Australian Survivor – Sun, Oct 23 – Day 50

Here we are at Day 50. Will it be the first and last Day 50 we see? Ten has announced they’ve renewed Australian Survivor for a second series, but whether they’ll keep the unusually long format (US Survivor is 39 days) is unsure. I’d like to see the length tightened up purely because it’s less time for people to become so entrenched in alliances.
Magic Matt is feeling insecure because the alliance he thought he had formed with Kristie and Flick at the spa reward was a figment of his imagination. Just hang on there, Matt – you’re still in with a chance if it’s a puzzle-based immunity. Flick has to bite the bullet at some point and turn on Lee and El.
But Flick is talking about wanting to go to the end with El. How is this going to work? Does she think El will ditch Lee. “For me it’s more of a threesome,” El tells her. Has New Idea heard about this?
“Do you still want to be the final two?” Flick asks. “Ummm …” is El’s response. Oh, El … wrong, wrong wrong …
But El is oblivious to the turmoil she’s created in Flick’s mind and she and Lee actually walk away, leaving Flick, Kristie and Matt to chat in the shelter. Did they learn nothing from Brooke? Never leave people along to talk about you.
Matt is so giddy at the prospect of making it to the end and so weak from hunger he tells the camera: “My how the turn tables.”

Challenge time
It’s another Survivor classic, simple yet effective, where they have to balance on a log and balance a ball on a large wooden disc, adding extra balls as time passes. This seems a good one for Lee, given his arm strength and hand-eye co-ordination. In the last US Survivor this was won by Nick of the Beauty tribe, who was a tall, fit type. In San Juan Del Sur the affable Keith Nale won but couldn’t back it up for Second Chances, when he came second to Joey Amazing. Here, everyone but El makes it through the one-ball round but they are feeling the burn.


Only Matt and Lee make it through the two-ball round, so I’m really hoping Matt wins against the former professional sportsman.
“Matts balls have separated,” intones JLap. This is very Probstian balls talk. But after many close calls Lee wins his third individual immunity. Darn it. But Matt does get a special “Matt, well done today,” from JLap.

Back at camp, Flick has decided new BFF El has to go, but because they’re such BFFs she wants to tell her to her face. This never goes well in US Survivor, but El hasn’t been one for scrambling this far so she may well do nothing. Daddy Lee could try and hypnotise Kristie into sticking with him and his squeeze, but even Kristie knows she can’t crack such a power couple alliance, surely?
“I love you so much, but I think we’re both going to have to write your name down tonight,” Flick tells El, and Kristie says she suports the decision. So El turns to Kristie and starts throwing bombs. “Well, you can’t trust Flick – sorry. She’ll tell you she’ll take you to top two … You’ve lied to heaps of people in the past. For your sake, Lee and I are more genuine,” El tells Kristie.
Aargh – I can’t stand this holier-than-thou attitude, Lee and El have. No-one is allowed to play the game but them or you’re a “bad” person. At the final two Lee would pick El and vice versa. Are Kristie and Flick meant to play for third place?
“Just so you know Flick has been filling my head with bullshit … This whole friendship, this feels fake now,” El continues, and pulls Kristie away to talk to Lee.
I actually feel a bit sorry for Flick but this is what happens when you tell someone they are going home before tribal. I wonder if they are friends again now?
Kristie is feeling torn between two divorcing parents and Lee and El put the hard word on her as they were on the same tribe at the start of the game.
“They’re snakes,” says Lee of Matt and Flick. “They’re villains, man,” says El.

Later, in the shelter, tries to pull Kristie aside for a chat but Lee isn’t keen on letting her go out with Big Bad Flick. “We wanna protect this poor girl. Cos she doesn’t deserve more manipulation.”
Oh, come on, Lee – this is getting really irritating. She’s not a simpleton and I really hope she stabs you in the back so you can see she’s not the patsy you play her for.
This is a very awkward conversation to have in a tiny shelter while the rain pelts down.
Flick walks off and Matt does his best to remind Kristie of how El and Lee will whip them both at challenges and will choose each other for final two. The couple, who are now dating, deny they have a final two deal. I’m thinking on season two anyone who so much as flirts with each other will be voted off for fear they could turn into a power couple.


