Australian Survivor Report Card - Brains v Brawn 2 - Episode 13
Featuring cocktail parties, merge plans, not being eliminated and Friend Island
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Previously on Australian Survivor: Biceps were destroyed, snake oil went unsold and Ben disappeared
Cocktail Parties
Grade: B
It’s time for the merge! We know this because JLP summons the two tribes together, throws buffs at them and declares ‘You’re merged, baitches!’
Zara sniffs at the language, but there are more important questions to be asked. “Hey, what happened to Ben?” asks Paulie.
“There is no Ben. There never was a Ben,” insists JLP.
“Sure there was,” pipes up PD. “People used to get him and Jesse confused all the time.”
“There is no Ben. There never was a Ben,” repeats JLP, and he glowers at Jesse.
But then his face brightens and he declares that it’s time for a reward challenge. It’s a classic game of ‘You’re A Sheet On A Clothesline’. And the reward? A cocktail party!
Needless to say, then, the challenge comes down to Zara, Logan and Kate, dangling like nobody’s business. AJ is immediately besotted by Kate’s ability to suspend. “Hey,” he says. “We should hang some time.” And he laughs. And she laughs. And Karin glowers at his flirty chat.
Eventually, Zara and Logan summon JLP to courier a message to Kate, which he does.
‘If we let you win, can we come to your party?’ is the message, which JLP delivers in the form of a singing telegram.
“Sure,” says Kate, who has by now had enough of AJ’s smitten small talk algorithm.
Merge Plans
Grade: B-
Kate invites all the girls to the cocktail party. Plus, Paulie and AJ. And, in the end, pretty much everybody, because JLP gets carried away with allowing her to invite more and more players. Eventually, it’s Kate who has to say ‘enough, already, let’s leave some losers behind’.
Once the cocktail party’s over, the hammered participants walk twenty metres up the beach to rejoin said losers and the merge planning begins.
Coven 3.0: Gimme Some Coven is formed. And almost immediately sees Logan, Zara and Laura jostling for power.
AJ meanwhile, starts running around and getting up to mischief. He is stunned to learn that Myles has learned how to whisper. “This’ll work out great!” says AJ. And he explains his cunning new plan of ‘crushing on a pretty girl’. Whispering Myles is sceptical, but quietly sceptical, and that’s the point.
Paulie also does some running around. Jesse decides everybody should just ‘stick together’. And, of course, Kaelan pitches a ‘chill day’.
Also, PD has an idea for the merged tribe name. It’s Mimosa, a Fijian word which means ‘drunker than you realised’.
Not Being Eliminated
Grade: B+
Time for an immunity challenge! A classic game of See-Saw Wobble Ball!
Laura, unluckily, is eliminated first, which is a terrible shame for her because she immediately starts grumbling that had she not been eliminated first, she definitely would have won immunity, and that’s a fact.
Instead, it’s Logan who wins, by the sneaky tactic of not being eliminated first. Or, indeed, at all. Cheating? Perhaps.
Her win makes things very simple - the original Brains and Coven 3.0 will combine to vote out Jesse.
But a simple plan’s a dreary plan, and AJ’s not having that. At first, he runs around trying to vote off Sam Pang, before realising that, despite his constant appearances over the first few weeks, they were actually television commercials and not part of the game. So he switches to targeting Paulie.
Sure, Paulie doesn’t have a talk show starting soon. But he might one day. Best to nip it in the bud.
Friend Island
Grade: A-
Time to vote! Annoyingly, on the way to Tribal Council, Paulie is struck by one of the cartoon love hearts floating around AJ’s head whenever he sees Kate, and has to be bandaged up.
There’s some debate with JLP about what kind of game they’re playing. “It’s not Friend Island,” points out Logan. Which is a shame. I’d genuinely like to watch Friend Island, a lovely show in which on the first day, everybody has the confessional ‘I did come here to make friends’, and nobody gets voted off, and the person who has the most friends at the end of the game wins. Not prize money. Just the inner glow of knowing that you’ve got some new mates, and isn’t that a thing to treasure?
On the other hand, Logan then also pitches the idea that her vote is based on ‘vengeance’. And, hell, I’d watch Vengeance Island too.
In the end, it turns out that the ‘vengeance’ that she was talking about was vengeance for, uh, Max? Who was voted out ages ago by Jesse.
Or maybe that was Be—
No. I’m hearing there never was a Ben.
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