Australian Survivor Report Card - Brain vs Brawn - Week 4

Featuring Georgia, letters from home, Rachel, candy and Simon

Previously on Australian Survivor: Cara cooked a vote split, tribes were swapped and Hayley ascended to the throne.

Australian Survivor Report Card - Brain vs Brawn - Week 3

Here’s my report card for the fourth week of Australian Survivor

Georgia
Grade: C

In the reward challenge, Emmett outlasts Simon in a classic ‘boy, you’ve got to carry that weight’ (© Lennon-McCartney, 1969) challenge.

At first you think, ‘oh wow, remember how Emmett carried Dr Mitch on his shoulders in the first week? What great foreshadowing from the show.’

Then you’re reminded that actually that was Simon and you’re infuriated by the sloppy and inconsistent storytelling from the editors.

But finally you realise that it’s all a meta-narrative designed to accentuate the point that nobody can tell the difference between Simon and Emmett. Man, let’s hope somebody votes one of them out before merge.

Later, at Tribal Council, Cara will accidentally write down the name ‘Margarita’

Anyway, while Brains 2.0 win reward, they inevitably lose immunity. They head back to Tribal Council, where Georgia has returned from Remedyemption Island just in time to be the target. (Cara, empathetically, plans to write Georgia’s name in the Georgia font.)

The minority try to save themselves by taunting the majority for playing ‘boring numbers games’. A wild shot out of nowhere at Howard Garns, the inventor of the Sudoku, if you ask me.

(This joke brought to you by wikipedia.com)

Letters From Home
Grade: F

The next day Hayley finds something at the well. It’s yet another bag of letters from home. They’re receiving them every other day now.

She sighs and takes them back to the tribe to read.

“Letters from home,” announces Hayley. “I bags S,” says Simon. “And Q. Fucken love Q.”

Trembling in fear, they do so, as sad music plays. The players know their loved ones are at home, surrounded by armed Survivor guards who watch over them, demanding they write more and more letters every day.

Baden reads his letter, lip quivering:

Dear Baden,

I hope you’re doing well in the game. Over here we’re still writing you letters, just as the producers demand. It’s an empty existence, but I don’t want you to worry. You keep having fun in your game. The letters will keep coming for as long as our hands can grip a pen. Little Zayden grabbed for a crayon earlier this morning so we’ll be getting him into the rotation any day now and that’s for sure. Anyway, have to go write another letter. Hope this was a heartwarming segment.

Love as always, Mrs Baden.

PS Please help us!

Meanwhile, over on the Brains tribe, Cara starts reading Georgia’s letter by mistake.

Rachel
Grade: B-

After the reading of today’s mailbag, the players resume the game. Rachel is on the chopping block (not literally, Gerald) but she knows she’s safe, because the show hasn’t yet revealed her backstory.

Then, carelessly, she catches a fish, a giant ‘RACHEL’ bwams onto the screen, and she is doomed.

Wai, meanwhile, makes a bracelet to smuggle to Rachel, inscribed with WWHD.

Candy
Grade: A

The next reward challenge is for candy!

The Brawn tribe prepare for it in the usual fashion, by, uh, mapping out shadow boxing routines. Sure, you might think they look ridiculous. But they won’t look so dumb if JLP reveals the challenge is ‘being a stunt double in a choreographed fight scene in the next John Wick movie’.

Alas, that’s not the challenge. Bad news for both Brawn and the Australian film industry. Instead they have to toss hoops onto sticks or something. Emmett wins that.

(insert standard Emmett tosser joke here)

The Brains 2.0 tribe head to the candy bar where they stuff their collective faces with sugar and advantages.

Or, to be more precise, just the one advantage, which Cara finds. It’s an advantage that lets her and a friend attend the next tribal council and vote.

“Wow!” thinks Cara. “Two extra votes to put on the wrong target.”

Simon
Grade: C+

Cara’s advantage is bad news for Brawn, who have concocted an elaborate Ocean’s Eleven-style plan to throw the challenge and vote out Simon and the two idols he can’t stop telling everybody about.

Dani, Simon’s alleged ally, is leading the heist. We know she’s ruthless because while swimming in the lake, she announces, apropos of nothing, that she’s willing to play an endgame that revolves around cannibalism.

Andrew may not be a great Survivor player but he sure knows a lot about how fish die.

Simon, meanwhile, is keen to vote out Flick. He tells Dani that he needs to get rid of her ‘before she gives me the flick’.

“Ha!” replies Dani, deep undercover by now. “Great wordplay.”

“In what way?” says Simon, frowning in confusion.

Baden’s job is to stage-whisper to George and Cara at Tribal Council and tell them to vote for Simon. He does so.

George nods.

“Who’s the split vote?” Cara stage-whispers back, fully embracing the comedy of her season so far. Sorry, JT and Stephen. Sorry, Malcolm and Denise. Sorry, Coach and his ego. George and Cara are now officially my favourite Survivor duo of all time.

For her part, Hayley has decided that even though Simon will be voted out because he won’t play either idol, she’s throwing the backup vote not onto Flick as planned, but instead Dani herself.

This is partially because Hayley is a living Survivor magician. But mostly because Dani is leaning far too heavily on 2009 pop culture references and keeps referring to the blindside of Simon as ‘a Sandra Bullock’.

Future Evolution of Australian Survivor Slang
(2025–2029 courtesy of the great Previously on Australian Survivor podcast)

2020: Blindside
2021: Sandra Bullock
2022: Pullin’ an SB
2023: SBS On Demand
2024: Going Full Eurovision
2025: The Spanish Ballad
2026: Singing a Toreador Song
2027: Havin’ a Bullfight
2028: Getting Bullocked
2029: Blindside

It all comes full circle.