Australian Survivor Report Card - Brains v Brawn 2 - Episode 4
Featuring missing the first fifteen minutes, #thirtybigfatsnags, making fun of names, kicking and fake idols
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Previously on Australian Survivor: Zen’s casting proved unfortunate, AJ didn’t use his words and Kent scuttled off back to stately dickhead manor.
Missing The First Fifteen Minutes
Grade: D-
The first episode of week two begins… fifteen minutes early and in the middle of a challenge (a classic game of Crucify-Your-Feet (Pairs))? What’s going on here? Come on, Ten. You can’t go mixing up starting times on us like this. Here I was, tidying up after dinner, cleaning the BBQ, rinsing off the cat, and just generally killing time until the show started, only to be obliviously missing out on the first fifteen minutes. (I would have missed the first half hour had I not flicked the TV on as background complaining-about-The Project noise, while I blow-dried Pirate.)
I would have to catch up after the episode on what I missed: A wild Rich dream sequence. Shakespeare meta-references (AJ going full Iago on Rich, pouring poison in his ear (not literal poison)). A Zen RIP-rap. Nash floundering in a hammock.
This is why you advertise the Sunday night starting time more clearly, Ten!
#thirtybigfatsnags
Grade: A-
Still, Brains won the challenge, via Logan and Zara’s eternal soles, and with it, the reward of #thirtybigfatsnags.
However, JLP had a counter-offer. Instead of the sausages, he could instead give Brains some flint to restart their fire (and, in turn, pass the sausages over to the Brawn tribe). After the kind of heated debate that would, ironically, have reignited the fire, the Brains eventually decided that a sausage in the hand is worth more than a flint in the bush. (Genuinely stunned that JLP didn’t leeringly phrase it this way.)
So off they ate, sizzling up the sausages big time, and not missing out on any of the episode wasting time by cleaning the BBQ afterwards. (Am I still bitter about this? Maybe a little.)
At the end of the BBQ, Rich tried to set his hat on fire from the hot plate and smuggle it back to camp, explaining to the producers on set that it had been like that since before Kent was voted out.
Alas, they didn’t buy it.
Making Fun of Names
Grade: C
Back in the Brawn camp, meanwhile, Nash has a plan for winning people back to his side. Namely, he’s going to confess that he threw the puzzle challenge way back in the first episode.
What’s with this season and people admitting to tribemates their terrible secret actions?!
If I did something insane on the first day (like burning a hat or throwing a challenge or mocking the names of another player’s children during a confessional (‘Bethanee?? Come on’)) because I was overexcited or showing off or had taken too much cough medicine, I wouldn’t tell anybody about it. And if anybody got suspicious, I’d instead blame it on the douchiest bro. (And then not admit to that.)
Save your confessions for confessionals, people. It’s right there in the name.
Kicking
Grade: A
Off to the immunity challenge, a classic game of Drown-Em-Ups Soccer, in which four players try to drown one another while a soccer penalty shoot-out takes place.
Now, you may be looking at the description of that challenge and thinking ‘there’s no puzzle here, JLP’. But you’d be wrong, because apparently kicking is a kind of puzzle? I dunno. The point is that Myles is wicked good at it, effortlessly potting goal after goal past the hapless Brawn goalkeepers.
Maybe Myles is a former soccer superstar. Or maybe Laura cast a Boot of Kerr spell on him. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that he’s so good at it that the editors give him his own kicking theme music. And yes, ‘kicking’ can be used as an adjective there, if you like.
Still, it’s pretty annoying that we don’t have Kent here to spin a reason why Myles singlefootedly winning the challenge for Brains is, in fact, a reason to vote him out.
No, not ‘annoying’. The other one: ‘fucken delightful’.
Fake Idols
Grade: C+
Nash is the obvious target for the vote out, but he tries to make things interesting by ‘finding’ his original idol’s paperwork in front of Paulie.
“What do you have in your pocketses?” asks Paulie, and Nash refuses to tell him, leading to some suspicions that he’s found another idol. On the other hand, the Brawn tribe take a look at his neck and sees that there are no idols dangling from it, so aren’t too concerned.
Nevertheless, they decide to prudently split the votes on Ursula as well (Fun fact: Ursula is the twin sister of Phoebe from season one).
At tribal council, Kate calls him out. “The elephant in the room is Nash,” she says.
“Nash, what would you say to that?” asks JLP, trying to stir up mischief.
“Firstly, I’m not an elephant. And, secondly, this isn’t a room.” And he leans back smugly.
“Nash makes some good points, Kate.”
But it’s all to no avail. Nash has no idol, and a load of votes, so he goes home, sent off with a highly relatable grenade metaphor from JLP.
Another Australian Survivor episode in the books.
Now, time to go back and see what happened in those first fifteen minutes.
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