Australian Survivor Report Card - Titans v Rebels - Episode 23
Featuring modern Cinderellas, internal consistency, ziggurats and shared dreams
Previously on Australian Survivor: Fake idols were found, Mark’s ball management was sound, and Kirby was downed
Here’s the report card for the twenty-third episode of Titans v Rebels
Modern Cinderellas
Grade: B
No time to lose. We’re already on day forty-five. Forty-five, for goodness’ sake! I didn’t even know days went to forty-five. Yet here we are.
It’s immediately time for the immunity challenge, a classic game of Obstacle Course Free Throws! Annoyingly for Mark, while it takes place on the edge of the beach, at no point does he get to swim in the challenge. Cruel stuff from the producers. Let Mark swim, you monsters!
Not that Mark lets the lack of swimming stop him. He races through the challenge on foot so fast that he loses a shoe. He’s a modern day Cinderella, albeit one with better ball management, landing bombs and winning immunity.
Sadly, the phrase “Well done, Mark,” was presumably edited out of the post-challenge reactions. Three times over!
Internal Consistency
Grade: D-
Back at camp, Mark thinks back to the deals that Feras made prior to the challenge. He discovers that Feras made final three deals with both him and Caroline.
“Ipso facto,” Mark reasons to Caroline. “Feras must, to remain internally consistent, vote out Raymond this round. Ergo, if we also vote for Raymond, then we can avoid fire.”
Look, it’s a bold, Latin-centric plan to avoid the risk of Feras potentially getting through this round via a fire challenge by instead allowing him to saunter through this round by not voting for him at all. But it’s one that Mark and Caroline seem hellbent on.
Personally, I might keep around the guy who spends eighty percent of an immunity challenge trapped in a net.
But that’s just me.
Ziggurats
Grade: C
The only thing Mark and Caroline need to do now is to convince Feras of Mark’s steel trap logic.
“But what if you have me vote for Raymond,” says Feras, after Mark explains his reasoning to him. “And then you two just vote for me instead?”
“Huh!” says Mark. That is a good plan.
“Look me in the eye and tell me you won’t do that,” says Feras, interrupting Mark’s train of thought.
And Mark does.
Feras also makes Caroline pinkie-swear that she won’t betray him.
Off they go to Tribal Council where JLP errs by asking Mark to talk about what it is about Titans and Rebels that brings out such heated competition, and Mark filibusters with some random historical lies.
“Titans and Rebels are foes that have resonated throughout history. In whatever culture you look, the ancients talk of how a Titan must always come up against a Rebel. In Spanish, they call them El Rebellios! In the Mayan culture, they built grand temples to Titans - they called them ziggurats. It is a cont—”
“All right, shut up,” says JLP, and instead turns the topic to the endgame, allowing Mark to explain about Feras’s final three deals.
JLP is flabbergasted by what he hears. “I can NOT believe a player in the game of Survivor has made multiple deals to get to the end!” he cries, and faints dead away.
Shared Dreams
Grade: A
Then it’s time to vote, and it’s a tie! Mark and Caroline have voted for Raymond. But Feras has not gone along with them, instead joining Raymond in voting for Caroline.
Mark can’t believe what he’s seeing. “So much for internal consistency,” he mutters. “Kurt Godel must be turning in his grave.” (A little mathematics joke for the nerds, there!)
It’s time for fire. Or, at least, it’s time for Caroline to make fire. Which she does.
Raymond instead potters around, breaking his flint and spilling kindling on his feet, and eventually skips back into the forest, like a weird little shared dream in which we all partook, and when we wake, memories fading, all we remember is that something magical has touched our soul.
Farewell, sweet, strange Raymond.