Tribal council
Flick talks about having to vote friends out of the game and there is a bit of eye rolling on the tribe and from the jury. Looks like we have a partially bitter jury, which is always galling from a viewer standpoint. El tells JLap she’s always stuck to her alliance, conveniently forgetting she was once allied with Magic Matt. And when he reminds her she pretends it wasn’t a real alliance. So he casually drops that they were just: “A group of friends that voted together and made decisions together – kind of like an alliances.” Zinger! Good one, Matt. I hope you make final two because I reckon your speech to the jury would be fun. On the jury bench, Brooke is cracking up.


The vote: We sell El vote for “FLI(P)CK”. JLap reads the votes: Matt, El (and there’s a love heart and what looks like “que cera cera 118” scribbled on it – whatever that means and El looks shocked), FLI(P)CK, Matt and Matt.


Darn it. I look forward to a good jury question from him. Matt puts his torch in the stand and asks JLap for two seconds so, huge fan that he is, he can take one last look around final council. Bye, Matt! Hope your magic shows do well and I will be watching your Jury Villa video after this to see how much weight you’ve lost because you are the only one who looks like you’ve been on the Survivor diet.



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56 Comments

  1. Seriously, the challenges are getting more and more pornographic. The ball-holding contest, today (and even talking about it sounds bizarre), was just ridiculous. Not helped at all by JLap telling the castaways to, “Grab your balls!”

    I could make a joke that some of these contestants are quite skilled indeed at keeping a tight grip on somebody else’s balls. But alas, that would be naughty.

    I don’t really know what Kristie’s end-game is, here. Surely she can see that El and Lee are together and will make the final 2. Kristie seems like yet another castaway who’s content to reach third place and be voted out obediently. I don’t get it.

  2. I felt like Lee was threatening/bullying Kristie in his chat with her. To me it shows that it is easy to be nice as long as you are winning.

    • I felt that too. Lee and El’s self-righteous bullshit really got on my nerves watching them, tonight. And every time Matt tried to point out the bleeding obvious (about their connection, which leaves Kristie in third place), Lee dodged the question and just said, “Mate…” or something similarly non-committal. It was so obvious that he was trying to avoid the question.

      I want to see Flick and Matt get ousted as much as the next viewer, but at this point, I’d like to see Lee and El squirm under an uncomfortable spotlight as well. Gosh, I don’t like any of these people.

    • Isn’t Lee’s manipulative, self-righteous dark side showing. El too. Lee has been manipulating Kristie and stringing her along treating like his favourite kid sister, but watch him spit her out when he’s ready. Both Lee and El act entitled the crown because anyone who vote against is a villain and they turn on them viciosly, eg Sam and Flick.
      I really hope neither the prom King or Queen win.

  3. Although, I *love* that El finally snapped and just turned really vicious.

    Like Juz, I found the whole thing quite galling. I mean, El wasn’t wrong in pointing out Flick’s villainy, but what I wanted more than anything was for Flick to just throw it back in El’s face, pointing out all the game-play, all the lies, all the false promises that El and Lee have been doing … and finally, to ask Kristie how on Earth she’s going to fit into a top two, with two other people?

  4. El: “The Sunaapu one, I didn’t see that as an alliance though”, ergo it doesn’t count when I break my word. If Lee an El had left earlier people would not have seen their true colours.
    Personally I should have seen through their veneer sooner as I am very cynical about anyone who leaves young children to go on reality TV and both Lee and El are apparently parents.

    • Did you laugh when Matt then pointed out, “A group of friends who vote together and make decisions together … kind of like an alliance”? I did. I saw Brooke giggle on the jury, and El just rolled her eyes (but didn’t bother responding).

      I’m actually impressed with the castaways tonight, because they all seem to have El and Lee’s number pretty solidly.

