Australian Survivor Report Card - Brain vs Brawn - Week 3
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Australian Survivor Report Card - Brain vs Brawn - Week 3
Featuring empathy, Joey, tribe swaps, Big D and Shannon
Previously on Australian Survivor:
Somebody called Benny turned out to be a real estate agent and was therefore swiftly voted off, Survivor wasn’t MacGyver, and Cara nobly used her intricate knowledge of vote-splitting to skilfully sacrifice her game for George.
Here’s my report card for the third week of Australian Survivor
Empathy
Grade: A
We pick up immediately after Cara’s last-minute reprieve last week, with her trudging over to the Brawn camp. As the first member of the X-Men to ever play Survivor, Cara uses one of the techniques taught to her at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters to locate Brawn — a form of emotional echolocation that effectively enables her to see in the dark.
She homes in on Emmett’s existential despair, swiftly finds the tribe and immediately decides to use her primary power of Empathic Touch™ on them all. She does this by leaping onto the tribe as they all sleep! Annoying from anybody else, but not from an empath.
Having successfully empathed the entire tribe, Cara is immediately integrated into Brawn. Cara, in turn, is amazed that Brawn have yoga and boxing and dance classes. “I don’t even remember competing for those rewards!” she says.
We are soon reminded why Cara has no experience of rewards when Brawn immediately loses their first reward challenge with her on board. JLP helpfully points out that Cara is now the only person to never win a reward. “Oh, that’s okay,” she says. “I feed solely on the succulent juices of human emotion.”
Simon is intrigued by Cara’s empathic lifestyle and decides to give it a go. “Hey, why is it called MENopause when it’s something that only women can catch?” he says, back at camp. “Makes you think, right?”
Everybody ignores him.
“Right?”
Joey
Grade: C+
Brawn come good in the immunity challenge, however. This is bad news for George, with the rest of the alliance as strong as ever. As evidence, Joey and, let’s say, Andrew have the following conversation:
“I trust you mate.”
“I bloody well trust you too mate.”
“Fair dinkum, trusting you, mate, is pretty much the only thing I bloody ever do.”
“Mate, trust-wise, this is a bloody ripper of a relationship.”
“Mate.”
“Mate.”
The majority alliance agree that getting rid of George is a no-brainer. But, uh-oh, Hayley swiftly realises that if it is a no-brainer then, by definition, the Brains tribe can’t do it. Also, she’s as fed up with Joey as the rest of us.
So she casually sounds out the various bottom feeders of the alliance about maybe switching things up, casually pretending that, like, Joey is just a random name that she’s chosen, just off the top of her head, like, say, Joey, as an example of somebody they might all vote for like, say, maybe Joey.
And so, like, say, maybe Joey is voted out.
Tribe Swaps
Grade: A-
You know who’s most annoyed by Joey’s vote out? That’s right, Brawn. On the mat the next day, they are incredulous with Brawny disbelief.
“Why would you take out your brawniest player, the one who had the most brawn?” the Brawn tribe says. “Don’t you appreciate brawn?”
George is just about to point to the word written on his buff when JLP tells everybody to drop them. It’s time for a tribe swap.
“Oh, drop your buffs,” giggles Simon. “I always thought they were saying ‘drop your butts’. And I was like, this butt? It ain’t dropping for nobody.”
Big D
Grade: D+
Despite an influx of former Brawn, the new Brains tribe still immediately loses the first immunity challenge they undertake. Not that it matters, of course, because with the addition of Cara and George to the original Brawns, they have enough numbers to do a vote split.
George explains to the ex-Brawns how a vote split works, simplifying it with each further clarification until he is literally pointing to each of them in turn and telling them which name to write down. Nevertheless, they’re all still ‘whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down Einstein with your high-level mathematical wizardry’.
Finally, they seem to understand. George turns to Cara after they leave and rolls his eyes. “Man, those Brawns are perfectly cast, right?”
“Ha ha ha! They just, um, just don’t get it, do they? So… so, uh, dumb,” says Cara, shuffling nervously, before she immediately cooks the vote split, resulting in Big D going home on a shot-in-the-dark idol play from Laura.
Shannon
Grade: B-
Despite Cara’s vote split error, George defends her. He explains that it was an iconic Australian Survivor moment, more akin to manslaughter than murder. “And who among us,” he says, “has not been charged with manslaughter at one time or another?”
Less sympathetic is the new Brawn tribe, who see their beloved Big D missing and will accept no excuses. When JLP asks how they feel about Big D being voted out, they are quick to reply. “Devastated,” they say. “Distraught. Despairing. Depressed. Downcast. Disconsolate. Distressed. Dispirited. Down in the dumps.”
This thesaurusesque showing has JLP concerned that his beloved Brawn tribe is getting Wai too nerdy. He decrees that both tribes will therefore go to Tribal Council tonight and vote somebody off. Also, four people will be immune and drink the finest flutes of champagne!
As production struggles to put together an appropriate challenge that fits this criteria, Georgia suddenly comes down with a case of acute intheminorityitis, meaning she will cunningly miss a chance of being voted out. Bad news for Laura, especially when Rachel wins one of the immunities. Laura suggests that Cara should be voted out instead, but the Brain 2.0 majority alliance won’t hear of it. “That would be Ca-razy!” says Emmett to camera. “Get it? Cara-zy.” He grins like a maniac.
Meanwhile, over on Brawn 2.0, Hayley is running roughshod over the tribe, despite being in a minority alliance. With Wai and Andrew immune, she tells the five former Brawns that she’s going to rock-paper-scissors her idol with Baden, effectively giving the majority alliance only a 50% chance of voting out the correct ex-Brains member.
The ex-Brawns immediately call Hayley’s bluff. There’s no way she’ll play the idol on Baden, they correctly point out. If we just stick strong, we’ll still have the numbers.
Ha ha ha! No, of course they don’t. They crack almost immediately, squabbling with one another like incontinent schoolchildren and eventually vote Shannon off.
Then JLP rubs it in further with some extra rules that he’s made up. “Now,” he says. “The four people with the highest blood alcohol level have to unanimously decide who out of Shannon and Laura will go home. If they can’t, then it will be decided by a game of 3D Chess.”
“The four highest blood alcohol levels?” says Rachel. “Does that include you?”
“Ha ha ha ha ha!” says JLP, and falls off his stool, unconscious, as production usher Shannon off the set.