Australian Survivor Recap: The Prestige
Previously on Survivor: the rest of the tribe recognised the threat of the three-girl alliance, but was too stupid to do anything about it, so Sue went home which was a blessing for us all really.
Tonight on Survivor: we begin with typically creepy night-vision footage that always gets me in the mood to watch a pack of hyenas tear apart an eland, but unfortunately all we get is this pack of halfwits yammering on about the usual crap and restraining their urges to bite each other.
Jennah Louise thinks she needs a miracle, but one thing she has going for her is that most of the tribe are terrible at challenges. Meanwhile Kristie has decided that it’s time to play the game. “It wasn’t time before,” she says spookily, raising the possibility that she is about to call forth the dark spirits of the island whom she holds in thrall. What pestilence will now beset the foes of Kristie? Or is she just continuing the months-long fever dream that first struck her on the plane to Samoa?
Lee is feeling troubled, and goes to talk to Kristie. I wouldn’t have thought that was likely to relax anyone, but different strokes. He apologises to Kristie for writing her name down, but Kristie assures us that she still trusts him, albeit in a distant kind of way, while gazing eerily at nothing as if about to unleash the power of telekinesis upon Lee. She is scared that maybe Lee is sacrificing himself to help her get further in the game, which just happens to be her phobia.
Lee and Kristie are also worried about Matt, but who knows why.
Back at camp, a bombshell is dropped: Sam is still there. Remember Sam? Amazing.
Jennah Louise explains that the purpose of Survivor is not to take an alliance to the end, but to win the game. This is true, but to be fair it is a truth that has totally escaped 99% of people who have ever played the game, so you can’t blame everyone else for missing it. Jennah Louise has tragically staked her hopes on other people understanding what is in their interest, a strategy doomed to failure.
Enough of this hurly-burly. Some nice footage of crashing waves and peacefully swimming sea turtles will soothe our jangling nerves. And…ah crap, we’re back to the show again. Why can’t Survivor just be 50% sea turtle footage, 50% challenges, and…well, just that? Why?
Anyway, Flick, El, Brooke and Jennah Louise have a D&M about the game and the startling realisation that at some point they’re going to have to vote for each other. Jennah Louise is quite pleased to see the troika unsettled by the bleeding obvious. But it won’t save her at tribal, because everyone remains dumb.
Meanwhile Sam is still around and he chats to Brooke and they seem to enjoy it.
So apparently the troika now needs Matt back in their circle to help them screw over Jennah Louise. Matt is pleased because he is intent on undertaking some “big moves”, so it’s exciting for him to have the chance to tell the women how wonderful they are and do what they tell him to do. Flick thinks they’re about to make “the biggest move in Survivor history”, which is interesting because they’re not.
Thank god it’s challenge time, and The Other LaPaglia, who has been living in the forest eating snakes for almost two months now, greets the tribemates with his traditional vacuous questions.
For immunity, the castaways must run over some stuff, carry some things, and then do a puzzle. Makes a refreshing change doesn’t it. The puzzle this time involves memory, which I guess is something. Still, it’d be nice to just once see LaPaglia force-feed them goliath beetles.
The challenge proceeds and there is much losing of balance and dropping of blocks and falling off of see-saws. Lee and Sam take the lead, and get busy examining the puzzle they need to memorise and recreate with their blocks. Everyone catches up quick, and the puzzling begins in earnest. Suddenly Kristie’s hand shoots up! She thinks she’s solved it, but has she, or is it just the ghosts lying to her yet again?
Yes it is. The contest continues. Does the order go lobster-crab-octopus, or octopus-turtle-fish? Who can remember?
Jennah Louise thinks she has it! Is it possible? Has she staved off oblivion?
Nope, she sucks too. We carry on. Sam thinks he has it. He quickly rearranges his seafood silhouettes, and then forgets what he was doing.
Jennah Louise thinks she has it again!
And she’s wrong again.
Brooke thinks she has it.
She doesn’t.
Ugh, these people. Nick would’ve done this hours ago.
Dammit, but Nick was an arsehole, wasn’t he.
Kristie is wrong.
Sam is wrong.
El is wrong.
Everyone’s been wrong so many times. What if this whole thing is just a test, and there is no right answer? What if the only way to win immunity is to stand up to Jonathan and tell him to go to hell? What if the REAL puzzle is self-esteem?
Wait, no, Brooke got it. Ew. Bad news for Jennah Louise and anyone who likes Survivor to be interesting.
Well, challenge is over and there’s still more than twenty minutes till tribal council, so it’s time for some prolonged and frighteningly dull discussion of alliances and vote and Kristie braiding Jennah Louise’s hair for some reason. I think that’s what she’s doing. Maybe she’s picking termites out.
Jennah Louise thinks the cracks are beginning to show in the alliance, though I don’t know how that helps her. Kristie believes being vulnerable can be the best position to be in in Survivor, because she doesn’t really understand how the show works. Looking vulnerable can help you, sure — actually being vulnerable is bad, because it makes you…uh…vulnerable.
Meanwhile Brooke thinks El and Lee have to go, and wonders if they should vote them out tonight or not. They should, because it might make watching the show slightly more entertaining.
Jennah Louise chats to Brooke and El and points out that Matt tricks people for a living, so they can’t trust him. This will be an extremely effective tactic if Brooke and El have recently swapped brains with a coconut. Or if Matt suddenly reveals a plan to make all his competitors disappear or saw Flick in half.
The castaways begin walking to tribal council at a disturbingly early point in the program, indicating that we’re in for a lot of tribal talk, so it may be a struggle to stay awake for this one.
At tribal Jennah Louise says she doesn’t know what’s going to happen but sadly doesn’t just leave it there. She talks for aaaaaaages. She says that the winner will get half a million dollars. Then she says it again. And a few more times, thinking that as long as people are thinking about numbers, they will forget to vote her out. Lee says it’s not all about the money for him, proving he’s a bit of an idiot.
LaPaglia asks Matt his opinion on chess. Matt isn’t quite sure what to make of this. Everyone talks crap about alliances for a bit. The Other flounders trying to think of ways to make things look more exciting than they really are. Jennah Louise talks at extreme length once again. She says cracks are appearing in the alliance. Flick denies that cracks are appearing in the alliance, but admits that actually there are cracks in the alliance. Matt gets bored and wanders off into the woods.
And The Other KEEPS asking questions. The sun is starting to rise above the island. Time has ceased to have any meaning. Jennah Louise is still talking about how everyone is dumb and they should keep her in the game because she sucks and she could never win and she actually enjoys losing reality shows, so she’ll never be a threat.
After several weeks of tribal council, they vote. Jennah Louise waits with the serene expression of someone who knows that if voted out tonight, she at least bored everyone shitless to the best of her ability.
The Other counts the votes, a lengthy process because he can’t count.
First three votes go to Kristie from people sick of her braiding their hair without permission. The next three votes go to Jennah Louise from people just sick of her in general. The next one for Jennah Louise, and the last vote…
…is for Jennah Louise. She did her best, and deliberately making everyone hate the sight of her was a bold ploy, but on this occasion it backfired.
The Other makes some ominous noises about the “smaller alliance” within the “bigger alliance” and everyone goes oooooooh spooky!
Tune in tomorrow when Kristie’s dream of blood-soaked catastrophe comes to fruition.
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