Australian Survivor Report Card - Brains v Brawn 2 - Episode 6
Featuring running the game, putting together a desk, naming alliances, seals and being exhausted by Max
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Previously on Australian Survivor: Logan’s hair was falling out, Ally got her yap on and Rich swapped tribes.
Running The Game
Grade: C
We cut to the morning after Rich has already arrived at Brawn camp, and explained what he’s doing there. A sceptical Noonan casts a dubious eyebrow at his claims that he’s not a spy and that he’s genuinely now part of the Brawn tribe forever, and no mistake.
“That’s pretty rich,” mutters Noonan.
“Thank you, pretty Noonan!” replies Rich, who has better hearing than expected. Rich, oblivious to the wariness of the Brawn tribe, explains that he is running the game.
Meanwhile, over at the Brains tribe, somebody’s thrown cold water all over the entire idea of a women’s alliance, which has therefore descended into bickering and squabbling and struggles for power.
Or, to put it another way, The Coven is melting! It’s melting!
Putting Together A Desk
Grade: B+
Time for a reward challenge! This time, around, it’s a classic game of PillowBash, sponsored by IKEA! Brawn obviously win it, because that, after all, is what Survivor is all about: Who’s the best wrestler.
I dunno. If IKEA is going to sponsor a challenge, shouldn’t it be a better tie-in? Make the tribes put together a desk or something?
The Brawn reward? An IKEA goodie-pack, including cushions and blankets and classic IKEA staple, needlessly early letters from home.
How needlessly early are these needlessly early letters from home? To give you some idea, here’s Kate’s:
“Dear Kate. We got home from the airport safely after dropping you off. Traffic was rough. Thinking about getting Red Rooster for dinner. Love, Mum.”
Naming Alliances
Grade: B-
Brains, meanwhile, are still trying to rearrange themselves into new alliances. Ally, obviously, is rushing back and forth, telling everybody else what’s going on and who’s talking to whom.
Zara, however, has her eye on the most important aspect of this tribe alliance reshuffle, challenging Myles to come up with a name for the new group they’ve formed. “The PTA!” shouts Myles, excitedly.
“Not the PTA,” snaps Zara.
Fortunately for Myles, the immunity challenge (a classic game of Reverse Waterslide Wheel of Fortune) ends with a whole heap of letters. (Not letters from home, but letters you can rearrange into words. Words that can be used as names. Names that can be used for alliances. Serendipity!)
Seals
Grade: A+
Before we get to the Wheel of Fortune portion of the challenge, however, there’s the Reverse Waterslide to get through, which is made doubly challenging because Rich is on the bench distracting his former tribe mates (and new tribe mates) by whispering ‘Bomb squad! Bomb squad!’ at everybrain who goes past.
This doesn’t stop Jesse, who turns out to be a seal! Not one of those tiresome Navy SEALS either. A proper Sea World-style seal, all full of whiskers and flippers and willingness to perform tricks to entertain onlookers. This particular trick? Jesse somehow slides backwards up the waterslide to retrieve a bag of letters. “Good boy!” shouts Paulie, and tosses him a fish which he swallows whole.
Not that it makes much of a difference, since the anagram appears way too hard for, frankly, both tribes. JLP checks his watch, as they struggle to decode the phrase. Maybe he can just call it another tie?
Luckily, somebody (not sure who - maybe AJ, maybe Noonan, maybe a bored producer) eventually works out the puzzle and both tribes race to complete it. Because, hey, in Australian Survivor, even a puzzle is ideally decided by one’s athleticism.
Being Exhausted By Max
Grade: D
The Brawn tribe therefore win immunity, sending Brains back to Tribal Council. Max is given Rich’s scroll from the previous episode. It has the power to a) send two people away from Tribal Council before the vote and b) gift the bearer much more screen time than they would otherwise receive.
This is particularly annoying in the case of Max, because we swiftly learn that Max is particularly annoying. He starts pulling faces, talking in stupid voices and misquoting The Breakfast Club. It’s exhausting just watching ten-second clips of the man. Can’t imagine what it’s like living with him.
Max also announces -and you’ll never believe this - that he’s targeting Myles, who he declares to be a ‘jungle rat’. Honestly, I’m coming around to the idea of randomly burning Max’s belongings.
Of course, this is the Brains tribe, so there’s plenty of time for everybody to go completely off the deep end and change their minds about who they’re targeting. At one point, both newly restructured alliances are planning to blindside the other alliance by voting out Ally. Not even sure how that happened, but I promise you it did. We can see now why there were so many volunteers last night to leave this tribe.
By the time we get to Tribal Council, nobody has any idea who’s going home. Except for Max, who sends Karin and Logan back to camp and whispers to everybody else to vote out Myles. A good plan, except for the bit where he miscounted the numbers, leaving more members of ‘The Graduates’ (the name that Myles eventually came up with for his new alliance) than the other alliance (the, uh, ‘Mrs Robinsons’).
So, instead, Max’s ally is voted out. Or, indeed, Max’s Ally. Or, to be clearer still, Ally.
Obviously, Ally immediately heads straight over to the Brawn tribe to tell them she’s been voted out.
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