Australian Survivor – Mon, Oct 17

Monday night Australian Survivor chat.

If you haven’t heard already, the Survivor finale screens Tuesday, October 25 (yes – it’s back to a Tuesday timeslot). Channel 10 doesn’t seem to be doing a reunion show (despite a campaign by fans on Twitter), which is a real shame. No doubt there will be the odd contestant pop up on The Project or Have You Been Paying Attention, but it’s not the same as getting to see what everyone looks like in the real world compared to their island style.


The episode starts with the morning after the spa night – we don’t even get to see Flick, Kristie and Matt discussing forming an alliance to vote out Lee and El. What the hell happened – did Channel 10 lose the footage? Does this mean we also won’t see Exile Beach footage?
After a decent night’s sleep at the spa reward and wearing almost-matching black satin nighties, Kristie and Flick pledge their loyalty to each other. Neither one really trusts the other, though.
It’s also morning on Exile Beach and everyone is shitty because they can’t get the fire to light and they are hungry. There’s no talk of idols. Disappointing!

It’s challenge time already!
Lee skips the greeting and opens with: “Not happy with you, Jonathon.” JLap rubs it in my getting the reward winners to extol the virtues of real beds, before revealing the other three went to Exile and got neither food nor sleep. So now everyone feels bad.
It’s another reward challenge and they are competing in teams of three. It’s a twist on a Survivor classic of carrying water over an obstacle course but instead of the usual buckets they are tipping water from a cracked coconut into someone’s mouth. That someone then has to sprint across a balance beam, mouth full of coconut water, and spit it into a tube. It’s Team Spa versus Team Exile Beach. Winner gets an advantage in the immunity challenge. “I will put it in my mouth – I’ve got a big mouth,” Kristie volunteers. Lee and Flick are selected as the spitters proves but Kristie – with her shorter reach and having trouble with the wind – has trouble directing the flow into Flick’s mouth (yes, I really just typed that). Unsurprisingly, despite Sam being on the outs, Exile Beach team wins. Team Spa had better hope the immunity challenge tomorrow involves a puzzle or they’re stuffed.

Back at camp, after 27 hours without food, Team Exile Beach can’t wait to dig in to their black and white glop. But then, for the first time, we get footage of what we’ve known for a while back in the real world: Lee and El are a thing.
“Lee and I have spooned since day one,” says El, saying it was because they were cold to start with and then became something more. Unlike the current season of US Survivor, however, there is no pashing or even hand holding. It’s just sitting on a beach, gazing at the waves and chatting – not even touching. That’s Survivor romance, Aussie style.


Meanwhile, Magic Matt and Sam cement their alliance and are hopeful Kristie and Flick are on board. But then Matt tells the camera something that’s the kiss of death on Survivor: “I have a chance at winning this game, and I’m coming for it.” Noooooo!

It’s Day 49 – that’s 10 days longer than a normal Survivor. Kristie is tossing up between siding with Flick, a known backstabber, and Lee, who she believes has been loyal to her. She has a mini meltdown – which we haven’t seen back since the show started and she thought someone had moved her bag (and it was El who calmed her down then). “You are doing so well – I’ve said that from day dot,” says Daddy Lee.
Flick is a bot worried this sign of emotion means Kristie is going to crack and spill the beans to Mum and Dad.

Immunity challenge
JLap reminds us that Sam has yet to win individual immunity. That’s because he’s no good at puzzles of hanging off/on to stuff. The challenge is a Survior classic: balancing on a triangular pontoon, with no hands allowed. It usually favours girls with smaller feet and good balance, although the last person to win it was Joey Amazing in Second Chances. Here’s a history of who’s won it. This could be El’s challenge if there’s not a guest of wind.
And the advantage is: The Exile Beach three get to start the challenge 10 minutes after everyone else. That is a huge advantage. Someone could fall before the three even start.
And, yes, Flick falls just before the 10-minute ark.
After 90 minutes it’s just Lee, El and Sam and they have to transition to the top for a surfer-style pose. In the past contestants have stood here for quite a while but the Samoan sea is choppy today and Lee hangs on just a few seconds longer than El and Sam to win.