  5. What am I missing here. Go to El and tell her we’re voting her out cos I love her or something or other. WTFF? I hope the next series has players, as in the verb, doing word and fucking play. These people are just happy to be on the telly and starve, get sun burnt, sleep in the dirt with critters, not bathe for 7 WEEKS!!! Idiots. Kristie comment about her dad says it all about her lack of game. Lee has led her the whole time because she needed him to.
    So boring, the dumb fucks let the lovers win, sheesh.

    • “So boring, the dumb fucks let the lovers win, sheesh.”

      You know, I think that’s an excellent summary of this whole entire season :).

  6. Wow, stupid in the South Pacific seems to be contagious. So, Kristie’s stuck with Lee and El (congratulations on coming in third place, Kristie!), while Flick didn’t even stick with the plan to vote out El, throwing in a vote for Matt (just in case the numbers fell in a way so as to keep her alive).

    Matt’s still a great giant idiot, but I didn’t even get any pleasure from watching his torch be snuffed (indeed, I kind of wanted him to turn around and tell El exactly where she could shove her torch).

    Odds are Flick’s gone tomorrow night, then Kristie will be leaving first in the finale. I’m ready for this season to be over. Enough of this.

    • Once again, Nick has a quiet word with the eliminated survivor about what happened during the game.

      Let it go, Nick. Just freaking let it go.

  7. But aren’t you all forgetting? Matt is a magician and we have been assured that no-one would be able to see his magical play behind the scenes. Let’s see him pull a rabbit out of a hat now.
    I have done so many eye rolls on this series that I have pulled a muscle in my shoulder. These people are a bunch of doofuses.

  8. Thanks for the great recap Juz.
    Arrrrrgh, I thought finally they were going to get rid of El. Stupid Flick, NOW she grows a conscience & decides to tell the person she is voting for them. I felt so sorry for Kristie being pulled here, there & everywhere.
    Oh & Matt, Jenna Louise tried to tell you a few weeks ago you weren’t part of their alliance & to get rid of the power couple & you didn’t believe her. So you can’t really complain about that now. You had a chance & blew it.
    When Matt said how the turn tables, he was quoting from The Office according to everyone on Twitter. I never watched it so don’t know it.

  9. Each episode from the last few weeks has been a repeat of the former. “We need to get rid of Lee and El, it’s our last chance, let’s do it tonight.” Cue elimination chatter among the several alliances. Lee manipulates Kristy into thinking she is a bad person if she does not vote alongside he and El. El does not speak truthfully to anyone other than Lee. Challenge occurs. Someone wins, doesn’t matter who. More chit chat. Kristy/Flick blabs. Tribal council time. JLap is there. He says some words. Lee thinks he is the almighty chief of the tribe and whoever disagrees with him should be ashamed of themselves. Votes. The tribe eats itself and Lee and El become one step closer to the win. Credits roll.

    I was gunning for Kristy thinking she had something up her sleeve and waiting for her to take the plunge, but I’m now behind Flick. While she made her move on Brooke too early, she has done mostly the right things to stay in the game. A lot of support for her on the Survivor facebook page too.

    This season is a bust.

    • But at least the season is nearly over.

      Kate and Conner and Nick and Sue and Jenna-Louise all were eliminated while in the process of telling everybody not to accept the status quo, to just play the damned game. And none of those idiots ever did. A really nasty side to El started to come out, tonight, and I quite liked seeing it because I get why other people don’t seem to like her very much.

      I haven’t been willing to guess the outcome, but from this point on, I think it’s a pretty safe bet that El and Lee will be the final two, and Lee will take out the money (purely because people are less people pissed off with him than El, right now). I really hope Flicks win immunity tomorrow night (there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write), because it would be hilarious watching Kristie finally realise that she’s expendable.

      But I think there will be a very hostile jury, on Wednesday night. Hell, Nick’s been incredibly hostile towards the other jury members. I can’t imagine the fireworks when he gets to confront the final two.

      • I wish the jury were able to make comments at tribal council. Not particularly to elicit answers, but to plant more seeds into the minds of the remaining players. This wouldn’t work with the people that are left, obviously. I think it would have changed the outcome slightly. I’m hoping Flick wins immunity too. Lee is so far up his own ass he’s practically turned into a pretzel.

