Australian Survivor Report Card - Australia v The World - Episode 5
Featuring merge auctions, cookie monsters, spell-offs, lightning and Xenomorphs
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PREVIOUSLY ON AUSTRALIAN SURVIVOR: Sarah was unsure what to do, there was Black Widow deja vu and Tony wore a shoe
Merge Auctions
Grade: B+
After Tony’s shoenanigans from the night before, the remaining World tribe members come together and promise that when the merge comes, they’ll all stick together to defeat the Aussies.
Which mostly just serves to make me realise how confusing this season would have been if Ozzy was a World representative. Good casting!
And good prep from the World team, because there is a merge. But there’s also an auction. A merge auction!
Tommi is excited, because he’s never been at a Survivor auction before. Certainly not one with such colourful play money! And he proves his inexperience early, bidding his entire wad of cash for a mysterious scroll that he then misses out on because somebody else also bids for it, and Tommi draws a bad rock, leaving him with no money and nothing to show for it.
Which is weird, because when I watched the most recent season of The Block, it ended in the exact same way!
(Ha ha ha! No, I’m joking, of course. I have never seen a second of The Block.)
Cookie Monsters
Grade: D
The winner of the rock draw, Luke, reads the scroll, which orders him to immediately send one person straight back to camp to miss the rest of the auction. Yikes!
Of course, the obvious solution to this dilemma would be to send, y’know, the person who has no more money with which to bid back to camp. Instead, Luke inexplicably targets Parvati, for goodness sake.
Parv, in turn, pivots to I’m-Not-Mad-I’m-Just-Disappointed mum (or ‘mom’, I guess) mode. She gives Luke a countdown from five to change his decision, which is objectively excellent television.
Also excellent television? The revelation after the rest of the auction (the highlight of which was Lisa somehow spending a mere $40 to get food that would also cost $40 in most cafes I’ve been to) that, back at camp, there’s a jar of cookies waiting for Parvati!
Yes, Luke has created an all-new Cookie Monster! And it’s not just Jericho being referenced, either. Parvati also shouts out James when she gets a shovel to dig a hole in which to hide the cookies.
Unfortunately, Parvati shatters the jar of cookies - the coffin for the cookies, if you will - while burying them, something James has never done.
Parvati Shallow - worst Cookie Monster ever?
Spell-Offs!
Grade: B-
On the plus side for Parv, there’s a note inside the jar! Is it a recipe for the cookies? That’d be an adorable touch from production. But no. Instead, it’s another advantage for Parvati, to go with the podium idol she picked up at the end of the previous night’s Tribal Council.
But, of course, Parvati’s main advantage has always been her ability to charm people, and she wields that expertly once everybody else returns from the auction. Sure, she makes Luke go sit on the naughty log for half an hour, but Kirby and Shonee soon fall under her spell.
But also, maybe, Cirie and Parvati are falling under Kirby and Shonee’s spell?
It’s a good, old-fashioned Survivor Spell-Off!
Lightning
Grade: F
Time for the immunity challenge. A classic game of Grill-Drown™, a challenge that, were I ever to appear on Australian Survivor, I would negotiate by the very simple tactic of choosing to drown.
This also seems to be Lisa’s plan, as she swallows some water and is immediately out. A little surprising, of course, that such a fan of the show didn’t do some pre-game preparation for this challenge by injecting herself with fish DNA, and developing gills.
Once again, however, the challenge goes on forever, much to JLP’s obvious annoyance, especially when a thunderstorm suddenly rolls in.
“Now breathe with one lung!” says JLP, trying to usher the challenge to a more rapid conclusion.
But even that doesn’t work, and so the producers, who have access to JLP’s shared calendar, decree that it has to stop anyway because of, oh, let’s say dangerous lightning.
Once everybody’s out of the water, there is discussion on who should win immunity. JLP decrees that if all four remaining players agree to a rock draw, that’s how immunity will be decided, and if they don’t, then nobody will get immunity. So, since 25% remains more than 0%, according to almost all modern mathematicians, they draw the rock.
And Tommi wins! Tommi’s white rock story arc is a thing of beauty.
Xenomorphs
Grade: X
So, everybody is now scrambling in the rain.
Six people want to stick to original tribe lines: Luke, Janine and Sarah on the Australia tribe, and Tommi, Kass and Lisa on the World tribe.
But Shonee, Kirby, Parvati, Cirie and Cirie’s hat want to forge a new alliance of their own.
“We shouldn’t rule out who we can work with based on national lines,” says Cirie. “We don’t want to be xenophobes!”
“Ew, no.” says Shonee. “Gross. I don’t want to burst out of anybody’s stomach.”
“No, that’s Xenomorphs,” clarifies Kirby, an Alien franchise fan from way back.
The others try to get these four (plus Cirie’s hat) to fall back to tribal lines. Lisa leads the charge to get Cirie and Parvati back in line, while Luke explains his strategy to Kirby with three simple words: ‘oi, oi, oi.’
At Tribal Council, Kass (who, of all the people whose Survivor game I’m seeing for the first time, is my favourite - although, I’m still not watching her 94-episode season of Survivor: Quebec) explains the situation.
“There are too many names being thrown around by the Australians,” she says. “Either the Australian tribe is full of cracks, or what I heard is a bunch of lies.”
Come on, Kass. I know there’s a language barrier, but ‘either they’re full of cracks or full of crap’ is right there.
In the end, pretty much everybody is full of crap, with the Parvati-Cirie-Shonee-Kirby alliance the most successful crap-fillers, sending home Sarah in a 4-3-3 vote.
Dan vs The World
Okay. At the end of the previous episode, I suggested that Sarah was the second most likely person to be next voted out of the game (out of ten), but Rest of the World representative Jack suggested she was the most likely!
My lead over The World team therefore shrinks to 2-1.
Here are my rankings for who I think is most likely to be voted out in the next episode from most likely to least likely.
Kass (I think Shonee and Kirby might argue to Parvati and Cirie that a former World player should go next, and Kass is the biggest physical threat. Also, if she’s voted out, Parvati won’t have to stick to her promise about dropping out of an endurance challenge. I also think if they target her, Parv might use her advantage to steal Kass’s idol, just in case, and get lucky!)
Tommi
Luke (Parv might also steal Luke’s idol)
Janine
Lisa
Shonee
Cirie
Kirby
Parvati
Next up to represent the world against me is Laura, also from the Previously on Australian Survivor podcast.
Here’s Laura’s prediction for who will go next, from most likely to least
Tommi
Janine
Lisa
Kass
Cirie
Parv
Luke
Shonee
Kirby
Can Laura level the contest? Let’s see.
Oh, and if you want to participate as part of the World team, to see if you can beat me in future episodes, just express your interest via the comments below.
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