Australian Survivor Report Card - Titans v Rebels - Episode 21

Featuring cold chit-chat, Interstellar Idol, leaf origami and fundamentally flawed plans

Previously on Australian Survivor: Kirby wanted to beat the best, Feras was awake at 3am and nobody’s heart was in it 

Australian Survivor Report Card - Titans v Rebels - Episode 20

Here’s the report card for the twenty-first episode of Titans v Rebels

Cold Chit-Chat
Grade: A-

Kirby returns from Rianna’s vote-out, putting a brave face on it. She, Kitty and Caroline have magnificent, passive aggressive chats where Kitty coldly assures Kirby that ‘it’s all good’ and Caroline offers similarly chilly ‘I love you’s and Kirby responds with equally inauthentic, smiling ‘oh, I know’s.

I would not be telling Kirby it’s ‘just a game’ while she has that knife 

The whole point of playing Survivor is to have strained conversations like this, so it’s great to see them getting their teeth into it. I’m so happy for them all.

It’s all good.

Interstellar Idol
Grade: D

Kirby heads off to find an idol, and Feras trails her. Mark still isn’t satisfied with this.

“I wouldn’t mind if we had a second pair of eyes on her right now,” he says.

“A second pair of eyes?!” says Kitty, startled. “What are you talking about? Do you think there’s a four-eyed alien of some kind on this island? This is Australian Survivor, Mark, not Interstellar Idol.”

Mark is annoyed. “No, I just meant another person.”

But Kitty isn’t listening. “I guess Ray might be an alien,” she muses.

Caroline chimes in, panicky. “What if, while Kirby is searching for an idol, she accidentally finds an alien?”

“Or something even more bizarre, like Kate Middleton?” says Kitty. “What then? What then, Mark?”

Deleted and heavily edited scene from the family visit

Leaf Origami
Grade: B+

Kirby then wins an incredibly frustrating immunity challenge of Tong Towers (a Survivor classic), precisely the kind of challenge where you want to be feigning checked out apathy for the game.

Mark with the steady tongs of a seasoned diplomat. (I have no idea what I mean by this. I just know it’s true.)

Once back at camp, Raymond successfully sends Mark off on a leaf hunt. Now, when most people say ‘hey, can somebody get some leaves’ you assume it’s to help build a fire. When Raymond says it, he could want them for literally anything.

Perhaps he’s building a little crown made from jungle leaves. Perhaps he plans to arrange jungle leaves in a pattern on the ground and host a leaf art gallery, in honour of Scott. Perhaps he’s working on his jungle leaf origami skills and wants to craft a menagerie of intricate leaf animals. Nothing would surprise me at this stage.

While he’s gone, however, Caroline gets everybody on board with her plan to finally vote out her nemesis, Mark. She’s been waiting all game for this and now’s the time to strike.

I know how Caroline feels. I’ve similarly been biding my time, planning, then arbitrarily delaying, vengeance against my arch-nemesis (Jamie Hunt from grade three).

Fundamentally Flawed Plans
Grade: F

Except this isn’t Caroline’s plan at all. Because she secretly found the idol earlier and she has a far sneakier plan in mind. Once everybody votes for Mark, she’ll play her idol on him, and then her sole vote for Feras will win the day.

A very sneaky plan. A very sneaky and flawed plan. Because if everybody does vote for Mark and she plays her idol on Mark, Feras would obviously play his own idol on himself immediately.

Nevertheless, this fundamentally enormous flaw in her plan at no point occurs to her. Not at Tribal Council when Kitty and Kirby continue their smiling sniping at one another (“You’re so strong!” “You’re so amazing!”). Not when Raymond does a little dance on his way back from the voting urn. Not even when her idol play triggers no reaction whatsoever from Feras.

Mark seems physically ill at the idea of Kirby (or indeed anybody) ‘saying what they think and seeing what happens’. 

The last should have been the big tip-off, because Feras, Kirby, Raymond and Mark himself have all instead voted for Kitty.

“Whoops,” says Caroline.

On the plus side, Caroline not only tried to build her resume on a plan that couldn’t work even if she correctly understood what the others were doing, she also got that understanding so wrong it failed in a completely different way. Superb stuff.

(Technically, I’m not sure this is a plus side.)

Apology

Like many amateur Australian Survivor fans, I do occasionally experiment with speculation and jokes about what might happen. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the joke about Kate Middleton I shared earlier in the piece caused. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy report card reading experience. D