Australian Survivor Recap: It Was A Bad Day: Had To Use My AK
With the departure of Tarzan — so nicknamed because his name is not Tarzan — due to the popular “find an immunity idol and then act like a moron” gambit, Samoa is rapidly running out of likeable Australians.
In the aftermath of the tribal council, Samatau engages in the traditional ritual of standing around camp on night-vision looking like sad hyenas. AK discusses how the absurdly unwieldy eight-person alliance now has only Tessa to get rid of, but he plans to make a move ahead of the inevitable realisation that he is the least useful or attractive member of the alliance. This is an auspicious occasion: the fiftieth time that AK has declared his intention to “make a move”.
Meanwhile, over at Asaga, Jericho digs up his cookie jar and has a cookie orgy with Luke, who he told about the cookies, which is a total violation of the cookie-concealing contract, proving once again that Jonathan LaPaglia is incapable of exercising any modicum of control over his subjects. Jericho, encouraged by the absence of any kind of enforcement of the rules he is flouting, goes and tells Sarah about the cookies. Who is Sarah? Nobody knows, but she’s skinny as hell and likes cookies.
Morning has broken, and it is time for some stunning footage of gorgeous Samoan locales that are nowhere near any place that the contestants on the show will ever go. At Samatau, the tribemates are trying to catch a shark, intercut with Locky, Tara and Aimee laughing maniacally in the shelter, so there’s some pretty strong symbolism there. Tessa is one of the fishers, along with some people who I think just arrived that day. There is also a rat in the camp, so we get some close-ups of AK.
AK discusses the disturbing cult of Locky, and his fears that soon enough he will order his followers to drink the poisoned cordial. AK seeks out a woman called “Ziggy”, who has infiltrated the show without the producers’ or audience’s knowledge, and discusses how they can get rid of Locky, which shows what a genius strategist AK is: he could’ve gotten rid of Locky last night, but he had to be a smartarse and get rid of Tarzan instead.
There’s a lot of footage of crabs in this episode. I don’t know what they’re trying to tell us there.
Anyway, AK seeks out Tessa and talks some bullshit and Tessa says, “I have your back so hard”, which is a bit wrong.
Night falls, and is as usual extremely dull. Jericho and Luke eat cookies like the smarmy jerks they are. The cookies are finished. Jericho and Luke scrape the crumbs out of the bottom of the jar, their madness growing ever more tameless. Jericho places some crumbs on one of his tribemates for reasons that nobody will ever fathom.
Meanwhile, at Samatau, Locky’s got wood. A huge piece of it, which he brings to camp to show off. AK is trying to stay as close to Locky as possible, which seems likely to make Locky want to vote AK off: nobody wants to live their life with AK close to them. Locky confides to the camera that he trusts Tara more than he trusts AK, which is fair enough: trusting AK is like trusting an intestinal parasite.
Locky tells Tara that AK wants to work with him and Aimee. Tara thinks AK wants to get Tara out. Locky assures Tara that he is loyal to her. It’s a classic example of Survivor’s window into the scheming side of human nature and how it’s not nearly as interesting to watch as you might think. Then there’s an ad break — there’ve been two ad breaks and we haven’t had a single challenge yet. It’s agonising.
Finally, about twenty minutes too late, it’s time for a challenge. Jonathan orders Asaga to look at Samatau, and Asaga pretends to be interested in who got eliminated. Jonathan asks some weird guy with glasses about how it feels to be a giant loser, and the weird guy says he likes it actually.
The challenge is an immunity challenge. No reward challenge? That means a greater percentage of time listening to people talk. Damn. Anyway the immunity challenge requires the tribes to line up on a rail with their arms out, holding flaming discs between them. A tribe member who falls off the rail or finds themself discless is out — the winning tribe is the last tribe left holding a disc.
The weak are weeded out quickly, discs and tribe members dropping like flies. Locky attempts to hang tough via a series of grunting noises, but the grunts are not enough and he falls. Aimee and Tara go. Peter and Tessa go. Kent goes. Henry and Mark remain with one disc, along with Luke and Michelle. On Samatau side, AK and “Ziggy” persist.
Suddenly, Luke’s cookie-bloated carcass fails him, and his disc falls. It’s Henry and Mark versus AK and “Ziggy”. They’ve been standing for an hour, which is impressive but also indicative of how pathetic everyone else’s efforts were. It’s a contest of incredibly tension and drama while also being not all that entertaining.
“This is classic Survivor right here!” Jonathan howls, but he’s wrong: in classic Survivor, he’s not the host.
Henry, his imaginary yoga skills serving him well, continues to work beautifully with Mark. AK is having massive trouble keeping up his end of the bargain even as “Ziggy” stands strong in a bizarre trance. They strive valiantly, but in the end the old adage “Muscle tone will always beat whole-body atrophy” rings true, and AK fails. The disc falls and Samatau must kick one of their own to the kerb once more. AK can be proud of his massive effort in holding on for a couple of hours, an effort that attains a real pointlessness when you realise that it achieved nothing.
Immunity has been lost, and there’s still half an hour to go, so there’s going to be a lot of filler here. It begins with the Samatau allies discussing their plans to get rid of Tessa, not AK, because AK is the one who is always plotting and scheming so best to keep him around as long as possible.
Meanwhile AK wishes to get rid of Aimee, and I don’t blame him because she really bugs me. Jarrad takes that weird glasses guy to the beach to try to get him to flip. Glasses guy admits he likes Tara but feels used by her, just like one of her horses. Jarrad seems to get glasses guy to agree to vote for Aimee, but also he might not. The suspense is killing me. Or maybe it’s not suspense. Maybe it’s just the usual boredom.
Tara thinks the alliance should vote out AK, but only because that’s obviously the right choice, so probably they won’t. “Tara’s much smarter than I thought she was,” says Aimee, but that’s working off a low base. Locky and Tara meet with a couple of unidentified blonde women to discuss eliminating AK.
All that is left now is to see whether for the first time in Survivor history, people will actually vote in their own self-interest.
Time for tribal council!
At tribal, Jonathan carries out his contractual obligation by forcing everyone to talk for hours and hours about nothing. Locky is proud of AK. This is not where Tessa thought her game would be. Aimee says there’s never a strong eight. Everyone pulls shocked faces at Aimee. Locky rubs his eyes, exasperated at his henchwoman’s indiscretion. Annaliese boldly claims to still be on the show. AK says it’s a relatively simple vote. Tara explains how mathematics work. The conversation is clearly over but Jonathan keeps asking questions. I think he’s getting paid by the sentence.
After an hour-long ad break, votes are cast. Tara says she’s been waiting a long time to vote for AK, even though she could’ve voted for him any time she wanted. AK scolds Aimee for being in a power couple. Jonathan counts the votes, which run thusly:
One to AK
Two to AK
Three to AK
Four to AK
One to Aimee (AK smiles unpleasantly)
Two to Aimee
Three to Aimee
Four to Aimee
And finally…FIVE TO AIMEE!
Way to give AK what he wants again, guys. Jesus Christ. Aimee signs off by saying she’s had a “ripper time”, and that she’s looking forward to a pot and a parma. Get it? Because she’s Australian! Ha. Good times.
Tune in next time when Tara makes some angry hand motions.
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