Australian Survivor Report Card - Brains v Brawn 2 - Episode 17
Featuring Bounty Beach, The Barrens, advantages, trusting AJ and flipping out
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Previously on Australian Survivor: Paulie was in a pickle, Kate was on one leg, and vote-offs were out of favour
Bounty Beach
Grade: A
At the end of the previous episode, a convoluted set of procedures saw the tribe split in two: Team Bounty (consisting of Kate, Morgan, AJ, Karin, Zara, William Bligh and Fletcher Christian) and Team Barren (everybody else).
The editors have a superb time with these splits, using colour filters and musical cues to play up the delight of living on Bounty Beach, where one can sunbathe and eat breakfast and snorkel with the dolphins, contrasted with The Barrens, where food is scarce, it rains all the time and terror lurks around ever corner in the form of an evil homicidal clown.
Karin toys with the idea of throwing the challenge to get rid of Kate, Morgan and AJ. But when the producers explain to her that she can’t vote out three people, she joins everybody else in targeting Myles, who is deemed to be ‘too cocky’.
“I still say we should vote out Captain Bligh!” says the mutinous Fletcher Christian.
“Get outta here!” says Zara. “You’re not supposed to be on this show. You belong in either the 1879 short story, the 1916 film, the 1932 novel, the 1933 film, the 1935 film, the 1950 Bugs Bunny cartoon, the 1962 film, the 1984 film, the 2004 band or the 2008 novel of The Mutiny on the Bounty.”
For the one other thing that’s available on Bounty Beach? Wikipedia disambiguation pages.
The Barrens
Grade: F
Over in The Barrens, however, things are unambiguously awful. Paulie and Logan, in particular, are deeply upset about this. Paulie finds it all unfair and depressing and mopes around, having montages of everything that’s gone wrong in the game so far (receiving votes, losing Noonan, being on a tribe with Nash) and feeling sad. Logan, meanwhile, uses the awfulness of The Barrens as fuel for her hatred, which, if unlocked carefully enough, functions as an entire new category of renewable energy.
But they, too, all decide it’s time to get rid of Myles. Enough already with Myles having fun playing a game. Ugh.
With that agreed, Kaelan uses his sunny attitude to start a fire, which cheers everybody up just long enough to head off to the immunity challenge.
Advantages
Grade: D-
The immunity challenge is a classic game of Hang-on-a-Pole, with whoever hangs on the longest winning immunity not just for themselves but for their entire group. “Do it for Barrens!” shouts Myles cheerfully at one point.
“Ugh,” responds Logan, and steps down immediately.
In the end, it’s Paulie versus Kate and Zara. Oh, also I forgot to mention that the Bounty team, in addition to the broader advantages of food, shelter and better editing, also got an advantage in the challenge. Not only would they start at an easier height level where the footholds were better, they also received regular shoulder massages from JLP and bluetooth headphones to listen to their favourite music. (Kate’s startling choice - Tubthumping by Chumbawumba! So much so that, even when she gets down, JLP decides to let her get back up again.)
This myriad of advantages is eventually enough to overwhelm Paulie. Huh. The tribe with every advantage won immunity. Funny old game.
Trusting AJ
Grade: D-
Now the door is open for everybody to come together and secretly vote out Myles. All they have to do is keep things under wraps and blinds—
No. There goes AJ, telling Myles he’s the target and he should play his idol.
Earlier in the episode, Team Bounty had discussed if AJ could be trusted not to mess things up. Of course, he can’t be trusted not to mess things up, you damn fools! That’s. What. He. Does.
Myles tells Paulie and Logan that he will definitely be playing his idol, so unless they want to go home, they should team up with him to vote out the most dangerous player in the game, and his number one rival… Kristin.
Paulie goes full Michael Bluth in Arrested Development. “Her?”
Flipping Out
Grade: D-
Still, the point is that Myles is somehow in ‘the power position’ after all nine other players agreed to vote him out earlier in the episode. This is very funny and Myles revels in the situation as long as he can. That’s. What. He. Does.
For this very reason, if I were playing Survivor, I would simply always have an idol.
Paulie starts flipping out, however, immediately chastising everybody for making him the backup vote. Reasonably so, given that he knows Myles will be playing his idol. Nevertheless, flailing around in a panic doesn’t help anybody.
“Where does he think he is with that negative attitude?” sniffs Kate at one point. “Back in The Barrens?” And the girls laugh and laugh and laugh.
In the end, Myles does play his idol, and Paulie goes home.
More importantly, based on Australian Survivor tradition, everybody will now completely forget about the goal of voting out Myles, in favour of, oh, let’s say, Captain Cook.
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