Back at camp the alleged alliance of Lee, El, Kristie and Flick aims to split the vote between Matt and Sam. But, later, Flick tells Kristie that El is the target of the other alliance. Kristie is conflicted and goes for a stroll with Lee, where she confesses all. Daddy Lee looks down at Kristie with his sad, frownie face as she pours her heart out. And then tells her not to worry about the fact he and El are close. Yes, do worry about that fact, Kristie! And it just gets more shambolic from here, with Lee telling El, who tells Flick, who pretends it’s all cool but is inwardly freaking out. Interestingly Lee and El dismiss the notion that Flick has turned against them, when just days ago she flipped on her BFF to join them.

Tribal Council
Matt talks about making moves. Lee talks about how people should not make moves. Sam decides it’s time to throw a few tribal truth bombs a la JL – how his tune has changed. Talk turns to how El and Lee are running the show and over on the jury Nick is loving this.


It’s time to vote but first Lee announces he’d like to use his advantage. Hooray – some actual gameplay. He gets to cancel someone’s vote and, logically he should pick Matt or Sam as they’re definite votes for El.
And he picks Sam.
I’d be tempted to vote El out on the basis of her wearing short pink overalls.
The votes are: Sam, Matt, Matt, El and Sam. Time for the revote (and Matt and Sam can’t vote). Matt looks sick.
Sam’s gone. At least he can reunite with Brooke back at Ponderosa. “All the best, eh,” he tells his fellow tribemates, making the “rock on” sign with his hand.



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55 Comments

  1. Okay, seriously, who came up with that reward challenge? That was a very pornographic challenge. The commentary from JLap did not help. Honestly, it sounded like somebody was providing live commentary on an adult movie.

    Meanwhile, back at Exile Beach, when Lee was feeling faint, he totally copped a feel of Sam. Honestly boys, save it for your bed reward nights, geez. With the tension between Sam and Lee/El, I’d bet that was an awkward night on the beach, conversation-wise.

  2. I think Kristie, Flick and Matt are all still there more through luck than good play. Having said that Lee and El are masters of getting inside Kristie and Flick’s heads.

  3. Can’t believe how pissed off Nick is – still!! Let it go, you lost! Enjoyed the jury villa video. Had to laugh at Sam drinking tap water when cleaning his teeth. Here comes the tummy bug! So Kristie doesn’t want to go against anyone – how does she think she can win? Interesting to see what unfolds on Sunday – looks like Flick may be a goner – should make great jury villa viewing. Either way, I doubt she would get any jury votes for win.

  4. I’m still trying to wrap my head around Tribal Council, tonight. So Flick and Kristie both flipped away from Matt and Sam back to El and Lee, and went along with Lee’s plan to split the vote for Matt and Sam, force a tie and then knock out Sam.

    I’m not surprised Lee used his advantage, and if he hadn’t, it probably would’ve been a three-way tie (because Sam would’ve voted for El), which would’ve been *hilarious*. I am curious as to what Flick and Kristie hoped to get from that, since it’s pretty freaking obvious that Lee and El are in control here. Notice on the beach when Kristie pointed out that El and Lee are the most likely for the final? Lee didn’t actually answer or respond to her in any kind of meaningful way. If Kristie still had half a brain, that would’ve been a red flag, right there.

    Matt, meanwhile, once again put his faith in Flick only to get stung. Seriously, being in Samoa has turned the man into Bart Simpson. *Zap*. “Ouch.” *Zap*. “Ouch.” *Zap*. “Ouch.”

    OTOH, it’s kind of satisfying in a karmic-sense to watch Matt’s spirit slowly get crushed, little bit by little bit, knowing that four hundred people told him exactly what was going to happen.

    My favourite quote of the episode was Flick. “I want to stay true to my word with El and Lee … and those other four hundred people I knifed along the way? Screw them. Oh wait, they’re all on the jury aren’t they? Shit shit shit shit shit …”

    I also agree with Jayblossom that I think Kristie has gotten this far less through her strategy of being a floating vote, and more through sheer luck (count how many times Kristie was the second-choice of the blue-alliance just in case someone pulled out an immunity). And Matt’s still here because he’s so easy to manipulate, which means Flick (and Brooke) have been able to use him however they wanted to, for the last month and a half.

    Finally, didn’t Brooke look thrilled to see Flick there at Tribal Council?

    • Brooke was perhaps finding it difficult to get comfortable with Flick’s knife sunk deep between her shoulder blades.

  5. This is sooooo frustrating. FFS can’t they get some & follow through on their ‘big move’ for once. How old is Kristie? She looks up to Lee, literally, like a 4 year old and daddy.
    Probst will be hating these Aussies, so easy going at the life ending/flame smothering moment. They’re supposed to be devo.
    But how loooong have they been out there for now?

