Australian Survivor Report Card - Titans v Rebels - Episode 13
Featuring Marge, revenge, mishearing sponsors' names and the highest number
Previously on Australian Survivor: Kelli’s son had a birthday, Jaden ate brontosaurus ribs and Feras made sure Alex found an idol
Here’s the report card for the thirteenth episode of Titans v Rebels
Marge
Grade: B
Everybody arrives at the reward challenge, expressing relief that Kelli is finally gone. Hearing this, was JLP ever tempted to open the mat chat with a ‘But last night’s elimination was… a little bit different’?
I’d like to think he was. Just for the LOLs, y’know?
Instead, he announces that it’s time for merge!
There’s much celebration and excitement and hugging at this news, with Jaden looking around expectantly for this Marge person who everybody’s so excited to meet.
The others quickly sit him down and clarify what’s happening, just in time for us to head into the reward challenge - a classic game of WobbleBall-On-A-Bow.
Valeria wins the challenge by the cunning tactic of sleeping through most of it. Her reward? A bed. And immunity at the next Tribal Council. But also no vote. And some money from Set For Life. Maybe a free foot massage from Raymond.
“Worth playing for?” JLP asked earlier, to extremely confused mutterings of ‘maybe’, ‘I guess so’ and ‘genuinely not sure, mate, can you explain that again?’.
Revenge
Grade: C+
Despite not having a vote at the next Tribal Council, Valeria is keen for revenge. In fact, her middle name is ‘revenge’ as somebody (let’s say, oh, Eden) points out. And he probably means metaphorically, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it turned out to be literally one of her names.
Anyway, Valeria’s keen to target Caroline and Kitty for taking out Viola way back in, I dunno, episode seven? But before she can get a chance to do that, it’s time for the immunity reward.
“Wait,” says Valeria. “I thought I just won immunity.”
“No, no, no,” explains a producer. “Immunity was just one of the items in the reward gift basket we cobbled together. There’s still an actual immunity challenge.”
“I will get my revenge on you,” glowers Valeria.
Mishearing Sponsors’ Names
Grade: D
Turns out that Valeria is not even allowed to compete in the challenge. Which seems unfair. On the one hand, yes, what’s the point, she’s already immune. On the other hand, if she won, she could have assigned the immunity to whoever she pleased. Which might have been strategically fun.
To clarify things, we flash back to an earlier pre-production chat that explains the rationale of why Valeria is sitting out.
Australian Survivor Producer: So what if we make the winner of the reward sit out the immunity challenge because she’s already got life in the game?
Set For Life exec: But we’re ‘Set For Life’, not ‘Sit’.
Producer: (showing off challenge designs for a leg pulley ball tunnel thing) You’re what now?!
With Valeria out of the challenge, and Jaden finding the immunity necklace too effeminate (?) for his liking, Winna takes home immunity.
The Highest Number
Grade: A-
Now it’s time to somehow wrangle this giant merged tribe into something coherent.
Alex is concerned. “This will be a tricky vote because fourteen is the highest number there is.”
“Well,” says Mark. “It’s actually only thirteen votes because Valeria won the reward of not being able to vote.”
Alex ignores him. “Fourteen! Hoo boy, that’s a high number and no mistake.”
Amid the splitting of votes on Feras and Raymond, there’s a secret blindside attack on Kitty, which gets almost immediately blown up by a windswept Scott.
Scott drops the bomb of Kitty being a target, then somehow disappears into a puff of the votes not being turned back on him.
A remarkable effort, but, alas for Scott, not the one he hoped for. Because later, at Tribal Council, as JLP is asking Mark to explain whether anybody is being underestimated in this game, Scott puts up his hand to say he’s had enough and he’s out of there.
JLP wipes his brow in relief. Counting all these votes might have taken forever. He snuffs Scott’s torch.
“I guess you might say,” he says. “That you got away… Scott free.”
And everybody chuckles, including that one producer from earlier, who also slaps his forehead and says ‘Oh, Set For Life. I get it now.’