Australian Survivor Report Card - Brains v Brawn 2 - Episode 1
Featuring sequels, Alanis Morissette lyrics, the Brawn tribe, the Brains tribe and home made sign languages
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Sequels
Grade: D
Remember a few years back on Australian Survivor when we had Brains v Brawn 1? With King George and Queen Hayley and, most important of all, Royal Chef Cara, cooking up a storm wherever she went, as she wielded her wild empath powers. What a season of Australian Survivor that was! How we miss it.
Now it’s time for Brains v Brawn 2! Will this be a great sequel that’s comparable (or superior?) to the original, like Aliens or Terminator 2: Judgment Day or District 9? Or will it sputter out and be a disappointment, like Highlander II: The Quickening, Highlander III: The Sorcerer, Highlander: Endgame, Highlander: The Search for Vengeance or Jaws 3D?
Only one way to find out, and that’s to watch every single episode of this Australian Survivor season, which begins with the standard introductions, as the two tribes arrive on the island to meet JLP. The Brawn tribe have all run there, jogging along beside the far more sensible Brains tribe, who are chauffeured along in a truck.
Will the Brains tribe get to use a truck in every challenge? Certainly, that seems like the fair way to do it, given Australian Survivor’s notorious overreliance on physical challenges.
Alanis Morissette Lyrics
Grade: C+
Another problem for the Brains tribe? Even when there is some kind of intellectual component to a challenge, such as this first one to win flint, the Brains resort to the stupidest possible approach, like they’re some kind of modern day Alanis Morissette lyric.
Instead of, for example, trying to retrieve the magic key that wins the challenge by the producer-approved method of using a home made pole after piling up sandbags on which to stand (or alternatively, asking JLP for that damn truck they were promised), they instead start hurling sandbags at the key, like chimpanzees throwing faeces.
Inevitably, the sandbag gets stuck and the frustrated producers are forced to insist that Brawn instead keep ratings up by having them retrieve the key via Kate, the tribe member wearing the shortest pair of shorts.
Which they do.
The Brawn Tribe
Grade: B
Anyway, now it’s time for us to get to know the tribes. First up, it’s the Brawn tribe.
Main character energy there revolves around Nash. He’s swiftly dubbed Nash the Rash, which would seem cruel, except for the fact that the only thing quicker than this nicknaming was his finding and flaunting of an immunity idol. And if that’s not rash behaviour, I don’t know what is. (Unless, of course, they mean that he’s irritating and unwelcome and the kind of thing you just wish you could get rid of by applying a special ointment. In which case, yes, that’s also rash behaviour.)
Nash’s number one ally is Zen, a hip hop artist trying to keep his testosterone under control by smuggling a word a day dictionary onto the island. (Fun fact: ‘Zen’ is short for ‘Dozen’, referring to the amount of IQ points that he is able to display in any given confessional.)
“Boy,” says Zen, once Nash finds the idol. “That sure is perspicacious of you.”
“Give me a break,” says Nash. “They don’t allow us deodorant out here.”
“Who else knows about this perspicacious idol?” asks Zen.
“No-one.”
“I think it’s pronounced ‘Noonan’,” says Zen, referring to a member of the Brawn tribe who is trying to come out of the shadow of her incredibly famous family of whom I’ve never heard.
Nash, annoyed by the correction, decides that if he can’t show the idol to no-one, he’ll show it everyone instead. Whatever.
Then there’s the previously mentioned Kate, whose bikini-vest-shorts combo makes it look as if she’s wearing overalls? Perhaps in tribute to ol’ whatsisname, that dude who thought he was the Joker a few seasons back. Jesse? Joey? Joaquin?
The Brains Tribe
Grade: B
Over to the Brain tribe, where we’re thrilled to meet Laura, who is a witch. More importantly, a witch who can read auras, because you can’t spell ‘Laura’ without ‘aura’.
She immediately starts revealing to us, the aura-blind viewers, the colours of her various tribe mates’ spiritual essences.
Here’s Myles. He’s got a polka dot aura, because he’s a glasses-wearing financial analyst but also a pole dancer?
And this is Max. He’s a primary school teacher, and he’s got a bright green aura, which maybe has an immunity idol hidden inside it? Big advantage to Laura if true.
Most dramatically, there’s Kent, whose aura is correctly revealed by Laura as being ‘as black as the foulest pits of Hades, a dark miasma of malicious intent that seems to poison the very air around him’. For Kent is an obnoxious, machete-wielding multi-millionaire maniac who orders everybody around and then throws Max’s hat in the fire in the middle of the night, and generally behaves so unpleasantly that the rest of his tribe immediately start questioning exactly how to pronounce ‘Kent’.
My point is this: Are you permitted to get up in the middle of the night and just wander into the jungle and start your own tribe where you live alone and don’t have to interact with crazies? Asking for my future Survivor-playing self.
Also, a Witches v Empaths season, please, Australian Survivor.
Home Made Sign Languages
Grade: F
But now it’s time for the immunity challenge, which requires the tribes to drag a coconut-filled snake (not a literal snake, alas) through an obstacle course before doing a jigsaw puzzle at the end.
Weirdly, despite not having their truck, the Brains tribe race through the obstacle course to the puzzle first. Given the first challenge, however, there’s no guarantee that means they’ll win. Indeed, the smart money (ie Kent’s) is on Brawn smoking them in the puzzle.
Unluckily, however, it turns out that this is the first puzzle Nash (still wearing the immunity idol) had ever attempted in his life, and he just moves the pieces idly around, smelling them, stacking them on his head, threatening to vote them out, etc.
Then it’s time for Tribal Council. Despite complaining that it’s only been a couple of days and that’s not long enough to know who they like and who they don’t (a weird complaint - it’s been about an hour for me, and I’ve had plenty of time to work out who I don’t like), everybody agrees they need to flush Nash’s idol.
PD even accentuates the point with some home made sign language:
(pointing to self)’m (flush gesture)ing (pointing to Nash)’s (pointing to eye)(pointing to a doll that Noonan made from leftover banana peels)
Despite threatening otherwise, Nash plays his idol and the vote therefore comes down to a choice between model Candy, and power-lifter (or possibly Powerade-lifter?) Ursula.
Ursula explains to JLP why they’re the two targets. “Well,” she says. “Candy is on the block because she’s thunderingly useless, not strong enough and a stain within our tribe - no offence - and I’m on the block because somehow, and it’s unclear why, I’m not connecting with my tribe mates.”
That’s enough to convince the rest of her tribe and Candy goes home.
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