  10. Meh, so much hope but very little outcome…
    Line on the night goes to Lee telling Kristie that Matt is a real threat in challenges…..bwahahahahah!
    Is it really going to end this predicatably?

    • There is kind of a lovely irony in Matt — of all freaking people, Matt — trying to tell Kristie that she’s not as important to her alliance as she thinks she is, and that she’s actually quite expendable, but she refuses to listen to him.

      It’s called “karma”, Matty, and it’s pronounced, “you idiot”.

  11. Wow, suddenly I’m in a very small minority here.

    I loved El’s rant. I fully expected her to realise she was gone and roll over, and give Flick some speech about how she appreciated being told in advance and that she understood. So, so glad she didn’t. Flick’s face was wonderful as she realised that in a few choice sentences, El had totally turned the vote around. I don’t see it as holier-than-thou, just really a clever “turn tables”. Matt’s comment that “once again someone has gone and blabbed the plan” was spot on.

    While it may now be predictable (and viewers are a bit annoyed about that), I can;t help but believe that Lee and El have played a very clever game, right from the start. It is now evident that L deliberately stayed under the radar for a long time, successfully identified the two contollers who would eventually implode and let them carry him along, carefully did not win immunity too early, cultivated (what I believe to be) a reasonably genuine friendship with the person who has been the constant swing vote, successfully planted doubts and turned conversations in his favour.

    People may not like him, but his game play has been almost perfect. If the jury rewards quality game play he should win. But, as noted before, we are dealing with Australian psyche who values mateship more highly, so it may not end up that way.

    Anyone except Flick for the win.

    • I don’t disagree with your appraisal of Lee’s long-term game plan. Too many things went exactly his (and El’s) way for it to be purely good luck.

      But I still think he and El are playing the “we’re the heroes” card right now, and it rubs me the wrong way.

      And it is kind of nice that, after the game-long domination of the blue tribe, no member of the blue tribe will factor into the final three in any way whatsoever.

      • It’s funny how much of Lee & El’s arrogance and sense of entitlement has come out now. They had both seemed kind of coasters before. Lee has got a cheek moralizing on how everyone else is supposed to play as ultimately what he is saying is, “If you don’t just hand this to (he would say)’me and El’, you’re amoral”. How would you like to play Monopoly with those two???Can’t you imagine?
        “Kristy can swap her Mayfair and Park Lane for my Old Kent Rd if she wants to. She’s just doing the decent thing because I am looking after her”.

        • He wouldn’t want to play Monopoly with me.

          But then, my friends have banned me from playing Monopoly after the train-station incident of 2004, so, yeah.

          • πŸ˜‚πŸ˜‚πŸ˜‚πŸ˜‚ Yeah, it gets a bit real, doesn’t it. πŸ’΅πŸ’΅πŸ’΅πŸ’΅πŸ’΅πŸ πŸ πŸ πŸ πŸ πŸ πŸ πŸ€πŸ€πŸ€πŸ€πŸ€πŸ€

    • It’s not the way they played and manipulated I mind as much, it is the holier than thou atitude every time things don’t go in their favour. I think their moral outrage was worse than Nick’s. And I like your use of the word, “cultivated” because it made me think of another word for what Lee has been doing with awkward Kristie; “grooming”. I get a hint of him using some Svengali sexual power over her. Note how he never sends El to bring Kristy back under his spell, but his own magic.

  12. Does anyone understand why El voted for Flick? We only came up with two theories:
    1. She was so annoyed that she wanted to vote that way despite everyone else.
    2. She was trying to give the impression that she is not under Lee’s thumb (to the jury). That maybe they decided that together, thinking it would make no difference to the result.

    I’m slightly favouring the second option, but it still doesn’t make much sense and I don’t think it will work.

    Also, I’m presuming that Flick voted Matt out of blind hope that he was the person chosen by the other three. Knowing it was probably her or Matt and she couldn’t vote for herself. She must have been totally convinced that Kristie was going with L&E.

