Australian Survivor Report Card - Titans v Rebels - Episode 17

Featuring wedgelessness, Dangleball, coconut tantrums and snark pills

Previously on Australian Survivor: Jokes didn’t land. (This is also a next time on Australian Survivor. And, no doubt, a ‘this time’ as well.)

Australian Survivor Report Card - Titans v Rebels - Episode 16

Here’s the report card for the seventeenth episode of Titans v Rebels

Wedgelessness
Grade: B+

How do you think Feras reacts to Kirby’s brutal betrayal of him that sent loyal ally Aileen home?

If you guessed a shoulder-shrugging ‘engh’, you’d be right. For Feras seemingly cares not one iota, reassuring Kirby that Aileen’s elimination means ‘no more wedge’. (‘No more Wedge’, of course, also feels like the kind of incredibly obscure Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977, dir. Lucas) reference that Eden might have revelled in. Alas, we shall never know.)

Instead, Feras, Kirby, Rianna and Jaden head to the well to chat some strat.

I sure hope Raymond is at the gym.

Their eventual decision? To get more numbers than the other side and vote them out. They decide they will add to this four another two (Kitty and Raymond), since six is more than four. They high-six and high-four one another in excitement.

“And you can definitely get Raymond?” asks Kirby.

Feras nods. “Ray doesn’t budge.”

The show then immediately cuts to Raymond, lying completely still on the ground, staring vacantly into space.

Bless you, editors.

Dangleball
Grade: B-

It’s time now for the immunity challenge. It’s a game of Dangleball! A classic.

I would simply choose to drown

The rules are simple: players must dangle from a rope above the water until they either fall off or drown. Last person to drown wins.

Annoyingly for JLP, Rianna and Alex are frustratingly good at this, taking valuable time out of his afternoon chuckling lessons and post-vote words of wisdom brainstorming session.

He starts making up rules. “Now you lower yourselves!” “Now use one hand!” “Now Raymond gets to tickle you!”

Eventually, after several hours of this, Alex falls.

JLP storms off furious, muttering about how maybe if that’s their attitude, tonight’s vote will be a little bit different, with Alex and Rianna having to arm-wrestle him to stay in the game…

Coconut Tantrums
Grade: D

Now it’s time for strategy, though. Alex, still working on the schoolyard analogy from the previous Tribal Council, has an adolescent snit because Feras and Kirby are BFFs, sneaking off for durries behind the shed, and leaving him out of all the gossip.

He therefore decides to team back up with the Titans to help vote out Jaden. Kitty meanwhile, has been swayed to the Rebels and is happy to vote out Caroline. Or possibly Valeria. 

Why is Kitty flipping? Nobody really knows. It’s just the vibe of this season, man. Don’t be such a square. Every episode it’s a completely new configuration of players teaming up for no obvious reason. Maniacs, the lot of them, with their loyalty-means-sweet-fuck-alliances.

Nevertheless, a sudden coconut tantrum from Jaden means Caroline gets wind that something might be up with the Titans alliance. She goes to Mark.

Caroline: I’m worried there might be a leak in our alliance.

Mark: (excited, superfannish) That would be great! Hayley is an incredible player! Somebody to finally sort us out.

Caroline: (able to hear spellings) No, not ‘Leake’, ‘leak’. 

Meanwhile, Alex and Raymond talking strategy is everything I dreamed it would be. 

Snark Pills
Grade: C

Off to Tribal Council, where we learn that in a deleted scene from the auction, Alex won a month’s supply of snark pills. 

He is snippy as all get out with Feras and Kirby about, well, everything. Also, Raymond has flipped for some reason. Nobody is quite sure why. I guess he sees everybody else doing it and thinks, ‘why not?’

Raymond tells Alex to play his idol on Valeria. Seeing this, however, Team Furby activate their telepathic powers and change the vote to Alex himself! Yoink!

Alas, however, Rianna’s telepathy is on the fritz, and she sticks with the Valeria vote, meaning that Jaden goes home.

Raymond holding his vote upside down. Or are we all looking at our TVs the wrong way around? Makes you think, for sure.

 What’s Raymond up to? The only thing we know for certain is that this mop-haired jungle pixie king is a thousand steps ahead of everybody else. 

He understands that the best plan to win the game is the right plan. And maybe that best right plan is to try to trick everybody into voting for him tomorrow night so he can play his popcorn advantage?

If so, I at least hope he has the good sense to rename it the ‘SuicIdol’.