  6. I just realised something. At the end of last episode, I thought Lee’s best option was to keep his alliance with Kristie and El, use his vote-veto power to neutralise Sam or Matt (thusly negating anything that Flick would or wouldn’t do against him), and then use his alliance to knock out Sam.

    Which is exactly what he did tonight.

    Go me. Still, I’m surprised that somebody’s still playing intelligently. Like PollyB just said, there’s still a hell of a lot of passive game play, going on. I’m not sure what’s going on in Kristie’s head, but I feel like her decision to stick with Lee and El means that, as of right now, she’s half-a-million dollars poorer.

      • Part of me wants to believe that it was actually a clever end-game plan from Lee. Buddy up to one of the bad girls, then let the clique make the decisions while you coast along behind them as everybody’s best friend. Thusly, you’re a shoe-in in front of the jury. I mean, that plan requires most of the other castaways to be really dumb, but well, yeeeeeah.

        That’s probably giving him too much credit.

        Meanwhile, in the jury villa video, Nick just unloads on Sam for voting him out. I’m not sure if he stops halfway through to tearfully confess, “But why don’t people like me?” before returning to his rage-fueled rant, though.

  7. OK, I really don’t like Lee. Does he think he is entitled to win this because he keeps taking the moral high road over anyone else attempting to win bar himself & El. And also, when he says he only wants to sit at the end beside someone worthy, he seems to be implying that he himself is worthy. He really is self righteous for someone who, whether he admits it to himself or not, is manipulating and using Kristy and dangling her like a little string puppet. Not impressed with Kristy for falling under his magic spell. I now prefer Flick to Mr Self-righteous. In fact I now hope Flick wins because Kristy was stupid for blabbing to Mr Me-Winning is the noble thing. What arrogance! And El isn’t much better, as his wing man.
    OK, vented.

    • Lee is the one who said he wasn’t here for the money but for the “meaningful experiences”. I smelled a $amoan rat right about then.

  8. I think Flick only flipped her vote at the last minute after Lee used his advantage. She had already said to camera that she wanted the majority of 4 to pull it off so it didn’t backfire. She didn’t want to show her hand unless she could do so without reprisal.
    We can only hope now that the jury prefers an underdog than the King and Queen of the prom.

    • That’s what I presumed as well. It would have been a diffferent outcome if Lee didn’t have to play the advantage until after they had voted.

      • Yeah, I was wondering how much Lee using his advantage changed their votes. Flick looked stunned when he said he was going to use his advantage. Either she had forgot he had it or was unaware of it. I can’t remember who he told about it.

        • JLap mentioned it a couple of TCs ago. But i can’t remember what details he gave and we have never seen Lee talk about it with anyone else.
          Did anyone else think it was weird the way JLap read the piece of paper Lee handed to him? almost as though he had never seen it before, no idea what was going to be on it?

        • A couple of weeks ago Brooke and Flick were talking about making Lee use his advantage as part of some plan. They definitely knew, but maybe Flick had forgotten.

      • If you replay, you can see she said to camera she (Flick)was only doing it if she had all 4 because she didn’t want fallout.

  9. Given the recap at the beginning involving alliance talk at reward i assumed I must have missed the end of last night’s show. But no. Recaps now include things that were never shown in the first place. Thankyou for only showing teasers of what we really want to see.

    Had kristie not squealed/alerted el/lee to possible flipping events they would have been confident in everyone sticking to the matt/sam vote and lee may have waited until next tribal to use his advantage allowing flick not to hesitate in taking out el. He wouldn’t have got in kristie’s ear and they really could have taken el out.Bloody kristie.

    So sam is dead to lee because he didnt vote with lee in the secret alliance formed against brooke last minute which sam knew nothing of? I agree on the self righteousness Daisy. 100% babe. The fact sam wished everyone well and those two dicks couldnt even look him in the face, instead making pathetic squirmy faces at each other speaks volumes. You must be true to your word, not play the game survivor and only wish for a lee/el win in order not to be on their shit list.

    • The move against Brooke happened because there was a plan to go for Lee first. IIRC, that was actually Brooke’s plan, but it was told to Lee as Sam’s idea, and so Lee has been gunning for Sam ever since. That impression was confirmed in Lee’s mind because just before, Sam gave him that little speech (on the bed) about everything from then on being fair game. To Lee that was Sam trying to give him a hint that he was about to betray him.