  13. Here’s another conspiracy that I read somewhere else: Flick and El are still working together, and the blow-up on the beach was staged to get into Kristie’s head and bring her over to vote against Matt. Presumably now the three get together and take out Kristie tonight, and go together against Lee next. Can’t see that happening considering L&E are now a couple after the show.

    Discuss.

  14. Well, if Donald Trump can call an election “rigged”,, I’ll go right ahead and say that last night’s ball balancing challenge,featuring three cricket sized balls was possibly “rigged” to favour a cricketer, familiar with handling and focusing on balls like that for many of his waking hours.

    The producers had a lot of balls to try and run that by the now rusted on , long suffering viewer.

    I’m hoping for Kristy, because the meek shall inherit the earth , hoping she can turn Kru$ty and blow those two smug love turds out of the $amoan water.

    • I’m mad at all four of the final survivors, so at this point, it’ll be a surprise which one of them takes out the top spot.

      But boy, I hope security frisks Nick before the final tribal council. I bet he goes in armed.

  15. This is why we need a reunion show, I really really want to know how Flick and Kray-Kray Kristie are thinking they’d ever get in the final two (split El and Lee up). Maybe because El and Lee don’t hold hands and smoochy woochy their coupledom isn’t so obvious (which is a good strategy). But why not if Sue picked it much earlier. I noticed at the announcement of Matt, Sue had her hand over her mouth – she looked shocked.

    When they were talking in the shelter, El was on the left, then Lee, and beside him Kristie was snuggled right up (close enough so their arms were constantly touching). Then a big gap and Flick was alone on the right side. Earlier, El said Flick was like a little sister to her (note LITTLE sister). Also, Flick said she wanted to be friends with El on the outside (which is why she told El before the vote). Lee and El seem to have some sort of paternalistic thing going on and I can only guess that Flick and Kristie are in some sort of Stockholm-syndrome type situation where these daughters seriously need emancipation from Mummy and Daddy.

    With her back to the wall, El knows how to scrap with the best of them. When they were on the beach talking about final two, El said she would “make it more even” for whoever went into final three with her and Lee. Flick said how can it be even if Lee and El win more of the challenges. I would’ve asked, how can it ever be even for the gooseberry when those two are dying to get into each other’s pants. El does lie but she does it more subtlety.

    My two laugh-out-loud moments this season were both supplied by Matt at Tribal (first when he was blindsided by Brooke’s departure and last night when El “conveniently forgot” her earlier alliance) so he has redeemed himself in my books (and he’s not going to win anyway).

    • Right now, Flick and belatedly, Matt, had both redeemed themselves after the arrogance of El and Lee who stand on (shakey) self constructed high moral ground everytime they make a call. “LEAVE KRISTIE ALONE”. Why Lee? Whyis that?
      “Don’t confuse the poor child ( after I have already just brainwashed her)”.

      Lee: “You are getting sleepy”.

  16. I think that El conveniently forgot that alliance because it didn’t really exist. Back when Kate (and others) were trying to open Matt’s eyes, they kept telling him that he was out of the group, but he continually said “I’m in a four-strong alliance”. But we only ever heard the others talking about the “five” – the three mean girls and Lee and Sam. Matt thought the mythical four alliance (he, El, Flick and Sam?) was how it was going down – nobody else thought that it existed, but they did encourage Matt to think so because it kept him from suspecting them. No wonder El was confused when he said they were in an alliance together. She only ever thought the alliance was the five.

    Matt has been quite clueless throughout the game. He will cringe when he watches it back and sees how the others were linked up with him on the outer.

    • I somewhat agree with this. Matt was more or less kept around as a Patsy. Sam too, although he was regarded in the Sunaapu tribe due to being physically good at challenges. There were a few times they came very, very close to icing Matt or even using him to split the vote. Kristy has been in the same boat. To their credit they have both hung on by the skin on their teeth the entire game.

      I really dislike El and Lee. Lee manipulating Kristy so blatantly in front of the others was just…. 😑
      El is so smug, and up until now has been a boring faceless individual. How was she even cast?

      • Maybe they thought her temper would show itself earlier than the other night. They couldn’t anticipate that she would have no reason to get angry until now.

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