thought, as a ‘genius’, in an ‘immensely profitable’ company, that maybe it might be a sensible idea to have just a small section, perhaps in the corner of the store, where somebody might buy an apple.

WOMAN: No.

MAN: Just on the off-chance that they, like me, might wander in here and attempt to make the perfectly reasonable decision to purchase an apple from the Apple Store.

WOMAN: It’s not a perfectly reasonable decision. You’re deliberately wasting my time.

MAN: I am not. I simply wanted to purchase an apple.

WOMAN: (frowning) For real?

MAN: Of course.

WOMAN: Huh.

She looks from side to side, making sure that nobody is watching, then opens a drawer and pulls out an apple.

WOMAN: Fine. Here.

MAN: (delighted) Aha! I knew it.

WOMAN: That’ll be $1200.

Read more

We begin this issue in the middle of a BBC News report. A grim storytelling choice to be sure, but one that Claremont justifies with coverage of Magneto’s recent attack on the Royal Australian Aerospace Research Facility at Woomera. Or, the RAARF, as we here in Australia call it. The BBC reporter goes on to reveal that both Australia and New Zealand were incapable of stopping Magneto’s rampages, despite ‘the most sophisticated weaponry known to man’, which, I have to admit, probably overstates our respective nations’ defensive capabilities. I mean, we lost a war to emus (this is not a joke), and New Zealand’s army consists of six hobbits and a strongly worded complaint form. Magneto has us covered.

Also covered? The X-Men. Who are trapped in a volcano beneath Antarctica, in manacles that not only neutralise their powers but also return them to the physical state of six-month-old infants. In addition, they’re being cared for by a robot nanny in a French maid outfit. At one point, Magneto, who is busy lounging around on Asteroid M, his criminal base secretly orbiting the Earth, complains to himself that he barely had the strength to return to his lair, let alone rebuild it. Yeah, that might be because you put a frankly disturbing amount of effort into building a caretaker robot for your infantilised mutant nemeses, ya big magnetic dummy!

And needlessly, as it turns out. Because Storm suddenly reminds us that she is a master locksmith. And, furthermore, one who honed her skills starting from six months of age. Is this a wildly implausible plot contrivance? Of course, it is. But perhaps that’s her secondary mutation. Either way, Storm’s perfectly capable of escaping from captivity while the Robo-Nanny ducks off to refuel her apron.

So she does. Then she frees the others, and upon Magneto’s return, there’s a massive fight that ends with the Antarctic lair destroyed, Magneto fleeing in a vastly weakened state, Jean using her Phoenix powers to fly Beast to safety then collapsing before Hank can point out that the middle of Antarctica isn’t technically all that safe and the rest of the team apparently melted away by molten lava. Boy, that Robo-Nanny is going to get her licence revoked.

MVP: Professor X. He’s not involved in any of the action, sensibly preferring to have a saucy dalliance on a Greek island with an alien princess. Classic Chuck. Made even more classic when he winces in psychic pain because he’s lost his ‘telepathic rapport’ with the team. Yeah, no shit, Xavier.

Next issue: Everybody thinks everybody else is dead. Which (spoiler!) they’re not.