Australian Survivor Report Card - Australia v The World - Episode 10
Featuring demon skulls, snoozing, monkey paws, opening speeches and jury questions
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PREVIOUSLY ON AUSTRALIAN SURVIVOR: Monkeys had fists, Shonee tried to resist, but gamewise ceased to exist
Demon Skulls
Grade: B+
And so, having conquered all before them, the alliance of Parvati, Cirie, Luke and Janine offer their pithy quotes about their game so far, and what their dreams are, heading into this final episode:
Parvati: “I need to right the wrongs of the bitter jury of the Heroes v Villains season”
Luke: “I need to get to the end so I can plead my case to the jury”
Cirie: “I’m sick to death of being the best player to never win”
Janine: “I need to monetise core assets through a divestiture to fuel top-line growth initiatives”
That sorted, they head off to their final Australian Survivor Torture Challenge™, which is scheduled to take place on the literal skulls of giant demons.
Cirie takes one look at the setup and immediately shakes her head. ‘These fucken Australians,’ she mutters. And fair enough too.
Snoozing
Grade: A-
To Cirie’s credit, however, she doesn’t immediately head to the sit-out bench, which is what I would have done. She gives it a crack at holding up twenty percent of her body weight while standing on sharp spikes.
And then is almost immediately out.
Here’s a tip for future players: Before the game starts, why not simply swallow enough helium that 20% of your body weight is negative? And then maybe if a challenge was hellish enough you could also float away like that old man in Up. Something to think about.
Obviously, for dramatic purposes, Janine is out next, leaving the final showdown for immunity between Luke and Parvati.
Which is bad news for Luke, who, in between the various grimacing and screaming in agony, has perhaps not noticed that Parv has fallen asleep.
Eventually, the pain is too much for Luke and he emits one final shriek as he crashes to the ground, defeated.
“Sshhhhh,” admonishes Cirie. And she gestures for JLP to go place the immunity necklace over the still-dozing Parvati.
Monkey Paws
Grade: D
Now the question is simply whether Janine will vote for Luke to send the three women to the final, or Cirie to ensure a two-way tie and fire-making.
Janine, attuned to the power of branding, realises instantly that a final three of Janine Luke Parvati would be a fitting way to honour JLP. She therefore sticks with Luke and fire is on the table. (Literally so - that’s where they do it. Little tables.)
This is obviously a great sign for Cirie, given the wonderful, frustrated ‘I know how to make fire’ foreshadowing from the Tony vote-out. Surely, the only fitting payoff to that foreshadowing is her successfully making fire at final four.
And she is successful! But, also, about thirty seconds too late, as, after a (again quite literally) heated battle, Luke wins.
A kind of monkey paw outcome for Cirie, once again reiterating my point from the previous episode that monkey fists do not belong in Survivor (unless as extensions from actual monkeys doing actual punching).
Opening Speeches
Grade: D-
After a capsicum-heavy breakfast (another torturous challenge in this game), the JLP final three then meet JLP the host for final tribal council.
JLP (the host) decrees that the jury will be deciding who is ‘the greatest Survivor player of all time’.
“Oh,” says the jury, as one. “From this three? It’s Parvati.”
And they start filing back out.
But JLP insists that they do the thing correctly, and lets Janine give her speech first.
Her power point presentation keeps coming back to one main point: ‘My Survivor game was flawless’. To which Lisa responds with a single blink that nevertheless also somehow clearly says ‘oh, please’.
Luke, for his part, employs the thrilling tactic of actively insulting three members of the World tribe, telling Tommi, Kass and Lisa that they treated him like a dirty dog and that’s why he would never work with scum like them.
About halfway through Luke’s speech, JLP (the host) also decrees that they will be removing $1000 from the prize money every time somebody says ‘youse’. (Luke ends the game owing the show $3.7m)
Jury Questions
Grade: B
After Parvati’s speech (essentially ‘why on Earth did you two nitwits even let me get close to this position?’), it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion. Turns out that JLP also stands for ‘Jury Loves Parvati’.
Janine and Luke get sufficiently desperate during the questioning that they tie shoes around their necks, but to no avail.
Sarah goes for the kill on Janine, grilling her moves with an intensity and fire that would have served her tremendously well if she’d employed them during the actual, y’know, game. Kass asks Parvati whose votes she thinks she’s got (and, to her credit, Parvati doesn’t immediately blurt out ‘duh, all of you’ - that’s why she’s a great). And, of course, Lisa asks everybody to sign her shirt.
In the end, though, after Parvati reminds everybody that she didn’t, for goodness sake, get a single vote throughout the game, and, again, what were you all thinking, she receives seven votes, winning the game unanimously.
(I mean, sure. Technically, Sarah voted for Luke for some reason, continuing her trend of being slightly out of sync with this particular game. But JLP made up for it by also casting a vote for Parvati to win. And fair enough too.)
And that’s that. Genuinely mad that this entire season happened. They better do it again, ASAP.
Dan vs The World
For the final round of me against the world, Shannon and I both had Parvati as our number one most likely to win. Because we’re no dummies. The final round is therefore tied, and I finish the season with a 5-2 win.
Congratulations to me, as I join Parvati among the ranks of the Australia v The World legends.
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