Australian Survivor: Redemption Report Card - Week 6
Featuring faulty IKEA kits, Blanche, Simon dodo edits, Ben and Albo's speech
Huh. How did we get to week six of Australian Survivor: Redemption already?
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…