  10. I don’t think L&E ever trusted Flick, but they had no other option but to hope she would be loyal. Kristie just confirmed what they suspected.

    I don’t feel any great partiality for any of the remaining people, but I have to admire the psychological game being played by Lee. He has a knack for saying the right thing at the right time to the right person. Last night, he did a fantastic job getting into everyone’s heads, planting doubts, turning assumed loyalties into suspicion. I believe that he does genuinely like Kristie (albeit in a patriachal way) which was evidenced last night when he showed his disappointment in her. I think it is annoying him that he needs to use her for votes.

    • “I don’t feel any great partiality for any of the remaining people…”

      I don’t either, actually. Kristie’s been too wishy-washy for me, Matt’s an idiot, Flick and El are the two catty head cheerleaders, and Lee’s starting to lose me too. Lee is playing the game, and he made a couple of smart moves last night, but I think far too much of his game was “toddle along quietly behind the girls’ alliance”. It’s good strategy, but it still made for boring television.

      Flick and Matt are the only ones I actively hope don’t win, but as for the rest of them? I’m just gonna have to make my peace with someone I don’t care for winning, which are the only options left.

    • Lee is somewhat growing on me. I don’t know if keeping a straight face during Krystie’s Frodo on the fiery slopes of Dol Goldur speech and simultaneously playing her like a fiddle deserves half a million dollars, but it certainly merits an Oscar. I am developing a sneaking suspicion that Lee has played the Bad Girls Alliance with equal skill.

      • Opposite here. At first he just seemed ignorant of what was happening. Now his moral outrage at anyone who dares thwart his chances of winning just makes him seem an arrogant dick.

        Oh, thusly I don’t like him. 😆

  11. I am glad that L&E have obviously resolved to keep their romantic feelings out of the game. The two young idiots on the US version have ruined their game by treating it like a singles bar.

    It doesn’t hurt a future relationship either, to spend time being friends before falling into bed.

  12. Thanks for the great recap Juz. Not many to go now.
    What the hell happened? I thought they were getting rid of El. So both Flick & Kristie went back on their word.
    Yeah, I would have liked to see the footage of them at the spa & their strategising. We just saw them the next day.

  13. Thanks for the recap Juz!
    Lots of people on FB are suggesting that Flick and Kristie will now team up with Matt, to still try to boot off El or Lee. Thou I’m not convinced flip flopping will win and friends in the jury.
    Also interesting that they are still splitting votes, yet, we haven’t seen or heard of anyone look for an idol for weeks, there obviously is still a suggestion that someone has one.

    • So disappointed that there was no idol (or no searching) at exile beach. That was the whole point of sending them there, or at least to plant the suspicion that someone had picked an idol up there.

  14. The editing on this show is so choppy – last night in the voice over, EL is suddenly revealing her alliance with Lee all along and how they are focused on being the last two. Exsqueeze me?

    That didn’t just happen over night and I am positive that the statements were made earlier by EL but just haven’t been aired until now. So over the past few weeks EL has been this silent cipher and the producers have just now decided to show a bit of her plan. It’s too late – no one cares now.

    Out of all of them, I am okay for Matt to win only because I can stand him a bit more than EL, Lee, Krisite and Flick -how about that little show last night with FLick rushing over to hug and PHYSICALLY control Kristie when Kristie had her breakdown? one minute there is just Kristie and El on the log and next minute Flick is there in the middle of the two with her arms around Kristie talking about how difficult it is for her, Flick

    Plus because of the editing it seems to be a show about Flick now and that is annoying – the girl can’t even speak straight without adding her twist on everything including her best friends’ names, Brooky, Sammy, Matty.

    Kristie lost me last night – everyone is out there paddling, and there she is yelling for someone to tell her it’s okay to paddle.

    There is a lot of adoption of phrases with this group – one says “stab me in the back” then everyone uses that phrase. One says ‘woooooow’ when there is a reward or new news, then everyone stands there saying wooooooow.

    A bit of a rant I know, but when there is so much focus on these individuals as a way of padding and misdirecting an episode, all these irritating things are magnified.

    • I read somewhere that when Ch10 decided to bump it up to 3 episodes a week, that put pressure on the editing team and sometimes episodes were only finished hours before they went to air, so that would explain alot of the choppy editing. (I’ve noticed it in other episodes as well).

      Interesting that it is different from US Survivor, which edits from the last episode backwards (some people can tell by episode 2 or 3 who is making it to the final 3 or 4 because of this).

    • I wonder how they feel seeing it on tv. None are great, but right now Lee is annoying me most because he waves his code of conduct around like a big stick or a hoop that the others are supposed to jump through, but it basically says, hand this to El and me….or is that “me and El”?

    • “Kristie lost me last night – everyone is out there paddling, and there she is yelling for someone to tell her it’s okay to paddle.”

      I probably shouldn’t confess this, but if I’d been there on that beach, listening to Kristie angst over playing the game while not compromising her values, I probably would’ve cracked up laughing.

      “Oh Kristie, it’s so great, you don’t want to compromise your values. I really value half a million dollars, so when I stab you in the back, I’ll be staying true to my values, too.”

      Then I would’ve gone back to making out with Sam down on the beach, because it was actually *my* secret plan to get rid of Brooke.

  15. Well my only hope now is Matt, Kristie and Flip decide to stick to that alliance..I would doubt very much they came up with the plan to make Lee use his power and thus eliminate Sam, but am hoping they at least have the balls next week to split El and Lee…
    Anyone have any idea when Final will be? I did see ad for this Sunday promoted as Finale, but am wondering will they just entice us in and it will be Mon?

  16. Sorry, just read the top of this recap and can see when Final on…bugger about a reunion show!
    Thanks Juz!

  17. I’m happy to be corrected, but I don’t believe any spa alliance (Hey cool, actual food! Let’s form an alliance!) has ever worked. The only possible exception is JT and Stephen at Tocantins but they were close allies long before the won the spa reward.

  18. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/television/survivor-ep-reveals-last-minute-changes-made-to-keep-the-series-alive-until-the-end/news-story/1470a2c4ea5d7ab49e0fd5f2fcbc6127
    “That included having to make some adjustments early in the piece to avoid a one-sided game, including adding puzzles to challenges to even the playing field.

    “And yes, we did call the merges earlier than planned but obviously you would never know that watching the show,” Tate admits.”

    Um… it was still a one sided game!!

    • Really, the article was loaded with marketing speak which, when translated correctly, simply becomes, “Watch our show please!” It wasn’t a *terrible* season, no, but gee, there were some problems.

      The fact that he had to admit that they had to make some adjustments to avoid a one-sided game, and that they had to merge the tribes earlier than planned? Both of those seem to indicate that even channel 10 realises the “pick your own tribe” advantage was game-breaking and absurd.

      I really believe that if that didn’t happen, the series would’ve been significantly different. As it was, it allowed the bad girls alliance on the blue tribe to settle comfortably into controlling the game, and lord knows, they were never really challenged (until Lee and El decided to oust Brooke) which mean that, for the entire middle of the series, we were just going through the motions with no tension or suspense. As you said, it still ended up being a very one-sided game regardless.

      Craig would’ve taken those girls apart in three seconds, same with Phoebe.

      • I don’t think the twist was game breaking although I’m not saying it was not a factor at all. The Vavau 5 were already locked into the Andrew strategy of losing challenges so they could vote people off. All that happened was they continued this brilliant strategy when they became the Vavau 4, 3, 2, 1…

  19. I’ve put a new poll up for the final five – please vote. I’m wondering if Kristie’s meltdown was a bit of a put on to make Lee trust her – we saw in a much earlier episode she pretended to be upset about something. I am hoping it is all a part of a grand scheme, as others have said, to clear the way for a Matt/Flick/Kristie voting block next episode. Lee has certainly learned a lot about coaching from his cricketing days – he sounded like a coach or team captain when talking to Kristie about loyalty.

    • Lee was a professional cricketer, but I’d never heard of him. Like that “professional” tennis coach/ dead beat Dad on on MKR . Anyway , here’s hoping Lee’s stumped at the next Tribal Council……or perhaps he’ll “spoon” up a catch.

      • He apparently was a very accomplished player for Queensland, with also t20 and the Big Bash. Moved into administration of the sport and commentating after retiring.
        I didn’t recognise him in Survivor, but I did when I saw a photo of what he looked like when playing.

        • Thanks Fijane. I watch Big Bash and a lot of T20’s too but Lee is a stranger to me. Waiting for Big Bash to start. I tend to mute the commentators, so I’d never hear Lee.

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